At its OpenWorld show this week, Oracle is expected to announce an upcoming version of its Siebel CRM On Demand service that will include social networking features reminiscent of consumer portals such as Facebook or MySpace.

What good is a browser unless you can tweak it, hack it and bend it to your will? No good at all. The more you can hack it, the better it is. And that means that Firefox must be a great browser. It's infinitely customizable, via editing a text file called userChrome.css, making changes via a command called about:config, and using free add-ons to extend the features of the browser.

Attacks on instant messaging systems continued to grow more sophisticated and dangerous in January, according to Akonix, a vendor of messaging security systems.

Google and Apple don't have major booths on the floor of the CES trade show, but they are very much on the minds of their competitors.

This week's announcement of the Android open mobile platform by Google and dozens of other companies could provoke the kinds of industry battles seen with other Linux-based initiatives, where incumbent, established players fight newcomers.