Yahoo's latest Messenger beta goes its own way

It's clearly not a button-down, businesslike IM client: Having experimented with a special Vista version that apparently didn't go over well, Yahoo now is adding personalized polish to its latest free personal messenger, still in beta. Last December, Yahoo previewed a trial version of its Messenger client with a look and feel that was tailored for Windows Vista. That appears to be the end of that little fork in the road, as last Friday's refresh of its 9.0 beta (build 1389) adopts a customizable "tortoise shell" appearance that complements any decor, including Windows XP. For more info, Screenshot and download link visit BetaNews

Acer launches new netbook, promises WiMAX

Call them sub-notebooks, netbooks, UMPCs, or what one clever Engadget poster deemed them: "Liliputers," the biggest hardware launches at Computex in Taipei this week fall into the umbrella category of "smallest." The specifications for Acer's Aspire One are now official as of today: With a profile of 9.8" x 6.7" x 1.14", a weight of under 2 pounds, and an LED display with 1024 x 600 resolution, the Aspire One is about on par with its fellow netbooks in size. Read Full story and more pictures at BetaNews

Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 now slated for August

Citing heavy customer feedback, Microsoft officials as high up as Bill Gates himself revealed today that the next public beta of IE8 won't be going home with Tech·Ed attendees this year. Though the beta roadmap for Microsoft's next release of Internet Explorer has never been quite clear, one of the key "takeaways" from Bill Gates' keynote address at Tech·Ed 2008 in Orlando this morning -- other than this week's pending release of Silverlight 2.0 Beta 2 -- is the fact that testers and developers won't get a chance to see the next public beta of IE8 until late this summer, at the earliest. Read Full story at BetaNews

Intel unveils new 4 series chipset at Computex

At the Intel keynote today at Computex, EVP Sean Maloney officially unveiled the new 4 Series chipsets and prognosticated a bright, high definition future delivered via WiMAX. Intel Executive Vice President Sean Maloney was "more optimistic than ever," about the future, thanks to all the innovations on the Computex show floor in Taipei, Taiwan. Perhaps he's not so much giving credit to the industry as giving himself a high-five for the sheer mass of Intel-powered hardware being shown off this week. Read Full story at BetaNews

Smartphones 'bigger security risk' than laptops

Some 94 percent of senior IT staff fear PDAs present a security risk, just above the 88 percent who highlighted mobile storage devices as a worry. Nearly eight in 10 said laptops were an issue. Only four in 10 had encrypted data on their laptops, and the remainder said the information was "not worth" protecting. The results come from a survey of 300 senior IT staff conducted by endpoint data protection supplier Credant Technologies. A key danger with PDAs was that over half of IT executives surveyed were "not bothering" to enter a password when they used their phone. Read full story at Infoworld