The debate over climate change--and what is fact versus what fits the agenda of one side or the other--is raging in the wake of hacked e-mails alleging that facts were covered up. I'll let the climate change rivals battle that out, but let's take a closer look at the security aspects of e-mail and how attackers were able to acquire these messages.

A server at the Hadley Climate Research Center in the United Kingdom was breached and the attacker was able to acquire thousands of e-mail messages and sensitive documents which were subsequently uploaded to an FTP server in Russia and have since been publicly shared and analyzed around the world.

Yesterday Google hosted a press event at its Mountain View campus to reveal a first glimpse at the Chrome OS. The excitement around the operating system has led to rampant rumors and speculation, but I question whether the Chrome OS is really worth any of this hype.

Google is Google. It has a Midas touch when it comes to web-based applications and services so its easy to get wrapped up in anticipation about a web-centric operating system from Google. Here are five reasons Chrome won't live up to the hype.

Microsoft made the beta of Office 2010 available for the general public to download yesterday. However, I have already been using the CTP (Community Technology Preview) version since it became available at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference in July. Here are my thoughts after four month using Office 2010.

I will start by saying that the look and feel of Office 2010 is very similar to Office 2007. Users of Office 2003 will be in for a fairly significant culture shock, but the learning curve for Office 2007 users should be much shorter. That said, let's jump in.

Google is hosting an event today to offer the first official glimpse at the Chrome operating system. Chrome has ignited enthusiasm in an operating system market that has been largely stagnant for years. Google may succeed in shaking things up a bit.

When you mention Google in conjunction with any upcoming tool or service it tends to draw some attention. When you put Google in the same sentence with 'new operating system'--directly challenging Microsoft in a market it has mercilessly dominated for decades--the rumor mill kicks into high gear. Vegas may even be taking odds.

Microsoft has unleashed the public beta of Microsoft Office 2010. The Office 2010 beta includes updated versions of Word, excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, Access, Publisher, InfoPath, SharePoint Workspace, and Communicator. You can download it right now from the Microsoft Office 2010 beta site.

Like Windows XP versus Windows Vista, a fair percentage of users never made the jump from Office 2003 to Office 2007. The Windows Vista backlash had a residual effect which led customers to adopt a 'my-current-version-works-fine-why-change-it' mentality.

Google's new YouTube Direct allows amateur journalists (meaning anyone with a camera in their mobile phone) to upload video clips for a shot at their 15 seconds of fame. The broadcast news media seem to have learned the wrong lesson from the fall of print media and embracing 'citizen journalists' may expedite the extinction of traditional news as we know it.

You can't really blame the amateur videographers. People have always had a fascination with making video recordings of any mundane, inane thing. You don't need to look any farther than this six and a half minute video of a hedgehog taking a bath in a sink to understand my point.

Microsoft announced that its Azure cloud computing platform will be launched into production on January 1^st of 2010. Chief software architect Ray Ozzie also unveiled details of a cloud computing project, codenamed 'Dallas'.

The statements were made at the annual gathering of Microsoft developers--the 2009 PDC (Professional Developers Conference). To ensure the success of the Azure platform, Microsoft needs its army of independent developers to embrace the cloud computing paradigm, and it took advantage of the gathering to spotlight Azure and get developers interested.

Microsoft has extended the availability of the Windows Marketplace for Mobile app store to include Windows Mobile 6.0 and Windows Mobile 6.1 devices. The broader availability is a benefit for both users and developers, but it may not do much to help the Windows Mobile platform capture market share.

While Microsoft claims there are over 18,000 apps available for the Windows Mobile platform, the vast majority of those are only available from the third-party vendors that developed them. The Windows Marketplace for Mobile inventory is restricted to the relative handful of apps that have passed Microsoft's rigorous testing to validate that they work well on the intended devices.

Verizon has responded to the AT&T lawsuit over the "There's a Map for That" marketing campaign with a legal filing of its own. Verizon's message to the court and to AT&T essentially boils down to three words: "the truth hurts".

The Verizon legal team should be commended. Legal briefs and filings don't usually make very compelling reading, but this one is actually a pretty good read. It has a little drama, a little humor, and ultimately makes the point that AT&T is simply trying to use the courts to obscure the simple truth that its 3G network is inadequate.

Today's weather report for the Internet: increasing cloudiness with a chance of strong winds (of change). IBM and AT&T both announced new services to compete for a share of the projected $46.4 billion market--a market predicted to grow to over $150 billion over the next 4 years--in the progressively crowded arena of cloud computing.

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Amazon should be very flattered. Amazon has more or less defined the market and has a relatively successful model for offering server capacity and storage space from the cloud. Both IBM and AT&T are closely following the Amazon blueprints to duplicate that success.

A federal judge has ruled in Apple's favor in its lawsuit against Mac-clone maker Psystar. Prevailing in the court battle seems like it should be a good thing, but what Apple really gets out of the victory is limited market share potential. Uhm, congratulations?

Google is being sued by a Swiss watchdog agency for allegedly failing to take adequate measures to protect privacy. The legal battle in Switzerland is just the latest in a long line of privacy issues with Google and illustrates the challenge of providing as much information as possible without violating privacy concerns.

The debate in Switzerland is over Google's Street View image indexing. Hanspeter Thuer, the Swiss Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC) made recommendations to Google to address concerns with Street View images displaying car license plates and people's faces. Google claims it has taken strides to comply with those recommendations, but the FDPIC doesn't feel Google has done enough.