Springpad is a cool little utility to bookmark things you find on the Web and in the real world as well.

When you're on the Web site, it's very easy to create a new free-form note or to-do item. If you're typing in a name of a product or business (like a movie, the model name of a camera, or a restaurant), Springpad will probably identify it as you're typing and create a note with specific items info for the category it fits in. There's also a bookmarklet that makes it fast to save an item from a Web page, providing the site you're on is recognized by the app. I found that products on Amazon pages were picked up appropriately, but when I tried to save a product from CNET reviews pages they were just saved as Web bookmarks, not products.

LimeWire's peer-to-peer file-sharing network has been notorious as a malware ghetto, where distributed files that have legitimate-sounding names turn out to be Trojan horses hiding pernicious threats. In an effort to attract more users to the LimeWire premium upgrade and to protect those users better, the company signed a deal with AVG on Tuesday to extend download file scanning and blocking to LimeWire Pro users.

By integrating AVG's anti-virus SDK engine, all files that a LimeWire Pro users downloads will now be scanned before they run. A pop-up will appear letting users know when a file has been scanned or blocked.

The Zune HD is a strong music player. It's got a lot of features I wish Apple would add to its iPod and iPhone lineup, particularly wireless sync and queuing. But with the impending release of the Windows Phone 7 Series, which will include full Zune HD functionality in its 'Music + Video' hub, I've begun to wonder if Microsoft will phase out the Zune as a standalone music player.

The Music + Video hub in the forthcoming Windows Phone 7 Series interface.

(Credit: Microsoft)

Here's one clue: Microsoft developer Michael Klucher on Tuesday put up a blog post about the upcoming XNA Game Studio 4.0. Thus far, XNA Game Studio has been primarily used to develop casual games for the Xbox 360 and, more recently, to create games for the Zune HD. (Elements of the XNA platform are used by big game studios to develop other Xbox games as well, but those developers use a separate Xbox Development Kit available only to licensees.) Long story short, Klucher confirmed that XNA Game Studio 4.0 will support game development on Windows Phone 7 Series phones, but not on the Zune HD. In his words:

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) – MySpace on Wednesday began courting videogame developers as it moved to capitalize on the booming popularity of playing games online at social networks.

"We initially embraced games a few years back with a gaming platform but at the end of the day it was fairly isolated in certain parts of MySpace," MySpace co-president Mike Jones told AFP at a Game Developers Conference here.

"MySpace is going to put as much weight behind games as we put behind music."

LOS ANGELES – Groups pushing for robust Hispanic participation in the 2010 census announced a new campaign Thursday that aims to reach the hard-to-count demographic through its smart-phone-toting youngsters.

The 'Be Counted, Represent' campaign offers music downloads and a chance at concert tickets to cell phone users who share their e-mail addresses and phone numbers with organizers and forward information about the census to their friends.

Principle organizers Voto Latino and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund stress in their messages that undercounted areas risk losing funding for transit, infrastructure and other needs, as well as political representation.

ISLANDIA, N.Y. – Technology management software company CA Inc. said Wednesday that it's buying Nimsoft Inc. for $350 million in cash.

The acquisition gives CA a cadre of smaller-company clients served by Nimsoft whose revenues typically run from $300 million to $2 billion. CA historically has focused on serving larger corporate customers.

CA expects these smaller companies to account for a quarter of tech management software spending by 2013.

Nimsoft sells software that monitors the different components of a company's information technology environment, from servers and networks to applications. Its software helps a company run its IT systems more efficiently, whether at the office or virtually in third-party servers.

Google hopes the FTC sees it as a small player in mobile advertising even with AdMob on board.

(Credit: Google)

A familiar face might be causing a snag in Google's planned acquisition of mobile advertising company AdMob.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is currently asking Google advertisers and competitors for more information about the potential impact of the deal, Bloomberg reported Wednesday. Those companies--which weren't identified--are being asked to sign sworn statements that could potentially be used against Google in a court hearing blocking or altering the deal, according to the report.

Ten years on, Mozilla has concluded that its open-source underpinnings are due for a refresh.

The Firefox browser and Thunderbird e-mail software are governed by the Mozilla Public License, which determines what rights and restrictions apply to programmers who want to use the software in their own projects, extend it in various ways, or just peek at the programming instructions that underlie the software.

'Version 1.1 of the Mozilla Public License has been in use by Mozilla and other projects for over a decade. The spirit of the license has served us well by helping to communicate some of the values that underpin our large and growing community. However, some of its wording may be showing its age,' Mozilla said in an announcement of the license refurbishing Wednesday.

(Credit: Twitter)

Twitter is launching a new service designed to stop users of the social-media site from getting duped by phishing links that steal their login credentials and other attacks.

The company will route all links submitted to the site through a filter created to catch links that lead to malware, the company said on the Twitter blog on Tuesday.

'A couple weeks ago, Biz [Stone, Twitter co-founder] explained how Twitter users were being victimized by phishing scams spread primarily through links in direct messages,' the post said. 'Basically, people click the link and bad things happen. My team can only detect these scams after malicious links have already been sent out.'

A beta version of the MySpace for Outlook connector lets users keep tabs on their social-networking buddies from within the corporate e-mail and calendar program.

(Credit: CNET)

If you use both Outlook and MySpace, you are part of an interesting demographic. But you are also in luck.

Microsoft and MySpace said on Wednesday that they are ready with the beta version of a tool that lets Outlook users see their MySpace connections within the e-mail and calendaring program. A new 'social connector' feature for Outlook lets users connect to social networks, including MySpace, LinkedIn, and soon Facebook, too.