The Los Angeles Times has an interesting article on the tech boom that the inflow of venture capital into Southern California has created.

The Register reports that “

[t]he [UK] government claimed today that its red tape reduction drive is already saving UK businesses £800m a year.  The savings were detailed in a report which claimed the government is on the way to saving businesses and the third sector £3.5bn per year in admin costs by 2010.  It details ways the government is cutting the burden on businesses, including halving the number of health and safety forms they have to fill in, speeding planning consents, and releasing 60,000 firms from the obligation to appoint a company secretary.”  However, [s]o far, the business community seems unimpressed by Whitehall’s efforts to relieve executives’ of their administrative burden.  Just last week the CBI said red tape, along with a creaking transport infrastructure, were the two biggest threats to business.  Meanwhile, the Treasury’s efforts to relieve the administrative burden associated with Capital Gains Tax – by scrapping taper relief and bringing in a flat rate – continue to rankle with entrepreneurs who will end up paying more tax when they cash in their businesses.”

Yahoo!News points out that “[t]he iPhone has [already] been the target of many users who wanted to customize the way it looks and hackers who wanted to use the device on other wireless networks since it was released in June. However, Arbor Networks predicts the seriousness of attacks on the iPhone will increase in 2008.  According to Arbor’s Security and Engineering Response Team (ASERT) the attacks will likely to be in the form of drive by attacks — malware embedded into seemingly harmless information, images or other media that actually perform dangerous actions when rendered on the iPhone’s Web browser.”

In a different article, Yahoo!News writes that “[s]ales of Asustek Computer’s Eee PC have soared in its first few months on the market, but success may be its undoing. Rivals are already developing products to compete with the low-cost laptop PC, market researcher Gartner says.  […]  According to Gartner’s Semiconductor DQ Monday Report this week, Yahoo!News writes, “[t]he Eee PC has attracted so much attention worldwide that other vendors, including China’s Hasee Computer, want to grab a share of the market,. The difference is that these companies plan to make low-cost laptops at standard sizes and with better functionality, so they’re easier to use.”

According to the International Herald Tribune, “[t]he European Union’s highest court ruled Tuesday that trade unions can in principle take action to prevent employers from using cheaper workers from EU countries with fewer labor rights.” The European Court of Justice said, however, that such action must be intended purely to protect jobs and existing employment conditions, not to prevent an employer from being “based wherever it likes.”