Oracle introduced the biggest upgrade to Solaris in seven years this week

Oracle introduced the biggest update to its Solaris operating system in nearly a decade Wednesday. By all accounts it was a classy event, held at Gotham Hall in New York. We can’t tell you much about the launch though because the press was not invited.

The truth is that no Oracle bigwigs can even talk to Wired about Solaris because the company is now in its regular six-week-long quiet period, imposed at the end of each quarter so that no market-moving information accidentally slips out.

On a video replay of the launch,...

Passing earwax-tainted earbuds between friends is nobody’s favorite way to share iPod tunes. An integrated speaker in the smaller iPod nano and iPod shuffle models could end that practice for good, and provide opportunity for a host of new iPod possibilities.

A newly published Apple patent describes how Apple could add a teeny speaker dome to the clip on the iPod shuffle or iPod nano. It’s a sneaky way to add some extra functionality to Apple’s smallest media players — all without adding any extra bulk.

According to the patent, which was broken down by Patently Apple, the addition of a speaker...