Good morning tech

by Sara Jerome and Gautham Nagesh - 09/07/10 11:26 AM ET

Ex-HP CEO Hurd joins Oracle as co-president. Oracle announced Monday that former Hewlett-Packard chief executive Mark Hurd has joined the company as president and been named to the board of directors. Hurd, who will report to Oracle co-founder and chief executive Larry Ellison, resigned from HP last month after a sexual harassment probe found he had violated the company’s standards of business conduct in relation to former actress and HP contractor Jodie Fisher. Charles Phillips, one of Oracle’s two current presidents, will resign to make room for Hurd. “Mark did a brilliant job at HP and I expect he’ll do even better at Oracle,” Ellison said in a statement. “There is no executive in the IT world with more relevant experience than Mark.”

“I believe Oracle’s strategy of combining software with hardware will enable Oracle to beat IBM in both enterprise servers and storage,” Hurd said. “I’m excited to be a part of the most innovative technology team in the IT industry.”

Google suggests Texas search concerns originate with Microsoft. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has opened a probe into whether Google ranks its search listings with an eye toward nicking the competition, the company announced in a Friday blog post that suggested the concerns have a major sponsor: Microsoft. http://bit.ly/9MCTfy

SAID

“We’re not American idol.”

—New York Times executive editor Bill Keller clarifying that the Grey Lady is not the popular singing competition. He was discussing the editors’ stance on using Web traffic metrics to guide editorial decisions. http://nyti.ms/dx4EOG

WATERCOOLER

ZOMBIES — The U.S. is getting tough on texting while driving, but Australia may have us beat. Some Australians are worried about the use of technology while traveling on another form of transportation: foot. “Death by iPod is being blamed as a contributing factor to the 25 percent rise in the number of pedestrian fatalities in [the Australian state of] New South Wales,” reports The Age.”The ‘iPod zombie trance” people get into when walking, driving or pedaling around listening to their mobile devices is being blamed for an increase in collisions and even deaths in Europe and the US.” Harold Scruby, president of the Pedestrian Council of Australia, called for new laws to penalize walkers when they use technology while walking. http://bit.ly/9zPmV1

—Darren Goode contributed to this report.