NEW YORK (Reuters) - Remember those unwelcome dinnertime phone calls from strangers promising the latest in attic insulation or a holiday for two for the price of one?

TechWeb - In a letter to Steve Jobs, the Consumer Protection Board in New York also sided with consumers who have to mail their iPhone back to Apple to replace the battery for $79, plus a shipping fee.

AP - Billionaire Carlos Slim said he doesn't care if he is the world's richest man and promised to donate hundreds of thousands of laptop computers to Mexican children.

SEOUL (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. said its chip production lines hit by a power outage were fully operating by midday Saturday and expected total damage from the incident to be smaller than an earlier estimate.

PC World - A London data center run by hosting provider Ultraspeed claims to have cut its energy needs by 40 percent through a combination of direct current electricity supply, diskless servers and low-voltage quad-core Xeon processors.

HELSINKI (Reuters) - Mobile-phone giant Nokia will start to use Microsoft's copy protection software to boost the use of wireless entertainment, like music and videos, the two companies said on Monday.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp said on Monday it will cut the price of its main Xbox 360 video game console model by about 13 percent in the United States, hoping to boost sales ahead of the crucial holiday season.

TechWeb - IBM unveils Information Server Blades, a combination hardware and software for building data warehouses on grid-computing environments.

AP - To help the pharmaceutical industry combat drug counterfeiting, IBM is launching an electronic pedigree system Thursday that tracks medications through the supply chain until they reach consumers.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Vivendi's Universal Music Group, the world's largest music label, on Thursday said it will test the sale of songs from artists such as Amy Winehouse, 50 Cent and the Black Eyed Peas, without customary copy-protection technology.

TechWeb - No injuries were reported, but the Consumer Product Safety Commission is advising notebook owners to run the systems on AC power.

TechWeb - As the 13th member of Open Invention Network, the search vendor will boost the group's stash of patents that serve as ammunition against would-be challengers.

MUMBAI (Reuters) - India's third-largest software services exporter, Wipro Ltd. , is in talks for software and technological support contract for an upcoming Boeing facility in India, an official said on Monday.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc may be struggling to convince Wall Street of its future prospects, but for the first time its users gave its services overall a better rating than what Google Inc received, according to a study released on Tuesday.

TechWeb - With Light-Weight Profiling, AMD embeds in the processor information that software can read to learn what resources, such as memory or cache allocation, are available.

TechWeb - An increase in semiconductor spending in the supply chain? Chalk it up to the iPhone and the iPod, researchers with iSuppli report.

TechWeb - The deal also calls for joint marketing efforts around Solaris-on-IBM products.

Reuters - The clock on Rascal Flatts' Web site counts down the days, hours, minutes and even seconds until the September 25 release of the superstar band's fifth studio album, "Still Feels Good." There's no doubt the date is circled on many music industry calendars.

TechWeb - Linux community breathes a sigh of relief, while SCO considers an appeal.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Aniboom, an Internet home for animators to create and share original clips, is launching its own channel on video site YouTube with the aim of hatching the next animated blockbuster that could rival 'The Simpsons' or 'South Park.'

TechWeb - The company expects to launch in Europe the Xbox 360 Elite, which will have a 120-Gbyte hard drive.

BOSTON (Reuters) - iRobot Corp , a robot maker that sells floor cleaners as well as devices that defuse bombs, introduced on Wednesday a new line of vacuums in hopes of generating cash to invest in a wider range of products.

TechWeb - The purchase gives Yahoo access to software technology that inserts ads in content for mobile devices, such as mobile phone games.

BOSTON (Reuters) - Monster.com waited five days to tell its users about a security breach that resulted in the theft of confidential information from some 1.3 million job seekers, a company executive told Reuters on Thursday.

TechWeb - Intel is expected to unveil its new vPro chip technology aimed at making business PCs more secure, as the world's largest chipmaker seeks to solidify its brand.

AFP - United States soldiers facing trial for war crimes allegedly committed in Iraq are enlisting the power of the Internet to help defend themselves against prosecution.

Reuters - Three men who met on an Internet site that matches up criminals were arrested after battering a woman to death and abandoning her body in a forest, police and Japanese media said on Monday.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Hewlett-Packard Co said on Monday it is launching a $300 million marketing campaign to promote Web-based printing services as it seeks new uses for printers, the company's most-profitable business.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc. has filed a motion to dismiss a lawsuit over the company's alleged role in the imprisonment of two Chinese dissidents, arguing U.S. courts have no jurisdiction over Chinese government actions against its own citizens.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Video-sharing Web site YouTube said on Wednesday that it has reached a deal with British licensing organizations that collect royalties on behalf of 50,000 composers, songwriters and publishers.

TechWeb - The class-action suit charges that the companies violated California law by failing to inform iPhone purchasers that it costs $100 to replace the phone's battery.