TechWeb - The desktop platform was AMD's attempt to hold gamers who might be tempted to move to Intel's quad-core processors.

Reuters - China gave a cheer to its first Miss World on Sunday, with Internet chat rooms filled with praise for the 23-year-old beauty queen.

Reuters - Beijing is battling to stamp out illegal sales of 2008 Olympic merchandise on dozens of unauthorized Web sites seeking to cash in on the Chinese public's Games fervor, local media reported on Monday.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp said on Monday it would disable the two primary methods used by software pirates to illegally copy Windows Vista software in the next major update of the operating system.

NewsFactor - Score one for Deutsche Telekom and T-Mobile. Europe's largest telephone service provider emerged victorious on Tuesday in the iPhone-locking suit that Vodafone filed against it in Germany. A German court has ruled that Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile does, in fact, have the right to block Apple iPhone buyers from using the mobile device on competing wireless networks.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Seiko Epson Corp said it has halted production and sales of its rear-projection TVs, becoming the latest company to distance itself from a technology once seen as a promising rival of LCD and plasma televisions.

TechWeb - The software maker wants OLPC to redesign its XO low-cost PC for children in developing nations.

TechWeb - Other vendors offering access to server software via iPhone include on-demand ERP vendor NetSuite and business intelligence vendor Information Builders.

TechWeb - It's still costly and complicated, but recent software vendor partnerships aim to make it less so.

AP - Social networking Web site operator imeem Inc. has signed a licensing deal with Universal Music Group to offer free streaming of music and videos by the record company's artists in exchange for a share of online advertising revenues, the companies said Sunday.

PC World - HDTV Slideshow

TechWeb - The comScore study examined search patterns related to game consoles, mobile phones, and portable music players on home and work computers.

TechWeb - The amount of electricity to power computer servers and related infrastructure worldwide in 2005 was equivalent to fourteen 1,000-megawatt power plants.

TechWeb - The company lays out its two-year manufacturing schedule while apologizing to Wall Street for delays in volume production of its quad-core Barcelona processor.

TechWeb - Bargains abound among the refurbished and older computers on sale, some of them returns from corporate leases. Used servers can be had, too.

Reuters - It's election time in super-wired South Korea and the young democracy's once giant, and raucous, rallies have gone quiet.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Silicon Valley start-up Ribbit Corp on Monday unveiled a technology platform that will let developers put Web telephony in everything from business software to popular social network sites such as Facebook.

AP - A small South Carolina company says it has a cure for the modern plague of budget-busting cell-phone charges racked up by teenagers: a gadget for text-messaging that isn't a cell phone.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Matsushita Electric Industrial Co and Hitachi Ltd are discussing multi-billion dollar deals on flat panels that could reshape an industry hit by fierce competition, a source familiar with the matter said.

TechWeb - The software, called Fugawi Touratel, uses Assisted GPS, so the phones don't need to have the functionality built in or be connected through Bluetooth.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Carlyle-controlled Japanese handy-phone firm Willcom Inc and a group led by mobile phone operator KDDI Corp won licenses to supply high-speed wireless Internet access on Friday.

TechWeb - iSuppli had predicted a 9.3% jump in revenue, but is now only expecting revenue to increase 7.5% to $291.4 billion in 2008.

AFP - Taiwan likely shipped 6.2 million smart handheld devices in the fourth quarter, up 81.7 percent on last year partly because it produces Apple's iPhone, an IT consulting firm said Sunday.

Reuters - Actress Katherine Heigl, an Emmy-winning star of medical drama 'Grey's Anatomy,' married her musician boyfriend in Utah on Sunday, US Weekly magazine reported on its Web site.

PC World - New year will see launch of open-source Wikipedia search project the company hopes will challenge Google, others.

PC World - Legal tussles, format wars, and (of course) the iPhone dominated technology news in 2007. Here are the biggest tech headlines of the year--including some we'd like to forget.

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea's Samsung Electronics , the world's top maker of large-size liquid crystal display panels, said on Thursday it was countersuing Japan's Sharp Corp for patent infringement.

TechWeb - Panasonic will debut the drive, only 0.37 of an inch thick, next month at the Consumer Electronics Show.

TechWeb - HDTVs are expected to account for 79% of DTV shipments in the United States next year, according to the Consumer Electronics Association.

AP - The chief financial officer of China's dominant Internet search engine Baidu.com has died after an accident while on vacation in China, the company said.

AP - The loss or theft of personal data such as credit card and Social Security numbers soared to unprecedented levels in 2007, and the trend isn't expected to turn around anytime soon as hackers stay a step ahead of security and laptops disappear with sensitive information.