SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - IBM said on Wednesday it will be able to make microchips faster and more energy efficient by stacking components on top of each other, a breakthrough that cuts the distance an electrical signal needs to travel.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Sony Corp. said on Thursday it planned to start selling ultra-thin TVs using organic light-emitting diode (OLED) technology this year, likely becoming the first to market with a TV using the promising next-generation display.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. and Apple Inc. announced that MGM is now offering titles from its catalog of feature films for purchase and download on the iTunes Store.

TechWeb - The price of the server includes a five-user license and five-day-a-week support, and it brings fewer security problems than Windows, IBM said.

AP - IBM has found a way to connect chips inside products ranging from cell phones to supercomputers, an advance that promises to prolong battery life in wireless devices and eventually speed data transfers between the processor and memory chips in computers, the company said Thursday.

TechWeb - For supercomputing, PS3s have potential because they pack so much more processing power than the average PC -- 30 times more, according to Sony.

Reuters - Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. and Apple Inc. announced that MGM is now offering titles from its catalog of feature films for purchase and download on the iTunes Store.

TechWeb - The wireless company expects the service to be used for backup initially, but it could be used to link mobile office workers or point of sale systems.

AP - Step down the stark, white stairs into Jeremy Mehrle's basement and meet his Apple computer collection. He's got 99 computers. No, wait. Make that 100. He just got another last night, he said during a recent visit to his home about 35 miles west of St. Louis. Dozens of his Apple Macintosh computers are on display down here, a techie's dream party pad.

AP - IRobot Corp., the maker of robots to clean carpets and hard floors, has decided the water is warm enough in the pool-cleaning market to take a swim there, too.

Reuters - Web search leader Google Inc.'s market share inched up to 64 percent of all queries among U.S. Internet searchers in March, gaining further ground against Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp., a survey released on Wednesday by Hitwise found.

AP - A legal battle between Microsoft and Japanese anti-monopoly authorities is likely to conclude next year and might lead to lawsuits or other patent infringement complaints against the U.S. software company, an executive said Thursday.

Reuters - CBS Corp. is close to announcing deals to distribute TV shows to various Web sites, including Microsoft Corp.'s MSN and Time Warner Inc.'s AOL, according to a report on the Wall Street Journal's Web site on Thursday.

Reuters - A Sprint Nextel Corp. shareholder has built up a stake of nearly 1 percent in the wireless carrier and called for major changes at the company, the Wall Street Journal reported on its Web site on Thursday.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese electronics conglomerate Toshiba Corp. plans to produce large color TVs using organic light-emitting diode (OLED) technology by 2009, company president Atsutoshi Nishida told a news conference on Thursday.

AP - A key committee of the European Parliament backed a proposal on Thursday to cap roaming charges for mobile phone calls made abroad, voting in favor of a ceiling at 40 euro cents (54 U.S. cents) per minute of an outgoing call and 15 euro cents (20 U.S. cents) per minute for an incoming call.

AP - Japanese electronics giant Sony Corp. plans to start selling small televisions this year using a screen technology that is a contender for the next-generation screen of flat-screen TVs, a company spokeswoman said Thursday.

USATODAY.com - NEW YORK - The U.S. Army is about to invade the online gaming community with an estimated $2 million sponsorship deal with the Global Gaming League website. Starting in June, the Army will sponsor a "national gaming" area as a way to tap into the site's 9.2 million players per month of everything from shooter games to pro baseball. It hopes to find candidates for recruitment among the 17- to 24-year-old males who are 80% of the gamers on the site - young men hard to reach with advertising.

FT.com - The European mobile phone industry on Thursday suffered a setback when an influential parliamentary committee backed plans to slash the cost of cross-border calls.

Reuters - The company representing The Beatles has settled a 30 million-pound ($59 million) royalty dispute with EMI Group, in a deal that could finally pave the way for the Liverpool band's music to go online.

InfoWorld - Microsoft's top lawyer said Thursday that he is happy with the information the company provided about its Vista operating system, and its compatibility with existing PCs, ahead of the software's launch in January this year.

InfoWorld - Officials of Microsoft and Google traded comparisons of their enterprise search products to their rival's during a technology conference in San Francisco Wednesday.

LOS ANGELES, April 12 (Reuters) - In Brooklyn's warehouse-turned-artist district of Williamsburg, young hipsters flock to Barcade to sample its roster of microbrews and mingle with the likes of Pac-Man, the Mario brothers and Frogger.

InfoWorld - Enterprises using Oracle's CRM software will be able to extend the application to workers with BlackBerry smartphones.

AP - Vonage CEO Michael Snyder resigned Thursday as the troubled Internet phone company reported weak preliminary first-quarter results and announced a restructuring plan that includes an unspecified number of jobs cuts.

AP - The Beatles' Apple Corps company has settled a royalties dispute with record label EMI, the two companies said Thursday, raising hopes that Beatles recordings may soon be legally available online.

AP - Google plans to open an operations center in the Polish city of Wroclaw later this year, creating 200 new jobs and boosting the city's efforts to become a technology hub, officials said Thursday.

InfoWorld - The U.S. military plan to test an Internet router in space, in a project that could also benefit civilian broadband satellite communications.

Reuters - Shares of Sprint Nextel Corp. rose 2.6 percent on Thursday after a report that a shareholder had built up a stake of nearly 1 percent and was calling for major changes at the No. 3 U.S. wireless service.

PC World - Microsoft Corp.'s top lawyer said Thursday that he is happy with the information the company provided about its Vista operating system, and its compatibility with existing PCs, ahead of the software's launch in January this year.

InfoWorld - IBM announced plans on Thursday to build smaller, more efficient chips by stacking a processor on top of its memory or power components, then drilling holes through the chips to connect them.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Women prefer the remote over the mouse when it comes to watching videos even though they outnumber men in cyberspace.

InfoWorld - An ambitious new European law slashing the cost of mobile phone roaming fees moved closer to adoption Thursday, after a parliamentary committee ignored pressure from phone companies and supported the change proposed by the European Commission.

PC World - Fujitsu Europe is offering the optional fitting of its latest hard drive series MHW2xxxBH with a freefall sensor (FFS). Laptop makers including Lenovo have built similar protection in their computers, but Fujitsu has integrated it in the drive itself.

NewsFactor - Opera is making waves in the browser market this week. The software developer released a new version of its PC browser on Wednesday, followed by the full version of a browser for Nintendo's Wii on Thursday.

PC World - Enterprises using Oracle Corp.'s CRM software will be able to extend the application to workers with BlackBerry smartphones.

AP - Sony Corp. plans to start selling small televisions with a technology that's a contender for next-generation flat-screen TVs, a company spokeswoman said Thursday.

AP - Tele Atlas NV said Thursday its orange mobile mapping vans will be hitting the streets of Asia this year to collect data for the fast-growing digital map industry.

Reuters - Women prefer the remote over the mouse when it comes to watching videos even though they outnumber men in cyberspace.

AFP - EU plans to cap the price operators can charge mobile phone users while abroad cleared a key hurdle on Thursday when a panel in the European Parliament backed the package.

PC World - Microsoft will force PC makers to stop selling machines running XP by the end of this year, despite ongoing compatibility problems and demand for XP from users.

NewsFactor - Technological "laws" were made to be challenged, and IBM might have pushed the boundaries of one of the most famous ones -- with a silicon sandwich. The Armonk, New York-based company announced on Thursday that it is extending Moore's Law, a rule of thumb describing the rate at which processing power will increase, by moving chips into the third dimension.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Sony Computer Entertainment America said on Thursday it will discontinue its lower-capacity PlayStation 3 in North America, noting it has been outsold by the higher-capacity model.

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Brazil's TAM said it is about to become the first airline to promote itself in the Second Life online virtual world by offering cyberspace flights that correspond to its real-world international service.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Chipmaker Qualcomm Inc. said on Thursday it has rejected a $20 million payment and terms offered by cell phone maker Nokia to settle a dispute over technology patents.

Reuters - Chipmaker Qualcomm Inc. said on Thursday it has rejected a $20 million payment and terms offered by cell phone maker Nokia (NOK1V.HE) to settle a dispute over technology patents.

Reuters - Sony Computer Entertainment America said on Thursday it will discontinue its lower-capacity PlayStation 3 in North America, noting it has been outsold by the higher-capacity model.

NewsFactor - Sony is considering a new endeavor in which your PlayStation 3 might start paying at least part of its own way. Pharmaceutical and other companies have approached Sony about using home-based PS3s for a commercial, distributed supercomputer grid.

NewsFactor - In the world of gaming, you win some and you lose some. Gamers are gaining a new Microsoft Xbox 360 model and losing a PlayStation 3 model.

PC Magazine - Sony Computer Entertainment America announced Wednesday they've officially dropped the PlayStation 3 20GB SKU and will no longer be offering the cheaper, Wi-Fi less model to North American retailers.

AP - Until a few weeks ago, I thought I was well-connected. I text message and IM friends at a dizzying pace. I keep up with four social-networking sites daily, check e-mail obsessively and even blog when the mood hits me.

AFP - A senior US lawmaker said Thursday he would try to overturn a US ban on online gambling, describing the law as "one of the stupidest things" he ever saw.

PC World - Microsoft Corp.'s plan to catch up to competitors in providing virtualization has hit a snag. The company said this week it has pushed back the release of both a beta of virtualization technology for Windows Server and a service pack to its existing virtualization software.

InfoWorld - Microsoft Corp.'s plan to catch up to competitors in providing virtualization has hit a snag. The company said this week it has pushed back the release of both a beta of virtualization technology for Windows Server and a service pack to its existing virtualization software.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Inc.'s eagerly-anticipated iPhone is on schedule to ship in late June as planned after passing several of its required certification tests, the company said on Thursday.

AP - Apple Inc. said it won't be shipping its next-generation operating system in June as planned, saying it had to divert resources from the project so that it could launch its highly anticipated iPhone on time.

Reuters - Apple Inc.'s eagerly-anticipated iPhone is on schedule to ship in late June as planned after passing several of its required certification tests, the company said on Thursday.

Macworld.com - Apple on Thursday released a statement noting that Mac OS X v10.5 “Leopard” won’t be released until October. The cause of the delay? The iPhone.

AP - Vonage, navigating its darkest hours in a grim first year as a public company, handed the reins back to founder Jeffrey A. Citron at least temporarily on Thursday as the Internet phone provider tried to shine a positive light on its plights in business and in court.

AFP - A study released on Thursday indicates that more women than men go online in the United States, defying the perception of the Internet as a male-dominated realm.

AFP - Sony Corp's games unit will stop selling the PlayStation 3 with a 20-gigabyte hard drive in North America due to insufficient demand, a spokeswoman said Thursday.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Inc. said on Thursday it was delaying the release of its new computer operating system, sending its shares down 3 percent.

InfoWorld - IBM Corp. is adding to its server lineup with new models featuring lower-wattage processors and flash memory instead of disks, all in the name of energy conservation.

InfoWorld - Business analysts at Intel's technology conference next week will focus on the company's powerful server chips, but industry blogs are showing more excitement over word that the company will launch a new platform for UMPCs (ultra mobile PCs).

InfoWorld - Sun said Thursday it plans to acquire the intellectual property of SavaJe Technologies, a provider of Mobile Java application development tools.

Reuters - Apple Inc. said on Thursday it was delaying the release of its new computer operating system, sending its shares down 3 percent.

InfoWorld - Apple said it won't release Leopard, the next version of the Mac operating system, in early June as planned, blaming the delay on the iPhone.

AP - Sony Corp. has discontinued the 20-gigabyte PlayStation 3 game console so it can focus on a more popular — and expensive — model that has a bigger hard drive.

NewsFactor - After months of beta testing, Nintendo has upgraded its Internet Channel for the Wii console by rolling out a full version of the Opera Web browser. The popular browser has been specifically configured for the Wii and offers users several innovative tools for surfing the Web through the game console.

NewsFactor - In the world of gaming, you win some and you lose some. Gamers are gaining a new Microsoft Xbox 360 model and losing a PlayStation 3 model.

InfoWorld - Microsoft is taking tough measures to find out who leaked a CTP (Community Technology Preview) of Windows Home Server to The Hotfix.net blog after the software preview was posted on the site by a user named "Richard" soon after it was released to a small group of testers.

Investor's Business Daily - Advanced Micro Devices has gained momentum in the key market for chips used to run portable PCs, but archrival Intel says it has a stopper -- the first major upgrade to its successful Centrino chip platform.

PC World - Business analysts at Intel Corp.'s technology conference next week will focus on the company's powerful server chips, but industry blogs are showing more excitement over word that the company will launch a new platform for ultra mobile PCs (UMPCs).

AFP - Apple Inc. said on Thursday it is delaying the release of its new Leopard operating system in order to get its much-ballyhooed iPhone to market in June as promised.

Macworld.com - Mac users may be frustrated by the delayed release of Mac OS X 10.5, but tech-industry analysts say an October release date for the next major OS X update is nothing to get alarmed about—especially if it helps get the high-profile iPhone out the door on time.

Reuters - Warner Music Group on Thursday demanded that online retailer AnywhereCD remove its digital albums from the site, saying the start-up had violated their agreement by selling Warner's music without copy protection software.

PC World - Cisco has patched a number of security flaws in the software used to manage its wireless networking products.

Reuters - Despite seven years of government scrutiny of the entertainment industry, youngsters are still able to buy adult-themed movies, video games and music, the Federal Trade Commission said Thursday.

AP - A legal dispute between Microsoft and Japanese antitrust regulators is likely to conclude next year and might lead to lawsuits or other patent infringement complaints against the software company, an executive said Thursday.

AP - Vonage, navigating its darkest hours in a grim first year as a public company, handed the reins back to founder Jeffrey A. Citron at least temporarily on Thursday as the Internet phone provider tried to shine a positive light on its plights in business and in court.