SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Netvibes, one of Europe's hottest Internet companies, has put the power to create all-you-need-to-know Web portals in the hands of individuals on Monday, challenging the decade-old strategies of online giants.

TechWeb - A major focus of Intel for next year is its plans for what it calls "system-on-chip" (SoC) products.

TechWeb - The chipmaker's software partners include Microsoft, FalconStor, Open-E, Novel's Open SuSE, Red Hat and Wasabi Systems.

TechWeb - HP's storage resource management software is the first product from the company's recently formed Enterprise Storage and Server Software business unit.

AFP - The PlayStation 3's solid launch in Europe has helped the console in the "perception wars" that affected its sales in Japan, Sony chief executive Howard Stringer said in an interview published Tuesday.

AFP - Millions of South Koreans can get access to the Encyclopedia Britannica through their mobile phones from Tuesday, the leading operator here said.

TechWeb - Students and faculty communicated with each other during the crisis through use of social networking sites like Facebook, as well as text messaging and e-mail.

Reuters - Netvibes, one of Europe's hottest Internet companies, has put the power to create all-you-need-to-know Web portals in the hands of individuals on Monday, challenging the decade-old strategies of online giants.

AP - Since Sun Microsystems Inc. co-founder Scott McNealy stepped down as chief executive to focus on his chairmanship full-time, he's been spearheading a side project to transform education the way digital music upended the recording industry.

TechWeb - Online games like World of Warcraft and Second Life are absolute dictatorships, where the whim of the companies controlling them is law. Cory Doctorow wonders if it's possible to create a game that's a democracy, where your in-world property is really yours.

BEIJING/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Intel Corp. said a new line of computer processors due out later this year will be about 40 percent faster than current chips when running computer games, videos and other heavy workloads.

Reuters - Intel Corp. said a new line of computer processors due out later this year will be about 40 percent faster than current chips when running computer games, videos and other heavy workloads.

AFP - Taiwan's leading telephone operator Chunghwa Telecom is looking to China's third-generation mobile phone market despite strict government restrictions on such investments, a report said Tuesday.

PC World - The world's largest chip maker is only hosting three of its popular Intel Developer Forums (IDF) this year in an attempt to rein in costs and resources associated with the event.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Sony Corp. said on Tuesday it is considering launching PlayStation 3 (PS3) game consoles with larger hard disk drive capacity, in a bid to cater to the needs of hardcore gamers and other heavy users.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Sharp Corp. said on Tuesday it has developed advanced LCD panels that would offer sharper moving images on portable devices such as mobile phones, pitting it against organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays.

Reuters - Sharp Corp. (6753.T) said on Tuesday it has developed advanced LCD panels that would offer sharper moving images on portable devices such as mobile phones, pitting it against organic light-emitting diode (OLED) displays.

Reuters - Sony Corp. (6758.T) said on Tuesday it is considering launching PlayStation 3 (PS3) game consoles with larger hard disk drive capacity, in a bid to cater to the needs of hardcore gamers and other heavy users.

InfoWorld - Intel is developing a programmable processor with many cores that is compatible with the x86 instruction set and capable of performing 1 trillion floating-point operations per second, a senior company executive said Tuesday at the Intel Developer Forum in Beijing.

InfoWorld - Intel demonstrated its fastest multicore processor yet at the Spring Intel Development Forum (IDF) in Beijing on Tuesday, an 80-core processor that hit a speedy 2-teraflops (trillions of floating point operations per second) in a demonstration.

USATODAY.com - The Spider-Man 3 video game is a dizzying experience, based on a peek at the Xbox 360 version. The game plays out like a movie with stars Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst providing the voices for Peter Parker and MJ. Cult actor favorite Bruce Campbell (the theater doorman in Spider-Man 2 ) saucily narrates a tutorial that helps players quickly learn how to fight, swing on webs and use Spider Sense.

InfoWorld - Microsoft, as part of its outreach to the open-source community, has released a new official Windows Media Player plug-in for Firefox 2.0 that resolves problems with the older one.

Reuters - EMC Corp. , the top maker of corporate data storage equipment, on Tuesday reported higher first-quarter profit, spurred by growth in software sales and its Asia business, sending its shares up 3 percent.

PC World - Intel Corp. is developing a programmable processor with many cores that is compatible with the x86 instruction set and capable of performing 1 trillion floating-point operations per second, a senior company executive said Tuesday at the Intel Developer Forum in Beijing.

AFP - US chip giant Intel's upcoming Penryn processors will boost computer speed by 40 percent for gaming compared to existing top-line chips, the company said Tuesday.

InfoWorld - Sun Microsystems and Fujitsu are introducing new servers Tuesday that they jointly developed, while another server maker, Hitachi, is unveiling new blade servers. They each aim to address buyers' dual needs for computing power and energy efficiency.

PC World - Intel Corp. demonstrated its fastest multi-core processor yet at the Spring Intel Development Forum (IDF) in Beijing on Tuesday, an 80-core processor that hit a speedy 2-teraflops (trillions of floating point operations per second) in a demonstration.

AP - EMC Corp. said Tuesday its first-quarter profit rose nearly 15 percent as the data storage vendor reported surging growth in Asia and strong sales of software that helps companies manage information flow.

Reuters - Time Warner Inc.'s AOL Internet division will announce on Tuesday production deals for five new Web programs as it tries to shore up its entertainment offerings and draw more advertising dollars.

InfoWorld - Growth in the Asia-Pacific region and Japan along with demand for VMware virtual infrastructure products and RSA security software pushed EMC's first-quarter revenue to a record level and also boosted net income over the same period of last year.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Tellme Networks Inc., a provider of computerized, voice-driven directory assistance, launched a new mobile search service on Tuesday that allows users to ask for information and see the results pop up with maps and directions on the phone's screen.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. Chief Executive Mel Karmazin on Tuesday reiterated his contention that a planned combination with rival XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. will mean lower prices for subscribers.

InfoWorld - Amazon.com's Web services business isn't profitable, but it's growing very rapidly and the company expects it to make money eventually, Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos said Monday.

Reuters - Tellme Networks Inc., a provider of computerized, voice-driven directory assistance, launched a new mobile search service on Tuesday that allows users to ask for information and see the results pop up with maps and directions on the phone's screen.

PC World - Ubuntu Linux's next release will appear on Thursday, sporting fresh virtualization features and installation management tools, project sponsor Canonical said on Monday.

NewsFactor - With your palms practically sweating, your virtual hand reaches out to smack the virtual button and take the deal on "Deal or No Deal." That's the way an online version of the hit TV game show might take place someday because of the deal announced Monday between Electronic Arts and Endemol to create "a new digital entertainment concept."

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. cable television service providers are looking to new technologies to help upgrade their networks, hoping to avoid expensive capital outlays that could spook investors.

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Sirius Satellite Radio Inc.'s Chief Executive appeared before skeptical U.S. lawmakers on Capitol Hill on Tuesday aiming to convince them that the company's merger with XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. would be good for consumers.

AP - A Senate committee chairman said Tuesday Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. has 'a steep hill to climb' in showing that its proposed purchase of XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. will not hurt competition in the audio entertainment market.

AP - FCC Commissioner Michael Copps on Tuesday called for greater efforts to educate the public about a government-mandated switch-over to digital television signals in two years.

Reuters - Google Inc. Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said on Tuesday Google is set to introduce software for creating meeting presentations online, offering a twist on Microsoft Corp.'s popular PowerPoint tool.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo criticized telecommunications company Verizon Communications on Tuesday for 'chronically poor' telephone repair service in the state.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google Inc. is ready to introduce a copyright protection tool that helps media owners to automatically report acts of piracy on its YouTube video site, Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said on Tuesday.

AP - Benefiting from its rapid shift to a new chip-making process and a big tax windfall, Intel Corp.'s first-quarter profit surged 19 percent as lower production costs helped the company withstand another round in a fierce price battle with rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc.

AFP - Intel Corp. said Tuesday its first-quarter profit rose 18.6 percent from a year ago to 1.61 billion dollars as the chip giant avoided some of the price cuts that hurt earnings in the past.

NewsFactor - Like a proud parent on a trip, Intel is boasting about its many-sided family as its Intel Developers Forum opens Tuesday in Beijing, China. The boasts, according to the Santa Clara, California-based chipmaker, includes more than 20 new products and innovations.

AFP - Telecom Italia has named Pasquale Pistorio, the former head of French-Italian semiconductor maker STMicroelectronics, as its new chairman, Italian news agencies reported Tuesday.

PC Magazine - With Intel set to unveil its next-generation Bearlake desktop chipsets (also known as the 3 Series) by the end of this month, market intelligence firm DRAMeXchange is predicting that DDR3 supportable motherboards and modules will soon follow beginning in the second quarter of 2007.

PC Magazine - Intel has disclosed the presence of "Skulltrail," an enthusiast gaming platform. The company also announced plans to develop dedicated application-specific accelerators for servers.

AP - Horrible, real-world happenings are unfolding almost simultaneously in the virtual world, as Virginia Tech students and people from all over the world gather online to grieve and vent.

AP - First-quarter earnings at International Business Machines Corp. rose 8 percent and matched Wall Street expectations Tuesday, as a boost from software acquisitions helped overcome only moderate growth overall.

AP - Yahoo Inc.'s first-quarter profit fell 11 percent, disappointing investors who have been betting that the Internet icon had regained its stride after stumbling through much of last year.

InfoWorld - Google is adding a presentations application to Docs & Spreadsheets, narrowing the competitive space between this productivity and collaboration hosted suite and Microsoft's Office suite.

Reuters - International Business Machines Corp. , the world's largest technology services company, reported higher first-quarter earnings on Tuesday as sales of software and computer services increased.

CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - Canadian scientists and engineers have developed a robot with a keen sense of touch that will let doctors perform microscopic operations on the brain using the most vivid visuals yet, they said on Tuesday.

Reuters - The continuing sales drop of music compact discs accelerated to nearly 13 percent in 2006 while fast-growing digital download sales failed to make up for the sales shortfall, according to figures published by the Recording Industry Association of America on Tuesday.

AP - Internal Revenue Service offices across the nation that use wireless technology are still vulnerable to hackers, according to the latest assessment of the agency's security policies released Tuesday.

AP - Google Inc. plans to launch software similar to Microsoft Corp.'s popular PowerPoint program as the two companies vie to dominate the online experience.

Reuters - General Dynamics Corp. on Tuesday won a contract to build a new wireless network linking the Justice, Homeland Security and Treasury departments, a deal valued at around $5 billion by industry analysts.

InfoWorld - In 1994, Bob Young founded Red Hat, the popular Linux distribution vendor, in his wife's sewing closet. Now, the entrepreneur is giving others a chance to create a successful business in the same do-it-yourself way -- by self-publishing their creative projects through his new venture, Lulu Inc.

InfoWorld - As SaaS (software as a service) permeates every corner of the user community, two companies, Verizon and Savvis, will announce later this year new services that extend the SaaS model well beyond application delivery.

InfoWorld - Well-known enterprise companies are still having their IT systems hijacked by spammers despite investing in many different types of technologies aimed at stopping the problem.

NewsFactor - Fujitsu and Sun Computers unveiled Tuesday what they described as the world's fastest SPARC servers. The new SPARC Enterprise machines can deliver up to 50 percent more performance than current SPARC servers, the companies said. Sun indicated that the gains in performance were due to processor improvements and enhancements in memory, interconnects and I/O subsystems.

InfoWorld - Intel posted a profit of $1.6 billion for the first quarter, a rise of 19 percent over that quarter last year, thanks to reduced personnel costs after recent layoffs and a $300 million tax reversal, the company said Tuesday.

Investor's Business Daily - A day after unveiling more than 20 products, chipmaker Intel on Tuesday released mixed first-quarter results.

Reuters - Politicians are lost deep in cyberspace, struggling to reach a new generation of tech-savvy voters through blogs, social networking sites and video-sharing.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Web 2.0, a catchphrase for the latest generation of Web sites where users contribute their own text, pictures and video content, is far less participatory than commonly assumed, a study showed on Tuesday.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Nintendo Co. Ltd. on Tuesday said it expects upcoming video games 'Pokemon Diamond' and 'Pokemon Pearl' for its hand-held DS player to be among the top-selling U.S. games of 2007, based on presales of more than 533,000.

PC World - The Carlyle Group scrapped a US$5.5 billion deal to buy Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc. (ASE), the world's largest chip packaging and testing company, ASE said Tuesday.

Reuters - Nintendo Co. Ltd. (7974.OS) on Tuesday said it expects upcoming video games "Pokemon Diamond" and "Pokemon Pearl" for its hand-held DS player to be among the top-selling U.S. games of 2007, based on presales of more than 533,000.