AP - In what promises to be a dismal year for tech spending, IBM Corp. packed a wallop of a surprise with its 2009 profit guidance: the numbers were so far ahead of Wall Street's forecast they were initially met with disbelief.

CNET - U.S. President Barack Obama was sworn in on Tuesday in Washington. But the number of people who braved the frigid D.C. weather to watch the historic event could have been anywhere between 800,000 and 3 million, depending on who you talk to.

AP - Software services provider Wipro Ltd. said quarterly net profit rose 9 percent from a year earlier, but warned revenue from its mainstay business is set to fall as customers halt expansion plans amid the global downturn.

Macworld.com - Editor’s Note: Celebrating the Mac’s 25th anniversary means more than just looking back—it also requires us to look ahead to what your computer will be like in the years to come. In this installment, we address potential innovations to interface design.

AFP - Ericsson, the world's leading supplier of mobile phone network equipment, on Wednesday reported a 30-percent fall in fourth-quarter profit and said it would carry on with plans to cut 5,000 jobs.

InfoWorld - In November 2006, Sun Microsystems began making all of its Java technology implementations open source, offering them under the GPL. More than two years later, reactions are mixed as to what exactly has been the impact of this momentous change.

InfoWorld - Now that Microsoft has made the Windows 7 beta available for public download, many people are trying to figure out what's new and different. And many others not willing to risk their PCs by installing a beta OS are curious, too. (Thinking of installing the beta yourself? Use InfoWorld's free Windows Sentinel applet to see if it's compatible with Windows 7.)

Macworld.com - M-Audio introduced a new series of USB MIDI keyboards designed for Mac using musicians.

Reuters - Nokia (NOK1V.HE) and its main cell phone rivals have started to slash prices as demand falls and retailers cut inventories after lackluster holiday sales.

AFP - Ericsson, the world's leading supplier of mobile phone network equipment, presented a strong balance sheet for the fourth quarter on Wednesday but said it will cut 5,000 jobs to counter the effects of global economic crisis.

CNET - Fans of President Barack Obama, or perhaps just those who dislike former President George W. Bush, seem to think there's something notable about the way the new White House Web site is configured to deal with search engines.

AP - Wall Street is rebounding smartly in early trading after investors got some reassurance from IBM's better-than-expected outlook for 2009.

Reuters - China has extended a crackdown on electronic porn to the country's mobile phones, after shutting down 1,250 websites because of their explicit content, the official Xinhua agency said Wednesday.

AP - Wall Street rebounded in morning trading Wednesday after investors found some reassurance from IBM's better-than-expected forecast for 2009.

PC Magazine - Advanced Micro Devices has quietly cut prices on two of its high-end Phenom II X4 chips to counter Intel's own price cuts, a spokesman confirmed on Wednesday.

NewsFactor - Cisco Systems is planning a product that could turn the technology industry on its head and put the company in competition with longtime partners like Hewlett-Packard and IBM.

NewsFactor - Inauguration Day is over. Cell-phone networks and the Web are still standing, but the coverage of such a huge event may never be the same.

Macworld.com - Editor’s Note: Celebrating the Mac’s 25th anniversary means more than just looking back—it also requires us to look ahead to what your computer will be like in the years to come. We now turn our attention to the processors that power your Mac.

Reuters - Fans attending English soccer club Arsenal's games could be able to watch replays of goals or contentious tackles on Sony's PlayStation Portable (PSP) devices by the end of next season.

PC World - Are Sony's PS3 firmware updates morphing into glorified publicity stunts?

PC Magazine - For the first time, spending on cell phone services has exceeded spending on residential landline services in the U.S., according to new data from the government's Bureau of Labor Statistics.

PC Magazine - President Barack Obama may have highlighted the country's struggles in his inaugural address Tuesday morning, but that hasn't stopped organizers of the International Builders Show (IBS) from pulling together some of the priciest consumer electronics for its New American Home 2009.

AP - A new Web site and visitor center partnered by Google and Travelocity will help tourists and residents find New York City's best shows and hottest restaurants.

PC World - Yahoo has taken new steps to sharpen its Webmail service's antispam capabilities, including the adoption of two commercial technologies and the testing of an open-source system, the company said Tuesday.

AP - IBM gave Wall Street a reprieve from bad news Wednesday and investors responded by taking a break from selling.

Reuters - U.S. researchers have developed a new type of semiconductor ink that brings companies a step closer to making bendable computer screens or inexpensive sensor tags to help retailers keep track of their inventory.

NewsFactor - Call it a battle of survival. Advanced Micro Devices is following in Intel's footsteps by slashing prices on its processors and is selling off parts of its business in a $65 million deal to streamline operations.

AFP - Ericsson, the world's leading supplier of mobile phone network equipment, reported strong fourth quarter results on Wednesday but said it will cut 5,000 jobs to counter the effects of the global economic crisis.

Reuters - Sirius XM Radio Inc plans to increase prices for subscribers with multiple accounts and begin to charge for its online music feed, moves that may help the pay-radio service meet looming debt payments.

NewsFactor - Upping the ante on rival Microsoft, IBM has taken the wraps off a series of collaborative agreements aimed at dramatically increasing the visibility of the company's Lotus collaboration platform on wireless handsets.

PC Magazine - AMD struck a low-key note this week, quietly announcing price cuts to its quad-core processor line. But AMD also announced the integrated AMD 760G chipset on Monday, which is designed as a low-cost DirectX 10.1 solution for value PCs.

AP - Just as Clearwire Corp. has fired up its long-awaited WiMax wireless data network in two cities, Nokia Corp. has stopped selling the only portable gadget that can use the network without accessories.

AFP - Apple on Wednesday reported it finished 2008 with record quarterly profit of 1.61 billion dollars, with iPod sales hitting an all-time high.

Macworld.com - Apple on Wednesday reported record revenue and profit for its fiscal first quarter of 2009, ending December 27, 2008, thanks to strong Mac, iPod, and iPhone sales.

PC Magazine - Microsoft launched a new MSN Mobile service in the U.K. on Wednesday that lets users buy and download music and videos from thousands of artists on their cell phones.

AP - Apple Inc. said Wednesday its profit in the holiday quarter edged up 2 percent and beat Wall Street's expectations, buoyed in part by growing iPod sales outside the U.S.

AP - Quarterly earnings fell 31 percent at eBay Inc., indicating that its Internet auctions are being hurt by the recession just like traditional retail sales. The results, combined with a forecast below analysts' expectations, sent eBay shares skidding nearly 6 percent.

AP - It's safe to say this doesn't seem like the best time to start a news outlet, given the recession and the struggles of the media industry.

AP - Intel Corp. said Wednesday it is consolidating its manufacturing operations as a part of a restructuring bid that will affect thousands of jobs from the U.S to the Philippines.

CNET - Sony plans to close two television factories and shed 2,000 jobs in its home country of Japan, according to a Bloomberg report Wednesday.

InfoWorld - Emphasizing the growing importance of mobile device applications, Sun Microsystems is readying two technologies to better enable the mobile trend: Java On Device Portal (ODP), for widget applications, and the JavaFX Mobile runtime, due next month as part of the JavaFX rich Internet application platform.

PC World - Apple has released a new version of its QuickTime media player adding critical security fixes as well as some new tweaks to improve the software's ease-of-use and compatibility with different file formats.

AP - Investors acted Wednesday like they had overdone it a day earlier.

AFP - Intel Corp., the world's biggest computer chip maker, announced plans on Wednesday to close facilities in Malaysia, the Philippines and the United States.

PC Magazine - Hot on the heels of Apple's post-Jobsian decision to end its Macworld keynotes after 2009, the Consumer Electronics Association today announced that it will be teaming up with iLounge for an iPod and iPhone Developers Pavilion.

AP - Intel Corp. plans to cut up to 6,000 manufacturing jobs as the company struggles with souring personal computer demand that has left its factories operating at less than their full capacity.

AP - As data breaches go, a single merchant getting hacked is bad enough. Even worse is an intrusion into the systems of big payment processors, which could potentially put customer credit card data at risk at the hundreds of thousands of merchants whose transactions are crunched there.

CNET - Online real estate site operator Move said on Wednesday that it was tapping former Microsoft executive Steve Berkowitz to serve as its next chief executive.

Reuters - A group representing U.S. wireless companies is seeking changes to $6 billion in grants aimed at promoting expanded Internet and wireless services as part of an economic stimulus bill proposed by Democrats.

PC World - Microsoft for the first time is contributing code to an Apache open-source project, continuing the company's softening of its attitude toward open-source software and the community that supports it.

PC World - Apple beat expectations with its financial results for the holiday shopping quarter, a period that treated many consumer electronics companies badly.

PC World - Opposition to a later deadline for the U.S. digital-TV transition is fading, though mobile technology company Qualcomm is holding fast.

PC World - Rackable Systems has turned to low-cost desktop components for a new server design that aims to provide a cheaper alternative for companies running busy Web applications, the company announced Wednesday.