PC World - Singaporean contract chip maker Chartered Semiconductor will lay off 600 workers as the company grapples with sinking demand for semiconductors, executives announced Friday.

AFP - Chartered Semiconductor, one of the world's biggest custom microchip makers, said Friday it would cut hundreds of jobs worldwide as it announced a fourth-quarter net loss of 114 million US dollars.

Reuters - Shares in Nintendo Co Ltd sank 12 percent after the Wii video game maker cut its earnings and game console sales forecasts, raising doubt over growth at a company that had previously defied the global financial crisis.

PC World - NTT DoCoMo will switch off its second-generation cell phone network in just over three years, the company said Friday.

CNET - File this under: now you tell me.

AP - Japanese electronics giant NEC Corp. said it will cut 20,000 workers worldwide as it tries to stanch widening losses from semiconductors and other businesses that have been hard hit by competition and the global economic slump.

InfoWorld - Apple's Safari, released for the Windows platform in June 2007, is the second newest browser on Windows, behind Google's Chrome. (Naturally, Apple's browser also runs on OS X, and on iPhone and iPod Touch devices in a mobile edition.) Safari leads the pack in anti-phishing filtering and pop-up blocking, but it also has many security weaknesses.

InfoWorld - Now that the Obama administration has officially taken over, it's faced with technology problems all too common in today's enterprise.

AP - Electronic Arts is steering the popular 'Need for Speed' franchise in a new direction.

Macworld.com - Virtual Programming announced Friday the release of A Vampyre Story for Mac, a graphical adventure game only recently released for Windows (it came out in November). It costs $29.95.

PC World - Just when you thought there are enough not-so-good looking and overrated phones out there, Dell is said to announce two iPhone and Blackberry competitors sometime next month. Code named MePhone (hopefully not the final name), the phones will run on Google Android and Microsoft Windows Mobile respectively.

InfoWorld - IBM on Friday detailed a new ISV partnership, a move which, on the heels of cloud-related agreements penned last week with several universities, advances the company's cloud and SaaS realm.

AP - The Justice Department says it foiled a plot by a fired Fannie Mae contract worker in Maryland to destroy all the data on the mortgage giant's 4,000 computer servers nationwide.

PC World - Just when you thought there are enough not-so-good looking and overrated phones out there, Dell is expected to announce two iPhone and Blackberry competitors sometime next month. Code-named MePhone (hopefully not the final name), the phones will run on Google Android and Microsoft Windows Mobile respectively.

CNET - Intel has filed a $50 million lawsuit against insurance carrier American Guarantee and Liability Insurance, alleging breach of contract.

Macworld.com - Ettore Software has announced the release of TapIt4Me for iPhone and iPod touch. Available for download from the App Store, TapIt4Me costs $4.99.

NewsFactor - In a move to generate new revenue amid a slumping PC market, Dell is reportedly entering the smartphone market. It could launch its first device in February.

AFP - As Macworld loses Apple, makers of accessories for iPhones, iPods and Macintosh computers are flocking to an 'iLounge' that will make a Consumer Electronics Show debut next year.

PC Magazine - The BlackBerry Storm 9530, RIM's first touchscreen smartphone and an obvious nod to the iPhone 3G, carries a combined materials and manufacturing cost of about $203, according to iSuppli's Teardown Analysis Service—$30 more than what it costs Apple to build each iPhone 3G.

AP - Congress is going to take another crack at delaying the analog TV shutdown by four months.

NewsFactor - Brick-and-mortar stores may have had a terrible 2008, but Amazon thrived. The giant online retailer said its sales in the fourth quarter were up 18 percent to $6.7 billion, compared to $5.67 billion in the same quarter a year ago.

NewsFactor - The BlackBerry Storm may not sell for more than an Apple iPhone, but it costs more to manufacture, according to market research firm iSuppli.

Macworld.com - Playrix Entertainment has announced its entry into the Mac game market with the release of new casual game titles for Mac OS X. Each is priced at $19.95; demos are available online.

Macworld.com - Apple’s free Remote application lets you control your Apple TV or iTunes on your computer from the comfort of your iPhone or iPod touch, but what about the rest of your media applications? Well, if you have an Apple Remote you can use it for Front Row, the DVD Player, or QuickTime, but Apple stopped including the device with most of its hardware.

Macworld.com - Over the last year there’s one question that keeps floating up in e-mail I get from readers and on our forums: Why can’t Mac users in the U.S. record digital programming from some source other than over-the-air ATSC broadcasts? (Sure, you can attach your Mac to a cable or satellite box via something such as Elgato’s line of EyeTV products. But that’s an analog capture of a formerly digital signal.)

PC World - Here's the deal: Sony's Killzone 2 could be the best thing to happen to the PlayStation 3...or the blandest. It's literally impossible to say at this point. I've only just today started working over my review copy, and we're gagged in the U.S. from fully evaluating the game until next Tuesday (memo to Sony, since international reviews dropped yesterday -- unless you live in China, the Internet makes 'regional embargo' obsolete).

Reuters - Nearly four months before this week's arrest of the boss of a New York investment firm on charges of defrauding at least 1,500 investors of more than $370 million, Howard Stevens suspected the company was a sham.

PC World - Software and services vendor Appirio is releasing the Referral Management Solution, a set of technologies that enable Salesforce customers to use Facebook for functions like viral marketing and employee recruitment.

AP - You can be the virtual Hero of the Hudson.

PC World - Intel filed a lawsuit against an insurer over failure to cover legal fees on an antitrust lawsuit filed by rival chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices.

AP - Comcast Corp. is testing a free wireless Internet service for its cable subscribers in parts of New Jersey, following in the footsteps of a fellow cable operator.

AFP - Workers turned 'cyber moles' and crime syndicates armed with malicious software are looting digital data from businesses as losses reportedly topped a trillion dollars in 2008.

Reuters - A 35-year-old computer programer pleaded not guilty on Friday to charges that he planted a computer virus designed to destroy all the data on 4,000 Fannie Mae computer servers the day he was fired from the company.

PC World - Advanced Micro Devices will soon introduce processors that are capable of supporting DDR3 memory, earlier than the company had anticipated.

Macworld.com - Lawl Mart’s Duck Hunt, an iPhone and iPod touch game that has been available at the App Store, can’t be found any more. The developer says that the game came down at the request of Nintendo, which alleges copyright infringement.

PC World - In this week’s show: the European Commission considers hearing impairment risks caused by personal music players, Obama gets to keep his BlackBerry, the Gates Foundation donates money to eradicate polio, MIT creates a seeing machine, Japan launches a satellite, the Pope gets a YouTube channel, R4 Revolution comes back for Nintendo DS and Hitachi and Toshiba show off gesture controlled TVs.

Reuters - Paul McCartney will headline the opening day of the Coachella music festival in California this spring, the singer's Web site said on Friday.

CNET - Orange has launched the first pay-as-you-go BlackBerry deal in the U.K.

CNET - Microsoft's efforts to make Windows 7 less annoying than Vista may also be making it less secure than its predecessor.

AFP - A free computer game went online Friday that challenges players to become the next 'Hero on the Hudson' by safely landing a virtual passenger jet on the New York City waterway.

PC World - A change that Microsoft made in Windows 7 to improve its controversial User Account Control security feature has left the new OS less secure, according to a blogger who follows Microsoft closely.

PC World - A group of U.S. companies, led by technology giants Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard and eBay, is set to outline recommendations for new federal data-privacy legislation that could make life easier for consumers and lead to a standard federal breach-notification law.