Reuters - Applied Materials Inc's chief executive said on Tuesday there will be more failures in the semiconductor equipment sector in future as the number of customers declines.

Reuters - Intel Corp on Monday launched a lighter, power-saving microprocessor intended for use in ultra-thin laptops, a move by the top chip maker to shore up its lead in mobile computing.

AFP - Microsoft said that social networking sensations Twitter and Facebook, along with Internet radio star Last.fm, are connecting to the Xbox 360 videogame console online world.

Macworld.com - Yenco.com has overhauled Finance, its bank account and budget management software, as part of its ongoing effort to move its applications to a more modern architecture.

Reuters - Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, the two surviving members of The Beatles, appeared together in Los Angeles on Monday to present a 'Rock Band' videogame that will give fans a chance to relive the Fab Four's musical triumphs.

PC World - Intel is introducing a new low-power processor for what it hopes will be a new class of thin and light laptops that bridge the gap between netbooks and mainstream laptops.

Reuters - The world's top cellphone maker Nokia started on Tuesday deliveries of its new top-of-the-range smartphone model N97, a spokeswoman for the company said.

AFP - French videogame powerhouse Ubisoft is putting players into the action when it comes to fitness training.

Reuters - Acer, the world's No. 3 PC brand, said on Tuesday it plans to sell netbook PCs that run on Google's Android software in the third quarter of this year.

AFP - Microsoft has said social networking sensations Twitter and Facebook, along with Internet radio star Last.fm, are connecting to the Xbox 360 videogame console online world.

Reuters - Acer, the world's No. 3 PC brand, said on Tuesday it plans to sell netbook PCs that run on Google's Android software in the third quarter of this year.

InfoWorld - Bottom Line Apple's Nehalem Xserve packs more into one rack unit than any other server.

PC Magazine - Intel has resuscitated the Pentium brand as its mainstream performance brand for the mobile segment, in a bid to carve out a higher-performance 'ultrathin notebook' segment sitting just above netbooks.

PC Magazine - Advanced Micro Devices has moved its Athlon processor onto the more advanced 45-nm manufacturing node, creating the Athlon II processor brand in the process.

Reuters - Microsoft Corp on Monday offered a glimpse into a future where the Xbox 360 console is the centerpiece of any living room, and games, social interaction and communications are controlled with the wave of a hand.

Reuters - Publishers are learning from music labels' struggle to make online music profitable and combat piracy, but so-called e-books will only add value to the industry and not replace printed books, experts say.

PC World - Acer plans to launch a version of its Aspire One netbook with Google's Android mobile operating system in the third quarter of this year, a top executive at the company said Tuesday.

Reuters - 'What are you doing?' For the U.S. military in Afghanistan, the answer to the latest social networking craze seems to be: 'Killing Taliban.'

PC World - Taiwanese device maker Elitegroup Computer Systems (ECS) is showing off a pair of mini-desktop PCs, or nettops, running the latest Intel Pineview chips at the Computex electronics exhibition in Taipei.

Reuters - Cell phone maker INQ Mobile plans to introduce a Twitter phone in time for the Christmas sales season, hoping to benefit from surging interest in the micro-blogging service, INQ's head told Reuters on Tuesday.

AFP - Asia's biggest information technology trade show opened in Taiwan Tuesday, with the spotlight on low-priced notebook computers and advanced broadband Internet mobile technology.

Macworld.com - Karelia Software on Tuesday announced the release of Sandvox 1.6.2, an update to its Web design software for Mac OS X. The new release is a free update for registered users. Sandvox costs $47 for the regular version or $97 for the professional version.

PC World - Laptops using Intel's low-power chips for machines bigger than a netbook checkered PC displays at Computex Taipei on Tuesday, revealing growing popularity for the chips and the class of laptop.

PC World - Garmin-Asus plans to launch its first smartphone based on Google's Android mobile operating system no later than the first quarter of next year, executives said Tuesday in Taipei.

Reuters - Microsoft Corp on Monday offered a glimpse into a future where the Xbox 360 console is the centerpiece of any living room, and games, social interaction and communications are controlled with the wave of a hand.

Reuters - Shares of Research In Motion will likely come under pressure in the next few weeks as two rivals launch new handsets to compete with its BlackBerry smartphone, an analyst says.

Macworld.com - As expected, Apple rolled out changes to its One to One training program on Tuesday, including restricting sign-ups to those who have recently purchased a new Mac. Customers are eligible to sign up for the program at any time between the date of purchase and the end of the 14-day return window. A membership can be purchased at the time of checkout from Apple's retail stores or from the Apple Online Store's Configure Your Mac screen.

Reuters - The co-chief executive officer of BlackBerry maker Research in Motion Ltd received U.S. antitrust approval to buy the National Hockey League's Phoenix Coyotes, U.S. officials said on Tuesday.

Macworld.com - Iomega has announced the release of new eGo portable hard disk drive models aimed specifically at Mac users. The new drives feature three interfaces—one FireWire 800 port, one FireWire 400 port and one USB 2.0 port. They're priced starting at $100 and come in capacities up to 500GB.

Macworld.com - Electronic Arts (EA) on Tuesday announced the simultaneous worldwide release of The Sims 3 for Mac and Windows. A version developed to run on the iPhone and iPod touch is also available.

PC World - Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference is just under a week away, and there are more indications that Apple will unveil the next generation of its iPhone device. Rumors out late yesterday point to a 4GB iPhone model that could be an actual $99 iPhone, and the possibility of four different versions of Apple's fabled wonder machine.

AP - Small new 'netbook' computers from Acer Inc. will come with Google Inc.'s Android operating system if buyers desire, instead of Windows from Microsoft Corp.

Reuters - Access to the popular social networking service Twitter and email service Hotmail was blocked across mainland China on Tuesday afternoon, two days before the 20th anniversary of the bloody Tiananmen Square crackdown.

Reuters - Acer Inc, the world's No. 3 PC brand, plans to sell netbook PCs that run on Google's Android operating system, posing a potential threat to Microsoft's Windows.

PC World - Sun has opened up a test version of its Java Store, which it bills as a Web site where developers can connect with millions of computer users who run Java on their desktop.

PC World - There's good news from Taiwan's Computex trade show this week: The future has not been suspended because of the weak economy. Google's Android OS precipitated a flood of news and new Intel chips commanded the spotlight.

NewsFactor - Android, the open-source operating system from Google, is now in the ring against the heavyweight champion for computers, Microsoft Windows. In the latest round Tuesday, laptop makers Acer and ASUSTeK Computer said they will release netbooks with Android later this year.

Reuters - Nintendo Co Ltd has sold more than 15 million units of its 'Wii Fit' system in just over a year, taking advantage of a growing interest in video game consoles for physical fitness enthusiasts.

PC World - At E3 2009 yesterday, Microsoft blew the media away with Project Natal, a motion sensing device that allows you to control video games and Xbox 360 menus with your body instead of a peripheral controller. Natal gives you voice and full-body motion control over your on-screen avatar using an RGB camera, depth sensor, multi-array microphone, and custom processor running proprietary software.

AP - With its scratches and sticky brown beer stains, the 'Tetris' arcade machine near the back of a Brooklyn bar called Barcade has seen better days. Which makes sense, given that the machine was made in the 1980s.

Macworld.com - It looks like the officials of the Lambeth borough of London are fed up with the rampant 'pod' theft that's been plaguing their region. Streets known to be hotspots for iPod theft have been marked with these not-so-subtle warning posts, depicting what appears to be an iPod shadow guy from the classic iPod commercials about to get mugged by his arch nemesis: big-bulky-jacket-man!

Reuters - Microsoft Corp said on Tuesday its new Windows 7 operating system will be generally available on October 22, well ahead of its original schedule and in time for the holiday shopping season.

PC World - A revamped software architecture for the Google Search Appliance (GSA) and a new high-end model of this enterprise search device lift its indexing capacity to billions of documents and make it easier to scale it up.

Reuters - Sony Corp unveiled on Tuesday the latest in its Playstation Portable line of hand-held devices, the PSP Go, as it races to catch rival Nintendo in the mobile gaming arena.

Macworld.com - As a Bay Area native, I have a certain partiality for San Francisco that I just can't hide: the weather, the food, the culture—this city has it all.

Reuters - It's no iPhone-killer, but the launch this weekend of Palm Inc's 'Pre' could well become the brightest event this year for a gloomy industry.

AP - When Palm Inc.'s and Sprint Nextel Corp.'s latest bundle of smart phone joy, the Pre, arrives Saturday, it will be entering an increasingly crowded market backed by parents that have a lot riding on its success.

AP - Nintendo wants to check your pulse.

Macworld.com - To help make browsing and downloading the software in the Mac Gems Superguide a snap, we’ve given them their own Web page. This is a complete list of the apps reviewed in the book, along with links to the developers’ Web sites. If you have questions or comments, drop us a line at ebooks@macworld.com.

Macworld.com - It looks like the officials of the Lambeth borough of London are fed up with the rampant 'pod' theft that's been plaguing their region. Streets known to be hotspots for iPod theft have been marked with these not-so-subtle warning posts, depicting what appears to be an iPod shadow guy from the classic iPod commercials about to get mugged by his arch nemesis: big-bulky-jacket-man!

AP - Microsoft Corp. says Windows 7, the next version of its computer operating software, will go on sale Oct. 22.

Reuters - Microsoft Corp said on Tuesday its new Windows 7 operating system will be generally available on October 22, well ahead of its original schedule and in time for the holiday shopping season.

NewsFactor - Twitter investors may be speculating about the value of social-networking sites, but no one is speculating about their popularity.

AFP - Sony on Tuesday unveiled a sleek next-generation PSP Go handheld videogame, movie and music gadget in a direct challenge to Nintendo's freshly-launched DSi devices.

Reuters - Norway's Opera Software overtook Apple's iPhone browser in May as the most popular mobile browser in the world, Web analytics firm StatCounter said on Tuesday.

NewsFactor - A day after Microsoft's keynote address at the Electronic Entertainment Expo, attendees and the tech media are still buzzing about the company's latest innovation, a controller-less system for interacting with games and other features on the Xbox 360.

Macworld.com - Parliant has announced the release of PhoneValet Message Center 6, a major new upgrade to its telephony hub software for Mac OS X — and now other operating systems including Linux and Windows. PhoneValet 6 cost $170 per phone line.

PC World - Batteries.com, an online seller of batteries for consumer electronics, and Aviva USA, one of the largest insurance companies in the world, have both reported data breaches in recent days.

PC World - Attempting to snatch the E3 games spotlight back from Microsoft, Nintendo dropped a few head-turners of its own this morning. After a pop-pulsing montage of lifestyle clips strobing from multiple tubes, Nintendo Executive Vice President Cammie Dunaway strode onstage in a stylish white suit to sing about NPD sales data before turning to the show lineup. Nintendo's theme? 'Create, surprise.'

AP - Ahead of the 20th anniversary of the bloody crackdown on Tiananmen Square this week, Chinese authorities have rounded up dissidents and shipped them out of town. Now, they've even shut down Twitter.

AFP - China is blocking access to Microsoft's new search engine, Bing, and its Hotmail email service, the company said Tuesday, two days ahead of the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown.

AFP - US software giant Microsoft said on Tuesday that Windows 7, its new-generation personal computer operating system, would be available in October.

Reuters - Oracle Corp Chief Executive Larry Ellison, whose company sells software to big corporations, is looking to extend his footprint to inexpensive laptops and other electronics gadgets.

PC World - Leave it to Sony to prove that sometimes the best really does come last.

Macworld.com - Comic Life users will now be able to create single page comics by dragging and dropping images, thanks to a new version of the comic-creation software announced by Freeverse on Tuesday.

Macworld.com - Sony Computer Entertainment on Tuesday made several announcements during its press conference at the E3 gaming convention in Los Angeles, but none seemed more relevant to iPhone and iPod touch game developers and industry watchers than the introduction of a new mobile system called the PSPgo, and news that Sony was dropping the price of PSP development systems.

NewsFactor - Apple has issued patches for its QuickTime and iTunes software. The patches fix critical vulnerabilities and a bug that was partially revealed in a book, The Mac Hacker's Handbook, by Charlie Miller and Dino Dai Zovi, released in March.

PC Magazine - Not to be outdone by the Wii Plus and Microsoft's newly announced Project Natal, Sony today showed off a new gesture-based controller for the PlayStation 3, scheduled to ship in the spring of 2010.

PC Magazine - T-Mobile will offer the company's next Google Android phone 'early this summer,' according to an e-mail we recevied from T-Mobile on Tuesday. Most likely it will be the HTC Magic that Google handed out at its recent Google I/O conference.

Reuters - A federal judge in Texas awarded set-top box maker TiVo Inc an additional $103 million in damages plus interest on Tuesday in a long-running patent infringement dispute with DISH Network Corp and EchoStar Corp.

Macworld.com - Editor's note: Rachel Hoyer has joined Chris Barylick to offer some additional insights about the state of this year's E3 gaming conference in Los Angeles. She's an avid gamer, but a first time E3 attendee.

InfoWorld - Reassuring the Java community, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison pledged a commitment to Java technologies, including the budding JavaFX rich media extension to Java, on Tuesday morning at the JavaOne conference in San Francisco.

PC World - As every Twitter user knows, the popular micro-blogging site has become a hot spot for spammers intent on carpet bombing users with the usual pitches for government grants, debt-reduction services, and penile-enhancement pills.

AFP - Nintendo laid out videogame offerings that build on the winning momentum of its popular Wii consoles and DS handheld devices.

Investor's Business Daily - After a 2001 malaria outbreak, the Peruvian military began a health project to let doctors in remote areas send a text alert if they find a suspect case of a particular disease. The system asks specific data of symptoms and patients. Then the case is immediately sent to a database that specialists can view online. The text messages also go to mobile phones of specialists near the site in real time, the BBC said.

Investor's Business Daily - Chinese online gaming company Shanda Interactive Entertainment comfortably beat first-quarter profit and sales views Tuesday, the latest player to post bullish results in China's surging video game market.

Reuters - Sony Corp unveiled on Tuesday a smaller, lighter PlayStation handled game device called the PSP Go, in a race to catch rival Nintendo in an intensely competitive mobile games arena.

AFP - Sony unveiled a sleek next-generation PSP Go handheld videogame, movie and music gadget and demonstrated a prototype motion-sensing videogame controller in a direct challenge to Nintendo's freshly-launched DSi devices.

PC World - Sun Microsystems, Orange, Vodafone Group and Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications are taking steps to make it a little easier -- and cheaper -- for software developers to bring Java programs to mobile phones.

Reuters - Spending more time on social networks and blogs? You're not alone, with the latest figures showing the number of minutes spent on social networking sites in the United States has almost doubled over the past year.

PC World - Last month Great Call and phone manufacturer Samsung recalled Jitterbug SPH-a110 and SPH-a120 phones (version BB14 software) sold after March 1, 2008 after it was found that they didn't always connect to 911 when out of Jitterbug's network. Owners of these phones can contact Jitterbug customer service, bring them to a Samsung service center or mail them in for free software upgrades using mailers that have been sent out.