AFP - China Mobile, the country's largest mobile operator, said Friday it was still in negotiations with Apple over the sale of iPhones in China.

Reuters - Microsoft said on Friday it will stick to its development strategy for the China Internet search market regardless of the outcome of Google's high-profile spat with Beijing.

AFP - Ubisoft announced that it has teamed up with Olympic gold medal winning snowboarder Shaun White on a skateboarding videogame.

AFP - Japan's biggest Internet forum, where anonymous netizens trade anything from cooking tips to death threats, has long been an anarchic zone of uninhibited free speech and a magnet for controversy.

PC World - A mobile phone with Google's Android operating system that was delayed in China will now ship next week, in the latest sign that Android has gone largely unscathed by a row between Google and the Chinese government.

PC World - A major earthquake and several aftershocks in Taiwan, which injured dozens of people and caused several fires on Thursday, also sent Chunghwa Telecom workers scrambling to fix undersea fiber-optic telecommunications cables to prevent service disruptions around Asia.

PC World - Germany's Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology is selling a mobile phone application that offers a unique feature over other password-storage applications.

PC World - It's the talk of consumer electronics and gaming. Depending on who you ask, 3D could change the way we watch TV and play computer games, but there's one thing it seems everyone is agreed on: who wants to wear those goofy glasses?

Reuters - Microsoft Corp is aiming to launch two phones that will be sold by top U.S. mobile operator Verizon Wireless in late spring or early summer, a person briefed on the matter said on Thursday.

Reuters - Apple Inc said on Friday that U.S. sales of its iPad tablet would kick off on April 3 and international sales would start later in April.

InfoWorld - Microsoft is offering its own version of technology acquired last year that offers cross-platform access to the Microsoft Visual Studio Team System Team Foundation Server (TFS) application lifecycle management (ALM) platform.

AP - Microsoft Corp. has said its new software for smart phones, Windows Phone 7 series, is a 'clean break' with the past. Now it's clear just how clean that break is: The new phones, expected late this year, won't run any applications written for older versions of Microsoft's phone software.

Macworld.com - The iPhone can do many things, but now there's an impressive new feature to add to the list: It can help you become a man.

PC World - Apple made it official Friday, announcing the iPad will go on sale April 3 with pre-ordering starting March 12. Apple says it will first sell its Wi-Fi-enabled iPads on April 3 and will sell Wi-Fi- and 3G-equipped models 'in late April.' On March 12 you'll be able pre-order either model.

NewsFactor - To improve accessibility for the hearing impaired, YouTube on Thursday rolled out auto-captioning for all users. The video site initiated the project in 2008 and opened it up to a small group of users last November.

Reuters - Apple Inc said the first iPads will be in U.S. stores on April 3 and hit nine international markets from Japan to the United Kingdom later in April.

AFP - Apple announced Friday that its new iPad tablet computer would go on sale in US stores on April 3 and in other countries in late April.

Reuters - Global chip sales could rise by more than a fifth this year, bringing them back above pre-recession levels, industry watcher iSuppli said on Friday.

AFP - China has spent 10 million yuan (1.5 million dollars) on computers for thousands of members of an advisory body attending the annual parliamentary session -- in an effort to reduce paper waste.

PC World - Dish Network owner Echostar is on its last legs in a 6-year-old legal battle with TiVo over DVR technology. An appeals court has found Echostar in contempt for continuing to make and sell DVRs that violate TiVo's 'multimedia time warping system' patent, which essentially lets you watch one program and record another at the same time.

AFP - An Indian mobile phone company has launched a low-cost handset that uses commonly available AAA-sized batteries aimed at the hundreds of millions who live in areas where power supplies are erratic.

AP - Federal regulators trying to bring high-speed Internet connections to all Americans will propose tapping the government program that now subsidizes telephone service in poor and rural areas.

Reuters - Apple Inc said the first iPads will be in U.S. stores on April 3 and hit nine international markets from Japan to the United Kingdom later in April.

AP - Apple's iPad tablet device, with a touch screen that is 9.7 inches diagonally and meant for watching videos, browsing the Web and reading electronic books, goes on sale next month. Six models will be available.

PC World - Intel will release its fastest and highly anticipated eight-core Nehalem-EX server processor later this month, a company executive said late Thursday.

AFP - Xbox Live users are now free to express their race, religion, nationality and sexual orientation in profiles at the popular online videogame community.

PC Magazine - Should you find your way inside a Best Buy this weekend, Samsung is launching three new laptops that could run out of stock very quickly. The Samsung R480, R580 and R780 have the polish and curves of fancy pottery, and are equipped with some compelling features and even better prices.

AP - It's the new front in the nanny state: Microchips placed in garbage bins to monitor how much people throw away.

Reuters - Google Inc stepped up its assault on Microsoft Corp's productivity software business with the acquisition of a small start-up company that allows Microsoft users to edit their documents on the Web.

AP - PCTEL Inc., a supplier of wireless service-related products, reported that it narrowed its loss in the fourth quarter because

NewsFactor - Apple's iPad tablet will go on sale a few days later than originally announced -- a fact that is attracting attention. The company announced Friday that the Wi-Fi version will be released for sale on April 3 in the U.S. At the iPad announcement in January, the Cupertino, Calif.-based company said the product would ship in late March.

Macworld.com - In February, Google acquired the iPhone mail search app reMail—and promptly removed it from the App Store. On Friday, reMail developer Gabor Csell announced that the reMail codebase is now open-source.

PC World - While Microsoft still isn't commenting on whether current Windows Mobile phones will be upgradeable to its new Windows Phone 7 software, it has finally officially revealed that existing applications won't work on the new platform.

NewsFactor - With its search-engine deal with Yahoo approved by regulators, Microsoft is gearing up for another run at challenging Google's commanding market lead. But with comScore reporting Yahoo and Microsoft had 17 percent and 11.3 percent shares of the U.S. search market in January, the partnership will need to do some heavy lifting to dent Google's 65.4 percent share.

NewsFactor - Makers of some applications that seek out Wi-Fi access are now seeking a new home after Apple purged a select group from its App Store. In a blog post this week, 3Jacks Software said it is the latest developer to get the boot from the increasingly choosy App Store.

AP - Shares of Dish Network Corp. got a boost Friday after a Collins Stewart analyst upgraded the satellite TV operator, saying the bulk of a legal defeat from TiVo Inc. is now priced into the stock.

Macworld.com - A new consumer survey from ChangeWave shows that four in ten people who are thinking about buying an e-book reader are planning to get Apple’s iPad. And more than one in four people who had previously purchased a different device say they would have gotten the iPad if it had been available when they shopped.

NewsFactor - Google delivered the latest salvo in its battle to wrest control from Microsoft over office productivity with its purchase of DocVerse, a Microsoft Office collaboration startup. The Wall Street Journal reported the purchase price was $25 million.

AP - DELAYED GRATIFICATION: Apple's iPad tablet computer is due to hit U.S. stores April 3 and international markets later in April. Originally Apple had said the launch would begin in late March.

PC World - Advanced Micro Devices is offering prizes to drum up more interest ahead of this month's launch of its 12-core server chip, as rival Intel also has server-chip launch plans.

PC World - Microsoft will discontinue development of Windows Essential Business Server (EBS) as of June 30, the company announced via a blog.

NewsFactor - Apple is attempting to put the brakes on one of the first Windows Phone 7 Series smartphones. Apple's suit against HTC would block the company from releasing its HD2 mobile phone equipped with Microsoft's new mobile operating system in the U.S.

PC World - This week on the podcast, PCWorld editors Robert Strohmeyer, Jason Cross, Ginny Mies, and Tim Moynihan talk about Apple's lawsuit against HTC and about the brand-new TiVo Series 4 Premiere and XL digital video recorders (DVRs).

AP - Federal regulators trying to bring high-speed Internet connections to all Americans will propose tapping the government program that now subsidizes telephone service in poor and rural areas.

AFP - The Open Net Initiative (ONI) on Friday said Microsoft's search engine Bing is more prudish than government censors when it comes to sex-related online queries.

AP - Mobile phone software developer Sybase Inc. said Friday that it has redeemed $390 million of convertible debt.

AP - Among the stock activity stories for Friday, March 5, from AP Financial News:

Reuters - Google Inc stepped up its assault on Microsoft Corp's productivity software business with the acquisition of a small start-up company that allows Microsoft users to edit and share their documents on the Web.

PC World - A new industry group is trying to apply open-source principles to the design and construction of data centers, which it says could accelerate the use of new technologies and increase competition in the industry.

PC World - Despite the above photo, I'm sorry to report that there were no lolcats in the news this week. But that doesn't mean there wasn't anything to report. This past week saw various chip announcements, more news on 3D displays, and a novel prototype that can effectively turn your skin into a touchscreen. Let's take a look.

PC Magazine - Sony on Friday dismissed as speculation the idea that it will produce a phone that could download and play PlayStation games, as well as an iPad-like tablet device.

AP - Hewlett-Packard Co. trimmed the net income it reported for its fiscal first quarter Friday, saying it has to set aside more money than expected to deal with a lawsuit against it in the U.K.

PC World - Google's got its head in the cloud--again. The search giant today announced that it has bought DocVerse, a software startup that makes an online collaboration plug-in for Microsoft Office. The Wall Street Journal reports that Google paid $25 million for the San Francisco-based developer, which was founded in 2007 by former Microsoft employees Shan Sinha and Alex DeNeui.

AFP - Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak on Friday held firm to his love for Prius cars despite what he suspects is a Toyota software problem behind sudden spikes in acceleration.

AFP - US government cybersecurity efforts are being hampered by a need to better define the roles of the agencies responsible for defending against cyber threats, a US Congressional watchdog said Friday.

Macworld.com - When you talk about the Oscars and a Steve Jobs-led company, it's usually the other one that gets the mention. But this year, Apple scored some Oscar cred of its own: Of the ten documentaries nominated for Oscars, in both the 'Documentary Feature' and 'Documentary Short' categories, a whopping nine were created using Apple's own Final Cut Pro.