InfoWorld - On March 16, Intel introduced its new Xeon 5600 series, code-named Westmere, which offers a dramatic performance leap over the year-old Xeon 5500 series known as Nehalem-EP. Today, the InfoWorld Test Center debuts an in-depth comparative review of three, brand-new Westmere blade servers from the three leading server manufacturers: the Dell PowerEdge M1000e, the HP BladeSystem c7000, and the IBM BladeCenter H.

Reuters - Microsoft's Internet Explorer has lost market share in major European markets, such as France, Britain and Italy, after the U.S. software firm started to make it easier for European consumers to use competing browsers.

PC Magazine - A three-year-old copyright fight reached fever pitch this week when Viacom released 108 pages detailing its complaints against Google. There's a lot more at stake here than a billion dollars.

InfoWorld - Adobe Systems will roll out on Monday a slew of development tools and technologies for the Flash Platform, including a renamed version of its Flex Builder tool as well as an IDE for its ColdFusion platform.

InfoWorld - Everything about the IBM BladeCenter H just screams IBM, from the mainframe-like aesthetics to the spartan management interface -- even the 'H' model name. Severe-looking matte-black chassis notwithstanding, the BladeCenter H matches most of the major features of the Dell and HP blade systems but at a higher price. The BladeCenter also comes in smaller portions: IBM's slightly shorter chassis holds fewer blades than the Dell and HP enclosures.

InfoWorld - In our January 2007 blade server shoot-out, Dell was the dark horse candidate that posted impressive performance numbers, but fell short on features compared to the other solutions. In the intervening few years, Dell has clearly taken the time to polish up its solution. The Dell PowerEdge M1000e is far more attractive and functional than its predecessors.

InfoWorld - One look at the HP BladeSystem c7000 blade chassis and you understand why HP sells a lot of blades.

InfoWorld - The specs for the Supermicro SuperBlade chassis and blades are nowhere near those of the Dell, HP, or IBM blade systems we tested, but then again, neither is the price. The SuperBlade is an incredibly affordable way into blade servers, and though it won't draw many oohs and aahs, it will provide a solid platform for just about any small to medium-size IT endeavor.

AP - AT&T says Dell's first smart phone for the U.S. market will be called the 'Aero.'

Reuters - AT&T Inc will start selling Palm Inc's mobile phones in a few months, Palm said on Monday.

AP - Britain's prime minister says the scientist credited with inventing the World Wide Web will lead a new Internet research institute.

AP - China's state-controlled media intensified criticism of Google on Monday, accusing the U.S. company of playing politics by threatening to shut down its China-based search engine.

Macworld.com - It seems that everyone has their favorite app launcher/wonder app these days whether it be LaunchBar, Quicksilver, or Butler. If you still haven’t found the app launcher for you, and you enjoy bowler hats, might I suggest you check out Alfred?

PC World - Small print shops in India and other emerging markets often cannot afford to buy the software required for print and design services. Xerox researchers in Chennai in southern India are investigating the option of delivering the software to these businesses as a low-cost document service through a cloud computing model.

Macworld.com - If I were a comic book artist, I'd want to be Bill Amend—I simply can't help but admire an author who, all the way back in 2003, was capable of getting a joke about C programming syndicated across hundreds of newspapers worldwide—and on a weekday, too. 

Reuters - AT&T Inc will start selling Palm Inc's mobile phones in a few months, Palm said on Monday, as it looks to expand distribution and raise consumer awareness of its phones.

PC World - Imagine hollowing a space out of a Nerf football with an underside handle to snap in a Wii Remote and you've got the gist of CTA Digital's stab at a lightweight piece of video game pigskin.

AP - Iran must stop jamming satellite broadcasting and censoring the Internet, the European Union said Monday, but the bloc has stopped short of threatening any action if Tehran doesn't agree to it.

AP - Online gaming company Shanda Interactive Entertainment Ltd. said Monday that it would buy back up to $300 million of its U.S.-listed shares.

Macworld.com - Disappointing quarterly results and death knells might stop an ordinary company in its tracks, but Palm continues to forge ahead. Despite stock prices hovering at the $4 mark, the company announced on Monday that it would join forces with AT&T to bring its Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus phones to the carrier.

PC World - As Palm had previously warned, its sales figures released last week were not as high as the company had hoped. Palm's sales figures have declined by 29 percent compared to the same time last year, despite producing WebOS, a new and well-received operating system, and two new WebOS devices, the Palm Pre and Pixi.

PC World - Amazon introduced its e-book shop and reader app for the iPad Monday, entering the battle for e-books dominance against Apple's own iBooks store and Barnes & Noble's e-reader iPad app.

AP - MaxLinear Inc., a maker semiconductors used in products including TVs, cable boxes and PCs, is expected to raise about $42.7 million in an initial public offering this week.

NewsFactor - A startup has announced a new kind of high-performance image sensor, which it says will revolutionize 'the way light is captured.' InVisage Technologies said its new technology, called QuantumFilm, is the 'world's first commercial quantum dot-based image sensor,' and added that it will replace conventional silicon-based sensors.

AFP - Finnish high technology exports shrunk 45 percent last year to levels last seen in 1997 as mobile phone sales plummeted, official statistics showed Monday.

Macworld.com - iPhone owners unhappy with AT&T’s service now have a new—and unlikely—friend: Sprint.

PC World - The term 'quantum leap' has a double meaning for technology that promises to overhaul cell phone cameras.

PC Magazine - TeleNav has unveiled GPS Navigator 6.0, the latest version of the company's venerable navigation service for cell phones.

AP - A group of engineers and enthusiasts who leased an old Polaroid film factory in the Netherlands announced Monday that they had successfully reinvented instant film and will start selling packs this week.

AP - The European Union said Monday it wants the United States and others to publish a draft global anti-piracy deal to end rumors that it advocates cutting off Internet access for illegal downloaders.

Reuters - British price comparison website Foundem's chief executive said it was confident EU antitrust regulators will launch a formal probe into Google's business practices based on its complaint.

Reuters - Activists launched an online video game on Monday to attack leading politicians' support for development of Canada's oil sands, which greens portray as a crime against nature.

PC World - Videogame bloodbaths may have met their match overseas as Switzerland's National Council passed two new resolutions -- not yet laws -- that will ban violent video games. This sweep of censorship awaits only the Swiss government's definition of inappropriate amounts of violence. Once they become laws, this could disembowel gory franchises like Grand Theft Auto, God of War, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare.

PC Magazine - We got some hands-on play time with Sony's wireless motion-based controller system for PS3, the PlayStation Move.

PC Magazine - Microsoft on Monday launched its Talk to Text mobile application, which allows BlackBerry users on Sprint to accurately transcribe their texts and e-mails

PC Magazine - Thumbplay has now released its cloud-based mobile music service in public beta, and is no longer invitation-only.

Reuters - Activists launched an online video game on Monday to attack leading politicians' support for development of Canada's oil sands, which greens portray as a crime against nature.

Macworld.com - While Washington debated the merits of its proposed health care bill, Apple CEO Steve Jobs made a rare public appearance at a hospital in Palo Alto to champion his own cause: organ donation. Last year, Jobs received a liver transplant in Tennessee after taking a leave of absence from work for health reasons. On Friday, at a press conference held at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, Jobs spoke in detail about his procedure and about California’s proposed measure to help other residents on the state’s waiting list.

NewsFactor - Microsoft is stepping up its commitment to desktop virtualization. Late last week, the software giant announced new virtualization technologies, a simplified licensing structure, and an expanded alliance with Citrix Systems.

InfoWorld - Red Hat rolled out on Monday updates to its SOA platform and development tools in the company's JBoss middleware product line at the EclipseCon 2010 conference.

NewsFactor - Cybercrime. It's a threat that impacts 20 percent of online shoppers. It's an issue that cost Americans $560 million in 2009 in online fraud. And it's a topic that may hit closer to home than we realize, according to Symantec.

NewsFactor - With the coming addition of Palm to its inventory, AT&T will soon be the only carrier that can boast of offering devices based on all five of the top smartphone operating systems: Apple's iPhone, Palm's webOS, Research in Motion's BlackBerry OS, Microsoft's Windows Mobile and Google's Android.

PC World - Toshiba announced its new UX600 LED TV, a Wi-Fi-enabled HDTV that can stream content straight to its display without network cables. What makes this TV a standout in the already crowded field of LED TVs?

AP - The sweeping national broadband plan that federal regulators delivered to Congress last week doesn't go far enough to satisfy some experts who warn that the United States would still trail other industrialized nations in prices and speed.

Reuters - China said on Tuesday that Google Inc had violated a 'written promise' and was 'totally wrong' to end censorship of its Chinese-language search portal, signaling a tough line over the Internet dispute.

NewsFactor - What happens in Vegas won't stay in Vegas this week. CTIA -- The Wireless Association is kicking off its three-day International CTIA Wireless show where Sprint Nextel is slated to launch a new 4G phone and top brass from AT&T and Telefonica will deliver keynote addresses.

PC World - Apple's iPad will be available on April 3 and reports suggest that the product is off to a good start, with hundreds and thousands being ordered from Apple's Web site. But the device has faced some criticism for lacking features such as a video camera, USB ports and support for technology called Flash that enables Web video.

NewsFactor - Microsoft's delivery of a browser choice screen to European PC users this month is already beginning to have an effect on the software giant's market share within the European Union. For example, the latest statistics from StatCounter suggest that the new browser ballot is driving Internet Explorer share declines in France, the United Kingdom, Italy and elsewhere.

Macworld.com - The App Store was built on the foundations of its predecessor, the iTunes Store, but some features of the latter didn't immediately appear in the former. On Monday, the App Store filled in another hole in functionality as Apple added the ability to gift apps.

AP - Dish Network is suing DirecTV for false advertising over commercials touting its high-definition channels.

Macworld.com - I hope you’re not hanging on to all that Amazon stock: according to The New York Times, Apple has signed a deal with Perseus Books, a large independent book publisher that also distributes 330 smaller imprints like Zagat and Harvard Business School Press, to resell its books in electronic format on the iPad.

Macworld.com - On Monday, Active Media unveiled the eSATA USB SSD Drive, a portable flash drive that features both an eSATA connection and a USB 2.0 port.

PC World - SanDisk today announced a removable memory card for mobile phones that offers a whopping 32-gigabytes of storage--not too shabby for a device that's roughly the size of a thumbnail. The new microSDHC 32GB card doubles the storage capacity of the vendor's 16GB microSDHC offering, which debuted just over a year ago. The bad news is that the 32GB model costs $200, or nearly four times the street price of most 16GB microSDHC cards.

PC World - Amazon has posted a preview of the future of e-books, its Kindle e-reader app for Apple's forthcoming iPad. Amazon, the top e-book reseller, is teaming its e-book format with the most anticipated tablet device we've seen so far. Altogether, that will almost certainly make the iPad the world's top e-reader when deliveries begin April 3.

PC World - Ready the Bat-Signal, Seattle: You are officially the most dangerous city in America when it comes to cybercrime. According to the folks at Symantec, anyway.

Macworld.com - Now Software appears to be nevermore. In a letter posted to the Web, Now Software co-owner and president John Wallace announced that the company is suspending day-to-day operations.

Reuters - Former heads of Sprint Nextel Corp and RadioShack Corp have launched a company aimed at refurbishing or recycling the estimated 65,000 metric tons of old cellphones U.S. consumers ditch every year and named Sprint as its first customer.

Reuters - Warner Bros. is bringing the video game 'Spy Hunter' to the big screen.

PC World - Symantec has released a report detailing the 50 riskiest cities in America--at least when it comes to cybercrime. Businesses already located in these cities, or planning to set up shop in one of the 50 riskiest cities, don't need to pack up and leave town, but the report raises awareness and alerts IT administrators to be extra vigilant.