Friendster has been award a patent on social networking from the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Patent number 7,069,308 was filed three years ago by Friendster's founder Jonathan Abrams and was awarded on 27 June 2006.

AMD plans to launch the AM2-series Athlon 64 X2 3600+ in the retail market in the third quarter of this year, earlier than expected, to counter Intel's Conroe, according to sources.

Due to pressure from panel makers to cut prices amid falling panel prices, LCD key component and material makers are seeking methods to stay profitable by lowering costs.

Foundry utilization rates may drop from the fourth quarter of this year through the first quarter of next year amid an inventory pileup at customers, according to foundry sources.

Despite its recent success and market share gains, AMD remains vulnerable in the microprocessor price war with Intel and inventory corrections.

Cisco today said that it will acquire privately held Meetinghouse Data Communications in a $43.7 in cash transaction.

Vint Cerf, Internet pioneer and Google VP, has told reporters that if the US Senate does not pass net neutrality laws then Google would readily file antitrust complaints against network operators that discriminated against Internet content providers.

Although widespread virus outbreaks may be a thing of the past, the total amount of malicious software being written is on the rise, according to McAfee.

Apple Computer on Wednesday announced that two lawsuits have been filed against the company as a result of its awarding of stock grants.

While it has decided to place some of its communication and mixed signal-IC foundry orders with its long established partner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), Freescale has also qualified United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC)'s 65-nanometer process, according to industry sources.

Norwegian software company Trolltech, best-known for its "Qt" C++ GUI toolkit, went public today at the Oslo Stock Exchange (OSE).

Rambus today said that Toshiba has extended its existing license covering SDRAM and DDR SDRAM memory controllers.

A second class action suit has been filed against Microsoft in Seattle's U.S. District Court. The suit, filed by a group of businesses and residents, alleges that Microsoft pushes WGA to all Windows machines, whether or not they have Automatic Updates turned on. In addition, the plaintiffs say customers are not informed about the true nature of WGA.

DRAMexchange has a bullish outlook for third quarter DDR2 pricing on an anticipated supply shortfall of 10-20% occurring late in the quarter.

In the market for 40" and larger LCD and PDP (plasma display panel) TVs, full HD (high-definition) TVs (with a resolution of 1920x1080) are likely to emerge as the mainstream with a market share increasing from 3.9% this year to 11.8% by 2007 and 58% by 2010, according to research firm Displaybank.

The lead time for the production of chips compliant with pre-N, or the 802.11n draft 1.0, wireless standard, has recently been extended to 12-16 weeks from the previous 8-12 weeks, as shipments of pre-N devices from Taiwan-based network-equipment makers started gaining momentum in June, according to sources at the makers.

Dell has expanded the relationship with its new notebook contract supplier Asustek Computer, by adding a 14.1" widescreen notebook order to its existing orders for 2007, according to the Chinese-language Commercial Times .

A recent change to AT&T's privacy policy for broadband and video users is overbroad and likely will leave the courts or Congress to decide whether the company's practices are standard or sinister, legal experts said this week.

Data storage specialist EMC has agreed to acquire digital security company RSA Security for slightly less than $2.1 billion.