Online travel agent Ebookers cut its losses in the third quarter thanks to a lower wage bill arising from job cuts. The firm said it is still in discussions about a possible sale and "a further announcement will be made in due course".

The publisher of the Wall Street Journal is buying CBSMarketwatch for $519m. Dow Jones and Co is paying $18 per share for the San Francisco firm behind cbsmarketwatch.com. This represents a premium of 7.2 per cent based on Friday's closing price or 46.5 per cent based on the 60 day average price.

Japanese memory maker Elpida IPO'd on the Tokyo stock exchange this morning, floating 32.6 per cent of the company.

AMD has updated its roadmap, stretching its public processor production plan out into 2006 to add a pair of new CPUs to its future line-up.

Some 1800 people have registered for online roulette from casino Spielbank Wiesbaden since the service opened in July, Heise Online reports. Spielbank Wiesbaden operates Germany's only licenced internet roulette operation.

The Comptroller and Auditor General for Northern Ireland has published a damning report into the cancellation of a human resources and payroll system for the Northern Ireland civil service. The project cost £3.3m and after nine years never delivered a workable system.

There is a distinct lack of foppish wit and public school drollery to be had this morning down at the website of sacked shadow Arts minister Boris Johnson — made to walk the plank over the weekend after allegedly lying to Conservative supremo Michael Howard over an affair with luscious blue-blood hackette Petronella Wyatt.

Intel's 3.8GHz Pentium 4 570J has yet to be added to the chip maker's price list, but it's expected to be launched today and indeed has already started appearing in the Japanese chip stores.

Sony will ship an updated version of its Vaio U-series tiny PC next month, increasing the micro marvel's hard drive capacity and processor speed.

Thus, the Glasgow-based alternative telco, blamed fierce competition for a slide in earnings as rival operators scrap hard for new business. Confirmation that market conditions remain tough came as the company behind the Demon internet brand reported that while turnover for the six months to the end of September was up 13 per cent at £177.5m, EBITDA (earnings before interest etc) slipped to £18.1m from £20.6m last year.

As Vodafone bids for space in Santa’s sack with the long-awaited launch of 3G mobiles, it could be a long awaited Christmas present for a sector of the mobile industry which has been having an utterly miserable time.

Talk of iPod's rumoured low-cost Flash-based iPod continues with the claim that Apple will put the machine into production next month in a bid to build stockpiles sufficient to satisfy post-Christmas demand.

Two people were arrested last week for allegedly masterminding a multi-million dollar software software piracy ring following a joint operation by Greek and British police. The duo, one Greek and one Briton, are accused of selling counterfeit computer aided design software for $905, much less than the going rate, Reuters reports. The news agency adds that police allegedly recovered a computer, three hard disks and 7,000 CDs of "warez" pirated software in the process of arresting the pair.

Tiscali reckons it's still on course to make a profit next year as it continued to improve key financial indicators during the last quarter. Revenues were up 22 per cent in the three months to the end of September from €222m (£155m) last year to €270.6m (£188.5m). The European ISP made a pre-tax loss of €33.3m (£23m), a 54 per cent improvement compared to the €73.6m (£51m) pre-tax loss recorded last year.

A tripartite alliance of scientists has developed what it claims will will be the solution to the perennial cockroach problem - a robotic Judas roach which will have the capability to seek, locate and betray its insect counterparts. The Belgian, French and Swiss team says that the invention is "a breakthrough in mankind’s struggle to control the animal kingdom", the Times reports.

UpdatedThe UK will this week see the launch of music download vending machines that allow punters to purchase songs for cash as easily as buying soft drinks or snacks.

European online sales during the holiday season are set to reach €13bn, according to Forrester Research released. This is €3bn more than the US, at €10bn ($13bn).

BT is to offer Research in Motion's Blackberry mobile email and personal information management system, the UK telco said today.

Specialist Computer Holdings saw turnover increase 8.3 per cent to £1.88bn for the year ended 31 March 2004. Operating profit for the year - before exceptional items - was £30.7m, up slightly from £30.6m for 2003.

Network Appliance plans a virtualisation-powered push for its gFiler storage controllers, which are currently sold to add NAS to Hitachi and IBM disk arrays. New software enables gFiler to provision both NAS and SAN volumes from a single virtualised pool of storage.

A theoretical physicist at the University of Nevada has published a paper alleging that Einstein did not derive the gravitational field equations at the heart of the General Theory of Relativity, and might in fact have copied key equations from fellow physicist David Hilbert.

Grokster has partnered with 'P2P radio' company Mercora to offer what it claims is "the Internet's largest, legal and licensed peer-to-peer music search and discovery service".

Miami-Dade police have announced a review of policy after two kids were zapped with Tasers within a couple of weeks of each other. Tasers fire wire probes which hit suspects with a debilitating electric shock.

ReviewThe diminutive Optio X features a swivel-body design that rotates through 270 degrees. One section houses an excellent 3x optical zoom lens, 5.2 megapixel CCD and flash unit, while the meat of the camera is in the other, larger section, which includes a large, 2in LCD, camera controls, battery and removable SD/MMC storage, writes Doug Harman.

Wireless switch specialist Aruba will next year bring to wired networks the same tight security it provides for WLANs in a bid to provide better protection from inside-the-firewall attacks.

Lexmark has firmly denied installing spyware on its customers' computers, after allegations appeared on a Usenet newsgroup that its printers install software that sends personal information back to the company.

After talking up its new line of blade servers for months, Dell went ahead today and delivered some product.

If you can't beat them, join them and then beat them.