Intel chose to launch its Sonoma chipset at the Ferry Building in San Francisco yesterday, which is San Francisco's Ellis Island, in its way. Generations arrived here, wide-eyed, with only the curves of Los Pechos de la Choca, as the Spanish called it ("the breasts of the Indian girl") rising up at the end of Market Street in the distance. The Protestants subsequently renamed these two fine hills "Twin Peaks", so there's no mistaking what they had in mind either.

Any reporter who has covered Dell for a couple of years has heard the stories about the company's iron-fisted negotiating tactics. Dell's size lets it put enormous pressure on partners, suppliers and rivals. Now it seems Dell has extended these Wal-Mart like ways to hammering entire states.

Almost half of all households in Western Europe - 72m in total - will be be hooked up to broadband by 2010 as the cost of high-speed net access continues to fall.

DRM is coming to consumer electronics kit courtesy of an alliance between some of the arena's biggest names and DRM developer Intertrust, it has emerged.

LG Electronics has ruled itself out of the running to acquire Siemens' loss-making mobile phone business.

Intel has made public a preliminary version of its 'Vanderpool' virtualisation technology specification in a bid to boost support for the technique.

Virus writers have created a worm which poses as breaking news alerts. Crowt-A's subject line and attachment share the same name, but continually change to mirror the front-page headline on CNN's website. The message text is also lifted from CNN as part of a social engineering technique designed to trick users into believing infected emails are pukka.

Chip makers saw the ratio of new orders to shipped product fall last month, suggesting the semiconductor industry hasn't yet moved out of its current dip.

Motherboard maker ABIT may have reached an agreement with its creditors to defrost cash and credit lines frozen last month.

Intel's first 65nm desktop chip will ship in Q1 2006 alongside its 65nm Pentium M, it has been claimed.

One of China's largest telcos is to shell out $1bn (£536m) for a 20 per cent slice of Hong Kong-based telecoms outfit PCCW.

Intel's 64-bit Pentium 4 processors have gone on sale in Japan, local media report.

We have seen many times how major mobile operators are seeking to reduce their costs and increase their differentiation by taking the driving seat in terms of handset design and procurement, working with low cost, unbranded manufacturers and sidelining the handset majors, in order to assert their own control and enhance their ability to customize and constantly adapt their handsets to attract customers.

Many small retailers are unaware of who is liable in the event of fraud concerning new Chip and PIN credit cards, according to the Federation of Small Business (FSB).

AnalysisThe news that the 802.16-2004 certification process was delayed by about six months was not a great surprise, although it is ironic that lack of chips from Intel seems to be one of the problems. The main negative impact will be on investor confidence and overall perception of WiMAX, since most operators are either going ahead with prestandard equipment or have long roll-out schedules anyway. However, the delay will prompt scepticism about the program, and this will be far more serious if it has a knock-on effect on the upcoming mobile standard, 802.16e. It is essential that, from now on, the WiMAX Forum sets realistic deadlines and does not allow further risk of backlash against its technologies

ColumnThe law of unintended consequences shows us how many innocent innovations like email, anti-virus and DRM can become something far worse than the inventors had ever imagined.

ATI this week introduced a mainstream mobile X-class graphics processor, the Mobility Radeon X700.

A French court has ruled that Google's keyword advertising service infringes on the trademark of Le Meridian Hotels, and has ordered the company to stop using the trademark to trigger advertisements for Le Meridian's competitors. The judge ordered Google to pay all court fees, and a €2000 ($2595) fine.

UpdatedA skint Londoner has decided to offer the eBayer who has everything - except space in which to store more online bargains - the chance to secure, well, absolutely nothing. Read on:

A Japanese woman faces a charge of "illegal access" after coughing to using her ex-boyfriend's username and password to access online game Lineage, the Mainichi Daily News reports.

Sony has shipped 800,000 PlayStation Portable (PSP) handheld consoles, the electronics giant said yesterday.

Police in China have arrested 600 people and seized CNY23m (£1.5m) as part of a countrywide crackdown on illegal online gambling.

Episode 2So we've been dragged into Beancounter land after a change in purchasing policy means that absolutely all kit is now going to be bought by the IT Purchasing bloke in accounts to make sure that we get the absolute best deal that we POSSIBLY could ever get.

The US Supreme Court will begin hearing spoken testimonies from the movie industry and the world of peer-to-peer networking on 29 March in order to help it decide whether P2P software providers are responsible for the actions of their users.

A tutor at Cardiff University has calculated that - for the UK at least - next Monday, 24 January will mark a zenith of misery for the country as semi-sucicidal Brits descend into a black mire of depression and despair, the BBC reports.

Police yesterday arrested a 28-year-old man from East London on suspicion of attempting to hack into the website of the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC). The New Year's Eve attack on the site of the organisation co-ordinating efforts to help support victims of the Asian tsunami disaster failed.

Scientists at Manchester University have built a printer which can output human skin suitable for grafts, the Manchester News reports.

BT is slapping a £5 charge on late payers in a bid to recoup some of the admin costs involved in chasing punters.

Climatologist Barbara Maher has been awarded the Chree Medal and Prize, the Institute of Physics' highest honour, for her work on predicting climate change on Earth.

Swedish scientists have shown that young men who score well in intelligence tests are less likely to commit suicide, according to a Reuters report.

Gizmondo's scheme to open a retail store in London's 'swinging' Carnaby Street has come to nothing, The Register can reveal.

A trial version of Microsoft software designed to rid Windows PCs of spyware is provoking complaints about false alerts. Microsoft said it is working with other vendors to resolve teething troubles with its Microsoft Windows AntiSpyware application, released to the public as a beta earlier this month.

Microsoft has created a new role: National Technology Officer (NTO). The post's remit is to oversee the development of the software giant's strategy in the lucrative public sector market.

HP has become the latest member of the Intergraph settlement club, agreeing to pay the company $141m to clear up legal disputes. HP joins Intel, Dell, TI, AMD and Gateway as companies that have forked over cash to Intergraph largely to cover lawsuits over chip patents.

LettersA pretty lighthearted letters bag this week, with plenty of odd musings on various subjects. We'll begin, however, with a thought about Redmond's finest's new subscription email service:

IBM looks set to make a new, lower-end addition to its line of Power-based servers designed to run the Linux operating system, The Register can reveal.

Aggrieved Verizon customers are invited to join a class action that seeks damages arising from the US ISP's enthusiastic email filtering policies. Philadelphia law firm Kohn, Swift & Graf, P.C. filed suit this week against Verizon on behalf of a DSL subscriber in a civil case that seeks class action status.

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Michael Powell is stepping down after serving four years as chairman and approximately six years as a commissioner.