Dell has confirmed its chief technology officer Kevin Kettler plans to step down soon, although the PC vendor is adamant his retirement is not a part of Dell's recent layoffs and cutbacks.

Following a judge's temporary restraining order, Yahoo! Argentina has blocked all web searches for the country's most famous son: notorious football cheat Diego Maradona.

Microsoft is prepping developers for the latest version of Internet Explorer on Windows Mobile, while trying to lock America's biggest wireless carrier into an internet search deal.

Today, x64 chip maker Advanced Micro Devices will launch its "Shanghai" quad-core Opteron processors for servers and workstations, concurrent with its annual financial analyst day meeting and ahead of schedule by AMD's reckoning.

After a brief delay, the non-profit group that oversees the internet's address system has decided to proceed with plans to revoke the credentials of EstDomains, a domain name registrar with a reputation for catering to cyber criminals.

Apple has banned version 1.3 of return7's CastCatcher internet radio service from the iPhone App Store, complaining that it's "transferring excessive volumes of data over the cellular network."

ReviewUsing cheap earphones on your expensive MP3 player is as pointless as spending all your money on a triple SLI graphics set-up and using a 14in CRT to watch it all on.

BT is to cut 10,000 permanent and contractor jobs before the end of the financial year in March.

A month ago Intel CEO Paul Otellini didn't know "what impact the financial crisis will have on end customer demand". He does now and it's not good. Intel has cut fourth quarter revenue guidance by ten per cent, citing weakening global demand and PC supply chain inventory reduction.

The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) has called for the British government to give development of low-carbon technology the same emphasis as it does that of weaponry.

The Ministry of Justice has cancelled a tender for mobile telephone detection equipment in prisons, having failed to find a suitable vendor.

This is short and sweet - big time law enforcement fail in Texas, courtesy of FAIL Blog:

Apple's next MacBook Air may be made out of carbon fibre, sources close to the company have claimed.

A new mobile number sales middleman has sprung up, calling itself Numbuz. The company aims to facilitate sales of memorable mobe numbers, while taking a cut for its services.

The One Laptop Per Child buy one, give one scheme kicks off again next week, and this time the offer's open to Europeans.

Google Earth has hooked up with the University of Virginia to produce a 3D rendition of Rome in the year 320AD featuring 250 "highly detailed" and 5000+ other buildings:

Users of Firefox need to update their browser software again following the publication of patches by Mozilla on Wednesday.

HTC has taken the wraps off its rumoured "4G" phone - the world's first handset to integrate WiMax, Wi-Fi and cellular connectivity.

Police data sharing across the Atlantic and within European is being stymied by technical hurdles and caution over privacy and operational security.

NetApp is refusing to give guidance for the next quarter. You can guess why.

Lego has failed in its bid to register the shape of its play bricks as trade marks. A European court said that the brick shape was functional and that it had to be that shape to operate as it did, so could not be registered as a trade mark.

Here's a conundrum. Top Media People want to come out of the shadows and get "closer to their listeners" - it's what the Web 2.0 people urge them to do. BBC people in particular are obsessed with being seen to be bossy or "out-of-touch" - especially since three out of four license payers have a gripe with the corporation.

A US-based prescription processing and benefits firm has taken the unusual step of offering a $1m bounty for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of an unknown group which targeted it in a cyber-extortion scam.

Microsoft is giving its Windows Live services a social networking makeover in the hope of being a contender in the ulcerative Web 2.0 world.

Chip maker ARM is to get Ubuntu Linux up and running on its ARMv7 processor architcture, part of its plan to get its chips into netbooks and handheld internet devices.

One of Nominet's four non-executive directors has resigned amid accusation and counter accusation of wrongdoing at the not-for-profit company that runs the .uk registry.

More than 12,000 people have been wrongly branded criminals due to mistakes on their criminal records, the government has revealed.

The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) has ordained that a Yorkshire pudding is not in fact a Yorkshire pudding if it's less than four inches tall, and has issued the definitive recipe for the traditional pud so aficionados can bake 'em up just like granny used to.

It's not just ARM that wants a piece of Intel's Atom action - Qualcomm does to. It's launched a "new PC alternative" reference design based on its 3G technology in a bid to win over netbook makers.

ReviewWith the release of the A-series Walkman, Sony finally bid a probably less-than-fond farewell to its ATRAC and SonicStage past. Now with the release of the B-, E- and S-class Walkman players, Sony is fleshing out the range.

British punters are getting short-changed by telecoms companies because they struggle to get enough information to properly decide which tariff or deal to accept.

McLaren Electronic Systems has partnered chip maker Freescale to not only improve the Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS) in sibling company McLaren Racing's 2011 Formula 1 challenger but also of seeing smaller, lighter, more efficient hybrid systems trickle down to the average motorist.

AnalysisAs everyone knows, runaway piracy is a terrible threat. Unchecked, pirates might destroy the very business models which underpin much of our economy, bringing legitimate commerce to a halt - with devastating consequences both for those who make things and for those who use them.

The WiMAX camp should be celebrating the launch of the first WiMAX/GSM mobile phone, but instead the technology backers are under fire from the ITU for trying to paint a redesign as an evolution.

An alliance of Eastern-European boffins has achieved what they describe as a "landmark technique for AI". The I in this case, however, stands not for Intelligence but Insemination, and the breakthrough is the the world's first live birth achieved using frozen rhinoceros semen.

Dimension Data grew revenues by 19.5 per cent and net profits by 32.8 per cent in the year ended 30 September 2008.

Network operator 3 has unveiled a handset that’ll make Facebook fans up and down the country jump for joy.

Unite has hit out at Hewlett-Packard for making more job cuts in Britain - mostly among its EDS staff - than anywhere else in Europe.

You’d better watch out if you own a modified Xbox 360 and are a fan of Xbox Live - Microsoft has got its eye on you.

Contrary to popular belief, phishers make little or no money, according to a study by two Microsoft researchers.

Microsoft will cough up more than $1bn for research and development projects in China over the next three years.

The crew of space shuttle Endeavour is set for tomorrow's scheduled launch to the International Space Station on mission STS-126 to equip the outpost with extra kit for its intended expansion to accommodate six full-time residents.

When thinking about the Google Yahoo deal and why we felt it was out and out anti-trust, we were reminded of an old joke. When it was told to us years ago it was about an accountant, but the punchline was the same.

In the ramp ahead of the launch of the new "Shanghai" quad-core Opteron processors for servers and workstations, Advanced Micro Devices lined up some niche players in dense rack and blade servers for commercial data centers and high performance computing clusters often used at government and academic supercomputing centers. But none of the tier one server partners were at the Shanghai pre-launch event.

Raids hit suspected internet drug peddling operations in nine countries on Wednesday as part of a international crackdown coordinated by Interpol.

Once again the observant techbeat watcher finds his or her lower-torso garments endampened by fear, as news emerges that heavyweight US military nerds believe that they have developed IT tech which can "regenerate" autonomously, allowing it to self-repair in the face of shutdown attempts - and even to learn and develop its capabilities. More terrifyingly still, plans are afoot to put this technology into the US forces' next generation of robotic weaponry.

Intel has enlisted chip rivals to push for making parallel programming a higher priority on computer science courses.

A former sysadmin faces six-to-12 years behind bars after admitting using his IT skills to conduct a series of burglaries, computer intrusions, and identity thefts in San Jose, California.

Cisco CEO John Chambers claims to have a ‘playbook’ for coping with recessions, and two of its principles of survival are to prepare for the upturn in order to benefit more than rivals, and to use customers’ own pressures during the bad times to deepen relationships with them. Both of these principles will be tested in the company’s strengthening push into the wireless and converged carrier market, for which its new ASR 9000 edge router – designed for the ‘zettabyte era’ – is a flagship product.

Mark Papermaster is a Power microprocessor God - a Powermaster, if you will - and must not enter Apple's paradise. He could make miracles happen there and screw IBM's competitive positioning.

Google's share price has dipped below $300 for the first time in three years, after some Wall Street guessmen decided the ad broker's revenues are on the wane.

Attorneys for the University of Tennessee student accused of breaking into Alaska Governor Sarah Palin's email account have filed a small forest's worth of court documents in defense of the high-profile suspect. Among them is a motion to prohibit prosecutors from referring to their client as a hacker.

The Wii’s been hit with yet another patent violation claim, this time by a US firm alleging that the console’s controllers its ‘Human Movement Measurement System’ (HMMS).

Microsoft wants you to know that its Live Search bribery program has seen "positive traction," claiming that searchified cashback offers have resulted in a significant return on investment for its advertisers. The question is whether Microsoft will ever see ROI for itself.

Microsoft's internal advice when you're potentially treading on someone else's patent? "Ignorance is bliss."