AFP - Japanese electronics giant NEC Corp. said Friday it has created a world-first real-time translator on a cellphone, which can instantly turn Japanese travellers' words into English.
Reuters - Sony Corp's (6758.T) PlayStation 3
outsold Nintendo Co Ltd's (7974.OS) Wii game console in Japan
in November for the first time, raising the prospect that Sony
might regain its dominance in the global videogame market.
AP - Seeking to keep the peace in its popular online hangout, Facebook Inc. has overhauled a new advertising system that sparked privacy complaints by turning its users into marketing tools for other companies.
AP - LOS ANGELES (AP) — Hollywood studios presented a new contract offer to striking film and TV writers Thursday that the studios said would pay writers millions of dollars extra for shows created for the Internet.
Reuters - Seven in 10 homes in the Netherlands
had a broadband Internet connection at the end of the third
quarter, with the total number of connected households topping
5.43 million, a survey found on Friday.
Reuters - Confronted with mounting privacy
protests, Facebook.com has scaled back a Web monitoring feature
that notifies one's friends when the Facebook user visits
affiliated Web sites, the company said on Thursday.
Reuters - Sony Corp said it plans to sell
auto-related programs such as the BBC's Top Gear series to
users of its PlayStation 3 via the Internet, strengthening the
game machine's appeal as a gateway to the Web.
PC World - For its fourth-generation network, Verizon will use a technology that will give individual users performance comparable to today's wired broadband.
AP - Microsoft Corp.’s Windows XP operating system is about to get faster and Windows Vista isn’t, according to a report that caused a stir online this week as industry watchers speculated that a zippier XP could keep customers from upgrading to Vista.
AP - The Chinese government on Thursday disputed a report labeling it the world’s most aggressive offender in probing for holes in other nations’ Internet security and encouraging a looming global cyber showdown.