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NEW YORK (Reuters) – Spansion Inc., the world’s third-biggest maker of flash memory chips, sought bankruptcy protection in a U.S. court on Sunday, becoming the latest chip maker to succumb to falling chip prices and a deepening recession. Spansion, which recently said it was exploring a sale of the company, said it plans to use […]

Security software maker McAfee Inc. reported slightly higher-than-expected quarterly profit and forecast revenue for the current quarter above Wall Street’s expectations, as viruses and malicious programs increasingly flood the market. Sales of security software — applications that guard computers and servers against bad software and viruses — were holding up well in the economic downturn, […]

Google said that for nearly an hour on Saturday, users got an erroneous message when they did searches on many sites, saying, “This site may harm your computer.” The problem began at 9:30 a.m. ET and ended at 10:25 a.m. ET “What happened? Very simply, human error,” the company said on its blog. Google said […]

HELSINKI (Reuters) – Nokia is looking to challenge Blackberry-maker Research in Motion’s (RIM) dominance in mobile e-mail as corporates cut spending amid economic slowdown and the market focus shifts toward retail consumers. RIM created the market for mobile e-mail and its dominant position in the corporate sector has protected it from Nokia’s attempts to crack […]

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s Toshiba Corp said it is in talks to buy Fujitsu Ltd’s hard-disk drive business, a deal that would create the world’s largest maker of small hard drives and is reportedly worth $340-$450 million. Shares of Toshiba and Fujitsu surged more than 5 percent on the news as analysts said the deal […]

(Reuters) – International Business Machines said on Wednesday it became the first company ever to win more than 4,000 U.S. patents in a single year, citing a new report from research firm IFI Patent Intelligence. IBM said it earned 4,186 U.S. patents in 2008, more than triple the number of patents earned by rival Hewlett-Packard. […]

LONDON (Reuters) – Vodafone Group Plc is to make a cash offer for a Swedish navigational software firm to help improve its mobile Internet offering by providing local search, advertising and direction services. Vodafone, the world’s largest mobile phone group by revenue, has targeted growing mobile data revenues as the mobile market becomes saturated, and […]

WASHINGTON (Reuters)-U.S. employers axed payrolls by 533,000 jobs in November, the most in 34 years and far more than expected, government data on Friday showed, as the year-old recession hammered every corner of the U.S. economy. U.S. stock markets opened lower, oil prices and the dollar weakened and U.S. government bond prices rallied as the […]

BARCELONA (Reuters) – World mobile phone leader Nokia is expected to bolster its offering of high-end phones at a media and industry event in Barcelona on Tuesday, where it is also due to outline a push into Internet services. Nokia still dominates the market for smartphones — handsets with computer-like features such as e-mail — […]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A senior U.S. lawmaker plans to introduce a bill in January that would bar Internet providers like AT&T Inc. from blocking Web content, setting up a renewed battle over so-called network neutrality. Sen. Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat, believes a law is essential to prevent telephone and cable companies from discriminating […]

SEATTLE (Reuters) – Microsoft Corp. said on Monday that it reached a Web search deal with Sun Microsystems Inc., the latest partnership struck by Microsoft aimed at chipping away at the dominance of Google Inc. As part of this agreement, users of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser who download Sun’s Java technology platform will be given […]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Google Inc. canceled plans for a search advertising partnership with Yahoo Inc amid opposition from antitrust regulators and advertisers, Google’s chief legal officer said in a blog posting on Wednesday. Yahoo expressed dismay at Google’s decision, saying it was “disappointed that Google has elected to withdraw from the agreement rather than defend […]