Symantec sued Microsoft almost 2 years ago for violating licensing terms on its patented technology in Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. The suit has finally come to an apparently amicable settlement.

Financial terms were not disclosed by either party, both of whom requested to dismiss the case from the Seattle U.S. District Court "without an award of costs or fees to either party."

Thanks to a spike in post-holiday sales, Apple's iTunes online store outsold long-time top music retailer Wal-Mart in the United States during both January and February, the company said Thursday.

Research firm NPD has been tracking the meteoric rise of iTunes among music retailers since it broke the top ten sellers in the third quarter 2005. It entered the rankings at number seven behind Circuit City, FYE, Amazon.com, Target, Best Buy, and Wal-Mart.

Confirming the rumors that devices such as Asus' Eee PC are prolonging the life of XP, Microsoft today announced that the previously-established June 30, 2008 cutoff date for OEM and retail Windows XP sales was final, except for the new class of what the company has termed ULCPCs: Ultra Low-Cost PCs.

The nebulously-named class of computers including UMPCs, MIDs, Origami devices, subnotebooks and even desktops that offer lower power have received the official Ultra Low Cost PC (ULCPC) moniker from Microsoft.

The Classmate PC, Intel's answer to OLPC's so-called XO-1 "$100 Laptop" (powered by AMD), is now in its second generation, with Intel already looking toward future models based upon the Atom architecture.

The new Classmate PC's debut took place today at the Intel Developer Forum in Shanghai. Built upon Intel's Celeron M processor and supporting Windows XP and Linux variants, the low-cost portable computers the company has termed "netbooks" offer 802.11b/g and MESH network capabilities, two USB 2.0 ports and one SD slot standard.

Consumers are finally seeing WiMAX adoption across a small range of ultraportables and mobile Internet devices (MIDs), with plenty more reported to be coming. But the question is still "When?"

WiMAX, or Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, is based on the IEEE 802.16 standard, and can be simply classified as the next generation of Wi-Fi for wide-area deployments. WiMAX is considered a "4G" technology and has broad industry support, but it's run into numerous hurdles along the way.

Mobile text messaging as a form of order placement has seen early adoption in the fast food industry, and now it comes to the Internet's largest retailer.

Late yesterday, Amazon launched TextBuyIt, a system that enables shoppers to text Amazon a keyword or a product's UPC/ISBN to compare prices and buy items.

At the Intel Developer Forum in Shanghai today, the highly anticipated Atom microprocessors, designed especially for use in ultra portables/mobile internet devices (MIDs) and embedded systems were given their official SKU numbers and unit prices along with detailed specs.

Intel's Atom microarchitecture is made up of the company's smallest chips yet with a die size of 7.8mm x 3.1mm and total Thermal Design Point of under 3 watts. These tiny processors offer speeds of up to 1.8Ghz while requiring very little power to do so.

Adobe today released a beta version of Lightroom 2.0, the company's photo management and editing toolkit, which adds non-destructive localized editing and a slew of other new features.

Photographers have had a lot of updates to deal with in recent weeks, with Apple's Aperture receiving the ability to employ third-party plug-ins, Adobe releasing its Web-based version of Photoshop, after having to pull the Lightroom 1.4 update due to EXIF Timestamp Errors, DNG conversion errors in Windows, and Olympus JPEG conversion errors.

Following in the footsteps of Lenovo, Toshiba unveiled its upgraded Satellite line that seeks to appeal to the casual user with a heavy emphasis on style.

The Satellite U400, M300, A300, and P300 all received a chassis overhaul with a glossy "Fusion" finish. The touchpad is flush with the keypad surface, and multimedia command keys have been mounted under the finish, offering what Toshiba calls "feather touch" sensitive surface.

Verizon Wireless has partnered with News Over Wireless to deliver local news content over V CAST Video.

News Over Wireless is a division of the Capitol Broadcasting Company out of North Carolina which encodes local TV content in small packages suitable for mobile consumption. The company already works with Sprint, supplying local content to its Power Vision mobile video service.

LG announced the debut of its new Vu handset at CTIA Wireless today in Las Vegas. The device is one of the first two that will support AT&T's Mobile TV service launching in July.

Equipped with a 3-inch touchscreen and "minimalist" scroll bar interface, the Vu is reportedly a not-so-distant cousin of the Korean company's KS20 Prada phone in design. The 3G Vu offers HSDPA support like its designer counterpart, which offers speeds up to 3.6Mbps in Europe, but only 1.4Mbps in the United States.

Shortly after opening to the public, Adobe's Photoshop Express web-based photo editor came under scrutiny for a questionable clause in its Terms of Use.

The passage in question is the following: "Adobe does not claim ownership of Your Content. However, with respect to Your Content that you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Services, you grant Adobe a worldwide, royalty-free, nonexclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sublicensable license to use, distribute, derive revenue or other remuneration from, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, publicly perform and publicly display such Content (in whole or in part) and to incorporate such Content into other Materials or works in any format or medium now known or later developed."

Sony Pictures Television has announced that it will provide its own linear movie channel called PIX with the AT&T's mobile TV service launching this May.

AT&T's MediaFLO-based Mobile TV service which was recently announced to be coming in May, will be unveiled with two exclusive content channels, Sony Pictures Television's PiX is one of them. Nonexclusive partner channels include ESPN, NBC, CBS, and Nickelodeon, which all broadcast on Verizon's VCAST TV service as well.

Garmin, makers of popular handheld navigation devices, has announced the availability of Google Local content in its Garmin Mobile software, available on numerous handheld platforms.

Though many of its Nuvi devices are equipped with MSN Direct to provide detailed data such as gas prices and realtime traffic reports, Garmin has recently paired with Google to deliver premium content in its handset navigation sector.

Well over a year after it announced it had wrested a major digital TV platform announcement away from Sprint, AT&T finally said this morning it would be debuting MediaFLO service in the US next month.

More information about the upcoming service -- for instance, what it will be named, which exclusive channels it will supply -- will be announced at CTIA in Las Vegas. In the meantime, we do know AT&T's launch devices will include LG's Vu and Samsung's Access.