Ed Oswald

China has decided to back away from its proposed policy of requiring bloggers to register for blogs with their real name, instead opting for a less strict policy that would 'encourage' self-policing.

The communist country's plans drew criticism from human rights groups and bloggers worldwide. First proposed in October of last year, the rule was aimed at keeping dissention to a minimum, as subversion is a serious crime in the China.

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The U.S. Supreme Court has halted an antirust lawsuit against the regional Bell companies on Monday, saying the case needed specific allegations in order to continue.

A class action suit alleged that the companies had a pact not to compete with one another and offer service in their own territories. However, the case was light on facts and evidence, and by a 7-2 vote, the judges reversed an earlier appeals court ruling that let it go forward.

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MySpace has acquiesced to demands from several states' attorneys general, saying it would release data on sex offenders it has identified and removed from its site.

The social networking company had originally cited federal privacy laws in declining to release the information. However, following legal actions and subpoenas filed by several of the seven states' attorneys, MySpace released the information.

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Dell confirmed Friday its plans to offer a tablet PC based on its popular line of Latitude notebook PCs. The first device will be appearing later this year, the company's business product group head Jeff Clarke confirmed in a video posted to the company blog.

"I am here to end much speculation in the industry that there is about our plans to enter the tablet marketplace," Clarke said. "In fact, I'm here to confirm that we will enter the market later this year with a Latitude Tablet PC."

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Blizzard plans to release a sequel to the popular WarCraft-based space multiplayer game StarCraft, the company confirmed over the weekend.

A preview event in Korea showed off the new game, however the company remained light on specifics. It will be the first major update for the title since StarCraft was released in 1998.

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The highly-anticipated 80GB version of the PlayStation 3 will launch in South Korea on June 16 as the sole version of the console available in that country.

The launch indicates that the higher-capacity PS3 model could be the company's standard console from here on out, as well as possibly signaling an imminent debut elsewhere in the world within months.

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Microsoft has fixed some early issues in its Halo 3 beta offering for those who purchase the game Crackdown, as well as agreeing to extend the beta period by one week to June 10..

The beta of the next Halo game has been much hyped by Microsoft since November of last year when plans were first announced. Crackdown was released in February with the promise that those who had the disk would be rewarded with first access to the code.

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Apple is fighting off another lawsuit, this time over claims that its advertising surrounding Macbook displays are misleading.

The suit was filed May 3 by California residents Fred Greaves and Dave Gatley in San Diego County Superior Court. It claims Apple's assertions that the displays can support "millions of colors" are false, as those colors are made possible through a process called dithering.

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For the fourth month in a row, the Nintendo Wii outsold its competitors, even showing impressive strength at a time that is traditionally one of the slower periods for video game sales.

Nintendo sold some 360,000 units of the $249 USD next-generation console in April, up 39 percent from the previous month and its highest monthly sales total since January, retail data from research firm NPD Group shows.

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AMD is set to start shipping a competitor to Intel's Centrino processor by the end of this year, which it is calling Puma.

The chipset has similar energy efficiency characteristics to Intel's, and will start appearing in notebooks by the middle of next year. AMD has mainly concentrated on desktop systems where it has seen considerable success.

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Gamers with modified Xbox 360 consoles are getting a nasty surprise: their consoles are being blocked from accessing Microsoft's Xbox Live service.

Until last week, modifications to the console were undetectable by Microsoft, allowing enterprising gamers to open up the next-generation console and tinker with its settings. However, a software update has seemed to change all that.

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Secunia says that over one-quarter of applications on users' PCs lack the necessary patches released by software vendors to address critical issues.

Media players seem to be the most commonly vulnerable, with over 33 percent of all Quicktime, and 27 percent of Winamp installations missing important security updates. Browsers do better, with a little over five percent of Firefox, 5.4 percent of IE7, 9.6 percent of IE6, and nearly 12 percent of all Opera 9 installs missing security updates.

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The nation of Estonia says it has reason to suspect that Russia has played a part in cyber attacks that have brought both government and business websites across the country to a near-standstill.

While not concrete yet, Estonia's Defense Minister Jaak Aaviksoo told the Associated Press that there is enough evidence to at least suspect Russia's involvement in the attacks. All six major banks were targeted, as well as government offices and corporations.

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Still lagging in sales behind competitors Microsoft and Nintendo, Sony is looking to an increasing number of exclusive titles for the PlayStation 3 this year in order to make up lost ground.

The company is admitting that a lack of titles produced solely for the PlayStation 3, as well as its high price, are two issues for the company. Due to the console's troubles early on, the PS3 lost many of its exclusive contracts as game makers opted to produce the games for the Xbox 360, which was released in late 2005.

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Google has been cleared of any wrongdoing over its practice of using thumbnails to display images in its image search product. The original suit had been brought forth by adult entertainment company Perfect 10.

A District Court ruled in favor of Perfect 10 last year, issuing a preliminary injunction that prevented Google from thumbnailing the company's imagery. However, an appeals court judge said Google could not be held liable for indexing a site that is illegally copying Perfect 10's images.

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