Tim Conneally

Yesterday, chip designer AMD said it will be continuing its re-structuring efforts by cutting 500 jobs internationally, in addition to cuts it had already announced in the spring.

Sunnyvale, California's Advanced Micro Devices is the second largest producer of x86 microprocessors worldwide, behind Intel. Since last year, the company has been going through various stages of what it called its "Asset Light/Asset Smart" move, to streamline business and return it to profitability.

Phoenix Technologies, makers of the BIOS of the same name, announced today a partnership with Opera software that will give its Hyperspace virtual Linux environment instant-on Internet browsing.

Last week, Phoenix Technologies announced Hyperspace would be receiving Corel LinDVD, enabling systems running Hyperspace to access DVD drives while the core OS is asleep, rebooting, or even if it has failed.

The DMP-BD50, Panasonic's entry-level BD-Live player, has still to be officially released, but has surfaced several times online at various price points. It has again appeared, at its lowest price yet.

Panasonic's first BD-Live Blu-Ray machine premiered at CES this year, showing off the extra features that can be obtained by connecting a Blu-ray player to the Internet. At the time, there was no launch date or price, but Panasonic told BetaNews that it would be watching how the market changes before deciding on anything.

In the United Kingdom this week, the Entertainment Retailers Association (ERA) unveiled the "MP3 Compatible" campaign, to easily inform customers whether the content they're downloading is actually in MP3 format.

Digital music vendors Play.com, HMV, 7digital, Digitalstores.co.uk, Tescodigital, Woolworthsdownload.co.uk, and Tunetribe.com have all adopted the ERA's new "MP3 Compatible" seal, to indicate that their content is MP3 and not another format that is less universally compatible or protected by DRM.

Online movie rental service Netflix has been evolving on an almost daily basis. Following a number of developments in its streaming video category, it announced yesterday it will soon cease selling previously viewed DVDs.

On the official Netflix blog yesterday, community leader Meghan wrote, "As you know, our core business is delivering great movie rentals to you on DVD by mail and instantly to the computer and TV, so we've decided it makes sense for us to focus exclusively on that. This means we will stop selling previously viewed DVDs through the Web site. We're sorry for any inconvenience for those of you who regularly purchase DVDs at Netflix, but we're excited about being able to spend the extra time focusing on continually improving our core rental business for you."

In an announcement yesterday, Dash Navigation said it is strategically reducing the size of its workforce as it shutters its dedicated device division and shifts into the position of a software and services company.

Dash made a connected personal navigation device (PND) as a sort of "next gen" for the extremely popular devices, including live traffic reports and support for location-based information through Yahoo's Fire Eagle middleware.

Senior Vice President of Apple's iPod division, Tony Fadell has stepped down from his leadership position, and is being replaced by former IBM exec Mark Papermaster.

Fadell is regarded as the progenitor of the iPod ecosystem, bringing to Apple in 2001 the idea of a portable media player with its own dedicated online marketplace. Though The Wall Street Journal says he will be keeping a consultancy position, Fadell's Apple Bio has been removed.

Finally, after several international false starts and domestic delays, the 3G BlackBerry Bold has premiered at AT&T stores and online in the US, with an offer of free Wi-Fi at some AT&T hotspots.

AT&T has announced that Research In Motion's BlackBerry Bold is now available for purchase, and like other AT&T exclusive smartphones, it receives free Wi-Fi at AT&T hotspots nationwide when accompanied with an unlimited data plan.

A USB memory stick containing the source code and passwords to a UK government database of 18 million citizens was found in a bar parking lot, thought to be accidentally left behind by an IT employee.

The source code and internal passwords are believed to be part of the Government Gateway system, which handles a huge range of government services, from jobs and pensions to driver's licensing, to taxes, to agricultural affairs. With the data on the USB stick, the personal data of over 18 million Britons could have been compromised.

First appearing over the weekend on BestBuy.com, Western Digital has officially debuted its WD TV HD Media Player -- a way to expand the reach of its portable hard drives into the DTV realm with the aid of USB.

Introduced as a companion to WD's My Passport portable media drives, the WD TV player acts as a TV docking station for USB storage devices. Photos, movies, and music can be navigated on the user's TV through HD menus with the included remote control. Up to two USB storage devices can be simultaneously hooked up.

Today, Circuit City confirmed earlier reports that it will be closing 155 stores as a cost-cutting measure, and eliminating 17% of its workforce, or roughly 7,800 jobs.

Following a quarter that showed the company worked at a $162.7 million loss, reports arose that Circuit City was contemplating store closures as a cost-cutting measure.

Silverlight-powered movie streams are now available to Netflix subscribers, with the promise of better performance and greater HD. Right now, though, the trial is limited to Intel-based systems.

Last week, Netflix announced its instantly viewable movie streams, which had heretofore been inaccessible to Mac users, would be available through Microsoft's Silverlight platform to those without Windows Media Player.

Semanti Corp. today has released its free semantic search browser plug-in that now works for Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft Live Search.

SemantiFind debuted in September at DEMOfall08 as a plug-in to add semantic searching to Google. The company promised an update within 30 days that would make that feature compatible with other search engines. Today, that update has been released. SemantiFind is now capable of working with Yahoo and Microsoft Live Search in addition to Google, and can be downloaded for free

The United States Department of Justice has conditionally approved Verizon's acquisition of Alltel, provided Verizon divests from 100 markets.

Verizon and Alltel issued joint statements last summer announcing the $28.1 billion acquisition. The combination would result in the single largest mobile network in the United States. As such, the Antitrust Division of the U.S Department of Justice has also required one of the biggest mobile sell-offs thus far in order for the merger to take place.

In a New York Times interview this week, Opera's Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner said Opera Mini has been ported to the iPhone, but cannot be released.

Though the issue was only touched upon briefly in the interview, it confirms the restrictive nature of Apple's SDK that developers such as Mozilla's Rob Sayre have complained about. The NYT said Opera Mini couldn't be released because it competes with Apple's Safari.