In an update to his LinkedIn profile, Wei-han Lien seemed to confirm that in-house development on a custom ARM processor for the iPhone is now under way at Apple, in a move that could eventually save it millions.

Is Apple planning to save money on future iPhones by developing its own version of an ARM chip? Evidence from an Apple engineer's LinkedIn profile certainly seems to support that possibility.

In a highly anticipated move given that Japan and North America have already been treated to price cuts, Microsoft UK is relieving the burden for British gamers, dropping the basic 60 GB HDD-equipped Xbox 360 to £169.99.

Microsoft confirmed to BetaNews this morning that a wave of price cuts that began two weeks ago in Japan and then followed up the following day in the US and Canada, has now officially reached Europe. Beginning this Friday, customers should expect to see price drops of about 15%.

Microsoft may be "talking the talk" of cloud computing, but VMware and Citrix are already "walking the walk," with new strategies and products launched today at the VMworld conference in Las Vegas.

VMWare and Citrix handily trumped Microsoft's recent virtualization announcements today by unveiling detailed and comprehensive "cloud" strategies and product families for creating virtualized data centers in both enterprise locations and outside hosting sites.

As Wall Street wades through what former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan on Sunday called the worst events he's seen in his career by far, new sites dedicated to financial and business communications have launched.

It appears that online media is a chief beneficiary of the current financial crisis. As the market struggles, online services pertaining to finance are booming.

Dubbing the initiative a "global effort to connect humanity," Web pioneer Sir Tim Berners-Lee has launched the World Wide Web Foundation, a new effort focused on the "next phase" of the Web.

In a speech last Thursday in Washington, DC, the man who is often referred to as "the father of the Web" described his new group's three-fold mission as "to advance One Web that is free and open, to expand the Web's capability and robustness, and to extend the Web's benefits to all people on the planet."

As Apple continues to reject applications for its iPhone App Store without any apparent consistency, the developer of a mobile podcasting application has taken matters into his own hands by turning to a little known workaround.

After having squelched more controversial applications, including the "Murderdrome" comic book and a fart joke application dubbed "Pull My Finger," Apple turned around and banned Alex Sokirynsky's 'Podcaster' application from the iPhone App Store. Now, instead of just waiting and hoping that Apple will change its mind, developer Alex Sokirynsky is using a feature of the iPhone/iPod Touch called "Ad Hoc App Distribution" to distribute his "Podcaster" application himself.

A filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday confirms that retailer Best Buy has entered into a deal to completely purchase online music service Napster, for $121 million including $54 million up front.

According to the SEC filing (HTML copy available here), Napster will have 20 days to reach a firm decision on the deal, although a definitive merger plan has already been agreed upon. Conceivably, opposing bids could be considered during that time, assuming any are forthcoming.

In countries that know full well how the effects of a cartel can stifle an economy, newspaper editors are raising concerns that a deal between Yahoo and Google could cause the prices of online ads to become prohibitively high.

Though the current agreement between Yahoo and Google calls mainly for Yahoo to open up portions of its search results pages to ads supplied by Google, another press organization is warning this morning that the deal threatens the independence of the world's free press.

Video game company Electronic Arts' bid to acquire Grand Theft Auto maker Take-Two Interactive has met its timely end, with increasing focus coming to EA for the widespread piracy of its long-awaited Will Wright title Spore.

Last night, Electronic Arts announced that it was terminating discussions with Take-Two that began more than half a year ago. After a series of bids and refusals, EA allowed its takeover bid to expire so Take-Two could present its case for needing a better offer. Considering the materials Take-Two presented, EA backed down.

[M.E.'s NOTE: This story includes updated information that corrects a previous edition that was posted earlier this afternoon, with information that reflects a response that BetaNews received directly from Sirius XM Satellite Radio. This version corrects an earlier misinterpretation of CEO Mel Karmazin's remarks.]

Prior to the merger between XM and Sirius, investors and even the companies' executives wondered whether there could be enough revenue to offset the debt. This week, the merged entity's CEO presented his plan, and asked investors to have faith.

A missive from the office of Joe Lieberman on Thursday credits the Connecticut Senator as the direct reason Google changed its Community Guidelines to disqualify terrorist training videos from being displayed.

In announcing the update earlier this week, the YouTube Blog says "We've updated the Community Guidelines to address some of the most common questions users ask us about inappropriate content. Included in the update are a few new things to steer clear of, like not directly inciting violence or encouraging other users to violate the Terms of Use. "

In a unanimous decision, Virginia's Supreme Court has agreed with arguments made by lawyers of convicted spammer Jeremy Jaynes that Virginia's anti-spam law violates the Constitution's First Amendment free speech protections.

Jaynes was famously sentenced to 9 years in prison in what was believed to be the first case of felony spamming. He was found to have propagated 10 million unsolicited e-mails a day through an AOL server housed in Loudon County, Virginia.

Anticipated for delivery in October, Samsung's first ever netbook is likely to offer five hours of battery life. It will be priced at the equivalent of $550 USD. If you'd like to buy one of these devices in the US, however, don't hold your breath.

While an official announcement still awaits, Samsung is expected to step into the netbook (or sub-laptop) fray during October in Korea, the United Kingdom and some other markets, although not initially in the United States.

MP3 creators Fraunhofer IIS, in association with Dolby Labs, LSI Corp., and Phillips Applied Technologies have announced the licensing terms for MPEG Surround, which promises to bring surround sound to audio streams without much overhead.

Fraunhofer has been pushing hard In an attempt to encourage the adoption and growth of MPEG Surround, what is internationally known as MPEG-D. Last week at the IFA consumer electronics show in Munich, Germany, Fraunhofer IIS showed off its partnership with Rockantenne digital radio station, which now streams in 5.1 surround using the technology.

Microsoft's introduction of a new platform will allow media center PC manufacturers to support premium channels, which the television industry mandates must be covered by copy protection.

Known as Protected Broadcast Driver Architecture (PBDA), the technology builds on the company's work on Broadcast Driver Architecture (BDA). BDA is the standard for digital video capture on Windows systems that Microsoft has used since Windows 98.