A lost legal struggle with Linux distributor Novell, an apparently truncated fight with IBM, a bankruptcy filing in September...and now, a NASDAQ delisting. Is there any hope at all left for floundering PC Unix vendor SCO?

The long embattled PC Unix vendor SCO has finally gotten the heave-ho from NASDAQ, some two months after filing for bankruptcy and three months after losing a crucial legal copyright struggle with Novell, a company that's morphed over the years into a major distributor of Linux, a competing breed of Unix software that also runs on PCs.

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4:10 pm EST December 27, 2007 - The assassination of Pakistan's leading challenger to the prime minister's post may be to blame for a late afternoon plummet in Apple's stock value, along with the rest of the tech sector.

With the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling nearly 200 points by the close of trading Thursday, even a buoyant Apple -- which had traded at $203 per share at about 10:15 this morning -- couldn't help but get weighed down, falling to a half-dollar below yesterday's close at about $198.50.

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Major consumer electronics producer Samsung is expected to show off a prototype 31-inch active matrix OLED, and to begin producing 14-inch displays in 2008.

Samsung's latest prototype active matrix screen will be a 31" 4.3 mm display, slightly larger and lower-profile than Sony's 27" 5 mm prototype that it showed off at last year's CES.

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With CES 2008 now just around the corner, Samsung today injected more fuel into a legal battle already revving up among some of the top global players in LCDs and other TV and computer display screens.

Although poised to show highly advanced TV display technology at next month's CES 2008 in Las Vegas, Samsung also stands embroiled in legal battles on a couple of fronts in its South Korean homeland and elsewhere. One of these fights -- an LCD patent war -- took on heightened global proportions with Samsung's revelation today that it has filed a complaint with the US International Trade Commission demanding a probe of industry rival Sharp.

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A set of policy position documents reportedly authored by Microsoft made the case that Google could use DoubleClick's advertising network to peer into competitors' traffic -- a position the FTC apparently rejected last week.

Last week, The New York Times blogger Louise Story released copies of a series of documents reportedly shared between Microsoft and US Federal Trade Commission members prior to their decision on the Google + DoubleClick merger. The documents reveal that Microsoft was willing to characterize its own competitive position in the Internet advertising market, both before and after a merger took place, as tenuous and perhaps even unsustainable, in order to distinguish itself against what it described to be a larger, perhaps predatory, competitor.

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The label has announced a deal that allows Amazon to sell DRM-free tracks through its online music store.

The addition of Warner brings the number of DRM-free tracks on Amazon MP3 to 2.9 million, more than any other online music service. Amazon already has deals with many independent labels, as well as majors EMI and Universal.

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The technology that spurred the big-screen television phenomenon among consumers took another step towards oblivion on Thursday.

Sony has been losing money on rear-projection televisions for quite a while, as consumers opt for the smaller form factors of LCD and plasma sets. In a statement this morning, the company said it would focus on LCD and OLED televisions from here on out.

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While it looked like Google could walk away from a potentially damaging infringement case against its browser-based Toolbar, a district court judge found the reasoning behind a full Google victory may have been flawed.

On the day after Christmas, a Wisconsin appeals court judge ruled that a portion of a patent infringement decision in favor of defendant Google may be in error. At issue is an interpretation of how the underlying database technology should work when an add-in application enables extra hyperlinks in a Web page other than those already hard-coded into the page.

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In a breakthrough agreement, another major movie studio will add its feature films to the iTunes lineup, but this time under unusual and potentially groundbreaking terms.

According to the Financial Times, sources are indicating that in order to secure 20th Century-Fox's wide range of feature films for Apple's iTunes service, the Cupertino company has apparently agreed to a rental model.

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The Scottish government recently announced that its anti-drinking and driving campaign will utilize video game ad space.

Public Service Announcements (PSAs) in the past have had a very low impact on behavior. An estimate of the size of the audience for the US Ad Council's drunk driving campaign earlier in the decade detailed just how limited the influence was. 902 television ads were shown in 30 markets, and data showed that an average of only 11.2% of households watched even a single PSA.

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As an unusual Christmas present to the world, Russia sent the last three of its GPS-compatible GLONASS satellites into space on Tuesday, whose missions range from global military tracking to keeping an eye on civilian-owned pet dogs and cats.

While most nations sat practically still during the traditional late December lull, Russia sent the rest of the world a present on Christmas Day by shooting the last three of its GPS (Global Position System)-compatible GLONASS (Global Navigation Satellite System) satellites into space.

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The two parties in one of the most recent patent lawsuits concerning Vonage's VoIP technology waited almost two months to tell the public they had actually settled their dispute just days after it was filed.

Last November 7, just over three weeks after AT&T jumped on the patent suit bandwagon, filing a claim against voice-over-IP provider Vonage, the two companies settled AT&T's claim for an undisclosed amount. The admission of that settlement came just before Christmas, when fewer folks would have been paying attention.

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An experiment started two weeks ago by Google to leverage its Talk application as a way of sharing news feeds from Google Reader, has been met with some derision. What may be more surprising, though, is the company's response.

On the surface, it might seem pretty straightforward: If you've opted to share portions of your Google Reader feeds list with selected friends, then friends on your Google Talk and Gmail chat will be able to receive what you're sharing. That was the intention of the company's introduction on December 14 of an interoperability feature that links shared friends on one Google application to shared friends on another.

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With competition ever more fierce in the LCD TV market, some retailers are finding the most viable option is to join forces.

Toshiba and Sharp this morning announced the expansion of their pre-existing accord in production, in a further effort to advance their market positions in the sector. As one example, Toshiba will use Sharp's LCD panels in its 32 inch and larger sets, while Sharp will use Toshiba's computer chips in its own televisions.

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In a shocking turn of events, Matthew Szulik suddenly stepped down this week as the head of Red Hat. With his company in solid financial shape, will its new CEO -- a former top exec at Delta Airlines -- change course in mid-flight?

Red Hat's long-time guiding light Matthew Szulik this week unexpectedly stepped down from the top spot at open source software company Red Hat, announcing that James Whitehurst -- a former Delta Airlines executive but also a computer programmer and Linux hobbyist -- will fill his shoes.

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