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U.S. urges EU to join forces on China IP rights

The United States urged European states on Monday to join forces with Washington in pressuring China to change its policies on intellectual property rights and foreign investment. Get the full story »

Verizon Wireless to pay up to $90 million in refunds

Verizon Wireless in a statement Sunday said it will pay millions of dollars in refunds to 15 million cell phone customers who were erroneously charged for data sessions or Internet use.

Microsoft sues Motorola over smart phone patents

Microsoft Corp. said Friday it has sued Motorola Inc., claiming that the Schaumburg-based company has violated nine of its patents with smartphones running Google’s Android operating system.

Microsoft, which is headquartered in Redmond, Wash., filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington on Friday. The company said it also filed a complaint with the International Trade Commission. Get the full story »

India granted limited BlackBerry Messenger access

The maker of the BlackBerry smartphone has granted India’s government manual access to its Messenger service and has promised automated access by Jan. 1, enabling authorities to track such messages in real time, the country’s top interior ministry official said Friday. Get the full story »

Google extends ‘Street View’ to Antarctica

From PC Mag | Google on Thursday extended its Street View mapping feature to all seven continents, with the search giant planning to move into Brazil, Antarctica and Ireland.

“We often consider Street View to be the last zoom layer on the map, and a way to show you what a place looks like as if you were there in person — whether you’re checking out a coffee shop across town or planning a vacation across the globe,” Brian McClendon, Google Earth and Maps’ vice president of engineering, wrote in a blog post.

Get the full story »

New HP CEO to bank salary of $1.2 million

Hewlett-Packard Co. will pay its new chief executive Leo Apotheker an annual salary of $1.2 million, plus a signing bonus of $4 million, to lead the technology powerhouse after a scandal toppled its last chief executive. Get the full story »

Motorola to sell R2-D2-themed Droid 2 devices

The R2-D2 Droid. (Motorola)

A limited-edition version of Motorola’s Droid 2 phone resembling lovable Star Wars droid R2-D2 will go on sale Thursday at one Verizon Wireless store in downtown Chicago.

Verizon, the exclusive carrier for the phone, said its store at 36 S. State St. will open at 12:01 am on Thursday. It has 100 of the devices in stock. The phone runs Google’s Android operating system and costs $249 with a rebate and two-year contract. Get the full story »

AOL to acquire popular tech blog TechCrunch

AOL Inc. said it would acquire the popular technology blog and network TechCrunch as it tries to remake itself into a Web entertainment and news powerhouse. Get the full story »

Apple shares slide on rumor about No. 2 executive

Apple's chief operating officer Tim Cook, left, talks with CEO Steve Jobs, center, and Vice President Phil Schiller, right, at a meeting in Apple's Cupertino, Calif. headquarters in 2008. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)

Shares of Apple dropped more than 2 percent in early trading on Tuesday, as rumors swirled that the company’s No. 2 executive was departing.

It was not immediately clear what caused Apple’s shares to fall, but unconfirmed speculation on the Internet said Tim Cook would leave Apple to join Hewlett-Packard Co, which is searching for a new CEO to replace Mark Hurd.

Representatives from Apple and Hewlett-Packard declined to comment, and analysts quickly dismissed the rumor. HP is holding its analyst meeting later Tuesday. Get the full story »

RIM unveils PlayBook tablet to compete with iPad

An image provided by Research In Motion showing the new Playbook.

Research In Motion unveiled a tablet computer on Monday that it hopes will leapfrog Apple’s iPad with its potential for social networking, media publishing and corporate uses.

The tablet, named BlackBerry PlayBook, has a seven-inch (18 cm) screen and dual facing cameras. It has WiFi and Bluetooth but needs to link with a BlackBerry smartphone to access the cellular network.

Shares of RIM jumped nearly 2 percent to $49.29 in after-hours trade following the announcement, made at the company’s annual developers’ conference in San Francisco. Get the full story »

Target to start carrying iPad in October

Target Corp. says it will begin carrying four models of Apple Inc.’s iPad, starting at $499. The nation’s second-largest discount chain says it will start selling the touchscreen tablet computer Oct. 3. The iPad will be covered under the retailer’s 5 percent discount for store credit-card holders, which rolls out Oct. 17.

Facebook Web site suffers service disruption

Facebook, the world’s No. 1 Internet social network, experienced technical difficulties Thursday that made its website slow or inaccessible to some of its 500 million users. Get the full story »

Dell shows off new 7-inch tablet

Dell Inc. Chief Executive Michael Dell showed off a new seven-inch tablet and said the computer maker is on track to bring in more than $60 billion in revenue this year. Get the full story »

Microsoft sells debt at record low rate

Microsoft sold $4.75 billion in new debt on Wednesday, some of it at the lowest U.S. corporate borrowing rate on record, as the world’s largest software company takes advantage of low interest rates to raise cash. Get the full story »

Half a million iPad owners use AT&T to connect

About a half a million iPad owners use AT&T Inc.’s network to connect the Apple tablet computer to the Internet, according to the telephone company’s top executive Randall Stephenson.

Apple said it sold 3.27 million iPads in the second quarter alone. AT&T, the No. 2 U.S. mobile service, is the only U.S. operator providing cellular connectivity for the iPad.

Pacific Crest analyst Steve Clement said this could indicate that many iPad purchasers aren’t bothering to connect the device to the Internet using the AT&T network. Get the full story »