worldheadlines

Since a computer microprocessor is veined with electric circuitry, it might seem like a bad place to put water. But IBM Corp. researchers believe that sloshing water through hair-thin pipes inside chips will solve a vexing problem facing next-generation computers.
That problem is heat.
As chips get smaller and smaller, cramming more processing power into ever-tinier spaces, the heat thrown off by the...

Verizon Wireless is in talks to buy Alltel Communications LLC, the country's fifth-largest wireless carrier by subscribers, for $27 billion, according to news reports.
If consummated, an acquisition would be the biggest telecom deal since AT&T Inc. bought BellSouth Corp. at the end of 2006. Adding Alltel's 13.2 million subscribers to Verizon Wireless' 67.2 million would create the largest wireless carrier in...

As if BlackBerry users needed one more excuse to be glued to their screens, E-Trade Financial Corp. is giving its account holders an application that will let them get real-time stock quotes and trade on their phones.
High-end phone users have for a while been able to access E-Trade's Web site and those of most banks and brokerages, but the online firm...

Japan's space lab is now open for business, science -- and art.
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station floated into the lab module on Wednesday after power was activated, kick-starting Japan's permanent place in space.
"The Kibo module is now open," Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide. Holding a sign saying "Welcome" in English and Japanese, Hoshide then floated in...

In the latest sign of its ambitious growth plans, Google Inc. has signed a 40-year lease to secure space for a huge office complex that will be built on a federal government research center near the Internet search leader's Silicon Valley headquarters.
The 1.2 million-square-foot campus announced Wednesday fulfills a vision that Google first laid out with the NASA Ames Research Center...

South Korea's antitrust regulator said Thursday it will order Intel Corp. to pay 26 billion won ($25.4 million) for violating fair trade rules.
The Korean Fair Trade Commission said in a statement Thursday that it was issuing the order because the semiconductor giant offered rebates to South Korean computer companies and undercut competitor Advanced Micro Devices Inc.
Intel, based in Santa Clara, Calif.,...

Astronauts opened the International Space Station's newest and biggest room, a bus-sized Japanese laboratory providing the Asian power its first manned space facility.
Capping a busy day in space that included repairs of a faulty station toilet and long preparations for the lab's inauguration, Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide smiled as he inaugurated...

SAN FRANCISCO - Google has struck a deal to expand its office space by 50 percent by leasing land on the grounds of NASA's Ames Research Center, near its Silicon Valley headquarters.
Under the terms of the deal, announced Wednesday, Google can build on 42.2 acres at the former naval air base in Mountain View, Calif. The lease carries an initial term...

MEXICO CITY - Biologists in Mexico plan to tag hundreds of sharks off the Pacific Coast to help understand the cause of a rare spate of deadly attacks on humans, the local government said on Tuesday.
Sharks near the southwestern resort of Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo killed two surfers and maimed another in the past few weeks, the first fatal shark attacks along Mexico's Pacific...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida - To everybody's relief, astronauts fixed the toilet at the international space station on Wednesday and opened up a grand new science lab.
The toilet problem had fast become the most pressing issue of the mission, so much so that a spare pump was rushed from Moscow to Cape...

America's first female Supreme Court justice unveiled a videogame project on Wednesday to teach children how courts work, saying she wanted to counter partisan criticism that judges are "godless" activists.
Sandra Day O'Connor, 78, who served as U.S. Supreme Court justice from 1981 until her retirement in 2006, said she never imagined she would be asked to address a conference about...

Developers of sites with social networking features will now be able to give their users the ability to import contacts from Yahoo! Mail, Messenger, and the Go mobile application, thanks to Yahoo's choice to release its API on Wednesday.

Site builders can populate their social graphs with the contacts once a user authorizes the access. They can also use the API for...

Microsoft received a mixed ruling in the latest round of lawsuits between it and Alcatel-Lucent.

This time, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California found that Microsoft did not infringe on an Alcatel-Lucent patent covering video encoding technology. "We are gratified that the jury found Microsoft did not infringe Alcatel-Lucent's video encoding patent and rejected Alcatel-Lucent's exorbitant US$419...

LOS ANGELES - The Phoenix lander's first dig into the Martian soil for scientific study was delayed Wednesday because of a communications glitch on a spacecraft that relays commands from Earth to the Red Planet.
The orbiting Odyssey satellite went into safe mode and failed to send instructions to Phoenix to claw...

Japanese mobile carrier SoftBank Corp. said Wednesday it has a deal with Apple Inc. to start selling the iPhone later this year — the first such agreement in Japan for the hit cell phone.
Also Wednesday, Spain's largest phone company, Telefonica S.A., announced it will start selling the iPhone later this year.
SoftBank...