Repeated and constant cyber attacks against the United States have turned the country's assessment of national security threats on its head.

Hackers who broke into the International Monetary Fund's computer system may have been backed by a nation state, according to security experts.

The number of internet connected devices is set to explode in the next four years to over 15 billion - twice the world's population by 2015. Cisco predicts the proliferation of tablets, mobile phones, connected appliances and other smart machines will drive this growth.

Microsoft has confirmed that it has agreed to buy Internet phone service Skype. The deal will see Microsoft pay US$8.5 billion for Skype, making it Microsoft's largest acquisition.

Microsoft is close to a deal to buy Internet phone company Skype Technologies for between US$7 billion and US$8 billion, according to people familiar with the matter, adding that the deal could be announced as early as Tuesday.

NHN and Daum Communications, operators of South Korea's two largest Internet search sites, said in statements they filed complaints against Google with the country's Fair Trade Commission for blocking local phone carriers and manufacturers from embedding their search applications in devices using the Android operating system.

Apple's next-generation iPad contains chips made by Toshiba, Broadcom and Texas Instruments, according to an initial tear-down report by gadget-repair site iFixit. Toshiba supplied the device's storage chips, iFixit said, while Broadcom made the chips used for wireless Internet access. TI chips were used to control the iPad's touchscreen.

Cheap sensors and network availability are not only making individual cars smarter, but they're also boosting the brainpower the environment cars drive in.

The firm said an internal investigation had discovered more than 1,000 fraud cases in both 2009 and 2010. Chief executive David Wei Zhe and chief operating officer Elvis Lee Shi-Huei were not involved in the frauds but were taking responsibility for a "systemic breakdown".

CSR and Zoran have entered into a merger agreement under which Zoran will merge with CSR for an equity value equivalent to approximately US$679 million. The merged company will provide differentiated, integrated technology that addresses the rapidly-growing market for connected, location-aware multimedia devices including handsets, digital cameras and home entertainment equipment.

TriQuint Semiconductor's (TQNT) fourth-quarter earnings more than doubled as revenue jumped by nearly one-third, but results still fell short of analysts' forecasts. "With the world transitioning to a mobile Internet, I expect a strong market and see another solid growth year for TriQuint in 2011," said company president and CEO Ralph Quinsey.

The Mobile Internet and Digital Home Business Group will be run by Liu Jun, formerly president of Lenovo's Product Group.

Qualcomm Inc. agreed to buy Wi-Fi chip maker Atheros Communications Inc. for US$3.1 billion in cash as it aims to address growing demand for devices that use Wi-Fi to connect to the Internet.

Imagination will pay US$27 million cash for Caustic Graphics. The deal comes less than a month after the chip designer agreed a deal to buy US-based HelloSoft for up to US$47m to assist its push into video and voice-over Internet protocol products and expand its WiFi offering.

If true, this would be one very big acquisition.

Xinhua News Agency announced it has signed a framework agreement with China Mobile Communications to establish an Internet search engine company. It did not reveal when the company will be founded and how much capital will be invested in it.

Half a billion people around the world are now using Facebook on a monthly basis. That means Facebook has a slightly smaller population than the continent of North America. The social network also has enough users to put 75 people on every one of the over 6.6 million square miles of Russia, the largest country in the world by landmass.

LG Electronics, Samsung Electronics, Sony Pictures Entertainment and Valens Semiconductor has announced formal incorporation of the HDBaseT Alliance and the finalization of the HDBaseT 1.0 specification, made available to Alliance member companies for CE implementation.

Until recently, Google automatically redirected Chinese users to its unfiltered search site in Hong Kong to get round censorship issues. The firm has said it will now stop this after Beijing warned it could lose its licence to operate in the country.

Epic 4G will also be the first smartphone to support simultaneous voice and data delivery. That means a user can surf the Internet and do other things while talking.

Here's a selection of factoids and predictions from the reports, Morgan Stanley's "Internet Trends" and Bernstein Research's "The Computer in Your Pocket: Industry and Investment Implications."

Greenliant, a new company headed by SST's former management, will use the acquired product lines to form the core of its solid-state storage product portfolio for the embedded system, data center, and mobile Internet markets.

Arab nations are leading a "historic" charge to make the world wide web live up to its name. Net regulator Icann has switched on a system that allows full web addresses that contain no Latin characters.

Nokia will launch a digital music service in China, in a high-risk move to make inroads into the world's largest mobile phone market where sales have been crippled due to Internet piracy.

A federal court threw the future of Internet regulations into doubt Tuesday with a far-reaching decision that went against the Federal Communications Commission and could even hamper the government's plans to expand broadband access in the United States.

Several scholars, rights activists and journalists working on China and Taiwan issues have reported that their Yahoo e-mail accounts have been hacked into, in the latest internet incident involving China since Google's decision to stop censoring its Chinese site.

Nokia has signed an agreement to acquire 100% of the outstanding shares of Novarra, a web browsing company based in Chicago. The acquisition is expected to close in the second quarter of 2010 and following the acquisition, Novarra will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Nokia.

No Tech Day is a time to set aside the luxury gadgets for 24 hours "to raise awareness of how much we all rely on and use gadgets in our everyday life, and think what life is like for people in the developing world who do not have the same access to technology and energy."

"Google has violated its written promise it made when entering the Chinese market by stopping filtering its searching service and blaming China in insinuation for alleged hacker attacks," said a government official.

China's Alibaba is in talks with one of its investors, Japan's Softbank, to form a tie-up to help merchants from their online marketplaces sell into each others' markets, according to a source familiar with the situation.

The hackers who broke into Google two months ago have gone after more than 100 companies, according to an estimate by security vendor Isec Partners.

China says its dispute with US search giant Google should not be linked to Beijing's relations with Washington.