A federal judge in Seattle has ordered Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to testify in a class action lawsuit against Microsoft that alleges the company misled consumers in a marketing campaign for Windows Vista.

...Analysts shadowing Dell have been busy this week cutting estimates and reducing the target price on the company's already-battered shares. Raymond James Associates once pegged earnings for 2010 at US$1.75 a share. That is now down to US$1.23, which is below the US$1.30 the firm thinks Dell will earn in 2009, which is below what the firm thinks Dell will earn for 2008.

The board of directors of the Empire State Development had been scheduled to vote on whether to transfer a US$1.2 billion package of state incentives from Sunnyvale-based AMD to The Foundry Co., a joint venture between AMD and UAE-based Advanced Technology Investment. Instead, that vote has been postponed until a December meeting, according to AMD and state officials. However, Travis Bullard, a spokesman for AMD, said the decision to push off a vote until the board’s December meeting does not delay the plant.

More rumors are afoot that Foxconn is looking to snap up Pegatron, the OEM arm of the Asustek Group, with the deal to go down as early as the end of this quarter or second-quarter 2009, depending on the source.

At SC08 yesterday, Michael Dell, Dell’s CEO gave a presentation which included a slide showing an 80 core chip which should tip up sometime around 2010.

Legal disputes are rising as employers refuse to pay employees for the 20 or so minutes it takes for their computers to boot-up or shut down each work day.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup has handed Apple its latest victory against cloners that create and sell machines based on Apple's software.

HP expects earnings of 84 cents per share and adjusted earnings of $1.03 per share for the three months ended in October. This is slightly better than the $1.00 per share, excluding items, expected from analysts polled....

ARC International has introduced Virtual Bass audio enrichment technology that enables electronic companies to be more competitive and lower manufacturing costs while providing a more compelling multimedia experience to consumers.

Yahoo is unlikely to pull out of its $1 billion-plus China investment in Alibaba Group, even after the pending departure of CEO and strong China supporter Jerry Yang, analysts said on Tuesday. "No matter who becomes the new CEO of Yahoo, I don't think they would want to sell their investment in China," said Elinor Leung, an analyst at CLSA. "They're having a tough time in the U.S., and China is the growth potential for them."

Privately held semiconductor company Novafora Inc agreed to buy microchip designer Transmeta Corp in a cash transaction worth $255.6 million. The expected offer price of between US$18.70-19.00 per share is at a 7-8% premium to Transmeta's closing price on November 17. The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2009. Transmeta also entered into an agreement under which Advanced Micro Devices will transfer 700,000 of Transmeta's preferred stock to the company.

The latest data from IDC shows worldwide PC shipments into the United States will be 1.1% lower in the fourth quarter than they were for the same period a year ago. By comparison, PC shipments to the US increased nearly 11% during the fourth quarter of 2007. Citigroup also predicted that 2009 PC sales would be worse than it previously had thought. "It is clear that the PC industry is feeling the full impact of global economic recession."

The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) organisation is planning to sell the devices via online store Amazon's European outlets from 17 November. When it goes on sale the XO laptop is expected to cost £268 (313 euros) and should be available in 27 EU nations as well as Switzerland, Russia and Turkey. The original idea for the OLPC was to create a small, powerful laptop for school children that would sell in the millions yet cost less than $100.

Qualcomm has has stopped development of its next-generation, high-speed wireless technology Ultra Mobile Broadband (UMB) which was originally intended as an alternative to LTE and WiMAX 4G telecomunications standards.

ARM and Canonical, the commercial sponsor of Ubuntu, have announced that they will bring the full Ubuntu Desktop operating system to the ARMv7 processor architecture to address demand from device manufacturers. The addition of the new operating system will enable new netbooks and hybrid computers, targeting ARM technology-based SoCs.

Samsung Electronics is considering cutting its supplier-vendor relationship with Circuit City Stores, the No. 2 electronics chain in the United States, after the retailer filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection from the court.