Cognos, the last major independent producer of software that companies use to analyze mountains of data, agreed on Monday to be acquired by IBM for US$4.9 billion in cash.

AOL announced that it has acquired Yedda, a semantic social search questions and answer service. Yedda will operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of AOL.

3.5G HSDPA mobile Internet access working on the Taiwan High Speed Rail at 300km/h - is it possible?

Microsoft announced it has entered into an exclusivity agreement around its intention to acquire Musiwave, a provider of mobile music entertainment services to operators and media companies.

The relatively low-power IBM Blue Gene supercomputer located at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the US still holds the title of the world's fastest supercomputer, but the sands beneath it are shifting.

CyberLink announced the release of CyberLink YouCam, a webcam software that adds dynamic effects to live instant message conversations.

"...Samsung sold LCD TVs, DVD players, MP3 music players and other items in Japan via the Internet, but stopped at the end of October. It had ceased sales in retail outlets in August last year...Samsung will sell flat screen computer monitors directly to businesses and will continue to sell components such as memory and LCDs. The company will also keep supplying mobile phone handsets to Softbank..."

Sony announced plans to sell a newly designed, lighter version of the PlayStation 2 in Japan on November 22.

Microsoft is set to release a pair of low-cost enterprise search products, a move one company official said comes at a time when the market in question is "at a tipping point."

The household PC market is losing momentum to other electronics like flat-panel TVs and mobile phones," said Masahiro Katayama, research group head at market survey firm IDC

Wal-Mart's early price-cutting has ignited a wave of deep discounts that could rival Black Friday's blockbuster deals.

Its Blu-ray player price seen around US$400; considering first U.S. OLED TVs

"...CIOs should prepare two budgets for 2008...to assume growth similar to that seen over the past six years and the need to cut costs with the arrival of a recession...Gartner said 2007 had been a milestone year for IT, which was set to become a £1.5tn market. But a tightening economy would change the growth rate of the IT industry in 2008..."