America Online will create more of a presence in the blog community with its acquisition of Weblogs, a leading blogging company.
AOL will inherit 85 blogging sites where users can read about everything from travel to gadgets and debate on topics like parenting and movies.
The agreement is expected to close next week. The deal will make Weblogs a wholly owned, stand-alone subsidiary of AOL, operating with full editorial control and independence.
AOL is paying $25 million in an all-cash transaction.
The move will give AOL users access to an array of unfiltered content. Weblogs hosts more than 100 independent, freelance expert bloggers producing more than 1,000 blog postings weekly. Some of its most popular blogs include topics such as luxury, technology, automotive and gaming. Blog links will be embedded and integrated across the AOL service, such as the Autos Channel and Games Channel.
Weblogs content will also be incorporated within AOL properties such as Moviefone and Netscape. AOL.com users will be able to connect to Weblogs via the LiveWeb and People Connection links on the homepage.
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Gaming connoisseurs: ATI Technologies launched its new family of high-end graphics chips, a move it hopes will help it win back market share in the fiercely competitive sector.
ATI's (ATYT) Radeon X1000 family of processors will compete with the GeForce 7800 product line designed by Nvidia (NVDA).
Both ATI and Nvidia are targeting high-end customers such as video game enthusiasts, who are willing to pay top dollar for chips and graphics cards that offer the highest speeds and richest detail.
The company said the launch includes the Radeon X1800, aimed at the so-called enthusiast sector, the Radeon X1600 for the mid-range market and the Radeon X1300 for budget users.
Bergman said the new chips could be up to twice as fast as competing offerings in some sectors and would bring "consumer level video and display technologies" to the personal computer for the first time.
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Sorry, Sony: Australia's High Court ruled unanimously that modifying Sony PlayStation consoles so that they can play cheaper overseas versions of the company's games does not violate Australian copyright laws.
The decision ends a four-year legal battle between entertainment and Japanese electronics giant Sony (SNE) and Sydney-based business owner Eddy Stevens, who supplied and installed "mod chips" in PlayStation devices.
Sony divides the global gaming market into regions and programs its PlayStation consoles so that games sold in the United States or Asia cannot be played on consoles sold in Australia. The so-called mod chips bypass Sony's regional coding and allow users to run cheaper games made for markets outside Australia on their PlayStation machines.
The High Court ruled that while making a pirated copy of a game is illegal, playing a game using a mod chip is not.
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Nowhere sacred: Google is combining its popular online maps with its local search features, continuing a quest to increase its already rapidly rising advertising revenue.
With the change, Google's (GOOG) local search tools for the United States and Canada are being taken out of the beta, or testing, phase. The company's local search engines for the United Kingdom, Japan and China remain in beta -- a label that technology companies attach to products that don't have all the bugs worked out.
The hybrid service blends addresses, phone numbers, maps, driving directions and other details, like user reviews and credit card information, on the same webpage. Google also offers a satellite-mapping option that provides an aerial view.
By combining maps with local search, Google is following its rival Yahoo (YHOO), which already provides a similar package.
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Swarm to me robots!: European industry needs to do more to turn research on robots into viable products as the region begins to lose pace to Japan in robot manufacturing.
The European Union is spending around 50 million euros a year on research projects spawning prototype creatures such as "swarm-bots," based on research into ant behavior, or the "hydra," the world's first robot that changes shape.
But projects such as these usually take 10 to 15 years to produce a useful robot that can be sold on the market.
Although the robots look as if they belong on a film set and have little use, their existence are the fruits of technological innovation that is crucial for the development of viable machines. But this needs action and support from industry.
The EU's 25 member states have a 35 percent share in global manufacturing of robots.
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It's safe, we swear: Microsoft is gearing up to release a subscription service that will make it easier for network technicians at big businesses to make sure computers don't fall prey to spyware or virus attacks.
Microsoft (MSFT) will release a test version of the service by the end of the year.
Scott Stanzel, senior product manager in Microsoft's security technology unit, said Client Protection, as the company is calling it, will be similar to Windows OneCare, an all-in-one service the company is working on to bolster security for personal computers.
Besides the centralized service, Microsoft said it's working on software to protect systems that run corporate e-mail messaging and collaboration technology. A test version of the product, dubbed Antigen, is slated for release in the first half of next year.
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Compiled by Keith Axline. AP and Reuters contributed to this report.
