Amazon targets Apple's iTunes

Amazon.com has introduced a digital-music store featuring songs without copyright-protection technology, as the online retailer aims to challenge Apple's online iTunes store.

Consumers can buy individual songs or entire albums from the Amazon MP3 Store's more than two million songs. They can burn the songs to CDs, play them on music players including Apple's iPod, and copy them to various computers.

Amazon is undercutting iTunes' prices by offering songs starting at 89c and the top 100 best-selling albums at $8.99; Apple sells songs for 99c to $1.29 and albums for $11.99.

The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project is starting a "Give 1 Get 1″ campaign to try to jumpstart its drive to bring computers to children in the developing world, reports The New York Times.

As its name suggests, the marketing campaign combines philanthropy with geeky self-interest - give one of the innovative laptops to a child in a poorer nation, and you get to lay your hands on one yourself.

Apparently, OLPC could use a lift as orders are lagging so far. However, this could be a momentary hiccup for the non-profit project, headed by Nicholas Negroponte, the founding director of the MIT Media Lab.

Microsoft began selling Halo 3 yesterday, hoping the acclaimed alien shooter game will widen its lead over Sony in the battle for industry dominance, says Computerworld.

Some game enthusiasts lined up before dawn at a Best Buy store, on New York's Fifth Avenue, to grab a good seat for the launch extravaganza, while others took advantage of the retailer's offer to let them pay for a copy of the game and pick it up at midnight or the next day.

Alex Escobar was the first one at the store's checkout counter, turning in a receipt to pick up his advance order. "It is worth it. It is time to finish this fight," Escobar said, echoing the tagline for a game featuring a futuristic soldier battling to save humanity from an alien onslaught.