Dell guilty of fraud

Dell was found guilty on Tuesday of fraud, false advertising, deceptive business practices and abusive debt collection practices in a case brought by the New York attorney general, says ITWorld.

The Albany County Supreme Court found that Dell deprived customers of technical support that they bought, or were eligible for under warranty in several ways, including requiring people to wait for long times on the phone, repeatedly transferring their calls and frequently disconnecting their calls.

Dell also often failed to provide onsite repairs for customers who bought contracts for such support and often blamed software when hardware was actually the problem, the court found. The company also sometimes refused to offer support when a support contract ended, even though the user had first complained about a problem before the end of the contract. Subscribers to a "next-day" repair service sometimes waited as long as a year for support, the court found.

Nasa could not send commands to the Phoenix Mars lander for most of Tuesday because of a radio glitch, delaying a second day of activities, reports Associated Press.

The minor problem was fixed later in the day and the Mars Reconnaissance orbiter resumed relaying the lander's images of the Martian landscape back to Earth, said Nasa officials.

Phoenix, the latest spacecraft on Mars, communicates with scientists through two Nasa orbiters circling the planet. The Reconnaissance orbiter earlier had turned its radio off, possibly because of a cosmic ray, said Fuk Li, manager of the Mars exploration programme for Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in Pasadena, California.

Sixty-seven Crown and Combined Courts across England and Wales have had WiFi facilities installed in the last six months, according to courts minister Maria Eagle, says Computing.co.uk.

The BT Openzone networks will allow those involved in court processes to occupy their time between cases more effectively.

"The provision of WiFi is an important step by HM Courts Service to improve court facilities and the quality of service provided to court users," said Eagle. The service is aimed at court professionals as well as victims, witnesses, jurors and reporters.

The US government is expected to file a new World Trade Organisation case against the European Union in a dispute over EU tariffs on computer monitors and other technology products, congressional aides said on Tuesday, reports eWeek.

The aides, who spoke on the condition that they not be identified, said they expected US trade representative Susan Schwab to announce the action in a press conference she has scheduled for Wednesday morning.

Schwab's office issued a "media advisory" on Tuesday saying Schwab would make an announcement regarding the European Union and the WTO's IT agreement.