Dell, MS fight Aids in Africa

Dell and Microsoft will jointly fight Aids in Africa through the sales of specially branded (Red) notebooks, desktops and printers, reports InformationWeek.

The companies will contribute as much as $80 for each branded product bought by Dell customers.

Under the partnership, an XPS desktop and two notebooks and a printer will feature the (Red) brand, Dell said. The (Red) project, which is operated by The Global Fund, was co-founded by U2 singer Bono to draw businesses into the battle against Aids in Africa.

Piecing together the horrific aftermath of a terrorist attack is a huge challenge for forensic investigators - but they can rely on mobile phone SIM cards to hold clues, a study has found, says The Press Association.

British researchers discovered some SIM cards can retain their data even after being exposed to temperatures as high as 450 degrees Celsius.

This is roughly the maximum average sustained temperature at desk height in a house fire, the journal Forensic Science International reported.

Warner Home Video's defection from the HD-DVD camp may have put a damper on hardware sales, according to Reuters.

In the week since the studio's surprise early-January announcement, that after May it will support only the rival Blu-ray disc format, sales of HD-DVD players ground to a virtual halt, giving Blu-ray hardware a whopping 93% sales advantage, according to data from the NPD Group.

According to raw retail data collected by NPD, consumers bought 1 758 HD-DVD players the week of 12 January, down from 14 558 players the week before. In contrast, consumers bought 21 770 Blu-ray machines, up from 15 257 the previous week.

MySpace and the BBC's commercial arm will today announce an agreement that will see clips from popular programmes distributed on the social networking site owned by News Corp, says FT.com.

BBC Worldwide will be MySpace's first broadcasting partner as the site seeks to increase the video content available to users.

The link between a company from within Rupert Murdoch's media conglomerate and the UK state broadcaster, often billed as his particular bete noire, might be expected to excite comment, but was played down by the organisations on Wednesday.