IBM develops chip-stacking technique

IBM will be able to make microchips faster and more energy-efficient by stacking components on top of each other, a breakthrough that cuts the distance an electrical signal needs to travel.

The technique works by drilling tiny holes through a wafer of silicon and filling them with metal, according to Reuters.

Components such as memory can then be stacked on top of the main part of the chip, eliminating the need for wires stretching out to the sides.

Samsung has introduced a 2.5-inch form-factor drive with 160GB of capacity, reports TG Daily.

The company says the SpinPoint M5 is a single platter design, which would make it the reigning density champion of the 2.5-inch market.

Designed mainly for notebooks and consumer electronics, the M5 spins at 5 400RPM and uses a 1.5Gbps SATA interface with 8MB of cache memory. Samsung says parallel ATA drives will be available in May.

Palm made headlines not long ago for its adoption of the Windows Mobile operating system. Now the handset maker's CEO has committed to adopting Linux too, says BusinessWeek.com.

At a Palm analyst day, in New York, Palm boss Ed Colligan revealed the company has been working on the platform for a number of years.

The platform, to be unveiled before the end of the year, will run the Palm OS on top of a Linux kernel, although the phone maker has no plans to license the technology to other manufacturers.

Microsoft warned of four security flaws in its software that it categorised as "critical" on Tuesday that could allow attackers to gain control of a user's computer, says Reuters.

The company, whose Windows operating system runs 95% of the world's computers, issued the patches as part of its monthly security bulletin.

The world's biggest software maker defines a flaw as "critical" when it could allow a damaging Internet worm to replicate without the user doing anything to the machine.