MS ups pressure on Yahoo

Steve Ballmer, Microsoft chief executive, has increased the pressure on Yahoo to hand over control of its search business to his company, reports FT.com.

Speaking during an interview with the Financial Times, Ballmer set the stage for a new showdown nearly a year after Microsoft's first aborted attempt at a full takeover.

However, he ruled out a full acquisition, in spite of a collapse in Yahoo's share price that has pushed its market value down to $17 billion - less than 40% of the amount Microsoft offered to pay in a mixture of cash and stock last year.

Skype, which has helped legions of consumers to lower their long-distance phone bills with computer-based calling, is making a big push into the mobile sector, announcing support for Google's Android, says Reuters.

As cash-strapped consumers and businesses look for ways to cut costs in a weak economy, Skype is expanding its software for making cheap calls to more than 100 cellphone models, including phones running the Android mobile operating system.

Most mobile carriers have yet to allow Skype, a unit of eBay, on their phones for fear of losing revenue if subscribers were to make calls over the Web instead of on their regular voice service.

Japan's Sony plans to launch the world's lightest eight-inch notebook PC, taking aim squarely at a rapidly growing market for ultra-portable personal computers, according to Reuters.

The new Sony Vaio PC will come with Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system, supporting all the software programs found in full-sized notebooks, and sell for about $900, setting itself apart from netbooks.

Netbooks, pioneered by Taiwan's Asustek, in 2007, and one of the rare bright spots in the electronics industry in recent months, are generally described as low-cost mini-laptops optimised for Internet use, and typically sell for $300 to $400.

The Cambridge foundation that sought to transform developing countries by giving free laptop computers to poor children suffered a devastating loss of revenue last year and has been forced to slash its staff in half, reports The Boston Globe.

"The economic downturn hit us like everybody else," said Nicholas Negroponte, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor who founded the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) Foundation. The foundation laid off 32 of its 64 workers and cut pay for the rest.

A wave of cheap laptops has come to the market since Negroponte's foundation introduced a no-frills machine in 2007. Similar netbooks, modest laptops from companies like Dell and Hewlett-Packard, became commonplace last year.