MS, Yahoo search deal not exclusive

Following Microsoft's search and advertising deal with Yahoo, Microsoft could be the largest mobile search provider in the US, reports The Washington Post.

The reason is that it now has deals with three of the four major US wireless carriers spanning 200 million subscribers.

The one exception would be Sprint, which uses Google's search for its 48 million subscribers.

The Korea Consumer Agency (KCA) says Koreans paid the most among wireless users in 15 countries last year that had similar levels of mobile use, according to The Korea Times.

They included the US, UK, France, Singapore and Hong Kong.

The KCA reported that based on mobile rates charged by the top carrier among selected Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, Hong Kong and Singapore, SK Telecom was the third most expensive.

An Intel executive says the company had to hustle to catch up with competitors in developing chips for mobile devices like smartphones, but the effort led to the development of the highly successful Atom chip, Computerworld reports.

Today, the Atom chip is being used in most netbooks, which are low-cost devices characterised by small keyboards and screens ranging from 7 to 12 inches.

Intel kicked off the Atom project in 2004, when it was doing work on developing Arm chips in parallel, says Sean Maloney, executive vice-president at Intel.