Job cuts announced by US employers in February more than doubled from a year earlier as companies stepped up cost-cutting, a survey by a placement firm showed.

The European Commission said it no longer needed a full-time monitoring trustee to make sure Microsoft Corp. was obeying an EU order to share technical information with rivals that would help them make products compatible with Microsoft servers.

KLA-Tencor has unveiled a solar inspection system, the PVI-6, which performs optical in-line, dual-sided inspection of photovoltaic (PV) wafers and cells. The tool is part of a family of modules that inspect solar cells throughout the production process, from bare wafer to silicon nitride (SiN) coating, metallization, and final classification. The company said the PVI-6 software improves the overall yield of the solar cell production process and supports more accurate product classification.

Logic-chip maker Xilinx said sales in its fourth quarter would decline less than forecast, helped by better-than-expected wireless-communications sales. The forecast comes a day after rival Altera presented a more optimistic -- though still muted -- view of first-quarter revenue than it had in January because of better-than-expected demand from manufacturers providing equipment for Chinese 3G wireless networks.

For a long time, Intel counted Advanced Micro Devices as its chief rival. These days, it's looking more like Intel and Qualcomm will be going mano-a-mano. While Intel says it retain full control of the process—essentially leaving TSMC as a contract manufacturer—the move clearly is aimed at stealing market share from British chip designer ARM, which licenses it products to Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, Freescale and other companies.

US stocks headed for a sharp rebound at the open on Wednesday after a sell-off the previous session left indexes at 12-year lows, with a jump in the price of oil and other commodities spurring energy and natural resource stocks.

With surprisingly little fanfare, iMacs and Mac minis have received an Nvidia 9400M makeover, while Mac Pros now take advantage of the latest high-performance Intel processors.

Over 90% energy savings achieved with solid-state street lights developed by Japanese company

Strategies Unlimited forecasts the LED lighting market to have a CAGR of 28% from 2008-2012, but many challenges remain.

Approximately US$2 million per year is expected to be available to labs for new awards under this call, funded over multiple government fiscal years.

Ailing telecom equipment maker Nortel Networks, now operating in bankruptcy protection, said Monday its quarterly loss more than doubled as it booked over $2 billion in noncash writedowns and saw its sales plunge.

Microsoft may create up to 3,000 jobs as it raises investment in research and development by $1 billion this year amid a financial crisis that has also taken its toll on the software giant.

US pending home sales plummeted 7.7% in January 2009 from the prior month to their lowest level in at least eight years as a deepening recession bites, according to a real estate trade group. The National Association of Realtors said its pending home sales index fell to 80.4 in January, a level that was 6.4% below the January 2008 reading.

Stupid, wasteful and ineffective — and a shameless attempt to woo voters, many Japanese say. Prime Minister Taro Aso is touting a one-time cash handout of 12,000 yen, or about $120 per person, as the centerpiece of a stimulus package to revive the world's second-largest economy, mired in one of its worst slumps since World War II. Elsewhere in Asia, Taiwan has given out about $100 per person in spending vouchers.

Deutsche Messe plans to shave a day off the CeBIT trade show next year, reducing it to a five-day event, show officials said Monday. The cut is part of the continuing evolution of CeBIT, which at its peak ran for more than a week. In recent years consumer electronics companies have left the show for the IFA show in Berlin, a once biennial event that went annual and is solely focused on consumer electronics.

Warren Buffett, long revered for his investment prowess, has admitted that even he made some "dumb" mistakes during the past year. Berkshire's profits fell 62% in 2008--the worst performance in its 44 years.