Dan Nystedt

Users should soon see the best bargains in years for a new desktop thanks to falling prices on the two most expensive components in a PC.

Intel Corp. slashed prices on some desktop PC microprocessors by more than half on Thursday, raising the stakes against rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD), which cut prices earlier this week.

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California and 33 other U.S. states plan to file a joint antitrust lawsuit against seven DRAM (dynamic RAM) makers over alleged price fixing, adding to industry woes amid an ongoing federal investigation that has already led to US$731 million in fines.

Sony Corp. was ranked the best brand in the U.S. for the seventh year in a row, Harris Interactive Inc. said. The company's latest Harris Poll showed Dell Inc. retained its second-place ranking, followed by just two other IT companies, Hewlett-Packard Co. in sixth place and Apple Computer Inc., which entered the list in 10th place.

Lexar Media Inc. on Thursday recalled certain flash memory drives made in China over fears they could overheat and burn users or cause property damage.

Rambus Inc. has added another memory chip maker, Toshiba Corp., to the stable of companies finally agreeing to pay a contentious licensing fee for its SDRAM (synchronous dynamic RAM) and DDR (double data rate) SDRAM memory technology.

Taiwan's state-controlled telecom company plans to invest NT$100 billion (US$3.1 billion) over the next five years to upgrade its network and further develop applications and services based on Web 2.0, a spokeswoman said.