Tom Krazit

Oracle Corp. will edge closer to a licensing model for multicore processors that has been adopted by other software vendors, but doesn't plan to go all the way, according to information posted on the company's Web site. The company plans to announce that its software licenses will consider each individual processor core on multicore chips to be 0.75 of a processor.

Intel Corp. plans to improve the speed of the front-side bus on its high-end Itanium 2 processor next week, in preparation for the launch of its first dual-core Itanium processors, according to sources familiar with the company's plans.

Mobile phone manufacturer LG Electronics Inc. has agreed to use a version of the Palm OS designed by Palmsource Inc. in a future smart phone, which might be the first phone to use a Linux-based version of Palm OS that is under development. The companies did not reveal many details about their partnership in a press release Wednesday. A Palmsource spokeswoman referred inquires about the forthcoming phone to LG representatives based in South Korea, who were not immediately available for comment.

A hacker was able to access potentially 40 million credit card numbers by infiltrating the network of a company that processed payment data for MasterCard International Inc. and other companies, MasterCard said.

Researchers at Intel Corp. have figured out how to integrate all the elements needed to connect to wireless local area networks into a compact package.

Researchers at Hewlett-Packard Co. (HP) believe they have developed a manufacturing technique that will allow chip makers to push the performance envelope after conventional transistors reach the atomic level. The technique, based on a mathematical principle called coding theory, will let future generations of microprocessor circuits be reliably manufactured in high volumes, according to HP.

When is a chip not just a chip? When Apple Computer Inc. is involved. The company's decision to put Intel Corp.'s processors in its Macintosh computers starting next year provoked a wide range of strong emotions on Monday from software developers, industry analysts, and the company's famously opinionated user base.

Macintosh computers using Intel Corp. chips will be on the market by this time next year with all Apple Computer Inc. Macs moved over to Intel chips by the end of 2007, Apple said Monday at its Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco.