Google Inc. will provide more data and tools to help its advertisers assess and combat click fraud, a controversial practice that is the biggest enemy of the otherwise highly popular and profitable online advertising model known as pay per click.

The effort to control what's called e-waste could lead to a national "e-fee," a recycling charge that would be paid just like a sales tax on laptop PCs, computer monitors, televisions and some other electronic devices.

Japan and Russia plan to link their telecommunications networks via a new undersea fiber optic cable, they said late Tuesday. The cable, which is expected to be in place by the end of this year, avoids the area south of Taiwan in which many cables suffered damage after a powerful earthquake last year.

A new version of the Storm e-mail virus is populating blogs and online bulletin boards with links directing people to a Web site that is propagating the worm, representing a new mode of attack for hackers seeking financial gain, according to a security vendor that became aware of the virus Monday night.

The former legal counsel for McAfee Inc. is facing federal charges of improperly backdating stock options at the security software company.

Sony Corp. is aggressively promoting high-definition televisions (HDTVs) to consumers and soon it will have a range of digital still cameras to match.

Hewlett-Packard Co. is acquiring a storage software company that the company says will give it important leverage in the enterprise-class network-attached storage (NAS) market.

Vista's user interface suffers from more "friction" than its predecessor XP, a French analyst said Monday, and is actually a step back for Microsoft Corp. in its pursuit of Apple Inc.'s Mac OS X.

Google's enterprise collaboration suite unveiled last week includes security options that let companies tie it into their existing corporate directories and extend single sign-on to the online provider's hosted applications.

EEye Digital Security said Friday that it's found the first Office 2007 remote code vulnerability and has alerted Microsoft's bug team.

Skype Ltd. is looking to a 1968 ruling by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to open up the country's mobile phone industry for "unlocked" devices and third-party applications - such as Skype.

Little-known Texas MP3 Technologies Ltd. is taking on Apple Inc., Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and Sandisk Corp. with a patent-infringement lawsuit.

For some users, Microsoft's Windows Vista Express Upgrade program, a deal launched last year that gives PC buyers free or discounted copies of the new operating system, has been anything but "express."

Mozilla Corp. updated Firefox Friday to patch 14 vulnerabilities, three of them critical, but pushed out the new versions without fixing several flaws.

Google Inc. has closed a potentially major cross-site scripting vulnerability in its Google Desktop software that could have allowed remote attackers to take control of a victim's computer and its contents.

Cisco Systems Inc. and Apple Inc. have settled a dispute over rights to use the iPhone name. Under terms of the agreement, both companies have the right to use the name.

Microsoft Tuesday released a set of six free tools for corporate users focused on assessment, planning, testing and deployment of Windows Vista.

Hewlett-Packard Co. topped Wall Street's revenue and earnings expectations in the first quarter of its 2007 fiscal year.

Mozilla Corp. will delay the next security update for Firefox so it can test a fix for a flaw that could be used by attackers by skirt security restrictions.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs and Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates have shared the spotlight for much of the past three decades. Later this year, the two tech heavyweights will share the stage during a joint appearance at an industry conference.