If you follow AllThingsD, and Weekend Update hopes you do, then one thing you’ve come to value is the special way the staff gets around the world to cover the important stuff and report it straight from the geek’s mouth. This week our bicoastal brigade brought the tech news as it happened, and in Boomtown’s case, from 30,000 feet.
Intel’s criticism of the European Commission’s legal acumen clearly has not gone over well in Brussels. The EC today responded to Intel’s claims that the Commission’s antitrust ruling against the company was meted out in error by releasing the full text of its decision and a selection of email correspondence and internal memos that make it clear that Intel probably should have kept its big mouth shut.
For Lenovo, it’s a bit like Michael Dell returning to Dell. Or Steve Jobs returning to Apple. Stung by a brutal third-quarter loss, its first in nearly three years, the PC maker ousted CEO Bill Amelio and called in former CEO Yang Yuanqing and founder Liu Chuanzhi to reverse its declining fortunes.
So apparently Dell’s laptops are “the world’s most secure” in the same way that SNL’s Tommy Flanagan is the world’s most eligible bachelor.
Well if this doesn’t count as the sort of feedback that would cause Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to wake up smarter, I’m not sure what does. Heeding the cries of their Vista-averse customers, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo and Dell are now offering customers who purchase machines running the Business and Ultimate flavors of Microsoft’s new state-of-the-art OS the chance to replace it with Windows XP Professional.
Acer Awarded 3rd Place in Westminster PC Show 
Acer leapfrogged over Lenovo to officially claim the No. 3 position in the desktop PC market this morning when the European Commission approved its acquisition of Dutch computer maker Packard Bell. In a statement, the EC said the deal “would not significantly impede effective competition. “The commission’s examination showed that the proposed merger would entail horizontal overlaps for desktops and laptops, both for professionals and consumers,” it said. “However, the market would remain competitive post-merger in all segments of the PC sector, with established alternative suppliers such as Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Fujitsu-Siemens, Toshiba, Sony and Lenovo.”
In today’s “eat or be eaten” personal-computer market, Gateway was a steak dinner waiting to happen. After faltering during the economic downturn of the late ’90s, the PC maker never regained its footing. In the ensuing years, Gateway shipped fewer and fewer of its signature black-and-white dairy cow PC boxes. It steadily lost market share [...]
Better to be safe than sorry or, rather, better safe than Sony. That’s likely what Acer was thinking when it announced a recall of about 27,000 Sony-made lithium-ion batteries today.
John Paczkowski has been poking fun at the tech industry and the personalities that drive it since 1997. From 1999 to 2007, he wrote the award-winning tech news Web log Good Morning Silicon Valley for the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley's daily newspaper. Read more »
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
12:58 AM: Breakfast: Two schools of fish from Tokyo Bay. Calories: 782,000. How I was feeling when I ate this: confused, irradiated, hating my size.
11:37 AM: Exercise: “Taxi Stomp” (alternating legs, for 30 blocks). Calories burned: 148,900,183.
1983. The Beatles announce their first tour in thirteen years, but likewise announce that Michael Jackson will be going on tour with them as a one gigantic mega-concert event.
Best video mashup ever.
A Facebook Memorial
Wow.
Worth it for the Rickrolling photo alone.
Excellent.
Flughumor!
… you vacuous, toffee-nosed, malodorous perverts
Stephen Fry and zoologist Mark Carwardine meet the kakapo — a fat, flightless and very randy rare parrot.
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