Deutsche Telekom ordered to grant rivals access to its network cables
The decision will let other companies lay their own cables to reach customers using Deutsche Telekom infrastructure.

A new attempt to streamline EU patents
Companies must comply with rulings from national courts throughout the EU, a policy that could prevent smaller firms from protecting their innovations.

Asset swap ends feud between News Corp. and Liberty
Rupert Murdoch and his family gain a stronger grip on the media company while John Malone gets a controlling stake in DirecTV.

Misfired memo reveals tabs kept on journalist by public relations firm
Wired magazine posted a long e-mail memo about one of its reporters. The memo had been sent accidentally by Microsoft.

Briefing: Apple to work with EU on antritrust charge
Apple, accused by EU regulators of restricting consumers' choices by forcing them to buy music from the iTunes online store in their country of residence, said Tuesday that it did not do anything wrong and would work to resolve the issue.

EU confirms investigation of iTunes pricing
As EMI Group announced its digital music catalogue would go on sale on Apple's iTunes store without built-in copy restrictions, the European Commission confirmed that the two companies were facing an antitrust investigation over the pricing of songs on iTunes.

Google goes offline for advertising revenues
Following its conquest of YouTube last year, Google is now aiming for a piece of the old-fashioned tube.

France caters to market for the most simple of computers
New offer promises no bells or whistles Neuf targets those who favor simplicity.

From Taiwan, lessons worthy of an MIT degree
Lucifer Chu, a 31-year-old Taiwanese man, is distributing free Chinese translations of material from a Massachusetts Institute of Technology Web site.

Canada to trademark 'winter' for 2010 Olympics
The Canadian government wants to trademark words like "winter," in a move it said is designed to protect the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia, from "ambush advertising."

Apple, accused by European Union regulators of restricting consumers' choices by forcing them to buy music from the iTunes online store in their country of residence, said Tuesday that it did not do anything wrong and would work to resolve the issue.

"Apple has always wanted to operate a single, pan-European iTunes store accessible by anyone from any member state, but we were advised by the music labels and publishers that there were certain legal limits to the rights they could grant us," Apple said in a statement. "We don't believe Apple did anything to violate EU law. We will continue to work with the EU to resolve this matter."

Universal Music Group, the world's largest record company, EMI and Warner Music Group said they had also been contacted by the EU.

Sony, the world's biggest maker of video-game console, cut the price of its PlayStation Portable a second time to attract younger players and win sales from Nintendo's DS hand-held player.

The suggested retail price will drop 15 percent to $169.99 from $199.99, the company said.

Sony has sold seven million PSPs in the United States, fewer than the 9.9 million DS units sold by Nintendo, according to the market researcher NPD Group. Nintendo cut the price of the DS player to $129.99 from $149.99 in August 2005.

Qualcomm filed additional patent infringement complaints against Nokia in two U.S. courts.

The lawsuits were filed in federal courts in Texas and Wisconsin, Qualcomm said in a statement. The Wisconsin suit concerns speech-encoder patents. The Texas suit concerns patents for downloading applications and other digital content over a wireless network.

Qualcomm previously filed two other patent infringement lawsuits in the U.S. against Nokia, based in Espoo, Finland. Similar cases are pending in Britain, France, Germany, Italy and China.

U.S. telephone companies have been told by the Federal Communications Commission that they must require customers to provide a password to access their records by telephone. The telecommunications industry's customer data policies attracted the FCC's scrutiny after the practice of impersonating a customer to access phone records was alleged during a scandal.

Greenpeace International placed Apple last in its rankings of major electronics makers for their environmental friendliness, while Chinese manufacturer Lenovo Group moved to the top of the list. The environmental group ranked 14 companies according to their efforts to limit the use of hazardous chemicals in production and in ensuring that goods that become broken or obsolete are recycled.

A Chinese Web site will offer what its producer describes as the country's first show to focus on gay issues and the first with an openly homosexual host. The weekly, hourlong Internet TV show "Tongxing Xianglian," or "Connecting Homosexuals," will debut Thursday on www.phoenixtv.com.

Comcast, the largest cable systems operator in the United States, said that it was buying a New Jersey cable operator for about $483 million in cash. Patriot Media is five years old. Its customers generate twice as much cash flow as the average subscriber, a Comcast spokeswoman said.