Growth of global technology spending is expected to slow in 2008
International Data Corp. forecasts the worldwide information-technology market growing 5.5 percent to 6 percent in 2008, a decline from 6.9 percent in 2007 because of a downturn in the U.S. economy.

Facebook changes ad program that tracks users' actions
Following weeks of criticism from Facebook members, Mark Zuckerberg apologized about the way the site introduced the controversial advertising feature, and the site now gives users a way around it.

How much photo quality for $300?
For the holidays, a summary of digital cameras, all priced below $300.

15 years of text messages, a 'cultural phenomenon'
Billions of text messages fly through the air every day, they have inspired their own shorthand and relationships live and die by them.

Surround sound without the wires
Room-shaking surround sound is obviously nice. But the wires? Definitely naughty.

Help File: Smoothing out Web video
How to make streaming video from Web sites play more smoothly. Also: the advantages of a 3G phone; keeping bookmarks.

Activision chief stalks big moves in gaming
Robert Kotick, who will run the company after its merger with Vivendi Games, faces hurdles as gaming explodes in popularity.

The End User: Stop Internet fraud before it costs you
Shopping online this holiday season? Its convenience is compromised by one critical drawback: fraud, in the form of stolen credit card numbers or bank account information. How to avoid the risks.

MySpace creates one-stop shopping for music videos
In a program called Transmissions, MySpace is inviting musicians to choose a studio venue and select the songs they want to perform. MySpace will show and sell the videos.

Nokia and Universal Music make digital music download deal
Universal will allow free downloads to special Nokia phones for a year and keep a portion of the revenue from sales of the phone.

As Apple's products grow in popularity, hackers are increasingly looking for ways to exploit security holes in its software and install malicious programs, the Internet security company F-Secure said Thursday.

Malicious software, or "malware," remotely takes control of computers by masquerading as a legitimate program and asking users to provide information such as personal passwords before downloading viruses onto a machine.

Hackers have set their sights on the Mac computer, which broke a record for sales last quarter, and on the wildly popular iPhone, said F-Secure, which is based in Helsinki.

"More Apple hardware equals a greater installed base of Apple software," F-Secure said. "Malware gangs don't make an effort to develop something without the promise of a profitable return."

Dell will sell notebook and desktop PCs through Best Buy in the United States, expanding its push into retail as it challenges its larger rival, Hewlett-Packard.

The computers, including Dell's first all-in-one desktop machine, the XPS One, will go on sale at more than 900 stores in the next few weeks, Dell said. Best Buy is the biggest U.S. consumer-electronics retailer.

Dell has put its PCs on the shelves of more than 10,000 stores since Michael Dell retook command of the company in January.

Dow Jones said Richard Zannino would depart as chief executive after the financial news publishing company is sold to News Corp., which is controlled by Rupert Murdoch.

International Business Machines has said it made a breakthrough in converting electrical signals into light pulses that brings closer the day when supercomputing, which now requires huge machines, would be done on a single chip.

BARCELONA, the energy-efficient chip that Advanced Micro Devices was counting on to win customers away from Intel, has been delayed again. A technical irregularity will delay widespread availability of the server chip until early next year, the company confirmed Wednesday.