Intel leaves education PCs

Intel said yesterday it had chosen to withdraw from the One Laptop Per Child educational computer organisation, which it joined in July, after years of public squabbling between Intel's chairman, Craig Barrett, and the group's founder, Nicholas Negroponte, reports New York Times.

The low-cost laptop, originally priced at $100, has captured the public imagination, but also created intense controversy because it was viewed as a potential competitor for both Intel and Microsoft in the developing world.

The machine, which is based on the freely available Linux operating system and comes with educational software, is now built with a microprocessor made by Intel's archrival, Advanced Micro Devices. The PC, called the XO, is being sold for about $200 apiece to governments and institutions.

Lenovo has officially entered the US consumer notebook market, with three products for people willing to spend more than the basic-notebook price in order to get better entertainment features, says Information Week.

The notebooks fall under the new IdeaPad brand, which will be the consumer side of Lenovo's mobile PC business. The Chinese company is best known in the US for its ThinkPad line of business notebooks.

Lenovo's new laptops have five Dolby Home Theatre speakers and use facial recognition technology for security.

Lawyers for about 90 current and former residents of New York State filed a suit against IBM on Thursday alleging that chemicals from an IBM plant have caused congenital heart defects in infants and kidney cancers in adults, and continue to cause problems, reports News.com.

The tort lawsuit claims that the plant released hundreds of thousands of pounds of toxic and hazardous chemicals, including trichloroethylene, into the air, soil, and groundwater of Endicott, the birthplace of IBM, and the nearby town of Union, over several decades.

A "toxic plume" continues to expose residents to hazardous vapours, according to the lawsuit filed in the Supreme Court for the State of New York in Broome County.

The Chinese government announced new rules yesterday that could block all but a few video sites from reaching Chinese viewers, says Forbes.

The regulations, posted to Web sites of China's State Administration of Radio, Film and Television and the Ministry of Information Industry, require that from 31 January, all online video outlets avoid politically or morally objectionable content and obtain a government-issued permit.

While the statute could limit online video to state-controlled media sites and ban foreign-owned video-hosting sites like YouTube and MySpace, it may also go unenforced, serving more as a threat to coerce video-hosting sites to police themselves.