Riding a hot streak that has doubled its stock price in the past three years, Hewlett-Packard is rolling the dice on a $13.2 billion acquisition of technology services provider Electronic Data Systems. The all-cash deal announced Tuesday represents HP’s biggest gamble under the leadership of Mark Hurd, who was hired as chief executive in March 2005 to turn around the Palo Alto-based maker of personal computers and printers.

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Redmond (WA) - Microsoft has unveiled its first Service Pack for the Mac version of Office 2008, adding new features and security enhancements to the Apple-specific release of the productivity software suite.

A couple of the bugs that pertain to all Office products were that text boxes and certain shapes would periodically mess up a file, and when copying an Office 2008 file into an Office 2004 program the software would freeze. Service Pack 1 patches these issues.

In Word 2008, SP1 fixes problems with the Notebook Layout View, including background settings and format changes. There is also a new set of business card templates. For Powerpoint, it enhances stability with Microsoft Sync and fixes issues pertaining to e-mail and Internet connectivity.

Finally, the Excel updates include new chart fortmatting options that were in previous versions of the software but not in 2008. Additionally, compatibility issues when saving have been fixed and when the formula bar is changed, the changes will be saved.

Mac Office 2008 users can download the update from Microsoft’s website and it is now available through the company’s Auto Update service.

AMD announced the next round of promotions, additions and departures to from its staff. Most notably, we learned that the company has promoted one of its executives to a role what essentially is a CTO in its traditional meaning and replaced its current CTO with a new CTO. Confused? No worries, the explanation follows below.

Randy Allen, who was in charge of the AMD’s server and workstation business and previously oversaw microprocessor engineering for the company, has been promoted to the role of "senior vice president, Computing Solutions Group". He will be responsible for "broad and growing portfolio of consumer and commercial microprocessor solutions and platforms", something that sounds like the job description of an almost-chief technology officer to us.

However, it is not quite a complete CTO-like role, as there is a newly formed "Central Engineering" organization that is co-led by Chekib Akrout, who is joining AMD from Freescale, and Jeff VerHeul, corporate vice president of design engineering at AMD. The Central Engineering leadership team is described to "direct the development and execution of AMD’s technology and product roadmaps in partnership with AMD’s business units." Akrout, VerHeul and Allen will report to president Dirk Meyer.

And even if AMD did not name a new chief technology officer, the company still got a new CTO, short for "chief talent officer": The company promoted Allen Sockwell to senior vice president, human resources and CTO to develop "AMD’s leadership assets and employee talent".

Mario Rivas, formerly executive vice president of the Computing Solutions Group and Michel Cadieux, formerly senior vice president and chief talent officer, have left AMD.

Cupertino (CA) - Oh where have all the iPhones gone? Apple is having trouble stocking its wildly popular iPhone in retail stores and its completely unavailable on the United States and UK online Apple Store. Apple says there is no word on when it will get new inventory and this isn’t necessarily a bad thing since everyone anticipates the 3G version of the phone to be announced next month.

We did a quick check on the Apple online store and sure enough both the 8 GB and 16 GB models of the phone are "Currently Unavailable". However, several people have confirmed that many retail stores still have the iPhone in stock, although it is getting a bit more difficult to find. Apple spokesperson Natalie Kerris told

Apple’s Developer Conference is on June 9th and everyone expects Steve Jobs to announced the next-generation iPhone - capable of supporting 3G speeds.

In addition to its GPU production, AMD is planning to also outsource CPU production to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) in the second half of this year, according to industry sources. Although Hector Ruiz, CEO of AMD did not mention any plans to outsource production during the company’s recent investors conference, the industry sources revealed that TSMC has already started testing procedures for a SOI manufacturing process in order to land manufacturing orders for AMD’s Fusion CPUs.

More here at Digitimes.

Although LED makers expected demand to pick up once the first quarter low season ended, industry player indicated that demand was not as strong as expected early in the second quarter, but average selling prices should not drop more than 10% in the quarterer. The first quarter is historically the low season for demand from the handset sector, and ASPs fell accordingly, dropping 10-15% in the quarter.

More here at Digitimes.

While LG Electronics (LGE) has seen its plasma display panel (PDP) shipments buoyed its 32-inch segment, competitors are cautious about volume production for the segment, where market prices remain at levels lower than production costs, according to industry sources. The 32-inch segment helped LGE surpass Matsushita Electric Industrial in overall PDP shipments in the first quarter of this year, the sources noted.

More here at Digitimes.

Taipei (Taiwan) - The first Intel Atom-powered Mobile Internet Device (MID) could be quite expensive. The handheld Gigabyte M528 with its 800 MHz Atom CPU, 512 MB RAM and 8 GB SSD will cost approximately $1131, according to Engadget. However prices could go higher/lower because Gigabyte hasn’t announced official pricing just yet.

Read more ... Engadget.

Former President of Microsoft’s business software division Jeff Raikes has been appointed the new Chief Executive Officer of The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Raikes just announced his retirement from Microsoft back in January so it’s a surprise to see him back in the saddle so soon.

The charity was founded 8 years ago by Bill and Melinda Gates and was later doubled in size by Warren Buffet, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. It now employs a staff of nearly 550 and has an endowment of $37.3 billion.

On February 7, 2008, former CEO Patty Stonesifer announced that she would step aside from her role at the end of the year, however the Foundation has announced that Raikes is to take over from September of this year, the same month he is due to leave Microsoft.

Those who are inclined to think that Raikes won the position because he previously worked for Microsoft should know that the ex-Microsoft employee went through the same screening process as over 150 other applicants and as a finalist was grilled by the company’s top execs before finally getting the job.

"Bill and I considered many extraordinary candidates from around the world during the search for our foundation’s new CEO," said Melinda Gates, foundation co-chair. "Jeff brings more than 25 years of experience in the private sector and has earned a reputation as a trusted and respected leader. Equally important, he shares our passion for these issues and for continuing Patty’s work to build a great culture at the foundation. Jeff is the right CEO to lead the strategies we have in place to help reduce inequities in the United States and around the world."

Raikes joined Microsoft in 1981 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering-Economic Systems from Stanford University and spent his early years driving the company’s applications marketing strategy and its graphical applications for the Apple Macintosh and the Microsoft Windows operating system. Before becoming president of the Business Division, Raikes was group vice president of the Worldwide Sales and Support Group.

Texans shopping on Amazon.com may have to pay sales tax in the near future. The state of Texas is currently looking into whether Amazon can be held responsible for collecting sales tax, including four years worth of back taxes.

Following in the footsteps of New York, officials in Texas claim Amazon may owe millions in sales taxes on purchases made by residents in Texas over the past few years. The officials claim the local government was not aware Amazon had a distribution center in Irving, Texas until now. Having a physical presence in the state would require retailers, online, or mail-order companies to collect tax on all sales within the state. Amazon, on the other hand, argues the company is in compliance with tax regulations.

“We’ve been in the state of Texas since 2000, and we’ve interacted with a number of state and local tax officials,” said Patty Smith, Amazon spokesperson. “We remain in compliance with all Texas laws governing sales tax collection.” Amazon added state law does not require it to collect taxes on its Texas facility, which is operated by a subsidiary called Amazon.com.kydc. Smith added Amazon’s distribution center has been paying other Texas taxes, including state and local property taxes, state franchise tax, and local business licenses.

Texas estimates the state lost an estimated $541 million in sales tax in 2006 from Amazon and other online sales. Final figures from back taxes have not been finalized yet. However, the IRS already technically expects residents in tax paying states to keep track of out-of-state purchases and report all necessary items when filing their annual income tax return.

Last month, Amazon sued New York state over a new law requiring sales tax collection by out-of-state retailers selling to instate residents. Amazon argues the new law is illegal and unconstitutional. Amazon currently collects sales taxes on items shipped to Kansas, Kentucky, North Dakota, and Washington.

Apple and HBO have announced that they are to begin selling shows such as “Sex and the City” and “The Sopranos” via iTunes; with HBO having done what NBC couldn’t and convinced Apple to sell certain shows for $2.99, a buck more expensive than Apple’s preferred standard price point.

Among the new offerings on iTunes are Emmy Award-winning shows "The Sopranos," "Sex and the City," "Deadwood" and "Rome," as well as the critically acclaimed hits "Flight of the Conchords" and "The Wire."

HBO shows purchased and downloaded from the iTunes Store can be viewed on a Mac or PC, iPod nano with video, iPod classic, iPod touch, fifth generation iPod, iPhone or on a widescreen TV with Apple TV. "Sex and the City," "The Wire" and "Flight of the Conchords" are priced at $1.99 per episode, and "The Sopranos," "Deadwood" and "Rome" are priced at $2.99 per episode.

Previously NBC had tried to convince Apple to play with price points above $1.99, which is Apple’s preferred standard price for iTunes TV shows (the same as $0.99 is for a song and $9.99 is for an album.) They had to pull out of distributing content with iTunes thanks to the failure to reach an agreement.

Now however Apple is signalling that it is willing to sell TV shows at more than $1.99 an episode, and with various contracts for the likes of CBS coming up for renewal, we can expect to see some changes in the prices on offer for TV shows on iTunes.

According to preliminary data released by Gamestop the Xbox 360 version of Grand Theft Auto IV has been outselling the PlayStation 3 version roughly 2-1 in North America, though when compared to the relative install base the Xbox version has been under selling compared to its rival.

According to the NPD Group there were 9.9 million Xbox 360’s and 4.1 million PS3’s sold in North America just prior to the launch of GTA IV, or 14 million units in total of which 70.7 percent are Xbox 360’s and 29.3 percent are PS3’s. The breakdown of sales for GTA IV is that 64 percent went to the Xbox 360 and 36 percent to the PS3.

The GTA franchise has, previously, been a PlayStation hallmark and near-exclusive, though all of this has changed recently to the extent that the Xbox version will be getting exclusive future content that Sony fans will have to go without. The sales data for the fourth instalment in the franchise indicates that a lot of PlayStation faithful went out and bought the game, whilst some Xbox users are perhaps still waiting to be sold on the idea.

Speaking to Newsweek, Microsoft director of product management Aaron Greenberg said “I think many people have been surprised to see how well GTA IV is selling on Xbox 360 given the history of the franchise. These sales results add GTA IV to a long list of franchises that have switched over from Playstation to find a new home on Xbox 360 similar to what happened last year with titles like Madden and Guitar Hero.”

The Sony folks countered with PlayStation senior vice president of marketing Peter Dille, who commented “GameStop probably does a little bit better with the early adopter crowd. There’s a larger installed base right now on Xbox 360 than on PS3. So it’s not surprising that there’s going to be more selling on Xbox 360 than PS3.

“Having said that, we’re really excited about the ratio. If I had an installed base advantage of 3-1, I wouldn’t be crowing too much about a 60-40 sales advantage. We think it’s not as high as what GameStop’s telling you, if you look at [the full picture on] the national level. They’re outselling us, but not by that same margin, and it’s because of their installed base lead.

“With an installed base lead that’s close to 3-1, if you’re bragging about a 60-40 software split, it’s clear evidence that the Playstation 3 consumer is overindexing on GTA IV, and the Playstation brand loyalty that we’ve been talking about is bearing itself out in the marketplace as we speak.”

The Chilean government is currently investigating a case whereby the information of 6 million residents was stolen and then posted on a popular online techblog by the name of FayerWayer.com

According to FayerWayer’s Director, Leo Prieto, the hacker posted three compressed files in the comments section of the website at 2am local time on Saturday. The files included the home addresses, telephone numbers, identity card numbers, email address and the academic records of 6 million Chileans.

A note contained within the files explained that the stunt was carried out to demonstrate the low level of IT security in Chile and how little work was being done to protect the data of the country’s 16 million residents. Similar to the US, the Chilean department of elections sells voter data including information on gender, name, address, nationality, date of birth, and disabilities. However, while this kind of information can only be used for political reasons in the US, Chile apparently doesn’t enforce that kind of restriction.

The hacker also reportedly claimed that the files contained academic information on the daughter of Michelle Bachlet, the country’s president,

"Bachelet’s daughter has a school pass, although it’s not given to many people because their parents have earnings above a certain threshold,"

The posted data appears to have been stolen from sites run by the state-owned electoral agency, and Chile’s Education Minister and state-run telephone services however the head of the Electoral Service, Juan Garcia, insists the their database is "intact, secure and protected", claiming the information from his agency that appeared on the Internet was not confidential and available to the public upon request. The information remained on FayerWayer for just a few hours but reports say that even after it was removed it began cropping up on other websites.

The attack comes not too long after the Italian tax office released the tax details of Italian residents in an effort to reduce tax evasion on it’s website. The government said they hoped it would create an atmosphere of transparency with accessible circulation of information. Listed information included names, addresses, dates of birth, declared income and taxes paid.

The information was pulled from the site after Italian privacy and consumer groups contested that it was a violation of state privacy laws.