The Plucky Programmer

AP - Hewlett-Packard Co. said Wednesday it is buying the 3Com Corp. networking company for $2.7 billion, the latest move by the world's No. 1 personal computer maker to expand into areas more profitable than PCs.

AP - The first touch-screen BlackBerry phone, the Storm, got a few things right, but generally it was a chore to use.

AP - Microsoft's Bing search service will pull more information and tools from other Web sites as the company tries to distinguish itself as part of its challenge to market leader Google.

AP - E-mail has taken a full circle.

AP - Amazon's Kindle can read books aloud, but if you're blind it can be difficult to turn that function on without help. Now two universities say they will shun the device until Amazon changes the setup.

AP - As federal regulators take their first tentative steps toward policing the wild west of medical information online, pharmaceutical companies are pressing their case to market drugs via Google, Twitter and other Web sites.

InfoWorld - Sun Microsystems' Zembly project, which provided an environment for building and hosting social applications, will be suspended on November 30, according to a posting on the Zembly blog.

Reuters - A new technology to prevent lithium-ion batteries from catching fire or exploding in laptops and mobile phones may be on the market as soon as the first quarter of 2010, its inventor said on Wednesday.

AP - Motorola Inc. is seeking to sell its largest division, which makes equipment for cable and wireless companies, according to a report Wednesday.

AP - No movie can be all bad when juiced up with a soundtrack of more than 50 classic rock tunes.

PC World - Project Natal will be available worldwide November 2010, launch with 14 games, and sell for less than £50, or about 80 US dollars, according to games biz site MCV. Expect 5 million units for global ship at release, with at least two purchase configurations: As a solo upgrade, or bundled with the Xbox 360 console itself.

NewsFactor - There's another mobile operating system to add to the mix that includes Windows Mobile, Research in Motion's BlackBerry, Palm's webOS, Apple's iPhone, Symbian and Google's Android. On Tuesday, Samsung Electronics announced the launch of its own open mobile platform, called bada.

NewsFactor - Google has added two features -- Google Location History and Google Location Alerts -- to Google Latitude, which is a feature of Google Maps. Software engineer Chris Lambert wrote in a blog post that the additions are the result of requests from users to upgrade Latitude, which launched in February.

PC World - The gloves are off now in the fight for the data center. Cisco has operated largely unchallenged in providing routing and networking equipment for data centers, but with the purchase of 3Com, HP is poised to go head-to-head with Cisco.

PC World - Late last week, an Australian hacker dubbed ikee deployed the Rickrolling worm– a harmless and humorous worm that installs a picture of 80’s one hit wonder Rick Astley to affected users’ home screens.

Reuters - Britons are among the ugliest people in the world, according to a dating website that says it only allows "beautiful people" to join.

Reuters - An Italian inventor has combined faith and ingenuity to come up with a way to keep church traditions alive for the faithful without the fear of contracting swine flu -- an electronic holy water dispenser.

Reuters - Thousands of Chinese women are vying to attend a lavish ball in the southern boomtown of Shenzhen, lured by the dream of a possible fairytale match with a millionaire.

Reuters - It's still not cheap, but Livin' La Vida Madoff may now cost a bit less.

Reuters - A female Brazilian student who was expelled from a Sao Paulo university after her short dress sparked student protests has been allowed back after federal prosecutors opened an investigation into the case.

Reuters - Hundreds of poor Hindu villagers in eastern India have refused to hand over a rare turtle to authorities, saying it is an incarnation of God, officials said on Tuesday.

Reuters - Sylvie Razafindrakoto, whose divorce was finalized three weeks ago, came looking for tips on coping with difficult teenagers as a newly single mother.

Reuters - A British man on the run from police sent a picture of himself to his local paper because he disliked the mugshot they had printed of him as part of a public appeal to track him down.

Reuters - Millionaires down on their luck now have a place to sell their mega-yachts, super-cars and family jewels without having to resort to the pawn shop.

Reuters - Beauty pageant winner Miss England gave up her title on Friday after reports she had been involved in a nightclub brawl with another beauty queen.

AP - A newly discovered dinosaur species that roamed the Earth about 200 million years ago may help explain how the creatures evolved into the largest animals on land, scientists in South Africa said Wednesday.

AP - Israel displayed for the first time Wednesday a collection of rare coins charred and burned from the Roman destruction of the Jewish Temple nearly 2,000 years ago.

AP - Chimps, our nearest relative, don't talk. We do. Now scientists have pinpointed a mutation in a gene that might help explain the difference. The mutation seems to have helped humans develop speech and language. It's probably not the only gene involved, but researchers found the gene looks and acts differently in chimps and humans, according to […]

LiveScience.com - Go ahead, grab a chocolate bar. New evidence is in that eating dark chocolate every day can reduce stress.

Investor's Business Daily - Mideast: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says Tehran will "clasp the hand" of America if we choose his terror regime over Israel. Meanwhile, we publicly endorse Iran's "right" to nuclear power. Something's wrong.

AP - Heavy rain and strong wind caused blackouts that left nearly a third of Brazilians — 60 million people — in the dark, officials said Wednesday as they scrambled to restore confidence in the country's infrastructure before soccer's 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics.

AFP - Rescued and nurtured for nearly a year, then fitted with a satellite transmitter, Letricia appeared reluctant at first to leave its island sanctuary and embark on its long, uncertain migration.

Reuters - A gene therapy treatment that stops the breakdown of muscle appeared safe in monkeys and may build up muscle, too, researchers reported on Wednesday.

AP - Much like its death-defying dives for fish, the brown pelican has resurfaced after plummeting to the brink of extinction.

AFP - Nearly 40 years after it was pushed to the edge of extinction by pesticide use, habitat loss and hunting, the brown pelican was Wednesday taken off the endangered species list, US officials said.