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Looks like a couple of disparate groups are forming to bid for Yahoo. Microsoft is working with Silver Lake and one of Silver Lake's investors, the Canada Pension Plan (CPP), to put together a buy proposal, according to sources who spoke to The Wall Street Journal ...

Will Skype give Microsoft street cred in social networking? At Web 2.0 on Tuesday, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer discussed the company's current and future projects. He touched on Windows Phone, Microsoft Office, Xbox Live, Bing and the recent go-ahead on its Skype acquisition, the buy he characterized as the company's stake in the social networking market...

There's a new social network in town -- Chime.in, the brainchild of Bill Gross, known for creating Google's AdWords platform. Gross is the CEO ofUberMedia, the developer of popular Twitter clients Echofon and Ubersocial. ...

Wireless customers just caught a big break on those surprising overage fees. Wireless industry trade group CTIA, the Federal Communications Commission and Consumers Union released a joint announcement on Monday of an agreement that requires wireless providers to let their customers know when they're about to incur extra fees ...

As of Friday, Skype, the popular video and voice service, is a division of Microsoft. The US$8.5 billion acquisition was announced in May, and the U.S. Justice Department quickly cleared the sale. Antitrust regulators in the European Union signed off earlier this month, although Microsoft acknowledged the acquisition is still under review in a few unnamed countries.

RIM announced that BlackBerry service has been reinstated to millions of users following more than three days of service interruption. The outage prevented many users from sending and receiving text messages and emails, or surfing the Web, although some experienced limited or sporadic service. ...

Sony has issued a voluntary recall for 1.6 million Bravia flat-panel TVs sold worldwide covering certain TVs sold since 2007. A defective component reportedly causes them to be slightly more likely to melt or catch fire than the average TV. In September, a Japanese customer discovered that his TV started a small fire. Eleven incidents like this have apparently occurred in Japan since 2008...

Research In Motion just can't catch a break. The outages in Internet service RIM suffered on Monday in the EMEA region have spread to India and South America. BlackBerry users across all of those areas are experiencing loss of Internet and messaging services. ...

Netflix cracked under pressure and regrouped its business into a single service offering that includes both streaming content and mailed DVDs. The company announced on Monday it will not split off its DVD-by-mail service under the name "Qwikster," as planned. ...

At least 18 million Americans have no access to broadband Internet connectivity, and the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission wants to do something about that. Julius Genachowski sketched out a proposal at the FCC offices Thursday that would shift subsidies from telecom services in rural areas to broadband Internet access ...

A team of physicists at Rice University have created an "electron superhighway" that could one day be useful for building a quantum computer -- a machine that would utilize quantum particles instead of the digital transistors in today's microchips ...

Samsung said Wednesday that it will file separate motions in Paris and Milan for preliminary injunctions against the sale of Apple's iPhone 4S in France and Italy. This move comes one day after Apple unveiled the new model in the United States. ...

Samsung seems to be stuck in its patent disputes with Apple and thus may choose to cancel the Australian release of its Galaxy Tab 10.1. All depends on whether it wins court approval within the next two weeks to proceed with sales, according to press reports. ...

Turns out there is a catch with the Kindle Touch 3G Amazon announced on Wednesday. The Touch 3G offers the addition of 3G wireless connectivity and sells for $149 -- $50 more than the Kindle Touch, which allows Web access over WiFi networks only ...

Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., and Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, co-chairmen of the Congressional Bi-Partisan Privacy Caucus, have sent a letter to Joe Leibowitz, chairman of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), addressing Facebook's use of cookies to gather information from members who surf the 905,000 sites that display its "like" button ...

Microsoft and Samsung have signed an agreement to cross-license their patent portfolios, providing broad coverage for each company's products. Microsoft will receive royalties for Samsung's Android-powered mobile phones, and the companies have agreed to focus on further development and marketing of Windows-powered smartphones ...

Facebook's most recent API allows applications to post status updates to a user's wall without their intervention. This is part of Facebook Instant and is known as frictionless sharing. This means users no longer have to proactively decide to share an item, and there's a risk that something could be unintentionally shared with Facebook friends ...

HP CEO Leo Apotheker is on the way out, and the company is close to naming the former chief executive of eBay, Meg Whitman, as its new CEO, said sources speaking to Reuters. The decision to make Whitman the full-fledged CEO of the company -- rather than appointing her to serve in an interim capacity -- reportedly will be announced after the markets close Thursday.

Facebook users were hit with a major update on Wednesday. The News Feed that displays other users' status updates has been altered to a real-time news ticker. It is now tailored to how often a user visits the site. Updates are now ranked by factors that allow users to mark certain posts as top stories instead of simply displaying the most recent news...

Here's a smartphone designed for charm. The HTC Rhyme for Verizon actually has a charm designed to dangle outside a purse. It lights up to tell the owner when there's a call. The phone appears to target teenage girls -- that is, except for the price point of US$199.99 with a two-year contract. Perhaps a tad pricey for the very young. It comes with three accessories: a dock, headphones and the charm...