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Microsoft reported strong profits and revenue for the most recent financial quarter, amid better than expected sales of its much-maligned Windows Vista operating system.

Sales rose 32 percent to $14.4 billion, and the company's net income for the third quarter increased to $4.93 billion.

A new high-speed Wi-Fi certification plan could actually mean reduced performance for Wi-Fi in future, a leading communications analyst has warned.

The Wi-Fi alliance this week announced that an interim standard for next generation wireless LANs has been approved. New products with the 802.11n draft 2.0 certification will be available from late June.

However, the Wi-Fi alliance has also said that some older 'pre-N' 802.11 wireless LAN products will also be certifiable under the new draft 2.0 certification.

One month after tens of thousands of PCs in China were disabled by a bug in its Norton antivirus software, Symantec has offered to compensate the owners. However, the compensation – more copies of the software that caused the problem – has sparked outrage on some online forums.

Just three countries, the US, China and Germany, are the origin of almost half of all malicious online activity, according to Internet security firm, Symantec. The company detected more than 6 million separate 'zombies', computers controlled by malicious hackers, in the last six months of 2006, it announced.

The groups behind the attacks appear to be growing in power.

How much income do Microsoft, Yahoo and Google earn from your free email account? Only about one quarter of a cent per month, according to new data from China, the world's largest online market.

The 470 million free email accounts registered by Chinese netizens generated $3.64 million in advertising revenue for service providers like Yahoo and Hotmail during the last three months of 2006, according to data from the Beijing office of research firm Analysys International. This indicates that the average income from a single account was only $0.0025 per month

Leading PC manufacturers are often unable to resolve problems with the computers they make, according to new research. They were defeated by more than 40 percent of user problems with Windows PCs, US investigators found.

Customers also say they're tearing their hair out over manufacturers' phone support hassles and delays, and that paid technical support is often little better than free service.

Flextronics will acquire its rival, Solectron, to form one of the world's largest contract electronics manufacturers, the company has announced. Flextronics is the unsung maker of many famous products, including Microsoft's Xbox 360 games console.

Dramatic video of a notebook PC exploding in flames has shocked consumers and battered its manufacturer's share price. The explosion of the LG notebook's battery earlier this week was caught in video footage (seen here), which has now been broadcast on Korean television.

“People do need to be aware that there's a risk of very serious injury. If there's any sign that a laptop battery is overheating badly, stay well away from it”, said one doctor interviewed on Korean TV.

Korean internet users are up in arms over a satirical video clip from US humorist Stephen Colbert.

Apple acknowledges that portable media players, a class of products which includes the iPod, can cause hearing damage, according to a newly published patent application filed by the company. The application describes a method of reducing the risk of hearing loss. The document, which does not mention the iPod by name, was originally filed one month before a class action lawsuit which alleges the iPod series' design may exacerbate hearing loss.