Intel joins Dell in fight against netbook trademark

In today's podcast: Intel joins Dell in fight against netbook trademark; AMD demonstrates six-core Istanbul processor; and US government investigates Heartland over data breach.

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Intel on Wednesday said it had joined Dell and other companies in an attempt to free the term 'netbook' from the clutches of PC maker Psion Teklogix. In a legal filing earlier this month, Intel asked the court to cancel a trademark for the term "netbook," which is held by Psion. The term should not be a trademark as it is now being widely used to describe a new category of small, low-cost laptops that run basic applications, Intel said in a filing. Psion was awarded a trademark for the term in 2000. The company later issued cease-and-desist warnings to PC makers, bloggers and retailers warning them to stop using the term to describe products, according to Intel's court filing. Intel additionally is asking to legally be allowed to use the term netbook.

Advanced Micro Devices on Wednesday said it demonstrated the first working models of Istanbul chips, the company's upcoming line of server processors with six cores. The chips offer better performance while drawing the same amount of power as existing quad-core Shanghai server chips, AMD said. Servers with Istanbul chips also showed better memory throughput and improved application performance in Windows Server 2008 through hyperthreading compared to previous processors. Servers may include up to 48 cores by accommodating up to eight Istanbul chips.

Federal agencies, including the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, have begun investigating Heartland Payment Systems following a massive data breach at the payment processing company. Company President and Chief Financial Officer Robert Baldwin Jr. disclosed the investigations during Heartland's quarterly conference call with investigators Tuesday, saying that the SEC had launched an informal inquiry into the company and that there is also a related investigation by the Department of Justice. The U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which regulates national banks and their service providers, has launched an inquiry, as has the FTC.

People who bought an unlocked version of the Android G1 phone are no longer allowed to download new paid applications from the Market, after a change Google made late last week. Google is prohibiting users of the unlocked phones from viewing copy-protected applications, including those that cost to download. The Developer version of the G1 comes unlocked to any particular mobile operator and is priced at US$400. Anyone who joins the Android developer program for $25 can buy the phone. While Google offered only slim details about why it made the change, it could be an attempt to close a loophole that reportedly allows users of the unlocked phone to download paid applications for free.

...And those are the top stories from the IDG Global IT News Update, brought to you by the IDG News Service. I'm Sumner Lemon in Singapore. Join us again later for more news from the world of technology.