AP - A strange little ritual used to go along with Polaroid cameras. The shooter would grab the print as it came out of the camera and wave it in the air, as if that would stimulate the chemicals and make the picture appear faster. It didn't. Yet it felt dumb to just stand there, waiting for the picture to develop.

AP - Microsoft Corp.'s next version of the Windows operating system is almost ready for prime time. That's one message Chief Executive Steve Ballmer delivered on the eve of the official opening of the International Consumer Electronics Show.

AP - Even after sharply reducing its outlook for the fourth quarter, Intel Corp. said Wednesday that it would miss its revenue projection by about $500 million, a sign that PC makers and buyers are being more tightfisted than it seemed only two months ago.

AP - U.S. computer maker Dell Inc. announced Thursday it will slash its Irish work force and shift its European manufacturing operations to Poland in a move certain to undermine Ireland's recession-hit economy.

CNET - ZeaChem, a company that uses the microbes in termite guts to make ethanol, said on Thursday it has raised $34 million to build its first plant.

AFP - European and US media and social network websites are struggling to cope with a deluge of reader comments sparked by the Gaza conflict, most fiercely partisan and some explicitly racist or anti-Semitic, according to the sites' administrators.