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Tampa Tribune

Published: December 6, 2007

NET

Send E-Mail On JetBlue

JetBlue Airways will start offering limited e-mail and instant messaging services free next week on Flight 641 from New York to San Francisco in the latest effort by airlines to offer in-flight Internet access. General Web surfing and e-mail attachments won't be permitted because of bandwidth constraints, and services on laptops and handhelds with Wi-Fi wireless access will be limited to e-mail and messaging from Yahoo. American Airlines is among the carriers planning to test broader, fee-based, in-flight Internet services in coming months.

NATION

IBM Scores Breakthrough

IBM researchers announced on Thursday a significant step toward putting the power of a massive supercomputer with thousands of processors on a single microchip by using pulses of light instead of copper wires. Big Blue said it had achieved a breakthrough by creating a device for converting electrical signals into light pulses that are 200 micrometers across, about twice the width of a human hair. That is about 1,000 times smaller than any previously demonstrated example of the technology, IBM said. Commercial applications might be more than a decade away, but researchers envision chips with hundreds or thousands of cores connected by light. In comparison, IBM's powerful Austin-designed Cell chip in the Sony PlayStation 3 has nine cores.

Dell, Best Buy Team Up

Dell will start selling computers at Best Buy stores in January because consumers increasingly see computers as an extension of their personalities and want to touch them before buying.

Big Dip In Jobless Claims

The number of laid-off workers filing claims for unemployment benefits fell last week by the largest amount in three months. The Labor Department reported that applications for jobless benefits dipped by 15,000 to 338,000. The decline was the largest since claims dipped by 22,000 in the first week of September.

WORLD

Banks Urged To Hold Rates

The world economy can weather the fallout from the U.S. housing crisis, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development forecast Thursday, urging the European Central Bank and U.S. Federal Reserve not to cut borrowing costs. The United States has already lowered its benchmark rate twice because of worries about a slowdown, while the Bank of England made a quarter-point cut Thursday. The European Central Bank held steady.

A staff and wire report

Watch the Tribune's Business report at 5, 6 and 11 a.m. Tuesday to Friday and 9 a.m. Saturdays on WFLA-TV.

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