This current laptop segment comprises of the less-than-one-inch-thick Apple MacBook Air and Dell Adamo, which use Intel processors and draw relatively little power compared with standard mobile-processors. However, these devices are pricey, luxury notebooks. Intel is targeting the general consumer-laptop market with its newest processors.

“It will fit the consumer-system price point; very affordable systems,” Mooly Eden, vice president and general manager of the PC Client Group at Intel said. He did not specify prices, but the consumer laptop segment typically ranges from about $500 to $1,000 for systems with screen sizes between 13 inches and 15 inches diagonally.

According to Eden, Asus (NASDAQ:ASUS), Gateway, and Acer (2353:TW) already have systems ready for launch. He predicted that eventually all major PC makers will bring out laptops based on these processors. The Acer Aspire 1830, Gateway EC39, Asus UL80, Lenovo U160, and MSI X350 are upcoming systems that will be available from some vendors starting June 2010.

The new processors include the Core i3-330UM (1.2GHz), Core i5-540UM (1.2GHz), Core i7-660UM (1.33GHz), and Pentium U5400 (1.2GHz). One of the distinguishing features of these processors is the chip’s package size, which is 32-percent smaller than standard-processor packages.

These new processors expand an existing line of ultra-low-power processors. Intel has been shipping the Core 2 Duo SU9400 since the third quarter of 2008 and the Core I7-620UM since the first quarter of this year.

On April 26, Charles River agreed to acquire WuXi PharmaTech for $1.6 billion in cash and stock. The transaction, which is expected to close by the fourth quarter of 2010, is estimated to be neutral to slightly accretive to Charles River’s 2011 non-GAAP per share earnings. Charles River intends to finance the cash portion of the transaction through balance-sheet cash on hand and one or more sources of debt financing. Charles River has received a financing commitment for a $1.25 billion credit facility from J.P. Morgan Chase and Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Last year, Charles River had generated $1.2 billion in sales, down from $1.3 billion in 2008, while WuXi had sales of $270 million, up from $253.5 million in 2008.

Due to decreased spending by its customers, Charles River’s preclinical services division has been facing a tough time. However, with strong preclinical bookings for the first quarter of 2010 and early positive indicators for the second quarter, Charles River anticipates improvement in demand for its broad portfolio of essential products and services in 2010, and as the year progresses, sales and earnings growth.

1. Marketing products. Many online businesses use Twitter to showcase new products, services, and deals. Since the limit is 140 characters, there is no need to hire a marketing writer to discuss the product. Just develop a catchy teaser that will encourage the reader to go to the website or list contact details.

2. Build a loyal customer base. Twitter exposes companies to new markets since there are groups for almost any interest under the digital sun. Following these conversations and sharing expertise is an excellent way to attract a new target audience. Twitter can be used in lieu of e-mail campaigns, and it allows a company to reach the audience without the hassle of sending out individual e-mails or mailings.

3. Create ties with the upline. Since almost everyone is on Twitter, a company can use its Twitter account to keep in touch with its upline contacts. This means getting feedback, asking advice, and discovering great ideas at easily and immediately.

4. Strengthen your downline. Twitter’s features allow an organization to send quick notes of encouragement and updates to its team, wherever they are. Questions and ideas can be discussed online, whether at home or on the road. All that is needed is to create a short post to get things starting. The beauty of Twitter is that it’s free and easy to set-up. Depending on how deeply involved an organization wants to get, regular marketing on Twitter should not take more than an hour. For optimal results, make sure to add a link from the homepage to the Twitter page, add the link to e-mail signatures, and insert it in the corporate blog as well as on the contact page of other networking sites of which the company is a member.

1. Contact the business or entrepreneur’s group (e.g., on LinkedIn) in the online community. Join in and participate in their activities and promote the company’s products and services.

2. Participate in small fairs and community events. Find out who will attend in person and who can be reached online. This also helps a company to be visible in the community and to build its brand and business reputation.

3. Offer to teach or talk at the local community college on entrepreneurship. Contact any local interest groups and offer a one-day coaching session on starting a business. Participate in job fairs and online groups and forums.

4. Invest in low-cost advertisements in local newspapers and online ezines. There are quite a lot of people who will take advantage of offers posted in these publications.

5. Share your expertise online. Write articles and publish them on content sites such as e-How.com and ezinearticles.com.

6. Participate in online forums and public bulletin boards. Take the time to ask and answer questions to establish the company as an expert.

7. Create a blog or dedicated website for specific products or services. Promotion can be done via Google Adwords, pay-per-click, and other SEO services.

8. Create and publish professional-looking e-zines and e-mail updates. Send them to the company’s mailing list and those who seem interested through contacts in the website’s forums.

9. Open an account on Twitter, Facebook, and other socia- networking sites.

10. Start a networking site with your downline on ning.com or squidoo.com.

It might seem like a lot of work, but building a corporate network is essential to marketing.

Muris is the former Republican chairman of the Federal Trade Commission currently serving as an attorney at the law firm O’Melveny & Myers. He was enlisted at a time when the FTC is taking a close look at complaints against the social-networking Internet company that have been filed by privacy advocates. As Facebook grows more influential in the lives of its 400 million users, governments around the globe are looking whether and how to regulate Facebook and other social media. Facebook began its offensive in Washington last year by hiring Tim Sparapani. He was senior counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, which has close ties to some of the same groups that are most critical of Facebook.

Muris, who was awarded a lifetime-achievement award at the FTC, is an advocate of a different kind. Earlier this year, he appeared before the Senate’s commerce committee to testify against a legislative proposal that would give the FTC far-greater authority to pass regulations, including those on privacy matters. The measure, which has the support of some FTC commissioners, has already passed in the House of Representatives, and consumer-rights advocates are pressing for the bill to be added in the financial-regulatory overhaul under debate in the Senate. Muris declined to comment on questions related to Facebook, but he emphasized that the views he expressed in his testimony were positions he held for the past 35 years.

Last week, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, an advocacy group in Washington, asked the FTC to investigate recent changes made by Facebook. They are especially concerned that more information is made public by default and that information is automatically shared with other websites. “These changes violate user expectations, diminish user privacy, and contradict Facebook’s own representations,” Epic said in its complaint. In January, the FTC told Epic in response to another complaint that it was raising “issues of particular interest for us.” Facebook has maintained that it is giving users more control over their privacy in response to the FTC complaints.

Facebook is also under fire on Capitol Hill. Last month, lawmakers called on the company to stop automatically sharing user information with third-party websites and to streamline its privacy policy. Led by Chuck Schume, a New York Democratic senator, they said that Facebook users should have to opt-in to data-sharing arrangements, rather than being forced to opt-out if they do not wish to participate.

In a statement, the Santa Clara County DA confirmed Yahoo’s report that Apple sits on the steering committee of the Rapid Enforcement Allied Computer Team (REACT) Task Force, a coalition of 17 federal, state, and local law-enforcement agencies created in 1997 to combat high-tech crimes. The Santa Clara County DA’s office is the task force’s lead agency.

Apple, notoriously secretive, was outraged at the leak of the iPhone, which an Apple employee inadvertently left in a Northern California bar. An as-yet-unnamed patron who found the phone sold it to Gizmodo for $5,000.

The statement, issued in response to queries from Yahoo! News, says REACT is required by law to establish a steering committee to meet regularly and “review task force activities, and provide advice, recommendations, strategic input and direction for task force consideration.”

The committee, the statement says, is an ad hoc group of local technology companies that are invited to quarterly meetings to provide guidance on REACT’s activities:
“There is no defined membership as committee meetings are open to all who are interested to attend any given meeting. To the extent that high-tech companies or other entities would send representatives to the meetings, they are considered members of the committee. While our records have not shown its attendance as of late, Apple is similarly situated as other companies or entities, which have open invitations to attend committee meetings at any frequency.”

The 2008 annual report of California’s High Technology Crime Advisory Committee lists Apple as a member of the committee [pdf]. Other committee members include Google (GOOG), eBay (EBAY), and Symantec (CYMC).

The San Mateo District Attorney’s office, which is overseeing the case, will say only that the investigation involves “felony theft.” Asked why a high-technology task force that generally deals with massive counterfeiting operations and online threats is handling a case involving a phone left in a bar, a spokesman declined to comment.

David Townsend, a private investigator who formerly worked as an investigator for REACT, has an idea: “You have to look at this not as a theft of a phone, but theft of intellectual property. This is a big deal for Apple. If you were to try to put a value on it, I’d put it in the hundreds of millions of dollars. There’s a big difference between the theft of a lost phone and a prototype that gets into the hands of a gadget-blog editor.”

Stephen Wagstaffe, the chief deputy district attorney in San Mateo County, told the San Jose Business Journal that an attorney for Apple approached the DA’s office last week seeking a criminal investigation. The DA then referred the lawyer and another Apple employee to REACT.

The San Mateo County DA has said that it will not examine Chen’s computers, which were seized in the raid, until it determines whether or not the law applies. Nick Denton, the owner of Gizmodo’s publisher, Gawker Media stated that he is holding off on seeking the return of the computers until the DA makes its decision. “We’re leaving it with the DA initially. And then taking it to the judge who issued the warrant if that doesn’t work. Not necessarily looking for the most aggressive course.”

“Following the completion of intensive technical scrutiny, Israel Minister of Communications Moshe Kahlon approved the import of [the] iPad to Israel,” Yechiel Shabi, a spokesperson for the Communications Ministry, said in a statement.

Israel prohibited the devices from being imported into the country over concerns its wireless signal could disrupt local Wi-Fi networks (including some that might be used by the military) as sell as other devices. At least twenty iPads purchased in the United States had been seized at Ben-Gurion Airport, confiscated, and held in storage for 45 shekels ($12) a day — a fee that legally must now be paid by the owner. The Communications Ministry said iPads would be allowed to be imported beginning Sunday, limited to one per person, and that confiscated devices would be returned.

The iPad Wi-Fi only model went on sale April 3 in the United States, selling more than 300,000 devices on the first day. The strong, domestic demand for the device led the company to delay international shipments until the end of May, a month later than previously expected. Apple will begin taking international preorders on May 10.

According to Associated Press writer Samantha Gross, “The software analyzes functional MRI scans to determine what parts of a person’s brain is being activated as he or she thinks… Eventually, the technology could help the severely physically disabled to communicate. Intel Labs researcher Dean Pomerleau sees it as an early step toward one day being able to control technology with our minds.”

Currently, for optimal results, the system first requires test subjects to think about a series of nouns such as different animals or objects and then analyzes the subjects’ brain waves while they are focusing on those words. Researchers then ask the subjects to select one or two new terms and focus on them. The software uses the different brain activity associated with different types and categories of words, thus enabling it to predict what new nouns they are currently focusing on. The software works by analyzing the shared attributes of different words. If a person is thinking of a bear, the same parts of the brain light up as it would if the he were thinking of a puppy or something else furry. A thought of a bear also shows activity in the amygdale region — home of the “fight-or-flight response.”

Intel recently announced several other technological advances including a cell phone that can use motion, GPS, and audio data to track users’ activity and present it to others in the manner of a social networking. Other innovations include a new technology that can search conversations for inaccuracies and use the information to help end debates or disputes; a holographic display that stores could use to provide directions to shoppers; and a set-top box that can monitor TV viewing habits and suggest related programming options based on an individual’s preferences.

A press-only invitation to view a “sneak peek” of Apple’s next generation iPhone OS 4.0 saw Apple in the news yet again. “Apple set to unveil mobile advertising platform” and “On Thursday We’ll See the Future of iPhone… Ads?” were just a few of the associated headlines springing up after the invitation arrived in journalists’ inboxes and was then covered by the blogs.

A legal battle between the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and one of America’s largest Internet providers, Comcast, divided bloggers this week. “Comcast Wins, We Lose: Court Says FCC Doesn’t Have the Power to Enforce Net Neutrality,” wrote Gizmodo, lamenting that “FCC doesn’t have the power to tell Comcast, or any ISP, to be net neutral.” TechDirt, on the other hand, believed that consumers (and journalists) shouldn’t be upset about the ruling and wrote an article entitled, “Court Tells FCC It Has No Mandate To Enforce Net Neutrality (And That’s A Good Thing).”

Journalists received an invitation to a Microsoft press event that would, as CNET journalist Ina Fried writes, “herald the introduction of Microsoft’s long-awaited new phones for the always-connected crowd.” According to bloggers, the April 12 press event will be used to unveil the long-rumored Project Pink phones — Turtle and Pure.

On April 5, HP (HPQ) released yet another video on their YouTube page and HP Slate blog showing the tablet’s front-and back-facing, video-capable cameras, a USB port, support for Adobe Flash and a slot for a SD card reader (all of which are features the iPad is lacking). Technology blog Engadget also posted ‘official looking’ HP Slate presentation documents detailing the tablet’s specifications and pricing details. The documents claim the base model of the tablet will be sold for $549. Spanish technology blog Clipset.net previously reported that the tablet would be launched in June 20210 and priced at approximately €400.

China’s Internet is also at a far-earlier stage of development than that in the United States, meaning that online habits are still in their formative stages. Beyond search, there are plenty of opportunities for advertisers looking to leverage digital media. Even now, according to a report in Advertising Age this week, “few focus on search ads, veering instead toward Tencent’s QQ.com portal, social-networking sites such as Renren.com and online retail stores connected with Alibaba Corp.’s Taobao.com e-commerce platform.”

Multinationals may not find China an easy place in which to operate, yet many the challenges can be overcome with plenty of local knowledge. The depth of required regional and local knowledge is not putting serious marketers off, either. Zenith Optimedia reports that ad spending in China jumped 19% in 2009. It expects China to become the fourth-largest global ad market this year.

China is already the world’s biggest market for cars and mobile phones, and sales are growing quickly in other product categories. According to the Advertising Age report, “Unilever, China’s second-largest advertiser after Procter & Gamble, is counting on a 20% jump in its China sales this year. Similarly, No.3 advertiser L’Oreal Group has wracked up nine straight years of double-digit growth in China, with 2009 sales of $1.2 billion, up 17.6% year-on year.”