The United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has launched an antitrust lawsuit against Intel, alleging that the tech giant used its dominant market position to stifle competition and expand its monopoly. The FTC is pretty late to the party, though, and at this point, even if the accusations are proven true, its really too little, too late.

The FTC complaint claims that Intel engaged in a wide range of anti-competitive and predatory business practices and alleges that Intel "threatened to and did increase prices, terminate product and technology collaborations, shut off supply, and reduce marketing support to OEMs that purchased too many products from Intel's competitors."

Susan Boyle may not have won the top spot in "Britain's Got Talent," but the big-voiced Brit has just achieved a far more impressive feat: Her video has taken the title of most watched clip on YouTube in 2009.

YouTube released a list of its most popular videos of the year on Wednesday, taking into account aggregated views from all over the globe. And while Boyle's inaugural television appearance was the most harmonious of the bunch, the other hot commodities were no less theatrical.

Mozilla yesterday released Firefox version 3.5.6. The update resolves three critical security holes, and also patches up some stability issues.

An integer overflow flaw in the libtheora video library picks up a fix, as does a memory safety concern in the liboggplay media library. The third critical fix takes care of a problem with Javascript that could allow for crashing the browser and potentially running malicious commands.

Yesterday, for example, you learned that clicking Middy on any open browser tab closes it immediately--even if it's a tab that's not currently visible.

Google's Nexus One smartphone is a shot across the bow of many entrenched competitors, enough to make us wonder whether Google has some master plan for world domination or has merely gone loopy.

If you combine all the speculation, Google is merely planning to rearrange the entire wireless industry to its advantage, and perhaps in ways that benefit business customers, too.

North American Material Trading Company, a metal trading and processing firm headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, recently acquired two nearby manufacturing plants and opened a satellite office in Tampa, Florida. It wasn't long before management realized that each location featured a disconnected jumble of outdated equipment.

The company now had three separate, stand-alone phone systems that barely worked and racked up unusually high phone bills. A variety of older computers were badly in need of replacement. There was no central server, and the new plants were using an unreliable hosted e-mail service. On top of those problems, none of the four locations had adequate network security in place.

The European Union is dropping its antitrust case against Microsoft in the wake of an agreement between Microsoft and European antitrust litigators to provide European users with more choice. Beginning in 2010, and extending over the next five years, Microsoft will allow European users to select the Web browser they use with Microsoft Windows using a ballot screen.

Beginning in March of 2010, Microsoft will push out an update to existing users of Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7 in Europe with a choice screen that will allow them to choose from twelve different Web browser options. New installations of the Windows operating systems will also receive the "Choice Screen Update" through 2015.

Even with the threat of Microsoft's Bing, Google continues to take a greater share of the search engine market. But Bing is growing, too; it's Yahoo that is losing ground.

Did you know that Twitter users are a bunch of Super Bowl cheering, American Idol watching, Google Wave using music lovers? That's according to Twitter's top trending topics list for 2009, anyway. Twitter recently released the list, which details the topics that people were talking about this year, in messages of 140 characters or less, of course.

The hashtag Music Monday, used by twitter users to share what music they're listening to as they kick off the work week, was the most popular trending topic of 2009, according to Twitter . Tweets about Iran's elections came in a close second.

If you're shopping for a new HDTV this holiday season, you've likely seen higher refresh rates -- up to 240 hertz -- touted among the many bells and whistles that TV makers are offering on their flat panel sets. But before you whip out your credit card, we have a word of warning: extra hertz may not mean better picture quality.

Higher refresh rates are aimed at reducing the "motion blur" that can interfere with your HDTV's picture quality, particularly during fast-moving action in video games and sports events, for instance. In the past couple of years, refresh rates were bumped up to 120Hz, from the previous standard of 60Hz. Now, TV makers are offering sets with refresh rates of 240Hz.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs may have a reputation for being difficult, but his alter ego, Dan Lyons' Fake Steve, may be even worse. On Monday, Fake Steve continued his attacks against AT&T's reputation for poor service by encouraging readers to flood AT&T's 3G network at noon this Friday in an attempt to cripple AT&T's data network. Dubbed Operation Chokehold, Fake Steve calls on iPhone users across the country to run a data intensive iPhone application for one solid hour on AT&T's 3G network. As you can imagine, AT&T was not happy to hear about this "digital flash mob," as Fake Steve is calling it.

How it came to this

Beginning in mid-January, McDonald's restaurants will become one of the nation's largest providers of free Wi-Fi Internet access, thanks to a new deal with AT&T.

Free Internet access will be available at 11,000 of the company's 13,000 U.S. locations, making McDonald's an even friendlier spot for Road Warriors in need of connectivity.