Qualcomm invests $10 million in Handspring
Handspring, maker of the Visor personal digital assistant, said it would offer 7 million shares of its common stock at $5.50 per share and, separately, said Qualcomm agreed to invest $10 million in the company. Mountain View, California-based Handspring, the No 2 maker of handheld computers after Palm, said the proceeds from the offerings would be used for general corporate purposes, such as capital expenditures or possible acquisitions.

Virus could make a very unhappy New Year
A newly discovered computer worm, sent under guise of a holiday greeting, has popped up in the US and Europe and, if activated, could destroy personal computers, experts said. The Reeezak worm enters a computer as an e-mail message in Microsoft Outlook with a subject line ‘Happy New Year’ and an attachment-’Christmas.exe’ which a recipient may think is a Christmas card. The worm can disable selective keys on the infected computer’s keyboard and delete all the files found in the Windows System Directory, rendering the computer inoperable.

Further, since the worm, a self-propagating virus, sends itself to every e-mail in an address book, recipients are more likely to open the attachment because it appears to come from a recognised source.

Seven companies join Sun network ID bloc
Seven more companies have become founding members of a Sun Microsystems-led effort to develop alternatives to Microsoft’s network identity system. American Express, AOL Time Warner, France Telecom, General Motors, Hewlett-Packard, MasterCard International and a major bank will join Sun and other companies in overseeing the Liberty Alliance Project, officials said. The bank has not yet been identified at its request, said Sun spokeswoman Melissa Ripperger. The alliance, which was announced in September, is developing specifications for programs that would allow Internet users to log in once but gain access to any supported Internet services that require authentication. Microsoft Passport already offers the same capability.

AMD hits 1GHz mark for budget laptops
The Sunnyvale, California, chipmaker announced a new 1GHz mobile Duron chip for notebook PCs. The mobile Duron is similar to the company’s mobile Athlon 4 chip, but it’s manufactured at lower clock speeds and includes a smaller level 2 cache. Its advantage is a lower price. The new Duron chip helps notebook manufacturers offer a 1GHz notebook for less than $900.

The chip will be available in Compaq Computer’s Presario 700 notebook, starting this week. The notebook, when configured with the 1GHz chip with a 13.3-inch display, starts at $899. That price is $50 less than the price of a notebook with a 1GHz mobile Athlon 4 but otherwise the same configuration.

Verizon Wireless acquires Price
Verizon Wireless has acquired the cellular telephone operations of Price Communications for $1.15 billion. Verizon, the nation’s largest wireless provider with nearly 29 million customers, said it had updated an agreement it had made with Price last year that was cancelled when Verizon failed to go ahead with an initial public offering of its stock.

Price would contribute all of its wireless assets, including 41 retail stores, a regional call centre in Atlanta and some network infrastructure. The business will adopt the Verizon Wireless brand name.

Motorola to cut 9,400 more jobs
Motorola is getting significantly smaller in pursuit of the profitability it maintains it will achieve again in 2002 after a 11/2-year losing streak. The struggling technology giant, hamstrung since 2000 by a weakened economy and operating problems of its own making, is trimming another 9,400 jobs in the latest of a series of sweeping cuts.