What happens when there's a discrepancy in the vote count of an electronic voting machine? Can outside experts examine it and determine what went wrong? Chances are, the answer is no, because the companies that make the machines jealously guard their proprietary systems.

Microsoft on Thursday cited “an unacceptable number of repairs” to its Xbox 360 for the charge, and announced an extended warranty for the video game console.

COMPUTER MAKER Acer seems to have followed Dell's lead and started preinstalling Ubuntu in at least one range of its laptops.

So far there has been only one reported advertisement for an Ubuntu based product, in Singapore. Ubuntu has been shoved under the bonnet of its Intel duel core Aspire 5710z machines which are selling for £326.

French court rules- refund of a total that:
Acer was forced to pay back was made up of 135.20 euros for Windows XP Home, 60 euros for Microsoft Works, 40.99 euros for PowerDVD, 38.66 euros for Norton Antivirus and 37 euros for NTI CD Maker. On top of that Acer had to pay a further 650 euros in, among other things, legal costs.

Secret Maryo Chronicles is an open source PC game designed around the original Super Mario World side scroller that takes what was great about that old console game and brings it to the PC, dusts it off and tries to improve on it. While still not completely polished or fully matured, it does offer you a lot of gaming fun. So let's look at a little that it does offer you.

Acer is suing Hewlett-Packard again for patent violations. It's an escalation of the battle over the two companies' intellectual property that began earlier this year.

Acer will not release Linux-based laptops in the UK due to a lack of demand, despite launching an Ubuntu-based machine in Asia.

According to Gianpiero Morbello Acer, Acer's VP of Marketing and Brand:

"We have shifted towards Linux because of Microsoft. "

Acer is planning to sell Linux-based PCs to the UK market, the company told ZDNet.co.uk.