San Francisco - Hewlett Packard, the world's largest computer maker, is to cut 24,600 jobs over three years as part of its plan to integrate enterprise technology firm Electronic Data Systems Corp, the company announced Monday.

The cuts represent about 7.5 per cent of HP's workforce and will force HP to take a 1.7-billion-dollar charge.

HP bought EDS in March for 13.2 billion dollars. The combined company had a workforce of 320,000 employees.

Washington, September 15 : An Indian-origin mechanical engineer and his colleagues at the University of Utah have developed a new approach to slice thin wafers of the chemical element germanium, so that they can be used in the most efficient type of solar power cells.

Dinesh Rakwal, a doctoral student in mechanical engineering, believes that the new method can lower the cost of such cells by reducing the waste and breakage of the brittle semiconductor.

Microchip, a highly developed integrated circuit, used in almost all modern electronic gadgets and gizmos completed 50 years on last Friday.

LG Electronics has revealed its new phone the Lotus, created in collaboration with fashion designer, Christian Siriano.

Targeting fashionable women, the purple or black colored flip phone, is equipped with amazing features, which includes One Click,  a highly-customizable user interface that enables texting, web access, email, Sprint Navigation, Sprint TV, and Sprint Music Store(SM).

Besides making a style statement, this new Lotus phone  integrates a full QWERTY keyboard, a 2 megapixel camera and camcorder, stereo Bluetooth, music player with external controls and a microSD memory slot.

London, September 15 : Google is all set to extend its domination over cyberspace to the high seas, with the launch of its own "computer navy" – a set of supercomputers necessary to operate its internet search engines on barges anchored up to seven miles (11km) offshore.

According to a report in the Times, the "water-based data centres" would use wave energy to power and cool their computers, reducing Google''s costs.

Their offshore status would also mean the company would no longer have to pay property taxes on its data centres, which are sited across the world, including in Britain.

London, September 15 : Camera phone users may soon be able to scribble notes on the back of the photographs they click as to where a picture was taken, who took it, and who is in the shot.