From PC World: Amid reports that it is moving thousands of jobs from the US to India, IBM said Thursday it is notifying employees that some jobs are being eliminated.

"This is a North American action. We are not communicating locations or the number of jobs as a result of this action," IBM said in a statement on Thursday.

The Wall Street Journal reported that IBM is planning to lay off about 5,000 U.S. employees, with many of the jobs being transferred to India. It cited people familiar with the situation.

The latest round of cuts target the company's global business-services unit, according to reports.

India has emerged as key location for IBM and other multinational services companies for the global delivery of services. IBM is estimated to have over 80,000 staff in services delivery and sales in India.

IBM has been steadily building its work force in India and other locations while reducing the number of workers based in the U.S., the Journal report said.

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From CNET News.com: Google on Wednesday unveiled the latest addition to its iGoogle start page service: a collection of themes designed by video game publishers. The search giant has partnered with nine publishers to come up with a little under two dozen themes from recent games from EA's Spore to arcade classics like Galaga.

Like other themes produced through the iGoogle themes API, these will change throughout the day, including Easter eggs some developers have tucked away inside their designs. And unlike other gaming designs created by users, these can be used by anyone without stepping on copyrights and intellectual property.

Marissa Mayer, Google's vice president of search products and user experience, announced the new set of themes at Obscura Digital in downtown San Francisco. The event was part of this week's Game Developers Conference. Mayer also hosted a panel of gaming personalities, including Capcom producer Yoshinori Ono, and Charles Huang, VP of business development and co-founder of Red Octane games, maker of the Guitar Hero franchise.

Among the topics discussed was how the Web had changed gaming development. The general answer was that game developers and publishers alike are getting a whole lot more feedback during the development process, in part from increasingly simpler ways to aggregate information from blogs and message boards, as well as public beta programs.

Huang also noted that user-generated content created inside of games has been on a sharp rise, as witnessed by the number of user designed tracks that have been created and downloaded in the latest Guitar Hero title, a number which now tops 10 million.

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From DailyTech: On the tails of the release of the Windows Vista SP2 Release Candidate to the masses, only a couple weeks later Microsoft has delivered the RTM Escrow build to its Connect beta testers. Microsoft had already released this build several days ago, reportedly, to its internal testers.

Beta testers can find the new build on Windows Update via Windows Connect. It has been packaged with multiple install options to test, including Slipstream versions and Standalone installers. The new build string is 6002.17043.090312-1835, so if you are a tester or have a copy you can check its authenticity against that.

The new service pack delivers many much anticipated features, along with numerous tweaks and bug fixes which should strengthen the Vista experience. Among the hottest additions in the new pack is the ability to record in Blu-Ray format for the first time in Windows. Other key additions include Bluetooth v2.1 connectivity, Windows Connect Now (WCN) Wi-Fi Configuration wireless functionality, faster Wi-Fi resume times after hibernation, Windows Search 4.0, and the ability to configure the maximum number of TCP connections.

For those outside the testing community eager to get their hands on the final version of SP2, it should be available within a couple weeks, as the RTM build typically is the last step before a public release. Stay tuned for more details.

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From CNET News.com: Apple has issued a fix for the graphics problems suffered by some owners of the company's new 17-inch MacBook Pro.

The firmware update was released Wednesday for owners of the MacBook Pro announced at Macworld and shipped in February. Some owners had reported problems with vertical lines polluting the display, and Apple says the new firmware should fix the problem.

Please let us know if you had any problems installing the update, or if the firmware update doesn't fix the problem. Based on the release notes for the firmware, it 's not clear whether this fix is related to the instability issues noted by some 17-inch MacBook Pro users when running Nvidia's discrete graphics cards.

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From CNET News.com: Microsoft has already gone into plenty of detail about the touch features in Windows 7. In fact, touch was the first thing that the company shared when it came to how Windows 7 would look and feel.

But for those that really want to go deep, the company on Wednesday posted an even more detailed look at the thinking that went into building touch into Windows 7.

The company also noted that it continues to tweak the way gestures work as it gets more feedback from the beta version of Windows 7 that was released in January. For example, in its earlier incarnation, the recognition engine was missing many quickly performed gestures.

"We tuned the gesture detection engine with sample gesture input provided by real people using touch in pre-release builds," Microsoft said in the blog posting. "These tuned gestures are what you will see in the (release candidate) build."

The company also notes which touch-capable machines already in the market support the pre-release versions of Windows 7, namely HP 's TouchSmart All-in-One PCs (IQ500 series & IQ800 series), its TouchSmart tx2 Tablet PC, and Dell's Latitude XT or XT2 Tablet PC.

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From CNET News.com: Microsoft is facing another patent infringement suit, this time over the technology it uses to automatically update Windows, Office, and other programs.

In a lawsuit filed March 20, BackWeb Technologies charges that Microsoft's Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS), as well as Windows Update and other products, infringe four of BackWeb's patents. BackWeb, which is based in Israel and has U.S. offices in San Jose, Calif., filed the complaint in U.S. District Court in San Francisco.

BackWeb seeks, among other things, an injunction against Microsoft, a declaration that BackWeb's patents are valid, and monetary damages.

A Microsoft representative said the company has yet to be served with court papers, so it would be "premature" to comment.

BackWeb was an early leader in the technology for "pushing" data onto a computer.

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From CNET News.com: Nvidia was hit by a Standard & Poor's ratings downgrade Wednesday, according to a Dow Jones report, adding to the graphics chipmaker's woes.

Standard & Poor's ratings services ratcheted down its outlook on Nvidia from positive to stable, according to Dow Jones. S&P cited concerns about the graphics chipmaker's sinking revenue and profitability.

The ratings agency maintains a junk-level BB- grade on the company, and S&P noted that revenues from Nvidia's recent efforts to expand into cell phones, handheld devices, and supercomputer applications is small, according to Dow Jones. Nvidia also faces new competition from Intel's upcoming Larrabee graphics chip, S&P said.

In addition, Nvidia has been grappling with graphics chip issues on laptops. Apple issued a fix Wednesday for the graphics problems suffered by some owners of the new 17-inch MacBook Pro.

Not everything was bad news for Nvidia Wednesday, however. Ironically, on the same day, Broadpoint AmTech analyst Doug Freedman upgraded Nvidia to "buy" from "neutral" saying that "our checks indicate an improving top-line allowing the company to grow from a larger revenue base...as the trough appears less deep than originally thought," he wrote in a research note.

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From X-bit Labs: Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCEI) on Tuesday announced that it would slash the price on PlayStation 3 software developments kit to enable higher amount of game creators to develop titles for the latest generation Sony video game console.

Sony Computer Entertainment today introduced new reference tool models in March 2009, DECR-1400A for North America and Europe/PAL territories at $2000 and €1,700 respectively, and DECR-1400J for Japan at ¥200 thousand. The reference tool models DECR-1000A and DECR-1000 introduced in 2007 cost $10 250.

Having the same form factor as the commercially available PS3, the new reference tool (RT) models allow advanced game programming and more efficient computer graphics rendering. With its more affordable pricing, this new model will appeal to a broader range of developers and publishers, and will help to provide a more streamlined game development environment, further accelerating the game development for PS3.

In addition to the introduction of new RT models, Sony will also enhance its support by providing a comprehensive line-up of software tools as well as technical support to the game development community.

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