From CNET News.com: They're here--sort of. Twitter has launched the early beta phase of its "verified accounts" program, a background-check for celebrities and other prominent users of the service to weed out impersonators and fake accounts. If they pass the test, they get a graphic...

From CNET News.com: Apple has chosen Scottsdale, Ariz., to showcase its latest retail store designs. The new Apple store is opening Friday night and features some firsts for the company.

Pictures of the Scottsdale first appeared on The Loop late last night. With its cube-like...

From X-bit Labs: ATI, graphics business unit of Advanced Micro Devices, on Thursday announced third price-cut on its flagship ATI Radeon HD 4800-series graphics cards this year. The price drop is not really dramatic, but the company hopes that it will be enough to improve competitive...

From X-bit Labs: OCZ Technology this week unveiled its new family of solid-state drives (SSDs) that are aimed at customers in budget who want to enjoy the benefits of fast flash-based storage, but are not ready to pay a large sum. The Agility lineup of SSDs does not use internal RAID...

From InfoWorld: Some PC vendors and sellers will begin a coupon program on June 26 to entitle people who buy premium versions of Microsoft Windows Vista to upgrade to the new Windows 7 operating system when it arrives later this year, but the upgrade offers may not be free. Offers...

From PC World: Who should know more about PC threats than the company whose software makes most of them possible? Is Microsoft's upcoming, free anti-malware app the company's way of apologizing to customers?

Not hardly. The free service, codenamed "Morro" and due in beta "soon,"...

From DailyTech: Today is the big day for Americans still clinging to analog TVs and rabbit ears. For those folks that haven't already picked up a DTV converter box to translate the new digital signals, their TVs will now be relegated to useless lumps of plastic, metal, and glass...

From DailyTech: Antitrust investigations are nothing new for Microsoft. The company has been investigated and found to abuse its dominant market position on more than one occasion by authorities in the U.S. and in Europe. So far, the actions taken against Microsoft haven’t affected...

From X-bit Labs: Corsair Memory, a leading producer of superior memory products, on Wednesday unveiled an update for cooling solution for its premium memory modules that it has been using for three years. The company hopes that improved coolers will help to further boost performance...

From InfoWorld: The next generation of Intel's Atom family of processors will eschew a faster CPU in favor of an architectural overhaul that Intel and at least one analyst say will result in better performance over today's Atom-based netbooks and net-top PCs.

According to a report...