A Missouri woman rang in the holidays Friday by swallowing a cell phone.

Police in Blue Springs said they received a call Friday from a man who said his girlfriend was having trouble breathing after she swallowed a cell phone. The two had been arguing about the phone, which ended up being

TOKYO -(Dow Jones)- Softbank Corp. (9984.TO) and Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) said Tuesday they have agreed to jointly offer a Internet-Protcol phone service to corporate clients.

By combining the Softbank group's IP phone system and Microsoft's IP phone software for personal computers, they can offer a high-quality, high-security phone service, the companies said

TOKYO — Sanyo Electric Co. Ltd. will provide broadband wireless access equipment that Soma Networks Inc. will supply to caymanone, a Caribbean operator.

Soma and Sanyo made a contract for the joint development of Soma’s SoftAir broadband wireless access system in 2004, and started field tests jointly in May.

"Sanyo developed dedicated

A Trojan horse that arrives via MSN Messenger tries to swipe Spanish speakers' online banking usernames and passwords, said Bilbao, Spain-based Panda Software Tuesday.

Panda has bumped up the Nabload.u Trojan horse infection to an "Orange" alert, which is the company's mid-level ranking.

Nabload.u is downloaded when unsuspecting users click

Business leaders are often big readers, and many have a book or two that affected their thinking. USA TODAY's Kevin Maney has begun regularly asking tech industry leaders to write about two favorite books - one old and one newer. Some entries appear on Thursdays in Maney's blog. Here are books from some top

SAN JOSE, Calif. — In an effort to reverse its misfortunes, Japan’s NEC Corp. is seeking business partners for its separate and loss-ridden cellular phone and semiconductor units, according to Reuters.

In its cellular phone business, NEC is seeking a “tie-up” with other partners in development and marketing, according to the report.

The vulnerability in Symantec's anti-virus line disclosed earlier this week isn't a big risk, a rival security firm said Friday.

Internet Security Systems' X-force research group said in an online alert that although the vulnerability is serious, the "likelihood of this vulnerability being leveraged by a worm is low."

The

Tokyo Broadcasting System Inc. (TBS), Japan's third-biggest TV broadcaster, said on Monday it will form a joint venture with mobile content provider Index Corp. and others to air TV programs over the Internet.
 
The move, first reported by media last month, is the latest between Japan's Internet companies and TV

Texas Instruments Inc.'s intention to buy Chipcon is expected to help drive down the costs for products based on Zigbee, a wireless communication technology used by a variety of home and business devices, a research firm said Friday.

Dallas-based TI said this week that it planned to buy Chipcon, headquartered in Oslo,

Verizon Communications took issue Thursday with Moody’s Investors Service for downgrading the telecommunications firm’s credit rating, maintaining that Moody’s analysis and assumptions don’t reflect the firm’s credit metrics.

“We believe our credit metrics are strong both on an absolute basis and relative to our peers,” said Doreen Toben, Verizon Communications’ CFO, in