The price cuts will only be available for ultra-portable laptops that meet a strict set of specifications.

The move is widely seen as an attempt by Microsoft to bolster its market share in one of the PC industry sectors showing growth.

Low-powered laptops, such as the Asus Eee PC, are proving hugely popular in developed nations and in projects trying to bridge the digital divide.

Life extension

News group IDG reports that Microsoft plans to charge PC makers selling to India and China $26 (£13.27) to put a copy of Windows XP Home on a low-cost laptop. For machines sold in developed markets, such as the UK or US, the price will be $32.

A retail copy of Windows XP Home sells in the UK for about £55 ($108) - though the prices PC makers pay for the software is likely to be lower.

The low prices...

Twirling galaxies, exotic nebulae and exploding stars are now just a mouse click away for amateur astronomers.

Microsoft has launched WorldWide Telescope, a free tool that stitches together images from some of the best ground- and space-based telescopes.

Collections include pictures from the Hubble and Spitzer telescopes, as well as the Chandra X-Ray Observatory.

The web-based tool also allows users to pan and zoom around the planets, and trace their locations in the night sky.

"Users can see the X-ray view of the sky, zoom into bright radiation clouds, and then cross-fade into the visible light view and discover the cloud remnants of a supernova explosion from a thousand years ago," explained Roy Gould, a researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

"[It's] a beautiful platform...

Adobe has announced a plan to try to get its Flash player installed on more mobile devices and set-top boxes.

Dubbed Open Screen the initiative lifts restrictions on how its multimedia handling software can be used.

Adobe will stop charging licencing fees for mobile versions of Flash and plans to publish information about the inner workings of the code.

In taking this step Adobe hopes to repeat on mobiles the success its Flash technology has enjoyed on the web.

Video deal

Adobe estimates that its Flash player is installed on more than 98% of net-connected desktop computers.

The Open Screen plan will build on Flash Lite - Adobe's version of its multimedia player designed for mobile gadgets - that is already on millions of handhelds.

The ultimate aim of Open Screen is to make it much easier...

The first legalised home computers have gone on sale in Cuba, but a ban remains on internet access.

This is the latest in a series of restrictions on daily life which President Raul Castro has lifted in recent weeks.

Crowds formed at the Carlos III shopping centre in Havana, though most had come just to look.

The desktop computers cost almost $800 (£400), in a country where the average wage is under $20 (£10) a month.

But some Cubans do have access to extra income, much of it from money sent by relatives living abroad.

Since taking over the presidency in February, Raul Castro has ended a range of restrictions and allowed Cubans access to previously banned consumer goods.

In recent weeks thousands of Cubans have snapped up mobile phones and DVD players.

But only now have the first...

A suicide blast in eastern Afghanistan has killed 15 local people and wounded 14 others, the Nato-led force says.

The explosion took place in Khogyani district in the province of Nangarhar.

There were international troops in the area at the time of the attack but they were not hit, Nato says.

Taleban rebels, who have been fighting foreign and Afghan troops in the south and east since they were overthrown in 2001, have claimed responsibility.

'Confusion'

"Insurgents engaged with small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades," Major Martin O'Donnell, a spokesman for the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf), told the French news agency AFP.

"It appears that when that happened, people went for cover. They [the attackers] snuck a suicide bomber in the midst of the...