Dell has signed a deal with a U.K. mobile phone retailer to distribute free laptops with the purchase of a broadband Internet access subscription, continuing the company’s push into the retail market.

Starting in September, consumers who buy a two-year contract for America Online’s broadband service through the Carphone Warehouse Group will get a coupon for a free base-model Inspiron notebook from Dell. AOL broadband costs

Wal-Mart opened its campaign for the back-to-school PC sales season by unveiling a $298 desktop from Everex that combines three of the most popular industry trends–open-source software, a power-efficient processor and a lack of “bloatware.”

The Everex Impact GC3502 uses Microsoft’s Windows Vista OS, but substitutes the OpenOffice.org 2.2 version of word processing and spreadsheet tools for the traditional Microsoft Office variety. The computer runs on a 1.5GHz C7-D processor from Via Technologies, a chip that meets lead-free environmental regulations and saves energy with low wattage demands.

She is a latecomer to the information superhighway, but 75-year-old Sigbritt Lothberg is now cruising the Internet with a dizzying speed. Lothberg’s 40 gigabits-per-second fiber-optic connection in Karlstad is believed to be the fastest residential uplink in the world, Karlstad city officials said.

In less than 2 seconds, Lothberg can download a full-length movie on her home computer–many thousand times faster than most residential connections, said Hafsteinn Jonsson, head of the Karlstad city network unit. Jonsson and Lothberg’s son, Peter, worked together to install the connection.

The speed is reached using a new modulation technique that allows the sending of data between two routers placed up to 1,240 miles apart, without any transponders in between, Jonsson said.

Toshiba is recalling a small batch of laptop batteries that could overheat and burn users, a company spokesman said Thursday.

About 5,100 Sony-made lithium-ion batteries are defective, spanning 10 models of Toshiba computers, some of which are essentially the same model but carry a different name in different regions, said Manuel Linnig, Toshiba spokesman in Germany.

The latest recall involves a different type of battery than in September 2006 when more than 8 million rechargeable lithium-ion batteries made by Sony were recalled.

Since most companies that sold dedicated eBook readers had gone belly-up after they did not sell like TiVos. At $110, the eBookwise 1150 seemed to Denise Lance like an inexpensive way to explore eBook world, especially since she doubted my bibliophile mind would even like reading this way. Is this inexpensive eBook reader for you? Read Denise’ review.

Read this Computing Unplugged article.

In early June, Asustek Computer and Intel announced at Computex Taipei that they would soon be releasing a low-end $199 subnotebook PC, the Asus Eee PC 701. It appears to be on schedule, and when it arrives in customers’ hands in late August or early September it will be running a variation of Xandros Desktop Linux.

At a fraction of the cost of most laptops, the Asus Eee PC cuts corners on features. Still, Intel and Asustek are certain that there’s a growing market for low-priced subnotebooks. In addition to the Linux-powered result of the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) project, there is the also Linux-powered but slightly more pricey Foleo, recently released by Palm.

BlackBerry devices and other smartphones may have had a huge impact on executive and employee productivity, but they also have a negative impact on work-life balance by making it more difficult to switch off from the office, according to a recent survey.

The study, conducted by BlackBerry maker Research In Motion, found that an average BlackBerry user converts one hour of downtime to productive time each day and increases overall team efficiency by 38 percent.

Each member of Silicon.com’s 12-person CIO Jury IT user panel agreed that BlackBerry devices and smartphones have improved their productivity but warned that it can have a negative impact on work-life balance without judicious use of the off switch.

Peter Moore, the head of Microsoft’s gaming business, is leaving to join game maker Electronic Arts. For the past four years Moore has been the public face of Microsoft’s Xbox and PC gaming business, and oversaw the launch of the Xbox 360.

He will join Electronic Arts as the head of its sports games division which makes some of its most popular titles. He will be replaced by Don Mattrick, a former EA senior executive who has worked as a consultant at Microsoft.

SplashData announce the release of SplashID 4, the biggest SplashID update ever. SplashID 4 works with Palm OS 4 and 5 (including all Treo smartphones) as well as Windows 98, ME, NT4, 2000, XP, and now Vista. SplashID 4 is not yet available for Mac OS. SplashID 4 is completely updated for both the Palm and PC, adding all of the features users have requested most.

A security firm is warning iPhone users not to use the Safari browser to dial telephone numbers because of a bug that could allow attackers to stick victims with a phone bill full of pricey 900-number calls. The bug likely isn’t unique to Apple’s iPhone, but the most popular device of the moment is the one that SPI Labs chose to check out.

“It’s possible a similar type of issue applies to Treos or Windows Mobile devices,” the company wrote on its blog post. Respondents to the post suggested that built-in browsers in other phones, such as BlackBerrys or those from Nokia, are also susceptible given that they provide the same functionality of calling a number from a Web page.