President Bush said Thursday the government is “not mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans” with a reported program to create a massive database of U.S. phone calls. “The privacy of ordinary Americans is fiercely protected in all our activities,” Bush said in a statement he read to reporters at the White House. “Our efforts are focused on links to al Qaeda and their known affiliates.” Bush’s comments followed a USA Today report Thursday that telecommunications giants AT&T, BellSouth and Verizon have provided the National Security Agency with billions of records of domestic phone calls beginning shortly after the attacks of September 11, 2001.

It appears as if the potential sale by Vodafone of its 45 percent minority stake in Verizon Wireless has moved beyond the rumor stage and onto the bargaining table. Multiple European news outlets, including U.K. newspapers The Herald and The Daily Telegraph, are in fact reporting that Vodafone has already rejected Verizon Communication’s initial offer of $35 billion for the stake in the two companies’ wireless joint venture. Some shareholders in Vodafone, also based in the United Kingdom, are openly mocking the bid and have said that an offer of roughly $50 billion would be more appropriate. Among those companies was Standard Life Investments, which has also been pushing for Vodafone to make a deal and walk away from its U.S. investments.

Democratic and Republican politicians on Thursday both promised to enact new federal laws by the end of the year that would restrict some commercial uses of Social Security numbers, which are often implicated in identity fraud cases. In both the House and the Senate, there are at least three pieces of pending legislation that propose different approaches to restricting the use and sale of SSNs. Politicians have expressed astonishment at what they see as a rising identity fraud problem, frequently pointing to a 2003 Federal Trade Commission survey that estimated nearly 10 million consumers are hit by such intrusions each year.

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates visited the world’s largest video game expo on Tuesday to sell a new vision of “anywhere” gaming that would link video game consoles, cellphones and computers. Gates introduced a plan called “Live Anywhere” that aims to capitalize on the success of Xbox Live online play to tap into a network of over 150 million users already playing games on computers that run the Windows operating system and more than one billion cell phones ready to play video games.

A little more than four months after Palm released the Windows Mobile-based Treo 700w on Verizon Wireless’ EV-DO (Evolution Data Optimized) network, it is set to announce a Palm OS version that can connect to EV-DO networks, CNET News.com has learned. The company on Monday will unveil the new model, which is expected to be called the Treo 700p, according to sources familiar with its plans. A Palm representative declined to comment for this story.

Sony is moving to make its music management software compatible with Apple Computer’s audio file format in the latest evidence of Apple’s dominance in digital music. The behemoth Japanese conglomerate, which once controlled the portable music market, announced Tuesday that the company’s data compression technology would be compatible with a number of rival formats, including Apple’s format of choice, AAC. In the past, Sony has fiercely held to its own Atrac system. By switching to a technology that supports AAC, Sony appears to be acknowledging Apple’s dominance in the digital music playing market, say analysts.

Research In Motion announced that China Mobile Communications plans to offer BlackBerry in China. RIM and China Mobile will initially focus on supporting multinational corporations with operations in China. China Mobile will soon offer BlackBerry service nationwide and provide SIM cards to support BlackBerry service. Availability of BlackBerry Wireless Handhelds and BlackBerry Enterprise Server will be announced at a later date.

BoxWave’s Sports Armband is an easily adjustable, flexible armband with VELCRO fasteners that securely fits around the arm. It is available in your choice of four colors: Aluminum Grey, Aqua Blue, Cosmo Pink, and Jet Black. Simply slide your Apple iPod nano into the protected pocket and wrap it around your arm or wrist.

With the launch of seven new notebooks on May 9, HP’s laptop line has just expanded in a big way. Five of these systems are business laptops and the remaining two are consumer laptops showcasing new and sleek designs. The new HP Pavilion dv2000 and the Compaq Presario V3000 will sport a new piano (black and silver) high-gloss finish inspired by “the latest design trends in fashion, furniture and art.” The imprints embedded into this new surface resemble wavy patterns inspired by a “Japanese Zen Garden.” The imprint finish is a molding process and a technology used in Nissha film products, which can also be found in cellphone casings and luxury car interiors.

Inventop announced the release of BUZZeeBee 2.0 beta, previously ProximityMail, now compatible with Wi-Fi and Ethernet technologies. BUZZeeBee 2.0 is the first community messaging technology, creating on the fly the first mobile mesh networks infrastructure using consumer’s wireless devices, to allow spontaneous exchange communication capability between Bluetooth/Wi-Fi devices from people and places of proximity. Using a wireless device, BUZZeeBee application is like a mobile chat room or newsgroup that allows anonymous, public or private communications in the proximity. It incorporates Inventop’s patent-pending BluePing Networks technology, which enables hassle-free peer-to-peer networking, expand Wi-Fi effective range, create instantaneous “random area networks,” and powerful communications capabilities for laptops, PDAs and very soon smartphones.