Many schoolteachers, editors and parents profess to be “horrified by Netspeak”–the distinctive language that young people are using more and more to talk with each other on the Internet. This rapidly spreading digital dialect of English is doing more good than harm according to a panel of experts. “The Internet is fostering new kinds of creativity through language,” said David Crystal, a historian of language at the University of Wales in the United Kingdom.

Hitachi’s robot on wheels avoids obstacles, responds to simple voice commands and reads the weather forecast. The 150-pound, 51-inch-tall robots, nicknamed Pal and Chum, are equipped with digital cameras and radar sensors, allowing them to avoid obstacles with a reaction time of one-tenth of a second. EMIEW robots, which stands for “excellent mobility and interactive existence as workmate,” don’t have legs but zip around on two wheels at the speed of a slow jog.

Dell plans to open a third customer contact center in India later this month. The contact center, like two others Dell is already operating in India, will handle telephone calls from consumers in the United States and elsewhere around the world. The new facility, located in Mohali near the Chandigarh metropolitan area in India’s Punjab province, will have 300 Dell employees at first, company spokesman David Frink said.

Digital Meadow announced the release of Studycard Studio 2.4, the latest update to its multimedia flashcard application for Mac OS. Studycard Studio 2.4 becomes the first and only product in its class to offer a companion study application for the Palm OS platform. The software allows students and educators to create flashcards or quizzes on Mac OS, then study them on Palm Powered handhelds.

Cable & Wireless Ltd. and Research In Motion (RIM) announced plans to offer the BlackBerry to customers in the Eastern Caribbean islands. Cable & Wireless Ltd. will initially offer the BlackBerry 7280 Wireless Handheld, a tri-band 850/1800/1900MHz device that features a high-resolution color screen, international roaming capabilities, and the best combined email/data/phone experience. BlackBerry will be available in Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Lucia and St. Vincent & Grenadines and will operate on Cable & Wireless’ GSM/GPRS network.

Research In Motion (RIM) is hosting Wireless Enterprise Symposium 2005, which will be co-sponsored by industry leaders from across the mobile spectrum including Motorola, Nortel Networks, salesforce.com, SAP, Cingular Wireless, Nextel, Sprint, T-Mobile Verizon Wireless, METAmessage, Sybase, Televigation and many more. Wireless Enterprise Symposium 2005 offers a broad array of keynote speakers, general sessions, technical seminars, case studies, demonstrations, exhibits, training, labs and workshops. The conference will provide education and high-impact content at both the strategic and hands-on levels.

Internet phone services have drawn millions of users looking for rock-bottom rates. Now they’re also attracting identity thieves looking to turn stolen credit cards into cash. Some Internet phone services allow scam artists to make it appear that they are calling from another phone number–a useful trick that enables them to drain credit accounts and pose as banks or other trusted authorities, online fraud experts say.

Dell is working to resolve a dispute with 30 Muslim workers who allege unfair treatment due to their religious beliefs. The workers, contractors hired to work at Dell’s Nashville, Tenn., manufacturing plant, left their jobs after being prevented from performing their traditional Muslim evening prayers, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Dell said it has been working with CAIR, as well as the Nashville Metro Human Relations Commission, a city government council on employment, to resolve the issue.

For the fifth time in two months, security researchers have publicized a serious flaw in a virus-scanning program. The vulnerability affects McAfee’s Antivirus Library, a collection of common code shared among the security software company’s various virus scanners, including GroupShield for mail servers and VirusScan for PCs. An attacker could use the flaw to cause a vulnerable system to run a file instead of scanning it for malicious code.

On Thursday, Samsung unveiled six new portable MP3 players aimed at helping it triple sales this year. The six new models are expected to be released in the first half of the year. The upcoming models range from one with 256MB of flash memory to one with a 30GB hard drive capable of holding about 7,500 songs. Samsung and big Asian brands Sony and Creative Technology, as well as PC heavyweights Dell and Gateway, have their sights set on Apple Computer’s juicy market position.