The Swiss and American chipmaking giants said the new company will be comprised of assets which generated about $3.6 billion in combined annual revenue last year. Under terms of the agreement, STMicroelectronics will sell its flash memory assets, including its NAND joint venture stake, to the new company while Intel will sell its NOR assets and resources. NOR flash is a technology flash devices use to store and run code, usually in small capacities. In exchange, Intel will receive a 45.1 percent stake in the new company and $432 million in cash. STMicroelectronics will own 48.6 percent of the new firm and receive $468 million in cash at closing. Francisco Partners LP, a Menlo Park, Calif.-based private equity firm, has agreed to invest $150 million in cash for convertible preferred stock representing a 6.3 percent stake.

A US federal judge ruled that a 1998 law called Child Online Protection Act is "unconstitutional", leaving parents with the responsibility to protect their children from online pornography.

The judge said that the law violates the freedom of speech, inflicting more damage to government's efforts to restrict access to pornography for children.

The 3,000 document archive from the Comes antitrust trial, which disappeared from the web abruptly when Microsoft settled the case last week, is beginning to trickle back into view. A week ago the site was placed under password protection, Microsoft withdrew its own account of events, and so-called internet "archive" archive.org apparently also pulled its mirror.