Intel hiring senior execs for tablets

Top chipmaker Intel is recruiting for a new software team focused on tablets, according to a new job ad, underscoring the top chipmaker's efforts to expand beyond the lackluster PC industry. 

The company plans to fill several senior positions this month on the team, which will have responsibility for technology architecture as well as marketing and dealing with suppliers and customers, according to the ad Intel posted Thursday on social networking site LinkedIn. 

Amazon smartphone in the works, Reports

Amazon is reportedly planning to launch a mobile phone alongside updated versions of the Kindle Fire tablets and a new e-reader.

Multiple reports suggest that Amazon is working on a smartphone that will run on a variant of the Kindle Fire's Android-based operating system.

According to The Telegraph, the phone is said to be currently unfinished, and therefore, the announcement is not set to contain too many details.

The launch will take place tonight, though details of the Kindle Fire have already been leaked out ahead of the event.

No new IT company in past decade, Ashok Soota

At 70, most people who have made their name and money tend to their gardens and do good with their charitable foundations. Ashok Soota, uniquely, while doing both, still finds the motivation and energy to launch and build new companies. What makes a man, who has been there and done that, want to again don the entrepreneurial hat well past the retirement age? 

An amused Soota quotes Bill Gates. "I actually read it in a paper, yours may be, where Gates said, 'If I had had a finishing post in mind, I would have long since gone past it'." 

Google buys cybersecurity startup VirusTotal

Google Inc has bought startup VirusTotal, picking up a fledgling but widely used cybersecurity player in a move that could beef up protection for its Internet services.

The acquisition of VirusTotal, which aggregates warnings on submitted files and websites from most antivirus solutions, including Intel Corp's McAfee andSymantec Corp , could significantly shore up the search giant's ability to weed out infectious content from Gmail, social network Google+ and even the pages it shows search users.

VirusTotal operates by accepting requests for virus checks, running every available protection software on the questioned document or pages, then distributing the results to security vendors.

Nvidia s absence from Kindle Fire surprises investors

Amazon's decision to use a processor made by Texas Instruments for its newest Kindle Fire tablets has surprised some investors and experts who thought Nvidia's Tegra 3 chip would be tapped for the high-profile device.

At an event in Santa Monica, California on Thursday, Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos said TI's OMAP 4470 chip is being used in the new, higher-end Kindle Fire.