This was a big IT news week, with the massive earthquake in China on Monday showing once again the role that the Internet plays in connecting us all, in good times and bad, and the importance of telecommunication, particularly for rural areas. HP opened the week with word that it is buying EDS. And the Microsoft-Yahoo saga was back in headlines, thanks to investor Carl Icahn, who hasn't enjoyed a good proxy fight lately and so decided to try to shake up Yahoo's board.

Former One Laptop Per Child President of software and content Walter Bender has launched Sugar Labs, an organization that will promote the development of the open-source user interface originally developed for the XO laptop.

Are your virtual machines under-utilized? New white paper from virtualization tools vendor Embotics estimates that on average, an environment of 150 VMs has anywhere from $50,000 to $150,000 locked up in redundant VMs.

Less than a year after the Kenya ICT board started operating, it is facing a second round of allegations of conflict of interest.

Telecommunication equipment provider Ericsson and African mobile service provider Zain are working together to stimulate demand for mobile-phone services and connect thousands of people in rural areas in Africa.

The Communications Authority of Zambia (CAZ) lost a bid in the Lusaka High Court to give a license to an unnamed international mobile-phone company to become the country's fourth mobile-service provider.

Qualcomm on Friday announced it has acquired 40 MHz of U.K. spectrum in the 1.4 GHz band. It will initially be used for the development of as-yet-unannounced wireless broadband technologies.

Faced with the challenge of prosecuting people who use mobile phones to send hate messages, the Kenyan Parliament has made a bold step to make sure all subscribers register their numbers.

The former chairman and CEO of PurchasePro.com, a business-to-business software broker that died during the dot-com bust, has been found guilty of securities fraud, witness tampering and other crimes, the U.S. Department of Justice announced.

Vodafone is acquiring ZYB, a Danish company that has developed a social networking and online management tool for backing-up and sharing contact and calendar information online. Vodafone announced the ¬31.5 million (US$48.7 million) deal Friday.