The U.S. government is losing a race in cyberspace -- a social-networking race for the hearts and minds of Internet users, a computer security expert said Wednesday.

Dell's formation of a new software group, which was announced Thursday, could be the forerunner to a string of acquisitions by the vendor, with some observers predicting a focus on systems management and cloud services provisioning.

Dell on Thursday said it is forming a Software Group, which will bring together disparate products under one roof as the company tries to sharpen its end-to-end enterprise offerings.

The 5.3-in. Samsung Galaxy Note, set to be available for AT&T's LTE network on Feb. 19, is called a smartphone, but its touchscreen and integrated S Pen stylus for drawing and taking notes elevates the device into a somewhat different category.

Apple was the only top-five computer maker to post shipment gains in the U.S. during the final quarter of 2011, a pair of research firms said this week.

Rackspace will help enterprises build private clouds using the OpenStack cloud operating system, the company announced Tuesday. Meanwhile, Dell is seeking enterprises and service providers for proof-of-concept OpenStack trials with its Dell PowerEdge C family of servers.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab will be available soon in the United States through all four major wireless carriers.

Only a few weeks ago Dell was taking a beating over its tweener device, the Streak. But now ViewSonic is unveiling a similar mini tablet, the ViewPad 7, which is a phone with a 7-inch screen and 2.2 Android OS, or Froyo, cameras for front and back and 3G data transmission. Could this signal a larger demand for a bigger phone or a smaller iPad?

Sling Media's small Slingbox 700U won one of three Best in Show awards given by the Industrial Designers Society of America (ISDA).

Faced with the continued commoditization of servers, IT vendors this year will try to differentiate their offerings by moving toward more highly integrated, unified compute platforms.