Dell posts disappointing Q2 results
Dell Inc has posted disappointing second-quarter results. Dell's second-quarter profit fell 36 percent to $605 million.

The company is currently in the midst of a probe after a large batteries recall. The company also announced an expanded partnership to put Advanced Micro Devices Inc. computer chips into a new line of Dell servers and desktop PCs by next month.

In its last earnings report in May, Dell said it would start using AMD processors for specialized computer servers used mainly by large businesses, ending a long-standing exclusive relationship between with Intel, AMD's chief rival.
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Cigarette companies let off lightly
Washington: Cigarette makers in the US got out of a potential jam with minor penalties, even though a federal judge found them liable for violating racketeering laws in a decades-long conspiracy to hide the dangers of smoking.

U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler said the companies could not be forced to fund a multibillion-dollar quit-smoking campaign, as the government had sought. She said that it is known that cigarette smoking causes disease, suffering, and death. Inspite of internal recognition of this fact, defendants have publicly denied, distorted, and minimized the hazards of smoking for decades, she said in the 1,653-page opinion.

However, an appeals court ruling prevented her from slapping the companies with costly remedies. She did manage to impose some remedies, including ordering the companies to make "corrective" public statements about the health effects and addictiveness of smoking, and banning them from describing cigarettes in ways that convey health claims such as "low tar" and "light."
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