LAS VEGAS--Realizing that cellphone sales will eventually slow in the U.S., AT&T and Verizon are racing to connect everything from netbooks to electronic readers to their networks.

Both companies insist they are receptive to any idea as long as it doesn't harm their networks. Judging from two possible future products--a wireless-enabled dog collar and an automatic cow milking system--the telcos truly are thinking outside the box. (See "AT&T And Verizon's Start-Up Mentality." )

Glenn Lurie, president of AT&T's ( T - news - people ) emerging-devices unit, would like to support dog collars on his company's network. Lurie imagines the collars would incorporate small wireless modules that beam data to a Web site so owners could track the dog's location if it got lost or loose.

"Think how many people have pets that they treat like children," Lurie says. "People laugh about the idea, but it really is a viable application." He estimates that consumers would pay up to $100 a year for such a service.

Verizon ( VZ - news - people ) is considering supporting an application that would manage a dairy farm's automatic milking system, says Tony Lewis, head of the company's open development unit. The application would use Verizon's cellular network to collect status updates on the milking machines.

The company has already approved a device that tracks the whereabouts of prison inmates and several top-secret products for the government.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - IBM will cut around 5,000 jobs in the United States, mainly in its global services business, sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters Wednesday.

An International Business Machines Corp (nyse: IBM - news - people ) spokesman declined to comment.

The company has not disclosed how many jobs it has cut so far this year, but has said it was making "structural changes" to reduce spending and improve productivity. (Reporting by Ritsuko Ando and Jim Finkle; Editing by Gary Hill)

Copyright 2009 Reuters, Click for Restriction

Economic output in the United States shrank more than feared during the last quarter of 2008, raising new questions on the country's path to recovery.

On Friday, the U.S. Commerce Department revised its fourth-quarter gross domestic product reading downward, to a 6.2% drop. At the end of January, the government had initially reported a GDP contraction of 3.8%, but that figure was less severe than the 5.4% annualized contraction Wall Street had been predicting for the last three months of the year. (See "U.S. GDP: Less Ugly Than Feared.")

"It was a really lousy report, but we expected that," said David Wyss, chief economist at Standard and Poor's, "and it can be added to all the other really lousy reports we've had this week." (See "U.S.: Jobless Up, Factory Orders Down, Nobody's Home.")

Most of the revision came from inventories. "There was also a fairly significant downward revision in trade, particularly exports," Wyss said.

Friday's reading was the worst since the 6.4% drop in recorded the first quarter of 1982, when the country was suffering a severe recession. This time around, the U.S. economy has been sucked into a housing, credit and financial conflagration that led to widespread job losses and a massive pullback in spending. (See "Rebuilding Global Markets.")

The government also reported that personal consumption fell by 4.3%, which was also below the 3.7% drop anticipated by Wall Street.

Friday's report added insult to injury for the U.S. markets, which also had to had to also grapple with the news of Citigroup (nyse: C - news - people ) reaching a deal with the U.S. government, in which the Treasury would convert up to $25.0 billion in Citigroup preferred shares to common. (See "Citi Nears Rescue From Uncle Sam.")

U.S. stocks recovered from deep losses in late-morning trading, while the yield on the benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury note rose to 3.02%, from 2.98% Thursday

If you prefer a customer service agent who speaks "American," then computer maker Dell has a deal for you.

Sneakergate

Taylor Buley, 12.02.08, 06:00 PM EST

The U.S. government gets jittery about malware.

Here's a great start for a newspaper story: the LA Times reported that President Bush and Defense Secretary Robert Gates were recently briefed on a pressing security threat. The U.S. Strategic Command in turn raised its network operations security level.

Too bad the threat probably wasn't really aimed at the government.

The threat was a tiny piece of software, called "malware," embedded in removable media devices, namely USB sticks. And although the Bush administration might feel under attack from many sides, this attack probably wasn't a carefully planned campaign.

"I think it's just coincidental," says Paul Ferguson, a researcher at Trend Micro, the world's third-largest Internet security company behind McAfee (nyse: MFE - news - people ) and Symantec (nasdaq: SYMC - news - people ).

Instead of being a targeted cyberwarfare attack, this malware is simply a run-of-the-mill trojan virus that travels by "sneakernet," the tongue-in-cheek name for the transmission of viruses across unconnected computers by hand (or foot) in the days before widespread Internet connectivity. "Most of this malware is just seeded by criminals that cast a very wide net," Ferguson says.

The malicious software "agent.btz," though aptly-named for a narrative about international espionage, is likely one of many flavors of a particular category of malware that automatically (and silently) executes when removable media is inserted into a Windows machine.

Trend Micro aggregates information about the threats it finds and publishes the data on its Web site.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- A suspected missile strike from a U.S. Predator drone killed at least four people at a house in Pakistan's North Waziristan region early Saturday.

The attack occurred in the Mir Ali subdivision in the village of Ali Khel, according to local political official Muhammad Nasim Dawar.

The names of the victims have not yet been released. It is also not yet known why the house was targeted.

Six people were injured in Saturday's attack, the fourth suspected U.S. strike on Pakistani soil in November.

Meanwhile, an explosion inside a mosque in northwest Pakistan's tribal region on Saturday killed three people and injured four others, a government official said.

The explosion happened just after 4 p.m. (6 a.m. ET), leaving the Hangu district mosque in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province in ruins, said Omer Faraz Khan, deputy superintendent of Hangu.

He said rescuers were trying to save people trapped under the debris. It was not immediately clear how many people were inside the mosque at the time of the blast.

Pakistan's Foreign Ministry summoned U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson on Thursday to lodge a formal protest against another suspected U.S. missile strike on its territory, an act Pakistan Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani called a violation of his nation's sovereignty.

Wednesday's strike in the Bannu region of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province left five dead and seven wounded Wednesday. That attack was further inside Pakistani territory than previous attacks.

The attack targeted a home outside the tribal areas that U.S. intelligence says have become a haven for Taliban and al Qaeda fighters battling U.S. and NATO troops in neighboring Afghanistan.

The U.S. government has not acknowledged hitting targets within Pakistan, an ally in the war on al Qaeda launched after the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington. However, Pakistan's government has repeatedly complained about the strikes.

Gilani took to the floor of the parliament and renewed his condemnation of the attacks Thursday, but added he thinks they will be controlled when President-elect Barack Obama takes office.

In October, the foreign ministry summoned Patterson to lodge a "strong" protest on continuing missile attacks and said they should be stopped immediately. At the time, a missile strike from a suspected U.S. drone on a compound in South Waziristan killed 20 people.

Pakistan's government said the attacks cost lives and undermine public support for its counterterrorism efforts.

The U.S-led coalition and NATO, based in Afghanistan, have been seeking a way to effectively battle militants who are launching attacks from Pakistan's swath of tribal areas along the border.

They have become frustrated with Islamabad over the years, saying it is not being active enough against militants, a claim Pakistan denies.

The United States is the only country operating in the region known to have the capability to launch missiles from drones, which are controlled remotely.