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Actor and dancer Patrick Swayze, star of such hit films as “Dirty Dancing” and “Ghost,” has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer but is responding well to treatment, his publicist said on Wednesday.The 55-year-old performer was working during his treatments, publicist Annett Wolf said, dismissing reports in the tabloid media that portrayed him in grave condition with only weeks to live.

Wolf issued a written statement from his physician, Dr. George Fisher that said: “Patrick has a very limited amount of disease and he appears to be responding well to treatment.”

“All of the reports stating the timeframe of his prognosis and his physical side effects are absolutely untrue,” Fisher said in the statement. “We are considerably more optimistic.”

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Kate Burns, one of Google’s first employees outside the US and its first UK managing director, has been hired to run the British operation of YouTube competitor Dailymotion.

Burns, who joins as the first UK managing director of Dailymotion, has the job of increasing the online video website’s user numbers, the amount of user-generated and official content uploaded, and boosting revenues.

She will report to the Dailymotion chief executive, Mark Zaleski, who was appointed last July and is based in Paris. Zaleski was previously chief executive of auction website QXL Ricardo.
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t’s not often that computers are sold on their “spiritual warmth” and “refreshing fragrance” but the star of the world’s biggest IT fair was something different. Instead of shiny plastic it was encased in laminated bamboo strips. The result, said its Taiwanese makers, Asus, was “both aesthetically pleasing and good for the environment”.The Eco Book was the answer, they said, to the growing concern about the use of plastics.

“Bamboo is the most sustainable raw material there is,” said Jellent Sun, a senior director.

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Finland’s GeoSentric unveiled on Wednesday its mobile social networking service GypSii for Apple’s iPhone.

The GypSii application lets iPhone users to get maps and directions and access other location-based as well as social networking services.

Apple has shipped more than five million iPhones globally since its launch in June last year, GeoSentric said.

Source: Reuters

As it scrambles to avoid defeat in its battle with Microsoft, Yahoo may try to put a little more time on the clock.

Microsoft, whose offer for Yahoo is now worth $41.2 billion, was preparing to escalate its takeover fight by starting a proxy contest next week. But in an effort to delay that move, Yahoo is considering several options, including a plan to postpone its annual meeting, people close to the company said on Tuesday.

The maneuver comes as Yahoo has stepped up merger and joint venture talks with AOL, a unit of Time Warner, these people said.

Microsoft had been preparing to nominate a slate of directors to the board of Yahoo by next Thursday, the deadline for mounting a proxy contest. If Yahoo moves back that deadline back or postpones its meeting, something it could announce as early as this week, the company could buy time to seek out and evaluating alternatives.
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