U.S. senators this week endorsed a proposal that’s long been a favorite of technology companies: a bigger pool of foreign workers.

A spending measure approved Thursday by the Senate Judiciary Committee will boost the cap on H-1B visas for highly skilled guest workers by about half–from 65,000 to 95,000.

The proposal would also raise H-1B application fees for U.S. employers by $500, which supporters described as a way to offset spending and avoid sizable increases in the federal budget deficit.

The changes won’t take effect unless the full Senate–and later, a conference with the House of Representatives–approves. That may be easier said than done, as the House’s version does not currently provide for a change in the H-1B visa cap. The next step for the bill is debate in the Senate Budget Committee, currently scheduled for Wednesday.

Source: News.com

Anderson, the creator of the popular IE based browser, Avant browser which according to Download.com downloaded over 11 millions times, is gearing to release the next browser project named Dr. Orca.

Dr. Orca is an Avant browser version based on Firefox 1.5 beta. The beta 1 version of Dr. Orca released few weeks ago is available for download.

At first look Dr. Orca looks just like Avant browser and Avant browser users will feel right at home, with the same look and feel, same features, menus and toolbars. But under the hood, the rendering engine is purely Firefox.

In the current beta you can not install any of Firefox’s plug-ins but it comes with Google and Yahoo toolbars already installed (although you’ll need to enable Google’s toolbar like in Avant browser, since Yahoo is the default search toolbar).

Dr. Orca is still in early beta and it has some bugs and missing some features available in Avant, but it is sure looks like a promising development and good news to the Avant browser lovers.

It should be a jolly Christmas for PC buyers, because an excess of chips will likely lead to discounts, according to analysts.

An excess supply of Intel processors purchased this summer, combined with ambitions at Advanced Micro Devices to increase its market share, could lead to price cuts of as much as 10 percent on computers over the next three months.

“Where the inventory glut is more likely to play a role is in the mid-to-high-end space, where manufacturers have a little more wiggle room to drop prices and simply take a reduction in profit margin rather than a loss in the value space”.

Source: News.com

Novell is expected to initiate a major round of layoffs that could cut 1,000 or more jobs in an attempt to restore the server software company’s financial strength, according to employees familiar with the plan.

The layoffs are expected to hit about 20 percent of the company’s 5,800 employees and likely will be announced near the end of Novell’s fiscal year, which ends Oct. 31, sources said.

Novell is under increasing financial pressure, particularly after the company reported third-quarter results in August in which revenue dropped 5 percent to $290 million and net income dropped 91 percent to $2.1 million.

Source: News.com