Sprint customers will soon get GPS-enabled navigation service for free as part of certain data packages.

The service will be available to customers with Power Vision data plans starting at $20 a month, and it comes in a package that also includes Internet browsing, digital radio, and streaming video. Customers using other Sprint data plans will be able to add the navigation service for $2.99 per day. AT&T and Verizon Wireless also sell navigation services, but they charge an additional $9.99 a month for the service.

Information stolen from the systems of massive retailer TJX was being used fraudulently in November 2006 in an $8 million gift card scheme, one month before TJX officials said they learned of the breach, according to Florida law enforcement officials.

The significance of this new TJX detail—discovered as Florida authorities issued arrest warrants for 10 suspects and took six of them into custody—is not clear, but it might yield clues as to how TJX learned of the breach.

The $16 billion retail chain has officially said that a huge amount of information was accessed as early as 2005 (with some of the captured data dating back to 2003), but that TJX officials didn’t learn of the breach until December 2006. The company didn’t announce the breach until mid-January 2007 due to—according to one credit-card source—a request from the Secret Service because it was actively pursuing a suspect.

More than 30 albums from Elton John will be made available for digital download later this month, the singer said on Wednesday, marking the first time his whole catalog of more than 400 tracks will go online.

The 59-year-old, who has sold more than 200 million hard copies of records in a career spanning more than 40 years, has already released some of his more recent work online in the United States, but this will mark the first time his entire catalog is available.

John said he had wanted all his music to be online for some while but time was needed to prepare the entire catalog.

“I knew that the entire catalog — not just the hits — needed care and attention to be released in this way,” he said in a statement. “Now that it’s happening, I’m pleased for the fans’ sake.”

The catalog will be available exclusively from Apple Inc.’s iTunes service from March 26 until April 30 before being made available on other legal download services.

Satellite radio customers will get the option to pay a lower price for just the channels they want if the industry’s two big providers are allowed to merge, Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. said Wednesday in a securities filing of its bid to buy XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc.

The statement comes as Sirius with XM seek to assuage regulatory concerns that their deal, to be paid for with stock valued at $4.7 billion when it was announced Feb. 19, will create a monopoly that would harm consumers.

The Sirius filing said the deal would generate cost savings from efficiencies that could allow the company to offer “a la carte” programming at a price below the current $12.95 per month subscription fee.

Users of Adobe Systems’ digital publishing products, including Photoshop, InDesign, and Dreamweaver, will have to shell out for new versions of the software if they want to run them without glitches on Microsoft’s new Windows Vista operating system, Adobe says.

According to a statement posted on Adobe’s Web site, the company “does not plan to issue updates to current versions of those products for Windows Vista compatibility.”

That means users will have to pay hundreds of dollars to upgrade their Adobe software if they want trouble-free performance on Windows Vista, which is now preinstalled in virtually all new PCs shipping in the United States.

Microsoft Corp. is investigating possible fraud on its Xbox Live online gaming service, the company said Tuesday.

The investigation comes after gamers reported having their Xbox Live accounts hijacked and their credit cards used to buy “Microsoft Points,” the virtual currency on Xbox Live, which has more than 6 million users, Cnet News.com added.

Microsoft Corp. chairman Bill Gates met his technological match Tuesday, losing a video game simulation of a penalty shootout to star Mexican soccer player Rafael Marquez 2-1 as hundreds of Microsoft Mexico employees and other invited guests cheered on the two.

“I wouldn’t bet all of my money on it,” the richest man in the world quipped when Marquez asked him if he really dared take on the challenge before they hunkered down in two opposing chairs and launched a live competition displayed on three giant screens hung above a large stage.

Gates was in Mexico to commemorate his company’s 20th anniversary here, sign accords with Mexico City and federal officials aimed at using technology to increase efficiency in business and government and improve health care and education.