In California last week, Chinese researchers unveiled details of a microprocessor that they hope will bring personal computing to most ordinary people in China by 2010. The chip, code-named Godson-3, was developed with government funding by more than 200 researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Computing Technology ICT .

China is making a late entry into chip making, admits Zhiwei Xu, deputy director of ICT. Twenty years ago in China, we didn t support R&D for microprocessors, he said during a presentation last week at the Hot Chips conference, in Palo Alto. The decision makers and [Chinese] IT community have come to realize that CPUs [central processing units] are important.

Tom Halfhill, an analyst at research firm In-Stat, says that the objective for China is to take control of the design and manufacture of vital technology. Like America wants to be energy independent, China wants to be technology independent, Halfhill says. They don t want to be dependent on outside countries for critical technologies like microprocessors, which are, nowadays, a fundamental commodity. Federal laws also prohibit the export of state-of-the-art microprocessors from the United States to China, meaning that microchips shipped to China are usually a few generations behind the newest ones in the West.

In the anticipated release of Google’s new and improved Picasa, the company will offer facial recognition technology to help you identify friends and family in your pictures without requiring you to tag them by-hand each time you see them.

Firebrand filmmaker Michael Moore will release his latest documentary exclusively on the Internet for free on September 23, eschewing a traditional theatrical rollout, he said on Thursday.

“Slacker Uprising” documents Moore’s 62-city tour of key swing states during the 2004 U.S. presidential election, when he tried to convince young non-voters to give voting a shot.

“This is being done entirely as a gift to my fans,” Moore said in a statement. “The only return any of us are hoping for is the largest turnout of young voters ever at the polls in November.”

“Slacker Uprising,” budgeted modestly at over $2 million, was funded by Moore along with movie executives Bob and Harvey Weinstein, who hold international rights, said a spokesman for Moore.

Sony Corp. is recalling 440,000 Vaio laptop computers worldwide because of a wiring flaw that could cause overheating.

Sony said Thursday the recall involves 19 models in the Vaio TZ series manufactured between May 2007 and July 2008.

The Tokyo-based consumer electronics company said improperly placed wires near the hinge connecting the body of the laptop and its display could wear quickly, causing a short circuit and overheating. A flaw in a circuit board inside the display could also overheat its rim.

Sony has received 209 reports of overheating worldwide, including seven cases in which people received minor burns.