IBM, which expects to unveil better-than-expected quarterly figures, has announced it will spend some of its cash on incentives to encourage some of its largest partners to invest more in training and other areas.

On Wednesday, the company introduced a scheme to help its business partners who are cooperating on its New Enterprise Data Center strategy. The scheme involves incentives for IBM partners to improve their knowledge in three specific areas: virtualization and consolidation; energy efficiency; and business resiliency.

And Mike Bernard, general business and channels marketing leader at IBM, told ZDNet.co.uk that there is also a fourth area under consideration, but not yet announced: information infrastructure.

"Skills in those areas are what's most needed," Bernard said. "From that the clients will benefit as well as the partners."

There are two levels of incentive for training that partners can apply for: general specialty, for which they will receive $25,000, and specialty elite, for which they get $100,000.

Bernard said the scheme was open to any qualifying partner. "There is no qualification other than that they are undertaking work in the chosen areas. They do that and they qualify and they get the money for it," he said.

Apple said it will repair at no charge MacBook Pros where the Nvidia GPU has failed, or fails within two years from the purchase date. Problem signs include distorted or scrambled video, or no video on the screen though the computer is turned on. Models that might be affected are 15-inch and 17-inch MacBook Pros with Nvidia GeForce 8600M GT graphics processors. The computers were made between May 2007 and September 2008.

Apple says some models of MacBook Pros may be affected by an Nvidia graphics chip glitch.

(Credit: Apple )

This past summer, Nvidia acknowledged that a packaging defect had led to a graphics chip problem that affected some notebook computers, including those made by Dell and Hewlett-Packard. The chipmaker said in July it was taking a one-time charge of $150 million to $200 million to cover expenses relating to the glitch.

In a post about the problem, Apple said that back in July "Nvidia assured Apple that Mac computers with these graphics processors were not affected." But the computer maker's own investigation showed some models might be affected.

Nvidia's director of PR and events, Derek Perez, told MacWorld on Friday the company "has worked diligently with Apple." According to Perez:

People who listen to personal music players for only five hours a week at a high volume may be doing permanent damage to their hearing.

A team of nine experts on the Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks is expected to release that finding in a study Monday, according to a report in the International Herald Tribune .

The EU entity also points out that young people may be doing damage to their hearing that may not surface until years after the exposure, according to the newspaper.

The concern over hearing led a Louisiana man to file a class-action lawsuit against Apple, claiming the company had failed to take adequate steps to prevent hearing loss among iPod users. The suit, filed in 2006, charges that the iPod music player can produce sounds of up to 115 decibels even though some studies suggest that listening to music at that level for 28 seconds a day can cause damage over time.

Inotera was founded as a joint venture by Qimonda (formerly the memory products division of Infineon Technologies) and Nanya Technology. Micron said the deal constitutes an expansion of its relationship with Nanya.

In the current Qimonda-Nanya partnership, Inotera operates two 300-millimeter wafer fabrication facilities producing a total of 120,000 wafers per month, Micron said.

Under the agreement, Micron will acquire access to half of the manufacturing capacity of Inotera, with the other half allocated to Nanya. Micron said it will also share its Stack DRAM technology with Inotera for the production of Stack DRAM products for Micron and Nanya.

This agreement follows an October 9 announcement in which Micron said it would reduce its global workforce by approximately 15 percent during the next two years as it scales back flash memory chip production in Boise, Idaho.