SBC Communications Inc.

Minnesota officials are trying a novel tactic to block online gambling sites -- using a federal law that enables restrictions on phone calls used for wagering.

The state's Department of Public Safety said Wednesday it had asked 11 Internet service providers to block access to 200 online gambling sites.

The state is citing a federal law that requires "common carriers," a term that mainly applies to phone companies, to comply with requests that they block telecommunications services used for gambling.

As wireless carriers start reporting first-quarter results this week, investors will be looking at the effects of some spectacular price cuts for prepaid cell phone service.

That's a change from recent years, when flashy new phones and data services hogged the spotlight. This year, the developments have been more appropriate for a recession: People who are least able to pay are getting cheaper service.

Goodbye, numeric cell phone keypads. You're going the way of the rotary dial. Touch screens and QWERTY keyboards will take over from here, thank you.

At North America's largest cell phone trade show, running this week in Las Vegas, there were few new phones for the U.S. market that had a numerical keypad instead of an alphabetic keyboard. Touch screens also were out in force.

Amazon's Kindle might soon be getting new competitors in the market for electronic-book devices.

Tony Lewis, who heads an initiative within Verizon Wireless to provide access to non-phone devices, said Wednesday that five companies have approached Verizon about wireless connections for e-readers.

"You're going to see a lot of e-readers out there," Lewis said. "The interest level is tremendous."

As wireless carriers begin to subsidize computers that come with wireless Internet access, they're faced with a quandary: What do they do if the buyer stops paying his bills?

The company can cut off the computer's wireless access, but the carrier would still be out a couple of hundred dollars. The buyer would be left with a computer that's fully usable except for cellular broadband.

T-Mobile USA is opening up its new cellular broadband network to laptops for the first time, with Wednesday's launch of a USB "dongle" that lets portable computers get wireless Internet access.

The plug-in device costs $50 with a two-year contract, or $100 if the buyer is signing up for one year. From then, service costs $60 per month for up to 5 gigabytes of traffic.

by Manisha Verma