company chairman

Regardless of the results of Operation Chokehold -- blogger Fake Steve Jobs' call to overwhelm AT&T's wireless network at Friday afternoon -- the point has been made, at least according to the site that spearheaded the effort. Reports on The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs blog and at the Operation Chokehold Facebook page reported some slowdowns, but they weren't overwhelming and couldn't be attributed to the protest.

Bill Watkins, the outspoken former chief executive of Seagate, wants to make a thinner iPod.

Watkins, a Silicon Valley veteran, has joined the board of Vertical Circuits, a start-up that has come up with a technique for cramming large amounts of flash memory into a tight space. By using technology from Vertical Circuits, device makers can fit lots of high-speed memory into their products and leave more room for bigger displays and larger batteries.