Dell’s (DELL) fiscal third-quarter earnings fell 54 percent to $337 million, while revenue declined 15 percent to $12.9 billion.

The personal-computer maker saw revenue in its small and medium business unit slip 19 percent from the year-earlier period, while its consumer business was down 10 percent. In a statement, Michael Dell, its chief executive, said that the launch of Microsoft’s (MSFT) Windows 7 has been “very well received” by consumers and businesses, and that the company will see those results more in the fourth quarter.

Dell also highlighted its performance in China, where sales grew 8 percent. Combined sales in China, India, Brazil and Russia rose 5 percent.

The company is likely to discuss its recent acquisition of Perot Systems, though investors may also want to hear more about its smart-phone plans and how it’s competing with Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), which reported a revenue drop as well as a purchase of its own last week.

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As the temperature drops, some cold-weather commuters are trying out an iPhone app that lets them climb in to an unlocked, pre-heated car.

Directed Electronics, the company that sells the Viper car-alarm system, has developed an accompanying app called SmartStart that lets customers use their phone to lock or unlock the car, or turn the alarm on and off.

“There’s so many apps that are neat but don’t necessarily bring much more utility to the user,” said Kevin Duffy, president of Directed. “This really makes your life better.”

They can also press a button to start it–something customers like because they can avoid a chilly ride this way, he said–open the trunk, or press a panic button that makes the headlights flash and sounds the horn. The panic button doubles as a car finder in crowded parking lots and has been known to be used as a wake-up call as well, he said.

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Face.com is opening its photo-tagging system, based on facial-recognition technology, to Facebook members Wednesday.

Photo Tagger, which launched to a limited group of users in July, scans a user’s photo albums on the social-networking site, then lets him tag faces it identifies. It groups multiple shots of each person, making it easy to tag large albums, and users can also adjust or remove incorrectly tagged pictures.

Once a member has been identified, the app prompts him or her to approve the tag–a crucial privacy step, since he or she may not want to be labeled in a photo. It also works with a member’s current photo-privacy settings on Facebook.

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How many tweets does it take to create a sit-com? CBS (CBS) is about to find out.

The network has picked up a comedy developed by Justin Halpern, the creator of the breakout Twitter account S—mydadsays, and his writing partner Patrick Schumacker.

S—mydadsays is an ongoing feed of Mr. Halpern’s father’s remarks, in all their brief, funny, often unprintable glory (for an example of all three, check out today’s).

The account has more than 700,000 followers (it follows only one Twitterer, LeVar Burton) and sparked interest from book publishers and producers after it gained notoriety.

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Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT) and Yahoo (YHOO) are all offering some form of courtesy Wi-Fi through the holiday season, at venues such as airports, hotels and Times Square.

Each has a relatively new service it’s hoping to attract consumers to, whether it’s Google’s Chrome browser, Microsoft’s Bing search engine or Yahoo’s revamped home page and customization features.

Google is working with Wi-Fi providers Boingo Wireless and Advanced Wireless Group to provide connectivity at 47 airports, including Boston, Houston, Las Vegas, Miami and Seattle from today until Jan. 15 (sorry New Yorkers, JFK, LGA and EWR are not on the list).

“We know that this is a very hectic travel season for people, and we hope that free Wi-Fi will make both traveling and connecting with friends and family a little bit easier,” Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president of search, said in a statement.

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CoTweet, a start-up that helps businesses manage their Twitter accounts, is rolling out its first fee-based services, with McDonald’s (MCD), Ford (F) and SunTrust (STI) among its paying customers.

The San Francisco company said over the summer, when it announced $1.1 million in funding, that it would eventually charge for some offerings. Its new enterprise program starts at $1,500 a month, said Jesse Engle, CoTweet’s chief executive.

In exchange, customers get the ability to store data about their interactions with other Twitter users, including tweets, retweets, replies and direct messages, for as long as they’re an active client. The free version of CoTweet, in contrast, stores conversational data for 14 days, he said.

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Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales said Friday that the online encyclopedia aspires to be a higher-quality source of information but added that mainstream publications could learn from its disclaimers and community features.

“Our goal is to make Wikipedia as high-quality as possible. Britannica or better quality is the goal,” he said during a question-and-answer session at the ad:tech conference in New York.

One of the site’s strengths, however, is that contested entries–ones whose neutrality has been disputed, or that are lacking citations–are identified as such, Mr. Wales said. He wished that controversial New York Times (NYT) articles, for example, noted when they had prompted arguments among editors, he said.

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News Corp.’s (NWS) digital chief said Thursday that the company’s social-networking property MySpace is going in a different direction than rival Facebook, based on how its members socialize and share interests.

“Facebook, in some ways, is about what people are up to,” Jonathan Miller said during a keynote speech at the ad:tech conference in New York. MySpace, in contrast, “is about what people are into.”

MySpace in recent months has said it plans to focus on its appeal as an entertainment portal, where members can connect with their favorite bands and artists, as it has lost ground to status- and news-feed-heavy Facebook.

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Peek, a New York mobile start-up, has begun selling TwitterPeek, a new device for posting and reading Twitter updates.

TwitterPeek became available on Amazon (AMZN) and Peek’s Web site Tuesday. Its $100 price includes a full keyboard, always-on tweet delivery and nationwide Internet coverage, plus six months of service. After that, service costs $8 a month, but there is no contract. An alternate lifetime plan, without monthly charges, costs $200.

Peek sells other handheld devices that aren’t cellphones, including the Peek Classic and Peek Pronto, which are designed for emailing and text-messaging but don’t make calls. It’s pitching TwitterPeek as a way to “unleash the thrill of Twitter on the go,” particularly for Twitter users without smart phones.

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Verizon Wireless’s (VZ) “There’s a Map For That” ads are already a fading memory for those eyeing the newer Droid campaign, but AT&T (T) hasn’t forgotten them.

The telecommunications provider sued Verizon Wireless Tuesday, calling the advertisements “misleading.” Verizon Wireless called the lawsuit without merit, telling The Journal that the ads “clearly explain that non-3G coverage is available elsewhere.”

Here’s how AT&T describes the campaign, from its complaint:

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One of the frequently heard complaints about iPhone applications is that with more than 85,000 options, finding good ones can be tricky and time-consuming. Could the answer be yet another app?

Envio Networks on Tuesday is launching Chorus, a free app that shows users the ones their friends are trying out and suggests ones that might interest them. The Andover, Mass.-based company, which has received funding from Matrix Partners and North Bridge Venture Partners, specializes in social-networking technology and saw the Apple (AAPL) device as a good showcase for what it can do.

“We think that shared discovery is a very powerful concept,” said Manish Jha, Envio’s chief executive, who ran ESPN’s mobile unit previously.

To use Chorus, you register and add some friends, which you can do by inviting phone contacts, Facebook friends or even contacts in your immediate vicinity, who must also be Chorus users. You can then see apps they’ve added in an “activity feed,” which looks and behaves similarly to Facebook’s news feed.

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The creators of “iDon’t Care,” a video spoofing Motorola (MOT) and Verizon Wireless’s (VZ) “iDon’t” ad, said some of their detractors are missing the point.

Three Boston-area ad-agency staffers developed “iDon’t Care.” They said they aren’t affiliated with Apple (AAPL) or any of the other companies involved in the original campaigns–they are, however, iPhone and Mac loyalists, said Jon, one of the video’s editors (they declined to give their last names, citing fears of legal action from any of the companies woven into their spoof). They decided shortly after the Droid campaign broke that they could easily replicate it.

“It was inescapable,” said Shawn, a creative director. “It became something we all were immediately speaking about.”

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The latest possible reason that Northwest Flight 188 overshot its destination by more than 100 miles is that the pilots were distracted by their laptop PCs, The Journal reported Monday.

According to people familiar with the interviews held over the weekend between the pilots and the National Transportation Safety Board, the pilots said the snafu occurred as they were discussing work schedules over their laptops.

It’s not unheard of for members of a flight crew to pull out a personal computer during quiet periods of a flight, but investigators are still considering whether fatigue played a role, since the pilots didn’t respond to air-traffic controllers for more than 75 minutes.

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A U.S. District Judge dismissed a lawsuit against Facebook by Power.com Thursday, the latest move in a back-and-forth legal battle between the two social-media services.

In December, Facebook blocked Power.com, a site that links members’ social-networking accounts, from accessing Facebook profiles. It also sued the company, accusing it of trademark and copyright violations.

Power.com countersued Facebook in July. Its founder, Steve Vachani, has noted that sites such as Twitter, MySpace and Google’s (GOOG) Orkut enable access from Power.com and said at the time that his suit was “about users’ control of their data.” It brought on as legal counsel Scott Bursor, who fought Verizon Wireless (VZ) and Sprint (S) in early-termination-fee disputes.

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Music-download service 7digital faces plenty of skepticism since its U.S. launch two weeks ago.

According to Ben Drury, its co-founder and chief executive, many of the questions–how do you compete with iTunes, how do you stand out amid a sea of music services–are valid ones.

“We didn’t want to just launch a ‘me-too’ store,” he said in an interview in New York, where he’s attending the CMJ Music Marathon and meeting with media companies old and new, including CBS (CBS), eBay (EBAY), Pandora and AOL, to discuss potential partnerships.

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