SAP is struggling to convince some customers that a pricier support service it introduced several years ago provides additional value compared to the standard support option.

?SAP still has a great deal of persuading to do?even though the figures have improved,? said DSAG (German-speaking SAP User Group), in a news release this week. The group, which counts more than 50,000 members in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, surveyed 389 members in April and May.

Some 42 percent of respondents ?don?t believe [Enterprise Support] adds very much value, if any,? DSAG said. Another 40 percent declined to answer the question at all.

However, the numbers are an improvement over a similar survey DSAG conducted last year, when almost three-fourths of respondents said Enterprise Support provided little or no added value.

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The number of government requests worldwide seeking Twitter users? data, or the removal of content, increased during the first half of 2014.

There were 2,058 total requests to Twitter for user account information, typically connected to criminal investigations, during the first six months of 2014, a 46 percent increase from the second half of 2013, according to the company?s biannual transparency report, released Thursday.

The majority of the account information requests?1,257?came from the U.S. government.

There were 432 requests to remove content, up 14 percent, which are generally made due to content that?s illegal or defamatory in different countries.

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Microsoft updated its three Office for iPad apps?Word, PowerPoint, and Excel?with new features including PDF exporting, presentation views, and even a new flick gesture.

The three apps have been officially upgraded to version 1.1 inside the Apple App Store. Microsoft announced Office for iPad in March, where the elegant port of Microsoft's office suite has so far received (mostly) glowing reviews. "Millions" of users have downloaded the apps, according a blog post by Microsoft's Office team on Thursday.

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Your next ultra-powerful, ultra-tiny PC could look like a Brillo pad or copper-hued Chia pet, if a crowdfunding-slash-preorder campaign by Silent Power meets its goals?and then delivers on some ambitious engineering promises.

That copper mesh may look ridiculous (or ridiculously awesome, depending on your perspective), but Silent Power says the "metal foam" provides much better heat dissipation than traditional finned heatsinks, and is the key to making its PC completely passively cooled (read: No fans)?and therefore whisper quiet.

Here's the description via Google Translate, so ignore the rough grammar. (Silent Power is based in Germany.)

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An internal CIA investigation has determined its employees improperly accessed computers used by the Senate Intelligence Committee while it was working on a report about the agency?s post-9/11 detention and interrogation program, according to a report by McClatchy.

Earlier this year, Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, accused the intelligence agency of spying on computers that had been set up in a CIA facility near Washington, D.C., in 2010 to allow committee staffers to examine millions of classified documents, memos and other information that related to the program, implemented when George W. Bush was president.

The unusual system apparently allowed committee staffers access to classified material while keeping that material within the CIA, and the only CIA staff with access were supposed to be IT workers. That would, in theory, allow the Senate to conduct an independent investigation while keeping the documents secure.

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French mobile operator Iliad has offered to buy T-Mobile US, the fourth-largest U.S. cellular carrier, in a bid that could complicated an offer reportedly in the works at Sprint.

Iliad confirmed on Wednesday that it has offered $15 billion in cash for 56.6 percent of T-Mobile. Its bid prices the whole company at $36.2 per share, a premium of 42 percent over T-Mobile?s share price on Dec. 12, before speculation about a Sprint bid affected the price, Iliad said.

The bid has the support of Iliad?s board and its founder and majority shareholder, Xavier Niel, the company said. Iliad said it will raise the cash through debt and equity and has the support of international banks to raise the debt.

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