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Some of the world’s biggest computing systems just got a little cheaper, and a lot easier to configure. As a consequence, the companies that supply the hardware to these systems may have to scramble to remain as profitable. The reason is a Facebook-led open source project.

In 2011 Facebook began the Open Compute Project, an effort among technology companies to use open-source computer hardware. Facebook’s project has attracted many significant participants, including Goldman Sachs, Arista Networks, Rackspace, Hewlett-Packard and Dell. Intel, another key member of the Open Compute Project, announced it would release to the group a silicon-based optical system that enables the data and computing elements in a rack of computer servers to communicate at 100 gigabits a second. That is significantly faster than conventional wire-based methods, and uses about half the power. More important, it means that elements of memory and processing that now must be fixed closely together can be separated within a rack, and used as needed for different kinds of tasks.

AT&T and Verizon Wireless sold plenty of smartphones over the holidays, but that doesn't bode well for their bottom lines in the fourth quarter, expected to be released next week. Meanwhile, those same reports also are likely to indicate that Verizon Wireless is widening its lead in securing wireless subscribers under contract, a key demographic for the carriers.

Included in the sale of many smartphones is a subsidy, usually of a few hundred dollars, that the carriers pay the handset makers to lower the phone's price tag for consumers but also to lock in the buyers as a wireless subscriber for two years. For a busy period like the fourth quarter, which included the holidays and the new iPhone 5 from Apple Inc. (AAPL), the carriers could end up paying billions in such subsidies--money that directly comes out of their earnings. Of course, the carriers make up the money, and then some, by keeping the wireless subscriber for two years. However, they have been looking to minimize the impact of subsidies, such as by delaying eligibility for a new subsidized phone and increasing or adding upgrade fees.

Last year, 1 in 3 Americans typed their symptoms into search engines and medical websites before seeing their physician, according to a Pew Research Center study released this week. And with the flu epidemic making its way steadily west, now seems like a good time to talk about the best way to search for health information online. Searching for medical advice online can never replace a visit to a living, breathing doctor, but there are ways to help you weed through the online clutter and get reliable information. Medical experts say you can't trust any single site to always have the best or most up-to-date information on any condition, but some sites are more likely to be helpful than others.

Demand Progress, the activist group founded by the late Aaron Swartz, is using the Internet activist's suicide last week as a rallying point for legislation that would decriminalize violations of Internet service providers’ and others' terms of service policies. In a letter, Demand Progress and Harvard professor Lawrence Lessig asked supporters to urge Congress to pass Aaron's Law, which would put disputes over terms of service agreements in civil courts rather than criminal ones.