The Postal Service is testing a new delivery option

POSTAL SERVICE

Delivery pickup option being tested

WASHINGTON — The Postal Service is testing a new delivery option in which large or valuable items would be held at local post offices for pickup rather than left at people’s homes. The test involves Dell computers, but officials said the service will be made available to other shippers if it proves a success. Fruit shippers, concerned about having their holiday packages freeze in northern states, are especially interested, postal package manager Jim Cochran said. Under the plan, a business sending a product would ask for it to be marked "hold for pickup." Once the item is at a local post office, the recipient would be told when and where to collect it.

YAHOO!

Company sues over trade secrets

A Menlo Park technology company is suing Yahoo! Inc. for allegedly stealing trade secrets by hiring away 13 key engineers who had nearly completed its interactive speech technology project. Nuance Communications Inc. said it would ask a Santa Clara County judge today to block Yahoo! from allowing the engineers to work on the technology it intended to market to Yahoo! and other Internet companies. The case concerns voice recognition technology that Nuance says was at least 75 percent done before its vice president of research and development took a job at Santa Clara-based Yahoo!

–From news services