GOOD DAY FOR: New Windows, after Microsoft joined the One Laptop Per Child project, potentially boosting orders for the $188 laptops. Adding the Windows operating system to the XO laptops, which currently run a Linux-based system called Sugar, will add up to $20 per laptop. Project founder Nicholas Negroponte said he hoped the change would ease skepticism among education ministers in potential client nations. (AP in Yahoo! Finance)

BAD DAY FOR: Puffed rice, after the price of rice dropped for a fifth day, for a total weekly decline of 14 percent. That marks the grain’s steepest fall in price since July 2004. New supplies of rice from Pakistan and Japan eased concern about a global shortage of the staple. “The wheels are in motion for lower food prices,” said UBS analyst John Reeve. (Bloomberg)