Motorola has announced the signing of David Beckham as a global brand ambassador.

The three-year collaboration with the professional footballer will kick-off with major activities across Asia including advertising appearances and extensive retail promotions rolled out across the network of Motorola stores and distributors throughout the region.

Sony's European King Bee, David Reeves says Sony is Not Concerned With Market Share.

The name of the game is not market share, it's how fast we can grow the industry—our ambition is to grow 15 per cent a year on hardware and software if we can. We want to try and double digital entertainment in the next five to six years. Whether we have 40, 50, or 60 per cent market share is not that important

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Apple Computer Inc. shares shot up in afternoon trading on Wednesday after the company unveiled software that allows users to run Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system on Apple computers -- a move that Wall Street believes will help Apple grow market share

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Seattle-based Giant Bite Games officially opened its doors. Founded by game industry veterans Hamilton Chu, Michael Evans, Andy Glaister, and Steve Theodore, Giant Bite describes itself as "a next generation game development studio focusing on the creation of excellent games and a fun workplace."

Giant Bite's team has a wealth of experience in making top-flight games, having worked on Halo, Halo 2, Half-Life and Counterstrike. They've also been involved in making key contributions to Microsoft's DirectX technologies. Collectively Giant Bite's executive team has shipped over thirty games with over twenty million units sold.

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The Fujitsu Hitachi plasma display corporation (FHP) today announced the mass production of the 42" and 37" plasma that adopt the new ALIS system (PDP).

Both models feature an aspect ratio or 16:9, and panel resolution of 1,024x1,080 dot. The 　42V" model features a brightness of 1,400cd/ which becomes the industry highest.

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Market Watch is reporting. that Apple could make a bid to buyout Disney after CEO Steve Jobs becomes the legendary entertainment firm's largest shareholder.

Jobs, who is the CEO of computer animation business Pixar , as well as Apple will own 7% of Disney after that firm's agreement to acquire the maker of movies like Toy Story and Finding Nemo.

"I think he has an open option," Barron's quoted analyst Christopher Whalen, a New York-based managing director of Institutional Risk Analytics. "Disney is badly undervalued right now. Jobs might get an opportunity to take it out."

Sony has issued a statement to set shareholders at ease, after a their share price dropped 3.6 percent. the dropped for a second time. The initial drop followed a report by Merrill Lynch & Co. report that claimed the PlayStation 3 video game console may be delayed. the report also claimed that the PS3 will cost $900 per-console to manufacture. Sony denied the delay report, but left the $900 tag open for speculation.

The fall affected the entire Tokyo stock market, with the Nikkei index dropping 1.75 percent to 15,437.93 yen ($130.57).

It predicted the launch of the PlayStation 3 console could be delayed by 6 to 12 months from its current spring 2006 window, resulting in an autumn launch in Japan and a late 2006 or early 2007 launch in the US reports Gamespot

"We wrote last November that Sony’s design choices for the PS3 had resulted in an expensive and difficult-to-manufacture product," read the report, "and we think that we’re seeing the consequences of those choices play out now. In particular, we think the problem points are the Sony Cell processor and the Blu-ray drive." Merrill Lynch also cited heat-generation issues with PS3 hardware and the far-from-finished state of most games for the platform as factors.

"We're aiming for spring, but we haven't announced specific regions," a Sony Computer Entertainment America spokeswoman told USAtoday. "We're waiting for [final PS3 specifications] until the last possible minute, but the launch could be pushed back if they're not decided soon."

Xbox 360

Microsoft Corp. reaffirmed its target to ship between 4.5 million and 5.5 million Xbox 360 consoles by the end of June despite supply shortages in its fiscal second quarter, a company spokeswoman said on Thursday.

The world's biggest software maker said it expects to make up the shortages over the next two quarters, Colleen Healy, Microsoft's director of investor relations, said.

More at Reuters

Sony Cuts : Qrio, Aibo & Walkman Plant

As part of its ongoing cost-cutting and reorganization effort, Sony Corp. has cut its line of robotic Aibo dogs, along with another, more-expensive, humanoid robot called the Qrio, which was never sold as a product reports ZDNet

According to a company representative, more than 150,000 Aibos have been sold since they went on the market in 1999. But the overall company is in the midst of an historic belt-tightening, and the robotics unit didn't make the cut.

In other Sony Cost cutting news, the company, said Wednesday that by the end of March it will close a factory that began producing the Walkman music players in 1979 when it first debuted, according to Atsuo Omagari, a Sony spokesman reports S pi

Image via Engadget

The world's fourth largest mobile phone company, Sony Ericsson has reported record fourth quarter sales and profits thanks to strong demand for mobile phones with camera and music features reports BBC. Sony Ericsson shipped 16.1 million phones in the last three months of 2005, a rise of 28% on the same period in 2004.

Sony Ericsson added it had shipped three million of its Walkman branded handsets since August last year.

It is also bringing a high-speed 3G version of the Walkman phone to market.

Sales of iPod music players propelled Apple Computer Inc.'s quarterly revenue and profit to all-time highs, with earnings nearly doubling from a year earlier reports the LAtimes

Apple earned $565 million, or 65 cents a share, in its fiscal first quarter, compared with $295 million, or 70 cents, a year earlier, before a 2-for-1 stock split.

Despite increased research spending, Apple beat estimates "quite materially," said Shaw Wu, an analyst with American Technology Research, an equity research firm.

Sony has begun offering $500 trade-in bonuses on Dell notebooks and paying solution providers additional incentives reports informationWeek.

"I think that's actually great," said Andrew Krantz, senior account manager at Westwood Computer, a solution provider and Sony partner based in Springfield, N.J. "Anything that targets Dell is good. Dell has a unique way of stealing business, so any way we could steal business back is positive."

Sony's trade-in offer of $500 for working Dell systems tops the $300 it provides for trade-ins on all other systems for Vaio BX series notebooks. Sony said the rebate can be claimed by solution providers for their clients.

Microsoft Corp., the world's largest software maker, on Tuesday announced plans to deliver many of its key products and services as online services as well as selling subscriptions or licenses for software installed on computers reports Reuters.

"These new offerings demonstrate how software is evolving through the power of services in ways that enable more dynamic and relevant experiences for people", said Bill Gates, Microsoft's chairman and chief software architect.

Windows Live and Office Live will give users some of the basic features of the software giant's two most-profitable products, but without the complexity of installing and maintaining the software in computer hard drives.

Samsung Electronics Co., Korea has shot down rumors of plans to enter the online music business with a system similar to Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes service.

"We are not at all interested in a music service ourselves," Choi Gee-sung, president of Samsung's digital media business told reporters.

South Korean media earlier this week quoted Choi as saying the company planned such a service, remarks later confirmed by the company.

Choi on Thursday said there had been a misunderstanding of comments he made to Korean reporters late last week reports Yahoo News

Samsung is currently bottoming for muscle top Apple, so while a music service of their own is inevitable, now is obviously not the time.

Pictured Samsung's YP-F1 flash player

Handset maker Nokia and music label EMI have started a project to let coffee shop customers listen to music sent to their phone via Bluetooth.

As well as music, customers will be able to get hold of ringtones, wallpaper, video clips and vouchers reports BBC.

The first free tests of the service will be in six coffee shops and music stores in Helsinki, Finland.

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Samsung Electronics, Korea's biggest digital products maker has announced plans for a digital media player application like iTunes of Apple Computer.

Samsung president Choi Gee-sung made the remarks during a press conference late last week South Korean newspaper the Chosun Ilbo reports.

"We are now in talks with our partners to debut a service program like iTunes of Apple. Our No. 1 priority is to help customers use our products with ease," the 54-year-old said.

"Our items show healthy performances in China and Southeast Asian countries where iTunes services are not provided," he added.

Choi said the service will be launched domestically and overseas shortly.Choi gave no other details, but the service is likely to be founded on Windows Media technology, leaving Samsung competing against the likes of Napster, Virgin Digital, HMV and Yahoo! Music reports the Register

Samsung, a latecomer in the MP3 digital audio player business, has tried to catch up with Apple, which commands the portable audio player market.

The Seoul-based firm has vended flash memory-based items with a brand of Yepp and sold about 1.7 million MP3 players last year. Choi said the success of iPod has affected Samsung minimally and the company has enough energy to jump over bigger competitors.

IBM, today announced that it has acquired DataPower, a company specialized in tools for XML message processing reports Xinhua

DataPower, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, offers products that improve security and the speed of processing transactions, which simplify SOA deployments by hiding the complexities of handling different message formats.

DataPower products include the X150 Integration Device, which streamlines SOA infrastructure; the XA35 XML Accelerator for XML processing, and the XS40 XML Security Gateway, to provide message-level web services security.

Apple Computer , the maker of iPod digital music players, has dropped a joint $3.8 billion investment plan for flash chip production with Samsung Electronics.

Apple, had plans to buy as much as 40 percent of Samsung's flash memory output in the second half of this year for its popular iPod Shuffle and other music players reports Reuters. Last Week Macworld reported that South Korea's anti-trust regulator had plans to question Apple Computer and Samsung about unfair trading practices. Samsung reportedly sold a significant amount of its NAND flash memory chips to Apple at a discounted rate for the launch of the iPod nano.

"Apple had proposed a joint investment with Samsung Electronics in the production lines of NAND flash chips used for its MP3 players," a senior Samsung official was quoted by the Korea Economic Daily as saying.

"But as the anti-Samsung sentiment has recently deepened among some political and civic groups, Apple ended the talks, complaining about the sentiment,"

Cingular Wireless, has announced plans to use RealNetworks Inc.'s video streaming technology to deliver video to mobile phones, the companies said late on Tuesday reports Yahoo News.

"If Microsoft had won this contract the battle for the mobile media player market would have been close to being over," said Ovum analyst Roger Entner, who noted that Microsoft is ahead of RealNetworks in the desktop media player market.

"This is version 2.0 of the media player battle. It shows that somebody is fighting back," Entner said.

Cingular's biggest rival, Verizon Wireless, uses Microsoft's media player for a mobile video service that delivers news and entertainment video clips to customers using its high-speed wireless data network.

Sony Corp. plans to cut around 10,000 jobs, close eleven plants and reduce or close fifteen unprofitable operations as part of a major restructuring of the company.

Ryoji Chubachi, Sony's president and electronics CEO, made specific comments relating to Sony's video game holdings, in both the PlayStation 3 and PSP, commenting in particular of the costs related to designing the PlayStation 3: "Game-related investment has been wrapped up and we hope the game business will recoup the investment."

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Cingular Wireless, plans launch a service next year that will let users download music on their mobile phone, a senior executive said on Wednesday.

The service would likely charge "slightly higher" than what consumers pay for songs on iTunes , Ralph de la Vega, chief operating officer at Cingular, said on the sidelines of a Goldman Sachs investor conference in New York reports Reuters

Sony, Japan, is in talks with Apple Computer about a possible launch of an online music download service for Japanese users of Apple's iPod digital music player.

"We are negotiating with Apple over the download business and hope to expand our customer base to iPod users," said Yasuhi Ide, a spokesman for Sony Music Entertainment (Japan) Inc.

"We simply want iPod users to listen to our music," Ide said, adding the deal could bring some 25,000 songs by the company's Japanese artists to iPod users reports AFP

Thursday, Toshiba Corp. Japan said on Thursday it may delay the year-end launch of its next-generation HD DVD players.

Toshiba has said it planned to launch HD DVD players in the fourth quarter of 2005 in Japan and the United States, while rival Sony plans to put a Blu-ray disc drive in its new PlayStation game console next year reports Reuters

"We originally aimed for the year-end launch in the United States. But we have not really decided on that."

There is also a possibility that the products' launch in Japan may not come until after December, the spokeswoman said.

Chip Giant, Intel Corp. and Cisco Systems Inc. on Tuesday announced plans to collaborate on ways to make their wireless LAN products work better together reports eWeek

Intel Corp. and Cisco demonstrated the Business Class Wireless Suite which is designed for customers who use Cisco access points and Intel-based clients.

The suite includes features that improve the clarity of VOIP (voice-over-IP) calls for software-based phones, for customers who happen to make phone calls from their laptops, officials said.

Apple Computer Inc., lost an attempt to patent some the iPod's technology because rival Microsoft Corp. had already filed a similar application reports Washington Post

Microsoft beat Apple to the patent application by five months, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office documents show. Apple's request, filed by chief executive Steve Jobs and other officials in October 2002, was rejected by patent officials last month.

Apple plans to appeal the decision to ensure it won't be forced to pay royalties to Microsoft on every iPod sale.

America Online, has purchased Wildseed Ltd, a privately held wireless technology company as part of the company's initiative to more quickly get AOL service onto phones and other wireless devices reports Reuters.

Wildseed Ltd. was founded by Microsoft Corp. veteran G. Eric Engstrom, who co-invented Microsoft's DirectX multimedia and games technology.

The deal marks the second purchase in as many weeks to find ways to expand its services ahead of the official launch of AOL.com, which will offer more of its services for free.

Sunday, the Business newspaper reported that Cisco Systems Inc.is considering mobile handset maker Nokia in an effort to gain its wireless infrastructure technology.

"Nokia has been identified as the most likely target," the paper said.

Cisco, the largest maker of Internet equipment, is worth around $123 billion, while Nokia's market value is around $71 billion reports Reuters

The paper, which did not reveal the source of its information, said U.S.-based Cisco's mainstay networking market was fast changing with the convergence of fixed-line and wireless networks, and Cisco needed a merger to acquire the technology to create intelligent wireless applications.

While Nokia is the world's largest maker of wireless phones, the company has experienced erosion in profit margins as intense competition forces handset makers to lower prices.

At the same time, Nokia has decided to accelerate efforts to capture market share in large developing markets such as China and India, where the wireless-phone industry is likely to generate the bulk of future growth reports Market Watch

German PC maker Fujitsu-Siemens is taking orders for Esprimo E and P models with AMD processors, and will ship them at the end of the month to customers in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, according to Fujitsu-Siemens spokesperson Sabine Twest. ( Esprimo E small form-factor PC and Esprimo P tower used Intel processors before)

The launch of the new models comes just two weeks after AMD accused Intel of using its influence with PC manufacturers to shut AMD out of the market.

The Esprimo E is priced from $913 with an AMD processor, or from $1035 with an Intel chip, Fujitsu-Siemens says. Esprimo P models with AMD processors begin at $730, it says. Fujitsu-Siemens quotes reference prices for Germany.

"The AMD filing, which is surprisingly readable for a legal document, seems to have been crafted not only as a legal complaint, but as part of a media campaign. AMD has also run full-page ads in major newspapers outlining its position," said Martin Reynolds, vice president and fellow at Gartner Research.

The case will draw intense media attention, according to the analyst, but is unlikely to have an adverse impact on either companies' operations.

Gartner advised firms to ignore the suit and not make any changes to system procurement plans. "AMD and Intel will not be distracted from their operations, " the analyst stated.

via Forbes

Shares of Advanced Micro Devices Inc. or AMD rose Thursday after the company said its second-quarter profit fell 65 percent but beat Wall Street expectations as the chipmaker reported record microprocessor sales and a drop in flash memory chip revenue.

For the period ending June 26, AMD earned $11.32 million, or 3 cents per share, on sales of $1.260 billion. That's down from a profit of $32.2 million, or 9 cents a share, on revenue of $1.262 billion in the same period last year.

Analysts were expecting the maker of Athlon and Opteron processors to lose 5 cents per share on sales of $1.22 billion, according to a survey by Thomson Financial reports Forbes

According to Merrill Lynch Japan Securities, Sony is set to lose around $100 per PlayStation 3 console, even with a $400 price tag.

Analysts believe that production costs is around $500 (per console), with key components (Cell Processor, RSX and BD ROM drive) averaging over $100 each to make. Merrill Lynch claims that SCE is likely to sell the PS3 at $399 in the US and $410 in Japan, figures that project a loss of around $1.2 billion in the first year the machine is on sale.

By the time the PlayStation 3 launches, Microsoft may have had a year with its Xbox 360 on sale, probably at $299.

PlayStation 3, SCE chief Ken Kutaragi said "Whether consumers think a product is expensive or inexpensive depends on the balance between its appeal and price. Our goal for PlayStation 3 is for consumers to think to themselves, 'I will work more hours to buy one.' We want people to feel that they want it, irrespective of anything else."

Kutaragi continued, "Nintendo was selling its 16-bit machine for $114 and we sold the first PlayStation for $364. The press said that it was too expensive, but it was a huge hit. The story is the same with the PlayStation Portable from last year. The Game Boy Advance is a handheld gaming machine, and it costs $91. The PSP had cost $229. But people queued up overnight to buy it, and it sold out on launch day. It depends whether people want it and naturally I'm confident that the PS3 is a product that people will definitely want."

Motorla has announced the E895, a new handset that delivers a robust suite of intuitive multimedia tools to capture everyday escapades including a 1.3 megapixel camera, video record and playback and optional removable memory.

Swedish Wireless equipment maker LM Ericsson and online music distributor Napster Inc. will offer a digital music service that will let consumers download music to mobile phones.

The announcement came as wireless providers and device makers rush to deliver music, video and ringtones to mobile phones, viewed by many as the next medium of choice for entertainment reports WP.

Motorola Inc. plans to launch a cell phone that can buy and play songs from Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes. It was supposed to have been unveiled in March, but was postponed at the last minute, fueling speculation that a wireless service provider had become involved

Monday, American Express said it will begin issuing credit cards with ExpressPay. Expresspay will allow payment to be authorized in seconds and will not require a signature. You wave your card in front of a sensor to make payments. The new cards offer a function already common at many U.S. gas stations. They are an alternative to the traditional cards that are swiped through a machine that reads information embedded in a magnetic strip.

American Express said test results showed that, on average, ExpressPay transactions are 63 percent faster than using cash.

The Taiwan-based BenQ Group, will acquire Siemens' entire mobile phone business with more than 6,000 employees worldwide. The business will be headquartered in Munich. The closing of the deal is expected in the fourth quarter of Siemens' fiscal year 2005. Siemens will invest in BenQ by purchasing shares of the company. In addition, the transaction also includes the rights to the brand and name, which BenQ will be allowed to use for a total of five years.
With this acquisition, BenQ will advance to become one of the world's leading mobile phones vendors. The two partners complement one another ideally in their strengths. In addition to its GSM mobile phones activities, the Taiwan-based company is also a leading vendor of consumer electronic products, such as LCD screens, notebook computers, cameras and scanners. The acquisition will strengthen BenQ’s GSM mobile phones business. BenQ intends to expand mobile devices into a core business in the future.

Next week, EMC Corp. is expected to unveil its much-anticipated storage router, Invista, a hardware and software package designed to optimize use of storage resources. Invista goes up against IBM Corps SAN Volume Controller, and Hitachi Ltds Lightning TagmaStore and will be the first application to fully exploit Brocades Rhapsody-inspired smart switch.

Built on a dual-node server cluster Invista connects to a Fibre Channel switch within a storage-area network (SAN) and will be able to present arrays on a heterogeneous SAN to application servers as if from a single pool of capacity, said Mark Lewis, chief development officer at EMC.

The presidents of Sony Corp., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. and Toshiba Corp. will meet as early as this week to try and hammer out an agreement on a unified format for next-generation DVD technology, a source close to the matter said on Tuesday.

Sony and Toshiba, heading rival groups, have waged a three-year war to have their new technology standards adopted by the industry and gain pole position in the multi-billion-dollar markets for DVD players, PC drives and optical discs reports Reuters.

Eastman Kodak Co., said Wednesday it will replace its chief executive, Daniel Carp, with its No. 2 executive, Antonio Perez. The world's largest film manufacturer said Carp, who has been CEO since January 2000, will step down from the top post on June 1 and will retire as chairman at the end of the year. Perez also will succeed him as chairman next Jan. 1.

Dulles-based America Online, under pressure to increase subscribers is offering a beta version of a free e-mail service to anyone with Internet access.

"Our vision," said AIM vice president Chamath Palihapitiya, "is to make AIM a complete communications service."

IBM plans to cut between 10,000 and 13,000 jobs, or about 3 percent to 4 percent of its global workforce, and a company official said as much as three-quarters of the job cuts will fall in Europe, with Germany, Britain, Italy and France. IBM will take a charge of $1.3 billion to $1.7 billion in the current quarter to pay for severance packages and other payments to the laid-off workers.

Cisco Systems Inc., the largest maker of routers and other communications gear for directing Internet traffic, is preparing to unveil on Tuesday its latest network security products, a suite of devices that unify multiple security functions onto a single platform to help companies simplify network management and trim costs. Cisco is looking to gain ground in the network security products market.

The Three-month bidding war for long-distance provider MCI ended Monday as Qwest dropped out after MCI agreed to an $8.54 billion deal with Verizon and rejected a higher-priced offer from Qwest for the fourth time. The deal with Verizon pays shareholders $1.3 billion less than what Qwest had offered.

"It is no longer in the best interests of shareowners, customers and employees to continue in a process that seems to be permanently skewed against Qwest," the Denver-based company said in a statement. "We pursued MCI with tenacity and discipline and feel strongly that our bid would have brought far more value to MCI shareholders."

Lenovo Group has completed its $1.25 billion acquisition of IBM's personal computing division, making the Chinese vendor the world's third largest PC maker behind Dell and Hewlett-Packard. Lenovo chairman Yuanqing Yang said the deal "marks a new era for the global PC industry" and promised to deliver "high-quality products and world-class service."

Shares of Google Inc. danced with new highs on Friday after the Web search giant's quarterly results showed more of the dramatic advertising growth.

Google's shares reached $223.97, up $19.75 from Thursday's close. That is more than twice the $85-a-share valuation for Google's initial public offering only last August. By the close of trade, however, shares had retreated to $215.81, up $11.59 or almost 6 percent.

MCI Inc.'s decision on Wednesday to accept Verizon's $7.6 billion bid, citing Verizon Communications Inc.'s better growth prospects and stronger finances, is not going over well with some folks. Bill Miller, chief executive of Legg Mason Capital Management, whose funds own 5.6 million shares of MCI and some other institutional investors said this week they would vote against MCI's deal with Verizon in favor of a higher $9.1 billion takeover bid from Qwest Communications International Inc. MCI's recent decision to side with Verizon for a third time could push Qwest to pursue a hostile bid. Qwest said on Wednesday it was weighing its next move, and had previously hired a proxy firm.

MCI rejected Denver-based Qwest Communications for a third time, opting to go with the lower offer from Verizon. Qwest had bid $8.9 billion or $27.50 a share for MCI. Verizon's offer valued the company at $23.10 a share or $7.5 billion.

In a statement early Wednesday, the MCI board said it was "not willing to jeopardize the certainty of its Verizon agreement for the uncertainties surrounding the Qwest proposal."

In a letter to the MCI board, Verizon said it would drop out of the bidding for the No. 2 long-distance operator if MCI's board deems Qwest's latest bid superior reports thestreet. The news comes as MCI considers an $8.9 billion stock-and-cash bid from Qwest. MCI agreed last month to accept Verizon's sweetened $7.5 billion stock-and-cash deal, citing the company's financial and operational strength relative to Qwest.

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., and Digeo, Inc., today announced their intention to enter into a deal to produce the next-generation Moxi(TM) II Media Center product family. Both Charter Communications and Adelphia have agreed in principle to purchase the Samsung Home Media Center products, which leverage Digeo'scost-reducing X-Stream silicon architecture, and Moxi(TM) II MediaCenter software and applications, in addition to Samsung's broad technology portfolio, manufacturing, and marketing expertise. Read More

Critical Mention, a Web-based TV search and monitoring service has announced the addition of 100+ markets in its CriticalTV 3.0 BETA platform.

The upgrade will provide users with access to broadcast content from over 400 national and local US channels from their desktops. In addition, the ability to order CDs and tapes of coverage automatically from within the CriticalTV app will have a tremendous impact on the multi-billion dollar broadcast monitoring market, and will establish Critical Mention as THE one-stop shop for communications professionals’ television monitoring needs. The new version will be officially released in May. More

Sony announced on the 31st that they have established a production corporation for small-size TFT LCD display panels, called "ST Mobile Display Corporation" (STMD). Production will begin in April. About 25,000 panels per month will be produced (550 x 650mm substrate base). Read More