Archives: March 2006

Toshiba's delayed HD DVD players

Posted by: Kenji Hall on March 31

First, it was Sony. Now, it's Toshiba. The leaders of the rival next-generation DVD formats are behind schedule in rolling out the high-def DVD players that they're promising will deliver...

Is WiMAX the new battlefield for cellular operators?

Posted by: Kenji Hall on March 29

A battle over WiMAX is shaping up between Japan's No. 1 and No. 2 cell phone operators. DoCoMo has just applied to the Japanese government to conduct a one-year trial...

Piracy progress in China. Really.

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on March 29

Convinced that rampant counterfeiting of goods in China is undercutting American companies? No need to worry, the Chinese government is on your side. With U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez visiting...

Detained Chinese blogger Hao Wu

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on March 28

Last month I wrote about an unnamed Chinese blogger who had been detained by security forces in Beijing. Now, after a month of keeping a low profile in the...

A Chinese chip scandal?

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on March 26

It hasn’t generated global headlines like the South Korean stem-cell controversy, but China may be in the midst of an embarrassing high-tech scandal of its own. In 2003, Chen Jin,...

What’s behind UTStarcom’s slide

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on March 23

As China’s wireless telecom industry exploded in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the one U.S. company that benefited the most was UTStarcom Inc. UTStarcom was based in Alameda, California...

Big NAND Demand

Posted by: Ihlwan Moon on March 22

The popularity of music and video on the go is leading to explosive growth in demand for flash memory, especially the stuff the geeks call NAND. That's the kind that...

Samsung's Flashy Future

Posted by: Ihlwan Moon on March 20

Samsung Electronics President Hwang Chang Gyu loves to liken the sudden growth in demand for flash chips to the California gold rush of 1849. Hwang, who runs Samsung’s chip division,...

Will Kutaragi pull back the curtain?

Posted by: Kenji Hall on March 14

It's official: Sony's games guru Ken Kutaragi will end his months-long silence tomorrow to offer an update on the PlayStation 3. Billed as a business briefing, the meeting will bring...

The wireless standard that won't go away

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on March 12

Give credit to the electronics mandarins in Beijing. When it comes to jump starting a home-grown tech standard for mobile computing, they refuse to take no for an answer. Two...

I want my SED TV!

Posted by: Kenji Hall on March 10

It should hardly come as a shock that a next-generation flat TV technology developed by Toshiba and Canon is facing delays of a year and a half. After all, the...

Cochlear impants - from India?

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on March 10

Among companies producing technology to help people with profound hearing loss hear, Sydney-based Cochlear Ltd. has an almost Microsoft-like dominance. Last year I wrote a BW story about the...

Amnesty Int'l targets Yahoo

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on March 09

The pressure on Yahoo is increasing. During congressional hearings last month looking into the role American companies play in helping the Chinese government control the Internet in China, critics tore...

Want to withdraw cash? Hold out your palm, please.

Posted by: Kenji Hall on March 08

Fujitsu has just outdone itself in biometrics. Nearly two years ago, the company got rave reviews for developing a security system that can read the veins in a person's...

The mysterious case of HP and the Taiwanese

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on March 07

Today's prize for maddeningly uninformative announcement goes to HP. The company's regional office in Singapore on Wednesday morning sent out a press release touting a new partnership with Quanta, the...

Pushing biotech boundaries in China

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on March 06

More news about Chinese doctors pushing the envelope by providing experimental treatment not available in the U.S. I recently wrote a BusinessWeek story about a drug made by a Chinese...

Cell Phones Promote Deals

Posted by: Ihlwan Moon on March 02

With rapid wireless technology advances, many assume that in the future the mobile phone will become the centerpiece of communications, entertainment and computing for people on the go. Already, cell...

Dell vs Lenovo heats up

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on March 02

Before becoming CEO of PC maker Lenovo in December, William Amelio was senior vice-president at Dell. Amelio had been head of Asia-Pacific of the Texas computer maker for four years...

Two directions for Taiwan

Posted by: Bruce Einhorn on March 01

From Taiwan this week, another sign of how politics is heading in one direction, the IT industry in another. Independence-minded President Chen Shui-bian on Feb. 27 announced plans to scrap...