IT City

Apple affirms iPhone target

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Apple Inc affirmed on Wednesday its iPhone sales goal for this year and said it will give details next week of how outside programmers can create software for its iPhone, a move expected to spur demand for the multifunction device.

Apple’s Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook, speaking at a Goldman Sachs investment conference, said he had “really good confidence” the company could hit its oft-stated goal of selling 10 million iPhones by the end of the year.

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Nokia, Cambridge Display “Morph”

Soon, you may be able to wear your mobile phone around your neck or your wrist…

How? Currently on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City is “Morph”, touted as a ‘bendable’, ’stretchable’ nanotechnology concept phone developed in conjunction by the Nokia
Research Center and UK’s Cambridge University.

“Morph” is being billed as the device of the future, through which researchers at Nokia and the Cambridge varsity hope to demonstrate to the world at large how futuristic devices will be bendable into a myriad different shapes. So much so that users will be able to ‘morph’ their devices of the future into any shape their heart desires; hence the name “Morph”.

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When will iTunes replace Wal-Mart as No. 1 music retailer?

Apple’s iTunes will likely whip past Wal-Mart Stores to become the largest U.S. music retailer sometime this year.

The NPD Group issued a report Tuesday that said Apple had outpaced Best Buy and Target to become the No. 2 U.S. music retailer. Unless the downward trend in CD sales suddenly reverses, Apple will be No. 1, said Russ Crupnick, the NPD Group’s president of Music.

“Digital sales were up close to 50 percent and CD sales were down 20 percent last year,” Crupnick said. “Even at half that growth rate in digital sales, Apple will in all likelihood catch Wal-Mart this year.”

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Cheap Phones from Samsung, Spice

Telecom companies, Samsung and Spice have come up with entry-level handsets for the Indian market.

Samsung’s “Guru100″ is a stylish bar-shaped handset equipped with features such as MP3 ring tones, mobile tracker, 9 hours talk time, and up to 500 phone-book entries.

The handset sports a 3.86cm LCD screen and a speaker phone for hands-free comfort. It also includes a Hinglish sms feature that recognizes both English and Hindi words.

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Lenovo Unveils ‘ThinkPad X300’ Notebook Computer

Lenovo has made announcement about the launching of its much-awaited ‘ThinkPad X300’ notebook computer, which targets business users as well as consumers.

The newly launched ‘ultra-portable machine’ weighs just 2.9 pounds and enjoys more features as compared to Apple MacBook Air.

Equipped with three USB ports and DVD Writer, ThinkPad X300 comes with a 13.3-inch LED backlit display and a removable battery with more duration of 10 hours. Therefore, the laptop computer would be very helpful in long flight hours or journeys.

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Samsung finalizing LCD line talks with Sony

SEOUL (Reuters) – Samsung Electronics Co Ltd is in the final stages of talks with Sony Corp to jointly build a new LCD panel production line and the two may cooperate on another, bigger line, a Samsung source said on Wednesday.

Sony, which runs a joint venture to produce liquid crystal display (LCD) panels with Samsung, said on Tuesday it would take a one-third stake in Sharp Corp’s $3.5 billion LCD panel plant in Japan to meet rising demand for flat-screen TVs.

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Users having trouble accessing Microsoft’s Hotmail

SEATTLE (Reuters) – Microsoft Corp said on Tuesday certain users of its Windows Live e-mail, also known as Hotmail, are having difficulty accessing their accounts.

“We’re actively investigating the cause and are working to take the appropriate steps to remedy the situation as rapidly as possible,” said a Microsoft spokesman.

U.S. and Canadian users are reporting outages of the free Web-based e-mail program, which has more than 300 million active users.

Sony head of game software development to resign

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan’s Sony Corp said on Monday Phil Harrison, president of Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios, the game software development arm of Sony’s videogame division, will resign on February 29.

Kazuo Hirai, Chief Executive of Sony’s game operations, Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE), will assume the responsibilities in addition to his current role.

Harrison is leaving the firm after 15 years to tackle new challenges in the video game industry, but nothing concrete has been set, an SCE spokesman said.

Creating strong game software is important for Sony, which has seen its PlayStation 3 game console lag far behind Nintendo Co Ltd’s Wii in sales due to high prices and scarcity of must-have game titles.

TI expands application chips beyond phones

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Texas Instruments Inc unveiled new application chips on Tuesday that can be used in everything from music players to medical equipment, with an aim of expanding its business beyond the cell phone chip market.

TI, which faces competition from Qualcomm Inc in the wireless market, said it would address broader markets with by expanding its OMAP product line, which is mostly used to support features like gaming and video in cell phone.

“We’re basically making this technology available to thousands of customers instead of tens of customers,” said Neil Anderskouv, vice president of TI’s digital systems business.

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Microsoft to stop making HD DVD players for Xbox

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Microsoft Corp will stop making video players based on the HD DVD standard for its Xbox 360 game system, a move that comes days after Toshiba Corp pulled the plug on the high definition movie technology.

The move, announced on Saturday, follows recent decisions by Hollywood studios such as Time Warner Inc’s Warner Bros and retailer Wal-Mart to exclusively back Sony Corp’s Blu-ray, a high-definition video technology rival to HD DVD.

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