South Korea strikes gas deals with Shell and Total August 17, 2011 SOUTH Korea announced long-term agreements yesterday worth $84bn (£50.8bn) with Royal Dutch Shell and Total to buy gas from liquefied natural gas projects in Australia. Asia’s largest economies are competing for Australia’s rapidly growing supplies of LNG to secure the energy to fuel expansion. South Korea, the world’s second-largest buyer of LNG after Japan, needs [...]
Markets cool over Google’s Motorola bid August 16, 2011 MARKETS were yesterday digesting the implications of Google’s shock $12.5bn (£7.6bn) bid for Motorola Mobility. Google slumped 3.4 per cent, continuing the cool reception after the announcement on Monday. However, investors across the sector appeared to be cautiously optimistic, with hopes that the bid will help to mitigate the adverse effects of future patent battles. In [...]
BlackBerry brand survives riots association August 16, 2011 LAST week saw one story dominate the news and although the bulk of the focus was on the rioters, the areas and buildings being looted, the police and the politicians the one brand that was continually being talked about was BlackBerry. It seemed that BlackBerry Messenger was the communication method of choice for the rioters, [...]
Google snaps up Motorola arm for £8bn August 15, 2011 GOOGLE yesterday made its biggest-ever acquisition by spending $12.5bn (£7.6bn) on Motorola Mobility. The purchase of the phone and tablet-maker, which will be run as a separate business, marks a surprise move into mobile hardware for Google, which has recently seen its Android software become the most popular smartphone platform. However, analysts say the motivation [...]
The new front in the mobile phone wars August 15, 2011 THE future for companies like Nokia and Motorola, once the great pioneers of the mobile phone industry, has been bleak for some time. The likes of Apple and RIM have eaten away at their share of the high-end smartphone market for several years now, while cheaper Asian manufacturers will soon do the same in the [...]
Apple patent war reaches EU August 10, 2011 A German court has temporarily barred Samsung from selling its flagship Galaxy tablet in most of the EU in a significant victory for Apple and its iPad. In a global intellectual property battle, Apple has said the Galaxy line of mobile phones and tablets “slavishly” copied the iPhone and iPad, and it has sued the [...]
ARM warns of a light Christmas July 26, 2011 ARM Holdings, the Cambridge-based maker of chips that power the Apple iPhone and other smartphones, has reported a 25 per cent profit rise this quarter, but warned it is not counting on a Christmas sales boom. The firm’s technology, used by firms such as Samsung, Qualcomm and Texas Instruments, helped lift pre-tax profit to £54.2m, [...]
How to pass the torch to your hero July 26, 2011 EVER since the theft of fire from Zeus by Prometheus (well, that’s what the legend says), a torch has been kept alight throughout the Olympics. And in the run up to the coming Olympics, beginning on 19 May 2012, it will be carried across the country in relay by those nominated as community heroes. The [...]
RIM plunges after it axes 2,000 staff July 25, 2011 SMARTPHONE maker Research In Motion (RIM) plunged more that 4.4 per cent yesterday after it announced it would axe a tenth of its global workforce. The firm, best known for its BlackBerry range, has struggled in the face of soaring demand for Apple’s iPhone and handsets running Google’s Android, especially those made by Samsung. Its [...]
Apple loss bites into Wolfson forecasts July 25, 2011 EDINBURGH-BASED chipmaker Wolfson Microelectronics slashed its sales forecast again yesterday in the face of a tough market for electronics goods that lack an Apple logo. The downgrade, its second in a month, sent shares in the maker of audio processing chips down 10.7 per cent to a 15-month closing low. The company reported second-quarter revenue [...]