STMicroelectronics and rivals such as NXP Semiconductor and Qualcomm are battling to be picked to provide the brains for the various products in the hot segment.

A commission of experts appointed by the German parliament has recommended Chancellor Angela Merkel's government to abolish all subsidies for green energy, highlighting mounting opposition to plans to reform instead of scrap the system.

What's happening in Kansas could be happening in your state. It's not completely clear that the efforts to rollback the statewide renewable energy requirements there - and in 16 other states - will succeed. But it is obvious that, nationally, the tax preference given to renewables is fading.

Earlier today, Apple provided developers with the first beta for the upcoming release of OS X Mavericks version 10.9.3.

It looks like Asus is getting ready to release another high-end aluminum Ultrabook. The NX500 has popped up online before an official reveal, and it's packing premium audio and a 15-inch 4K display.

Japan's government said Bitcoin is not a currency but that some transactions using the virtual unit should be taxed.

Even though CES 2014 is long gone, some of the stuff announced there is just now starting to become available for purchase.

OS X 10.9.2 was just released last week, but Apple has already begun testing for version 10.9.3, and the update will apparently come with some goodies for users of 4K displays. According to a report by 9to5Mac, the new update enables HiDPI "Retina" scaling on 4K displays that didn't offer the option in previous OS X versions.

Samsung Electronics defeated Apple's bid for a court order barring US sales of some Samsung smartphones that were found to infringe Apple patents in a ruling that may affect a trial over current products.

Qualcomm has announced the management transition of Steve Mollenkopf to CEO and Paul E. Jacobs to executive chairman of the board of directors.

At an IBM factory in southern China, more than 1,000 workers have staged a strike to protest the company's plan to transfer employees to the Chinese PC arm, the Lenovo Group.

Hillcrest Labs and Bosch Sensortec have announced a partnership to launch a new sensor solution for head-mounted displays (HMDs).

How ABC, Twitter and Samsung stage-managed the world's most re-tweeted snapshot.

Oppenheimer has overseen a period of massive growth at the iPhone maker.

Gold prices eased slightly in Asia on Wednesday as tension between Russia and the Ukraine appeared to have tamped down further.

More than 450 employees at NXP Semiconductors wafer fab in Nijmegen, The Netherlands, have held a two-hour strike in protest at stalled wage negotiations, according to local reports.

Intel is in the process of buying smartwatch startup Basis, as part of the tech giant's new focus on wearables and the Internet of Things.

Broadcom has announced that Datang Mobile, a core subsidiary of the Datang Telecom Technology and Industry Group, has selected Broadcom's dual-mode TD-SCDMA/TD-LTE system-on-chip (SoC) to develop a new family of enterprise and residential small cell solutions.

Amtech Systems, a supplier of production and automation systems and related supplies for the manufacture of solar cells, semiconductors, and sapphire and silicon wafers, has received approximately US$10 million in new solar orders.

Deal will make TSMC Solar's 'CIGS' modules available across North America.

Intel is expecting its next Atom tablet chip, code-named Cherry Trail, to be in devices by the end of 2014, the company said this week.

Chipmaker Avago Technologies said it expects current-quarter sales to decline 3-6% from the first quarter as it lost revenue from a smartphone maker, which analysts said could be Apple.

In 1979, when Richard Branson bought the 74-acre Necker Island in the British Virgin Islands, he paid less than $300,000.

Did you hear that a barge leaked 31,500 gallons of crude oil into the Mississippi River over the weekend? When the tanker collided with a tugboat, the resulting spill caused 65 miles of the river to be shut down for two days as New Orleans Port traffic ground to a halt and drinking water intakes were closed.

Despite ditching Motorola, Google's plans to disrupt the smartphone world continue apace and the internet giant is intent on converting phones from closed devices to modular devices whose components can be stuck together to achieve different outcomes.

Samsung's decision to drop Android in its latest wearables could have effects that ripple out to future smart watches and fit bands, according to analysts.

The companies are already selling lots of phones. But most of those sales are coming in China, and both companies admit they have work cut out for them elsewhere, including in the United States.

Fujitsu, NTT Docomo and NEC will dissolve by March a joint venture for developing core chips for smartphones. The venture, Access Network Technology, was formed in August 2012 to develop baseband chips.

GCT Semiconductor has licensed the Cadence Tensilica ConnX BBE16 digital signal processing (DSP) core for a next-generation chipset targeting mobile applications.

JEDEC Solid State Technology Association has announced the publication of Release 6 of the DDR3 Serial Presence Detect (SPD) document. The updated standard describes new memory timing parameters and enables higher capacity memory modules.