Samsung continues to increase its dominance over Apple in the smartphone arena, thanks largely to the launch of its latest Galaxy S handset.

Foreign direct investment into China fell in June as an economic slowdown dampened companies' appetite for expansion.

TCL Corp. (000100) televisions now hang in Beijing's Great Hall of the People, replacing Panasonic Corp. (6752) sets in a sign that China's biggest flat-panel TV maker is piling on to the woes besetting Japan's industry.

Making bets on what Apple will do in the future is, as they used to say, a mug's game. Most predictions, like the June "iPhone 5 launch," are based on wishful thinking or sources so thin you can see through them.

Google on Friday began shipping its Nexus 7, which is smaller and less expensive than Apple's iPad, and is meant to compete with both that device and Amazon's Kindle Fire.

Unveiled late last month, the tablet has slowly trickled into the retail market. Google was naturally first in line, offering the Nexus 7 as a preorder in advance of its official mid-July launch. Other retailers, such as GameStop, Staples, and Sam's Club, soon followed suit.

Sina Corp. (SINA), operator of the Twitter- like Weibo site in China, plans to start a new Internet television service, stepping up efforts to add multimedia content to win social networking users.

Aided by recent moves by Intel and some other big chipmakers, momentum seems to be growing for a big technology shift in making semiconductors. But some key players remain wary, based partly on their scars from the last transition.

Future Horizons has said it included the comment "We assume GlobalFoundries will purchase IBM's semiconductor division and that Hynix/Micron will buy up the remaining smaller memory firms," in the conclusions of a report prepared by Future Horizons and Decision SA for the European Commission on the future of 450mm wafer processing in Europe.

In a new filing in the case between the two technology giants in California, which was picked up by FOSS Patents, Samsung notes that Apple took the liberty of sending do-not-sell letters to carriers and retailers that carry Samsung's products.

The smartphone momentum is clearly on the side of Samsung as HTC warns of another tough quarter.

There's a lot of speculation, along with several published reports, that Amazon is planning to enter the smartphone market. The online retail company will reportedly try to jump into the fray as early as this year to complement its current mobile offering, the Kindle Fire tablet. For its part, Amazon hasn't said what it might do with its future efforts in the mobile space and hasn't even confirmed that it'll break into the smartphone market. But many analysts and industry observers believe it's only a matter of time.

Vizio has recaptured its lead as the most popular LCD-maker in the United States, a year after falling behind other competitors.

Nikia will squeeze the current four big sales regions into two sales areas in China, namely the North and South sales regions, after its sales in the country dipped 18% to US$6.7 billion in 2011 compared with a 23% rise in 2010.

China's largest rare-earth producer plans to launch a trading platform, according to a company newsletter, in the nation's latest attempt to exert more control over the pricing of the strategically important minerals.

The US solar industry is undergoing some serious growing pains, with bankruptcies and mergers a necessary part of that process; meanwhile, competition from China-based solar panels has many believing that US solar simply cannot compete.

Imports of China-based solar cells and panels into the US decreased for the second straight month in May on year, according to the Coalition for American Solar Manufacturing (CASM).

Toshiba has announced that it will implement a series of functional reorganizations of its Digital Products business facilities in Japan that will enhance operating efficiency and the performance of its Digital Products businesses, including the LCD TV business.

The first production semiconductor fabs to use 450mm wafers are projected to commence operation in 2017, according to Christian Dieseldorff, a senior analyst with the fab tool vendor trade group SEMI's industry research and statistics group.

Applications for jobless benefits decreased by 26,000 in the week ended July 7 to 350,000, the fewest since March 2008.

AU Optronics Corp. (2409), LG Display Co. (066570) and Toshiba Corp. (6502) agreed to pay $543.5 million to resolve allegations they conspired to fix prices of flat-screen panels used in TVs and computer monitors.

Global investment in clean energy surged 24% in the second quarter, primarily on the strength of a rise in spending on solar parks and wind farms in China.

The company also revised its calendar year 2012 industry forecast for wafer fab equipment spending to US$30-33 billion, compared to its previous expectation of US$32-35 billion, in line with the market changes.

The LCD flavor of flat-screen TVs are by far the most popular, making up 84% of the market, yet demand for them is waning. Shipments of LCD units declined for the first time ever, dropping 3% to 43 million units in the first quarter, according to an NPD DisplaySearch report.

Nearly everyone is familiar with multi-touch screens, which allow users to make several finger gestures at once on the screens of their smartphones and tablets. Now, Microsoft is trying to push that technology into the world of desktop computing and beyond, with the acquisition of Perceptive Pixel.