Finnish labor unions are afraid that Nokia's move could cost thousands of jobs since many employees in the company are responsible for developing Symbian-related businesses.

ZTE says it will quadruple the number of smartphones it ships globally to 12 million this year, including its first model for a top-tier wireless provider in the US Huawei, which already provides a smartphone to the smaller prepaid providers, said it is in talks with the four national carriers.

Google has closed availability of the source code to Android 3.0 Honeycomb, explaining that the tablet-oriented software was not ready for use on smartphones and that the company didn't want outside developers or enthusiasts experimenting with it in unauthorized ways.

Citigroup analyst Timothy Arcuri asserted in a research note that that FormFactor has received a "major order" from Elpida Memory for wafer probe cards.

Iwate Toshiba Electronics will start to ramp-up production lines from March 28. However, Toshiba Mobile Display (Saitama Pref.), a wholly-owned subsidiary and manufacturer of mid- and small-sized LCD displays, expects to take about a month to secure recovery of its manufacturing line. Toshiba has started to supply some products alternatively from the Ishikawa Works, the company's another production facility located in Ishikawa Pref..

Provisional estimates released by the World Bank put the economic damage resulting from the disaster at as much as US$235 billion, around 4% of GDP. That figure would make this disaster the costliest since comparable records began in 1965.

The effects of the earthquake and tsunami have thrown a shadow over Japan's exports. Exports rose 9% in February 2011 from a year earlier, but those figures don't reflect the impact from the earthquake which hit on March 11.

Toyota Motors, the word's biggest carmaker, will slow production at some of its factories in North America due to a shortage of parts. Toyota has already halted production at all of its 12 assembly plants in Japan until 26 March.

Motorola Mobility, which has been Google's only major licensee fully committed to Android, is now developing a new web-based OS intended to give it more control over its future, enraging Android advocates anew just weeks after Nokia opted for WP7 platform

Renesas Electronics has resumed operations at the factory sites in Aomori and Yamagata prefectures, northern Japan. The facilities were shut down following a massive earthquake and resulting tsunami on March 11.

Micron Technology is trying to secure its supply of crucial silicon wafers following Japan's devastating earthquake and said it was too soon to gauge the disaster's impact on its business.

Nokia may be moving toward Windows Phone, but with the T-Mobile Astound (C7), it shows that with a few needed upgrades, Symbian can still function as a good entry-level smartphone.

Globalfoundries expects revenues to rise at least 14% to more than US$4 billion in 2011, and aims to overtake United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC) of Taiwan to be the world's second-largest contract chipmaker by revenues, CEO Douglas Grose said in an interview.

ZTE and Huawei both entered the ranks of the world's top 10 mobile phone manufacturers last year. ZTE, ranked fourth, saw its global market share rise from 2.3% in 2009 to 3.7% last year, while third-ranked LG Electronics' global market share slipped from 10.1% to 8.4%.

Nokia is targeting those feature phone users who haven't yet made the move to a smartphone with the new Nokia Astound. It will be available April 6 through T-Mobile USA for $79.99 after rebate and with a two-year service agreement and qualifying voice and data plan.

The do-it-yourself retail giant plans to use the QR codes both outside their stores in print and online as well as on shelves within stores.

AT&T on Monday announced two new smartphones, including the LG Thrill 4G with a glasses-free 3D display. On Tuesday at CTIA, Sprint also announced a glasses-free 3D smartphone, the HTC Evo 3D, which runs on its 4G WiMax network.