Back-to-school spending is set to slip 7.7% in 2009, according to a survey. Families say they'll spend less than they did last year to get kids ready for the fall, relying heavily on sales and coupons.

Singapore appears to be emerging from its worst recession on record after the economy expanded at an annualised rate of 20.4% between April and June.

Intel has eased its restrictions on netbook specifications, and will now allow screen sizes of 10-inch with a resolution of 1366x768, up from 10-inch and 1280x600.

Fresh rumors from sources claiming to be inside Apple's supply chain suggest that an US$800 tablet-like "netbook" will launch this October.

Semiconductor makers are often among the first to see sales and earnings fall when a recession like this one comes along. But as the recession comes to an end, chip companies are usually among the first to come out of it.

Charlie Gay, the president of Applied Solar (APSO.OB), the solar arm of semiconductor-equipment-maker Applied Materials (AMAT), says solar panel makers are experiencing steady cost reductions by making solar panels steadily thinner. Manufacturers can't reduce the X and Y dimensions of the solar cell easily – that would reduce the surface area exposed to the sun, which in turn would reduce the power that a given panel could produce. But by producing thinner wafers, the amount of raw material gets reduced without reducing performance.

South Korea said Friday it had identified and blocked five IP addresses used to distribute computer viruses that caused a wave of Web site outages in the US and South Korea. South Korean and American officials have said they believe North Korea was behind the attacks, but none of the blocked Internet Protocol addresses - the Web equivalent of a street address or phone number - were for computers in North Korea.

China has been a champ exporter, but the country's growth depends on developing other avenues of business too.

VLSI Research has revealed its Top-10 PV manufacturing equipment supply companies for 2008, with Applied Materials leading the pile.

The global semiconductor equipment book-to-bill-ratio rose above parity in June for first time in 11 months, according to VLSI Research.

The government will issue two casino licenses for gaming operations on the offshore island of Penghu initially, which will be affiliated with holiday villages, similar to the pattern of Singapore, according to Mao Chi-kuo, minister of transportation and communications.

Taiwan and China should cooperate on energy conservation and environmental protection, the Chairman of the island's ruling party said in a speech on July 11.

Israeli start-up 3GSolar says it has developed the world's first commercial-size solar energy system that uses colored dyes to turn sunlight into electricity.

There has still been no word from Elpida on what appears to be a pandemic of Hyper memory chip failures, despite the fact that firms seem to be dropping the chips faster than a hot potato.

Taiwan, the world's fifth-best-­performing stock market this year, must overcome several obstacles before it can be categorized as a developed market in benchmark indexes, according to the FTSE Group.

A delegation of Chinese Government officials and technology companies are in the UK this week looking for technology expertise and business partnerships.

The US trade deficit fell to the lowest level in more than nine years in May as exports posted a small gain while the weak American economy pushed imports down for a 10th consecutive month.

...Cash flow is improving while Rivals are shutting factories. Perhaps most important, Micron has been cutting its production costs, betting that increased financial efficiency will help it survive any further shakeout along with the market leader Samsung Electronics.

Chipmaker Infineon Technologies has announced plans to launch a rights issue of up to 337 million shares with a subscription price of Euro 2.15 per share.

3Com has reported fourth-quarter and full-year results that indicated the networking supplier has settled down. The firm said it recorded a net income of US$20.2 million on sales of US$295.1 million.

Hynix Semiconductor has said it would cut its investment in a new production facility by 45% and extend the investment period.

"The Company continued to be impacted by the effects of the global economic slowdown and the NAND flash shortage that our customers have been facing...," said Wallace Kou, President and CEO of Silicon Motion.

Tokyo Electron, the world's second-largest chip equipment maker, said orders for machines that make semiconductors and flat-panel displays rose 82% sequentialy in the company's first quarter of fiscal 2009.

Five-year research project called “UC-Light” will take advantage of communication capabilities of lights.