Its new venture capitalist arm pledged to help find and develop "exceptional start-ups", offering early stage investments to a range of new firms. Areas it will look at include consumer Internet, software, clean tech, bio tech and healthcare. But it will also include "areas we haven't thought of yet."

Microsoft has said it settled a patent dispute over car navigation technology with TomTom NV for an undisclosed amount. Under the terms of the five-year settlement, TomTom will pay the software maker for use of eight patents.

A key index of consumer confidence rebounded slightly in March, but it held near historic lows as consumers remained uneasy about the economy and the labor market.

It's no secret that IBM is outsourcing US jobs. Last year, IBM's US employment fell 5%, while emerging market employment rose 15%, particularly in high growth markets like India, China, Brazil and Russia.

As promoted by Goldman Sachs in 2001, this approach focuses on Brazil, Russia, India and China. While their stock markets were as battered as those in North America and Europe in 2008, most of them may recover faster and offer sustained growth.

As world leaders assemble in London for the Group of 20 summit this week, the latest evidence of the severity of the economic crisis emerged from Asia on Wednesday (April 1).

An executive with Hitachi Displays was charged on Tuesday with participating in a conspiracy to fix the prices of Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) panels, the US Justice Department said.

Two white LED emitters have broken efficiency records, according to a National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) report released on December 8, 2008. Both emitters were developed by the Optoelectronics Packaging & Materials Labs at the University of California, Irvine, and both were made from blue LED chips available on the open market.

Dai Nippon Printing (DNP) developed a light emitting material that can be printed on paper and cloth and used to make light emitting posters and POP materials, flexible displays, etc.

Avnet Electronics Marketing, an operating group of the global technology distributor, Avnet Inc, and the Hong Kong Productivity Council (HKPC) have joined forces in an energy efficient lighting initiative, aimed at stimulating the design and development of a new generation of LED lighting products.

Some are suggesting it's time to buy beaten-down solar stocks, while others are arguing there's value because bad news is priced in and good news is starting to emerge. Wall Street analysts, often criticized for being blindly bullish on stocks, are this time among the sector's staunchest bears.

The Chinese government alerted all silicon, ingot, wafer, cell, and panel manufactures that it intends to announced a very aggressive Solar subsidy that is equivalent to US$3 per installed watt, in cash, as an incentive to aid the Chinese population to install solar. The Japanese may soon follow suit with an announcement of a substantial subsidy for solar installation.

KLA-Tencor will reduce its global workforce by a further-10% as part of an effort to reduce its quarterly operating expenses to US$140 million to US$145 million by the end of calendar year 2009, down from the previously announced target of US$165-170 million per quarter.

China on Tuesday denied suggestions it could be involved in a cyber-espionage ring that attacked computers worldwide from servers mostly based in the country. GhostNet, a network that affected 1,295 computers in more than 100 countries through malware and social engineering, was described in a study last weekend.

Japan's unemployment rate has risen to a three-year high as companies continue to slash jobs.

Western Digital has announced that it has completed a US$65 million cash acquisition of SiliconSystems, Aliso Viejo, California, a supplier of solid-state drives for the embedded systems market.

Specialty glass and plastic manufacturer Romag has developed the PowerPark, a carport with a photovoltaic roof that harnesses solar energy as a power source for plug-in cars.

"We need to find a European solution, and to back it up with the EU is a challenge — it takes time and if we wait too long, some of these companies might not exist anymore," said Heinz Kundert, president of SEMI Europe. Kundert said that the full-scale rescue of Qimonda would be quite difficult. "These projects are too big to be solved by one company or a single nation."

China is working on a plan to establish a union in silicon materials industry so as to cope with the ongoing financial crisis, said Zhu Lihui, secretary general of the semi-conductor materials branch under China Electronics Materials Industry Association.