Premier Wen Jiabao, who delivered his Cabinet's work report to the parliament's 3,000 delegates, said China would be able to achieve 8% growth in the economy. The government plans to spend 146 billion yuan (US$21 billion) on its science and technology sector, up 25% from 2008; 293 billion yuan in social security and 130 billion yuan to speed up recovery in areas hit by the massive deadly earthquake that struck Sichuan province in August.

Consumers in Australia are buying small screen HD flat panel TV's and 100Hz models in record numbers despite many vendors running out of stock over the peak December January period according to GFK sources. This coupled with an increase in global demand for small screen TV's has seen manufacturers in Taiwan and China increase production by up to 20%.

Sharp announced the GM4BN653C0A, a high color rendering white LED with a light intensity 13% higher than the company's existing product.

Vizio, a US-based TV manufacturer, took an unusual step Feb 20, 2009, presenting a petition to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the aim of settling its patent dispute with Funai Electric.

Job cuts announced by US employers in February more than doubled from a year earlier as companies stepped up cost-cutting, a survey by a placement firm showed.

The European Commission said it no longer needed a full-time monitoring trustee to make sure Microsoft Corp. was obeying an EU order to share technical information with rivals that would help them make products compatible with Microsoft servers.

KLA-Tencor has unveiled a solar inspection system, the PVI-6, which performs optical in-line, dual-sided inspection of photovoltaic (PV) wafers and cells. The tool is part of a family of modules that inspect solar cells throughout the production process, from bare wafer to silicon nitride (SiN) coating, metallization, and final classification. The company said the PVI-6 software improves the overall yield of the solar cell production process and supports more accurate product classification.

Logic-chip maker Xilinx said sales in its fourth quarter would decline less than forecast, helped by better-than-expected wireless-communications sales. The forecast comes a day after rival Altera presented a more optimistic -- though still muted -- view of first-quarter revenue than it had in January because of better-than-expected demand from manufacturers providing equipment for Chinese 3G wireless networks.

For a long time, Intel counted Advanced Micro Devices as its chief rival. These days, it's looking more like Intel and Qualcomm will be going mano-a-mano. While Intel says it retain full control of the process—essentially leaving TSMC as a contract manufacturer—the move clearly is aimed at stealing market share from British chip designer ARM, which licenses it products to Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, Freescale and other companies.

US stocks headed for a sharp rebound at the open on Wednesday after a sell-off the previous session left indexes at 12-year lows, with a jump in the price of oil and other commodities spurring energy and natural resource stocks.