Researchers have found a simple way to make high-performance electronic circuits from organic semiconductors. The advance, reported in this week's Nature, brings us one step closer to low-cost, bendable plastic electronics.

While at TechEd Brasil, at the start of this week, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer indicated that the company planned to unveil a range of new products by July 2009. Microsoft's CEO mentioned that, by the end of June 2009, the software giant would offer "client operating system releases."

Formosa Plastics Group (FPG) founder Wang Yung-ching (王永慶), a local tycoon known for his business management abilities, has died at the age of 91 while on a business trip in the US, the group said yesterday. A legendary businessman in Taiwan Wang and his children have had a strong influence on the development of Taiwan's IT sector, with the family being involved in the development of companies including Nanya Technology, Inotera Memories, Nan Ya PCB, FIC, Fitel, VIA Technologies, HTC and Grace Semiconductor, among others.

Nokia expects global handset shipments will reach approximately 1.26 billion in 2008, up from approximately 1.14 billion in 2007.

Samsung Electronics believes that it needs steady growth strategy in order to narrow the gap with Nokia that takes 40% world market share. On contrary, LGE is seen to focus on enhancing fundamentals for mobile business, rather than unreasonable quantity expansion. The mobile phone market for next year is projected to see division in demand between premium and low price amid slow down in growth trend due to overall economic slow down. Recently, UBS lowered mobile phone market growth rate prediction for next year from 6% to 3%.

The chairman of the FCC has proposed opening up unused portions of the TV airwaves known as "white spaces" to deliver wireless broadband service. The proposal by FCC chief Kevin Martin appeals to public interest groups and companies including Google and Microsoft, which hope it will bring affordable high-speed Internet connections to more Americans. His plan could run into opposition from the nation's big TV broadcasters, which argue that the use of the fallow spectrum to deliver wireless Internet services could disrupt their signals.

A related supporting platform will also be developed, supporting HSUPA/HSDPA/W-CDMA and GSM/GPRS/EDGE (2G) mobile telephony standards. Development of the platform is targeted for completion by the fourth quarter of fiscal 2009 (January–March 2010). The new G4 will be fabricated with 45nm process technology and will provide enhanced functionality and improved performance for applications handling HD video and 3-D graphics.