Ex-Samsung execs charged with price fixing

A federal grand jury in San Francisco has indicted two executives from Samsung and one executive from Hynix America as part of a world wide conspiracy to fix DRAM prices, the US Department of Justice has announced. In total, four companies and 16 individuals have been charged with fines totalling more that $731 million resulting from the Department's ongoing antitrust investigation into the DRAM industry. The $731 million in criminal fines is the second highest total obtained by the Department of Justice in a criminal antitrust investigation into a specific industry. ...more

Comment: Free services threaten UK's broadband future

So-called 'free' broadband might have sounded like Internet nirvana when it was launched earlier this year by companies such as The Carphone Warehouse and Sky, but industry experts are warning that it could prove to be the nail in the coffin for Britain's high-speed Internet access. Some ISPs have complained to PC Pro that demand for broadband has soared so dramatically that Britain's telecoms infrastructure is close to breaking point. What's more, they claim the flood of new 'free' entrants could stall investment in the next-generation high-speed telecoms system that's set to replace the creaking ADSL network, because BT would no longer have sufficient market share to make it worthwhile. ...more

Nokia damns iPhone with faint praise

Apple's iPhone is an interesting product, but its sales goal is not very high, the head of the multimedia unit at Nokia, Anssi Vanjoki, was quoted as saying on Thursday. Apple unveiled its much-anticipated version of a smart phone on Tuesday, presenting a sleek device with a large screen that combines a phone, an iPod and instant messaging. 'It is quite an interesting product but it is lacking a few essential features, such as 3G, which would enable fast data connections,' Vanjoki, whose multimedia unit is a direct rival to Apple, was quoted as saying by Finnish business daily Taloussanomat. ...more

Freescale unveils revamped Power PC chip

Freescale Semiconductor has unveiled the new MPC7448 Power PC processor, a low-power successor to the MPC7447A currently employed in Apple's PowerBook range. The new chip is the first that Freescale has produced using its new 90nm silicon-on-insulator CMOS process which increases clock and bus speeds while giving 'substantial' power reductions. It is, says Freescale, ideal for systems that need to operate without cooling fans since it uses less than 10W of power, the threshold above which external cooling is generally required. ...more

AMD trumpets success of 90nm manufacturing transition

As well as a new high-end desktop replacement processor, AMD has announced progress on chip manufacturing processes. 'We promised 90 nanometer revenue shipments in the third quarter, and today we're delivering on that promise,' said Dirk Meyer, executive vice president of the Computation Products Group at AMD. 'The added capacity resulting from our efficient transition to 90 nanometer manufacturing enables AMD to better serve the growing ranks of AMD64 customers. ...more