Lawsuits loaded for memory chip price fixing

Thirty-four US states are primed to file lawsuits against seven companies alleging a conspiracy to fix the price of memory chips, in violation of antitrust laws. Attorney General Bill Lockyer will file the complaint in California later today, claiming that between 1998 and 2002 Infineon, Hynix Semiconductor, Micron Technology, Mosel Vitelic, Nanya Technology, Elpida Memory and NEC Electronics and their subsidiaries fixed DRAM chip prices, artificially restrained supply, allocated the production of DRAM chips and markets for the chips among themselves and rigged bids for DRAM chip contracts. The lawsuit will cite reports that have calculated that the US market was overcharged hundreds of millions of dollars. ...more

French National Library head rails against Google

The President of the National Library of France is a worried man. Jean-Christmas Jeanneney,the President of the National Library of France (BNF), recently wrote an article in Le Monde alerting France and Europe to the dangers of the Google Print project. Jeanneney says that by concentrating on making overwhelmingly English-language books available through the Google Print project, the Internet's culture would be skewed towards an Anglo-Saxon cultural view of the world. ...more

Multivision Computers ceases trading

West Midlands based Multivision Computers appears to have gone out of business "due to reasons beyond the control of the proprietors" according to a recorded message at their phone number. Customers with outstanding orders, warranty issues or repairs are told to write to the company's business address at 29-53 High Street, Halesowen, West Midlands, B63 3BG. At the time of writing, we couldn't get any further statement from anyone at Multivision. ...more

Nvidia debuts handheld GPU

Graphics chip developer Nvidia has debuted a new GPU designed for mobile phones. The new chip is aimed at providing high quality graphics for the new range of services currently under development for 3G handsets. Designed for low power consumption, the company is claiming that the new GoForce 5500 handheld graphics processing unit is the industry's first handheld GPU to playback H. ...more

AMD settles patent dispute with Intergraph

AMD has settled its patent dispute with Intergraph Corporation concerning the alleged infringement of Intergraph's 'Clipper' cacheing technologies. Under the terms of the agreement, AMD will pay up to $25 million over the next three years. The company will pay Intergraph $10 million, plus 2 per cent of profits from its microprocessor sales between 2005-2007 up to $5 million per year up to a total of $25 million. ...more