ELECTRONICS

Japan's Nikkei stock average is expected to move in a narrow range on Wednesday, with profit-taking likely to prevent the index from going further beyond 17,000.

The world's top cellphone maker Nokia has signed partnership deals with seven companies including CNN and Sony Pictures to bring video content to its top-of-the-range multimedia phones.

Panasonic maker Matsushita Electric Industrial Co Ltd said it would launch new Blu-ray optical disc recorders in November that allow more hours of full high-definition recording on a single disc than any others available.

Panasonic maker Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. has sold 17 large warehouses in Japan to the local unit of real estate developer ProLogis for about 85 billion yen ($735 million).

Sony Corp's financial arm will raise $3 billion after setting its IPO price at the top end of an indicated range as investors looked past the U.S. subprime crisis and bet on its growth potential in the banking and insurance markets.

The European Commission has launched formal antitrust proceedings against U.S. chip maker Qualcomm after mobile phone manufacturers complained it charged far too much for vital technology licenses.

Sony Corp said it will launch an ultra-thin flat TV in December, the world's first television based on organic light-emitting diode (OLED) technology into an $82 billion market dominated by LCD and plasma models.

Network equipment maker 3Com Corp said on Friday it will be bought by private equity firm Bain Capital Partners for $2.2 billion in a deal that will also give China's Huawei a minority stake.

Digital camera and office equipment maker Canon Inc said on Friday it may buy back more of its own shares, adding to the $3.9 billion worth already repurchased so far this year, sending its shares higher.

France Telecom and Apple are struggling to come to an agreement on the distribution of the U.S. group's iPhone in France, Challenges reported on Thursday on its website.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez on Thursday urged the U.S. Senate to make permanent the moratorium on taxes for Internet access and electronic commerce.

Cisco Systems Inc said on Tuesday that it will cooperate with the Haier Group, China's largest manufacturer of household appliances, to build networking systems for home and individual users, as well as expanding the Chinese and international markets.

Sony Corp sold about 250,000 units of the new version of the PlayStation Portable in Japan in the four days since its launch, a game magazine publisher said on Wednesday, roughly matching total Japanese sales of the original PSP in the two months through August.

Toshiba Corp, Canon Inc and 30 to 40 other Japanese firms will team up to develop biochips, seeking new revenues in a market currently dominated by U.S. firms.

Sharp Corp said it would launch a Blu-ray high-definition DVD recorder with a 1-terabyte hard disk drive (HDD), the world's largest storage capacity on any Blu-ray recorder, as it competes with the HD DVD camp. Sharp, along with Sony Corp and Panasonic maker Matsushita Electric Industrial Co, promotes Blu-ray optical disc technology, while Toshiba Corp and Microsoft Corp back the rival HD DVD format.

Satellite television operator EchoStar Communications Corp said it may spin off its technology assets and announced plans to buy Sling Media, the maker of a device that relays TV programs to laptops and cell phones.

Sales of next-generation DVD players are not seen as likely to take off for another 18 months as consumers are still waiting for prices to fall and for the battle over two competing technologies to be resolved.

Apple said on Monday that unauthorized programs, or hacks, available though the internet that allow the phone to be used with unauthorized service providers could irreparably damage the device.

Europeans' interest in watching mobile television is as tiny as cellphone screens, a new study showed on Monday, even though the industry has been buzzing about offering TV on handsets for years.

Nvidia Corp is rolling out a graphics microchip that will be embedded in the main collection of components that make up a personal computer, as the company goes toe to toe with Intel Corp in the integrated graphics chip market.

Shares in Japanese consumer electronics makers Sharp Corp and Pioneer Corp fell more than 2 percent on Friday, hit by investor doubts over the effects of their equity and business alliance.