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TI expands application chips beyond phones

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Texas Instruments Inc unveiled new application chips on Tuesday that can be used in everything from music players to medical equipment, with an aim of expanding its business beyond the cell phone chip market.

TI, which faces competition from Qualcomm Inc in the wireless market, said it would address broader markets with by expanding its OMAP product line, which is mostly used to support features like gaming and video in cell phone.

“We’re basically making this technology available to thousands of customers instead of tens of customers,” said Neil Anderskouv, vice president of TI’s digital systems business.

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Sony head of game software development to resign

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan’s Sony Corp said on Monday Phil Harrison, president of Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios, the game software development arm of Sony’s videogame division, will resign on February 29.

Kazuo Hirai, Chief Executive of Sony’s game operations, Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE), will assume the responsibilities in addition to his current role.

Harrison is leaving the firm after 15 years to tackle new challenges in the video game industry, but nothing concrete has been set, an SCE spokesman said.

Creating strong game software is important for Sony, which has seen its PlayStation 3 game console lag far behind Nintendo Co Ltd’s Wii in sales due to high prices and scarcity of must-have game titles.

Users having trouble accessing Microsoft’s Hotmail

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp said on Tuesday certain users of its Windows Live e-mail, also known as Hotmail, are having difficulty accessing their accounts.

“We’re actively investigating the cause and are working to take the appropriate steps to remedy the situation as rapidly as possible,” said a Microsoft spokesman.

U.S. and Canadian users are reporting outages of the free Web-based e-mail program, which has more than 300 million active users.

Cheap Phones from Samsung, Spice

Telecom companies, Samsung and Spice have come up with entry-level handsets for the Indian market.

Samsung’s “Guru100″ is a stylish bar-shaped handset equipped with features such as MP3 ring tones, mobile tracker, 9 hours talk time, and up to 500 phone-book entries.

The handset sports a 3.86cm LCD screen and a speaker phone for hands-free comfort. It also includes a Hinglish sms feature that recognizes both English and Hindi words.

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When will iTunes replace Wal-Mart as No. 1 music retailer?

Apple’s iTunes will likely whip past Wal-Mart Stores to become the largest U.S. music retailer sometime this year.

The NPD Group issued a report Tuesday that said Apple had outpaced Best Buy and Target to become the No. 2 U.S. music retailer. Unless the downward trend in CD sales suddenly reverses, Apple will be No. 1, said Russ Crupnick, the NPD Group’s president of Music.

“Digital sales were up close to 50 percent and CD sales were down 20 percent last year,” Crupnick said. “Even at half that growth rate in digital sales, Apple will in all likelihood catch Wal-Mart this year.”

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Nokia, Cambridge Display “Morph”

Soon, you may be able to wear your mobile phone around your neck or your wrist…

How? Currently on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City is “Morph”, touted as a ‘bendable’, ’stretchable’ nanotechnology concept phone developed in conjunction by the Nokia
Research Center and UK’s Cambridge University.

“Morph” is being billed as the device of the future, through which researchers at Nokia and the Cambridge varsity hope to demonstrate to the world at large how futuristic devices will be bendable into a myriad different shapes. So much so that users will be able to ‘morph’ their devices of the future into any shape their heart desires; hence the name “Morph”.

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