John Blau

Siemens AG and Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. signed a contract on Thursday to form a joint venture for manufacturing new mobile broadband systems, aimed mostly at the huge Chinese market. The contract follows a memorandum of understanding signed by the two manufacturers in August.

Even if several high-profile companies have long pulled the plug on a technology that transmits data over power lines at high speeds, the European Union (E.U.) hopes its support of power line communications (PLC) will help overcome technical hurdles and lead to greater competition in the broadband market.

At an experimental supermarket in the city of Rheinberg, Germany, about the only thing automated systems won't do is place a shopper's groceries in the car.

Deutsche Bank AG, Germany's largest bank, has agreed to outsource two internal business processes to Accenture Ltd. as part of its ambitious program to cut costs and increase efficiency by moving non-core operations to external service providers.

After attracting more than a million software developers to create applications for mobile phones, Nokia Corp. plans a new program to offer development tools and technical information to those programmers who are demanding more

Organizers of the 2006 FIFA World Cup soccer games in Germany plan to issue tickets with smart tags in what is expected to be the largest-ever deployment of radio frequency identification (RFID ) technology at a sporting event.

Continuing its assault on the highly competitive market for mobile phones designed to deliver high-speed, application-rich data services, Nokia Corp. is targeting the second quarter of 2004 for delivery of its first smart phone in the Americas.

In the first move of its kind, Metro AG, the world's fifth largest retailer, plans to take radio frequency identification (RFID ) technology beyond the pilot stage by requiring around 100 suppliers to affix smart tags to their pallets and transport packages.