Kuriko Miyake

NTT Data Corp. launched a distributed computing trial in cooperation with IBM Corp., Intel Corp., Microsoft Corp. and Nippon Telegraph and Telephone East Corp. (NTT East) on Friday in Japan, the company said.

The Japanese government will start a joint research project with industry in fiscal year 2003 to develop diamond-based semiconductors, an advanced chip technology that could one day replace silicon as the base for super fast, high voltage semiconductors, it said on Friday.

Hitachi Ltd. and Mitsubishi Electric Corp. finalized and signed last week an agreement to establish a joint venture semiconductor company next April that will focus on system LSI (large-scale integration) chips, they said.

A consortium of companies developing a removable hard disk system for consumer use called iVDR (Information Versatile Disk for Removable usage) plan to unveil a prototype 1.8 inch drive with a serial ATA interface for the first time at the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in January, an iVDR consortium representative said on Wednesday.

Sharp Corp. rolled out a trial VoIP (voice over Internet Protocol) service for users of its Zaurus PDA (personal digital assistant) on Wednesday, the company said.

NEC Corp. remains committed to its restructuring plan and will continue to spin off, merge or integrate business units as it deems necessary, Koji Nishigaki, president and chief executive officer of NEC, said in Tokyo on Wednesday.

Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. has developed a prototype battery charger that is equipped with a solar panel to generate power, it said Friday.

A telephone number starting with 050 now means IP (Internet Protocol) telephony in Japan.