Kuriko Miyake

Four of Japan

Hitachi Ltd. unveiled Monday a small-sized multimedia card aimed at mobile devices such as digital still cameras and PDAs (personal digital assistants).

Japan

As the Japanese government prepares to introduce more electronic government projects next year, it has started studying open-source operating systems, in a move that could lead to the replacement of some of its Windows-based systems with open-source alternatives like Linux.

NEC Corp. will use Transmeta Corp.

Two competing technologies which enable more than 20G bytes of data to be stored on each side of an optical disk are nearing commercialization, leading to fears that the industry could be split between support for one format or the other.

Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport plans to conduct a trial using contactless IC (integrated circuit) chips and biometrics technologies to help accelerate the time it takes to check in at Japanese airports.

Hitachi Data System Corp. and its parent Hitachi Ltd. will join other storage vendors in the Storage Management Initiative (SMI) Forum.