Martyn Williams

NTT DoCoMo Inc. plans to launch a mobile wallet service in July that will combine electronic money, loyalty card, credit card and transportation pass functions into compatible cellular handsets, it said Wednesday. The service will be available on cellular telephones with embedded smart cards based on the Felica system.

Elpida Memory Inc. is to announce plans for a new memory chip fabrication plant in Hiroshima in western Japan on Thursday, the company said Wednesday.

Greek cellular operator Cosmote Mobile Communications SA will launch a wireless Internet service based on NTT DoCoMo Inc.'s I-mode platform on Monday, the two companies announced.

A multi-million dollar Microsoft Corp. reward program to encourage people to identify computer virus writers has led to the arrest of a teenager in Germany on suspicion of writing the Sasser computer worm.

A multi-million dollar Microsoft Corp. reward program to encourage people to identify computer virus writers has led to the arrest of a teenager in Germany on suspicion of writing the Sasser computer worm. However, with the appearance of a new variant of the worm, security firms are saying there is a group involved in the creation and distribution processes.

Toshiba Corp. has developed a hard disk drive for notebook computers that can hold 100G bytes of data. The company expects to begin selling it later this year, it said Thursday.

Several simmering trade issues between the U.S. and China, including the latter's plans to adopt a proprietary national standard for wireless LANs, are up for discussion this week at a bilateral high-level government meeting due to begin on Wednesday in Washington, D.C.

A satellite built to deliver digital audio and video services to portable devices in Japan and South Korea was launched early Saturday from Cape Canaveral in Florida, satellite owner Mobile Broadcasting Co. (MBCO) said the same day.