Paul Kallender

The Tablet PC market is set for steady growth between now and the end of the decade, research firm In-Stat said Wednesday. However, the biggest hurdle to this growth could come from the Tablet PC's main backer, Microsoft Corp., if that company decides it is serious in promoting a new lower-priced, consumer-oriented product category, In-Stat said.

Japan's Oki Electric Industry Co. Ltd. will release a video surveillance system next week that can issue alerts when it detects suspicious behaviour or intrusions, the company said. The system could prove useful for beefing up security at airports, factories and other locations, Oki said.

Microsoft Corp.'s Japanese unit is preparing for a potentially long battle with the Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC) in a case that will likely see three of Japan's top electronics companies testify against the software giant, the company's top lawyer in Japan said Wednesday.

A fuel cell technology that will offer a quick fix for dead or dying mobile phone batteries looks as if its going to be available for millions of people for the first time in the world in Japan in 2007, Japan's two biggest mobile communications carriers said Wednesday at the Wireless Japan 2005 Expo.

Sony Corp. has succeeded in giving selected Aibo pet robots curiosity, researchers at Sony Computer Science Laboratory (SCSL) in Paris said last month. Their research won

The WiMax network will consist of about 200,000 access points each with a range of up to 3 kilometres. They will offer connection speeds of around 75Mbps and cover 80 per cent of Japan's population by the end of 2007, according to Kaori Ogawa, a spokeswoman for Heisei Denden Co. Ltd., a Tokyo-based communications carrier.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware has granted a request by Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) that documents be preserved for use as evidence as the company pursues its antitrust litigation against Intel Corp., AMD said.

Companies should not outsource their core business functions and staff, Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates told a group of Japan's top businessmen in a speech in Tokyo. Gates, who was speaking at the Nippon Keidanren (Japan Business Federation), Japan's biggest and most influential business group, urged IT companies to beware of outsourcing too much to save costs and to keep their key engineering resources and IP (intellectual property) at home.