07/13, 3:10pm
LCD makers price fixing
The European Union's antitrust regulators have charged Philips Electronics, LG Display and a number of smaller, unnamed LCD makers with corroborating on fixing the price of LCD monitors, Philips announced on Monday. According to a Monday report, the EU antitrust regulators began their investigation in 2006, along with their US counterparts, and has now concluded that the involved firms knowingly kept pricing high. Philips said it would vigorously fight the accusation and claimed that it sold all of its shares in LG Display in March, eliminating possible incentives to illegally collaborate in the future.
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12/15, 9:40am
Taiwanese iPhone unlocked
Buyers of the Taiwanese iPhone will find it unlocked, reports say. Although the phone's official carrier in the country -- Chunghwa Telecom -- has in the past insisted that the phone would only work on its network, in practice, the new iPhone will accept SIM cards from other carriers' networks without any hardware or software hacks. The only tradeoff, users say, is that Chunghwa's Hami services become inaccessible.
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11/21, 10:35am
Hami for Taiwanese iPhone
A new service package announced for the Taiwanese iPhone may suggest that Apple is allowing more freedom when it comes to carrier personalization. Local carrier Chunghwa Telecom has revealed the existence of Hami, a set of free services intended specifically for iPhone owners. People will have access to 11 services in total, including special news, weather and stock market trackers, as well as audio, video and images custom-produced solely for Hami. It is unclear whether Hami will be delivered via the web or as a custom app download.
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11/17, 10:25am
Taiwanese iPhone in Dec.
The iPhone should launch in Taiwan sometime next month, carrier Chunghwa Telecom has announced. The company says it should be the phone's exclusive carrier on the island for the foreseeable future, and has set a rough timeframe of December 2008. No subscription plans have been announced, nor has Chunghwa provided an estimate of phone prices. The carrier will however have to compete with gray-market phones from New Zealand, Hong Kong and even the US, which have been selling for the equivalent of $667 or more.
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11/12, 4:05pm
LG, others pay $585M fine
The US Department of Justice on Wednesday announced that LG Display, Sharp Corp. and Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd. plead guilty to criminal accusations of conspiring to fix prices in the sale of LCD panels and agreed to collectively pay $585 million in fines. LG will pay the majority of that amount, or $400 million, which is the second-highest criminal fine the DoJ's Antitrust Division has ever imposed. The charges were filed on Wednesday in the US District Court in San Francisco, with the three companies agreeing to cooperate with the investigation.
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12/28, 9:05am
18-inch LCD Panels
LCD maker Chunghwa Picture Tubes today revealed that a new panel is in the works that could affect the designs of both desktop and notebook displays. Measuring 18.4 inches, the display will sit between 17- and 19-inch LCDs in cost but will adopt a wider, HDTV-like 1366x768 resolution versus the taller pictures of its smaller and larger models. The screen will be designed for distance viewing and will boast a relatively high 1,000:1 contrast ratio and 5ms pixel response time, Chunghwa claims.
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