June 16 - 1:15pm EDT   Clearwire on Tuesday officially released its 4G WiMAX wireless broadband network in Atlanta, making it the largest city in the US to offer the service. The service, CLEAR, is available to about three million people in a 1,200-square mile area, offering users DSL-like cable speeds wherever they are, wirelessly. Running on a WiMAX radio system from Motorola, the service is said to deliver realistic download speeds between 4 and 6Mbps, with burst speeds greater than 15Mbps. In comparison, existing 3G networks provide download speeds between 1 and 1.7Mbps. [full story]

June 11 - 11:25am EDT   LG's mobile chief Skott Ahn today told the press that his company is planning to claim second place in both the overall and smartphone markets by 2012. The Korean company expects its total phone share to remain a flat 10 percent in 2009, or third place behind Nokia and Samsung, but also anticipates moving up much more quickly among the more advanced devices, where it doesn't yet count among the top five. Much of the boost should come from its deal with Microsoft for Windows Mobile phones, but at least one Android phone is due this year. [full story]

May 20 - 10:35am EDT   Apple has managed to more than double its smartphone market share from year to year in the first quarter of 2009, according to Gartner data. iPhones jumped from 5.3 percent of the industry in early 2008 to 10.8 percent a year later. The jump has made Apple the third-largest smartphone maker in the world and gives it twice as much share as HTC, which had just 5.4 percent of the market and grew slowly even with the launch of Android phones. [full story]

May 12 - 3:00pm EDT   Three companies, Fujitsu, FileMaker Inc., and Acordex, have combined resources in order to target the low-cost, high-speed document scanning market. The companies have integrated Acordex's DocKeep Pro with FileMaker Pro 10, to help produce high-speed scanning using Fujitsu's fi-6130 and fi-6140 document scanners. [full story]

April 30 - 4:30pm EDT   Toshiba Corporation and Fujitsu Limited on Thursday today announced the terms of the definitive agreement, following the pair's memorandum of understanding completed in mid-February. Under the agreement, Fujitsu will transfer its hard disk drive (HDD) business to Toshiba, with a target completion date of July 1st. [full story]

March 18 - 11:10am EDT   Fujitsu on Wednesday claimed an achievement by launching the FLEPia. It not only claims the title of the first shipping device with a color e-paper screen, showing 260,000 colors at once on its 768x1024 display, but also supports touch input through a stylus. Users can read e-books and other documents but also browse the web, check e-mail, and edit Office documents thanks to an onscreen keyboard and built-in Wi-Fi. [full story]

March 17 - 5:00pm EDT   Fujitsu on Tuesday introduced two new scanner for PC and Macintosh users with the ScanSnap S1500 and the nearly identical, but white, ScanSnap S1500M, respectively. Compared to previous scanners from Fujitsu, the latest ScanSnap scanners are faster, at 60ppm when scanning black and white documents or 20ppm on color documents, while being easier to use thanks to a more intuitive software interface, the company claims. Image scanning speeds are rated at 40 images per minute. Both S1500s can automatically detect page size, orientation, color setting and whether both sides of the page are printed. A new intelligent paper feed detection system uses ultrasonic tech. [full story]

February 25 - 4:25pm EST   Fujitsu on Wednesday announced the upcoming release of its LifeBook A1120 notebook PC which is due to replace the current LifeBook A1110. Like the predecessor, the new notebook has swappable lids that lets users customize the look of the computer, but the notebook has upgraded hardware that increases system performance. Processing power comes from a 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, while RAM can be upgraded up to 4GB. Storage can be optioned up to 250GB on a 5,400RPM SATA hard drive. [full story]

February 17 - 11:25am EST   Fujitsu this morning said it has struck a deal to transfer its hard drive business to Toshiba. A memorandum between the two will see Fujitsu spin off its storage efforts into a separate company and let Toshiba buy an 80 percent stake in the project, with Fujitsu eventually letting go of the remaining 20 percent. The decision is largely prompted by Fujitsu's potential $112 million loss in the division. [full story]

January 30 - 9:45am EST   Fujitsu has revealed that it plans to push Google's Android platform deep into home electronics with a new initiative known as Services Built for Android. The program will see the Japanese company offer its consulting, engineering and other expertise to help run the open-source mobile OS on embedded hardware. This could include media devices like portable media players as well as cellphones, GPS devices, set-top boxes and even thin-client PCs, according to Fujitsu. [full story]

January 27 - 7:30am EST   Fujitsu on Tuesday said it would exit manufacturing hard disk drive read and write heads by the end of March. The move follows a "broader strategic review" of its overall hard drive business and will send employees working specifically on the drive heads at the Japanese company's Nagano plant towards other factories. The plant itself will also continue running as it makes boards for servers and telecoms equipment. [full story]

January 19 - 1:55pm EST   Maker of fingerprint sensors, AuthenTec, announced on Sunday that Fujitsu has started shipping the F-01A handset, the world's first with IPX5 and IPX7 waterfproof specifications and a fingerprint scanner. The handset is being offered by Japan's NTT DoCoMo wireless provider, and can remain submerged under up to nearly 3.3 feet of water for up to 30 minutes. The phone is also the first to utilize AuthenTec's TouchStone packaging, which includes AuthenTec's TrueNav technology that lets the AES1711 fingerprint scanner double as a touchpad for navigating the phone's controls. [full story]

January 14 - 4:45pm EST   Japanese wireless provider NTT DoCoMo and handset maker Fujitsu on Wednesday announced the Foma F905i handset will be offered in Taiwan. Offered for the first time outside of Japan, the handset will support traditional Chinese characters and therefore enable users to access the Taiwanese carrier Far EasTone's i-mode mobile Internet service. The handset has a swiveling 3.2-inch, 480x864 display and features a fingerprint scanner usually found in notebook PCs for security. [full story]

January 14 - 3:25pm EST   Toshiba on Wednesday revealed (reg. required) that talks are currently underway to investigate buying Fujitsu's hard drive business in a deal estimated to be worth roughly $448.8 million. No details have been revealed, but Fujitsu itself has acknowledged the talks and says that Toshiba is one of "several" candidates for a possible deal, which in the past have also included Western Digital. [full story]

January 13 - 12:35am EST   Fujitsu has announced the HandyDrive MMH2 UB series of 5400 RPM external hard drives with USB 2.0 connections. Available capacities will include 500GB, 400GB, 320GB, and 250GB, with each 2.5-inch HDD protected by a lightweight housing that measures 137.5mm by 83.5mm by 15mm. Included support software can be used to manage partitions or password lock the drives for protection against data theft if the device is lost or stolen. [full story]