Sony Corp. plans to next Wednesday take the wraps off its first high-definition camcorder compatible with the new AVCHD format.

Sony Corp. was ranked the best brand in the U.S. for the seventh year in a row, Harris Interactive Inc. said Wednesday.

Microsoft Corp. plans to give a hacker conference in Asia an inside look at new security features on Windows Vista later this year, the organizer of the event said Tuesday.

The number of Internet users in Japan accessing from cell phones exceeded those using it from personal computers in 2005, according to a government report published Tuesday.

Toshiba Corp. will later this year put on sale worldwide new microSD and SDHC memory cards, the company said Wednesday.

In an unprecedented move, Microsoft Corp. Tuesday will allow users to test the next version of Office online without having to download software.

The growth in malicious software is proving fortuitous for antivirus companies. Analyst firm Gartner Inc. said on Wednesday the industry grew 13.6 percent in 2005, with revenue totaling $4 billion.

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. will consider later this year if it will launch a high-definition movie player compatible with both the Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD formats, it said Tuesday.

Windows Live Messenger, the next-generation version of Microsoft Corp.'s instant messaging service for consumers, will be available for download in final form right after midnight Tuesday, U.S. Eastern Time.

Microsoft Corp. Wednesday launched its widest release yet of the beta version of the Windows Vista operating system.

The first systems based on Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) Live home-entertainment platform will go on sale next month, the chip maker said Wednesday.

Providing further evidence of the booming market for flat-panel televisions, a Japan-based LCD (liquid crystal display) screen maker will double its planned expansion over the next two years, it said Wednesday.

Microsoft Corp. is set to release a fully supported version of its Windows Live OneCare software, marking its entry into the security software market. OneCare will be available for download Wednesday on Microsoft's Web site, a day earlier than expected. By Thursday, the software is expected to be widely available in U.S. retail stores, said Microsoft's Samantha McManus, a business strategy manager with Windows Live OneCare.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. will spend US$2.5 billion to expand its chip manufacturing plants in Dresden, Germany, to keep pace with growing demand for its PC and server chips, the company announced Monday.

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. started 2005 well and is on the road to achieving its goal of a 20 percent slice of the server market this year, a senior executive said Wednesday.

The launch of the consumer version of Windows Vista, Microsoft Corp.'s new operating system, could be pushed back past the stated January launch date, Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer said Wednesday.

Worldwide server revenue remained flat at US$12 billion in the first three months of the year, bucking several consecutive quarters of year-on-year growth, research firm Gartner Inc. said Tuesday.

Thirty-five percent of the packaged software installed on PCs worldwide in 2005 was pirated, the same percentage as in 2004, according to a study released Tuesday by the Business Software Alliance (BSA).

In an unprecedented move, Microsoft Corp. Tuesday simultaneously released beta versions of its three major upcoming software releases -- Windows Vista, Office 2007 and Windows Server, code-named Longhorn.

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. will next month launch two portable computers that use flash memory in place of a hard-disk drive for data storage, the company said Tuesday.