Renesas aims to sell chip plant, shed 12,000 jobs: source

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese chipmaker Renesas Electronics Corp plans to sell off loss-making operations and cut its payroll by at least 12,000, a source close to the matter told Reuters on Saturday, as the company battles high costs and nimbler foreign rivals. Sources also confirmed that Renesas, the world's largest maker of microcontroller chips for cars, aims to raise more than 100 billion yen ($1.3 billion) to pay for restructuring costs and will take the plan to Hitachi Ltd and its other major shareholders as early as next week. ...

Japan's Renesas eyes 14,000 job cuts, chip plant sale: Nikkei

TOKYO (Reuters) - Struggling Japanese chipmaker Renesas Electronics Corp is planning to slash as many as 14,000 jobs and sell a major semiconductor factory in Japan to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, the Nikkei newspaper reported. Renesas, the world's largest maker of microcontroller chips for cars, is also considering raising more than 100 billion yen ($1.3 billion) in a share issue to pay for restructuring and appease lenders concerned about it its finances, the paper said. ...

Dell’s first Windows 8 tablet revealed

After a number of failed attempts in the Android tablet market, Dell is looking to readdress the tablet space with Windows 8. According to a leaked document obtained by Neowin, Dell will launch a 10.8-inch tablet with 1,366 x 768-pixel resolution and a dual-core Atom processor later this year. The slate will also be equipped with a fingerprint reader, an 8-megapixel rear camera, a 2-megapixel front-facing camera, Intel graphics, 2GB of RAM and a massive 128GB solid-state drive. Unlike many other tablets, Dell has included a removable battery that will come in two sizes. A smaller battery will get between six and eight hours of battery life, while a larger one will offer between 10 and 12 hours of usage

Sony confirms Xperia Play will remain on Gingerbread due to gaming issues

Sony Mobile on Friday confirmed that it no longer plans to update its Xperia Play smartphone to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich due to compatibility issues with the device’s gaming features, Phone Scoop reported. “Ice Cream Sandwich demands more from the phone hardware than Gingerbread,” a Sony spokesperson said. “Android 4.0 is a more powerful OS and thus, more resource intensive – applications require more RAM, CPU power, and network bandwidth. From internal testing and feedback from the developer community on the beta ROM software release, we have seen a significant decline in user experience when running high performance games, as they are more demanding on the hardware. As gaming content is so integral to the core Xperia Play proposition, we cannot

PayPal inks mobile payment deal with 15 retailers

PayPal earlier this year announced a partnership with The Home Depot that allowed customers to make point-of-sale transactions with their smartphones in more than 2,000 locations. The e-commerce company on Thursday announced that 15 new national retailers have signed on for PayPal’s in-store mobile payment service. These include, Abercrombie Fitch, Advance Auto Parts, Aeropostale, American Eagle Outfitters, Barnes Noble, Foot Locker, Guitar Center, Jamba Juice, JC Penney, Jos. A. Bank Clothiers, Nine West, Office Depot, Rooms To Go, Tiger Direct and Toys“R”Us. “We can’t wait to launch with these great retailers, and help them serve their customers better through PayPal,” PayPal president David Marcus said. “Consumers are relying on technology now more than ever to simplify their lives when it comes

New telescope to be in South Africa, Australia

Australia and South Africa will share hosting of a giant radio telescope made up of thousands of separate dishes and intended to help scientists figure out the make-up of the universe, the international consortium overseeing the project announced Friday.

Facebook hit with another class action suit, this time over IPO debacle

Pennsylvania-based law firm Kessler Topaz Meltzer Check, LLP on Friday filed a class action lawsuit against Facebook regarding the handling of its initial public offering, which was made on March 18th. On the day of its IPO, the company was hit with a privacy-related class action lawsuit seeking $15 billion in damages. This new complaint, which was filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, charges Facebook and multiple officers, directors and underwriters with violating the Securities Act of 1933 by failing to disclose or disregarding material adverse facts that were known to them. “The Complaint asserts that defendants failed to disclose at the time of the IPO that Facebook was then experiencing a severe and pronounced

Apple owns 74% of smartphone web traffic, 95% of tablet traffic

According to a new report from online advertising network Chitika, smartphones and tablets now account for 20% of all Web traffic in the U.S. and Canada. Traditional PCs accounted for 80% of Web traffic, with smartphone traffic totaling 14.6% and tablets making up 5.6%, AllThingD reported. Chitika found that a whopping 95% of tablet Web traffic came from a version of Apple’s iPad, mainly the newest iPad, and 72% of smartphone traffic also belongs to Apple, compared to 26% for Android devices. The Cupertino-based company didn’t fare as well on the desktop side, which saw 85% of Web traffic from Windows machines compared to 13% from Macs. The report also noted that Windows Phone now accounts for a third as much