Apple is building a significant capability to design its own computer chips, a strategy shift that the company hopes will create exclusive features for its gadgets and shield Apple's work from rivals.

Shipments of notebook PCs with LED backlights reached 3.7 million in the final quarter of 2008 – a 62 percent rise on the preceding quarter.

Taiwan's exports slumped by a record 41.9% in December on weaker demand from the US and China for laptops, mobile phones and computer chips.

Samsung Electronics is upgrading its memory technology and manufacturing processes, which could lead to price drops for the solid-state drives that are becoming more widely used in laptops. Samsung will introduce three-bit chips with a capacity of 64Gbit in the first half of 2009, manufactured using a 30nm process technology.

When the new Macbooks came out a few weeks ago, Nvidia stated that the chips they provided to Apple did not contain the so-called bad bumps material believed to have caused higher-than-expected defect rates in certain notebooks, namely from HP and Dell, under certain usage models. But an investigation lead by The Inquirer seems to show this not to be the case.

HP expects earnings of 84 cents per share and adjusted earnings of $1.03 per share for the three months ended in October. This is slightly better than the $1.00 per share, excluding items, expected from analysts polled....

ARM and Canonical, the commercial sponsor of Ubuntu, have announced that they will bring the full Ubuntu Desktop operating system to the ARMv7 processor architecture to address demand from device manufacturers. The addition of the new operating system will enable new netbooks and hybrid computers, targeting ARM technology-based SoCs.

The Korean-based company will introduce on Tuesday new ultralight notebooks designed to appeal to potential buyers of Apple Inc's ground-breaking MacBook Air and smaller "netbook" models from the likes of Asustek Computer.