Two Eastman Kodak directors resigned from the board last week, the struggling photography company said in a filing with regulators on Tuesday.

China's Alibaba Group has hired a US lobbying firm, fuelling further speculation that it is preparing a bid for Yahoo.

"Our industry moves fast and changes faster. And so the way we communicate with our customers must change in equally speedy ways..."

Smartphones are relatively new, but will likely follow the path of more mature electronics industries, in which "you typically see large cross-licensing agreements between the big players because they've all got lots of patents the others are infringing."

"Nokia does not have an exact plan, but we are studying the markets carefully. Perhaps we will come [to market] one day," Chief Executive Stephen Elop said in a televised interview on Finnish public broadcaster YLE.

The acquisition is one of the most expensive for Apple since it acquired NeXT in 1996 - 15 years ago to the day, in fact-and should cement the company's strategic shift to solid-state flash storage for its products.

Samsung Electronics has revealed plans to provide the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich update for Galaxy devices. The platform update for Galaxy S2 and Galaxy Note will start in the first quarter 2012, and other Galaxy devices will soon follow.