For quite a while, conventional wisdom had it that Samsung would introduce a phone running Google's Android OS at the Mobile World Congress trade show this week. Samsung's Kim Titus said that the phone isn't delayed - they never planned to show an Android phone at MWC. It's not their fault if we were all jumping to conclusions, basically.

ARM, the company that has designed most of the processors in mobile phones, on Monday announced a new, low-cost processor called "Sparrow" at the Mobile World Congress trade show. The company said it is aiming to conquer the netbook market with its multi-core Cortex A9 architecture.

Pioneer will cut 10,000 jobs and close its television operations as the slump in global electronics sales forced the company to widen its annual loss forecast to a record 130 billion yen (US$1.44 billion).

For the fourth quarter of fiscal 2009, revenues were US$481.1 million compared to US$1.2 billion for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2008, a decrease of 60%. For the twelve months ended January 25, 2009, revenues were US$3.4 billion compared to US$4.1 billion for the twelve months ended January 27, 2008, a decrease of 16%.

German technology company Infineon Technologies AG has said it would expand a Hungarian production facility which makes components for solar and wind power systems, as a result of strong demand for the products.

Advanced Micro Devices has said that it failed to get enough shareholders at its special meeting in order to vote for the creation of The Foundry Company (TFC) and spin off manufacturing capacities for the company. The company will now delay the vote by more than a week to get a quorum.

The US switch to digital television signals will be delayed four months until June under legislation that cleared Congress on Wednesday. Obama supports the delay, sharing concerns that 20 million mostly poor, elderly and rural households were not ready for the congressionally mandated switch.

Unlike past US recessions, chipmakers can't count on boosting overseas sales this time because the economic slowdown has so quickly gone global. Slowing exports is a challenge for the chipmakers, which do most sales overseas. Three of the largest US chipmakers are taking different tacks to cut manufacturing costs in the face of a steep global recession.

The global economic downturn will continue to hammer computer networking giant Cisco Systems, chief executive John Chambers said Wednesday. In its current quarter, Cisco expects to see revenue decline between 15% and 20%.

Samsung Electronics on Wednesday said it plans to start selling by the end of 2009 a DRAM chip built with its new 40-nanometer technology, which is expected to use significantly less power than the current generation of memory chips used in PCs.