A color version of Amazon.com Inc.'s Kindle e-reader may come eventually, but it won't be soon. Speaking Tuesday at the online retailer's annual shareholder meeting in Seattle, founder and CEO Jeff Bezos said that adding color to the Kindle's "electronic ink" display is a difficult technical challenge and that a color screen is "still a long way out." Bezos said he's seen things "in the laboratory" that are "still not ready for prime-time production."

Penguin books said on Wednesday it reached a deal with Amazon.com to again sell its new titles for Amazon's Kindle e-book reader in another step in book publishers' ongoing efforts to find profitable pricing models for e-books.

Aixtron and Veeco dominate what's known as the MOCVD market for LED applications and have been seeing strong demand amid increasing display sales for items such as TVs. But some investors have worried demand and bookings could soon weaken as the LED market sees excess supply.

South Korea's won fell the most in more than a year and the nation's stocks slumped following a report by a defector group that North Korean leader Kim Jong Il ordered the military to prepare for conflict.

Corning will introduce its new Corning G-2000 green laser at the Display Week 2010 conference, held by the Society for Information Display (SID), in Seattle, Washington, May 23-28. The G-2000 green laser demonstrates the industry's highest commercially available performance in optical power, efficiency, and bandwidth, the company said. As a result, it is well suited to meet the demands of the growing market for portable microprojection devices.

Many South Koreans joke they inhabit "the Republic of Samsung." But a one-time insider at the powerful Korean conglomerate has launched a scathing attack on his former employer, saying Korean politicians and media turn a blind-eye to the company's misdeeds.

"As a result of this successful qualification, we currently expect to ship a significant number of tools to Epistar this year. We are excited that we have been chosen to support their volume capacity ramp in 2010...," said Bill Miller, senior VP, GM of Veeco's MOCVD Operations.

"Applied's stronger second quarter results were led by revenues and profitability gains in our silicon and FPD businesses," said Mike Splinter, chairman and CEO of Applied Materials. "Global demand for computing and consumer electronics is giving our customers the confidence to make significant capacity additions, fueling what we believe will be a multiyear growth cycle..."