When Apple launched the iPod nano, it attracted plenty of attention. While consumers swooned over its sleek design, analysts were more likely to hail it as a turning point for the storage industry.

Independent environmental organization Greenpeace is in the midst of a disagreement with Apple after giving the tech giant and others like Amazon and Microsoft low Clean Energy Index scores.

The US government sued Apple and five publishers, saying they conspired to fix the prices of electronic books, and reached a settlement with three of the publishers that could lead to cheaper e-books for consumers.

Intel and Qualcomm have provided US lawyers with source code that will help prove Apple isn't infringing patents of Samsung Electronics, an Australian lawyer for the maker of iPhones said.

Steve Jobs last war, the magazine argues, could do his company more harm than good.

Apple has indicated it will consider higher investments in China, as chief executive Tim Cook visited Beijing to meet Chinese officials.

Apple has said it will use its cash to start paying a dividend to shareholders and to buy back some of its shares.

Apple announced Monday that it has sold three million of the new iPad since its launch on March 16.

Samsung was dealt another blow in its patent battle against Apple this week after a court in the Netherlands ruled that Samsung is not allowed to pursue injunctions on "essential" patents if Cupertino is willing to negotiate a licensing deal.

It seems as if Nvidia is having difficulty manufacturing its upcoming Kepler GPU lineup due to a supply shortage at TSMC that has been linked to internal (TSMC) 28nm issues.

STMicroelectronics has secured the business of Apple, supplying MEMS for its iPhones, iPads and iPod Touches, as well as the business of Sony. InvenSense, however, has about 70% market share for Google Android-based smartphones.

"The contract is expected to rise to US$11 billion by the end of this year as Apple is planning to release a smaller iPad, probably with a 7.85-inch screen, and to sell more of its MacBook Air PCs using Samsung's faster SSD storage," said a Samsung official.

Qualcomm has announced the next generation of its Gobi line of wireless modems-on-a-chip.

Apple's share of China's booming smartphone market slipped for a second straight quarter in October-December, as it lost ground to cheaper local brands and as some shoppers held off until after the iPhone 4S launch last month.

Apple is working with component suppliers in Asia to test a new tablet computer with a smaller screen, people familiar with the situation said.

Apple has filed a suit in San Diego federal court accusing Motorola of breaching its licensing agreement with Qualcomm over a chip used in the iPhone 4S.

Hacker group SwaggSec just released a dump of Foxconn internal information, including a mail server login/password dump and logins to various online procurement sites and Intranets. The hack seems to be a retaliation for the working conditions that have swarmed the news lately. The hackers gained access through an unpatched Internet Explorer vulnerability used by a worker inside Foxconn.

Leading electronic equipment manufacturers remained the center of the semiconductor world in 2011, accounting for US$105.6 billion of semiconductors on a design total available market basis - 35% of semiconductor vendors' worldwide chip revenue, according to Gartner.