Japan's Nikkei 225 Stock Average plunged 1.7% in Tokyo, extending declines after an 8.8 magnitude earthquake struck northeast of the capital.

Microsoft may be struggling against Apple and Google to win the hearts of consumers, but the company can take pride in at least one achievement: Kinect, its hands-free controller for the Xbox 360, is now the world's fastest-selling consumer electronics device.

But the app selling experience, especially for MLB and other premium publishers, is still much better at Apple's iOS App Store than Google's Android Market.

The tech sector is well represented on this year's list, which overall includes 1,210 people who together control US$4.5 trillion in wealth. The highest-ranked Taiwanese tech execs are the husband-and-wife team of Cher Wang and Wenchi Chen.

The Taiwan government's plan to increase the penalties against employers who violate maximum work-hour regulations has drawn expressions of concern among industrial associations, which called for further assessment of the proposal.

"Hard disk drives will serve the bulk of the laptop market for many years to come as makers of solid state drives remain overstretched to meet ever-growing demand for laptop storage..."

Hynix Semiconductor will collaborate with engineers in Sematech's 3D Interconnect program at CNSE's Albany NanoTech Complex to address industry infrastructure and technology gaps in materials, equipment, integration and product-related issues for high-volume adoption of through-silicon-vias (TSV).

In the short term, this deal certainly favors Nokia. The company will still be spending money on Symbian development-the company is expecting to ship 150 million of the handsets in the next couple of years-but will be able to scale back this expenditure, as its operating system development costs are increasingly pushed onto Redmond. This, plus the cash infusion, gives the company instant savings.

For downloading data, the Verizon iPhone is slower than the AT&T iPhone, and it's also slower than most other Verizon smartphones, according to a study published Monday.

Korean carrier SK Telecom announced earlier this week that it will launch Apple's CDMA iPhone 4 on March 16, making it the first international network to carry the handset.

If true, this report confirms the February statement of Intel CEO Paul Otellini, who said Microsoft has paid Nokia an "incredible" amount of money for the smartphone deal.

A gauge of manufacturing in the euro region rose to 59 last month from 57.3 in January, London-based Markit Economics said in an e-mailed report. That's the highest since June 2000. A reading above 50 indicates expansion.

OCZ Technology Group, a provider of high-performance solid-state drives, has said that it expects to report record revenue of about US$64 million in its fiscal fourth quarter, nearly double the level of a year ago.

Qualcomm expects to see a decline in its operating margins for its chipset business in the coming year as smartphone growth drives more competitive pricing.

Nova Measuring Instruments has announced that three major foundries recently placed US$12 million orders for its integrated and standalone metrology tools. The tools will support manufacturing and development for both the 4x and 3x technology nodes, and are expected to ship within the first and second quarters of 2011.

The Obama administration is considering tapping the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in response to rapidly rising gasoline prices brought on by turmoil in the Middle East. Oil for April delivery settled at US$104.42 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange on Friday.

Japan's greying population of around 128 million grew by just 0.2% over 2005-10, the slowest rate of growth since records began in 1920, new census data said.

China spent more on its internal police force than on its armed forces in 2010, and plans to do the same this year, as the government deployed security forces around the country to control growing social unrest.