Sony ruled out dumping its television business or dissolving a TV panel partnership with Samsung Electronics Co even as it looks to overhaul its loss-making TV unit.

Japanese consumer electronics giant Sharp Corporation and Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision Industry Ltd - more famously known for its subsidiary Foxconn which manufactures some of the world's most popular products including the iPhone and iPad for Apple, as well as the Playstation 3 (PS3) for Sony - have joined forces to cut the costs of LCD TV panel supply. Both parties hope that this alliance will enable them to compete more effectively against South Korean rivals like Samsung and LG.

Hitachi Ltd is in talks with Toshiba and Sony about joining the merger of their liquid-crystal display (LCD) units, a move that would create the world's largest maker of small panels, two sources with knowledge of the matter said on Thursday.

Hon Hai Precision Industry has said its polishing workshops in China resumed operations this week as the company investigates a deadly combustible-dust explosion at one of its plants.

China has called on Taiwanese companies to ensure work safety after a deadly explosion last week at a plant operated by Foxconn where Apple's iPad2 was being assembled. An initial investigation showed that the accident may have been caused by an explosion of combustible dust in the polishing workshop.

Apple has agreed to add Foxconn Technology Group affiliate Chimei Innolux as its third supplier of sensors for the iPad 2's touch screen, two people familiar with the matter said. Chimei Innolux will begin supplying the components next month.

General Motors has announced plans to temporarily idle its pick-up truck plant in Louisiana due to a parts shortage stemming from the crisis in Japan.

Apple has been criticized by Chinese green groups for lax corporate oversight of its suppliers in China, leading to poor environmental and work safety standards that poisoned dozens of factory workers.

Ingenic-designed MIPS-based SoCs are, for example, built into Velocity Micro's Cruz Tablets. The connection represented by MIPS-Ingenic-Velocity Micro illustrates an emerging paradigm in the consumer electronics market: A China-developed processor is driving a host of new consumer devices, while a big ODM community based in greater China (i.e. Foxconn) designs and manufactures them, which are, then, promoted by US-based marketing companies like Velocity Micro, who cultivate channel connections with top retailers.

Hitachi said Monday nothing had been decided with respect to a tie-up with Taiwanese electronics manufacturing services firm Hon Hai Precision Industry Co, also known as Foxconn.

One report, based on interviews with over 1,700 workers by 20 universities in Hong Kong, China and Taiwan, criticized Hon Hai for long working hours, a "militaristic" work culture and mass employment of low-wage vocational college students and interns on production lines to cut costs

Protesters picketed Foxconn's annual general meeting in Hong Kong on Tuesday, accusing both the Apple Inc. supplier and computer giant of poor corporate ethics after a spate of suicides at Foxconn factories in mainland China

Questions have been raised about whether exporters will have to transform their modus operandi, which for years was predicated on a seemingly endless supply of cheap labour.

Foxconn, the contracted iPhone maker for Apple, is manufacturing a 3G version of iPhone tailored to customers in China, disclosed sources familiar with the matter on July 15.

More rumors are afoot that Foxconn is looking to snap up Pegatron, the OEM arm of the Asustek Group, with the deal to go down as early as the end of this quarter or second-quarter 2009, depending on the source.