The meetings have rarely produced anything of consequence, so this summit in Italy should be the last. Much worse, it doesn't include the real economic powers of tomorrow: China, India and Brazil.

Last year, T. Boone Pickens signed a deal for 667 wind turbines for an enormous 4,000-megawatt wind farm to be built in the Texas Panhandle. Now that plan is in shambles. Bad credit markets and a lack of transmission lines for the wind turbines have led him to scrap the panhandle project, at least for now, he confirmed today. But he still has to do something with all of those turbines he's ordered. "I'm committed to 667 wind turbines and I am going to find projects for them," he said in a statement.

Nokia's strategic relationship with Intel, announced last month, may be very forward-looking and not about to worry any incumbent wireless chipset suppliers, but it is nonetheless threatening to Europe's local hero, ARM Holdings.

Dubbed single mode level cell (SMLC) technology, Fusion-io says products using the enterprise class flash offer a cost-effective MLC-based solid-state solution with the endurance and performance of SLC at a much lower cost-per-gigabyte.

Google names Acer, Adobe, Asustek, Freescale, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Qualcomm, and Texas Instruments as initial partners on Chrome OS.

OKI Data is increasing LED production to meet target sales by 2011. ODI, the OKI Data subsidiary that develops and manufactures print heads for LED printers, currently operates in Hachioji. These operations will be transferred to the facility now acquired from Renesas, and the facility is scheduled to go on-line in April 2010.

Mitsubishi Electric Corporation has announced it has developed two new industrial use color TFT-LCD modules with protective glass covering the whole display surface. These modules offer excellent visibility in outdoor applications, due to not only their high luminance but also to their low reflectivity in bright environments, enabling TFT-LCD users to easily develop outdoor-use products, the copmpany said. Shipments begin on August 1, 2009.

Photronics, a worldwide leader in supplying innovative imaging technology solutions for the global electronics industry, has announced that it is closing its integrated circuit photomask manufacturing facility in Shanghai, China. The closure is consistent with Photronics strategy to reduce costs and lower its operational breakeven point, it said.

The Milan trade fair has said it is commissioning the world's biggest rooftop photovoltaic power installation covering some 270,000 square meters.

"Contents and services drive sales of devices ... Our No. 1 mission is to raise the software value of our devices," Lee of Samsung's Media Solution Center, said at a conference in Seoul.

The semiconductor memory industry is about to experience major technological changes as three-dimensional multi-gate structures push transistors and memory architectures forward, according to a one-day memory workshop held last month in Grenoble, France, by leading researchers from around the world.

Following last weekend's deadly riots in its western region of Xinjiang, China's central government has taken all the usual steps to block citizens from accessing foreign web services.

GlobalFoundries will hold its official groundbreaking for Fab 2 at the Luther Forest Technology Campus in Malta on July 24.

Online retailer Amazon.com has cut the price of its standard Kindle electronic reader by 17% to US$299, the company said on Wednesday. The price cut comes amid a budding digital book battle where rivals like Amazon, Sony and a host of smaller companies are anxious to get in on the ground floor of what some say is the future of reading.

Struggling German chip group Infineon Technologies is selling its wireline communications operation to an affiliate of US private equity firm Golden Gate Capital for 250 million euro (about US$350 million).

The company generated more than a million pounds of hazardous waste last year, according to a report filed with the Massachusettes Department of Environmental Protection, even though its new US$450 million factory in Devens wasn't operating at full capacity.

China could be an unexpected laggard to any global recovery, with its economy set to remain sluggish after a long run of bubble-like investment in factories and other fixed assets wears off, some analysts say.

After not finding an investor eager to acquire the whole company, Qimonda has appointed several companies to sell 300mm production equipment from the firm's manufacturing facilities in Germany and the US.

Huang Hongsheng, founder and former chairman of Shenzhen-based TV maker Skyworth Group, was released on bail on July 4, the company confirmed in a statement posted on its website.

There is considerable debate about second-half 2009. Some are bulls. Some are bears. Some are in both camps.

Concentrating photovoltaic (CPV) solar power--which marries traditional solar photovoltaic technology to large-scale concentrated solar power plants--could ramp up utility-scale solar production especially in niche markets.