Dell apparently halted R&D development of PDA products since the middle of 2005, when Dell's Taiwan Design Center (TDC) completed development of the PC vendor's last Axim-series device, which was manufactured by High Tech Computer (HTC), according to market sources.

Microsoft is serious about taking on Apple in the portable media player business. According to several media reports covering an analyst conference held by the company yesterday, the company is set to throw in hundreds of millions of dollars into its new business - which may not only impact but also threaten the existence of several smaller media player makers such as Creative or Iriver.

In a report released today, iSuppli delivered the stunning news that 82.6% of all mobile PCs produced worldwide - more than four out of five units produced anywhere - are outsourced by their vendors to original design manufacturers (ODMs).

Last Friday, Engadget reported that it had learned from an unnamed publisher that certain of its staff had been ordered to ship electronic copies of all its manuscripts to Apple. Like an echo chamber set to reverb, press sources have sited this story as an indication that such a device could be announced as soon as September. Let's re-examine the facts.

Motorola's new line of Razr handsets is slimmer than ever, and the company hopes the they will expand the customer base of its already popular line of cell phones.

In just the latest move to bolster the wealth of video content available for the iPod, Apple has reached an agreement with Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group to make several of its more popular franchises available for download via iTunes.

In an exclusive interview with Billboard magazine that appeared only in print today, MSN entertainment marketing vice president Chris Stephenson officially stated Microsoft is indeed working on an MP3 player device to compete with Apple's iPod.

From BetaNews

San Jose (CA) - Do you find it hard to edit and organize all your RAW and JPG pictures? Adobe has released a beta version of their Lightroom application for Windows that promises one touch rotation, tagging and editing of photos. Lightroom had previously only been available to Macintosh users. Lightroom's main window

Notebook vendors, including Acer, Dell and Hewlett-Packard (HP), with each receiving hundreds of thousands of Dothan processors from Intel, expect to completely clear their inventory of Sonoma notebooks by the end of the third quarter, according to sources at Taiwan notebook makers.

Hanns.G, which uses panels from HannStar Display, has started shipping samples of 22" widescreen monitors to Gateway, ViewSonic and several Taiwan-based branded monitor makers, with the products to be rolled out in August, the company said.

Intel started offering a series of CPUs in June that are not on its roadmap with aggressive pricing for international notebook makers, according to sources.

Eurocom Corporation, a Canadian laptop manufacturer, has launched two new 512 MB Nvidia graphics modules for its high-end laptop computers. The Nvidia GeForce Go 7900 GTX and Quadro FX2500M modules will be available for Eurocom's M590K Emperor, D900K F-Bomb, D900T Phanton and M570U Divine laptops.

Reuters reports that, in a statement issued today, Credit Suisse First Boston analyst Robert Semple warned that Apple could be reducing its inventories of current models of iPod players, in advance of a refresh of the product line, which he expects to see in September or October.

Knowledge Networks, a Menlo Park-based market research firm, has released a study that claims 50% of those who subscribe to video cell phone services actually watch video. The report titled How People Use Mobile Video studied mobile video usage on mobile phones, iPods and laptops and surprisingly concludes that only three percent of the 13 to 54 year old broadband population actually have used their phones and video iPods to watch video.

Sony has announced newer and higher capacity versions of their famous Micro Vault line of flash drives. The new drives come in 256 MB to 4 GB capacities and are "Byte-sized" according to Sony. The Micro Vaults measure 1/2" wide and 1" long while being about the thickness of a quarter.

Telephia, a mobile market research firm, has released a report which states the majority of mobile phone gamers base their purchases on price and familiarity. Low prices and free trials entice 59% and 48% of people to buy games, while 43% buy games that they know from consoles or PCs.

SanDisk has announced a line of Cruzer flash drives which come with Skype preloaded. The new U3 Cruzer line of drives can also hold user preferences, applications and browser favorites. Capacities start at 512 MB for the regular Cruzer and go up to 2 GB for the Cruser Titanium.