Reuters - Samsung Electronics (005930.KS), the world's largest maker of flat screens, said on Sunday it was set to start up its newest mass production line for liquid crystal display TV panels, three months ahead of schedule.

InfoWorld - Fully patched systems running Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 are open to attack from malicious hackers, various security firms warned last week. And what’s the Windows vulnerability this time? A newly discovered flaw in the way those two Windows versions handle .WMF (Windows Metafile) graphic files.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Motorola Inc. MOT.N, the world's No. 2 cell-phone maker, on Tuesday revealed details of its plans for iRadio, a subscription music service that will go on sale this year. It also unveiled a new home phone that consumers could link with cell-phone and Web phone services.

Reuters - Driven by demand for digital televisions and MP3 players, U.S. consumer electronics sales are expected to grow to a record $135.4 billion in 2006, an industry group said on Tuesday.

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. said on Wednesday it expects to keep up its breakneck expansion in the fast-growing market for large liquid crystal displays (LCDs), as sales of LCD TVs and PC monitors take off.

AP - Yahoo Inc. is expanding its presence beyond the PC, moving onto Web-enabled cell phones and other mobile devices so users can access their customized content while untethered.

AP - Google Inc. is upping the ante in the online video gold rush, allowing content owners to set their own prices in a bid to create a more flexible alternative to Apple Computer Inc.'s pioneering iTunes store.

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - Consumers, confused over the brewing battle between next-generation DVD technologies, are not alone: top U.S. electronics retailers at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas called the war 'nightmarishly unfriendly' and 'stupid.'

Reuters - The Consumer Electronics Show wasn't the only entertainment trade show in town last week.

AP - U.S. business software maker Oracle Corp. plans to hire 1,400 people in India as part of its plans to expand its operations to nine more cites in the South Asian nation, a company executive said Tuesday.

Reuters - Corrects paragraph 13 to read competes with local rival Hynix Semiconductor and Micron Technology of the United States in the memory chip sector

Reuters - International Business Machines Corp. , Sony Corp. and Toshiba Corp. on Wednesday said they will renew a 5-year partnership that produced the Cell microprocessor, the heart of Sony's PlayStation 3 video gaming console.

AP - Samsung Electronics Co. said Friday its fourth quarter net profit surged a stunning 40 percent, thanks to strong demand for flat panel TVs and semiconductors.

TechWeb - Motorola Inc. made a strategic equity investment in Global Locate, a privately-held GPS semiconductor, software, and services provider.

AP - Russia has more in common with Nigeria these days than just oil. Following up on the politically charged jailing of oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a wave of scam e-mails in the style of Nigeria's notorious spammers have been popping up in inboxes from Moscow to Kentucky.

LONDON (Reuters) - Cisco Systems Inc. CSCO.O plans to expand its share of the consumer electronics market by selling phones, radios and home theater equipment, the Financial Times reported on Monday.

AFP - In under a decade flamboyant, Ferrari-driving tycoon Takafumi Horie built one of Japan's top Internet empires with an aggressive expansion drive that made him few friends in the establishment.

Reuters - Cingular Wireless, the No. 1 U.S. cellphone service provider, said on Wednesday it would begin selling a mobile phone running the latest Microsoft Corp. software for mobile phones.

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - The Walt Disney Co. has sold 1.5 million digital downloads of such TV titles as 'Lost,' 'Desperate Housewives' and 'Kim Possible' through Apple's iTunes store, and is seeking iTunes competitors to further such distribution, an executive said Wednesday.

AP - A long-simmering trade dispute boiled over Friday as Japan said it will slap import duties of 27.2 percent on computer memory chips made by South Korea's Hynix Semiconductor Inc. in retaliation for alleged government subsidies.

SAN JOSE, Calif (Reuters) - A revolutionary technology that could standardize the way corporate results are reported and speed up trading decisions is facing a big problem -- few people are interested.

AFP - It began with a tip-off to the media that the offices of one of Japan's top Internet entrepreneurs was going to be raided. Soon dozens of reporters were camped outside, a whiff of scandal in the air.

AP - As the Internet has become the people's stage and online video surges in popularity, AtomFilms is launching what could be among the first of many new studios dedicated to the production of video for online audiences.

AP - Verizon Communications Inc. is expanding the area where it provides television service over fiber-optic cables, adding homes in Massachusetts and New York for the first time.

Reuters - Brandy Norwood, the actress and musician best known solely by her first name, is extending her talents into the video game world.

AP - Microsoft Corp. is creating a research lab devoted solely to developing Internet technology, as part of efforts to move products to market faster and better compete with rivals such as Google Inc.

TechWeb - The money will be used for R&D, new server platforms, and better applications, compliers, and tools to support Itanium.

TechWeb - IBM said Friday that it acquired Argus semiconductor software and related IP property from Inficon.

Reuters - While the sun appears to shine on the world's economy, influential voices at the Davos summit warned its leaders to make essential repairs now in case of storms ahead.

Reuters - Warner Music Group Corp. and Skype Technologies SA, the telephone company, are likely to announce a licensing agreement on Monday that will put ringtones on Internet phone services, the Wall Street Journal reported.

TechWeb - Both Intel and Advanced Micro Devices were bragging last week. The world's largest chipmaker showed off its technical chops when it unveiled a working chip that uses 45-nanometer technology, which promises computing with less power and heat. Rival AMD, meanwhile, heralded a new market-share report that showed the company had surpassed 21% in the overall x86 market in the fourth quarter, its best quarter ever.