Industry misc. news

Sony plans to boost in-house chip production considerably, a total of 500 billion yen is set to be spent in the next three years, a big chunk will go to 'Cell' technology, which is said to be essential part of the Playstation 3.

Intel Corp is to invest approximately $100 million in Japanese DRAM manufacturer Elpida Memory Inc. in return for non-voting stock.

Hewlett-Packard was king of the hill in notebook PC shipments during the first quarter. HP shipped 1.37 million notebooks under its HP and Compaq brands during the quarter, up from 1.29 million in the fourth quarter of 2002.

Industry group Business Software Alliance (BSA) said the worldwide software piracy rate fell last year to 39 percent from 40 percent.

Nokia still atop growing mobile market - Sales of mobile phones jumped 18 percent in the first quarter, with Nokia continuing to outpace competitors, according to a new report.