"This acquisition is another step in our strategic expansion in the Asia Pacific region and, in particular, increases our scale and scope in the Australian market...". Australia-based itX distributes software, hardware and services from the world's leading suppliers including Oracle, IBM, HP, VMware, Apple, Citrix, Red Hat and Trend Micro.

Raytheon, which makes the Patriot missile defense system, is developing software which could enable a soldier to find enemies in his or her surrounding terrain using a mobile phone running Google's Android operating system.

"Palm will be responsible for WebOS software development and WebOS-based hardware products, from a robust smartphone roadmap to future slate PCs and netbooks," an HP statement said.

MeeGo combines Intel's Moblin software with Nokia's Maemo into an open source OS designed for netbooks or mobile phones. The project released an early version for netbooks in May and said at the time that it would come out with an early release for mobile phones in June.

Amazon announced the release of a new Kindle reading application, called Kindle for Android, that is available as a free download for phones running Google's Android software.

Freescale Semiconductor has introduced its Xtrinsic sensing solutions, which are designed with the combination of high-performance sensing capability, processing capacity and customizable software to help deliver differentiated sensing applications.

Swype allows users to glide a finger across the virtual keyboard to spell words, rather than tapping out each letter.

Unveils analytics software, services for managing cell towers, software for mobile devices and other efforts

Mobile analytics firm Flurry has attempted to measure Apple's influence on the portable gaming market, and its analysis concludes that iPhone games now account for about one-fifth of all revenues for portable game software in the US.

IBM has launched a new predictive analytics software lab in Xi'an China. The lab will help IBM's clients see patterns in vast amounts of data and forecast trends before they occur for improved decision making and competitive advantage.

Seeking to claim a generous share of the e-reader chip market, Texas Instruments will try to entice prospective e-reader OEMs with a chip set and software that the company claims will reduce the size and increase the battery life of e-book mobile devices.

Microsoft has announced Office Starter 2010, a reduced-functionality and ad-supported version that includes only Word and Excel. It is meant as a replacement for Microsoft Works and will only be available on new PCs sold by OEMs.

Software company Mentor Graphics has said it expects revenues and adjusted income in the third quarter to top Wall Street expectations.

Xandros has announced that its integrated software solutions for next-generation ARM and Intel-based wireless netbooks and MIDs are being showcased at the ongoing Computex 2009.

Mentor Graphics has reported a narrower loss for its fiscal first quarter on higher sales, and its top executive said the semiconductor market appears to have stabilized.

A number of efforts to leverage Google's "Android," software for Google's open source project for mobile phones and other home information appliances, were introduced at the 12th Embedded Systems Expo.

Nvidia has announced that it has signed a tools and middleware license agreement for PlayStation 3 with Sony Computer Entertainment. As a result, the binary version of the Nvidia PhysX technology software development kit (SDK) is now available to registered PS3 developers for free download and use on the SCEI Developer Network.

Adobe, one of the largest US software companies, on Wednesday provided the latest indication of how the economic crisis is rolling through the technology industry as it slashed its revenue projections and announced that it had already “taken steps” to cut its workforce by 8%, or 600 people.

A Trend Micro security product manager has recommended people not to buy anti-virus products, including his own. But there is a method to his madness, he assures. David Peterson, consumer segment director for Trend Micro's ANZ business, said only a handful of the top 10 security threats these days are viruses, with downloaders, Trojans, keyloggers, and phishing scams filling up the list.