- Apple‘s new iPhone 3G S, which costs an unsubsidised $599 to buy in the 16Gb version, costs only $179 to make, according to iSuppli. The research firm took the phone apart to price its parts and found Toshiba provided the most expensive component – the flash memory at $24.
- Google unveiled a public trial of a key piece of its mobile internet strategy - an extension of the AdSense network to mobile app developers. Developers will be able to include adverts in their apps targeted by keyword, demographics and location. This potentially gives developers access to the entire base of AdSense advertisers, posing a big challenge to specialist mobile ad networks like AdMobs.
- Seagate Technology, which has cut jobs and salaries and restructured to combat slumping hard-drive sales, may have turned a corner. In a trading update, it raised its sales expectations for the current quarter to between $2.2bn and $2.3bn and predicted the industry would sell 120m hard drives, compared to its earlier estimate of 114m.
- The video game publisher THQ, which has also undergone major restructuring to try to return to profitability, announced a further reorganisation, with three new business units. They will cover Core Games, Online and “Kids, Family and Casual”, as THQ focuses on fewer products.
- Gamers will be more intrigued by some major consolidation news concerning developer studios. Zenimax Media, whose subsidiary Bethesda Softworks came up with arguably the game of the year in 2008 in Fallout 3, has bought id Software. Id is best known for its Doom and Quake titles.
