Handset manufacturer Sony Ericsson will soon be publishing its quarterly earnings, and this week put out a pre-emptive warning that the struggling economy has had a negative impact on sales.

The company says the mid-range and high-end handset market especially suffered in the quarter due to the economic downturn, but anticipates its growth for the three-month period to be about equal with the same quarter last year.

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Google may be rising in terms of search relevancy and advertising reach, but Yahoo already leads other portals as a "starting point" site. So an industry panel today concluded these two titans may -- for now, at least -- be equals.

NEW YORK CITY (BetaNews) - While Google has built up a formidable presence in online advertising, up until its acquisition of DoubleClick finally closed, it hasn't really had a presence in display advertising, the more conventional approach to purchasing space from an available publisher. Both Yahoo and Microsoft, by virtue of timely acquisitions, had been leaving Google in the dust in that department...until now.

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With an American economy that is becoming increasingly unstable, thanks largely to the credit crunch and the return of inflation, consumers appear to be closing their purse strings tightly when it comes to tech purchases.

Only 19% of 4,427 consumers polled late last month say they will spend more on tech gadgets in the next 90 days, versus 33% who will spend less, according to a study released Tuesday by ChangeWave Research of US consumers. While the number of consumers saying they would not spent as much has remained rather constant, those spending more has not.

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There may be an actual window of opportunity for graphics chip producer NVidia to acquire some x86 CPU design expertise and production prowess. But as In-Stat's Jim McGregor told us, there are reasons why NVidia + Via wouldn't work.

There are more than two CPU producers in the known universe, although it's Intel and AMD that tend to dominate any discussion of it. But what could be the world's #3 CPU producer -- a very distant third -- is once again the topic of discussion, as rumors of Via Technologies' possible acquisition by graphics chip producer NVidia were turned up from "simmer" to "high" this morning, by a report from the respected Taiwanese industry daily DigiTimes.

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Motorola is teaming up with one of Thailand's leading fiberoptic service providers, UIH, to test a mobile WiMAX trial system in the cities of Bangkok and Phuket. Thailand hopes to begin offering commercial WiMAX sometime in 2009.

The demonstration marked exactly one year since that nation's National Telecommunications Commission said it would begin issuing licenses for WiMAX operators. Motorola and UIH made the announcement this morning at the WiMAX World Asia Expo in Bangkok.

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Despite a heated exchange with Apple, Adobe seems to be pressing forward with plans to bring Flash to the iPhone.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs started the battle in the media with comments to investors at a shareholders' meeting earlier this month. Essentially, his position was that the current version of Flash for mobile phones is not good enough for the device, and the standard version runs too slowly.

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Tuesday night Facebook rolled out enhanced privacy features that allow users to customize the permissions of individual aspects of a profile. Almost immediately, BetaNews received a report of "life-threatening" abuse of this feature.

Popular social networking site Facebook is a repository of personal information for many, but until Tuesday, it lacked the ability to grant differing levels of access to different users. Previously, the only way to block other users from viewing specific content was to deny that user access to the profile outright, or to limit the profile's viewability to everyone. Now, users can choose which content each individual is allowed to view.

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The company's exit from HD DVD is putting a significant drag on its bottom line, it admitted on Wednesday.

Altogether, the company will have to pay ¥45 billion ($453 million USD) in costs to exit the business. In addition, it will report a ¥65 billion ($654.2 million USD) loss in that sector, for a total cost to the company of over $1.1 billion this year alone.

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After having listened to consumers' demands for nearly a year, Opera and Helio have finally released an official version of the Opera Mini mobile browser for the Helio Ocean smartphone.

Helio users wanting to use Opera Mini on their Ocean smartphones were forced to use a hacked version of the browser that became available in August. After directions were published on Heliocity, a Web site where users discuss how to hack their phones, Opera Mini soon became the most popular piece of software for the Ocean.

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Market research group NPD released video game console sales figures for the month of February, and the units with the fastest processors look to be selling the slowest.

Video game console sales in February 2008, according to research group NPD, showed a 19% increase in units sold year-over-year, with Microsoft's Xbox 360 selling the fewest among what is still, more than two years after its introduction, called the "next gen" console market.

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Fresh off of a deal with the movie studios that effectively reversed the company's position on rented content, it now appears Apple may also be about to embrace a subscription-like model for music.

According to a report in the Financial Times late Tuesday, the company is currently in discussions with the major labels over licensing their content on a subscription basis. So far, it appears the biggest roadblock is price.

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Now that the format war is over and Blu-ray is the only choice for next-generation DVDs, retailer Best Buy is attempting to make amends with customers who bought HD DVD players before Toshiba pulled the plug.

All Best Buy customers who purchased an HD DVD player or HD DVD add-on for the Xbox 360 earlier than February 23, 2008 are eligible to receive a $50 gift card. The retailer says it will be distributing $10 million in cards, which means 200,000 individuals bought into the losing format from Best Buy alone.

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By one measure, the 700 Mhz spectrum sale was the most successful government auction in history. But a dark cloud remains over at least one part of it, where the FCC finds itself stuck right where it was before the opening gavel was struck.

After weeks of competitive and secret bidding, the US Federal Communications Commission's auction of some of the most valuable spectrum ever offered to the private wireless industry -- still part of the upper UHF TV band until February next year -- finally closed yesterday. According to the Commission's revised tally this afternoon, the auction could raise almost $19.6 billion, 92% above last year's congressional estimates.

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11:50 am March 19, 2008 - Despite Amazon's messages on Tuesday that it would be shipping commercial packages with Windows Vista SP1 starting today, those messages this morning were found to be replaced with new notices that the new boxes aren't in stock yet.

Currently, items for sale are marked with the curious message, "In stock on March 20, 2008."

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The newest players coming out this fall will put interactivity at the forefront, putting the format on par with what HD DVD users had been enjoying for a long time.

Sony will be shipping two players that will be compatible with Profile 2.0: the BDP-S350, to be available in the summer for $399, and the BDP-S550 in the fall for $499. While the former would require a firmware update when Profile 2.0 ships, the latter would come with it preinstalled.

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