The seemingly recession-proof smart phone is suffering from a side effect of the rough economy: Manufacturers simply can't build enough of the gadgets because chip-makers that rolled back production last year are now scrambling to play catch-up.
For Africans wondering whether the malaria drugs they've bought are real, there may soon be a quick way of finding out: sending a text message.
Contract manufacturers produce chips to the designs of others in giant factories. Their products go into practically all phones and many PCs, yet they're mostly unknown to their users. These are the world's three largest contract chip manufacturers, or foundries:
THE BACKDROP: Germans have long harbored an obsession about protecting privacy. That's because of memories of Nazi-era denouncements of neighbors and East German secret police snooping.
THAI WIKILEAKS: Anonymous Internet activists calling themselves "Wikicong" have set up a website to display information about Thailand that comes from the whistle-blower site Wikileaks.
ORDERED SHUT: Argentina's government ordered the closure one of the nation's three leading Internet providers, Grupo Clarin.
PC maker Dell Inc. said Thursday its net income improved 16 percent in the fiscal second quarter as businesses replaced aging technology, though a key profit measure fell.
Talk about a new meaning for "Intel Inside."
Scientists are reporting the first conclusive evidence of a deep underwater oil plume from the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico. But don't go looking for it. It's invisible.
