AU Optronics, a Taiwanese LCD panel manufacturer, is seeking a court injunction to ban the sale of LCD panels by LG Display. This sounds like bad news for the second largest LCD panel maker in the world, but do keep in mind the official source is a press release by AUO, so it may be prudent to wait for LG to respond before drawing any final conclusions.
On December 2006, LG Display sued AUO for $690,000,000 USD for violating its patents. Since that time, AUO, the third largest maker of LCDs, fired back with their very own intellectual property claims. LG was counter-sued for infringing four AU Optronics patents related to the materials and processes used in manufacturing display panels. On February 16th, AUO won that counter claim. In the press release, the company claims it has acted to seek an injunction which will halt LG’s worldwide LCD sales, pending judicial approval.
LG produces about one quarter of all LCD panels sold worldwide. The implications of their display subsidiary being even temporarily ‘shutdown’ are serious, but there is no word on exactly what portion of their business could be affected. Although actual LG-branded displays may not make up 25% of the market, companies like HP, Dell, Asustek and Apple depend on LG Display to supply many of their screens. This could no doubt have far-reaching effects on laptops, tablets, desktop displays, televisions, phones and more amid very high demand.
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Chrome gains market share, IE drops below 60%
Google's Chrome browser continues to make strong gains according to the latest figures from NetApplications. For the second month in a row the browser was able to outpace all its rivals, jumping from 6.1 to 6.73% market share in April. In contrast, Microsoft's Internet Explorer wound up grabbing 59.95% of the market, which marks the first time since the ubiquitous and often criticized browser has dropped below 60%.
Opera was the only other major browser to lose share by dropping to 2.3%. Meanwhile, Firefox and Safari both saw small gains that put them at 24.59% and 4.72% each. The figure is a record for Apple but for Mozilla it seems gains that had once come easily to it are now heading Chrome's way instead. Google and NetApplications have said they expect the newcomer browser to have anywhere between 8.5 and 10% share by the end of 2010.
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StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty coming July 27
Blizzard has finally stamped an official ship date on StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, the long-awaited sequel to 1998's hit, StarCraft. The company said StarCraft II will launch simultaneously in the US, Canada, Europe, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Russia, Mexico, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, and more on July 27, 2010 -- or 85 days away, if you're counting. The digital version should be available shortly after the retail debut.
Although it's arguably the most anticipated RTS of all time, StarCraft II has been the subject of many disappointing news posts here. Both the full game and the beta experienced delays, and Blizzard didn't win many gamers over with its decision to exclude LAN functionality or to sell the Terran, Protoss and Zerg campaigns separately.
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