Stories by Jay Alabaster

Samsung Electronics said sales and profits soared in the second quarter from a year ago, but increasing competition in smartphones hurt performance in its core mobile division.

Japan's Sharp makes multi-hued HD displays for iPhones and TVs, but it has had unexpected success at home with a simple, monochrome device it calls a "digital notepad," a small tablet with a lined screen and stylus for easily scribbling handwritten notes.

Citadel malware is installed on over 20,000 PCs in Japan and actively sending financial information it harvests to servers abroad, according to security software vendor Trend Micro.

Hewlett Packard and Japan's NEC will expand their existing partnership to develop high-end x86-based servers for cloud and Web applications.

Sony wants to simplify laptop backups.

Samsung Electronics will offer a range of faster SSD drives for consumers from next month, including a zippy new 1TB drive meant for everyday use.

Toshiba will soon launch the world's fastest SD cards, which will offer write speeds of up to 240MB/s.

A Japanese ministry is conducting an internal investigation after a Google Groups account used for international treaty negotiations was left on its default, publicly viewable settings.

Japan's most famous mountain now has 4G coverage.

LG Display has developed the world's thinnest full HD LCD display for smartphones, measuring just 2.2 millimeters thick.

Game maker Konami said one of its online portals has been hit by a mass of illicit login attempts, with attackers gaining access to over 35,000 accounts, just days after Nintendo revealed a similar attack on one of its sites.

Nintendo has won a court case in Tokyo against sellers of illegal game emulators for its DS handheld console, part of its ongoing legal campaign to stamp out the products under toughened Japanese laws.

Nintendo said a main fan site was hit by a wave of illicit login attempts in Japan over the last month, with attackers gaining access to nearly 24,000 accounts containing users' real names, addresses, phone numbers and emails information.

A privacy debate has erupted in Japan over a new service from a major rail operator that sells private e-ticket records as marketing data.

Samsung Electronics predicted a big jump in profit for the second quarter compared to a year earlier, but the company's explosive growth is slowing amid signs its top end Galaxy smartphones are less popular than expected.