Samsung will pay a $300 million fine to settle accusations it secretly conspired with industry rivals to fix prices and cheat customers.
Samsung's guilty plea to a felony price-fixing charge caps a three-year investigation by the Justice Department into makers of the chips, a $7.7 billion market in the United States. Two of Samsung's leading rivals earlier paid fines totaling $345 million and pleaded guilty to involvement in a scheme the government said boosted prices consumers paid for computers between 1999 and 2002.
Samsung's top competitor -- Hynix -- pleaded guilty this year to price-fixing and paid a $185 million fine. Last September, rival Infineon Technologies of Germany agreed to a $160 million fine. Another competitor, Micron Technology, has been cooperating with prosecutors and was not expected to face charges.
The government accused the companies of conspiring in e-mails, telephone calls and face-to-face meetings to fix prices of memory chips between April 1999 and June 2002. The chips are used in digital recorders, personal computers, printers, video recorders, mobile phones and many other electronics.
The investigation started in 2002, a year after memory chip prices began to climb even though the high-tech industry was in a tailspin. At the time, the hikes were attributed to tight supplies, although then-Dell Computer chief executive Michael Dell blamed them on cartel-like behavior by chipmakers.
- - -
E.T. for EA: Coming soon to a game console near you: a Steven Spielberg video game. The acclaimed film director and producer has agreed to develop three new games under a long-term exclusive deal with video game maker Electronic Arts. The deal reflects the increasingly intertwined interests of Hollywood and the video game industry.
Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed, but EA (ERTS), the world's largest game maker behind blockbusters such as Madden NFL and The Sims, said it will own the intellectual property behind the Spielberg games and publish them.
Spielberg will have an office in EA's studio and he plans to work side-by-side with game developers to create original gaming content beginning with the concept -- not a game based on a movie, or vice versa, both of which are common practices nowadays.
Spielberg has been an avid follower of games for years. In a speech last year, he told film students they could change the face of film making if only they played more video games.
- - -
We'll miss you, analog: Bill Gates and other industry leaders urged lawmakers to speed the transition to digital television in order to free up radio spectrum for wireless broadband services, especially in rural and poor areas.
In a letter to House and Senate lawmakers, high-tech officials said the spectrum would reap enormous benefits for consumers and the economy.
The letter also stressed the need to clear the spectrum to improve police, fire and other first-responder radio communications. Some of the frequencies that would be vacated in the transition from traditional analog to digital TV were promised to public safety officials in 1997.
The rest of the spectrum would be auctioned by the government. It's been valued by congressional officials at $10 billion, though industry puts the estimate as high as $30 billion.
Current law calls for broadcasters to make the switch to all-digital transmissions -- which promise sharper pictures and sound -- by late 2006, or when 85 percent of households have the ability to receive digital signals. But there's confusion about how to count that 85 percent, so Congress plans to set a so-called "hard date" for the conversion to all-digital.
- - -
Ministry of silly walks: Finnish scientists have invented a device to make it harder to steal mobile phones and laptops by enabling them to detect changes in their owner's walking style and then freeze to prevent unauthorized use.
The VTT Technical Research Center of Finland said the device, which is has patented but has yet to sell, could prevent millions of portable appliances being stolen every year.
The gadget would monitor the user's walking style and check it against the saved information. If the values differ, the user would have to enter a password.
"Compared with passwords and traditional bio-identification, the new method is simple: confirmation of identity takes place as a background process without any need for user's intervention," the researchers said.
- - -
Compiled by Keith Axline. AP and Reuters contributed to this report.
