A Tokyo court on Friday said it has ordered the Japanese unit of Hynix Semiconductor to halt its NAND flash memory sales in Japan after Toshiba filed a patent lawsuit against its South Korean rival. The ruling may give a boost to Toshiba in the fast-growing memory product market, but Hynix said it planned to appeal the ruling.

BoxWave announced the Active Case for Palm Treo 650. The crystal-clear Active Case is a low-profile case that will preserve the look and size of your Palm Treo 650 without adding bulk or weight. It is custom-contour shaped to perfectly fit the shape of your Palm Treo 650. You can conveniently view your calendar and contacts through the crystal-clear protective shell. The cut-out design for the keyboard allows you to see the keys clearly and keep the same tactile feel as using the Treo without a case.

Ozura Mobile has launched Malaysia’s largest and first ever ##”live” mobile game competition##–Beauty Queen. Beauty Queen is expected to be the catalyst that introduces mobile gaming to the mass market in Malaysia and is Ozura’s latest mobile game. Developed specifically for mobile phones, the appropriately titled game features Miss Malaysia 2004, Gloria Ting. Gamers will get to play the role of Gloria as she goes about her daily life. The mobile game competition is structured into 3 heats culminating in the grand finals, with each heat featuring a new edition of the Beauty Queen game. Beauty Queen will run for a total of 7 months beginning March 2006, with the Grand Finals being held in October 2006.

Companies are responding less to customer email, despite the potential for losing business, a market research firm said. Since 2000, the number of Web sites responding to emailed queries within a day has decreased to only 45 percent, JupiterResearch said in a report. In addition, the number of companies taking three days or longer, or not responding at all to customer email, grew 7 percent year over year from 2000 to 2005 to 39 percent. While 92 percent of Web sites offered email as a customer support option, only 41 percent acknowledged receipt of a message with an automated email response. Failing to maintain a high level of responsiveness is increasing the likelihood of losing customers, particular if they become angry over unanswered emails, JupiterResearch analyst Zachary McGeary said.

Palm announced that Treo smartphones are keeping Monster employees connected nationwide. The leading global online careers and recruitment resource has deployed several hundred Treo smartphones running GoodLink from Good Technology for access to email, calendar, contacts, notes and tasks on the Sprint Nationwide PCS Network. The Treo smartphone offers many advantages: it easily integrates with Microsoft Outlook, has a short end-user learning curve, is based on an open standards platform, and gives companies great scalability for the future and a high return on investment.

Alltel and Research In Motion announced that Alltel is selling the BlackBerry 7130e, the first BlackBerry handheld designed to operate on the company’s high-speed Axcess Broadband network. The Java-based BlackBerry 7130e combines phone, wireless email, text messaging, organizer, Web and corporate data applications in a sleek handset that also features Bluetooth support for hands-free use with a headset or car kit.

KPN and Research In Motion announced the launch of the BlackBerry 8700g in the Netherlands. The new sleek and lightweight design of the BlackBerry 8700g features an Intel XScale cellular processor, and provides exceptional performance for email, phone, text messaging, Internet, organizer and corporate data applications.

Mobistar and Research In Motion announced the launch of the BlackBerry 8700f in Belgium, the first BlackBerry device designed to leverage Mobistar’s national EDGE network. The BlackBerry 8700f is available immediately for all Mobistar customers. The BlackBerry 8700f is a quad-band device that operates on Mobistar’s GSM/GPRS/EDGE network and offers premium phone features such as dedicated “end,” “send,” and “mute” keys, smart dialing, conference calling, speed dial, call forwarding, as well as speakerphone and Bluetooth support for hands-free use with wireless headsets and car kits. The BlackBerry 8700f offers a high resolution landscape QVGA (320 x 240) LCD screen that supports more than 65,000 colors and uses active matrix transmissive technology to deliver vivid graphics. In addition, the BlackBerry 8700f features an intelligent light-sensing technology that automatically adjusts the brightness of the screen and keyboard to optimize visibility in outdoor, indoor and dark environments.

A corporate-backed watchdog group that monitors software for deceptive and abusive practices named Kazaa, a widely used file-sharing program, and three other applications as violators of its guidelines. The group, started by researchers from Harvard and Oxford universities, also named a video download manager distributed by Movieland.com, a spyware removal program from SpyAxe.com and Waterfalls 3 by Screensaver.com.

The European Commission will detail its plans to regulate the cost of international roaming for mobile phone users at a meeting in Brussels. “The objective is to promote competition and to ensure that consumers are not punished for crossing a border,” said Martin Selmayr, a spokesman for Viviane Reding, European Commissioner for Information Society and Media.