Samsung being sued twice

Samsung is under attack from two different directions. Memory chip maker Spansion is taking legal action against Samsung, claiming that Samsung's memory chips violate Spansion's patents. This doesn't just affect Samsung products but also devices from other manufacturers, including music players, mobile phones and digital cameras. Meanwhile Kodak is suing Samsung and LG over patents that it says are being violated by camera phones. [Sources: Cellular-News.com; WashingtonPost.com]

Customers happy to pay extra for decent cameras on mobiles

Research company Strategy Analytics says consumers in the USA and Western Europe are most willing to pay extra for a camera on their mobile phone. Over 60% of all respondents said they'd be willing to pay extra for a quality camera on their mobile. Other popular options included a video camera, music player and removable memory cards. Customers aged 35 and older were less willing to pay extra than younger consumers. [Press release]

Samsung to buy SanDisk?

Samsung is planning to buy memory manufacturer SanDisk, according to online rumours. [Source: MercuryNews.com]

Half of all last year's mobiles had a memory card slot

Strategy Analytics says that 592 million phones with memory card slots were shipped worldwide in 2007, which represents 53% of all handsets. It also predicts that shipments of phones equipped with memory card slots will grow at an average 13% per year over the next five years, reaching 1.04 billion phones in 2011. The most popular format was the microSD card, which accounted for 57% of memory card enabled phones. [Press release]

Mobile manufacturers working on new memory standard

LG, Samsung and Sony Ericsson have said they're working with a number of electronics manufacturers to create an open standard for the next-generation of mobile phone memory technology. They've formed the Serial Port Memory Technology Working Group, which is aiming to produce a memory chip with a lower power demand, fewer pins and more options for mobile phone designers. [Press release]