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Apparently, it’s sink or swim time for Samsung’s laptop group. Sukyong Hong, Samsung’s senior manager of overseas sales and marketing said that the company would quit the laptop market within three years unless it can triple sales.

Hong says that the company needs to ship 11 million laptops in 2011 in order for its notebook division to meet its “minimum survival” volume. Samsung currently enjoys 1.7% of the global laptop market, but will need to more than triple that to 5.7% within three years. Fortunately, a move into the US market and an unnamed European country is expected to boost sales and bring substantial growth. 

The shocking announcement came amidst the company’s major senior management overhaul. Samsung CEO Yun Jong-yong and Semiconductor business head Hwang Chang-gyu will be replaced.  Last month, the company’s long-standing chairman, Lee Kun-hee, stepped down due to allegations of tax evasion.

Read [PCPro]

Sony is predicting higher growth than their target for the rest of the year despite posting a surprising $45 million loss in January through March. The company’s performance was an improvement from a $1.08 billion loss from last year but still short of an average profit estimate of $260 million from five analysts. Sony’s shares at the New York Stock Exchange rose to $49.48, a 7.4% growth after the results were announced.

The electronics giant experienced strong sales of VAIO PCs, Cyber-shot digital cameras, and Handycam video cameras and sees its videogame and TV operations as their profit generators for the year. The company was also able to narrow PlayStation 3 losses by cutting production costs and expanding sales.

Sony Chief Executive Howard Stringer’s efforts to turnaround the company has been more aggressive over the past three years. The company has already streamlined its manpower requirements and even shed non-core assets. The company plans to disclose its new business strategy in June.

Read [Reuters]

According to a report on Information Week, infamous “Spam King” Sanford Wallace, and his phishing partner Walter Rines were slammed with a whopping $225 million judgment by a U.S. District Court on Monday.

“MySpace has zero tolerance for those who attempt to act illegally on our site,” said Hemanshu Nigam, chief security officer of MySpace, in an e-mailed statement. “The Federal District Court in Los Angeles awarded MySpace $223,777,500 under the federal CAN-SPAM Act and $1,500,000 under the California anti-phishing statute. User engagement is up 32 percent year over year while spam is significantly decreasing, proving efforts like this are working.”

In October of 2006 the pair began creating bogus MySpace accounts and hijacking over 300,000 others. They then used the compromised accounts to send tens of thousands of spam messages and bomb the comment section of thousands of MySpace pages with links to other spam sites. The popular social networking site sued in 2007. Wallace posted a response to the judgement on his website, claiming he had never been served and that “the check is in the mail.”

Since 1997 Wallace has been sued by many service providers including AOL, Earthlink, and CompuServe, and last year was fined $4 million by the FTC for deceptive advertising and distributing spyware.

Read [InformationWeek]

AT&T is currently working on a plan that will make their 3G wireless customers very happy. The recent announcement was a little but of a teaser, but one that should be worth the wait, as they are promising increased speed on their 3G network, offering up to 20Mbps by 2009.

Assuming the goal comes to light, this would mean the speeds would be about five times faster than what users are experiencing today. The plan would involve AT&T making the move to HSPA release 7 and according to statements from AT&T mobility chief Ralph de la Vega, this would require little hardware modifications and should make a smooth transition. Here’s hoping it all works out as planned, with potential 20Mbps speeds, mobile TV and over-the-air downloads may actually become enjoyable.

Via [Treo Central]

EchoStar is set to launch its SlingModem – a product that combines a standard Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS) cable modem and a Slingbox at a Cable Show trade event in New Orleans next week. The device incorporates the place-shifting capabilities of Sling’s popular Slingbox, which allows television content to be transmitted from a consumer’s TV set to any location with an Internet connection. 

The SlingModem observes the DOCSIS 2.0 specification and can be used like a typical high-speed-data modem that connects to the Internet. Moreover, it also includes Sling Media’s proprietary video-encoding technology, which enhances traditional TV programming and makes it suitable for streaming to PCs and Internet-capable mobile devices – in one efficient housing. 

EchoStar is said to be working on other products and services for cable operators and would probably launch them this year.

Via [Crave]

It’s his last time to host a Microsoft CEO Summit as company chairman before answering philanthropy’s call, so Bill Gates decided to use the opportunity for one more demonstration of Microsoft Research prowess. Gates allowed the high-profile executives attending the annual meeting of high-dollar minds to see Microsoft’s Touch Wall, which threatens the existence of whiteboards and Magic Markers in all those sterile conference rooms around the world.

So far it’s been a good year for touch-screen technology, big and small; besides the iPhone and all its competitors, there’s the touch technology on display during coverage of primary elections on CNN. Microsoft’s offering is basically its Surface computer mounted vertically and expanded out to a 50-inch screen. Gates showed off interactivity with documents, Tablet-style writing and easy access to applications like PowerPoint, and promised that the technology would not be all that expensive. Still, after the showing this week in Redmond for the business elite, you can expect corner offices in corporate headquarters across America to be the first places for the Touch Wall to show up.

Read [Seattle Times]

Forget the cash, forget the credit cards, you can even forget the family pictures – mobile phones are now more important to people than their wallets. A recent survey found that more than 38% of workers would choose their mobile phones over other essentials – including their wallets, keys, laptops or digital music players if they had to leave the house for 24 hours and could take only one item.

The survey was sponsored by Nortel Networks Corp, market research firm IDC conducted the survey and found that more than 38% people chose their mobile phones first, while less than 30% picked their wallets as their essential of choice.

Nortel, who is North America’s biggest telephone gear maker was trying to determine how many workers can be defined as “hyperconnected,” or people who use at least seven devices for work and personal access, and at least nine applications like e-mail, chat or social networking sites. The answer was 16%, and that number, at least according to the survey, can be expected to rise up to 40% in the next five years.

Read [Reuters]

Remember the rumor back in February that Google was buying Plaxo for $200 million? Well, for the most part, it turned out to be a trumor.  However, instead of Google making the purchase, it turns out that Comcast is doing the buying. The cable company plans to utilize Plaxo to deliver upcoming social-networking features currently in the works for their TV, Internet, and phone service. Plaxo will be used to bridge all three Comcast services together, linking devices such as TVs, DVRs, and wireless devices. The terms of the deal have not yet been disclosed, but the two companies have already been working together in developing SmartZone, an online portal available to millions of Comcast broadband and phone customers that provides easy access to several communications tools (e.g., email and voicemail)—all in one place.

Plaxo was founded in 2001 with an original premise of keeping users’ address books updated by automatically sharing data among friends. With the emergence of social networking sites, the start up company now offers capabilities to keep in touch with family and friends by sharing photos, videos, and messages. According to the Plaxo blog:

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In a recently published open letter to the Yahoo! Board of Directors, Carl Icahn makes things pretty clear, he wants to dump the entire current board. He is not very happy with the way the current board acted with Microsoft’s offer of $47.5 billion and feels the $33 per share price was a “superior alternative” to what Yahoo could do on their own.

“It is clear to me that the board of directors of Yahoo has acted irrationally and lost the faith of shareholders and Microsoft.”

In a long and thorough letter he present a list of 10 members that he feels should replace the current board. The new list includes not only himself, but also Lucian A. Bebchuk, Frank J. Biondi, Jr., John H. Chapple, Mark Cuban, Adam Dell, Keith A. Meister, Edward H. Meyer, Brian S. Posner and Robert K. Shaye.

While Carl Icahn is going after this with full force, even if he were to get the newly proposed board in order, there has not been any word from the Microsoft camp as to whether or not they would come back and continue the deal.

Keep reading to check out the full letter…

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LG Korea has officially announced the LG KF600 aka “Bikini” phone with touchscreen features. This new phone will come in either the HSDPA model (LG-SH640/KH6400) or the Revision A model (LH6400). Now, before we get really excited as to what this new phone has got in its arsenal, you may notice its resemblance to the previously released LG Venus, that’s because this new phone is just an upgraded version.

Basically, the LG KF600 pretty much carries the same features as the Venus. It has the InteractPad which replaces the physical navigation keys with context-specific virtual keys. Plus a 3-megapixel camera with video recording, MP3 player, FM radio and Bluetooth.

Currently there is no information on whether the LG KF600 will be released internationally, and possibly to replace the current LG Venus. The Bikini retails between $478-$574 in the Korean market.

Via [Aving USA]