Travelers in Utah have a new way to get updates on traffic, and they can do it without having to watch television or listen to the radio.
Instead, using a cellular phone, they can dial the nation's first voice-activated 511 travel service line, which debuts Tuesday.
"We're the first 511 service that is voice-enabled," said Greg O'Connell of Tellme, the company that signed a three-year, $1.8 million contract with the Utah Department of Transportation to run the service.
Tellme is one of several free, voice-activated services known as "voice portals" that use voice recognition software to retrieve and translate information from the Internet.
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Toshiba selling plant: Toshiba on Tuesday became the last of Japan's big chipmakers to throw in the towel on making standard computer memory chips, abandoning partnership talks with Germany's Infineon Technology AG and selling off a U.S. plant.
Toshiba (TOSBF), facing massive losses in its chip business this year, agreed to sell a plant in Virginia that makes dynamic random access memory, or DRAM, chips to Micron Technology (MU), the world's second-largest DRAM chip maker.
Toshiba said it will focus on more profitable chips. It will phase out through next June its DRAM assembly operations at Yokkaichi, a Toshiba Electronics subsidiary in western Japan.
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3G licenses: Israeli cell phone operators Cellcom Israel, Partner Communications and Pelephone Communications won third generation frequency tenders on Tuesday, paying paltry sums in comparison with European counterparts.
Partner (PTNR) and Cellcom paid 220 million shekels ($51.92 million) while Pelephone paid 225 million shekels for the frequencies, the Communications Ministry said. The ministry's minimum price had been set at 220 million shekels ($52 million).
The 665 million shekels total was below the 1 billion shekels the ministry had hoped to raise last year when European firms were paying vast sums for 3G licenses, an analyst said.
Ministry spokeswoman Anat Friedman said it had not expected to raise much more than the minimum price due to the global telecoms crisis. "But it's not so much the price that's important as advancing the 3G field," she said.
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Ripple effect: Microsoft said Tuesday that the sale of its stake in Expedia to USA Networks would be delayed as a result of USA Network's plan to sell its entertainment assets to a joint venture with Vivendi Universal (V).
Microsoft (MSFT) agreed to sell its stake in Expedia to USA Networks (USAI)in July, and anticipated closing during the quarter ending Dec. 31, 2001. The transaction, which was expected to result in a pretax gain of about $650 million, is now expected to close during the March or June quarter of 2002.
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Palm's preference: Palm said Monday it has chosen Texas Instruments as the "preferred supplier" of chips for its next generation of wireless handheld devices.
The deal, however, is not exclusive, said Todd Bradley, executive vice president and chief operating officer for Palm's Solutions Group, which handles Palm's hardware products. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Bradley said Palm (PALM) continues to work with Intel (INTC) and Motorola (MOT) to develop microprocessors based on ARM architecture, which has become a chip standard to support demanding wireless applications, such as streaming video or handling voice data.
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Scuttled: The Department of Defense has terminated a multibillion contract with Raytheon (RTN), saying the naval missile defense project was too far behind schedule and exceeded cost estimates.
The Navy Area Theater Ballistic Missile Defense system was designed to protect naval forces, ports and bases against medium-range air and missile threats.
Pentagon acquisitions chief Edward Aldrige told The Wall Street Journal the program was canceled due to poor performance and a 67 percent increase in the average procurement cost of the system.
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3G licenses auction: Taiwan will hold Asia's first competitive auction for the right to provide third generation mobile phone services, after seven players threw their hat into the ring on Tuesday to battle for five licenses.
The Directorate General of Telecommunications, the industry regulator, received seven applications for the licenses on Tuesday, the deadline for requests. The bidding process will begin in January and is expected to be completed by the end of the month.
Taiwan will be the first market in Asia to hold an auction with more bidders than licenses.
Briefly told: NEC (NIPNY) is shutting a factory in Scotland with the loss of more than 1,200 jobs.
AP and Reuters contributed to this report.
