New York  - Shrinking demand for furs is translating into a loss of income for Canada's seal hunters.

They can expect to be paid 15 to 30 Canadian dollars (12 to 24 US dollars) per pelt, compared with a price of 100 dollars two years ago, leading many hunters to consider whether it was worth it to head out onto the pack ice in the traditional seal hunt at the end of winter in eastern Canada, Canadian media reported.

Tokyo  - Sharp Corp on Wednesday enlarged its expected losses for the fiscal year that ended March 31 in its third downward earnings revision.

The Japanese electronics company said it expected its net loss to expand to 130 billion yen (1.3 billion dollars) from a February forecast of 100 billion yen and its operating loss to worsen to 60 billion yen from 30 billion yen.

Sharp was to suffer its first annual operating loss since 1977 as demand for digital products dwindled amid harsh price competition and the global economic downturn, it said.

Taipei  - Taiwan's mobile phone sales were forecast to drop 9.3 per cent in 2009 because of weakened replacement demand and an extended replacement cycle, an industry report said Wednesday.

Sales were estimated at 6.39 million units by Taiwan's Market Intelligence and Consulting Institute, which called 2009 a crucial year for Taiwan mobile phone operators in terms of strengthening their share in the mobile internet market.

San Francisco  - The internet was buzzing with chatter Friday following a report on an influential technology blog that Google was in talks to purchase cellphone blogging site Twitter.

The report on Techcruch. om said that the internet search giant was in late stage of negotiations to buy Twitter for a cash and stock deal which could be the company's biggest acquisition since it snapped up YouTube for 1.65 billion dollars three years ago.

San Francisco  - Global sales of computer chips plunged 30 per cent in February compared to 2008, but there are signs that the worst of the slump might be over, the Semiconductor Industry Association said Friday.

The industry trade group said sales fell to 14.2 billion dollars in February from 20.3 billion dollars a year ago. Sales were down some 7.6 per cent compared to January
2009.

San Francisco  - Business technology giant IBM has lowered its bid for server and software company Sun Microsystems by about 10 per cent in return for a guarantee that it will pursue the deal even in the face of regulatory challenges, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

According to the report, IBM now proposes paying 9 dollars to 10 dollars per share for Sun, compared to 10 dollars to 11 dollars per share when the negotiations were first reported some two weeks ago.