food chain

Talk about an image problem. For weeks, newspapers around the world have carried stories about dairy-poisoned babies -- at least six have died, and 300,000 have been sickened -- and chronicled how milk, eggs, soy-based foods, and even candy bars containing ingredients from China have been contaminated with melamine, an industrial chemical used in plastics and fertilizers.

To counter recent blog reports predicting that its Xperia 1 smartphone would miss this year's holiday shopping season, Sony Ericsson told media outlets this week that its first-ever Windows Mobile device will be released in the fourth quarter of 2008.

The new multimedia handset, which will feature a three-inch color display, slide-out Qwerty keyboard, Wi-Fi radio and GPS-based navigation, will be available for use on selected high-speed (HSDPA/HSUPA) cellular networks worldwide before the end of this year, the company said.