Dan Nystedt

Global stock markets and industry supply chains have started recovering after a 9.0-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Japan and sent a massive tsunami roaring ashore to sweep away towns and factories.

But despite a clearer picture of what Japan faces in cleaning up after the disaster, the impact on the global technology supply chain is yet unknown. Most analysts say shortages of key parts will start to show up late in the second quarter and really start to bite the supply chain in the third quarter of this year. A lack of some key parts could mean people will have to wait a while for certain smartphones, tablets and other gadgets.

Acer President and CEO Gianfranco Lanci has resigned from the company, Acer said Thursday, without saying why.

J.T. Wang, the chairman of Acer, will take over from Lanci, the company said in a filing to the Taiwan Stock Exchange.

Japanese DRAM maker Elpida Memory on Monday said its factories are operating "at close to normal levels" two weeks after the 9.0-magnitude earthquake in Japan, and that it has "sufficient parts and materials to continue supplying out customers as usual until the end of July."

Although the company said it is in discussions to secure further materials after July and doesn't expect any interruption to its business, Elpida will find itself competing against a growing number of chip makers seeking the same materials, 300-millimeter (12-inch) silicon wafers. The earthquake and resulting tsunami have affected production at key factories making these wafers, the raw materials that chips are etched onto.

Google will not release the source code for Honeycomb, the version of its Android mobile OS optimized for tablets, until it completes work to make the software better for smartphones and other devices, the company said Thursday.

"Android 3.0, Honeycomb, was designed from the ground up for devices with larger screen sizes and improves on Android favorites... While we're excited to offer these new features to Android tablets, we have more work to do before we can deliver them to other device types including phones," Google said in a statement.

Google has launched its own quarterly online magazine, Think Quarterly, out of its operations in the U.K. and Ireland, saying that "in a world of accelerating change, we all need to take time to reflect."

The first issue of Think Quarterly is already freely available online and is dedicated to data, including data obesity, data impotence, data overload and open data.

Over 100 million apps have been downloaded from Samsung Electronics' mobile and TV app store in less than a year after its launch, the company said Thursday.

Samsung Apps opened in June 2010 with the launch of Samsung's Wave (GT-S8500) smartphone, the first smartphone loaded with Samsung's Bada OS.

Oracle on Tuesday became the latest software maker to say it will stop developing applications for Intel Itanium microprocessors, following a similar announcement by Microsoft last year and Red Hat the year before.

"After multiple conversations with Intel senior management, Oracle has decided to discontinue all software development on the Intel Itanium microprocessor," Oracle said in a statement late Tuesday. "Intel management made it clear that their strategic focus is on their x86 microprocessor and that Itanium was nearing the end of its life," the company added.

Apple sued Amazon.com on Friday, claiming rights to the name App Store, which Amazon tagged on its new application store.

The creator of the iPhones and iPads that made apps popular among smartphone and tablet users worldwide filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

Some Japanese chip makers are starting to pick themselves up and resume operations in the earthquake and tsunami-torn northeast.

But while some factories are coming back online, there has been extensive damage at other plants, and ongoing power shortages remain a problem.

Technology companies across Asia have found ways to help people in Japan left devastated by the 9.0-magnitude earthquake last Friday, the 7-meter tsunami it spawned, and displacement caused by troubles at a nuclear power plant there.

China's Alibaba.com, for example, has thrown in its e-commerce expertise to let hundreds of millions of users buy tents, sleeping bags, raincoats, flashlights and other gear for quake victims at cost. The company will cover the cost of shipping the goods to Japan.

Prices of widely used chips, including NAND flash memory and DRAM, have both risen sharply since the 9.0-magnitude earthquake struck and hurled tsunami waves at the northeastern part of Japan.

But major Japanese suppliers have said factories producing these chips were largely unaffected by the temblor, nor are they in areas where blackouts will force production to stop. While it appears by their statements that the memory markets are overreacting to the earthquake, analysts say that the price increases may highlight a graver issue for the global chip industry: damage to Japanese component and material suppliers vital to chip production.

A day after Japan's biggest earthquake ever caused widespread destruction and as-yet uncounted deaths, Japan's biggest electronics companies are trying to ensure that employees in disaster areas are safe and facilities remain intact.

The threat of meltdowns at two nuclear power plants remains, while fires continue to rage in some areas and fields and roadways are clogged by sea water from a deadly tsunami that washed away entire towns.