Electronics

The crime report is a sampling of crimes in Howard County compiled from police. Anyone with information is asked to call police at 410-313-3700. East Columbia Stevens Forest Road: 5600 block, Oakland Mills. Someone pried open the door to an apartment Jan. 16 and stole electronics, jewelry and other items. West Columbia Little Patuxent Parkway: 10300 block, Town Center. Two females were walking to their cars Jan. 13 on the Copeland's Restaurant parking lot when they were approached by two men who displayed a gun and demanded money.

David Packard,83, who co-founded electronics pioneer Hewlett-Packard Co. and helped to build it into a $31 billion enterprise with a philosophy of encouraging employee creativity, died of pneumonia yesterday at Stanford University Hospital.In 1938, Mr. Packard and William Hewlett borrowed $538 and founded the Palo Alto, Calif., company in a rented garage. They built it into Silicon Valley's largest employer with 100,000 workers and more than $31 billion in revenues last year.Mr. Packard retired from active management in 1978 but remained the company's chairman until 1993.

TOKYO - Sony Corp.'s troubles continued last quarter, as its net profit fell 25 percent from the period a year earlier, the company said yesterday. Income from its games division plunged and its movie studio posted a loss. Sony, the world's second-largest electronics maker, also trimmed by 23 percent its full-year target for operating income, a measure that excludes taxes and one-time events, and reflects the core business. The company, which is trying to overhaul its electronics division, left its net profit target unchanged.

Commissioners to hold meetings around county The Carroll County commissioners have scheduled a series of community meetings around the county. The purpose of the meetings is to hear comments and listen to citizen concerns on issues that affect the county. The next meeting will be at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Harney fire station, 5130 Harney Road. Information: 410-386-2043. Northern Landfill to accept electronics recycling The Carroll County government's Recycling Office will hold an electronics-recycling event from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday at Northern Landfill, 1400 Baltimore Boulevard (Route 140)

TOKYO - Microsoft and Toshiba said yesterday that they would work together to develop next-generation DVD players, heating up a race between competing technologies for DVDs. The companies aim to develop high-definition DVD players that would use software from Microsoft and hardware from Toshiba, the companies said. The agreement offers a potential leg up to Toshiba in its battle against a group led by Sony to define the format for the next generation of DVD players. Sony is championing the Blu-ray technology, with discs that have more capacity than the HD-DVD format that Toshiba is backing.

Special prizes will be given throughout the evening to all players at the Laurel Boys and Girls Club Holiday Bingo. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 19 at the Phelps Center, 701 Montgomery St. The bingo includes a guaranteed $500 bonanza game. Prizes include electronics, kitchen items and jewelry. The kitchen will offer reasonably priced food. For information, call 240-264-6642.

Strong sales of radar and marine systems at the Linthicum electronics unit helped Northrop Grumman Corp. post 23-percent increases in both net income and overall sales for the first quarter of this year, the company said yesterday.Northrop Grumman reported net income of $75 million on sales of $1.96 billion, up from net income of $61 million on sales of $1.6 billion for the corresponding period in 1996.Last year, the first quarter included just a month of results from the newly acquired former Westinghouse plant in Linthicum.

William Arthur Anderson, a retired businessman who became a volunteer fund-raiser for Morgan State University and helped garner millions of dollars for scholarships and school activities, died Sept. 22 of cancer at Greater Baltimore Medical Center.Since 1984, Mr. Anderson, who was 77 and lived in Cross Keys in North Baltimore, was a volunteer with the Morgan State Foundation, where he was chairman of the development committee, treasurer and vice-president. The foundation is one of the university's major fund-raising arms.

TeleCommunication Systems Inc. of Annapolis, which specializes in secure mobile communications for military and commercial clients, said Monday it plans to buy Trident Space & Defense LLC, of Torrance, Calif. Trident specializes in engineering and electronics solutions for global space and defense markets. The amount of the deal was not disclosed but TCS said it involved a mix of cash and three million shares of Class A common stock. Trident, which projects revenue of about $40 million for next year, is owned by Admiralty Partners Inc., a private equity firm.

SAN JOSE, Calif. - You're probably reclining in digital contentment under the tree, snuggling with your shiny new iPod. No? Join the club. Around the globe, gadget lovers who hoped to get one are learning that Apple Computer's diminutive music players are in short supply. Many electronics stores said they had sold all but the most expensive models - which prompted some shoppers to spend $500 for the high-end iPod rather than do without. The scarcity of the iPod, a white, digital music player about the size of a computer mouse, affirms its status as the It-Thing, the technology industry's answer to Pilates and Orlando Bloom.