TechEYE.net reports that consumer authorities in Taiwan's Taipei City are insisting that Apple and Google both offer a seven day free trial on apps available through their sites.

Apparently the companies have been given 15 days to comply.

As promised, Apple CEO Steve Jobs has opened the company's annual Worldwide Developers Conference with a series of announcements.

The next version of the iPhone and iPad operating system - iOS 5 - will have more than 200 new features when it's released this autumn.

A new report from IHS iSuppli says shipments of desktop computers and notebooks in the first quarter of 2011 have declined when compared to the same period in 2010. Worldwide PC shipments reached 81.3 million units in Q1 2011, down 0.3% from 81.6 million during the first quarter of 2010.

IHS iSuppli says the attention surrounding tablets contributed to weak consumer demand for PCs in the first quarter of 2011, although the extent of this cannibalisation is unclear.

Online retailer Expansys plc, which has entrepreneur Peter Jones CBE as a significant shareholder and non-executive Deputy Chairman, says its annual results are likely to be below expectations.

Last year the company acquired Data Select Network Solutions & PJ Media; earlier this year it relaunched its website.

Ralph Jennings of voanews.com writes:

Taiwan's massive high-tech industry has long been synonymous with building gadgets cheaply for foreign companies. But at the country's annual technology convention, locally designed tablet computers are hoping to change that image by challenging Apple's wildly popular iPad.

After decades of making PCs at a discount for more well-known foreign companies, Taiwan firms are using their manufacturing experience to design their own machines.