iPhone demand said to be ‘robust,’ recent cuts don’t reflect weak demand

Following recent reports from Nikkei and The Wall Street Journal that suggested Apple (AAPL) slashed iPhone 5 component orders in half due to weak demand,  the company’s stock fell significantly and opened below $500 for the first time in nearly a year. The reports have been called into question, however, with many believing they do not represent true consumer interest. Shaw Wu of Sterne Agee...

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Facebook unveils social search feature

MENLO PARK, Calif. (AP) — Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled a new search feature that's designed to entice people to spend more time on his company's website and will put the world's largest online social network more squarely in competition with Google and other rivals such as Yelp and LinkedIn.Called "graph search," the new service unveiled Tuesday lets users quickly sift through their social...

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Toys and video games hook up on new Disney game platform

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Children will be able to move plastic toys that look like pirate Captain Jack Sparrow and other movie characters into a virtual world on a computer or TV screen in a game platform Walt Disney Co unveiled on Tuesday in hopes of boosting revenue at a loss-making division.Disney's new "Infinity" concept, to be released in June, comes with games inspired by "Monsters University,"...

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Analysis: In battle for the car, Sirius faces fight from Pandora

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Sirius XM Radio Inc's grip on drivers is under an increasing threat as the availability of Internet connections in more cars is helping Pandora Media Inc counter some of its rival's big selling points.In a sign of how important drivers are to the two companies, each of their top executives made the trek to Las Vegas this week to court automakers at the annual Consumer Electronics...

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CES 2013: Shhh, don’t tell, but Las Vegas likes secrets, even at a trade show

LAS VEGAS—In a leather banquette in a sparkling Las Vegas club, a knockout blonde discreetly kicked the Louis Vuitton bag at her feet.“It’s in there,” she whispered to me, conspiratorially. I followed this dame’s fishnet-clad legs down to her shoe’s pointed toe. Beautiful bag. “I call it the football,” she said. “I’m not going to bring it out yet.”Leslie Bradshaw’s honey-colored Cali perfection brings...

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Whitman says it will take five years to turn HP around

Whitman says it will take five years to turn HP aroundTo understand what an unholy mess HP (HPQ) is in right now, consider that CEO Meg Whitman says she needs more time to fix the company than she would have had to fix the entire California economy if she’d been elected governor. In a long Businessweek article about HP’s current turmoil, Whitman says that it will take her five years to execute her...

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Selling flak jackets in the cyberwars

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - When the Israeli army and Hamas trade virtual blows in cyberspace, or when hacker groups like Anonymous rise from the digital ether, or when WikiLeaks dumps a trove of classified documents, some see a lawless Internet.But Matthew Prince, chief executive at CloudFlare, a little-known Internet start-up that serves some of the Web's most controversial characters, sees a business...

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U.S. drops China's Taobao website from "notorious" list

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Thursday dropped a website owned by China's largest e-commerce company, Alibaba Group, from its annual list of the world's most "notorious markets" for sales of pirated and counterfeit goods.Taobao Marketplace, an online shopping site similar to eBay and Amazon that brings together buyers and sellers, "has been removed from the 2012 List because it has undertaken...

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Online gambling companies struggle to clear EU hurdles

LONDON (Reuters) - A partnership stuck on Friday between bwin.party Digital Entertainment and a Belgian casino group has defused one of many disputes pitting online gambling companies against governments across Europe.The agreement came a month after bwin.party's co-CEO was questioned by Belgian authorities in an escalating license dispute the company said was costing it 700,000 euros ($916,000) in...

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Internet regulation seen at national level as treaty talks fail

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The world's major Internet companies, backed by U.S. policymakers, got much of what they wanted last week when many nations refused to sign a global telecommunications treaty that opponents feared could lead to greater government control over online content and communications.In rejecting even mild Internet language in the updated International Telecommunications Union treaty...

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Pope needs help sending out blessing in first tweet

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - After weeks of anticipation bordering on media frenzy, Pope Benedict solemnly put his finger to a computer tablet device on Wednesday and tried to send his first tweet - but something went wrong.Images on Vatican television appeared to show the first try didn't work. The pope, who still writes his speeches by hand, seems to have pressed too hard and the tweet was not sent...

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Second verse, same as the first: Why Obama’s second term isn’t cursed

Poor Barack Obama. After fighting and spending his way to a close but clear re-election, he’s doomed to four years of agony thanks to that “second-term” curse, which afflicts just about every president who has had the misfortune to win another four years.The litany appears compelling: the martyred Lincoln; Grant mired in scandal; FDR suffering big political setbacks; Nixon’s disgrace; Reagan’s Iran-Contra...

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Delta buys 49 percent stake in Virgin Atlantic

Delta Air Lines said it will buy almost half of Virgin Atlantic for $360 million as it seeks a bigger share of the lucrative New York-to-London travel market.Delta plans to form a joint venture with Virgin Atlantic, where the two airlines would share money from the flights operated under the partnership. In order to coordinate the schedules of the two airlines, they'll need antitrust approval from...

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Cory Booker’s week on food stamps: political ambition amid the burned sweet potatoes

Cory Booker has been known to run into burning buildings to save his constituents. But last Thursday, the Newark, N.J., mayor's biggest challenge was whether or not he could get through a single meeting without taking a nibble of one Christmas cookie.Booker, 43, and a rising star Democrat, has been living on just $33 of food over the last week as part of an effort to understand the plight of Americans...

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Hawaii Sen. Daniel Inouye hospitalized

Hawaii Democratic Sen. Daniel Inouye, 88, was hospitalized late last week and transferred to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Monday, his office announced late Monday."For the most part, I am OK," Inouye said in a widely circulated statement. "However, I am currently working with my doctors to regulate my oxygen intake. Much to my frustration, while undergoing this process, I have...

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Michigan expected to pass right-to-work legislation

Michigan is bracing Tuesday for union blowback over the expected passage of new right-to-work legislation.Demonstrators are preparing to descend on the state Capitol to protest the state legislature's likely passage of the bill, which would forbid requiring employees who benefit from a labor contract to pay union dues. The state Capitol was on lockdown last week over the issue.President Barack Obama...

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