NYT.COM
The company, Prime View International, said this summer that it would pay about $215 million to acquire E-Ink, which owns the technology for displaying text in the most popular readers, including Amazon’s Kindle and Sony’s Reader.
Prime View, often referred to as P.V.I., recently sweetened its offer and says it hopes to close the deal by the end of the year. It already manufactures e-reader display modules for the Kindle and the Reader.
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It was still dark on Thursday when Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan left his aging apartment complex to attend 6 a.m. prayers at the brick mosque near Fort Hood. Afterward, he said goodbye to his friends there and asked forgiveness from one man for any past offenses.
“I’m going traveling,” he told a fellow worshiper, giving him a hug. “I won’t be here tomorrow.”
Six hours later, Major Hasan walked into a processing center at Fort Hood where soldiers get medical attention before being sent overseas. At first, he sat quietly at an empty table, said two congressmen briefed on the investigation.
Then, witnesses say, he bowed his head for several seconds, as if praying, stood up and drew a high-powered pistol. “Allahu akbar,” he said — “God is great.” And he opened fire. Within minutes he had killed 13 people.
“I’m going traveling,” he told a fellow worshiper, giving him a hug. “I won’t be here tomorrow.”
Six hours later, Major Hasan walked into a processing center at Fort Hood where soldiers get medical attention before being sent overseas. At first, he sat quietly at an empty table, said two congressmen briefed on the investigation.
Then, witnesses say, he bowed his head for several seconds, as if praying, stood up and drew a high-powered pistol. “Allahu akbar,” he said — “God is great.” And he opened fire. Within minutes he had killed 13 people.
News Vine
AT&T Inc. is suing Verizon Wireless over its competitor's “There's a Map for That” commercials, saying in a lawsuit filed Tuesday that the ads are misleading and amount to deceptive trade practices.AT&T filed the suit in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia and is asking for a temporary restraining order and a permanent injunction to stop the ads. The company requests an immediate hearing and said AT&T has “suffered and continues to suffer irreparable harm” as a result of the commercials.
New York Times
A moderate Republican whose candidacy for an upstate New York Congressional seat had set off a storm of national conservative opposition, abruptly withdrew on Saturday, emboldening the right at a time when the Republican Party is enmeshed in a debate over how to rebuild itself.The candidate, Dede Scozzafava, said she was suspending her campaign in the face of collapsing support and evidence that she was heading for a loss in a three-way race on Tuesday involving Douglas L. Hoffman, running on the Conservative Party line, and Bill Owens, a Democrat.
Ms. Scozzafava had been under siege from conservative leaders because she supports gay rights and abortion rights and was considered too liberal on various fiscal issues.
New York Times
House Democrats on Thursday unveiled an $894 billion package to remake the health care system, and celebrated by holding an outdoor rally at the Capitol where they asserted that tens of millions of Americans would soon gain affordable insurance.The 1,990-page measure, which was months in the making, would broadly expand Medicaid, the state-federal insurance program for the poor, by offering subsidies to moderate-income Americans to buy insurance either from private carriers or a new government-run plan.
“It is with great pride and with great humility that we come before you to follow in the footsteps of those who gave our country Social Security and then Medicare — and now universal, quality, affordable health care for all Americans,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi told a crowd of several hundred people.
The 83-year-old dean of the House, Representative John D. Dingell of Michigan, stole the show with a combative speech in which he assailed insurance companies and Republicans, who have been warning that the legislation would slash Medicare.
By expanding coverage and reining in health costs, Mr. Dingell said, the bill would meet “the greatest humanitarian need this country confronts, and the greatest economic problem.”
“The only citizens who will have to worry about their participation in Medicare being cut are the insurance companies,” Mr. Dingell said.
In January 2000, in his fourth year as New York City’s Board of Education president, William C. Thompson Jr. tired of living in wartime. Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani had just claimed the scalp of another schools chancellor, and now the mayor vowed to impose his own candidate on the school system.
Under heavy international pressure, President Hamid Karzai conceded Tuesday that he fell short of a first-round victory in the nation’s disputed presidential election, and agreed to hold a runoff election with his top challenger on Nov. 7.
Flanked at a news conference in Kabul by Senator John Kerry, the head of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Kai Eide, the top United Nations official in Afghanistan, Mr. Karzai said he would accept the findings of an international audit that stripped him of nearly one-third of his votes in the first round, leaving him below the 50 percent threshold that would have allowed him to avoid a runoff and declare victory over his main rival, Abdullah Abdullah.
Flanked at a news conference in Kabul by Senator John Kerry, the head of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Kai Eide, the top United Nations official in Afghanistan, Mr. Karzai said he would accept the findings of an international audit that stripped him of nearly one-third of his votes in the first round, leaving him below the 50 percent threshold that would have allowed him to avoid a runoff and declare victory over his main rival, Abdullah Abdullah.
NEW YORK TIMES
Nokia, the Finnish company that is the world’s biggest maker of mobile phones, is an undisputed powerhouse in Europe, Asia and Latin America, with market shares regularly topping 30 percent.But in the United States, Nokia’s signal has faded. As recently as March 2002, it led the American market with a 35 percent share. By last year, though, it slipped to 10 percent and by June of this year — the most recent figure available — Nokia’s share was only 7 percent.
Now the company is struggling to make amends in America, and its comeback effort has started to make some headway. And yet, going into the crucial Christmas shopping season in the United States, Nokia does not have a strong offering for the American smartphone market, the only part of the mobile industry that is growing. Three years after Apple introduced the iPhone, Nokia still has no alternative.
NEW YORK TIMES
As the Senate prepares to tackle global warming, the nation’s energy producers, once united, are battling one another over policy decisions worth hundreds of billions of dollars in coming decades.Producers of natural gas are battling their erstwhile allies, the oil companies. Electrical utilities are fighting among themselves over the use of coal versus wind power or other renewable energy. Coal companies are battling natural gas firms over which should be used to produce electricity. And the renewable power industry is elbowing for advantage against all of them.
Ecommerce is all about putting your products before as many potential customers as possible. Traditionally, that's done by attracting shoppers to whatever sales venue you have, whether that's a website or eBay Store. But as many entrepreneurs are finding, a more effective approach is to go where your customers hang out online, and connect with them there.
When it comes to websites, you can't get much more popular than Facebook. According to its current statistics, this site attracts a set of consumers any businessperson would die for: 300 million registered users, more than 50 percent of whom log in every day; users in 70 countries; the fastest growing user group is over age 35; and on and on.
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When it comes to websites, you can't get much more popular than Facebook. According to its current statistics, this site attracts a set of consumers any businessperson would die for: 300 million registered users, more than 50 percent of whom log in every day; users in 70 countries; the fastest growing user group is over age 35; and on and on.
Click To Continue
While TD Bank works to resolve a computer problem that has left customer accounts out of date, local competitors say they have benefited from frustrated people willing to switch banks.
Citizens Bank said that “thousands” of people had taken them up on a promotion last Friday aimed at luring new customers. Under the offer, which started Saturday, customers who open a new checking account with Citizens get $100 automatically deposited into their new account.
The bank said that the number of new accounts was seven times normal volume but would be no more specific than that.
Citizens Bank said that “thousands” of people had taken them up on a promotion last Friday aimed at luring new customers. Under the offer, which started Saturday, customers who open a new checking account with Citizens get $100 automatically deposited into their new account.
The bank said that the number of new accounts was seven times normal volume but would be no more specific than that.
Sears is following in the footsteps of Wal-Mart Stores with the launch of a third-party marketplace.
The department store confirmed that the new service has been integrated with Sears.com to allow merchants to list their products on the site.
“The Sears' Marketplace platform provides new opportunities for us to deliver more shopping choices to our customers as well as open up new lines of communication with our business partners,” the company said. “This current platform expansion is an evolution of a process we established with Internet partners last November 2008.”
Walmart.com launch today Walmart Marketplace, which enables a “select group of retailers” to offer additional products at Walmart.com. The new program has added nearly one million new items to the ecommerce site in categories such as Home, Baby, Apparel, Toys and Sporting Goods / Sports Memorabilia.
Current Walmart Marketplace retailers include CSN Stores (www.csnstores.com), eBags (www.ebags.com) and Pro Team, a subsidiary of Dreams, Inc. According to a press release, the company will continue to grow the Walmart Marketplace program with additional retailers over the next year:
Some of the world's most prominent technology companies are offering suggestions to publishers on how they can charge readers for news online.
IBM Corp., Microsoft Corp., Oracle Corp. and Google Inc. — a company some newspapers blame for helping dig their financial hole — responded to a request by the Newspaper Association of America for proposals on ways to easily charge for news on the Web.
But building the infrastructure for charging readers is one part of the equation. The other part looks more challenging: getting publishers to make the leap and stop giving news out for free on the Web.
IBM Corp., Microsoft Corp., Oracle Corp. and Google Inc. — a company some newspapers blame for helping dig their financial hole — responded to a request by the Newspaper Association of America for proposals on ways to easily charge for news on the Web.
But building the infrastructure for charging readers is one part of the equation. The other part looks more challenging: getting publishers to make the leap and stop giving news out for free on the Web.
On a rainy, wind-whipped morning that bore little resemblance to the crisp and glass-clear dawn of Sept. 11, 2001, politicians and survivors of that day’s attack gathered early on Friday to observe the eighth anniversary of the destruction of the World Trade Center.
They gathered near the pit where the twin towers once stood. Politicians spoke, a choir of students sang, and the name of each victim was read aloud, one at a time, 2,752 in total, one more than last year. At the end, taps was played, and the relatively small group that lasted for the entire three-and-a-half-hour ceremony — much of if buffeted by fierce winds and lashing rain — dispersed, some into Lower Manhattan, some to a reflecting pool where flowers were tossed to remember those who died.
They gathered near the pit where the twin towers once stood. Politicians spoke, a choir of students sang, and the name of each victim was read aloud, one at a time, 2,752 in total, one more than last year. At the end, taps was played, and the relatively small group that lasted for the entire three-and-a-half-hour ceremony — much of if buffeted by fierce winds and lashing rain — dispersed, some into Lower Manhattan, some to a reflecting pool where flowers were tossed to remember those who died.
A Coast Guard training exercise in the Potomac River near the Pentagon sparked confusion amid Friday's commemorations of the Sept. 11 anniversary. Media reports that shots were being fired in the river sent FBI agents scrambling to the scene and led the nearest airport to briefly ground flights.
No shots were fired as part of the exercise, Coast Guard Chief Keith Moore said later Friday.
No shots were fired as part of the exercise, Coast Guard Chief Keith Moore said later Friday.
After the mortgage business imploded last year, Wall Street investment banks began searching for another big idea to make money. They think they may have found one.
The bankers plan to buy “life settlements,” life insurance policies that ill and elderly people sell for cash — $400,000 for a $1 million policy, say, depending on the life expectancy of the insured person. Then they plan to “securitize” these policies, in Wall Street jargon, by packaging hundreds or thousands together into bonds. They will then resell those bonds to investors, like big pension funds, who will receive the payouts when people with the insurance die.
The bankers plan to buy “life settlements,” life insurance policies that ill and elderly people sell for cash — $400,000 for a $1 million policy, say, depending on the life expectancy of the insured person. Then they plan to “securitize” these policies, in Wall Street jargon, by packaging hundreds or thousands together into bonds. They will then resell those bonds to investors, like big pension funds, who will receive the payouts when people with the insurance die.
Shares of LTX Credence Corp. climbed Friday after a Needham Co. analyst upgraded the chip testing equipment maker to “strong buy,” saying its fiscal fourth-quarter results were strong and it is poised to see revenue growth going into 2010.
Google Base is retiring the accounts of individual sellers who list on marketplaces in order to eliminate duplicate feeds. Instead, it has introduced multi-client accounts for aggregators and marketplaces to manage feeds for multiple sellers under a single account.
Marketplaces like eBay already send product feeds to Google Base on behalf of their merchants, but Google said the multi-client accounts would allow aggregators and marketplaces to consolidate and manage data feeds and reporting for sub-accounts. Google will require marketplaces and aggregators to use multi-client accounts to submit and manage their sellers' feeds beginning December 1, 2009. Google said it would notify individual sellers and retire their accounts.
Marketplaces like eBay already send product feeds to Google Base on behalf of their merchants, but Google said the multi-client accounts would allow aggregators and marketplaces to consolidate and manage data feeds and reporting for sub-accounts. Google will require marketplaces and aggregators to use multi-client accounts to submit and manage their sellers' feeds beginning December 1, 2009. Google said it would notify individual sellers and retire their accounts.
It’s no secret that even with their recently-announced alliance, Yahoo and Microsoft will lag well behind Google in the hugely profitable search and search advertising business. How far behind? With a combined 28 percent of the American search market, Yahoo and Microsoft could double their usageand still trail Google, which accounts for 65 percent of the market.
But by another important measure, the two sides are much closer. ComScore found that for the combined Yahoo-Microsoft, “searcher penetration,” or the percentage of the online population in the United States that uses one of those search engines, is 73 percent. Google’s searcher penetration is higher, but not by that much: at 84 percent.
But by another important measure, the two sides are much closer. ComScore found that for the combined Yahoo-Microsoft, “searcher penetration,” or the percentage of the online population in the United States that uses one of those search engines, is 73 percent. Google’s searcher penetration is higher, but not by that much: at 84 percent.
auctionbytes
Donahoe gave an inkling to Wall Street analysts about two of the upcoming changes during Wednesday's conference call on second-quarter earnings, and the Wall Street Journal published an article on Saturday outlining a number of changes its sources say are on the way.
Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh posted a letter on the company blog with a message for Zappos employees informing them of the deal and embedding a video of Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos. In his message to Zappos employees, Bezos said he was super-excited about the deal and valued the Zappos culture and brand very much.
