BERLIN | Tue Nov 27, 2012 8:22am EST BERLIN (Reuters) - A top Federal Reserve official warned on Tuesday of potential risks to financial stability from cyberattacks on the U.S. payments system and from a looming funding gap in public pensions. In a speech to a conference in the German capital, the president of the Atlanta Federal Reserve, Dennis Lockhart...

HELSINKI | Tue Nov 27, 2012 7:58am EST HELSINKI (Reuters) - Early success for the iPhone 5 smartphone has helped Apple to overtake Google's Android software in the United States, research firm Kantar WorldPanel said on Tuesday. Apple's U.S. market share in the 12 weeks to October 31 more than doubled from a year ago to 48.1 percent, putting it within rea...

By Anna Ringstrom STOCKHOLM | Tue Nov 27, 2012 7:00am EST STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Ericsson, the world's biggest telecom network equipment maker, said it was suing Samsung Electronics Co for patent infringement after two years of talks failed to yield a license agreement. Sweden's Ericsson, which reckons more than 40 percent of the world's mobile tr...

SAN FRANCISCO | Mon Nov 26, 2012 4:06pm EST SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Hewlett-Packard Co was sued on Monday by an investor who claimed the company knew statements about its Autonomy acquisition were misleading and led the stock to fall, according to lawyers representing the plaintiff. The proposed class action lawsuit was filed in a San Francisco federal...

LONDON | Mon Nov 26, 2012 9:25am EST LONDON (Reuters) - Posting pictures of yourself plastered at a party and talking trash online with your Facebook friends may be more stress than it's worth now that your boss and mom want to see it all. A survey from Edinburgh Business School released on Monday showed Facebook users are anxious that all those self-pub...

By Matthew Goldstein and Jennifer Ablan Mon Nov 26, 2012 7:07am EST (Reuters) - The FBI sees social media as a potential breeding ground for securities fraud, and has agents scouring Twitter and Facebook for tips, according to two top agents overseeing a long-running investigation into insider trading in the $2 trillion hedge fund industry. April Brooks, ...

HELSINKI | Mon Nov 26, 2012 5:19am EST HELSINKI (Reuters) - Struggling Finnish cellphone maker Nokia unveiled on Monday two new cellphone models, the Asha 205 and the Asha 206, pricing both models at around $62, excluding subsidies and taxes. Both models will go on sale this quarter.Nokia unveiled a new Slam feature which allows consumers to share multim...

By Maki Shiraki and Mari Saito TOKYO | Mon Nov 26, 2012 1:58am EST TOKYO (Reuters) - Shareholders of Japan's embattled Renesas Electronics Corp are close to approving a government-led bailout, sources familiar with the talks said, sending the firm's shares 17 percent higher on relief that the $2.4 billion rescue was being finalized. The deal is s...

Sun Nov 25, 2012 6:45pm EST (Reuters) - Apple Inc has asked a federal court to add six more products to its patent infringement lawsuit against Samsung Electronics Co, including the Samsung Galaxy Note II, in the latest in move in an ongoing legal war between the two companies. The case is one of two patent infringement lawsuits pending in the U.S. District Court...

By Matt Smith Sun Nov 25, 2012 7:29am EST (Reuters) - Etihad Etisalat Co (Mobily), Saudi Arabia's second-biggest telecoms operator, has asked to meet the industry regulator after it was suspended from selling pre-paid SIM cards, a company spokesman said, describing the ban as "astonishing". Mobily's sales of pre-paid, or pay-as-you-go SIM cards will remai...

Costa Rican authorities inaugurated the country’s first large-scale solar energy plant, built with a $10 million Japanese donation. President Laura Chinchilla and the head of the Costa Rican Institute of Electricity, or ICE, Teofilo de la Torre, inaugurated the Miravalles solar park in Bagaces, a small town in the northwestern province of Guanacaste. “Today we not only took another step in t...

HELSINKI | Sat Nov 24, 2012 5:04am EST HELSINKI (Reuters) - Nokia's long-time imaging chief Damian Dinning has decided to leave the loss-making cellphone maker at the end of this month, the company said in a statement. The strong imaging capabilities of the new Lumia smartphone models are a key sales argument for the former market leader, which has been ...

By Chris Francescani NEW YORK | Fri Nov 23, 2012 7:01am EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - A devastating storm like Sandy can bring out the crooks - and not just opportunistic looters and burglars. Officials dealing with the destruction in the U.S. Northeast say one of their biggest headaches is debris-removal fraud committed by greedy contractors who infl...

TOKYO | Fri Nov 23, 2012 4:46am EST TOKYO (Reuters) - Panasonic Corp has a better chance than rival Sony Corp of surviving Japan's consumer electronics slump because of its unglamorous but stable appliance business of washing machines and fridges, credit rating agency Fitch said Friday. Fitch cut Panasonic's rating by two notches to BB and Sony three not...

By Euan Rocha TORONTO | Thu Nov 22, 2012 1:29pm EST TORONTO (Reuters) - Shares of Research In Motion Ltd surged more than 15 percent in Toronto on Thursday on rising optimism about its soon-to-be-launched BlackBerry 10 devices, the company's response to Apple's iPhone and to Android-based smartphones. National Bank Financial analyst Kris Thompson...

HELSINKI | Thu Nov 22, 2012 6:02am EST HELSINKI (Reuters) - Orange, the mobile brand of France Telecom, launched a global free calling and texting application on Thursday, in direct competition with services such as Skype, WhatsApp and Viber. Telecom operators around the globe have suffered as free calling and texting services have proliferated over the ...

By James Topham TOKYO | Thu Nov 22, 2012 5:22am EST TOKYO (Reuters) - Ratings agency Fitch downgraded the debt ratings of Japan's Sony Corp and Panasonic Corp to "junk" status citing weakness in their consumer electronics and TV operations, further diminishing the luster of the once-great Japanese brands. The cut to below investment grade, the fi...

CANBERRA | Thu Nov 22, 2012 3:13am EST CANBERRA (Reuters) - Australia released draft revisions to tax laws on Thursday, which it said were designed to stop big firms, including the local arm of Google, from shifting their income to countries such as Holland or Ireland where the tax rates are lower. The move is in line with a push by Britain and Germany w...

SAN FRANCISCO | Thu Nov 22, 2012 1:47am EST SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A U.S. judge has ordered Apple Inc to disclose to rival Samsung Electronics details of a legal settlement the iPhone maker reached with Taiwan's HTC Corp, including terms of a 10-year patents licensing agreement. The Korean electronics giant had earlier filed a motion to compel its U.S...

By Noel Randewich SAN FRANCISCO | Wed Nov 21, 2012 8:30pm EST SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Wanted: Visionary CEO to help world-class chipmaker expand beyond struggling personal computer market into tablets and smartphones. Experience with cutting-edge manufacturing plants and $10 billion annual capital expenditures a plus. Intel Corp raised eyebrows...

By Nadia Damouni and Nicola Leske Wed Nov 21, 2012 7:19am EST (Reuters) - When Hewlett Packard acquired Autonomy last year for $11.1 billion, some 15 different financial, legal and accounting firms were involved in the transaction -- and none raised a flag about what HP said Tuesday was a major accounting fraud. HP stunned Wall Street with the allegations...

LONDON | Wed Nov 21, 2012 3:37am EST LONDON (Reuters) - British microprocessing firm Imagination Technologies' $60 million pursuit of the operating business of MIPS Technologies faces competition after the U.S. company received a higher bid from a rival firm. Imagination, which is looking to buy the MIPS business to gain patents and step up its challenge...

By Jonathan Stempel Tue Nov 20, 2012 10:35pm EST (Reuters) - A federal jury convicted a New York man on Tuesday of hacking into AT&T Inc servers and stealing the email addresses and other personal data of about 120,000 Apple Inc iPad users, a U.S. attorney in New Jersey said. Andrew Auernheimer, 27, was convicted by a Newark, New Jersey, jury of one c...

By Lisa Dembiczak SEATTLE | Tue Nov 20, 2012 8:57pm EST SEATTLE (Reuters) - A Google expert witness testified on Tuesday that Microsoft will make roughly $94 billion in revenue through 2017 from its Xbox game console and Surface tablet that use Google's patented wireless technology. Michael Dansky, an expert for Google's Motorola Mobility unit, t...

By Jessica Wohl Tue Nov 20, 2012 3:44pm EST (Reuters) - Move over computers, your sleek siblings are the prized gift of the holidays. One-third of U.S. consumers are thinking about buying an electronic tablet this holiday season, according to a new Ipsos poll conducted for Thomson Reuters. And 22 percent of those who want one of the hot devices said they ...

Tue Nov 20, 2012 11:22am EST Nov 20 - France is in talks with Google over an ongoing tax audit and payment of back taxes, the country's budget minister said on Tuesday, adding the administration had "convincing" proof to back up its claims. Tax authorities are examining whether Google's practice of charging French advertisers via its European headquarters in Ire...

By Euan Rocha TORONTO | Tue Nov 20, 2012 10:49am EST TORONTO (Reuters) - Research In Motion Ltd, for months enveloped by a wave of negative sentiment, got a boost on Tuesday when one of its most influential critics raised his rating on the stock ahead of the launch of RIM's make-or-break new line of BlackBerry 10 devices. The upgrade by Jefferies...

Tue Nov 20, 2012 7:41am EST (Reuters) - Hewlett-Packard Co's quarterly revenue fell short of Wall Street expectations as the company's share of the personal computer market shrank and sales of its printers declined. The Silicon Valley technology company, which is in the midst of a multi-year turnaround plan, said net revenue fell 6.7 percent to $29.96 billion for...

By Tarmo Virki Tue Nov 20, 2012 7:41am EST (Reuters) - Silicon Valley remains the world's most attractive spot for technology start-ups with other locations around the world catching up, according to a report published on Tuesday. Silicon Valley-based start-ups raise, on average, a third more capital than those in other areas, the report, conducted by res...

TOKYO | Tue Nov 20, 2012 4:08am EST TOKYO (Reuters) - Taiwan's HTC Corp is happy with its patent settlement with Apple Inc, but regards media reports on details of the licensing agreement as "outrageous", chief executive Peter Chou told reporters on Tuesday. HTC and Apple announced a global patent settlement and a 10-year licensing agreement this month a...

By Chris Wickham LONDON | Mon Nov 19, 2012 7:04pm EST LONDON (Reuters) - Researchers have come up with a way of protecting telecoms networks using quantum cryptography without the need for expensive dedicated optical fiber links. The technique, developed by Toshiba's European research laboratory in Britain and Cambridge University engineers, is a...

By Diane Bartz WASHINGTON | Mon Nov 19, 2012 6:13pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. International Trade Commission will review a judge's decision which found that Apple did not violate patents owned by Samsung Electronics in making the iPod touch, iPhone and iPad. An administrative law judge at the ITC had said in a preliminary ruling in Sept...

By Alexei Oreskovic SAN FRANCISCO | Mon Nov 19, 2012 5:19pm EST SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc shares reached their highest level in a year and a half, as investor confidence grows that new Chief Executive Marissa Mayer can pull off a comeback that eluded three of her predecessors. The Internet pioneer has yet to actually provide Wall Street...

By Nicola Leske Mon Nov 19, 2012 5:17pm EST (Reuters) - What do a former U.S. Army special operations officer, a computer scientist and an experimental psychologist have in common? Data. James Reese first came across data analytics company Saffron Technology when he was an officer with the U.S. army's Delta Force."I was first turned on to Saffron Technolo...

WASHINGTON | Mon Nov 19, 2012 4:40pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two lawmakers urged the Federal Trade Commission on Monday to steer clear of expanding its authority as it investigates allegations search engine company Google violated antitrust law. The two California Democrats in the House of Representatives, who count Google as a major campaign contribu...

By Natasha Baker TORONTO | Mon Nov 19, 2012 5:01am EST TORONTO (Reuters) - Customers who are annoyed by automated voice prompts and music when they contact a company for information about a bill, price, product or service can send a text instead. A new app, TalkTo, lets users interact with any business in the United States via text messages sent ...

By Nicola Leske Sun Nov 18, 2012 8:05pm EST (Reuters) - Networking equipment company Cisco Systems Inc said it will buy privately held cloud networking company Meraki for $1.2 billion in cash as part of its cloud and networking strategy. Cisco said the acquisition of Meraki, which was founded in 2006 by members of MIT's Laboratory for Computer Science, is...

Costa Rica will launch an initiative to replace older, inefficient refrigerators that emit ozone-depleting HFCs, with newer and cleaner models. The program, which will start next year, is led by the Ministry of Environment and Energy in collaboration with the Costa Rican Electricity Institute. The goal is to replace 300,000 refrigerators per year for a total of 2.7 million. Initially the progr...

In the past The Costa Rica Star had the privilege of interviewing Dr. Franklin Chang. You don't have to be a professional investor like Warren Buffet or a rocket scientist to regard the news with excitement: a European firm has announced its intention to buy stock in Ad Astra Rocket. Ad Astra is the company of Costa Rican physicist and former astronaut Dr. Franklin Chang working on the plasm...

By Leah Schnurr and Chuck Mikolajczak NEW YORK | Fri Nov 16, 2012 1:41pm EST NEW YORK (Reuters) - Gravity has taken hold of Apple, and a lot of investors have been smacked on the head. Apple Inc, the largest U.S. stock by market value, was headed toward its eighth straight week of declines on Frid...