By Andrea Shalal-Esa WASHINGTON | Wed Oct 31, 2012 6:50pm EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid hopes to reintroduce cyber security legislation opposed by business groups once lawmakers return after Tuesday's election, a Senate aide said, adding that a White House executive order might pave the way for a compromise on the b...

Wed Oct 31, 2012 9:39am EDT (Reuters) - Facebook Inc shares fell 4 percent to $21.07 in busy early trade on Wednesday morning on the company's approval to let employees sell some stock. The world's largest social network waived a provision that prevented employees from selling shares until November 14. As a result, Facebook...

SHANGHAI | Wed Oct 31, 2012 7:22am EDT SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China's ZTE Corp, the world's fourth-biggest handset maker, expects to ship around 50 million smartphones in 2013, up from 35 million units it forecast for this year, a senior company executive said on Wednesday. "We think next year will be very good (for smartphones)," He Shiyou, ZTE's executiv...

VIENNA | Wed Oct 31, 2012 4:39am EDT VIENNA (Reuters) - T-Mobile Austria could slash investment or even withdraw from the country if it is not allowed to compete with rivals that get frequencies needed for fourth-generation LTE mobile products, CEO Andreas Bierwirth told a newspaper. The Deutsche Telekom unit is Austria's second-biggest mobile provider a...

By Jeremy Wagstaff and Lee Chyen Yee NEW DELHI/HONG KONG | Wed Oct 31, 2012 4:31am EDT NEW DELHI/HONG KONG (Reuters) - Under-fire Chinese telecoms equipment vendor Huawei Technologies Co Ltd is reaching out to one of its sternest critics: a hacker who accused it of making shoddy products. John Suffolk, the company's global cybersecurity chief, to...

TOKYO | Wed Oct 31, 2012 2:50am EDT TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's Softbank said on Wednesday it plans 700 billion yen ($8.8 billion) if capital expenditure in the year to next March 31. Softbank, which announced this month it would buy a 70 percent stake in Sprint Nextel Corp, the third-largest U.S. carrier, said it plans capex of 550 billion yen ($6.9 billi...

By Gerry Shih SAN FRANCISCO | Wed Oct 31, 2012 12:53am EDT SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - As Hurricane Sandy pounded the U.S. Atlantic coast on Monday night, knocking out electricity and Internet connections, millions of residents turned to Twitter as a part-newswire, part-911 hotline that hummed through the night even as some websites failed and swat...

SAN FRANCISCO | Tue Oct 30, 2012 10:56pm EDT SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Inc's entry in the accelerating mobile tablet race squeezes about 35 percent more viewing space onto a lighter package than rival devices from Google or Amazon.com Inc, but it sports inferior resolution and a lofty price tag, two influential reviewers wrote on Tuesday. The iPad ...

Tue Oct 30, 2012 4:08pm EDT (Reuters) - Walt Disney Co said it agreed to buy film maker George Lucas's Lucasfilm Ltd for $4.05 billion. Disney will pay about half in cash and issue about 40 million shares at closing for the acquisition of the film studio known for the iconic "Star Wars" movies.(Reporting by Himank Sharma in...

By Sinead Carew NEW YORK | Tue Oct 30, 2012 3:55pm EDT NEW YORK (Reuters) - Power outages and flooding caused by Hurricane Sandy disrupted telecommunications services in Northeastern states on Tuesday, resulting in spotty coverage for cellphones, television, home telephones and Internet services. While all the region's telecom service providers w...

Tue Oct 30, 2012 3:31pm EDT (Reuters) - The exit of Apple Inc's (AAPL.O) longtime mobile software products chief may be a surprise, but a band of able executives led by Tim Cook and a bigger role for design boss Jonathan Ive meant the company was in good hands, analysts said on Tuesday. Ive, Apple's celebrated industrial design chief will now look into both hardw...

LONDON | Tue Oct 30, 2012 2:40pm EDT LONDON (Reuters) - Taiwanese computer maker Acer is putting off the launch of tablets using Microsoft's new Windows RT operating system to give itself time to see how Microsoft's own Surface tablet fares. The world's No. 4 PC vendor by shipments initially planned to roll out Windows RT tablets based on ARM chips early...

SEATTLE | Tue Oct 30, 2012 1:01pm EDT SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said on Tuesday the company has sold 4 million upgrades to Windows 8, signaling a strong start for its new operating system which launched on Friday. Ballmer, speaking at a meeting for software developers at Microsoft's headquarters near Seattle, said h...

LONDON | Tue Oct 30, 2012 12:23pm EDT LONDON (Reuters) - British chip designer ARM on Tuesday launched its first 64-bit processors to power the next generation of smartphones and tablets and offer low-energy solutions for servers. The Cambridge-based company, whose technology is in Apple's iPhone 5 and Samsung's Galaxy S3, said its latest blueprints woul...

By Tan Ee Lyn HONG KONG | Tue Oct 30, 2012 6:47am EDT HONG KONG (Reuters) - The father of a Foxconn worker left brain-damaged by a factory accident in southern China took the company to court on Tuesday, in a case that heaps more attention on the labor practices of Apple Inc's largest contract manufacturer. The case involves Zhang Tingzhen, a 26-...

By Sinead Carew NEW YORK | Tue Oct 30, 2012 3:05am EDT NEW YORK (Reuters) - Andreessen Horowitz is leading a $15.5 million round of venture funding for ItsOn Inc, a developer of software that supports more flexible mobile billing options like sponsored data services and split billing for work and personal use. ItsOn, which has had funding from Ve...

HELSINKI | Tue Oct 30, 2012 2:03am EDT HELSINKI (Reuters) - Finnish phone maker Nokia said its new Lumia smartphones, key to the company's hopes for recovery, will begin to appear in some European markets this week. Nokia late on Monday said its high-end Lumia 820 and 920 phones, which will run on Microsoft's Windows Phone 8 software, will this week reac...

By Reiji Murai TOKYO | Tue Oct 30, 2012 12:39am EDT TOKYO (Reuters) - Electronics conglomerate Panasonic Corp may curtail its expanded production of solar panels and small lithium batteries used in PCs and other devices as part of new round of restructuring, two sources at the company told Reuters. Panasonic recently built a solar panel plant in ...

By Poornima Gupta SAN FRANCISCO | Mon Oct 29, 2012 8:45pm EDT SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Inc CEO Tim Cook on Monday replaced the heads of its software and retail units in the company's biggest executive shake-up in a decade following embarrassing problems with its new mapping program and unpopular store-related decisions. Software chief Scot...

By Alistair Barr SAN FRANCISCO | Mon Oct 29, 2012 7:26pm EDT SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - PayPal is cutting about 325 jobs as part of a major reorganization by its new president, David Marcus, designed to regain an innovative edge and head off rising competition. PayPal, the online payment pioneer owned by eBay Inc, said on Monday the full-time jobs...

By Joseph Menn SAN FRANCISCO | Mon Oct 29, 2012 6:11pm EDT SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The agenda at a secretive conference on protecting critical infrastructure from computer attack was curtailed at the last minute last week, underscoring the legal challenges of sharing such information, much less getting companies to respond to it. Two talks abou...

By Noel Randewich SAN FRANCISCO | Mon Oct 29, 2012 6:08pm EDT SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Advanced Micro Devices Inc plans to use technology from Britain's ARM Holdings Plc to make energy-efficient processors for servers, a growing business that the troubled chipmaker hopes will help offset weakness in the struggling PC industry. AMD will expand it...

By Joseph Menn SAN FRANCISCO | Mon Oct 29, 2012 5:40pm EDT SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A high-profile cybersecurity company that has pledged to respond to hackers with unusual aggression has hired the former commanding officer of a top U.S. information-warfare unit to spearhead the most direct counter-attacks. CrowdStrike said the retired Air Force...

SAN FRANCISCO | Mon Oct 29, 2012 5:11pm EDT SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Baidu Inc, China's largest search engine company, posted its slowest quarterly revenue growth in more than two years, hurt by slowing sales as economic growth slows. Baidu said on Monday that revenue in the third quarter was $994.6 million, up 49.7 percent from the year-ago period.For ...

By Alexei Oreskovic SAN FRANCISCO | Mon Oct 29, 2012 3:50pm EDT SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Facebook Inc's Silicon Valley headquarters are far away from the eye of Hurricane Sandy, yet for employees of the social networking company, the storm hit home. After nearly six months of watching helplessly as the value of Facebook's stock crumbled, Faceboo...

By Malathi Nayak SAN FRANCISCO | Mon Oct 29, 2012 3:07pm EDT SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said on Monday demand for the company's new Windows 8 operating system, released to the public on Friday, was running at a higher rate than its last release, Windows 7. "We're seeing preliminary demand well above whe...

By Sarah N. Lynch WASHINGTON | Mon Oct 29, 2012 2:58pm EDT WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Securities regulators are taking a closer look at Nasdaq OMX's $62 million plan to compensate brokers who suffered losses from the exchange operator's botched handling of Facebook's initial public offering. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said it was ins...

By Alexei Oreskovic SAN FRANCISCO | Mon Oct 29, 2012 2:06pm EDT SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google Inc unveiled a larger version of its Nexus-branded tablet computer on Monday, and updated its mobile gadget and online content offerings as competition with Apple Inc, Amazon.com Inc and Microsoft Corp heats up ahead of the holiday sales season. The d...

BERLIN | Sun Oct 28, 2012 7:59am EDT BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany's SAP may be able to sustain high sales from software and related services for a "very long time," co-chief executive Bill McDermott told a German newspaper. "It's our ambition to grow with double-digit numbers for a very long time to come," Euro am Sonntag quoted McDermott as saying in an i...

By Alexei Oreskovic and Alistair Barr SAN FRANCISCO | Fri Oct 26, 2012 11:46pm EDT SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The firing of Citigroup stock analyst Mark Mahaney on Friday in the regulatory fallout from Facebook Inc's initial public offering was greeted with shock and dismay in Silicon Valley, where Mahaney was a well-known and well-liked figure. "...

By Bill Rigby SEATTLE | Fri Oct 26, 2012 7:32pm EDT SEATTLE (Reuters) - U.S. shoppers woke up with mild Surface fever on Friday, lining up in moderate numbers to buy Microsoft's groundbreaking tablet computer designed to challenge Apple's iPad. The global debut of the Windows 8 operating system was greeted with pockets of enthusiasm, but not the ...

Washington, D.C., 26 October 2012 (PAHO/WHO) – A mobile application that enables health professionals to make evidence-based decisions on students’ health, while on-the-go, was launched by the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization this week, during the Ninth Regional Congress on Health Sciences Information (CRICS9). The new eGSHS mobile application provides access to data f...

By Miyoung Kim SEOUL | Thu Oct 25, 2012 9:02pm EDT SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean technology powerhouse Samsung Electronics Co posted a fourth straight record quarterly profit - of $7.4 billion - with strong sales of its Galaxy range of phones masking sharply lower memory chip sales. The record run, though, is likely to end in December, with prof...

SEOUL | Thu Oct 25, 2012 10:49pm EDT SEOUL (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics Co Ltd will book patent-related provisions once a U.S. court makes a ruling on its over $1 billion litigation with Apple Inc, it said on Friday. "The amount of provisioning will be fixed according to U.S. court ruling, and the costs will be set aside this quarter only if there's a...

By Poornima Gupta SAN FRANCISCO | Thu Oct 25, 2012 10:08pm EDT SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Inc delivered a second straight quarter of disappointing results and iPad sales fell well short of Wall Street's targets, marring its record of consistently blowing past investors' expectations. Shares in the world's most valuable technology company bri...

By Alistair Barr SAN FRANCISCO | Thu Oct 25, 2012 9:26pm EDT SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc reported its first quarterly net loss in more than five years on Thursday as the world's largest Internet retailer spent heavily and suffered from an economic slowdown in Europe. Amazon shares slipped slightly to $220.75 in after-hours trading af...

By Poornima Gupta and Alistair Barr SAN FRANCISCO | Thu Oct 25, 2012 9:19pm EDT SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The biggest names in consumer technology, stung by a string of disappointing quarterly results this month, are suiting up for what's shaping to be the fiercest holiday battle in years. Investors and consumers have already largely written off ...

By Nicola Leske and Bill Rigby NEW YORK/SEATTLE | Thu Oct 25, 2012 8:44pm EDT NEW YORK/SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp put its Surface tablet center stage at its Windows 8 launch event, hoping the sleek new device will spark a fightback against Apple Inc and Google Inc in the exploding mobile computing market. With interest in traditional comp...

Thu Oct 25, 2012 4:42pm EDT (Reuters) - Shares of online streaming music service Pandora Media closed down 12 percent on a report that Apple Inc was in serious talks with major music labels to start an advertising-supported internet radio service by early next year. A deal could be reached by mid-November with Apple starting a service within the first three month...

By Alexei Oreskovic SAN FRANCISCO | Thu Oct 25, 2012 3:44pm EDT SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc said on Thursday it bought a small, mobile start-up company in New York, marking one of new Chief Executive Marissa Mayer's first moves to revamp the struggling Web pioneer by acquiring outside products and technology. Yahoo purchased Stamped, whic...