BUSINESS

Popular blogsite, Tumblr, closed for three hours on Good Friday, March 29, due to networking problems. Tumblr reached a landmark when it reached 100 million blogs hosted and 44.6 billion posts on March 26, 2013, from only 50 million blogs hosted in April 2012.

Step aside, Samsung Galaxy S4, BlackBerry Z10 and iPhone 5S rumours. Facebook is creating noise once more, but not because of another change to its user interface but due to three surprises for the 1 billion members of the world's most popular social networking site.

Techies as well as analysts appear not too impressed with BlackBerry's quarterly report on Thursday, March 28, which disclosed the shipment of 1 million units of the BBZ10 and revenues of $94 million.

Local stocks fell back into the red today, as concerns about Cyprus once again affected global sentiment. Banks in Cyprus will re-open tonight for the first time since the controversial bank bailout was floated, with investors concerned there could be a run on bank deposits.

Less than a month, he was installed as the head of world's Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis is set to visit Brazil in July. He is also to visit his native Argentina, Chile and Uruguay in December, according to reports by the Argentinean press.

And the phablet explosion continues with Amazon likely to be the latest entrant. The online retail giant will soon release its phablet version that new reports said will begin selling by June 2013 at starting price of $US100.

Nothing yet is confirmed about the iPhone 6, not even its existence, but phone designers cannot help to express how they envision the rumoured Apple phablet, which a new render suggests looks like Sony’s Xperia Z.

Apple is reportedly using the same iPad Mini display for the 9.7-inch iPad 5 that would allow the tech giant to build a thinner and lighter regular-sized tablet computer.

Uncertainties about Europe have again reared their head, rattling European and US blue chip stocks overnight. Locally, the Australian share market fell quite hard on open but is currently down around 0.3% at lunchtime in the East.

Cash holdings of Australian investors have continued to decline, dropping to the lowest level since the inception of the bimonthly Australian Investor Sentiment Survey from the Australian Investors' Association (AIA) and FNArena in January 2011.

By Greg PeelThe Dow closed down 37 points, or 0.3%, while the S&P lost a point to 1562 and the Nasdaq rose 0.

South Korean tech giant Samsung could have more legal protection against patent infringement lawsuits in 2013 since it topped the number of mobile patents granted around the world in 2012 when over 7 million such patents were awarded.

The World Bank on Tuesday said that it was ready to support the new development bank being established by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS), in a statement just hours after the groups of emerging nations reached a deal to challenge nearly seven decades of World Bank dominance.

Ecuador could auction off more than three million hectares of Amazonian rainforest to Chinese oil companies as part of a global road-show to develop its oil industry.

The local market steadily improved throughout the session to end around its highest level of the day. The All Ordinaries Index (XAO) jumped by 0.9 per cent, which has completely made up for yesterday's tumble.

A new security feature that was earlier reported to debut with the iPhone 5S will not make it after all on the rumoured June 2013 release of the upcoming Apple smartphone, new reports said.

It appears consumers around the world have taken great notice of LG Optimus G’s high-end features and brisk sales of the flagship handset landed the South Korean firm to the number three spot in terms of global smartphone wholesale revenue.

The U.S. Patent Office granted on Tuesday to Apple a patent for a system that implements multi-touch in a mobile device even if the display is not actively displaying any images, Tech Crunch reported. At the same time it helps save battery life.

Rio Tinto (ASX: RIO), the second-largest miner in the world, is having problems over rising costs at its Oyu Tolgoi copper mine as well as a planned progressive royalty scheme being introduced.

We’ll get to see first the second generation Nexus 7 and the Motorola X-Phone, likely the bearer of Google’s Key Lime Pie, prior to the anticipated release of the Nexus 5 smartphone, a new report said.

Move over, 7-inch and 14-inch tablets. Large-screen computing devices are being introduced into the market as Dell rolled out this week its XPS 18 model which features an 18.4-inch touchscreen, while InfoTouch rolled out its 55-inch AiO desktop.

Apple’s iPad 5 and iPad Mini 2 release date is reportedly delayed due to a supplier’s component shortage. Nissha, the main supplier of thin-film touch sensors for the Apple devices, revealed that the lack of production capacity caused the release date be pushed back to Q4 of 2013.

“Blame it on the camera,” is the apparent narrative behind the funky release date for the HTC One, which new reports said will likely take place late April 2013.

Early trade on Wednesday has seen an improved tone compared to recent days. Investors have chosen to focus on the improved economic readings from the US in the last 24 hours rather than lingering European concerns. In Europe overnight there were modest gains for core markets (France, Germany, and UK etc.). Although financial stocks dragged the Spanish and Italian markets lower. In the aftermath of the Cypriot bailout, investors continue to reflect on the possibility that depositors could abandon...

U.S. carrier T-Mobile has indicated that Samsung’s Galaxy S4 will hit its distribution channels by May 1 with starting price of $US100 while in the United Kingdom the new Android handset goes on sale beginning April 26.

'Can you by legislation add one farthing to the wealth of the country?' Richard Cobden asked the House of Commons on 27 February 1846.

T-Mobile, the fourth largest cellular network in the U.S., is attempting to change the rules of the game in the telecom industry by ditching the two-year mobile phone contracts. The company introduced on Tuesday a different pricing structure in a bid to regain 500,000 postpaid customers it had lost.

Natural Death of Sundance Takeover?

BlackBerry is attempting to regain its lost crown in the smartphone market by even advertising the BB 10 in rival mobile units that operate on competing OS, particularly the iOS and Android.