BUSINESS

Speed enthusiasts would be happy to know that top chipmaker Intel just launched a new processor called Itanium 9500 series which belongs to 64-bit family. According to Intel, the new processor offers up to 2.4 times performance scaling and 33 per cent faster Input and output speed versus its previous generation.

Samsung reigned supreme in the past three quarters of 2012 as the Best-Selling SmartPhone Manufacturer. IDC said the firm sold 56.3 million smartphones compared to Apple's 26.9 million units. Latest figure from Samsung showed that the company sold over 30 million Galaxy S III smartphones in the past five months. The model is Samsung's flagship unit.

Due to projections that the country's resource boom will have a peak earlier than anticipated, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) downgraded Australia's growth forecast for the year to June 2013 to 2.75 per cent from 3.5 per cent.

Passengers of Jetstar, Virgin Australia and Tiger Airways suffered on Saturday from chaos as the check-in system in Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Sydney Airport crashed for two hours due to a computer glitch.

Introduced by Greg PeelAt the end of October uranium industry consultant TradeTech dropped its spot price indicator for U3O8 by US$5.

Activision Blizzard Inc. posted its profit for the third quarter which exceeded analysts' estimates as company saw strong sales of its "Skylanders" and "Diablo" game titles. The largest video-game maker has also raised its full-year outlook as it expects strong holiday shopping season's sales of the latest game "Call of Duty."

Shares of Asia Slump On Concerns Over US Fiscal Cliff

Why US Infrastructure Spending Won’t Help the Economy

Stocks fell this morning. Hard. Last we checked, the Dow was down by more than 300 points. Gold dipped too, shaving $20 off the previous session's $45 per ounce gain. And energy prices were down across the board, with a barrel of oil trading just a touch above $85.

The famous pizza restaurant chain, Pizza Hut, reported a website-hacking incident where customer’s names, email addresses and contact information were leaked. Despite Pizza Hut’s claims that the customer’s credit card information was not affected, the unpleasant incident should serve as a lesson for the business to keep strict protection of its personal and financial records.

The Australian sharemarket ended in the red for the second straight day this week, with the All Ordinaries Index (XAO) slipping by just 0.4 per cent or 19.7 pts to 4482.5. The value of shares traded was significantly higher than usual today. Over the past five sessions local shares eased by just 0.15 per cent, making it the third consecutive week of losses. So far this month, the XAO is down 1.3 per cent; equities have still improved by 8.89 per cent in 2012 which is 4 per cent better than Ameri...

Wal-Mart Tempts Customers with Black Friday Deals on Thanksgiving Night

Smart devices will be the norm of the future with three dominant platforms – Apple’s iOS, Google’s Android and Microsoft’s Windows – all competing to meet the mobile computing demands of general and business consumers, a new report said.

We don't know. But if it's anything like the last four it will be full of meaningless sound bites, lies, trillion dollar deficits, and probably more bank bailouts. There was something genuinely depressing about the whole US election thing.

Samsung leads the pack this time as reports emerged that rivals of the Asian tech giant have decided to counter the success of its Galaxy Note phablet, already on a second iteration that further stretched the device’s screen size, with of courses more potent specs.

Microsoft’s Surface RT has commenced hitting the road and results returned so far on numerous test drives strongly suggest that the gadget is not as confusing as thought earlier by Apple CEO Tim Cook, without of course the benefit of hand-on experience.

Did you see former Treasurer Peter Costello's article in yesterday's Age? He gets stuck into fund managers and all the other travellers on the superannuation gravy train. The 'super system' holds around $1.3 trillion in assets, so it's no surprise it's attracting plenty of hangers on.

Local stocks are trading in the red today, with most of the damage being done by Westpac (WBC and the National Australia Bank (NAB), which are trading without rights to their dividends. Overnight, US markets rose at the open then traded lower, as investors focused on the so-called "fiscal cliff" with tax increases and spending cuts to occur from the 1st January.

Effective January 2013, the Queensland State Government will implement a "left turn red" traffic system at several selected intersections on the Gold Coast in a bid to reduce and improve the state's vehicular traffic flow.

To indicate the growing use of Instagram among social networking sites, in the Tuesday election in the U.S., over 100,000 photos taken with the photo application was tagged with #iVoted and 150,000 with #election2012.

Since the launch of Apple's iPad Mini in 34 countries, combined sales of the device and the iPad fourth generation averaged 1 million units daily in the past three days.

While the role of Facebook and Twitter in helping elect and celebrate the Wednesday poll victory of U.S. President Barack Obama has once more been emphasised, the newbie social networking site Google+ appears quiet and out of the political equation.

The advantage enjoyed by online retailers based overseas over bricks and mortar stores insofar as Australian consumers are concerned may soon be removed. A plan by the federal government to collect the general sales tax (GST) for purchases abroad may just level the playing field for both kinds of retailers.

A stress test conducted by the Australia Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) showed that all major banks in the country passed it. APRA Chairman John Laker, in a Thursday speech in Brisbane, declared that another global economic meltdown would not result in significant losses for Aussie lenders.

- Macquarie visits six Chinese cities- Finds a lack of stress- Canton Trade Fair figures down- Analysts see only modest 2013 export growthBy Greg PeelThe Chinese economy appears to have stabilised from its more rapid than expected slowdown over 2012, if iron ore prices and recent PMI data are anythi...

By Greg PeelThe Dow fell 121 points, or 0.9%, while the S&P lost 1.2% to 1377 and the Nasdaq dropped 1.

The Australian sharemarket fell for the first time in five sessions, with the All Ordinaries Index (XAO) slipping by 0.7 per cent or 32 pts to 4502.2. No sectors were spared from the selling; however local shares are coming off an impressive winning streak, with equities (shares) ending in the red for just two of the past nine sessions.

Abu Dhabi's flagship carrier Etihad Airways, which own 10 per cent of Virgin Australia, has entered into a codesharing agreement with KLM Royal Dutch Airlines to offer Australians greater accessibility and flexibility as they visit and tour Europe and its scenic spots.

These days, Chinese brand Lenovo is touted as the next big thing in the personal computer business, threatening the hold to precarious lead of familiar names like Hewlett-Packard (HP), Dell and Acer.