BUSINESS

The original documents which spawned the birth of one of the most successful companies in the world were sold through an auction for 10 times more than its estimated value.

There were many additions to the gadget world in 2011. Most of the gadgets the previous year showed that the digital industry has improved greatly from mobility and transportation to entertainment and communication.

Telstra admitted another data breach over the weekend when customers' information were again displayed online through a spreadsheet inadvertently deployed by one of the giant telco's consultants.

Australian fishermen are blaming the ongoing dredging at Queensland Harbour for the fish kills that have affected their livelihood. The dredging of 46 million tons of sediments at Gladstone Harbour is part of the $30-billion project to expand the port to accommodate more coal-seam gas export to Asia.

China's manufacturing sector posted moderate growth in December, breaching by hairline the index's point of contraction, according to new official purchasing managers' index issued by the country's National Bureau of Statistics.

Analysts and investors are divided on how the Australian stock market would fare in 2012. The division is because while dealers forecast that shares would rise 17 per cent in 2011, the year ended with the benchmark Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) 200 down 14.5 per cent at 4,140.4 at the last trading day of the year.

OZ Minerals, in a filing with the Australian Stock Exchange, estimated the value of its copper concentrate lost in the derailment of a train in the Northern Territory last week, at $7 million to $8 million.

The ongoing financial distress happening in Europe prompted business leaders on Thursday to call on the federal government to introduce more supportive measures that would safeguard the health of the Australian economy.

Bank of Melbourne has reduced fixed rates, only a week after offering to price match any other major.

Spending less is more this Christmas festive season - especially if you are a woman, or Gen Y.

Domain.com.au's recent blog entry highlighted a trend amongst an industry and governments that have run out of ideas on how to make housing more affordable.

According to a recent report from a risk adviser to Banco Santander SA (SAN) and five other lenders, Spanish banks are currently holding 30 billion Euros worth of property that they can’t sell.

How much further will the slide in Chinese house prices go? National house prices had their third monthly decline in November, a fall of 0.3%, according to the China Real Estate Index System (CREIS).

Millions of smartphones and tablet computers made their way to new owners this holiday season, with both Apple and Google getting considerable piece of the action, latest reports said.

As reports indicated that U.S.-based shoppers have splurged tens of billions in online shopping during the busiest weeks of the holiday season, Amazon reported on Thursday that its best-selling products, both the original Kindle and Kindle Fire, sold more than one million apiece.

The U.S. Army is developing a helicopter drone equipped with a 1.8 gigapixel camera that can provide high resolution ground images or video from an altitude of 20,000 feet and over an area of 65 square miles.

OZ Minerals has downplayed the dangers posed by chemicals that spilled earlier this week when one of its freight trains was derailed due to heavy flooding that had hit the Northern Territory.

Mining has been the Australian economy's backbone for some time but its benefits were essentially eclipsed by rising living costs, forcing many consumers to rationalize their spending habits.

Boeing forecasts more consolidation in the global aviation industry in the next 10 years. Boeing Chief Executive Officer Jim McNerney said that restructuring of air carrier companies would be one of the biggest challenges that airlines would face in the coming decade.

Since the 2008 global financial crisis, Australians have been saving at a record-high rate, to the detriment of the country's retail industry. For the September quarter, Aussies' ratio of net household savings to disposable income went up to 10 per cent from 9 per cent in the June quarter.

Moly Mines (ASX: MOL) is again postponing its $700-million molybdenum and copper mine projects at Spinifex Ridge in Western Australia. The company explained the move to falling prices of molybdenum, a key ingredient in the manufacture of steel, and the strong Australian currency.

2012 could be a banner year for Microsoft. The software giant is set to release the next generation Windows software, Windows 8 which is slated to run on both tablets and desktops. It's a huge gamble for Microsoft, one that could very well spell the difference between success and failure for Microsoft in this post-PC era.

Hewlett Packard finally made the leap to join the growing tablet market by releasing the HP TouchPad, but the response for this tablet was poor. Will this be the end for the HP TouchPad? If the reports true, the probable answer is a big "YES".

Qantas compensated passengers of its Perth-bound plane from Singapore of up to $400,000 each. The 144 travelers were hurt when the Airbus A4330 jet they were riding on October 2008 nosedived twice.

U.S. stocks gained in the second-to-last trading session of 2011, boosted by data that showed a modest improvement in the U.S. housing and employment sectors and a drop in borrowing costs for heavily indebted Italy.

Italy successfully sold 7 billion euros of bonds at an auction on Thursday with the yield on the benchmark 10-year bonds at 6.98pct, well off the highs of 7.56pct set a month ago. Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti was cautious: ´´Auctions held yesterday and today went rather well, this is encouraging but the financial turbulence absolutely isn´t over.´´

Google could have a potential enemy now that HP (Hewlett Packard) revealed that they are planning to pursue their WebOS project which is incidentally, also an open source project.

Seven LCD manufacturers in Asia including Sharp Corp. and Samsung Electronics Co. agreed to pay $553 million to settle anti-trust claims for illegally fixing liquid crystal display prices in televisions, notebook computers and monitors.

Microsoft Corp's Windows Phone Marketplace now has more than 50,000 apps available which makes the Windows Phone the second fastest growing app store after Apple. That is good news for Microsoft which took a year to reach 40,000 apps on Windows Phone but only 40 days to reach the 50,000 milestone. On any given standard, the fast growing app store, the good reviews for its Windows Phone; one would expect Microsoft to have a better slice of the smartphone market but it only managed to grab just...