BUSINESS

Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen announced Tuesday that he and aerospace engineer Burt Rutan are building the largest aircraft that can launch a satellite or spacecraft into orbit.

As Facebook gets ready for a much-awaited public offering, the company is eager to flaunt its force by building on its enormous membership: an upwards of 800 million active users around the world, and more or less 200 million in the United States, or two-thirds of the population.

The Queensland government awarded on Wednesday to Adani Mining and Dudgeon Point Project Management (DPPM) land for a new coal port south of MacKay. The planned port would have an export capacity of 180 million tonnes.

More trips would link Singapore to Australian cities. SilkAir will offer direct trips from Darwin to Singapore four days weekly beginning March 26.

Bell FX Currency Outlook: The Australian Dollar is hovering around Parity following a night of slightly disappointing US Data and the FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) rates decision this morning.

The deal between Mozilla Firefox and Google has been a lucrative one but this deal has already expired last month. Through this deal coming to an end, many people are asking if this would really be the end of this business partnership.

Sony has set its sights on being the next big name in smartphones and the first step towards that goal is dropping the "Ericsson" in their brand name.

Strikes hit again the ports of Western Australia (WA) and New South Wales (NSW) which has crippled wharf activities in NSW. In WA, the striking workers have been locked out indefinitely by management.

By David Rodriguez, Quantitative Strategist and Timothy SheaSummary: For most forex traders, the best time of day to trade is Asian hours.

Just when you thought Hewlett Packard's webOS was done for, the little operating system lives to fight another day. HP has promised to make more tablets with the webOS system with the software actually going the open source route like Google's Android.

US advance retail sales rose by a less than expected 0.2pct in November, after an upwardly revised 0.6pct gain in October. In the 12 months to November sales were up a healthy 6.7pct.

U.S. stocks erased earlier gains Tuesday after Federal Reserve officials took no immediate actions to bolster the economy but left their policy options open for 2012.

FNArena has added another video to its Investors Education section on the website. In this latest video, ATW's Jerry Simmons zooms in on the potential for Break-Outs in what he suggests could turn out a big week, though the FOMC meeting is unlikely to change the course of history.

Microsoft will release its next generation Windows 8 operating system next year in hopes of offering an OS that could cater to both tablets and desktops devices. But could Windows 8 really be a formidable rival to Google's Android and Apple's iOS in the mobile arena while still keeping Microsoft's lead in the desktop computing market?

Home loan delinquencies have strongly fell for the second consecutive quarter with new jobs boosting residents' ability to re-pay their home mortgages, Fitch Ratings said.

Tablet computers are among the bestsellers in tech stores worldwide. The most known models of these devices come from Apple, Samsung, Motorola, Asus, and LG. However, all are expensive, with prices ranging from $300 - $600 depending on their size and technical features.

Imports of gold from Hong Kong by the world's second-largest economy reached an all-time high of 85.7 tonnes in October, a 50 per cent hike from a month ago and up by more than 40 times from a year ago, data from the Hong Kong government showed.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 is definitely on its way to Australian tech stores following the decision by the High Court of Australia to lift the ban on the device's sale just in time for Christmas shopping.

India has announced on Monday the shutting down of a server identified by computer security experts as one of the portals being used by computers that have been tagged as Duqu infected.

Rare earths metal (REM) miner Matamec Explorations of Canada and Toyota Tsusho Corp., Toyota Motor's trading company, have entered into a non-binding arrangement to form a possible joint venture that will develop the Canadian company's Kipawa heavy REM deposit in southwest Quebec.

Australian miner Minerals and Metal Group (MMG) has invested $157 million at the Dugald River zinc project, one of the largest zinc deposits in the world. The venture is located 85 kilometres north east of Mount Isa.

Despite announcement by Qantas Chief Executive Alan Joyce that its domestic operations is back to pre-strike level, the air carrier would have to wait for at least six more months before its industrial row with unions would be solved.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard appointed Greg Combet on Tuesday to oversee the new steel industry rescue package. His appointment is part of the cabinet reshuffle initiated by Ms Gillard.

The latest scandal that had hit Queensland's multimillion dollar health department served as the last straw for Premier Anna Bligh as she announced late Monday the definite abolition of the problem-prone state service.

By Rudi Filapek-VandyckNational Australia Bank reports its monthly survey has revealed that overall conditions for businesses throughout Australia have improved slightly in November.

By Rudi Filapek-VandyckBuyers found themselves chasing higher prices in the spot uranium (U3O8) market last week, with industry consultant TradeTech pointing in the direction of one non-US utility selecting a provider for 275,000 pounds of yellow cake.

A draft white paper released by Energy Minister Martin Ferguson on Tuesday estimated that Australia would need $240 billion investment for its gas and electricity industries over the next 20 years to ensure the country has reliable power supply.

Ratings agency Moody’s warned investors that it would review ratings for European sovereigns given the absence of any “decisive policy measures” at last week’s Brussels summit.

A negative reaction to last week's European sovereign-debt summit by credit-ratings firms sent U.S. stocks sharply lower Monday, erasing all of the stock-market gains that followed the summit Friday.