The bearish market that characterised 2011 for Australia's retail industry would likely be replicated for the first quarter of 2012. A survey by Dun & Bradstreet showed that 55 per cent of retailers expect continued slowdown of consumer demand.
Sony Corp. has slashed $100 from its Sony Tablet S in the U.S. but Australian buyers will have to wait awhile before the Tablet S will be discounted in Aussie retail stores.
A report commissioned by the Australian government found that foreigners are heavily investing in the country's agricultural companies such as those into sugar, grain and beef production. South Australian Senator Nick Xenophon warned of the impact of control of such foreign capital into Australia's food security.
This holiday season was one of the busiest for Apple's App Store. Millions of people activated their Android and Apple devices for Christmas, and their first stop was the App store for both systems. On Christmas Day alone, 242 million apps were downloaded according to market research firm Flurry.
News Corp chairman and chief executive Rupert Murdoch, 80, has joined the microblogging and social networking site Twitter using the verified account @rupertmurdoch.
Westpac Bank (ASX: WBC), in a filing with the Australian Stock Exchange, said that it reclassified the allocation of loan purpose between owner-occupied and investment housing to better reflect the purpose of the loan.
Murchison Metals (ASX: MMX), in a filing with the Australian Stock Exchange, said it will submit to shareholders the proposed sale of its interest in Crossland Resources and the Oakajee Port and Rail projects to Mitsubishi Development.
Australia's manufacturing sector churned a positive growth in December, according to the latest Australian Industry Group - PwC Australian Performance of Manufacturing Index (Australian PMI®).
A resident of Narrabri accused Australian mining firm Santos of causing the death of trees at the Pilliga State Forest due to the coal seam water that leaked from a dam operated by the company.
Considerable successes it reaped in the mobile phone market and the general consumer electronics industry will not stop Samsung Electronics from moving further even in the face of a financial downturn across the globe.
Sony followed the tactics employed in early 2011 by Hewlett-Packard and Research in Motion, cut the price of a slow-moving product.
The labor dispute at Qantas benefited Virgin Australia which logged a 3.5 per cent increase in domestic passenger traffic in November.
Australian chemical giant Orica (ASX: ORI) reopened on Tuesday its ammonia plant in Kooragang Island. The facility was shuttered in August after hexavalent chromium spilled on Hunter River and to more than 70 homes in Stockton.
2011 has already come to an end and recent report shows that Google’s Android emerged as the dominant OS for Smartphones in U.S. for the year 2011.
There is no doubt that tablets have played a dominant role in the market today and this is evident in the number of tablets released last 2011.
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.
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.
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.
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.
