COMPANIES

Tiger Airways Australia is eyeing Avalon Airport as its second hub because of the strong performance of the budget air carrier in 2011. In the seven-month period March 27 through Oct 31, Tiger added 380,000 seats to its four current routes.

While gold's glitter partly dimmed toward the last few months of 2011, a study released Wednesday predicted that diamond and gemstone mining will be strong industries in Australia in 2012.

ETrade, ANZ Bank's online broking business, shuttered its Web site over the holidays because of an offshore cyber attack.

Qantas Airways has revealed plans of loaning significant numbers of its pilots to other international airlines, claiming that they agreed to go on unpaid leave as the national carrier implements measures to reduce its costs.

It was still a banner year for the mining sector of Australia in 2011 despite claims by some groups that the boom has waned. Proof of the strength of the mining sector is that while the previous year was marked by economic contraction in many countries, construction work on new resources projects in Australia went up 31 per cent for the year.

Growth of Australia's services sector has remained subdued in December with business services posting headwinds ahead of the consumer-related services offered by local firms in December, according to the latest survery conducted by the country's Australian Industry Group and the Commonwealth Bank.

Microsoft recently launched a tech support website that users could use when encountering technical problems.

Nintendo new console Wii U will reportedly have its own app store and will also double as an e-reader. The company is talking with publishers and developers to produce content for this unnamed app store.

The year 2012 will certainly bring new technologies, new gadgets and new developments in the world of information technology. In the area of computers, users could be divided into the three main types - desktop, notebook and tablet. People who are contemplating on moving from being a desktop user to being a tablet carrier would benefit from a differentiation of the three types of PCs as the technology world continues to change and evolve.

Acer founder Stan Shih has denied rumors that the company will no longer be producing tablets. Shih stepped forward to confirm that Acer is not planning on giving up on the tablet market despite low sales.

Research in Motion hopes that Rovio's Angry Birds game is enough to attract consumers to buy its PlayBook tablet but if the popular game isn't enough then RIM hopes a fire sale will draw bargain hunters to the tablet.

Research in Motion hopes that Rovio's Angry Birds game is enough to attract consumers to buy its PlayBook tablet but if the popular game isn't enough then RIM hopes a fire sale will draw bargain hunters to the tablet.

Residents and business owners in Hunter Valley reiterated its call for the New South Wales (NSW) government to ring fence the region from coal seam gas (CSG) exploration and production.

It was a copy editor's nightmare. An unnecessary apostrophe in Myer's sign spread across Australia is now the subject of lampoon in social networking sites.

Amazon.com sold more than a million Kindle products this holiday season according to a statement released by the company on Thursday. Although the company has been vague about the exact numbers, Amazon said its three Kindle products, the Kindle Touch, the regular Kindle and its latest tablet the Kindle Fire occupied the top three spots on its bestseller list.

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.