COMPANIES

Darrel Lea, Australia’s largest comfort food retailer, was placed Monday in voluntary administration, putting 700 jobs at risk in the process.

European Finance Ministers have this morning agreed on a new bailout deal for Spain, which will see the country receive €30 billion in aid by the end of the month. The deal is expected to bring great relief for investors and comes after Spanish debts, or borrowing costs, climbed to dangerous highs overnight. At lunchtime in the East, the All Ordinaries Index (XAO) is up 6.4pts or 0.2pct to 4166.2.

Australian workers are blaming their jobs for their weight problems. A study by Weight Watchers released on Tuesday said the employees particularly cited the job monotony and culture of drinking as the main culprits for their expanding girths.

A British court was far from convinced that Samsung's Galaxy product lines derived too much of their looks from the iPad and iPhone, as claimed by tech titan Apple, rejecting the latter's arguments that the South Korean company was deliberately capitalising on Apple's incredible success with its products.

Western Australia opened its first 24/7 post office in Perth on Tuesday in response to the growing demand for parcel delivery services from items ordered online.

A healthcare crisis looms over Australia in the next 10 years since a new survey released on Tuesday warned that half of nurses in the country plan to quit their jobs in that period.

HTC has just unveiled its HTC Desire C smartphone which is the company's entry-level smartphone with Android 4.0 ICS (Ice Cream Sandwich). In order to find out if HTC Desire C is one of the best Android-based smartphones in the market, it would be best to compare it with the latest offering from Samsung which is Samsung Galaxy S3.

Rio Tinto (ASX: RIO) investors have joined the growing global trend against excessive executive bonuses and compensation. A new Rio director has started a comprehensive review of the miner's executive pay system and is likely targeting the firm's performance share plan (PSP).

News about Samsung and HP's plans of releasing Windows RT tablets are circulating the web. If this plan would push through, this would certainly have a great effect in the tablet market that is currently dominated by Apple and Google's Android.

Hundreds of Coles warehouse employees in Somerton, Melbourne went on strike on Monday over work conditions. The striking workers, who initially numbered 300, are protesting the unequal treatment compared to other Coles warehouse facilities from the firm that manages the warehouse.

Rumors about the Samsung Galaxy Note 2 is growing rapidly as reports are stating that it will be unveiled in August and would also get the latest Android update which is Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.

Apple has supposedly made new adjustments in the new iPad in order to address the growing overheating issue in their latest iPad model.

Samsung and Google got some legal breaks over the weekend following decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington to allow the temporary sales of the Galaxy Nexus smartphone.

LG Electronics believes that its edge on flat panel TV technology could soon make it the biggest global player and dominate a market that has been witnessing flagging sales over the past two years.

The news about Apple launching an iPad Mini has intensified as other competitors in the tablet market have already unveiled their own tablet devices. Google Nexus 7 is the latest tablet offering from Google which can be a big competitor for Apple.

A new study revealed by NDP reveals that tablets would overtake PCs as the most popular mobile PC by the year 2016. In the research, NDP identify tablets as the "growth driver" for the mobile computer market.

Apple Inc. has recently been plagued with issues in their app store as Apple users are complaining that they have problems in updating their apps which causes most of the apps to crash.

Samsung Galaxy S3, the latest smartphone offering from Samsung, is considered as one of the top smartphones in the market. Despite having this title, there are still some flaws in Samsung Galaxy S3 that users are complaining about.

Apple prides itself as the tech world's foremost innovator and trendsetter but that could change soon as the company is reportedly set to issue a smaller iPad edition, the very product ridiculed by the late Steve Jobs.

An application now available in Android phones would allow bank depositors to make limited financial transactions via their phones, email or Facebook. However, the features exclude wireless payments using the Near Field Communication (NFC) technology.

Ahead of its official Q2 financial result later this month, Samsung said on Friday that it could net operating profit of $6 billion plus in the period, giving the group 80 per cent spikes from the figures it registered in 2011.

Local stocks are trading in the red on the final session of the week, following weakness in European markets and a mixed finish on Wall Street overnight. The European Central Bank cut interest rates by 0.25pct to a record low of 0.75pct as expected overnight, yet the move failed to excite investors, who instead decided to book profits. US investors were treading water ahead of the key monthly jobs report coming out tonight. At lunchtime in the East, the All Ordinaries Index (XAO) is down 18.5pts...

Australia's richest woman, Gina Rinehart, sold on Thursday part of her shares in Fairfax Media which had denied her a board seat. However, even if she sold $50 million worth of shares, she is still Fairfax's largest stakeholder since she still owns 14.9 per cent of the firm, down from 18.7 per cent.

Manufacturers have accused supermarket giant Woolworths of bullying them into cutting their costs and prices or else be banished from the shelves.

Developers are usually not that open regarding their faults regarding their game content but Blizzard seems to be an exception to that rule.

The local share market closed flat today, ahead of a key European Central Bank meeting where it's widely tipped the ECB will cut interest rates in the Eurozone to a record low of 0.75pct. Wall Street was closed overnight for Independence Day while there was a lack of market moving economic data which also affected guidance. On low volumes, the All Ordinaries Index (XAO) closed down 3.9pts to 4209.9.

Apple has just released its beta version of the iCloud site together with new web applications in preparation for the new OS version from Apple which is iOS 6.

Microsoft is offering the Windows 8 upgrade for a cheap price of only US$40 for a limited period. The Windows 8 upgrade can be availed from Windows XP and above.

Google recently announced through the company's blog post that they will be shutting down 5 more Google services. This is in accordance to the company's "spring cleaning" program.