COMPANIES

A study by the Australian Council of Superannuation Investors (ACSI) released on Tuesday identified the top 10 high-paid chief executives in the country. Number one on the list is BHP Billiton Chief Executive Marius Kloppers who earned $11.8 million in 2011 in wages alone.

While Australians prefer home-grown food over imported ones, the case is not true for furniture, health and beauty items, clothes, hardware and household appliances which Aussies prefer to buy imported ones due to lower cost and better value.

The infamous Winklevoss twins, Tyler and Cameron, are now engaged into the social networking business following their legal battles with Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, leaving the two $US65 million richer.

Microsoft’s upcoming Surface tablets will directly challenge iPad’s dominance, according to company chief executive Steve Ballmer, stressing too that the device and Windows 8 will lead to “epic year for Microsoft.”

Nintendo is gearing to morph itself as the premier fun-provider of households the world over as the Japanese firm unveiled on Thursday the new Wii U, touted as “the entertainment hub in the centre of the house.”

Rio Tinto (ASX: RIO) announced on Thursday that it awarded to NRW Holdings the contract to build the miner's Cape Lambert iron ore plant. The scope of construction work includes conveyor link earthworks, relocation of water pipelines and rail formation earthworks.

China’s Huawei Technologies and ZTE Corp, currently two of the leading global telecommunication firms, have informed the U.S. Congress on Thursday that they were not willing tools at the disposal of Beijing to spy on other nations.

Apple did just the right thing in stretching the screen size of the new iPhone 5 to 4.0 inches and deploying much-faster cellular connectivity with the gadget, which rolls out beginning Sept 21, a new report said.

Microsoft has unmasked a new malware that reportedly operates from a Chinese domain and spreads through freshly-unboxed PCs that were exclusively assembled by a computer manufacturer, also in China.

Add Nintendo’s Wii U to your holiday gadget shopping list this December as the new game console is likely to hit the global market at around the same time that new tech toys were slated to fiercely compete for consumers’ attention.

Notwithstanding the rollout of a new iPhone, Android handsets will be scooped up in large amounts that by the close of 2013 more than a billion units will be owned by global consumers, according to a new smartphone market report.

Pitting Apple’s new iPhone 5 against Sony’s Xperia Acro S is pretty much watching the technologies from the two tech giants clashing in full force, with ‘minor’ players invited into the fray because their brand architectures are inside the fresh smartphone releases.

Mobile apps are more attractive when offered free, tech research firm Gartner confirmed on Tuesday as latest data showed that global users will likely download more than 45 billion smartphone and tablet apps by the end of 2012.

Much is expected from the new iPhone version. Apart from issuing a reengineered hardware and improved software, all packed into a slick and thin brick, Apple is also pressured to replicate and even exceed what it has been doing in the past half-decade – earning billions and really quick.

Giant tobacco firms call it creative marketing but Health Minister Tanya Plibersek was not impressed at all with the latest ploy of cigarette manufacturers to circumvent Australia’s plain packaging laws, set to take full effect December 2012.

With mining commodity prices on a downward trend, Australian exporters were advised to look into non-resource export to Asia as another profitable undertaking. A study by global business adviser Boston Consulting Group estimated that businesses outside the mining sector could earn up to $126 billion by 2021 if they shift their attention to this market.

Barring unlikely force majeure, Apple’s new iPhone will definitely hit the global market this late September, prompting the tech giant’s closest rival, Samsung, to welcome the handset debut accordingly – with lawsuits.

More job losses will hit ailing PC maker Hewlett-Packard (HP) in the immediate years ahead, purportedly to realise more savings amid the prevailing soft environment in the global personal computer market.

Only 14 per cent of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SME) in Australia are using cloud computing, a study commissioned by MYOB, a business software provider, found.

Everyone’s waiting for the next iPhone version but Aussie telcos may not be overly excited that Apple’s new smartphone will be rolled out this week, a new report said.

Majority of Xstrata investors would vote against the revised merger term with commodities trader Glencore International, which raised its offer by nine per cent to $36 billion Friday last week.

The next iPhone version, set to be unwrapped on Sept 12, will have less Samsung imprints compared to the previous editions, with reports indicating that Apple has rolled out a program that would slowly wean away its products from components manufactured by its South Korean rival.

The three-week strike that has stopped construction activities at different Grollo sites has just ended. The Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) lifted its blockade at the Myer Emporium job site, prompting Grocon Chief Executive Daniel Grollo to agree to resume negotiations with the union.

U.S.-based China Labor Watch (CLW) has upgraded this week its scathing review on Samsung’s labour practices, highlighting what the activist group called as “illegal and inhumane treatment,” of young Chinese workers tasked to assemble a host of Samsung products.

Bank customers scored a major victory on Thursday after the High Court overturned a Federal Court decision and ruled that bank fees they questioned in a class action suit could be considered penalties.

A report released Friday by Insolvency and Trustee Service Australia pointed to single males in the age bracket 40 to 44 as those at the highest risk of declaring bankruptcy.

It’s official. The Galaxy S3, which debuted in May 2012, is the bestselling Samsung and Android smartphone to date as the South Korean tech giant announce on Thursday that over 20 million units have been scooped up by global consumers so far.

A Japanese firm said on Wednesday that it has developed the world’s smallest ceramic capacitor, which is “so small you can barely see it.”

Consumer advocate Choice is pushing for better country of original labelling after a review found that the two supermarket giants in Australia have less locally made products on its shelves.