COMPANIES

I was never the lazy student that gave "the dog ate my assignment" alibis. I wrote an article stating 1,000 reasons why Motorola's Droid Bionic would beat the iPhone 4. But that was in January, when Motorola touted a new device with amazing specs at a time when Nokia Oyj was still busy experimenting with the Meego, Samsung had yet to become a major player in mobile devices, and Apple's fifth generation iPhone was still months away.

The local share market closed marginally higher today, although off earlier gains due to a disappointing jobs report. The All Ordinaries Index (XAO) gained 6.9pts or 0.2pct to close at 4269.8 after reaching a high of 4297.9 in early trade.

Supermarket giant Woolworths is recalling packets of Macro Gluten Free Choc Brownie Mix 400g from Woolworths and Safeway supermarkets, and Thomas Dux stores across Australia due to the possible presence of milk - an undeclared allergen.

With still no reprise from a harm's way, Japan's newly elected Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda set foot on the devastated Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant to personally see the extent of the damage and massive efforts in decontaminating the areas plagued with high radiation.

Swedish Automobile N.V. (Swan) has announced that Saab Automobile AB and its subsidiaries Saab Automobile Powertrain AB and Saab Automobile Tools AB (collectively Saab Automobile) filed for voluntary reorganization with the District Court in Vänersborg, Sweden.

The Swedish retail chain Ikea used political prisoners in East Germany as ''slave labour'' to make furniture, reports said.

She may own the biggest purse in Australia but mining billionaire seemed unable to quell the restiveness within the family as Gina Rinehart found out on Thursday that her daughter, Hope Rinehart Welker had filed a lawsuit against her.

Samsung Electronics and Microsoft have teamed up to manufacture a new tablet computer with Microsoft's latest operating system, according to a report from the Korea Economic Daily.

Amidst the public apology issued on Wednesday by U.S. energy giant ConocoPhillips, over oil spills in Bohai Bay, Beijing has ordered a thorough investigation of the affected area to know the exact damage to the environment, reports said.

Google has confirmed that China has renewed its ICP license to operate for another year in spite the tension between the two for more than a year.

Rio Tinto criticized on Thursday the Australian government for its failure to deliver on carbon tax promises, which the Labour government agreed on with industry leaders.

Global data centre provider Digital Realty Trust (NYSE: DLR) has nabbed 162 and 163 Radnor Drive, a 30,250 square meter development site, in Melbourne for a purchase price of approximately AU $4.1 million. This represents the second acquisition in Australia for Digital Realty Trust.

Samsung is reportedly planning to buy Nokia and Intel's MeeGo operating system just as it confirmed it was not buying Hewlett Packards webOS.

Supermarket giant Coles is moving to a 100 percent Australian housebrand cheese for its stores.

After a three-month long of oil spills in China’s Bohai Bay, Energy Giant ConocoPhillips has issued an apology to China and vowed to release funds to ameliorate the conditions of the affected environment, says a Reuters report.

Qantas Airways' long-haul pilots described the unprecedented 71 per cent package increase for Qantas CEO today as “rubbing salt in the wound.”

Canadian company RIM on Tuesday unveiled BBM Music, a new cloud-based, music sharing service, which could be a much needed revenue generator.

Eager Droid Bionic fans can get a chance to win the device for free in Verizon and Motorola’s new scavenger hunt.

Beijing-COSCO Group, a giant state-owned conglomerate shipping company in China demands to small ship owners in dry bulk freight to reduce their rental costs.

Qantas pilots have lost a dispute with the airline and its New Zealand subsidiary, Jetconnect.

New reports about the next generation iPad are claiming the iPad 3 will have thinner and lighter batteries that will have more a longer service life but will be 30 percent more expensive than those found in the current iPad 2.

Australian manufacturer Bega Cheese announced on Wednesday that it inked a five-year agreement with supermarket Chain Coles to sell its cheese products.

Anti-trust regulators in South Korea raided Google's offices in Seoul on Tuesday.

As British parliamentary hearings on the Murdoch empire's phone hacking scandal resumed Tuesday, James Murdoch's credibility came under more doubt.

Yahoo Chief Executive Carol Bartz was fired on Tuesday by the technology company's board of directors. The 62-year-old Bartz was informed of her removal only by phone.

Facebook is facing another lawsuit and in Northern Ireland this time as a father sued the globally popular social networking site for its lack of security measures that reportedly allowed the man’s young daughter to display her racy images on the website.

Australian retailer Harvey Norman said on Tuesday that his business continued to survive despite the competition from offshore portals that do not charge Australia's goods and services tax and import duties on items costing less than $1,000.

Yahoo Inc. has confirmed that it has fired CEO Carol Bartz and has named Tim Morse, Yahoo's chief financial officer as interim CEO. Several senior Yahoo executives were also named to the newly formed executive leadership council while the company searches for a permanent CEO.

Popular retail stores are telling distributors and wholesalers to stop selling products online if they have the same in their stores, claims eBay. Responding to draft recommendations released by the Productivity Commission last month, eBay managing director (Australia and New Zealand) Deborah Sharkey alleged on Monday that certain unidentified Australian retailers had taken an anti-competitive approach to block the availability of products at online sites.