COMPANIES

Apple scored significant legal wins last week but the start of the fresh week saw the firm lagging behind its fierce competitors, Google and Samsung, in terms of market dominance in the lucrative U.S. market.

Due to so much negativity surrounding Fairfax Media, a major shareholder said on Tuesday that the ailing company would likely not meet the challenge made by Gina Rinehart, the firm's largest shareholder. Ms Rinehart, who holds a 19 per cent stake, dared the company chairman, Roger Corbett, to boost the share prices to 87 cents ahead of Fairfax's yearly meeting in November.

Research in Motion, the manufacturer of Blackberry recently announced a delay for highly-anticipated Blackberry model, Blackberry 10. This delay is just one of the problems that the company is facing as of the moment.

Recent reports are stating that Samsung Galaxy S3 will soon be receiving the latest Android update (Android 4.1 Jelly Bean).

Google Chrome, the popular web browser from Google is now available for Apple devices such as iPhone and iPad devices. Apple users can now download Google Chrome for free through the App store.

Research in Motion (RIM), the company behing Blackberry has announced that the company would be cutting down 5,000 jobs. The announcement was made after the company has revealed a sales decline from their last quarter report.

The federal government extended a $40-million rescue package to Alcoa, which allowed the firm's Point Henry plant to remain open for at least two more years until July 2014.

Siri was first introduced by Apple through its iPhone 4S which was become a hit to smartphone users all over the world. Google introduced a similar voice-like search feature in Google called Google voice search. This feature would supposedly Google's own "Siri-like" version plus more. This leads to the important question of: Is Google voice search much better than Apple's Siri?

Defying the moderate outlook for commodities in the current year, BHP Billiton confirmed last week that it has forged a $3-million deal with Copper Range Ltd for the transfer of the latter's existing and pending explorations in South Australia's Olympic Dam.

It looks like that for the moment, the Galaxy Nexus smartphone, the product of the close collaboration between Google and Samsung, will be limited to the estimated 6000 units that Google had distributed to developers last week, at least in the United States.

It was a repeat of the Millennium Bug, also known as the Y2K scare, which caused the delay of 400 Qantas planes on Sunday. Virgin Australia was similarly affected after the manual check-in and dispatch of flight that use the Amadeus system collapsed.

Tiger Airways aims to roar louder in the regional aviation industry by attempting to eat into the market of leaders Qantas and Virgin Australian. The budget carrier aims to do that by adding 3,600 seats daily from its new Sydney base.

Google has just released its newest tablet in the market called Google Nexus 7 tablet. The release of this tablet means more options for people who are looking for 7-inch tablets like Barnes & Noble Nook and Galaxy Tab 2. This leads customers to asking: Which is the best tablet among the three?

Google has just unveiled Google Nexus Q during the Google I/O 2012 at San Francisco. This is the first living-room hardware device that was manufactured by Google.

Samsung Galaxy S3 has just received a RAM upgrade and there are speculations that the upgrade was a way to prepare users for an Android 4.1 Jelly Bean upgrade.

QR National had awarded a A$76-million contract to the Abigroup for the construction of the Wiggins Island rail project. The venture covers 13 kilometres loop located near Gladstone which would be the location of the Wiggins Island Coal Export Term (Wicet), the unloading point for the coal trains.

Telstra Corporation, it appears, has to work further in beefing up its privacy protocols as regulators said on Friday that the giant telco breached Australia's Privacy Act when it inadvertently exposed last year thousands of customers' personal information.

The retail sector is buzzing on the last trading day of the financial year, with upmarket retailer David Jones (DJS) the subject of a takeover offer. The overall share market is trading flat, with the All Ordinaries Index (XAO) unchanged at 4085.1.

The financial stability of embattled airline Qantas is facing another threat over the tie-up between Virgin Australia and Singapore Airlines.

According to a 2011 survey by the MIT Sloan School of Business, nearly 80 percent of all brand and market management decisions made by top-performing companies were primarily based on their CEO's intuition, rather than any form of market research.

Mobile technology has made the traditional 9-to-5 office hours outdated. In lieu of the 8-hour traditional pattern, many office employees now clock in 12 hours of work from 7-to-7.

A day after the Fairfax Media board closed with finality the doors of its boardroom to Australia's richest woman and the company's largest stakeholder Gina Rinehart, the media firm's stocks continued to plummet in value.

Google has just unveiled its latest Android version which is Android 4.1 Jelly Bean during the ongoing Google I/O 2012. Barely a month before that, Apple also unveiled its latest OS which iOS 6. The battle between the best OS is on and many people are asking this very important questions: Which is better? Google's Android 4.1 Jelly Bean or Apple's iOS 6?

Bioware has just released the extended cut for the popular game, Mass Effect 3. The extended cut was released due to the demand of Mass Effect 3 fans that they were "cheated" because of the ending. This Mass Effect 3 Extended Cut is Bioware's effort to appease Mass Effect 3 fans.

Todd Kelly, the team owner of V8 Supercars express his enthusiasm when the Nissan parts arrived at the team's base located in Melbourne. This Nissan parts are going to be utilized for the V8 Supercars 2013.

Software makers are re-training their attention on what Apple has proven as a sure-fire way of earning the big bucks - put together a sexy gadget and have it powered by in-house operating system and maybe a few years after, you'll be on top of the world.

The PlayStation Network would be receiving another software update by today but the said update would just be minimal. The update will roll out for today and it is dubbed as "v4.20".

Day 1 of the Google I/O 2012 has already past but the revealing of the new Google products are still fresh for everyone's mind. During the conference, Google revealed the Google Nexus 7 Tablet, Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, and Google Glasses.

NBN Co flatly denied that Australia's $36-billion nationwide broadband roll out has hit a snag following reports that major contractors attached to the federal initiative were mulling possible pull outs from the project that has been plagued by numerous delays.