Jamelle Agbuis

House prices have continued to soften in the June quarter, with rental growth slowing as well.

Cargill has pledged that the palm oil products it supplies in markets including Europe and the US will be certified by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) or originate from smallholder growers by 2015.

During dual briefings in New York and San Francisco, Sony provided a "sneak peek" -- and not much else -- of the two new tablets it plans to launch later this year, emphasizing the handful of ways it's attempting to differentiate its tablets from those that have already hit the market.

HR project consultants, HR advisors, IR and ER specialists top the list of skills in demand in Australia's HR sector in the first quarter of the new financial year, according to Hays.

Rio Tinto is on the way to a higher first half profit after it shook off the bad weather-induced first quarter production weakness to report a ringer of a second quarter.

There were a lot of interesting trends in the June monthly and half yearly economic figures, beyond the headline grabbing data on growth, trade and inflation.

There have been three major disasters in the first three months of this year in the Pacific region: the Japanese quake and tsunami ranks the highest for the human and financial costs, followed by the Christchurch quakes in New Zealand and then the Queensland (and Brisbane) floods and cyclone.

A fall in residential land sales augurs poorly for home building, the HIA has said.

Supported by a rally in commodities and Greenback weakness the Australian Dollar has forged its way back above 1.0700 to a brief high near 1.0780.

A last minute rally wasn't enough to lift Australian stocks back into the green at the close of trade on Thursday.

US business inventories rose by a larger than expected 1pct to $1.51 trillion - the highest level since October 2008. Business sales fell 0.1pct in May.

Supported by a rally in commodities and Greenback weakness the Australian Dollar has forged its way back above 1.0700 to a brief high near 1.0780.

U.S. stocks snapped a three day slide Wednesday as investors saw hope for further economic stimulus from the Federal Reserve.

US export prices rose by 0.1pct in June with import prices down 0.5pct. Both results were near market forecasts. And the Federal budget deficit narrowed from US$57.64 billion to US$43.00 billion in June.

The Australian dollar has opened firmer this morning, trading around the 1.0750 level after comments from the Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke saw a sell off in the USD.

Digital payment company PayPal on Wednesday debuted its person-to-person payment technology that utilizes Near Field Communications (NFC) embedded in Android smartphones.

Well, so much for the 23 million subscribers Netflix worked so hard to get. Based on Betanews poll results, currently with more than 1,600 responses -- 59.52 percent of Netflix users will "cancel account".

A new study presented at the World Health Organization's (WHO) 1st International Conference on Prevention and Infection Control (ICPIC) in Geneva, Switzerland, has revealed that the use of antimicrobial copper surfaces in hospitals helps reduce the rate of hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) by 40 percent. The metal also effectively kills 97 percent of bacteria, as well as many viral and fungal pathogens.

"We found that most of ladybird species' richness is concentrated in groups with these special larval defences," Dr Seago said.

When the Prime Minister took to the airwaves on Sunday night, one of the first things she tried to sort out was the rather confused issue of who pays the carbon tax. One of the downsides of calling the thing a "tax" is that the term "carbon tax" carries the redolent sense of something that will attach itself leech-like to every conceivable extremity of the ordinary householder's life.

It is obviously in Germany's interests to both push solar power and use it. They make most of the good solar panels and it is one of their most important exports.

Damaging radiation comes from many everyday sources besides just damaged nuclear power reactors. Mobile phones and their signal towers, wireless cards and their network routers, airplanes, microwaves, and many other devices all emit radiation, and prolonged exposure to them can lead to serious health problems including cancer. But there are some simple steps you can take to help minimize exposure to radiation of all forms.

California-based mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) Telestial on Tuesday announced it had dropped its international 2G and 3G roaming rates to the lowest in the industry.

Black hat security group Anonymous has exposed 90,000 military email addresses stored on servers from consulting firm and U.S. government contractor Booz Allen Hamilton.

AT&T introduced two LTE devices on Tuesday, while at the same time saying it was on track to roll out the next generation cellular technology in five markets later this summer.

Electronic Arts on Tuesday announced it will acquire PopCap Games for $650 million in cash and $100 million in EA stock.

NAB has pushed back its forecast for an RBA rate rise until the end of the year, with a second to follow in mid-2012.

New Zealand milk producer A2 Corporation Limited has annouced that construction is underway on a new processing facility in south-west Sydney, to meet the growing demand for a2 Milk in Australia.

Human Capital recently reported survey findings that predicted an increase in salaries and employee benefits as organisations strive to combat the deepening skills shortage.