Visit our Filed page for categories. To browse by specific topic, see our Inside page. For a list of companies covered on this site, visit our Companies page.
Sony’s PlayStation 3 game console will work as a Blu-ray disc player for 3-D movies and music videos, not just 3-D games, with a software update download starting Sept. 21.
The free-of-charge update for movies and other content had been promised for later this year. But the date is being moved up to ride on the momentum of 3-D popularity, Sony executive Hiroshi Kawano said at the Tokyo Game Show Thursday.
Sony's new Walkman series are unveiled in Tokyo, zeroing in on sound quality and karaoke-like lyrics. (AP Photo/Junji Kurokawa)
Sony is zeroing in on sound quality and karaoke-like lyric displays to woo Japan, its stronghold in digital music players, amid a battering elsewhere from U.S. rival Apple Inc.’s iPod.
Hisatsugu Nakamuta, the Sony Corp. general manager overseeing marketing, said Wednesday that the Japanese electronics and entertainment company is hoping to grab as much as half of Japan’s annual 6.5 million unit portable audio-player market with its new Walkman models. Get the full story »
For an update on Chase’s problems on Wednesday morning, please click here.
Chase’s online customers were unable to conduct business on the Web site of Chicago’s biggest bank into Tuesday evening, the down time having stretched on for more than a day.
“It’s an eternity in the online world,” said Jacob Jegher, a senior analyst with Celent, a Boston-based financial services research and consulting firm. Get the full story »
(Reuters/Molly Riley/Files)
Moody’s Investors Service said on Friday it may raise its ratings on McDonald’s Corp. due to solid operating performance and growth prospects.
Moody’s placed McDonald’s A3 senior unsecured rating, the seventh-highest rating, and Prime-2 short-term commercial paper rating on review for possible upgrade.
“The review for possible upgrade reflects McDonald’s solid operating performance achieved through various strategic initiatives such as new product innovation, cost savings, re-imaging and new restaurant growth,” Moody’s analyst Bill Fahy said in a statement. Get the full story »
Aside from the cost of buying 3-D TV sets, the glasses required to watch them are a major hindrance, according to a study released today by The Nielson Co. about consumer attitudes toward 3-D televisions.
Fifty-seven percent of people surveyed cited the glasses as a reason they were not likely to buy a set. Nearly nine in 10 people worry that it will constrain them from multitasking while the TV is on, the survey said. Get the full story »
A trifecta of bad news has sent coffee futures soaring 44 percent since June, and companies like Dunkin’ Donuts, Green Mountain and Maxwell House are passing on those costs. Bad weather in South America is threatening crops. Brazil and top exporter Vietnam are talking about hoarding their stocks. And U.S. stockpiles are reportedly at 10-year lows. Get the full story »
American Express tells online customers that they’re 30-plus days past due when they’ve only missed their payment deadline by a few days, according to a study released Monday on late-payment policies of credit card companies. Get the full story »
Urban Partnership Bank, the successor to the recently failed ShoreBank, has already boosted the interest rates on a couple of savings accounts for its online ShoreBank Direct.
The ShoreBank Direct Online Savings Account now pays a 1.25 percent annual percentage rate with a $100,000 minimum balance, up from 1.19 percent. It also pays 1.2 percent for balances of less than $100,000, up from 1.03 percent.
The rate hikes were first reported by www.depositaccounts.com, a tracker of bank account trends. Get the full story »
The prescription diet drug sibutramine, sold under the brand name Meridia, should be taken off the market because it raises the risk of heart attacks and strokes in some patients, the editor of the New England Journal of Medicine said Wednesday.
Those risks, published in January on a government clinical-trials website and now in full in the journal, outweigh the modest benefits of the medication, said Dr. Gregory D. Curfman, the journal’s executive editor and lead author of an editorial that accompanied the study. Get the full story »
Communications regulators on Wednesday put off a controversial decision on Internet traffic rules, giving industry and consumer groups a chance to forge a compromise while avoiding a politically sensitive issue ahead of the November elections. Get the full story »
With the unveiling of a new set of Apple Inc. products — likely to include music-related devices, but also the possible major upgrade of a TV gadget — Steve Jobs and company are again poised to cause a stir in the tech world.
Apple watchers are predicting that Chief Executive Jobs, at a company event today in San Francisco, will announce updates to Apple’s lineup of ubiquitous iPod media players, and also changes to its iTunes store to make it more friendly to mobile devices. Get the full story »
Meijer Inc. said Monday it is launching a new digital coupon program where shoppers can choose coupons from the store’s Web site and redeem them by entering their mobile phone numbers at check-out.
The mPerks program rolls out this week at the superstore chain’s 196 stores in Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky. Customers can sign up for an account linked to their personal cell phone number at mperks.meijer.com. Shoppers select coupons from the site to be stored in their account. At check-out, keying in the phone number redeems all applicable coupons. Get the full story »
Sears Holdings Corp. hired Razorfish executive David Friedman to take the retailer’s top marketing post, replacing Richard Gerstein, who resigned in May.
Friedman, 46, begins his job as senior vice president and president of Sears’ marketing business unit on Sept. 13.
He was most recently president of the Americas at Razorfish in Chicago, a digital marketing company, where he was head of the firm’s retail and consumer goods practice. Before that, Friedman spent 10 years with Accenture, formerly Andersen Consulting, as an associate partner working with retail and consumer products companies. Get the full story »
If you’re looking for Cameron Diaz, Julia Roberts or Jessica Biel online, look out! The movie stars top the latest list of the most dangerous celebrities to search for online, according to new research by computer-security software maker McAfee Inc. Get the full story »
