EMI agrees to buyout bid from private investor
EMI Group said it would recommend that shareholders accept a £2.4 billion buyout offer from Terra Firma Capital Partners.

Alltel backs purchase by private equity group
The wireless phone company Alltel has agreed to be sold to a consortium of private equity firms for $27.5 billion, the largest buyout ever in the telecommunications industry.

Vodafone to sell low-cost cellphones in Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa
The world's biggest mobile phone company said Monday that it would begin selling low-cost Vodafone-branded cellphones to spur growth in emerging markets in Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa.

London police arrest man they link to Russian Web site AllofMP3.com
The arrest was the first under a British law introduced in January that made the unlicensed sale of music a criminal offense, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry said.

A Cingular rebranding plan for AT&T
On Monday, AT&T entered the final phase of one of the biggest rebranding campaigns in marketing history as it officially changed the name of its chain of retail stores to AT&T from Cingular.

Firefox faces the cost of success
In 2004, with the release of version 1.0, Firefox became the dream of techies. Now, Mozilla has to figure out how to balance keeping an open-source project financed while remaining independent and noncommercial.

South Korean fans rejoice as a game's sequel is announced
Gamers worldwide, above all in South Korea, reacted with glee after Blizzard Entertainment said it was developing a sequel to "StarCraft," its popular computer strategy game.

Publisher puts book proposals on an online betting exchange
By letting bettors try to predict if a book might succeed, Media Predict hopes to do for book publishing what focus groups do for soap and soda and what screening audiences do for movies.

Technology auction falters in Europe
The first European auction of intellectual property falls short of sales expectations as buyers shun licenses

Quest for the top in Internet ads
Microsoft's $6 billion buy shows a tilt away from 'old' media.

Swedish company offers new passports for computers to surf the Web
Relakks, a Swedish company, will soon offer a way to circumvent walls that block people in Europe from downloading television from U.S. sites or bar Americans from viewing programs on sites in Europe.

Software brings gamelike play to the workplace
In an attempt to bring more 'play' to the workplace, developers are releasing software that caters visually and functionally to what many people like in video games.

Data-mining moves into the mainstream, in search of profit
Sophisticated computing and mathematical analytics are being used to increase productivity or efficiency in economics, business and crime prevention.