Economy and writers' strike test Disney CEO's tenure
For the first time under Robert Iger's watch, Disney is sailing into some choppy waters. Two of the company's four growth engines - theme parks and consumer products - turn on the health of the economy.

Yahoo settles suit with journalists jailed in China
The two journalists and a family member sued the company earlier this year after Yahoo HK gave Chinese authorities e-mail messages containing pro-democracy literature.

Mobile-phone operators vie for UHF spectrum
The phone companies have argued before a UN agency that coordinates the world's broadcast frequencies that the bandwidth would speed up and spread the availability of 3G services.

IBM offers $4.9 billion for Cognos
The friendly bid comes after SAP and Oracle acquired the Canadian company's two biggest rivals in the business analysis software market.

Publicis to bring ad fields under a single roof with new venture
The new organization will package the creation of advertising, the buying of ad space and time, and the development of digital ad campaigns in a single, agency-like entity.

Using mobile phones as cash is put to the test in Europe
Already a success in Asia, the mobile money concept is undergoing a trial in France, allowing consumers to pay for their croissants with a wave of a cellphone.

Salesforce and Benioff takes on new challenge
The brash entrepreneur wants to turn his customer relations software into a platform as vital as Microsoft's Windows.

Intel says new chips will speed high-definition video online
Sean Maloney, Intel's chief sales and marketing officer, said the chips' increased computing power would begin the transformation of today's stuttering and blurry videos, the staple of YouTube and other video streaming sites, into high-resolution, full-screen quality.

Media: Italian paper faces scrutiny as it prepares an IPO.
The powerful industrial group that owns the financial daily Il Sole 24 Ore is bracing for a new level of scrutiny in a newspaper market already rife with conflict of interest claims as it prepares to sell a third of the company to the public this month.

Google options put masseuse in crowd of multimillionaires
After five years of kneading engineers' backs, Bonnie Brown retired, cashing in most of her stock options worth millions of dollars.
- Google casts a shadow as Firefox plans for the future

Nokia said Tuesday that it would market two cellphones for "style-conscious" consumers at more than €1,000, or $1,460.

The Arte and Sapphire Arte are upgraded versions of the 8800 series and include faster wireless Internet access, the company said. The 8800 Arte will start shipping this quarter for €1,000 before subsidies and taxes. The Sapphire Arte, which will come with a genuine sapphire, will ship in the first quarter for €1,150.

The slide-design devices have steel and glass covers. An analogue clock will show on the display when the cover is tapped, and the ringtone can be muted by turning the phone screen-side down.

The European Commission presented its plan to create a body with the power to separate telecommunications networks and access providers in order to foster competition and reduce costs for customers.

Under the proposal, which telecommunications companies have criticized, the European Telecom Market Authority would be able to push national regulators to tackle large phone companies and challenge their control over national markets.

The EU's 27 countries have to approve the proposal for it to take effect.

The chairman of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission said he wanted to eliminate a ban on radio and television broadcasters owning newspapers, but only in the largest American media markets.

Kevin Martin called his proposal "modest," opting to focus on the newspaper rule only and declining to act on other media ownership rules that are up for consideration.

The proposal requires a full vote of the commission. It has met with stiff resistance from public interest groups and commission Democrats.

The U.S. newspaper industry's Audit Bureau of Circulations said it would change the way it counts paid circulation to provide marketers with more useful information.

New reporting standards will count newspapers sold at any price and create a separate category for copies distributed at hotels and purchased by businesses, ABC said. Audits will also specify whether a newspaper is sold at a newsstand or through home delivery.

The changes, to be introduced over the next three years, come a week after the ABC combined online readership with print circulation to create a measurement called "net combined audience."

The chairman of News Corp., Rupert Murdoch, said he intended to make access to The Wall Street Journal's Web site free, trading subscription fees for anticipated ad revenue.

"We expect to make that free, and instead of having one million, having at least 10 million-15 million in every corner of the earth," Murdoch said.

The Web site, one of the few news sites globally to successfully introduce a subscription model, has around one million subscribers and generates about $50 million in user fees.

ELECTRONIC DATA SYSTEMS, the world's second-largest computer-services company after IBM, said it planned to buy the majority of Saber Holdings for $420 million to acquire software for government operations. Saber makes programs that help governments register voters, manage elections and perform other services, Electronic Data said.

SIRIUS SATELLITE RADIO shareholders approved the proposed $4.93 billion acquisition of its larger rival, XM Satellite Radio Holdings, to help cut expenses and reach profitability. About 96 percent of investors who voted approved the transaction, the Sirius chief executive, Mel Karmazin.

Marvel Entertainment, publisher of the Spider-Man and Incredible Hulk comic books, started an online subscription service for its collection to capitalize on the popularity of its characters. Marvel is offering about 2,500 titles on the Web site and will add 20 comic books each week.

MICROSOFT said Monday that it had entered exclusive talks to buy mobile music service company Musiwave. The company said an acquisition would bring Musiwave's relationships with music labels, device makers and mobile operators together with Microsoft's Connected Entertainment technologies.