Corporate and legal

Europe's antitrust chief has sent the strongest signal yet that Microsoft faces heavy financial penalties after the software giant failed to include a "browser choice" screen for European users in the latest version of Windows 7.

In an interview with the AFP news agency, European Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia reportedly said that fault had been admitted and said the European Commission needed to "react," suggesting heavy fines were on the way.

"The fault is there, it has been there for more than a year and it is clear that we need to react," … Read more

LinkedIn has introduced a new feature that lets users endorse members of their professional networks.

The Endorsements feature is essentially another form of offering a reference on a LinkedIn profile. It also gives more credibility to skills and expertise listed on a profile in comparison to what might be listed on a paper resume. Similar features exist on other sites that depend on social connections, such as Airbnb.

The professional social network has tried to make offering endorsements as easy and painless as possible. LinkedIn already has programmed recommended endorsements on profile pages, so at a base level, all you … Read more

Foxconn, which builds many Apple products, told CNET that while it had shut down its Taiyuan factory due to a riot on early Monday, the facility would resume production tomorrow.

The company also said in a statement e-mailed to CNET that there had been no deaths related to the incident.

Foxconn was forced to shut down the northern China factory after a riot broke out at 11 p.m. local time, possibly sparked when a guard struck a worker, and didn't get under control until 3 a.m. The riot involved roughly 2,000 workers out of a total … Read more

New Zealand's prime minister has officially requested an inquiry into whether the Government Communications Security Bureau unlawfully intercepted communications as part of the case against file-sharing site MegaUpload.

Prime Minister John Key said today that the bureau acted unlawfully in assisting police to locate individuals by intercepting communications without authorization. Key said he was informed about the matter by the director of the bureau on September 17 and has referred the matter to Intelligence and Security Inspector-General Paul Neazor.

Key said he is disappointed by the bureau's actions. "I expect our intelligence agencies to operate always within … Read more

Apple will open a second Hong Kong store later this week, the company has confirmed.

Apple's new retail store will be in Festival Walk in Kowloon Tong. The store will hold its grand opening on Saturday at 10 a.m. local time. According to Apple's Hong Kong Web site, the store will be open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. local time every day.

Reuters was first to report on the news.

The second help of Apple Store for Hong Kong comes as Apple is increasing its presence in and around China. CEO Tim Cook said … Read more

Apple said today that it sold 5 million of its new iPhone 5 smartphones over the weekend, topping the mark set by last year's iPhone 4S by 1 million units.

The Apple frenzy on Friday continued its memorable run with lines snaking out of some of the company's most high-profile stores, as consumers eagerly snapped up the iPhone 5. The figure, however, isn't quite as high as some analysts expected, with one notably having predicted 6 million as his "worst-case scenario" for first-weekend sales.

Still, the iPhone 5 re-establishes Apple's dominance in the smartphone … Read more

Generally, I'm not a fan of apps shooting push notifications out to my phone.

No, "Words with Friends," I don't care that I'm about to forfeit my game. There's a reason I stopped playing it. I don't need an alert any time I get a new friend on Facebook.

But apparently, notifications do make a difference when it comes to engagement, and sometimes they're what keeps an app from getting deleted off the phone or being one of the myriad of unused "zombie" apps left ignored on a smartphone. With … Read more

Foxconn, a contract manufacturer to Apple, closed a northern China factory for the day following an early Monday riot that, according to the company, began as a fight between workers. Details remain scarce.

The company said several people were injured and sent to the hospital after the incident, and that some were also detained by police. The factory in question employees about 79,000 workers.

Other reports, however, described a riot possibly involving as many as 2,000 people and, by one account, potentially sparked when a guard struck a worker. Photos posted by a user on the Chinese Internet … Read more

With the iPhone 5, Apple did what it does best: come up with a good industrial design. But that's not always the case.

Until I got my hands on the iPhone 5 -- I picked one up on Friday -- I wasn't sure if Apple had nailed the design (hands-on videos and reviews go just so far).

Well, after 48 hours I'm pretty sure it did. It just looks and feels a lot better than the 4S (which I owned until Friday).

Thinness, in my book, is the foundation for coolness. But thinness isn't just an … Read more