COMPANIES

It seems as though the world if retail is hitting some mid-year skids, leaving market watchers wondering if they already need to write of the second-most important sales season of the year: Back to school.

Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO), the No. 1 provider of Internet gear, said it had acquired private Virtuata, a two-year-old specialist in cloud computing and security.

The New York Knicks have decided that Jeremy Lin's three-year, $25 million contract offer from the Houston Rockets is too rich for them and will let the talented point guard walk, according to multiple reports.

Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) booked a 11 percent drop in its second-quarter earnings as revenue from investment banking and lending businesses declined, the New York investment bank said Tuesday.

After the formal announcement Monday that Marissa Mayer had been elected the new CEO of Yahoo (Nasdaq: YHOO), the No. 3 search engine, the new executive announced she was pregnant.

Tata Motors Ltd. (Bombay: 500570) is looking to its UK luxury car unit, Jaguar Land Rover, to drive global sales growth particularly in emerging markets like Brazil by shifting production of the Freelander out of the UK to free up assembly line space for the popular premium model, the Range Rover Evoque.

Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ), the world's second-biggest health care company, said Tuesday that its second-quarter net income fell by half due to lower sales, litigation charges and unfavorable currency conditions. Johnson & Johnson also lowered its 2012 profit forecast.

Bank of America Corp. (NYSE:BAC), the troubled financial behemoth that teetered just above the abyss during the last few weeks of 2011 and has since made somewhat of a recovery, is expected to swing to profit when it reports quarterly financial results Wednesday morning.

When Intel (Nasdaq: INTC), the No. 1 chipmaker, reports second-quarter results after the market closes on Tuesday, the real numbers investors may await are those in the company's forecast rather than the actual results.

Moody's Investors Service is downgrading the credit ratings for 13 Italian banks three days after cutting the Italian government's bond rating.

United customers staged a rebellion in a Shanghai airport after their flight was cancelled again and again. After being scheduled to leave China on Wednesday, customers finally landed in Newark, New Jersey on Saturday morning. Passengers pulled a customer service representative across the counter by his tie.

Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F) joined Toyota in recalling cars because the carpeting got in the way. Ford is recalling 8,266 brand new 2013 Escape cars because the carpet can get in the way and make it hard to put on the brakes.

Boxer Floyd Mayweather, who is currently serving a jail sentence for domestic assault, topped Sports Illustrated's list of the 50 highest-paid American athletes for 2012.

Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), the world's biggest software company, announced a revamp of its Office application, which is designed to operate with the company’s Windows 8 OS.

Chances are you’ve generated some revenue for Active Network (Nasdaq: ACTV), the San Diego-based cloud computer services software developer without knowing it.

The chief executive of New York-based Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C) had a surprisingly confident outlook for his bank's future business prospects during a conference call with analysts Monday.

The world's largest software maker announced late Sunday that it is pulling out of its partnership with MSNBC.com, a move that will allow the company to build its own online news service at a time when more and more consumers are finding their news online.

Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ), the world's second-biggest health care company, is expected to report higher second-quarter profit as strong performance of new drugs help mitigate drags from generic competition and strings of recalls.

Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), the world's biggest software company, said CEO Steve Ballmer will make a corporate announcement later on Monday.

Nokia (NYSE: NOK), the Finnish mobile giant, chopped the list price of its Lumia 900 phone 50 percent, to only $50, which could indicate it’s not sold well.

The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE: KO) is expected to report stronger second-quarter profit as the world's largest soft-drink maker tries to offset higher commodity prices and currency headwinds by expanding aggressively into key international markets.

Citigroup Inc.'s second-quarter profit fell 12 percent but its adjusted earnings-per-share beat estimates, the New York-based bank said Monday.

NBC News announced Sunday night that it had officially severed its online relationship with the Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) with respect to their joint news site MSNBC.com. NBC has acquired the MSNBC domain, paying Microsoft about $300 million for its stake in the site.

Had a rough time playing Minecraft Sunday? There’s a reason why. A security flaw in Minecraft that allowed users to sign into strangers’ accounts was exposed by security researchers Alex Vanderport and Keegan Novik when the Team Avolition duo posted a detailed advisory about the snafu on GitHub Saturday.

At a time when the fight between Apple and Samsung over the sales ban on Galaxy Nexus and Galaxy Tab 10.1 in the U.S. is creating much buzz around the tech world, FOSS Patents has stumbled upon some documents, which reveal just how aggressively forthright the iPhone-maker has been even with retailers selling the objectionable devices in the country.

In the wake of rumors circulated about a slimmer Sony PlayStation 3 in development, newly leaked pictures appear to confirm the early reports.

The Apple iPhone 5 rumor mill has been running at full steam over the past week. Supposedly leaked specifications and photographs of the coming phone have been all over the Internet. Now, a lesser-known site by the name of KitGuru has released photos that it claims show the latest iteration of the iPhone.

Launched just over a year ago, and touted by the newspaper-loving Murdoch as a savior for print media, The Daily boasts is drowning in estimated losses of $30 million a year.

Russell Wasendorf Sr., the founder and CEO of failed futures brokerage PFGBest, was arrested on Friday, five days after his suicide attempt brought to light allegations of a massive fraud, authorities said.