COMPANIES

The 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony will draw the world's audience to London on Friday night, but signal an Olympics that will be more glitz than substance for the host city.

The second-quarter earnings season is in full swing and investors will hear next week from several more major players, including AIG, Kellogg, Procter & Gamble, Kraft Foods, Pfizer, Mastercard and General Motors.

Samsung Electronics Co, the world's largest maker of mobile phones, reported a second quarter net income of 5.19 trillion won ($4.4 billion), up from 3.51 trillion won in the same period earlier year, aided by sales of Galaxy smartphones.

During a keynote ceremony today Google officially announced its latest venture: Google Fiber. This move puts the search-engine giant among the likes of companies such as Verizon and Comcast as it rolls out its first service provider service.

Gizmodo reported that an Easter Egg was found in the Mac App Store in OS X Mountain Lion. To see an Easter egg for yourself, every time you download an App from the Mac App Store, check the applications folder and look at the time stamp on the downloading application. It will say January 24 1984 which is Macintosh's birth date.

The idea that a few-hour Twitter outage could have more than a billion-dollar effect on the economy sounds preposterous at first, but some simple math suggests that might be just the case.

Facebook Inc (NYSE: FB), the world's largest social networking platform, on Thursday issued its first quarterly report, disclosing results that slightly beat analyst expectations.

The Jerry Sandusky shower incident has resurfaced in the headlines as the man claiming to be the victim of the sexual assault has come forward and identified himself to attorneys.

Speaking at an earnings call with analysts, Barry Diller, chairman of IAC/InterActiveCorp, had some pretty grim words to say about what ails the storied magazine and print media as a whole.

A remora is a fish that sticks to the side of a shark. Inventor of FarmVille is the remora in this analogy.

Former University of Illinois football player Steven Feagin was sentenced to 90 years in prison Wednesday for the 1995 rape of a 22-year-old student in Urbana, Ill., near the university's campus.

Soybeans are used to make tofu, but did you know they can also be used for tires?

Mac users have been able to play with Apple's new big cat, OS X Mountain Lion, for roughly 24 hours at this point. Though the initial reviews were overwhelmingly positive, we mentioned that it was still early in the day, and as Apple users had a chance to explore Mountain Lion, they would inevitably find some bugs and errors. And that's exactly what happened. Mac OS X Mountain Lion: Apple Users Report More Bugs, Errors, And Incompatibility Issues

Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE: XOM), the world's largest publicly traded oil company, said Thursday its second-quarter profit rose 49 percent, helped by a gain related to divestments and tax items.

Apple is world's leading original equipment manufacturer (OEM) in terms of semiconductor purchasing in 2012, according to a latest report by the research firm iSuppli. The Cupertino tech giant has not only been ranked first in the list of top 10 OEM semiconductor buyers, but has also increased its buying at a faster rate than other top firms, solidifying its dominance over the chip market, the report said.

Nintendo reported another loss Wednesday, saying its revenue has decreased nearly 10 percent year over year. But upcoming releases including the Wii U and the handheld 3DS XL could jump start the troubled company this fall.

Apple beat its own conservative quarterly estimate, reporting a strong jump in earnings and even sold a record number of iPads in Q3, but across the board, Apple did a rare thing: It missed analysts' estimates. Apple can rebound in Q4 if it decides to release its next iPhone, which many are already calling "iPhone 5," as long as the much-rumored "iPad Mini."

Social media is now a $16.9 billion business, according to 2012 estimates by Gartner.

Based on analyst estimates, Merck & Co. will report earnings of $1.01 a share on sales of about $12.16 billion -- an increase of 0.1 percent from the year-earlier quarter. The company posts its second-quarter earnings on Friday, before the opening bell.

The short answer: Many companies lie about their earnings results.

Most Apple fans couldn't wait to download OS X Mountain Lion, the eighth iteration of the OS X software line for Mac, and as a result, the Mac App Store was flooded early Wednesday morning with download requests for the $19.99 upgrade. Most early adopters of Mountain Lion love the beast, but most major software upgrades are not without their fair share of bugs, issues, errors and omissions. Would OS X Mountain Lion suffer the same fate?

Investors in Facebook stock are bracing themselves for something wild. The market is bracing for big swings in Facebook Inc (FB.O) shares after the social media company reports earnings for the first time as a public company.

A video involving a brutal 2008 near death attack on a sea world trainer by a wild whale was released in court and is now being used as evidence in an investigation for the Sea World vs US Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis Trial. During a show at San Diego Park's Sea World, a veteran trainer, 39-year-old Kenneth Peters was bitten and continuously held underwater by a 7,000 pound killer whale, 28-year-old female named Kasatka.

There's always a big buzz whenever Apple releases new hardware or software - or really, any time Apple does anything publicly - and today is no different. Apple released OS X Mountain Lion this morning, which is the eighth edition of its OS X software for Mac. Many will have upgraded to OS X Mountain Lion by now, but others are waiting to know if Mountain Lion is worth upgrading to immediately. Here's why you should wait.

Shares of The Boeing Company (NYSE:BA) soared Wednesday after it said Mexico's Aeroméxico will buy as many as 100 single- and twin-aisle airplanes in a deal with a nominal value of $10.8 billion.

Apple promised a July release date for OS X Mountain Lion, the eighth edition of Apple's OS X software for Mac, and the company came through. As confirmed by Apple's fourth quarter earnings conference call on Tuesday evening, OS X Mountain Lion promptly released on Wednesday for $19.99. The upgrade is exclusively downloadable via the Mac App Store.

The UK government (which represents England and Wales) is expected to pass same-sex marriage by 2015.

Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT), the largest maker of construction and mining equipment, reported a 67 percent jump in its second-quarter profit that topped analysts' estimates and boosted its full-year outlook as demand increased from North American builders and overseas miners.

The hits kept coming for Penn State on Tuesday when State Farm, an official sponsor of the football program, announced it would no longer sponsor the team.