COMPANIES

The Procter & Gamble Company (NYSE: PG), the world's largest consumer-goods company, said its fiscal third-quarter profit fell 16 percent, weighed down by higher commodity prices and restructuring-related costs.

After reporting record profit for the first quarter of 2012, South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics has achieved yet another outstanding feat. The company has become the world's number one handset vendor, thereby ending Finnish firm Nokia's 14-year run as the global leader, according to a latest research from Strategy Analytics.

As far as the name and features of the new Galaxy phone is concerned, the Korean electronics giant had managed successfully to keep them under wraps until Thursday when senior vice-president Robert Yi revealed the name of what the company calls its Next Galaxy. And, yes, we predicted it right, the names is indeed Samsung Galaxy S3!

With sleek body and exceptionally well performing camera, HTC One S is one smartphone that left critics drooling over it. The latest HTC flick is perhaps one of the very nicest phones in 2012 (until of course Galaxy S3 and iPhone 5 hit the market), managing Ice Cream Sandwich, Sense 4 user interface and boasting of slim avatar.

Wireless communication operators are trying to win the battle against each other by introducing more and more killer smartphones.

The Marcellus Shale Coalition Thursday released suggestions it hopes will standardize how the oil and natural gas industry approaches future drilling operations, including the use of the controversial practice of fracking.

Starbucks Corporation (Nasdaq: SBUX), the world's largest coffee shop chain, said Thursday its fiscal second-quarter profit jumped 18.5 percent on rising sales at stores open at least one year and higher efficiency.

Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN), the No. 1 e-retailer, reported first-quarter results that easily beat analysts? estimates because of soaring sales of its Kindle Fire tablet.

Shares of InterDigital (Nasdaq: IDCC), a pioneer wireless software developer, tanked after missing first-quarter estimates, despite renewed reports it was engaged in a self-auction.

Shares of Amazon.com (Nasdaq: AMZN), the No. e-retailer, rose slightly Thursday ahead of the company?s report of first-quarter results that might beat analyst estimates.

The Securities and Exchange Commission launched a probe on Thursday of a program by Chesapeake Energy Corporation (NYSE: CHK) that let its founder and CEO get an ownership interest in any well drilled by the second-largest U.S. natural gas producer.

A South African 15-year-old boy has been arrested in connection with the rape of an eight-year-old girl. The eight-year-old, whose name cannot be released, was also bitten and had her eyes gouged out.

An Indiana teacher was fired from a Roman Catholic school after undergoing in vitro fertilization, which the Church strictly shuns, according to the Associated Press. The 31-year-old former educator, Emily Herx, is filing a lawsuit claiming that her termination last June was a result of discrimination. The case could spark serious legal controversy over reproductive rights and religious rights.

One World Trade Center, currently under construction in Lower Manhattan at the site of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, could end up being the tallest building in New York City, surpassing the Empire State Building as soon as next week. In honor of the construction process, EarthCam, an international webcam technology company, released a two minute-long time-lapse of the progression of the tower.

Exxon Mobil Corp, the world's largest publicly traded oil company, posted a lower first-quarter profit on Thursday as its oil and natural gas production slumped more than 5 percent, pushing its shares down 1.1 percent premarket.

After confirming to offer an unlimited data plan for its upcoming 4G LTE network at the beginning of this month, Sprint Nextel has confirmed that it will not change the plan even when the next iteration of iPhone arrives.

Natural gas producer Chesapeake Energy Corp said on Thursday it would halt a controversial program that gave company founder and chief executive Aubrey McClendon an ownership stake in its wells.

The Procter & Gamble Company (NYSE: PG), the world's largest consumer-goods company, is expected to report lower profit when it unveils its fiscal third-quarter earnings before the market opens on Friday, hurt by higher commodities costs and a stronger dollar.

James Tapke, 41, of Ohio, was sentenced to 30 days in jail for a misdemeanor charge of binding his 12-year-old daughter with duct tape and locking her in a metal dog cage. Tapke claims the incident, dating back to January, was just a joke.

A real life horror film could have played out on a Utah hiking trail had deadly booby traps not been discovered. Two men have been arrested for the act under suspicion of misdemeanor reckless endangerment. The authorities are stating that the Utah booby traps came from evil minds.

Apple's new iOS 6 has a great possibility to be released in this year's Worldwide Developers Conference that will kick off on July 11. Features that it should have Face Recognition, Better Siri, NFC, Multitasking, Turn-by-Turn Navigation, Date/time stamps to iMessage and text messages, AirDrop, Quick Toggles in Notification Center, Automatic App Updating and etc.

On Tuesday, Google made its cloud storage service Google Drive official, but what has created much buzz around the web is the combination of the service's privacy policy and the company's recently unified terms of service and privacy policy. Yes, there seems to be no specific privacy policy for Google Drive as such.

At its annual developers conference, which will be held June 11-15 at the Moscone West convention center in San Francisco, Apple promises five days of details and insights on iOS 6 and OS X Mountain Lion and no iPhone. Tickets sell out in just two hours.

Forget rumors, this has come straight from the horse's mouth. Samsung's upcoming Galaxy smartphone, aka Galaxy S3, is all set to get Exynos 4 Quad boost up, the South Korean tech giant revealed Wednesday.

Greek cars bump in a clash reminiscent of the ancient Battle of Thermopylae.

Early Android OS revenue numbers have been revealed in a series of slides pertaining to the ongoing legal battle between Google and Oracle.

Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE: XOM) will increase its quarterly dividend 21 percent to become the largest corporate dividend payer, according to Standard & Poor's on Wednesday.

Boeing Co turned in a stronger-than-expected quarterly profit on Wednesday as the company was able to ramp up production to meet rising demand.

At a time when many airlines are going bankrupt, tacking on high baggage fees and having massive layoffs and merging, Virgin Atlantic is not following the trends and is offering luxury suites ranging in price from $4,000 to $10,000.