COMPANIES

Shares of Dell, the No. 3 PC supplier, have surged nearly 25 percent this year. Could investors be looking for the company to start surging in the services sector?

Hecla Mining Company (NYES:HL) turns to profit in the fourth-quarter supported by lower costs and higher metals prices. Hecla's shares jumped 7 percent in early Tuesday morning trading before trending down slightly.

Only 54 percent of Americans have more emergency savings than credit card debt, according to a February study by Bankrate.com.

Alibaba Group, the Chinese e-commerce company, proposed on Tuesday to privatize its Alibaba.com division.

Prima has released Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim game application tool for iPad and iPhone users.

Chinese e-commerce firm Alibaba Group has offered to take its Hong Kong-listed unit Alibaba.com private at a cost of around HK$19.6 billion ($2.5 billion), a move it said was not related to a possible deal with Yahoo Inc on buying back Yahoo's stake in the Chinese Internet giant.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's biggest retailer, on Tuesday reported a 1.5 percent increase in fourth-quarter sales at its U.S. stores open at least a year.

LG has officially unveiled Optimus Vu which, according to many, is a competitive reply to Samsung's newest smartphone, Galaxy Note.

With the increasing dominance of mobile devices, Apple and Microsoft are trying to mobilize their PC operating systems too. Apple has released a developer preview of its Mac OS X 10.8 operating system, nicknamed Mountain Lion, which brings popular apps and features from the iPad to the Mac and will accelerate the pace of OS X innovation.

Far Cry 3 has recently released a five-minute gameplay footage.

Kingfisher Airlines Ltd plans to return some aircraft voluntarily to leasers after defaulting on payments and has seen a fresh exodus of pilots, local media reported. Kingfisher shares plunged as much as nearly 20 percent on Tuesday.

A Chinese court has ordered a local electronics vendor to stop selling the iPad, as part of the intensifying trademark dispute, which is threatening Apple to stop the sales of the popular tablet in the country.

Microsoft accused Google of bypassing privacy protections in Internet Explorer, following accusations last week that Google was doing so in Apple's Safari browser.

China Telecom, the smallest of the country's three carriers, said on Tuesday it had signed an agreement with Apple Inc to sell iPhones in China, the world's largest mobile phone market.

A top executive of Japan's scandal-ridden Olympus Corp has been found dead in a park outside New Delhi, an apparent suicide, The Times of India said Tuesday, quoting police.

Western investors in Japan's disgraced Olympus have accused its banks of trying to take control of the boardroom by stealth, amid media reports that the firm's major creditors are set to install their own appointees in the top jobs.

Along Washington, D.C.'s National Mall, an array of neoclassical monuments give tribute to the country's leaders. But a new arrival breaks the mold and has caused recent controversy.

Apple may release its next-generation iPhone -- presumably called the iPhone 5 -- in September or October 2012. Citing an Asian reliable source, Macotakara believes Apple is moving away from mid-year launches and leaning towards a 12-month iPhone upgrade cycle starting in the fall.

Carlsberg (CARLB) announced on Monday it will assume full control of Baltika Brewery (PKBA), spending $1.5 billion to buy the Russian brewer outright, after losing market share in the nation last year and anticipating a flat European market in 2012.

Swedish filesharing website The Pirate Bay may soon be blocked in the UK after a London judge ruled that the site breaches copyright laws on a large scale, and that both the platform and its users illegally share copyrighted material, such as movies and music.

Satellite firm Inmarsat said LightSquared, a venture struggling to build a U.S. mobile broadband service with Inmarsat's spectrum, failed to pay a $56.25 million installment to the British company.

In an attempt to catch up to the No. 2 tablet manufacturer, Amazon, Barnes & Noble will soon launch a cheaper 8GB model of the Nook Tablet. The new device was first reported on by tech blog The Verge, which noted the Nook Tablet currently costs $50 more than the Amazon Kindle Fire. The tech blog said the device appears to be the same as a previous model, but with less onboard storage.

Samsung Electronics will spin off its liquid crystal display division, dumping an unprofitable segment as the company shifts its focus towards thinner displays.

For those purchasing a new car and looking to save on gasoline prices, here is a list of the top 15 fuel efficient cars out on the market, according to ConsumerReports.org.

TransUnion Corp., the third largest provider of credit information to banks and consumers, said Advent International Corp. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc.'s private equity arm agreed to buy the company from Chicago's billionaire Pritzker family and local private equity firm Madison Dearborn Partners LLC for over $3 billion.

The Reston, Va.-based closely held company failed to pay London-based telecommunications firm Inmarsat $56.3 million under a spectrum-cooperation accord, Bloomberg reported Monday. Inmarsat was providing wireless spectrum for the wireless network LightSquared wants to build out in the U.S.

Samsung Electronics announced Monday that it will spin off its LCD business division to launch a new entity provisionally called Samsung Display Co., set to go live on April 1, 2012. The move awaits shareholder approval, but the new business will reportedly launch with about $668 million in paid-in capital to start working with.

Media conglomerate Vivendi, the Paris-based parent of Universal Music Group, officially sought approval from the European Union to purchase London-based EMI Group's recorded-music business, the European Commission announced Monday on its website.

Transocean crews over the weekend began drilling a relief well off the coast of Nigeria to allow for the proper abandonment of a Chevron Corp. natural gas well that exploded, killed two contractors, sank, and has remained on fire for more than one month.