IBT Staff Reporter

The AFI Fest 2011 wrapped up eight days of programing in Hollywood on Thursday night, after a couple hundred screenings, a lot of visits from movie stars and a week's worth of major showcases for some of the year's big awards contenders.

Pee-powered fuel cell generated enough electricity to power a hearing aid, researchers found.

A federal judge ordered Raj Rajaratnam, the Galleon Group hedge fund founder sentenced to 11 years in prison for insider trading, to pay a record $92.8 million penalty in a related U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission civil case.

Activision Blizzard's Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 video game racked up more than $400 million in sales on its first day in stores in the United States and the United Kingdom.

Vivendi's Universal Music Group and Sony won the auction for EMI's recorded music and music publishing operations on Friday, trumping bids by archrivals Warner Music Group and BMG Music Publishing at the 11th hour.

U.S. regulators are investigating the safety of batteries used to power electric vehicles after a General Motors Co Chevrolet Volt caught fire following a routine crash test.

Facebook is finalizing a settlement with federal regulators over changes to its privacy policies enacted two years ago, the Wall Street Journal reported.

In an emailed statement, the Canadian-listed, China-focused company said that it is cooperating with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) in their investigation, but gave no details. An RCMP spokesperson was not immediately available for comment.

Toronto's main stock index was up more than 1 percent at midday on Friday as commodity prices rose on optimism that Italy would pass an austerity package that would calm fears about Europe's debt crisis.

Canadian gold miner IAMGold (IMG.TO: Quote) is on the look-out for acquisitions and while it is not itself up for sale, its chief executive said on Friday it does represent good value right now.

A legal battle pitting a large media conglomerate and a user-generated content distributor against each other could lead to changes in the way the public engages with the media, according to two lawyers familiar with the case.

As part of the restructuring related to the merger of its two banking units, Mizuho Financial Group Inc will cut 10 percent of its workforce, or 3,000 jobs, by end of fiscal 2015, The Nikkei said.

The hacked database included users names, hashed and salted passwords, previous game purchases, email addresses, billing addressees and encrypted credit card information.

Can you imagine spending $2 million on a trailer? This list of oddly expensive places is sure to surprise.

The Federal Reserve will begin a new round of bank stress tests in a couple of weeks, a top Fed official said on Friday, warning that strains from Europe's debt crisis threaten the U.S. economy and financial system.

Ron Paul supporters scheduled a new money bomb Friday to coincide with Veterans Day. It's officially called the Support Them Now/Veteran's Day Moneybomb, according to the Web site Death and Taxes.

Some users noticed their phones would lose 1 percent of their battery every few minutes. iPhone experiencing the bug wouldn't even last a day without charging. Apple rushed out the released iOS 5.0.1 Nov. 10. However, the patch might have been a little premature.

Puerto Rican hip hop band Calle 13 led the Latin Grammy nominations on Wednesday with a record 10 nods, sharing the spotlight for top awards along with Enrique Iglesias, Ricky Martin and Shakira.

The government and the Bank of Canada agreed on Tuesday to renew without change the central bank's five-year mandate to target a 2 percent overall inflation rate.

A fire involving a General Motors Co Chevy Volt has prompted a U.S. government safety investigation of batteries used to power electric vehicles.

Stocks rose on Friday and were on track to end the week higher as Italy's Senate approved economic reforms, easing investors' concerns about the euro zone's debt crisis.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 destroys more than buildings and players' social lives -- it is also blowing through a few sales records.

Lenders will confront Japan's Olympus Corp next week to demand an explanation for an accounting scandal engulfing the firm, a banking source said on Friday, though he denied reports they would seek more security over their loans.

The International Monetary Fund on Friday warned that advanced economies could fall back into recession unless policy-makers move with greater urgency to agree on policies to boost growth.

Muslim leaders are worried about the 24-hour prayer rally happening Friday near Detroit.

An erroneous downgrade of French sovereign credit rating by Standard & Poor's rating agency on Thursday was a very serious incident and will have to be investigated, the European Commission said on Friday.

Automotive giant Daimler, a leading German exporter, is against keeping Greece in the euro zone at all costs and believes Europe's single currency will survive even if Athens is forced to return to the drachma.

Amid the sexual harassment allegations that have engulfed former CEO Herman Cain's campaign since Politico first published them on Oct. 30, his healthy 15-point lead over Mitt Romney in Iowa last week has become a shaky 4-point advantage, and he has fallen into third place in one national poll.

Americans became more hopeful about the economic outlook in November, pushing consumer sentiment to a five-month high, though they still have a gloomy view of personal finances, a survey released on Friday showed.