TECHNOLOGY

Shares of Amazon.com, the world’s biggest e-retailer, plunged 12 percent in pre-market trading, wiping out $9 billion in value, after the company reported disappointing third-quarter results.

Global electronics firms expect supply disruption caused by flooding in Thailand to continue for several quarters and the Thai operations of Japan's Toshiba Corporation are expected to resume in January at the earliest, executives said.

Fujitsu Ltd <6702.T> said its quarterly operating profit fell 35 percent, dragged down by losses in its devices business, sluggish IT spending in Japan and a strong yen, but it stuck to its full-year profit forecast on hopes for a pickup in IT spending in the October-March period.

Lenovo Group Ltd, the world's No.2 PC maker, said on Wednesday that it expected some constraints on hard disk drive supplies through the first quarter of next year after severe floods in Thailand crimped global supply.

Apple Inc. received overwhelming positive responses for iPhone 4S that sold 4 million units during the opening weekend. Despite having fewer features when compared to Samsung Galaxy S2, iPhone 4S promises blazing performance with its A5 chipset and the latest iOS 5.

Nokia unveiled its long-awaited first Microsoft Windows phones on Wednesday, betting on the two sleek new models to get it back into the race with Apple and Google.

Japan's scandal-hit Olympus Corp said its chairman and president Tsuyoshi Kikukawa has stepped down due to a series of media reports on the company's problems and a plunge in its share price.

Some shops in the Thai capital began imposing emergency rationing on Wednesday as anxious residents stockpiled food and other necessities, with Bangkok under threat of inundation for weeks to come.

Britain's biggest mobile operator Everything Everywhere posted lower revenue in the third quarter due to regulatory cuts but said its customer base was stabilising while it was also making good progress in cost-cutting.

When ministers, officials, tech executives, Internet activists and security experts meet in London next week to discuss the management of cyberspace, they will be taking some of the first steps down a very long road.

China said on Wednesday it will launch within weeks its first spacecraft capable of docking with a module it put into orbit last month, in what will mark a crucial test of its growing space programme.

German drugs and chemicals group Merck KGaA has cut the top end of its sales forecast for 2011 by 2 percent after sluggish demand for consumer electronics dimmed the prospects for its liquid crystals unit.

IBM has announced that Virginia Rometty will take over on January 1 as President and CEO from Sam Palmisano.

Japan's scandal-hit Olympus Corp said its chairman and president Tsuyoshi Kikukawa has stepped down due to a series of media reports on the company's problems and a plunge in its share price.

Fears of flooding across the Thai capital grew on Wednesday after Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra warned parts of Bangkok could face inundation for up to a month, with authorities calling a special five-day holiday to allow people to leave.

Shares of scandal-plagued Olympus Corp. fell more than 10 percent on Wednesday after gaining 8.2 percent in the previous session.

Shares of scandal-plagued Olympus Corp <7733.T> fell more than 10 percent on Wednesday after gaining 8.2 percent in the previous session.

A Tibetan Buddhist monk doused himself in fuel and set himself ablaze in far western China on Tuesday, the tenth ethnic Tibetan this year to resort to the extreme form of protest, an overseas advocacy group said.

South Korea's LG Electronics reported a wider-than-expected quarterly loss on Wednesday, with its mobile phone division sinking deeper into the red, dashing hopes of a recovery in its struggling smartphone business.

Sprint customers using the iPhone 4S are considering returning the smartphones due to slow network speeds and poor performance.

Turkey clung to hopes on Wednesday of finding survivors under rubble three days after a powerful earthquake killed at least 459 people, and the government finally requested foreign help to shelter thousands of homeless families.

The Nest Learning Thermostat is a touch-controlled thermostat designed to personalize home energy needs and help save as much as $173 per year on your energy bill, according to Nest Labs who has made it. Tony Fadell, who led the team that designed the iPod at Apple, and contributed to the start of the iPhone project, is the designer behind this thermostat.

Research in Motion said the software upgrade for its PlayBook tablet has been delayed to February next year.

A Taiwanese animation company has made a hilarious video of an animated version of the Steve Jobs Biography, boiling down the 656 page book by Walter Isaacson into a 90 second bit.

IBM global sales chief Virginia Rometty will take over as CEO from Sam Palmisano in January, becoming one of the most powerful women in business and technology today.

Amazon.com Inc shocked investors with a far weaker-than-expected outlook for the crucial holiday season quarter as it spent heavily on its new Kindle Fire tablet computer.

AT&T Inc has settled a nationwide lawsuit by an agency accusing it of age discrimination for refusing to rehire tens of thousands of workers who had retired from the largest U.S. telephone company.

IBM CEO Sam Palmisano will hand over the reins to global sales chief Virginia Rometty from 2012, ending a near-decade-long reign during which he helped transform Big Blue from a PC hardware company into a global services behemoth.

The world's largest cellphone maker Nokia will unveil its first phones using Microsoft software on Wednesday, hoping they will kick-start a rescue of its ailing smartphone business.