Business - NewsFactor

The NPD Group, a market-research firm, reports that 30 percent of the U.S. consumers who purchased Apple's iPhone 3G from its release on July 11 through August switched mobile carriers in order to join AT&T, which holds exclusive U.S. sales rights for the red-hot device.

The battle over e-readers is heating up rapidly, thanks to new hardware entries from the world's two leading e-book manufacturers and the surprising popularity of e-book software on Apple's iPhone and iPod touch. Although the total number of e-books is still well short of a single Steven King press run, the next-generation devices point to a steadily maturing market for digital literature.

One of the Internet's long-running success stories, global auction operator eBay, announced Monday that it is laying off 10 percent of its workforce in the coming weeks. Roughly 1,000 permanent employees and several hundred temporary employees will lose their jobs.

IBM is getting in the cloud. After a string of announcements over the past few weeks from Citrix, Red Hat, VMware, Cisco and Hewlett-Packard, Big Blue is launching an initiative to extend its traditional software delivery model toward a mix of on-premise and cloud-computing applications with new software, services and technical resources for clients and independent software vendors (ISVs).

The Facebook duo is no more. One of Facebook's two cofounders is leaving the popular social-networking site.

New laptops from Apple, maker of such advanced products as the iPhone, the iPod and the Mac, could be made from bricks. An aluminum brick, that is.

Skype is answering concerns about its joint venture with TOM Online in China. A report released Thursday by Canadian human-rights activists revealed a massive surveillance system that monitors Skype messages containing words China's government deems offensive.

"It is not true. There is no truth to the rumor." That was the terse denial issued by Katie Cotton, vice president of worldwide communications for Apple, in response to a post on CNN's iReport that Apple CEO Steve Jobs suffered a heart attack Friday.

Advertisers and lawmakers, along with Google and Yahoo executives, are eagerly awaiting a decision from the Department of Justice on the Internet search giants' ad agreement. The DOJ is expected to decide by mid-October whether Google can provide Yahoo with search advertisements.

The Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) in Washington ruled Thursday that music publishers and artists are entitled to a royalty payment of just more than nine cents for each track sold online. In addition, the CRB established a royalty rate of 24 cents for content used as ringtones.

In a move to compete with Amazon's Kindle e-book reader, Sony on Thursday launched a new Reader that leverages some of the Apple iPhone's strengths.

Nokia has taken the wraps off a new smartphone powered by the latest version of the company's Symbian S60 operating system for mobile devices. By adding the benefits of touchscreen technology to the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, the company is taking the familiar and giving it a human touch, according to Nokia Senior Vice President Jo Harlow.

In an eagerly awaited decision, the Copyright Royalty Board announced Thursday that it will not increase the royalties paid by online music stores to members of the National Music Publisher's Association. The decision to keep the royalty rate at nine cents per song is the first ruling by the CRB on digital-music downloads.

Google on Wednesday revamped its Blog Search tool with a news-like presentation. The tool looks more like Techmeme, Blogrunner and Tailrank, aggregating blog posts.

After putting up a wall protecting its iPhone technology, Apple instead started a war with developers -- but now the company is waiving the white flag.

Netflix has inked an agreement with Starz Entertainment under which Netflix subscribers will gain unlimited access to 2,500 additional movies and other choices from the Starz Play broadband subscription-movie service.

Text messaging may have claimed the lives of 25 people, while injuring 135, investigators say. Robert Sanchez, the driver of a Los Angeles Metrolink commuter train that crashed head-on with a freight locomotive, may have been text messaging seconds before the fatal crash, according to subpoenaed reports from Verizon Wireless. Records show the driver had received a text at 4:21.03 p.m. and sent a text at 4:22.01 p.m. The two trains crashed seconds later at 4:22.23 p.m.

Nokia, the world's largest manufacturer of mobile phones, has seen its market become more volatile and competitive. In remarks Wednesday at the Churchill Club, a Silicon Valley business and technology forum, Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo told attendees that the face of mobile technology is changing.

There's a new Nintendo kid on the block. On Wednesday, Nintendo confirmed rumors of a new version of the popular DS portable game machine, called the DSi. The announcement was made during the game giant's fall press conference.