Corporate and legal

With Republican Senator Judd Gregg withdrawing his name as the nominee for secretary of the Department of Commerce Thursday, all eyes may turn to Symantec CEO John Thompson as a potential replacement.

Prior to Gregg's appointment, Thompson's name was cited in various publications as a potential nominee, given his strong technology background and his role as CEO of the largest security software company that has a global presence.

The role of the commerce secretary touches on industry and security; technology; intellectual property with the Patent and Trademark Office; and international trade.

Thompson has also held several fundraisers in … Read more

Charter Communications announced Thursday it plans to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy as part of an agreement reached with its debt holders.

The announcement runs counter to the success its largest investor and Chairman Paul Allen received when he co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates. Since that time, however, Allen has run into bumps along the way with his other investments.

Charter, which announced its plans to file for Chapter 11 while the markets were open, ended the day down a whopping 48.1 percent to close at nearly 3.5 cents a share.

By April 1, Charter plans to file … Read more

Google's radio advertising business has become the newest project that didn't pass muster in Google's new financially rigorous era, and up to 40 employees will lose jobs as a result, the company said Thursday. However, the company isn't completely withdrawing from the market, saying it's begun exploring ads for streaming audio instead.

"While we've devoted substantial resources to developing these products and learned a lot along the way, we haven't had the impact we hoped for. So we have decided to exit the broadcast radio business and focus our efforts in online … Read more

Wi-Fi has come to the mobile phone, and people all over the world are taking advantage of the faster speeds to access the Net from their phones.

According to AdMob, a mobile advertising marketplace, mobile Internet usage on Wi-Fi picked up steam in January in the U.S. and Europe. Worldwide Internet requests originating from Wi-Fi hot spots increased 8 percent month over month to 6.8 billion, led by double digit growth in Western Europe and Asia, AdMob said in a recent study.

In Europe, Wi-Fi access on a mobile phone increased by 132 percent over the past year … Read more

MyScreen Mobile announced Thursday it is offering a version of its advertising rewards service for Google's Android smartphones.

Under the service, users sign up for MyScreen Mobile to receive targeted ads on their mobile phones. In exchange for viewing the full-screen ads, users receive rewards points for such subsidized mobile services as ringtones, mobile games, and gift cards.

MyScreen, which already has versions of its service for BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Symbian, and Palm OS devices, is offering up a service that is akin to other Internet advertising incentive programs that have popped up over the years from the former AllAdvantage … Read more

Update: This article was corrected to reflect that the information is for the fourth quarter of 2008, not the whole year.

The liquid crystal display TV market is beginning to lose some steam.

The fourth quarter was the first time that the total number of shipments of LCD TVs in North America was lower than the same quarter the previous year. Just 8.7 million units were shipped during the last quarter of 2008, a 2 percent decline from the 8.9 million shipped during the same time in 2007, according to data released Thursday by DisplaySearch, which tracks the … Read more

It appears Sirius XM Radio is seeking some sort of an investment from Liberty Media, which controls DirecTV, according to several media reports quoting anonymous sources close to the matter.

A deal between the satellite radio giant and the largest U.S. satellite-TV provider could help for Sirius fend off bankruptcy and an unsolicited takeover attempt from satellite company EchoStar, which has bought up Sirius' debt.

The Wall Street Journal, citing a person familiar with the matter, wrote that "though the talks between Sirius and Liberty are advanced, a deal remains far from certain. It wasn't clear how … Read more

Microsoft is continuing its one-employee-at-a-time acquisition of Yahoo.

The software maker confirmed late Wednesday that it has hired Larry Heck, a Yahoo vice president.

Microsoft said that Heck will start in a few weeks and report to Satya Nadella, senior vice president of the online services division of Microsoft's R&D group.

"We look forward to welcoming him to the team," Microsoft said in a statement.

Heck is the latest in a string of executives to move from Yahoo to Microsoft, with the most notable being Qi Lu, who now runs Microsoft's online unit. Other … Read more

Authors and publishers of tens of thousands of out-of-print books have submitted claims for compensation from Google Book Search as called for in a settlement agreement to a copyright lawsuit, a lawyer in the case said on Wednesday.

Under a $125 million settlement Google reached in October with book authors and publishers who sued over the company's book-scanning project, the search giant is required to provide notice to authors, publishers, and their heirs and successors that they may be eligible for payment.

The notice is being published in 218 countries and 72 languages, according to a statement from Boni &… Read more