Just Economic Info

Twitter said Thursday that it will begin placing advertisements known as "Promoted Tweets" in the timelines of users who follow a particular brand or company.Twitter said it will begin testing the new advertising offering with a number of companies including Dell, Gatorade, Groupon, JetBlue, LivingSocial, Microsoft, Red Bull, Starbucks and...

"Facebook.com" is by far the most common URL that people type into the address bar of their internet browser.People are typing "facebook.com" almost three times more often than "google.com."The URL statistics were published on July 25 by Christopher Finke, a software engineer and the creator of URL Fixer, a browser add-on that fixes human...

Tablet computers running Google's Android software will catch up with Apple's iPad and surpass it in 2016, research firm Informa said.Informa said it expects Apple's current 75 percent market share to fall to 39 percent in 2015, when Android market share will grow to 38 percent."From 2013, as cheaper and more advanced Android tablets enter...

South Korea's economic growth slowed in the second quarter from three months earlier due to weaker exports and sluggish construction investment, the central bank said Wednesday.Asia's fourth-largest economy grew 0.8 percent quarter-on-quarter in April-June compared to a 1.3 percent expansion in January-March, according to an advance estimate...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawmakers dug in Tuesday for what is shaping up to be a protracted fight over legislation necessary to end a partial shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration even as the economic and social consequences of the shutdown widened.Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said he was unaware of any negotiations to end the legislative...

WASHINGTON/LONDON (Reuters) - The United States will lose its top-notch AAA credit rating from at least one major rating agency, according to a Reuters poll that also found wrangling over the debt ceiling has already damaged the economy.A small majority of economists -- 30 out of 53 -- surveyed over the past two days said the United States...

European Union leaders are poised to hold an emergency summit after finance ministers acknowledged for the first time that some form of Greek default may be needed to cut Athens' debts and to stop contagion spreading to Italy and Spain."There will be an extra summit this Friday," a senior euro zone diplomat told Reuters, suggesting policymakers...

Moody's said it was increasingly likely that Ireland would need further rounds of official financing Ratings agency Moody's has cut the Republic of Ireland's debt rating to junk status.Moody's said its decision was based on the "growing possibility" that Ireland would need a second bail-out before it can return to capital markets.The current...

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp has faced a growing phone-hacking scandal in the UKNews Corp has announced plans to buy back $5bn (£3.2bn) of its shares as it attempts to contain the phone-hacking scandal that has sent its share price down in recent days.News Corp shares have fallen 14% since 4 July after the scandal broke, wiping about $5bn off...

The US trade deficit widened to $50.2bn (£31.7bn) in May, the highest level for 31 months, as oil imports surged.The trade gap rose from a downwardly revised $43.6bn in April, according to Commerce Department figures.Oil prices helped push imports to the second highest level on record, while exports fell slightly from April's record high.The...

Billionaire US investor Warren Buffett has donated another $1.78bn (£1.1bn) to several charities, with most going to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.Mr Buffett has given the charity run by the co-founder of Microsoft 23.31 million shares in his investment company Berkshire Hathaway.The shares were passed to the foundation on Wednesday,...

The pace of growth of imports to China slowed down in June as the government's efforts to rein in growth hit domestic demand.Imports to China grew by 19.3% in June, compared with a year ago, a sharp decline from the 28.4% surge in May, latest government data showed.Meanwhile exports rose by 17.9%, a slowdown compared to the 19.4% rise in...

The first solar park in Wales is expected to start converting sunlight into electricity later at the Rhosygilwen estate in Pembrokeshire.Almost 10,000 solar panels have been imported from the United States and are placed in 12 lines in a six-acre field.The £2.5m investment will be onstream three weeks before the UK government lowers the subsidy...

The cost of borrowing for debt-laden Portugal, the Irish Republic and Italy hit new highs on Friday.Greek debts also sold off, reversing a recent rally on hopes of a new rescue.Financial markets were reacting to the European Central Bank's decision to raise interest rates, as well as political developments in Italy.Italian economy minister...

Inflation in China has risen to its highest level for three years, despite a series of interest rate rises and curbs on bank lending.Prices in June rose 6.4% from a year earlier, well above the rate for May.Analysts say Chinese authorities are concerned that the rising cost of basic foodstuffs could fuel social unrest.The price of pork -...

The number of new jobs created in the US in June was the lowest in nine months as the employment recovery stalled, new data has shown.Only 18,000 new jobs were created in the month, way below expectations of a 90,000 rise, which had been raised by strong private sector hiring figures released on Thursday.The unemployment rate also rose, to...

Baidu, the biggest web company in China, will partner with Microsoft to provide English-language search results.English search queries will be directed from Baidu to Microsoft's Bing search engine, the Chinese company said in a statement late on Monday.Baidu dominates search in China with more than 75% of the market.The move is aimed at increasing...

Japan's government has approved a second budget of 2tn yen ($24.7bn; £15.4bn) for reconstruction after the 11 March earthquake and tsunami.The money will be spent on rebuilding, and on compensating victims of the Fukushima nuclear crisis.Japan is facing huge public debts and will not borrow money from the market for this budget.This second...

The World Trade Organization (WTO) has ruled that China broke international rules by restricting the exports of certain metals.The case, which dates back to 2009, was brought after China imposed quotas, saying it had to conserve resources of magnesium and other exports.The US said this left non-Chinese manufacturers with shortages of the...

The gap in average pay between workers in the public sector and those in the private sector has widened.Public sector employees were paid 7.8% more on average than private sector staff in April 2010, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.This was a bigger gap than the 5.3% difference in 2007, the figures show.Other benefits such as...

Japan's economy today showed signs of bouncing back from the earthquake and tsunami that left the country devastated in March.Industrial output jumped 5.7 per cent in May, rapidly accelerating from a gain of 1.6% in April, official data showed.It was also better than the 5.5 per cent figure expected by economists.One of the biggest blows...

Last April, 38 year old co-founder of Google (GOOG), Larry Page, took back the reins of leading his company as CEO from Eric Schmidt. Other than a few sentences at the last earnings call, he has yet to make a public statement or speech about Google or his planned strategy.Ten years ago, he had to give up the CEO title because his investors...

If you have a cellphone with a monthly limit on how much data you can use, here are some tips on what types of phone use will gobble up your precious megabytes:— Streaming video and videoconferencing. The biggest offender. One minute of YouTube-quality video eats up 2 megabytes. If you're on a plan that gives you 200 megabytes per month,...

Finnish handset maker Nokia Corp. says it plans to introduce this year its first mobile phone using the Microsoft Windows platform.Chief Executive Stephen Elop said in a speech Tuesday in Singapore that Nokia will start to deliver the models in bulk during 2012.Nokia also unveiled its N9 smartphone model, which is based on the MeeGo platform....

Online search leader Google Inc. is taking yet another stab at social networking, as it tries to go up against Facebook in this wildly popular and lucrative segment of the Internet. This time the project is called Google+ and it aims to make online sharing more like real life."We think people communicate in very rich ways," said Vic Gundotra,...

CHICAGO — Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Thursday he'll stay in his job for the "foreseeable future," addressing speculation he might leave the Obama administration following the current round of budget negotiations. "I live for this work. It's the only thing I've ever done. I believe in it," Geithner said when questioned about his plans by former President Bill Clinton onstage at a meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative."We...

Australian federal police charged two currency printing firms and several of their former senior managers on Friday with bribing foreign officials to secure bank note supply contracts.The charges against Securency International Pty Ltd. - one of the world's leading currency printing firms - and Note Printing Australia Ltd. relate to alleged...

China's manufacturers suffered sluggish growth in orders in June as inflation-fighting curbs on credit took a toll on demand, according to a survey released Friday.The China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing said its monthly purchasing managers index fell to 50.9 in June from 52 in May, 52.9 in April and 53.4 in March. The index has...