China wants 160 Airbus jets worth $15 billion
Airbus
Airbus signed contracts today to sell 160 commercial passenger jets to China in a deal worth around $14.8 billion, the company said.
The orders include 110 A320 planes and 50 of the slightly larger A330 planes, Airbus officials said in Beijing, where they were accompanying French President Nicolas Sarkozy on his first state visit to the Asian trading giant.
Ten of the A330 aircraft were ordered by China Southern Airlines, according to the announcement.
Airbus and Chinese partners this summer officially signed an agreement to open a final assembly line in the Chinese city of Tianjian to produce A320s.
Northern Rock
Virgin Group said to be preferred bid
U.K.’s Northern Rock planned to name a consortium led by British tycoon Richard Branson’s Virgin Group as its preferred bidder to buy the ailing mortgage lender, media reports said Sunday.
Sky News and the British Broadcasting Corp. reported Northern Rock will announce its intentions today. The bank has received 10 offers from suitors interested in taking over the business, which suffered a catastrophic downturn during the recent global credit freeze.
The BBC said Virgin’s bid includes an immediate repayment of $22 billion of the $50 billion the bank borrowed from the state as the crisis took hold.
Virgin’s bid, which would see Northern Rock rebranded as Virgin Money, was preferred to that of U.S. buyout specialists J.C. Flowers & Co., the BBC said.
Nintendo
Wiis wanted, but few available
Last year, Nintendo’s Wii gaming console became a latter-day Cabbage Patch Kid or Tickle Me Elmo, prompting long lines of desperate parents haunting stores hoping to snag one.
Here comes the sequel, Quest for Wii 2007.
Retailers already are under siege, and despite Nintendo’s claims that they are churning out Wii consoles at an unprecedented pace, there are few of the $250 units available.
The alternatives - Sony’s PlayStation 3 and Microsoft’s Xbox 360 - won’t do. “Whenever we tell them we don’t have any Wiis in stock, they just walk out,” said John Bedmar, a sales associate at Gamestop in Edison, N.J.
One Laptop Per Child
PC-donation program extended
A promotion in which a customer buying a $188 computer in the U.S. and Canada automatically donates a second one to a child in a developing country was extended until year’s end, organizers said last week.
The “Give One, Get One” program will now run through Dec. 31, instead of ending on Nov. 26, according to the One Laptop Per Child Program, a nonprofit spinoff from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The program said customers in the U.S. and Canada will pay $399 for two laptops, with one going to the buyer and the other to a child in such countries as Rwanda, Afghanistan, Cambodia, Haiti and Mongolia.
The laptop has a homegrown user interface designed for children, boasts built-in wireless networking, uses very little power and can be recharged by hand with a pulley or a crank.
Map fine-tuning allowed - to a point
Google Maps, Google’s popular mapping and driving-directions tool, is now letting users correct its maps, Wikipedia-style.
Google, the company with the most frequently used search engine, has been beefing up its other features over the past several years to develop more user-generated, interactive content.
Users with Google accounts can move the small green arrows that pinpoint addresses on its maps. To avoid “monkeying with markers,” Google said, there are restrictions on which markers may be edited:
Moving a place marker more than 200 yards needs Google’s nod. Users also can’t edit sites of schools, hospitals, police stations or businesses registered with Google’s Local Business Center.
LG Philips
Smudge-proof screen touted
Tired of irritating smudges, dust and fingerprints on laptop computer screens? LG.Philips LCD has come up with a dirt-resistant, easy-to-clean panel.
A special coating on screens used to reduce glare also had a tendency to retain dirt and oil, the company said. A second coating to make screens dirt-resistant was costly and time-consuming.
Now, a single coating can do both jobs, LG.Philips said.
“Our new panel employs a principle similar to that used on nonstick frying pans,” said Ahn Byung-chul, who leads development of advanced technology at the company.
The new technology is to go into production the first half of 2008, first on the 15.4-inch widescreen panels.
Compiled by Newhouse News Service, The Washington Post and The Associated Press