• Early today, Microsoft announced its bid to acquire Yahoo! for $44.6 billion. The offer amounts to $31 per share, a 62 percent increase over Yahoo's stock price of $19.18 on Thursday. The proposed deal, as widely reported, signals Microsoft's intensified aggression against Google, which dominates Internet search with 60 percent of the market, as well as online advertising. The bid, if accepted, would be Microsoft's priciest acquisition to date.

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  • Yesterday morning, before a packed house on the west side of New York, Motorola unveiled its cellphones of the future, as well as a conflicting message about what it's trying to accomplish with the specter of the iPhone looming. Is the user interface the most important thing, or do people want their phones to make a fashion statement? Motorola claimed it was the former, but really only showed the latter.

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  • Dow Jones Co. Inc., owners of The Wall Street Journal, received an unusual and surprising offer this morning. According to CNBC, Rupert Murdoch and his company News Corp. offered $60 a share for all outstanding shares in order to purchase the preeminent newspaper company. The asking price for a share of Dow Jones Co. at the time of the proposal was a little over $36. This comes out to an estimated $5 billion if Dow Jones accepts.

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  • If I were Don Imus I would stay home for a while. Not just in the house, but in bed, with the shades drawn.

    With all the invectives being slung around -- about his comb-over, his lack of sexual prowess, his tired rants -- it's better just to hibernate out of sight than to feed the fire. But the problem with Imus, which is what got him into trouble in the first place, is that he doesn't know when to stop, stick his foot in his mouth, and call it a day.

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  • What will replace the fossil-fuel burning car as we know it? Will it be ethanol? Hydrogen? Electricity? Despite the gas-guzzling Hummers, pickup trucks, and SUVs whose four-wheel-drive, offroad capabilities most Americans will never, ever need, there were signs that things are changing at this year’s New York International Auto Show. I met with three different companies and checked out their visions for the future of cars. One was an established German auto maker, another an inventive American startup, and the last, well, they spurred the start of the space tourism industry. Read More »