BUSINESS

Australia's mining industry was rocked on Thursday night, not by volatile iron ore prices or another tax on resources, but by the sudden firing of Tom Albanese as chief executive of Rio Tinto (ASX: RIO).

The much touted Qantas and Emirates alliance will now finally lift off after the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) on Thursday gave the two airline companies the awaited interim approval for its partnership.

Despite a slight tick-up in Australia's unemployment rate, the local share market rallied today edging 20 month highs. By close, the All Ordinaries Index (XAO) was up 14.7pts or 0.3pct to 4779.7.

Tasmania is on the road to recovery. After experiencing its catastrophic bushfire incident early this year, Tasmania struggles to recover, with the first shipment of its cherry export already bound for China.

Apple is heavily inclined for a third quarter refresh of the iPhone 5 by Q3 2013, by that time to be known as iPhone 5S, centred on A7 chips and retaining the 4-inch screen size, a new report said.

With Australia Day just a week and a few days away from now, some of you might be considering packing up your bags to spend the long weekend with your family, friends and loved ones. In so doing, you may want to consider some local hotels which TripAdvisor named as the best in all over Australia.

An IT company investigation over apparent hack attempts from China uncovered a thriving and secret outsourcing operation by the firm's top software developer. The probe found that the employee, identified as Bob, spent the whole day watching cat videos while paying Chinese developers one-fifth of his salary or about $850 a month.

The upcoming HTC M7 closely resembles Apple’s iPhone 5, based on the Android smartphone’s leaked image render published on Wednesday by Unwired View.

Despite the release of some disappointing employment numbers this morning, the Australian sharemarket is improving for the third time this week, with the All Ordinaries Index (XAO) up by 0.7 per cent or 34.1 pts to 4799.1. Most sectors are trading higher, with the exception of the telcos which are slipping modestly.

Nexus 7 was recently picked up for U.S. distribution by AT&T and T-Mobile, allowing American buyers of the unlocked Google-Asus tablet to connect via the two telcos’ HSPA+ network.

Push-to-talk (PTT) service is similar to a walkie-talkie with radio devices and usually has a limited range. In mobile devices, PTT can have unlimited range using an Internet connection and individuals conversing can be from both ends of the world. GroupVox developed their PTT service app which allows Facebook users to send text messages to one another and voice messages similar to a walkie-talkie.

by Carl Delfeld, Investment U Senior AnalystThursday, January 10, 2013: Issue #1945No question, gold has had a nice run.

Tablet devices may take over the existence of laptop computers in the future due to its great potential on delivering mobility, functionality, and battery life. Unlike laptops and netbooks, tablet devices are light and usually thin with capabilities to make office documents and presentations, multimedia functions, and have loads of applications.

Samsung and AT&T finally released over-the-air (OTA) the JellyBean 4.1.1 update for the Galaxy S3, which delivers exciting new features to the hugely popular smartphone courtesy of the smooth platform collaboration between Android and TouchWiz.

Jonathan Moyler, the anti-coal activist who issued a fake press release that caused losses on Whitehaven Coal and its shareholders, had maintained that the bigger loser is not the stockholders of the mining firm but farmers who would be affected by the company's Maules Creek project in the Gunnedah Basin.

Just when the resources industry in Australia was anticipating a further improvement in iron ore prices, reports said that the price of the key steelmaking ingredient plummeted to a 14-month biggest daily drop to $145.40 a tonne.

By Rudi Filapek-Vandyck, Editor FNArenaThe S&P500 managed to eke out a gain overnight of a full 0.29 point to close at 1472.

The Australian sharemarket managed to improve for the second time this week today, with the All Ordinaries Index (XAO) up 0.5 per cent or 22 pts to 4765.0. Today was the busiest day on the market in terms of volume so far this year; with $4.12 billion worth of shares exchanging hands.

HTC is saving the best to come in the few months ahead and its latest offering, the dual-core One SV, is a straightforward midrange smartphone intended to woo the budget-conscious buyers.

Powerful Android smartphones are in the 2013 gadget pipeline, but nothing beats the excitement reserved for Samsung’s Galaxy S4, which reports said will debut early this year with a 4.99-inch screen size.

The company Doist developed a productivity app called Todoist which is available on a mobile device, desktop, browser, Gmail, and many more. Now used by over 450,000 people, the app was named top mobile application by The Guardian and cited by The Next Web as among the 35 best productivity apps for 2013.

Apple, the tech giant, is cutting orders of screens and other components used to manufacture iPhone devices due to weak sales of the iPhone 5. Its rival, Samsung marches on as the company reached the 100 million mark of Galaxy S sales in the mobile market.

BlackBerry is raring to blaze the path for recovery via its initial two handsets launch on February, namely the Touchscreen Z10 and the QWERTY X10, both set to run on BB10.

In what seemed to be a subtle way of overturning Google's dominance in the search engine arena on the World Wide Web, Facebook launched on Tuesday its New Graph Search that enables its more than 1 billion users discover people, photos, places and interests. Well, at least for now.

The Australian share market lifted slightly in morning trade, with gains in banking and health care stocks covering the losses for our big name miners and energy players.

There are no supply issues hampering the production of Nexus 4, a South Korean official of LG told a Chinese publication this week, dismissing reports that the Google smartphone stock outs were mostly caused by a supply chain that is erratic and scarce.

It is a search function in a beta mode that would allow members to search information posted by their friends, not a smartphone. Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg's announcement on Tuesday at the company's headquarters dashed weeks of rumours that the most popular social media company would soon roll out a mobile device.

Rio Tinto PLC, the world's second largest mining company, informed that it would expand iron ore production by approximately 15 percent as it saw its 2012 output grow to about 253 million tons, topping its earlier forecast. The strong results were pushed mainly by the revival in China's demand for iron ore.

Despite the shift by Chinese steelmakers to use more local iron ore, mining giant Rio Tinto (ASX: RIO) is not fazed and hopes to cash in on anticipated renewed Chinese demand amid rising prices of the commodity.