BUSINESS

Transactions paid through credit cards may soon become a bygone era in Australia as telco carriers in the land Down Under study the possibility of enabling consumers to pay for purchased goods by using one's very own mobile phone or tablet.

Despite falls on Wall Street overnight, local stocks are holding onto 17 month highs in thin trade.

Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and South China Sea Institute of Oceanology researchers blamed China's economic boom for the shrinkage by at least 80 per cent of coral reefs in the region over the past three decades.

Fortescue Metals Group (ASX: FMG) reactivated its plan to boost its production target of iron ore to 155 million tonnes a year due to improved prices of the commodity in global markets.

Mac and iPad uses their internal hard drives for both running and storing data. The best way to avoid piling up data inside these devices is by using an external hard drives and transfer them if not usually used. The internal hard drive, like any other smartphones or computers, records traces of programs, applications and other tasks and stores cache memory for faster access the next time a user accesses it.

Samsung has finally announced the upcoming update for the Samsung Galaxy Note N7000 with the Android Jellybean Premium Suite.

Apps are very important to any smartphones, and without it, the device appears like the old technology mobile phones sold before. Tablet computers have the same needs for new apps to maximise its use as well as make it an enjoyable experience for iPad owners.

Trent Martin, an Australian research analyst, was indicted on Wednesday in the U.S. over alleged insider trading linked to International Business Machines' (IBM) purchase of SPSS for $1.2 billion. SPSS is an analytics software company.

After two days of rest, investors cautiously returned to their computers to place trades. It was around four times quieter than a typical session, as expected. The All Ordinaries Index (XAO) still rose by 0.3 per cent or 15.8 pts to 4661.4 making it the 11th session of gains in 13 trading days.

Australia's new plain tobacco packaging law seems to have been implemented just in the nick of time to persuade smokers to come up with a healthier New Year 2013 resolution after having been exposed to the vivid graphic images of the potential effects of smoking to one's health.

The Australian share market has resumed trade following the two day Christmas break on a subdued note. US markets closed in the red overnight as concerns over the looming "Fiscal Cliff" deadline again dominated, while weaker than expected holiday sales figures prompted selling in retail stocks.

Santori, the largest livestock importer in Indonesia is moving its operations to China. The move was prompted by Jakarta's restriction on live cattle importation following Canberra's own live export ban in 2011.

Users of iOS devices such as iPad and Mac are mostly joyful once they get their hands on these Apple-made gadgets. Most of the users who have switched from Windows or Android to iOS come to that realisation with a pleasant surprise from the new experience.

New Year 2013 will begin with a bang for all users of Android and iOS as they all wait for the upcoming new releases in May and March, respectively. Android will likely release the new version of its open-source OS platform called Key Lime Pie and iOS is rumored to have a new iPad device.

There are hundreds of thousands of apps available for the iPhone that are considered secure and very useful. Although awesome to download, some of these apps are for purchase with corresponding price tags.

Obviously, the world didn't end on Dec 21, 2012. After recovering from all the media frenzy the non-event generated, the question in many people's mind is what's next until the next cuckoo predicts another Doomsday and candles, shelters and miniature Noah's ark become bestsellers again?

As expected, Australian shoppers filled up shopping malls on Wednesday, Boxing Day, for reduced prices of items which saved buyers an estimated $600 million across the country.

The Australian sharemarket continued on its strong run to improve for the 10th time in 12 sessions and is still trading around 18-month highs. The All Ordinaries Index (XAO) edged higher by 0.2 per cent or 10.4 pts to 4645.6. All sectors managed to rise modestly, with the utilities the biggest improvers in percentage terms. The local market will be closed on both Tuesday and Wednesday.

The state of Queensland's Barrier Aviation airline has been grounded by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) after the airliner has been found to contain "serious and known defects." Effectively immediately, the suspension will last for five working days.

Android lovers would agree: Firmware updates from handset manufacturers remain its weakest link but the best in this woeful lot, that is to provide the most current Android patch cycle, is HTC.

Google is reportedly ramping up its hardware business by coming up with another signature smartphone on 2013, which reports said is tentatively dubbed ‘X Phone’ and now under development by Motorola.

The Australian share market is tracking higher in the early session, on a shortened day's trade ahead of the Christmas break. The ASX will close at 2.10pm AEDT this afternoon and will remain closed until Thursday, 27th December.

The Mayan Calendar may have renewed a cycle but its predicted date of doomsday has faded away. However, the future of Android lies ahead and the predictions about it apparently happening every day in this age of technology.

In 2011, Ice Cream Sandwich was on high demand by various users with flagship smartphones because of its cool features and performance improvements. Brand manufacturers are coping with demands for requests of updates up to the version 4.0.3.

Samsung is reportedly issuing replacements for faulty units of the bestselling Galaxy S3 following numerous complaints that the bestselling smartphone was experiencing ‘dying out’ episodes some months after owners’ initial use.

Android is never going to stop on its onset revolution in the mobile OS platform battle. For 2012, Google released Android 4.1 and 4.2 Jellybean as their latest firmware version and next year, Android 5.0 Key Lime Pie will set foot before Jellybean could ever complete one cycle.

With the four overnight cash rate cuts made by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) in 2012, Australian borrowers saved more than $21 billion in extra interest payments, data from Treasury said.

With the end-of-the-world scenario now over, Australians would likely be able to concentrate on the Christmas and New Year celebrations, which would mean a lot of food preparations. It also means a lot of wasted food. Throughout the year, Aussies waste $8 billion worth of food, said a study by Do Something!, released on Sunday. Based on an estimated volume of four million tonnes of food thrown away yearly, Do Something! founder John Dee reckoned the value of per capita wastage at $1,036.

For more than a year now, Cyprus has been shut out of international capital markets after its banks suffered huge losses from their exposure to Greece