COMPANIES

On the last day of November, iMac 21.5-inch will go on sale in the United Kingdom. Apple announced on Tuesday that the ultra thin 21.5-inch iMac will be available in stores and online shop by Friday. For the larger version, which is the 27-inch iMac, techies would have to wait until December for delivery but could pre-order it also on Nov 30.

Facebook, the largest social media network in the world with over 500 million members, is cashing in on the Christmas spending mode of netizens by launching in the United States a section called Gifts.

While Australian retailers felt some form of relief with the apparent success of Click Frenzy on Nov 20, a major retailer forecasts a wave of retail collapses in 2013.

Will Nintendo’s Wii U fuel the recovery of the limping game console business? While the Japanese game maker would not want to claim that distinction, it reported on Monday that the new product is off to a respectable start – selling 400,000 units in a week’s time.

Asha is the reason Nokia remains profitable and recent additions to the series somewhat weaved a clear picture why the handsets, mostly powered by Nokia’s antiquated S40 Symbian platform, were snapped up by close to seven million global consumers as of September 2012.

The early holiday sales had been kind so far to Nokia that it left the company’s stocks of Lumia 920s depleted, reports said.

Two new feature phones from Nokia will hit selected global markets this holiday season and the Finnish firm is confident that shoppers will love the handsets’ main attraction – the Asha 205 and Asha 206 are wallet-friendly.

Samsung’s Galaxy Note 2 has become immensely popular, especially in China, that its maker caved in to demands voiced out by Chinese consumers – a dual-SIM version of the world’s first commercially successful smartphone-tablet hybrid.

Virgin Mobile opened on Monday nominations for individuals who want to be part of the Virgin Mobile Testing Team. Successful team participants who are nominated through a Facebook-dedicated page will be sent a latest handset to test drive and asked for reviews that must include pros and cons in a two-minute video.

As 2012 winds up, ZTE and Samsung are now planning to have the next generation of smartphones in 2013 with octo-core or eight core processors inside their mobile devices.

Thanks to the Windows OS, Swedish telecom firm Nokia is experiencing a second wind. Reports said that Nokia has received more than 2.5 million orders for the Lumia 920 unit worldwide. This volume of orders is more than the entire line up of Lumia family sold in the third quarter of 2012.

Amazon is practically giving out a gadget steal for consumers willing to be tied up for a 2-year contract with U.S. telco AT&T and all they need to do is make a one-off payment of $US0.01, a package that is reserved for new subscribers of the company.

If you are mulling for a gadget purchase this holiday season and wanting to try out a different smartphone system, the best bet you can get is Nokia’s Lumia 920 and Lumia 820, according to tech experts.

The year 2012 could prove the biggest for South Korean tech giant Samsung so far as reports suggested that the Galaxy device maker is well on its way to keep the global smartphone leadership by shipping at least 60 million phones at the close of December.

HTC has another leak of an upcoming mobile device called HTC Deluxe which is expected to arrive January 2013. Other latest HTC Android smartphones released recently have powerful processors which are all in quad-core, providing efficiency and speed to the user.

Major book chain Barnes & Noble has joined the technology battle by releasing the Nook HD. The popular bookstore's decision to include more electronic items that actually are also considered rivals of its traditional books is an indicator that bricks and mortar stores need to accept and take part in the technology battle to survive financially.

Qantas Domestic Chief Executive Lyell Strambi blamed on Sunday the excess capacity in the country’s domestic routes as the reason behind the air carrier’s financial woes. He said the situation benefits passengers, but not the airlines.

Success or failure? The Click Frenzy on Nov 20 in Australia was met with mixed reviews with a major retailer calling the event a runaway success, while critics who bit the hype that it was the sale that would stop the nation were disappointed not only because of the Web site's crash but also the flimsy deals made available.

Quietly, Samsung has refreshed its Galaxy Tab line, which is the South Korean tech giant’s answer to Apple’s iPad, earlier this year, giving it some bump up to fit prevailing tablet lovers’ demands and trimming some excesses at the same time.

Few months into its scheduled February 2013 launch for new generation of handsets and a revised mobile platform, BlackBerry maker Research in Motion (RIM) saw considerable boosts on shares value, reports said.

There is a third smartphone system outside the dominant Android and iOS world and it’s called the Windows Phone 8. Of course we know that already in the same way that we equate WP8 to Nokia’s Lumia handsets.

One more bad publicity for Microsoft’s Windows 8 as Yahoo! News reported that influential gadget reviewer Jakob Nielsen will wait out for the next version of the operating system, judging the freshly rolled out OS as lacking the punch for a compelling PC experience.

LG’s Optimus smartphone lines can be considered as the South Korean consumer electronic firm’s saviour. The handsets are largely credited for nudging LG out of the red column, chalking up respectable profits after the global smartphone scrambling had ended for the September 2012 quarter.

HTC One S has been in the competition for quite some time but a second and really thorough look seems warranted for a device that enraptured quite a number of tech experts for its impressive and sturdy finish.

Looking to get Samsung’s Galaxy S3 Mini minus the two-year obligation? The downsized mobile phone is currently available on Amazon, CNET said on Tuesday, but stocks are running very low.

Global sales of Microsoft’s new operating system, Windows 8, has been slow at best but devices running the cross-platform OS were moving in a much better pace, tech blog site Mashable reported this week.

The power of online shopping could be both liberating and problematic if one is not as conspicuous as ever. Scanning through colourful and interactive catalogues of products and services spells fun as the new shopping flare. Nonetheless. shopping or just browsing, one should not let your guard down as there are those on the watch to do some online mischief.

Click Frenzy's website may have crashed due to the surge of consumers wanting to get first dibs on discounted products, and may have lost patrons along the way, but the real winners here were the retailers themselves prepared to serve online consumers.

Looking to get Samsung’s Galaxy S3 Mini minus the two-year obligation? The downsized mobile phone is currently available on Amazon, CNET said on Tuesday, but stocks are running very low.