Research in Motion Ltd. plans to introduce a tablet computer in November to compete with Apple Inc. iPad, Bloomberg News reported Friday on its website, citing two people familiar with RIM’s plans.
The computer, to be called Blackpad, will include Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless technology, allowing users to connect to the Internet through BlackBerry smartphones. It is to be priced in line with the iPad, which starts around $499, one person said. Get the full story »
Two security experts said on Friday they released a tool for attacking smartphones that use Google Inc’s Android operating system to persuade manufacturers to fix a bug that lets hackers read a victim’s email and text messages.
“It wasn’t difficult to build,” said Nicholas Percoco, head of Spider Labs, who along with a colleague, released the tool at the Defcon hacker’s conference in Las Vegas on Friday.
Percoco said it took about two weeks to build the malicious software that could allow criminals to steal precious information from Android smartphones. Get the full story »
Real estate firm Hines has sold its 60-story building in River North to KBS Realty Advisors LLC , a California-based investment firm.
Terms weren’t disclosed.
Hines, which developed the LEED-certified building in 2009, said it will continue to manage the property on 300 N. LaSalle St., which is home to various financial firms.
Officials from KBS weren’t immediately available for comment.
Two flu vaccine makers said Friday that they had started shipping supplies for the U.S. market, one of the earliest starts to distributing seasonal influenza vaccine.
And U.S. officials said they were changing the labeling on a vaccine made by Australia’s CSL Ltd. because it appears to have caused a higher than usual rate of seizures in children. Get the full story »
General Motors said Friday that it is boosting production capacity for its new Chevrolet Volt due to strong public interest in the electric car that goes on sale this year.
GM will now have a production capacity of 45,000 vehicles in 2012, up from previous plans for 30,000.
The automaker made the announcement as President Barack Obama toured the Volt production facility in Detroit.
Get the full story »
The government’s criteria for testing vehicles’ crash safety ratings are a-changin’.
For the past 30 years, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has been using its 5-star testing program to test how well vehicles sustain potential crashes. That rating system will soon expand to testing how well vehicles avoid accidents in the first place.
In other words, under these new guidelines, it’s going to become much more difficult for a vehicle to earn a 5-star safety rating, meaning it’s about to get easier for consumers to identify safe cars.
Heavy-equipment manufacturer Caterpillar Inc. said Friday it will build a parts plant for large mining machines in North Carolina, and it expects to employ about 510 full-time and contract workers in five years.
Construction is scheduled to begin in November on the Winston-Salem factory where workers will machine, assemble, test and paint axle assemblies for large mining machines. Production is expected to begin in the first quarter of 2012. Get the full story »
U.S. economic growth slowed in the second quarter as companies invested heavily in equipment from abroad and the pace of consumer spending eased, raising concerns about the recovery in the rest of 2010. Gross domestic product expanded at a 2.4 percent annual rate, the Commerce Department said in its first estimate on Friday, after an upwardly revised 3.7 percent growth pace in the January-March quarter.
Financial markets had forecast GDP, which measures total goods and services output within U.S. borders, growing at a 2.5 percent rate in the second quarter from a previously estimated a 2.7 percent rate for the first three months of this year. Get the full story »
The incoming new top executive at the University of Chicago Medical Center wants to keep the prestigious South Side teaching hospital’s competitive edge in an era of health reform and threats from medical-care providers outside the area looking to expand here such as the Cleveland Clinic and Mayo Clinic.
Dr. Kenneth Polonsky, 59, the top doctor in the Department of Medicine at Washington University’s School of Medicine in St. Louis and a former U. of C. research physician was named Dean of the division of Biological Sciences and the Pritzker School of Medicine and Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs. He replaces Dr. James Madara, who resigned last year. Get the full story »
Last year Ben Bernanke was able to make up for the losses suffered in 2008 thanks, in part, to the stock market recovery he helped bring about.
The U.S. Federal Reserve chairman’s wealth rose last year, according to financial disclosure forms released Friday by the central bank. As of the end of 2009, Bernanke’s asset holdings were $1.2 million to $2.5 million, the same as in 2007. That compares with $850,000 to $1.9 million in 2008, when stocks were walloped by the worst financial crisis since the 1929 Wall Street Crash. Get the full story »
Employers who try to skip out on paying wages to their workers will face new fines and possible jail time under a measure Gov. Pat Quinn signed into law Friday.
The law, which goes into effect Jan. 1, establishes a new small claims division in the Illinois Department of Labor where workers could try to recoup wages of $3,000 or less.
A group led by former all-star pitcher Nolan Ryan and a minor league baseball team owner made a new bid to buy the bankrupt Texas Rangers in a move that would block an auction for the Major League Baseball team set for next week.
The Rangers’ bankruptcy court-appointed chief restructuring officer, William Snyder, said at a hearing on Friday that he supports the new offer, according to a person who attended the hearing by telephone. Get the full story »
Northwest Airlines, which was bought by Delta Air Lines Inc. in 2008, has agreed to plead guilty and pay a $38 million criminal fine for its role in a conspiracy to fix prices on air cargo shipments, the U.S. Justice Department said Friday.
Under the plea agreement, it said Northwest has agreed to cooperate with the department’s ongoing antitrust investigation.
Chrysler Group LLC said Friday that it will add nearly 900 jobs at a factory in suburban Detroit and spare it from closure. The decision is a show of optimism that consumers will embrace the company’s refurbished midsize sedans.
The jobs will staff a second shift at Chrysler’s assembly plant in Sterling Heights, Mich., just north of Detroit, which makes the slow-selling Dodge Avenger and Chrysler Sebring midsize sedans. Get the full story »
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is the bank many Americans love to hate, but one group just plain loves it: its employees.
The firm’s employees are among the most fiercely loyal in the financial services industry, according to a survet by glassdoor.com, a career Web site. And Goldman Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein had the highest approval rating of any CEO in the financial sector. Get the full story »
