Business - NewsFactor

With Mac sales expected to reach as high as 2.9 million this quarter, the last thing Apple needs is bad publicity about its new iMac with 27-inch screen. But YouTube clips of flickering screens on the new units, which went on sale Oct. 20, can't be good news. As of Monday morning there were 45 such clips on the site, with links on Apple user forums. The forums also had links to clips on other video-sharing sites, like gallery.me.com. Full Story »

The Obama administration has decided to join United Nations talks on cyberwar and Internet crime. After several years of staying out of talks between the U.N. and other countries, the U.S. will participate in discussions with Russia and the U.N.'s Arms Control Committee, sources told The New York Times. Full Story »

Apple has redesigned the App Store for the iPhone and iPod touch, bringing the online store in line with the rest of the iTunes shopping experience, emphasizing screenshots and logos and downplaying developer marketing copy. The previous version of the store had a brushed silver background, with developer copy at the top of the page and screenshots at the bottom. The new site is brighter with a white background and includes links to other apps by the same developer. But developers now only get three lines to describe their products. Full Story »

Big things come in small packages for Seagate Technology, which has introduced what it says is the thinnest 2.5-inch hard drive on the market. The addition to its Momentus product line, the Momentus Thin, is seven millimeters high, according to Joni Clark, product marketing manger for notebook hard drives. The drive is aimed at laptops, netbooks, backup devices, and consumer electronics. Full Story »

Synaptics and several partners on Monday introduced a new mobile-phone concept to demonstrate future possibilities for user interaction. Dubbed Fuse, the phone offers multi-touch capacitive sensing, haptic feedback, 3-D graphics, and force, grip and proximity sensing. Full Story »

TeliaSonera has launched the world's first commercial mobile services based on Long-Term Evolution (LTE) -- the final stage in the development of fourth-generation (4G) mobile technology based on the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) standard. Starting Tuesday, laptop users equipped with dedicated 4G modems in Stockholm, Sweden, and Oslo, Norway, can access super-fast mobile broadband connections that are 10 times faster than turbocharged 3G networks can deliver now, the company said. Full Story »

Nexus One. That's the name of the long-awaited, much-hyped, overspeculated Google phone that is coming to market. In what appears to be a deliberate leak, Google employees started tweeting during the weekend about testing a new Android-based mobile device. Full Story »

Like many companies, Sony Ericsson sees green dollars in green, environmentally friendly products. On Monday, the handset maker announced two new mobile phones and an accessory as part of its GreenHeart initiative, so consumers can "make an educated green choice without compromising on design and functionality." Full Story »

Keeping CRM customer data secure isn't a one-size-fits-all task. Indeed, tackling security issues around CRM data demands close examination of vendors as well as internal and external threats -- and it's a vital part of customer relationship management. Full Story »

In a not-uncommon development for the social-networking leader, Facebook's recently released privacy controls are leaving the company a bit red-faced. As a result of a new policy that by default makes users' profiles, photos and friends lists available on the web, almost 300 personal photos of founder Mark Zuckerberg became publicly available, a development that had gossip sites like Gawker yukking it up. Full Story »