Dell reports 79 percent drop in profit as takeover battle continues.

Dow Chemical is ordered to pay $1.2 billion in price-fixing case.

Google Glass expands apps and integrates Facebook and Twitter.

Apple fights back in antitrust case over e-book pricing as it loses luster in global poll.

Audi shifts to high-performance models to propel sales.

BlackBerry regains lost market share in Canada.

Citigroup bans traders from using Bloomberg terminal chat groups.Continue reading...

It turns out that still, business and politics make difficult bedfellows as 'disruptive' Mark Zuckerberg finds himself—and Facebook—the target of progressive scrutiny over his newly minted political agenda. 

The Facebook CEO’s FWD.us super PAC focuses mainly on immigration reform in the name of creating a better, brighter workforce, but the group, which includes Silicon Valley superstars Bill Gates, LinkedIn's Reid Hoffman and Dropbox's Drew Houston, is getting push-back from a coalition of nine liberal grassroots organizations including Progressives United, CREDO, the Sierra Club, the Daily Kos and Democracy for America, all of whom pulled their ads from Facebook after FWD.us began running ads for the Keystone Pipeline, drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and attacks on Obamacare.

Groups boycotting the ads cite the "cynical" strategy behind them. “Leaders in the technology community have every right to talk about how immigration reform will benefit their businesses,” Progressives United's Josh Orton Feingold told Mashable. "But instead, FWD.us has chosen a strategy that’s condescending to voters and counterproductive to the cause of reform."Continue reading...

Condoms already come in plenty of forms. You’ve got your ribbed, you glow-in-the-dark, your cola-flavored, your French ticklers and your textured and studded ones. But Bill and Melinda Gates would like to see one that hasn’t been invented yet—and they are willing to fork over more than $1 million for it.

That's why the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is offering up the cash to anyone who can design such a thing in the hopes of stopping the spread of HIV and AIDS, CNN reports.

The contraceptive they’d like to see is a "next generation condom that significantly preserves or enhances pleasure" and promotes "regular use" as part of the foundation's commitment to addressing the global HIV and AIDS crisis.

"Male condoms are cheap, easy to manufacture, easy to distribute, and available globally, including in resource-poor settings, through numerous well-developed distribution channels," the Foundation says, according to CNN. So what’s the problem? Well, people complain that condoms get in the way of intimacy and pleasure, which are generally the goal of most people having intercourse.Continue reading...

One comic book hero (Spiderman) was inspired by creator Stan Lee watching a spider climb up a wall. Another (The Incredible Hulk) came about when Lee combined the story of Frankenstein with The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Now comes one that is based on a coffee-swilling businessman who has no superpowers but managed to create one of the world’s most well-known brands.

Howard Schultz: The Man Behind Starbucks chronicles the life and times of the brand’s CEO as he takes the company from a hippiefied java joint in Seattle's Pike Place Market to a global behemoth in just 32 pages—or the time it takes to consume a venti skim latte and a cinnamon swirl coffee cake.

"After reading (autobiography) Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life Without Losing Its Soul by Howard Schultz, I thought he would be a great subject for a comic book,” Darren G. Davis, the head of publisher Bluewater Productions told Ad Age. “I love telling stories of people who are inspirational like Schultz and have a great back-story."Continue reading...

Fresh from his Reddit "Ask Me Anything," Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates appeared on CBS This Morning. In his interview with Charlie Rose, Gates takes Microsoft to task for not being more innovative on mobile, calling the strategy taken "clearly a mistake."

Gates made comments during his chat about tech and philanthropy such as, "There's a lot of things like cellphones where we didn't get out in the lead early. We didn't miss cellphones, but the way that we went about it didn't allow us to get the leadership." Watch the interview below.Continue reading...

Matt Damon, looking for a way to “persuade people to give a shit about toilets,” staged a press conference in anticipation of World Water Day, March 22. The actor's latest move pushes the continuing efforts of his non-profit, water.org, which educates people about the lack of basic sanitation and clean water for 2.5 billion people around the world.

At the faux press conference, Damon announced that “in protest of this global tragedy … until everyone has access to clean water, I will not go to the bathroom,” and he’s asking everyone to join him at Strikewithme.org.

The aim of the tongue-in-cheek campaign is serious: to move people to click on a link enabling water.org to "occasionally" use their social media accounts such as Twitter and Facebook for six week (because physically relieving yourself is comparable to the mental relief felt after posting a status update?) 

Damon—who might consider refreshing the campaign for World Toilet Day—added that “Six billion people have cell phones, but only 4.5 billion have access to improved sanitation.”

"Welcome to the petri-dish," said Mike McCamon, water.org's chief community officer. "The idea is you sign in and give permission to us for a finite period." Content will be generic yet personal, "so it looks like you posted it."Continue reading...

In case it's not marked on your calendar, today is World Toilet Day — and it's no joking matter.

An estimated 2.5 billion people, 37% of the world's population, do not have access to a clean and safe toilet. One in three women worldwide risk shame, disease, harassment and even attack because they have nowhere safe to go to the toilet. Sanitation would make 1.25 billion women's lives safer and healthier, which is why people are being asked to petition governments to provide safe toilets and clean water for the world's poorest people.

As the Gates Foundation tweeted today, "The annual gain in economic productivity if everyone had a toilet is $225B." Putting things in perspective, Matt Damon, co-founder of Water.org, wants it to be known that more people have a mobile phone today than a toilet: “Six billion people have cell phones, but only 4.5 billion have access to improved sanitation.” Bill and Melinda Gates, in case you missed it, are putting serious funds toward reinventing the toilet as part of the foundation's water, sanitation and hygiene platform.

GE sponsored (as part of its Focus Forward three-minute short film series on world-changing ideas) the "Meet Mr. Toilet" documentary by Oscar-winning director Jessica Wu, which debuted this past January at the Sundance Festival earlier this year. It features the late Jim Sim (aka "Mr. Toilet"), who founded the World Toilet Organization and the annual World Toilet Day.

Named a TIME Hero of the Environment in 2008, Sim — who died in 2009 — was frank and enertaining about extolling the need for better sanitation and breaking the taboos about talking, well, shit. In fact, the former mayor of Suwon, South Korea, inspired a toilet museum in his former hometown, which opened earlier this year.Continue reading...

You know the launch of the Windows 8 operating system, Windows Phone 8 and the Surface tablet is a big deal for Microsoft when it pulls out the big guns — chairman Bill Gates — to talk about why this week, with Friday's launch of Windows 8 globally and these new devices, represents a game-changer for the company and the brand. 

Microsoft is spending hundreds of millions of dollars and is the brand’s largest sustained global marketing activity in its 37-year history, including opening pop-up stores around the world in the brand's biggest retail activation to date. 

The Times Square holiday store in New York, for example, will give the first 100 people a year’s Xbox Music Pass (value $99.90) with purchase. The Big Apple will also be home to Microsoft's Microtropolis, a major interactive installation at Pier 57 on the Hudson River. Opening Friday, it's described as:

a stylized one hundred and sixty foot version of NYC in an art installation we are calling Microtropolis. Microtropolis is Manhattan experienced through Windows. It creates the ultimate hands-on demonstration of Windows 8, with the city of NYC as the backdrop. As you walk into the installation, you are literally walking through the avenues and streets with skyscrapers towering above. This interactive experience has hundreds of devices placed on rooftops within the city, customized to the neighborhoods in which they are placed.Continue reading...