Google releases new map app for Apple iPhone, shuts down shopping search in China, and makes porn harder to find, as CEO defends tax avoidance.

Apple settles European e-book price-fixing probe with publishers.

Applebee's interviews creator of #HireKevin campaign.

BMW and Boeing plan to collaborate on making carbon fiber.

Barclays joins industry cost-cutting wave, eliminating 2,000 jobs.

Berkshire Hathaway plans rare buyback of holder's stock.Continue reading...

Diageo already produces a veritable Amazon of alcoholic brands – Smirnoff, Johnnie Walker, Bailey's, and Guinness to name a few — but the drinks giant is still not satisfied.

Reuters reports that the world’s largest spirits maker was in talks to purchase the world’s best-selling tequila maker, Jose Cuervo, but those talks have concluded without an agreement. Don’t think Diageo is done, though. The pullout “fuelled speculation that” Diageo will now go after buying up Beam Inc., which produces the world’s second-best-selling tequila, Sauza, and of course its iconic Jim Beam brand in addition to Maker's Mark and Knob Creek bourbons.Continue reading...

Apple joins Google in $500M+ bid for Kodak patents; smacked by USPTO as 'Steve Jobs Patent' for iPhones and iPads deemed invalid and Siri secrets revealed.

Diageo seen as unlikely to bid for Beam following UK report that drinks giant talked to Suntory about joint bid.

Barnes & Noble cuts Nook price from $99 to $79.

Michael Bloomberg weighs making bid for The Financial Times, which includes the paper and a half-interest in The Economist. 

Caribou Coffee celebrates 20th anniversary.

Carlos Slim brings Telcel brand to U.S. for Mexico calls.

CVS Caremark reportedly aims to acquire drug-store chain in Brazil.

Chili's begins soft rollout of new menu items.

Darden Restaurants looks to retool value proposition for its Olive Garden and Red Lobster restaurants.Continue reading...

HP CEO Meg Whitman pilloried over $8.8 billion start-up acquisition charge for Autonomy as stock plunges and former CEO comes out of woodwork.

News Corp. reportedly eyeing Simon & Schuster as add-on to HarperCollins and acquires 49% of YES Network as former newspaper execs charged with bribery. YES, meanwhile, extends Yankees TV rights through 2042.

Amazon unveils brand pages and looks to reinvent publishing model with Tim Ferriss book.

Apple products top kids' holiday wish lists, while spaceship-like campus delayed until 2016.

BlackBerry dropped by US agency over device reliability concerns.

Big Ten college sports conference brand could be diluted by eastern driven.

Darden CMO defects to Ruby Tuesday.Continue reading...

There’s lots of hoopla going around to celebrate the Rolling Stones turning 50. Concerts are coming up next week in London and in early December in Newark, New Jersey. A new 3-disc, 50-song greatest-hits box set, GRRR!, comes out next week as well. A new documentary about the band, Crossfire Hurricane, is hitting HBO and the BBC and theaters next week, joining another documentary on the band that's now playing theaters, Charlie Is My Darling.

And keep your eyes peeled for the massive Stones coffee-table book. Right about now, you can’t escape the Stones — heck, you can even drink up to Mick, Keith and the boys with a special line of drinks being sold in Japan.Continue reading...

Japanese lab rats have paved the way for a new wave of sodas. Back in 2006, Japan’s National Institute of Health and Nutrition found that rodents that were fed dextrin and fat simultaneously absorbed less of the fat into their system than the rats that were given fat without dextrin.

Welcome to your new dextrin-rich diet, Japan! Earlier this year brewer Kirin released a Mets Cola beverage, which contains dextrin, onto the market, selling it as a soda that would keep consumers from packing on too much fat. It sold well enough that PepsiCo and Suntory, the sole bottler and distributor of Pepsi products in Japan, are jumping into the fat-blocking cola fray on Nov. 13 with Pepsi Special. As the Huffington Post notes, the “Japanese government certifies these colas as ‘food for specific health use.’”

Pepsi has long experimented with novel flavor combinations in Japan (case in point: yogurt, watermelon or strawberry/milk flavored cola, anyone?) In fact, in December it's also introducing a new clear cola called Pepsi White in time for the holidays with seasonally cute snowmen. Despite being clear, ABC News reports that it's tangerine-flavored. And that's not the only limited-edition variation PepsiCo is rolling out internationally.Continue reading...

Japan may be considered a "Western" country, but its tastes, not to mention culture, often strain comparisons with the rest of the West. But nowadays Pepsi is making some moves with new products in Japan that look like they're right out of its playbook for the rest of the world.

Pepsi Extra, for instance, is an addition to Pepsi's Nex range in Japan that is packed in 200ml cans and reformulated to feature added caffeine and increased sweetness, according to Beverage Daily. Packaged in a smaller and slimmer can than regular Pepsi, Extra is a clear play for energy-drink positioning.Continue reading...

Richard Gere's new French-made commercials for Suntory's Orangina drink in Japan have skyrocketed sales to the tune of a million cases in the first four days of the commercials' debut. In the spots, the American actor plays Tora-san, an updated version of a sentimental figure from Japanese cinema: a "hapless traveling salesman from an iconic series of Japanese films," according to the Wall Street Journal's Real Time Japan blog. Watch more below.Continue reading...