Aston Martin draws bids.

ConAgra to buy Ralcorp in huge packaged-foods deal.

Nintendo sells out Wii U in first week in US.

Adidas features celebs including Snoop Lion, other celebrities in Ebenezer Scrooge holiday campaign.

Airbus jabs Boeing with "Pinocchio nose" in ad campaign.

Barnes & Noble updates holiday wish lists via Nook campaign.

Bombardier signs largest-ever deal, with VistaJet.

Ericsson files patent claim against Samsung.

Mario Batali expands restaurant empire to Boston.Continue reading...

Apple and HTC settle patent dispute.

BBC needs radical overhaul, chairman says, as two more senior execs step down.

Hyundai and Kia cope with damage they've done to their main selling point: mileage.

AEG and StubHub align.

Alltel returns with holiday pitch to Santa.

Brinks says it isn't for sale right now.

Cisco rolls out aggressive new strategy for dealing with patent trolls.Continue reading...

AT&T sees end of copper-wire era, and agrees to pay fee to settle overcharging dispute.

McDonald's monthly sales drop for first time in nearly a decade.

Coca-Cola plans to boost corporate social responsibilty as growth key.

Burberry rethinks small-cities push.

CNN edges Fox News in overall election-night cable ratings.

Carlsberg says SAB Miller faces organizational "challenges" in Russia.

Dunkin' Donuts partners with Universal to tap into Latin music.Continue reading...

The most expensive presidential election in U.S. history comes to a close as America heads to the polls.

Suzuki to end U.S. auto sales and file Chapter 11.

Netflix adopts poison-pill defense and Carl Icahn slams it.

Apple is said to be considering switch from Intel for Mac and may be seeing tablet dominance come to an end, as EU reportedly ready to stike a deal on e-books.

Balenciaga parts ways with longtime creative director Nicolas Ghesquière.

BMW shrugs off high costs as profit rises.

CBS signs multi-year deal with Hulu.

Eight O'Clock Coffee sends "superfans" on junket.

GM bolsters its credit line against European losses and pension costs.Continue reading...

The basic facts have been established: Hyundai and Kia tested the mileage of most of their car fleets incorrectly and made false claims of 40 mpg — too high by 1 to 2 mpg — for a total of six of their nameplates. The U.S. EPA investigated, concluded wrongdoing and slapped the brands' wrists. The companies have admitted wrongdoing, moved to change their mileage ratings on stickers and other communications materials, and launched a program of reimbursing owner "victims" with debit cards for extra gasoline.

But what's more important about this incident is a big unknown: How will it affect the Hyundai and Kia brands in the U.S. market, which has been burgeoning for five years now as Japanese and American competitors each have encountered various sorts of difficulties? It could easily sour Americans on the two sibling brands. Clearly, someone at the company strained to deliver the 40-mpg ratings, because the mileage "gains" now shaved by correct testing procedures just happen to have dropped each of the models below the magic level of 40 mpg.

"We are extremely sorry about these errors," John Krafcik, head of Hyundai in the U.S., said in a statement. But apologies and gasoline cards alone may not cut it.Continue reading...

AB InBev sees continuing market-share losses by Budweiser in U.S.

Weather Channel hopes to maintain Sandy ad dollars.

Hyundai and Kia take hits on EPA mileage claims.

Amazon gets major push-back from traditional booksellers.

Best Buy may be facing existential questions soon.

Boeing to get big helicopter order from India.Continue reading...

Chrysler exec tweets a rebuff about Donald Trump comment on Jeep jobs, as UAW leads ethics complaint vs Romney over auto rescue remarks.

Apple's iPad Mini launches globally to shorter than expected lines; secures Lion trademark.

Barclays facing a $470 million fine for alleged energy market manipulation, and a corruption probe.

Australian court rejects free range trademark move.

BlackBerry 10 is on schedule for early next year, RIM says.

Bloomberg Businessweek pins Sandy on global warming in cover story.Continue reading...

Ford's fall from grace with Consumer Reports has been breathtaking. The brand finished in second-to-last place, 27th of 28, in the magazine's closely watched, newly released automotive-reliability ratings — just three years after the bible of product quality praised Ford as the only domestic automaker with "world-class reliabilty."

Stunningly, Ford still apparently hasn't corrected its huge problems — real and perceived — with its MyFord Touch system, which continues to confuse some customers even a year and a half after Ford publicly acknowledged the usability problems with what is essentially Sync 2.0.

"They've put out some updates to try to address some of those problems for both the transmissions and the infotainment controls, but it doesn't seem to be enough," Jake Fisher, director of testing for Consumer Reports, commented on the most and least reliable rankings to the Detroit Free Press.Continue reading...