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 CEO Tim Cook revealed the one-hand-ready iPad mini today, prompting fans of the brand to ponder whether they need one, while investors seemed to make up their minds, as the company's stock dropped after the reveal.

Bigger than an iPhone and smaller than an iPad, at 7.9 inches and starting at $329, it's lighter but costlier than its 7-inch, $199 rivals, the Kindle Fire HD and Google Nexus 7 tablets. It's being marketed as "the full iPad experience — there's less of it, but no less to it," and may appeal to, for instance, the education market. It also marks a reversal of Steve Jobs's (initial) opposition to the 7-inch tablet size.

Why is smaller now better for Apple? Design head Jony Ive commented in the launch video, "Our goal was to take all the amazing things you could do with a full-size iPad, but pack them into a product that was so much smaller."

“iPad mini is every inch an iPad. With its gorgeous 7.9-inch display, iPad mini features the same number of pixels as the original iPad and iPad 2, so you can run more than 275,000 apps designed specifically for iPad,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s SVP of Worldwide Marketing, in a press release.

“iPad mini is as thin as a pencil and as light as a pad of paper" he added, "yet packs a fast A5 chip, FaceTime HD and 5 megapixel iSight cameras and ultrafast wireless―all while delivering up to 10 hours of battery life.”Continue reading...

In a serious challenge to Amazon's latest Kindle moves and Apple iPad, Barnes & Noble has introduced the two newest tablets in the NOOK family of e-readers: NOOK HD ($199) and NOOK HD+ ($269). The New York Times sees B&N positioning the first HD Nook tablets as "iPad Lite," and call the retailer's new "video service for the Nook color devices similar to the iTunes store and includes movies and TV series from Disney, Viacom and Warner Brothers."

According to B&N's press materials, NOOK HD is "the lightest and highest resolution 7-inch HD tablet ever. NOOK HD+ is the lightest Full HD tablet with a brilliant 9-inch HD display that magazine and movie lovers will adore. Enjoy incredible reading and entertainment like never seen before – all starting at just $199."

They're available for pre-order at nook.com and in-store on Nov. 1st; AP took a look at how they stack up here.

Coca-Cola announces Global Fund donation at Clinton Global Initiative meeting, teams up with Segway creator on clean water project and launches corporate blog.

GE's Jeff Immelt joins the few brave CEOs on Twitter.

IBM targets Amazon in the cloud.

AirAsia creates child-free quiet zones on flights.

Arby's sees gains under new owners.

Barnes & Noble plans to launch Nook video service.

Chase Bank tops customer-satisfaction study.Continue reading...

Apple becomes biggest-capitalized company in U.S. history.

Augusta National admits first women: Condi Rice and an investment banker.

Barnes & Noble to offer Nook in U.K.

Best Buy suspends outlook amid slump and copes with tepid reception for new CEO.

Dreamworks inks distribution deal with Fox.

Facebook sees another early investor leave.

Heineken succeeds in Asia Pacific Breweries bid.

Liberty Media wants control of SiriusXM.

McDonald's pushes mobile-payments cooperation with PayPal.

Nike sets new store rules for security because of rabid shoe fans as the company tests price limits with new $300 shoe from LeBron James.

Walmart makes layaway available a month earlier for holidays.

Yum! Brands likely to recover financially, analyst says.

Barclays' new chairman may end free banking.

Barnes & Noble cuts Nook pricing to "lowest ever" ahead of new Amazon Kindle Fire.

BuzzFeed expands to radio with SiriusXM.

Chinese consumers counter economic gloom with travel boom.

CNN reportedly talks to reality TV producers to turn around ratings slump.

Dell challenges — insurmountable?

Fox backs new MundoFox channel for US Latinos.

GM CMO Ewanick's flame-out, re-parsed.

HSBC moves to squelch Occupy protest in Hong Kong.Continue reading...

Barnes & Noble losses continue on Nook as e-reader competition intensifies.

Bridgestone surrenders Super Bowl halftime show.

Coca-Cola creates global TV series for Summer Olympics.

Facebook gains support for advertising from Ford and Coca-Cola.

FedEx CEO predicts industry shifts as airport-to-airport business stalls.

Ford uses big data to inform marketing and design decisions at Silicon Valley lab.

GM unifies global design strategy.

Kimberly-Clark enlists Mexican TV star for Huggies campaign.

J.C. Penney to tweak message but not strategy in wake of president's ouster this week.Continue reading...

Waterstones, in a surprise move, has partnered with Amazon to sell the e-tailer's Kindle e-book reader, as detailed in a press release and seen in a video, below, from managing director James Daunt.

What a difference a few months make in the fiercely competitive digital versus physical retail wars. In December, Daunt called Amazon “a ruthless, money-making devil," adding, "They never struck me as being a sort of business in the consumer's interest.”Continue reading...