News Corp. shares tumble as company goes on PR offensive with print apology as News International's former head Rebekah Brooks was arrested Sunday, London's police chief quits and actor Jude Law claims his phone was hacked. Prime Minister David Cameron called in Parliament to deal with the scandal, as speculation rises about possible harm to Murdoch's US empire.

ABS by Alan Schwartz balks at design copyright protection.

Amana introduces new online shopping tool.

Australia's government launches campaign for carbon tax.

Borders faces liquidation.Continue reading...

Take a look around the parking lot next time you’re hanging out with some young American consumers. It is likely you’ll be seeing a fair amount of Scions, Mitsubishis, and Mazdas.

A new study from TrueCar.com finds that young American consumers prefer Asian car brands to American and that these three particular brands “combined took an astounding 52.2% of the Generation Y market,” according to AOL. Other Asian brands in the top 10 of the list are Nissan, Kia, Hyundai, Honda, Toyota, and Subaru.

The only non-Asian brand in the top 10 wasn’t American, either. It’s Germany’s Volkswagen, the site reports, as VW has 9.6% of the 18-27 year old market. The study followed four million American car purchasers in that age range.Continue reading...

Chipotle raises prices.

Disney's Pixar nabs No. 1 spot at weekend box office with Cars 2.

Dunkin’ Donuts and LinkedIn IPOs boost Wall Street morale.

Duracell and Energizer miss out on personal-device boom.

Hulu weighs possible sale of site (without Comcast's approval) and looks to UK for content.

Jeep sponsors Dave Matthews festival.

JetBlue sponsors PBS kids’ summer-reading program.Continue reading...

Don’t look now, big Automaker, but Toyota is recovering traction in the US much faster than anticipated even a few weeks ago. And once it’s got something resembling normal vehicle inventory levels back in place, expect the once-unassailable Toyota brand to attempt to come back like it’s got something to prove — and market share to re-gain.

Toyota executives are determined to return production to normal levels at their North American operations much more quickly than they had feared and announced. This month, output of eight core North America-built models (the Toyota Avalon, Camry Corolla, Highlander, Matrix, Sequoia, Sienna and Venza) will return to normal, while Toyota just announced that production of a handful of others would normalize by September.Continue reading...

We’re told absence makes the heart grow fonder. But if you’re one of the 10,000 to 12,000 Americans who’s ordered an all-electric Nissan Leaf, the continued absence of your vehicle may be leading you to experience and express other emotions. As in: "@$#%$^%^&**(*&/!"

Nissan is encountering a growing problem fulfilling Leaf orders in the United States and elsewhere even though the EV is an extremely low-volume vehicle. The biggest culprit is setbacks in the supply and production network from the March 11 earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

In fact, a Nissan executive told reporters this week that the company no longer can count on beginning U.S. production of Leaf at Nissan’s Tennessee manufacturing complex before the end of 2012 as originally anticipated — further disappointing buyers.Continue reading...

Apple store employee moves to unionize.

Chipotle expansion plans hit by rising costs.

Citi defends delay in disclosing hacking.

Dell gives precedence to Chinese market for tablet roll-out.

Dole blitzes US cities to pump up banana sales.

Edmunds.com to launch Groupon-type channel for cars.

Ford is ordered to pay $2 billion to dealers in old pricing dispute.Continue reading...

Erich Marx is a 20-year veteran of Nissan, so he doesn’t have to “learn” the brand. And as Nissan’s director of marketing communications, he was involved in the company’s initial social-media efforts. Now, as Nissan’s first director of social media and interactive marketing, he gets a chance to make the automaker an industry trailblazer.

One thing Marx already knows is that he’d like to do more of what Nissan has been doing in its promotion with Sony involving the Gran Turismo 5 computer game. Nissan selected 16 of the best American “drivers” in the game and then took them to the UK to compete as real racers behind the wheels of actual Nissans. The brand also is filming a reality series (GT Academy) about the contestants that it will put online in September.Continue reading...

Nissan's humorous new advertising campaign for its Leaf all-electric vehicle, called “Gas Powered Everything,” breaks this week. The TV commercials depict an absurd world where the evolution of energy for devices we use has stopped at gasoline power. That includes nearly everything that we’re used to running on electric power, from alarm clocks to dentists’ drills.

Point made: Electric power is superior and certainly suitable for automobiles because, gee whiz, gasoline power isn’t suitable for everyday appliances. Ha ha.

As amusing and well executed as these ads might be, they raise the question: Is Nissan really going to drive home the right message with the new 60-second ad and 15-second teasers that promotes GasPoweredEverything.com — which redirects to its Facebook page?Continue reading...