Abbott Laboratories to pay $1.6 billion over labelilng of antiseizure drug.

Amazon takes on high-end clothing.

Angry Birds gets embeddable, and bumps Rovio to pre-IPO valuation of $9 billion.

Apple sees iPad trademark settlement rejected by China's Proview.

Aviva sees CEO resign over shareholdre-pay revolt.

The Avengers offends Indian viewers with slum depiction.

Barneys New York skirts bankruptcy.

Costco seeks to grow online sales.Continue reading...

Angry Birds Space sets mobile download record.

Apple and Microsoft face price-gouging inquiry in Australia.

Barack Obama tests "Forward" as a campaign slogan.

BP will pay $4 billion on new oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico this year.

BlackBerry will be in the hot seat at BlackBerry World conference by RIM on Tuesday.

Broadway tests autism-friendly theater performances.

Brooklyn Nets unveils new team logo designed by Jay-Z.

Chrysler boosts Jeep production.

Facebook will announce a "life-saving tool" on Good Morning America on Tuesday.Continue reading...

Apple in sight of $1 trillion valuation, according to analysts.

AstraZeneca fails to stop entry of generic versions of its antipsychotic drug to U.S. market.

Bats alarms Wall Street with derailed IPO.

Bloomberg and CNN continue transition to digital.

Bulgari tries to make a name in wine.

Chick-fil-A pressure heats up.

Dairy Queen benefits from early warm weather.

Darden finds restaurant consumers remain fickle.Continue reading...

So what else is buzzing at South by Southwest Interactive, apart from the Homeless Hotspots blow-up? A few tidbits:

• Rumors that CNN will buy Scottish social media pin-up Pete Cashmore's website Mashable for more than $200 million.

• Highlight has proved a highlight of the festival, is an iPhone app that informs you when you’re near someone else with even a remote social media connection, redefining the burgeoning people discovery market. "You learn about new people you're about to meet before you meet them," says founder Paul Davison. "It's about life's connections. We've given the world a new sixth sense."Continue reading...

The Angry Birds game may have hit half a billion downloads recently, but the characters have yet to have their own animated show or appear in advertisements or actually represent anything other than the nice slingshotted birds they are.

But that’s all about to change. In the last month came the news of an Angry Birds TV channel and an Angry Birds movie in the works. And now a real, live, skating Angry Bird – with a stick. More precisely, a Hockey Bird. 

Toni Kysenius at Rovio Entertainment, the Finnish-based developer of the game, has created the new bird to be the mascot of next year’s Hockey World Championships in Finland and Sweden, according to the International Ice Hockey Federation’s website.Continue reading...

Angry Birds has just hit a milestone no other tablet/mobile game has hit before - 500 million downloads. That's right.

Since its debut in December 2009, in the nearly 3 years the game has been around, over 200,000 years of gameplay has been played by fans worldwide. To put it in a different perspective, as the video page points out, the game has more than 300 million minutes of daily playing time, 266 billion levels played, 400 billion birds launched, and over 44 billion Stars collected in the process. Compared to a classic like Super Mario? Super Mario doesn't stand a chance with only 160 million versions of the game bought globally. Maybe Nintendo could learn a thing or two from mobile gaming (Mobile Mario perhaps?).

It's safe to say this game isn't going away any time soon, and will probably be expanding even more. It is already available on almost every single mobile platform, including 3 different versions, on the iPhone, Nokia devices, Palm OS devices, Android devices, and Sumbian^3 devices as well as a PC version.

"Rovio Entertainment hasn't made a wrong move yet with its massively popular Angry Birds franchise," writes Fortune. "The enraged avian creatures are everywhere, picking up wads of cash in their beaks. The original mobile game is still wildly popular, and now there are plush toys on the market and movie and TV deals in the works. The birds are even getting endorsement deals, such as their appearance in a hilarious TV spot for Google's Chrome browser." Can Angry Birds become Rovio's Mickey Mouse as the cornerstone of an entertainment empire? Read the rest of Fortune's analysis here.

Apple loses to RIM in smartphone market in India and eyes worldwide iCloud rights as CEO Tim Cook gets ready to unveil iPhone 5.

Alibaba casts eye on Yahoo, as Yahoo signs content-sharing deal with ABC News.

Angry Birds owner Rovio loses top branding exec.

Citibank raises fees and customer hackles.

Daimler signals optimism on truck sales.

Disney's 3D version of The Lion King shoots onto top-grossers list.

England bans cigarette-vending machines ahead of UK-wide ban.

Facebook looks to increase engagement and help brands communicate better with users via new Insights analytics tool, as changes and security issues touch privacy nerve.Continue reading...