Discover Bank has agreed to pay $200 million to cardholders to settle claims of deceptive telemarketing.  The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation announced the agreement following a joint investigation.  Discover Bank, a subsidiary of Discover Financial Services, will also pay a $14 million fine that will be divided between the two regulators. The agencies... 

Two of the nation’s largest low-cost wireless carriers have agreed to merge.  T-Mobile USA and MetroPCS will form a combined company that will be called T-Mobile.  The new company will have 42.5 million subscribers and will have annual sales of nearly $25 billion. MetroPCS will send $4.09 per share ($1.5 billion) to its shareholders and then perform a 1-for-2 reverse split of stock.  This... 

Google’s creation of a digital library sparked a seven-year battle between Google and the publishing industry.  Trade groups for the authors and publishers filed a pair of lawsuits against Google in 2005 and the issue has been mired in legal battles ever since.  Google announced the project in late 2004 and began scanning selected books into the digital library with the cooperation of several... 

Weak PC sales dragged Intel’s sales and profits lower in the third quarter.  Intel said that a weakening global economy and consumers’ shift to tablets cut PC demand to half of its third-quarter norm.  The company’s PC chip sales fell by 8% last quarter.  Intel doesn’t expect any improvement for the current quarter. However, positive results from Intel’s data center unit and a... 

Amazon.com’s ultimate goal seems to be to give anyone on the planet access to almost unlimited computing power by expanding access to cloud computing.  Its three giant computer regional centers in the United States each consist of multiple buildings with thousands of servers.  Jeff Bezos, the chief executive of Amazon, is now interested in setting up cloud-computing installations for other governments. There... 

US currency trading is similar to trading in other securities. As with much speculative trading in commodities such as metals and agricultural products, the trader does not actually receive, nor is required to ship any physical currency. Profit and loss is based on index movements. Practice trading “on paper” before investing real money. Forex offers a wide variety of educational services on currency... 

People spend more money online during the holiday season than at any other point in the year, and all online retailers want to get in on the profits. People are busy and rushed trying to find the best gifts for everyone on their list and they need information delivered to them conveniently. Holiday email marketing satisfies this need for both the consumer and the retailer. Any company’s online site...