COMPANIES

Sony Corp has agreed to sell its nearly 50 percent stake in an LCD joint venture with Samsung Electronics to Samsung for $940 million, the Korean firm said on Monday, as Sony struggles to staunch red ink at its TV business.

GoDaddy, a giant domain name registrar, has announced that it is no longer supporting the Stop Online Piracy Act otherwise known as SOPA, which is now making its way through U.S. Congress.

U.S. security think tank Strategic Forecasting Inc said its website had been hacked and that some of the names of corporate subscribers had been made public.

What’s ahead for 2012? Obviously, change, some for the better and others for worse. Fortunately, the Island’s unemployment rate fell to 6.7 percent from 7.2 percent a year ago, the state labor department said. But its principal Long Island economist, Michael Crowell, said that may reflect a declining work force, with too many “discouraged workers” who’ve given up looking.

Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) announced a planned deposit of about $1.6 billion into its litigation escrow account, which also serves as a share buyback under Visa's retrospective responsibility plan.

This year saw Android smartphones grow by leaps and bounds and Google Inc. release the latest version of its Operating System - Android 4.0 or Ice Cream Sandwich - in the latter half of the year.

Nokia's best high-end smartphone - the Lumia 800 - which is the fruit of its partnership with Microsoft is rumored to hit the U.S. market in January 2012. It will, however, face heavy competition from Samsung's Galaxy S2 Skyrocket, which has more specifications when compared to Lumia 800.

Enfamil Pulled from Shelves: Alternative Infant Feeding Formulas

Yahoo Inc's board of directors has agreed to keep exploring a plan to split off the Internet company's Asian assets in a complex deal valued at $17 billion, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

Refineries in the Northeast are closing their doors, and as a result, more than half of the area's petroleum refining capacity will be reduced. The reduction is likely to be problematic for ultra-low sulfur diesel, gasoline, heating oil and jet fuel supplies.

Canadian regulators have approved Enbridge Inc's plans to build a new C$180 million ($176 million) pipeline to move oil out of the underserved but prolific Bakken and Three Forks oilfields.

Via Motors spokesman David West offers a bold comparison for his company's latest line of electric vehicles: the iPhone.

Best Buy cancelled/delayed some of its Black Friday online orders, citing overwhelming demand in November and December. The company admitted its shortcomings to FOX 9 and said it was very sorry for the inconvenience to its customers.

A former unit of General Electric Co. (GE) agreed to pay $70.35 million to U.S. regulators to resolve complaints about the company's role in anticompetitive activity in the municipal bond investments market.

A lawyer working on behalf of physical commodity account-holders at bankrupt broker-dealer MF Global has worked out an agreement with a major gold futures merchant that will unfreeze their assets. However, that's not great solace to the account-holders, who have lost big in the bankruptcy.

Singer Michael Buble is taking his Christmas spirit into the virtual realm, collaborating with popular Facebook game CityVille and giving an interactive gift to his fans over the holidays.

In order to keep the American people updated on the Gulf of Mexico oil spill restoration, BP will be launching its new advertising campaign immediately after Christmas.

Mike Bell likens his new job at Intel Corp to piloting a glider.

Digital goods are the fastest-growing category online this holiday, led by e-books, suggesting Amazon.com Inc's strategy of blanketing the world with cheap e-readers and tablet computers may be producing some early gains.

With Christmas two days away, U.S. customers of collapsed broker-dealer MF Global with funds still tied up in the rubble of the company bankruptcy just got a nasty present: a statement by the trustee fighting on their behalf telling them how accountants in London are making it even harder for them to get their money back.

Images from an underwater vehicle proved the company's original fears that the 40,000 barrel leak sprung during the transfer of crude oil from a floating storage facility to an awaiting cargo tanker.

Google started the practice of wishing its customers on important occasions with a variety of doodles in 1998. In 1999, the search engine began its pre-Christmas doodle series called 'Winter Holidays.'

The iPhone is Apple Inc.'s largest and most profitable product line. Analysts are expecting Apple Inc. to unveil the next-generation 4G LTE iPhone 5 in the second half of 2012.

Shares of Eastman Kodak, the 131-year-old photography pioneer, leaped nearly 20 percent Friday after the company announced a new president as well as divestiture of another unit.

With less than two weeks left in 2011, investors are looking at challenges and opportunities ahead to better position themselves for the coming year.

The top pre-market NASDAQ gainers are: WCA Waste Corp., Tibco Software, Career Education, IPG Photonics and Canadian Solar. The top pre-market NASDAQ losers are: Alaska Communications, Neogen, Vivus, Bed Bath & Beyond and TripAdvisor.

The share value of Mead Johnson Nutrition has come down following reports that Wal-Mart pulled Enfamil Newborn formula powder from over 3,000 stores.

For the entire lineup of games, check the list of titles due for release in February.

AT&T Inc said late on Thursday that it won regulatory approval to buy wireless spectrum from U.S. chipmaker Qualcomm Inc, a move that would boost the company's 4G network.