IBT Staff Reporter

Samsung Electronics plans to invest a record 38 trillion won ($33.9 billion) in facilities and R&D next year, a 27 percent jump from an estimated 30 trillion won this year, local media reported on Wednesday, citing Samsung and industry officials.

K5 International has nabbed international rights to Benaroya Pictures' Elvis & Nixon, the companies said Tuesday.

Many people would -- and some have probably tried to -- sell their own mothers in order to get into a major motion picture. Not Bilal Ahmed.

European shares looked set to follow Asian equities higher on Wednesday and the euro steadied after Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said he would resign, raising hopes the debt-ridden country would proceed with reforms that may keep Europe's debt crisis from spreading.

China's annual inflation rate fell sharply in October to 5.5 percent in a further pullback from July's three-year peak, giving Beijing more room to fine tune policy to help an economy feeling the chill of a global slowdown.

The head of the International Monetary Fund warned on Wednesday that Europe's debt crisis risked plunging the global economy into a lost decade and said it was up to rich nations to shoulder the burden of restoring growth and confidence.

Losses on securities investments at the core of a scandal rocking Japan's Olympus Corp may have once exceeded $1 billion, the Nikkei newspaper said on Wednesday, as the firm's share price plunged due to doubts about its future.

Police arrested New York Public Library President Anthony Marx in Harlem Sunday for driving while intoxicated after he hit a parked sanitation truck in reverse, the New York Post reported.

Troubled actress Lindsay Lohan will appear nude on pornographic magazine Playboy, Lohan's spokesman confirmed on Monday, after the star served several hours in prison on weekends for violating probation on drunken driving and theft charges .

Adobe Systems Inc plans to lay off more than 7 percent of its workforce and take a charge of up to $94 million as part of a restructuring to focus on core businesses such as digital media and marketing.

Activision Blizzard revealed it has lost almost a million users for its World of Warcraft cash cow, dampening enthusiasm for its blockbuster Call of Duty franchise and wiping 3 percent off its share price.

With the holidays around the corner, smartphone makers have been busy rolling out some of their best devices. From the Samsung Galaxy S2 (SII) to the Motorola Droid Razr, Android devices in particular having been strutting their stuff, giving the much-hyped iPhone 4S a run for its money.

China's annual inflation rate eased to 5.5 percent in October, a third straight month of decline from July's three-year peak and Premier Wen Jiabao said prices had fallen further since then.

Activision Blizzard revealed it has lost almost a million users for its World of Warcraft cash cow, dampening enthusiasm for its blockbuster Call of Duty franchise and wiping 3 percent off its share price.

State governments would be able to collect online sales taxes under a bill due to be introduced in the Senate on Wednesday, said sources familiar with the bill.

An over-the-top wedding followed by a whipsaw divorce is leading to what can only be called Kardashian backlash.

Sunday was a good night for bad behavior in the cable-ratings race.

Find Cops to be a little too high-brow? TLC has the show for you.

J. Edgar Hoover, America's revered and feared controversial top cop for five decades, was one of the most secretive men in government, keeping covert files on powerful figures including President John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.

Nominations for the annual People's Choice Awards were announced on Tuesday, with popular films like the final Harry Potter and the latest Pirates of the Caribbean and their actors among nominees.

The booze-fueled misadventures of Edina Monsoon and Patsy Stone could be getting the big-screen treatment.

History Channel follows up its Emmy-winning WWII in HD miniseries Tuesday night with the premiere of Vietnam in HD, a three-night, six-hour documentary in which real Vietnam War veterans -- complemented by voiceovers from actors including Armie Hammer, Blair Underwood, James Marsden and Edward Burns -- share their powerful, often painful, memories of Vietnam combat.

Rapper Heavy D, who scored hit singles such as Now That We Found Love, died on Tuesday after falling at his Beverly Hills home, according to media reports. He was 44.

When artists break free from the bands that have always defined them to take up solo careers, some celebrate their emancipation with radical musical departures. Others adhere to the old group's sound as much as possible, either out of fear, habit, or a desire to prove once and for all that they were the brains of the band.

Japan's Rakuten Inc and spun off in late 2009. Indigo is still Kobo's majority shareholder and said it expects to get about $140 million to $150 million from the sale.

Olympus Corp's losses on securities investments mounted to more than 100 billion yen ($1.3 billion) at one point, the Nikkei business daily said on Wednesday, citing sources close to the matter.

Digital entertainment technology firm Rovi Corp reported fourth-quarter revenue that missed market expectations as sales at its consumer software business fell 16 percent, sending its shares down by more than a fifth in extended trade.

Canadian-based e-reading service Kobo Inc will be acquired by Japan's Rakuten Inc for $315 million, the companies said in a release on Friday.

LED supplier Universal Display Corp posted a third-quarter profit, gainsaying loss expectations, as revenue more than tripled, and forecast full-year revenue above expectation, sending its shares up 8 percent in extended trade.