IBT Staff Reporter

U.S. stock index futures fell on Friday, with many investors expecting the May payrolls report to show more weakness in the economy, confirming recent data signaling the economic recovery is faltering.

Molson Coors Brewing Co and Mexico's Grupo Modelo are exploring a joint bid for Australia's Foster's Group Ltd , a source said, amid talk further suitors may emerge for the maker of VB and Cascade beer.

By now, it is obvious that Sony has made quite a few enemies among the security experts. LulzSec, a hacker group known for its claim of successful attacks on PBS and Fox.com, successfully hacked into Sony on Thursday, compromising account information of Sony's 1 million customers.

Chinese computer maker Lenovo Group Ltd's has agreed to buy Germany's Medion AG in a deal valuing the electronics retailer at up to $900 million, to boost its market share in Europe.

Apple boasts of a solid ecosystem of apps, devices and peripherals around its iOS platform and now it can add another element to its thriving iOS environment - swimwear made of photo voltaic panels to charge its devices.

The semifinals of the French Open has mouth-watering encounters with all the top four seeds involved, including Djokovic battling Federer and Nadal against Murray.

The cries of New York's political establishment fell on deaf ears in the Republican controlled House of Representatives where a bid to end homeland security grant cuts and reserve reduced funding for terror target cities was struck down.

The semifinals of the French Open has mouth-watering encounters with all the top four seeds involved, including Djokovic battling Federer and Nadal against Murray.

Molson Coors Brewing Co and Mexico's Grupo Modelo are exploring a joint bid for Australia's Foster's Group Ltd , a source said, amid talk further suitors may emerge for the maker of VB and Cascade beer.

Japan's Sharp Corp forecast an unexpected jump in operating profit as demand for smartphones and tablets boosts sales, but said a temporary production halt at two TV panel plants earlier this year would force it to book an extraordinary charge.

The semifinals of the French Open has mouth-watering encounters with all the top four seeds involved, including Djokovic battling Federer and Nadal against Murray.

The recent high-profile hacking of Google's Gmail service and Sony's Playstation gaming network is threatening to slow the take-off of the next big thing in the computing space - the cloud.

Sharp Corp on Friday forecast a 23 percent rise in annual operating profit to 97 billion yen ($1.2 billion) expecting growing demand for smartphones and tablets will boost its sales of small liquid-crystal display panels.

A veteran Brooklyn high school athletic director lauded in the press last December for surviving a near deadly heart attack was arrested Thursday for allegedly slapping a school safety agent, police sources said.

Greece is set to impose a deeper bout of austerity on its struggling economy and promise to speed up a privatization drive in return for a new international bailout to avoid a debt default.

Italian fashion house Prada, which is preparing for an initial public offering of about $2 billion in Hong Kong, said its net profit more than doubled in 2010 and it expects further gains in the current half year.

Stock index futures pointed to falls on Friday, ahead of a key labor market report which is likely to confirm the pace of economic recovery is losing momentum.

The Treasury said on Thursday it reached an agreement to sell its remaining 6 percent equity stake in Chrysler to Italy's Fiat in a deal that will net Washington $560 million.

Australia's Qantas Airways said it expects to cut around 350 of its cabin crew jobs, or 5 percent of total, under a voluntary redundancy program as the airline seeks to reduce costs to offset higher fuel prices.

Digital activist group Anonymous Operations has hacked into Iranian government servers and procured over 10,000 email messages from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Hackers broke into Sony Corp's computer networks and accessed the information of more than 1 million customers to show the vulnerability of the electronic giant's systems, the latest of several security breaches undermining confidence in the company.

After alleged hackers in China compromised the personal e-mail accounts of top-notch American officials, military personnel and journalists, the world attention has shifted to cyber warfare and similar attacks that have happened in the past.

Senior euro zone officials have agreed in principle on a new three-year adjustment program for Greece to run until mid-2014 and involve increased external funding, a source close to the negotiations said on Thursday.

Social networking site Facebook will touch one billion users by 2012 and the fastest growth is coming from Brazil, with Facebook picking up another 1.9 million users in May, according to statistics site Social Bakers.

Mazda Motor will cease production in the United States by around 2013 and cancel its joint venture with Ford as the automaker is reviewing its global production system, the Nikkei business daily reported on its website on Friday.

Stocks steadied, bond yields dipped and the euro rose to a one-month high versus the dollar on Friday as investors braced for a key U.S. jobs report that could feed debate over whether the economy is headed for a protracted slowdown.

U.S. employment probably lost steam in May as high energy prices and the effects of Japan's earthquake bogged down the economy.

Cyber security is now a diplomatic priority for the United States with Washington looking to build relationships to tackle information theft and reduce the risk of conflict, a senior official said.

Apple has submitted a new patent that may cause some grumbling among iPhone customers' restrictive use on their camera. The patent will involved an infrared sensor system that can receive data through its surrounding environment using light, audio, and infrared transmissions to detect live music venues, theatre, movie, or stage show performances. The iPhone would then block users from recording the show if it detects any infrared signals containing encoded data. So if for any reason the iP...