IBT Staff Reporter

Estate executors or administrators in Oklahama have the power to access, administer or terminate the online social media accounts of the deceased, according to a new state law.

Two more lawmakers pledged on Thursday to support a plan to slash the U.S. budget deficit drawn up by the co-chairmen of a presidential commission, but the plan still faced long odds of moving to Congress.

The U.S. Senate has unanimously voted for lawyers to be exempted from the Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) Red Flags Rule, which seeks to curb identity theft among credit and financial regulatory agencies through costly and burdensome prevention and detection programs.

To promote health and prevent disease, the federal Department of Health and Human Services today unveiled its Healthy People 2020 website, setting out a national health agenda for the next ten years.

Research In Motion has bought Swedish design company The Astonishing Tribe as the BlackBerry maker seeks to enhance the look and functionality of its screens ahead of the launch of its PlayBook tablet.

Clearwire Corp plans to sell more than $1.1 billion in debt after months of negotiations to stave off a looming funding gap as it spends billions on building a new wireless network.

Pending home sales in the U.S. rose in October, contrary to expectations of a drop, according to a report by the National Association of Realtors.

Washington Mutual Inc defended on Thursday its plan to repay creditors, while an attorney for disgruntled shareholders attacked the proposal because it leaves them with nothing.

DirecTV Group expects to add significantly in excess of 200,000 net new subscribers in the United States in the current quarter, Chief Executive Mike White said on Thursday.

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM) has announced that it has acquired Swedish UI design company The Astonishing Tribe (TAT) to spruce up its PlayBook UI.

The European Central Bank (ECB) left the benchmark rates unchanged for the 19th straight month, and said it would extend its longer-term liquidity tenders into the first quarter of 2011

Merck & Co. Inc. said it agreed to acquire privately-held diabetes treatment developer SmartCells Inc. in a deal that could exceed $500 million.

The cloud computing market in India is expected to grow at a ccompounded annual growth rate of 40 per cent by 2014, IT research firm IDC on Thursday said.

Australian skipper Ricky Ponting confirmed that his struggling fast bowler, Mitchell Johnson, had been dropped the team to face England in the second Ashes test at Adelaide, on Friday.

Financial stocks led Wall Street higher on Thursday after the European Central Bank left in place a liquidity safety net for vulnerable banks.

Internet is now world’s single biggest source of information on every known and unknown subject and world’s largest mail order catalog with more than a billion people using it as of 2005 driven by growth of engine of dotcoms, dotnets and the legions of domain names becoming household words.

Motorola Mobility plans to launch a video streaming device next year to enable streaming of digital content to smartphones and tablets in their homes.

Barry Diller is stepping down as chief executive of IAC/InterActiveCorp, the company said, adding it had bought out one of its largest shareholders, John Malone's Liberty Media Corp.

The global version of its iPlayer service will be on a subscription-only basis and will only be available on the iPad, said BBC.

The International Monetary Fund said on Thursday it is in a strong financial position and has the resources to help member countries in need, amid an escalating euro zone debt crisis.

After racking up strong earnings growth in 2010, major U.S. manufacturers are expect to set the stage for a slower-paced 2011 when they meet with analysts and investors to lay out their expectations for the coming year.

The cryptographic kernel of its BlackBerry 6 mobile operating system has earned the FIPS 140-2 security certification, said Research In Motion.

The disappearance of coastal wetlands around the world by the end of the 21st century is a distinct possibility, a new study finds.

The Federal Communications Commission has committed to the concept of net neutrality, but the spat between Level 3 and Comcast highlights some difficult enforcement issues.

Wall Street rose on Thursday, led by banks and home builders after European lenders decided to continue a liquidity safety net for vulnerable banks and pending home sales data showed an unexpected jump in October.

IBM unveiled a technology that uses pulses of light instead of electrical signals to transfer data between chips, advancing its plans to create a supercomputer capable of one million trillion calculations per second.

General Motors Co said on Thursday that it made a $4 billion cash contribution to pension plans for its U.S.-based hourly and salaried workers.

Pending sales of existing U.S. homes unexpectedly surged in October, data from a real estate trade group showed on Thursday, despite concerns that problems in the foreclosure process might curtail activity.

The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) goes Google. GSA will move 17,000 employees and contractors to Google apps for Government.