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MUMBAI, India – Indian authorities are scheduled to meet Monday evening to decide whether to ban some BlackBerry services in India, one day ahead of a government-imposed deadline for the device’s maker Research In Motion Ltd. to give security agencies access to encrypted data.

Home Secretary G.K. Pillai will meet officials from the Department of Telecommunications, the Intelligence Bureau and the National Technical Research Organization — a cyber intelligence organization — to discuss BlackBerry security issues, Home Ministry spokesman Onkar Kedia said by phone from New Delhi.

He declined to discuss details of the talks, which will determine whether some one million BlackBerry users in India will be able to use their corporate e-mail and instant messaging services after Tuesday.

Full Story at money.cnn.com

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Automakers and advocates for the blind have agreed on a plan to address an unintended problem caused by electric and hybrid cars: They endanger sight-impaired and distracted pedestrians because they make no noise when running on electric power.

The groups joined together to present Congress with a proposal for minimum noise levels that future electric cars would have to make.

Full Story at msnbc.com

SEATTLE – Microsoft says it will investigate reports of poor working conditions at a factory in southern China that makes some of its products.

A nonprofit that looks into the treatment of foreign workers by U.S. companies published a report Tuesday detailing long working hours, low pay, insufficient food and few freedoms for workers at the KYE Systems Corp. factory in Dongguan, China.

(Msnbc.com is a joint-venture of Microsoft and NBC Universal.)

Full Story at  msnbc.com

SHANGHAI – It’s not quite as foldable as the space vehicle that cartoon figure George Jetson pops into his briefcase as he bops into the office.

But the EN-V concept car, GM’s “automobile solution” for the future, just might fit into an apartment foyer.

General Motors and its Chinese partner SAIC will showcase the “Electric Networked-Vehicle” launched Wednesday in their joint pavilion at the Shanghai Expo, which opens May 1 and runs for six months.

Full Story at msnbc.com

LOS ANGELES – Hard-working Barbie is adding two more careers to her long resume — news anchor and computer engineer.

The two new ventures for the world’s most popular fashion doll were chosen for the first time by the public, who cast more than 500,000 votes to select Barbie’s 125th and 126th careers, toymaker Mattel said on Friday.

Full Story at news.yahoo.com

SEATTLE – Boeing Co.’s giant 747-8 freighter should make its first flight Monday after performing well on taxi tests and reaching a top speed of about 103.5 mph, the company said.

At 250 feet long, the plane is the largest Boeing has ever built and about 18 feet longer than the existing 747-400 jumbo jet. The company conducted taxi tests on the freighter Saturday at Paine Field in Everett, north of Seattle.

“Based on early indications, the airplane is ready to fly,” said Mo Yahyavi, the 747 program’s vice president and general manager.

Full Story at  msnbc.com

NEW YORK – What would the holidays be without bickering between siblings? AT&T and Verizon are swamping TV with ads attacking facets of each other’s wireless networks. While the ads stick fairly close to the truth, there’s a lot they don’t say.

AT&T Inc. has been running ads with actor Luke Wilson checking off points in AT&T’s favor over Verizon Wireless. It’s the continuation of a spat that started a month ago, when Verizon started airing cheeky commercials that highlighted how its fast, third-generation (”3G”) network has wider coverage than AT&T’s 3G system.

Full Story atBrainstorm Tech.blogs.fortune.cnn.com

Broadpoint AmTech’s Brian Marshall, who has replaced Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster as the most bullish of the mainstream Apple analysts, made several assertions of fact in an Bloomberg TV interview Friday that — if true — struck me as newsworthy. Chief among them:

* The contract that gives AT&T (T) exclusive access in the U.S. to Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone expires in June 2010.
* Apple is now getting a $450 subsidy from AT&T for each iPhone it sells; after June, that subsidy will be reduced to $300 for all carriers, domestic and international.
* The 4% of AT&T subscribers who use the iPhone consume roughly 40% of the network’s bandwidth.

Full Story at  CBS News.com

(AP) Internet search leader Google will ease its control over millions of copyright-protected books earmarked for its digital library if a court approves a revised lawsuit settlement that addresses objections of antitrust regulators.

The offer comes two months after the U.S. Justice Department balked at Google’s original agreement with authors and publishers, warning the arrangement could do more harm than good in the emerging market for electronic books.

Google Inc. is hoping to keep the deal alive with a series of new provisions. Among other things, the modified agreement provides more flexibility to offer discounts on electronic books and promises to make it easier for others to resell access to a digital index of books covered in the settlement.

Full Story at money.cnn.com

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Google said Monday that it plans to pay $750 million in stock for AdMob, a company that provides display advertising technology for mobile Internet sites.

The search giant said the acquisition will help the company’s advertising partners improve how they target mobile Web users, as well as refine advertising formats to get end-users to click on more ads. All of that will ultimately help advertisers to more effectively monetize their mobile ads, said Google.

Full Story at brainstormtech.blogs.fortune.cnn.com

College students who took advantage of a “deal too sweet to pass up” have run into a bit of trouble.

The $29 electronic version of Windows 7 Home Edition sold for Microsoft (MSFT) through Digital River (DRIV) doesn’t seem to install properly on some 32-bit Vista machines.

Apparently the download files weren’t properly packaged and when some users tried to “unload the box” they got an error that read:

“We are unable to create or save new files in the folder in which this application was downloaded”

A discussion thread with that title was begun on Microsoft Answers’ Windows 7 install forum less than 3 hours after the new operating system launched. By Saturday morning it had generated more than 500 replies and been read nearly 44,000 times.

Full Story atmoney.cnn.com

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Microsoft Corp.’s stock soared early Friday after the software giant reported quarterly sales and profit that fell from year-ago results but easily beat Wall Street’s forecasts.

Shares of Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500) rose more than 10% in early trading. It surged as high as $29.35 at the open, hitting its highest level, on an intraday basis, since June 13, 2008.

The Redmond, Wash.-based software giant said its first-quarter net income fell 18% to $3.6 billion, or 40 cents per share, for the period ended Sept. 30. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters were expecting earnings of 32 cents per share.