German Tribune

Outsourcing giant Serco Group Plc has announced its plans to overhaul its management structure, in a move that will lead to at least 500 redundancies.

Most of the jobs at risk are from the company's office at Hook, near Basingstoke.

Outsourcing group Serco is to chop 500 UK jobs as part of a shake-up in the way it provides back-office services to public and private sector organisations worldwide.

Serco, which offers back-office support for a wide range of public & private sector bodies, has plans to merge its business processing operations into one global arm

According to Paul Gagnon of DisplaySearch, deals on new big-screen HDTVs before the Super Bowl – which is considered a good time to make savings – will probably not be as super this year as they were last year.

The key reason behind the chances of the pre-Super Bowl big TV sales being less super this time round apparently is the strong sales of TV sets during the holiday season --- a situation which was markedly different from the one witnessed a year back.

A video uploaded to the YouTube video-sharing site on Monday has claimed that the next target for the Anonymous hacking group was the popular Facebook social networking site, which will be attacked on January 28.

Threatening to shutdown Facebook, the video, released in the name of the Anonymous hacking network, has claimed that the hacking outfit’s recent attacks on public sites are a clear indication that an “online war” has kicked off between Anonymous, the people, and the US government.

According to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ)’s late Monday report, with AT&T’s proposed $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile having fallen through, the two companies have recently filed for the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC)’s approval for the transfer of $1 billion in wireless airwaves from AT&T to T-Mobile.

On Thursday, athletic-goods manufacturer Nike unveiled a new digital device, called the Nike+ FuelBand, which marks the company’s ongoing efforts to tap the increasing interest that athletes have, of late, been showing in devices that help them track their movements.

Priced at $149, the Nike+ FuelBand not only keeps a track of all of the user’s movements, including running, swimming, walking or dancing, but also gives them the ability to measure those movements and set personal goals.

In the first ruling one of Samsung’s patent-infringement claims against Apple in Germany, Mannheim Regional Court judge Andreas Voss gave the verdict in favor of Apple.

Despite the fact that the full-detailed written ruling is yet to be made available officially, Judge Voss reported dismissed Samsung’s claims which involved EP 1,005,726; a patent which chiefly pertains to the 3G/UMTS wireless telecommunications standard.

Microsoft’s profits slipped slightly in the final quarter of last year as weak PC market hit the software giant’s core Windows business.

During the three months to the end of December 2011, Microsoft pocketed a net profit of $6.624 billion (£4.27 billion), slightly down from $6.634 billion in the previous quarter.

Total revenue jumped 5 per cent to settle at $20.89 billion, but revenue generated by Windows division slipped 6.1 per cent to $4.74 billion.

During the course of a Wednesday morning conference call with reporters, the start-up wireless carrier LightSquared said that "manufacturers of GPS (Global Positioning System) receivers and government end users" had rigged the GPS test devices so as to produce "bogus results."

According to LightSquared and former FCC chief engineer Edmond Thomas, old and incomplete GPS receivers put to test by the GPS equipment makers in November; and the public as well as third parties could not analyzing the testing process because non-disclosure agreements were cited in the case.

A toddler who is suffering from leukemia can be helped by his younger brother with the stem cells that were harvested from the umbilical cord when he was born.

Three-year-old Nathan Shorey has acute lymphoblastic leukemia and he was told so in 2010 and to help him stem cell transplant might be needed if his condition deteriorates.

His younger brother Samuel’s stem cells that were taken from his umbilical cord were tested and they matched and this has made the parents hopeful.

Parents Melanie, 34, and Michael, 36, were delighted when the cells matched.

Apple’s failure to begin the sales of the iPhone 4S at its main store in Beijing's Sanlitun district – which is incidentally Apple’s flagship store in China – on Friday agitated the potential buyers to such an extent that they ended up pelting eggs on the store’s shiny glass walls.

The reaction of the crowd was a clear indication of their frustration at not having got a chance to buy the much-awaited iPhone 4S even after having lined up outside the store overnight in the freezing cold weather.