Podcast: BlackBerry in a jam and the Year of the Dragon
Today on the Marketplace Morning Report, reporter Jennifer Collins takes a look at the CEO shake-up at Research In Motion and why the future of keyboards and touch screens have BlackBerry in a jam. Plus, Julia Coronado, chief economist for BNP Paribas, explains why the leadership changes is also a change in company strategy.
Christopher Werth reports from London on falling cocoa prices due to a lack of demand. The BBC’s Jonathan Marcus explains what’s new about today’s European oil embargo. Plus, more on the Chinese New Year, solar energy gets a cloudy forecast, and guitar makers question wood import laws.
Also in the news today, the European Union has just adopted an oil embargo against Iran because of the country’s nuclear ambitions.
Drilling company Halliburton says its net income jumped 50 percent in the last three months of 2011. The company benefitted from an increase in hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.
We’ve got a new silver-lining to the housing bubble. A new study shows that U.S. housing is more affordable than any other English speaking country.
Last week we told you about the leap second, which is a second of time added to calendars every year or so to keep our clocks in line with the earth’s rotation. A United Nations group was set to decide if we should keep it, or dump it. Apparently the leap second makes things really hard for software and satellite navigation systems. But the group couldn’t come to a decision so they put it off till 2015, which is a pretty massive procrastination, at least relatively. Three years over a single second of time.
Forget the passed note in the hallway. Or the text message. According to the L.A. Times, there’s a blossoming trend among teenagers to ask each other out in creative, and sometimes expensive ways. They’ve got a lot of examples: hand-knitted scarves, choreographed, rose-studded dances, and our favorite — A pet turtle delivered with the note: Will you go to prom with me?
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