Exclusive: Google Ventures beefs up fund size to $300 million a year

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Google will increase the cash it allocates to its venture-capital arm to up to $ 300 million a year from $ 200 million, catapulting Google Ventures into the top echelon of corporate venture-capital funds.Access to that sizeable checkbook means Google Ventures will be able to invest in more later-stage financing rounds, which...

Read More..

Death of the cassette tape much exaggerated

LONDON (Reuters) – The widening gap between the amount of data the world produces and our capacity to store it is giving a new lease of life to the humble cassette tape.Although consumers have abandoned the audio cassette in favor of the ubiquitous iPod, organizations with large amounts of data, from patient records to capacity-hungry video archives, have...

Read More..

Factbox: President Barack Obama

(Reuters) – As the 44th president of the United States, Barack Obama, 51, signed into law a revamp of the national healthcare system and authorized the raid that killed Osama bin Laden but struggled to revive the economy and create jobs.Obama won a second term on Tuesday with a victory over Republican challenger Mitt Romney. Here are key facts about Obama,...

Read More..

Euro growth forecast hits markets

7 November 2012 Last updated at 17:31 ETContinue reading the main story The European Commission has cut sharply its growth forecast for the eurozone, warning that the “difficult process of rebalancing will last for some time”.It now projects the bloc will narrowly avoid recession next year, growing by 0.1%, compared...

Read More..

Merkel says Germany, Britain must work together on EU

LONDON (Reuters) – Germany and Britain must cooperate to work round their differences on the European Union‘s long-term spending plans, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Wednesday.“Despite differences that we have it is very important for me that the UK and Germany work together,” Merkel said through a translator before a meeting in London with Prime...

Read More..

Election night TV audience down from 2008: Nielsen data

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Tuesday’s presidential election may have been too close to call for weeks, but it didn’t pull in as many TV viewers as four years ago.More than 66.8 million Americans watched coverage of the 2012 elections during prime time on Tuesday, according to final Nielsen data on Wednesday. That’s down from the 71.5 million who tuned in to...

Read More..

Renowned special effects firm is “Star Wars” bonus for Disney

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – “Star Wars” was the force behind Walt Disney’s $ 4 billion purchase of producer George Lucas’s Lucasfilm entertainment holdings. Not so far, far away is Lucas’ Industrial Light and Magic, his award-winning special effects shop that will likely save Disney millions of dollars in costs for its big-budget movies.ILM, started by Lucas...

Read More..

Experts say psychological effects of Sandy likely to grow

Fairfield, Connecticut (Reuters) – The devastating winds and catastrophic flooding of Superstorm Sandy may have subsided, but psychological distress from the disaster and its patchy recovery is likely to be growing, trauma experts say.Those most vulnerable to long-term emotional fallout from the storm are people who lost loved ones or whose homes were...

Read More..

Gender pay gap ‘could worsen’

6 November 2012 Last updated at 19:04 ETThe pay gap between men and women is at risk of widening for the first time on record, a leading pay equality campaign group warns. The Fawcett Society says that women still earn 14.9% less on average than men for the same job.But it says this gap could widen as public sector cuts...

Read More..

Officials: New mass graves found in Ivory Coast

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) — Up to 10 new mass graves have been discovered near the site of a July attack on a camp for displaced people, officials said Tuesday, amid allegations that initial casualty totals were downplayed to mask killings carried out by the national army.Rights groups claim summary executions were carried out by the Republican Forces...

Read More..