Oil headed for a weekly gain in New York on signs that the U.S. economic recovery is gaining momentum and concern that tensions with Iran may lead to a disruption in Middle East exports.

Crude for February delivery was at $102.18 at 8:36 a.m. London time. Yesterday, the contract fell $1.41 to $101.81, the lowest settlement this week. Prices gained 8.2 percent in 2011.
NATURAL GAS

OIL PRODUCTS

Gasoil, or diesel, swaps for February slid 10 cents to $128 a barrel at 11:45 a.m. Singapore time, according to PVM Oil Associates Ltd., a broker. Prices are set for a 4.5 percent gain this week, the most since April.

Gasoil’s premium to Dubai crude rose $1.21 to $19.66 a barrel, the highest since Nov. 21, PVM said. This crack spread, a measure of refining profit, is headed for the first weekly increase in four weeks.

Fuel oil’s discount to Dubai crude narrowed $1.16 to $2.96 a barrel, according to PVM. The gap increased the previous three days, signaling losses for refiners turning oil into residual products. February high-sulfur fuel oil swaps dropped 50 cents to $685 a metric ton, PVM said.

Benchmark naphtha swaps decreased $5, or 0.5 percent, to $939 a ton, according to PVM. The petrochemical feedstock is up 3.7 percent from last week.
PRECIOUS METALS

Cash gold gained as much as 0.4 percent to $1,628.52 an ounce, the highest level since Dec. 21, and traded little changed at $1,621 an ounce at 3:55 p.m. in Singapore. February- delivery bullion rose as much as 0.6 percent to $1,629.30 on the Comex in New York.
BASE METALS

Copper for delivery in three months gained 0.3 percent to $7,565.75 a metric ton by 9:42 a.m. on the London Metal Exchange. The metal is down 0.5 percent this week. The March- delivery contract rose 0.3 percent to $3.435 a pound on the Comex in New York.
GRAINS, OILSEEDS, LIVESTOCK

Soybeans for delivery in March rose 0.7 percent to $12.1775 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade at 3:57 p.m. Singapore time, set for a 0.8 percent gain this week. The contract earlier dropped 0.4 percent.

Corn for delivery in March advanced 0.6 percent to $6.475 a bushel, after declining as much as 0.5 percent. It was set for a 0.2 percent gain this week. Wheat for March delivery gained 0.4 percent to $6.32 a bushel, erasing an earlier loss of 0.3 percent and trimming the weekly loss to 3.2 percent.

Wholesale pork slid 1.1 percent Jan. 4 to 84.71 cents a pound, the lowest since Jan. 14, 2011, U.S. Department of Agriculture data show. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange’s Lean- Hog Index, a measure of spot-market prices, traded at 81.39 cents a pound yesterday, or 3.785 cents less than the February futures contract.

Hog futures for February settlement fell 1.6 percent to settle at 83.85 cents a pound yesterday on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, after reaching 83.775 cents, the lowest since Dec. 22. The price has rallied 7.5 percent in the past year. Cattle futures for February delivery dropped 0.6 percent to settle at $1.2095 a pound on the CME. Prices have rallied 13 percent in the past 12 months.

Feeder-cattle futures for March settlement gained 0.2 percent to $1.5085 a pound in Chicago, after reaching a record $1.521. Prices are up 23 percent in the past year.
SOFT COMMODITIES

Orange juice for March delivery rose 2.9 percent to settle at $1.7805 a pound yesterday on ICE Futures U.S. in New York, after gaining as much as 5 percent to $1.817, the highest for a most-active contract since Aug. 5. Prices have rallied 9.1 percent in the past two weeks.

Raw sugar for March delivery plunged 5.3 percent to settle at 23.13 cents a pound yesterday on ICE Futures in New York, the biggest decline since Sept. 16. The sweetener sank 27 percent in 2011 as crops expanded in Asia and Europe.

Arabica-coffee futures for March delivery declined 3.2 percent to close at $2.1955 a pound in New York, the biggest drop since Oct. 31. The price sank 29 percent since reaching a 14-year high in May.

Apple’s loss in the legal case – where the U.S. company sued the Hong Kong-listed Proview Technology (Shenzhen) for trademark infringement – has been the latest development in a series of back-and-forth lawsuits between the two parties since 2006.

According to a report by the Financial Times, the Taiwanese-owned flat screen contract manufacturer Proview registered the trademark named IPAD in the European Union, China, Mexico, South Korea, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam between 2000 and 2004, long before Apple launched its popular tablet computer.

In 2006, Proview Electronics (Taiwan) sold off its “global trademark” for the IPAD name for US$55,104 to a U.S. registered company called IP Application Development, which later turned out to be an agent secretly working for Apple.

However, after the 2006 deal was struck, the two signing parties disagreed on whether or not the package included China. Apple failed to obtain the ownership of the iPad trademark before it started selling the iPad on the Chinese market early last year, as the Chinese trademark office rejected its application based on the fact that the trademark in China is owned by Proview Technology (Shenzhen) – a separate Proview International affiliate with a Hong Kong holding, rather than the Taiwan one.

Apple then filed a lawsuit against Proview Technology (Shenzhen) at the Shenzhen Intermediate People’s Court, but its request on regaining the rightful ownership of the iPad trademark was again rejected, with the court ruling that it was Apple’s responsibility to do its due diligence.

Unfortunately, the legal disputes do not seem to simply stop here. Proview says it may also take a legal action in return, seeking a compensation of US$1.5 billion from Apple for trademark right infringement.

The astronomical sum of compensation is a significant climb in the monetary amount that Proview Technology (Shenzhen) originally demanded. Apple turned down their original offer of US$10 million for the trademark transfer and chose to resort to legal means as a result.

In the mean time, Proview Technology (Shenzhen) has also sued Apple resellers in the southern Chinese cities of Shenzhen and Huizhou, a move that may potentially block iPad sales in the two cities. In addition, the Chinese company says it will consider going after Apple resellers elsewhere in China, if its initial legal move succeeds in getting iPad sales stopped.

The situation may seem ironic for Apple if Proview gets its way. While the U.S. company itself is normally the one that is busy fighting against counterfeits – which range from Apple products to Apple stores – it now has to worry about an interruption in its robust iPad sales in China due to accusations of intellectual property right infringement.

It still remains a puzzle as to why Apple’s lawyers somehow failed to notice that the trademark rights in China were not actually held by Proview’s Taiwan unit, but according to Xiao Caiyuan, the lawyer representing Proview, the Apple side “tried to claim in court this was because they could not read Chinese.”

Xiao also acknowledged there had been negligence on both sides, since Proview in Taiwan should have realized that it did not have the right to sell the trademark.

In a recent commentary on his China Hearsay blog, Beijing-based IP/IT lawyer Stan Abrams warned the Apple-Proview case may reveal a downside, as the names of Apple’s “i”-series products – although appearing to be a great branding idea – are relatively easy to predict by competitors. With Proview’s success, other companies may follow suit and will have good chances of hitting paydirt.

Abrams also predicted that Apple may just end up paying the compensation for the ownership of the trademark in China, as there seem to be “no other options.”

The right to use the iPad name in China is crucial for Apple as the company is in a successful process of developing the Chinese market. Apple’s four official stores and over 1,000 resellers in the country reported soaring sales in the past three quarters, while executives say they have just scratched the surface in China in terms of sales.

Citing anonymous sources in Apple’s component supply chain, DigiTimes reports that Apple’s iPad 3 will launch in the next three to four months. The sources claim iPad 2 production remains high, likely in the 14- to 15-million unit range during the fourth quarter of this year, but Apple will decrease iPad 2 orders to between 4 and 5 million units in the first quarter of 2012.

Foxconn will build between 9.5 and 9.7 million third-generation iPad units in the first quarter according to the report, with production ramping up in February.

Apple’s iPad 3 is expected to be slightly thicker than the second-generation model, seemingly to make room for a high-resolution Retina Display. Earlier reports from an analyst suggested that the iPad 3 would launch in February, but this new report better-aligns with BGR’s exclusive report last week stating that Samsung will unveil a new tablet with a Retina-topping display resolution at Mobile World Congress in February.

Samsung is expected to beat Apple’s iPad 3 to market with a launch soon after the new tablet’s unveiling.

(Reuters) – The long-awaited iPhone 4S launch helped Apple Inc take top spot in the British smartphone market in October, overtaking phones using Google Inc’s Android platform, data from research firm Kantar Worldpanel ComTech showed on Monday.

“Apple took a whopping 42.8 percent share of all smartphone sales, giving it a significant lead over Android — a feat many thought was impossible,” Dominic Sunnebo, global consumer insight director at the firm, said in a statement.

“With nearly a year and a half between iPhone launches there has been huge pent-up demand for a new Apple device,” he said.

In October Google’s (GOOG.O) Android had 35 percent of the British smartphone market, often seen as the indicator for the rest of Europe.

For the 12 weeks to end-October Android was still ahead of Apple (AAPL.O), while Research In Motion Ltd (RIM.TO) held on to its 20 percent share. Nokia Oyj (NOK1V.HE) had 4 percent and Microsoft Corp’s (MSFT.O) Windows Phone platform 1 percent share.

Nokia started to sell its first Windows Phone in Britain in mid November.

Citing an unnamed source, the site says that Hitachi and Sony have already started shipping 4-inch LCD panels to Apple for use in “new iOS devices.” The two companies are also said to be providing panels for Apple’s next iPad, which is said to be “changed fundamentally.”

If true, the move would suggest that Apple has not just decided on the design for the followup to the iPhone 4S, which was unveiled and released just last month–but is beginning to collect parts and produce units.

Yet the 4-inch display rumors ahead of that unveiling were numerous. In February, a snapshot out of China depicting the front screen of what looked like an iPhone with a larger and wider display cropped up. Just weeks before, component industry tracker DigiTimes claimed that Apple was eyeing bigger screens, in part to better compete with Android and Windows Phone devices.

Then, in March, something a little bit more interesting happened. Purported “mold engineering” drawings made the rounds, depicting a device that looked like an iPhone 4 but with a noticeably larger screen. This was followed in June by blog This Is My Next, claiming that Apple was working on an iPhone with a 3.7-inch display, and a slew of cases that hit store shelves designed for a slightly larger, but thinner iPhone, based on an alleged prototype device leaked from a manufacturing facility.

Alternatively, a report by our own sister site CNET France near the end of September loosely claimed Apple would use a qHD (960×540 pixels) screen that measured about 4.2 to 4.3 inches diagonally. That’s compared to the iPhone 4 and 4S’ 3.5-inch display that runs at a higher 960×640 pixels.

One of the most recent reports ahead of this came last week from iLounge, which laid out several rumors about Apple’s product changes during 2012. On that list was an iPhone with a 4-inch display, alongside metal casing and a summer launch.

Apple currently maintains three basic sizes for apps to fall into: non-Retina Display iPhones and iPods, Retina Display iPhones and iPods, and the iPad. Changing dimensions with two additional configurations would mark another step for developers when designing their software, be it utilities or games.

SOURCE: http://news.cnet.com/8301-27076_3-57332260-248/rumor-revival-iphone-5-to-sport-4-inch-display/

The most recent tablet offering from Samsung features a seven-inch display and utilizes the Honeycomb Android OS. Reports have revealed that the price of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus is lower compared to that of the price tag in Europe.

The 16GB version of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus has a price tag of $400 whereas the 32GB version of the most recent tablet offering of Samsung has a price tag of $500. Some observers have indicated that the lower price of the device is an important thing since a device that is smaller by a mere three inches will not guarantee such a reduction in the price.

The price of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus in Italy was reportedly at about $685.

Aside from the seven-inch display of the Samsung tablet that has a screen resolution of 1024 by 600, the device also features 1 1.2 GHz dual-core microprocessor, a 1GB RAM, and a pair of cameras.

The 3MP camera of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus is reportedly capable of recording 720p videos. The tablet also features a 3G quad-band antenna.

Although the specific release date of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus has not yet been revealed, a number of observers have indicated that it may reach store shelves sometime in November.

Even as the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus was made available for pre-orders in the United States reports have also revealed that it has also been given the approval by the FCC. According to reports, the 16GB version of the tablet was the version that was evaluated by the FCC.

This comes as no mention of any other types of wireless connectivity for the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus was made. With this, observers are anticipating its availability in stores across the United States

In case you want to get Siri on your iPhone 4, you’ll need to wait for a while so that the hackers can port it successfully. You’ll always be able to get any updates and news by following our site.

Below is the tweet by MuscleNerd

So let it start.