Cordless Hand Scanner in one of the phones with Symbian OS for Nokia mobile phone to communicate with Bluetooth phones to add new functionality to a wide range of possible applications in business use.

Info display, developed and marketed by Flanders to handle advertising and information displays remotely via GPRS, which offers completely new opportunities for targeted advertising. AA ‘wireless connectivity solutions at CeBIT

It seems only a matter of time before the Internet’s version of Clash of the Titans  occurs between Google and Facebook. The latest development in this pending collision is a report that Google is negotiating with major game developers for the social media space as part of a move to launch a competitor to Facebook, which recently topped the 500 million mark in membership. Playdom, Electronic Arts, Playfish, and the Zynga Game Network are among the companies reported by the Wall Street Journal in talks with Google.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that Google is huddling with game developers, especially if it intends to launch its so-called “Google Me”  Facebook alternative. Social games are hotter than a poker in a blast furnace and would be important to fattening the bottom line of any new Facebook competitor. One of Facebook’s most popular games, Zynga’s Farmville, attracts 60 million active members a month. What’s more, it’s estimated that players in Asia spend billions of dollars on the games, while in the United States, ThinkEquity  pegs social gaming revenues at $700 million in 2009 and predicts those revenues will triple by 2012. Those fat numbers are not only attractive to Google, but to entertainment heavyweights, too, like Disney, which just purchased Playdom for $563.2 million, plus another $200 million for meeting performance incentives.

An alternative to Facebook would be welcomed by many game developers, looking for a better deal for their wares. Currently, Facebook takes a 30 percent cut of the revenues made by games that use its service. Indeed, the need to diversify has motivated one of Facebook’s biggest game developers, Zynga, to cut a deal with Yahoo, and open its doors to a $100 million investment by Google.

In the pending clash of titans, the question remains whether Google can hold its own when it strays into Facebook’s turf. If the search giant’s foray with Google Buzz into Twitter’s territory is any indication of the outcome of such a clash, betting folks had best put their chips on Facebook.

Mr Obama vowed to ensure that countries were not giving their currencies an unfair advantage over the dollar.

Ties between the US and China have been strained over an arms deal with Taiwan.

Tensions have also risen over reports of Chinese cyber attacks on US-run websites and a planned visit to the US by the Dalai Lama.

Trade agreements

US companies have long complained that China keeps its currency artificially undervalued, allowing a steady flow of cheap exports around the world.

At a meeting with Senate Democrats, Mr Obama was asked whether the US would cut ties with Beijing over continuing trade disputes.

He said he would continue to make sure that China and other countries abided by trade agreements, but warned it would be a mistake for the US to become protectionist.

“The approach that we’re taking is to try to get much tougher about the enforcement of existing rules, putting constant pressure on China and other countries to open up their markets in reciprocal ways,” he said.

“But what I don’t want to do is for us as a country or as a party, to shy away from the prospects of international competition.”

Mr Obama also said foreign exchange rates would be monitored.

“One of the challenges that we’ve got to address internationally is currency rates and how they match up to make sure that our goods are not artificially inflated in price and their goods are artificially deflated in price,” he explained.

But Mr Ma said on Thursday that the value of the Chinese yuan was at a reasonable level and that China was not pursuing a trade surplus with the US.

“At the moment… the level of the yuan is close to reasonable and balanced,” he said.

Mr Ma said he hoped any problems with the China-US trade relationship could be solved through dialogue.

“Trade co-operation between the US and China is mutually beneficial,” he said.

“We hope the American side sees the problems within the China-US trade co-operation objectively and reasonably and continues to negotiate on an equal basis. Accusations and pressure do not help to solve the problem.”

Chinese trade figures released in December showed China likely to overtake Germany as the world’s largest exporter.

China said it had exported goods worth $1.2tn (£757bn) in 2009, while Germany is expected to register a figure of $1.18tn (£744bn).

The figures led to renewed complaints from China’s trading competitors that its currency is undervalued.

On Wednesday, Mr Ma told President Obama meeting the Tibetan spiritual leader would further erode ties between Beijing and Washington.

“We urge the US to fully grasp the high sensitivity of the Tibetan issues, to prudently and appropriately deal with related matters, and avoid bringing further damage to China-US relations,” he said.

China, which took over Tibet in 1950-51, considers the Dalai Lama a separatist.

Yahoo’s HotJobs service works as you might expect any job website to function. However, the power of the Yahoo brand and some useful job hunting tools have made it one of the world’s largest job recruiting websites. Monster, while larger, stands to benefit in terms of traffic and new users.

The deal gives Monster control over the assets behind Yahoo HotJobs, along with a three year deal that makes Monster the official tool for career and job content on Yahoo, including on its highly-trafficked home page. Monster will provide “performance based annual payments calculated by clicks and expressions of interest, subject to annual floors and ceilings” in return for the traffic Yahoo will provide.

Yahoo’s been selling some of its less strategic assets lately. Less than a month ago, Yahoo sold Zimbra to VMWare, but still gets to keep some of the Zimbra technology on its products.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. will cut about 11,200 jobs at Sam’s Club warehouses as it turns over the task of in-store product demonstrations to an outside marketing company.

The move is an effort to improve sales at Sam’s Club, which has underperformed the company’s namesake stores in the U.S. and abroad.

The cuts represent about 10 percent of the warehouse club operator’s 110,000 staffers across its 600 stores. That includes 10,000 workers, mostly part-timers, who offer food samples and showcase products to customers. The company also eliminated 1,200 workers who recruit new members.

Employees were told the news at mandatory meetings on Sunday morning.

“In the club channel, demo sampling events are a very important part of the experience,” said Sam’s Club CEO Brian Cornell in a phone interview with The Associated Press. “Shopper Events specializes in this area and they can take our sampling program to the next level.”

Shopper Events, based in Rogers, Ark., currently works with Wal-Mart’s namesake stores on in-store demonstrations. Sam’s Club is looking to the company to improve sampling in areas such as electronics, personal wellness products and food items to entice shoppers to spend more.

Cornell has been working to boost Sam’s Club’s results since taking the helm in early 2009, introducing new store formats, price cuts and offering more variety and more brands of items from take-home meals to baked goods.

As consumers eat out less in the shaky economy, Sam’s Club has tried to steal customers from grocery chains and rival warehouse stores like Costco Wholesale Corp. by offering more everyday goods like food and health and beauty items and paring its assortment of general merchandise like furniture and clothes.

But during Wal-Mart Stores’ most recent quarter, revenue at the Sam’s Club division slipped nearly 1 percent to $11.55 billion while U.S. Walmart stores posted a 1.2 percent sales increase to $61.81 billion. Earlier this month, Wal-Mart Stores closed 10 underperforming Sam’s Club locations, resulting in the loss of about 1,500 jobs.

“Sam’s has been the relative laggard, and it has lagged relative to its direct competitors, Costco and the smaller BJ’s (Wholesale Club),” said Craig Johnson, president of retail consultancy Customer Growth Partners.

The move to outsource its food sampling efforts is a way for the company to tout its fresh food offerings in a cost-effective manner, Johnson said.

“‘Fresh’ is where the real competitive battles are being fought in the club sector,” he said.

Shopper Events will launch a new demo program called “Tastes and Tips” with new carts, signs, uniforms and a trained team, said Cornell. He said the move was not made to save money.

“It’s not a cost cutting measure, its really an investment in enhancing our demo program,” he said. Cornell added that Shopper Events plans to hire “roughly the same number of people” cut, and said Sam’s Club workers are invited to apply for those positions.

Cornell said Sam’s Club decided to eliminate its membership recruiting unit because “we have found that we can more effectively drive membership through targeted member acquisition events and by increasing our partner membership programs.”

“I feel betrayed,” said Sally Grueling, 56, who had worked at Sam’s Club for nine years, most recently in Hilliard, Ohio as a new business membership rep.

In a memo to employees, Cornell said eligible workers will receive severance pay and benefits, and that the company will help them find opportunities at other Sam’s Clubs and in Walmart stores, in addition to Shopper Events positions.

The cuts come as many Americans had hoped job losses would be slowing as the economy slowly recovers. However, analysts said Sunday that while this marks Wal-Mart Stores’ largest job cut, they expect many employees to be picked up by Shopper Events, so the net effect on the economy probably won’t be that bad.

“I would argue that from an economic standpoint it’s somewhat nominal,” said David Strasser, a retail analyst with Janney Montgomery Scott. “It looks a lot worse than it really is from a layoff standpoint. My read is the majority of employees are going to be picked up by Shopper Events.”

Strasser said he did not expect the move to materially affect Wal-Mart Stores’ fourth-quarter earnings results. Wal-Mart reports results for the quarter and full year in February.

“It really should be neutral to the economy,” Johnson agreed. He said Wal-Mart remains the largest private employer in the world and in the U.S. “None of that changes.”

The number of jobs created via Shopper Events may not be one-to-one, he said, “but should be fairly close. Net net I don’t think it makes a huge difference on the economy.”

China has said that foreign internet firms are welcome to do business there “according to the law”

The statement, from Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu, is Beijing’s first response to Google’s threat to stop filtering content in China.

Google said cyber-attacks originating in China aimed at rights activists, and increased web censorship, might force it to end its China operations.

Ms Jiang insisted the internet was “open” in China.

Google announced late on Tuesday that it was no longer willing to censor its Chinese search engine – google.cn.

The search engine said it would hold talks with the government in the coming weeks to look at operating an unfiltered search engine within the law in the country, though no changes to filtering have yet been made.

‘Holding statement’

At a regular foreign ministry news briefing, Ms Jiang said: “China like other countries administers the internet according to law.

“China’s internet is open, and the Chinese government encourages development of the internet.”

She was responding to a reporter’s question on Google and US concerns about the business environment in China in light of Google’s reported cyber-attacks.

“Chinese law proscribes any form of hacking activity,” she said.

When Google launched google.cn in 2006, it agreed to censor some search results – such as the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, Tibetan independence or Falun Gong – as required by the Chinese government.

The BBC’s Chris Hogg in Shanghai says Ms Jiang’s comments sound like a holding statement, until officials can have talks with Google.

Google currently holds about one-third of the Chinese search market, far behind Chinese rival Baidu, which has more than 60%.

China has more internet users – about 350 million – than any other country and provides a lucrative search engine market worth an estimated $1bn (£614m) last year.

It is difficult to see how the situation can be resolved, our correspondent says, with Google potentially losing its market share and the government reluctant to give up its right to control the internet.

‘Don’t be evil’

In a blog posted late on Tuesday, Google’s chief legal officer David Drummond announced “A new approach to China”.

He said the accounts of dozens of US, China and Europe-based users of its Gmail service who are advocates of human rights in China had been “routinely accessed by third parties”.

At least 20 other large companies from a wide range of businesses were similarly targeted, it added.

Google’s decision to concede to China’s demands on censorship in 2006 led to accusations it had betrayed its company motto – “don’t be evil” – but Google argued it would be more damaging for civil liberties if it pulled out of China entirely.

Google’s stance has drawn mixed reaction from China’s internet community. Some have applauded what they see as a bold stand against the country’s internet guardians while others expressed fears they would lose a valued source of news, despite it being censored.

Others saw the Google statement as a Chinese victory, saying that Google’s withdrawal from the country would be no great loss, with Baidu providing almost all the same services as google.cn.

The state-run China Daily described Google’s statement as designed to put pressure on the Chinese government.