Japanese beer and soft drink manufacturer Kirin Holdings said on Monday that it had called off merger talks with Suntory Holdings due to differences over governance and a merger ratio.

Kirin was pursuing negotiations with smaller rival Suntory to create a leading industry player in Asia, with sales of more than 400 billion dollars.

Siri Inc., known for an artificial intelligence-based voice recognition start-up, has launched an application 'do engine', which is believed to bring significant improvements in the voice activated field of search.

While informing about the new release, the Chief Executive of Siri, Mr. Dag Kitttlaus said, "It's more of a 'do engine' than a search engine. You just ask your phone to do things for you."

Apple has prohibited developers from using location -based services such as the Core Location framework to deliver ads to iPhone, iPod touch. But this restriction appears to oppose Apple's own intent.

Mac posted yesterday on the iPhone Dev Center's News and Announcements blog:

Fusion Garage, a Singaporean firm, is about to bring the JooJoo, a tablet computer. The company expects it will reach to the customers by the end of the month. Its features include a 12.1-inch touch screen display, boots up in 9 seconds, sporting 4GB of built-in storage, a 1.3-megapixel camera and a microphone for video conferencing, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity and runs Flash-based applications and games and high-definition movies.

On Wednesday, Apple came out with its latest iPad, which immediately created issues with a Japanese company that introduced a device called the iPAD in 2002. This tiff between the two can give way to litigation or result in the sort of settlement Apple reached over its iPhone in 2007, when it reached an agreement with Cisco Systems Inc. Back then, it was Cisco, which was marketing an Internet telephone under the same name.

The Chief of the Toyota Motors, Mr. Akio Toyoda has apologized for a massive recall involving millions of vehicles around the World.

"We're extremely sorry to have made customers uneasy," said Toyoda in an interview. He also said that he will give clear explanations soon. The company also plans to include the recall of its most popular cars to Europe and China.

Investors at Air NZ seemed unconvinced by the hype generated by the airline through advertisements featuring the ‘skycouch’ seats populated with models.