The consortium includes Comcast Corp., Time Warner Cable Inc., Cablevision Systems Corp., Bright House Networks LLC and Cox Communications Inc. Consumers will be able to access more than 50,000 Wi-Fi hot spots in the New York area, Los Angeles, Tampa, Orlando and Philadelphia. Most of the operators offer the service only as a perk to current broadband subscribers — but Time Warner Cable has offered a pay-as-you-go option for non-customers as well.

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The goal: to manage computers and other devices with gestures rather than pointing and clicking a mouse or touching a display directly. Backers believe that the approach can make it not only easier to carry out many existing chores but also take on trickier tasks such as creating 3-D models, verifying whether clothes fit, training athletes and browsing medical imagery during surgery without touching anything.

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Mr. Greifeld said in an interview with reporters that problems with order cancelations interfered with the IPO process. Tests Nasdaq had conducted ahead of the highly anticipated offering failed to detect the problems, he said.

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Google, a Silicon Valley giant that built its business on Web services, startled the tech industry last August by saying it would buy the company, a much older, Illinois-based maker of mobile devices and other hardware.

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The move is aimed at helping its smaller operations, such as its mobile, search and e-commerce businesses, gain more independence, analysts said. Over the past year Tencent’s profit growth has slowed as it has sought to spend on a wide array of initiatives to solidify its holdings in areas such as mobile chat and online shopping.

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The review by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, or Finra, is at an early stage, the person said. It follows unusually heavy trading in shares of the online-coupon company in the run-up to its release of strong financial results.

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But before you place your order, it is my fiduciary duty to remind you all of the risks involved with this investment.

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But now, both Mr. Karp, a 25-year-old New Yorker, and his company are heading into a risky new phase: Making the site profitable. For the first time, he is making plans to sell advertising and sponsorships to Tumblr’s network of bloggers and their followers.

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The smart money is flying out of Facebook as the dumb money piles in.

– From The Wall Street Journal’s Rolfe Winkler

Amid mounting anger about the capability, at least two are resisting. Fox and NBC both said Wednesday they won’t accept ads promoting the satellite-TV operator’s new digital video recorder that contains the ad-skipping capability.

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Production is set to begin next month for the screens, which measure at least 4 inches diagonally compared with 3.5 inches on the iPhone 4S, the latest phone from Apple, the people said.

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The largest U.S. auto maker will continue to expand its use of marketing through Facebook’s pages, in which companies can display content at no cost, these people said.

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The discussions center on a possible partnership for production or developing manufacturing technology for organic light-emitting diode, or OLED, television sets, the people said.

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Companies crossing DNA-mapping technology with social networking are developing a brave new world in which samples of customers’ genes can be used to map family trees, find relationships people never knew they had, and identify adopted children’s biological parents.

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Ms. Brooks, who served as editor of the News of the World and the Sun tabloids before running all of News Corp.’s newspapers in the U.K., was charged by the Crown Prosecution Service with perverting the course of justice. Prosecutors also charged her husband, Charles Brooks; her former assistant; her chauffeur; and two men who provided security for Ms. Brooks.

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The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled a California trial judge was too quick to deny Apple’s request to temporarily block the sales of Samsung tablets while Apple’s patent-infringement claims against its rival proceed in court.

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LightSquared reported assets and debts each exceeding $1 billion, according to the petition it filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan.

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The new features, expected to be announced at Apple’s world-wide developer conference beginning June 11, will allow iCloud users to share sets of photos with other iCloud users and to comment on them, these people said. Currently, users can only store one set of photos in iCloud through a feature called Photo Stream, which is designed to sync those photos to other Apple devices, not share them.

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The struggling electronics retailer disclosed that its board-supervised investigation into Mr. Dunn concluded he engaged in an “extremely close personal relationship” with a 29-year-old subordinate that “negatively impacted the work environment,” though it found no evidence that he misused company assets.

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According to numerous sources, Yahoo is claiming “cause” in its parting with former CEO Scott Thompson, related to the fake computer science degree on his resume.

Such a determination will mean the company is not obligated to pay him the large severance that would have been due to him otherwise.

In his offer letter on January 3, Yahoo spelled out the terms of the employment agreement, noting what would happen if he left the company under more positive “without cause” terms.

“If Mr. Thompson’s employment is terminated by the Company without cause or by Mr. Thompson for good reason, the Company will offer him severance benefits similar to the benefits it provides to other senior executives of the Company at the time of his termination,” reads the document, which was filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. “In addition, if Mr. Thompson’s employment is terminated by the Company without cause, by Mr. Thompson for good reason, or due to Mr. Thompson’s death or disability, the Make-Whole RSUs that are then outstanding and unvested will fully vest upon his termination.”

The “Make-Whole” RSUs — or restricted stock units, related to his time as president of eBay’s PayPal payments division — were valued at $6.5 million in Yahoo’s SEC filings.

But sources said Yahoo has relied on another clause in Thompson’s offer letter, titled “Code of Ethics and Yahoo! Policies,” to make the case that it would not have to pay out such a large sum to him.

Reads the clause:

“Yahoo! is committed to creating a positive work environment and conducting business ethically. As an employee of Yahoo!, you will be expected to abide by the Company’s policies and procedures including, but not limited to, Yahoo!’s Guide2Working@Y!, Yahoo!’s Code of Ethics and Yahoo!’s Corporate Governance Guidelines,” reads the letter. “Yahoo! requests that you review, sign and bring with you on your Employment Start Date, the enclosed Code of Ethics Acknowledgment Form.”

Under the Silicon Valley Internet giant’s ethical terms, the borked bio and how it got that way — which was still under investigation when Thompson stepped down — was the major issue in his ouster, since he was responsible for making sure it was accurate when submitted for regulatory filings.

In addition, while Thompson publicly blamed a headhunting firm for making the error back in the mid-2000 timeframe, that company — Heidrick & Struggles — hit back, saying his claims were “verifiably not true.” According to sources, Heidrick apparently possesses an inaccurate resume submitted to them by Thompson.

Heidrick, which placed Thompson at eBay many years ago, was not involved in his hiring at Yahoo. It had to recuse itself from his vetting as part of its search for a new Yahoo CEO, because it had placed him previously.

In fact, Thompson had nominated himself for the job via cold emails with Yahoo board members and was examined and hired quickly.

Perhaps too quickly, given the poor background check that was discovered by activist shareholder Daniel Loeb of Third Point.

Sources close to the board said that investor pressure relate to these credibility lapses grew too loud, along with employee rancor at Thompson’s actions — forcing the issue this weekend.

What was definitely not a reason for Thompson’s departure from Yahoo — although it was unfortunate timing — was an unspecified “illness” I referenced in my initial story on the subject.

(Note to readers: I found out this weekend that illness was thyroid cancer. But I declined to name it specifically, since I felt it was Thompson’s right to publicly reveal such a personal health issue and not mine. While I recently suffered a stroke and the experience perhaps influenced this editorial decision, the cancer was only a side issue to the resume drama at Yahoo and not naming it specifically seemed, well, more responsible to me. Argue amongst yourselves about it, but that’s my take. And also, I wish Thompson a successful treatment and speedy recovery)

That said, The Wall Street Journal did an entire piece about the cancer today today, noting that “the decision to step down from Yahoo was in part influenced by Mr. Thompson’s cancer diagnosis.”

That might have been true for Thompson — a source close to him characterized the parting as “mutually agreed” — and perhaps his illness accelerated the resume controversy.

But all that aside, he was given no choice in the matter by the Yahoo board, numerous sources said. The parting was almost entirely due to the mess about the botched bio and all its implications.

In fact, in all its public communications about his leaving, Yahoo and its execs offered no token thanks and barely even mentioned Thompson, such as in its official statement yesterday.

It read, referring to newly chosen interim CEO Ross Levinsohn: “Mr. Levinsohn replaces Scott Thompson, former Chief Executive Officer, who has left the Company.”

And left it he has, without a choice and with what will be a much smaller settlement, sources said. It is not clear when Yahoo has to unveil those terms in public documents.

RELATED POSTS:

• Yahoo’s Parting With Thompson Will Be for “Cause” (a.k.a. CSLie)
• Ross Levinsohn’s Yahoo Plan: Back to the Future
• Here’s New Yahoo CEO’s First Note to Troops! (The Leaking-Internal-Memos-to-ATD Policy Remains in Effect As Usual)
• Yahoo Officially Confirms ATD Report on CEO Changes and Proxy Settlement
• Meet the Man I Call “The Hair”: The Video Stylings of Yahoo’s Newest CEO Ross Levinsohn
• Will Thompson’s Ouster Mean a Yahoo-Facebook Patent Settlement Too?
• Exclusive: Yahoo’s Thompson Out; Levinsohn In; Board Settlement With Loeb Nears Completion
• Heidrick & Struggles Slaps Back at Thompson’s Yahoo in Blame Game Over ResuMess
• Is He In or Is He Out? Crunchtime for Scott Thompson at Yahoo.
• Not So Scott Free? Yahoo’s Other Big Shareholder — Cap Re — Leaning Toward Supporting Loeb Over Thompson ResuMess.
• Tech Nation’s Gunn Says She and Yahoo CEO Discussed Their CS Degrees Before 2009 Show (Video and Audio)
• Loeb Calls Again for Thompson Firing From Yahoo, as Former eBay Boss Supports Him
• Place Your Bets: Will Loeb Drop Another Bomb on Yahoo at Vegas Confab Later Today?
• Exclusive: Yahoo Director in Charge of Botched CEO Vetting to Step Down From Board
• CEO Says Sorry to Yahoos for Borked Bio “Distraction” — But Will Mea Culpa Work Without an Apology for Error? (Memo)
• Buffett Comments on Trust Issue in Yahoo CEO BioGate: “You’ve Got a Problem”
• Loeb Lobs Lawsuit, as Expected, at Yahoo’s Borked Bio Mess
• As Yahoo CEO Reaches Out to Top Staff, Board Meets to Weigh “Options” (I.E., Deciding Who Gets to Take the Borked Bio Blame)
• Yahoo Should Expect Incoming Lawsuit Lobbed by Loeb Tomorrow on CEO Hiring
• They Shoot Yahoo CEOs, Don’t They? But Not Without a Really Smoking Gun and a Much Stronger Board.
• Yahoo’s Thompson Asks Employees to “Stay Focused” — Except Not on Him
• In 2009 Interview, Yahoo CEO Does Not Deny He Has a CS Degree, and Calls Himself an “Engineer” (Audio)
• Yahoo’s Board Will “Review” Resume Discrepancy of CEO
• How Did a Phantom CS Degree Get on CEO’s Bio in SEC Filings? Yahoo’s Not Saying.
• Yahoo’s Response on CEO’s Computer Science ResumeGate: “Inadvertent Error”
• Dan Loeb Alleges “Discrepancies” on Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson’s Resume Related to Computer Science Degree

The two sides still have until 5 p.m. Monday to reach a deal that would keep LightSquared out of bankruptcy court, and there were some indications over the weekend that a final decision hadn’t yet been reached on the company’s fate. Still, the two sides remained far apart and people involved in the negotiations expected LightSquared to begin making bankruptcy preparations in earnest.

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The amount of spam sent by text messages has more than tripled from last year’s level to 45 million messages sent each day. About 92 percent of those are messages are trying to trick people into giving up money.

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Ordinary investors, however, would be better off waiting until some of the buzz dies down, experts say.

The initial public offering, expected on May 18, could value the company at anywhere from $77 billion to $96 billion based on its $28- to $35-a-share price range — making Facebook the biggest company to go public in U.S. history, according to Dealogic. Some analysts already have issued one-year price targets as high as $46 a share.

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Panasonic recorded a net loss of ¥438.4 billion ($5.49 billion) in the three months ended March 31 compared with a loss of ¥40.7 billion in the same period a year earlier. Sales fell 8 percent to ¥1.880 trillion in the quarter, hurt by soft demand for flat-panel televisions and mobile phones.

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