The effort marks the Internet company’s first full-fledged effort to design and market consumer electronics devices under the Google brand, and represents a sharp shift in strategy. Google has up to now mainly focused on developing the Android software that powers devices such as smartphones and tablets and allowing other companies to build and brand the hardware that uses it.

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The 54-year-old executive, who was hired last month, hasn’t mentioned specifics during meetings with employees and business associates.

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Yahoo owns 40% of Alibaba Group.

The six banks — Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd., Credit Suisse Group AG, DBS Bank Ltd., Deutsche Bank AG, HSBC Holdings PLC and Mizuho Financial Group — are in the process of getting internal credit approval to underwrite the loan, which is said to have a tenor of three years with a yield of around 4%.

The loan is expected to be finalized this month, the people said.

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However, antitrust enforcers in the U.S. and Europe remain concerned about Google’s commitment to license key Motorola patents to competitors on fair terms, those people said, and are likely to closely monitor Google’s use of the patents. The European Commission has set a deadline of Monday to decide whether to approve the acquisition.

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In a letter to the European Telecommunications Standards Institute, Apple said the telecommunications industry lacks consistent licensing schemes for the many patents necessary to make mobile devices, and offered suggestions for setting appropriate royalty rates that all members would follow.

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The company’s revenue missed analysts’ expectations amid a decline in film revenue and essentially flat advertising revenue at ESPN.

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In a letter addressed to Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg on Tuesday, California State Teachers’ Retirement System Director of Corporate Governance Anne Sheehan wrote that, “We are disappointed that the Facebook board will not have any woman members.”

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While most gadget lovers hunt for empty wall sockets to charge their devices, Kevin Bartholomew just plugs his cellphone into his hip. That is where he keeps a nine-inch device looped around his belt that converts the kinetic energy of his motion into enough power to keep his devices running.

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A person familiar with the matter said Google removed content from its search service, YouTube video site and Blogger after receiving an order to do so from Judge Mukesh Kumar of a New Delhi district court.

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Let’s be clear on the much-awaited Asian deal that Yahoo and its Asian partners have been working on: While it is certainly still moving forward, once signed, it will not actually officially close until next year.

Yes, that’s right — 2013!

Still, what everyone and his investor is waiting for is the splashy announcement of the agreement, which involves the Silicon Valley Internet giant, China’s Alibaba Group and SoftBank, a large shareholder in Yahoo Japan.

Yahoo leadership has been hoping that could happen before Feb. 24, an important date after which activist shareholder Daniel Loeb could begin to mount a proxy fight against the current board.

And while the definitive agreement — involving the sale of Yahoo’s 33 percent stake in Alibaba and 35 percent stake in Yahoo Japan — has been moving back and forth among the dealmakers, one source said its completion might take a little longer than that, perhaps even into mid-March.

“It is one of the most complicated cross-border transactions in a long time,” said one person close to the situation. “It’s three different languages, three time zones and three companies that have not always seen eye to eye.”

It’s not that the companies don’t have the top talent on the effort. For Yahoo, it is CFO Tim Morse (who most recently also warmed the CEO seat, until Scott Thompson’s recent appointment); for Alibaba, it’s CEO Jack Ma and CFO Joe Tsai; and, for SoftBank, it is top man Masa Son and his top man Ron Fisher.

To make things even more complex, at the same time as the negotiating is going on, the trio also has to pay mind to how the Internal Revenue Service in the U.S. is going to view the whole deal.

As you can see here from a Wall Street Journal chart, it’s a pretty complicated “cash-rich split-off” to avoid taxes.

While the IRS cannot take an application for a “private letter ruling” until it has an actual agreement in hand, and will not issue one on a hypothetical transaction, the agreement still must be crafted so it is most likely to pass muster.

And only then can anyone move on to the many billions of dollars that Yahoo will instruct Alibaba and SoftBank to pay or contribute in kind for the asset part of the arrangement.

As the Journal noted, in more clarity than I ever could: “A key part of satisfying tax-code requirements is that the company shedding its shares get assets, not just cash, in exchange for them. Cash can’t account for more than two-thirds of the transferred value, tax rules say. This restriction was adopted in 2005 to limit misuse of the provision.”

While Yahoo’s execs have met about the various possibilities, it is more considering now than anything else.

And although a lot of names have been bandied about — Weather Channel, WebMD, as well as Glam Media and even Digg — the more likely direction Yahoo will go in will be different, according to many sources.

First, said sources, the key criteria for the purchase will be to diversify revenue streams, a theme Thompson sounded in his first earnings report recently. That could mean more online commerce, perhaps, rather than advertising or media assets.

Second, said sources, international properties might be more valuable to Yahoo than owning more U.S.-based ones, which opens up a range of interesting possibilities.

This could even include some already held by Alibaba, for example, such as garnering a big stake in its publicly-traded Alibaba.com. Technically, via Alibaba, Yahoo already owns some of the e-commerce giant, but not directly. Another possibility is to get back the Yahoo China business, also now owned by Alibaba.

Third, U.S. companies that Yahoo might look at could be unusual and even bold. Two names brought up in recent internal meetings, for example, were Netflix (before its stock revived) and Yelp (which is prepping for an IPO, and which Yahoo once tried to buy already).

And if things were not already needlessly complex in fixing its Asia problem, expect a change in the Yahoo board composition, too, as early as this week.

As I previously reported, at least four directors are expected to move on. More to the point, there will also be replacements announced at the same time.

To stave off Loeb and even give him a perceptible win, sources said the company is considering announcing the changes sooner than later, with the hope that fresh new members will placate other shareholders.

Lastly, with Thompson starting to take the reins after a month there, I would also expect he’ll weigh in on some significant restructuring (his word, not mine!) at Yahoo soon enough, too.

Complicated? Sure is! Perplexing even? And how! But until Asian and board resolutions, the real work of fixing Yahoo can’t really begin.

The company released a statement saying: “Steve’s passion and energy left an indelible mark on Micron, the Idaho community and the technology industry at large.”

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If the company’s revised net-loss forecast of ¥780 billion — its previous projection, in October, was ¥420 billion — proves accurate, it would be the second-largest ever for a Japanese manufacturing company. Hitachi Ltd. lost ¥787.34 billion in the fiscal year ended March 2009, as the financial crisis struck.

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The Japanese entertainment and electronics conglomerate reported a net loss of ¥159 billion ($2.09 billion) for the quarter ended Dec. 31, compared with a net profit of ¥72.3 billion in the year-earlier period. Revenue fell 17% to ¥1.822 trillion during the quarter.

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“What?” Tuck said, searching the locker room last week for DeOssie, the Giants’ long-snapper. “I went to Notre Dame, you know.”

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The 51-year-old Mr. Hirai, who oversees Sony’s consumer electronics and videogame divisions, has been considered the front-runner to take over from Howard Stringer, who will remain executive chairman until June, and then become chairman of the board.

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Shares were down almost 30 percent, at $7.24 in afternoon trading Tuesday after the consumer-electronics retailer said it expected earnings between 11 cents and 13 cents a share, while analysts polled by Thomson Reuters most recently predicted 37 cents a share.

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The case hinges on standards-essential patents, patents which cover an area that is crucial to compliance with an industry standard, such as 3G or Wi-Fi.

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Apple announced Tuesday that John Browett, who has been chief executive of Dixons Retail PLC since 2007, would join the company as a senior vice president in charge of the technology giant’s retail operations and expansion in April.

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This month, Verizon Wireless stores in Seattle and Portland, Ore., began offering home Internet, cable and telephone service from Comcast Corp. as part of a new joint marketing deal between the cellphone provider and several cable companies. Verizon doesn’t offer its competing FiOS broadband and TV service in those markets, but the marketing deal may eventually encroach into FiOS territory, people familiar with the deal say — setting up an awkward clash within the telephone giant.

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The list is dominated by energy-related and tech deals, with the leader of the pack, security software company AVG Technologies NV, scheduled to launch its IPO on Thursday.

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The companies — along with others such as financial-service companies Bank of America Corp., FMR LLC’s Fidelity Investments and eBay Inc.’s PayPal — are hoping to create an environment that allows the recipient of an email from, say, a bank, to feel secure that it isn’t a trick.

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The 94-year-old investor got in and out of the movie business three times over the course of four decades, profiting handsomely as he repeatedly bought and sold Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. studio.

On the sidelines since 2005, Mr. Kerkorian is now on the hunt to buy a film studio, production company or other entertainment business, said Jay Rakow, an executive at Mr. Kerkorian’s investment vehicle, Tracinda Corp., during an interview.

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The announcement, published on the official blog of the microblog operator, said Twitter is now able to withhold content from users in a specific country while keeping it available to the rest of the world.

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Now SAP’s chairman, the 68-year-old engineer is trying to take advantage of cheaper memory chips in servers to speed up complex business calculations and allow companies to do in seconds what currently can take hours or days. The aim is to allow executives to quickly access and analyze business data even on hand-held devices.

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The company swung to a crushing €1.07 billion ($1.4 billion) loss for the three months ended Dec. 31st, down from a €745 million profit in the same period last year. Group sales dropped 21 percent to €10 billion from €12.65 billion.

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