Tyler Perry's Mother Dies

The mother of movie producer Tyler Perry, named Willie Maxine Perry, died on Tuesday at the age of 64. Perry had announced it on his Web site. The reason for her death is currently unknown to the public and she had worked as a pre-school teacher at the New Orleans Jewish Community Center most of her life. Perry was planning to go on the road for another tour of live "Madea" shows but it is currently unclear how this recent tragedy will have an effect on his schedule.

Oprah Winfrey Sued for $1 Trillion

Oprah Winfrey is being sued for $1 trillion by author Damon Lloyd Goffe who claims that she plagiarized his book "A Tome of Poetry" in her Internet-published work called "Pieces of my Soul." He has reported in legal papers that she admitted to using his original works in 2008. Goffe claims that Winfrey sold approximately 650 million copies of her work online for $20, so he is owed $1.2 trillion even though the website that sold Winfrey's work is no longer available.

Watch President Barack Obama's Inauguration

Watch the coverage of President Obama's Inauguration.

Use This Link: http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/national/inauguration09/main503703.shtml

Burger King Releases New Meat Scented Cologne

This holiday season Burger King has released a men's body spray called Flame. It is meat scented and is being promoted as "the scent of seduction with a hint of flame-broiled meat." It is being sold online and in some stores in the United States at the price of $3.99. It even has its own website at firemeetsdesire.com.

Register to Vote Online

The presidential election is coming soon. Use the website Rock the Vote to register to vote online if have not registered yet. Please Visit: http://rockthevote.com/

Google Releases New Web Browser

Google has released its own Web browser called “Chrome.” The browser is free of cost and it supposedly is more innovative and has more tools for surfing than its competitors. It is going to be available today for downloading in more than 100 countries for computers that are running on Microsoft's Windows operating system.

New and Faster iPhones Available

This month a new version of the iPhone will be available on the market. The iPhone 2.0 will have 3G wireless technology that will allow faster Internet access and surfing capabilities. It will allow users to download more business applications and social-networking programs. It will be available in the middle of June.

Yahoo and McAfee Team Together to Bring Search Engine Security

Yahoo Inc. and McAfee Inc. are teaming up to offer alerts about possibly dangerous Web sites in search engine results generated at Yahoo’s search engine. The new search feature will allow people who search the Internet to see a red exclamation point and a warning next to links that McAfee finds as having dangerous downloads or using visitors’ e-mail addresses to send out spam. Dangerous downloads include adware, which shows unwanted advertisements, and spyware, which tracks users’ keystrokes and other actions secretly.

Yahoo and McAfee hopes that the new feature will help people feel more secure when searching on Yahoo’s search engine and visiting sites. Yahoo has chosen to delete the most dangerous sites from their search engine and currently has the second most popular search engine after Google.

This partnership could allow McAfee a way to expose more Internet users to its security software and encourage them to upgrade to the premium versions. McAfee can also use Yahoo’s search information to find sites to examine for security holes and use the information to upgrade its products. The McAfee technology that is used on Yahoo’s site is a lesser version of McAfee’s full SiteAdvisor technology that is free from McAfee.

Microsoft Withdraws Yahoo Bid

Microsoft Corp. has decided to withdraw its $42.3 billion bid on Saturday to buy Yahoo Inc. This came after an unsuccessful last try to negotiate a mutually acceptable sale price.

Microsoft was willing to pay as much as $47.5 billion, or $33 per share, but Yahoo’s board wanted at least $53 billion, or $37 per share. Microsoft could make a new bid later this year if Yahoo doesn’t recover after having more than two years of financial problems. Analysts feel that if things don’t change for Yahoo Inc. soon, their stock would decrease into the mid-teens and that would make it difficult for the company to turn down any future offers. Yahoo Inc. is considering an advertising partnership with Google and a merger with the Internet operations of Time Warner Inc.

France Not Promoting Extreme Thinness

France might make it illegal to promote extreme thinness. The French parliament’s lower house adopted a bill that would make it illegal for anything and anyone, including fashion magazines, advertisers, and Web sites, to promote extreme thinness. Judges would be given the power to imprison and fine offenders of the crime up to $47,000 if they are found guilty of “inciting others to deprive themselves of food to an excessive degree.” Judges can also sanction the people or places responsible for a magazine photo of a model whose extreme thinness alters another person’s health.

The National Assembly approved the bill in a series of votes after the legislation won support from the ruling conservative UMP party. The bill is going to the Senate very soon. Last week, French lawmakers and fashion industry members signed a nonbinding charter on promoting healthier body images.

Leaders in the French couture are against having legal boundaries on beauty standards but some people also feel that encouraging anorexia or severe weight loss should be punishable in court. Doctors and psychologists that are treating people with anorexia nervosa are in support of the government being involved in the fight against the disease.

France Steps Up Citizen Surveillance

The president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, has decided to increase the amount of surveillance in public places in an effort to keep citizens safer by installing more police video cameras on city streets and sidewalks. There are already 300,000 of cameras set up in public places but Sarkozy wants to triple that number in the next few years.

The French government also has granted itself access to information every citizen’s bank cards, Internet searches, subway cards, electronic tollbooth passes, and more. Most citizens in France don’t know about the secret tracking devices and people have even been refused loans and lost their jobs due to errors that they have caused.

Blue-ray Wins the Format War

The war between the Blue-ray and HD DVD high-definition formats is over and Sony’s Blue-ray is the winner. Warner Bros. has announced that it would release movies for the home video market just in the Blue-ray format. Only two of Hollywood’s six major studios support the HD DVD format. The victory of Blue-ray may be short because of future technology that could allow people to download high-definition movies over the Internet.

Lisa Marie Presley Announces Pregnancy

Lisa Marie Presley, the daughter of Elvis Presley, felt she had to speak up when pictures of her looking very heavy were ridiculed in the media and on the internet. She has announced on her Myspace page that she is currently pregnant. She and her husband, Michael Lockwood, are expecting the baby to arrive this next fall. It will be her third child. She has two children from her previous marriage to ex-husband Danny Keough.

Lend and Borrow Money Online

There are now “peer-to-peer” lending websites that allow people to borrow money at competitive rates from lenders online. There is the site prosper.com, which allows the market to decide who gets funded. The site lendingclub.com is for borrowers with a FICO score above 640 and has a debt-to-income ratio below 30 percent. The site virginmoney.com manages loans between friends and family members. The site zopa.com works with credit union members.

The consequences of defaulting on a peer-to-peer loan are the same as a loan from a bank. Defaulting on a loan can have a negative effect on the borrower’s credit history.

China Targeting the Internet to Stop Juvenile Crime

China is targeting illegal Web sites, computer markets, and Internet cafes to attack online games that are considered too violent and unhealthy to try to stop juvenile crime. The crackdown is being called “Operation for Tomorrow” and is also aimed at Web sites that offer unregistered playing platforms or services that can be downloaded. They hope that this plan will improve the environment, prevent, and reduce juvenile crime and illegal activities.

China already monitors the Internet for anti-government speech and uncensored news reports. The new plan mainly targets school dropouts, runaways, children of inmates, and children that have been left behind by parents that migrated to different areas for work. Unlicensed Internet cafes would be closed down and there would be tighter supervision over legal cafes. The China government is blaming Internet cafes for promoting juvenile crime and school truancy. Online pornography will also be attacked in the crackdown.

The crackdown is meant to increase government supervision and control the services of groups of people that they feel are vulnerable and easily impressionable. They also plan to increase the supervision over domestic and foreign charity groups and other non-government organizations.

Yahoo Declines Microsoft’s Offer

Yahoo has rejected Microsoft Corp.’s $44.6 billion dollar offer thinking that they can get a better offer from the company or find another way to pay its shareholders. Yahoo has said that they could possibly negotiate if Microsoft comes up with a better offer. If they don’t, then Yahoo will have to try to rebound financially on its own.

Some analysts think that Microsoft will raise its offer to $35 to $40 per share to make the negotiation. Microsoft was willing to pay at least $40 per share for Yahoo a year ago but Yahoo wasn’t interested in the offer because it was confident in its own strategy and plans. A higher bid could possibly hurt Microsoft’s stock price, because recently it has been falling. Microsoft’s market value has decreased by over $40 billion, which is 14 percent, since the bid was announced. The Yahoo takeover could be more trouble than it’s worth for Microsoft. Analysts say that Yahoo will have no choice but to take the offer if Microsoft raises its bid.

If Microsoft doesn’t want to pay more money then they can take their original bid directly to Yahoo’s shareholders. Microsoft has been seriously considering this by meeting with some of Yahoo’s major shareholders to get support for the offer. Yahoo could also make Microsoft not want them by issuing out more company shares so that it would make the company too expensive for Microsoft to want to buy.

Even though Yahoo has been suffering for the past two years, it still has one of the largest Internet audiences and is a very valuable franchise. Microsoft wants to use those qualities to compete against Google Inc., which currently has the lead in online search and advertising. Yahoo has been considering an advertising partnership with Google as an option to earn profits and stay independent. Yahoo is also looking for other companies that might make a larger bid than Microsoft, but none has come forward yet.

Yahoo is hoping that their stock value will not go below $20 per share if Microsoft decides not to make any more bids. If that happens then there could be a large number of shareholder lawsuits.

Bank Deposits Able To Be Made From Home

CheckFree Corp, an online banking service, is introducing technology called Remote Deposit Capture where people can scan their checks through their home computer and deposit them electronically. This means that people have another choice when it comes to depositing their checks without going to a bank branch. The service will start to be available this week for people who do their banking services online as long as their banks offer the service.

This technology has been around for several years but has mostly been used by businesses. It is already in use in the top 150 banks. It is easy to use and banks can customize it for their clients.

To use this service you would need a scanner, a computer, and an Internet connection. You would go to your home banking site and enter the amount of the check. You would scan both sides of the check, do a quick review of what you scanned, and then submit the scanned image. Banks can add their own fraud protection to make sue that bad checks aren’t cashed. The processing times for the checks would be as normal as cashing any other check.

CheckFree Corp, an online banking service, is introducing technology called Remote Deposit Capture where people can scan their checks through their home computer and deposit them electronically. This means that people have another choice when it comes to depositing their checks without going to a bank branch. The service will start to be available this week for people who do their banking services online as long as their banks offer the service.

This technology has been around for several years but has mostly been used by businesses. It is already in use in the top 150 banks. It is easy to use and banks can customize it for their clients.

To use this service you would need a scanner, a computer, and an Internet connection. You would go to your home banking site and enter the amount of the check. You would scan both sides of the check, do a quick review of what you scanned, and then submit the scanned image. Banks can add their own fraud protection to make sue that bad checks aren’t cashed. The processing times for the checks would be as normal as cashing any other check.

Yahoo Lays Off 1,000 Workers

Yahoo Inc. is planning to lay off 1,000 of their 14,300 workers due to their 23 percent decrease in fourth-quarter profits and not being sure about their financial outlook for 2008. After the news was released, Yahoo shares hit their lowest levels in more than four years. Their market value has decreased more than 50 percent since the end of 2005.

Yahoo didn’t say which areas of its operations would be cut but some of the employees whose jobs are being eliminated might be offered new jobs in other parts of the company. Yahoo expects to pay between $20 million to $25 million for severance and other costs in the lay off. With the lay offs and cost cuttings, Yahoo could save more than$100 million dollars in costs and offset some of the financial loss that they expect from a re-negotiated partnership with AT&T Inc to provide high-speed Internet service. Yahoo and AT&T will share the revenue made through online advertising.

Yahoo hasn’t stopped making money but their profits fell by 12 percent in 2007 even though advertisers spent a lot of money on the Internet. The company is also working hard to try to attract more teenagers and young adults to the site.

Time Warner Basing Internet Prices on Web Usage

This year, Time Warner Cable will experiment with a new pricing structure for their high-speed Internet service that will charge customers based on how much data they download each month.. A trial will start in Beaumont, Texas, where they will sell new Internet customers service based on how much data they download each month instead of having a fixed price with unlimited downloads. They want to make it more expensive for people that download a lot of content, especially videos.

TiVo’s New Feature of Web Video

TiVo Inc. will soon have a new feature that will allow subscribers to view video from the Internet that would play on a television through their service. People using the service would have to use TiVo’s software on a computer to get this feature. TiVo will also provide a guide on its TV-based menu to record the selected Web videos. This new feature is set to be available in March.