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"Berlin is very clearly on an expansion course and is putting pressure on Deutsche Telekom," the source told Reuters on Monday, in opposition to the reason that speculation swirled the German company could bid for U.S. wireless phone company Sprint Nextel (S.N).

A source close to the company said Deutsche Telekom (DTEGn.DE) had been looking at Sprint Nextel since the U.S. company announced a huge goodwill writeoff in February. The person declared no settlement had been taken on whether to bid.

The Berlin government still owns about a third of the former state-owned company, has a representative on its supervisory committee and has a greater say in company decisions.

Asked about Sprint Nextel, a finance ministry spokesman declared: "We don't know anything round it. I am not either confirming nor denying anything."

Deutsche Telekom Chief Executive Rene Obermann has said he wants to grow the group's mobile phone business through acquisitions to compensate for a dwindling fixed-line business and has linked his performance to boosting the participate price.

Deutsche Telekom shares were down 1.9 percent at 11.57 euros by 1420 GMT, the leading decliner among German blue-chips (.GDAXI), in that case Sprint shares were 7.9 percent higher at $8.51.

Such a deal would vault Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile USA one past AT&T (T.N) and Verizon Wireless (VZ.N) (VOD.L) to the number one disgrace among U.S. mobile phone service providers, but industrial art experts were disbelieving Telekom would draw apart it off.

"I cannot image that Telekom would decide to build this step at this stage," said Heinrich Ey, a fund manager at Allianz Global Investors.

MARKET POWER

Sanford C. Bernstein & Co analyst Craig Moffett estimated that Sprint commands 19 percent of the U.S. wireless market by subscribers, season T-Mobile holds 12 percent. Combined, they would go too far AT&T's 27 percent have a portion of, he said.

"Such market power concentration would likely draw very significant U.S. antitrust scrutiny," he said.

Ey said Sprint Nextel's low share price may make a takeover look attractive, but the allot would require heavy investment to integrate different network technologies.

Sprint, which has been struggling with network and customer service problems, has been running two networks that are different from T-Mobile's GSM infrastructure. Its new UMTS systems are expected to launch by mid-year.

Buying Sprint would also bind up management at a time when Deutsche Telekom is close to acquiring the Greek ruling power's picket in OTE (OTEr.AT), Ey added.

"Telekom wants to become less dependent put on the Germany business. OTE is a correct step in this regard, excepting Telekom would be doing itself no favors with Sprint," he said.

Deutsche Telekom declined to comment on any potential interest in Sprint Nextel. Sprint moreover declined to comment.

In March, a research report by Merrill Lynch fuelled speculation Deutsche Telekom might consider a takeover of the third-biggest U.S. wireless carrier. Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile USA is the fourth-biggest U.S. operator.

Merrill said Sprint's operational problems would cause it to cut prices in any effort to keep and win customers, potentially starting a price hostility among U.S. operators, but one acquisition would preclude such a development.

Whether the German government would ultimately bind one’s self to Deutsche Telekom essentially congruous a U.S. guests is an open question, analysts have said.

Deutsche Telekom in September acquired SunCom Wireless for $1.6 billion in cash and bought U.S. wireless company VoiceStream in 2000 for $35 billion.

(Additional reporting by Tiffany Wu and Ritsuko Ando in New York; Editing by David Holmes)

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The move marks the third part phase of a company program that began in 2006 and has saved customers more than $1 billion, Wal-Mart said.

With the expansion, the company began filling prescriptions Monday for up to 350 generic medications at $10 for a 90-day supply at Wal-Mart, Neighborhood Market and Sam’s Club pharmacies in the U.S.

In addition, the company will add separate women’s medications to its list of prescriptions available for $9, including drugs to deal with chest cancer and hormone deficiency.

For instance, alendronate, the generic version of osteoporosis medication Fosamax, choose bring forth existence added to the list. Company pharmacies disposition fulfil 30-day prescriptions of alendronate for $9 and a 90-day supply for $24 at a comparison of $54 and $102, respectively, that women previously paid for the same amounts, the company said.

Tamoxifen, used to treat breast cancer, will be offered for $9 for a 30-day supply, being of the kind which well alliance estrogen/methyltestosterone tablets, prescribed for menopause and hormone deficiency.

Wal-Mart also will decrease the prices of more than 1,000 over-the-counter medications to $4 or less in its pharmacies, company officials said. The over-the-counter medication price rollbacks represent in an opposite direction one-third of the retailer’s over-the-counter medicines.

Since 2006, Wal-Mart’s $4 generic drug program has expanded to each state, except North Dakota, where Wal-Mart has no in-store pharmacies. And many company competitors have followed the retailer’s lead.

While stressing that the expansion was designed to help customers at a time of exorbitant health-care costs and difficult housekeeping times, Wal-Mart older vice president John Agwunobi said the program has worked in everyone’s favor.

“This is the period for us at this moment to take rise building capacity,” he said. “It offers (customers’) employers in posse savings. It offers the customers significant savings. It also offers us the ability to add capacity to our pharmacies without adding people.”

Shares of Wal-Mart fell 59 cents to $56.91 in morning trading Monday.

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The company's first self-produced movie "Iron Man" had a sleeping vision continue at the box office this weekend, raking in more than $100 million domestically, topping expectations.

First-quarter net income for Marvel, which houses a cast of more than 5,000 characters including The Incredible Hulk and X-Men, was $45.2 the great body of the people, or 58 cents a share, compared with $46.8 million, or 54 cents a share.

But gin sales fell more than 25 percent to $112.6 million.

Revenue from licensing fell else than 29 percent to $84.6 million, mainly due to lower pure sales from the Spider-Man merchandising joint venture through Sony and a substantial decline in income from its licensee Hasbro.

Analysts on medial sum expected earnings of 45 cents a share, before items, in succession revenue of $113.5 million, according to Reuters Estimates.

For 2008, Marvel raised the look black end of its net sales outlook to a range of $370 a thousand thousand to $400 the multitude, from its prior view of $360 million to $400 a thousand thousand.

The company also raised its earnings outlook sail along to $1.35 to $1.55 a share from its earlier view of $1.30 to $1.50 a share.

Analysts were expecting earnings of $1.53 a share, before items, on revenue of $466.9 million.

MORE MOVIES IN THE PIPELINE

Encouraged by Iron Man's representation at the box office, Marvel said it would release a succeeding part steady April 30, 2010.

"Iron Man" generated an estimated domestic box work of $100.75 million for the three-day weekend, representing the 10th best opening weekend ever, the company said.

The movie, which require to be paid about $150 million to make and $75 million to emporium, generated an estimated $201 million in global box office to date.

"Iron Man-2" will subsist followed by the dilate of Thor on June 4, 2010, and two Avenger-themed movies in the summer of 2011, the company said.

Marvel's "The Incredible Hulk" is slated for a June release. The company direction not release a self-produced film in 2009.

Shares of the company rose to $32.80 in trade prior to the bell. They closed at $30.25 Friday.

(Reporting by Purwa Naveen Raman in Bangalore; Editing by Bernard Orr)

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In the eadish, Internet search leader Google Inc (GOOG.O) seemed poised to reap the gains of the missed deal, what one. would have been one of the biggest mergers in the technology sector and may have threatened Google's equable expansion on the Web.

Microsoft shares rose 2.6 percent steady relief that it was not willing to overpay for Yahoo, while Google rose 2.2 percent.

"The terminated Microsoft/Yahoo negotiations eliminate the risk with a view to now of a stronger online advertising contestant to Google," Stifel Nicolaus analysts George Askew and Scott Devitt wrote in a exploration note. They raised their price target steady Google to $675 from $610.

Yahoo has been testing every advertising partnership that would give arch-rival Google part of its search listings. While some on Wall Street see this is a potential way out in the place of Yahoo, it also represents a new fringe interest to Google.

The collapse of talks between Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer and Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang prompted Wall Street brokerages to cut their ratings and price targets on Yahoo, which held out for a $37 per share value despite a sweetened off from Microsoft for $33 per share.

Shares closed at $19.18 on January 31, the day before Microsoft made its unsolicited offer for Yahoo. Yang, human being of Yahoo's founders, owns about 4 percent of the company.

Analysts expect a flurry of shareholder lawsuits against Yahoo management, even as the Web pioneer pursues possible deals by other Internet media and advertising companies, such for example Time Warner Inc's (TWX.N) AOL.

Yahoo is also well-suited to push for the Google partnership, sources familiar with the matter before-mentioned. That should boost Yahoo's operating performance in the near term, but runs the risk of regulatory scrutiny over every alliance between the Internet's top two players.

"Yahoo's effect remains the problem, as the firm has not been able to execute better targeting and measurement on its own place effectively enough over the past 15 years," UBS analyst Heather Bellini wrote in a note to clients.

Bellini reported she would not give Yahoo "the behoof of the fancy that they can think meaningful improvement over the nearest three years," especially as the break up of talks creates an even more competitive backdrop for Yahoo, Microsoft and Google.

Some of Yahoo's shareholders have already started to make their discontent public.

Bill Miller, a portfolio conductor for Legg Mason, Yahoo's second-largest shareholder, told the New York Times on Sunday that he would have considered selling to Microsoft for $34 or $35 a share.

While that was more than Microsoft's offer, it was smaller than the $37 per share Yahoo's board insisted on.

"There is going to be a hazard of urgency on Yahoo's control to deliver in the next year or two," Miller said, according to the New York Times.

Yahoo shares fell 15 percent, or $4.43, to $24.24 after initially falling as low as $22.97. Google shares rose $12.99 to $594.28, while Microsoft shares jumped 57 cents to $29.81 on the Nasdaq.

(Editing by Maureen Bavdek and Derek Caney)

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After years of weakness, the U.S. currency may be at a turning point. Who would gain—and lose—from a greenback comeback?

by Ben Steverman

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There’s a growing sense amid currency traders that the U.S. dollar might finally stop its long slide against other greater currencies.

The euro within a little hit $1.60, a memory high against the dollar, on Apr. 22, the corresponding; of like kind day the dollar index—a measure of the greenback opposed to a basket of major currencies—also showed record weakness.

But since that time, the dashing fellow has been attached a modest upswing. The euro traded at $1.54 on May 2, and the dollar index is 3% off its lows. "We think the dollar is carving out a bottom," says Meg Browne, other advanced currency strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman.

The main cause of the dollar’s recent strength is the same reason on the side of its rapid collapse over the past year: the U.S. Federal Reserve. The dollar’s value suffered when the Fed cut interest rates rapidly to stem the financial crisis and prevent a U.S. recession. The meander stop may have been without ceasing Apr. 30, when the Fed lowered the fed funds censure target by the agency of a quarter-point, dialing outer part on its policy easings after a succession of half-point cuts. Many believe the central bank is putting its rate-cutting on hold for now.

Other modern lifts during the dollar have come from hopes for a second-half recovery for the U.S. economy, and worries that other countries’ economies are slowing, which could force their central bankers to divide rates.

For some politicians and popular commentators, the weak dollar can be a sore spot. Listed alongside economic ills such as financial market turmoil, high oil prices, falling home prices, and unprotected consumer spending, the falling dollar is seen as a symbol of declining American prestige.

Most economists say the being is far greater degree of complicated. A of little value currency might reflect economic weakness, but it can also give the economy a shot in the arm. U.S. manufacturers, for precedent, charity a weak dollar, for it makes U.S. exports more competitive abroad. That helps companies such as Caterpillar (CAT) and Boeing (BA), which recently reported strong financial results contempt a slowdown at closely.

Brian Gendreau of ING Investment Management (ING) points outright that since 2006 exports hold added $150 billion to the U.S. dense domestic product. That offsets most of the $170 billion be drawn along on the economy from the weak housing market.

L. Josh Bivens, economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, argues that the dollar was an "unsustainably high bubble" a few years ago, that robbed U.S. workers of millions of manufacturing jobs. Many mainstream economists agree with Bivens’ analysis, if not his policy prescription: Tough negotiations should violate China and other Asian countries, what one. keep their currencies at an artificially low level, to excite their values in equalization of the dollar. That would give U.S. manufacturers each even bigger advantage.

Such a change place would also surely raise costs for U.S. consumers. High oil and commodity prices can already be partly blamed upon the dollar’s weakness, which points to a big disadvantage of a languid currency. Bivens says U.S. consumers have been getting a bonanza. "We expected things to be cheaper than they should have existence," he says. An adjustment is "necessary to bring the economy in some sort of balance."

Higher prices for food and energy nip consumer spending, what one. hurts U.S. retailers and other consumer discretionary firms. But higher costs also can squeeze profit margins at firms. Kraft (KFT) and Procter & Gamble (PG), giants of food and household products, respectively, aforesaid they’re being forced to raise prices because of higher raw material costs.

Of course, currency weakness is only one part of the rise in article of merchandise prices.

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The forensic work portrayed on the “CSI” TV series has met its match in the quibble found in the business of branded entertainment. Looking at the role Microsoft’s technology played in Wednesday’s episode of “CSI: NY” makes that clear. For those who didn’t look the explain, here’s what happened:

To solve a murder during a high-school prom, “CSI” detectives use Photosynth, software that stitches together images and creates a three-dimensional delineate, to re-create the scene. In this case, the raw material consists of cellphone photos taken by students at the dance, which the software uses to build a “synth” of the gym at the time of the crime.

The photographic redintegration, what one. gets major airtime in the incidental event, leads investigators to a suspect. Detective Don Flack, played by Eddie Cahill, confronts the suppose with the evidence from Photosynth and soon afterward says, “It’s Microsoft’s world, kid. I’m just living in it.”

We reviewed the show with Stephene Kelley, chief strategic officer of iTVX, human being of the leading providers of data and analysis in this field.

“Their integration through that show was actually excellence almost four commercials,” Kelley before-mentioned. “They got a tremendous amount of value for that integration. … Because it actually helped solve the crime, it adds in greater numbers value.”

The show had an estimated 11.6 million viewers and the estimated commercial require to be paid $289,275, according to some iTVX report Kelley shared with us. The total value to Microsoft was $1,088,795, Kelly said.

Microsoft said there was no financial exchange with “CSI,” but show producers be favored by visited the company during insight into the latest technologies — which they feature on their shows — and Microsoft personnel have provided technical lift.

iTVX analyzes each exhibit down to 1/100th of a helper and presents a detailed report to its clients, including a proprietary video player that displays data on a brand’s or product’s presence, clarity and integration into the episode.

Photosynth, a new technology that’s in addition complex to present to a viewer than, say, a new-model SUV, still managed to have high scores for clarity because the detectives lavish so much time through it during the show. They furthermore said its name, shooting the clarity score higher.

Advertisers and producers employment iTVX scores to put into circulation rates, write contracts and evaluate marketing worth. One score, the Q-Index, compares the value of product placement or integration with that of a paid commercial. A score of 100 means the placement was worth the like during the time that a commercial.

Microsoft’s Q-Index during the scene where Flack busts the kid by the make manifest hit 309. The 1.2 seconds it takes him to say “It’s Microsoft’s world, kid,” is worth $35,731, according to iTVX. “It has more characteristic and leave impact the viewer more than a second of mercantile time,” Kelley said.

But it’s not as though Microsoft was the alone technology company represented in the digression. Many of the students’ cellphones had Apple logos on the back. And the first “paid” commercial showed people dancing, white earbuds flying.

Download, a column of news bits, observations and miscellany, is gathered by The Seattle Times technology staff. We can be reached at 206-464-2265 or biztech@seattletimes.com.

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Seattle area

Advertising: Reshma Solanki was hired as an assistant account charged with execution at Copacino +Fujikado.

Cold storage: Carl Byrnes was appointed vice president of business development at SCS Refrigerated Services.

Communications: Kevin Thompson was hired as director of the community building and public-involvement group at PRR.

Health care: Dr. Brenda Bruns was named charged with execution medical boss in quest of the health-plan division of Group Health Cooperative.

Landscape architecture: Nick Hagan and Andy Rasmussen were promoted to principals and Wendy Anderson, Mike Loe and Jon McNamara were promoted to senior associates at Weisman Design Group.

Law: Seth Wilkinson was named a partner and Matt Carvalho joined Yarmuth Wilsdon Calfo. Nathan Paine joined Rohde & Van Kampen.

Nonprofits: Larry Ehl was appointed executive adviser at Partnership for Learning.

Outsourcing: Jan Claesson was hired as senior vice president and chief vocation development officer at Adaptis.

Public relations: Laura McLeod was hired as an register manager at Nyhus Communications.

Restaurants: Jim Rowe was promoted to president, Greg Hinton to director of operations (full-service breach rupture) and Phil Warchol to director of operations (fast-casual division) at Consolidated Restaurants.

Software: Ted Gauld was appointed instead of president of product management and marketing at Adapx.

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WASHINGTON

Books by the five well-known U.S. authors, plus lesser-known Laura Numeroff, Katherine Paterson and Gary Paulsen, drew the in the greatest degree readers at every grade horizontal line in a study of 78.5 million books read by more than 3 million children who logged on to the Renaissance Learning Web site to take quizzes put on books they read last year. Many works from Rowling’s Potter series turned up in the summit 20, but other authors in addition ranked dignified and are in a fair way to get more circumspection as a result.

“I attain to it reassuring … that students are till now reading the classics I read as a child,” said Roy Truby, a senior vice president as far as concerns Wisconsin-based Renaissance Learning. But Truby said he would have preferred to visit more meaty and varied fare, such as “historical novels and biographical works so integral to understanding our past and contemporary books that help us understand our world.”

Michelle Bayuk, marketing director for the New York-based Children’s Book Council, agreed. “What’s missing from the list are all the wonderful nonfiction, informational, humorous and novelty books as well as telling novels that kids interpret and have fruition of both inside and outside the classroom.”

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Are you a human or a computer?

Over the Internet, it’s getting harder and harder to find out.

Some of the common tests used by Web sites to distinguish between legitimate flesh-and-blood visitors and rancorous human-mimicking computers recently be favored with the appearance to have been outwitted.

Last month, the human-verification tests, which typically insist upon users to identify deformed letters set against a cluttered backdrop, were defective by a computer. The computer then repeatedly created free Hotmail e-mail accounts and sent spam from them, according to Websense, the security firm that detected the hacking.

The attack followed similar ones this year against Microsoft’s Live Mail accounts and Google’s Gmail service. A little over a week past, the ease sinewy reported a homogeneous encounter on Google’s Blogger, a blog-publishing system.

“What we’re noticing over the hindmost year is that these tests meant to tell the difference between a human and a computer are being targeted by more and more malicious groups,” aforesaid Stephan Chenette, manager of security labs at Websense, the firm based in San Diego that reported the attacks. “And they are getting better at it.”

A $42 billion problem

Spam, or unsolicited e-mails containing offers of Viagra, Rolex watches, pornography and the like, are the constituent aims of such schemes. Solving the human-verification tests through computers allows spammers to rapidly create renovated e-mail accounts from which to issue spam, which is estimated by Ferris Research to require to be paid the U.S. economy $42 billion annually.

The problem of telling computers and humans apart has a long tradition in artificial-intelligence theory.

In a landmark paper in 1950, British mathematician Alan Turing proposed that a machine could be said to “think” if it could urge on a familiar discourse — by way of Teletype — in a manner that was indistinguishable from a human.

But the practice of distinguishing humans from computers has taken on a far more practical role in the Internet age.

The humanity test

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The average price of a gallon of steady gasoline at the nation’s filling stations rose to $3.62, the Lundberg survey reported Sunday.

The price was up 15 cents Friday from two weeks earlier, according to oil-industry analyst Trilby Lundberg’s survey of 7,000 stations nationwide. The price was the highest till doomsday reported in her research.

“This time little of it was crude oil; it was the margin recovery for retailers that really needed it, and refiners got a bit, overmuch,” Lundberg said. “Refiners needed about another 25 or even 50 cents more per gallon to bring some of their amplitude out of mothballs and attract exterior gasoline.”

The highest average price on account of self-serve regular was $3.95 a gallon in San Francisco. The lowest was in Cheyenne, Wyo., at $3.39 a gallon.

According to the AAA’s Daily Fuel Gauge Report, the medial sum reward for regular in the Seattle-Bellevue-Everett area was $3.74 Sunday, down slenderly from Saturday.

Berkshire Hathaway

Buffett criticizes some bond insurers

Billionaire Warren Buffett, whose Berkshire Hathaway has begun competing with MBIA and Ambac Financial Group to insure civil bonds, said some rivals don’t be entitled to their AAA credit ratings.

Credit-rating firms shouldn’t be giving top grades to bond insurers that borrow money at 14 percent or whose stock has dropped 95 percent, Buffett said at a word conversation Sunday in Omaha, Neb., after Berkshire’s annual meeting.

Berkshire, whose evidence of debt is also rated AAA, owns almost 20 percent of Moody’s, one of the biggest U.S. rating firms.

That’s attracted sifting from Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who is investigating possible conflicts of advantage between Berkshire’s bond insurer and the stake in Moody’s.

A favorable Moody’s rating for the sake of Berkshire or a lower rating for a competitor could give Buffett’s firm any advantage. Buffett said Sunday he’s never tried to influence Moody’s.