Boeing resumes Dreamliner deliveries
Boeing restarted deliveries of 787s on Tuesday after a four-month halt while it dealt with the smoldering batteries that had kept the planes grounded.
Boeing handed the plane over to Japan’s All Nippon Airways at its factory in Everett.
Airline flights and deliveries were halted in mid-January after two battery incidents. One was a fire on a plane that had landed minutes earlier, and the second was in-flight smoldering that prompted an emergency landing by an ANA plane.
Casino mogul Adelson loses again in retrial
LAS VEGAS – A jury on Tuesday dealt another defeat to casino mogul and GOP mega-donor Sheldon Adelson in his nine-year fight with a Hong Kong businessman, awarding the former consultant $70 million for helping Las Vegas Sands Corp. secure a lucrative gambling license in the Chinese enclave of Macau.
But Las Vegas Sands says it won’t be paying up anytime soon.
Richard Suen claimed he was owed up to $328 million for helping the Las Vegas-based company secure the license in Macau, the only place in China where casino gambling is legal.
Las Vegas Sands attorneys argued Suen was owed nothing because he didn’t make good on a promise to aid company executives and deliver a license.
The jury didn’t know it, but the case was a retrial; Suen won the suit in 2008, but the verdict was thrown out on appeal.
The jury hearing the retrial deliberated for less than two days before delivering a unanimous consensus. But the fight, now entering its 10th year, is likely to continue through another appeal.
“We believe there are compelling and sufficient grounds on which to appeal this verdict, and we will do so aggressively,” Sands spokesman Ron Reese said.
BlackBerry unveils Q5 for overseas markets
ORLANDO, Fla. – Research In Motion unveiled a lower-cost BlackBerry aimed at consumers in emerging markets on Tuesday, stepping up its efforts to regain market share lost to Apple’s iPhone and Android devices powered by Google’s software.
The lower-cost gadget, called the Q5, is the company’s third smartphone to run the new BlackBerry 10 system. It will have a physical keyboard, something that sets RIM’s devices apart from Apple’s iPhone and most Android phones.
RIM CEO Thorsten Heins said the “slim, sleek” device will be available in red, black, white and pink.
The device will be available in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia (including the Asia Pacific region) and Latin America beginning in July. The Q5 isn’t expected to be released in North America for now. The company did not disclose prices for the new phone.
Microsoft announces Windows 8.1 to be free
NEW YORK – A planned Windows 8 update to address complaints and confusion with Microsoft’s new operating system will be made available for free this year, the company said Tuesday.
Microsoft also announced a name for the update: Windows 8.1.
Not charging extra for Windows 8.1 is consistent with the company’s practice of offering “decimal point” updates to operating systems for free. However, when Microsoft Corp. announced the update last week, it didn’t say that it would be free.