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As Marissa Mayer approaches her one-year anniversary as chief executive of Yahoo, she's hewing closely to the struggling Web portal's traditional advertising model--and eyeing more video programming of every stripe as central to the strategy. "We're working on various methods in terms of how we can increase our video views, and watching," Mayer said at the Reuters Global Technology Summit on Thursday. "It's clear to me that our video business is something that's growing a lot. It's something that we'd like to accelerate." Yahoo is currently bidding to acquire Hulu, the online hub for TV programming owned by Walt Disney Co and News Corp, sources with knowledge of the situation have told Reuters. Mayer would not comment on the bid for Hulu. The Web pioneer was looking at buying French video site DailyMotion but had to abandon the effort after objections from the French government. Yahoo also has a growing menu of original video pro

The European Commission blocked plans by Germany on Friday to raise the fees alternative telecommunications operators charge each other to connect fixed-line phone calls. _0"> The German telecoms regulator (BNetzA) proposed raising these call termination fees to three times the average rates in many parts of Europe to compensate for steadily declining revenues in the sector. There are over 50 alternative operators in Germany. But the Commission, which opposed similar fee proposals for Deutsche Telekom early this year, is seeking to harmonize such rates across Europe. "It is important for building up a real single market that both operators and consumers face termination rates in Germany that are in line with those in other EU Member States," the EU Commissioner for telecoms Neelie Kroes said on Friday. The commission did not name any alternative operators in its decision but there are over 50 in the German market including EWE Tel GmbH and 1&1 Internet AG.

Former fund manager John Mattera was sentenced to 11 years in prison on Friday, after pleading guilty of defrauding investors of $13 million with a story that he put their money in Facebook Inc and Groupon Inc shares before the companies went public. U.S. District Judge Richard Sullivan said the sentence, at the high end of what prosecutors requested, was warranted because Mattera devastated his clients' savings, and also because of four prior convictions related to fraud and theft. Mattera had requested a sentence of less than four years. "You hurt a lot of people in a very serious way," Sullivan said, after delivering the sentence. "You've left a lot of wreckage in your path." Mattera, 51, former chairman of the advisory board for mutual fund Praetorian Global Fund Ltd, pleaded guilty in October to charges of securities fraud, wire fraud, money laundering and conspiracy to commit securities fraud and wire fraud in connection with the scheme. He admi

A Federal Aviation Administration advisory panel weighing whether to ease restrictions on in-flight use of personal technology devices like e-readers has delayed its recommendations by two months until late September, the FAA said on Friday. _0"> The Wall Street Journal, citing industry officials and a draft copy of the panel's report, said on Friday that the group will recommend relaxing restrictions on electronic gadgets. The advisory panel was supposed to finish its work by July 31 but was granted a two-month extension to continue examining whether the use of electronic and WiFi enabled devices, such as iPods, laptops, e-readers and other gadgets, would be safe to use through takeoff and landing and at altitudes under 10,000 feet. The panel is not examining any change in the use of cell phones in flight, which is banned by the Federal Communications Commission. The FAA said it recognizes that consumers are intensely interested in the use of personal electronics on

A Tokyo court ruled on Friday that Samsung Electronics Co Ltd had infringed rival Apple Inc's patent for a so-called bounce-back feature on earlier models of its popular smartphones. Samsung and Apple, the world's top two smartphone makers, are fighting patent disputes across the globe as they compete to dominate the lucrative mobile market and win customers with their latest gadgets. Apple claimed that Samsung had copied the feature, in which icons on its smartphones and tablets quiver back when users scroll to the end of an electronic document. Samsung has already changed its interface on recent models to show a blue line at the end of documents. The Japanese court's decision comes after the U.S. Patent and Trademark office judged earlier this year that Apple's bounce-back patent was invalid, allowing older Samsung models that had a similar feature to remain on sale. However, the U.S. agency subsequently decided that several aspects of the bounce-back feature w

Apple Inc> Chief Executive Tim Cook's one-time stock award worth over $413 million as of Friday is now partly subject to the performance of the shares, a move that followed discussions with the company's largest shareholders. Cook, who has presided over a 42 percent drop in Apple's share price since it touched a high of $705 in September, approached the board to impose a performance criteria on his yet-to-be-vested stocks, according to a filing on Friday. Under the new system, part of Cook's grant is subject to "Total Shareholder Return", a measure of Apple's stock performance and dividends based on public Standard & Poor's data. The company's board had in January of 2012 granted Cook one million restricted stock units (RSUs) to signal its confidence in Cook after Steve Jobs turned over the helm of the iPhone and iPad maker to his long-time lieutenant in August of 2011. "In outreach discussions this year with many of our largest