Gartner said Samsung Electronics Co. sold 86.6 million cell phones in the first quarter, surpassing the 83 million provided by Nokia Corp.

Apple Inc. sold 33 million iPhones and has a global market share of nearly 8%.

Last month, the Strategy Analytics frim, based in Boston, said that Samsung had taken the place of Nokia as the leading seller of cell phones by volume in the first quarter. Samsung took over 25% of the world market, compared with the 22% of Nokia.

Both Gartner and Strategy Analytics said Nokia have placed third in terms of sales of smart phones behind the Samsung and the iPhone.

According to a note published Tuesday in the electronic version of the The Wall Street Journal, GM executives have “determined that their paid ads have little impact on car-buying consumers.”

The text cited people close to negotiations, without naming. In addition to that, it collected testimony from the director of marketing for General Motors, who agreed to be “definitely re-evaluating their ads on Facebook.”

If realized, the decision would be a blow to Facebook, which will make its first public offering this week and whose titles have generated great interest among investors.

Due to the demand for their actions, Facebook’s value is up at 104.000 million dollars to start trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

GM’s position coincides with that expressed by some critics, who claim that Facebook is overvalued, arguing that the company does not have a clear business plan.

Based on Fitch Ratings, some aluminium producers are expected to sink, while and some new companies might emerge, especially in Middle East.

The key reasons behind these radical changes are the depressed aluminium prices, rising electricity input costs and changes in the pricing mechanism for alumina. Aluminium smelting is an energy demanding activity and producers require site smelters in low energy cost regions, such as the Middle East or in places like Iceland and Siberian
Russia (also called energy islands).

Due to the high cost of energy and low smelting returns, producers are being forced to close down their smelters. The announcement of Rio Tinto in October 2011 that it would close or sell 13 aluminium and alumina assets, is just one example.

The second factor is the push for a higher proportion of alumina to be sold on a spot/index basis, rather than on contracts. Alumina has been priced as a fairly narrow percentage (generally in the range of 11.5%-13.5%) of the more liquid and transparent aluminium prices.

It is an argument that the contract system did not reflect the true value of alumina but rather that of the end product. If alumina will price as a product in its own right, it is likely to result in more volatile, but structurally higher future prices and margins.

All these details point to the closing and shedding of Western producers and an increase in Middle Eastern producers who have a strong position in terms of energy cost. These new manufacturers may face operational risk from their lack of integration into feedstock but at the same time these new companies will add operational diversity to the industry.

“Their total lack of involvement with us led us to believe that they are reluctant to negotiate within a reasonable time,” said the president of Coty, Bart Becht, in a letter dated Monday to Avon.

“It is time for Coty Inc. to act and look for other opportunities,” Becht added.

Avon did not immediately return requests for comment.

Avon’s shares closed on Monday was up 77 cents to 20.96 dollars on the NYSE. Coty revealed his decision after the close of markets.

The paper rose after Avon said on Sunday that they would consider the offer to acquire its smaller rival, but may need a week to respond.

Coty, came to Avon for the first time in March, and subsequently announced its offer to acquire the company for 23.25 per share. That offer included the financial backing of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., Warren Buffett.

Although Coty has almost tripled its revenue, Avon faces lower sales at home, as well as research in the U.S. on charges of bribery abroad.

Zuckerberg, who was born in White Plains, New York, founded Facebook in 2004 in his dorm at Harvard, along with Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes and Eduardo Saverin.

Eight years after its creation, the social network was launched on 1 February with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) documents for an Initial Public Offering in order to raise 10.000 million. The operation may be the largest IPO of a company in Silicon Valley and is expected to occur this week.

If the price for its IPO is located in the range of 28 to 35 cents a share. Zuckerberg pocketed up to 1.100 million dollars, according to experts.

Zuckerberg is one of the leading entrepreneurs of Silicon Valley.

For experts, this is the most important explanation of why Facebook has not yet founded any formidable rival in the sector, including the challenge of Google last year.

Although a busy man, the young CEO gets challenges each year: in May 2011, Zuckerberg said he was willing to eat meat from animals he had killed.

In December 2010, the publisher, Bluewater Productions, released the biographical comic “Mark Zuckerberg: the Creator of Facebook.”

The Wall Street Journal cited unidentified sources in reporting that Thompson revealed his state of health on the board of Yahoo and several of his colleagues before giving up his position in the company.

The newspaper added that, according to one of his sources, Thompson decided to resign in part due to medical diagnosis.

Thompson was hired in January as Yahoo CEO to fill the void created by the firing of Carol Bartz.

Thompson’s departure was encouraged by the investment fund, Third Point, which owns almost 6% of Yahoo shares.

Third Point found that Thompson had inflated his resume with a degree in computer science from the University of Stonehill.

Thompson in 1979, received a degree in Accounting from Stonehill, a Catholic school near Boston, but did not receive one in Computer Science.

After the departure of Thompson in the midst of scandal, Yahoo named Ross Levinsohn as its interim CEO.

Levinsohn, served as director of global media company, had a successful season in the internet service at News Corp before they hired Bartz in November 2010.

Yahoo shares saw a gain of 33 cents, or 2.2%, to reach 15.52 dollars in transactions prior to market opening on Monday.

Ina Drew, who since 2005 has led the risk management unit, Achilles O. Macris, Chief Investment Office, and Javier Martín-Artajo,  general manager.

The firm’s chief executive, James Dimon, said the bank reacted badly to the so-called warning last month announcing that the agency had large trading losses in complex financial derivatives.

Dimon said the bank’s executives were “dead wrong” in public statements made in April, after being questioned for their actions on reports from the media.

“We got very defensive. And people began to justify everything we did. We said something that was completely wrong just four weeks,” Dimon said the program “Meet the Press” on NBC.

Dimon said Thursday that the bank had lost 2.000 million dollars or more for poor management of a portfolio of derivatives.

On Friday, Fitch Ratings downgraded the credit rating one notch from JPMorgan Chase to A+ from AA- following the announcement of the loss.

“Fitch believes that the size of the loss is manageable. That said, the magnitude of the loss and the evolution of these positions imply a lack of liquidity,” the agency said.

“It also raises questions concerning the risk appetite of JPMorgan, the framework for risk management, and monitoring practices, all key factors for the credit,” he added.

The rating agency also put JPMorgan in a negative light, implying that it would be a further reduction of the note in a period of six months.

JPMorgan shares fell 8% to 37.39 dollars in early trading market on Friday, a day after his office informed of major investment losses in market valuation of its loan portfolio synthetic.

“This action is valued because of the confidence investors have in the (management) JPM risk and part of that trust was lost yesterday,” Citi analysts wrote in a note to clients.

Bernstein analysts rated the loss as a “big blow to the credibility” to the lender, which prides itself on its strong risk management.

Citi cut its price target on the stock to $45 from $52. Nomura reduced its target to $50 from $55, while Goldman Sachs lowered to $48 from $50.

FBR Capital Markets downgraded its rating on the title by one notch to “equal to the market performance.”

JPMorgan gave away without reporting the financial crisis or a loss, and its strong balance sheet enabled him to acquire the investment bank Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual consumer bank when both collapsed in 2008.

The bank had 2.32 trillion in assets supported by 190.000 billion in investment of shareholders in late March.

Goldman Sachs, which reduced the target share price to $48 at JPMorgan, said that although the direct impact of the loss is manageable, the general implications are negative because they highlight the difficult operating environment and raise questions about regulatory scrutiny.

“To recover (credibility), we believe that JPM has to go further and explain to investors conceptually how this happened in such a large scale and the resulting changes to be done,” Citi analysts said.

FBR said that although the core business lines remained strong and intact, concerned about the potential risk that the credit derivatives portfolio represents for future earnings.

“Until the company can undo this portfolio, there is little clarity and a lot of uncertainty surrounding future earnings from JPMorgan,” FBR said in a note to clients.

The stalemate that emerged in a court in San Francisco complicates the attempt to Oracle Corp., receiving hundreds of millions of dollars from Google, on the basis that the Internet search leader improperly copied parts of Android Java programming system.

Although the jury decided that Android violates some copyrights of Java, the five men and seven women on the jury had different positions on whether the acts of Google were permissible under the provision of “fair use” falling under the U.S. law.

The fair use provision allows some parts of a copyrighted work that can be used in other creative expressions without permission, such as books, movies and software.

With the issue of “fair use” pending, it appears that Oracle now has little hope of emerging from the trial with a clear victory.

Oracle, a maker of computer programming, has been asking for a maximum of $1 million in damages and an injunction to reschedule Google Android if they can not reach an agreement on licensing.

The federal district judge, William Alsup, on Monday informed counsel for both parties unless there is a verdict on fair use, there is “zero findings of copyright liability”.

The jury also found that Android violates nine lines of Java code, but that demand would not have possibly worth more than $150,000 in damages, based on previous statements made in the process.

MOSCOW – The computer activist group, Anonymous, said Friday it plans to attack sites on the Internet of the Russian government to support opposition protests before the law and President Vladimir Putin.

In an Internet video that has been widespread, the Russian division of the group said it would close the main YouTube page of the Government on Sunday, when protesters plan to hold a march of a million people in central Moscow.

That would be followed by another attack against Prime Minister page on Monday, the day when Putin assumed the presidency, according to the message, which includes instructions on how the Internet can join.

Putin easily won the presidential elections in March for a term of six years, despite a wave of protests started after a parliamentary election in December, that the opposition considers tainted by fraud on a massive scale in favor of the ruling party.

The mass demonstrations in Moscow and other Russian cities did not stop the return of Putin to the presidency, but stripped the former head of the KGB’s aura of invincibility that has characterized his 12 years in power. First, as president and later as Prime Minister .

“On May 6 there will be mass demonstrations against the illegitimate elections. We will support this protest closing pages of the government lying,” Anonymous said in a message on YouTube.

“If you did not choose these authorities and you are against a president that elected himself to be crowned for the third time, join us,” the group added.

The video indicated that Anonymous launched attacks against government page, Government.ru at 09:00 hours from Mexico City on May 6 and against the prime minister’s Web, Premier.gov.ru on May 7 at 04: 00.

Anonymous agreed this year to e-mails from pro-Kremlin youth organization, in what they said was a response to the growing number of attacks by pro-government groups against independent media and opposition bloggers.

Both sides are turning to increasingly accessible technology that can be used for computer attacks, and to find more people willing and able to conduct virtual attacks, according to a recent report by British human rights group OpenDemocracy.

Moscow has called for a binding global treaty at UN to prosecute cyber crime on the Net.

Western countries have been reluctant, but the well-known attacks by hackers like Anonymous groups and LulzSec, pages that have affected U.S. government and Britain, have highlighted the vulnerabilities on the Internet.