The company will unveil their new additions to their computer business. Matt McRae, chief technology officer of Vizio Inc. said that there will be three notebooks and two desktop PCs to be revealed at the Consumer Electronics Show to be held in Las Vegas.

The said machines will be out for sale by June.  While the laptop specifications were not revealed, Mr. McRae said the Windows-based machines will be out at a price which seems impossible.

The push from the company will probably put pressure on PC makers like Hewlett-Packard Co. which have experienced narrow profit margins.

Vizio has already put the squeeze in the TV market on Royal Philips Electronics NV and Pioneer Corp. The two companies were veterans on consumer-electronics.

Further, McRae is firm to do the same in the computer business. “We want to get in there and disrupt it,” he said.

Meanwhile,  PC maker Lenovo announced their new ThinkPad X1 Hybrid laptop powered by a second processor and operating system. The laptop comes in a thin display with higher light and performance benefits. Compared to its predecessor, X1, its battery life is doubled and can last up to 10 hours when set in an Instant Media Mode.

The company also declared a new Ultrabook named ThinkPad T43ou which is their first business Ultrabook especially made for professionals with a new light design and thin display. Lenovo is certain that they have successfully created the Ultrabook without forgoing quality performance and productivity.

According to Michael Spencer, chief economist, the activities in December are part of a seasonal effect. He expects a weaker China GDP in the first quarter of 2012.

Although, people may see that the economy is getting better, it is not safe to assume that it will have a long-term effect or if it was just a statistical season.

Another chief economist Yao Wei also see China’s areas for concern. The property investment has slowed down while the property slowdown gained some speed which puts the overall growth to 12% in December. This indicates weaker numbers in the first quarter of 2012.

But Kevin Lai of Daiwa sees the slowdown as orderly. Retail sales have been strong and the overall growth momentum may continue to be strong. He said there is nothing to be scared about the slowdown. People should not expect interest rate cuts but more RRR cuts at 50 points.

Meanwhile, a United Nations study says that the global economy will only grow 0.5 percent in 2012. This will effectively shrink on a per capita basis. This may change if jobs are created rapidly and sovereign debt distress are prevented along with shoring up fragile banks.

The report forecast by the annual UN World Economic Situation shows an average economic growth by 2.6 percent by this year and probably 3.2 percent in 2013. This is possible if a set of optimistic conditions help the economy recover.

Greg Laskoski, GasBuddy Senior Petroleum Analyst, said dangers of closing the Strait of Hormuz in Iran is adding up to the increase of fuel prices. It is also making investor bid more for the price of the commodity.

The strait is the corridor between Oman and Iran. It is where more than 20% of oil is imported worldwide. The standard crude for delivery in February increased by $1.88 to $100.58 per barrel during trading in New York Mercantile Exchange.

Laskoski said it will create a whole lot of nervousness especially in financial markets. Prices are also expected to rise again in spring and summer. The rise is of course caused by increase of demand and the switch of refiners to burning fuel blends.

For the past seven years, the average price movement has been $0.93 from the beginning of the year until the next 12 months.

Aside from crude, the same goes for prices of orange juice. Stores will likely increase their prices in the coming weeks. This comes as a reaction to the potential chemical contamination in juice which happened in Brazil.

The alarm began after Coca-Cola Co. and Minute Maid juice warned about tests discovered low levels of carbendazim in Brazil’s juice shipments. The low level of amount is said to cause health concern. As of this writing, federal regulators are confirming these reports.

Since the post was seen by many and was talked about on Diablo III forums, the news needed to be verified through a phone call to Rochester, Minnesota. The Best Buy store confirmed that the Diablo III promotional ad really exists. The employee revealed that their store would be launching Diablo III on midnight of February 1, 2012.

This decision has also been reached out to other store systems in California and San Francisco. They say they have been updated with the new release date for Diablo III. However, the promotional materials which was captured in photo has not been put up in other stores yet.

Meanwhile, BestBuy CEO Brian Dunn has replied to a post written by a Forbes contributor Larry Downes. The piece was entitled “Why Best Buy Is Going Out of Business….Gradually.” The skeptical post was an indication that Downes sees BestBuy exiting the industry.

Downes wrote, “I can’t say when exactly, but my guess is that it’s only a matter of time, maybe a few more years,” 

The piece received 927 comments and more than 2 million views since it was published online on January 2, 2012. The post was also trending in Twitter, hitting the nerves of BestBuy CEO which made him write his direct reply to Downes’ post.

In Dunn’s statement, he addressed all points in Downes’ piece. In some areas, Dunn has admitted that some mistakes have been made but they are continuously improving for the betterment of the company. He assures that as  a profitable and big company, BestBuy is far from making their exit from the industry.

Furthermore, it has canceled their plans in coming up with a huge sport utility vehicle or an SUV. Instead, they will be having a large sedan which could be assembled by their US partner Chrysler Group LLC. All models were intended for the US market.

Sergio Marchionne, Fiat’s chief executive has told the public last April about the possibility of Giulia’s launch to be postponed since he was not that happy with the overall design. Alfa Romeo declares a new date for its launch, 2014—two years later than what was originally planned.

The other two models which are also due for launch in the US is 4C GTA and an SUV.  The said model is a two-seater from Alfa Romeo which will be available in 2012.  The SUV will roll out in 2013, which will be built together with an SUV model for Chrysler’s new Jeep brand. Yet, the launch will also be delayed to give time to decide on what models to be manufactured.

The proclaimed dates were given by Harald Wester, the brand’s head. It was first announced at the conference hosted by UBS and was later confirmed in the firm’s official website.

The results clearly show that banking units investments have dragged down profit for huge Wall Street firms. This may also signify a tough fourth quarter for other firms like Morgan Stanley ad Goldman Sachs Group Inc which will report their results by the end of the month.

On the contrary, business and consumer lending banks are doing better which show some signs of recovery in the US economy. Wells Fargo & Co outdid analysts’ estimates with their improved credit quality and loan growth. The same results were reflected by JP Morgan Chase & Co.

According to Citigroup chief executive Vikram Pandit, the macro environment has made an impacted to the capital markets. Citigroup is trying to adjust their business to suit the environment.

After the trading, Citigroup’s shares dropped by 3% after presenting the results. The third largest bank in the US has reported a net income of $1.16 billion, down from $1.31 billion in 2010.

Also, Hasbro’s full-year earnings growth reported are below Wall Street’s expectations.  The toy giant showed their weaker fourth-quarter performance in Canada and US.  The company includes toy franchises like GI Joe and Transformers. It admitted that they expected a growth of 2-4% in earnings per share for 2011, a little over than what they have recorded in 2010.  Wall Street expected earnings of $2.87, or $2.96 per share under a revenue of  $4.4 billion.

Another 11 branches will also be acquired by KeyBank in the Rochester area. This is also part of its deal amounting to $110 million. It was announced that it helped KeyBank expand their position in two of its upstate markets.

In order to acquire the branches, KeyBank has agreed to give 4.6% premium as payment, basing on the total deposits. The branches will only be sold under the agreement between First Niagara and federal antitrust regulators before the year ends.

KeyCorp’s chairman and chief executive officer, Beth Mooney, said that the transaction is an exciting opportunity for the company to help them strengthen their franchise in the markets mentioned.

The branches acquired are still part of the $1 billion acquisition of 195 branches of HSBC in southeastern Connecticut and in upstate New York.

The 37 acquired branches have $2.4 billion deposits while the loans amount to $400 million which belong to residential mortgages.

Meanwhile, leading consulting company Ramboll Gruppen A/S has signed a loan agreement with the Nordic Investment Bank amounting to DKK 75 million necessary to finance the company’s acquirisition Gifford, a British consulting company.

The loan will party finance the said acquisition which was closed last 2011. It had a four-year maturity and may probably add another four years. The loan will also help Ramboll strengthen their current business in UK.

Ramboll was interested to purchase Gifford with the hope of bringing new expertise in the infrastructure sector such as roads and bridges. Ramboll will surely make use of it in the planned link between Germany and Denmark.

Gartner says Google is getting ground with enterprises which contain more than 5,000 seats. Gartner also named several users in public and in private sectors with 10,000 or more Gmail seats.

Huge companies that utilized Gmail include the US General Services Administration having 17,000 users, Motorola Mobility with 22,000 users, Jaguar Land Rover having 15,000 users, the Los Angeles City Government with 17,000 and the Intercontinental Hotel chain with 10,000.

Gartner analyst Matthew Cain says this is the start of a major escalation amidst the email war.  According to the research firm, cloud-based email systems make up for roughly 4 % of the overall enterprise email market.

In 2010, a cloud-based exchange service was released by Microsoft. This year, a more expensive cloud was offered named Office 365.

In the meantime, more improvements are being made in Google’s platform at an intense pace. In fact, substantial changes in the platform have reached more than a dozen for the past 12 months.

The upgrades include advances in manageability and in security. Security features improvements add in the ability to reset the users sign-on cookies. Manageability improvements include the faculty to manage policy by user groups.

Even though Google’s earnings and net revenue appeared strong, it has failed to meet what analyst expected. The financial results were primarily caused by critical foreign exchange rates and too much spending by Google. Also, the company’s changes on ad formats.  Sale of mobile ads affected the over-all sales.

These factors are included in the analysts’ list of long-term concerns. All these may contribute to a difficult year in 2012 especially as Google is involved in antitrust investigations. They also face more issues with Android on intellectual property litigation, competition with Facebook, and the acquisition of the struggling handset maker Motorola Mobility.

Jordan Rohan of Stifel Nicolaus said Google has performed pretty amazing by outdoing online advertising in general. However, the company is yet to face huge-company problems. Mr. Page however is positive with the results, and looks at 2012 as a fantastic year.

Meanwhile, Google’s rival Yahoo has announced the resignation of their co-founder and chief executive Jerry Yang. Yang suddenly moved out from all of his positions with the struggling company effective immediately.  Yahoo’s shares went up by more than 3.5 percent or $15.99 post his resignation.

The company has not yet announced any replacement for Yang, but other sources claim other board member will also be stepping down soon including Roy Bostock.

The net income of Microsoft topped the estimations of the analysts of Wall Street. They only anticipated $0.58 per share and $17.25 billion in revenue. This is based on the survey by Thomson Reuters.

Microsoft reported that the net income went by 8.5%, from $16 billion to $17.37 billion.

On the other hand, a fall down of one percent to $4.74 billion was recorded in the sales of units of the software operating systems of Windows. As for the second successive quarter, the operating systems for computer units of Windows were constantly down. This is due to the transfer of customers to tablets from personal computers.

The executives of Microsoft are expecting that the decline of Windows will still continues because the decreasing sales in PC. According to a firm of market research, IDC, a 2.6% of increase worldwide is anticipated as the sales of PC are nearly attached to the fortune of the company.

In the regular trading, the stock exchange of Microsoft closed at $27.10 while its shares fell down with a lesser amount of percentage to $26.99.

The chief financial officer of Microsoft, Peter Klein said during an interview that they felt it was really a stable financial year for the company.