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NEW YORK — Dec 13, `07 — Rupert Murdoch won control on Thursday of a long-coveted prize, The Wall Street Journal, as Shareholders of Dow Jones & Co. gave final approval Thursday to a $5 billion bid from Murdoch’s News Corp to acquire the media company, the final step needed before one of the world’s most influential newspapers, The WSJ, changes hands.

The controlling shareholders of Dow Jones, the far-flung Bancroft family, had initially rebuffed Murdoch’s approach this spring, but eventually enough of them agreed to accept his rich offer of $60 a share to ensure his bid would succeed.

Dow Jones held the shareholder vote in a hotel in the financial district of lower Manhattan, near its headquarters. The formal closing of the deal is expected to occur either later Thursday or Friday. The vote was 60.27 percent in favor.

Murdoch’s bid of $60 per share represented a massive premium of 65 percent over the price Dow Jones shares had been trading at before his offer became public.

With annual revenue of about $2 billion, Dow Jones is relatively small in an age of conglomerates. But it is one of the most influential forces in American media, especially in financial news, where Mr. Murdoch has placed some very big bets of late. The company includes The Journal, whose daily domestic circulation of more than 2 million ranks second only to USA Today, and Dow Jones Newswires, the Dow Jones indexes, the Factiva information and archive service, Marketwatch.com, and other properties.

Last week Murdoch named a longtime News Corp publishing executive Les Hinton to be CEO of Dow Jones, replacing Rich Zannino, who is leaving the company.

NEW YORK — Dec 13, ‘07 — Rupert Murdoch is poised to fulfill his dream of taking over The Wall Street Journal as a hard-fought takeover of Dow Jones & Co is expected to be completed Thursday.

Dow Jones shareholders are scheduled to vote later today on Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp takeover offer and the acquisition “is expected to be completed shortly thereafter,” both companies said in a statement last week.

Dow Jones & Co shareholders holding more than 50 percent of the voting power of the company approved its $5.6 billion sale to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, the Wall Street Journal Web site said on Wednesday.

A count of the proxy votes ahead of a Thursday shareholder meeting showed shareholders owning more than half of the company’s voting power threw their support behind the deal, the Journal reported, citing unnamed sources.

Dow Jones’s board approved the deal in July after members of its controlling family, the Bancrofts, said they would support the sale.

Ahead of the deal’s closing, Murdoch appointed News Corp veteran Les Hinton as Dow Jones chief executive and named Times of London editor Robert Thomson as the publisher of the Wall Street Journal.

As Murdoch, 76, closed in on his long-sought prize, The Wall Street Journal, he gave his son, James, an expanded role in the media empire, naming him to a position apparently aimed at grooming him to head the conglomerate.

News Corp announced Friday that James Murdoch, 34, the youngest of Murdoch’s four children, will be the boss of News Corp in Europe and Asia, effective immediately.

As chairman and chief executive of the company’s businesses in Europe and Asia, James Murdoch will also oversee the Wall Street Journal Europe, the British newspapers The Times and The Sun as well as Australian publications controlled by News Corp.

News Corporation is the umbrella company for an empire that also includes the Fox News Channel, the New York Post newspaper, the Fox Hollywood film studios and television network and the rapidly growing Internet social networking site MySpace.

Dec 07, ‘07 — Rupert Murdoch installed his own leadership team at Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones & Co. on Friday, a week before his acquisition of the company is expected to close. He also tapped his son James as heir apparent to his media empire News Corp.

Les Hinton, who has spent his career at News Corp.’s newspapers, will become CEO of Dow Jones next week, following a vote of the company’s shareholders on Dec 13. Hinton currently oversees News Corp’s papers in the United Kingdom, including The Times, The Times Literary Supplement, The Sun, and News of the World.

Robert Thomson, editor of The Times, will become publisher of the Journal. Dow Jones also owns Dow Jones Newswires, Barron’s and a news database business called Factiva.

James Murdoch was named boss of News Corporation in Europe and Asia on Friday in a move seen as putting him in line to succeed father and media mogul Rupert Murdoch as head of the sprawling empire.

The promotion of James Murdoch, the youngest of four children, marks a remarkable rise through the boardroom ranks for the only family heir inside News Corp, the US conglomerate chaired by his Australian-born father.

The younger Murdoch, who assumes his London-based post with immediate effect, is in charge of assets including News International UK, Sky Italia, the Asian-based Star TV and News Corporation Europe, the group said in a statement.

As chairman and chief executive of Europe and Asia, Murdoch will also oversee the Wall Street Journal Europe, The Times and The Sun as well as Australian publications controlled by News Corp.

The 34-year-old leaves his post as chief executive of British satellite television broadcaster BSkyB, in which News Corp is the leading shareholder, but will assume his father’s role as BSkyB non-executive chairman.

The reshuffle, which confirms what a source earlier told Reuters, appears to address the long-term speculation of who will eventually take over the media and communications conglomerate from the 76-year-old media mogul.

Rupert Murdoch’s older son, Lachlan, 36, had initially been seen as the leading contender during his time at News Corp but he left the group in 2005 to start a new venture.

Murdoch’s daughter Elisabeth, 39, has also been viewed as a dark horse candidate over the years. The former managing director of Sky Networks struck out on her own in 2000 and launched her own TV production company.

“This is grooming James for a larger role longer term at News Corp,” Pali Research analyst Richard Greenfield said. “He has proved himself beyond a doubt over the last several years at BSkyB.”

James Murdoch joined Sky in November 2003 and has expanded the company from its pay-TV roots to add broadband and telephony services. News Corp owns 39 percent of the company.

But like his father, he has proved to be a risk taker. He has also drawn the attention of regulators, leaving the group engaged in three separate investigations and a law suit with fierce rival Virgin Media.

His most audacious move came in November 2006, when he purchased a 17.9 percent stake in Britain’s biggest free-to-air commercial broadcaster ITV.

Murdoch said the purchase was a long-term investment but its rivals accused him of trying to prevent ITV from being bought by NTL — now renamed Virgin Media — and the deal is still being investigated by the UK Competition Commission.

Nov 14, ‘07 — FoxBusiness is reporting on Sony refusing to do a warranty repair on one of its PlayStation 3s because the console is “too dusty,” citing the console owner.

The Los Angeles-based gamer said Sony Computer (SNE) would not honor its 1-year warranty on his $500 console because the game system arrived at its technical support center with “excessive dust in it.”

“When I learned that Sony wouldn’t replace my Playstation because it was too dusty, I paused for a minute because it seemed so ridiculous,” said Reid Godshaw, the owner of the dusty Playstation.

The dirty Playstation story has flown around the blogosphere – especially on The Consumerist, a consumer-affairs blog where the story originated. The posts regarding the PS3 have gotten more than 150,000 views and have received more than 600 comments from readers.

Godshaw said the Playstation, which was a gift, stopped working last month, so he called the company after the malfunction and asked for a replacement.

After he put the PS3 in the mail, Sony called him to let Godshaw know that it had arrived in “good condition” and Sony would go ahead and diagnose the problem.

That’s when the trouble began, Godshaw said.

He said a technical support representative by the name of “Neil” called him back later that day to let him know that technical support had looked at the console, and determined that it was too dusty to replace. The decision was final.

According to Sony’s warranty on the PS3, the console is covered by “material defects in material and workmanship” but the warranty would be void if damaged by “acts of God, misuse, abuse, negligence, accident, wear and tear, unreasonable use or by other causes unrelated to defective materials or craftsmanship.”

Dust isn’t mentioned.

According to Godshaw, Sony’s technical support said that dust was related to negligence and therefore the console was not covered by the 1-year warranty.

“The guy said there was nothing they could do except either mail me my broken PS3 to me, or I would have to pay $150 for an out-of-warranty replacement,” Godshaw said.

However, in a recording that Godshaw made that he posted on The Consumerist, a Sony representative said specifically that dust is not a reason why Sony would not replace its console – sending mixed messages about dust.

While the general customer service representatives, who usually don’t have the authority to make warranty replacement decisions, told him that the situation was ridiculous and it should be replaced – the people on the technical side were incredibly rude, Godshaw said.

Godshaw said one manager by the name of Daria Woo told him Sony took pictures documenting the dust was inside the PS3, but would not share them. The pictures were “property of Sony,” and would have to be subpoenaed if Godshaw wanted to see them, he said the manager told him.

This leaves Godshaw in a customer service “Catch-22.” Sony’s technical support said the console is too dusty and won’t replace it, but Sony won’t show him. Like many electronic companies policies, customers are not allowed to open the inside of these products because it voids the warranty. He’ll have to take Sony’s word that excessive dust killed his toy.

The Playstation 3 is in last place in sales in the next-generation console war, according to consumer research firms. More at FoxBusiness.

Los Angeles, CA–October 31, ‘07–A panel on Internet names voted Wednesday to conduct further studies on the databases containing names, phone numbers and other private information on domain name owners, deferring long-simmering questions over whether such details should remain public. 

The committee of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, which oversees Internet addresses, also rejected a proposal to give Internet users the ability to list third-party contacts rather than their own private data in the open, searchable databases called Whois. 

Law-enforcement officials, trademark lawyers and journalists, as well as spammers, now access the database to figure out who may be behind a Web site. But privacy advocates say individuals shouldn’t have to reveal personal information simply to have a Web site. 

A third proposal, a so-called “sunset” option that would have eliminated the requirement for domain name registration companies to make the data available through Whois, was narrowly rejected, 13-10. That measure would have likely resulted in large gaps in registration records. 

The proposal on listing third-party contacts was defeated 17-7, the same margin by which the studies measure was approved. Ross Rader, a member of ICANN’s generic names council and the sunset proposal’s chief sponsor, said after the committee meeting that he was disappointed that the committee opted for an “open-ended” study. 

The committee, the Generic Names Supporting Organization Council, set a deadline of Feb. 15 to identify what types of studies are needed. FoxNews.

Researchers in England have developed their own flying saucer — and it might be going to work for the U.S. and British militaries. Foxnews further reports, “GFS Projects‘ unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) can soar high in the air, hover, bank and fly over any terrain, making it ideal for military surveillance.

It uses an aerodynamic principle known as the Coanda effect to take off vertically from any solid surface. A propeller mounted atop the two-foot-wide aircraft pushes air down over the saucer-shaped body, creating a broad cone of thrust extending outward. “The key to it is that it’s very stable,” explains David Steel, a director at GFS Projects in Peterborough, a medium-sized English city about 75 miles north of London. “You have a large base of air extending downward supporting the craft, looking something like a woman’s skirt.”"

“The craft will be most useful in urban environments, where its ability to hover and fly close to and within buildings will enable close quarter surveillance and intelligence gathering,” said GFS Projects. “Having no exposed rotating parts, there is no risk of brushes with walls etc compromising the craft’s flight.” The current model, the GFS 13, is made of plywood and plastic and powered by electric batteries driving a regular automotive radiator fan.

More at Foxnews

SAN FRANCISCO: Carly Fiorina, the former chief executive of computer and printer maker Hewlett-Packard, has signed on as a contributor with the soon-to-start Fox News business news channel. International Herald Tribune further reports via The Associated Press, “Fiorina was one of the most divisive figures in corporate America during nearly six years at HP. Fox did not specify her role at the new channel.

“We are proud to have her join FBN as a contributor,” Kevin Magee, executive vice president of Fox News, said in a statement Tuesday. “Carly Fiorina is one of the foremost business leaders of our time.” HP severed its ties with Fiorina in February 2005 amid concern that benefits from her hard-won $24.2 billion acquisition of Compaq Computer in 2002 were not materializing quickly enough.

More at IHT