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The new consoles from Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony

NEW YORK (AP) — Microsoft is the last of the three big video game console makers to unveil its latest gaming system. The unveiling comes nearly eight years after the Xbox 360 went on sale. It follows last fall's debut of Nintendo's Wii U and a preview in February of the upcoming PlayStation 4 from Sony.

Microsoft touts Xbox One as all-in-1 entertainment

REDMOND, Wash. (AP) — Microsoft thinks it has the one.

Microsoft unveils Xbox One with Spielberg, Activision tie-up

By Bill Rigby and Malathi Nayak REDMOND, Washington (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp unveiled the "Xbox One" on Tuesday, its first new gaming console in eight years, and its strongest push so far to dominate consumers' living rooms with an array of exclusive media content. The Xbox One took four years to develop and will be the launchpad for a "Halo" live-action video series produced by Steven Spielberg. It will be sold worldwide "later this year," games unit chief Don Mattrick told reporters at an event at the software company's campus near Seattle, without providing details on timing or pricing. ...

UK opposition party leader says Google tax behavior 'wrong'

By Andrew Osborn LONDON (Reuters) - Google Inc's tax affairs will come under renewed scrutiny in Britain on Wednesday when the leader of the opposition Labor party accuses the Internet company of wrongly going to "extraordinary lengths" to avoid paying tax. In comments designed to politically outflank Prime Minister David Cameron ahead of next month's G8 summit on what has become a high-profile issue, Ed Miliband, the Labor leader, will say he is disappointed that Google pays so little tax. "I can't be the only person here who feels disappointed that such a great company as Google ... ...

One bad sign for Yahoo’s Tumblr buy: Its history of $1 billion duds

Yahoo turned some heads this week when it announced that it was paying $1.1 billion to buy blogging platform Tumblr, but this isn’t the first time it has spent at least $1 billion to acquire another company. As NPR points out, Yahoo has bought several companies over the past 15 years that it has valued at $1 billion or higher, including most famously its $3.7 billion acquisition of GeoCities in 1999. Other failed Yahoo acquisitions include the $5.7 billion it paid for multimedia website Broadcast.com and the $1.63 billion it paid for search advertising pioneer Overture. In fact, all of these acquisitions make the $30 million that Yahoo paid for Flickr back in 2005 seem like a relative success story, since

Is Sony un-Japanese enough to entertain change?

By Tim Kelly TOKYO (Reuters) - Few foreign activist investors have made much headway in forcing change in Japan, where a conservative corporate culture favors long-standing ties with banks, business partners and workers rather than shareholders seeking value. Struggling electronics giant Sony Corp, though, with more foreign and fewer bank shareholders, may prove something of an exception. That's the hope, at least, of Californian billionaire Daniel Loeb, whose Third Point hedge fund has built up a more than 6 percent stake in Sony, making it the group's biggest stockholder. ...

PayPal fires up new data center to support growth

By Alistair Barr SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - PayPal has opened a new data center to help the online payment division of eBay Inc handle its rapid growth, President David Marcus said on Tuesday. The addition means PayPal now has four primary data centers, which it runs from network operation centers at its headquarters in San Jose, California, and Scottsdale, Arizona. "We're growing still very, very fast, so we need more machines, more capacity and bandwidth," Marcus told Reuters in an interview. Marcus declined to say where the new data center was located for security reasons. ...

New Xbox: What’s Better, What’s Missing

Eight years after the debut of the Xbox 360, Microsoft has announced the Xbox One.

The Irish loophole behind Apple's low tax bill

By Tom Bergin LONDON (Reuters) - Apple's ability to shelter billions of dollars of income from tax has hinged on an unusual loophole in the Irish tax code that helps the country compete with other countries for investment and jobs. A U.S. Senate investigation has revealed that Apple, maker of iPhones, iPads and Mac computers, had channeled profits into Irish-incorporated subsidiaries that had "no declared tax residency anywhere in the world". ...

Video: Leap Motion makes the leap to Windows

BGR took an in-depth look at Leap Motion’s revolutionary motion-control PC accessory last year, and we loved the accuracy and shocking reliability of Leap’s technology. The controller was only compatible with Mac computers at the time, however. In a recent post on the company’s blog, Leap showed off its upcoming Windows 7 and Windows 8 integration, which it plans to launch on July 22nd. An accompanying video shows how well Leap’s controller works with Windows for swiping, scrolling, zooming in and out, flipping through photos, drawing and more. It’s not quite Minority Report, but we’re getting there. Leap Motion’s full video follows below.