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New Android apps worth downloading: eBay update, The Car Connection, Rage of the Gladiator

Today's apps worth downloading start with a couple that might help you save, or make, some money. First is an update to eBay, the online auction site whose app has gotten lots of new features and refinements for sellers to make their stuff available to buyers. Up next is The Car Connection, an app with tons of info for finding the right car for you. Finally, Rage of the Gladiator puts you in the shoes of a warrior fighting off monsters, magicians and more in a first-person action game.

SoftBank cleared for Sprint takeover as Dish abandons bid

Efforts to acquire Sprint have been a long and arduous fiasco for SoftBank, but the Japan-based carrier moved one step closer to completing the deal on Tuesday evening. Following SoftBank’s revised offer for Sprint that would see its bid increased to $21.6 billion, Dish announced that it is abandoning the race and will not revise its current offer, which is not expected to be accepted. Dish had previously offered a total of $25.5 billion for Sprint, including $17.3 billion in cash and $8.2 billion in stock, but the SoftBank deal is seen as the more promising option. According to Reuters, Dish said it declined to revise its offer because it did not want to match the break-up fees offered in the SoftBank

Japan formally OKs new nuke safety requirements

TOKYO (AP) — Japan's nuclear watchdog formally approved a set of new safety requirements for atomic power plants Wednesday, paving the way for the reopening of facilities shut down since the Fukushima disaster.

Imagination Technologies' profit dips on licensing slowdown

By Paul Sandle LONDON (Reuters) - Imagination Technologies, the British chip designer whose graphics technology is in smartphones from Apple and Samsung, reported lower full-year profits as licensing slows. The British company, which licenses its designs to chipmakers and receives a royalty on every unit shipped, has lost business it had expected from customers such as Texas Instruments and ST Ericsson as the smartphone market consolidates around a few big players. ...

Social-network gaffes plague Japanese politicians

TOKYO (AP) — On the Internet, no one can save you from yourself. That is a lesson many Japanese politicians have learned recently in painful, awkward and at times costly fashion.

Panel to meet today in secret about the NSA

An oversight panel six years in the making will hear testimony on Wednesday in another secret proceeding involving the National Security Agency, government surveillance and the secret court known as FISC.

New CEO begins Alcatel makeover

By Leila Abboud PARIS (Reuters) - Telecom equipment maker Alcatel-Lucent plans to focus on networking products and high-speed broadband and will slim down with a billion euros in cost cuts by 2015 in a bid to reverse years of losses. The plan unveiled on Wednesday by Michel Combes, the company's new chief executive, will also include more than a billion euros of unspecified asset sales and 2 billion euros in debt re-financing by 2015, followed by a further 2 billion in debt reduction that could include issuing new shares. ...

Softbank closer to acquiring Sprint after Dish abandons bid for now

By Sophie Knight and Sinead Carew TOKYO/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Japan's SoftBank Corp cleared a major hurdle in its attempt to buy U.S. wireless provider Sprint Nextel Corp, as rival bidder Dish Network Corp declined to make a new offer after SoftBank sweetened its own bid last week. SoftBank Chief Executive Masayoshi Son is now a step closer to sealing the largest overseas acquisition by a Japanese company in history, after winning support from a key shareholder by raising SoftBank's offer to $21.6 billion from $20.1 billion last week. ...

Award-winning journalist Michael Hastings dies

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Michael Hastings, the war correspondent whose unflinching reporting from Afghanistan led to the resignation of a top U.S. army general, has died in a car accident in Los Angeles, according to his employer and family.

Rhode Island on track to make payment on 38 Studios bonds

(Reuters) - Rhode Island remains on track to make a $2.5 million interest payment next year on bonds that were used to finance the facilities of 38 Studios, a now-bankrupt videogame company founded by former Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling. The state's House Finance Committee approved a budget late Tuesday night that included making an interest payment next May on $75 million of taxable bonds that the state sold in 2010 to make a loan to the company and lure it to Rhode Island. The company's loan payments were originally supposed to secure the bonds. ...