Sponsored By:

ChangeQuakes Of The Week

March 13, 2006

TOP CHANGEQUAKES OF THE WEEK
** Study: Aspirin-Blood Thinner Mix Might Cause, Not Prevent, Heart Attacks
** Merck Goes After Schering For $17.4 Billion
** FDA Head Supports Faster Drug Approvals
** Chinese Encryption Standard Rejected
** Cingular Launches On-Demand Mobile TV Service

MORE CHANGEQUAKES TO WATCH

---

TOP CHANGEQUAKES OF THE WEEK

Study: Aspirin-Blood Thinner Mix Might Cause, Not Prevent, Heart Attacks

(DISCOVERY CHANGEQUAKE) -- Some people taking the blood thinner Plavix on top of aspirin to try to prevent heart attacks, as many doctors recommend, now have good reason to stop.

news.yahoo.com

Merck Goes After Schering For $17.4 Billion

(CORPORATE CHANGEQUAKE) -- Drug maker Merck has unveiled a $17.4 billion cash bid for rival Schering, marking the first big all-German move in the industry's consolidation.

today.reuters.com

Related story: Merck Says Vytorin Beats Zocor
money.cnn.com

FDA Head Supports Faster Drug Approvals

(FDA APPROVAL CHANGEQUAKE) -- Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach, acting commissioner of the FDA, has pledged the agency's support for research to develop tools for preventing and treating fatal diseases like cancer, and vowed to make faster drug approval "one of my highest priorities."

www.baltimoresun.com

Chinese Encryption Standard Rejected

(REGULATORY CHANGEQUAKE) -- The world industrial-standards association has rejected China's controversial wireless encryption standard for global use, dealing a blow to Beijing's effort to promote its own standards for computers and telecoms.

www.msnbc.msn.com

Cingular Launches On-Demand Mobile TV Service

(TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGEQUAKE) -- Cingular has announced the launch of Cingular Video, which will allow viewers to select short three- to five-minute clips from 18 different television channels, to be available free of charge to Cingular customers purchasing an unlimited 3G data package.

news.com.com

---

MORE CHANGEQUAKES TO WATCH

TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGEQUAKES

Program Your TiVo With Your Cell Phone

In an agreement with Verizon Wireless dubbed TiVo Mobile, TiVo subscribers will soon be able to program television recordings straight from cell phones using the Verizon Wireless network.

www.usatoday.com

World's Fastest Internet Available To Select British Households

A British-designed Internet system promises to deliver the fastest Web service on the planet to British households, through a new set-top box that combines the functions of a television and computer at speeds up to 2,000 times faster than present services.

www.timesonline.co.uk

Toshiba Plans HD-DVD Laptop For April

Toshiba is planning to launch its first laptop computer with an HD-DVD drive in Europe in April, and it will also be available in Japan and North America at about the same time, said Oscar Koenders, general manager of marketing at Toshiba Europe's PC division.
www.pcworld.com

Related story: PC Sales Expected To Slow In 2006
www.pcworld.com

Microsoft Executive Predicts Sharp Jump In IPTV Users By End Of 2006

At least four major telecommunications carriers will be offering services on Microsoft's IPTV platform to hundreds of thousands of users by the end of the year, a Microsoft executive predicted.

www.pcworld.com

Samsung: Middle East LCD Sales Will See Five-Fold Increase This Year

Korean consumer electronics major Samsung is targeting more than a five-fold increase in the LCD television sales in the UAE during this year.

www.khaleejtimes.com


CORPORATE CHANGEQUAKES

Google Settles Click-Fraud Lawsuit

Google has agreed to pay up to $90 million to settle a lawsuit alleging the online search engine leader overcharged thousands of advertisers who paid for bogus sales referrals generated through a ruse known as "click fraud."

www.cnn.com

Capital One Acquires North Fork Bancorp. For $14.6 Billion

In its second major banking deal in a year, credit-card issuer Capital One Financial has agreed to buy North Fork Bancorp. in a stock and cash deal worth about $14.6 billion.

news.yahoo.com

McClatchy Buys Knight Ridder For $4.5 Billion

The McClatchy Co. has reached a deal to buy Knight Ridder, the second-largest U.S. newspaper publisher, for about $4.5 billion in cash and stock. McClatchy will also assume about $2 billion in Knight Ridder's debt.

news.yahoo.com

Fannie Mae Discloses New Accounting Errors

Embattled mortgage giant Fannie Mae disclosed that it had found additional errors in the reworking of its accounting ordered by federal regulators.

www.msnbc.msn.com


ECONOMIC CHANGEQUAKES

NYSE Goes Public

The New York Stock Exchange began life as a publicly traded company last Wednesday, with NYSE officials ringing their own opening bell to start the trading session.

biz.yahoo.com

LSE Rejects $4.2 Billion Nasdaq Bid

The London Stock Exchange (LSE) has rejected a surprise takeover approach from the U.S. Nasdaq stock market that valued it at around $4.2 billion.

www.stuff.co.nz

Rates On 30-year Mortgages Jump To Highest Level In 3½ Years

Rates on 30-year mortgages jumped to the highest level in 3 1/2 years last week, driven higher by inflation worries in financial markets. Mortgage giant Freddie Mac reported that rates on 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages averaged 6.37%.

www.businessweek.com

Kuwait Reports Natural Gas Discoveries

Kuwait, which already sits on 10% of global oil reserves, has announced the discovery of large quantities of natural gas, estimated at one trillion cubic meters of gas.

www.tmcnet.com


FDA APPROVAL CHANGEQUAKES

Bush To Nominate New Permanent Head Of FDA

Andrew Von Eschenbach, acting commissioner of the FDA, is set to be nominated by President Bush for the permanent job running the U.S. regulatory agency.

msnbc.msn.com

FDA To Get New Search Tool

Scientists who review new drug applications for the FDA face a long, winding road in finding all the information they need. However, FDA officials are planning to remedy that with a new search program that collects information from all agency databases and libraries and makes them easily searchable by users across the agency.

www.gcn.com


DISCOVERY CHANGEQUAKES

Studies: B Vitamins Do Not Lower Risk Of Heart Attack Or Stroke

Levels of the amino acid homocysteine may be high in people destined for a heart attack or stroke, but lowering it with B vitamins and folic acid does not reduce the risk, two studies show.

news.yahoo.com

Bird Flu Spreads In Africa And Southeast Asia

The deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu was detected for the first time in poultry in Myanmar and Cameroon, officials in the two nations said, in the latest sign of the disease's expanding range in Africa and Southeast Asia.

www.msnbc.msn.com

Related story: Experts Believe Bird Flu Will Reach U.S. In Three Months
www.msnbc.msn.com