Online advertisers keep paying Google less for its ads, but so far, Google has proven it can out-sell the problem.
From Business and financial news – CNNMoney.com: 30-year mortgage rate falls to record 3.53%
Mortgage borrowing got cheaper again this week, as rates on 30-year and 15-year fixed-rate loans fell to record lows.
From Ars Technica: Bitcoin price soars above $9 for the first time in almost a year
The price of Bitcoins surged this week, rising above $9 for the first time in almost a year. The increase suggests growing public interest in the peer-to-peer cryptocurrency.
Last month, we marked the one-year anniversary of the Bitcoin bubble popping. We noted that after plunging for the last six months of 2011, the price of Bitcoin had begun to stabilize around $5. But almost as soon as we published that article, the currency began appreciating rapidly. Today, one Bitcoin is worth about $9.20—a 40 percent increase in a month.
Enlarge / Bitcoin price over the last four months.
The transaction volume of Bitcoins has increased dramatically since April. In April, there were rarely more than 10,000 transactions in a day. In July, there have consistently been more than 20,000 transactions each day.
from Ars Technica
From Business and financial news – CNNMoney.com: HSBC lax in preventing cartel, terrorist laundering
Global banking giant HSBC failed to prevent billions of dollars worth of money transfers that Senate investigators believe were linked to drug cartels and terrorist groups, according to a report released Monday.
From WSJ.com: What’s News US: Card Giants to Pay $6 Billion
Visa and MasterCard agreed to pay retailers more than $6 billion to settle a lawsuit in an agreement that also permits merchants to charge higher prices to customers who pay for purchases with credit cards.
From Business and financial news – CNNMoney.com: 8 low-interest student loans
Falling interest rates are enabling a growing number of companies, state programs, and foundations to offer alternative education loans that are significantly cheaper than some of the federal government’s offerings.
From Engadget: Nielsen has Android near 52 percent of US smartphone share in Q2, iPhone ekes out gains
If there was doubt as to whether or not Android would soon become the majority smartphone platform in the US, that’s just been erased by Nielsen. Google crossed the tipping point in the second quarter after getting close in the winter, with 51.8 percent of current smartphone users running some variant on the green robot’s OS. As we’ve seen in the past, though, the increase is coming mostly at the expenses of platforms already being squeezed to within an inch of their lives, such as the BlackBerry (8.1 percent) and Windows (4.3 percent combined). Apple still isn’t in a position to fret: it kept climbing to 34.3 percent and swung the attention of recent buyers just slightly back in its direction. The real question for many of us might center on what happens in a summer where Samsung has thrown a Galaxy S III-sized curveball at Americans and any new iPhone is likely still a few months away.
from Engadget