Facebook plans to finally go public with an IPO date set to occur sometime in the second quarter of next year with a registration statement said to be in the works and expected to be filed by the close of December of this year.

The social networking giant plans to raise about $10bn from this move which will be the largest netted by any web based technology company and overall would increase the market valuation of Facebook up to a whopping $100 billion.

The IPO is targeted to go on the stock market sometime between the months of April and June in 2012 and has been long expected and awaited since LinkedIn Corp. broke the ice for social networks with its IPO offering in May. Since LinkedIn’s appearance a host of social media companies and internet companies have flooded the stock market including Renren, Pandora Media, and Zillow.

However, some companies that filed for IPOs chose to hold their offering due to the shaky nature of the global markets including Groupon the successful coupon site and Zynga the Facebook gaming start-up. LivingSocial is also planning to file for an IPO although its success may not be guaranteed as Groupon after delaying their offering did not list successfully and now plans to scale down.

Facebook is said to have about 800 million global users out of which a 500 million log in on a daily basis. In fact, it has even been able to disrupt the business plans of yahoo and Google making it a very strong online presence.

A large study conducted of mobile users in Denmark discovered that there was not actually any link between cellphone use and an increased risk of developing brain tumours with lengthy use. Although the data is reassuring to those who use mobile phones on a regular basis, investigators noted that the study was more focused on cellphone subscriptions and not the actual use of the phones so it is not a conclusive study yet in terms of the frequency of mobile use.

According to the investigators, the risk of brain tumours in those who heavily use their mobile phones over the course of 10 to 15 years can still not be ruled out. The findings were published in BMJ as an update to a report that was published in 2007 just a few months after a panel from the World Health Organization that determined that cellphones could potentially be cancer causing.

Last year a similar study was published titled Interphone that also determined that there that there was not a clear link although those with the highest usage levels did have a higher risk for a certain type of brain tumour.

The new results from the Danish study are important due to the fact that they match data that was collected since 1982 from a national cancer registry which allows selection bias to be eliminated for the first time allowing the results to be much more accurate. Still, as usage levels of the cell phones was not taken into account it is still not considered a conclusive study.

In a new authorised biography about to hit the shelves at bookstores and written before his untimely death, Steve Jobs swore that he would destroy the Android operating system and would spend his life and all of Apple’s money to do so if that is what it took.

According to Jobs, Android’s operating system was developed basically by grand theft and that he would do whatever it took to get back his intellectual property. At the moment Apple is involved in several lawsuits against smartphones that utilise the Android software.

Before Google launched the Android they were actually friendly with Apple as both companies often offered each others products. In fact, the chairman of Google, and at that point the chief executive of Google, both sat on the Apple board. However, when Android first came out in 2007 just ten months after the iPhone was released the relationship started to sour and has become more bitter every year with Apple rejecting Google from its app store.

Since this point Android has taken over a large part of the smartphone market and is now installed on about 48% of all mobile phone shipments compared to 19% of the shipments that Apple is installed on. However, Apple has fought its growth every step of the way repeatedly suing many of the hardware manufacturers that have chosen to use the Android OS on their smartphones and tablets including Samsung and Motorola. In fact, right now the Galaxy Tab is on hold in Germany and Australia due to pending lawsuits.

Google claims that its street view mapping service can go just about anywhere, and it now seems that the company has made good on its promise, as the company just recently took some time to get out on bike and boat to map the Amazon rainforest. Available on the Google map service are now great panoramic shots of the communities and images that make up the Amazon rainforest allowing those who cannot afford to get out a chance to experience the views for themselves from home.

The Sustainable Amazon Foundation partnered with the popular search engine company as part of an initiative to increase the public’s awareness of just how diverse the endangered rainforest is. In addition to Google photographers riding around with their cameras in tow, some of the local indigenous community people were also hired to take out Google’s tricycles with onboard camera equipment around their villages so that many unique views could be presented on the Amazon.

Street View team head Karin Tuxen-Bettman said that once the images are completely uploaded then anyone will have a chance to see the beauty and culture of the Amazon rainforest from any location in the world. Previous efforts by Google to help open up the beauty of the world include an interactive tour of Antarctica and a full charter of the area.  The Amazon project is still in the works with some images available now and more yet to come, although Google does not have a timetable for completion.

A lawsuit has been filed in the United States that claims that Apple along with five major publishers including Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Simon & Schuster, and Penguin have consorted in the illegal price fixing of their ebooks.The new lawsuit claims that the publishers consulted with Apple to increase their ebook prices so that Amazon would have to quit selling its ebooks at a discount rate to customers.The complaint itself revolves around the Apple model in which publishers instead of the retailer set their eBook prices.

While the claim may be new to the US, it is not new to the publishers or Apple as similar complaints have already been filed in the UK and in Europe with the Office of Fair Trading currently taking to a look to determine if publisher-retailer agreements are breaching the competition law.The lawsuit in America started with two main defendants, but could be expanded to include anyone that purchased a book at the price of £9.99 or $9.99 from Apple from any of the included publishers and could quickly escalate to be worth many millions of dollars for those affected.

While the stock market has continued to fall a little by a little, pint by point since 2007, but there are other ways to trade that are remaining strong. One area that is continuing to prosper is the area of difference trading which is continuing to rise in popularity among private investors who are able to see the many advantages of trading against the margin and the amount of profit that there is to be had. The nice thing about contracts for difference trading is the fact that they are completely legal and more and more countries are getting involved, allowing more people to take advantage of the market.

Another reason that difference trading is getting popular is the fact that it can all be done online, which allows you to see the profits in both rising and falling markets, which creates a large amount of transparency and flexibility among the contracts for difference market.

Thus, the product is extremely exciting to most investors and over the course of 2011 the UK Financial Spread Betting and Contracts for Difference Report expects to see another 9,000 traders join the market. This is a small number next to their prediction that over the next decade most people involved in the trade industry expect it to become a medium choice for most global traders.

The other reason that contracts for difference trading is becoming so popular is due to the fact that it is a simple trading tool that is easy to use for beginners to trade and those who want a low risk investment opportunity. It is also becoming a great fit for those who want to take their finances into their own hands because after the financial crisis many people feel better taking care of their finances on their own instead of trusting someone else to do it.

CEO Sanjay Jha and Motorola Mobility have been sued by a shareholder who claims that Motorola did not get the best deal when they decided to allow Google to purchase them, thus cheating the shareholders out of money. Investor John Keating is claiming that the large $12.5 billion buyout was not enough for the company despite the fact that Google had to agree to pay a 63% premium on shares for Motorola, and the fact that everyone else in the business world spent all week exclaiming over the costs of the buyout.

It seems that even if every technology writer in America spent the week commenting on what a massive amount Google paid for Motorola, Keating still believes that Motorola should still have cost more. His complaint reads that Motorola did not look at shareholders right to the intrinsic value of the company, and the many different alternatives that could have been posed for them.

He also added that Motorola did not do enough to make sure that shareholders were given some of the company value now that it is a part of the valuable Google nameplate. Keating hopes that he will be able to elevate the lawsuit up to the class action level, and that regulatory authorities will reject the Google buyout; and instead make the company offer more to Motorola and the shareholders.

However, given the fact that Google is paying out $40 per share for the company which is 63% more than what it was worth on Aug. 12^th it seems hard to believe anyone is going to feel that sorry for Keating.

At the moment there are eight countries waiting to get their accession into the European Union, but it looks like Serbia may have some time to wait as they are near the end of the line. In 2005 Turkey and Croatia started to negotiate joining the union with Turkey possibly joining the union in 15 years and Croatia by the time the year closes. The remaining six countries including Serbia have been told they can join once they meet the proper criteria which include rule of law, democracy, adherence to the EU economic and political union, and a market economy.

Serbia applied to become a member in December of 2009 but their progress has been slow although when they arrested Europe’s most wanted war crimes suspect in May of this year their prospects did rise a bit. According to commissioner of the EU Stefan Fuele this has been a large obstacle towards the country’s accession into the EU. While it is not likely that the country will still be able to get into the EU any earlier than 2015, the high profile arrests of two war criminals now will help them possibly get candidate status within the EU this year.

Bond yields are starting to soar as many people have started to fear that the Greek financial crisis will spread into neighbouring countries Spain and Italy. Southern Europe in particular is worried which could be seen in the markets this week with Italy and Spain forced to pay a higher price in order to get out of debt after many concerns rose last week that the bailout of Greece will not actually help solve the problems that are prevalent throughout the Eurozone. Also during the week, Spain’s short term borrowing hit a three year high.

Strategist for London’s Monument Securities, Marc Ostwald, stated that the most important fact to take away from all of this is that yields are much higher which does convey some hope that there was relief last week, but that the relief will be quite short-lived. There is much talk at the moment of EU risk assessment processes such as ORSA, which aims to assess non-quantifiable risk. Bond yields for both Italy and Spain increased after the respective auctions with the premium for debt for Spanish held as the German bonds widened. Many are also concerned that the Greek deal is still going to be met with obstacles that will make it hard to enact it properly.

Now that Google+ has officially landed, many people are wondering if the popular search engine has been able to finally get a hold on the social networking world, but the answer to that question is actually twofold.

The truth of that matter is that on paper it looks as if Google+ is excelling and winning users over by the minute, but in actual application, the new social network has a long way to go until it can actually brag that it is up there with the likes of Facebook and Twitter.

What made the Google+ debut astounding is that it did not take the company long to reach upwards of 25 million users, in fact, compared to the other social networks, this growth is historic. Before you can get too excited about the numbers however, it is important to remember that Google+ invaded discovered territory, whereas Facebook and Twitter helped create the definition of a social network so it took longer for the news of their respective networks to grow whereas Google was able to walk into the market announced.

However, the problem with saying that Google+ is on track despite its number is its usage, which is actually very low. While many people rushed to sign up for the Google social network, very few actually use it on a regular basis instead choosing to stick to the familiar formats that they know which may be a problem for Google. Although the Google+ format has everything users should want, it’s hard to compete with comfort and that is one thing Google will have to work hard to combat.