Bank failure list tops 45

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Local banks in Georgia, Minnesota and California were closed Friday by state regulators, bringing the total number of failed banks this year to 45, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporat

The FDIC will mail checks to insured depositors of the failed bank on Monday morning. Direct deposits from the federal government, such as Social Security and Veterans' payments, will be transferred to United Community Bank of Blairsville, Ga.

Georgia regulators also shuttered the four branches of Neighborhood Community Bank, which is based in Newnan.

The financial crisis has taken a heavy toll on small banks across the nation as losses in the housing market mount and unemployment dents household wealth. Analysts expect the trend to continue even as larger banks stabilize and the overall economy begins to recover.

The FDIC said it entered a loss-share agreement with the acquiring banks for a portion of the failed banks' assets. The agreement is intended to maximize returns on the assets and minimize disruptions for loan customers, the FDIC said.

The total cost of Friday's bank failures to the FDIC is $264.2 million, bringing the total for this year to $11.94 billion. That compares with $17.6 billion in all of 2008.

The number of bank failures so far this year has already exceeded last year's total of 25, with an average of 7 failures per month.

Michael Jackson, pop music legend, dead at 50

"The sudden death of Michael Jackson quickly opened a window of opportunity for cybercriminals to capitalize on.
Michael Jackson made culture accept a person of color," the Rev. Al Sharpton said. "To say an 'icon' would only give these young people in Harlem a fraction of what he was. He was a historic figure that people will measure music and the industry by."

Michael Jackson, the show-stopping singer whose best-selling albums -- including "Off the Wall," "Thriller" and "Bad" -- and electrifying stage presence made him one of the most popular artists of all time, died Thursday, CNN has confirmed

" Jackson's blazing rise to stardom -- and later fall from grace -- is among the most startling of show business tales. The son of a steelworker, he rose to fame as the lead singer of the Jackson 5, a band he formed with his brothers in the late 1960s. By the late '70s, as a solo artist, he was topping the charts with cuts from "Off the Wall," including "Rock With You" and "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough."
The pop music landscape was changing, however, opening up for rap, hip-hop and what came to be called "alternative" -- and Jackson was seen as out of step.

Windows 7 versus Snow Leopard: How much do upgrades really cost?

According to Microsoft, roughly 90% of Windows users purchase the operating system preinstalled with a new PC. And if you ignore the Hackintosh crowd, 100% of Mac owners purchase OS X with a new Mac. Any PC purchased with Windows XP or Windows Vista since October 2001 qualifies for a discounted upgrade to Windows 7, for a price as low as $50. But only a select group of Mac owners qualify for those $29 upgrades. A large number will have to pay $169 for the privilege of installing Snow Leopard, and another large group of Apple customers won’t be able to install Snow Leopard at all.

In one of its brilliant “I’m a Mac” ads recently, Apple lampooned the complexity of Microsoft Windows with a dizzying display of fine print that eventually filled up the screen and covered up both characters.

I thought of that ad when I saw Apple’s recent announcement that it was going to make its next Mac OS X upgrade, Snow Leopard, available as a $29 upgrade. That sounds so much better than the broad range of prices that Microsoft is going to charge its customers for Windows 7 upgrades. Too bad the $29 upgrade is not that simple. In fact, according to my analysis of Apple’s own sales figures, 57% of Apple’s customers who bought and paid for new Macs in the past five years are ineligible for those cheap upgrades.

Hospital confirms Steve Jobs transplant

It was widely reported that Jobs returned to work at Apple’s Cupertino, Calif. headquarters this week.

James D. Eason, M.D., program director at Methodist University Hospital Transplant Institute and chief of transplantation confirmed today, with the patient’s permission, that Steve Jobs received a liver transplant at Methodist University Hospital Transplant Institute in partnership with the University of Tennessee in Memphis.

Mr. Jobs underwent a complete transplant evaluation and was listed for transplantation for an approved indication in accordance with the Transplant Institute policies and United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) policies.

The hospital where Steve Jobs received a liver transplant issued a press release tonight, confirming - with Jobs permission - the transplant. The hospital said Jobs received the transplant because was the sickest patient on the waiting list at the time a donor organ became available. But more importantly, the statement noted that Jobs is “recovering well and has an excellent prognosis.”

A Nokia, Intel partnership makes sense, but they need to focus on smartphones

This Intel and Nokia collaboration unites and focuses many of the brightest computing and communications minds in the world, and will ultimately deliver open and standards-based technologies, which history shows drive rapid innovation, adoption and consumer choice. With the convergence of the Internet and mobility as the team’s only barrier, I can only imagine the innovation that will come out of our unique relationship with Nokia. The possibilities are endless.

Intel deperately needs to get into the mobile phone market, which is expected to grow far more rapidly than the PC market over the next decade. Nokia, while still technically the leader in global smartphone market share, badly needs to generate some smartphone buzz to help fight off growing challenges from Apple, BlackBerry, Palm, and Google Android.

Nokia also knows something about failed MIDs. Earlier this year, the company discontinued its MID line of the devices, the Nokia N800/N810 Internet Tablet