Stock in Marks & Spencer (M&S) on Monday surged on reports that Qatar's sovereign wealth fund is preparing to place a takeover bid for the British clothing retailer.

The stock hit a high of 407.7p a share before closing at 398.1p a share on Monday, up 25.6p from the previous close. The 6.9 per cent gain added more than £400 million to the market value of the retailer.

The stock gained on a report published by The Sunday Times newspaper that the Qatar Investment Authority had plans to assemble a consortium to place £8 billion takeover bid for the UK's biggest clothing retailer.

Volkswagen China, the Chinese arm of carmaker Volkswagen AG, has announced its decision to recall an unspecified number of cars to fix potential issues with the vehicles’ direct-shift gearbox systems.

The announcement of the recall was made after it received a notification from China’s quality watchdog, which reportedly found substandard direct-shift gearbox systems in the vehicles.

The substandard gearbox systems can cause unintentional acceleration, which can cause accident.

A SimCity game with an offline mode wouldn’t have fit the developer’s vision for the admired game, Maxis’ general manager Lucy Bradshaw said.

Bradshaw stressed that there were a number of reasons why shed felt SimCity had to be always-online. The reasons cited by Bradshaw include online players’ ability to exchange gifts; and online players’ ability to enjoy social features like challenges and achievements.

Home Retail Group (HRG) on Thursday upgraded its full-year profit forecast, thanks to continued sales growth at its Argos chain.

Raising its full-year profit forecast for the second time since January, the group said that it expected to pocket £90 million in the soon-to-be-ended year.

The group's Argos chain reported an increase of 5.2 per cent in underlying sales over the eight-week to March 2. The increase in sales was mainly driven by a robust demand for tablet computers, fridges and freezers.

A cross-party committee of MPs is trying to determine the extent to which whiplash injury claims are responsible for the soaring costs of car insurance.

The road-related personal injury claims have jumped by nearly 60 per cent since the year 2006. Insurers' average estimate suggests that nearly 1,500 whiplash claims are being made per day, prompting ministers to say that action was required to curb the whopping increase in the number of claims.

A federal jury on Wednesday found videogame giant Nintendo responsible for infringement of Seijiro Tomita's glasses-free 3D technology for 3D, and asked the game maker to pay Tomita $30.2 million in compensatory damages.

The patent suit was filed by Tomita in the year 2011. Nintendo's attorney Scott Lindvall argued that Nintendo's 3DS gaming device did not use the central features of the patent owned by Tomita.

But, the federal jury in New York found that that Nintendo in deed used features of the patent in its handheld 3DS gaming device.

Canadian smartphone maker BlackBerry has claimed that it has received an order for 1 million BlackBerry 10 devices from one of its established partners.

The Waterloo, Ontario-based company said in a statement that the order for 1 million devices - the biggest order in the company's history - was a tremendous vote of confidence in its new BlackBerry platform.

Lenovo is interested in acquiring troubled device maker BlackBerry but it would first evaluate the market, the computer and Android-based smartphone maker's chief executive Yang Yuanqing hinted.

In an interview with French financial newspaper, Yuanqing said the acquisition of BlackBerry could make sense, though he would first have to evaluate the market as well as the Canadian manufacturer's standing.

Speaking on the topic, he said that the deal "could possibly make sense. External growth is all about opportunities. But first I have to analyze the market well."

Your Facebook `likes' can predict your personality, a study by Cambridge University researchers revealed.

The researchers analyzed around 58,000 volunteers who provided their Facebook "likes," demographic information as well as psychometric testing results that were designed to underscore their personality traits. They fed volunteers' Facebook likes into algorithms and matched the information with their personality tests.

The researchers were surprised to find that they were able to paint volunteers' accurate personality portraits with the help of Facebook likes.

The newly introduced matchbox-sized device, dubbed RAC Advance, will revolutionise the way how RAC deal with its members, technical director David Bizley said.

In case of a breakdown, the RAC Advance automatically alerts a patrolman with the car's location and the nature of the glitch.

The device, which slots into a scart socket alongside the steering column, is capable of detecting engine and gearbox issues, imminent battery failure, and battery drain.

Various sources suggested over the past few months that Facebook is preparing to introduce video ads in News Feed, but many believe that it would not be easy for the social-networking giant to put the video ads without angering users.

Last month, Hillside Partners analyst Rory Maher reported that Facebook was beta testing a video ad product, which would automatically start playing in News feed and would max out at 15 seconds.

Comet Panstarrs, which was first discovered in June 2011 from Hawaii, will likely become visible in the skies above western horizon, starting from Friday to Saturday evening.

The comet will be seen just a few degrees above the western horizon at dusk. On Sunday, March 10, the comet will reach its closest point to the sun. It will remain visible in different parts of the world up to March 15.

The Inspiration Mars Foundation, a nonprofit group established by multimillionaire Dennis Tito and others, is aiming to send humans to Mars before the government.

Tito, the world's first space tourist, and others behind the project have plans to send two humans to Mars sometime in 2018.

Experts from the Inspiration Mars Foundation used the recently held Institute of Electronics & Electrical Engineering (IEEE) aerospace conference in Big Sky, Mont., to present the conclusions of a Mars mission-feasibility study.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has charged 29 individuals and corporations with sending millions of spam texts.

The messages, which promised prizes like free gift cards worth up to $1,000 form retailers like Wal-mart and Best Buy, were sent to random phone numbers.

In exchange for the gift cards, consumers were tricked into exposing their personal information, including their credit card credentials. The information gathered from the targeted customers would be ultimately sold to third-party companies.

Google Inc has confirmed that it has reached a licensing agreement with MPEG LA over patents related to the internet search giant's streaming media technology WebM.

The agreement cleared the way for wider adoption of Google's VP8 video codec. Via the agreement, Google gained the right to sublicense the VP8 and also the techniques in the next version VP9 codec.

As part of the deal, MPEG LA also agreed to ditch its efforts to create a VP8 patent pool, which would have permitted it to cross-license its video patents.