online retailer

Amazon.com unleashed new e-reader software Thursday that enables selected BlackBerry handsets from Research In Motion to access and read e-books directly on mobile devices based in the United States. Called Kindle for BlackBerry, the free beta app is available for download from the world's largest online retailer.

Amazon.com has reportedly purchased a leading touchscreen innovator in an apparent bid to add more functionality to its Kindle e-book reader. With Apple set to begin shipping its highly anticipated iPad tablet computer in less than two months with an iBooks application and multimedia capability, Amazon is under pressure to keep its share of the market.

Amazon.com said Monday that its Kindle e-reader has become the most gifted item in the company's history, but didn't provide specific sales numbers. The company said the Kindle, Apple's 8GB iPod touch, Garmin's nuvi 260W personal navigation device, and the BlackBerry Bold were among the most popular gadgets that customers purchased during the holiday shopping season this year.

The rise of smart phones, with their go-anywhere Web access, is changing the shopping game this holiday season.

Tech-savvy shoppers are finding it easier than ever to work the system to get the best deals.

They're scanning barcodes with their cell phone cameras to load into price comparison Internet sites while standing in store aisles, using GPS to find discounts at nearby stores and flashing electronic coupons straight from their phones.

Sometimes a stock looks so enticing that investors just can't help themselves.

The market appetite is such that the stock rockets higher, leaving behind most reasonable measures of the company's worth. To commemorate this week's Thanksgiving feasts, BusinessWeek went hunting for stocks that have arguably inspired feeding frenzies over the past year.

Raul Vazquez wants to be the Grinch who steals Christmas -- for Wal-Mart, that is.

Vazquez, the CEO of Walmart.com, told BusinessWeek he expects as much as a 30 percent gain in online sales this holiday season compared with last year. That would far outpace the 8 percent to 10 percent projected rise in industrywide retail e-commerce this year. Total U.S. holiday retail sales are expected to be $438 billion, down 1 percent vs. last year, according to the National Retail Federation.

Raul Vazquez wants to be the Grinch who steals Christmas -- for Wal-Mart, that is.

Vazquez, the CEO of Walmart.com, told BusinessWeek he expects as much as a 30 percent gain in online sales this holiday season compared with last year. That would far outpace the 8 percent to 10 percent projected rise in industrywide retail e-commerce this year. Total U.S. holiday retail sales are expected to be $438 billion, down 1 percent vs. last year, according to the National Retail Federation.

Some of technology's best-known companies are betting there's pent-up demand for on-demand books.

Hewlett-Packard Co., the world's top seller of personal computers and printers, is teaming up with online retailer Amazon.com Inc. to challenge Internet search leader Google Inc. in the quirky new market of re-creating digital books as paperbacks.

The concept represents a different type of book recycling, as digital copies created from print get a second life as paperbacks.

Taking a page from its original playbook, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. launched a full-fledged price war with Amazon.com Inc. and a nation of book retailers, lowering online prices on certain highly anticipated hardback titles to $9.

The volley of discounts, which began Thursday when the retailer listed prices for some upcoming hardcover releases such as Dean Koontz' "Breathless" and Stephen King's "Under the Dome" at $10, was answered with a similar price cut by Amazon, the largest online bookseller. Then the two competitors lowered the prices even further to $9.

The technology sector is often talked about as if it were a unified front, an easy-to-define monolith. People say technology stocks rose or technology stocks fell. Tech helped drive a huge boom in the 1990s, and when that collapsed in 2001, tech contributed to the last recession.

In reality, technology companies have about as much in common as Toyota Motor Corp., Boeing Co. and JetBlue Airways Corp. Sure, all three play a part in getting you places, but their customers are different, as are their sales cycles and the metrics used to measure their prospects.