Hong Kong penthouses on sale for €26m

Two penthouses in Hong Kong were each put on sale for a record €26m, a developer said today, as demand from wealthy Chinese buyers has sent prices in the city soaring.Sun Hung Kai, the world's largest developer by market value, said it raised the asking price by 20% for the 4,000 square feet penthouses on top of the Cullinan twin towers, Hong Kong's tallest residential development.The properties will be the city's most expensive apartments if they are sold at the 300m Hong Kong dollar asking price, which translates into 75,000 dollars per square foot.AdvertisementBuyers from Hong Kong, China and overseas were reported to have shown interest in...

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Spec to spec: Zune HD versus iPod Touch

If the MP3 player market was a fault line, we'd have a boatload of busy seismographs on our hands. Certainly, two of the most exciting releases of the past couple weeks are the new iPod Touch and the Zune HD. Now, if you're curious how the two devices compare with one another, you could always read the deluge of articles available on CNET and around the Web, but we can certainly see how that might be a bit overwhelming. Soon enough, we'll pit the two players head-to-head in a knock-down, drag-out brawl (aka Prizefight). In the meantime, we've created a purely technical spec-to-spec comparison chart to tide you ov...

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Car firms disagree about electric future

Business reporter, BBC News, Frankfurt Page last updated at 12:53 GMT, Thursday, 17 September 2009 13:53 UKE-mail this to a friend Printable versionCar firms disagree about electric futureBy Jorn MadslienBusiness reporter, BBC News, FrankfurtTesla electric roadsterThe Tesla electric roadster - and not a pigeon in sightFrankfurt's city streets may not be the best for testing cars, yet accelerating between the traffic lights in a Tesla offers a powerful insight into the electric future that most players in the motor industry are raving about.Tesla says its new electric roadster accelerates from 0-100 kilometres (0-60 miles) per hour in four seconds...

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Dollar nears one-year lows against euro

Samarjit Shankar noted signs of profit taking on the recent gains against the dollar by most Group of 10 currenciesThe dollar fell closer to one-year lows against the euro Thursday as mounting hopes for economic recovery from the global economic crisis encouraged risk taking.At 2100 GMT, the euro fetched 1.4740 dollars, up from 1.4708 late Wednesday in New York.The dollar rose to 91.03 yen from 90.94 yen.Trading was volatile, with the euro consolidating gains against the US currency.Samarjit Shankar of Bank of New York Mellow noted signs of profit taking on the recent gains against the dollar by most Group of 10 currencies, which in addition...

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Americans won't be rushing to put out the blaze the next time Wall Street burns

One year on from the near collapse of the financial system, Tom Leonard in New York finds it's ordinary Americans who are picking up the bill.The green shoots of recovery are sprouting up through the still stony ground of the US economy. A year ago, such a scenario seemed impossible as the optimists were drowned out under a barrage of Doomsday pronouncements.The world’s biggest economy was heading for a 1930s-style Great Depression, if not Armageddon. Even the US Treasury Secretary spoke about perhaps not having an economy to save.New York’s financial district was Ground Zero once more – hit this time by reckless, greedy bankers who appeared...

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US scraps plans for missile defence shield in central Europe

• Barack Obama abandons missile shield plans• U-turn seen as overture to Moscow• New system to target Iranian missilesBarack Obama announces plans to scrap the US missile defence shield in central Europe. Photograph: Charles Dharapak/APBarack Obama today reversed almost a decade of Pentagon strategy in Europe, scrapping plans to deploy key elements of a US missile defence shield.Instead, he said, a more flexible defence would be introduced, allowing for a more effective response to any threat from Iranian missiles.The U-turn is arguably the most concrete shift in foreign policy from that of the Bush administration, which spent years negotiating...