AT&T on Sunday announced it has reached an agreement with Deutsche Telekon AG to buy its T-Mobile USA subsidiary in a $39 billion deal that involves cash and stocks.

A statement released by AT&T today said they deal will inovlve a payment of $25 billion in cash and the rest being paid with AT&T stocks. This will be subject to adjustments.

Implications of the AT&T T-Mobile acquisition

The deal, which AT&T says is definite, will give Deutsche TeleKom an 8% stake in AT&T. This will mean a Deutsche Telekom executive will have to sit on the board of AT&T.

AT&T is currently the secod biggest cellular operator in the United States. The deal will enable the company to add an additional 34 million subscribers. This will mean AT&T is set to become the largest cellular operator on the U.S. ahead of Verizon Wireless. The take-over will attract scrutiny from regulators as the new deal will merge the second and fourth largest celular networks in the county.

In a statement from AT&T today, the company said it will extend its high-speed wireless technology, referred to as Long-Term Evolution or LTE, to its new clients from T-Mobile USA. The company said the service will reach an additional 46.5 million people. This will help the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to achieve its aim of extending broadband internet to a wider net of people.

The Chairman and CEO of AT&T, Randall Stephenson, said the acquisition will enable AT&T to strengthen and expand critical infrastructure for the future of the United States. He said the deal will improve the quality of the network and bring  advanced LTE services to more than 294 million people.

A statement from Deutsche Telekom said the deal has been approved by the Boards of Directors of the two companies.

AT&T expects the deal, which is yet to approved by regulators, to be completed in about a year.

The united Kingdom has made changes to it’s visa rules that will see “super investors” who are willing to invest £5 million in the UK. The new rule stipulates that you will be allowed to stay indefinitely in the UK after three years if you can invest that amount of money.

If you can invest £10 million, then you can stay indefinitely after two years. These are significantly faster than the five years waiting period for the average migrant to the UK.

The new changes are clearly aimed at attracting new high-powered investors and entrepreneurs to the UK.

There is also a new rule for “high-potential” entrepreneurs. Beginning April 6th, any potential entrepreneur wanting to enter the UK will be allowed to enter, provided they have £50,000 in funding from a reputable organization.

If you are a “high-potential” entrepreneur, you will be allowed entry to the UK on a visitor visa to enable you secure funding and make other arrangements for starting your business before being given a full Tier 1 visa. Normal entrepreneurs will need to show £200,000 in funding to receive a Tier 1 visa.

This means that Tier 1 (Exceptional talent) applicants will not be required to have an employer sponsorship but will be required to have an endorsement by an “accredited competent body”. The UK government is yet to announce the list of accredited competent bodies.

Some senators in the United States are working on introducing a similar “startUp visa where anyone with an idea will be given a two years visa if they can prove that they have funding to the tune of $100,000 from a U.S. based investor or can prove that their business have generated more than $100,000 in sales annually from the U.S.

The idea is yet to be passed though.

WASHINGTON — Senior Republicans in the House have challenged a foreclosure deal proposed to 5 U.S. banks that aims to alter foreclosure handling and give lenders no choice but to modify more mortgages.

In their letter addressed to Timothy Geithner, the senior Republicans said they were challenging the deal because it will change rules that have long governed the mortgage sector. The letter sent more than 10 questions concerning the foreclosure proposal to Geithner. This included a question that challenged the legal basis on which the federal and state governments can stand to propose such widespread changes.

The GOP said the proposed deal will have significant effect on the financial system. They were also concerned that the government and state agencies were trying to legislate through litigation.

The foreclosure deal in question was proposed last week to the banks by federal regulators and state attorneys of the 50 states. This was after they had had lengthy talks after revelations were made that lenders were cutting corners and using flawed documents to foreclose on a lot of defaulters.

When questioned about the letter from the GOP, the Treasury department said: “The mortgage service sector that exists is broken and work needed to be done to legislate stronger standards.”

The details of the proposal which do not need to be approved by Congress, requires lenders to underwrite the value of their loans to defaulters who’s debts are more than the current worth of their homes. The proposal will prevent lenders from initiating foreclosure proceedings when a borrower is attempting to negotiate their mortgage terms. And the borrower will have an independent review if the lender denies them mortgage modification.

Where, when and how to buy the new iPad 2

Tomorrow March 11th marks the day consumers can order the iPad 2 in the United States. The tablet will be available for sale online and in stores. If what we’ve seen with regards to trade-ins is anything to go by, then we can safely conclude the iPad 2 will be best seller.

We believe there will be very long queues in front of Apple stores all across the US. If you will be one of the many buying the iPad 2 when it launches, then you should know the things below.

Last year, consumers were able to pre-order the iPad and iPhone 4 before it became available but Apple has chosen not to go down that lane this time round.

Rather, you’ll be able to order the iPad 2 from Apple.com early tomorrow, Friday March 11, and in Apple stores from 5:00pm on Friday. Reports say that the start time for sales of the iPad 2 on Apple.com will be 12:01am PST on Friday. That means those on the East Coast will be able to place their orders from 3:00am.

Apple.com will make available both the Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi + 3G models in black or white colors. For the 3G models, you’ll be able to choose between AT&T and Verizon.

When you place your iPad 2 order at Apple.com this Friday, you will probably get your iPad on Monday March 14th.

The Apple stores will begin selling the iPad 2 at 5:00pm on Friday March 11th. As is typical with first day sales, you should expect a couple of hours delay before the shops open.

We believe people could start queuing at some Apple stores as early as Thursday night.

You can also go to Best Buy, Walmart, Sam’s Club and Target to buy the iPad 2. We are not sure if these stores will offer online sales tomorrow as well. But they will most probably also start sales from 5:00pm on Friday.

The iPad 2 will also be available at Verizon Wireless tomorrow. But AT&T is yet to confirm if they will have the tablet from the launch date.

However, you can get the AT&T version from stores like Walmart and Best Buy.

The basic model, the 16GB Wi-Fi model, will sell for $499 and the most expensive model will be the 64GB Wi-Fi + 3G model at $829

Some tips people going to buy from stores.

If there is a Walmart or Target shop new an Apple store, chances are that it will be less crowded than the Apple store. Go there instead if you are in a hurry.

If you want a particular color or size, then it’s best you buy online. You don’t want to stay in line for hours only to be told your preference is not available.

If you can, then wait until Saturday as shops can receive fresh deliveries on Saturday.

So much for the selling records broken by Apple’s iPad and iPhone sales. According to Microsoft, it has sold more than 10 million units of its Kinect motion-sensing controller since November last year when it was launched. And it sold more than 8 million of the Kinect units in the first two months alone.

And Guinness World Records has just announced that is the fastest selling consumer electronics product of all time in the first 60 days.

The selling rate of the Microsoft product is a staggering 133,333 units every day since it was launched. That is a faster selling rate than the iPad and the iPhone from Apple could manage.

Also, buyers are purchasing one extra Kinect game for each controller they buy. Microsoft says there have been more than 10 million standalone games bought in the same period.

An editor from the Guinness World Records said the sales figures from the sale of Microsoft’s Kinect devices has never been achieved by any consumer electronics device in the first 60 days of it being launched. He called it quite incredible considering the competition in this market niche.

Analysts regard this achievement as a testimonial to Microsoft’s new role as a front runner in the gaming industry. The game console industry used to be dominated by Japan’s Sony. But since it’s launch, the PS3 has struggled to keep up with the Xbox 360 or the Nintendo Wii.

Today’s statement by Microsoft follows that at CES where Microsoft announced more than 8 million units had been sold. And it appears the rate at which they are selling the Kinect is not going to slow down for the foreseeable future. Discussions amongst gamers seem to indicate that the Xbox 360 is probably going to be the choice of gamers for many years ahead.

Wednesday’s announcement also revealed that Microsoft is developing a Kinect-enabled version of Hulu Plus and Netflix. It also said it is still working on releasing Avatar Kinect. Thi is a social networking service for the users of its Xbox users.

A big announcement by Warner Brothers revealled that the film company will start screening movies on Facebook.

This is seen as a new channel of revenue generation for the studio. This will also be the first big Hollywood movie studio to work with Facebook.

The movie screening service on Facebook will initially only be available to United States users only.

The company could extend the service to other countries including the UK based on the success of their United States trials.

This is how the movie screening service by Warner Bros will work on Facebook. The company will charge users 30 Facebook credits per movie you watch. This will be the equivalence of about $3.

After you pay for the movie, you will have 4 days within which to watch the movie.

The first movie available for rent on Facebook is Batman: The Dark Knight.

There will be other movies added in the coming months. However no news has been made available about which movies will be added.

A statement released by Warner Bros said they felt making available their movies on Facebook is a natural extension of their efforts to distribute their movies online.

Facebook has several hundreds of millions of users and Warner Bros sees it as an opportunity to further generate revenue.

If the Warner Bros experiment with Facebook proves to be successful, you will be sure other major Hollywood studios will also follow their footsteps. This can result in implications for online movie streaming service providers like NetFlix.

Facebook has a vastly superior user base than all of these service providers combined and if they venture into the movie streaming business, the likes of Netflix will have some serious competition.

Probably the most used internet telephony or Voice over IP (VoIP) service provider in the world, Skype is now adding advertisement to it’s PC users experience in order to develop new channels of revenue ahead of its intended public offering.

Skype, owned by Ebay, generates its revenue mainly from consumers paying for a subscription to its services or buying call credits. However this is clearly not enough revenue as the company will now display ads on its software installed on Windows PCs.

Skype’s fourth quarter results of 2010 revealed that the company has a monthly user base of over 145 million clients on average. During peak usage, there can be as many as 29 million people using its services at the same time. This is a very attractive market for companies wanting to advertise their products on Skype.

According to Skype, the ads will be shown on the home tags of users. The first few companies to have signed up to display their ads on the sky platform will be Groupon, Visa and Universal Pictures. The ads will be initially targeted to the USA, UK and Germany.

In an effort to make the ads not interfere with the user experience of the Skype platform, the company initially plans to only show one ad per brand per day in the countries where they will be selling the ads.

So far it has not been made clear if the ads will only be shown in Skype’s free services or if paid subscribers will also be seeing the ads. One thing the company does make clear though is that the ads will not interrupt your user experience. They will not be pop up ads or flashy ads.

Judging from reactions to the news that Skype will be running ads on its Windows platforms, it is clear that majority of their paid subscribers do not want to see the ads.

It is believed the move to serve ads is to increase Skype’s revenue channels aheard of its unscheduled IPO.

Wells Fargo Bank is planning on employing 500 new staff to fill various vacancy positions created by their acquisition of Wachovia Bank back in 2008. This was announced on Monday.

After taking over Wachovia, which topped the Washington area banks for deposits last fall, the company now plans to re-brand all the branches by the end of fall this year.

In total, Wells Fargo will be taking on 1,000 new staff to work in their 404 branches across the Mid-Atlantic area. This will include their branches in D.C., Maryland and Virginia. The bank plans on hiring 500 new staff for it’s 130 branches in the Washington, D.C. area.

The bank said it will largely not be building new branches but the new staff will beef up its existing branches.

Wells Fargo’s Aimee Worsley said, “The model that Wells Fargo operates on demands more staff than Wachovia”

So the new staff will be to keep up to standard with the Wells Fargo model when the Wachovia banks are re-branded into Wells Fargo banks.

Since Taking over Wachovia, Wells Fargo has employed about 600 new staff to work in its branches across the Mid-Atlantic region. This was a strategy to increase their market share in the region. The strategy has paid off so far with Wachovia surpassing BOA to become the biggest bank in the Washington, D.C. metro area. The bank realized over $3 billion in increased deposits. That gave Wachovia some 16.1% of the market in the area whiles BOA had 14.6% market share. The was revealed by data from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

To some financial analysts, the spree of hiring from the bank is some sign of the the recovery being made by the banking sector.

Many Washington area banks have announced that they will be hiring new staff this year.

New York – With the Libyan crisis continuing, the price of gas at the pumps continue to increase as crude oil prices continue to rise. In the past two weeks, the price of gas has seen an upward trend and analysts predict the prices to keep going upwards.

An AAA survey today shows that the average price for a gallon of gas nationwide has increased by six tenths of a cent today to $3.509.

During the past two weeks, gas prices have gone up every single day , with an increase of almost 34 cents in the period.

California motorists seem to be paying the highest price for a gallon of gasoline in the country. There, the average price is $3.897 per gallon. Hawaii and Alaska also have gas selling at over $3.80 at the pump.

The lowest average price in the nation is in Montana, where motorists are paying $3.186 per gallon. This is followed by Wyoming where it costs $3.189 per gallon to fill your tank.

The price of gas seems to be different from state to state based largely on local tax charges. However, the general direction $106 per barrel, which is a new 30-months high. The price increase is being fueled by the violence in Libya which is likely to continue for a while.

Expert analysts are predicting the price to continue rising. Peter Beutel of Cameron Hanover told CNN in an interview that he believe the average price of gas will be around the $3.80 per gallon mark.

He however expects the average price per gallon to stay under $4 unless there is a widespread political chaos in the Persian Gulf area.

A survey by Lundberg yesterday revealed that gas prices have increased by nearly $0.33 in 14 days. This is the second largest increase in pump prices in the gas market history.

The all new iPad 2

After all the rumors about iPad 2 release, date, it was launched yesterday by Apple founder Steve Jobs in California.

Wearing his traditional black crew neck sweater, Steve Jobs went over the features of the new iPad and how it’s miles aheard of it’s competitors like the Motorola Xoom and the Blackberry Playbook.

The first feature he highlighted was the iPad 2′s new faster chip known as the A5.

This processor makes the new iPad 2 much faster than the first one. It is 2x faster than the first edition iPad and the new graphics is also 9x faster in the iPad 2 than the first iPad.

The dual cor processor does not use any additional power than the previous one. Accoring to Jobs, the iPad 2 will be the first dual core tablet to mass ship.

Next Steve talked about the cameras. The iPad 2 spots dual cameras. One on the back and another in the front.

The ipad 2 also comes fitted with a gyroscope. It is also 33% thinner than the original ipad.  It is actually thinner than the iPhone 4.  It is also lighter than the old iPad.

Slimmer and lighter iPad 2 with Facetime

The new iPad also comes in 2 colors, which and black and Steve jobs revealed they will start shipping white colored iPads from day 1. It will also be availlable on AT&T and Verizon.

With all the new extra feutures and reduced size, you might think the battery life will also decrease. But Steve assures everyone the battery life will be 10 hours just like the old one.

Also the iPad 2 will maintain the same price as the iPad 1.  It’ll start selling at $499.

The iPad 3 will start shipping on March 11 in the U.S.A.

Other countries like the UK will start receiving their shippments from March 26.

The new iPad now has HDMI video output when you use the HDMI mirrored video ouptu accessory. You can view videos up to 1080p.

Accroding to Steve Jobs, the accessory that will be most popular will be the Smart Cover. It automatically wakes up the ipad when you lift it up and puts the iPad to sleep when you close it. It is hold in place magnetically. It’s very thin that it adds very litle weight to the ipad. It also cleans the screen. It comes in Polyethleen or leather.

Having seen the video, I’m positive it’ll be many people’s favorite accessory to add to the iPad. I just thoght to myself, this is real cool. It also comes in 5 different covers. The polyethleen covers will cost $39 and the leather smar covers will cost $69.

Apple also took the opportunity to introduce it’s new IOs 4.3. This will the the operating system on the iPad 2.

It enables you to use iTunes as a home theather by enabeling you to share your iPad with all your devices.

During the launch, apple also played with the Facetime application of the iPad 2.

Apple introduced two new apps. They are the iMovie for iPad. It comes with Precision editor, multitrack audio recording, New themes,  a universal app etc.

The iMovie app is a really cool full feature movie editing app for the iPad 2 and will cost $4.99 in the Appstore

The second app is Garageband. It has touch instruments, guitar amps and effects, 8 track recording and mixing,250+ loops and compatible with Mac version of the App.

It is quite an incredible litte app that can do so much. It’s mindblowing. And it will retail in the Appstore for $4.99 from March 11th.

Steve Jobbs declared 2011 as the year of the iPad 2.

However, we did not see the Thunderbolt connection that was rumored about.

Having seen the launch of the new iPad 2, I’m going to say this will be a tablet that is going to be hard to beat by competitors.