The new iPhone is expected to be bigger than iPhone 4S, the most recent version of the popular smartphone. 

The next generation iPhone will have larger screen that measures 4 inches from corner to corner, according to sources. All recent versions of the iPhones have 3.5 inches display. 

Apple also doubled the resolution to 640 x 960 pixels with the iPhone 4 and 4S, compared to 320 x 480 pixels with iPhone 3 and 3GS. 

Sources told that Apple, the world’s most valuable company, ordered larger display screens from suppliers in South Korea and Japan. 

Samsung, Apple’s principal competitor, unveiled its Galaxy Nexus smartphone with a 4.65-inch display, and Galaxy Note with a 5.3-inch. 

According to various reports, the new iPhone will go into production as soon as August, after the screen suppliers will get production orders from Apple, which could begin as soon as June. 

With so many options available, choosing the right checking account for you may be a daunting decision. There are a number of components to understand before choosing what bank and which particular account they offer is the right option for you.

Today, many people are opening new checking accounts, as the market is improving and consequently many banks are offering more attractive rates and conditions. There are almost limitless options of checking accounts to choose from. Many personal consumers may not be aware of all these options, only knowing the big banks like Bank of America, Chase, and Wells Fargo for example. While there may be temptation to open a personal checking account with Bank of America simply because they are a brand name and have branches in your area, this may be a big mistake. A number of these big banks are quietly introducing hidden fees on checking accounts. If your account does not meet the minimum balance or you overdraft your account, you may be subject to fees you are unaware of. These new fees received a considerable amount of negative press. Many consumers are closing their accounts with big banks and switching to more local banks with better ...

Sales for several big U.S. retailers, including Macy’s Inc., Target Corp., Costco Corp., Gap Inc., slowed in April. 

According to Thomson Reuters index, an average of April's results for 20 retailers rose 0.8 percent, compared with estimates for a 1.5 percent gain. Sales in March increased 4.3 percent. 

Target, the second largest discount chain in the U.S., dropped 2.1 percent to $56.74 today. Macy’s, the second largest department-store chain in the U.S, increased 0.4 percent to $41.43. 

Gap, the largest apparel retailer in the U.S., also lost 0.6 percent to $28.96. 

“There was a little bit of an optimism overhang coming into April that didn’t come to fruition,” said Joel Bines, a Dallas- based managing director in the retail practice at AlixPartners.

“The holiday shifts were especially difficult and there was cold weather along the East Coast towards the end of April, which is always a challenge.” 

Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said that the average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage fell to 3.88 percent last week, down from 3.90 percent in the prior week. 

The rate was 3.87 percent in February, compared with 4.78 percent a year ago. 

According to Freddie Mac, the 15-year fixed-rate mortgage declined to 3.12 percent in the most recent week from 3.13% in the prior week. 

Meanwhile, the average rate on the 5-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage increased to 2.85 percent from 2.78 percent. The 1-year Treasury-indexed ARM fell to 2.74 percent from 2.81 percent. 

The S&P/Case- Shiller index showed that home prices in 20 U.S. cities dropped 3.5 percent in February. 

According to the Realtors’ report, Pending Home Sales Index rose 4.1 percent from February and is now 12.8 percent higher than March of 2011.

Accounting software is an application that breaks and synthesizes accounting transactions into stages or steps that works within the main system. It creates simplicity in that one can choose to study or use just one of the stages.

How to purchase accounting software

There are various ways of going about acquiring accounting software. The process of acquisition is greatly affected by two factors: how complex or sophisticated the 

software would be and the other one is the cost of the software. The main ways of acquisition are;

I.               Development of one by the user

II.              Buying the software from another party

III.            Modifying the accounting software package

Areas involved in accounting software

Accounting software has a wide range of unit- modules that tackles different but specific areas of accounting. The areas covered are grouped into two major categories whereby each category also has its sub unit. The two categories are where the first one takes the most crucial parts of accounting software. They are where an organization or any company holds an account for all its money received, used for payment for expenditure and expenses of the company among others like fund accounting. The second category tackles ...

PepsiCo Inc., the second largest food and Beverage Company in the world, announced on Modnay that it partners with Twitter to provide streaming videos of live music concerts to Pepsi's followers on the social networking site. 

According to sources, the marketing push comes as Pepsi looks to refresh its business and win back soda drinkers from The Coca-Cola Co. Pepsi lost market share to his rival Coca-Cola in recent years. 

Pepsi and Coke are among a multitude of companies buying into social media's ability to strengthen their brands. 

Pepsi featured musicians including Michael Jackson, Ray Charles, MC Hammer, Britney Spears and Beyonce in its marketing. 

Pepsi enlisted social-media optimization company SocialFlow to do the real-time analysis of pop culture conversations on Twitter, Facebook and other sites, according to sources. 

Terms of the deal with Twitter were not disclosed.

Citizens Bank, one of the largest banks in the United States, agreed to pay $137.5 million to settle the lawsuit, which was filed in the Federal District Court in Miami. 

The lawsuit, part of multidistrict litigation involving more than 30 different banks, accused the bank of manipulating its customers’ debt card and ATM transactions in order to generate excess overdraft fee revenues, according to sources. 

Citizens joins Bank of America Corp, JPMorgan Chase & Co and several smaller lenders in settling litigation over the fees. 

Capital One Financial Corp, Citigroup Inc., PNC Financial Services Group Inc., US Bancorp and Wells Fargo & Co are among large banks that have not settled. 

Citizens Bank is a part of Citizens Financial Group Inc., the Providence-based financial services company owned by the Royal Bank of Scotland Group. It operates more than 1,500 retail banking branches throughout the Northeast, the mid-Atlantic and the Midwest.

Starbucks Corporation, the world’s largest coffeehouse company, announced on Monday that it plans to open soon a store inside each of the six Disney parks in California and Florida. 

“Starbucks and Disney have many things in common,” said Arthur Rubinfeld, president of global development at Starbucks. 

“We share a passion for providing excellent customer service, delivering high quality in everything we do, and ensuring that every experience with our brand exceeds our customers’ expectations.” 

The company plans to open first of six Starbucks stores at Disney California Adventure this summer.

According to sources, the cafe will be located near the park entrance and will be decorated with Spanish tiles, stained glass and dark wood paneling to fit that theme.

The cups will also be co-branded. The coffee chain said its stores may offer a "Mickey Mouse cookie or two." 

The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed by Starbucks Corp. and Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, a unit of The Walt Disney Co. 

Starbucks is the largest coffeehouse company in the world, with more than 19,500 stores in 58 countries, including 12,811 in the United States, according to sources. 

According to a new report from Korea, Apple's next-generation iPhone will replace its glass back with a super-durable alloy called Liquidmetal. 

“Liquidmetal allows precision parts to be fabricated similar to plastic injection molding, but with similar properties to metal,” IHS senior principal analyst Kevin Keller said. 

The new iPhone will be made of “zirconium, titanium, nickel, copper” and it will have a “surface smooth like liquid”, according to report published on Wednesday. 

The material would offer the iPhone some benefits – it is light, but also highly resistant to external impacts and corrosion. 

According to AppleInsider, the company paid $20 million in the deal. 

The next iPhone will be unveiled at Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference, which will take place in SanFrancisco in June.

ROCKLAND, Mass., Apr 19, 2012 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Today Rockland Trust announced it won J.D. Power and Associates U.S. Retail Banking Satisfaction Study for New England Banks. Rockland Trust ranked the highest of all New England banks with a score of 811 out of 1,000. They improved over last year’s performance by 22 points.

More details here: 

Rockland Trust Ranks Highest in J.D. Power and Associates' 2012 Customer Satisfaction Study among All New England Banks