US housing started to fall in February from a three year high while the building permits jumped last month to the highest level in more than a year. 

According to Commerce Department, building permits climbed 5.1% last month to an annual rate of 717,000. It was the highest level since the middle of the last recession in October 2008. 

Housing started to drop 1.1% to a rate of 680,000 units from January, but it marked a 35% increase from a year earlier. 

Construction of single-family houses fell almost 10% in February, being the biggest decrease in a year, according to today’s reports. The multi-family homes construction, including townhouses and apartment’s buildings, increased 21% to an annual rate of 241,000. 

Most analysts expect the housing market to continue slightly to recover in 2012. It could take several years for the housing industry to full recovery. 

Many Iranian banks were disconnected from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) on Thursday, leaving 

citizens without a way to make a money transfer in or out of the country securely and quickly. 

According to sources, 30 Iranian banks have sanctioned by the European Union to discontinue its service. 

“Disconnecting banks is an extraordinary and unprecedented step for Swift. It is a direct result of international and multilateral action to intensify financial sanctions against Iran,” said Lazaro Campos, the chief executive of  SWIFT. 

“The EU-sanctioned Iranian financial institutions and the SWIFT customer community have been notified of the disconnection” Lazaro Campos said.

The experts said that Iran can continue to sell oil to India, China and other oil customers but the payment method will be extremely complicated without access to any international bank for money transaction. 

Time on web page means the period of time that a person spends on a page. It is very important to pay attention to the number of visitors and amount of time that a visitor spends on your webpage. 

If the readers spend longer time on your page it can give you good rankings in Google.   It means that you are providing the kind of information that searchers are trying to locate with their searches. 

If your visitor spends a few seconds on your page and moves to another website, it means your site doesn’t have enough or good information that they are looking for. 

Google will reduce your ranking on search engine results pages if the visitors don’t find the information on your website. 

You have to take some measures for increasing the traffic and the length of time that a visitor spends on your site. 

Here are some tips that you have take in consideration: 

-          type of published content on your website

-          length of content: short articles will take just few minutes for your visitor to read it

-          choosing the right keywords for your webpage  

-          photos, images or video may increase significantly ...

On Wednesday, Apple announced upgrades to the Apple TV at the special event inSan Francisco. 

While the new Apple TV looks just like the old Apple TV, the new version supports 1080p and has a new interface. 

According to sources, Apple said the new iteration of the Apple TV device features an updated user interface that makes it easier to access purchased movies, TV shows and music with iTunes Match from iCloud.  

“People are going to love streaming movies and TV shows in 1080p with the new Apple TV, and photos look beautiful displayed at the maximum resolution of your TV,” said Philip Schiller, Apple worldwide senior VP of marketing. “Apple TV is easier than ever to use with its new icon-based interface and the ability to access your purchased movies, TV shows and music right from iCloud.” 

The new Apple TV unveiled yesterday will be available on March 16 at $99 suggested retail. 

According to the BBC, two men in theUK, 26-year-old James Marks and 25-year-old James McCormick, were arrested last spring for illegally downloading a large number of Michael Jackson tracks from record company Sony Music. 

The two appeared Friday in a British court to deny the copyright offenses. The suspects were remanded on bail and were due to stand trial in January 2013. 

Sony Music paid $250 million for a seven-year deal for the rights to singer’s albums the latest report says. 

According to British media reports, the hackers accessed Sony’s servers in April last year, forcing the company to shut down several of its online gaming networks.  

The company later said that personal data from about 77 million customers were compromised in the cyber attack, including names, home addresses, usernames and passwords.

The talented young singer fromCanada, Justin Bieber, who celebrates his 18th birthday today, is gifting himself two Los Angeles mansions, one for himself and one for his mother, according to newspapers. 

At just 16 years old Justin Bieber received the birthday present of his dreams – a luxury 1.7 million condo in the heart of Los Angeles. Justin Bieber’s house looks comfortable with three large bedrooms, four bathrooms and a mix of bright and dark colors, as we can see in some online pictures. 

The fully decorated and renovated contemporary apartment is around 2,400 square feet and features gleaming white marble floors, according to the Real Estalker. 

TMZ reports that Bieber has actually three homes:  two of which are inCalabasas,Calif.-   where the Kardashians and Britney Spears call home - and one in Hollywood, which is currently being rented by Ashton Kutcher. The Hollywood home is listed for $10 million, while the other two are on the market for $6 million and $8 million. 

Bulk emails are a powerful marketing tool when they are done right. Experts agree that bulk email should be based on user permission rather than unsolicited or spam. The risk to business with spam is great and the senders' web site and email could be de-listed by their severs if there are user complaints. Losing even a simple web site is throwing away thousands of dollars but the loss of reputation of a company could be even greater. That is why most big companies make sure that their emails are permission based. Also while seeking permission, it is important to keep in mind that if a person fills out a form to download something from the landing page, it does not mean that the person has given permission for him to be emailed with promotional offers. Companies should not look at people giving out their contact address initially to get an advertised benefit as an open invitation to invade their inboxes. The best strategy is to get their explicit permission beforehand so that the emails can be sent. Otherwise the number of spam hits might be great and that ...

On Tuesday, Apple Inc invited journalists to a special event next Wednesday in San Francisco. 

An image of an iPad 2 with higher resolution display on the invitation marks Apple’s event to announce a new model of iPad. 

The invitations clearly show some clues about iPad 3, before the new device is actually announced.  Even the text on the invitations gives one clue about the new iPad: “We have something you really need to see. And touch.” 

Apple didn’t give any other details on the new device. The company is widely expected to reveal the third version of the iPad on March 7. 

According to sources, the expected event will be held at the Yerba Buena Center for Arts Theatre at 10 AM. 

President Barack Obama announced that he will use a second term to support immigration reform. 

“My presidency is not over. I've got another five years coming up. We're going to get this done.” Obama said in an interview.  

Obama also made a reference to his Republican candidate rival, Mitt Romney, who disagrees with legislation that would give the possibility to illegal immigrants to obtain citizenship. 

“So far, have we haven't seen any of the Republican candidates even support immigration reform,” Obama said. “In fact, their leading candidate said he would veto even the Dream Act, much less comprehensive immigration reform.” 

In addition, Obama said he is not “the king” but he is the president who can “only implement those laws that are passed through Congress." 

According to the New York Times, a campaign for the Global Association of Risk Professionals is centered on photographs that liken the effects of the financial crisis to getting punched in the face. This campaign is trying to find more ways to reduce the marketing risk. 

The campaign is focused on social media, search, print, online and mobile ads, and radio commercials. The advertisements are successfully running in several countries such as United States, Britain, China, India and Singapore. 

The new ads are also being addressed to organizations, institutions and employers, asking them to accept certification as a seal of approval. 

“Unforeseen risk is everywhere,” one ad begins. “You can find it within an organization or throughout the global economy.” 

“That’s why more companies are turning to certified financial risk managers,” the ad continues.  

According to a nonprofit organization known as Garp, there are numerous certified financial risk managers world wide, “more than 21,000.”