Business news for Mon, 24 Dec 2007 & with word internet. 16 news.

Airlines and upstarts seeking to deliver high-speed Internet services to passengers say they've learned from Boeing's decision to pull the plug on a similar service.

UNITED States Internet sales rose at the slowest pace on record as discounts cut revenue in the final days of the holiday shopping season. Online spending from November 1 through December 21 increased 19 percent from the same period a year earlier to $26.3 billion, Reston, Virginia-based ComScore Inc said yesterday. Sales trailed last year's 26 percent growth and the research firm's forecast for a 20 percent gain during this year's holidays, Bloomberg News said. Consumers have limited spending growth this year as gasoline and food prices rise and mortgage defaults increase. The Reuters/University of Michigan final index of consumer sentiment for December dropped to 75.5, the lowest since October 2005. "This year will be the year of the discount," Fred Crawford, managing director at AlixPartners LLP, told Bloomberg Television on December 21. AlixPartners is a consulting firm based in Southfield, Michigan. ComScore hasn't recorded growth of less than 20 percent since

SHANDA Interactive Entertainment, Intel Corp and Sichuan Changhong Electric have established an alliance to develop the market of online games on Web-linked TVs, the three sides said yesterday in Shanghai. The companies launched an online table tennis game, available both on computer and TV platforms, to catch the sport game booms ahead of the Beijing Olympic Games next year. According to the agreements, Shanda will provide content including games, Intel will provide related chip and chipset technology, while Changhong - China's second biggest TV maker - will produce TVs with Internet access and built-in hard disk storage, the companies said. "Shanda is proud to become content provider and the three sides will jointly promote the games including the new table tennis game X-Up," said Tom Zhang, Shanda's senior vice president. The project has similarities to Shanda's previous EZ-Center plan, which allowed users to access Internet and games on TV with a

Filtering, etiquette questions arise as Web access comes to planes.

Rising demand for star sportswriters, driven by rising television and Internet revenue, is leading to intense competition to hire talent.

The past 12 months marked another remarkable year in law and technology featuring business developments, policy decisions, lawsuits, court rulings and new legislation that will have a profound long-term impact on the Internet in Canada. From A to Z, there was rarely a dull moment in 2007.

THE number of Chinese broadband users has hit 122 million, the highest in the world, Xinhua news agency reported yesterday, citing an official from the information industry authority. Sixty percent of the netizens surfed on the Internet via broadband, said Jiang Yaoping, vice minister of the ministry of information industry, at a work conference of China Telecommunications Corporation on Saturday. Last year, more than 30 percent of China Telecom's income came from non-phone services, rising from 5.5 percent in 2002, the report said. One-third of the new broadband users are farmers, where the demand for the service is high, China Telecom officials said. The increased user number boosted the non-voice income of fixed-phone carriers, accelerating the transformation of traditional phone carriers into comprehensive information service providers, the report said.

A few simple changes--and some useful keyboard shortcuts--let you work faster and smarter in your browser.

Websites generate purchases by allowing users of products to pitch to their peers. Laura Sweet may be the Internet's Oprah Winfrey -- for objects shaped like guns, that is.

Airlines and service providers ponder what passengers can use and how to keep them from annoying their neighbors.

Airlines, providers learned lessons from Boeing's experience Airlines and service providers seeking to deliver high-speed Internet services to passengers say they have learned from Boeing Co.'s 2006 decision to pull the plug on its ambitions to outfit its planes with a similar service.

A lot has changed in the 20 years since DirectBuy of Boston South opened its doors. For starters, nobody had heard of e-mail or the Internet, the fax machine was being haled as the exciting breakthrough in office equipment and the Berlin Wall was still standing.

It's too late to order broadband Internet access in time for Christmas. Too bad, especially for those who'll find a videogame console under the tree tomorrow. If you can't hook it up to the Internet, you're missing at least half the fun.

NEW YORK -- Seat 17D is yapping endlessly on an Internet phone call. Seat 16F is flaming Seat 16D with expletive-laden chats. Seat 16E is too busy surfing porn sites to care. Seat 17C just wants to sleep.

Shareholders in NetB2B2 have been unhappy over the handling of the internet business-to-business services group's fundraising plans, but failed to hijack the extraordinary general meeting last week.

As airlines are gearing up to offer Internet service in the skies, many questions remain over what limitations, if any, will be imposed on passengers.