National / International News

Every dog owner in England will have to microchip their animal by April 2016 under government plans aimed at cutting the growing number of strays.

Home Office minister Jeremy Browne is to warn people who set up forced marriages and commit so-called "honour crimes" that there "cannot be a pick-and-mix approach" to living in the UK.

A chef from Glasgow who murdered his partner before a dinner party after she told him that she had already eaten is jailed for life.

Airbnb has been accused of running "illegal hotels". But why are people willing to open their doors to strangers, or to stay with them?

A French-owned tanker seized by pirates off Ivory Coast on Sunday is freed and two crewmen are receiving medical treatment , the vessel's owner says.

On the 55th anniversary of the Munich air disaster, Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson describes how it still affects him.

Stephanie Flanders looks at the fiscal choices from the IFS

Mexican authorities say they are determined to catch a gang who raped six Spanish tourists in the holiday resort of Acapulco.

Community hospitals earmarked for closure in north Wales are implementing change too quickly by already refusing new patients, says a Liberal Democrat AM.

Stephen Fry talks about putting the Bafta audience at ease, twitter alerts, and how he manages his mood swings.

More 20mph zones should be introduced on roads in built-up areas to protect pedestrians, and particularly children, say a group of Welsh assembly members.

A Picasso portrait of the artist's mistress, Marie-Therese Walter, has been sold for £28.6m at Sotheby's.

At least five people are reported killed as a tsunami hits the Solomon Islands, after a powerful earthquake that sparked warnings across the Pacific.

UK house prices registered their first annual rise since October 2010, rising by 1.3% in January compared with a year earlier, the Halifax says.

Will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas is happy to admit he's a tech geek. The musician, producer, philanthropist now has the title Director of Creative Innovation at the chipmaker Intel.

This week, we are talking to notable folks in the tech world about what could be the next digital frontier -- not the Internet of webpages, but the Internet of things, of interconnected objects.  We caught up with Will.i.am at the recent MacWorld/iWorld conference in San Francisco to get a sense of his creative process and ask him if there's any truth to reports of him moving out of music to learn coding -- writing software with computer languages.

On his future career path:

"I'm not going to quit music, I'm going to continue to make music. But I want to code because I would like to contribute to how music is experienced, and the way to do that is through coding."

On the Internet of things:

"Everywhere that we go in the world, the things that we come across aren't intelligent. Like this wall that I'm looking at, it's just separating the room from the other side. In actuality, that wall should be intelligent. Nobody thinks of it like that. That's why when you go into a house, you need to put a TV on it, instead of the wall being the display system. I think what's going to come is the Internet of things...The next ten years is nuts. That's why I want to code."

To hear Will.i.am share his thoughts on how technology will influence music and other everyday experiences, click on the audio player above. And listen to our previous interview with Will.i.am where he discusses his work to bring better science and technology education to U.S. schools.

England captain Steven Gerrard says midfielder Jack Wilshere has the potential to become one of the world's top players.

This final note today, ripped from my Twitter timeline. We learned this morning former Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's in talks for book contract.

So Twitter being Twitter, there was a flood of possible titles for what actually could turn out to be a pretty good read. "Crime and No Punishment" was one. "Midnight in the Garden of Goldman and Evil." "Saving Giant Privates."

My favorite, from Ben Smith at Politico:

The World According to TARP #geithnerbooktitles

— Ben White (@morningmoneyben) February 6, 2013
Send us yours. Comment below or tweet us @MarketplaceAPM. You can get me at @kairyssdal.

Films built around existing characters from the Star Wars universe are being developed alongside the new trilogy of films, the Walt Disney studio reveals.

Samsung’s been in the headlines this year, in part, because of its epic clash with Apple. The two have been duking it out for the number one spot in smart phones. 

But despite the fact that Samsung builds the “Galaxy,” one of the world’s most popular smartphones, not a lot is known about the company in Silicon Valley. That’s because most of its brain power -- its research and development -- is based in its homeland Korea.

The comany hopes to change that. It's building a 1.1 milion square foot "R&D Center" and dedicating $100 million to fund emerging technologies. 

"Being in Silicon Valley is really critical because this is the epicenter of disruptive forces," said Young Sohn, the company's chief strategy officer. 

Silicon Valley attracts tech talent from around the world and Sohn says tapping into that, will determine the company’s success.

Mark Cannice, a professor of entrepreneurship and innovation at the University of San Francisco, thinks Samsung is making a smart move by starting a venture capital fund in the Valley. 

"If you think about fashion New York comes to mind, if you think about movies, Hollywood of course and if you think about innovation, you think about Silicon Valley," says Cannice.

He adds that Samsung is making a statement. That despite its varied businesses -- it builds everything from ships to office buildings -- it plans to be a leader in technology.

Wreckage believed to be from the 2011 Japanese tsunami is washing up thousands of miles away in Alaska. The debris isn't just unsightly — it poses environmental worries for the landscape and animals. One conservationist says the problem may be worse than the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

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