iPhone, iPad2 sales boost Apple earnings

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iPhone, iPad2 sales boost Apple earningsadvertisement?|?your ad hereApple Inc. is already the envy of the technology world. On Wednesday, it rubbed it in with quarterly results that had only one blemish: It couldn't make the new iPads fast enough. "We sold every iPad 2 we could make," Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer said. Apple sold 4.7 million iPads of both kinds in its latest quarter, below analyst expectations and the holiday quarter's sales. It launched the second version of the tablet computer two weeks before the end of the period. Apple said net income for its fiscal second quarter, which ended March 26, was $5.99 billion, or $6.40 per share. That's up 95 percent from $3.07 billion, or $3.33 per share, a year ago. Analysts polled by FactSet were expecting earnings of $5.37 per share. The results were lifted by the record sale of 18.65 million iPhones, millions more than analysts had expected. Verizon Wireless started selling the phone in the quarter, ending AT&T Inc.'s three-and-half-year period of being the only U.S. iPhone carrier.

Kindle to add books from U.S. libraries

Owners of the Kindle from Amazon.com will be able to download e-books from 11,000 U.S. libraries later this year, the company said Wednesday. Most U.S. libraries already provide e-books, which work with nearly all e-readers except the Kindle. They're also accessible on many smartphones and tablets such as the iPad. Amazon.com Inc. says it's working with OverDrive Inc., which runs e-book systems for public libraries, to make the system compatible with the Kindle. According to OverDrive, Kindle e-books will have the same lending terms as existing library e-books. Most libraries lend their books out for three weeks at a time. The e-books on Kindle will no longer open after that period of time.

Investors buy homes at risk of foreclosure

Investors drove up U.S. home sales last month, plunking down cash to grab cheap homes at risk of foreclosure. But purchases made by first-time homebuyers, who are crucial to a housing recovery, fell. Sales of previously occupied homes rose in March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.1 million, the National Association of Realtors said Wednesday. That's up 3.7 percent from 4.92 million in February. The pace is far below the 6 million homes a year that most economists say represents a healthy home sales market.

Washington Post offers custom news

The Washington Post Co., parent company of The Herald, is launching a news aggregation website called Trove that allows users to create their own news sites based on Facebook interests and customized subjects. Vijay Ravindran, chief digital officer of the Post Co., says the free website aims to be a first stop for news and a step toward understanding what the future of news looks like online. The site pulls users' interests from Facebook. Users also can create special channels on subjects they want to follow.