In the first quarter of the fiscal year (ended on Dec 27th) the earning level of Apple Inc. up to $1.61 billion, which was higher than the previous year, i.e. $1.58 billion. The difference was evident in the shares too i.e., $1.76 per share last year and $1.78 per share this year.

Apple’s share value declined previously with the much talked about health conditions of CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs. It has been a great concern for investors as Steve plays a vital part in each process of idealizing, designing, manufacturing, launching and marketing of a new product.

It has been also reported by the Wall Street Journal that an inquiry will undergo regarding the disclosure of Steve’s health. Generally, such matters are not a concern of U.S Securities and Exchange Commission, which will be holding the inquiry. But it is different for Apple, as it is thought that the obvious health conditions had been hidden previously to gain publicity.

Associate dean of the Yale University School of Management, Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, said, “Steve Jobs himself thinks the Steve Jobs mystique is of value — otherwise, why not have other people introduce those products over the past 10 years?”, “Steve Jobs, Martha Stewart and Donald Trump have all made the boss the brand. The boss is the brand at Apple.”

The story released today has Jonathan Miller, former CEO of AOL, out to pitch private equity fund for raising $28 – $30 billion in an attempt to acquire Yahoo.

Miller, in association with his partner at Velocity Interactive Group, Ross Levinsohn, was also holding the center stage in the weekend story released by The Times.

Sources reveal that while Levinsohn & Miller have been maintaining regular contacts with Microsoft & Yahoo shareholders and executives for months in regards to the future of Yahoo, they haven’t yet made any discussions with private equity funds for raising capital in order to take over the organization.

Levinsohn & Miller, with other partners of Velocity, have been busy in raising a $300m fund over the period of last year. And with the reports, they have only received commitment for $150m. So, try to raise $30b for taking over Yahoo appears more than far-fetched.

Another reason, which confirms the story to be incorrect, is that the story makes little sense – Miller’s bounded with AOL by a non-compete agreement. It prohibits him to serve as employee or board member of particular companies, which include Yahoo!. In fact, this non-compete agreement is amongst the reasons why he wasn’t able to join the board at Yahoo last summer. This agreement wouldn’t terminate until coming March. Henceforth, getting into any term deals with Yahoo! is impossible, especially without explicit consent of AOL. They weren’t in the position to give the permission last summer. There’s no ground for believing that they’ll allow it now.

As a consequence to WSJ’s story – there was a jump in Yahoo’s stock by around 11.7%, prior to coming down at the end. Investors lost huge sum and SEC will be interested in knowing the source of this news.

With improved YouTube and a wider range of mobile phones support, the new Opera beta offers a more personalised mobile web experience.

A beefed up Opera Link that allows you to share notes and bookmarks between your mobile and your Pc are some other improvements that have been included.

“Opera’s CEO, Jon von Tetzchner, the CEO of Opera says that: “A true revolution is really going on and it can be easily observed from the number of people who are using Opera Mini worldwide. People want to visit websites with their devices they have today.”

“We have always been focusing on developing a faster and personal browsing experience. We can hope that Opera Mini 4.2 beta takes web browsing to its next level.”

More than 20 million unique users worldwide use Opera Mini every month and the good thing about it is that it’s free and you have to pay not even a single penny for it.”

A report in New Media Age tells that the online electronics retailer will start its music service in October. It’s, indeed, quite delightful for music labels who consider that Apple’s iTunes service has a monopoly on web music downloads.

On yesterday, 7 digital announced that it has become the first online store in the UK to offer 100% MP3 tracks for UK audience. In a statement, 7digital’s CEO said that he was happy about Amazon joining of the music download brigade as it would help to open up the MP3 market.

“Now people will definitely have more to decide on instead of 800 pound Apple’s iTunes gorilla.”

It is interesting to note that NMA also tells that they are under good authority to mention that MySpace Music couldn’t reach the UK by the early next year.

This new ad-funded music service from Amazon would feature free downloads and streamed music tracks from Amazon. Currently, three major music labels can be seen on board while EMI is in the negotiations stage still.