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Apple new CEO Tim Cook has been  given a pay package worth £240 million ($378 million) in 2011, most of which came in shares payable in the coming years.Apple’s board granted Mr Cook 1 million restricted stock units, worth $376m, to signal its confidence in him when he took over from Steve Jobs in August.

His salary and performance bonus, about £540,000 ($900,000) each, made up the rest, a company filing showed.

Mr Jobs, who died in October, owned 5.5 million Apple shares.

He famously received a salary of only $1 a year.

Mr Cook will receive half of the shares in 2016 and half in 2021.

Analysts expect the Apple chief to have been the highest paid chief executive in the US in 2011.

The best paid boss in 2010 was Viacom head Philippe Dauman, with an £54.5 million ($84.5 million) haul based on a new contract that granted him shares and stock options.

Apple reported record breaking profits for the three months to 31 December 2011 of £8.36 billion ($13.06 billion)- more than doubling  up 118% from the same period in 2010.The company also sold 37 million iPhones- more than twice as many as they sold in the last quarter of 2010.

“Apple’s momentum is incredibly strong, and we have some amazing new products in the pipeline,” said chief executive Tim Cook.

The firm is expected to release its iPad 3 in March this year.

“We are very happy to have generated over $17.5bn in cash flow from operations during the December quarter,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO.

“Looking ahead to the second fiscal quarter of 2012, we expect revenue of about £20.96 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share of about £5.48 ($8.50).”

Apple saw strong sales for both its iPads and its Mac range of computers, rising 111% and 26% respectively compared to the same period in 2010.

Google was the most visited website with US users in 2011 but Facebook was not far behind according to market researchers.Nielsen suggests more than 153 million visitors clicked onto Google branded pages each month, as Facebook attracted close to 138 million visitors.

Yahoo came third with about 130 million visitors each month.

But analysts warned Yahoo’s tally might be at risk if young people continued to turn away from web-based email.

The study is based on data collected between January and October and included visits from home and work computers. It involved a sample from a global panel of 200,000 people.

Website                                  Unique visitors per month
1. Google                                        153,441,000
2. Facebook                                     137,644,000
3. Yahoo                                         130,121,000
4. MSN/WindowsLive/Bing                 115,890,000
5. YouTube                                     106,692,000
6. Microsoft                                      83,691,000
7. AOL Media Network                        74,633,000
8. Wikipedia                                      62,097,000
9. Apple                                           61,608,000
10. Ask Search Network                     60,552,000

Source: Nielsen

Although Google trumped Facebook as the most popular web brand, the search giant’s Google+ network came far behind Mark Zuckerberg’s site in Nielsen’s ranking of the most popular social networks and blogs.

Google+ came eighth in the list with 8.02m unique monthly visitors.

That also put it behind Google’s weblog publishing tool Blogger, as well as Twitter, Wordspace, Myspace, Linkedin and Tumblr.

Google’s YouTube was identified as the most popular destination for online videos, attracting more than three times the number of monthly visitors as the music video service Vevo.

While Yahoo maintained its position as one of the top three web brands, an earlier study cast doubt over its ability to retain the position over coming years as it’s email system faces a declining market share.

Independent estimates suggest more than 6.8 million Android or Apple iOS smartphones were activated on Christmas Day – more than double last year’s number.More than 3.7m Android devices were activated over the Christmas weekend, Google has revealed.

Industry experts believe the rise is partly because entry level smartphones have become cheaper.

The statistics, from Flurry Analytics, suggested 242 million apps were also downloaded on the same day.

The peak time for downloading new apps on Christmas Day was between 7pm and 10pm, the company said.

It gathered its data via its analytics tool which monitored downloads and usage of 140,000 apps in both Google’s Android Market and Apple’s App Store.

Flurry Analytics did not break down numbers for the individual operating systems.

It said the figures showed an increase in activations of 353% when compared to the daily average between 1 and 20 December. App downloads were up 125% over the same period.

The Android operating system can be found on a wide range of models produced by many different manufacturers, whereas Apple’s iOS is only found on iPhone, iPad and certain models of its iPod music player.

Demand for the iPhone has reached such a level that China based manufacturer Foxconn is looking to double production to 400,000 units per day, China Daily reported.

Jonathan Ive, Apple’s head of design, has been awarded a knighthood in the New Year Honours list.Mr Ive, who can now call himself Sir Jonathan has been made a Knight Commander of the British Empire (KBE).

Raised in Chingford, Mr Ive began working for Apple in 1992 and since then has been the brains behind many of its products.

He described the honour as “absolutely thrilling” and said he was “both humbled and sincerely grateful”.

Mr Ive added: “I am keenly aware that I benefit from a wonderful tradition in the UK of designing and making. I discovered at an early age that all I’ve ever wanted to do is design.”

Mr Ive has been lauded for the tight fit between form and function seen in Apple gadgets such as the iPod and iPhone.

Born in February 1967, Mr Ive inherited a love of making things from his father, a silversmith, and reportedly spent much of his youth taking things apart to see how they worked.

From the age of 14, he said, he knew he was interested in drawing and making “stuff” and this led him to Northumbria Polytechnic – now Northumbria University – where he studied industrial design.

On graduation he started work as a commercial designer and then, with three friends, founded a design agency called Tangerine.

One of the clients for the agency was Apple which was so impressed with the work he did on a prototype notebook that it offered him a full time job.

Mr Ive was apparently frustrated during his early years at Apple as the company was then suffering a decline. Everything changed, however, in 1995 when Steve Jobs returned to the company he helped found.

Mr Jobs described Mr Ive as his “spiritual partner” in the recent biography of the Apple co-founder written by Walter Isaacson. However, it also said that Mr Ive was “hurt” by Mr Jobs taking credit for innovations that came from the design team.

Mr Ive’s eye for design combined effectively with Mr Jobs’ legendary attention to detail and the products that have emerged from the company since the late 1990s have turned Apple into the biggest and most influential technology company on the planet.

The knighthood is the second time Mr Ive has been recognised in the honour’s list. In 2005 he was made a Commander of the British Empire (CBE).

Apple and five publishers are to be investigated over claimed anti-competitive practice in the ebook market, says the European Union’s anti-trust watchdog.As well as Apple, the inquiry will also examine Hachette Livre, Penguin, Harper Collins, Simon & Schuster and Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holzbrinck.

The Commission said it would focus on alleged illegal agreements restricting competition in the EU.

The UK’s Office of Fair Trading has already carried out a similar inquiry.

The character and terms of agreements that the companies made with agencies are to be examined for breaches of EU rules on cartels, the Commission said.

The Office of Fair Trading has now finished its own investigation, but continues to work closely with the Commission, which is extending the scope of the inquiry across the whole of Europe.

The Commission carried out “unannounced inspections” on the companies in March 2011 as part of its investigations at premises in several European countries.

Apple’s iBook store, which supplies ebooks to the company’s iPad tablet computer and the iPhone, is likely to come under scrutiny.

Google’s Chrome has overtaken Mozilla’s Firefox as the world’s number two browser behind Microsoft’s Internet Explorer last month, according StatCounter. The findings quote Chrome’s worldwide market share at 25.69% and Firefox’s at 25.23%. Internet Explorer, according to the same findings, dominates worldwide market share at 40.63%.

In the U.S., meanwhile, Chrome is still number three with 17.3%, a 6.41% jump compared to last November. Internet Explorer held the top spot with 50.66% and grew by 0.42%. Firefox was second with 20.09%.

Internet Explorer’s commanding lead has been challenged by the browser’s near absence from smartphones and tablets.

Last month, another researcher, Netmarketshare, reported that Internet Explorer’s share dipped below 50% for the first time.

Safari, Apple’s default browser on the iPhone and the iPad, claimed 62.17% of mobile traffic. Internet Explorer, meanwhile, had 52.63% of desktop traffic, according to the researcher.

Chrome may be coming to Google’s mobile Android platform soon, according to reports. The 3-year-old browser’s growth, which benefits from being promoted on Google.com, hit 200 million users in October.

Chrome also became the most popular browser for accessing Mashable in August.

Online sales rose faster than expected in the US on Black Friday, according to surveys- with more expected next week.Internet sales totalled £524 million ($816 million), a 26% gain on last year, said Comscore. IBM Coremetrics put the rise at 24%.

Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, is treated by many retailers as the start of the Christmas shopping season. They offer one-off discounts to mark the occasion.

Analysts said heavy promotional activity helped drive demand.

By comparison, a report by Shoppertrak suggested that in-store Black Friday sales were up by 7% on last year, at £7.12 billion ($11.4 billion).

Around 50 million Americans visited online retail sites on Friday, according to Comscore.

It said Amazon was the most popular destination, with 50% more visitors than any other retailer.

Walmart, Best Buy, Target and Apple were next in line, said the analytics company.

“Despite some analysts’ predictions that the flurry of brick-and-mortar retailers opening their doors early for Black Friday would pull dollars from online retail, we still saw a banner day for e-commerce,” said Comscore’s chairman, Gian Fulgoni.

IBM Coremetrics also noted a trend towards shopping on smartphones and tablet computers.

It said Black Friday purchases made on mobile devices had accounted for 9.8% of all online sales, compared with 3.2% last year.

IBM described mobile shoppers as having had a “laser focus” since they had been more likely to view a single page on a retailer’s site rather than browse what else was for sale.

IBM said Apple’s iPhone and iPad had generated the most mobile internet visits to online stores, accounting for more than double the traffic originating from devices running Google’s Android system.

The company also noted a jump in Black Friday related chatter on social networks. It recorded a 110% rise in discussion volumes after consumers had shared tips on how to secure products before they sold out and the best places to park.

Friday’s internet sales are expected to be eclipsed today on what is referred to as Cyber Monday – which many experts believe will be the US’s busiest online shopping day of the year.

Close to 123 million Americans plan to make an online purchase according to a survey commissioned by the US National Retail Federation, an industry lobby group. That would be a 15% increase on last year.

NRF said nearly eight in ten online retailers would run special promotions including “flash sales that last an hour” and “free shipping offers”.

The federation also highlighted the shift to mobile devices, saying it expected 17.8 million Americans to use them to shop today, nearly five times the number in 2009.

“Retailers have invested heavily in mobile apps and related content as the appetite for Cyber Monday shopping through smartphones and tablets continues to rise,” said Vicki Cantrell, executive director of the NRF’s website shop.org.

UK internet retailers said it was less clear which day will be the UK’s busiest online shopping day this year.

“Over the last couple of years we have seen a fortnight of peak activity over the period corresponding to both this and next week,” said Andy Mulcahy, a spokesman for the industry body Interactive Media in Retail Group (IMRG).

“We expect £3.72bn will be spent online over the two week period.”

Mr Mulcahy said that although some retailers are trying to generate interest in the idea of a cyber event in the UK, but they are split over which day to mark.

Visa Europe said it believed today will be the UK’s busiest internet shopping day, with £303m spent online.

eBay has forecast that it would experience its peak in activity this Sunday with more than 5.5 million people expected to log onto the UK version of its auction website.

Amazon said it expected to experience more demand the following day.

“In recent years, the first Monday in December has been Amazon.co.uk’s busiest day with orders for over 2.3 million items being placed on Monday 6th December last year,” said Christopher North, the website’s managing director.

Apple has met environmental groups in China in a bid to improve concerns about pollution caused by it’s Chinese manufacturers. Apple has identified China as one of the key markets for its future expansion and growth plans

The move comes after a report in August alleged that some Apple manufacturers were discharging harmful pollutants into the environment.

The Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE) said the technology giant had shared its plans to address the issues during the talks.

The IPE said Apple did not disclose the identity of its suppliers, but it was confident that the US company will work to ensure that its partners comply with environmental regulations.

Although Apple refused to comment on specific talks, its Beijing-based spokeswoman, Carolyn Wu, told the BBC that the company conducts regular audits of its suppliers.

According to its Supplier Responsibility report, Apple conducted such checks at 127 different facilities last year.

The company also said that it required its suppliers to resolve any violation within 90 days.

“Apple is committed to driving the highest standards of social responsibility throughout our supply chain,” Ms Wu said.

“We require that our suppliers provide safe working conditions, treat workers with dignity and respect, and use environmentally responsible manufacturing processes wherever Apple products are made.”

UK chip designer ARM has launched a new processor, which should allow manufacturers to make cheaper smartphones.The company hopes the Cortex A7 will enable a mobile computing revolution in developing countries where current technologies are often unaffordable.

Consumers in developed countries should also see a benefit.

The ultra-efficient chip can be paired with more powerful processors in a “hybrid” model to reduce power use.

ARM’s designs are used in approximately 95% of the world’s smartphones.

A range of big name manufacturers have already signed-up to use the A7 processor along with the company’s “big.LITTLE” architecture.

Samsung, LG, NVidia and Texas Instruments were among those to throw their weight behind the technology.

Apple is also known to make use of ARM-designed chips in its mobile devices, although it has historically been reluctant to say so publicly.

Used as the sole processor in a smartphone, the A7 is said to offer comparable power to current chips at a fraction of the price, while consuming much less battery power.

Its silicon core is only one-fifth of the size of existing technologies, allowing a reduced production price, according to ARM chief executive Warren East.

“You typically make chips on a silicon wafer and it costs roughly the same amount of money for each wafer. If you can get 2,000 devices on a wafer or 1,000 devices on a wafer it makes a huge difference to the cost per device,” he told BBC News.

“We can see the developed world moving on and mobile being the nexus for all sort of consumer electronics. In the Bric countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) we are seeing catch-up.

“As we look forward these smartphones are going to be totally ubiquitous and in the much less developed areas, such as Africa, you will see smartphones becoming tools that people use to make their lives easier.”

Mr East said that the trend would happen regardless of intervention, but cheaper devices would greatly accelerate that, enabling smartphones to be produced for under $100 (£60) by 2013 or 2014.

In countries where price is less of an issue, the Cortex A7 may be combined with high end mobile processors to offer a powerful, yet energy-efficient package, ARM said.

For less demanding tasks such as checking in the background for email and social networking updates, the A7 processor would handle the work.

Using a technology known as big.LITTLE, the phone would instantly switch over to chips such as the Cortex-A15 when more horsepower was needed.

Although ARM currently enjoys a dominant position in the smartphone and tablet markets, the Cambridge-based firm is facing the prospect of stiff competition from Intel, which plans to enter the mobile processor business.

Its forthcoming Medfield and Clover Trail processors are aimed at the smartphone and tablet markets.