Meltdown 101: Why the S&P 500 index is important NEW YORK — The ups and downs of the Dow Jones industrial average may get most of the attention, but there's another stock index you should be watching: the Standard & Poor's 500, which offers a broader sense of how stocks are doing and determines the performance of many mutual funds. Many market pros keep an eye on the Dow, of course, but when they need a close-up look at the U.S. market they turn to the S&P 500. Investors rely on it as a barometer for the economy, and it serves as the market's primary benchmark — trillions of dollars in investments mirror its moves, and the performance of many investment funds is measured against it.

Yahoo CEO: Shake-up needs more time, not Microsoft SAN FRANCISCO — Yahoo Inc. Chief Executive Carol Bartz has a message for investors hoping for a quick fix at the slumping Internet company or for an online search partnership with Microsoft Corp. — don't expect either to happen any time soon. The no-nonsense executive hired by Yahoo five months ago got her latest points across Wednesday during an appearance at an investor conference hosted in New York by Bank of America Corp.'s Merrill Lynch.

Prime View International (PVI), a leading display maker, announces that it plans to acquire e-paper manufacturer E Ink for $ 125. Earlier the companies had joined hands to create displays for Sony Reader and Amazon.com's Kindle e-book readers. PVI produces displays for various digital devices such as cameras, TVs and GPS systems. The company owns a e-paper unit and is a leading provider of flexible display panels. E Ink makes digital ink technology for cell phones, e-readers, and other portable devices.

In a recent development, Sun Microsystem has joined hands with mobile phone majors Orange, Vodafone Group and Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications to make it easier and cheaper for the developers to bring Java programs to mobile phones. On Tuesday, Sun Microsystem released the new open-source testing tools in JavaOne developers conference in San Francisco. The company revealed that it was upgrading the five-year-old Java Verified program used to certify Java ME programs on mobile devices. This comes as a relief for the developers tired of seamless unproductive testing.

With Hulu releasing its Hulu Desktop a week ago, YouTube declares a video war with its YouTube XL. With the new product, YouTube would take site viewing experience a step further. This revolutionary product will allow a vast majority of people to view YouTube's content on TV or large screen computer. Actually, YouTube XL is a redesigned version of the YouTube website and will be running on the browser. It won't need require any download to run the application.