Coca-Cola prepares Sokenbicha tea for Whole Foods, and plans national rollout of Mexican Coke as Sierra Mist drops high-fructose corn syrup and 7Up gets reformulated.

Adobe shares soar on rumors of Microsoft bid.

Amazon is preparing an Android app store.

BP's disaster report is being questioned, reports WSJ.

Chanel and YSL designer departure rumors swirl at Paris Fashion Week.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg talks up groups feature.

Gap logo flap inspires "crap logo" app as fake Twitter feed speaks.

Hyundai reveals details of new Sonata, just ranked highest for safety with BMW 5 series.

Levi's opens its second photo-centric workshop tonight in New York.Continue reading...

Amazon introduces Kindle for the Web, may be launching app store for Android.

AOL buys video syndicator 5min and reportedly in talks to buy TechCrunch blog.

Aston Martin named UK's coolest brand in a poll.

Cadbury Dairy Milk bars drops "glass and a half" slogan following EU complaint.

CBS rises as DVR time-shifted viewing gooses Nielsen ratings.

Coca-Cola sues Germany's Aldi over orange juice packaging, and wins approval to buy largest bottler vendor.

Endo is buying rival generic drugmaker Qualitest for $1.2 billion.

Google remains world's most desired employer according to HR survey.Continue reading...

All those bouncing balls making up Google's logo over the past couple of days? Turns out they were heralding the search engine giant's latest advance: Google Instant, which improves its speed and precision with predictive, real-time search results that appear as soon as you type — or as Google puts it, "faster than the speed of type."

Five years after Yahoo's instant search launch, Google also released a series of videos (above and after the jump) demonstrating its zippier search capabilities, which the Washington Post's Rob Pegoraro calls "the next logical extension of the search engine's 'auto-complete' feature." As for which brands surfaced by letter?Continue reading...

China is a hotbed of economic activity, with an enormous consumer population ready and willing to buy. Yet, as we've reported, sometimes it seems as if China's consumers are becoming less receptive as brands bombard them with new product launches.

Still, companies looking to expand can't help but look to China. Apple, for example, will open 25 stores in China by the end of 2011, primarily to sell its iPhone. The company expects to release its iPhone 4 by the end of this year in China. Sony Ericsson just announced its first smartphone for the Chinese market, in partnership with China Mobile.

In fact, China's mobile market is so tantalizing that it could become the stage for a comeback of sorts for Motorola, the flagging maker of mobile handsets.Continue reading...

* McDonald's promoted McDonald's UK president and CEO Steve Easterbrook to EVP, global chief brand officer, a new position that fills the hole in its senior management team created when former CMO Mary Dillon left in May to join U.S. Cellular. Jill McDonald, currently CMO for McDonald's in the UK and northern Europe, is being promoted to UK CEO.

* Dell put its first U.S. smartphone on sale today: the Aero, which costs $99 with a two-year AT&T contract and runs on Google's Android platform.

* Watch out, Netflix: Apple is rumored to be preparing a 99-cent TV show service.

* Facebook sues Teachbook, a social networking site for teachers, over use of -book in its name; deletes accounts purporting to be from North Korea; and bans marijuana-based advertising campaign.

* Microsoft is now handling all search requests for Yahoo in North America; the global rollout will take until 2012.Continue reading...

* AIG pays back $4 billion of its US loan.

* BlackBerry and India may resolve their differences as early as next week.

* Barneys finally hired a CEO, after two years without one.

* BP, continuing work on its broken pipe, is slammed by Brad Pitt in Spike Lee's HBO documentary debuting tonight.

* Boeing expects more than $2 billion in U.S. military satellite sales.

* Fujitsu is "very actively" seeking acquisitions, according to its president.

* J&J recalls contact lenses in Asia and Europe.Continue reading...

General Motors' IPO could be filed tomorrow, a source tells Reuters. GM’s toughest obstacle will be persuading investors that new CEO Daniel Akerson can get a handle on the company’s unprofitable European operations. GM also agreed to pay employees of its European Opel division up to about $340 million a year if it fails to invest billions of euros into new cars and trucks through 2014.

Hulu is said to be considering an IPO of $2 billion this year. Hulu is now serving 3x as many video ads as YouTube, while Facebook is now the third largest video site in the U.S. according to new comScore figures.

Adobe partners with Typekit to bring "legendary" typefaces to the web.

Android surges as mobile device sales increase 13.8%, reports Gartner.

Apple's ad service is off to a bumpy start, the WSJ reports.

Barclays settles U.S. charges brought by the federal government and New York.Continue reading...

(Warning: that coffee on the right may be cold — this is coming to you late due to technical issues this morning. Thanks for your patience!)

Apple’s charter iAd advertisers are happy with early results.

U.S. cable operators Comcast and Time Warner Cable and competitor Verizon are racing to develop iPad apps.

Facebook stands to garner nearly $1.3 billion in advertising worldwide this year, about double last year, says a new outside study.

GM's incoming CEO Dan Akerson is known as a "pragmatic leader" whose relationships with Wall Street and enthusiasm were keys to his getting the nod to replace Ed Whitacre Sept. 1. He also isn’t expected to disrupt the momentum of new CMO Joel Ewanick.

HP’s latest headache: a bribery probe by the U.S. Dept. of Justice.Continue reading...