(Reuters) - More than a year after igniting the tablet computing craze, Apple Inc was preparing to unveil the second version of its blockbuster iPad on Wednesday -- possibly minus lead showman Steve Jobs. Plenty has changed over the course of the year. Credited with creating a whole new device sector, the company is rolling out the second-generation iPad just as most of its rivals are bringing their first offerings to consumers.

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(Reuters) - Yahoo Inc is in advanced talks to leave its Japanese joint venture in an effort to sort out its dysfunctional Asian partnerships and free up as much as $8 billion to fight Google and Facebook. A deal to transfer Yahoo's 35 percent stake in Yahoo Japan to Softbank Corp, which already controls 42 percent of the unit, could come within a few weeks, people with knowledge of the discussions said.

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(Reuters) - Private sector employers added more jobs than expected last month in a sign of steady improvement in the labor market, ahead of the closely watched non-farm payrolls report from the Labor Department on Friday. Employers added 217,000 jobs in February, the ADP Employer Services report showed on Wednesday, above expectations for a rise of 175,000. January's figure was revised higher by 2,000 to 189,000.

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(Reuters) - Top office supply retailer Staples Inc (SPLS.O) forecast quarterly earnings slightly below Wall Street expectations after winter storms weighed on results in the prior period. Many investors look at office supply retailers as a barometer of economic health because demand for their products is closely tied to white-collar employment rates. Their sales have suffered as consumers and small businesses spend less.

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(Reuters) - Barnes & Noble Inc (BKS.N) has settled a lawsuit brought against it by Spring Design, which had accused the top U.S. bookseller of illegally copying a screen design for its popular Nook electronic book reader. Under terms of the agreement, Spring is granting Barnes & Noble a non-exclusive license for all of its patents and patent applications. Other terms of the settlement were not disclosed.

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(Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Wednesday a European Union document laying out options for a deal on safeguarding euro zone states' public finances was a "good basis" for discussions at a March 11 summit in Brussels. At a joint news conference with Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann, Merkel said some of Germany and France's initial proposals, such as the scrapping of wage indexation, had been weakened in the EU document but were not off the table.

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(Reuters) - U.S. stocks fell on Tuesday after data showed factory activity expanded in February and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke downplayed the effects of higher oil prices in the economy. The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI dropped 29.48 points, or 0.24 percent, to 12,196.86. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index .SPX fell 4.42 points, or 0.33 percent, to 1,322.80. The Nasdaq Composite Index .IXIC lost 10.51 points, or 0.38 percent, to 2,771.76.

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(Reuters) - The recent surge in oil prices is unlikely to have a big impact on the U.S. economy, but could lead to weaker growth and higher inflation if sustained, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said on Tuesday. Offering no hint that he was considering cutting short the Fed's $600 billion stimulus, Bernanke told the Senate Banking Committee he saw increasing evidence that the U.S. economic recovery was becoming self-supporting. At the same time, he warned job growth remains far too anemic.

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(Reuters) - U.S. auto sales are expected to show a gain of about 20 percent from the still-depressed levels of a year earlier in February, but the recent rise in oil prices could slow or even derail the industry's recovery, analysts and industry executives say. Major automakers are set to report auto sales data for February on Tuesday. The sales results represent one of the first snapshots of U.S. consumer demand, and the February data are expected to show steady demand without evidence of the kind of accelerating turnaround that some analysts had forecast.

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(Reuters) - Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) could lose up to $3.4 billion from lawsuits and other disputes over the securities it sold and underwrote, the investment bank said in its annual filing with regulators on Tuesday. The bank called the estimate the upper end of a range of "reasonably possible" losses from legal proceedings against it. The amounts it has reserved against such lawsuits "are not significant as compared to the upper end of the range of reasonably possible loss."

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