Apple today announced the iPhone 5, with a new 4-inch Retina display. It has a newll-new 7.6 mm anodized aluminum body that is 18 percent thinner and 20 percent lighter than iPhone 4S. iPhone 5 comes in either white & silver or black & slate, and will be available in the US for a suggested retail price of $199 (US) for the 16GB model and $299 (US) for the 32GB model and $399 (US) for the 64GB model.

Renren Inc. (RENN), a social networking internet platform in China, made an $49 million investment in Social Finance Inc, a San Francisco-based private company. SoFi provides students access to lower loan rates than Federal loans programs.

Pearl Research is pleased to announce the release the "Games Market in India" study covering the online, social, casual and mobile games. There has been extensive investments in India's digital entertainment sector with new launches and a proliferation in the number of mobile titles.

This is the latest information Pearl Research has on the LOGIN Conference. The event focuses on the online game industry, including Facebook, MMOG, Xbox Live, PlayStation Network, iPhone/iPad, and Android development and digital distribution. This annual conference will be on September 26-27, and the location will be the Bently Reserve in San Francisco, California. September 26 will be the speaking sessions day, and September 27 is the Expo and Startup Pitch day.

Recently, DeNA China announced its first self-developed mobile social game “Ninja Fighters” in the Chinajoy. Fei Lou, the vice president of DeNA China, claimed to the press, “DeNA China will pay more attention to developing products by ourselves.

Leading market research and consulting firm Pearl Research will be attending Casual Connect in Seattle, July 24-26th. Please contact us at research (at) pearlresearch.com or 415-738-7660 to meet up. The Casual Games Association, the international trade organization of the casual games industry, is producing the show.

2K Sports announced the public launch of its free-to-play NBA 2K Online game on the Tencent Games portal in China. Players who have an activation account can now log on to the website ( http://nba2k.qq.com ) to test the title.

The Casual Games Association, the international trade organization of the casual games industry, announced that Casual Connect, the world’s largest mass market games conference series, will take place July 24-26, 2012, in Seattle, Washington. Content for the 2012 event will focus on emerging trends for the casual games industry and outline opportunities on online, social and mobile platforms. A full listing of content can be found online: http://seattle.casualconnect.org/content.html.

ddmap.com, a lifestyle information website in China, recently announced it has raised more than US$40 million in a new round of financing led by F&H and joined by CID and Middle East sovereign funds. 90% of the money raised will be used to develop its mobile internet business across forty urban markets, with a focus on promoting ddcoupon, a mobile app owned by ddmap.com.

Broadband has passed another major milestone, according to the latest figures published by the Broadband Forum. The global total of broadband subscribers soared to over 600 million in the first quarter of 2012, indicating a further acceleration in growth as over 100 million new lines were added (20% of the total) in less than 18 months.