Hewlett-Packard completed its $12 billion buy of British software firm Autonomy on Monday, the centerpiece of a botched strategy shift that cost ex-chief executive Leo Apotheker his job last month.

HP said its 25.50 pounds-per-share cash offer — representing a 79 percent premium that many HP shareholders found excessive — had been accepted by investors representing 87.34 percent of the company’s shares, well ahead of the 75 percent threshold needed.

The rushed announcements and concerns about the lofty price offered for Autonomy sent HP’s stock, and Apotheker’s credibility, plunging. But according to analysts, it would have been nearly impossible under British takeover rules for HP to extract itself from the Autonomy deal.

Tim Cook finally gets his chance to stride out from under Steve Jobs’ shadow, and he could not have picked a better time or device to mark his unofficial debut as Apple Inc’s CEO. The latest generation of the iPhone — still the smartphone industry’s gold standard after four years — is expected to see the light of day this Tuesday, just in time for the holidays.

FT says Apple’s iPhone 5 debut is “the latest sign that Silicon Valley is taking on a fresh mantle of Smartphone Valley.”

WSJ MarketBeat editor Mark Gongloff says that there is little pre-event buzz ahead of the iPhone 5 event and believes a factor is that Apple’s competitors such as Google and Amazon are catching up.

Rhapsody, which is the largest U.S. digital music service with 800,000 subscribers, said Monday it would take over Napster, which is currently owned by retailer Best Buy Co Inc.

Eastman Kodak Co shares fell almost 70 percent on Friday afternoon on concerns the photography pioneer could file for bankruptcy.

Kodak’s stock had already hit a 38-year low earlier this week as investors worried about its cash position after the company tapped a credit line for $160 million.

Amazon.com Inc’s new tablet computer costs $209.63 to make, IHS iSuppli estimated on Friday, highlighting how the e-commerce giant is taking a financial hit upfront to get the device into as many hands as possible. Amazon’s billionaire Chief Executive Jeff Bezos unveiled the Kindle Fire at a lower-than-expected $199 price on Wednesday.

“The real benefit of the Kindle Fire to Amazon will not be in selling hardware or digital content. Rather, the Kindle Fire, and the content demand it stimulates, will serve to promote sales of the kinds of physical goods that comprise the majority of Amazon’s business,” IHS iSuppli said in a statement.

Using the micro-blogging site Twitter as a gauge of global sentiment, social scientists studied 509 million tweets from 2.4 million users in 84 countries between February 2008 and January 2010, according to research reported in the journal Science. Twitter, the five-year-old site that lets users communicate 140-character posts, offers an unprecedented chance to study human behavior and social networks, the scientists said.

PE Hub’s Connie Loizos discovers that despite Groupon’s recent turmoil, the Chicago startup community is sticking with the daily deal giant.

GigaOm reviews AT&T’s upcoming Samsung Galaxy S II smartphone that will hit stores Oct. 2 and will retail for $200.