Amazon.com President, Chief Executive and Chairman Jeffrey Bezos speaks with employers and attendees at the Consumer Reports headquarters in Yonkers, New York, May 11, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Mike Segar

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc plans to unveil a cheaper, smaller $250 rival to Apple Inc's iPad tablet device in November, industry blog TechCrunch reported on Friday.

Sporting a back-lit 7-inch screen -- smaller than the iPad's and about the same as Research in Motion's PlayBook -- the device is geared toward playing music and movies off the Internet, the tech blog reported.

TechCrunch, which said it had played with a testing prototype, reported that the plan was for Amazon to offer Amazon Prime -- its $79-a-year Internet streaming service -- for free along with the gadget. It did not cite any sources.

Amazon did not respond to requests for comment.

The Internet retailer's first entry in the tablet computing arena -- its Kindle functions more like an electronic-book reader -- has been touted as a strong contender to Apple, whose cheapest tablet goes for $499.

Motorola and Samsung have only chipped away at Apple's commanding three-quarter share of the market, while Hewlett Packard threw in the towel by announcing it will kill off its TouchPad after a final production run. This week, Sony Corp leapt into the field with its own poorly reviewed device.

Analysts have been upbeat on Amazon's gadget, particularly if it beats the iPad on price. It may sell as many as 5 million tablets in the fourth quarter, becoming the top rival to Apple, Forrester Research estimates.

Apple sells between 7 to 9 million tablets a quarter.

The upcoming tablet, running an operating system developed from an older version of Google Inc's Android software, will be Wi-Fi only and come with a color touchscreen but a limited 6GB of memory, according to the blog.

TechCrunch said that was because the device is geared toward playing content off the cloud or Internet, rather than the gadget itself. The tablet's main screen features a carousel that spins between a book-reader, a music player, movie player and other applications.

A 10-inch version may arrive 2012 if the 7-inch device sells well, the blog added without citing a source.

(Reporting by Edwin Chan; editing by Carol Bishopric)

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(AP) - FILE - In this Aug. 2, 2011 file photo, President Barack Obama speaks in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington. Obama cited the payroll tax in his weekend radio and Internet address Saturday, Aug. 20, 2011, when he urged Congress to work together on measures that help the economy and create jobs. 'There are things we can do right now that will mean more customers for businesses and more jobs across the country. We can cut payroll taxes again, so families have an extra $1,000 to spend,' he said. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

1 of 2. A striking Verizon worker walks the picket line in front of a Verizon wireless store in New York August 15, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Brendan McDermid

NEW YORK (Reuters) - About 45,000 Verizon Communications employees are set to end a two-week strike and return to work by Tuesday after the telephone company and unions said they reached an agreement to resume bargaining.

Almost half of the workers in Verizon's wireline business went on strike on August 7 after talks for a new labor pact failed when their contract expired.

Under the latest agreement, reached early on Saturday morning, Verizon promised to extend the terms of the old contract indefinitely while it continues bargaining for a new one with unions representing technicians and customer service workers.

Workers will start to head back to work for late shifts on Monday night and the rest of the striking workers will show up to their jobs on Tuesday, one of the unions said.

Neither side would provide details about how the agreement was reached, but both sides continued to nip at each other.

Tens of thousands of Verizon managers were asked to work 12 hours a day for six days a week and many worked more than that to cover for the strikers, said Verizon spokesman Richard Young. Verizon said its management team's work helped "convince the unions to begin bargaining with us in good faith."

"The fortitude and efforts of our managers have proven to be our strongest point of leverage in bargaining," Marc Reed, Verizon's executive vice president of human resources, said in a statement.

The Communications Workers of America said it was "outraged" by the company's comments, and demanded a retraction.

"It is both inaccurate and insulting," the CWA said in a statement. "We agreed with management not to claim victory in changing the process, reinstituting the contract or shaping our goals. We will be prepared to fight and fight hard whenever necessary if Verizon believes it can resume negotiations on that basis."

The agreement to continue talks follows an announcement by the company last week that healthcare benefits would expire on August 31 for workers who were still on strike at the time.

This would have affected 35,000 workers represented by the Communications Workers of America, and another 10,000 members of The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers in nine states and the District of Columbia.

BITTER DISPUTE

The decision to end the strike came after the unions and the company were able to agree on a structure and focus for bargaining on key issues such as jobs, employment security and financial issues such as healthcare contributions and pensions, according to CWA President Larry Cohen.

Cohen told Reuters that the issues on the table are complicated and will "take some time" to work out but he said the union was looking forward to the joint process.

"We would both say that this focus is much better than it was two weeks ago," Cohen said.

The striking workers are in Verizon's wireline business which provides telephone, Internet and television services.

Verizon is looking to cut costs in this business, which has been declining for years as consumers have been hanging up home phones in favor of cellphones and Internet services.

But the unions had argued that Verizon was looking for too many concessions in areas such as healthcare contributions, pensions and work rules.

Verizon said it had made headway with negotiating a "number of local and regional" issues with the unions.

The dispute quickly turned bitter as Verizon complained of network sabotage on the second day of the strike while the unions said picketers were injured by vehicles driven by Verizon managers covering for the strikers.

Both sides also swapped complaints at the National Labor Relations Board.

Cohen said the problems facing the strikers went beyond Verizon and its workers. He argued that there should be some kind of national framework for workers healthcare and bargaining rights.

"I don't really blame Verizon leadership for this problem," he said. "It's the nation."

(Additional reporting by Mark Weinraub in Chicago; editing by Vicki Allen and Sandra Maler)

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Netflix CEO Reed Hastings speaks during the unveiling of the iPhone 4 by Apple CEO Steve Jobs at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, California June 7, 2010.

Credit: Reuters/Robert Galbraith

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Netflix Inc hiked monthly prices for customers who use both its mail and online services, a move that could steer users toward its growing Internet streaming service.

The company said it was raising by 60 percent the monthly price of a plan that lets subscribers watch unlimited movies and video online and get DVDs by mail.

Customers in the United States who want both services will pay $7.99 per month to rent one DVD at a time plus $7.99 for unlimited streaming, or a total of $15.98 per month, the company said on Tuesday. The previous cost of this plan was $9.99 a month.

The changes take effect immediately for new subscribers, and in September for current customers.

Netflix, the top movie rental service with 23 million subscribers, recently has focused on its streaming service for televisions and mobile devices and downplayed its business of mailing DVDs in red envelopes.

The company faces growing costs for mail shipping and building its streaming library plus competition from online players such as Amazon.com Inc and Hulu.

The company separated the pricing for mail and streaming services "to better reflect the costs of each and to give our members a choice," Netflix Vice President of Marketing Jessie Becker wrote on a company blog post.

The company also said it saw continued demand for DVDs.

"Given the long life we think DVDs by mail will have, treating DVDs as a $2 add on to our unlimited streaming plan neither makes great financial sense nor satisfies people who just want DVDs," Becker wrote.

Merriman Capital analyst Eric Wold said he thought the company was aiming to "steer people away from DVDs" by raising the cost for the combined service.

The $6-per-month price hike could lead some customers to downsize to a streaming-only plan and perhaps visit a Coinstar Inc Redbox kiosk for an occasional DVD, said Wold, who has a "neutral" rating on Netflix shares.

Netflix said its $7.99 option for one DVD at a time was its lowest price ever for DVD-only service. The company also said it was creating a separate management team to focus solely on DVDs by mail.

Its Canadian service is streaming only, and the new Latin American service also will be streaming only.

Netflix shares gained 0.2 percent to close at $291.27 on Nasdaq.

(Reporting by Lisa Richwine. Editing by Robert MacMillan and Carol Bishopric)

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(AFP/Getty Images/File) - A US cable television news channel suspended a veteran political analyst on Thursday for making a derogatory remark about President Barack Obama. Mark Halperin, pictured in 2008, an editor-at-large for Time magazine, was asked by the co-anchors of the MSNBC show "Morning Joe" what he thought about Obama's press conference on Wednesday.(AFP/Getty Images/File)