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By Alexei Oreskovic SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – About 40 percent of adult Apple iPhone owners in the United States are interested in buying the company's new Apple Watch, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll. The high-tech smartwatch, which will range in price from $350 to $17,000 for an 18-karat gold model, is Apple Inc’s first major new product in five years and consumer demand for the device is being closely watched by competitors and investors. Owners of the iPhone are a particularly important market for Apple as it launches the new watch, which goes on sale April 24. Because the watch needs an iPhone to work fully, analysts say the most likely pool of initial buyers will already have an Apple smartphone in their pockets.

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(Reuters) – Apple Inc's much-hinted-at TV service may soon become a reality as the iPhone maker is in talks with programmers to offer a slimmed-down bundle of TV networks this fall, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. The service would have about 25 channels, anchored by broadcasters such as ABC, CBS and Fox, and be available across all devices powered by Apple's iOS operating system, including iPhones, iPads and Apple TV set-top boxes, the newspaper said. Apple has been talking to Walt Disney Co , CBS Corp , and Twenty-First Century Fox Inc and other media companies to offer a “skinny” bundle with well-known channels like CBS, ESPN and FX, leaving out the many smaller networks in the standard cable TV package, the Journal said. Apple, which is aiming to price the new service at about $30 to $40 a month, plans to announce the service in June and launch it in September, the newspaper said.

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(Reuters) – Seeking to extend its range of secure mobile devices, BlackBerry Ltd said on Saturday it was launching a high-security tablet, developed with International Business Machines Corp and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd. The SecuTABLET, based on Samsung's Galaxy Tab S 10.5 and being presented by BlackBerry unit Secusmart at tech fair CeBIT 2015 in Germany, reflects the Canadian company's stress on secure connections for governments and businesses as it seeks to preserve a niche market after a drubbing in recent years at the hands of emerging smartphone makers such as Apple Inc. “Security is ingrained in every part of BlackBerry’s portfolio, which includes voice and data encryption solutions,” said Dr. Hans-Christoph Quelle, chief executive officer of Secusmart GmbH, in a statement on the new device. The device was undergoing certification by the German Federal Office for Information Security for secure rating, the statement said, adding that the new tablet used the same security technology as the Secusmart Security Card.

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By Alexei Oreskovic SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Apple Inc's new smartwatch may be a tough sell, with 69 percent of Americans indicating they are not interested in buying the gadget, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll. The poll was taken after Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook rolled out the product on Monday, and only about half of respondents said they had heard news of the timepiece in the last few days. Also, in an encouraging sign for Apple, roughly 13 percent of survey respondents who did not own an iPhone said that they would consider buying one in order to buy an Apple Watch, which needs an iPhone to work fully. Apple overcame skepticism about the iPad and iPod when they first debuted, but the survey suggests that the world's largest technology company has work to do to make the watch ubiquitous.

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Fewer companies than Intel had expected replaced desktop PCs running on outdated Microsoft operating systems, leading to weak demand for its chips. Intel also cited “challenging” macroeconomic and currency conditions, particularly in Europe. Intel said on Thursday that it expected first-quarter revenue of $12.8 billion, plus or minus $300 million – about 7 percent lower than its earlier forecast of $13.7 billion, plus or minus $500 million. Though dominant in the market for chips used in PCs, Intel has been slower than rivals such as Qualcomm Inc to adjust in recent years to the growing popularity of laptops and tablets.

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By Malathi Nayak NEW YORK (Reuters) – Software developers say it will not be easy to come up with a “killer app” for Apple Inc's Watch – few have seen the product and the software is still in test mode. While app makers are passionate about developing for the Apple Watch, some are skeptical about the prospects of coming up with a big idea for the little computer on a wrist that hits stores on April 24, said Markiyan Matsekh, product manager at software engineering firm Eleks. A killer app that grabs consumers' attention will be key to the success of the Apple Watch and could spawn new companies, as the iPhone did. Apple has blocked some features, such as the gyroscope and accelerometer, on the development kit, and the watch simulator cannot test all functions, developers said.

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By Edwin Chan and Alexei Oreskovic SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Apple Inc will begin selling its new watch on April 24, with the high end model starting at $10,000, the company said, rolling out its first new product in five years in a bid to extend its preeminence in mobile devices. The Apple Watch sport will start at $349 for the smaller, 38-mm model. Apple shares trimmed earlier gains and were nearly flat in mid-afternoon trade on Nasdaq.

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Apple Inc , the largest U.S. company by market value, will join the Dow Jones industrial average , replacing AT&T Inc , in a change that reflects the dominant position of the iPhone maker in the U.S. consumer economy. The decision to nudge aside AT&T, which has been part of the Dow for the better part of a century, is a recognition of how communications and technology have evolved. The action, by S&P Dow Jones Indices, had been widely expected since Apple split its shares seven-for-one in June of last year. The stock was added to the Dow in 1916, the year after the first-ever transcontinental telephone call.

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By Lindsay Dunsmuir WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Two Vietnamese citizens and a Canadian have been charged over roles in hacking email service providers in the United States in one of the largest reported data breaches in the nation's history, the Department of Justice said on Friday. Viet Quoc Nguyen, 28, is charged with hacking at least eight email service providers between February 2009 and June 2012 and obtaining more than one billion email addresses. According to the allegations, Nguyen and fellow Vietnamese citizen Giang Hoang Vu, 25, used the data to send so-called spam to tens of millions of people. Vu, who was extradited to the United States in March of last year, pleaded guilty on Thursday to conspiracy to commit computer fraud.