Japan's Softbank Reportedly in Talks to Buy Sprint: Hot Trends

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Popular searches on the Internet include Sprint Nextel (WMT) as Japan's Softbank is said to be in talks to buy the telecommunications giant for more than 1.5 trillion yen ($19 billion).

Softbank is reportedly trying to buy two-thirds of Sprint Nextel's shares, according to the Nikkei newspaper.

Sprint has said it wants to participate in industry consolidation. The company is reportedly considering a counter-bid for MetroPCS (PCS), which announced it will merge with T-Mobile USA.

The deal would be a big step for Softbank in expanding its business outside of Japan. Softbank, Japan's third-largest mobile phone company, is also its fastest-growing mobile phone provider. It just recently purchased rival eAccess for 180 billion yen.

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EBay (EBAY) is trending as the online marketplace has been testing a new feature that allows for local services to bid on, taking a page from Groupon's book.

EBay Lifestyle Deals will consist of offers run in specific urban areas like San Francisco, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. EBay has long focused on products instead of services like dog-walking or personal training sessions, which users will now be able to bid on.

EBay teamed up with Signpost, a start-up that arranges the deals with local merchants and posts them on to eBay's site. Signpost already provides deals for Google (GOOG) Offers.

Other changes coming to eBay include a "Feed" service, where users can find product suggestions on their home page, reminiscent of Facebook's (FB) news feed.

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Mozilla is another popular search. The company has pulled Firefox 16 from distribution just one day after it was released.

The company attributed the move to a flaw that left the system critically vulnerable. In a post to the company's security blog, Mozilla confirmed the security vulnerability but assured users that Firefox 15 is still safe.

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