To repair flaws in vital system.

This is going to be a bitter pill for Steve Ballmer. In what is being called a “significant admission of failure,” Microsoft will be releasing an updated version of its operating system, as users have had difficulties with the software. Windows 8 was launched to move Microsoft into the tablet era using a tile interface as opposed to the traditional desktop home screen. The failure of Windows 8 has been pointed to as a major source of slumping PC sales.

Read it at The Financial Times

Koa Metter

Matthew Inman of the wildly popular Oatmeal comics has a new book, ‘My Dog: The Paradox,’ out today. He talks to Jean Trinh about his critics, charitable fundraisers, and more.

An “Internet kingpin” and a “force to be reckoned with” are just a couple of the descriptions media outlets have assigned to Matthew Inman, creator of The Oatmeal, one of the most popular comics on the Web. Even Mashable warns readers, “Rule number one on the Web: You don’t mess with The Oatmeal.”It seems a surprising take on Inman, 30. The Seattle resident is better known for his geeky, relatable humor; for capturing funny and touching moments with his pets; and for his entertaining musings on grammar, the underrated and dangerous mantis shrimp, and 20th-century physicist Nikola Tesla.

Martha Irvine/AP

The indoor, multi-level farms that are sprouting up near urban areas in the U.S. and abroad are helping to slash the distance produce travels from farm to table.

On average, food travels 1,500 miles  to get from distant fields to the typical dinner table. In colder weather, that number can rise drastically, when stores have to fly produce like blueberries and tomatoes in from tropical locales like Mexico and Peru.But the arugula and basil produced year around at FarmedHere, a farm that opened in March outside Chicago, never travels more than 25 miles to market. And because the greens are grown in an indoor, multi-level facility, they’re available all year round.

After years of fruitlessly searching for her birth mother, Cyndi Lane turned to social media—and found a new family.

Once, Cyndi Lane had parents and cousins and aunts and uncles, and then she had none. Eight years ago, a cousin came to visit with Lane’s newborn son, and the two had an emotional heart-to-heart. “I need to tell you something that’s going to change the rest of your life,” the cousin suddenly blurted out. It was what Lane had always subconsciously known: she had been adopted. For decades, her dark-haired Italian family refused to admit to their suspiciously blonde-haired, blue-eyed daughter that she wasn’t their biological child, even though the whole family knew otherwise.

Santa Rosa Press Democrat/Zuma, via Corbis

Coal accounts for a vastly larger chunk of electricity production than solar. But industry reports suggest there are more solar employees than coal miners in the U.S.

“America has more solar workers than coal miners,” declared a CNN report in late April that summarized a survey done by the Solar Foundation, a nonprofit research and advocacy group. The National Solar Jobs Census, released in November 2012, found that there were 119,016 “solar workers,” meaning employees “who spend at least 50% of their time supporting solar-related activities.”About 57,000 of workers were engaged in the installation of solar-power equipment, up 9,000 from the year before, while about 30,000 worked in manufacturing, off 8,000 from 2011.

Shifting business models mean that sales tax is no longer a competitive advantage

It looks like the Marketplace Fairness Act--the official name for a proposal to allow states to collect sales tax on internet sales made to their residents--will pass the Senate sometime today.  It will have a tougher time in the House, where Republicans still aren't keen on supporting anything that smacks of higher taxes.  Still, it's remarkable, at least because it shows that under the right circumstances, you can get at least some members of the GOP to support a tax increase.

Mike Segar/Reuters, via Corbis

Long dominated by foreign automakers, electric and hybrid cars have a new sugar daddy: Ford, whose Fusion hybrids are powering ahead of the competition, writes Daniel Gross.

There’s an unlikely new player in the hybrid-car market: Ford.For much of the past decade, innovation in using electricity to power vehicles has been powered either by foreign companies or by startups: Toyota has made the Prius a household name, and the three Prius models account for about 45 percent of hybrids sold every month. Nissan has invested huge sums to produce the Leaf, an all-electric vehicle made in Tennessee. Tesla Motors, the Silicon Valley startup, sold more pure electric vehicles in April than any other company—about 2,100, compared with 1,937 Nissan Leafs.

Fred Bauer writes at National Review on a part of comprehensive immigration reform that isn't getting the notoriety it deserves, the guest worker program:After Mitt Romney’s defeat in November 2012, many on the right, including Senator Marco Rubio (R., Fla.), came to the conclusion that the Republican party needed to become a party of middle-class restoration, economic opportunity, and upward mobility. This conclusion has been complemented by a growing recognition that the stagnation of opportunity and the undermining of the middle class pose serious threats to the future of small-government conservatism.

The next euro bailout?

Small European countries must feel picked on. Fears are rising that Slovenia, a small country between Italy and Croatia, will become the sixth country in the euro zone to receive a bailout. The New York Times reports that about 20 percent of Slovenia’s economy, or €6.8 billion, is in the form of nonperforming loans. Analysts point to a combination of easy credit and corruption seen throughout Balkan states as the major sources of the current struggles.

Read it at The New York Times

Owners consider sale.

Luxury goods are rarely on sale at the ultra-high-end luxury retailer Neiman Marcus. But the whole company may be for sale. TPG Capital and Warburg Pincus, two private equity firms that bought the retailer for $5.1 billion in 2005, are exploring a sale or a public offering of Dallas-based Neiman Marcus.

Read it at CNBC