* Presidents, CEOs, fans pay tribute to Jobs

* Apple co-founder transformed lives of millions

* Jobs praised as "a dreamer and a doer"

* Apple shares up 1 percent (Updates links to stories, graphics, Breakingviews; updates shares)

NEW YORK, Oct 6 (Reuters) - Outpourings of public grief and appreciation swept the globe on Thursday after the death of Apple (AAPL.O) co-founder Steve Jobs.

Jobs, who touched the daily lives of countless millions of people through the Macintosh computer, iPod, iPhone and iPad, died on Wednesday at age 56 after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. He stepped down as Apple chief executive in August.

Reaction in the stock market was muted as Apple shares quickly recovered from an initial 1.5 percent decline. The shares were up 1 percent to $382.15 at midday.

In New York City, an impromptu memorial made from flowers, candles and a dozen green and red apples was erected outside a 24-hour Apple store on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue, with fans snapping photos of it on their iPhones.

"It was really sad news for us," said Daiichiro Tashiro, 25, visiting from Tokyo. "A lot of Japanese use the iPhone. We're here to thank him."

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Obituary [ID:nN1E79424F]

Apple's lead over rivals could narrow [ID:nL3E7L61B9]

Breakingviews - Apple's impact [ID:nN1E7950GQ]

Jobs a god for designers [ID:nL5E7L6347]

Factbox - Apple's history and milestones [ID:nN1E794246]

Graphic - Jobs profile link.reuters.com/tag34s

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Tributes poured in both from ordinary people and from the pinnacles of the business and political worlds.

"He's the hero to everybody of this generation because he did something that I think is very hard, which is be both a dreamer and a doer," General Electric Co (GE.N) CEO Jeff Immelt told reporters in Columbus, Ohio, on Thursday.

"I wouldn't be able to run my business without Apple, without its software," said David Chiverton, who was leaving Apple's flagship Regent Street store in London. "I run a video production company. It's allowed me to have my dream business."

News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch said, "Steve Jobs was simply the greatest CEO of his generation."

At an Apple store in Sydney, lawyer George Raptis, who was five years old when he first used a Macintosh computer, spoke for almost everyone who has come into contact with Apple. "He's changed the face of computing," he said. "There will only ever be one Steve Jobs."

U.S. President Barack Obama remembered Jobs as a visionary. "Steve was among the greatest of American innovators -- brave enough to think differently, bold enough to believe he could change the world, and talented enough to do it," Obama said in a statement.

Microsoft's (MSFT.O) Bill Gates, who once triumphed over Jobs but saw his legendary status overtaken by the Apple co-founder in recent years, said, "For those of us lucky enough to get to work with him, it's been an insanely great honor."

Nokia (NOK1V.HE) CEO Stephen Elop, whose company competes with Apple's iPhone in the handset market, said, "The world lost a true visionary today. Steve's passion for simplicity and elegance leaves us all a legacy that will endure for generations."

When he stepped down as CEO in August, Jobs handed the reins to long-time operations chief Tim Cook. With a passion for minimalist design and a genius for marketing, Jobs laid the groundwork for the company to continue to flourish after his death, most analysts and investors say.

But Apple still faces challenges in the absence of the man who was its chief product designer, marketing guru and salesman nonpareil. Phones running Google's (GOOG.O) Android software are gaining share in the smartphone market, and there are questions about what Apple's next big product will be.

LEGENDARY ENTREPRENEUR

A college drop-out and the son of adoptive parents, Jobs changed the technology world in the late 1970s, when the Apple II became the first personal computer to gain a wide following. He did it again in 1984 with the Macintosh, which built on breakthrough technologies developed at Xerox Parc and elsewhere to create the personal computing experience as we know it today.

The rebel streak that was central to his persona got him tossed out of Apple in 1985, but he returned in 1997 and after a few years began the roll-out of a troika of products -- the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad -- that again upended the established order in major industries.

A diagnosis of a rare form of pancreatic cancer in 2004 initially cast only a mild shadow over Jobs and Apple, with the CEO asserting that the disease was treatable. But his health deteriorated rapidly over the past several years, and after two temporary leaves of absence he stepped down as CEO and became Apple's chairman in August.

Jobs's death came just one day after Cook presented a new iPhone at the kind of gala event that became Jobs's trademark. Perhaps coincidentally, the new device got lukewarm reviews, with many saying it wasn't a big enough improvement over the existing version of one of the most successful consumer products in history.

Apple paid homage to its visionary leader by changing its website to a big black-and-white photograph of him with the caption "Steve Jobs: 1955-2011."

On Google's home page, the same line appeared just below its search box. It was a link to the Apple site. (For related stories, see TAKE A LOOK at [ID:nN1E79421F].) (Reporting by Jennifer Saba; additional reporting by Sinead Carew and Liana Baker in New York; Scott Malone in Columbus, Ohio; Sarah McBride in Cupertino, California; Poornima Gupta in San Francisco; Edwin Chan in Los Angeles; Matt Cowan in London; and Amy Pyett in Sydney; editing by John Wallace)

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LONDON | Thu Oct 6, 2011 1:41pm EDT

LONDON Oct 6 (Reuters) - A former reporter on a tabloid owned by Trinity Mirror has claimed the newspaper hacked into the phones of celebrities, Sky News reported on Thursday, potentially broadening a scandal that has so far largely affected Rupert Murdoch's News Corp .

David Brown, who worked for The People before being sacked, was reported by Sky News as having claimed the mobile phones of celebrities were targeted by The People in the years up to 2006.

Trinity Mirror has said the allegation is incorrect.

Brown's comments came in a written witness statement prepared for an employment tribunal claim for unfair dismissal against Trinity Mirror, but the statement was never used.

Sky is part owned by Murdoch's News Corp media empire.

"A number of the methods used to pry into individuals' lives were illegal and I have little doubt that if these people knew they had been spied upon, they would take legal action for breach of their right to privacy," Brown was reported to have written.

The people whose phones were hacked by the Sunday newspaper, Sky said, included David Beckham's children's nanny and TV presenter Ulrika Jonsson.

Trinity Mirror, which also owns the Mirror newspaper, denied the accusations.

"All our journalists work within the criminal law and the PCC (Press Complaints Commission) Code of Conduct and we have seen no evidence to suggest otherwise," it said in a statement.

It added that the "unsubstantiated allegations" taken from a draft statement had never been tested under cross examination.

Brown declined to comment when contacted by Reuters.

He was reported to have written that information had been gleaned by others from Jonsson's mobile phone.

"This was done by 'screwing' or tapping Ms Jonsson's phone's message bank," he is said to have written.

He said in the statement that Trinity Mirror had quickly paid substantial damages to Beckham after running a front-page story wrongly alleging the soccer star had left angry messages on his nanny's mobile.

"It took the company less than a month to pay David Beckham substantial damages because it knew it could not produce the evidence of tapped mobile phones in any litigation," the statement reportedly said.

Brown was fired from the Sunday tabloid in April 2006 for gross misconduct, Sky said on its website.

The statement, written in 2007, was not used because the company settled out of court with Brown and he signed a confidential settlement agreement, Sky said.

When a News of the World reporter was arrested for hacking in August 2006, a senior human resources figure "contacted executives on Trinity's national titles to tell them that if they were asked by other newspapers or trade publications whether they had used information from 'screwed' mobile phones they should deny it," Brown was said to have written.

"(The) advice indicates that a major media plc was not only allowing its staff to carry out illegal activity by, at best, turning a blind eye to it, but also taking part in an organised cover-up of that activity."

Trinity launched a review of is editorial controls and procedures last August, and had obtained written confirmation from its current senior editorial executives that they had not engaged in phone-hacking since the introduction of an Act of law in 2000.

Allegations of hacking at its rival Sunday tabloid the News of the World led to the closure of the 168-year publication. Trinity Mirror soon afterwards said its circulation revenues had risen. (Reporting by Avril Ormsby; Editing by Jon Hemming)

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* Follows 20 percent reduction in budget

* 2,000 jobs to be axed, senior manager roles to be cut

* Labour unions warn programming, journalism will suffer (Adds detail, background)

LONDON, Oct 6 (Reuters) - The BBC is set to axe over 10 percent of staff in its management, programming and news divisions after Britain's cash-strapped government imposed deep spending cuts on the world-renowned, publicly-funded broadcaster.

The corporation set out the changes on Thursday in response to a 20 percent cut to its annual 3.5 billion pound ($5.4 billion) budget imposed by the government a year ago as part of the deepest public spending cuts in decades.

Unions said the changes would damage independent journalism at a time when a phone hacking scandal has revealed embarrassingly close ties between the Prime Minister David Cameron and Rupert Murdoch's right-leaning News Corp , a long standing critic of the BBC.

The BBC budget was imposed by the government with very little negotiation. Around 600 BBC News posts will now go.

"By 2016, the BBC will be significantly smaller than it is today," it said.

With eight national TV channels, 50 radio stations and an extensive website, the BBC's size and resources had already attracted envy and criticism from rivals, led by James Murdoch at the dominant pay-TV group BSkyB .

As the recession gathered steam in 2008, that criticism intensified as advertising-funded groups such as ITV struggled to cope, cutting staff and budgets.

Under the new plans, the corporation will cut 2,000 jobs, reduce the budget for buying sports and other rights, slash the number of senior managers and share more content.

More repeats will be shown on television and property in west London will also be sold. The changes will result in savings of around 670 million pounds a year by 2016/17.

"The realities of what this country looks like in 2011 and what households up and down the country are going through, what other public institutions are going through, (means) it would be a bit odd if the national broadcaster wasn't feeling some of the same pressures," Director General Mark Thompson said.

LAST MINUTE DEAL

Last year, the BBC agreed to freeze the annual licence fee, payable by every TV-owning British household, at 145.50 pounds. It is also taking on extra costs from the government including funding the BBC World Service, which is broadcast overseas.

The agreement was hammered out in a matter of days, stripping out the months of negotiation normally involved in setting a licence fee, as the coalition government scrambled to cut spending after taking power.

The National Union of Journalists condemned the move and called again for the licence fee to be renegotiatied "especially given what has since emerged about the close relationship between the government and Rupert Murdoch at the time the deal was done."

The media and entertainment union BECTU said the cuts were a direct result of the "shocking 11th hour deal" on the licence fee which "will be the cause of regret for years to come".

The BBC towers over Britain's media landscape with a rich offering of drama, comedy and children's programming, a huge newsgathering operation and some of the UK's most popular websites.

In a lecture more than two years ago, News Corp executive and BSkyB Chairman James Murdoch lashed out at the BBC, accusing it of making a land grab for power and calling for a radical overhaul of British television regulation.

The pendulum has since swung back in favour of looser regulation more favourable to commercial rivals and lower public spending, especially since the recession and the installation of a centre-right coalition government in 2010.

Alex DeGroote, media analyst at London brokerage Panmure Gordon, said the slimming down of the BBC would help level the playing field in Britain, where commercial media companies were up against a far stronger public rival than their peers abroad.

"There's always been a BBC discount for commercial media in this country. It got particularly high in 2002-05. That's when you had a massive expansion of the BBC's inventory -- more digital radio, BBC3 and BBC4, lots of Internet sites," he said.

BSkyB should be well placed to benefit. It is increasing the budget it spends on programming and has recently signed a deal to share the broadcasting of Formula One with the BBC. It is also already very aggressive in acquiring sports rights and drama from the United States. (Editing by Will Waterman and David Cowell)

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* Case involves contract dating back to 1998

* Oracle denied engaging in fraud, but agreed to settle (Adds details of case, Oracle comment)

WASHINGTON Oct 6 (Reuters) - Oracle Corp (ORCL.O) has agreed to pay $199.5 million plus interest to settle allegations that the software giant failed to give promised discounts to the federal government, the U.S. Justice Department said on Thursday.

The world's No. 3 software company was also accused of making false statements about its sales practices and discounts and failing to meet its contract obligations to provide complete information about its sales practices.

Additionally, Oracle did not disclose higher discounts given to other customers and as a result the federal government paid more for its products than it should have, according to the Justice Department.

The settlement over false claims allegations is the largest involving the General Services Administration, which handles procurement for the federal government.

"Resolutions like this one - the largest GSA false claims settlement in history - demonstrate our commitment to ensure taxpayers are not overpaying for the products and services they receive," Tony West, head of the Justice Department's Civil Division, said in a statement.

Oracle denied any wrongdoing or that it engaged in fraud as part of the contract, which dates back to 1998, and argued that many of the witnesses were no longer available or did not remember the events.

Nevertheless, company spokeswoman Deborah Hellinger said "Oracle has therefore decided to avoid the distraction and high cost of litigating this case by settling."

The settlement represents about 11 percent of the $1.84 billion in net income Oracle had in the quarter that ended Aug. 31.

The case involved a former Oracle employee who became a whistleblower, Paul Frascella, and he will receive $40 million as his share, according to the Justice Department.

Oracle shares closed up 56 cents, or 1.9 percent, at $30.07 in regular trading on the New York Stock Exchange. (Reporting by Jeremy Pelofsky in Washington and Jim Finkle in Boston, editing by Carol Bishopric, Gary Hill)

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*Flights canceled, bank machines, cell phones stop working

*Service expected to resume quickly

CALGARY, Alberta Oct 6 (Reuters) - A wayward satellite has cut communications for much of northern Canada, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp reported on Thursday.

The CBC said on its website that Telesat Canada's Anik F2 satellite, which provides communications for Canada's sparsely populated Arctic, had pointed towards the sun, cutting long-distance phone service for 39 communities in the Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut.

The loss of the satellite signal meant most flights in Nunavut had been canceled, while bank machines and cell phones in territory's capital, Iqaluit, a town of 7,250 on Baffin Island, weren't working

Telesat Canada said the satellite suffered from a "technical anomaly" that began early on Thursday morning but the company had regained control and expected service to soon return to normal.

The satellite, manufactured by Boeing Corp (BA.N), was put in service in 2004. (Reporting by Scott Haggett; editing by Peter Galloway)

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n" readability="45">Oct 6 (Reuters) - Carlos Slim, the Mexican billionaire who loaned the New York Times Co (NYT.N) $250 million, has upped his stake in the company for the third time in two months.

Slim now holds 8.1 percent of Class A shares of the New York Times, up from 7.5 percent in August. [ID:nN1E77N0GL]

Through the fund Inmobiliaria Carso S A, Slim purchased about 850,000 shares at prices ranging from $5.84 to $6.00 per share on Oct. 3 and Oct. 4, according to a U.S. regulatory filing.

Shares of the New York Times closed up 12.7 percent at $6.75 on Thursday. This year to date, the shares are down 38.8 percent.

The stocks of newspaper companies McClatchy (MNI.N) and Media General (MEG.N) closed up 8.8 percent and 14.2 percent, respectively.

The New York Times repaid a $250 million to Slim on Aug. 15, about five months earlier than expected.

Slim holds warrants to buy 15.9 million Class A shares of the company that expire on Jan. 15, 2015. (Reporting by Jennifer Saba; Editing by Gary Hill)

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