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all at the same time, without being forced to close down a program.

But the cool part is the controls. First, the TV’s built-in cameras use face recognition to automatically sign users into their personal profiles. Then, users can issue voice commands like "channel 34" or "guide" to control the TV. They can also use gesture controls for Web browsing, adjusting the volume and more.

Overall, the experience looks like what would happen if Apple’s (, Fortune 500) Siri voice assistant and Microsoft’s (, Fortune 500) Kinect motion-sensor system had a baby TV.

Content is accessed through the Smart TV Hub. That menu includes other features like "Family Story" — which can upload photos and videos from a mobile device to the TV — and special hubs for fitness content and for kids.

The ES8000, along with most of the other devices Samsung announced Monday, didn’t get a release date beyond "sometime this year."

On Sunday, the company unveiled a device called the InTouch, which converts regular TVs into smart TVs payday loans for bad credit. The $199 converter is a low-cost option for customers to add Internet browsing, Skype voice calling and a keyboard remote, without having to buy a new TV.

Samsung’s Monday keynote also included more on the TV and Internet-connected fronts: a 55-inch Super OLED TV, as well as connected washer/dryer and connected camera line.

In addition, two Samsung devices will soon make their 4G network debuts: the Galaxy Note phone, and the Galaxy Tab 7.7 tablet.

Samsung closed the keynote with two computer announcements. The new Series 9 Notebook is "the thinnest premium notebook on the market," the company says, at just a half-inch thick and 2.2 pounds. It boots up in just under 10 seconds.

Like many of the CES exhibitors, Samsung also unveiled a super-thin ultrabook: the Series 5 Ultra. Samsung says Web browsing on the laptop is twice as fast as on last-generation notebooks. 

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Best Buy has alerted some customers that it will not be able to fill their online orders, just days before Christmas.

The largest U.S. specialty electronics retailer said late Wednesday that “overwhelming demand for some products from Bestbuy.com has led to a problem redeeming online orders made in November and December.

The Minneapolis company declined Thursday to specify how many orders are affected or which products are out of stock.

The shortages are a black eye for Best Buy, which has beefed up its online campaign to fight off intense competition from online retailers and discount stores. And the holiday season is crucial for retailers like Best Buy because it can make up to 40 percent of annual sales.

Some glitches should not be a surprise with such a massive surge in online shopping this year, analysts said, but there is a risk of a backlash.

“It is a hiccup for the company,” said Morningstar analyst R.J. Hottovy. “They were kind of behind the curve building out their online channel. They’ve done a good job investing in it, but if you make a lot of rapid changes, inevitably there are going to be growing pains.”

The canceled orders probably won’t make a big difference for Best Buy’s holiday sales this year, but it may lead to more customers looking elsewhere in the future, he said.

“The risk is any consumers affected by canceled orders will be willing to explore other alternatives for online shopping in years to come,” Hottovy said.

Online sales are up 15 percent to $32 billion so far this holiday season, while total sales are up just 2.5 percent.

Even though online sales are a huge boon for retailer, the shift has already created some problems. Discount retailer Target Corp’s site crashed in September because of overwhelming demand for Missoni for Target, a limited designer line of clothing, home goods and accessories.

Best Buy benefitted when its now-defunct rival Circuit City went out of business more than a year ago, but its suffering as Americans hold off on big ticket items and search for deals online and at discounters.

In order to compete, Best Buy has expanded its online offerings, cut back on square footage in the U.S. by closing stores and sought to expand internationally. In its most recent third quarter ending Nov. 26, Best Buy said its net income fell 29 percent as it cut prices in popular categories such as tablets and TVs to drive sales and traffic during the holiday season.

Best Buy shares rose 8 cents to $22.96 in midday trading.

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Senate defeat of competing Democratic and Republican plans to extend a cut in the Social Security payroll tax has punted the issue to the House, where GOP leaders are facing ideological divisions within the party over whether to pass the tax holiday.

The focus is on the GOP-controlled House after Senate votes Thursday exposed wide reluctance by Republicans to go along with the costly proposal _ a centerpiece of President Barack Obama’s jobs agenda.

As expected, Senate Republicans defeated Obama’s plan to extend the payroll tax cut through the end of next year while also making it more generous for workers.

But in a vote that exposed rare divisions among Senate Republicans, more than two dozen of the GOP’s 47 lawmakers also voted to kill an alternative plan backed by their leader, Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to renew an existing 2 percentage point payroll tax cut.

A spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said Republicans weren’t planning on negotiating with Democrats before unveiling a payroll tax cut plan _ and the spending cuts to pay for it _ next week. But the Senate vote would seem to indicate that House Republicans will be hard-pressed to muscle a payroll tax cut through without Democratic support. And those votes could be hard to come by if the GOP plan contains spending cuts Democrats dislike.

Many Republicans and even some Democrats say the payroll tax cut hasn’t worked to boost jobs and is too costly with the deficit requiring the government to borrow 36 cents of every dollar it spends.

“I can’t find many people who even know that they’re getting it, OK?” said Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., who opposed both plans. “So with that being said, we’re going to double down on something that we thought should have worked that didn’t work.”

Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., said after Thursday night’s vote that previous tax rebates “stimulated little and increased the debt a lot” and that it would be better to simply cut spending than turn around and use spending cuts on stimulus-style tax cuts.

The defeat of the competing Senate plans came as Boehner said for the first time that renewing the payroll tax cut would boost the lagging economy. Boehner also promised compromise on a renewal of long-term jobless benefits through the end of 2012.

The payroll tax cuts and unemployment benefits are at the center of a costly, politically-charged year-end agenda in which Democrats seem poised to prevail in renewing a tax cut that many Republicans back only reluctantly no faxing payday loans. But Republicans are insisting _ in a switch from last year _ that the payroll tax cut and jobless benefits be paid for by cutting spending.

Both parties are seeking the political high ground as next year’s elections loom, with Democrats accusing Republicans of siding with the rich, and Republicans countering that Democrats were taxing small business owners who create jobs.

The first payroll tax plan to fall was a Democratic measure that was at the heart of the jobs package Obama announced in September. It would cut the Social Security payroll tax from 6.2 percent to 3.1 percent next year and also extend the cut to employers, with its hefty $265 billion cost paid for by slapping a 3.25 percent surtax on income exceeding $1 million.

Republicans and a handful of Democrats combined to kill the measure on a 51-49 tally that fell well short of the 60 votes required under Senate rules. For the first time, a Republican, Susan Collins of Maine, voted to support the millionaires’ surcharge.

In a surprising result, Democrats and more than two dozen Republicans then voted 78-20 to kill the $120 billion GOP alternative that would have simply extended the existing 2 percentage point payroll tax cut, financed by freezing federal workers’ pay through 2015 and reducing the government bureaucracy.

Republicans offered a simple one-year continuation of the existing law, jettisoning Obama’s call to deepen the cut to 3.1 percentage point on workers’ first $106,800 in earnings, while expanding it to cut in half employers’ Social Security contributions for their $5 million in payroll.

To pay for the measure, Senate Republicans proposed freezing federal workers’ pay through 2015 _ extending a two-year-freeze recommended by Obama _ and reducing the bureaucracy by 200,000 jobs through attrition.

The Democratic plan would give a worker earning $50,000 a more than $1,500 tax cut; the GOP plan would provide a $1,000 tax cut for such an earner. A two-income family making $200,000 would reap a $6,000-plus tax cut under the Democratic plan and a $4,000 tax cut under the GOP version.

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Lee Enterprises, the publisher of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and more than 40 other daily newspapers, swung to a loss in its fourth fiscal quarter as print advertising revenue continued to slump.

The Davenport, Iowa-based Lee reported a loss of $8.8 million, or a loss of 20 cents a share, for the quarter ended Sept. 25 compared to net income of $5.2 million, or a profit of 11 cents a share, a year earlier. Despite a 23 percent increase in digital ad sales, Lee’s operating revenue declined 3.3 percent to $182.4 million.

Excluding noncash charges related to the impairment of goodwill and debt financing costs, Lee would have reported a profit of 20 cents a share in the quarter compared to 16 cents a share a year earlier.

The company also reported that it had not yet finalized a $904 cash advances pay day loan.5 million debt financing agreement that had been tentatively reached.

“We continue to work toward the refinancing of our April 2012 debt maturities, which we announced in September,” Carl Schmidt, Lee’s vice president, chief financial officer and treasurer, said in a written statement.

He said the publisher had met a Monday deadline to preserve its right to file a prepackaged Chapter 11 bankruptcy . In September, Lee said it would consider prepackaged bankruptcy if if it couldn’t get 95 percent of the lenders to agree to the refinancing terms. At the time, Lee said it had 90 percent support.

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President Barack Obama says he’s waiting until more Republican presidential hopefuls are “voted off the island” before he starts tuning into the GOP race.

During an appearance on NBC’s “Tonight Show,” Obama says once the field of contenders aiming to replace him is narrowed down to one or two, he’ll start paying attention.

The president taped his appearance with Jay Leno Tuesday morning in Los Angeles before heading north to San Francisco for a campaign fundraiser.

Obama also addressed the recent killing of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, the end of the war in Iraq and the NBA lockout during his appearance on Leno’s show. The full interview is scheduled to air late Tuesday night.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

President Barack Obama is making the rounds in reliably Democratic California, joking with Jay Leno and tapping the coffers of wealthy, celebrity donors as he raises money for his re-election bid.

The president taped an appearance on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” that was scheduled to air Tuesday night. It’s his second stop on the show as sitting president and fourth appearance overall. From Los Angeles, Obama headed north to San Francisco for a fundraiser featuring a performance by folk rock singer-songwriter Jack Johnson. Obama also had fundraisers scheduled in Denver, all part of a three-day, three-state swing through the west.

Tuesday’s fundraisers follow star-studded campaign events in Los Angeles on Monday. Obama joined actor Will Smith and basketball legend Earvin “Magic” Johnson at a dinner at the home of producer James Lassiter. Then he mingled with Melanie Griffith and Antonio Banderas over canapes at the movie star couple’s home just a few blocks away.

Obama was in California for money events last month. The state ranks as Obama’s top donor state, and he raised about $1 million in the Los Angeles area alone during the last two fundraising quarters, according to an Associated Press review of contributions above $200.

The western tour is one of Obama’s busiest donor outreach trips of the season. Celebrities are tried and true fundraising draw, particularly for Democratic presidents. Both the president and the stars bask in their reflected fame and the endorsement of stars can be a useful asset.

Not that he needs the votes here. California is a solidly Democratic state, though Sacramento-based Democratic consultant Roger Salazar said the president, echoing national trends, is less popular now in the state than he was when he was elected.

“Democrats by their nature are going to give the president the benefit of the doubt,” said Salazar, a veteran of California and national political campaigns. “But they want him to do something about it. They want to see some movement.”

Obama is promising some movement. He has been promoting his $447 billion jobs bill, which has been broken up into its component parts in hopes Congress can pass some of them business cards design.

Addressing about 240 donors at the Bellagio hotel and casino in Las Vegas Monday, Obama said the pieces that Republicans reject would likely linger as campaign issues in 2012.

“This is the fight that we’re going to have right now, and I suspect this is the fight that we’re going to have to have over the next year,” Obama said. “The Republicans in Congress and the Republican candidates for president have made their agenda very clear.”

Addressing donors in Los Angeles, Obama ticked off his administration’s accomplishments, eager to reinvigorate supporters whose enthusiasm has flagged since his 2008 election.

“Sometimes I think people forget how much has gotten done,” the president said, as Smith and Johnson looked on. He urged his backers to rally once again, at the same time joking, as he often does, that he is older and grayer now. “This election won’t be as sexy as the first one.”

At Banderas’ and Griffith’s house, its entrance path lined with rose petals and votive candles, Obama told about 120 mostly Latino contributors that he has kept a list of his campaign promises and that, by his count, he has accomplished about 60 percent of them.

“I’m pretty confident we can get the other 40 percent done in the next five years,” he said to loud applause.

The Griffith-Banderas event was Obama’s first Latino fundraiser, with donors giving at least $5,000 per person to attend. It featured guests such as actress Eva Longoria, comedian George Lopez, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis and mayors Antonio Villaraigosa of Los Angeles and Julian Castro of San Antonio.

Obama drew the loudest applause when he vowed to tackle an overhaul of immigration laws, a promise from 2008 that has gone unfulfilled in the face of Republican opposition.

The Las Vegas fundraiser attracted about 240 people who paid from $1,000 to $35,800 toward Obama’s re-election campaign and to the Democratic National Committee. The bigger donors met the president personally. Guests at Lassiter’s home contributed $35,800.

Obama has been displaying campaign-style vigor. At a Las Vegas subdivision where he promoted housing proposals, Obama waded into the neighborhood crowd to shake hands, sign autographs, even lift a baby.

Upon arriving in Los Angeles, Obama headed to a diverse neighborhood minutes from Lassiter’s home south of Hollywood and stopped at Roscoe’s, a popular Los Angeles chicken restaurant chain. Obama roved through the dining booths greeting customers, leaving at least one awestruck young boy holding his hand aloft after shaking the president’s hand. One man gave him a hug and a Hispanic man told his daughter that if she studied hard “you’ll be like him.”

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Associated Press writer Jack Gillum contributed to this report.

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A senior prison officer was killed by his subordinates as he tried to stop mass prison breaks during Egypt’s popular uprising against President Hosni Mubarak, an Egyptian rights group said Monday.

The case of Mohammed el-Batran is key to the mystery surrounding the mass prison break in Egypt in one weekend in late January, when nearly a quarter of Egypt’s prisoners escaped.

Some allege the mass prison break was engineered by an embattled regime trying to cling to power by creating anarchy, though other testimony suggests there may not have been a single guiding hand.

Chaos struck Egypt’s prisons as inmates watched the uprising against Mubarak unfold on television staring Jan.25.

An official investigation has yet to be completed into the escape of more than 23,000 inmates and deaths of at least 120.

The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights said witnesses say el-Batran opposed an alleged official plan to unleash anarchy in the country as a way of derailing the popular uprising against Mubarak.

At the time, authorities and state media said el-Batran was killed by rioting inmates in al-Qatta prison on the outskirts of Cairo.

“This is a version that has been refuted by many witness accounts,” the report said. “There were many stories during the revolution that he refused to let the prisoners out.”

The report reviews witness accounts of inmates and prison officials, as well as forensic evidence describing the circumstances surrounding the death of el-Batran, the head of the prison investigation department in the Interior Ministry, on Jan.29.

El-Batran had argued with a prison official, asking him to leave so he could handle the angry inmates, the report related.

As he walked out of the cell block with hundreds of prisoners following him, a police officer opened fire at the crowd from a watchtower, killing el-Batran and others, the report said.

The findings confirm an earlier report by a national fact-finding mission, which was ignored by the authorities until a new forensic report came out this summer.

“Was this all part of a plan and upon orders, or was it because of the pressures the officers were under, we don’t know yet,” said Ghada el-Shehbandar, a member of the EOHR board. “But we accuse the (former interior minister) of negligence and creating chaos.”

The police vanished from the streets three days after the revolt began, and the military took over. The police have yet to full redeploy, and the country is suffering a serious increase in crime, further complicating Egypt’s transition to a new regime.

The group said some prisoner escapes involved organized and heavily armed attempts to free relatives. But there is enough evidence, the report said, to suggest that some prison breaks were orchestrated by security officials “to spread chaos and instability and to bury the revolution.”

At one lockup, prisoners said they were left for days without food or water after the wardens fled, and only armed guards manning watchtowers remained behind.

Also Monday, Justice Ministry officials said two sons of Mubarak have an estimated $340 million in Swiss bank accounts.

Assem al-Gohary said Swiss authorities are investigating whether one of the sons, Alaa, was involved in money laundering along with other ex-regime figures.

At home, Mubarak and his sons have been charged with corruption and all three are under arrest. Mubarak is also charged with complicity in the killing of about 850 protesters during the uprising.

Switzerland has already frozen the assets of the Mubarak family and other ex-Egyptian regime figures, which al-Gohary estimated at nearly $450 million. He added that most of those assets belong to the sons.

Al-Gohary also said that the wealth of Mubarak’s top associate, tycoon Hussein Salem, and his family exceeded $4 billion. He added that Salem and his family have transferred funds overseas in the past six months, including to Hong King, the United Arab Emirates.

The 77-year-old Salem is co-defendant in the Mubarak corruption trial and faces charges in relation to lucrative land and other deals, including exporting gas to Israel. He is also under arrest in Madrid, Spain.

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Investors waded into Asian stocks Thursday, heartened by new efforts by European leaders to strengthen their continent’s banks and deal with Greece’s massive debts.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 index gained 1.2 percent to 8,839.13 and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was 1.3 percent higher at 18,563.34. South Korea’s Kospi index rose 1 percent to 1,828.67. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.7 percent to 4,232.30.

Benchmarks in Taiwan, Malaysia and the Philippines also rose, while those in Singapore, Shanghai and New Zealand fell.

On Wednesday, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso called for European banks to raise billions in new capital and for a stricter accounting of their exposure to sovereign debt. Barroso also called for a permanent bailout fund to come into force by mid-2012, one year ahead of schedule.

Barroso’s proposals for helping Europe’s struggling banks fueled investor appetite for riskier assets like stocks, analysts said.

“Risk appetite improved, bank stocks rallied … after EC President Jose Barroso pledged for urgent recapitalizing of European banks,” Credit Agricole CIB said in a research note.

Investors also shrugged off Slovakia’s rejection Tuesday of a measure to strengthen Europe’s bailout fund, focusing hopes that a solution would be found before a summit of EU leaders next week.

In the U.S., meanwhile, companies have begun to release their third-quarter earnings reports, and so far the results have been mixed.

The results “will be crucial” to determining the direction of stock markets over the coming days, Credit Agricole said.

PepsiCo Inc. rose 2.9 percent after the company said its income rose because of stronger sales of snacks and beverages, especially overseas. But Alcoa Inc. dropped 2.4 percent after the aluminum maker reported earnings that were weaker than analysts expected.

The Dow rose 0.9 percent to close at 11,518.85. The S&P 500 rose 1 percent to 1,207.25. The Nasdaq composite index rose 21.70, or 0.8 percent, to 2,604.73.

Benchmark oil for November delivery was down 83 cents to $84.74 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 24 cents to end at $85.57 per barrel on the Nymex on Wednesday.

In currencies, the euro slipped to $1.3779 from $1.3793 late Tuesday in New York. The dollar dropped to 77.08 yen from 77.30 yen.

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Al-Qaida’s branch remains a powerful threat in this deeply unstable nation, even after a U.S. drone strike that eliminated three of its key figures. Its military leadership remains intact and is only growing stronger amid months of political turmoil tearing Yemen apart.

As the president struggles to keep power, Islamic militants have taken advantage of the government’s crumbling control to take over several cities in the south, raising the danger they can establish a permanent stronghold. On Saturday, militants holding Zinjibar, a southern provincial capital, battled government forces in fighting that killed at least 28 soldiers and militants.

Yemen is considered a crucial battleground with the terror network. The impoverished nation on the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula is on the doorstep of Saudi Arabia and the oil-producing nations of the Gulf and lies on strategic sea routes leading to the Suez Canal. But order has crumbled as President Ali Abdullah Saleh faces more than seven months of protests demanding an end to his 33-year authoritarian rule, and his loyalists have battled with military units and tribal fighters who sided with the opposition.

Ironically, the turmoil appears in one way to have been a boost to U.S. efforts to fight al-Qaida in Yemen, considered the terror network’s most active and dangerous branch.

Saleh seems to have sought to cling to power by making himself more valuable to Washington, which has pressed him to retire and allow a stable transition. In recent months, Saleh _long criticized as unreliable in his fight against al-Qaida _ has given U.S. counterterrorism units a far freer hand to act in his country, U.S. and Yemeni officials say.

Top U.S. counterterrorism adviser John Brennan has said the Yemenis have been more willing to share information about the location of al-Qaida targets. Yemeni security officials say the U.S. was conducting multiple airstrikes a day in the south since May and that U.S. officials were finally allowed to interrogate al-Qaida suspects, something Saleh had long resisted. The officials spokes on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence issues.

The cooperation was key to hunting down Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-Yemeni cleric who was killed in Friday’s strike by U.S. drones in a desert stretch of central Yemen. Killed with him was Samir Khan, a Pakistani-American who was a propagandist for the group, producing its English-language Web magazine, Inspire.

Also believed to have died in the blast is the top bombmaker for al-Qaida in Yemen _ Ibrahim al-Asiri. The 29-year-old Saudi designed the explosives used in the group’s most notorious plots, including the Christmas 2009 failed attempt to blow up a jetliner headed to Detroit and an intercepted pair of explosives-laden printers that were mailed from Yemen to the United States in 2010.

Late Friday, two U.S. officials said intelligence indicated al-Asiri was among those killed in the strike. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because al-Asiri’s death has not officially been confirmed.

Their deaths would strike a heavy blow to the international reach of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, as the group is called, since al-Awlaki was a valuable recruiter of Muslims abroad to carry out attacks and al-Asiri was an experienced constructor of explosives for such attacks.

But the strike “doesn’t change the dangerous dynamic. The big picture is that the country is falling apart,” says Christopher Boucek, a scholar who studies Yemen and al-Qaida. “Saleh is pushing it into civil war by refusing to step down … creating the chaos that al-Qaida will thrive in.”

Still at large are crucial figures in the group, including its leader Nasser al-Wahishi, a Yemeni who once served as Osama bin Laden’s personal aide in Afghanistan. He fled to Iran after the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, and Tehran handed him over to Yemen, where he was jailed.

But in 2006, he broke out of a Sanaa prison along with nearly two dozen other al-Qaida militants in an escape U.S. officials have said had help from supporters within the regime.

He then founded al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, incorporating remnants of the Saudi branch of the terror network that had been crushed by a crackdown in the kingdom in the mid-2000s, and launched a campaign to overthrow Saleh.

Alongside him is Qassim al-Raimi, the group’s military commander who Yemeni officials believe masterminded the Christmas airliner and the package bomb plots, and deputy leader Saeed al-Shihri, a Saudi who fought in Afghanistan and spent six years in the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, before being released and going through Saudi Arabia’s famous “rehabilitation” institutes.

Also still at large is Fahd al-Quso, a Yemeni who was also close to bin Laden and has been indicted in the United States for a role in organizing the 1998 suicide bombing of the USS Cole off the coast of Yemen’s southern port of Aden, which killed 17 sailors and injured 39 others. Al-Quso is also believed to have helped prepare the young Nigerian accused of carrying out the attempted 2009 airline bombing.

Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula is estimated to have several hundred fighters hiding in mountainous provinces, sheltered by sympathetic tribes disillusioned with Saleh’s regime.

Its fighters are believed to be among hundreds of Islamic militants who earlier this year took control of Zinjibar, capital of southern Abyan province, the nearby town of Jaar and several surrounding villages. Since then, they have fended off military forces besieging them.

The military’s troops have been plagued by disarray in the fight. Two competing units are involved in the fight _ one under Saleh’s command and the other under the leadership of a defecting general, leading to internal conflicts.

At one point, the U.S. had to airlift food and other supplies to one military unit that was on the verge of surrendering for lack of material. Yemeni security officials say the U.S. has also carried out airstrikes in the Zinjibar area to help in the battle, though American officials have not confirmed any such strikes.

On Saturday, government troops tried to advance into the eastern part of Zinjibar in heavy clashes with militants. The Defense Ministry said in a statement that 20 militants and six soldiers were killed in the day’s fighting. Military officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the press, said airstrikes also hit a hospital in Jaar that militants used as a hideout. It was not immediately clear if there were casualties.

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Will a monthly debit card fee soon be the norm? Bank of America said Thursday that it plans to start charging a $5 monthly fee when customers make debit card purchases. The fee will be rolled out starting early next year.

Paying to use a debit card was unheard of before this year and is still a novel concept for many consumers. But several banks have recently introduced or started testing debit card fees. That’s in addition to the spate of other unwelcome changes checking account customers have seen in the past year.

Bank of America’s announcement carries added weight because it is the largest U.S. bank by deposits.

The fee will apply to basic accounts, which are marketed toward those with modest balances, and will be in addition to any existing monthly service fees. For example, one such account charges a $12 monthly fee unless customers meet certain conditions, such as maintaining a minimum average balance of $1,500.

Customers will only be charged the fee if they use their debit cards for purchases in any given month, said Anne Pace, a Bank of America spokeswoman. Those who only use their cards at ATMs won’t have to pay.

The debit card fee is just the latest twist in the rapidly evolving market for checking account.

A study by Bankrate.com this week found that just 45 percent of checking accounts are now free with no strings attached, down from 65 percent last year and 76 percent in 2009. Customers can still get free checking in most cases, but only if they meet certain conditions, such as setting up direct deposit.

The study also found that the total average cost for using an ATM rose to $3.81, from $3.74, the year before. The average overdraft fee inched up to $30.83, from $30.47

The changes come ahead of a regulation that goes into effect next month.

Starting Oct. 1, the regulation will cap the fees that banks can collect from merchants whenever customers swipe their debit cards. Those fees generated $19 billion in revenue for banks in 2009, according to the Nilson Report, which tracks the payments industry.

There is no similar cap on the merchant fees that banks can collect when customers use their credit cards, however free business cards. That means many banks are increasingly encouraging customers to reach for their credit cards, in hopes of reversing a trend toward debit card usage in the past several years.

An increasing reliance on credit cards would be particularly beneficial for big institutions like Bank of America, which have large credit card portfolios, notes Bart Narter, a banking analyst with Celent, a consulting firm.

“It’s become a more profitable business, at least in relation to debit cards,” Narter said.

This summer, an Associated Press-GfK poll found that two-thirds of consumers use debit cards more frequently than credit cards. But when asked how they would react if they were charged a $3 monthly debit card fee, 61 percent said they’d find another way to pay.

With a $5 fee, 66 percent said they would change their payment method.

Several banks are nevertheless moving ahead with debit card fees.

SunTrust, a regional bank based in Atlanta, began charging a $5 debit card fee on its basic checking accounts this summer. Regions Financial, which is based in Birmingham, Ala., plans to start charging a $4 fee next month.

Chase and Wells Fargo are also testing $3 monthly debit card fees in select markets. Neither bank has said when it will make a final decision on whether to roll out the fee more broadly.

The growing prevalence of the debit card fee is alarming for Josh Wood, a 32-year-old financial adviser in Amarillo, Texas.

Wood relies entirely on debit cards to avoid interest charges on a credit card. If his bank, Wells Fargo, began charging a debit card fee, he said he would take his business to a credit union.

If a debit fee became so prevalent that it was unavoidable, Wood said he’s not sure how he’d react.

“I might use all cash. Or go back to writing checks,” he said.

Bank of America’s debit card fee will be rolled out in stages starting with select states in early 2012. The company would not say which states would be affected first.

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