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1010 WSPC AM

2011-12-17T14:35:00.001-08:00

1010 WSPC AM is the News Talk and Information Station in Albemarle NC, Stanly County

For More Info: listen.mediatechusa.com

90:00 Soccer Radio

2011-12-17T14:27:00.000-08:00

A mix of music, news briefs, trivia, and lively phone rants from soccer fans

BBC World Service News

2011-12-17T14:23:00.000-08:00

Provides international news, analysis and information worldwide

Radio TeenTaal

2011-12-17T14:00:00.000-08:00

100% Indian And Bollywood Music, Radio Live From Paris! Bollywood Hits.

Tennessee's Pat Summitt sticks to game plan in Alzheimer's fight

2011-12-17T13:32:00.000-08:00

By David Wharton

December 16, 2011, 5:48 p.m.

Pretty much everyone who wanders into Pat Summitt's office or visits her basketball practice these days has learned to fear the iPad. The coach keeps her tablet filled with brain-wrenching games.

Crossword puzzles and Sudoku. Math quizzes and memory tests.

"When people come by," said Tyler, her son, "she gets them to sit down and try one of those things."

It was seven months ago that doctors diagnosed Summitt with early-onset dementia, Alzheimer's type, an incurable brain disease that affects memory, thinking and behavior.

Summitt chose to go public with her affliction and now the Tennessee Lady Vols, who face UCLA on Saturday, have become much more than a sports story.

Think back to when Magic Johnson announced he was HIV-positive and fans expected the worst. Something similar is happening with the 59-year-old Summitt.

This is an iconic figure, a pioneer of women's athletics who has 1,077 victories on her resume, more than Mike Krzyzewski or Bob Knight or anyone else in the college game. People are watching to see if that famous stare goes vacant or her razor-sharp mind turns dull.

Maybe that's why Summitt delights in challenging them to a computer game.

"Yeah, we've played," said Holly Warlick, her long-time associate head coach. "She kills me every time."

The game plan

Facing the fight of her life, Summitt has chosen to focus her energy on basketball and health. That means no interviews for the time being, but she encourages friends and family to speak for her.

They say the early signs of dementia might have gone overlooked because the preternaturally busy Summitt had always misplaced her keys or forgotten where she parked her car.

But then her jam-packed schedule — meetings and practices, booster club speeches and news conferences — became too much.

"She just wasn't multitasking like she used to," Tyler said. "She was doing four things at once instead of seven."

Her staff noticed that she would forget some small detail about a high school recruit they had discussed the day before. That might have been understandable with another coach, but not Summitt.

"Pat was always a machine," assistant Dean Lockwood said. "Normally, she would remember everything we talked about."

Last May, a trip to the Mayo Clinic confirmed the worst. Not surprisingly, there were a few days of anger and denial. Then came another predictable response.

"She always has a game plan," said Billie Moore, the former UCLA coach who has been Summitt's mentor and friend for many years. "She thinks that if she follows her game plan, she can control whatever's going on."

Summitt has attacked dementia with the same tenacity that fueled her career, from Tennessee farm girl to college and Olympic athlete, from 22-year-old rookie coach to living legend.

sorce : latimes.com

Nothing's sacred, including Britney's possible engagement

2011-12-17T13:26:00.000-08:00

By Kurt Schlosser

Update: Your fast-moving Internet should have told you by now that, yes, Britney Spears is engaged for real. Access Hollywood has the details over here. We had all this to say before there was all that:
It shouldn't come as a big shock that very few things in our over-sharing culture have the ability to surprise us anymore. We've tweeted and Facebooked ourselves out of anything resembling a secret (keeping) society. And when it comes to the celebrities we spend so much time obsessing over, this holds doubly true: we know the sex of the babies they haven't had yet; we know where they slept last night; we know what the divorce cost.

But it struck us as a little absurd to be reading this morning (on TMZ and elsewhere) that Britney Spears' boyfriend, Jason Trawick, plans to ask her to marry him tonight in Las Vegas. When did it become normal to leak word of an impending engagement? Call us old fashioned, but beyond Trawick and Spears' father, Jamie, -- who according to the report gave his approval -- no one else should know until Britney knows. When Trawick gets down on one knee and says, "Will you marry me, Britney?" it just seems more meaningful if the pop star didn't see it coming.
If we're to believe RadarOnline.com, we've even "seen" the ring before the bride-to-be. "Don’t expect anything too massive or obnoxious,” a source told the web site exclusively. "This ring will be classy and under 4 carats." Bling! Duh.
We're certainly aware that Spears has led what seems to be a pretty tightly controlled existence since the days of, well, this. So her family and the people who control her money and movements now weren't going to just let any yahoo take her to the roof of the Bellagio and put a ring on it. Those days are hopefully over.

And while we didn't expect Trawick to put it on the Jumbotron at a future Lakers game or hire a skywriting plane to spell it out over Southern California, maybe we hoped he'd find a way to surprise a woman who'd seen it all in her hectic 30 years. Or maybe we just hoped he would take her to a quiet dinner or a walk on the beach and say, "Hey, let's do this."

And because there's always another exclusive source around the next corner, Us says he did just that Thursday night. And now Britney's Facebook page is teasing what may or may not be the big news:
Oh well. Who knows? Friday in Las Vegas could be the greatest night of Britney's life. Or maybe Thursday night already was. Knowing it was coming may be just how she wanted it and Kevin Federline will be a distant, bloated memory when she says yes to marriage a third time.
We wish Britney well. We hope Trawick is "the one" and they live happily ever after. But who are we kidding? We'll know how she's doing before she does.

sorce: http://scoop.today.msnbc.msn.com/

Smallest black hole ever found

2011-12-17T13:21:00.000-08:00

By Space.com Staff

Scientists may have found the smallest black hole yet by listening to its X-ray "heartbeat."

The black hole, if it truly exists, would weigh less than three times the mass of the sun, putting it near the theoretical minimum mass required for a black hole to be stable.
The researchers can't directly observe the black hole, but they measured a rise and fall in X-ray light coming from a binary star system in our Milky Way galaxy that they think signals the presence of a black hole.
Until now, this X-ray pattern, which is similar to a heartbeat registered on an electrocardiogram, has been seen in only one other black hole system.

NASA's Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) spacecraft measured this X-ray heartbeat in a star system in the direction of the constellation Scorpius, at a distance between 16,000 and 65,000 light-years away (a light-year is the distance light travels in a single year, about 6 trillion miles (10 trillion kilometers).
Researchers think the system, officially called IGR J17091-3624, includes one normal star with a companion black hole. Mass would stream off this normal star and fall toward the black hole, forming a flattened disk around it. As friction in the disk heats the gas to millions of degrees, the disk would emit high-energy X-rays that can be seen across the galaxy.
As changes occur inside the disk, cyclical variations can be seen in the X-rays streaming from it, which pulse in varied intensity like a heartbeat.
The astronomers recognized the signal from this system because of its similarity to another black hole system called GRS 1915+105 that pulses in much the same way. This other system contains a black hole that weighs about 14 times the sun's mass, which sends out X-rays in highly structured patterns that last between seconds and hours.

The PlayBook is killing RIM

2011-12-17T13:14:00.000-08:00

By Brian Barrett

Gizmodo
RIM finally eked out a decent quarter. Beat analyst estimates, even. That is, if you don't count the $485 million bath the company took on unsold tablets. The PlayBook — ill conceived, poorly executed — is RIM's worst product. And it might just take down the whole company.
It's been a trying year for RIM. There have been security snafus and subpar product launches and an overwhelming sense of stagnation. All of which is compounded by the company's blind hubris, be it last year'sridiculous BlackBerry Torch expectations or today's claim by co-CEO Mike Lazardis that every day he "[hears] stories ... about people saying the BlackBerry Bold is the best communication device in the world today." If those are the stories you're hearing, maybe you're spending too much time in the fiction aisle.
But despite all of the miscues, no matter how many blinders management has on, RIM has still managed to be profitable. Its subscription base hit 75 million this year. It pulls in a billion in cloud revenue on the regular. You'd be tempted to say that RIM was succeeding in spite of itself—if it weren't for its greatest failure. The PlayBook: it's RIM's Gilligan, albatross, and giant self-destruct button all rolled into one. It could be the death of them.
Remember: by all rights there shouldn't even be a PlayBook, and there wouldn't have been were it not for the iPad. And while RIM's certainly not the only Apple competitor caught with its pants down, it was the one with the most to lose. Samsung, Toshiba, Lenovo; they were on the hook for hardware, sure, but they could bunk comfortably on the USS Android. And more importantly, they could crank out consumer-focused iPad clones.
RIM, though? RIM had to make an enterprise tablet. You know, that thing that no one needs or wants. It had to go it alone. And it got it so very, very wrong. No native email or calendar at launch, no BBM. And when you screw it up that badly, all you're left with is a $485 million answer to a question no one was asking.
But here's the part that might break your heart: RIM still doesn't get it. Today its managers said repeatedly that they believed in the PlayBook because people had finally started buying it — as part of a two-for-one sale. Or at $100 a pop for its own employees. You know, the kinds of prices where RIM loses massive amounts of money on every sale.
The excuses were ample. The tablet market, said Lazardis, is still "in its infancy." Really? Apple sold more than twice as many iPads as Macs last quarter. Just because you've entered a baby in the race doesn't mean you're not competing against grown-ass men. But PlayBook 2.0 software, RIM said, will drive sales next February. Really? All native email means is that people who hate their PlayBooks now will hate them slightly less in a couple of months. It's not a selling point, it's table stakes. An ante that RIM's gone nearly a whole year without ponying up.
So $485 million is a lot of money, money RIM can't afford to eat every few months. But there are other costs that don't show up on the bottom line. Reputation takes a hit, sure. But so does productivity. RIM's other major letdown of the day was that BlackBerry 10 handsets would be delayed until late 2012. You think that would have happened if some of the company's best minds weren't giving CPR to its DOA tablet these last few months?
Lazardis' argument is that because PlayBook and BlackBerry 10 share QNX roots, developing for one is the same as developing for both. That's false. The iPad and iPhone are both iOS devices, but they each require separate — and substantial — resources to develop, hardware and software alike. Right now the PlayBook is a leech, sucking up the lifeblood that RIM could and should be using to make great phones again. And to make them quickly.

Next year, RIM's big PlayBook fix is to spend lots and lots of money on advertising and marketing. In fact, it's already started, right here on today's press release:

A conference call and live webcast will be held beginning at 5 pm ET, September 15, 2011, which can be accessed by dialing 1-877-974-0445 (North America), (+1)416-644-3414 (outside North America) or through your personal computer or BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet at www.rim.com/investors/events/index.shtml.

Emphasis added, but implicit. Also: this was desperate enough to make me legitimately sad.
You can only throw so much good money after bad. Because eventually, you end up with nothing but a warehouse full of tablets, and a faded memory of a company that used to be pretty damn special.
More on RIM from Gizmodo:

sorce: http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/

Forget electric cars, used full-size SUVs are the hot property now

2011-12-17T13:00:00.000-08:00

By Dan Carney
Think cutting-edge electric vehicles like the Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf are hard to get? That’s nothing compared to the challenge of buying a three-year-old full-size SUV.
That’s because while there is still plenty of demand for big SUVs -- Chevy sells about 5,000 new Suburbans and 8,000 Tahoes every month -- there will soon be virtually no supply of late-model used ones.
New big-SUV sales are percolating along now, but that wasn’t the case three years ago, when the aftershocks of the 2008 financial meltdown were still reverberating around the industry and there was no loan money available to those remaining customers who still wanted to spend $40,000 or $50,000 on an SUV.
The result: today there are no three-year-old SUVs because three years ago there weren’t any new ones. It's sort of the automotive equivalent of the baby bust faced by countries like Japan that find themselves short of able-bodied workers decades after childbirth rates flatlined.
According to the National Automobile Dealers Association, in 2010 the normal number of SUVs returning to dealers from leases every month was between 2,500 and 2,750 nationwide, giving shoppers ample selection.
“This made them easy to find and kept pricing reasonable,” observed Jake Moore, general manager of Country Chevrolet, in Warrenton, Va.
Last month, the number of SUVs returning from lease was fewer than 200. In the whole country. Chopping the supply of used vehicles to less than a tenth the normal volume is going to give used Tahoe shoppers a real headache.
“This will cause a severe shortage of used SUVs for the used car market, which in turn should drive up prices,” Moore said. “I think we will feel the impact of this in late January due to the time it takes to process, sell and market the lease turn-ins.”
So, about the time the first big blizzard of the season convinces drivers that they need an affordable used 4x4, there won’t be any to be had. With a shortage of used SUVs and high prices on the few that are available, many shoppers will decide to buy new ones, giving the domestic car makers a sales boost for a few years.
Moore said his dealership has stocked up on used SUVs in anticipation of the bust, but with a finite number of vehicles available, not all dealers can do the same thing, and they will eventually run out anyway.
“As far out as April of 2014, the return volume for big SUVs is only going to be around 500 a month,” Moore said.
That’s a long time to wait to buy a used SUV, so shoppers who are in the market for one should act quickly or start considering buying new. And if you have a three-year old SUV, in a couple months your current ride will be worth its weight in, well, if not gold, at least copper. That will put you in position to upgrade to a new one with a nice trade-in.

sorce: http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/

Victoria's Secret to probe child labor claims

2011-12-17T12:55:00.000-08:00

US lingerie maker Victoria's Secret on Thursday vowed to investigate claims that some of its fair-trade underwear is produced using child labor.

In a statement Victoria's Secret's parent company said it was "very concerned" that fair-trade-certified cotton used in its panties could have been farmed using under-aged labor in Burkina Faso.

"Immediately upon learning of this allegation, we began working with key stakeholders internally and externally to fully investigate this matter," Limited Brands said.

"Depending on the findings, we are prepared to take swift action to prevent the illegal use of child labor."

The retailer -- which became a household name thanks to its catalogue and the prominent use of models such as Gisele Buendchen, Helena Christensen, Elle MacPherson and Claudia Schiffer -- is a multi-billion dollar a year business.

Previous allegations of child labor against companies like Nike, GAP and Apple have forced US companies to tighten up standards on suppliers in recent years.
Limited Brands was quick to emphasize it had ethics rules in place.

"If this allegation is true, it describes behavior that is contrary to our company's values," it said.

arb/pmh

Kobe Bryant's wife files for divorce

2011-12-17T12:51:00.000-08:00

ORANGE, Calif. (AP) — Kobe Bryant's wife, who stood by her husband when he was charged with sexual assault in 2003, filed for divorce on Friday from the Los Angeles Lakers star, citing irreconcilable differences after a decade of marriage.

Vanessa Bryant signed the papers on Dec. 1. Kobe Bryant signed his response on Dec. 7 and it was filed Friday, according to the documents.

"The Bryants have resolved all issues incident to their divorce privately with the assistance of counsel and a judgment dissolving their marital status will be entered in 2012," according to a statement from a representative for the couple.
In the filing, Vanessa Bryant asked for joint legal and physical custody of the couple's two daughters, Natalia, 8, and Gianna, 5. Kobe Bryant asked for the same in his response. Vanessa Bryant also requested spousal support.
The Bryants "ask that in the interest of our young children and in light of the upcoming holiday season the public respect our privacy during this difficult time," according to the statement.

Bryant met his future wife in 1999 on a music video shoot when Vanessa Laine was 18 years old. Six months later, she and the then-21-year-old Bryant became engaged. They married on April 18, 2001.

The Bryants have been through trying times together.
Vanessa Bryant appeared at a news conference with her husband when he was charged with sexually assaulting a 19-year-old woman who worked at the exclusive Lodge & Spa at Cordillera near Vail, Colo., in 2003. She held his hand and stroked it tenderly as the NBA star admitted he was guilty of adultery — but nothing else. Earlier she had issued her own statement to the media, vowing to stand by her husband.
"I know that my husband has made a mistake — the mistake of adultery," she said in the statement at the time. "He and I will have to deal with that within our marriage, and we will do so. He is not a criminal."
A year later, prosecutors dropped the criminal charge against Kobe Bryant because the woman did not want to go ahead with a trial.

Last year, Kobe and Vanessa Bryant settled litigation with a former maid who accused the NBA star's wife of harassment. The Bryants countersued Maria Jimenez for violating a confidentiality agreement by talking to reporters about the family.

sorce: news.yahoo.com

Turnout low as Gabon votes amid opposition boycott

2011-12-17T12:45:00.000-08:00

Voters trickled to the polls in Gabon Saturday in legislative elections expected to hand a thumping victory to President Ali Bongo's party in the face of a boycott by some opposition groups.

Bongo's Gabonese Democratic Party (PDG) and its allies hold 98 of the 120 seats in parliament in the west African oil state and are not expected to lose much ground given the splintered opposition.

Polling stations closed at 1700 GMT, although some shut earlier because of the low turnout and a lack of electricity as darkness fell.
At two polling stations in the capital Liberville, for instance, only 61 people cast ballots out of 704 registered voters, according to Germaine Mianga of the election commission.

Results are expected Thursday.

In the first legislative poll since his father Omar died in 2009 after 41 years in power, Bongo, 52, has campaigned on his economic achievements and the co-hosting of the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations with Equatorial Guinea, an event that has spurred major investment.

"It's a citizen's duty to go and vote, but it's true it's not very crowded," said voter Antoinette Ntsame-Sima at a polling station in northern Medouneu, the stronghold of leading opposition figure Andre Mba Obame.

Many eyes were on Medouneu, where Mba Obame won 96 percent of the vote in the 2009 presidential election which brought Bongo to power, to see whether voters would observe the boycott.

PDG candidate Maxime Ondimba is facing off against Claude-Guy Assey of the Rally for Gabon -- part of the presidential majority supporting Bongo -- for the seat vacated by Mba Obame, who is ill and undergoing medical treatment in France.

Mba Obame's supporters went out in small groups in Medouneu to urge people not to vote, prompting an outburst from the town's mayor Pauline Ossone of the PDG.

"They are trying to scare people so that they won't vote. Even little old ladies! It's unacceptable," Ossone charged.
But Delphine Alene-Ondo, a retired secretary, was defiant: "I'm not afraid. I am at home, I'm Gabonese, I'm voting for Ondimba... (Mba Obame's supporters) are rubbish."
Lucien-Patrick Landoube, a teacher, acknowledged that there had been calls to boycott the election, "but voting is a civic duty," he said as he cast his ballot at an uncrowded Medouneu polling station.
Reached by telephone in Paris, Mba Obame said: "Today they will say that they took Andre Mba Obame's seat. It's true they will have a deputy, but they haven't taken my seat. They don't represent anyone."
Assey said he hoped to benefit from the boycott. "Not all of Mba Obame's supporters will observe the boycott. They know that the one who is best placed to defend their intrests is Claude-Guy Assey. I will be elected."

A total of 746,000 people are registered to vote in the country of 1.5 million inhabitants, sub-Saharan Africa's fourth largest oil producer.

Despite the recent emergence of a middle class, disparities are huge, with more than half of the population living on less than two dollars a day.

Inspired by the Arab Spring and a string of protest movements against long-standing rulers in sub-Saharan Africa, Gabon's opposition initially looked to be mounting a serious challenge, but it was split over the boycott issue.

Mba Obame's supporters joined forces with 12 other opposition parties in November to reject the elections over the absence of biometric polling materials.

A number of ruling party dissidents joined opposition ranks in recent years in a bid to push for more democracy, but the PDG old guard that once protected Omar Bongo's status as Africa's longest-serving leader appears to have won the day.

"The PDG runs Gabon. We have to vote for Ondimba because if you vote for him, the president (Bongo) will trust us and we'll have schools, roads and everything," said Nestor Aboghe, a PDG supporter.

sorce: news.yahoo.com

Paris estate agents battle to lure Posh and Becks

2011-12-17T12:40:00.000-08:00

Estate agents in the more affluent quarters of the French capital are battling to unearth a property gem in a bid to lure football superstar David Beckham and his fashion-savvy wife Victoria, industry insiders said Saturday.

Beckham has become a target for Paris Saint Germain with the club's owners, Qatar Sport Investments (QSI), said to have offered the former England midfielder a lucrative deal to help turn their under-achieving side into one of Europe's top clubs.

A fortnight ago reports from the capital said PSG had stepped up their bid by finding a school -- the British School of Paris -- in the outskirts of the capital for the three school-aged of his four children.

Now estate agents in and around the capital are in a race to find a property which suits both Beckham and his wife Victoria, who rose to fame as 'Posh' in the successful girl band the Spice Girls but who is now a respected fashion designer.

"Victoria Beckham visited a luxury townhouse in the Avenue Montaigne, in the fashion quarter, on the weekend of November 11," Marie-Helene Lundgreen, the head of Belles Demeures de France, told AFP.

The same company also offered to sell the Beckhams a luxury townhouse located at Place des Victoires in the fashion-conscious second arrondissement, which could house the whole family and allow Victoria Beckham to open her own designer store close by.

Agents have also been giving thought to Beckham's need to be close to PSG's training complex, the Camp des Loges, at Saint-Germain-en-Laye -- a well-heeled suburb around 20km from the city centre.

Properties near the Camp des Loges have been found at nearby Marne-la-Coquette and Maisons-Laffitte.

Some agents, however, are counting on the Beckhams renting first.

Thibault de Saint-Vincent, president of the Barnes property group, has found what he believes to be a suitable rental property in the chic 16th arrondissement.

"I think they would probably want to rent at first," said De Saint-Vincent.

"That's why we are proposing a house of 1500 square metres, with 1500 square metres of land, in the 16th arrondissement costing 60,000 euros per month."

Beckham played what may have been his last match for American club LA Galaxy in early December when the Major Soccer League champions beat Australian club Melbourne Victory 4-3 on penalties in an exhibition game.

He is said to be mulling another spell with the Galaxy, or other European options.

However rumours suggest he could be in the French capital on Sunday to watch PSG's crunch home match against reigning champions Lille.

sorce : news.yahoo.com

Could RIM's survival mean abandoning the BlackBerry?

2011-12-17T12:33:00.000-08:00

TORONTO (Reuters) - It might seem like corporate heresy but an increasing number of technology investors and experts are asking whether Research in Motion needs to ditch its BlackBerry handset business to survive.

The idea that is gaining favor, albeit only among a minority of shareholders, would see the Canadian company fully open its secure and highly respected network to rival smartphone providers and concentrate on that business while getting out of the hardware game altogether through a sale.

Disappointing quarterly results, including a dismal outlook for Blackberry sales and word that RIM would delay the introduction of new devices, sent its shares down more than 11 percent to their lowest levels in almost eight years on Friday.

Just before those numbers were released, activist shareholder Jaguar Financial called on the company to sell its handset business and monetize its patent portfolio while retaining the high-margin services business. "Jaguar believes that the road map to value restoration lies in a sale of RIM whether as a whole or in separate parts," it said.

RIM's spidery, data-crunching network reaches behind corporate firewalls and taps into mobile networks globally.

The network, unique among handset makers, has been a cornerstone of the BlackBerry's growth - with email and instant messages routed through RIM's own enterprise servers and data centers, where it is encrypted and pushed out to subscribers.

There are no middlemen to intercept corporate or state secrets, or even the flirty chats of teenagers who love the free BlackBerry messaging.
TERMINAL DECLINE?
Jaguar, which claims support from shareholders who own about 8 percent of RIM's stock but only owns a tiny fraction itself, also reiterated its call for a change in the company's leadership.

It has called for a new "transformational" leader to replace RIM's co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis, the company's co-founder, and Jim Balsillie, the mercurial salesman who has marketed the BlackBerry to the world.

It is not alone in wondering whether a sharp decline in Blackberry sales - the company said it expects the number of devices it ships in the quarter including Christmas will drop as much as 26 percent from a year ago - is a sign of terminal decline for the product.

The company's network has stronger margins and more secure recurring revenue, though it still needs to be fully exploited.
"If they want to maintain that asset, if not stabilize or grow it, they need to open it up to the other platforms and look at themselves as an enterprise software company," ThinkEquity analyst Mark McKechnie said.
RIM is likely already working on just such a change, said a U.S.-based shareholder, who declined to be identified. The fund manager, whose firm owns more than 1 million RIM shares, said delays launching new software and devices may reflect efforts to fully accommodate devices from outside RIM's own stable.
A year ago, talk of ditching the BlackBerry would have been almost unthinkable, let alone garner any serious attention. That was before a spectacular meltdown that has seen the device, once an essential tool in the top echelons of business and politics, being pushed aside by Apple's iPhone and smartphones powered by Google's Android software.
The deterioration in the business has been so great that some analysts now estimate that RIM is barely making money on BlackBerry sales.
MASSIVE DISCOUNTS
That isn't its only problem. The PlayBook, the company's latecomer in the tablet market dominated by Apple's iPad, has been a deflating disappointment, forcing RIM to offer massive discounts on the unloved device. It took a $485 million pre-tax charge for the Playbook, which runs on QNX software that RIM plans to use in its future devices.
The severity of RIM's problems shows up in its share price. It crashed to a low of just $13.12 on Friday, after trading as high as $144 in 2008 and about $70 in February this year. A company that was once worth almost $80 billion is now valued at barely $7 billion.
Meanwhile, the subscriptions that businesses and network operators pay RIM each month brought in more than $1 billion in each of the past two quarters.
The company declined to comment on talk that it will ever abandon the BlackBerry and did not grant interviews with either Lazaridis or Balsillie for this story.
Balsillie announced a comprehensive review of RIM's operations on a conference call with analysts on Thursday.
"We plan to introduce new devices into the smartphone and tablet market, as well as products and services that better leverage our global cloud infrastructure, and unique capabilities within the smartphone market, he said.
While RIM hasn't given any indication it plans to give up on its BlackBerry handset, it has started to emphasize its services business.
EXTRA STEP
In late November, RIM took a first step that could eventually lead to establishing the network as a standalone operation. It introduced a software tool giving corporate customers the option of linking iPhones and Android devices to the BlackBerry network.
The move stops short of offering outsiders access to its unique technology that encrypts data and pushes it out to the BlackBerry. Going that extra step is exactly what some critics suggest that RIM needs to consider.
RIM charges a monthly fee to every BlackBerry user, making its network a stable stream of revenue and giving the company an advantage over every other handset maker. For RIM, it has become a more reliable source of profit than shipping its own smartphones.
The strategic reasoning goes: Why build a staid Volvo or a flashy Ferrari when you can own the toll highway on which they drive?
"There is a massive under-utilized asset in the services infrastructure which is very profitable. I think they are getting ready to come to market with a way to leverage that," said the U.S. fund manager. "At a minimum, I think they are going to start aggressively doing things that leverage their infrastructure beyond RIM handsets."
RISK IN WAITING
Mike Abramsky, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets, raised the prospect of RIM splitting in two back in July. For him, the biggest risk is waiting. He says RIM's still-growing global subscriber base gives it time to make the move, but the network too would suffer if the BlackBerry keeps slipping.
Alternative networks that provide many of the same features as the BlackBerry enterprise network are already making inroads. Eventually even that jewel could lose its cachet, he says.
"The risk in waiting is that as more companies switch over to alternatives, it will be difficult to attract them back to BlackBerry even as a network-only business," he said, referring to companies such as Good Technology and SAP's Sybase, which encrypt and manage data for iPhones and other devices.
Abramsky said offering a managed network for users of all handsets would expand RIM's potential market by six times or more. At the same time, the network business likely boasts an 80 percent gross margin versus a handset business in the high 20 percent range.
Lazaridis has been betting on reinvigorating the Blackberry by hoping that QNX, the new operating system, will help RIM catch up and perhaps overtake the iPhone and Google's Android and stifle Microsoft's emerging mobile platform.
The new system is supposed to allow devices to be updated on the fly and should also help third-party developers that struggle to write appealing apps in RIM's aging framework. A dearth of BlackBerry apps compared with Apple and Android has limited RIM's attractiveness to many consumers.
But RIM has yet to show it can make the transformation successfully. The first of the new generation of QNX-equipped smartphones - the BlackBerry 10 line - was initially promised for early next year, but on Thursday RIM said it did not expect to release a BlackBerry 10 device until the latter part of 2012.
The delay in the make-or-break QNX line will only accelerate the drive among investors for sweeping change.
What's clear to many investors and analysts is the status quo will mean an accelerating fade into irrelevance.
"Investors have been extremely patient and they're being asked to wait another year," said a Canada-based shareholder. "A year from now, will all this be too little, too late?"

(Editing by Frank McGurty, Janet Guttsman, Martin Howell)

sorce: news.yahoo.com

Galaxy Nexus update checker tells you who's sending your updates

2011-12-17T12:20:00.000-08:00

A recent revelation in the strange, mysterious world of the Android update process is that the Galaxy Nexus isn't necessarily updated to new versions of the operating system by Google directly: even the exact same hardware might be updated by Samsung or your carrier, depending on the software configuration. The Galaxy Nexus, for instance, currently has at least three configurations, including one dedicated to the Verizon version (known as "mysid"). Why is that? As Google's Jean-Baptiste Queru explains, "there are routinely per-country or per-operator software customizations for the same hardware."
For users, this means that as Android gets updated, the actual over-the-air updated may not be pushed by Google directly — it might instead be pushed by Samsung or a carrier. In the case of the Verizon model, Queru says that Verizon has the "final" call:

To help users figure out which situation applies to them, an Android developer — Christian Brüggemann — has thrown together a quick, simple app that checks your configuration and tells you where your updates will come from. To be clear, this isn't a new situation: Queru notes that this has been going on all along (the Nexus S has three software configurations), and there isn't any evidence to suggest that Nexus handsets not getting updates directly from Google will be delayed by any meaningful period of time when new versions get pushed. Still, though, it's interesting to know whether you're getting your Android straight from the source.

Britney Spears turns 30, goes ice skating to celebrate

2011-12-03T17:10:00.000-08:00

What better way to celebrate turning the big 3-0 than ice skating with your boyfriend?
Britney Spears who is celebrating her 30th birthday today, December 2, spent the day ice skating with her boyfriend, Jason Trawick, during a day off from her South American tour.
According to Us Weekly Jason and Britney were all smiles as they skated around, holding on to one another in order to keep balance.
The “Criminal” singer, who received birthday wishes via Twitter from such stars as Nicole Richie, Demi Lovato, Nicki Minaj, Katy Perry, Christina Aguilera, Kim Kardashian, and Pauly D, to name a few, previously expressed how excited she was about turning 30.
"I think the older you get, the wiser you get. I can't wait," she told Glamour magazine’s September issue. "I'm really excited and I am definitely going to celebrate and do something spectacular." She predicted, though, that her celebration would be “low-key.”
For Spears, turning 30 could mean more than just entering a new age group, it could also mean wedding bells if the rumors are true.
According to People, Jason Trawick could soon be popping the question.
According to sources, the couple has been talking about marriage “for a long time,” and the 39-year-old agent has already picked out a ring.
"It would be surprising if they are not engaged by the end of the year,” said the source.

Veena Malik’s snap genuine, say stylist, photographer

2011-12-03T16:46:00.000-08:00

Pakistani actor Veena Malik’s nude photo shoot on the cover of the December issue of the glossy FHM, has stirred up quite a storm. The cover, which shows a naked Malik sporting a prominent ‘ISI’ tattoo on her arm became the most trending topic on Twitter yesterday. The 27-year-old actor is now
facing harsh criticism back home.
Khuwaja Sara, a Pakistan-based group, protested against the actor and also filed a case against her at the Lahore court. "A disgusting & shameful act by Veena Malik, she should be banned in pakistan for life time," tweeted Fatima Shuja from Rawalpindi, Pakistan.
When contacted, however, Malik denied going commando for the cover. "It came to me as a big shock and I am really upset. The
photo is morphed! I never shot the picture like this, I got it clicked with some clothes on. My lawyer is looking into the matter and we plan to take legal action against the magazine for ruining my image," she said.
Malik added that the photo will severely hamper her reputation ahead of her reality TV show Veena Ka Vivah where she will hunt for a groom on television.
Despite Malik’s threat of legal action, the magazine maintains that the shoot has not been doctored.
"We have video footage of the shoot as well as emails from Veena about how she’s looking forward to the cover," says Kabeer Sharma, editor FHM.
On Saturday, the magazine released yet another topless picture of the actor.
Her colleagues in the TV industry also expressed shocked at the risque shoot. "Completely mad woman. Le ab bolo tameez ki bat karti hai yeh aurat… lanat hai," wrote Bigg Boss ex-inmate, Dolly Bindra, on Facebook.

(Sorce: indianexpress.com)

Herman Cain Says He is Suspending Campaign

2011-12-03T12:45:00.000-08:00

Herman Cain Says He is Suspending Campaign

Herman Cain announced today that he is suspending his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, because of “the continued hurt” caused by claims of sexual harassment and a 13-year extramarital affair that he called “false accusations” that have created a “cloud of doubt over me and my family.”

“With a lot of prayer and soul searching, I am suspending my presidential campaign, because of the continued distraction, the continued hurt on me and my family,” he said outside his campaign headquarters in Atlanta.
But he told the crowd he was shifting to “Plan B” in an effort to remain relevant in national politics.
“I am not going to be silenced and I’m not going away,” Cain said, announcing the launch of TheCainSolutions.com, a new organization, which he said would continue to promote his policy ideas, including his signature 9-9-9 economic recovery plan.
He also promised: “I will be making an endorsement in the near future.”
“I am disappointed that it came to this point, that we had to make this decision,” Cain said.
He also cited his inability to raise the “necessary funds to be competitive.
During his remarks, he repeatedly rejected the allegations of sexual harassment and a more than decade-long affair with a woman.
“That spin hurts — it hurts my wife, it hurts my family, it hurts me, it hurts the American people because you are being denied solutions to our problems,” he said. “My wife, my family and I — we know that those false and unproved allegations are not true.”
“I am at peace with my God, I am at peace with my wife and she is at peace with me,” Cain said as the crowd chanted her name, “Gloria! Gloria!”
“But as false accusations about me continue, they have sidetracked and distracted my ability to present solutions to the American people,” he said.”
He also recalled the better days of his presidential bid.
“If you look at the top three Republican candidates right now and if you consider the president in the White House, we can say, I’m in the final four,” he said. “We’re in the final four.”
Cain said he was “honored by the deep support of so many people across this country.”
“As usual, the Cain supporters are not warm weather supporters, and I can’t thank all of you enough for what you’ve done, how far we have come and the things that we have done,” Cain said.
He acknowledged that he “did not fit the usual description” of a presidential candidate and that when he started his unlikely presidential bid earlier this year, few people knew who he was.
But all that changed, Cain said: “Right now my name I.D. is probably 99.9,” he said in a joking reference to his 9-9-9 plan.
“I chose to run for president because the politicians in Washington, D.C., wouldn’t do their jobs, that’s why I chose to run,” Cain said. “They have failed to provide economic growth, they have failed to get spending under control. They have failed to make us less dependent on foreign oil. These are some of the reasons that inspired me to run for president.
“The people in Washington, D.C., are either playing the blame game or pointing fingers or throwing crumbs to the American people rather than bold solutions,” Cain said, adding: “America deserves more than that.”
The former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza made the announcement after a series of speakers praised him to the cheering crowd.
Once the frontrunner in the Republican polls, Cain’s candidacy has been battered by allegations of sexual harassment and later allegations of a long-term affair.
Michele Bachmann’s communications director told ABC News that Herman Cain’s campaign has been reaching out this morning to officials with rival campaigns.
Bachmann spokeswoman Alice Stewart said she was one of who received a call. She did not say what, if any, announcement was communicated, but Stewart added: “We’ve received numerous inquiries from supporters and staffers in the various states about shifting their support from Cain to Michele.”
And as the crowd waited outside Cain’s headquarter for his decision, some influential Republicans were already declaring Cain’s campaign finished.
“Virtuous or not, declaring in or out, however we feel for him, Herman Cain’s campaign is over,” Iowa Rep. Steve King tweeted this morning. “I thank him as a friend and wish him well.”
Cain’s problems began in October, when Politico reported that two women had accused Cain of sexual harassment and misconduct while he was CEO of the National Restaurant Association (NRA) from 1996 to 1999.
Since then, two other women have also accused Cain of harassment.
Cain acknowledged that the NRA paid off the two women, but has denied there was any truth to the accusations against him.
Then last week, a Georgia woman, Ginger White, said she had a 13-year lavish affair with Cain, allegations that Cain denied even before she went public with her claim. White said she and Cain spent many nights in a ritzy Atlanta hotel, he showered her with gifts and paid for her to travel to events where he was speaking.
The affair ended just before Cain announced his presidential campaign, according to White.
Two weeks before White’s accusation, Cain’s wife of 43 years, Gloria, made a rare public appearance to defend her husband in the wake of accusations of sexual misconduct by several other women.

(Source: http://abcnews.go.com/)

World AIDS Day 2011

2011-12-01T15:30:00.000-08:00

Today, is the 23rd Anniversary of World AIDS Day, World AIDS Day is observed on December 1 each year & is dedicated to raising awareness for the AIDS pandemic caused by the spread of HIV infection. World AIDS Day is an opportunity for people worldwide to unite in the fight against HIV. World AIDS Day was the first ever global health day and the first one was held in 1988.