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BlackBerry maker Research In Motion said Thursday it sold fewer BlackBerry phones than analysts had expected, and the company’s quarterly earnings were hurt by a legal settlement.

The company said earnings fell 4 percent in the second fiscal quarter due in large part to charges associated with a legal settlement.

For the quarter that ended August 29, the company said it earned $475.6 million, or 83 cents a share, compared to profits of $495.5 million, or 86 cents a share, for the same period a year ago.

Revenue rose to $3.53 billion from $2.58 billion a year earlier.

Analysts had expected earnings of $1 a share on revenue of $3.62 billion, according to Thomson Reuters.

Even though sales were strong and revenue was up, RIM reported it shipped slightly fewer devices than what analysts had expected. The company said it shipped about 8.3 million BlackBerry devices during the quarter, adding about 3.8 million new subscribers. Analysts had expected the company to add about 4 million new subscribers on shipments between 8.5 million and 8.6 million.

But what really hurt the company was a charge of $112.8 million related to the settlement of a patent dispute with Visto Corp. Excluding this charge, RIM said it would have earned $588.4 million, or $1.03 per share for the quarter.

RIM said it expects revenue between $3.6 billion and $3.85 billion for the third fiscal quarter that ends November 28. And the company expects earnings per share to be in the neighborhood of between $1 and $1.08.

Analysts expect RIM to introduce a new version of its touch-screen Storm later this year on Verizon Wireless’s network. This devices is supposed to compete head to head with Apple’s iPhone. But RIM has other competitors in the touch-screen arena as it approaches he holiday season. There are also other devices, such as the Palm Pre and handsets from HTC and Motorola that use the Google Android software.

Source :

http://news.cnet.com/8301-30686_3-10361155-266.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

Gmail was unavailable Thursday morning for what Google said was a “small subset of users,” the latest outage from a company that prides itself in running advanced computing systems.

On the Google Apps status dashboard, the company said at 7:29 a.m. PDT that it was aware of the problem. However, using IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) to access e-mail through software such as Outlook or Thunderbird still works, the company said.

Even a small subset can be a lot of people, though, as carping on Twitter indicates.

Gmail outages hit Google itself sometimes, providing extra incentive to improve reliability. One company spokesman, Adam Kovacevich, said on Twitter, “Gmail down (for Googlers too).”

Google had Gmail outages in February, April, and very widely on September 1.

Gmail was working for me Thursday morning, but slowly and without access to my contacts at 8 a.m. PDT. By 8:13 a.m., it was behaving properly.

Updated 9:15 a.m. PDT - Many users are reporting that their e-mail is back to normal, but there are still problems with Gmail contacts. Google posted the following advisory at 8:29 a.m. PDT.

“The Gmail issue should now be resolved for most of our users. There still might be issues with your contacts. For Gmail users: Use www.google.com/contacts to access your contacts For Google Apps Customers: www.google.com/contacts/a/yourdomain-name.com.”

The Google Apps status dashboard flagged the Gmail problem Thursday morning.

Sony announced it was working on a new motion controller at E3 last June in Los Angeles.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

Sony announced late Wednesday night from the Tokyo Game Show that it plans to release a new motion-sensitive controller for its PlayStation 3 video game console sometime during spring of 2010. The news came just hours after Nintendo’s own announcement that it was cutting the price of its Wii console from $250 to $200.

The company originally announced that it was working on a new controller at E3 last June. That news seemed, at the time, to indicate that Sony was aiming at taking on the Nintendo Wii and its intuitive Wii-mote. Microsoft, too, unveiled a hot new controller system, code-named Natal, but revealed no substantial details about how it would be used, what it would cost or when it would be available.

As for Sony, it didn’t say last June when its new device would hit the market. So Wednesday night’s announcement marks the first time it has given any specificity about the date.

“The newly announced Motion Controller is equipped with two motion sensors, three axes gyroscope and three axes accelerometer that can detect the controller’s angle and movement held in the user’s hand,” Sony said in a release. “Together with the PlayStation Eye camera for PS3 which can accurately track the absolute position of the controller, the controller can detect the natural and intuitive movement of the hand and reflect the precise movement on to the game.”

Earlier Wednesday evening, Nintendo said it was slashing the price of the Wii from $250 to $200. Although both announcements were made during the Tokyo Game Show, the timing is notable given that with Sony’s announcement, PS3 users and fans now have a better sense of when their favorite console will take on some additional Wii-like functionality. Nintendo may well have decided it couldn’t waste any time in making its own move to protect its console.

Source :

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-10360590-52.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

(Credit: Nintendo)

Nintendo has officially announced that the price of the Wii will drop to $199.99, effective on Sunday. The long-rumored $50 price cut comes in the wake of recent price drops for the PlayStation 3 ($299, with built-in Blu-ray player) and Xbox 360 ($299 for the 120GB version with built-in DVD player and Netflix support), which have boosted sales of the Sony and Microsoft consoles. (To date, the Wii remains the best-selling home game console of the three.)

Other than the price cut, there are no other changes to the current Wii bundle–you’re still getting the console, along with the Wiimote and Nunchuk controllers and the bundled Wii Sports game. By contrast, there’s at least one rumor that the U.K. will get a Wii package that adds the MotionPlus peripheral and Wii Sports Resort to the mix. Meanwhile, white remains the only color choice in North America (Japanese consumers can choose black as well).

Nintendo also took the opportunity to officially announce the release date for New Super Mario Bros. Wii, which had previously been slated for a vague “fall 2009″ window. The multiplayer Super Mario game will hit store shelves on November 15.

So, what do you guys think? Does the price drop make the Wii more attractive? Would you prefer a more enticing bundle? Or are you holding out for the Wii HD? Share your comments below.

A new phishing scam is spreading through Twitter via direct messages, according to several reports.

Itamar Kestenbaum writes on his JewNews.net blog that he received a direct message on his Twitter account from someone he didn’t know that said “rofl this you on here?” followed by a link to what appeared to be a video-related Twitter page.

The page looks like a legitimate Twitter log-in page but nabs your credentials if you type in your password, he warns.

Meanwhile, a posting on the Mashable blog said the site had received multiple reports of the new phishing scam and that someone there had even received one of the phishing-related direct messages themselves.

No word on this yet on Twitter’s official blog or from a Twitter spokesperson. We’ll keep you posted as we hear more.

In the meantime, if you clicked on the phishing link and typed in your credentials, you should change your password immediately.

JewNews.net captured this screenshot of the phishing-related direct message Twitter users are receiving and the fake log in page the link directs to.

I want to live forever. I want to learn how to fly. High. I feel it coming together.

And, thankfully, so does celebrated large brain and, who knows, maybe “Kids from Fame” aficionado Ray Kurzweil.

In an article reported by the Telegraph, Kurzweil says that our technological and genetic know-how is marching at such a furious pace that in 20 years’ time we should be holding in our sweaty, excitable hands the nanotechnological secrets of our existence. This is all part and parcel of the nano-forecasting he’s been doing for years, along with his rather singular vision of the man-machine future.

These secrets should allow us to replace our kidneys, livers, hearts and, hey, what about minds, with functioning vital organs made by human hands.

They say Kurzweil is 61. He doesn’t look a day over 43 to me.

(Credit: Null0/Flickr)

Kurzweil’s contemplations, first published in The Sun, offer us these vast nuggets of hope: “I and many other scientists now believe that in around 20 years we will have the means to reprogram our bodies’ stone-age software so we can halt, then reverse, aging. Then nanotechnology will let us live for ever.”

Yes, you can be 28 again. You can drink yourself stupid and let those nano-nano folks just slip you a new liver. You can have sex, drugs, and rock and roll, and still be able to perform Whitney Houston karaoke better than Whitney herself can these days.

“If we want to go into virtual-reality mode, nanobots will shut down brain signals and take us wherever we want to go,” said Kurzweil. “Virtual sex will become commonplace. And in our daily lives, hologram-like figures will pop in our brain to explain what is happening.”

One can only hope those hologram-like figures don’t resemble the chaps from Google too closely.

And I am not entirely sure I am persuaded by the concept of virtual sex. Perhaps worse would be the concept of some Googleperson-like hologram talking one through virtual sex. And whispering to one after it.

Still, Kurzweil’s passionate certainty offers us all hope for a very different future from the one we might have imagined.

I can’t wait. No, really. I can’t.

Source :

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10359501-71.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20