RIM unveils cheaper BlackBerry

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) ? Research In Motion unveiled a lower-cost BlackBerry aimed at consumers in emerging markets on Tuesday, stepping up its efforts to regain market share lost to Apple's iPhone and Android devices powered by Google's software.

The lower-cost gadget, called the Q5, is the company's third smartphone to run the new BlackBerry 10 system. It will have a physical keyboard, something that sets RIM's devices apart from Apple's iPhone and most Android phones.

RIM CEO Thorsten Heins said the "slim, sleek" device will be available in red, black, white and pink. He announced the phone to a packed ballroom to open RIM's annual three-day conference in Orlando, Florida.

The device will be available in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia (including the Asia Pacific region), and Latin America beginning in July. The Q5 isn't expected to be released in North America for now. The company did not disclose prices for the new phone.

RIM's higher-tier Q10 has been released in most markets, but delays have meant that U.S. carriers aren't likely to have it until June. The U.S. delays complicate RIM's effort to hang on to customers tempted by Apple's iPhone and a range of Android smartphones. Even as the BlackBerry has fallen behind rivals in recent years, many users have remained loyal because they prefer a physical keyboard over the touch screen found on other devices.

The Q5 differs only slightly from the Q10. Both have 2GB of RAM, though the Q5 has only 8GB of flash memory compared to 16 for the Q10. Both have 2 megapixel front-facing cameras, but the Q5's rear-facing camera is only 5 megapixels, compared to the Q10 which has 8 megapixels and also records high-definition video.

Also, the Q5 has a 3.1-inch LCD display, while the Q10 is 3.1 inches and LED.

RIM unveiled new BlackBerrys this year after delays allowed Apple and others to continue their global advance.

RIM's iconic BlackBerry device, introduced in 1999, was the dominant smartphone for on-the-go business people and consumers for nearly a decade. But rivals came out with a new generation of phones that could do more than just email and messaging, starting with the iPhone in 2007 and followed by devices running Google's Android system. Suddenly, the BlackBerry looked ancient.

According to research firm IDC, shipments of BlackBerry phones plummeted from 46 percent of the U.S. market in 2008 to 2 percent in 2012.

Though RIM continues to do well in many overseas markets, the company faced numerous delays modernizing its operating system in an effort to compete with the iPhone and smartphones running Google's Android operating system.

Heins, who became RIM's CEO in January 2012, said the company has made a lot of progress in a short period of time.

He restated BlackBerry's committed to "mobile first" and took a subtle jab at industry predictions that he might not make it to this year's conference as CEO because of the competitive mobile landscape.

"I'm happy to say they were wrong," Heins said. "We are not only still here. We are firing on all cylinders as a company."

RIM's stock fell 63 cents, or 3.8 percent, to $15.25 in afternoon trading Tuesday.

RIM also said it will offer its once-popular BlackBerry Messenger service on iPhones and devices running Google's Android software.

Heins said iPhone and Android versions of the BlackBerry Messenger app will be available for free, subject to approval by Google Play and the Apple App Store.

"It's time to bring BBM to a greater audience," Heins said. "I cannot wait for the day when all of our BlackBerry fans can send BBM invites to all their friends on other platforms. They have asked us for this for years."

The BBM service was once a reason for BlackBerry users not to defect to other smartphones. Now, there are many rival messaging services. Still, there are more than 60 million BBM users worldwide.

BBM works like text messaging but doesn't incur extra fees.

Colin Gillis, an analyst at BGC Partners, said offering BBM on rival platforms is a good move because closed ecosystems don't work anymore. He said the company was forced to do it but said it might be too late.

"BBM is a communication network and it's only as powerful as people who are on it," Gillis said.

Heins said RIM is "definitely in the race" and that he is excited about the company's outlook, predicting the most successful year for BlackBerry.

"What I can say is that 12 months ago I was told we would be out of business in two quarters, and that we could burn through our cash within two quarters. It didn't happen. We are confident in the future of BlackBerry 10."

Asked about a move away from tablet technology, Heins said that the future is in mobile and that BlackBerry's new initiatives are to target a consumer it thinks will rely on one mobile device for all communications within seven years.

RIM's tablet, the Playbook, has not sold well.

"You will always have people that are in a very limited view (asking questions) like 'when are you going to take on Apple?'" Heins said. "That's not the way I'm thinking about this."

___

Gillies reported from Toronto.

Follow Kyle Hightower on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/khightower

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/rim-unveils-cheaper-blackberry-162243123.html

Boston.com NBA Playoffs 2013 Watertown Boston npr Oblivion Hemlock Grove Boston Bomber Death Photo

Sorry, Readability was unable to parse this page for content.

Source: http://pheedo.msnbc.msn.com/id/18424719/device/rss/

ryan howard ps i love you ray charles cheney heart transplant weather san diego unitarian new black panther party

Strikeforce champion Tarec Saffiedine?s 2-year-old son has impressive striking

This is Strikeforce champion Tarec Saffiedine's 2-year-old son, and he has some training to do on this laundry basket. Check out his technique on low kicks. Clearly, he has been watching his dad and learning from him. The older Saffiedine is making his UFC debut in July against Robbie Lawler. Will he be as effective as his son is against the laundry hamper?

Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mma-cagewriter/strikeforce-champion-tarec-saffiedine-two-old-son-impressive-133912029.html

Lone Star College 42 louisville basketball Ready for Love ncaa annette funicello joel osteen

WHO Issues Warning Over SARS-Like Virus (Voice Of America)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories News, RSS and RSS Feed via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/305468378?client_source=feed&format=rss

tim tebow Farrah Abraham Tape farrah abraham amber heard act Google Now Jason Collins

Astell & Kern's AK120 portable MQS player graces the FCC with its $1,300 sound

Audiophiles eager to get their mitts on iRiver's Astell & Kern-branded AK120 should take note: the portable Mastering Quality Sound player just passed through the FCC's labs. The $1,300 AK120 is the bigger, 2.4-inch sibling to the $700 AK100, promising to net deep-pocketed audio perfectionists improved stereo imaging and dynamic range; this is achieved by two Wolfson WM8740 DACs, each of which are dedicated to a single channel. The player features a physical volume knob and packs 64GB of onboard storage with support for up to 192GB through two microSD slots -- which is perfect for storing your pick of AV, FLAC, WMA, MP3, OGG, APE, AAC, ALAC and AIFF (and eventually DSD) files, as well. With this next MQS player from A&K sure to hit stores soon, what's the updated word about Neil Young's streaming take on the action.

Filed under: Home Entertainment

Comments

Source: FCC

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/11/iriver-ak120-mqs-player-fcc/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

Freeh Report direct tv wimbledon ray allen Savages Home Run Derby 2012 San Diego fireworks

Control towers at 149 small airports to stay open

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The Federal Aviation Administration is keeping open for now the 149 control towers at small airports that were slated to close as the result of governmentwide automatic spending cuts imposed by Congress.

The towers, which are operated by contractors for the FAA at low-traffic airports, had been scheduled to close June 15. They will now remain open at least through Sept. 30, the end of the federal budget year, the Transportation Department said Friday.

A bill hastily passed by Congress last month to end air traffic controller furloughs also makes enough money available to keep the towers open, the statement said. The bill gave the FAA authority to shift $253 million from accounts with unspent funds to keep controllers on the job. The furloughs at all FAA-operated airport towers and air traffic control facilities caused widespread flight delays across the country for nearly a week before Congress stepped in.

FAA officials have previously said they needed at least $200 million to eliminate the need for furloughs. The bill didn't require the FAA to spend the remaining funds on keeping towers at small airports open, but lawmakers said they anticipated the agency would use the money that way.

The FAA will also put $10 million toward reducing cuts and delays in its program to move from a radar-based air traffic control system to one based on satellite navigation, the statement said.

Another $11 million will go to "partially restore the support of infrastructure in the national airspace system," the statement said.

While the decision gives the small airports a temporary reprieve, FAA officials will still be under pressure to find ways to further cut spending in next year's budget.

The FAA's initial decision to close the airport towers set off an intense lobbying campaign to keep them open by airport operators, the communities where the airports are located and members of Congress with an airport in their district or state. Several lawmakers and the trade association that represents contractors who operate the towers claimed victory after Friday's announcement.

"The broad coalition of communities, airports, air traffic controllers, aviation system users and members of Congress that has emerged in recent months united in the fight to keep contract towers open is a testament to the important role these facilities play in enhancing the safety and efficiency of the nation's aviation system," J. Spencer Dickerson, executive director of the U.S. Contract Tower Association, said.

"It's been a long fight since our original amendment to prevent the towers from closing and preserve aviation safety was blocked from a vote, but in the end common sense prevailed over politics," Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., said in a statement.

The association and airport operators in several states, including Florida, Illinois and Washington, had filed lawsuits with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit seeking to halt the closures. The suits contend that the closures violated a federal law meant to ensure major changes at airports do not erode safety. The suits also said the closures unfairly targeted the program for an outsized share of the more than $600 million the agency is required to trim from its budget by the end of September.

FAA officials pointed out that eliminating federal funding to pay for air traffic controllers would not have forced the airports to close. Of the nation's 5,000 public airports, only about 10 percent have control towers. Those without towers generally have relatively few flights, and pilots coordinate takeoffs and landings among themselves.

Airport towers are prized by local communities as economic boosts, particularly in rural areas. Airlines are sometimes reluctant to schedule flights to airports where there are no on-site air traffic controllers. Likewise, businesses may hesitate to locate in communities where there is no scheduled air service or where the local airport isn't staffed by controllers.

The FAA began paying contractors to staff and operate towers at a handful of small airports after President Ronald Reagan fired striking air traffic controllers in 1981. Today, there are 251 towers operated by private contractors at airports across the country at an average annual cost of more than $500,000 each.

Critics have questioned whether the program is still needed. The FAA has acknowledged using 30-year-old data on aircraft collisions to justify the cost of operating many of the control towers, even though accident rates have improved significantly over that time.

In addition to keeping the contractor-operated towers open, the FAA said earlier this week that it intends to continue to staff control towers at 72 busier airports overnight. The agency had initially planned to eliminate midnight shifts of controllers at those airports to save money.

___

Online:

Federal Aviation Administration: http://www.faa.gov/news/media/fct_closed.pdf

___

Follow Joan Lowy on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/AP_Joan_Lowy

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/control-towers-149-small-airports-stay-open-212318114.html

one direction tulsa news scalloped potatoes the ten commandments charlton heston moses tulsa shooting

Stephen Herrington: WWII Act II

We went to war with Germany, Italy and Japan on December 7, 1941 to defeat fascism. Most people would define fascism as a rigid social order that subjugates people to the dictates of an authoritarian government. That may be true in historical terms, but fascism is not that at all. Fascism is a theory of economic governance, and it could be practiced without rigid social sanctions. Fascism is subjugation of private commerce and private means of production to the will of the government, as opposed to communism in which the means of production is owned outright by the state.

WWII was a war over economic ideology as much as it was about personal liberty and the sovereignty of nations. Three distinct economic systems clashed in WWII and the ensuing Cold War, the authoritarian socialism of the USSR and the democratic socialism of the USA teamed up to defeat the spread of authoritarian fascism only to find that democratic and authoritarian socialism were at equal odds against each other in the end. Democratic socialism, ultimately, won. Democratic socialism was the socioeconomic model for post WWII nations, ultimately wearing down authoritarian socialism, from the end of WWII to the present. That socioeconomic order, the most successful in all of history, is now under renewed attack from a variant of the philosophy it went to war so long ago to subdue.

In market economics discussions, libertarians often cite what they call crony capitalism as an ill preventing true and free markets from operating in utopian precision for the mutual good. Crony capitalism is a perversion of the operation of pure free markets that occurs when government picks favorites in business. Such favor prevents free markets from operating the way they should, as a business favored by government has a distinct advantage over one that is not. Competition is stifled and markets are distorted in proportion to the power wielded by government presences. Otherwise, we'd all be content competing with each other on a perfectly fair field of commerce.

Crony capitalism does seem to be quite close to fascism in effect if not in stated principle. In principle, fascism dictates to business, business' goals and products and profits. In practice, fascism was a cozy mutually corrupting support system for political and commercial power. The world never saw true principled fascism just as it never saw true principled communism or even true principled libertarianism. The world has, frankly, always had crony capitalism. 19th century abuses by crony capitalism, in fact, set the stage for WWII. All three of the competing socioeconomic systems at issue in the war were calculated replacements for what had theretofore been a laissez faire crony capitalist world.

The abuses of crony capitalism have always been, and still are, that they work hardships on populations for the crony capitalist's own unearned profit. Those hardship lead to perceptions of injustice, social unrest, war and revolutions, all of which we could usefully do without. So far, the only practiced socioeconomic system and form of government that can resist the ravages of crony capitalism is democratic socialism. In a democratic socialism the will of the people is founded in their own personal welfare and metered at polling places every few years. The welfare of the people being essential to the existence of the state, a state that does not heed that will cannot expect to survive. On that footing, the power of business in a corrupt relation with government is balanced against the welfare of the people. That's why democratic socialism works where communism, fascism and laissez faire crony capitalism do not work.

A borderless global economy now introduces a new challenge to socioeconomic philosophers. Among myriad national governments, business is free to pick and choose government partners who are actually competing with other nations for a crony capitalist relationship with an international business. Of course to say nations are competing is not quite fair. Politicians are competing for a relationship with international businesses. What accrues to a politician from that relationship is funding, and therewith, political power.

All the while, the fact remains that the interest of business is nearly always adversarial to the interest of consumers and workers. Shoddy goods for higher prices coupled with lower wages makes for higher near term profits. Monopoly is the natural goal of business. The natural self interest of business makes for positively accelerating deflationary forces in both the global and local economies. That is why business needs to be regulated, because what is in the natural self interest of one business is not necessarily in the best interest of everyone else.

Crony capitalism is, in as few words possible, destructive of honest commerce and free markets by providing protections to business from the consequences of bad business. Since crony capitalism is indistinguishable from capitalism in all but the philosopher's mind, the consequences of practicing it lead to, have led to, rejection of the concept of capitalism.

Most nations regulate commerce. To the extent that the intent of that regulation is an honest and competent attempt to deter business practices that are harmful and dangerous to the public there is nothing wrong with regulation. To the extent that regulation is intended to advantage one business over another it is destructive and antithetical to the rationale of regulation in the first place.

International business can circumvent honest and competent regulation by picking the nations with the most favorable terms of profitability for their operation. By doing so, they create, on an international scale, the kind of economic duress for world populations that caused the rise of economic philosophies that proffered alternatives to capitalism in the first place. In essence, the freedoms of international business to ignore and circumvent the regulations on business that prevent crony capitalism now set the stage for the replay of the socioeconomic contest WWII was fought settle.

Fascism is quite close in effect to crony capitalism, favoring some business while ignoring or even persecuting others. International business seems on the verge of creating international fascism from the standpoint of socioeconomic effects and political power, whether intended or not. How that political power plays out might be foreshadowed by concerted efforts by the GOP in this country to place restrictions on the ability of democracy to right the socioeconomic ship. Socioeconomics is, after all, the study of the interrelation between economics and human behavior. In at least one instance that interaction led to global hot war.

What is so hard about figuring out a socioeconomic system that works?

Greed and human frailty.

?

"; var coords = [-5, -72]; // display fb-bubble FloatingPrompt.embed(this, html, undefined, 'top', {fp_intersects:1, timeout_remove:2000,ignore_arrow: true, width:236, add_xy:coords, class_name: 'clear-overlay'}); });

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stephen-herrington/wwii-act-ii_b_3227276.html

royals nicole richie lyme disease symptoms esperanza spalding jessica sanchez robert kennedy cardinals