RIM to launch World Phone called BlackBerry Tour

Research In Motion is all set to add another smartphone to its BlackBerry lineup as it aims to win market share among both executives and mainstream consumers despite tough economic conditions.

The new model is known as the BlackBerry Tour and falls somewhere between the BlackBerry Curve, which has proved very popular with consumers, and the BlackBerry Bold, which RIM has aimed at high-end corporate users.

RIM co-Chief Executive Jim Balsillie said in an interview that the new device will soon be launched with Verizon and Sprint in the United States and Telus and BCE's Bell unit in Canada.

Even though the device isn't drastically different from many other BlackBerry handsets in appearance - it has the familiar candy-bar shape with a full keyboard - Balsillie said the Tour is a big step forward.

It is what RIM calls a "world phone," which means it can easily access voice and data services on networks outside the user's home country. This has proven popular with business users in the past.

To appeal to the retail market, the Tour is loaded with multimedia features similar to those found in the BlackBerry Curve and Pearl, including a photo and video camera and media player.

Unveiling products that cross customer categories is proving increasingly important to RIM and it is continuing to make deer inroads into the broader retail market.

However, the company is also being careful not to alienate the corporate users who have been its mainstay and who rely on its smartphones to send wireless e-mail securely.

At the same time, rivals such as Apple and Palm in North America and Nokia in Europe are launching new products and aggressively pricing their phones to lure users.

Grab your Personalized Facebook URL - Remember these 10 Points

The race to grab your very own Facebook URL is about to begin. Facebook will allow its users to register custom usernames for the first time starting at 12:01 a.m. EDT Saturday. The usernames are bound to go fast, and if you aren't prepared, you may end up empty-handed.

Here, then, are 10 things you need to know before the floodgates open.

1. Facebook's usernames will be given out on a first-come, first-served basis.
If you're dying to get something like "your name," you'd better not go to bed early. Facebook will start handing out usernames at precisely 12:01 a.m. EDT. Odds are, most common names will be gone by 12:02.

2. Once you pick a name, it's yours for life.
Each Facebook account gets only one username, and you can never change it. You can't transfer it to someone else, either. Even if you delete your Facebook account, Facebook says the name won't go back into the pool.

3. You don't necessarily have to use your real name.
While Facebook is encouraging the use of real names, you aren't limited in that regard. The system will suggest a few available options based on your first and/or last name, but it'll also provide a blank field in which you can type something completely unrelated.

4. You won't be able to get a 'generic word' as your username.
Facebook says "generic words" won't be available for usernames. A full list of included terms hasn't been released, but "pizza" and "flowers" were given as examples of what won't fly.

5. You'll have to use at least five characters.
The Facebook usernames will have to be at least five characters in length and can only contain letters, numbers, and a period. Trying names with special characters -- you know, symbols like $#@% - will only waste your time.

6. If you created your Facebook account after 3 p.m. on June 9, you won't be able to get a username yet.
Facebook is only letting users who had accounts prior to 3 p.m. on June 9 register for usernames this week. The social network says it's a precaution to help prevent people from creating accounts just for "name squatting" purposes. If you registered your Facebook account after that time, you'll have to wait till June 28 at 12:01 a.m. to get your new name.

7. The restrictions are even greater for Facebook Pages (public profiles).
Owners of Facebook Pages- public profiles for companies, organizations, or public figures - must have been registered before May 31 in order to be eligible for a custom URL. Additionally, the Facebook Page must have had at least 1,000 fans as of May 31 in order to get a username now.

8. Facebook does plan to protect trademarks.
Facebook says it'll work to protect intellectual property and trademark rights.

9. Your current privacy settings will apply to your new URL.
Your new Facebook username will immediately become your new URL. Depending on your privacy settings, though, people may not be able to see much there. Whatever settings you currently have on your account will apply, so if your profile is set to be private, it'll remain private- even on the new address.

10. Your Facebook username may be used for more things in the future.
As of now, the Facebook usernames will be used for custom URLs. In the future, however, the company has said it plans to unveil other uses for the names. Specifics have yet to be revealed, but know that whatever name you pick will likely pop up in even more places down the road.

Sony Ericsson unveils greener phones: C901 GreenHeart and Naite

Cellphone maker Sony Ericsson has unveiled two handset models, which are said to be more eco-friendly, adding that the company will push greener features across its product line in the next two years.

The new models, C901 GreenHeart and Naite, will be sold in smaller packages and have user manuals that are electronic. The devices use more recycled materials and consume less energy.

"Today we are announcing a commitment to roll out these innovations across the broader portfolio in 2010 and 2011," Sony Ericsson Chief Executive Hideki Komiyama said in a statement.

The role of greener products is increasing rapidly in the cellphone industry, with a recent ABI Research survey saying nearly half of U.S. consumers are likely to be influenced by suppliers' green credentials when purchasing devices.

Sony Ericsson said on Thursday it targets a cut of 20 percent of its carbon dioxide emissions by 2015.

The handset industry is closely followed by environmental organizations around the world due to its large scale. More than 1 billion phones are sold globally each year, which requires the use of sales boxes, add-ons and tons of rare raw materials.

The world's top cellphone maker, Nokia, started to renew its packaging in 2006, and has said it saved 100 million euros ($142.9 million) in less than a year.

Sony Ericsson said its new models will use at least 50 percent recycled plastics, similar to Nokia's 3110 Evolve model, which the Finnish firm introduced last year.

Last year Nokia's chief executive, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, showed a prototype of a phone made fully of recycled materials at the Mobile World Congress trade show, but the model has not reached production.

Sony Ericsson, the world's fifth-biggest handset maker, is in need of new models to renew its offering since the appeal of the years-old Sony-branded Cybershot cameraphones and Walkman music phones has faded.

Govt posted sensitive list of US nuclear sites

The government accidentally posted on the Internet a list of government and civilian nuclear facilities and their activities in the United States, but a U.S. official said Wednesday the posting included no information that compromised national security.

The 266-page document was published on May 6 as a transmission from President Barack Obama to Congress. According to the document, the list was required by law and will be provided to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Some of the pages are marked "highly confidential safeguards sensitive."

Damien LaVera, a spokesman for the National Nuclear Security Administration, said the document had been reviewed by a number of U.S. agencies and that disclosure of the information did not jeopardize national security. He said the document is part of an agreement on nuclear material inspection under the IAEA's nuclear nonproliferation effort.

"While we would have preferred it not be released, the Departments of Energy, Defense, and Commerce and the NRC all thoroughly reviewed it to ensure that no information of direct national security significance would be compromised," LaVera said in a statement.

An Energy Department official said none of the sites on the list are directly part of the government's nuclear weapons infrastructure.

Included in the report are details on a storage facility for highly enriched uranium at the Y-12 complex at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee and some sites at the Energy Department's Hanford nuclear site in Washington state, this official acknowledged.

The publication of the list was first reported in an online secrecy newsletter Monday. The document had been posted on the Government Printing Office Web site, but has since been removed from that site.

The document includes both government and civilian nuclear facilities, all of which have various levels of security, including details and location of nation's 103 commercial nuclear power reactors, information readily available from various sources.

The document details the location of the nuclear sites and what is being done there. For instance, there are nuclear reactors at the Westinghouse Electric Company in Pittsburgh, Pa. This facility is currently working on research into what happens when there are accidents with the nuclear reactors. The project started in 2006 and is expected to end in 2012, according to the document.
There are "zero" national security implications to the publication of this document, said Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Government's Project on Government Secrecy. Aftergood found the document on the GPO Web site and highlighted it in his online bulletin.

"I regret that some people are painting it as a roadmap for terrorists because that's not what it is," Aftergood said.

"This is not a disclosure of sensitive nuclear technologies or of facility security procedures. It is simply a listing of the numerous nuclear research sites and the programs that are under way," Aftergood said. "And so it poses no security threat whatsoever."

Xbox gets Facebook-Twitter Integration

Microsoft's Xbox is about to get a lot more social. Social networking sensations Twitter and Facebook, along with Internet radio star Last.fm, are connecting to the Xbox 360 videogame console online world.

Twitter-Facebook Integration
The Xbox Twitter-Facebook integration, revealed at the E3 video game conference in Los Angeles, will bring the two services into the Xbox Live online gaming service. In addition to the service's multiplayer functionality, you'll be able to send and receive status updates with the social networks straight from your Xbox console.

Some games will be ready to take advantage of the added options, too. An upcoming version of Tiger Woods PGA Tour, for example, will allow you to send screenshots and score updates directly into your Facebook stream via the Facebook Connect interface. You'll also have the option of inviting friends to join your games without so much as shifting your eyes off the screen. It's all expected to become available sometime this coming fall.

Last.FM Additions
Twitter and Facebook aren't the only social services being added into the Xbox world - music-streaming service Last.FM will be built into Microsoft's expanded Xbox offering as well. Xbox Live users with paid “gold level” subscriptions will be able to listen to tunes via their consoles, using the site's "personalized radio station" setup to select songs.

Microsoft also confirmed a new partnership with U.K.-based Sky TV that'll let British users view movies and live TV shows through their Xbox systems. Of course, you can do that here in the States now, too, if you know how.

Amidst all the excitement, one burning question has yet to be answered: With Microsoft's search service, Live, now officially known as “Bing”, will Xbox Live follow suit?

Console owners that subscribe to Xbox Live become part of an Internet videogame community with benefits such as being able to connect to Netflix online film rental service.

By year's end, Xbox Live members will be able to access their Twitter or Facebook accounts through consoles, posting content and connecting with friends the same way they might by using computers or smart phones.

The link is essentially a Facebook application for Xbox 360 users, and the California social networking firm is set of making similar links to online communities for Sony PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Wii console users.

Microsoft bought a 1.6 percent stake in Facebook for 240 million dollars in 2007.

Giga-byte Technology displays CULV Laptop at Computex Taipei 2009

Giga-byte Technology revamped a netbook that takes advantage of touchscreen and tablet functions in Microsoft Windows 7 and put its first laptop with an Intel CULV (consumer ultra-low voltage) microprocessor inside on display at Computex Taipei 2009 on Monday.

The TouchNote T1028 netbook sports a 10.1-inch touchscreen that swivels so that the screen can be turned around folded down to transform it into a tablet PC. The netbook is an update to its first netbook with the same function, but the main difference this time is the Windows 7 software, which includes functions that support both the touchscreen capability and the tablet mode.

Windows 7 is Microsoft's latest operating system, but so far only a beta (test) version has been released.

Giga-byte's new T1028 will include Intel's latest 1.66GHz N280 Atom microprocessor. It will cost around US$599 and could be on the market globally as early as July or August. The launch date will partly be determined by when Microsoft releases Windows 7. Should the T1028 launch early, it could come with Windows XP and will be upgradeable to Windows 7.

Giga-byte's first CULV laptop is part of its Booktop family of products, the M1305. Intel's CULV microprocessor is small, thin and energy efficient and designed for thin portable laptops.

The Booktop M1305 sports a 13.3-inch screen and can hold up to 8G byte of DDR3 (double data rate, third generation) DRAM, which is a newer version of mainstream DRAM that has not yet caught on widely.

The M1305 laptop that Giga-byte displayed Monday used Windows 7 as its operating system. The company hopes to launch the M1305 in September or October armed with Windows 7.

The laptop is only an inch (2 centimeters) thick and is built light as an alternative to netbooks, but includes a key feature lacking in netbooks, a DVD drive, as well as a larger screen.

Giga-byte also showed off another new netbook on Monday, the Myou S1024. The netbook is designed to be ultra-small despite its 10.1-inch screen, which is a big size for netbooks.

The Myou S1024 weighs 900 grams and is less than an inch thick. Giga-byte managed to put a 6-cell battery inside the device despite its small size for long battery life. The S1024 will be available globally within the next few months and will cost around US$599.

The three new devices can all be used with a number of wireless technologies, including 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Giga-byte will offer optional WiMax and 3.5G (High-speed packet access) modules.

Pricing information about the devices was not immediately available.

Google hoping Web surfers to ride Wave

Google is hatching a new species of e-mail and instant messaging, but the Internet search leader first wants the hybrid service to evolve even more with the help of independent computer programmers.

The free tool, called "Google Wave," runs in a Web browser and combines elements of e-mail, instant messaging, wikis and photo sharing in an effort to make online communication more dynamic. Google hopes Wave simplifies the way people collaborate on projects or exchange opinions about specific topics.

Google offered the first glimpse of its latest offering Thursday during the Mountain View, Calif.-based company's annual conference for software developers who build programs on top of its services. The rest of the Web-surfing public won't be able to hop on Google Wave until later in the year.

By the time Wave rolls out for everyone, Google hopes independent programmers will have found new ways to use the service.

Among other things, Google is counting on outsiders to figure out how to weave Wave into the popular Internet communications service Twitter, social networks like Facebook and existing Web-based e-mail services, said Lars Rasmussen, a Google engineering manager.

Rasmussen and his brother, Jens, helped build Google's online mapping service, which sprouted a variety of unforeseen uses after its 2005 debut because of the ingenuity of external programmers.

Having learned their lesson from the mapping experience, the Rasmussens wanted to give developers ample time to tinker with their newest creation before unleashing it on the rest of the world.

The Rasmussens broke away from Google's mapping service in 2006 to concentrate on building a service that would enable e-mail and instant messaging to embrace the Web's increasingly social nature. They contend e-mail hasn't changed that much since its invention during the 1960s.

Wave is designed to make it easier to converse over e-mail by providing tools to highlight particular parts of the written conversation. In instant messages, participants can see what everyone else is writing as they type, unless they choose a privacy control. Photos and other online applications known as "widgets" also can be transplanted into the service.

The service could easily accommodate advertising like Google's 5-year-old e-mail service already does, but Lars Rasmussen said it's still too early to predict how the company might profit from Wave.

Google wants developers to ride Wave

Google encouraged software developers to ride into the future of email with a project called "Wave," which opens inboxes to text, video, pictures, maps and even social network feeds.

"Wave" expands the capabilities of email to let people communicate and work together in real-time with text, photos, videos, maps, and more, according to Google software engineering manager Lars Rasmussen.

According to Rasmussen, "In Google Wave you create a wave and add people to it. Everyone on your wave can use richly formatted text, photos, gadgets, and even feeds from other sources on the web. You see on your screen nearly instantly what your fellow collaborators are typing in your wave."

A "wave" prototype built by a five-person team "holed up in a conference room in the Sydney office" for months was previewed at a Google developers conference in San Francisco on Thursday.

"After more than two years of expanding our ideas, our team, and our technology, we're very eager to return and see what the world might think," Rasmussen wrote.

A Wave software kit was provided to developers at the conference.

Wave allows for collaboration and communication by letting people send out pictures, messages, or videos that can be built on or modified as they stream from recipient to recipient.

Waves can be rewound to see how exchanges evolved, according to Google.

"Developers are going to see the potential of Google Wave as a platform; we hope they'll leap on it," said Wave engineer Adam Schuck.

"They'll be able to integrate it with existing systems they use today, or produce new tools that allow people to improve and manage their communications."

The computer code for Wave will be open source i.e developers are free to modify it as they wish.

"We're inviting developers to add all kinds of cool stuff before our public launch," Rasmussen wrote.

No launch date for Wave has been specified. Rasmussen and his brother, Jens, founded an online mapping firm bought by Google in 2004. The brothers' technology went into Google's free Internet map service.

Silicon Valley analyst Rob Enderle said that while the Wave goal is feasible, building a central station for various online photo, video, text and social networking feeds presents complex challenges.

Such a project also calls for cooperation from an array of technology firms, some of them Google rivals, according to Enderle.

"You start throwing these complex things together and things start breaking," Enderle said. "And, Google has not shown an ability to drive the kind of collaboration it would take to make it happen."

Google Wave has solved "a bunch of stuff that has traditionally been very hard" such as real-time collaboration and hosted data, according to team engineer Casey Whitelaw.

"Developers won't have to think about all of that, they'll be able to just build their app and go," Whitelaw said in the interview.

"The primary ideas are that everything is live, and everything is editable."

The Wave team in Sydney held weekly "team huddles" that evolved to include theme songs, prizes, and one member's quest to "help us develop our chocolate palate beyond M&M" candies, according to Whitelaw.

"Rather than try to anticipate every possible use it will be put to, we've made it open and extensible so developers can come up with what they think is cool and useful," Whitelaw said of Wave.

You can rely on adt home security

Who doesn’t care about loved ones? All of us do that. But protecting your home and family becomes far more easier when you count on adt security. Monitored by home security professionals 7 days a week, adt is something you can rely upon while safeguard of your home is concerned. Adt has been in the home protection service for 131 years and is the largest electronic security service provider to more than 6 million customers throughout America.

Adt home protection provides continuous security from five interconnected command centers. These command centers are backed by trained professionals and powerful equipments. The network of command centers are located throughout the US. In case of an emergency, the monitoring technicians at adt do alert local authorities so that they can easily respond to the emergency.

Adt home security handles almost everything. From severe weather events to computer crashes; every damageable event can be monitored using adt alarm system.

Adt offers different sorts of service packages to its customers. Once installed for $99, the services of adt can be availed almost at an average of $1 per day. This thing makes adt home security quite affordable for every household.

Adt helps secure 90 percent of the fortune 500 companies- it proves how trustworthy and reliable it could be. For more detailed info, you can visit its site.

Social Networking Service Twitter is not for sale

The popular micro-blogging and social networking service Twitter is not for sale, one of the co-founder of the company has declared.

Biz Stone made the declaration in an appearance on the ABC show "The View."

When host Barbara Walters - mentioning rumors that Google Inc, Microsoft Corp and Apple Inc might be interested in acquiring the company - asked whether Twitter is for sale, Stone answered, "no."

"We're just getting started as I've said. The company is two years old, we have so much to do, so much product stuff to fix, and so much growing to do."

Twitter has been the subject of takeover speculation since the company turned down a $500 million acquisition offer by social networking heavyweight Facebook.

Twitter is a free service that allows people to send short, 140-character text messages to their network of friends.

According to Nielsen Online, which measures Internet traffic, Twitter's website had more than 7 million unique visitors in February, compared to 475,000 in February 2008.

The company, based in San Francisco, California, is focusing on monetizing its service this year.

File Extension Ged -an useful editor file

Computer Softwares are found in plenty in today’s modern era. Some are meant for coding and decoding, some for programming, some for graphic designing and some for making computer search more efficient. One such application pack is the .GED file which was developed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints which is used for efficient computer search.

The File Extension GED is commonly used for seven applications, one of which being tracking and searching the Genealogical Data Communication (GEDCOM) flies which contains the family history data in ASCII text.

Alternatively, File Extension GED is also applicable to Arts & Letters Draw program which is an entry level drawing program. Here GED stands for Graphic Environment.

The File Extension GED can also be used as a Game Editor as it can act as a tool for creating 2-D computer games. It acts as a project file and holds game data and settings which help the game run.

Apart from these, File Extension GED is also used as an editor file for GoldEd compiled configuration files, Micrografx geometry files, EnerGraphics IMAGE EDITOR, and Wicat Image files.

Intuit releases Quicken Online Mobile, helps budget-minded iPhone users

Intuit has released Quicken Online Mobile which is an iPhone companion app to the company’s free Quicken Online personal money-management Web service, which went live recently in Apple's online App Store for iPhone and iPod Touch programs.

The iPhone program uses the Internet to sync with a free Quicken Online service that lets one set budget and keeps track of mortgages, credit cards, rent, and other coming expenses along with checking account balances and pay days.

The app also includes an integrated ATM finder that uses the iPhone 3G’s GPS capabilities to automatically locate nearby teller machines of banks where people have accounts to save them from getting charged usage fees. One can also enter a zip code to search for ATMs, which lets users to use the feature as well.

One has to set up a free account with the online Quicken service, and enter the login and password information for various financial account websites. Quicken Online and the Quicken Online Mobile app then lets see and tracks all of those accounts, downloading one’s financial data once a day.

For those worried about security, Intuit doesn’t store any of the financial passwords as the Quicken Online Mobile app uses a four-digit passcode for added protection on one’s iPhone. The iPhone program also does not allow financial transactions, so lost or stolen devices won't allow strangers to access accounts.

Quicken Online Mobile only works with Quicken Online, and requires iPhone OS 2.2 or later running on an iPhone or iPod touch. Intuit has plans to adapt the free program to other mobile devices if feedback indicates that there is demand.