Nokia's key options in smartphone race

Stephen Elop , the new chief executive of Nokia, the world's biggest cellphone maker, will unveil his plan to turn around the Finnish company's weakening position in the high end of the market next week.

The average forecast for Nokia's 2011 underlying earnings per share has fallen 5 per cent since it flagged a weak first quarter last week, a poll found.

Following are key options Elop has to choose from:

NO CHANGE -- STRONGER FOCUS

Nokia will most likely reinforce its current software strategy -- focusing increasingly on a new MeeGo platform for high-end models, using its old Symbian workhorse for cheaper smartphones, and offering developers simultaneous access to both with its Qt toolset.

Having its own operating system gives Nokia full control over its devices rather than being beholden to a third party such as Google or Microsoft.

Apple and Blackberry maker RIM have used their own platforms to great effect, while the market is flooded with very similar smartphones running Google's Android.

Elop said on Jan. 27 the opportunity to differentiate would be a top priority when platform decisions were made.

Archaeological trove found via Google Earth

An Australian archaeologist claims to have identified nearly 2,000 potentially important sites in Saudi Arabia using Google Earth.

David Kennedy, a professor of classics and ancient history at the University of Western Australia, says with the help of satellite images from Google Earth he has pinpointed 1,977 archaeological sites, including 1,082 teardrop shaped stone tombs in the Arab country.

"I've never been to Saudi Arabia. It's not the easiest country to break into," New Scientist magazine quoted Dr Kennedy as saying.

Instead, Dr Kennedy said, he scanned about 1240 square kilometres in Saudi Arabia using Google Earth. From their birds-eye view he found 1,977 potential archaeological sites, including 1,082 "pendants" -- ancient tear-drop shaped tombs made of stone.

According to Kennedy, aerial photography of Saudi Arabia is not made available to most archaeologists, and it's difficult, if not impossible, to fly over the nation.

"But, Google Earth can outflank them," he said. The Australian confirmed that the sites were vestiges of an ancient life -- rather than vegetation or shadow – by asking a friend in Saudi Arabia, who is not an archaeologist, to drive out to two of the sites and photograph them.

Why aliens never get in touch with us- Study

A team of scientists has said that no matter how much we try to contact extra terrestrial life, we may never get any response because we are going about it all wrong.

Humans began sending messages into space, starting in 1994 with transmission sent using the Arecibo radio telescope to a star cluster 25,000 light years from Earth.

A trio of researchers - Dimitra Atri from the University of Kansas, Julia DeMarines from the International Space University in France, and Jacob Haqq-Misra from Pennsylvania State University - offer an explanation for our failure to communicate.

The team believes that as the broadcasts became more complex and the types of content increased, the absence of an established protocol "has produced unorganized or cryptic messages that could be difficult to interpret."

They said that any future messaging protocol for messaging to extraterrestrial intelligence should account for a myriad of attributes, such as signal encoding, message length, and information content.

Force10 to expand India development centre

With the global market for computer networking products and solutions on the rebound, the $175 million revenue Force10 Networks Inc. plans to expand its Indian development centre by adding headcount, investing $10 million and also deepening its presence in the domestic market.

"We plan to add around 100 high calibre engineers in the embedded software space. We will complete investing $10 million in our new centre here by September this year and, going by the trends, the investment may go up," Prakash Sripathy, the company's vice president, told IANS in an interview.

According to him, the San Jose-headquartered company is at a transition point, chalking out new growth plans worldwide.

Force10 has filed the necessary papers with the US capital market regulator to come out with an initial public offer (IPO) of $143 million.

In India, apart from expanding its research centre, Force10 is also thinking of deepening its market presence by developing channel partners and turning the Indian operations to a revenue centre.

Ruling out new development centres in India in the near term, Sripathy said the primary target was to grow out of the 44,000 sq.ft centre housing the company's India headquarters, development lab and data centre at the Olympia Technology Park here.

Shareholder-advisory firm backs Apple CEO succession plan

An Apple shareholder proposal requiring the company to disclose a succession plan for Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs gained the support of Institutional Shareholder Services, a proxy-advising service.

ISS, which helps institutional investors decide how to vote on shareholder propositions, wants Apple’s board to disclose a CEO succession plan annually , according to a report released by the firm. The measure is backed by the Laborers’ International Union of North America.

Jobs announced a leave of absence on January 17, the third time the Apple co-founder has taken time away from the company since 2004 to deal with health problems. While Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook has assumed control of day-to-day operations, Apple’s board hasn’t said who will take over from Jobs if he can’t return. The proposal will be considered at Apple’s annual shareholder meeting on February 23.

“A vote for the shareholder proposal to adopt a succession planning policy is warranted in light of the company’s limited disclosure regarding this issue and the market’s expression of concern over CEO succession at Apple,” Rockville, Maryland- based ISS said in a report dated January 28. The labourers’ union announced the group’s support in a statement on Friday.

Verizon iPhone Sales Are Brisk

Verizon Wireless said the number of iPhones it sold in the first two hours of availability Thursday exceeded the one-day total for any other device's debut in the carrier's history.

Verizon Wireless allowed existing customers to preorder the iPhone Thursday, ahead of the official launch on Feb. 10, and stopped taking orders at night. While the carrier touted a record for first-day sales, it declined to say how many were ordered.

"Overall, it was a very good day," Verizon Wireless Chief Executive Dan Mead said. "Yesterday's launch set the pace for next week when we open up sales to everyone across America."

The carrier said that between 3 a.m. and 5 a.m. EST it took more orders of iPhones than its previous blockbuster phones, including Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc.'s Droid and Research in Motion Ltd.'s Storm, which also benefited from tremendous marketing and hype.

Mr. Mead said the company faced "unprecedented customer orders" on

When the Verizon iPhone launches next week, it will be sold at Verizon Wireless and Apple stores, as well as Best Buy Co. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
The preorder process went relatively smoothly for the carrier, aside from a few error messages and a spike in traffic to Verizon Wireless and Apple's websites during the first hour of availability.

A Verizon Wireless spokeswoman said the carrier dealt directly with customers who encountered problems with their orders. She added the system never shut down, despite early concern that it might have been overwhelmed by the volume of orders.

Verizon Wireless is a joint venture between Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone Group PLC.

Disclaimer: All information on this news has been compiled from their respective official websites or through public domain sites and leading newspapers. Although, we have taken reasonable efforts to provide you with accurate information, but we assumes no responsibility for the accuracy (or inaccuracy) of the Information and would advise you to verify it from the official product provider. We cannot guarantee that the information on this page is 100% correct. If you would like to advertise on our site please contact us

Facebook to unveil Menlo Park campus next week

Facebook, which turned seven on Friday, already needs new offices.

The world's largest social network invited reporters to an event on Tuesday to showcase a new campus in Menlo Park, adjacent to its current headquarters in Palo Alto, California.

"We're holding a press event on Tuesday, Feb. 8, at Menlo Park City Hall regarding a campus that will fit our long-term business needs," a Facebook spokesperson said. "We look forward to sharing more at that time. "

Facebook, founded in a Harvard dorm room in 2004, secured $1.5 billion in its latest round of financing, led by Goldman Sachs.

The social networking site, which has more than 2,000 employees, displaced Google Inc to become the most visited Web site in the U.S. in 2010 according to Experian Hitwise.

Facebook has grown rapidly and has more than half a billion global users compared with about 100 million in August 2008.

Disclaimer: All information on this news has been compiled from their respective official websites or through public domain sites and leading newspapers. Although, we have taken reasonable efforts to provide you with accurate information, but we assumes no responsibility for the accuracy (or inaccuracy) of the Information and would advise you to verify it from the official product provider. We cannot guarantee that the information on this page is 100% correct. If you would like to advertise on our site please contact us

Hackers penetrate Nasdaq computers: WSJ report

Computer hackers repeatedly entered the network of the company that runs the Nasdaq stock market in the past year, but the trading platform was not compromised, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

The report cited people familiar with the matter as saying law enforcement investigators were considering a range of motives for the hacking, from financial gain to theft of trade secrets to a national security threat to damage the important stock exchange.

Authorities rank stock exchanges up with power companies and air traffic control centers as critical to the basic infrastructure of the United States.

The probe into the hacking at New York-based Nasdaq OMX Group Inc was started by the U.S. Secret Service and now includes the Federal Bureau of Investigation , the WSJ said.

A spokesman for Nasdaq OMX Group declined immediate comment on the report.

The WSJ said investigators have been unable to track the hacking to any specific individual or country.