17 percent sales on Video game

Video game industry sales tumbled nearly 17 percent year over year, a downward trend for a market segment that had previously seemed resistant to the economic pressures of the recession.

In April, according to industry analyst NPD Group, the industry posted revenue of $1.03 billion, down 16.9 percent from the $1.24 billion it recorded in April 2008. Sales for the month were also down 30 percent from $1.43 billion in March.

NPD analyst Anita Frazier cautioned in a report that it's hard to reach the conclusion that the industry has begun to soften, noting that "it's important to remember that April (2009) is being compared against a month--April 2008--that realized nearly 50 percent growth over April 2007."

Samsung Smooth for Verizon Wireless

Samsung has recently started selling its new Smooth clamshell, available from Verizon Wireless. The Samsung Smooth may be smooth, but it's definitely a low-end phone, with only a VGA camera offering, GPS, Bluetooth, speakerphone, voice command, and not much else. Still, the $29.99 price is hard to beat, and will be just fine for folks who mostly want a phone for making calls.

BlackBerry Curve 8900 headed to AT&T

On Monday, AT&T finally confirmed the upcoming availability of the RIM BlackBerry Curve 8900 for early summer.

AT&T's version is largely similar to the T-Mobile BlackBerry Curve 8900, which has been available since January 2009, sharing the same sleek design and features like integrated GPS, Wi-Fi, and a 3.2-megapixel camera.

RIM CEO: BlackBerry Storm 2

Research In Motion confirmed on Monday what many have speculated to be in the works: a BlackBerry Storm 2. While it may not ultimately be called the Storm 2, RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie confirmed the news to Reuters, saying that sales of the BlackBerry Storm remain strong and that it's working on next-generation devices in the hopes of continuing to tap into the consumer market.

Balsillie did not provide any specifics about the device, other than to say that the Storm has been a success "in terms of sales and adoption" and that sales remain strong, which contributed to its decision to develop the line. The BlackBerry Storm was RIM's first touch-screen device and was quickly pegged as the company's (and Verizon Wireless') answer to the Apple iPhone.

Laptop the most Top 5 giving entertainment

United states can differentiate the sound quality of an audio system using gold-plated oxygen-free cables vs penny-store versions or have eyes fast enough to catch that little motion blur in an action movie. For those living in small houses or who don't need a high-end home entertainment setup, these portables can serve up an excellent movie and gaming experience while allowing you to surf your favorite Internet sites.

When shopping for a suitable laptop, forget about going through the brochure and searching for the word "entertainment" in it. A proper multimedia machine should have, at the minimum, a high-resolution display of at least 720p and an above-average audio system. A discrete graphics card is a must, along with a powerful processor and Blu-ray optical drive. For the pick of the litter, here are five systems that can sit as comfortably in your living room as in your study.

HP's new laptop : HP Pavilion dv3z

The product at a glance

. Inexpensive, highly configurable 13-inch laptop; excellent battery life.

. Not as thin or light as other 13-inch systems; AMD processor lags in performance.

. The 13-inch HP Pavilion dv3z offers a reasonable trade-off, choosing battery life and value over performance and weight.

Samsung UN46B7000

Features:

.Produces relatively deep black levels; accurate color;

.very good dejudder processing; sleek styling with 1.2-inch thick panel; extensive feature set with Yahoo widgets, network streaming, and a lot of built-in content; extremely energy-efficient.

.Expensive; less-uniform screen than other LCDs; poor off-angle viewing; backlight fluctuates with program brightness; dark areas tinged bluer; shiny screen can cause reflections in bright rooms; red frame isn't for everyone.

Free TV for cell phones

Now it is possible that free TV service could soon be coming to a cell phone near you.

Broadcasters announced Monday at the National Association of Broadcaster's annual conference in Las Vegas that a new pilot program is launching in the Baltimore-Washington, D.C. area that will allow people to watch free mobile digital television on cell phones and other mobile devices.

Local affiliate stations for CBS, NBC, PBS, Ion, and Fox will broadcast their programs beginning in late summer for mobile devices, which includes cell phones, laptops and car entertainment systems.

Environmental Protection Agency paves way for broad emission limits

On Friday the Environmental Protection Agency declared that industrial greenhouse gases are a danger to human health and well-being, opening the way to broad new regulations to reduce carbon dioxide and other planet-heating gases.

The finding could lead to far-reaching rules that are likely to heavily affect cars and trucks, which account for nearly a quarter of the nation's greenhouse gas emissions, and utilities, which are responsible for more than a third.The statistic result of greenhouse gasses are carbon dioxide 83%, methan 10%, nytries oxied 5%, (HFCs,PFCs,SFG2%)

Virtually all major areas of the economy could be affected, including oil, chemicals, cement, steel, forestry and large-scale farming.

The EPA finding marks a sharp change in direction from the Bush administration, which cast doubt on the science behind climate change and sought to delay government intervention. It also sends a strong signal to other nations that the U.S. is prepared to slash its contribution to greenhouse gas emissions as diplomats prepare for a December gathering in Copenhagen to negotiate a new treaty on climate change.

It also exerts pressure on Congress to move forward on comprehensive climate change legislation. Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Beverly Hills), co-author of a bill to create a national market to cap emissions and allow trading of credits, praised the EPA action but said it would be up to Congress to "break our dependence on foreign sources of energy and help transform our economy."

Details of Windows Mobile 6.5 coming in the month of May

Until the second half of the year Windows Mobile 6.5 phones still aren't expected to arrive, but Microsoft sounds like it's ready to show off the new operating system next month.

Electronista spotted a post to Microsoft's Windows Mobile blog last week that said the company is planning to "launch" the new mobile operating system at TechEd 2009, scheduled for May 11. "Launch" can mean an awful lot of things in the business world, and in this case, it's likely that Microsoft is referring to the "release to manufacturing" milestone, when a product is made available to its handset partners for testing and certification.

Representatives from Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for clarification on what will announced or demonstrated in May. When Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer discussed Windows Mobile 6.5 in February at the Mobile World Congress, he said that phones with the new software wouldn't be available until the second half of the year.

Next generation coming with small chips

STMicroelectronics,IBM ,Samsung Electronics and others are teaming up on the development of next-generation chip technology for small, low-power devices with one wary eye on Intel, which is expediting its move to chips with smaller geometries.

IBM and its semiconductor technology alliance partners are announcing the availability of 28-nanometer (nm) chip technology, a little more than a generation beyond the 45nm technologies currently used by Intel and Advanced Micro Devices in their latest chips.

The first products using chips based on this technology are expected in the second half of 2010, an IBM spokesman said. Devices will include smartphones and consumer electronics products.

The largest, single countervailing force to the IBM-led group is Intel. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based chip giant's chief executive, Paul Otellini, said Tuesday in a first-quarter earnings conference call that Intel is "pulling in" the release of "Westmere" chips based on 32nm technology and will ship silicon later this year.

Samsung notebook NC20

Samsung's NC20 stands out from the crowd in two very important ways. First, it's one of only a handful of 12-inch Netbooks (the best-known example being Dell's Vista-addled Mini 12); secondly, it's the first laptop we've tested with Via's Nano CPU, intended as an alternative to Intel's popular Atom processor.

The Atom is found in virtually every other Netbook, so it's always good to see some competition, and the new Nano managed to fight Intel to a tie, beating it in some benchmarks and falling behind in others--but keep in mind the Nano was powering a larger screen with a higher resolution. We look forward to seeing the Nano in other systems, especially if it can undercut Intel's Atom pricing and bring Netbook costs down even more.

Our favorite retail notebook

We've spent the last eight weeks testing and reviewing almost two dozen retail fixed-configuration laptops. Those are the specific models you'll find listed in Sunday newspaper sales circulars and boxed up and ready to go at big brick-and-mortar outlets.

In the entry level category, which refers to laptops under $599, you're going to find systems that are functional, but not particularly exciting. Faster dual-core processors and bigger screens are the main reasons to trade up from a similarly priced Netbook. As long as you keep your expectations modest, an entry level laptop can be good for either cash-strapped students or those with modest computing needs.

The majority have AMD processors, but we found two with Intel Core Duo CPUs (the cheaper cousin of Intel's mainstream Core 2 Duo).

Surprising New Look, New Integration for Windows Mobile

On Thursday at the CTIA Wireless show in Las Vegas, Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices Division, delivered a keynote demonstration of the "connected experiences" available to Windows users.

Bach outlined Microsoft's target, a "three-screens-and-a-cloud scenario" in which "our customers can get the services and capabilities they want delivered to any device whenever they want."

Such a scenario involves interaction and syncing between your "three screens"—TV, PC, and mobile phone—and an online account that manages them and backs up your content. Bach pointed out that, ideally, "A Windows PC, a Windows phone, and a Windows Live service will create that connected experience that we're talking about."

Microsoft's new My Phone service will facilitate that connectivity. The service backs up a Windows Mobile phone's data and content, and lets users access that content via PC. For instance, users can search for text messages on their phones using their PCs.

Bach also took the audience on a

tour of Windows 6.5 (which you can see for yourself in our Windows Mobile 6.5 slideshow), and talked about the newly announced customizability options. Designers like Isaac Mizrahi have signed on to design wallpapers for Windows Mobile phones.

Besides nifty skins and wallpapers, another way to customize a Windows Mobile phone is through apps from the Microsoft Mobile Marketplace. Bach said that all apps in the Marketplace are certified by Microsoft, that users can back them up, and said there's a self-serve refund feature with which users can get their money back for apps they aren't satisfied with.

Adam Sussman from Electronic Arts joined Bach on stage to talk up the Mobile Marketplace, and promised that "every major EA Mobile release this year will be available on the Windows Mobile platform

Company Nokia Hopes New App Store Will Replicate App Store

Nokia has spent four years working on building an application distribution system, attracting millions of developers eager to sell to the hundreds of millions of Nokia phone users around the world.

But today few Nokia phone users actually download applications. It took Apple about a year to craft a system that its 15 million iPhone customers use to download applications at a far more frequent rate. According to research from ComScore, 59.2 percent of iPhone users have downloaded apps, a much higher percentage than among average mobile users.

With its soon-to-launch Ovi store, Nokia hopes it has addressed the problems that have held it back in the past.

"When we started doing this, the state of the art was selling a photo of a cat," said George Linardos, vice president of Nokia Services, during a lunch meeting at the CTIA conference in Las Vegas on Thursday. Four years ago when Nokia started promoting the idea of downloading applications to phones, the most sophisticated option was adding photos.

south asian country India extracts Bay of Bengal gas

The Indian company Reliance Industries has started pumping natural gas from a massive deep-sea field in the Bay of Bengal off India's eastern coast.

Eventually it will almost double the country's natural gas output.

Just over six years after the deep-sea field known as D-six was discovered under the Bay of Bengal, the first gas has been pumped ashore.

Within a few days supplies will reach Indian fertiliser companies which have first call on this new source of gas.

It is a big moment for Reliance Industries, which is owned by one of the world's richest men, Mukesh Ambani.

The company says the gas field will reach peak production by the end of this year.

And according to government officials the new gas supplies will then help India reduce its crude oil imports by about $9bn a year.

India has chronic energy shortages and growing demand in a sector which is still tightly controlled by government regulations and official pricing policies.

A big new supply of clean energy will be a welcome boost for consumers and it may also be a sign that the government recognises that the free market needs to play a bigger role in India's energy policy in the future.

Climate that is hot produces baby girls

People who live in the tropics have more baby girls compared with those living in other parts of the world, work reveals.

It may be down to the hotter weather or the longer days, says US researcher Dr Kristen Navara in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters.

She says this climate may change miscarriage rates and sperm quality.

Or there may be some evolutionary advantage to having more girls than boys if you live by the equator.

Experts already know that the birth rates of boys and girls vary across the globe.

While some of this can be explained by society - in countrie like China baby boys are favoured and many unborn girls are electively aborted - there are natural processes at work.

Research suggests the female foetus is less fragile than the male foetus, which is more prone to the effects of the environment on pregnant women.

At times of extreme environmental stress, including war, the birth rate of girls outstrips that of boys.

Davied Gibbons backs digital art contest

Acclaimed comic book artist Dave Gibbons is giving his support to a competition for electronic artists.

The Digital Artist 2009 competition is broken into 13 categories, including graphic design, animation, and videogame arts.

There are also five "Rising Star" awards for artists under 25 years old.

Prize details have yet to be announced but will include cash prizes, hardware and software as well as an opportunity to showcase the winning work.

Entries to the competition, which runs until 31 August 2009, have to be submitted through a website which will also include news and debates about digital arts.

There will be a range of digital art master classes across the UK, with leading practitioners - including Gibbons - offering beginners and more experienced digital artists an opportunity to learn from the experts.

Gibbons, who has been using computers in his own work for more than 15 years, helped launch the competition at a London art gallery, expressed his support for the current generation of digital artists, saying he is astounded at the work they are creating

"We used to say that the the unfortunate thing was that the people who knew how to use the technology weren't artists and the artists didn't know how to use technology", he told the BBC.

"But over the years that's changed. The people working in graphics now aren't from the previous age of man - like I am - they're people who have always used computers."

What a Touch-screen digital cameras

Touch-screen digital cameras offer, there are good reasons for adding touch controls to point-and-shoot cameras. For one, there's the convenience of being able to simply tap an icon with your fingertip to make a fast setting change. Also, you get unique features like being able to select what you want to focus on just by tapping on the subject in the display.

In playback mode, manufacturers have made it easy to flip through images by dragging your finger across the screen or zoom in on an area with a tap. Nikon and Sony also give you the ability to write on a photo and save a copy, which can be both fun and practical.

There are some downsides, though. Touch screens add to the cost of a camera and the interfaces can be slow, especially compared with physical controls. Plus, using the screen for everything puts a real hurt on battery life.

Laptop of 2009 is Dell Adamo

One of the most buzzed-about new laptops of 2009 is Dell's Adamo, a high-end, ultrathin 13-inch model that starts at $1,999 and shares a design sensibility with the MacBook Air and the HP Voodoo Envy 133.

After teasing the system at CES 2009, Dell formally announced its online availability starting March 17, and we've managed to get our hands on a preproduction version of the hardware to bring you our initial impressions.

At first glance, the Adamo, is a stark break from Dell's recent laptop designs, built into an aluminum case with unibody construction, similar to the current MacBooks. The model we have is black (Dell calls it "onyx") and a white "pearl" version is also available. The back of the lid and the keyboard tray are split between brushed metal and a fingerprint-attracting glossy finish.

Cell phone Motorola Stature i9 - black (Nextel)

The good: The Motorola i9 Stature offers a sleek design, brilliant displays, useful features, and good call quality.

The bad: The Motorola i9's controls and keypad are flat and stiff. The camera is rather slow and photo quality is just average.

The bottom line: The Motorola i9 Stature is the sexiest Nextel phone we've seen. Apart from the disappointing camera, it offers decent features and admirable call quality.

Android won't work on Netbooks

The very first Netbooks ran Linux operating systems, usually with a custom front-end to give users easy access to a Web browser and other frequently used apps. But as well-intentioned as that plan was, it wasn't until PC makers added the already archaic Windows XP operating system that the Netbook craze took off.

It wasn't that XP was the perfect solution for small screens and low-power CPUs -- it's that consumers searching for a simple, low-cost second or travel laptop value ease of use over almost anything else. XP benefits from looking and feeling familiar to most users

BlackBerry App World: solid, not sensational

App World for BlackBerry users doesn’t have the polish of the App Store for iPhone, but it has promise and potential to make an extremely popular smartphone even more useful.

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion launched its one-stop, phone-based store Wednesday. It isn’t as intuitive, easy or fun to use as Apple’s App Store. But BlackBerry users — ranging from college students to the suit-wearing business class — expect solid performance, not pizzazz from their equipment. And that’s what they’ll get with App World.

Palm Opens Developer Program, Slightly

At the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, mobile phone maker Palm expanded access to its developer program for WebOS, the mobile operating system for its forthcoming Palm Pre.

Abbott, senior VP of applications, software, and services at Palm, made the announcement, noting that he had chosen to deliver the news among Web developers rather than at the CTIA Wireless 2009 conference, which began on Wednesday in Las Vegas.

During his brief presentation, Abbot mentioned a few of the innovative features in Palm's WebOS, including its use of a card metaphor to make multitasking easier and the Palm Synergy feature, which provides a unified view of information such as contact data that is shared across applications.

Retail desktop round-up

Ranging from $380 to $900, retail PCs aren't necessarily fancy, but we have three roundups (linked here and in the links below) that give you a good idea of what to expect from desktops in different price ranges.

CTIA 2009

The biggest mobile show in the U.S., CTIA bursts at the seams every spring with new handsets, accessories, applications, and services. CNET will be there to bring you the latest information.

ZTE C78 and C79 now available with Pocket Communications

ZTE announced today that it has partnered with regional carrier Pocket Communications to release the ZTE C78 and the ZTE C79. Previously, these handsets have only been with MetroPCS. The C78 is a candybar phone with a 2-inch backlit display, stereo Bluetooth, but not much else. The C79 is a flip phone with external music player keys, a 1.3-megapixel camera, and stereo Bluetooth as well. Both handsets will be available for Pocket Communications subscribers in Texas and in New England. No word as to pricing just yet.

BlackBerry App World coms April 1

RIM's BlackBerry App World is expected to be officially announced on April 1 at this year's CTIA Wireless show in Las Vegas. RIM's offering is not only an effort to keep BlackBerry users in the fold by providing a one-stop application shop, but it's also a way for RIM to extend a hand to third-party developers. As with the iPhone App Store, the success of BAW will depend heavily on the happiness, or at least motivation, of developers.

Apple's App Store had 15,000 apps available as of January. In order to compete with those numbers, BlackBerry App World needs to attract developers who will produce a sizable amount of applications -- and quality ones at that. The paid apps in the BAW start at $2.99, and many commenters are hoping that a higher price point will be a barrier to nonsense apps (see: Virtual Zippo, iFart). A potential snag here is that many BlackBerry users are provided with handsets by their employers who prohibit their employees from adding apps. However, if the applications are generally focused on productivity and there is enough demand, it's possible that many employers will relent.

Mobile Phone company Samsung takes another pass at the Instinct

The new Instinct looks much like its predecessor.
(Credit: Samsung) You can usually rely on Samsung to drop a load of new phones every trade show, and CTIA 2009

Notebook Acer Aspire One AOD150

The new Aspire One AOD150 will further cement Acer's lead in the Netbook market, largely on account of its rock-bottom price.