comScore on Thursday released search engine data from December 2011, with Bing surpassing Yahoo in the number of search queries for the first time.

However, Google sites, of course, continued to reign supreme, gobbling up 65.9 percent of search queries conducted in December, up 0.5 percent from November.

Microsoft’s Bing came in second, though not exactly a close second, claiming 15.1 percent of searches in December, a slight increase from the 15 percent it took home the previous month. Yahoo saw a decline from November to December, slippling from 15.1 percent in November to 14.5 percent in December, which allowed Bing to leapfrog Yahoo for the number two spot.

Rounding out the top five were Ask Network and AOL, hanging steady with 2.9 percent and 1.6 percent of search queries respectively.

comScore classifies these searches as “excplicit core searches,” which means they “exclude contextually driven searches that do not reflect specific user intent to interact with the search results.”

Additionally, comScore noted that more than 18.2 billion “explicit core searches” were conducted last month, a 2 percent increase. Google accounted for 12 billion of those searches (a 3 percent increase), Microsoft sites ate up 2.7 billion searches (a 2 percent increase), and Yahoo comprised 2.6 billion searches. Ask Network saw 531 million searches (up 3 percent), and AOL nabbed 287 million.

In all, 20.5 billion total core searches were conducted in the U.S. in December, a 3 percent bump. Google snagged 13.6 billion of those (up 4 percent), Yahoo had 3.3 billion (up 2 percent), and Microsoft took 2.8 billion (up 2 percent).

Google, however, might be in hot water for its search practices, as a result of its utter dominance of the market. The Internet giant recently began rolling out a new search initiative called “Search plus Your World,” which taps into content from its Google+ network to deliver personalized, social results.

Critics are accusing Google of unfairly favoring its own results over those of its competitors, and the update has prompted the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) to file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which could invite another probe into Google’s practices.

Building this first data center in Southeast Asia is an exciting step for us. More new Internet users are coming online every day here in Asia than anywhere else in the world. They are looking for information and entertainment, new business opportunities and better ways to connect with friends and family, near and far. We’re building this data center to make sure that our users here have the fastest and most reliable access possible to all of Google’s services, so they can do just that.

We are also really excited about the facility itself, as it will be one of the most efficient and environmentally friendly in Asia, built to the same high standard we use around the world, with each element custom designed to operate at optimal efficiency.

www.google.com/about/datacenters/locations/singapore/

Julian Persaud, managing Director for Google Southeast Asia, announces the start of construction of a new Google data center in Singapore along with other Google executives and Singaporean government representatives

SINGAPORE—Google Inc. will invest US$120 million in a data center in Singapore, the first of its kind in Southeast Asia, executives of the Internet search giant announced Thursday, in a move to significantly expand operations in Asia.

The data center, which is slated for completion in early 2013, will be the third of its kind in Asia, joining two others that will be built in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Google has pledged an investment of US$300 million in its Hong Kong data center and more than US$100 million in Taiwan.

Google said it hopes the addition of these data centers will provide users with a faster and more reliable user experience, as its services such as Gmail are currently delivered to users in Asia via data centers in the U.S.

“More new users are coming online every day in Asia than anywhere else in the world,” said Google’s head of Southeast Asia Julian Persaud at the groundbreaking ceremony of the facility’s site. “We’re building to provide our users here with the fastest and most reliable possible access to our services so they can do just that.”

The 2.45-hectare site, located in Singapore’s Jurong area, will aim to be energy-efficient and environmentally friendly despite challenges posed by Singapore’s humid weather, executives said.

The company declined to elaborate on what services would be delivered from and centered in the Singapore data center, but Google’s head of community affairs Matt Dunne said it expects to do more work around disaster relief, including providing satellite and street-view images as it did during the Japan earthquake and tsunami.

Though only a small team of computer technicians and engineers will be hired to staff the Singapore data center, the move represents a significant investment into Singapore, which is Google’s Asia-Pacific headquarters, and the region. This year, one in five employees of Google’s Asian operations was based in Singapore.

Singapore currently is home to approximately 50% of Southeast Asia’s data-center capacity, according to Jayson Goh, Executive Director for Infocomms and Media at the government’s Economic Development Board, a capacity that the board expects to grow “significantly over the next few years as new investment in data centers come online,” he said.

The theme park ride Transformers will have its world premiere at the Universal Studios Singapore on Dec 3, 2011.

Universal Studios Singapore will be launching the world’s first theme-park attraction based on popular sci-fi franchise Transformers on Dec 3, 2011.

Transformers The Ride will celebrate its world premiere at an exclusive evening event on Dec 2 with Michael Bay – director of the hit movies – headlining the launch party.

The ride will feature 12 scenes, blending sets, 3-D digital media and special effects together in what Resorts World Sentosa promised would be a ‘game changer’ for theme park attractions across the world.

Bay said: ‘I am very excited about the debut of this attraction at Universal Studios Singapore. Finally, Transformers fans will not only have the chance to watch the Autobots battle the Decepticons on screen; they’ll actually be part of the action.’

When Apple co-founder Steve Jobs stepped down from his role as CEO two months ago, the immediate question “was what happens to Apple next?” With Jobs’ passing yesterday, the company now faces that scenario.

From an outsider’s perspective, the near-term seems clear. The company says it has a succession plan, which it enacted in August at Jobs’ request, installing Tim Cook as CEO. The company also has a new iPhone–its hottest money making product–launching next week, followed a week later with what is likely to be another record setting quarter.

But what people wonder about is what happens years from now, or maybe sooner. Can Apple keep its mojo as the tech company that made an incredible comeback and affected change in nearly every industry it got into during the past decade? Can Cook carve out his own place in the company’s history, going beyond the role of changing how Apple puts together its products, into a role that defines what they are and how they’re perceived?

Steve Jobs, 1955 - 2011 | Founders of Apple, NeXt & Pixar

That’s a big unknown in part because Jobs has been Apple’s front man since his return to the company. While Cook filled in during Jobs’ medical leaves and ran the company’s day to day operations for years, to the public he’s now just beginning to get attention as the one who is going to lead Apple. There’s no more “Steve will still be involved with strategic decisions” to point at when something is deemed a success or a failure. And with future products and services, Apple now faces scrutiny of how much of a hand people think Jobs did or did not play in whatever long-term vision that was set up before he stepped down.

Ultimately this is a huge, finely run company with many strong executives. But the panache, the “vision thing” will be hard to replace. The loss of a founding executive can take years to have an influence for the negative, and it’s typically a more subtle one — the loss of energy, the loss of drive, the MBAs making decisions rather than the engineers. Will it happen at Apple? Impossible to say, but those are the risks in the years to come.

One of the first places people looked for any signs of change was the company’s iPhone event earlier this week. Critics panned both Cook’s inaugural performance, and the product itself, as dull, in part because they were comparing it with a certain ideal Jobs has come to make us expect. And the truth is, Cook may never get to get out of that shadow.

But as Tuesday’s event re-enforced, and perhaps we all should have picked up on a little sooner, is that Apple’s come to lean on its other figureheads to make the pitch, especially Phil Schiller and Scott Forstall, the company’s top marketing and iOS software executives, respectively. Schiller’s been Jobs’ right hand man in product demonstrations, even carrying the Macworld and WWDC keynotes in 2009 while Jobs was on medical leave. Forstall, meanwhile, has gone from helping to craft Mac OS X to becoming the one in charge of running Apple’s mobile software efforts, which have become a commanding portion of the company’s incoming revenue stream. There’s also deep executive bench with the recently promoted Eddy Cue who heads up the company’s Internet and software service, and Jeff Williams, Apple’s senior vice president of operations.

Perhaps of the most interest in the post-Jobs era though is Jonathan Ive, Apple’s senior vice president of industrial design. Jobs is credited with pulling Ive from designing prototypes of products that were going nowhere and bringing him into the inner circle of the company’s design efforts. The two men were also said to have had a mutual admiration and taste for design that’s driven the company to create some of its most iconic products. With Jobs no longer a part of that creative process, does Ive stay or strike out on his own?

There’s also curiosity into who Apple decides to replace as its retail chief, a part of the company’s business that started with just a handful of stores, and now stretches to 357 locations around the world. A big part of the credit for that goes to Ron Johnson, the company’s retail chief, who earlier this year announced that he was departing to become J.C. Penney’s CEO, a job he begins next month. Apple has not yet said who his successor will be.

Finally, there’s the uncertain future when it comes to Apple’s voice. People have come to look to Jobs to set the tone of the company, which went from a scrappy upstart to a giant, yet whose CEO and co-founder would still respond personally to e-mails from customers.

Because of Jobs, you could tell you were reading something from Apple almost immediately, from the verbiage in a legal filing to a document like the App Store guidelines. Jobs would also occasionally write technology missives posted to Apple’s Web Site, most recently “Thoughts on Flash,” an utter take down of Adobe’s Flash technology, which Jobs chided for being flawed, and a hindrance towards moving things forward. In truth I don’t see Cook penning something like Thoughts on Flash, but perhaps I don’t know him well enough.

One thing that’s for sure is that Jobs has left Apple with a foundation to build on its successes. Still ahead of it is a new campus set to be completed by 2015, a continually aggressive plan to expand its retail stores into new territories, and a digital empire that’s set up to sell an ever increasing amount of music, books, movies, TV shows, and software.

What comes after that, only Apple knows.

A new & improved HTC Sensation XE from the original HTC Sensation

Luke Westaway | CNET has decided to get all hippity-hop happy with its latest smart phone, the HTC Sensation XE. It’s a refreshed version of the brilliant HTC Sensation that packs Beats audio tech, as well as a faster processor and improved battery life.

Beaten Senseless

The Sensation XE comes with a set of in-ear Beats by Dr. Dre headphones. Plug these boisterous bad-boys in, and the phone switches to a different audio profile, doing some clever processing trickery to tune your music specifically to the earphones.

We suspect that will boil down to making your tunes sound a bit bassier, but we’re ready to be impressed — someexisting Beats audio products have delivered better audio quality than their garish colour schemes would suggest, so maybe this mobile can give your tunes a little extra punch.

Impressively, those headphones will come with a cable remote that lets you control music playback, or answer calls via a built-in microphone. No more fishing your mobile out your pocket to answer calls.

A Purchase of a HTC Sensation XE comes along with a free Premium Beats Earpiece

Souped-up processor

The HTC Sensation XE packs a more powerful processor than the existing version of the Sensation. While the current model has a dual-core 1.2GHz chip, the Sensation XE ups the voltage with a dual-core processor clocked at 1.5GHz.

The previous version was impressively fast, so we can only assume that this new iteration will blow our heads clean off our shoulders with its snappy performance.

Improved battery

We’re told the HTC Sensation XE packs a bigger battery, that should improve its chances of survival away from the mains. Smart phone batteries are rubbish in general and most modern mobiles need to be charged every day, so we’re interested to see if the Sensation XE can do any better.

As you can see in the photos above, the Sensation XE has been given a little lick of paint. We suspect the blood-red accents and Beats logo will be divisive, but we did think the all-grey casing of the first Sensation was a bit dull, so we appreciate that it’s been jazzed up.

Elsewhere we expect the Sensation XE to be running Android version 2.3 Gingerbread, and it should pack the same 8-megapixel camera that adorned the original.

With a more powerful processor and the promise of better battery life, the HTC Sensation XE could be much more than just a cheap branding tie-in. Stay tuned for the full review.

HTC says you’ll be able to get your hands on this powerful mobile from late September.

We’re hearing from a trusted source this afternoon that the next version of Android after Ice Cream Sandwich will be known as “Jelly Bean,” continuing Google’s longstanding tradition of naming Android builds after sweet treats in alphabetical order. What we don’t yet know is the version number — in fact, Google has yet to say what Ice Cream Sandwich’s version number will be, much less Jelly Bean’s.

Additionally, our source tells us he’s hearing that the “game-changing stuff” that had originally been scheduled for Ice Cream Sandwich is now being pushed to Jelly Bean, though we don’t know exactly what those big features are. Since its launch at Google I/O in May, the implication has been that Ice Cream Sandwich will help unify Android’s phone and tablet efforts — represented right now by Gingerbread and Honeycomb, respectively — into a single trunk, but beyond that, very little has been said about what ICS will bring to the table.

With rumors of the Ice Cream Sandwich-powered Nexus Prime from Samsung hitting a fever pitch lately, it seems likely that an announcement is imminent (in fact, Eric Schmidt has said as much), so hopefully we’ll get some insight on where these two builds shake out very shortly.

Update: We’re hearing from another well-regarded source that Jelly Bean is in the running for the name, but that the choice hasn’t yet been finalized by Google; for what it’s worth, the pickings are fairly slim for desserts with “J” names, so Jelly Bean seems like a solid choice. The source goes on to say that there are some fairly major architectural, functional, and design changes in Ice Cream Sandwich, so by all appearances, this is still going to be a big-time release. Of course, that doesn’t mean Jelly Bean (or whatever Google ultimately calls it) won’t have a big outing in its own right, but the indication is that ICS won’t just be a warmed-over Gingerbread or Honeycomb.

In the 2011 edition of the World Competitiveness Yearbook (WCY) released Tuesday by the Lausanne-based Institute for Management Development (IMD), Singapore slips two spots to rank as the third most competitive country in the ranking.

Taiwan and the Chinese mainland also maintain their presence on the top 20 list as No. 6 and No. 19 respectively.

Also in the rankings, Sweden jumps to 4th place, highlighting the competitiveness of the Nordic model. Germany shines and gains 6 ranks to 10th position thanks to buoyant exports and a more flexible labor market.

“The world of competitiveness becomes more national. ‘World Competitiveness 2.0′ is thus characterized by a greater self-reliance of countries. It increasingly emphasizes re-industrialization, exports, and a more critical look at delocalization,” said IMD Professor Stéphane Garelli, Director of IMD’s World Competitiveness Center.

“This trend is triggered by the rise in commodity and transport prices and higher labor costs in emerging economies. National champions are favored everywhere and borders re-surface – again!”

Following are the top 20 competitive countries and regions as ranked by IMD.

Rank 2011	Country/Region	Score 2011	Rank 2010
1	Hong Kong	100.00	2
1	USA	100.00	3
3	Singapore	98.6	1
4	Sweden	94.1	6
5	Switzerland	92.6	4
6	Taiwan	92.0	8
7	Canada	90.8	7
8	Qatar	90.2	15
9	Australia	89.3	5
10	Germany	87.8	16
11	Luxembourg	86.5	11
12	Denmark	86.4	13
13	Norway	86.3	9
14	Netherlands	85.7	12
15	Finland	84.4	19
16	Malaysia	84.1	10
17	Israel	81.6	17
18	Austria	81.6	14
19	Chinese mainland	81.1	18
20	UK	8.03	22

Singapore's Marina Bay Financial Centre, ready by 2013

The survey showed that the average daily foreign exchange (FX) turnover volume in Singapore was US$266 billion ($360.38 billion) during April 2010 compared to US$242 billion in April

Meanwhile, the average daily turnover in over-the-counter (OTC) interest rate derivatives was US$78 billion during April 2010, 37 per cent higher than the US$57 billion recorded during April 2007. This ranks Singapore as sixth largest centre globally, up from seventh position in 2007 and underscores Singapore’s development as a key derivatives trading centre in Asia.

Mr Ong Chong Tee, Deputy Managing Director for the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said, “The BIS as well as the SFEMC surveys affirm Singapore’s consistent growth as a key foreign exchange centre in the world and in Asia. Trading of emerging market currencies including the Singapore Dollar grew significantly. Financial institutions based in Singapore, serving the foreign exchange needs of their clients in the region and beyond, are well-placed to capitalise on this growth.”

The BIS Triennial Central Bank Survey – FX and Derivatives Market Activity uses a data collection approach based on the location of the sales desks. 54 banks in Singapore were involved in the survey.

The HTC Vigor that was previously leaked through benchmark scores has surfaced again and this time through a decent pair of pictures, showing the entire front and rear side.

From the looks of it the phone does look a bit similar to the HTC Incredible S, particularly from the back. Then again, all HTC phones look similar these days. On the front is a large touchscreen rumored to be 4.3-inch in size and having a resolution of 1280 x 720, if the benchmark results that leaked last time are to be believed. There is also a front video call camera on the top right and on the top left is what looks like could be the Verizon logo, being edited out. The touch sensitive buttons below the display don’t seem like they rotate the way they do on the Incredible S.

On the hardware front the Vigor is expected to have a 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor with Adreno 220 GPU, 1GB of RAM, 16GB internal memory and running on Android 2.3.4. It is also said to have the Beats Audio, the result of the recent alliance between HTC and the Beats by Dre brand.

All the signs suggest this is another one of the phones from Verizon’s DROID family but there could also be a GSM version, the Incredible HD, if you will. This is all we know for now though. More as it is discovered.

According to the NenaMark1 benchmark score, the Vigor with be available on Verizon’s 4G LTE network. It has a 1280 x 720 resolution display of unspecified size and a Qualcomm Snapdragon SoC with a 1.5GHz CPU and Adreno 220 GPU, quite likely the MSM8660 found under EVO 3D and the upcoming “Puccini” tablet. The device is also shown to be running on Android 2.3.4.

Now it’s rumored that this is a phone although it could very well also turn out to be a tablet. Maybe it is the CDMA version of the HTC “Puccini”. Having said that it will be far more exciting if the device turns out to be a smartphone, mostly because of the high resolution display. Hopefully we will find out more information about this mysterious device soon enough.

NEW YORK—Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. will invest $5 billion in Bank of America Corp., giving the nation’s biggest bank a much-needed vote of confidence amid questions about the credibility of its management.

The investment, which is similar to Mr. Buffett’s move with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. years ago, comes as the market and analysts have wondered if Bank of America would be able to raise enough capital to meet new global standards. The news sent Bank of America shares soaring Thursday and provided a general lift to financial stocks as well.

Bank of America Chief Executive Brian Moynihan had proclaimed time and again the past few months that the bank wouldn’t need to issue shares to raise capital, as it was already ahead of requirements and had noncore assets to sell. But with shares of the bank falling to new two-year lows, investors voiced uncertainty.

An investment by Mr. Buffett, one of the world’s most revered investors, assuaged those fears nearly immediately. The so-called Oracle of Omaha wasted no time in backing Mr. Moynihan.

“Bank of America is a strong, well-led company, and I called Brian to tell him I wanted to invest in it,” Mr. Buffett said.

“I am impressed with the profit-generating abilities of this franchise, and that they are acting aggressively to put their challenges behind them.”

Bank of America jumped 18% to $8.21, while the KBW Bank Index soared 5.3% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.7%. Berkshire’s Class A shares rose $356.01 to $106,706.01.

Under the deal’s terms, Berkshire will get 50,000 preferred shares that carry a dividend of 6% a year and are redeemable at a 5% premium, along with warrants to purchase 700 million Bank of America shares at an exercise price of $7.14 each. The warrants may be exercised in whole or in part in the 10 years following the closing of the deal.

“I remain confident that we have the capital and liquidity we need to run our business,” Mr. Moynihan said. “At the same time, I also recognize that a large investment by Warren Buffett is a strong endorsement in our vision and our strategy.”

Buffett’s investment in Bank of America mirrors a stake he took in Goldman Sachs during one of the darkest moments of the 2008 financial crisis. Just after the September failure of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and the emergency takeover of Merrill Lynch & Co. by Bank of America, Berkshire was able to demand 10% interest from Goldman in exchange for Berkshire’s funds and Mr. Buffett’s stamp of approval.

Goldman redeemed Berkshire’s preferred stake earlier this year. Mr. Buffett’s company still holds warrants to buy $5 billion of Goldman’s shares at $115. Goldman shares traded at $117.44, up 6.4% after news on Mr. Buffett’s latest investment.

Well what do we have here? It looks like the rumors of the Samsung Nexus Prime possibly being the next-generation Google Nexus 3 may be under attack from rival manufacturer LG. Earlier this week, Google’s Andy Rubin explained how multiple manufacturers would showcase their devices for the Nexus moniker, with only one of course getting to use the name.

LG Optimus Pro takes on Samsung Nexus Prime with Android Ice Cream Sandwich & quad-cores

The folks over at Concept-Phones have received the following leaked pictures from one of their tipsters. Called the LG Optimus Pro, it boasts a quad core Nvidia Tegra 3 unit with 1.5GHz of speed, next generation NOVA display with a 4.3-inch 1280 x 720 HD resolution, Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, Bluetooth 3.0,  3D capability and 12.1 megapixel camera.

As CP points out, “front design of the handset reminds me a bit of the HTC HD7, maybe because of that speaker grille at the top.” Given how most of the large screen Androids are now just black slabs of glass on the front, it comes as no surprise.

The Samsung Nexus Prime is rumored to launch sometime this October so if we’re looking at the LG Optimus Pro possibly taking the title as the Google Nexus 3, it will need to launch first with Android Ice Cream Sandwich in tow. One of the major advantages the Optimus Pro would have over the Samsung Nexus Prime would no doubt be its quad-core chipset.

More on this as it develops.

As Of Monday, 22 August 2011 11:28

]]> http://www.muazrudy.com/2011/08/forget-samsung-nexus-prime-quad-core-android-4-0-phone-leaks/feed/ 0 http://www.muazrudy.com/2011/08/us-markets-fall-sharply-after-sp-downgrade/ http://www.muazrudy.com/2011/08/us-markets-fall-sharply-after-sp-downgrade/#comments Mon, 08 Aug 2011 15:10:20 +0000 Muaz http://www.muazrudy.com/?p=1763

(More)…]]> Market News | Daily Finance

08/08/11 10:46EDT

NEW YORK -The U.S. stock market joined a sell-off around the world Monday in the first trading since Standard & Poor’s downgraded American debt and gave investors another reason to be anxious.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell more than 250 points minutes after the opening bell on Wall Street. It recovered some of those losses, then fell again and was down as many as 375 points in mid-morning trading.

Stock markets in Asia began the global rout. The main stock index fell almost 4 percent in South Korea and more than 2 percent in Japan. European markets opened later and fell, too, with Germany down 3 percent and France 2.5 percent.

It was the first chance for global investors to respond to S&P’s announcement late Friday that it was reducing its credit rating for long-term U.S. government debt by one notch, from AAA, the highest rating, to AA .

The move wasn’t a total surprise but came when investors were already feeling nervous about a weak U.S. economy, European debt problems and Japan’s recovery from its March earthquake.

In other early trading on Wall Street, the S&P 500 index fell 41 points, or 3.4 percent, to 1,159. The Nasdaq composite index fell 75 points, or 3.8 percent, to 2,435. The Dow was at 11,101, down 3 percent.

Fresh memories of the financial crisis three years ago are also driving investors away from risky investments and into what’s considered safer.

“Fear of a repeat of 2008 is what’s really driving investments,” said Gary Schlossberg, senior economist with Wells Capital Management.

Gold, which investors traditionally buy when they want a safe investment, rose above $1,700 per ounce for the first time Monday. Its price remains below its 1980 record after adjusting for inflation. Gold began the year at $1,421.40. It has climbed steadily as worries rose about high debt levels in both Europe and the United States. It went above $1,500 per ounce in late May.

Prices for U.S. government debt rose — even after S&P essentially said they were a riskier investment than the debt of some other major world economies — because Treasurys are still seen as one of the world’s few safe havens. Prices rise as demand increases.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell much of the morning, to 2.40 percent from 2.57 percent late Friday. A bond’s yield drops when its price rises.

Where Treasury prices finish the day will be more important than where they are at the start, Bill O’Donnell, head of U.S. Treasury strategy at RBS Securities, wrote in a report.

“We will learn more about the future path of Treasury prices at today’s close than we will by the open,” he said. “I want to see how the market clears and how it synthesizes the cacophony of news of late.”

Stocks in industries whose profits are most closely tied to the strength of the economy fell the most. Energy stocks in the S&P 500 fell 4.9 percent, and financial stocks fell 4.5 percent, for example.

The smallest losses came from stocks in safer industries whose profits tend to be steadier, regardless of the economy. Consumer staples stocks fell just 1.5 percent. Even in a bad economy people will still buy things like toothpaste and bread. Utilities, also considered a necessity for consumers, fell 2 percent.

The Vix index, a measure of fear among investors, shot up 23 percent to its highest level since May 2010. The index shows how worried investors are that the S&P 500 will drop over the next 30 days. It does this by measuring prices for stock options that investors can buy to help protect their portfolios.

Investors are worried that Spain or Italy could become the next European country to be unable to pay its debt. The European Central Bank said it will buy Italian and Spanish bonds in hopes of helping the countries avert a possible default.

Seeking to avert panic spreading across financial markets, the finance ministers and central bankers of the Group of 20 industrial and developing nations issued a joint statement Monday saying they were committed to taking all necessary measures to support financial stability and growth.

“We will remain in close contact throughout the coming weeks and cooperate as appropriate, ready to take action to ensure financial stability and liquidity in financial markets,” they said.

Crude oil, natural gas and other commodities fell on worries that a weaker global economy will mean less demand. Oil fell $2.84 to $84.04 per barrel.

Last week, the Dow Jones industrial average fell almost 700 points. That was its biggest point loss since October 2008, during the financial crisis. The Dow has dropped in nine of the last 11 trading days.

Worries about the U.S. economic recovery have been building since the government said that economic growth was far weaker in the first half of 2011 than economists expected.

The economy grew at a 1.3 percent annual rate from April through June, below economists’ expectations. It expanded at just a 0.4 percent rate in the first quarter. The first half of 2011 was the slowest since the end of the recession.

Then reports showed that the manufacturing and services industries barely grew in July. Job growth was better than economists expected last month. But the 117,000 jobs created in July were still well below the 215,000 that employers added between February and April, on average.

The Federal Reserve will meet on Tuesday, but economists don’t expect much to come out of the meeting. The central bank’s key interest rate is already at a record of nearly zero, where it has been since 2008. The Fed has also already said that it plans to keep rates low for “an extended period.”

The central bank finished a $600 billion program in June to buy Treasurys in hopes of supporting the economy. Chairman Ben Bernanke said last month that the Fed would step in to help the economy if it further weakened. But some Fed policymakers oppose more bond purchases, saying it could lead to higher inflation.

Fears about a weaker U.S. economy have overshadowed profit growth businesses have reported. Earnings rose 12 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier for the 441 companies in the S&P 500 that have already reported. Revenue growth has also topped 10 percent for the first time in a year.

Tyson Foods rose 0.8 percent after it reported stronger profit than analysts expected. The largest U.S. meat company said its net income fell 21 percent because of higher grain costs, but analysts expected a steeper drop.

Are they okay? I’m also wondering to take a sun rise photograph. – Muaz

Firstly, this HTC Sensation phone is running on Android 2.3 codenamed Gingerbread and has a pre-installed of the Sense UI. The new HTC Sense UI version 3.0. The HTC Sense 3.0 has a lot of difference compared to the previous versions. It’s really wonderful that it makes the consumer much more easier to use the phone.

On the other hand, the HTC Sensation has a blazing fast 1.2 GHz processor and is on top of the market chart right now. This super multimedia phone do have the capability of recording Full HD video of 1080p with a sharp 8 megapixels. Furthermore, there is a front facing camera for photography and video shoot with a VGA resolution.

This would be a prefect device. It also comes with a cinematic display of 4.3″ screen with a qHD display. The 4.3″ screen comes with a 16:9 resolution. The android device is made up of a aluminum body and has a contoured glass in the front. The 4 edges of the phone has a contoured curve so the screen would not get affected with the ground when facing downwards.

The add-ons of this powerful device. The HTC Sensation do comes with a 3.5 mm stereo audio jack. Play yourself a movie on this big 4.3″ cinematic display with a bulit in crystal clear Hi-Fi (High Fidelity) audio technology.

With a new Android operating system, a new HTC Sense UI, a blazing fast dual core processor, a sharp 8 megapixels, a capability of recoding a Full HD video and  a VGA front facing camera. It also has a Hi-Fi crystal clear audio technology. Remember this device, it’s gonna be a star. With a  superpower multimedia phone, HTC Sensation, a perfect phone to use. It even beats the Apple iPhone 4′s specs.

Amazing.

Now we’re on the brink of the next big shift. – Google Inc

Google unveiled a new digital wallet program Thursday that enables a cellphone to act just like a credit card, giving the search giant its first footing in the business of providing consumer financial services.

A chip inside new Android phones — for now, only one model has it — will allow shoppers to wave their devices in front of a reader to pay for clothes and food at the mall or grocery, the company said. Eventually, Google said, it envisions the cellphone to act as a personal financial hub for coupons, merchant loyalty points, payments and receipts.

The idea of mobile payments has intrigued smartphone makers such as Apple,Research in Motion and Google — and worried credit card firms. Until now, the cost of installing payment chips has kept carriers from signing on, as has haggling over how the transaction fees should be divided, said Michael Grossi, a telecom analyst at Altman Vilandrie & Co.

For now, Google has decided not to take a cut of these fees, which generate billions of dollars for the likes of Visa, American Express and J.P. Morgan Chase. Instead it will rely on revenue generated by the increase in traffic to its Web sites, its new coupon initiative and the sale of more Android phones.

In the past few thousand years, the way we pay has changed just three times—from coins, to paper money, to plastic cards.Now we’re on the brink of the next big shift.

Yet Google may face a challenge in persuading consumers to entrust the company with their financial information, some analysts said.

Social-media expert Josh Mackey said transparency for Google is key, particularly after itssettlement with the Federal Trade Commission over whether it violated consumers’ privacy when it launched its social networking service Buzz.

“They know that all eyes are going to be on them,” Mackey said.

In a frequently-asked-questions page on the Google Wallet site, Google said it will not have access to users’ financial information or purchase history. The company will record the time of a purchase locally on a user’s phone and have access only to which coupons a user has redeemed.

When asked if Google will be using the data for targeted advertisements, Google spokesman Nathan Taylor said, “No, we are not.”

Google’s electronic wallet will launch over the summer, with trials beginning in San Francisco and New York City. Sprint’s co-branded Nexus S 4G already has the payment chip inside.

Users will need to download the Google Wallet application to begin using the service. The first retailers that will accept the mobile payments include Macy’s, Subway, Walgreens, Toys “R” Us, Bloomingdale’s and Guess. The service can be linked directly to a Citi MasterCard, a Google partner in the initiative. Separately, the balance on Google Wallet can also be funded from any credit card.

Google said the chip cannot be accessed by passersby or by malicious software applications designed to steal information.

Users need a PIN to access the app, and financial data are stored on a tamper-resistant chip isolated from the phone’s hardware and software, MasterCard spokeswoman Joanne Trout said. At the point of purchase, the transmitter sends a unique, dynamic account number to verify the transaction.

“At the end of the day, it’s the same as a card,” Trout said. “If there are fraudulent purchases, customers have zero liability.”

The success of MasterCard’s PayPass system — which allows shoppers to simply tap their cards on a reader rather than swipe — shows there is demand for “contactless” payments.

“There will be demand for this technology as long as there are enough retailers and enough phones,” Grossi said.

GOOGLE ANDROID 3.0 Honeycomb Versus 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich

Google I/O certainly didn’t disappoint this year, with a heavy emphasis on the Android platform showing exactly where Google’s priorities lie. One of the main talking points was the unveiling of Ice Cream Sandwich – the next and most exciting version of the Android OS yet. Here’s how it’ll stack up to Honeycomb.

Google’s Mike Claren officially announced Ice Cream Sandwich (along with a neat new logo that makes me hungry every time I look at it) and labelled it the company’s “most ambitious release to date.” It won’t be shipping until the end of the year, so precise feature lists and even images were not forthcoming, but Claren did set out the new OS’s key attributes.

Suffice to say, Ice Cream Sandwich looks set to render Google’s current showcase Android OS, the tablet-bound Honeycomb, obsolete. Here’s how.

One OS for every device

“We want one OS that runs everywhere.” That’s Google’s thinking with Ice Cream Sandwich, as related by Mike Claren. Ask anyone – from fan to rival – what Android’s key weakness is and 90 per cent will come back at you with an ‘F’ word – fragmentation.

Android’s open source nature and inherent flexibility means it appears of a huge range of devices, including various smartphones and tablets. While this is the key to Android’s success, it also means that it lacks the unified app environment of Apple’s iOS. Ice Cream Sandwich will go some way to alleviating that because it will unify the two separate strands that have developed – smartphone and tablet.

Put simply, then, ICS will be like a super-scalable version of Honeycomb, capable of running on dual-core tablets and budget smartphones alike.

Just like Honey(comb)

Part of Ice Cream Sandwich’s task will be to bring the best bits of Honeycomb to smartphones. There are plenty of excellent design advances made in the tablet OS that could easily make the trip to the smaller screen – particularly the ones with similar dual-core processors.

Mike Claren confirmed some of the Honeycomb features that would make their way onto smartphone courtesy of Ice Cream Sandwich. For one thing, Honeycomb’s attractive ‘Holographic UI’ – or in plain English that attractive 3D interface that makes menu items feel so chunky and solid – will make the switch (if in a downscaled format), as will as other UI elements like the launcher and the Recent Apps multi-tasking menu.

Android smartphone users running on ICS will also be able to make use of those so-called “richer widgets,” as Claren puts it, which make Honeycomb’s front-end such a pleasure to use.

In all of this, elements like the action bar will intelligently scale according to the size of the device, so handset manufacturers won’t have to do any fiddling to get Ice Cream Sandwich running on non-tablet handsets.

Interesting new features

Google I/O certainly didn’t disappoint this year, with a heavy emphasis on the Android platform showing exactly where Google’s priorities lie. One of the main talking points was the unveiling of Ice Cream Sandwich – the next and most exciting version of the Android OS yet. Here’s how it’ll stack up to Honeycomb.

Google’s Mike Claren officially announced Ice Cream Sandwich (along with a neat new logo that makes me hungry every time I look at it) and labelled it the company’s “most ambitious release to date.” It won’t be shipping until the end of the year, so precise feature lists and even images were not forthcoming, but Claren did set out the new OS’s key attributes.

Suffice to say, Ice Cream Sandwich looks set to render Google’s current showcase Android OS, the tablet-bound Honeycomb, obsolete. Here’s how.

One OS for every device

“We want one OS that runs everywhere.” That’s Google’s thinking with Ice Cream Sandwich, as related by Mike Claren. Ask anyone – from fan to rival – what Android’s key weakness is and 90 per cent will come back at you with an ‘F’ word – fragmentation.

Android’s open source nature and inherent flexibility means it appears of a huge range of devices, including various smartphones and tablets. While this is the key to Android’s success, it also means that it lacks the unified app environment of Apple’s iOS. Ice Cream Sandwich will go some way to alleviating that because it will unify the two separate strands that have developed – smartphone and tablet.

Put simply, then, ICS will be like a super-scalable version of Honeycomb, capable of running on dual-core tablets and budget smartphones alike.

Just like Honey(comb)

Part of Ice Cream Sandwich’s task will be to bring the best bits of Honeycomb to smartphones. There are plenty of excellent design advances made in the tablet OS that could easily make the trip to the smaller screen – particularly the ones with similar dual-core processors.

Mike Claren confirmed some of the Honeycomb features that would make their way onto smartphone courtesy of Ice Cream Sandwich. For one thing, Honeycomb’s attractive ‘Holographic UI’ – or in plain English that attractive 3D interface that makes menu items feel so chunky and solid – will make the switch (if in a downscaled format), as will as other UI elements like the launcher and the Recent Apps multi-tasking menu.

Android smartphone users running on ICS will also be able to make use of those so-called “richer widgets,” as Claren puts it, which make Honeycomb’s front-end such a pleasure to use.

In all of this, elements like the action bar will intelligently scale according to the size of the device, so handset manufacturers won’t have to do any fiddling to get Ice Cream Sandwich running on non-tablet handsets.

Interesting new features

Ice Cream Sandwich won’t just trump Honeycomb through flexibility, though. There’ll be a host of new capabilities baked into it, some of which were touched upon during the opening Google I/O keynote. For one thing the already-impressive Honeycomb UI will be improved for all devices. In fact, Claren referred to it as a “State of the art UI.” For another, there’ll be a bunch of new APIs for developers to make use of.

The ones that were demonstrated at Google I/O made use of the Android device’s camera. One demonstration showed how head-tracking would be possible in ICS, the front camera using the movements of the user’s head to adjust the perspective on a 3D scene.

Another demonstration showed how facial recognition would be a part of ICS. The application shown notes where your facial features (eyes, ears, nose etc) are and lets you manipulate a live feed of your face in real time. It’s a trivial application, but the fact that the system understands how  your face is mapped out has some awesome implications. Finally, a “virtual camera operator” app was shown running, which caused the front camera to focus in on whoever was speaking within its field of vision during a video chat.

All of these new features show that Ice Cream Sandwich is going to do more than just unite the two strands of Android OS that have developed. It’ll be significantly smarter and more aware of its surroundings than the current king, Honeycomb. We look forward to the innovative applications this will inevitably lead to come Q4.

SINGAPORE - Results of General Election 2011 as they are announced.

Asia One | SINGAPORE GENERAL ELECTIONS RESULTS 2011

After years of the winning of PAP, party wins again this round.

PAP wins Mountbatten
Mr Lim Biow Chuan of the PAP has won the single seat constituency with 58.65 per cent of the votes, while Ms Jeanette Chong-Aruldoss comes away with 41.35 per cent of the votes.

PAP wins Bukit Panjang
The second result of the evening comes from Bukit Panjang SMC, with Dr Teo Ho Pin of the PAP winning with 66.26 per cent of the votes. The PAP won 20,349 votes, while the SDP won 33.74 per cent of the votes, which is 10,362 votes.

PAP wins Radin Mas

Radin Mas SMC won by PAP’s Tan Chin Siong, with 67.11 per cent of votes. This translates to 18,591 votes for PAP and 9,110 votes for NSP. Rejected votes were 669 or 22.69 per cent.

PAP wins Whampoa SMC

Whampoa SMC won by PAP’s Heng Chee How with 13,015 or 66.11 per cent of the votes.

NSP’s Ken Sun gets 33.89 per cent of the votes, which is 6,672 votes.

PAP wins Moulmein-Kallang GRC

PAP’s candidates of Yaacob Ibrahim,  Lui Tuck Yew, Denise Phua Lay Peng, Edwin Tong Chun Fai, have been elected back to power in Moulmein-Kallang GRC.

PAP obtained 44828 votes, or 58.56 per cent of the votes.

Workers’ Party obtained 31731 votes, or 44.41 per cent of the votes.

PAP wins Joo Chiat SMC

It’s yet another win for the PAP at Joo Chiat SMC.

PAP candidate Charles Chong won 9,630 votes, or 51.01 per cent of votes.

Worker’s Party candidate, Yee Jen Jong, obtained 9,248 votes, which is 48.99 per cent.

314 votes were rejected, a total of 19192 votes were cast.

PAP wins Hong Kah North SMC

The People’s Action Party (PAP) has won Hong Koh North SMC with 18,149 votes, out of a total of26,275 votes. It obtained 70.61 per cent of the votes. 573 votes were rejected.

PAP candidate Dr Amy Khor is the winner.

PAP wins Marine Parade GRC

The residents of Marine Parade GRC have chosen to return the PAP team back to power.

Giving PAP 78,182 votes, or 56.65 per cent, the team of Goh Chok Tong, Seah Kian Peng, Fatimah Lateef, Tin Pei Ling and Tan Chuan-Jin were voted back.

Meanwhile, the NSP team of Cheo Chai Chen, Ivan Yeo Tiong Boon, Nicole Seah Xue Ling, Abdul Salim Harun and Spencer Ng Chung Hon garnered 59,833 votes, which is 43.35 per cent.

3,080 votes were rejected while 14,195 votes were cast.

WP wins Hougang SMC

Workers’ Party’s candidate Yaw Shin Leong won the single constituency seat with 14,833 votes, or 64.81 per cent.

PAP’s Desmond Choo obtained 8,053 votes, or 35.19 per cent of the votes.

Rejected votes totalled 261 while 23,147 voted.

PAP wins Tampines GRC

PAP candidates Mah Bow Tan,  Baey Yam Keng, Masagos Zulkifli, Irene Ng, Heng Swee Keat won with 57.2 per cent of the votes. They captured 72,664 votes.

NSP’s team of Goh Meng Seng, Syafarin Sarif, Gilbert Goh, Raymond Lim Peng Ann and Reno Fong, obtained 54,337 votes, which is 42.8 per cent.

There were 3,074 rejected votes and a total of 130,075 votes.

PAP wins West Coast GRC

PAP wins West Coast GRC with 72,465 votes.

The PAP team comprises Lim Hng Kiang, S. Iswaran, Arthur Fong Jen, Foo Mee Har and Lawrence Wong Shyun Tsai.

Reform Party’s Kenneth Jeyaretnam, Andy Zhu Laicheng, Frankie Low Chiak Hun, Kumar Appavoo and Ho Soak Harn obtained 36,395, or 33.4 per cent of votes.

There were 2,820 rejected votes and a total of 111,680 votes.

PAP wins Sengkang West SMC
PAP’s Dr Lam Pin Min won the Sengkang West SMC with 14,667 votes, or 58.08 per cent.

Workers’ Party’s candidate, Koh Choong Yong, received 10,558, or 41.92 per cent of votes.

There were 437 rejected votes aand a total number of 25,689 votes.

PAP wins Ang Mo Kio GRC

The PAP won Ang Mo Kio GRC with a 69.3 per cent of votes, or 112,544 votes.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s team included Inderjit Singh, Seng Han Thong, Yeo Guat Kwang, Intan Azura Mokhtar and Ang Hin Kee.

The Reform Party with candidates Alex Tan,  Arthero Lim Tung Hee, Vigneswari Ramachandran, Lim Zi Rui, Mansor Rahman and Osman Sulaiman received 49,779 votes, or 30.7 per cent.

PAP wins Punggol East SMC

PAP’s candidate Michael Palmer wins the Punggol East SMC with 16,969 votes. This is 54.5 per cent of the total votes.

Worker’s Party Lee Li Lian obtains 12,765, or 41 per cent of votes, while Singapore Democratic Alliance’s (SDA)  Desmond Lim obtains 1,386 votes, or 4.5 per cent of votes.

There were 551 rejected votes and  a total of 31,671 votes.

PAP wins Yuhua SMC

Grace Fu from the PAP obtains 14,081, or 66.87 per cent of votes.

Singapore Democratic Party’s Teo Soh Lung receives 6,977, or 33.13 per cent of votes.

There were 530 rejected votes and a total of 21,588 votes.

PAP wins East Coast GRC

The PAP team, led by Lim Swee Say, also include Raymond Lim Siang Keat, Lee Yi Shyan, Mohamad Maliki Osman and Jessica Tan Soon Neo, won the East Coast GRC with  59,895, or 59.8 per cent of votes.

The Workers’ Party team, which includes Eric Tan, Png Eng Huat, Mohamad Fazil Talip, Gerald Giam Yean Song and Glenda Han, received  49,34, or 45.2 per cent of votes.

There were a total of 1,847 rejected votes and a total number of 111,084 votes.

PAP wins Pioneer SMC

The People’s Action Party has won Pioneer SMC with 14,581 votes, out of a total of 24,457 votes. It obtained 60.7 per cent of the votes. 446 votes were spoilt.

The People’s Action Party candidate in Pioneer is Cedric Foo.

The other party contesting Pioneer SMC was Steve Chia from the National Solidarity Party (NSP). Mr Chia got 9,430 votes.

PAP wins Holland-Bukit Timah GRC

The People’s Action Party has won Holland-Bukit Timah GRC with 48,682 votes, out of a total of 82,723 votes. It obtained 60.1 per cent of the votes. 1,719 votes were spoilt.

The PAP team in Holland-Bukit Timah GRC comprises Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports Minsiter Vivian Balakrishnan and new candidates Liang Eng Hwa, Christopher De Souza and Sim Ann.

The other party contesting Holland-Bukit Timah GRC was Singapore Democratic Party, which fielded Tan Jee Say, Ang Yong Guan, Vincent Wijeysingha and Michelle Lee Juen.

PAP wins Chua Chu Kang GRC

This is a new GRC created from former Hong Kah GRC and Chua Chu Kang.

PAP has won Choa Chu Kang GRC with 89,605 votes, out of a total of 149,483 votes. It obtained 61.2 per cent of the votes. 3,061 votes were spoilt.

The PAP team in Choa Chu Kang GRC comprises Gan Kim Yong, Zaqy Mohamed, Alvin Yeo, Low Yen Ling, and Alex Yam Ziming.

The other party contesting Choa Chu Kang GRC was the NSP, which fielded Sebastian Teo, Tony Tan, Hazel Poa, Jeisilan Sivalingam and Nor Lella Mardiiiah. They got 56,817 votes.

PAP wins Sembawang GRC

In the previous GE in 2006, the PAP won 76.7 per cent to beat SDP. This election, the PAP won 84,185 votes or 63.9 per cent.

The SDP took 47,578 votes or 36.1 per cent.

There were 135,053 votes cast, 3,290 were rejected votes.

PAP wins Nee Soon GRC

This is a new GRC created from parts of Sembawang and Ang Mo Kio GRCs, Nee Soon Central and Nee Soon East.

The People’s Action Party has won Nee Soon GRC with 80,659 votes, out of a total of 140,482 votes. It obtained 58.4 per cent of the votes. 2,341 votes were rejected.

The People’s Action Party team in Nee Soon GRC comprises K Shanmugam (cabinet minister), Lim Wee Kiak, Lee Bee Wah, Muhd Faishal Ibrahim, Patrick Tay Teck Guan.

The other party contesting Nee Soon GRC was Workers’ Party, which fielded John Yam Poh Nam, Poh Lee Guan, Angela Faye Oon, Sajeev Kamalasanan, Watson Chong Cham Weng.

WP wins Aljunied GRC

Workers’ Party (WP) has won Aljunied GRC with 72,165 votes, out of a total of 133,685 votes. It obtained 54.71 per cent of the votes. 1,788 votes were spoilt.

The WP team in Aljunied GRC comprises Low Thia Khiang, Sylvia Lim, Muhd Faisal Abdul Manap, Chen Show Mao, and Pritam Singh.

The other party contesting Aljunied GRC was People’s Action Party (PAP), which fielded George Yeo, Lim Hwee Hua, Zainul Abidin Rasheed, Cynthia Phua and Ong Ye Kung. The PAP garnered 45.29 per cent of the votes.

PAP wins Jurong GRC

The People’s Action Party has won Jurong GRC with 76,489 votes, out of a total of 116,926 votes. It obtained 67 per cent of the votes. 2,703 votes were rejected.

The People’s Action Party team in Jurong GRC comprises Tharman Shanmugaratnam (cabinet minister), Halimah Yacob, Desmond Lee Ti-Seng, David Ong Kim Huat and Ang Wei Neng.

The other party contesting Jurong GRC was the National Solidarity Party, which fielded Christopher Neo Ting Wei, Ong Hock Siong, Noraini Yunus, Abdul Rasheed and Elvin Ong Beng Soon.

PAP wins Potong Pasir SMC

PAP’s Sitoh Yih Pin has won Potong Pasir SMC with 7,973 votes, out of a total of 17,327 votes, obtaining 50.4 per cent of the votes. 242 votes were spoilt.

The other party contesting Potong Pasir SMC was the Singapore People’s Party, which fielded Lina Chiam. She won 7,859 of the votes.

A tablet with HTC Sense

Capture life’s moments

Take great shots or videos with the 5MP camera and HD camcorder on the HTC Flyer. You won’t have any trouble finding your target on the extrasized 7-inch viewfinder.

Before hitting the states this summer, the Sensation will launch in the UK, Germany, and the rest of HTC’s “key” European markets in mid-May, with Vodafone scoring a Europe-wide exclusive for “a couple of weeks.” We can’t wait to put the Sensation through its paces in a full review, but happily we already scored some hands-on time with a near-final unit. Continue below the break for some early thoughts, full specs, and close-up shots of this superphone in action.

Update: We scored some hands-on time with a European model over at HTC’s launch event. Check the video here!

We quickly warmed to the Sensation’s contoured screen, whose concave shape and Gorilla Glass protection are designed to protect the precious device from picking up scratches when you set it face-down. As it happens, it’s also ergonomically ingenious, and makes for a comfy touch experience. Thanks to that dual-core CPU the phone felt responsive as we poked around menus, while the aluminum back cover gives it a solid, weighty feel. HTC says it’s also tweaked the algorithm in the onscreen keyboard so that it predicts words more accurately, though its appearance hasn’t changed from what you’re used to seeing in devices like the Incredible S.

As for the Sense UI, the customizable lock screens are eye candy, for sure, but also let you insert widgets for weather, stocks, and social networking, which you can glance at before you unlock the device. Launching apps from the lock screen is as simple as dragging them into a so-called activation ring (we promise this makes more sense in practice.) The new 3D flourishes are pretty too, though they don’t fundamentally alter the experience of flipping through the UI. Back in the realm of 2D, we did a double take when we saw a new home screen of Windows Phone-esque photo tiles. (HTC even uses that word to describe it!) Many of HTC’s widgets, by the by, take up an entire home screen. Personally, we find that less distracting than Motoblur, which peppers the screen with lots of smaller widgets, but we know plenty of folks will disagree. The weather app is now full-screen, a convenient improvement over previous versions. And thanks, HTC, for adding hourly info. Sure, Sense already lets you set the refresh rate to one-hour intervals, but it’s useful to see how the temperature might change throughout an afternoon.

At first blush the Sensation 4G looks promising, delivering the power and design panache of the EVO 3D, but with a screen that’s more utilitarian than gimmicky. Of course, we’ll reserve judgment until we get to take one of these bad boys home and see if it can really sensationalize our lives.

Instead of listing out reasons why we can’t do it, shift our thinking to ” How Can I Do It”. It is very powerful. – Robert Kiyosaki

Prince William has been made Duke of Cambridge and his wife will be the Duchess of Cambridge after their wedding, Buckingham Palace has said.

He will also take the titles Earl of Strathearn and Baron Carrickfergus.

The prince was given the titles by the Queen to mark his marriage. Catherine will also become her royal highness.

The title of duke is the highest rank in the peerage. The titles link the couple to England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Royal tradition

Giving new titles to members of the Royal Family on their wedding day is a long-standing tradition.

When Prince Andrew married, he became the Duke of York, Earl of Inverness and Baron Killyleagh.

Prince Edward became the Earl of Wessex and Viscount Severn on his wedding day in 1999.

While the Prince of Wales did not take any additional titles when he married Lady Diana Spencer in 1981, he was already Prince of Wales, the Duke of Cornwall, Duke of Rothesay, Earl of Carrick, Baron of Renfrew, Lord of the Isles and Prince and Great Steward of Scotland and Earl of Chester.

The Dukedom of Cambridge was created in 1801 but became extinct on the death of the 2nd Duke of Cambridge in 1904.

Genealogist Charles Kidd, editor of Debrett’s Peerage And Baronetage, said it was a good choice for the prince.

“Cambridge was generally spoken of as a high possibility. It has a long royal tradition, and is immediately recognisable as an English title, it’s one of those places everyone has heard of.”

Professor David Carpenter, of King’s College, London, said there may have been consideration of using the title of Duke of Clarence but it had some unfortunate associations.

“Queen Victoria’s grandson Albert Victor, who was second in line to the throne, was made Duke of Clarence when he reached full age, but he was a womanising philanderer who died in the 1890s.”

‘Doomed to failure’

The last holder of the title, Prince George, known as the 2nd Duke of Cambridge, was born in 1819 and was a grandson of George III and the only son of Prince Adolphus Frederick, the 1st Duke of Cambridge.

He served in the Crimean War and was promoted to commander-in-chief in 1887.

Indeed, once married, the newlyweds’ carriage procession will pass a statue of the last duke sat on a horse close to the Ministry of Defence in Whitehall.

The 2nd Duke of Cambridge refused to have an arranged marriage and declared such unions were “doomed to failure”.

He had an unrecognised marriage to actress Sarah Louisa Fairbrother in 1847, who at the time was already the mother of two of his children and pregnant with his third.

But the Duke did not seek the sovereign’s approval, the marriage was never recognised and Miss Fairbrother was never given the title the Duchess of Cambridge.

Instead she became known by the nickname Mrs FitzGeorge.

Strathearn has not been used as a title since the death of Alastair Windsor, the 2nd Duke of Connaught and Strathearn, who died in 1943.

By becoming Baron and Baroness Carrickfergus, the royal couple will be linked to County Antrim’s oldest town.

An Irish Viscountcy of Chichester of Carrickfergus now held by the Marquess of Donegall was created in 1625 but Carrickfergus alone only existed as a title between 1841 and 1883.

Kitty Donaldson & Thomas Penny & Svenja O’Donnell & Laura Price & Christopher Spillane in London.

Bloomberg Bussiness Week

Prince William and Kate Middleton are marrying in London’s Westminster Abbey as hundreds of thousands of people line the streets and an estimated 2 billion people watch on television around the world.

Middleton arrived at the abbey at 11 a.m. to cheers from the flag-waving crowd outside, many of whom had camped overnight to get a good view. Local officials estimated the crowd would swell to 600,000 people. The weather is dry, though forecasters say there may be showers later. It’s a British public holiday.

“We do these things incredibly well,” Prime Minister David Cameron, who slept on the streets the night before the wedding of William’s parents Prince Charles and Diana Spencer in 1981, said in a Sky News television interview. “People around the world will be watching and seeing some of the best of Britain.”

Middleton is the first woman from outside royalty or the aristocracy to marry so close to the throne for 350 years. When William becomes Britain’s monarch, she will be queen. Queen Elizabeth II, William’s grandmother, announced today that the couple will be known as the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. Kate will also become Princess William of Wales.

Today’s celebrations are the U.K.’s biggest royal event since the funeral in 1997 of William’s mother, Diana, who died in a car crash in Paris after her marriage with Prince Charles ended in divorce.

“We got a few hours sleep, on and off,” said Sheila Barton, 57, who started camping on The Mall at 5 p.m. yesterday after traveling from Sevenoaks, southeast of London. “We chose this spot so we have a good place to run into the park when they drive past.”

Photo: Royal wedding souvenirs in Trafalgar Square in central London on Friday. Credit: Glyn Kirk / AFP / Getty Images

Janet Stobart | Los Angeles Times

LONDON

In a packed Trafalgar Square for the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, Angela Cavalieri of Minnesota was wild with excitement on Friday.

“Where else would you want to be in the world?” the 31-year-old medical student cried. “I love the whole historical scene, the happily-ever-after romance.”

Her “gal pal,” 28-year-old hairstylist Haly Wildson, has a British boyfriend and is moving to London. “We love the whole royal scene,” she said. “We don’t have this back home, there’s no wedding that would be like this. … I think Kate and William keep the whole romance of the royal family going.”

Trafalgar Square was packed since early morning with a huge flag-waving crowd and street sellers of souvenir programs, flags and memorabilia. Two giant screens beamed the proceedings to the crowd.
Police barriers kept roads and crowds segregated, making it impossible to move from one area to another.

With the huge square filled to capacity, a sea of flags and even more crowds were just visible from Trafalgar down the lower part of Whitehall and past Downing Street.

Tuan Nguyan, 25, a media student from Vietnam, says he loves the royals. He and six or seven fellow students were thrilled to be waving flags in the square. “We love the royal family, we love the crowd here,” he said.

Sitting on the ground in the front row before one of the giant screens in the square, Catherine Fraser from Leicester in central England said she thought Kate “comes across as similar to Lady Di in that she’s beautiful and people love her, she also brings an emotional strength to the marriage.

“I think there’s a strength about how they will handle their life,” Fraser said. Unlike Prince Charles and Princess Diana, whose marriage “appeared almost as if it was arranged … they’ve known each other for a long time and are more mature.”

Royal Air Force stewardess Diane Guerin was marking her 30th birthday. “It’s a historical day — and this is the best way to celebrate.”

Local government employee Barbara Drayton, 66, “loves weddings,” she said. “I came for Charles and Diana and had to be here for this one.  I think these two are better suited than Charles and Diana , more mature, they’ve known each other longer and are better suiited.”

While Drayton was on her second royal wedding, others were new to the real-life celebration.

“My daughter brought me here,” said delighted New Hampshire social worker Harriet Resnicoff, 71. “I watched Charles and Diana on TV, but we decided to see this wedding in person this time.”

Said her daughter Susan Resnicoff, 42, who works in marketing in San Francisco: “I think Kate is a delight. I think both of them bring a love and feeling to a royal marriage.  They bring a glow and a sparkle to the royal family.”

Mom agreed: “I love how they interact with each other,” she said. “They’re very human.”

Boy oh boy, HTC is entering the tablet arena with quite a bang. The company has just taken the wraps off its brand new 7-inch Flyer Android tablet, which touts a 1.5GHz single-core CPU, 1GB of RAM plus 32GB of flash storage, an aluminum unibody construction, 1024 x 600 resolution, a tablet-optimized version of Sense, and… what’s this, a pressure-sensitive stylus! The HTC Scribe trademark we saw floating around in legal waters turned out not to be the branding for a tablet, it’s actually the name HTC gives to the technology enabling what it calls a “groundbreaking pen experience.” Other details include a 5 megapixel camera on the back paired with a 1.3 megapixel imager up front, a 4000mAh battery rated to last for four hours of continuous video playback, and memory expandability via a microSD card.

The Flyer will ship in Q2 2011 with Android Gingerbread 2.4 on board. HTC says it’ll be indistinguishable from 2.3 as far the end user is concerned, though we all know it won’t be quite as good as the 3.0 stuff. We’re told not to worry, however, since the new version of Sense being introduced with the Flyer will be the focal point of the company’s software offering. As far as HTC is concerned, Sense matters more than the underlying platform, and the reason Honeycomb isn’t the shipping OS here was explicitly stated as HTC not having enough time with the latest Google code to customize it to the full requirements of Sense. Guess that settles that.

There are a couple more software enhancements, both marking the introduction of the fruits of HTC’s recent deals: OnLive cloud gaming will be coming with the Flyer in the form of an app you open up to access the web-connected bored-relieving service, while that Saffron Digital acquisition has turned into an HTC Watch app for movie streaming and downloading.

We spent a bit of quality time with a Flyer unit recently, although we weren’t allowed to turn it on, and our early impressions are rather mixed. On the one hand, we do appreciate the ruggedness and durability that’s afforded by the one-piece aluminum shell, but on the other, the Flyer is quite the chunky beast in your hands. We’d imagine strapping in such an extra-speedy processor is the main culprit for its extra girth, though the Flyer is, ironically enough, not terribly light either. We found it heavier and generally a lot less polished from a design perspective than Samsung’s Galaxy Tab. Anyhow, HTC should have functional units for us immediately following its MWC presser this morning, and we’ll be delving in deeper with this super-specced device. Hang tight!

Update: Pictures of the Flyer can now be explored below and we have video awaiting your audience just past the break.

Update 2: HTC has tweeted that the Flyer will be updated to Honeycomb in Q2.

Recommended time of dua:

a. Friday and Friday night
b. On Wednesday between noon and afternoon
c. Time of night prayer
d. The first one sixth of midnight.
e. One third of the last hours of night
About recommended prayer after midnight, Imam Sadeq (AS) says:
“Don’t let your eyes fully enjoy sleep, for eyes are the least thankful to Allah.”

In this connection, the Holy Prophet of Islam has said:
“When a true believer rises up to please Allah with the recommended prayer after midnight, while slumber has overpowered his eyes, Allah speaks proudly to His angels saying: Do you see this servant of mine who has risen up to perform the prayer which is not obligatory! Therefore I take you as witness that I have forgiven his sins .”

f. Grand Night (Leylatolqadr)
g. Ahya Nights (spending night awake)
There are four nights during which keeping vigil is recommended.  These nights are:

1. The first night of Rajab
2. The night of fifteenth of Sha-baan.
3. The night of E’edul Fitr
4. The night of E’edul D’uh’aa

It is related that:
“It was surprising for Imam Ali (a.s.) to be idle on such nights and not to pray.”(meaning he would spend all night in Ebadat)

h.  Araf day
It is a day for prayer (Dua) and asking one’s need.  Hence although observing fast is highly recommended if one becomes too ill to pray, it is better to pray and not fast.
i.  When wind is blowing
j.  When call to prayer is made (Azaan)
k. When it is raining
l.  When the first drop of a martyr’s blood is dripped.

SINGAPORE: A Singapore Airlines flight bound for San Francisco ended in tragedy for one man on Saturday.

The man, whose name is not known at the moment, died on board Singapore Airlines flight SQ2 which was on its way to the US city from Singapore via Hong Kong.

Singapore Airlines said the man, who was holding a US passport, was found unconscious one—and—a—half hours before the flight landed in San Francisco.

Three passengers, believed to be from the medical field, answered the call for help from the air crew and tried to provide medical assistance.

They tried reviving him but their attempts were unsuccessful.

The cause of death could not be confirmed at the moment.

Singapore Airlines said it will provide any form of assistance needed by the man’s family.

—CNA/ac

On occasion, I’ve found myself in a neck of the woods I’m unfamiliar with, looking for a restaurant suggestion from friends instead of strangers on Yelp. In cases like those, I’ve taken to Facebook, to post a status update querying, “Know any great taco joints in Williamsburg?” or “Where should we go for drinks in San Fran?” Apparently, Facebook has caught on to lots of people using their statuses this way, and now, they’re launching a newmarketing gimmick feature called, “Questions.”

The new feature has been in beta-testing since July, but is only just now rolling out to all Facebook users will show up at the top of your News Feed and Profile pages as a share option, along with status updates, photos, links and videos.

According to Facebook’s Adrian Graham, the impetus for rolling out this new feature went a little something like this:

Fair enough. But then, why oh why did they decide to make this a feature that is only PUBLIC? In other words, when you post a question, it isn’t shown exclusively to your friends. Nope, it goes out to the entire Facebook community. Sure, Facebook will let you know what your friends think before they’ll give you strangers’ answers, but it seems suspiciously familiar to Yahoo! Answers …

You know, that strange site that comes up sometimes in Google’s search results. Like when you type in “relationships” and you get a bunch of related hits, some of which are from Yahoo! Answers … and most of those are like 13-year-olds asking complete strangers on the web about their personal lives, e.g. “Is my girlfriend cheating on me?” “What does sex feel like?” “Can I get an STD from a beach towel?” (No, that last one’s just a joke.)

Are we that clueless that we need to put out questions about our private lives to hordes of strangers online? I guess there are some practical uses for Questions, like if you’re a reporter (ahem) and you need to poll friends on, say, the quirky customs of their religion that makes them think they’re more or less likely to gain weight.

But for the average Jane or Joe, I’m not quite seeing how this is necessary/helpful. It just looks like another way to clue marketers into what you’re interested in/curious about. Pretty soon Zuck will be selling ad space to marketers to ask YOU questions about products you like. Helloooo… It’s another way for Facebook to rake in the dough. Just sayin’.

As for me, I think I’ll likely stick to addressing ONLY my friends by posting future Qs in a status update. If you value your privacy or have a fear of getting friend requests from strange weirdos or targeted ads from marketers who somehow know what’s going on in your brain, you may want to do the same.

Would you use Facebook “Questions”?

Facebook Questions allows users to poll their friends on everything from the best new movie to the closest Thai restaurant.

Facebook today announced it would introduce a rejiggered version of its Facebook Questions functionality – one that is fueled mostly by friends and family. The new Facebook Questions – or just Questions, for short – allows users to post queries to their Facebook feed, and view a graphic representation of the most popular responses. Think of the whole thing like an instant and accessible poll.

“We noticed that people were frequently asking for opinions (‘what are your favorite restaurants in New York?’) or hoping to learn about their friends (‘what was your favorite movie as a kid, something you watched over and over?’). For most of these questions,” Facebook’s Adrian Graham wrote on the Facebook blog, “experts weren’t going to be the best source for advice. The answers to these questions are meaningful or interesting because you know your friends and your friends know you.”

The updated Facebook Questions will be rolled out over the next few weeks. But if you want to get your hands on the feature immediately, you can download it here. Questions is being billed as a kind of alternative to Google – the idea being that Google is just a faceless algorithm, while the Facebook crowd actually knows your likes and dislikes, and can tailor its answers accordingly.

“Questions will also enable you to cast a wider net. Now, when your friends answer one of your questions, their friends can answer it too,” Graham noted. “For more unusual questions, you can get advice from a broader group of people, but to keep it most relevant we filter the answers to show you first what your friends think.”

Thoughts on the new Facebook Questions? Drop us a line in the comments section. And for more tech news, sign up for the free Innovation newsletter, which is emailed out every Wednesday morning.