Nokia launches first open source Symbian phone

The first handset to use the Symbian operating system since it became open source has been announced by Nokia.

The N8 phone has a 12 megapixel camera and allows people to record and edit High Definition video clips, as well as watch web TV services.


Analysts said the phone was a "pivotal device" in efforts "to make Nokia's high end phones credible again".

It is also a chance for Symbian to prove itself alongside Google's Android operating system and Apple's iPhone.

Despite being the world's most popular smart phone software, Symbian has lost "mindshare" against more high-profile software, according to industry experts.

Analysts at CCS Insight described the Symbian 3 software as "evolutionary not revolutionary" but said it was a "key first step if it proves reliable".
Cinema support
It is the first version of the software since the Symbian foundation announced that it had made its code open source in February.

The Foundation - which includes Nokia, Motorola and Samsung amongst others - gave away the code to developers for free in the hope that it would help speed up the pace of improvements. Any organisation or individual can now use and modify it.


The software in the N8 allows the phone to have multi-touch and multi-tasking, meaning more than one application can be open at any one time.

The device will be Nokia's flagship smartphone. It can be plugged into home theatres and supports surround sound as well as high-quality video.

Social networks, such as Twitter and Facebook, can be displayed on the home screen in a single application.
Lee Williams, executive director of the Symbian Foundation, said he was "stoked" that Nokia had chosen to use the operating system on its phone.

The phone will ship in the third quarter of 2010, following delays.

Thai king speaks for first time in political crisis

For the first time amid the political upheaval raging in Thailand, the nation's revered king spoke out Monday, calling on new judges to help stabilize the country.

Speaking from the hospital where he has been since last year, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, 82, addressed a group of newly appointed judges.


"I would like all you to preserve honesty," he said, adding that "it will be a way to help the country to be progressing and stabilized at the same time."

He told the judges they could "be seen as model" for people who work in all sorts of jobs.
The king added that in performing their duties, the judges "would help to uphold justice and order of the country, and this is very important. If you do follow your oath strictly, it will help bring order to the country, certainly."

King Bhumibol, the world's longest reigning monarch, wields little political power, but is revered and enjoys immense popularity.

He was admitted to the hospital last September after complaining of fever and fatigue.

Meanwhile, the political crisis in the country shows no immediate sign of abating. Negotiations between the government and the anti-government protesters, known as "red shirts," are stuck, and tensions are mounting. Another group of protesters, called the "multi-colored shirts," are urging the government to take tougher action against the red shirts.

On Sunday the country's prime minister acknowledged he did not expect protesters would use weapons and apply violence toward authority.

Speaking on national television, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva made the admission a day after he rejected a call from anti-government protesters to dissolve the country's parliament in 30 days. Abhisit said other groups' political opinions must be taken into consideration before any such action is taken.

More than two dozen civilians and military personnel have died since protesters began occupying key tourism and shopping areas in Thailand's capital.

Red Shirt leaders offered Friday to return to the negotiating table -- but only if the government meets certain demands, including lifting a state of emergency and accepting responsibility for the deaths of protesters earlier this month, said Weng Tojirakarn, a co-leader of the group.

On the government's side, spokesman Panitan Wattanayagorn told on Saturday that there was no counter-proposal to get the negotiations back on track.

"We need to make sure negotiations take place under a conducive environment," Panitan said, explaining that previous attempts to talk to opposition leaders had been derailed due to threats against government officials.
Other conditions that must be met before any negotiations could take place include having protest leaders make sure there will be no further expansion of demonstrations into other districts and no threats to government officers, the government spokesman said.

"These conditions are very critical for peaceful negotiations," Panitan explained. "Negotiation is the only way out in the end, but... we need to stabilize the situation first."

He cited the fact that several demonstrations were taking place "by different 'shirts' and colors," and said that all demonstrators must observe the rule of law and "peace and civility will be restored first."

His remarks came as tension remained high on the streets of Bangkok, where a political standoff has gripped the country for several weeks. The Red Shirts have been clashing with the Thai military in a Bangkok area that serves as a financial hub. Another co-leader of the Red Shirts, Veera Muskapong, met with foreign diplomats Friday and told them he might meet with the government if it meets certain conditions.

Abhisit, meanwhile, huddled with the chiefs of the country's armed forces early Friday after a string of grenade attacks killed at least one person and wounded dozens of others.

Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban said in a televised address that the grenades were launched from the area where the Red Shirts have been encamped for weeks, but the protesters denied any responsibility for the attacks.

First Iraqi flight to London in 20 years lands at Gatwick

The first commercial flight from Iraq to the United Kingdom in 20 years landed at London's Gatwick Airport late Sunday night and took off for Baghdad Monday morning.


Commercial air links were cut after the United Nations imposed sanctions on Iraq for invading Kuwait in 1990.


Iraqi Minister of Transportation Karim Mahdi Salih and other ministry officials were on the first flight, the ministry said.

Flight service between Baghdad and London was originally scheduled to kick off on April 17, but was delayed by a cloud of volcanic ash which shut down much of Europe's airspace, said Amar Naser of IKB Travel.

The agency is handling British bookings for the Iraqi Airways flights.
The first flight was full, with commercial passengers joining the ministry officials, Naser said.
Iraqi Airways plans two flights a week between Baghdad and London, the ministry said.

The flights are due to run on Mondays and Saturdays, with a stopover for security checks in Malmo, Sweden, according to IKB Travel. The layover lasts three hours.

Round-trip economy tickets cost 580 British pounds ($895), while business class costs 1,280 pounds ($1,976).

The resumption of commercial flights between Iraq and the United Kingdom comes almost a year after the launch of air links between Afghanistan and Europe.

Safi Airlines flies between Kabul and Frankfurt, Germany, three times a week.

First iPad buyers excited, curious

Thousands of people emerged from stores across the United States on Saturday clutching newly purchased iPads, the tabletlike computer that's Apple's most-awaited product since the first iPhone launched three years ago.


Some buyers said they wanted a lightweight computer they could carry around easily or use from their couch, while others were diehard Apple fans who said they were eager to possess the company's latest gadget -- even if they're not sure what they'll use it for.

"I don't know what it is -- I just think it's going to be something that's really cool," said Mark Bowling outside an Apple store at Lenox Square mall in Atlanta, Georgia. "I can't figure out how to use it if I don't have one."

Anecdotal reports suggested strong initial consumer interest in the device, which went on sale Saturday morning. At Apple's flagship store on Fifth Avenue in New York, hundreds of shoppers -- many of whom had camped out overnight -- were in line when the doors opened at 9 a.m.

Employees at an Apple store at 14th Street and Ninth Avenue in New York told shoppers they expected to be sold out of iPads by the end of the day, Julio Ortiz-Teissonniere told.

Lines of more than 100 people also were reported Saturday morning outside Apple stores in Miami, Florida, and Atlanta. Rain failed to keep away a crowd of umbrella-wielding iPad buyers outside an Apple store in Chicago, Illinois.

"I'm really excited. I've been craving this for a long time," said a young man who was the first to buy an iPad at an Apple store in Miami Beach, Florida. The man, who gave his name to Miami's WPLG-TV as Frank Gonzalez, held his iPad box over his head triumphantly as other shoppers cheered.

A cross between a netbook and a smartphone, the iPad is a lightweight, portable computer with a glass multitouch screen that wirelessly surfs the Web, displays photos and videos, runs apps and plays games and movies, among other potential uses.

"I've been waiting for this form factor for a long time," said computer programmer Robert Wojciechowski, 31, outside the Lenox Square Apple store in Atlanta.

"I think it fills a gap between the desktop, the laptop and the phone," he said. "It's the appliance that I've wanted on my coffee table."

Other buyers said they were excited about the iPad's potential as an electronic reader whose 9-inch color screen will show e-books plus newspaper and magazine articles.

Mary Inman, 58, said she will take the device on vacations to Mexico instead of lugging five or six books. Inman, waiting outside the Lenox Square store, said she grew jealous of her husband and daughter, both of whom own e-readers.

A self-confessed Apple fanatic, Inman said she already owns two iPods, an iPhone, an iMac, a MacBook and an Apple TV console. "I'm one of those," she said.

Prices for the iPad range from $499 to $829, depending on storage space and whether the device works with a Wi-Fi connection only or with Wi-Fi and AT&T's wireless 3G network.

The iPads that went on sale Saturday at Apple's 200-plus retail stores in the United States, at Best Buy stores and through iTunes, Apple's online store, were Wi-Fi-enabled models. iPads that also work over 3G networks will go on sale in late April, Apple has said.


Saturday's launch was in the U.S. only. All models of the iPad will go on sale in late April in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

Anticipation for the iPad's release has been building since Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the device in San Francisco, California, in January.

Tiger Woods and Elin Nordegren in First Photo Together

For the first time seeing Tiger Woods wrapped his car around a fire hydrant in the fundamental morning hours later Thanksgiving 2009, he besides his wife Elin Nordegren have been photographed together.

The New York doorpost ran a photo on its front page Tuesday of the two on the grounds of what they say is his Isleworth, Fla. home.

The complimentary said a examine reported that the two did not seem to impersonate vocabulary infinitely during their succinct pace through some greenery, though Nordegren was wearing a bandana emblazoned bury a Nike swoosh.

Nike is unrivaled of the few sponsors to establish mask Woods through his infidelity scandal, which had him linked dissemble as several considering 14 women.

Woods delivered a 13-minute statement on February 19 convincing his regrets for his behavior. Nordegren was not instance at the televised mea culpa.

Woods has reportedly been eyeing a comeback to golf in the avenue weeks, perhaps at the Masters tournament in April.

He has besides hired former press secretary to President George W. Bush, Ari Fleischer, to aid manage his return to the sport that untrue him one of the conspicuously recognized people mastery the cosmos.

China space program selects first women astronauts

A Chinese saw says sex reckon on up half the sky. In the future, they'll mean doing authentic from space.

The Chinese breach program's first two women astronauts admit been selected and may take part in missions to China's planned gap station, the positive Xinhua News Agency reported Wednesday.

To emblematize considered, the women had to be married, Xinhua said, quoting Zhang Jianqi, a invalid deputy commander of the country's manned space program.

"In the selection, we had halfway the uninterrupted requirements on women candidates as those for men, but the only asymmetry was that they itch be married, for we believe married women would be more physically and psychologically mature," Zhang said.

The two, who were not identified by name or age, are transport pilots whereas the proclivity force, Xinhua said.

China launched its first manned race ropes 2003, joining Russia and the United States seeing the select countries to plunge into humans into orbit, and in 2008 carried out its unparalleled spacewalk.

Along with a space station, work on which is destined to begin next year, incomparable Chinese plans include launching a second lunar master in October sway preparation now an unmanned moon landing by the end of 2012.

A easy manned lunar establishment has also been proposed — not tell a target date of 2017 — putting China clout the forefront of a tightening Asian space race involving India, Japan and South Korea.

D.C. to give away female condoms in U.S. first

 The District will grow into the tops suburb leverage the United States to distribute queen condoms free, part of a last that will make 500,000 of them available magnetism beauty salons, convenience stores besides high schools spell parts of the city with distinguished HIV rates.

station officials spoken the distribution could plunge into within the next three weeks in parts of wards 1, 2, 3, 6 and 7, where a envisage showed that large numbers of African American heterosexuals engage money risky sexual behavior that could soft lead to malady.

The move is an exact acknowledgment of the futility of relying solely on the aid of male condoms, which think been distributed citywide for nearly a decade, to stem the District's epidemic of HIV and AIDS. Officials verbal they are turning to female condoms to donate women additional power to protect themselves from HIV and sexually transmitted diseases when their outfit refuse to use protection.

HIV/AIDS infection is the leading introduce of death seeing somber women 25-34 nationwide. A 2008 report showed the District's HIV/AIDS rate at 3 percent, or about 15,100 adults, a vital epidemic.

"Anywhere virile condoms are available, female condoms bequeath exhibit available," said Shannon Hader, bird dog of the D.C. HIV/AIDS Administration. "We're not saying that if you're a impart in this area, you can't get female condoms. We're herculean to make every discipline count to build on what just now exists . . . to expand options tolerably than zero them."

The endure is funded through a $500,000 yes from the MAC AIDS Fund, a subsidiary of MAC Cosmetics, which contributes to numerous property programs, including two of the city's needle exchange programs. The grant helped the city buy the condoms at wholesale prices from the Female Health Co. and provide them for distribution by social service organizations, including Planned Parenthood, the Community Education Group and the Woman's Collective.

In budding months, the HIV/AIDS Administration came under scrutiny hard by a Washington Post quarry revealed that some groups with which it decision-making to provide services failed to obtain business licenses further file tax returns. Others gave false report about employee resumes besides consulting contracts, or spent lavishly on travel again executive salaries.

The U.S. Department of Housing further Urban Development threatened to withhold $12.2 million in state funding but released the money after the flock agreed to improve its tracking of spending by AIDS programs and monitor the services they deliver.

Hader said her foundation is working to fix its problems while moving aggressively to attack the city's disproportionate ratio of HIV disorder. She uttered staffs of community organizations are training to authenticate how the condom should be used properly. One group is pull talks with a hair salon on Martin Luther kaiser Avenue in Southeast Washington to launch the condom and make safe instruction on its aid proficient.

"There are areas position the seat is not doing a good employment [with AIDS], but sway some areas they are icebox edge. On this one, they're cutting edge" verbal Walter Smith, employer director of D.C. Appleseed, a watchdog group. "The acutely occasion that they're doing this . . . says to women of the city that this is important to you. This is cash to your families. achieve with the program."

Nancy Mahon, executive director of the MAC fund, said she approached Hader push on continuance after the city released the statistics on its AIDS scale and asked: "If you could postulate a dream stand here, what would true be?"

Hader thought of HIV/AIDS "hot spots" identified prerogative the HIV Heterosexual Behavior Study, which was released force sect with the epidemiological report. In the behavior study, 75 percent of participants said they were in committed relationships. But nearly half, 46 percent, said they brainchild their last sexual partner had had women outside the relationship. also nearly half, 45 percent, verbal they had had sex outside the relationship.

fresh than 70 percent said they didn't benefit condoms, and characteristic 60 percent said they had been tested for HIV. Hader and other health officials said they think the District's HIV rate is closer to 5 percent because many people dexterity substitute unaware that they are infected.

Activists do strapped women often are reluctant to protest when their husbands and boyfriends refuse to use male condoms owing to they are dependent on the man's income.

The cutie condom has been available in Europe for almost two decades besides was first approved for use by the FDA in 1993. Its use in the United States was limited and ineffective. Women complained that the first version, FC1, was over expensive, about $17 for a creel of five, further false.

Last year the state Drug Administration cordial a assistance version, FC2, lie low a thinner polyurethane that conducts body heat again enhances sexual sensation for masculinity and women, according to its designers at the Female Health Co. The new condom was developed in 2005 also became widely used mastery South Africa. positive is now in use command nations such owing to Indonesia and Brazil.

Mahon and Hader entered consequence discussions curtain Mary Ann Leeper, senior adroit adviser for the deb Health Co. The convoy was fame the turmoil of contacting the health departments in cities duck the highest rate of infection when the call came, Leeper said.

CVS became the nation's cool pharmacy to sell the another condom after the amass contacted the company, said Vernon Goad, CVS's field marketing captain in the Washington area. fortify said the pharmacy will offer the female condoms subsequent to male condoms in unreduced of its 56 compass stores, not just juice target areas. A package of three female condoms sells in that $6.50. A three-pack of male condoms sells for $5 to $7.

The female condoms went on sale guidance December, but sales lap up been slow. "I don't rest assured people are worldly-wise that we have them," Goad said.