Android shipments explode in Q1 as iPhone stalls; Windows Phone tops BlackBerry

Smartphone Shipments Q1 2013

Microsoft and BlackBerry are fighting to become viable alternatives in the mobile market, and while Android and iOS accounted for a majority of smartphone shipments in the first quarter, Windows Phone made some significant moves that propelled it ahead of BlackBerry. Research firm IDC found that Windows Phone shipped 7 million smartphones, accounting for 3.2% of all shipments in the first quarter of 2013, more than double the year-ago quarter. Microsoft was able to overtake BlackBerry, which despite its new BlackBerry 10 operating system, saw smartphone shipments decline from 9.7 million units to 6.3 million units, accounting for 2.9% of global channel sales.

[More from BGR: Google announces ?the end of search as we know it?]

?Windows Phone claiming the third spot is a first and helps validate the direction taken by Microsoft and key partner Nokia,? said Kevin Restivo, senior research analyst with IDC. ?Given the relatively low volume generated, the Windows Phone camp will need to show further gains to solidify its status as an alterative to Android or iOS.?

[More from BGR: Microsoft uses Google CEO?s own words against him in YouTube app battle]

Android shipments increased from 90.3 million in the first quarter of 2012 to a whopping 162.1 million units in Q1 2013. Google and its vendor partners accounted for 75% of all smartphones shipped in the first quarter, up from 59.1% in Q1 of 2012.

iPhone shipment growth slowed significantly, increasing a mere 6.6% from 35.1 million units to 37.4 million last quarter. Apple?s operating system accounted for 17.3% of shipments, a decrease from 23% in the same quarter of last year.

?Underpinning the worldwide smartphone market is the constantly shifting operating system landscape,? noted Ramon Llamas, research manager at IDC. ?Android and iOS accounted for more than the lion?s share of smartphones in the first quarter, but a closer examination of the other platforms reveals turnaround and demand for alternatives. Windows Phone has benefited from Nokia?s participation, and BlackBerry?s new BB10 devices have already hit a million units shipped in its first quarter of availability.?

This article was originally published on BGR.com

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/android-shipments-explode-q1-iphone-stalls-windows-phone-132026019.html

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Could eating peppers prevent Parkinson's? Dietary nicotine may hold protective key

May 9, 2013 ? New research reveals that Solanaceae -- a flowering plant family with some species producing foods that are edible sources of nicotine -- may provide a protective effect against Parkinson's disease. The study appearing today in Annals of Neurology, a journal of the American Neurological Association and Child Neurology Society, suggests that eating foods that contain even a small amount of nicotine, such as peppers and tomatoes, may reduce risk of developing Parkinson's.

Parkinson's disease is a movement disorder caused by a loss of brain cells that produce dopamine. Symptoms include facial, hand, arm, and leg tremors, stiffness in the limbs, loss of balance, and slower overall movement. Nearly one million Americans have Parkinson's, with 60,000 new cases diagnosed in the U.S. each year, and up to ten million individuals worldwide live with this disease according to the Parkinson's Disease Foundation. Currently, there is no cure for Parkinson's, but symptoms are treated with medications and procedures such as deep brain stimulation.

Previous studies have found that cigarette smoking and other forms of tobacco, also a Solanaceae plant, reduced relative risk of Parkinson's disease. However, experts have not confirmed if nicotine or other components in tobacco provide a protective effect, or if people who develop Parkinson's disease are simply less apt to use tobacco because of differences in the brain that occur early in the disease process, long before diagnosis.

For the present population-based study Dr. Susan Searles Nielsen and colleagues from the University of Washington in Seattle recruited 490 patients newly diagnosed with Parkinson's disease at the university's Neurology Clinic or a regional health maintenance organization, Group Health Cooperative. Another 644 unrelated individuals without neurological conditions were used as controls. Questionnaires were used to assess participants' lifetime diets and tobacco use, which researchers defined as ever smoking more than 100 cigarettes or regularly using cigars, pipes or smokeless tobacco.

Vegetable consumption in general did not affect Parkinson's disease risk, but as consumption of edible Solanaceae increased, Parkinson's disease risk decreased, with peppers displaying the strongest association. Researchers noted that the apparent protection from Parkinson's occurred mainly in men and women with little or no prior use of tobacco, which contains much more nicotine than the foods studied.

"Our study is the first to investigate dietary nicotine and risk of developing Parkinson's disease," said Dr. Searles Nielsen. "Similar to the many studies that indicate tobacco use might reduce risk of Parkinson's, our findings also suggest a protective effect from nicotine, or perhaps a similar but less toxic chemical in peppers and tobacco." The authors recommend further studies to confirm and extend their findings, which could lead to possible interventions that prevent Parkinson's disease.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_health/~3/lXmrShHrGJM/130509091215.htm

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The Daily Roundup for 05.09.2013

You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/RXdOmTAyOg8/

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32GB AT&T Samsung Galaxy S4 now available

$249.99 on two-year plan, "black mist" color only

Right on schedule, AT&T has launched its 32GB version of the Samsung Galaxy S4. If you're after a Galaxy S4 with a bit more internal storage -- and after the recent controversy surrounding the S4's available memory, we wouldn't blame you -- it'll set you back $249.99 on a two-year plan. That's $50 more than the base 16GB model, which goes for $199.99. If you're buying it outright, you're looking at a hefty $669.99 price tag.

At the moment it seems AT&T is only stocking the 32GB Galaxy S4 in the "black mist" color option, as the store page for the 32GB model doesn't allow you to pick a color.

Anyone picking up a 32GB GS4 today? Or are there any 16GB buyers out there wishing they'd waited a little longer and paid a bit more? Hit the comments and share your thoughts.

Source: AT&T

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/d8XD3A6kXRU/story01.htm

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Lava shows most of our carbon churns in deep Earth

Glenn Macpherson and Tim Gooding

Molten magma erupted onto the seafloor freezes to glass that contains clues to its origin in Earth's deep mantle.

By Becky Iskin
LiveScience

Most of Earth's carbon clusters deep beneath the surface, in hot mantle rocks that churn below the planet's thin crust.

"Most people probably don't recognize that the vast majority of carbon ? the backbone of all life ? is located in the deep Earth, below the surface ? maybe even 90 percent of it," Elizabeth Cottrell, a geologist at the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History, said in a statement. Cottrell is lead author of a new study examining how the mantle's carbon cycle changes the chemistry of lava that forms new ocean crust.

At mid-ocean ridges, the gaping fractures that criss-cross Earth's ocean floors, lava oozes out directly from the mantle. Studying this lava gives geoscientists clues to what's going on thousands of miles below the surface.

Cottrell and co-author Katherine Kelley of the University of Rhode Island snared seafloor rocks from around the world, then analyzed their chemistry. Ratios of certain isotopes (atoms of an element with different numbers of neutrons), as well as oxidized iron, suggest carbon reservoirs stored for billions of years strongly influence mantle chemistry, the authors reported in the May 2 issue of the journal Science Express.

When the mantle melts and erupts at mid-ocean ridges, it produces a handful of distinct rock chemistries. The reason for the different chemistries could be different sources. For example, the melt could come from ancient, subducted oceanic crust, driven deep into the mantle by plate tectonics, or a deep plume rising from near the core-mantle boundary.

The researchers discovered that one of these handful of rock chemistries, called enriched mantle, tends to carry reduced iron, while another, deemed depleted mantle, matches up with oxidized iron. The pairings make sense, if carbon is playing a role in controlling iron chemistry in the mantle, the researchers said.

"Carbon provides both a mechanism to reduce the iron and also a reasonable explanation for why these reduced lavas are enriched in ways we might expect from melting a carbon-bearing rock," Cottrell said.

Email Becky Oskin or follow her @beckyoskin. Follow us?@OAPlanet, Facebook?and Google+. Original article on LiveScience's OurAmazingPlanet.

Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/653377/s/2b9f52ef/l/0Lscience0Bnbcnews0N0C0Inews0C20A130C0A50C0A70C1810A50A0A60Elava0Eshows0Emost0Eof0Eour0Ecarbon0Echurns0Ein0Edeep0Eearth0Dlite/story01.htm

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U.S. senators seek to block Iran's forex exchange reserve access

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A bipartisan group of U.S. senators introduced legislation on Wednesday to block Iran's access to billions of dollars worth of foreign currency reserves, the latest step by Congress to try to slow the Islamic Republic's disputed nuclear program.

Lawmakers in Washington say the government in Tehran taps the reserves held in banks around the world, mostly in euros, to get around U.S. and EU sanctions on oil sales that have damaged Iran's economy.

Iran converts the reserves, estimated to be worth $60 billion to $100 billion, into local currencies in order to finance imports and stabilize its budget, the lawmakers say.

The United States and the European Union believe that Iran is enriching uranium to levels that could be used in nuclear weapons. Tehran says the program is intended for producing power and medical supplies.

If passed, the bill introduced by Senators Mark Kirk, an Illinois Republican, Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat, and three others, would block such currency conversions of the reserves and be retroactive to May 9.

Financial institutions around the world are "on notice" to halt all foreign currency transactions on behalf of blacklisted Iranian banks and sectors "or risk being cut off from the U.S. financial market," the lawmakers said in a statement.

The bill seeks to limit the ability of the Central Bank of Iran and National Iranian Oil Company to conduct transactions in foreign currencies.

The measure is expected to be attached later this month to Iran sanctions legislation in the House of Representatives that was introduced in February by Ed Royce, the chairman of that chamber's foreign affairs committee.

(Reporting by Timothy Gardner and Rachelle Younglai; Editing by Maureen Bavdek and Gunna Dickson)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/senators-introduce-bill-targeting-iran-foreign-exchange-162803772.html

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AP PHOTOS: Designers bling up Gulf women's garment

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) ? Just a few years ago, Gulf Arab women usually only felt comfortable showing off their fashion sense at ladies-only parties or family gatherings. In public, at least in their home countries, the standard all-black abaya ? a simple floor-length covering and accompanying head scarf ? was the only culturally accepted option.

But now, a new generation of abaya designers is giving the traditional garment a twist with choices of fabric, designs and even some expensive bling to allow Gulf women a host of style options.

The basic look of the abaya remains unchanged: black with long sleeves and a flowing form that somewhat conceals the shape of the body. Gulf culture and government directives encourage "national dress" for both sexes: Men wear full-length robes that are mostly white, but include other colors such as beige and blue.

Designers, however, have increasingly recognized the demand for abayas with a bit of extra flair. It can be as subtle as embroidery on the sleeves and hems or as eye-catching as gems stitched into the fabric. Top European fashion houses such as Dior, Nina Ricci and Alberta Ferretti have already put their stamps on abayas in the wealthy Gulf market for local woman, known as khalijiyat, after the Arabic name for the Gulf.

The most expensive abaya so far has been valued at $17.7 million, created by British designer Debbie Wingham and displayed in Dubai in March. It features different colored diamonds including the world's most expensive and rare, the red diamond. There are more than 200,000 stitches in 14-karat white gold thread.

Among the Gulf countries, the United Arab Emirates ? and particularly Dubai ? is the center of the specialty abaya industry with exports going across the Middle East and North Africa and to some African Muslim countries. But since the Arab Spring uprisings, the UAE has sharply reduced visas from countries including Egypt, Tunisia, Syria and Libya.

This has led to a steep drop in sales. Kaleem Khan, a Bangladeshi abaya designer at the Abu Hail Center in Dubai, estimated that sales were down 70 percent because regular buyers cannot get visas to the UAE.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ap-photos-designers-bling-gulf-womens-garment-060706095.html

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