Verizon and HTC’s latest twist: The $199 Droid DNA

Verizon and HTC unveiled a new device that the two hope will appeal to customers during the holiday season, while helping to reverse HTC’s floundering fortunes.

The phone, the Droid DNA, sports a 5-inch screen, putting it more in the “phablet” category with Samsung‘s Galaxy Note. It runs on Android 4.1.1 Jelly Bean and includes a boatload of powerful features, including a Super LCD 3 display with 440 pixels per inch, capable of playing 1080p HD video.

HTC noted the screen rivals traditional HDTVs, while the pixel density is among the highest available on any smartphone. The iPhone 5′s Retina display, for example, is 326 pixels per inch.

The device runs on a quad-core, 1.5Ghz Snapdragon processor from Qualcomm, with 4G LTE integrated on the same piece of silicon as the application processor. Having one chip instead of two improves battery life.

The phone is also capable of wireless charging and full HD video chat. The device has an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera and a 2.1-megapixel camera in the front. HTC noted its phone features HTC ImageSense and HTC ImageChip to create faster image processing and better quality photos, as well as a quick-launch camera option.

The Droid DNA also has Beats audio and two amplifiers, one for headphone and one for speaker. And it’s equipped with near-field communications technology to share music and other content by tapping other NFC-enabled devices.

Droid DNA goes on sale on November 21 for $ 199.99 with a two-year contract. Pre-sales begin today. The phone is available exclusively through Verizon.

The hefty specs should appeal to customers looking for alternatives to the latest gadgets from Samsung and Apple during the holiday season. For HTC, it’s pretty important that they do.

The Taiwanese handset maker really needs a hit phone. Previously the darling of the smartphone world, HTC has been having a tough time lately. Samsung and Apple are dominating the industry’s profits and market share, leaving little for HTC, Motorola, Nokia, and other handset vendors. HTC also has faced litigation, though it reached a settlement with Apple a few days ago.

The company has said it plans to go bolder with its messaging to consumers and the media, relying less on joint marketing campaigns with the carriers and standing more independently to tell the HTC story. It also has said it would try to generate buzz through social media and by seeing out influential celebrities and “superfans” for endorsements. So far, it’s unclear whether such steps are paying off.

Related stories:

Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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S&P 500 and Nasdaq inch higher, fiscal cliff a concern

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Syria's new opposition coalition seeks recognition

DOHA (Reuters) - Syria's new opposition leadership, painfully forged under Arab and Western pressure, set out on Monday to gather recognition and wider backing for the struggle to take over the country from President Bashar al-Assad.

Violence flared again on the Turkish border and the line separating Syria from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, underscoring how the conflict is spilling into the region.

Reformist Damascus cleric Mouaz Alkhatib flew to Cairo to seek the Arab League's blessing for the new assembly that unanimously elected him as its leader the day before.

Alkhatib, 50, jailed several times for criticizing Assad, fled into exile this year. He has long promoted a liberal Islam tolerant of Syria's Christian, Alawite and other minorities.

"The first step towards recognition will take place at the Arab League," he told a news conference in Doha. The body would then seek endorsement from Assad's Arab and Western foes in the "Friends of Syria" group and from the U.N. General Assembly.

Russia, which with China has foiled U.N. action on Syria and views Assad's opponents as pawns of the West, urged the new body to negotiate and to reject outside meddling.

Asked if China recognized the new coalition, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei called on all parties to initiate "a political transition process guided by the Syrian people".

Egypt, Saudi Arabia and most Arab League members want Assad removed, although some, such as Iraq, Lebanon and Algeria, take a more neutral stance on Syria, where violence raged on.

BORDER BOMBING

Israeli tanks fired shells into Syria and scored "direct hits" in response to a Syrian mortar round that struck the Golan Heights, the Israeli military said.

It was the second time in two days that Israel has responded to what it said was errant Syrian fire. On Sunday the military said it had a fired a "warning shot" across the disengagement line, while on Monday it said it had fired back at "the source".

Syria and Israel have not fought over the Golan since the 1973 Middle East conflict, but are still formally at war.

At the northern end of the country, Syrian jets and helicopters attacked the rebel-held town of Ras al-Ain, with some bombs landing just meters (yards) from the Turkish border, sending scores of civilians fleeing into Turkey.

A Reuters reporter on the border said one warplane flew right along the border and appeared to stray across it at one point, as bombs sent up plumes of black smoke.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 12 people, including seven Islamist militants, had been killed in the air strikes on Ras al-Ain, which fell to rebels on Thursday during an advance into Syria's mixed Arab and Kurdish northeast.

Another opposition group put the Ras al-Ain death toll at 16. The pro-opposition Observatory, which tracks the violence from Britain, said 140 people were killed in Syria on Sunday. More than 38,000 people have been killed since March last year.

Turkey, whose border security worries were heightened by a sudden influx of 9,000 refugees within 24 hours last week, has consulted its NATO allies about possibly deploying Patriot surface-to-air missiles to deter Syria's air force.

Such a move could be a prelude to enforcing a no-fly zone in Syria, although Western powers have fought shy of this.

Riad Seif, a respected Syrian dissident who proposed the new opposition body, said no such military intervention was needed.

"We will protect ourselves by owning developed weapons and networks of defence missiles," he said, citing what he said was a promise by the Friends of Syria to provide "methods" to counter shelling and air strikes by Assad's forces.

NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in Prague that the alliance would "do what it takes to defend Turkey", without referring specifically to Patriot missiles.

After days of wrangling in Qatar, Syrian politicians, rebels and representatives of ethnic and religious minorities finally laid aside their disputes and, under U.S. and Qatari pressure, agreed to form the Syrian National Coalition for Opposition and Revolutionary Forces, as a prelude to a government-in-exile.

INCLUSIVE APPROACH

Alkhatib, the former imam of the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, called on Syrian soldiers to desert and all sects to unite.

"We demand freedom for every Sunni, Alawi, Ismaili, Christian, Druze, Assyrian ... and rights for all parts of the harmonious Syrian people," the soft-spoken preacher said.

It is unclear whether the Coalition can succeed where the exile Syrian National Council (SNC) failed in overcoming the mutual suspicions and in-fighting that have weakened the nearly 20-month-old drive to end four decades of Assad family rule.

"This is a significant step forward, because they finally seem to be forging a more broadly-based platform that includes the SNC but without the SNC taking the lion's share," said Salman Shaikh, director of the Doha Brookings Center.

He said military councils fighting inside Syria should be plugged into the new political structure as a way of encouraging coordinated international support for the uprising.

"We need a unified channel of support," he said. "The United States still seems hesitant about training and arming the opposition, and I believe this is a mistake, because the U.S. has the capacity to do it more so than anyone else."

Qatar said recognition for a temporary Syrian government would allow it to seek weapons from abroad.

Washington, which promoted the Doha unity talks, hailed the outcome, promising to support the Syrian National Coalition "as it charts a course toward the end of Assad's bloody rule and the start of the peaceful, just, democratic future...".

Assad, whose Alawite minority is rooted in Shi'ite Islam, has support from Shi'ite Iran and its Lebanese Shi'ite allies, but has few friends among the region's Sunni-led nations.

With Syria enduring a bloody military stalemate almost 20 months after peaceful protests first erupted, Assad's opponents hope a more cohesive opposition can turn the tide, winning more military and diplomatic support from allies wary of the growing role of Islamist militants, some of them linked to al Qaeda.

"For the first time, there are credible multinational pledges to support the Syrian revolution, politically and logistically," said London-based Syria analyst Rima Allaf.

"With the promise of real weapons, the different groups of the Free Syrian Army are more likely to regroup under a unified opposition and command, as it is to their benefit."

She said success for the new opposition body could make the position of Russia and China irrelevant. "Their direct support of Assad may continue, perhaps until the stakes change and they see no more benefit to holding on to a losing side."

(Additional reporting by Andrew Hammond in Doha, Khaled Yacoub Oweis in Amman, Jonathon Burch in Ceylanpinar, Crispian Balmer in Jerusalem, Arshad Mohammed in Washington, Michael Martina in Beijing and Steve Gutterman in Moscow; Writing by Alistair Lyon; Editing by Giles Elgood)

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RIM to unveil new BlackBerry phones on Jan. 30.

TORONTO (AP) — Research In Motion said Monday that it will hold an official launch event for its new BlackBerry 10 smartphones on Jan. 30. The new phones are seen as critical to RIM’s survival.

The Waterloo, Ontario-based company said Monday details on the much-delayed smartphones and their availability will be announced at the event.

The announcement comes as the company struggles in North America to hold onto customers who are abandoning BlackBerrys for flashier iPhones and Android phones.

RIM’s current software is still focused on email and messaging, and is less user-friendly, agile and robust than iPhone or Android. Its attempt at touch screens was a flop, and it lacks the apps that power other smartphones. RIM is hanging its hopes on the BlackBerry 10 software. It is thoroughly redesigned for the touchscreen, Internet browsing and apps experience that customers now expect. The Canadian company said the launch event will happen simultaneously in multiple countries.

Jefferies analyst Peter Misek called it a make-or-break product release and said the date of the launch event suggests a release date in mid- to late February or in March.

A full touchscreen device is expected to be released first followed shortly after by a physical keyboard version.

BGC Financial Partners analyst Colin Gillis said the new phones won’t be dead on arrival as some analysts have said because RIM hasn’t lost the corporate market completely.

“Is 10 going to be the solution to retain that marketplace? We’ll have to wait and see,” Gillis said. “It’s great they set a date, but the challenges are still formidable. It’s not an issue of initial demand. It’s an issue of sustained demand.”

Gillis noted that RIM’s launch of a tablet initially went OK but then demand fell sharply. RIM’s tablet, the Playbook, uses software on which the BlackBerry 10 will be based.

RIM said last month the new BlackBerrys are being tested by 50 wireless carriers around the world.

Thorsten Heins, who took over as CEO in January after the company lost tens of billions in market value, had vowed to do everything he could to release BlackBerry 10 this year but said in June that the timetable wasn’t realistic. Heins says he can turn things around with BlackBerry 10.

The new BlackBerrys will be released after the holiday shopping season and well after Apple’s launch of the iPhone 5, expected to be Apple’s biggest product introduction yet.

RIM’s platform transition is also happening under a new management team and as RIM lays off 5,000 employees as part of a bid to save $ 1 billion.

RIM was once Canada‘s most valuable company with a market value of more than $ 80 billion in 2008, but the stock has plummeted since, from over $ 140 per share to around $ 8. Its decline evokes memories of Nortel, another former Canadian tech giant, which declared bankruptcy in 2009.

Shares of RIM rose 20 cents, or 2.3 percent, to $ 8.74 in midday trading in New York after rising as high as $ 9.07 earlier.

Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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