Nokia takes aim at apple

Nokia has bolstered its smartphone line-up to better compete with Apple, and said a $820 netbook will lead its foray into the fiercely competitive PC market, reports Asia One.

The new handsets, including its first phone using Linux software, are the latest moves by the Finnish firm to match Apple's innovation in a sector that is switching focus to services and software.

However, this offering worries investors, as the company has rapidly lost market share in the most profitable part of the industry to Apple and RIM.

Implementation of advanced methods for customs checking minimises the waiting at customs points in Saudi Arabia and serves as a catalyst for improved trade relations with other countries, according to a senior official of Saudi Customs, says Arab News.

“Over 60% of containers arriving at Jeddah Islamic Port are checked by X-ray scanners,” Saleh Al-Khelaiwi, director general of Saudi Customs, said in a statement.

“Rapid customs checks are done with the help of X-ray scanners and police dogs without opening the containers. However, if the content of a consignment is not clearly revealed by machines, manual inspection is resorted to,” Al-Khelaiwi said.

TransferJet, a data transfer technology that allows information to be exchanged between gadgets by simply bringing them close to each other, should begin appearing in products next year, states PC World.

Both Sony and Toshiba are demonstrating the technology at this week's IFA electronics fair in Berlin and said products should be available in early 2010.

TransferJet works over a distance of a few centimetres and users will see speeds of up to 375Mbps. It's designed for data exchange between a user's gadgets and uses radio spectrum around 4.5GHz, which is available for unlicensed applications in most countries, so worldwide use should be possible.