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The world's tallest skyscraper has unexpectedly closed to the public a month after its lavish opening, disappointing tourists headed for the observation deck and casting doubt over plans to welcome its first permanent occupants in the coming weeks.

In a brief statement responding to questions, building owner Emaar Properties blamed the closure on "unexpected high traffic," but then suggested that electrical problems were also at fault.

"Technical issues with the power supply are being worked on by the main and subcontractors and the public will be informed upon completion," the company said, adding that it is "committed to the highest quality standards at Burj Khalifa."

Despite repeated requests, a spokeswoman for Emaar was unable to provide further details or rule out the possibility of foul play. Greg Sang, Emaar's director of projects and the man charged with coordinating the tower's construction, could not be reached. Construction workers at the base of the tower said they were unaware of any problems.

Power was reaching some parts of the building. Strobe lights warning aircraft flashed and a handful of floors were illuminated after nightfall.

"It's just very disappointing," said Boyes, 40, who showed up at the Burj's entrance Monday with a ticket for an afternoon time slot only to be told the viewing platform was closed. "The tower was one of my main reasons for coming here," he said.

Dubai and Abu Dhabi are two of seven small sheikdoms that comprise the United Arab Emirates. Abu Dhabi hosts the federation's capital and holds most of the country's vast oil reserves. It has provided Dubai with $20 billion in emergency cash to help cover its debts.

Questions were raised about the building's readiness in the months leading up to the January opening.

The opening date had originally been expected in September, but was then pushed back until sometime before the end of 2009. The eventual opening date just after New Year's was meant to coincide with the anniversary of the Dubai ruler's ascent to power.

There were signs even that target was ambitious. The final metal and glass panels cladding the building's exterior were installed only in late September. Early visitors to the observation deck had to peer through floor-to-ceiling windows caked with dust — a sign that cleaning crews had not yet had a chance to scrub them clean.

The precise cause of the $1.5 billion Dubai skyscraper's temporary shutdown remained unclear.

The Persian Gulf city-state had hoped the 2,717-foot (828-meter) Burj Khalifa would be a major tourist draw. Dubai has promoted itself by wowing visitors with over-the-top attractions such as the Burj, which juts like a silvery needle out of the desert and can be seen from miles around.

In recent weeks, thousands of tourists have lined up for the chance to buy tickets for viewing times often days in advance that cost more than $27 apiece. Now many of those would-be visitors, such as Wayne Boyes, a tourist from near Manchester, England, must get back in line for refunds.

Electrical problems are at least partly to blame for the closure of the Burj Khalifa's viewing platform — the only part of the half-mile high tower open yet. But a lack of information from the spire's owner left it unclear whether the rest of the largely empty building — including dozens of elevators meant to whisk visitors to the tower's more than 160 floors — was affected by the shutdown.

The indefinite closure, which began Sunday, comes as Dubai struggles to revive its international image as a cutting-edge Arab metropolis amid nagging questions about its financial health.

Emaar did not say when the observation deck would reopen. Ticket sales agents were accepting bookings starting on Valentine's Day this Sunday, though one reached by The Associated Press could not confirm the building would reopen then.

Tourists affected by the closure are being offered the chance to rebook or receive refunds.

The shutdown comes at a sensitive time for Dubai. The city-state is facing a slump in tourism — which accounts for nearly a fifth of the local economy — while fending off negative publicity caused by more than $80 billion in debt it is struggling to repay.

Ervin Hladnik-Milharcic, 55, a Slovenian writer planning to visit the city for the first time this month, said he hoped the Burj would reopen soon.

"It was the one thing I really wanted to see," he said. "The tower was projected as a metaphor for Dubai. So the metaphor should work. There are no excuses."

Dubai opened the skyscraper on Jan. 4 in a blaze of fireworks televised around the world. The building had been known as the Burj Dubai during more than half a decade of construction, but the name was suddenly changed on opening night to honor the ruler of neighboring Abu Dhabi.

Work is still ongoing on many of the building's other floors, including those that will house the first hotel designed by Giorgio Armani that is due to open in March. The building's base remains largely a construction zone, with entrance restricted to the viewing platform lobby in an adjacent shopping mall.

The first of some 12,000 residential tenants and office workers are supposed to move in to the building this month.

The Burj Khalifa boasts more than 160 stories. The exact number is not known.

The observation deck, which is mostly enclosed but includes an outdoor terrace bordered by guard rails, is located about two-thirds of the way up on the 124th floor. Adult tickets bought in advance cost 100 dirhams, or about $27. Visitors wanting to enter immediately can jump to the front of the line by paying 400 dirhams — about $110 apiece.

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Asian stock markets extended their slide Monday, after Wall Street notched its fourth straight weekly drop, amid worries over risks from debt troubles in Europe.

Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 closed at a nearly two-month low, falling 1.1 percent, or 105.27 points, to 9,951.82 as exporters were hit by a stronger yen, which can erode their overseas profits. It was its lowest close since Dec. 10, when the Nikkei ended at 9,862.82.

A surprise drop in the U.S. unemployment rate Friday tempered losses on Wall Street though analysts say it will take several years for employment to return to its pre-financial crisis levels.

The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index was down 0.5 percent, or 14.49 points, to 2,928.46 by midmorning, led by declines in banks and other financial companies.

Oil prices rose modestly while the dollar gained against the euro.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng index fell 0.2 percent, or 41.11 points, at 19,623.97 and South Korea's Kospi was off 0.9 percent, or 14.33 points, at 1,552.79.

Elsewhere in the region, shares were lower in Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand and the Philippines but rose in Singapore, Taiwan and in Australia, where strength in commodities prices boosted shares in resource companies.

The Dow Jones industrial average closed the week down 55.10, or 0.5 percent, at 10,012.23. The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 7.68, or 0.7 percent, to 1,066.19. The Nasdaq composite index fell 6.23, or 0.3 percent, to 2,141.12.

Shares in Toyota Motor Corp. rebounded earlier in the day, after the company's president Akio Toyoda apologized late Friday for the crisis over massive recalls due to safety problems in some of its most popular models. But they later fell back, shedding 0.9 percent.

Chinese shares also dropped in listless trading, with investors keeping to the sidelines ahead of a weeklong Lunar New Year holiday, which begins Saturday.

"Nothing is really bad, and nothing is really good. The market is flat because people are holding onto their money ahead of the Chinese New Year," said Peng Yunliang, an analyst at Shanghai Securities, in Shanghai.

Global markets have had a dismal couple of weeks as investors fretted about the debt crisis enveloping several European countries. Those concerns intensified last week after Portugal's lawmakers defeated the government over its deficit reduction plan.

But analysts say the government seems determined to keep the market steady, and that investors will likely pile back in after the holiday.

"It's clear the government doesn't want to kill the market. But they don't want to push prices too high, either," said Peter Lai, an investment manager at DBS Vickers in Hong Kong.

Oil prices rose in Asia with benchmark crude for March delivery up 17 cents to $71.36.

In currencies, the dollar fell to 89.32 yen from 89.50 yen. The euro fell to $1.3630 from $1.3664.

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Apple's heavy-handed use of the rejection stamp has hit everything from podcasting programs to breast-oriented offerings. If there's one company that knows the feeling of being banned, it's Google.

Apple banned Google's Google Voice app from its App Store last year, a move so strange-looking that even the FCC questioned it. Apple, according to documents made public as part of that investigation, said the app "duplicated the core dialer functionality of the iPhone."

Apple also waved away Google's Latitude app, reportedly claiming it was too similar to the iPhone's built-in Maps application and could offer features not found in the native program.

This new godlike stance, however, gets even more petty. Tim Novikof, the developer of the Flash of Genius app, says he tried to submit his program to the App Store with a mention of its success in Google's Android Developer Challenge. The Developer Challenge is an annual contest that seeks to honor the most innovative and useful new mobile apps.

Apple's continued strength in smartphone sales cemented its position as the third-largest vendor in the fourth quarter of 2009, an IDC report concluded Thursday evening.

Apple reported selling 8.7 million iPhones for the fourth quarter, versus 20.8 million for Nokia and 10.7 million for Research in Motion, which represented the top three vendors. But Apple's growth far outpaced all others, with a unit sales increase of 97.7 percent.

According to IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, vendors shipped a total of 54.5 million units in the fourth quarter of 2009, up 39.0 percent from the same quarter a year ago. For the full year, vendors shipped a total of 174.2 million units in 2009, up 15.1 percent from the 151.4 million units in 2008.

By now, we're all familiar with Apple's culture of control. Particularly when it comes to the App Store, the crew from Cupertino is famous for its frequent rejections and vague explanations. The process can make the satirical comparisons of Apple and a communist regime seem pretty reasonable at times.

This, my friends, is one of those instances. Apple has apparently just forbidden a developer from using the word "Android" in his app's description. The message: Drop the A-word, or drop your application.

 We know Apple sees Google as an enemy these days; the two companies, after all, are going head-to-head for smartphone sales. But not allowing an app into the App Store simply because it uses the word Android in its description? That's a pitiful new low, even by Apple's standards.

To be clear, the developer himself doesn't appear to feel so strongly about the matter (either that, or he's afraid that expressing dissent could get him axed from Apple altogether). The app sells decently without the mention of the Android Developer Challenge in its description, Novikof says, and he's willing to leave well enough alone.

I guess I'm just old-fashioned: I like to receive my content unfiltered and make my own decisions. If I want to use a program that references a competing company, I like knowing that I can. If I want to use a program that contains content someone else deems "objectionable" -- or, dare I say it, even adult-themed -- I like knowing I have that right.

 The Flash of Genius app was a finalist in the Challenge, and Novikof thought including that information in the description could help illustrate the program's value and increase its iPhone-based sales. Apple evidently didn't agree; Novikof says he received a notice from Apple's app approval department that stated the following:

"During our review of your application, we found that your application contains inappropriate or irrelevant platform information in the Application Description and/or Release Notes sections.

"While your application has not been rejected, it would be appropriate to remove 'Finalist in Google's Android Developer's Challenge!' from the Application Description.

"Please log into iTunes Connect to make appropriate changes to the Application Description now to avoid an interruption in the availability of Flash of Genius: SAT Vocab 2.2 on the iPhone App Store."

I guess I'm just old-fashioned: I like to receive my content unfiltered and make my own decisions. If I want to use a program that references a competing company, I like knowing that I can. If I want to use a program that contains content someone else deems "objectionable" -- or, dare I say it, even adult-themed -- I like knowing I have that right.

Apple's never going to operate under an open and transparent model; that's simply not in the cards. But taking App Store censorship and control to this kind of comedic extreme is nothing short of silly. The iPhone isn't the only contender in the market anymore. Trying to pull the wool over your customers' eyes isn't going to change that; it's only going to make you look dated and desperate.

Come on, Apple. You're better than that.

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ob losses during the Great Recession have been huge and they're about to get bigger.

The Labor Department's revisions on employment levels are done every year. They are based on unemployment insurance tax data that companies submit to states.

Jobs remain scarce even as the economy is recovering: Gross domestic product, the broadest measure of the nation's output, has risen for two straight quarters. GDP rose by 5.7 percent in the October-December quarter, the fastest pace in six years.

To continue increasing production, economists say companies will eventually have to start adding jobs again. That should bring productivity gains back down toward their long-run average of about 2.5 percent.

"You can push your workers but so far," said Anika Khan, an economist at Wells Fargo Securities. "At some point businesses have to begin to hire."

But the main question is when. The economy could begin generating net job gains as early as March, Khan said. But they won't be enough to hold down the unemployment rate. Wells Fargo expects the rate to peak at 10.5 percent in the second half of this year.

When the Labor Department releases the January unemployment report Friday, it will also update its estimate of jobs lost in the year that ended in March 2009. The number is expected to rise by roughly 800,000, raising the number of jobs shed during the recession to around 8 million.

But hiring is still lagging. Many economists say businesses are reluctant to add workers because it's not clear whether the recovery will continue once government stimulus measures, such as tax credits for home buyers, end.

Public concern about persistent unemployment has forced President Barack Obama and members of Congress to shift their attention to jobs and the economy and away from health care reform. The Senate will begin working Monday on legislation that would give companies a tax break for hiring new workers, Majority Leader Harry Reid said Thursday.

The budget plan Obama released this week projects unemployment will still be very high — 9.8 percent — by the end of this year.

Instead of adding workers, many companies are squeezing their existing work forces to produce more. Productivity rose by a seasonally adjusted 6.2 percent in the fourth quarter, the Labor Department said Thursday, above analysts' expectations of a 6 percent rise. That was the third straight quarter of sharp gains.

The debate over health care reform and the scheduled expiration of some Bush administration tax cuts at the end of this year may also cause companies to restrain hiring, many economists said.

"Until some of these uncertainties from Washington get cleared up, businesses, particularly small businesses, are going to be loath to do any additional hiring," said Hank Smith, chief investment officer at Haverford Investments.

High unemployment is likely to hold back consumer spending, which has led most recoveries in the past. That's why many economists think the current rebound will be weak.

Wall Street economists expect the January report will show a tiny increase of 5,000 jobs. That would be only the second monthly gain since the recession began. But it probably wouldn't be enough to hold down the unemployment rate, which is forecast to rise to 10.1 percent. That would match October's 26-year high. And it would be the fourth-straight month of double-digit joblessness.

The new data will help illustrate the scope of the jobs crisis. Analysts think the economy might generate 1 million to 2 million jobs this year. And they say it will take at least three to four years for the job market to return to anything like normal.

"It's going to take a long time to dig out of this hole," said Julia Coronado, senior U.S. economist at BNP Paribas.

Productivity often increases at the end of recessions as companies ramp up output before hiring new workers. Rising productivity can raise living standards in the long run. But it can also make it easier for companies to put off adding jobs.

A separate Labor Department report on initial claims for jobless benefits said claims rose unexpectedly last week by 8,000 to 480,000. The rise in claims was the fourth in the past five weeks. It disappointed economists, who thought claims would resume a downward trend evident in the fall and early winter. The four-week average, which smooths fluctuations, rose for the third straight week to 468,750.

Most economists say claims need to fall to about 425,000 or below for a month to signal that employers are stepping up hiring.

Still, some positive signs emerged in the productivity report. Hours worked in the fourth quarter rose 1 percent. That was the first increase since the second quarter of 2007. Output rose 7.2 percent, the largest increase since the third quarter of 2003.

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Toyota won't reveal the cost of the repairs, but according to information from dealers, the shim costs only about a penny and a half, while the average cost for 30 minutes of labor to install it is $42.50. Multiplied by 2.3 million vehicles, and the cost of the part and labor alone is $97.8 million, all of which will be covered by Toyota.

Besides the 2.3 million U.S. vehicles recalled because of the gas pedal problem, Toyota recalled 5 million vehicles to fix floor mats that could inadvertently trap the accelerator pedals.

Toyota's dealers, who have started to repair defective gas pedals in millions of U.S. vehicles, are extending hours, making house calls and offering other services as they try to repair the damage to Toyota's reputation.

Repairs were going smoothly and a little faster than the half-hour Toyota estimated, he said. Technicians do a test drive as part of the repair.

At Lee Toyota Topsham in Topsham, Maine, service manager Dan Daigle expected to begin repairs Thursday morning. He has already received around 300 calls from customers and expects to keep technicians working until at least 10 p.m. each night.

The dealership hired three people to handle phone calls and repair scheduling and will add more people if needed, Treter said. He also said the dealership will stay open as late as necessary.

"I'll stay until midnight," Treter said. "Whatever they want. I won't turn anyone away."

Carter thanked dealers for their extraordinary measures. He also suggested other steps, like additional hires to help with recall repairs, dedicated recall service lanes and complimentary oil changes.

"Toyota dealers already know the first and most critical step of rebuilding the confidence and trust of Toyota owners is the interaction and service they receive in your dealership," Carter said.

Toyota is sending checks this week based on the number of cars each dealer sold in 2009. Dealers who sold fewer than 500 cars will get $7,500. Dealers who sold more than 4,000 will get $75,000.

Toyota has around 1,200 U.S. dealers.

Treter said customers have been calm despite a warning early Wednesday from U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who said owners of recalled Toyotas should stop driving them. LaHood later said he misspoke and told owners to get their cars repaired.

Toyota Motor Corp. recalled eight models Jan. 21 and stopped selling them five days later because their accelerator pedals could stick in a depressed position. Toyota is sending dealers a piece of steel about the size of a postage stamp that can be inserted into the accelerator mechanism and eliminate the friction that causes the problem.

Jim White Toyota, a dealership in Toledo, Ohio, received about 350 steel pieces, or shims, and began repairs Wednesday morning. By mid-afternoon, about 25 cars were fixed, said Terry Treter, service manager.

"If we need to add people to handle the extra volume, then that's what we'll do," he said.

Earl Stewart, who owns a dealership in North Palm Beach, Fla., is sending a repair van to the homes of customers for the first time, since some are too nervous to drive their vehicles to the dealership.

Toyota is giving U.S. dealers payments of up to $75,000 to help them offer extra measures like house calls.

"Within the next several days, you will receive a check from us (no strings attached) with a simple request - 'do the right thing on behalf of Toyota customers'," Toyota group vice president Bob Carter said Tuesday in the letter to dealers obtained by The Associated Press.

Carter said Toyota is considering other marketing efforts to win back customers' confidence, but he didn't elaborate. Toyota may have to offer rebates and low-interest financing to lure back customers, which could force other automakers to raise their incentives.

Toyota's January sales fell 16 percent, and the company estimated it lost 20,000 sales due to the recall and sales stoppage.

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Sony Ericsson has unveiled the Aspen, a Microsoft-powered business smartphone with a full QWERTY keyboard and a 2.4-inch, 240-by-320-pixel QVGA touch screen.

The phone itself looks fairly unremarkable, but it turns out the Aspen is running Windows Mobile 6.5.3, which would make it the first handset to do so. Windows Mobile 6.5.3 includes support for glass capacitive touch screens with multi-touch, meaning that we could finally see some Windows Mobile phones that respond properly with fingers instead of a stylus.

The home video market is crucial for studios because that is where they recoup much of the cost of producing movies. Yet the market has been sagging as people refrain from adding to their already well-stocked home collections and turn to rentals, which are far less profitable for Hollywood.

U.S. home video revenue fell 5 percent in 2009 to $20 billion, according to the Digital Entertainment Group, an industry association of studios and electronics firms.

DVD rental and purchase revenues dropped 11 percent to $16.4 billion, the group said. That overwhelmed a 67 percent gain in Blu-ray disc spending to $1.5 billion and a 31 percent gain in online and video-on-demand revenues to $2.1 billion.

Sony Pictures posted a quarterly operating loss of 6.4 billion yen ($71 million) in the three months to Sept. 30, while Sony Corp. as a whole is forecasting a 95 billion yen ($1 billion) loss in the year to March.

To date, the only Microsoft-powered phone I've tried that came close to approximating the Android/iPhone/Palm Pre touch experience is the HTC Imagio, which uses a finely tuned glass resistive touch screen. (The Imagio is still a good buy, even if the Droid is now our current Editors' Choice; check out our brand-new Verizon smartphone guide for more details.)

News Corp.'s 20th Century Fox was close behind with 14, including nine for "Avatar" and three for "Crazy Heart," while The Weinstein Co. collected 13 for movies such as "Inglourious Basterds" and "Nine."

The layoffs represent about a 6.5 percent reduction in the 6,800-strong work force at Sony Pictures, which released the Michael Jackson documentary "This Is It" and cataclysmic "2012" late last year. The studio also recently pushed back the release of "Spider-Man 4" by a year until 2012.

Most of the cuts at the studio, which is based in Culver City, will occur by the first week of March and will be in the home entertainment and information-technology units in the United States.

It's the second time in a year for the subsidiary of Japan's Sony Corp. to cut back.

Last March, it laid off nearly 250 people and eliminated nearly 100 open positions. That followed a move in October 2008 to reduce overtime, travel and executive benefits.

Staff were told of the latest cuts in a memo Monday and through videos by the studio co-chairs on an employee Web site.

"Our industry is affected by two things: It's affected by the economy, of course, and it's affected by technology," co-chair Amy Pascal says in the video. "Over the last two years, it's changed people's DVD buying habits, which has had a huge effect on our company and the industry at large."

Academy Awards recognition can lead to a real bump in business. Sony scored doubly because it was the only studio to have two best picture candidates out of 10, which is five more than in past years under new rules from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Several studios with movies still in theaters are trying to get them on more screens this weekend in the hope that awards buzz will bring in new moviegoers. The nominations are also a welcome relief for an industry hurting from a drop in DVD sales.

"This should be a terrific bump," said Jeff Blake, vice chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corp.

"An Education," about a London girl headed for Oxford, will be shown in up to 800 locations this weekend, up from 50 last weekend. Nominated titles "Julie & Julia" and "District 9" are also expected to see a DVD sales boost.

Summit Entertainment, the fledgling studio that has taken flight with its "Twilight" movies, was nominated for nine awards, all for "The Hurt Locker," which has cleaned up at critics awards earlier this year.

The Kathryn Bigelow-directed movie about a bomb squad in Iraq will be in more than 100 theaters this weekend, up from 28. It's in its third week of DVD release.

"Absolutely, the consumer is going to have their interest increased," said Rob Friedman, Summit's chief executive and co-chairman. "All in all, it'll be excellent for the movie. And more people will see it, which we're always happy about."

The Walt Disney Co. secured eight nominations, including best animated feature film for both Pixar's "Up" and the hand-drawn "Princess and the Frog."

Studios chair Rich Ross, who took over the studios in October, said the nods will help DVD sales of "Up" and boost the international release of "Princess," which debuts in the U.K. on Thursday.

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China said a possible meeting between U.S. President Barack Obama and the Dalai Lama would further hurt Sino-U.S. relations, and vowed to go ahead with sanctions against U.S. companies selling arms to Taiwan.

There has been widespread speculation that Obama will meet the Dalai Lama when the Tibetan Buddhist monk visits the United States in coming months. The White House has not publicly confirmed any such meeting.

Zhu Weiqun, a Vice Minister of the United Front Work Department of China's ruling Communist Party, said his government would vehemently oppose any meeting between Obama and the Dalai Lama, who Beijing deems a dangerous separatist.

China has become increasingly assertive in opposing meetings between the Dalai Lama and foreign leaders, and a meeting between the exiled Tibetan leader and Obama would add to the litany of troubles between the world's biggest and third biggest economies.

 "If that comes to pass, then China will be strongly opposed as always," Zhu, who's department steers Party policy over religious and ethnic issues, said of the possible meeting.

China then said U.S. companies involved in selling the arms to Taiwan would face "corresponding sanctions".

Companies that could be affected include Sikorsky Aircraft Corp, a unit of United Technologies Corp; Lockheed Martin Corp; Raytheon Co; and McDonnell Douglas, a unit of Boeing Co.

A meeting "would be totally at odds with international accepted practices and would seriously undermine the political basis of Sino-U.S. relations", added Zhu.

"If the U.S. leader chooses this time to meet the Dalai Lama, that would damage trust and cooperation between our two countries, and how would that help the United States surmount the current economic crisis?" said Zhu.

 China recently hosted talks with envoys of the Dalai Lama, but those talks achieved little.

TAIWAN ARMS SALES

Even a brief symbolic encounter between the U.S. leader and the Dalai Lama would stoke ire in Beijing, already angered by U.S. proposals last week to sell $6.4 billion of weapons to Taiwan, the disputed island that China treats as an illegitimate breakaway province.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Ma Zhaoxu, on Tuesday repeated Beijing's threat to impose sanctions against U.S. companies which sell arms to Taiwan.

"The concerned U.S. companies have ignored China's opposition and insisted on selling weapons to Taiwan. China will impose corresponding sanctions on companies that sell weapons to Taiwan," Ma said told a news conference.

China routinely opposes meetings between the Dalai Lama and foreign leaders, especially after violent unrest spread across Tibetan areas in March 2008. Previous U.S. presidents have met him.

The Dalai Lama has said he wants a high level of genuine autonomy for his homeland, which he fled in 1959. China says that his demands amount to pressing for outright independence.

Relations between the United States and China have soured over a range of issues from trade and currency policies to control of the Internet.

 "The United States actions will seriously hurt China's core interests and seriously hurt China-U.S. interests," he said. "This will unavoidably affect China-U.S. cooperation on important international and regional issues."

On Friday, the Obama administration said it would sell a package of $6.4 billion of missiles, helicopters and other military hardware to Taiwan.

China says the dispute will damage cooperation with the United States over international issues. Washington has sought stronger Chinese support over several hotspots, chiefly the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea.

The United States switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979, recognising "one China". But it remains Taiwan's biggest backer and is obliged by the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act to help in the island's defence.

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Toyota dealers over the weekend said there has been a noticeable drop in customer traffic and sales, though they have faith that customers loyal to the brand before last week's recall will not abandon it altogether. Dealers selling U.S. brands have seen more Toyota drivers in their lots than usual, but for now those visits haven't translated into many new customers.

But what matters now is "how Toyota expresses its plan and executes the repairs," Smith said.

Cutting the company some slack, Smith said the ads likely had to be placed on Friday, before Toyota received the go-ahead for its planned fix from federal regulators.

"They are a really good company, and there is no reason they should not snap back from this," Smith said.

At Earl Stewart Toyota in North Palm Beach, Fla., sales initially dropped off after the recall announcement but began to rebound by the weekend. General manager Stu Stewart said he'd even sold some cars in recent days that have the faulty gas pedal system. Customers will just have to wait for the cars to be fixed before picking up their new vehicles, Stewart said.

At Toyota World of Lakewood, N.J., sales manager Joe Glidden said they had received many calls from customers with questions about the recalls. But he said customer traffic had only slightly decreased since the gas pedal recall was announced Jan. 21.

Toyota's black-and-white ads Sunday characterized the halt in sales and production as a "temporary pause" to put customers "first." The ads don't give details on how the pedals will be fixed or when customers can expect a remedy.

Toyota has launched a media campaign to bolster its reputation for quality as nervous customers confront dealers across the country about faulty gas pedal systems.

Crisis-management experts said Sunday that the recall of millions of cars and trucks isn't the Japanese auto maker's only problem: its message to Toyota owners — delivered in full-page ads Sunday in 20 major newspapers — isn't as clear and reassuring as it needs to be.

Customer Herb Jackson, shopping at the Lakewood showroom for a new Prius gas-electric hybrid — which is not one of the vehicles that was recalled — said he's still confident in the world's biggest automaker.

"I don't plan on changing horses," said Jackson, who has owned many Toyotas over the years.

Other customers are checking out Toyota's competition, however.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said on its Web site that it opened an investigation last Tuesday into CTS Corp., the manufacturer that supplied the faulty gas pedals to Toyota. The agency wants to find out whether CTS notified other gas pedal customers of the recall and if other automakers have received reports of similar problems with the pedals.

The pedal recall is separate from another recall involving floor mats that can bend and push down accelerators. The two recalls combined affect more than 7 million vehicles worldwide. While the multiple recalls, investigations and image troubles are disheartening for Toyota owners, for now many still remain loyal.

In Pittsburgh's northern suburbs, Richard Bazzy, owner of two Ford dealerships, saw increased traffic on Saturday and noticed more Camrys and Corollas driving onto his lots. But he also said it has yet to turn into increased sales from Toyota customers.

Bazzy said the Toyota troubles should get customers to at least consider Detroit's improved cars.

Industry analysts expect Ford to be among the beneficiaries of Toyota's troubles because some of its models have recently received good quality scores from third parties such as Consumer Reports magazine.

The company has said the recall of about 4.2 million cars and trucks is related to condensation that builds up in the gas pedal assembly and can cause the accelerator to get stuck. Dealers say the fix involves slipping a shim into an area where springs push the gas pedal back to its resting position after a driver has eased off the gas. Toyota has not commented on the repair.

"They are trying to do the right thing," said Alexander Edwards, president of automotive research group Strategic Vision, of the ads. "But what's going on isn't stated very clearly and that causes more uneasiness with customers."

Larry Smith of the Institute for Crisis Management in Louisville, Ky., said "The ads are intended to buy Toyota a bit of time, to ask people to give them a chance."

On Monday, the head of Toyota's North American sales division, Jim Lentz, is scheduled to appear on NBC's The Today Show to detail the company's plans for a fix. Federal regulators have approved Toyota's plan to start sending parts to dealers in the coming days.

Rob Larson, a sales manager at Larson Ford in Lakewood, said he hadn't seen an influx of disaffected Toyota customers so far. But he expects to see them soon as more people learn about incentives being offered by Ford, such as $1,000 to Toyota, Lexus, Scion, Honda or Acura drivers who trade in vehicles or have leases expiring by June 30. GM and Chrysler are offering similar deals to lure Toyota customers.

At Hyundai Giant in New Port Richey, Fla., CEO Scott Fink said dealers are having trouble figuring trade-in values on Toyotas, wondering if they will drop even after they are repaired.

He said it's too early to tell if there will be a mass exodus from Toyota.

"They're going to be fine," Stacey Krupski of State College, Pa., said as she parked her Toyota Saturday. "And I would most likely guarantee the fact that my next car will still be a Toyota."

The recall widened beyond Toyota over the weekend. France's largest automaker, PSA Peugeot Citroen, said it was recalling 100,000 cars across Europe to change accelerator pedals on two models designed and produced in a joint venture with Toyota. The recall is a "preventive" measure, Peugeot said, adding that there has been no evidence of accidents or safety problems linked to the pedals.

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Apple typically refreshes the iPhone design every year. The iPhone 3G S was announced by Apple last year, and an upgrade may come next year. The iPhone 3G S uses an Arm-based system-on-chip made by Samsung.

An Apple representative declined to provide details about the A4 chip on Wednesday, but analysts said it was based on an Arm processor core. The chip was most likely designed by employees who came with Apple's 2008 acquisition of chip firm PA Semi, which earlier was involved in designing low-power chips.

Apple's A4 chip, being used in the iPad, could ultimately provide a speed bump to future versions of the company's iPhone, analysts said on Thursday.

Apple on Wednesday introduced the iPad handheld device, which has a 9.7-inch diagonal screen and is designed for browsing the Internet, playing games, reading e-books and viewing video content. The product fits somewhere between the iPhone and MacBook laptop, said Apple CEO Steve Jobs at a press event.

However, the A4 itself shouldn't be looked at as a platform-specific processor, analysts said. The chip could possibly make it to MacBooks as a co-processor for certain features like instant-boot, where laptops start in a matter of seconds for users to quickly access Web browsers or check e-mail, analysts said. For example, Dell is offering Arm processors alongside Intel processors in laptops specifically for instant-boot capabilities.

"My guess is [the A4] is a lot faster than what they use in existing products," Brookwood said.

Technology strategist Jim McGregor of In-Stat agreed with Brookwood, saying that Apple could spin the A4 silicon for the iPhone. The chip could undergo further modifications for the iPhone to fit the screen size and improve the device's battery life.

The chip was "breathtaking" in terms of speed and execution as it launched programs on the iPad instantly, Brookwood said. The iPad was also able to turn the screen to landscape mode almost instantly, something iPhones lag at. The iPhones could use a speed boost that the A4 chips could deliver, and Apple could run the chip at lower frequencies to provide the iPhones longer battery life.

But Apple isn't necessarily competing with Intel in the chip development arena. The emergence of the A4 chip won't change Intel's mobile chip road map or development, McGregor said. The challenge for Apple will be to keep pace with rival chip designers like Marvell, which designs heavily modified chips with Arm processors to fit into specific mobile devices.

However, that may not happen in the short term as Apple just finished the transition of moving its software, including the Mac OS X operating system, to Intel architecture. The transition was painful, and Apple may not want to go through that again in the short term, Brookwood said.

Apple's options outside Arm-based processors for the iPhone are also poor, analysts said. Though most Mac laptops and desktops are powered by Intel chips, the chip maker doesn't have a track record in developing mobile chips. Intel just recently showed its first smartphone, LG Electronics' GW990, which has an Atom mobile chip inside. But the chip isn't proven, so Apple took to developing its own chips for mobile devices.

Apple is trying to gain larger control over chip development for an advantage over its rivals, Brookwood said. Other tablets displayed by companies like Hewlett-Packard and Dell are also based on Arm processors, but Apple may have higher levels of modifications on the chip specific to the iPad.

The A4 chip was designed for portable products, and modified chips based on the architecture are prime candidates to be used in new iPhone versions, said Nathan Brookwood, principal analyst at Insight 64. A variant of the A4 chip could make iPhones much faster, he said.

"There's really no reason why a chip with this kind of characteristic wouldn't make it in the iPhone," Brookwood said.

The iPad is powered by a chip called A4 that was designed in-house by the company, Jobs said. The system-on-chip includes a processor that runs at 1GHz and a graphics core that is capable of displaying 720p high-definition video. The power-efficient chip can also provide 10 hours of battery life on active usage of the device.

The iPad shares many characteristics with the iPhone, so the A4 chip itself or its variants could ultimately make it to the iPhone, analysts said. Both use low-power chips and are designed to run the iPhone OS.

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Obama’s speech before a joint session of Congress and a national television audience was devoted mostly to economic concerns, particularly the loss of more than 7 million jobs since the start of the recession in December 2007. Many of the steps he outlined repeated initiatives he’s proposed previously.

“Jobs must be our number one focus in 2010, and that is why I am calling for a new jobs bill tonight,” Obama, 48, said.

 He also defended the government bailouts of banks such as New York-based Citigroup Inc. and automakers General Motors Co., headquartered in Detroit, and Chrysler Group LLC, based in Auburn Hills, Michigan, as necessary to prevent the collapse of the economy, even though the aide was broadly unpopular.

The president said he recognized that the issue has been divisive and said he shared some of the blame for not clearly explaining how it would benefit average Americans.

“By the time I’m finished speaking tonight, more Americans will have lost their health insurance,” Obama said in the text. “I will not walk away from these Americans. And neither should the people in this chamber.”

Obama said years of partisan battles over issues important to the public and the growing influence of lobbyists have sown “deep and corrosive doubts” about the federal government.

“We have to recognize we have more than a deficit of dollars right now. We have a deficit of trust,” Obama said in his text.

To rebuild public trust, Obama called for rules requiring lobbyists disclose each contact they make on behalf of clients and limit their contributions to candidates for federal office.

“If there’s one thing that has unified Democrats and Republicans, it’s that we all hated the bank bailout,” Obama said. “I hated it. You hated it. It was about as popular as a root canal.”

Obama said the government should use $30 billion of the money paid back by banks that were bailed out with the Troubled Asset Relief Program to assist community banks that give loans to small businesses.

Obama, delivering his first State of the Union address tonight, said the government also must tackle the federal budget deficit, forecast to be $1.35 trillion this year, and set aside the “tired battles” that have consumed Washington for years and threaten to leave the U.S. behind nations such as China in global competition.

 “We were encouraged to hear President Obama speak about the need to create jobs,” McDonnell, 55, said in a speech at the Virginia House of Delegates in Richmond. “What government should not do is pile on more taxation, regulation, and litigation that kill jobs and hurt the middle class.”

 Referring to policy positions he staked out last year, Obama said U.S. troops will begin to come home from Afghanistan in July of 2011 as Afghan security forces take control of the country, and that all U.S. combat troops would be out of Iraq by the end of August.

He also reiterated his campaign pledge to work with Congress to repeal the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy that forbids openly gay men and women from serving in the armed forces.

Obama had tough words for Democrats as well as Republicans in Congress over deadlocks that have held up action on legislative issues such as climate change and health care.

He rejected the approach of “some on the right” that the path to prosperity was through tax cuts for the wealthy, elimination of regulations and leaving the health-care system as it is.

“That’s what we did for eight years,” Obama said, in reference to his predecessor, Republican President George W. Bush. “That’s what helped lead us into this crisis. It’s what helped lead to these deficits.”

He said his fellow Democrats can’t be paralyzed by fear of losing the next election.

Obama also laid out plans to rein in the federal deficit, such as a freeze of discretionary spending in the federal budget over three years. Defense and other national security-related agencies won’t be affected and some discretionary programs, such as education, will get increases. To take further action, he said he would set up by executive order a commission to recommend steps to cut the deficit.

The president’s focus on economic issues was echoed by the Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell in the Republican response. McDonnell, who was elected last November and sworn-in earlier this month, called for policies that promote entrepreneurship and innovation to make the U.S. more competitive globally, and said lawmakers must lower the federal debt because it’s on an unsustainable path.

He called for an extension of tax incentives worth $38 billion over this year and next to encourage businesses to accelerate equipment purchases and elimination of capital gains taxes on small business investments. For individuals and middle- income families, Obama proposed an increased tax credit for child care and an expansion of tax credits to match retirement savings.

President Barack Obama vowed to press ahead with his plan to overhaul the nation’s health-care system and called on Congress to pass a package of tax cuts and spending to stimulate the economy and create jobs.

McDonnell called the freeze proposal “a laudable step, but a small one.”

About half-way through the 69-minute address, Obama turned to what has been his top legislative priority. While his effort to overhaul the U.S. health-care system has gotten snagged in Congress, Obama vowed to press ahead.

“I do not accept second-place for the United States of America,” Obama said. “As hard as it may be, as uncomfortable and contentious as the debates may become, it’s time to get serious about fixing the problems that are hampering our growth.”

With assistance from Roger Runningen, Julianna Goldman, Kate Anderson Brower, Holly Rosenkrantz and Brian Faler in Washington. Editors: Joe Sobczyk, Jim Kirk.

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French rescuers pulled a teenage girl — very dehydrated, with a broken left leg and moments from death — from the rubble of a home near the destroyed St. Gerard University on Wednesday, a stunning recovery 15 days after an earthquake devastated the city.

Then — half a month after the earthquake — neighbors on Wednesday heard a voice weakly calling from the rubble of a private home down the road from the collapsed university. They called authorities, who brought in the French civil response team.

Rescuer Claude Fuilla then walked along the dangerously crumbled roof, heard her voice and saw a little bit of dust-covered black hair in the rubble. Clearing away some debris, he managed to reach the young woman and see she was alive — barely.

"She couldn't really talk to us or say how long she'd been there but I think she'd been there since the earthquake. I don't think she could have survived even a few more hours," Fuilla said.

French Ambassador Didier le Bret praised the persistence of the French rescue team, which has kept looking for survivors for days after the Haitian government officially called off the search.

"They are so stubborn because they should not have been working anymore because, officially, the rescue phase is over. But they felt that some lives still are to be saved, so we did not say that they should leave the country," he told Associated Press Television News

Darlene Etienne was rushed to a French military field hospital and then to the French military hospital ship Sirroco, groaning through an oxygen mask with her eyes open in a lost stare.

"She's alive!" said paramedic Paul Francois-Valette, who accompanied her into the hospital.

"We thought she was dead," her cousin, Jocelyn A. St. Jules, said in a telephone call with The Associated Press.

Authorities say it is rare for anyone to survive more than 72 hours without water, little alone more than two weeks. But Etienne may have had some access to water from a bathroom of the collapsed home, and rescuers said she mumbled something about having a little Coca-Cola with her in the rubble.

Digging out a hole big enough to give her oxygen and water, they found she had a very weak pulse. Within 45 minutes they managed to remove her, covered in dust. Fuilla said she was rescued from what appeared to be the porch area of the house, but a neighbor said he believed it was the shower room, where she might have had access to water.

"It's exceptional. She spoke to us in a very little voice, she was extremely weak," Fuilla said. "Before we stabilized her she was extremely dehydrated and weak she had a very low blood pressure."

Another rescuer, French Lt. Col. Christophe Renou, said he had no idea how she had managed to cling to life for so long: "Definitely she's been here for 15 days. She wasn't hurt but she was very, very weak."

"To be honest we thought that the last miracle we had a couple of days ago ... would be the last miracle because the chances are so very, very slight. But it seems that beyond the miracle, there was another miracle."

The last previous confirmed rescue of someone trapped by the initial quake occurred Saturday, 11 days later, when French rescuers extricated a man from the ruins of a hotel grocery store. A man pulled Tuesday from the rubble of a downtown store later and treated by the U.S. military for severe dehydration and a broken leg said he had been trapped during an aftershock.

Renou said his team would probably return Thursday with radar equipment to look for any other possible survivors.

Her family said Etienne, 17, had just started studying when the disaster struck, trapping dozens of students and staff in the rubble of school buildings, hostels and nearby homes.

At least 135 people have been unearthed by rescue teams since the Jan. 12 quake, and many more by relatives and neighbors. But most of these rescues were in the immediate aftermath and authorities say it is rare for anyone to survive more than 72 hours without water.

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The form that blessing takes is the free hot food that Mr. Rouzeau has prepared in his restaurant kitchen every day since shortly after the earthquake hit on Jan. 12. Every afternoon lines form outside the downstairs entrance of the Muncheez restaurant in Petionville, Port-au-Prince’s chic neighborhood – if anything here can be called chic.

The line snakes upstairs to the open kitchen counter, and everyone picks up a plate of rice, some beans and plantain, maybe even some chicken or pork.

Then it’s back down a second staircase, no sitting or hanging around.

And as supplies run low, donations have started coming in. A business partner’s son in college in the Dominican Republic next door organized a food drive for the restaurant. Strangers have dropped off bags of rice.

“But the fuel to run the kitchen won’t last forever, and that’s not something that’s coming into the country right now,” Rouzeau says.

So what happens if the burners can’t be fired up?

“I wonder about that every day when I wake up,” he says with a shrug. “If it comes to that, I guess I stop.”

Rouzeau tries to play down his action, explaining that the whole operation is grounded in practicality. “It started as a way to use up the leftover stocks from the three restaurants,” he says, surveying the line of waiting diners below that never seems to shorten. “People were hungry. I didn’t want it to go to waste.”

It’s clear that many of those waiting in line think it’s a special occasion, and it is a respite from the dreary and stressful life in homeless camps where several hundred thousand Haitians in the ruined capital have settled. Some women dress up a little for the occasion, and children especially carry out their plate from Muncheez as if they’d just won the grand prize.

It’s only when this Haitian-American who describes himself as “living in Fort Lauderdale and working in Haiti” contemplates the future that Rouzeau allows himself a creeping doubt. “I have plenty of people who want me to open back up, but I can’t imagine opening a restaurant when there are a couple hundred thousand people out on the street and hungry,” he says. “It doesn’t make sense.”

Rouzeau says he also knows too well the tendency of too many Haitians to expect others to solve their problems for them, and he wonders if his good deed isn’t feeding that habit. “Every morning I have to clean up the plates they drop on the street the minute they finish eating,” he says. “I understand they may have more to worry about than a used plate, but it’s still discouraging.”

So in the meantime, Muncheez Petionville hands out its fare for free. Some days 1,000 people come, some days fewer. On Saturday, the long lines suggested the “number served,” as McDonald’s might say, could hit 2,000.

It helps to know that Muncheez has been a popular Port-au-Prince pizza-and-ribs shop for over a decade, the kind of third-world place where the elite -- those with a regular salary -- can eat and be seen regularly, but which the poor can only dream about.

Keeping one Muncheez open has also allowed Rouzeau to keep his staff of 105 busy – if not necessarily paid. “I think they think they’re going to be paid, but I don’t know where I’m supposed to get the money to do that if none is coming in,” he says. “If someone out there wants to come up with some cash to keep this going, I won’t say no.”

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Wal-Mart Stores Inc. will cut about 11,200 jobs at Sam's Club warehouses as it turns over the task of in-store product demonstrations to an outside marketing company.

"'Fresh' is where the real competitive battles are being fought in the club sector," he said.

Shopper Events will launch a new demo program called "Tastes and Tips" with new carts, signs, uniforms and a trained team, said Cornell. He said the move was not made to save money.

"It's not a cost cutting measure, its really an investment in enhancing our demo program," he said. Cornell added that Shopper Events plans to hire "roughly the same number of people" cut, and said Sam's Club workers are invited to apply for those positions.

In a memo to employees, Cornell said eligible workers will receive severance pay and benefits, and that the company will help them find opportunities at other Sam's Clubs and in Walmart stores, in addition to Shopper Events positions.

The cuts come as many Americans had hoped job losses would abate as the economy slowly recovers. However, analysts said Sunday that while this marks Wal-Mart Stores' largest job cut, they expect many employees to be picked up by Shopper Events, so the net effect on the economy probably won't be that bad.

The move is an effort to improve sales at Sam's Club and comes on top of a decision to close 10 underperforming warehouse locations, which cost 1,500 jobs.

But during Wal-Mart Stores' most recent quarter, revenue at the Sam's Club division slipped nearly 1 percent to $11.55 billion while U.S. Walmart stores posted a 1.2 percent sales increase to $61.81 billion.

"Sam's has been the relative laggard, and it has lagged relative to its direct competitors, Costco and the smaller BJ's (Wholesale Club)," said Craig Johnson, president of retail consultancy Customer Growth Partners.

"I would argue that from an economic standpoint it's somewhat nominal," said David Strasser, a retail analyst with Janney Montgomery Scott. "It looks a lot worse than it really is from a layoff standpoint. My read is the majority of employees are going to be picked up by Shopper Events."

Strasser said he did not expect the move to materially affect Wal-Mart Stores' fourth-quarter earnings results. Wal-Mart reports results for the quarter and full year in February.

"It really should be neutral to the economy," Johnson agreed. He said Wal-Mart remains the largest private employer in the world and in the U.S. "None of that changes."

The number of jobs created via Shopper Events may not be one-to-one, he said, "but should be fairly close. Net net I don't think it makes a huge difference on the economy."

The move to outsource its food sampling efforts is a way for the company to tout its fresh food offerings in a cost-effective manner, Johnson said.

Employees were told the news at mandatory meetings on Sunday morning.

"In the club channel, demo sampling events are a very important part of the experience," said Sam's Club CEO Brian Cornell in a phone interview with The Associated Press. "Shopper Events specializes in this area and they can take our sampling program to the next level."

Sam's Club has underperformed the Walmart chain in the U.S. and abroad. Cornell has been working to improve results since taking the helm in early 2009, introducing new store formats, price cuts and offering more variety and more brands of items from take-home meals to baked goods.

As consumers eat out less in the shaky economy, Sam's Club has tried to steal customers from grocery chains and rival warehouse stores like Costco Wholesale Corp. by offering more everyday goods like food and health and beauty items and paring its assortment of general merchandise like furniture and clothes.

Cornell said Sam's Club decided to eliminate its membership recruiting unit because "we have found that we can more effectively drive membership through targeted member acquisition events and by increasing our partner membership programs."

"I feel betrayed," said Sally Grueling, 56, who had worked at Sam's Club for nine years, most recently in Hilliard, Ohio as a new business membership rep.

The cuts represent about 10 percent of the warehouse club operator's 110,000 staffers across its 600 stores. That includes 10,000 workers, mostly part-timers, who offer food samples and showcase products to customers. The company also eliminated 1,200 workers who recruit new members.

Shopper Events, based in Rogers, Ark., currently works with Wal-Mart's namesake stores on in-store demonstrations. Sam's Club is looking to the company to improve sampling in areas such as electronics, personal wellness products and food items to entice shoppers to spend more.

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Indian airports were on high alert Friday after intelligence services received information that al-Qaida-linked militants were plotting to hijack a plane.

The terror alert came just days after U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned that a syndicate of terror groups affiliated with al-Qaida was trying to foment a new war between India and Pakistan.

The nuclear-armed neighbors have fought three wars, and efforts to resolve their long-running dispute over the Kashmir region were frozen after the Pakistan-based militants attacked Mumbai in 2008.

Gates praised India for its restraint after the Mumbai attack, but expressed concern that the government would have a hard time reacting so cautiously if it were hit again.

Such an attack would be the first major terror strike against India since 10 militants rampaged through the city of Mumbai for three days in November 2008, killing 166 people.

U.K. Bansal, a top home ministry official, said security was tightened at all airports and passengers were being subjected to more intense security screenings. The India Express reported that sky marshals would also be deployed on flights around the region.

Indian media said the hijack threat was uncovered during the interrogation of Amjad Khwaja, a militant leader belonging to Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami, an extremist group involved in numerous terror attacks in India.

Khwaja was arrested in the southern Indian city of Chennai last week and was being questioned by Indian police.

Aviation spokeswoman Moushumi Chakravarty said that the airports were placed on alert Thursday after the government received warnings from the intelligence agencies.

A report in The Indian Express newspaper, which Chakravarty confirmed, said intelligence officials had uncovered a plot by militants linked to al-Qaida and the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba group to hijack an Air India or Indian Airlines flight destined for a neighboring South Asian country.

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Toshiba’s 2010 isn’t looking too exciting. The NB305 should do well, based on the success of the NB205 and the X505 is looking interesting as well, though Toshiba hasn’t been able to do much in the high-power/gaming category. Toshiba stuck with the same types of designs you would expect from them, with the only major departure being the E205. This model will be sold at Best Buy stores and got a sleek design and slot-loading optical drive that is clearly designed to do two things: turn heads at big box stores and win over consumers that are considering the MacBook.

Overall, Toshiba has a number of affordable options that will make sense for a huge number of casual PC buyers but that seems to be as far as their ambition took them.

Enterprise communications vendor Aastra has introduced a new SMB-scale IP PBX hardware platform, while Toshiba's Telecommunications Division has announced a software package that supports its Strata CIX IP unified communications systems.

Aastra's new box is called the MX-One Compact and is built on the company's established MX-One IP telephony platform. The MX-One enables small and midsize businesses to provide integrated mobile and fixed telephone service, by which employees using mobile phones can access the same features their desk phones provide. It also enables mobile employees to be reached at the same number as their desk phone and lets them access all their messages -- voicemail, e-mail, and fax -- from one inbox.

Meanwhile, Toshiba has announced Strata Call Manager, which provides a graphical front end to the company's Strata CIX IP telephone systems. The interface is based on the Microsoft Fluent interface familiar from the Office 2007 suite and provides a Ribbon that holds all the common features and functions in multiple tabs, which in turn contain programmable buttons.

The tabs and buttons let users manage their phone system from their PCs rather than from their phones, for example by dragging and dropping incoming calls right into voicemail or onto another extension. It will also dial the phone from within a contact manager such as Outlook. Strata Call Manager integrates with CRM programs such as Act!, Tigerpaw, and Salesforce.com to provide "screen pops" to call recipients with information about the caller.

According to Shahin Hatamian, vice president of product management for Toshiba America Information Systems, "Toshiba’s New Strata Call Manager gives enterprise and SMB users a highly effective unified communications solution that delivers the capabilities they want in a friendly graphical user interface."

"What we have done is concentrate the features and benefits of the comprehensive and well-established MX-ONE call control manager to address the specific requirements of SMBs. Now, small and medium businesses can receive the benefits of a full-featured and scalable enterprise grade solution for deployments up to 300 extensions in a cost effective way," said Aastra senior vice president Tim Whittington, Sr.

“As we continue to focus on small to mid-size business, education, and state and local government, we are making these new form factors available to businesses to solve additional computing needs in these key vertical markets,” said Carl Pinto, vice president of product development, Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc., Digital Products Division. “In addition, products like the Tecra A11 reflect customer feedback. Our customers are looking for slimmer and lighter designs for portability, textured finishes for durability, and the latest technologies for full-featured performance.”

Performance and Style: Tecra A11Continuing to build on the high quality Tecra Series, Toshiba changed the blueprint to create a more contemporary look and feel. Thinner and lighter than its predecessor, the Tecra A11 adds a new smart design with an integrated 10-key numeric keypad highlighted by a unique texture finish in Charcoal Black that offers a better grip and helps reduce fingerprints. Featuring various configurations with the new 2010 Intel Core processors[i], a bright LED backlit 15.6-inch diagonal high definition widescreen display, and a wealth of upgrade options such as the NVIDIA GeForce 512MB graphics card[ii], the Tecra A11 delivers all the business tools needed to excel. The Tecra A11 comes with a three-year standard limited warranty[iii] and Toshiba’s exclusive EasyGuard™, which protects against bumps and spills. The Tecra A11 starts at an affordable $879 MSRP[iv].

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