San Francisco  - Research in Motion, the smartphone maker whose BlackBerry devices are the main US competitor to Apple's iPhone, reported record third quarter sales Thursday, and a profit rise of over 7 per cent to 396 million dollars.

The Canadian company also said it was enjoying its strongest-ever start to the holiday season as customers clamoured for its newly released BlackBerry Storm, the company's first touch screen device.

San Francisco  - Business software giant Oracle saw its profit slip slightly in the second quarter amid a tightening economy and a stronger dollar.

The Silicon Valley company said late Thursday that it earned 1.27 billion dollars, or 25 cents a share, down from 1.3 billion dollars, also at 25 cents a share, in the same period a year ago. Revenue rose 6 per cent to 5.6 billion dollars.

Oracle said that excluding the impact of the stronger dollar, it would have earned an extra 4 cents a share.

San Francisco  - Global mobile phone sales are set to slide for the first time since 2001 as a result of the global economic crisis, market research firm IDC Corp forecast Thursday.

The report predicted that total mobile phone sales will fall 1.9 per cent in 2009 after several years of double-digit annual growth fuelled largely by demand in now spluttering emerging markets. According to IDC, the expected growth in 2008 is 7.8 per cent.

The company said it did not expect the downturn to continue past 2009, with the market in 2010 showing signs of revival as the economic recovery takes effect.

San Francisco  - In the ten years since the internet became an integral part of mainstream life, it has revolutionized the way millions of people work, shop, chat and learn.

But it was not until 2008 that the net revolutionized the political system and allowed a promising black politician to rise from an obscure state senator to president elect in just four short years.

San Francisco  - If romance is always risky, and even the best-planned wedding is guaranteed to fray a couple's nerves, imagine the roller-coaster emotions that gay California couples must have been feeling this year.

"It's been the strangest ride," says Mimi Peled, who married her longtime partner, Dana, in an eclectic ceremony this June in a magnificent grove of redwood trees in central California.

The wedding was attended by hundreds of friends and the lesbian couple's 3-year-old son, Boaz, Peled told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

San Francisco  - California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger warned Thursday of a "financial Armageddon" in the most populous US state and the world's eighth largest economy.

The warning came as lawmakers continue to stonewall his attempts to make up for plummeting revenues by cutting services and raising taxes. The state's budget director Michael Genest warned that California now faces a deficit of 42 billion dollars over the next two fiscal years. That's up from a prior 28-billion-dollar deficit projection as revenues continue to plummet.