Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were 25 points lower at 10034. The S&P 500 futures fell three points to 1182.8 and Nasdaq 100 futures lost 3.75 points to 1975.

Bernanke is due to give a speech on “Economic Challenges: Past, Present and Future” at a Dallas luncheon. Wall Street will keep an ear out for clues about the Fed’s position on interest rates and the economy amid a recent spate of upbeat economic data.

Great photography is now quite easy for the users of this handset because the phone camera automatically does the tough job of homing-in on the subject while all you need to do is click. Why turn into a statue every time you have to click a photo? The S-1200’s image stabilizer ensures that your photos come out blur-free even if your hand moves while clicking them.

Ream More Here

Google may announce the new social features in Gmail as soon as this week, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, quoting anonymous sources familiar with the plans.

Google has doubled down on its social Web strategy in recent months, with new hires and plans to devote more energy to understanding the social-media phenomenon. The company has tried to get momentum behind its ideas for several years, but hasn’t gained much traction to date.

Google is having a press conference Tuesday in at Google headquarters in Mountain View to show off the new Gmail features.

It would be an extension of Gmail’s instant-messenger style status messages, which are displayed along with presence information and currently aren’t archived for search or perusal

Gmail is one of Google’ most popular products, and this new social status update feature would be a “product innovation” within Gmail.

By using VoIP applications to sidestep the phone’s normal calling software, iPhone owners could avoid using up their monthly allocation of minutes from AT&T, potentially allowing them to choose cheaper plans.

“Fring users and our team alike are very excited that Apple has allowed independent Iphone VoIP applications over 3G networks, letting users make voice and video calls over whichever Internet access suits their needs at any given place and time,” said Avi Shechter, cofounder and CEO of Fring.

AT&T announced last October that it would allow VoIP-over-3G service. After that announcement, an Apple spokeswoman told Cnet that Cupertino was “very happy” with AT&T’s decision and that they would update its developer agreements to allow VoIP-over-3G support “as soon as possible.”

A company called iCall Inc. said its app was the first to be approved by Apple. iPhone users can download the app and pay $10 for unlimited phone calls. Or they can choose iCall’s free option, in which calls are limited to five minutes and users must listen to advertisements at the beginning of the call.

An article in Barron’s said Chevron Corp.’s (NYSE:CVX, $79.16, +$2.17, 2.82%) shares could rally about 20%, to $95, in the next year, as oil prices climb and new exploration projects come onstream. The company’s profits are also expected to rise more than 50% in 2010. The company benefits by being one of the “oiliest” of the world’s major energy producers, as crude oil prices, up 75% in 2009, to nearly $80 a barrel, are expected to keep climbing in 2010. Chevron also has one of the industry’s better exploration-growth profiles.

NIVS IntelliMedia Technology Group Inc. (AMEX:NIV, $2.73, +$0.15, 5.81%) reached a strategic-partnership agreement with state-owned China Potevio to collaborate on the development of a third-generation mobile phone that will use China’s indigenous 3G technology.

Intevac Inc. (NASDAQ:IVAC, $13.98, +$2.51, 21.88%) received an order for eight 200 lean magnetic disk sputtering systems. The company, which makes equipment used to manufacture products such as hard drives, said the hard-drive industry is seeing “very high rates of media capacity utilization, requiring incremental new capacity to support the growth expected this year.”

Barclays Capital sharply boosted its earnings estimates on mining equipment companies Bucyrus International Inc. (NASDAQ:BUCY, $62.17, +$5.80, 10.29%) and Joy Global Inc. (NASDAQ:JOYG, $55.73, +$4.16, 8.07%) saying it is becoming “increasingly confident” in a faster earnings recovery in this year and the next. The analysts said there is still a lack of understanding of Bucyrus’ ability to post expanding margins and results and that both companies could benefit from increasing capital expenditures from miners as commodity prices increase and global demand recovers.

China-based Kandi Technologies Corp. (NASDAQ:KNDI, $5.74, +$1.34, 30.45%) has allied itself with major energy, information-technology and battery companies as it pushes the evolution of electronic-vehicle technology in the country. The company agreed to an alliance with a joint venture of China National Offshore Oil Corp. and China Potevio Co. as well as Tianneng Power International Ltd., “aimed at speeding up the commercialization and achieving mass adoption” of pure electronic vehicles in China.

Small-cap company Flotek Industries Inc. (NYSE:FTK, $1.28, -$0.06, -4.48%), a supplier of drilling and production-related products and services to the energy and mining industries, said it expects sales to be about flat sequentially in the fourth quarter and flat to up modestly in the first quarter. Flotek also said the New York Stock Exchange notified the company that it has 18 months to achieve compliance with the NYSE’s continued listing standards for total market capitalization and shareholders’ equity.

Citigroup raised its rating on UnitedHealth Group Inc. (NYSE:UNH, $31.50, +$1.02, 3.35%) to buy from hold, saying it expects healthcare reform to conclude by the first quarter with money rotating back into managed care stocks, pushing up valuations. The firm said it expects the company to benefit most from sector rotation based on its valuation, diversified business model and the fact it trades a higher number of shares per day. Also, the firm expects UnitedHealth may consider paying a higher dividend at some point in the future.

The Nexus is expected to be launched at an invitation-only Android-themed special event on January 5 2010. According to the leaked details from Gizmodo, the Nexus One will retail for $530 unlocked, which could be used with any GSM carrier. The customers wanting to buy the handset subsidized will have to pay $180 and have to sign up for a 24 months contract.

As by now there is only one plan available for these customers and that is the T-Mobile Even More Individual 500 Plan, which gives them 500 minutes, free weekend and in-network calls and unlimited SMS, MMS and data. This totals cost over two years to $2,100.

This first Google Phone as reported via Gizmodo is dock-aware and can optimize its display for navigation and hands-free use, but you will need to engage $50 for car docking station and for a $40 you can Charge your phone while streaming music and backing up your data.

Google will allow users to buy five handsets per Google account. As the cell phone is unlocked Google will also be shipping this Nexus One to other countries.

There is another offer Google would bring with their Nexus One and i.e. if you don’t like their first subsidized phone you can cancel it before 120 days all you will have to pay is subsidy difference between what you paid and the unsubsidized price. Also Google gives you another option that you can authorize them to charge this directly to your credit card.

The battle between the giant cell phones manufacturers got heated up with Apple replying back to Nokia for the complaint they filled against Apple in October, with a lawsuit earlier this month saying Nokia infringes their 13 patents. Now Nokia has replied them with a harder attack with its new complaint saying that Apple is using their patented technologies to create key features in its products, including iPods and iPhones.

US International Trade Commission (ITC), on average takes lesser time compared with mainstream courts of justice to solve the cases filed with them. Nokia complains this time sues Apple for over a wide variety of its products violating Nokia’s patents. It includes seven patents related to “user interface, as well as camera, antenna and power management technologies”. According to this suite most of Apple’s product like iPods, iPhones and even macs comes under the patent infringement act.

Now the next awaited progress to be seen in this case is that “does Apple have another of its lawsuit weapon to fight against Nokia?” And how soon will ITC end up this high –profile patent battle and in whose favor?

Karsten Nohl jointly with a few other scientists are claiming that they have published material that would crack a 22-year-old code, the A5/1 algorithm. The secret code is used to protect the conversations of more than 4bn mobile phone users.

GSM Code:
The GSM code is designed to prevent phone calls from being intercepted by forcing mobile phones and base stations to rapidly change radio frequencies over a spectrum of 80 channels. It is devised by The GSM Association (GSMA) and they even look after the development of the algorithm standards.

Nohl Research Work:
The research would let anyone to listen in private phone conversations without the speaker’s knowledge.

Nohl describes that, using the codebook of $3,000 for radio equipment will make decrypting signal easy. Also Signals could be decrypted in “real time” with $30,000 worth of equipment

For this research, Nohl working with other members of the encryption community, used networks of computers to crunch through “every possible combination” of inputs and outputs for the encryption code.

Through this research Nohl wants to visualize GSM users about the inadequate and vulnerable coding algorithm. He also supported by saying that “We hope to create some additional pressure and demand from customers for better encryption”.

GSMA rebound:
Though the research aroused massive worries but GSM Association dismissed the worries by defending it with their statement “reports of an imminent GSM eavesdropping capability” were “common and such kind of compromising techniques has never made a practical attack”.

With this comes news from GSMA that they are on the way to upgrade A5/1 to a new more secured A5/3 standard. They have already outlined a proposal for this.

Now the question raised is that “will GSMA be able to bring its new standard before any wrong move is made through the German scientist work”?

As reported via Returns, Chief Executive Ronan Dunne told the Financial Times that O2’s UK customers went into the network trauma many a times due to heavy increase in traffic of bandwidth consuming smartphones like Apple’s iPhones.

O2′s exclusive contract to market the Apple handset in the UK expired in November.

He added that the company made an investment of $48 million in its network above the capital city that eased the problems by December and included the deployment of 200 extra mobile stations.

He also accepted that “Where we haven’t met our own high standards then there’s no question, we apologize to customers for that fact, but it would be wrong to say O2 has failed its customers en masse”.

Though O2 made the smart decision to handle the network difficulties but AT&T’s move to stop the iPhone sales to NYC through att.com on weekend has still uncleared reasons for how this step could resolve the issue.

After raising lots of speculation AT&T finally resumed online sales of the iPhone Monday to New Yorkers, after they were unable to buy Apple Inc.’s popular phone on AT&T’s Web site over the weekend.

AT&T has always been giving false hopes that they are working regularly to resolve the network issues but till yet nothing has been shown to support their statements. Now we have to see that what positive steps AT&T will take to make their customers happy for availing them with a congestion free service.

Earlier when the AT&T blocked the online sale through att.com they defended the move by several statements like “increased fraudulent activity in that area when ordering the iPhone” and city’s inefficient network capacity.

As reported via The Consumerist AT&T spokesman Fletcher Cook told them in support of their step that “We periodically modify our promotions and distribution channels.”

It seems that they are now very randomly modifying their distribution channels as the latest update tell that the service is restarted and New York customers can now order iPhones via AT&T’s Web site

The reasons behind AT&T’s toggling with their online iPhones order is yet not cleared but yes we can all wait to see what AT&T has to say in support for resuming online iPhone sale.