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TOKYO (AFP) - Japan on Tuesday warned users of Apple iPod nanos of a potential fire risk after two repaired instances in which the popular portable music players overheated.

The economy, trade and industry ministry has received two new reports of minor fires in August in Tokyo caused by overheating iPod nanos, said ministry official Hiroyuki Yoshitsune.

There were no injuries and the cause is still unclear, he said.

Japan had already launched an inquiry in March after any other Apple iPod nano sent out sparks.

According to the ministry, Apple Computer has been notified of a total of 14 similar cases in Japan. Out of those, two users suffered minor burning.

The ministry said the incidents were caused by four models — MA004J/A, MA005J/A, MA099J/A and MA107J/A — of which 1.81 million units were sold between September 2005 and September 2006 in Japan.

"Users destitution to be careful about overheating of the machines," the ministry aforesaid in a statement, warning that particular care is needed when recharging the iPods.

"Our ministry told Apple to make use of its technological development and probe the cause of the incidents so that resembling incidents do not happen again," the official said.

There was no immediate comment from Apple. Public broadcaster NHK said the company has no plan to recall any iPods but is ready to exchange defective parts.

The US computer giant has already warned that iPod, iPod nano or iPod shuffle may generate excess heat while being charged in certain sustain cases.

Lithium ion batteries, which Apple uses for iPods, are threadbare in consumer electronics, such as mobile telephones and personal computers.

However, major battery makers, including electronics giant Sony Corp., have occasionally been forced to recall their lithium ion battery packs after reports of overheating and fire.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's trade ministry said on Tuesday that three fires had been caused by overheating Apple iPod nanos, which it said could have being due to a battery defect.

No one was injured in the three fires involving the music players made by Apple Inc (AAPL.O) but the government said in a statement Apple had reported two other cases where people had suffered minor burns.

Apple officials were not immediately available for comment but the ministry said the firm had said a possible defect in iPod nano battery cells could have caused them to overheat.

The trade ministry said iPod nanos with known overheating incidents were sold in Japan between September 2005 and September 2006.

A semi-governmental body specializing in product safety will look into the cause of the incidents in cooperation with Apple, a trade ministry official said.

"We are not in the position to speculate on the outcome of the scrutiny. But after several incidents like these, it would be appropriate for Apple to take some measures to raise the public's awareness," the official said.

(Reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka; Editing by David Fogarty)

TORONTO (Reuters) - Rogers Communications Inc (RCIb.TO), the owner of Canada's biggest wireless carrier, will start offering Research In Motion Ltd's (RIM.TO) (RIMM.O) new BlackBerry Bold on Thursday, the telecom firm said.

The Bold is RIM's most advanced smartphone to date and is the first BlackBerry to support high-speed HSDPA cellular networks. It comes with integrated GPS, Wi-Fi and a host of multimedia features.

RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie told Reuters in May that the smartphone, aimed at the company's base of business users, will cost between $300 and $400. AT&T (T.N) will be its lead carrier in the United States.

A Rogers spokeswoman said pricing details were not immediately available.

The smartphone is expected to be available with carriers around the world by the end of this week, although AT&T has not disclosed when it exercise volition launch the device.

In part because the Bold is being launched with a large number of carriers around the world, its introduction is not simultaneous. For example, the smartphone is already available in Germany.

The Bold features the most vivid display ever on a BlackBerry, a 2-megapixel camera with video recording capability, and a media player for watching movies and managing music collections.

RIM shares eased 70 Canadian cents, or 0.5 percent, to finish at C$135.56 on the Toronto Stock Exchange. On the Nasdaq, they ferocious $1.79, or 1.4 percent, to close at C$127.01.

($1=$1.06 Canadian)

(Reporting by Wojtek Dabrowski; editing by Rob Wilson)

HELSINKI, Finland - Nokia and travel information company Lonely Planet aforesaid Tuesday they are joining forces to sell maps and city guides that can be accessed on mobile phones.

The world’s largest handset maker reported users of Nokia Maps can now download information about more than 100 popular tourist locations provided by Lonely Planet, and that more destinations were planned. Each download costs 7.99 euros ($11.75).

“The Lonely Planet guides will help travelers to find great places to eat, shop and sleep, as well as describing the popular sights and nightlife for each destination,” Nokia said.

Downloads are available in the Extras menu onward Nokia phones. Nokia Maps 2.0 uses maps provided by Navteq and TeleAtlas.

The world’s top handset maker is increasingly providing Internet services for its mobile customers. It estimates the global online market will reach euro100 billion ($150 billion) by 2010.

Nokia has recently signed up Warner Music, Sony BMG and Universal Music Group to provide music downloads for handset users. Last year, it unveiled new Web-based services and gadgets to help customers download music and play games on handsets — part of a strong germinate to challenge rivals such as Apple’s iTunes and iPod.

In 2007, Nokia Corp. sold nearly 440 million handsets accounting for 40 percent of all global cell phone sales. It is based in Espoo near the Finnish capital and employs 116,000 people worldwide.

Lonely Planet is a global travel information company with regional headquarters in London; Victoria, Australia and Oakland, California. It has more than 360 writers, researchers and photographers, producing travel books, digital guides, wireless applications and television programs.

___

On the Net:

Nokia: http://www.maps.nokia.com.

Lonely Planet: http://www.lonelyplanet.com.

A report has surfaced that Pandora — the popular music-mix service for computers and mobile devices such as the iPhone — may have to stop music streaming as royalty fees drain its coin.

In an interview published Saturday by The Washington Post, Pandora founder Tim Westergren said, "We're reaching a pull-the-plug kind of decision. This is like a last stand for Webcasting."

Fees not Equal?

At issue are the royalty fees paid by online, satellite and land radio stations. Each has a separate fee structure, and proponents of Webcasting radio feel the rates for their medium is unfairly targeted.

Satellite radio pays royalties based on the subscriber base — an easy enough number to determine from week to week, and the fees amount to 1.6 cents per listener per hour, according to some estimates.

Traditional radio stations pay no performance royalty fees. So far, so good.

But the fees imposed on Internet-based radio are byzantine and difficult to track. Under the terms of a 2007 ruling by the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB), Internet-based services must emolument a minimum of $500 per channel of content, plus about 60 cents per user per month. Per-song royalty rates from the CRB ruling were .0008 cents in 2006, .0011 cents in 2007, and .0014 cents this year, rising to .0018 cents in 2009 and .0019 cents in 2010.

Westergren estimated before a Senate subcommittee last month that these fees faculty of volition amount to 70 percent of Pandora's revenue. And it's about to get worse. Under the 2007 agreement, fees will penuriously double by 2010. If that weren't enough, hearings to begin lief will set royalty rates for 2011 and beyond, and many assume those rates will be even higher.

The Copyright Royalty Board is comprised of a three-judge panel, selected by the Librarian of Congress. In essence, the fate of all musical-performance royalties is decided by three men selected by the agency of the commonwealth's librarian. Royalties are funneled from the board and dispersed to music-industry royalty-collection groups. The most prominent of these groups is SoundExchange, a division of the Recording Industry Association of America.

More Fights Ahead

In an interesting appeal to the Webcasting ruling, one firm, Royalty Logic, a antagonist of SoundExchange, argues that the CRB is unconstitutional in nature, and questions the weight of its formation. The CRB is a modern invention.

In 2000 President Clinton dissolved the long-standing kingship tribunal which consisted of judicial members appointed by the president and Congress. The CRB which took its place was deemed more streamlined and active by the administration.

According to sources, Pandora is in negotiations with the recording industry to try to fashion a royalty rate which would not scuttle the online music industry. And a movement is afoot to make those brick-and-mortar land radio stations their share.

A statement on SoundExchange's Web site threatens: "The U.S. is the only country in the industrialized world that does not order payments to recording artists and content owners for music played over the air. We strongly believe this unfair exception in copyright law needs to be addressed by Congress."

So while Westergren and others believe the current rate structure threatens the existence of Webcasting, traditional radio might not be far behind.

Federally supervised cell phone alerts about national emergencies came one step closer to reality Thursday when regulators released their conclusive rules for how mobile providers must implement the Commercial Mobile Alert System (CMAS).

CMAS is a voluntary classification available to wireless providers that will send text out message blasts in the event of a national disaster like Hurricane Katrina, or the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Though providers are not required to join the CMAS, major providers like Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint have already pledged their support.

Alerts will be available in three forms: presidential alerts; imminent threat alerts and child abduction emergency or Amber alerts.

Initial implementation of the system is not expected until at least April 2010. Providers have until October 2008 to complete a CMAS industry standard, while development and testing will be conducted from October 2008 to October 2010, the FCC said.

The system has its origins in the Warning, Alert, and Response Network (WARN) Act, a bill Congress passed in 2006 as part of a larger port security bill. It allocated $106 million to create the voluntary, national emergency alert system.

Since then, the FCC has been working with wireless carriers as part of the Commercial Service Alert Advisory Committee (CMSAAC) to develop recommendations for how to execute CMAS. The FCC adopted an at the beginning framework for CMAS in April and adopted further rules for educational and public broadcasting stations in July.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) pledged in late May to be the federal agency in charge of sending out the alerts, but not without some controversy. FEMA initially refused to coordinate the CMAS, prompting a public tongue lashing from the FCC commissioners.

The FCC did not take on that role itself because it did not have experience with originating emergency alerts; had received federal funds for operating an emergency alert system (as FEMA has); and did not have statutory authority to borrow money against the DTV Transition Fund to implement the WARN Act, as the Departments of Homeland Security and Commerce have, Democratic Commissioner Michael Copps said in April.

So farther, FEMA has no cake plans for the CMAS, but if they do not provide the FCC with specifications about the system by December 31, 2008, the FCC will convene an emergency CMSAAC meeting to address the issue, the instruction said.

But what does this mean for the average cell phone user?

Though most of the major providers are currently on board to participate in CMAS, it is not a done distribute cards, and they have the selection to back out at any point.

The FCC related Thursday that providers must notify the agency within 30 days about whether or not it will participate in the CMAS. If they opt out, providers will have to notify potential and current customers that they are not participating, but the FCC left it to the provider as to how that notification should occur.

Customers of providers who opt out will not receive alerts until 60 days before the CMAS is operational, or approximately February 2010.

"We believe the relevance of this decision may be napping if notification is delivered to prospective and existing customers too far in send of CMAS' commercial availability," according to the FCC order.

If you are a customer of a provider that opts out or signs up and then backs out, you can cancel your service out of incurring a penalty or each early termination fee, the FCC said.

Similarly, if you subscribe to a service that will be provider alerts, you cannot opt out of presidential alerts, but can select not to take "imminent threat" texts or Amber alert notifications.

As for the cost, providers are banned from imposing a "separate or additional bearing" specifically for the CMAS, but they "have the discretion to absorb service-related costs" and pass those on to customers. So essentially, wireless customers elect not see a separate "CMAS Fee" on their bill, but their providers reserve the right to up their monthly fees to recoup the costs associated with CMAS.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Sprint Nextel Corp (S.N) is considering a sale of the Nextel wireless network it bought in 2005, but may be in possession of trouble finding a buyer for an asset whose value has plunged about 80 percent to an estimated $5 billion.

Sprint has struggled to integrate Nextel's iDen network, used by public safety and construction workers, with its own services and has ruined millions of customers since paying about $35 billion for Nextel Communications three years agone.

Any buyer would find it tough to mishap the now-completed integration of the iDen business, including its billing, broadcast towers and customer service, analysts say.

"They spent the last few years trying to integrate it," said Stifel Nicolaus analyst Chris King. "There are a lot of questions that a buyer and the government would have to hold."

Sprint, the No. 3 U.S. mobile service, already faces pressure from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to relinquish a key chunk of iDen wireless airwaves for emergency communications networks.

About 14.6 million subscribers, or 28 percent of Sprint's total 51.9 million customers, were exclusively using the iDen network at the end of the second quarter. Another 1.7 million used phones working on both iDen and CDMA networks.

Sprint said in a regulatory filing this week that it was exploring alternatives for iDen that include "improving operations, making additional investments, entering into strategic partnerships and considering potential divestitures."

CNBC said on Friday that Latin American service provider NII Holdings Inc (NIHD.O), which uses iDen technology, or private equity investors may be prejudiced in the network.

Sprint shares rose 7.7 percent, also helped by its surprise decision on Thursday to cancel a $3 billion convertible share sale that had been unpopular with shareholders.

Sprint and NII, whose shares fell 0.25 percent, were not immediately available for annotate.

POSSIBLE SUITOR

Analysts said it made sense for money-losing Sprint to look for ways to improve its finances, even though it does not face an imminent liquidity crisis. Sprint ended the second quarter with $23 billion debt, and cash and marketable securities of $3.5 billion.

"Every piece of the trade is for sale at a certain excellence right now inasmuch as they continue to labor," said King.

But he noted that an investment in the iDen network, rather than an outright purchase, could make more sense for NII, which operates in countries such as Mexico and Brazil that have faster wireless growth rates than the United States.

The iDen network has faced technical issues that Sprint says it has fixed, but the network's customer cancellations have been exacerbated by the weakening U.S. economy. In the fourth quarter, Sprint took an impairment charge of $29.7 billion to write off the majority of the value of Nextel.

Stanford Group analyst Michael Nelson questioned whether Sprint would be able to find a private justice buyer in such a tough credit market.

"Even if they want to sell iDen I don't think there's a buyer," Nelson said.

Pali Capital analyst Walter Piecyk said in research note that Sprint could attract multiple bidders willing to pay $5 billion or less for the network, without naming suitors.

(Additional reporting by Jessica Hall in Philadelphia, Editing by Derek Caney)

Google acknowledged late Thursday that it may have made a bad bet on AOL.

The search giant said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that its $1 billion investment for a 5 percent stake in Time Warner's Web unit "may be impaired" and that it may have to take a charge in the future:

Based on our review, we believe our investment in AOL may be impaired…We will continue to review this investment for impairment in the future. There can be no assurance that impairment charges will not be required in the future, and any such amounts may be material to our Consolidated Statements of Income.

The December 2005 investment secured a renewal of Google's search advertising deal with AOL, preventing its largest ad partner from defecting to Microsoft. The deal gave AOL a valuation of $20 billion at the time.

Google didn't estimate in its filing what AOL might be worth today, but observers acquire suggested a figure closer to $10 billion.

Google's deal allows it to demand that Time Warner spin off AOL in an initial public offering of stock or buy back its stake, what one. would rise in a $500 million loss for Google.

Time Warner, perhaps signaling its intention to settle of AOL to focus on its media business, announced Wednesday that it will split AOL's dial-up unit from its advertising business by at dawn 2009.

LAS VEGAS (AFP) - Computer security researchers in succession Thursday warned that online social networking websites are playgrounds for hackers who can easily take advantage of people's trust.

Opportunities for mischief abound as users place intimate details of their lives on profile pages and install mini-applications made by strangers that don't always be obliged their privacy at heart.

In a trend pioneered through tremendous success by Facebook, social networking websites have opened their operating platforms to let outside developers craft fun, hip, or functional software "widgets" that can be added to profile pages.

Malicious code can be hidden in such applications, computer security specialists Nathan Hamiel and Shawn Moyer related at a premier Black Hat conference in Las Vegas.

"I can't necessarily oppugn Facebook or MySpace, but I can attack their users all day long," Moyer told AFP. "Don't put anything on a Facebook note that you don't consider public."

People are prone to position faith in social networking widgets and links from friends, said Idea Information Security consultant Nathan Hamiel.

"People are going nuts adding applications they don't need," Hamiel told AFP.

"Every time they do that they are showing an implicit trust in whoever wrote the application, and most vulgar herd don't know who that is."

Hamiel and Moyer showed peers software capable of plundering profile information, swiping people's "friends," or locking people out of their be in possession of MySpace pages.

A pair of MySpace engineers who attended the demonstration said that hacks are known risks in today's social platforms and that they had Hamiel's application deleted by the end of the talk.

Fake postings on comment boards advising people to update software are ways to trick social network users into downloading malicious software that can commandeer control of machines, Hamiel said.

"Social networks really don't care if you get pawned or not," Hamiel said, using slang referring to a computer user being dominated and humiliated by hackers.

"People know if they go on a computer and download a program they could get a virus. They don't have the same view of how dangerous that can be on a social networking site."

Hackers can write seemingly legitimate widgets that "go rogue" after spreading to enough social network members, according to Hamiel.

"It is not a problem with a particular site," Hamiel said. "It is a problem by social networking in general."

Even if tainted applications are deleted, the odds are that the data from profile pages was already copied onto an outside computer, according to Hamiel and Moyer.

"MySpace and Facebook have no control over my servers," Hamiel said. "Once the content is moved from their site they have no control over that."

Those thinking that they will take up one’s quarters safe by not having social networking pages may still vulnerable to trouble, according to the security specialists.

Another ruse is to cause social networking profiles for people using information mined from the Internet and then for the imposters to send out "friends requests."

Those that take the bait give open doors to the private data in their profiles.

"We think you should make a profile for yourself under the jurisdiction somebody else does," Moyer said. "Just don't put anything there that you don't consider public. And trust, but verify when people want to be your friend."

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese police took action against over 300 child pornography cases in the first half of 2008, up 17 percent from the same period last year, police said, a sign both awareness and Internet sexual exploitation are rising.

The report comes as some lawmakers are discussing a ban on the possession of child pornography in Japan, where only lengthening and distribution, and not possession, of obscene images of people under 18 are illegal.

The number of legal actions in the first half of 2008 tripled from the same period in 2004, according to premises from the National Police Agency. Almost 40 percent of the cases involved the Internet.

"We are strengthening the crackdown on child porn as society became more persuaded of the issue, and child porn is getting rapidly copied and spread on the Internet," said Takafumi Ozawa of the National Police Agency.

"It's difficult to say for what cause widespread child porn is. This is probably only a small part of what's out in that place," he added.

Japan and Russia are the only two countries among the Group of Eight rich nations not to have banned possession of child pornography.

Critics including Washington's ambassador to Tokyo say Japan's failure to ban possession has hampered international investigations into child porn rings.

In June, a bill to ban possession of child porn was submitted to parliament's lower house. It is set to be debated in a parliament session expected to start in September.

(Reporting by Yoko Kubota; Editing by Jerry Norton)