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Sony’s (6758.T) joint venture with cell phone maker Ericsson (ERICb.ST) must do better, Sony’s chief executive was quoted as saying by a German newspaper on Wednesday.

Asked whether Sony is planning to end its Sony Ericsson joint venture, Howard Stringer told Die Welt: “It’s certainly been a difficult year but buying out a partner is never an easy thing.”

Sony lowered its group net profit forecast for the year to March by 17 percent, citing a slump at Sony Ericsson and weakening prospects for its electronics division amid tough price competition.

“We have to work together again as we did two years ago. Or the joint venture will have to find its own solution,” Stringer said.

He added that it was hard for a company to be as nimble as possible when it works in a joint venture.

“You’re always engaged in discussion and negotiation. We and Ericsson are always discussing ways of making Sony Ericsson as successful as it possibly can be,” he said.

Adobe Systems has announced major updates to its Photoshop Elements suite of video- and photo-editing software, including online sharing and mobile-phone options. In beta now, the software is expected to be on retail shelves in early October.

Photoshop Premiere Elements 7 adds significant features to video editing, while Photoshop Elements 7 incorporates major enhancements to the photo-editing program. Mobile features cover only a limited number of phones.

Many Enhancements

Have too many grumpy-looking locals in the background of your shot of the Eiffel Tower? Elements 7 promises you can “scrub” unwanted elements from pictures with its new Scene Cleaner feature. Quick Fix tools whiten teeth, enhance colors, and soften details, among other things. A powerful new Smart Brush allows users to assign repetitive tasks to the brush tool, then use it on multiple sections of a photo, like removing wrinkles.

The Premiere video suite gained a few IQ points with a new analysis mode that scans video files for picture quality, number of faces and sound levels, and applies Smart Tags as placeholders for what the software believes are the best clips. If you agree, you can just click a button to assemble a finished movie.

InstantMovie is a quick way to assemble a themed video. Dragging and dropping clips into a theme, such as Birthday, will add appropriate music, transitions and graphics. Green-screen technology has a Videomerge feature to superimpose you and the family going for a stroll on the moon, for example. Version 7 now outputs to DVD, Blu-ray and the AVCHD high-definition tapeless file format, and it supports instant uploads to phones and YouTube accounts.

Video and Photos to Go

To compete with online sites such as Flickr, Adobe announced an enhanced online service for Photoshop Elements customers called Photoshop.com. A basic subscription with 5GB of storage is available free for storing and sharing photos and videos. The plus package ups the ante to 20GB for $49.95. Both provide online backups of stored files. Plus members also receive additions to the software, such as new themes, tutorials, movie trailers, and special effects.

With Elements 7 cell-phone users can upload pictures directly to Photoshop.com from their phones. The application runs in the background, and Adobe promises it uploads photos while you talk, instant message, or use other phone options. The Palm Treo, Samsung Blackjacks, and Motorola Qs are supported now. The company Web site promises support for the Apple iPhone, BlackBerry Pearl, Motorola Razr, Nokia 5310, and Nokia 6301 in September.

According to an Adobe spokesperson, the Photoshop.com application now includes the online offering Expressions. Online content can be managed directly from within Elements 7 applications.

Photoshop Elements 7 and Photoshop Premiere Elements 7 will be available for $99 each. A bundle of the two will cost $149. Anxious customers can preorder at Adobe’s Web site or wait for it to show up at retailers.

Safety warnings slowed the use of antipsychotic drugs in seniors with dementia. But the overall use of the drugs in the elderly increased, a finding which suggests that warnings may not be sufficient to protect patients, Canadian researchers say.

Between late 2002 and June 2005, Health Canada issued three warnings that three new atypical antipsychotic drugs increased the risk of stroke and death in elderly patients with dementia.

The researchers analyzed prescription drug data in the province of Ontario and found that antipsychotic drug use among the elderly increased 20 percent from the month prior to the first warning in September 2002 to February 2007. About 70 percent of the seniors receiving antipsychotic drugs lived in nursing homes, and about 40 percent of them were 85 or older.

“This finding highlights the limited impact of warnings and suggests that more effective approaches are needed to protect vulnerable populations from potentially hazardous medications,” wrote Dr. Geoffrey Anderson, of the University of Toronto, and colleagues.

The study was published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

Some health care warnings don’t have much effect, because the warnings don’t provide doctors with information about the safety and effectiveness of alternative treatments, Dr. Laurence Katz, of the University of Manitoba, wrote in an accompanying comment article.

Let’s say Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama sent every one of those “here’s my V.P.” text messages from his own cell phone. And let’s say his mean, nasty carrier charged him 10 cents for each one. According to Nielsen’s numbers, his bill would’ve been $290,000–that’s because the statistics firm says that the SMS campaign stunt reached 2.9 million people.

The company’s Nielsen Mobile division did the math, monitoring approximately 40,000 SMS short-code lines in the U.S. and coming up with the final tally of 2.9 million.

“The VP message was sent in the late hours of Friday night and is, by many accounts, the single largest mobile marketing event in the U.S. to date,” a release from Nielsen read. The initiative has been moderately criticized because it ultimately didn’t work: the press reported that Obama had chosen Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware as his vice presidential pick before anyone had had the chance to hit the “send” button on that fateful text message.

But Nielsen says that doesn’t matter.

“While much has been said of the timing and the scoop by news outlets, Obama’s V.P. text-message still ranks as one of the most important text messages even sent and one of the most successful brand engagements using mobile media,” Nielsen’s report read, adding that an estimated 116 million American use text messaging actively.

“The value of the message goes far beyond the 26 words and 2.9 million recipients. Here, Obama branded himself as cutting edge, inflated the already enormous press attention paid to his V.P. pick and further established a list of supporters’ most coveted form of contact: their cell phone numbers.”

Like Bigfoot in recent weeks, the Apple iPod is the subject of a wave of new reports and at least one photo. According to the postings, Apple’s iPod line will undergo a restructuring by the end of next month. But given the credibility of those making the reports, the chances for accuracy behind the iPod reports seem better than Bigfoot’s.

Kevin Rose, founder of the popular social-bookmarking site Digg, wrote on his blog Friday that there would to be a revamp of the entire iPod line, including both “small cosmetic changes” for the iPod touch and a “significant redesign” for the iPod nano.

‘Skinnier, Longer’ Nano

His blog showed a purported photo of a rounded nano. “The kind of smaller, fatter, chunkier nano is going away for something a lot skinnier and longer,” he said in a video posted on his blog. He also said it would have “a kind of widescreen across the nano” and that it’s going to be “rounded, kind of oval, so the actual glass on the outside will be curved.”

He also said the iPod touch will get some small updates, and the touch will be the first device to have the new 2.1 software, with the “iPhone to get updates very soon after.”

Rose also mentioned a new iTunes 8.0, which he quoted an unnamed source as calling “a big update with new features.” Rose added that, according to his sources, the new iTunes “really is a true point upgrade,” with a lot of new features and functionalities, not just bug fixes.

Managing Cannibalization

A big part of the refresh for the iPods, he said, are the relative price points. “They’re really trying to get away from the iPhone” at $199, he said, adding that we’ll see a lot of price cuts in iPods so that the “iPhone sales are not cannibalizing the iPod sales.”

Mike McGuire, an analyst with industry research firm Gartner, said that “if cannibalization is going to happen,” Apple is going to want to manage it. He noted that a refreshing of the iPod line, to make a more distinct “value proposition” distinction between iPods and iPhones, would make sense as the holiday season approaches.

Rose also talked about Mac OS 10.5.6, which is rumored to have support for the Blu-ray high-definition DVD format. Rose is known for making various bold predictions, some of which hit the mark, and his credibility is derived from the depth of his industry contacts. For the iPod, iTunes and Mac rumors, however, he cites no sources.

But Rose’s blog is the not the only source for new iPod rumors. According to several tech sites during the weekend, Chinese manufacturers are reporting case orders that match the specs Rose described. In particular, the Chinese accessory maker Beelan is said to have such a case ready. The sites also reported that Global Positioning System functionality may be part of the new nano.

Use of cholesterol-lowering statin drugs, especially long-term use, appears to raise the risk of prostate cancer among obese men, according to findings of a new study. “Given the epidemic of obesity in the U.S. and the frequent use of statins, the positive association we observed raises substantial concern as to the safety of these widely prescribed agents,” Dr. Janet L. Stanford of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle and colleagues wrote in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

In a population-based, case-control study, the researchers matched 1,001 men with prostate cancer diagnosed between 2002 and 2005 with 942 age-matched cancer-free controls from King County, Washington.

No overall association was observed between the risk of prostate cancer and the current or past use of statin treatment. Duration of statin use was also not associated with prostate cancer risk.

“We also found no evidence that use of a statin was associated with risk of developing more aggressive subtypes of prostate caner,” Stanford said in an interview with Reuters Health. “Overall we found no support for the current hypothesis that statin use may reduce risk of prostate cancer.”

However, the results do suggest a significant increase in the risk of developing prostate cancer associated with current statin use and with longer durations of use among obese men (defined as a body mass index of 30 greater).

“Among obese men,” Stanford told Reuters Health, “current use of a statin was associated with a 50 percent increase in risk of prostate cancer; and use for 5 or more years was associated with an 80 percent increase in risk of the disease; both of these risk estimates were statistically significant.”

Israel freed nearly 200 jailed Palestinians on Monday — including a militant mastermind from the 1970s — in a goodwill gesture just hours before U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice began her latest peace mission to the region.

The prisoners received a hero’s welcome upon their return to the West Bank, where thousands of people joined celebrations at the Ramallah headquarters of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and elsewhere throughout the West Bank.

“We will not rest until the prisoners are freed and the jails are empty,” Abbas told the cheering crowd.

The prisoners arrived in Ramallah after being released at an Israeli military checkpoint near Jerusalem. The prisoners, some waving black-and-white checkered keffiyeh headdresses as they stepped off Israeli buses, kissed the ground before boarding Palestinian vehicles.

Among the 198 Palestinians freed was Said al-Atba, who served 31 years of a life sentence for masterminding a 1977 market bombing that killed one woman and wounded dozens others in Petah Tikva, near Tel Aviv.

Al-Atba, 57, was the longest serving Palestinian inmate in Israel and is widely seen by Palestinians as a symbol of all the prisoners.

“I feel like I’ve been born again,” al-Atba told The Associated Press, but noted that thousands of prisoners remain behind. “We salute them and we must do all that we can to liberate them.”

His brother, Hisham, came from Saudi Arabia, where he works, to greet him, saying he felt “great joy” and “we had lost hope that my brother would be released.” Al-Atba’s sister, Raida, said she prepared her brother’s favorite food, stuffed vine leaves and zucchini.

Israel said the release was a gesture meant to bolster Abbas and his Western-leaning administration and give a boost to the slow-moving peace talks with the moderate Palestinian leader.

“It’s not easy for Israel to release prisoners. Some of the individuals being released today are guilty of direct involvement in the murder of innocent civilians,” Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said. “We believe this action can support the negotiation process and create goodwill.”

The fate of the roughly 9,000 prisoners in Israeli jails is emotional for Palestinians, many who know somebody behind bars or who have served themselves. Abbas, who is struggling to show his people the fruits of the peace talks, has repeatedly urged Israel to carry out a large-scale release.

Upon her arrival in Tel Aviv, Rice praised the Israeli gesture. “This is something that matters a lot to the Palestinians, it matters a lot to the Palestinian people and it is obviously a sign of goodwill,” she said, calling on both sides to carry out more confidence-building measures.

Rice, making her seventh trip to the region since peace talks were relaunched last year, has been trying to broker a peace agreement by the end of the year.

Speaking to reporters while flying to Tel Aviv, she acknowledged it was unlikely the sides would meet their year-end target, but said all sides remain committed to that goal. The talks have been complicated by Israeli political turmoil and Palestinian infighting.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who is battling a corruption investigation, has said he will step down after his party chooses a new leader next month. It remains unclear who his successor will be, and whether the government will be able to stay in power.

On the Palestinian side, the Hamas militant group seized control of the Gaza Strip from Abbas’ forces last year. Israel has said it will not carry out any peace deal until Abbas regains control over Gaza. Both Israel and the U.S. have labeled Hamas a terrorist group.

Hamas is demanding Israel free of hundreds of prisoners in exchange for an Israeli soldier captured by Palestinian militants in a cross-border raid two years ago.

Kobe Bryant provided a vital late spark as the United States reclaimed Olympic basketball supremacy Sunday, defeating world champion Spain 118-107 to bring the Americans their 13th gold medal.

Dwyane Wade scored 27 points to lead the Americans while Bryant added 20, LeBron James contributed 14 and Carmelo Anthony scored 13 for the US squad of National Basketball Association stars who found redemption for a 2004 flop.

Wade, James and Anthony were all frustrated reserve members of the US team that settled for bronze at the 2004 Olympics, sparking the golden quest of this US “Redeem Team” to reclaim global supremacy for basketball’s birthplace.

“We were at America’s lowest point in ‘04,” Anthony said. “We did a hell of a job putting America back where it belongs, on top of the world.”

A day after his 30th birthday, Bryant smiled and said, ‘Oh my God,’ as he watched the Stars and Stripes rise while the US anthem played, having already bitten his medal and found the taste of gold sweeter than his three NBA titles.

“It is more important and more special than any championship that any of us will ever win,” Bryant said.

It was a game the NBA superstar multi-millionaires had waited for years to play and they were not about to lose.

“We put our time and hearts into this. To come through and finally win the gold medal not just for ourselves but for America, it means a lot,” James said. “It means everything to me. It’s so rewarding to see your hard work pay off.”

But the Spaniards gave the US stars their toughest Olympic fight, staying within two points with eight minutes to play.

Rudy Fernandez sank a three-pointer with 8:13 remaining to pull the Spanish within 91-89, the closest they had been since the first eight minutes and that any team in the Olympics had been to the Americans so late in a game.

“They were unbelievable,” James said. “They countered our game plan by making some incredible plays. Every possession counted. If it wasn’t for our determination we wouldn’t have pulled it through.”

Bryant entered after a US timeout to regroup and sparked a 12-3 run, scoring five points and making two assists. Pau Gasol, Bryant’s NBA teammate, answered with four points to pull Spain within 104-99.

But Bryant replied with a pivotal four-point play - sinking a three-pointer, being fouled and adding a free throw.

“Dwyane made a couple big plays and we all know Kobe likes the ball down the stretch,” Gasol said. “We played well. We almost had it. We fought to the end. We had a chance.”

Spain closed within 108-104 but Wade hit a three-pointer and added lay-in off a pass from Bryant with 71 seconds remaining to seal Spain’s fate.

“That probably goes down as one of the greatest games in Olympic history,” James said. “The intensity was unbelievable. It was crazy for us.”

In the final seconds, US players began hugging each other with joy. Wade, James and Anthony sought each other out and stood in awe of their achievement.

“The moment is special,” Wade said. “All three of us took time out and took the moment in. Being part of the ‘04 Olympic team and not getting to show our talent, we really wanted to win this.”

Americans had lost only twice in Olympic history until 2004, when they dropped round robin games to Puerto Rico and Lithuania and fell to eventual champion Argentina in the Athens semi-finals, settling for bronze medals.

A shock loss to Greece in the 2006 world championship semi-finals left the Americans with bronze again, but the US team has not lost since, avenging the losses to Greece and Argentina with Olympic triumphs.

“Everybody talks about NBA players being selfish and arrogant,” Bryant said. “What you saw out there was a team coming together and playing as a team.”

The US team improved to 10-0 against Spain in the Olympics, including a victory in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics gold medal game. The US team routed Spain 119-82 last week in preliminary round play but this was far different.

Fernandez scored 22 to lead Spain while Gasol added 21.

“It was a wonderful game but unfortunately we lost,” Gasol said. “We kept ourselves with a chance the whole game, which says a lot about this team. We played a tough game. We never backed down. We should be proud.”

Mozilla this week is touting technology to boost performance of its JavaScript engine and Web applications.

Called TraceMonkey, the technology adds native code compilation to the engine, which itself is called SpiderMonkey, said Mike Shaver, Mozilla vice president of engineering, in a blog post on Friday. The software builds on code and ideas shared with the Tamarin Tracing project, Shaver said.

TraceMonkey was placed in the Firefox 3.1 development tree this week. It is slated to be featured in Firefox 3.1, which is due to be available the end of this year.

“I’m extremely pleased to announce the launch of TraceMonkey, an evolution of Firefox’s SpiderMonkey JavaScript engine for Firefox 3.1 that uses a new kind of Just-In-Time (JIT) compiler to boost JavaScript performance by an order of magnitude or more,” said Brendan Eich, Mozilla CTO and the founder of JavaScript, in a blog post.

“TraceMonkey advances us toward the Mozilla 2 future where even more Firefox code is written in JavaScript. Firefox gets faster and safer as this process unfolds,” Eich said.

The project still is early in development, though.

“The goal of the TraceMonkey project ??? which is still in its early stages ??? is to take JavaScript performance to another level, where instead of competing against other interpreters, we start to compete against native code,” said Shaver.

“We have bugs to fix, and an enormous number of optimizations still to choose from, but we???re charging full speed ahead on the work we need to do for this to be a part of Firefox 3.1,” Shaver said. “Depending on the benchmarks you choose, you might see massive speed-up, minor speed-up, or maybe even some slowdown ??? those latter cases are definitely bugs and reporting them through bugzilla will be a big help.”

TraceMonkey supports x86, x86-54, and ARM. “This means we are ready for mobile and desktop target platforms out of the box,” Eich said.

“As the performance keeps going up, people will write and transport code that was ‘too slow’ to run in the browser as JavaScript. This means the Web can accommodate workloads that right now require a proprietary plugin,” said Eich.

He added he expects other browsers to follow Mozilla’s lead and take JavaScript performance through current interpreter speed barriers, using JIT native code compilation.

Apple (AAPL.O) expects to sell 3.5 million iPhones in Russia in the next two years, according to market sources familiar with new deals being struck by Russian carriers.

Up to 600,000 iPhones have already flooded into Russia through unauthorized sales but now at least two carriers have signed an official framework agreement with the manufacturer and one more deal is expected next week, according to analysts and market sources.

A market source told Reuters on Thursday Mobile TeleSystems (MTS) (MBT.N), Russia’s largest carrier, had agreed with Apple to sell iPhones, probably starting in October

Eldar Murtazin, an analyst with Moscow-based Mobile Research Group, said he had information that MTS was targeting sales of 1 million iPhones within the next two years.

“Total sales by the Big Three carriers will amount to 3.5 million iPhones within the next two years,” Murtazin said, citing sources familiar with the negotiations.

MTS and its key rivals, Vimpelcom (VIP.N) and MegaFon, which are also talking to Apple, declined to comment.

Apple said it aimed to sell 10 million iPhones worldwide this year, though analysts said it would beat its target after its new model, which supports third generation (3G) high speed data, sold at a rate of 1 million units in the first weekend.

IPhones have not been sold officially in Russia but have become a status symbol in the Russian capital with handsets brought into the country in suitcases or by courier.

Murtazin said the start of authorized sales is unlikely to trigger a big wave of consumer demand.

RISKY FOR CARRIERS

Carriers are expected to buy the iPhone from Apple for $399 and sell for 24,000 roubles ($990), Murtazin said, well below the price at which the gadget is currently offered by unauthorized dealers, but above a minimum price at which the iPhone can be bought abroad.

Murtazin said operators had been unable to obtain commitments on volume from the independent retailers who sell phones on their behalf.

“This number (3.5 million) could turn out to be inflated… The operators could lose money because they took all risks upon themselves having failed to dictate terms to retail chains through which they will sell the iPhones,” said Murtazin.

Ivan Shuvalov, analyst at Alfa Bank, said the Russian operators could fail to meet the sales target and lose money if the price proves to be too high.

But if Russian consumers are willing to buy at that price, operators will win because smartphones stimulate subscribers to use more value-added services such as mobile Internet and data transmission, Shuvalov said.

Russian operators get the bulk of their revenues from voice tr