AFP - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin accused Washington on Thursday of manufacturing the Georgia conflict as tensions mounted with the United States threatening to scrap a nuclear deal in protest at Moscow's actions.

Reuters - Democrats prepared a grand spectacle on Thursday to celebrate the historic presidential nomination of Barack Obama, who will take the party reins with a speech that spells out his vision for change in America.

Google unveiled on Thursday its plans for a store where mobile users can find Android applications, a concept similar to the iPhone's App Store.

The first handsets running Android, expected to appear later this year, will include a beta version of the Android Market, Google's Eric Chu wrote in a blog post. Initially, users will at least be able to find free applications there. After that, Google expects to update the Market to allow users to buy and download paid content.

[ Special report: Google Android: Invader from beyond ]

The Market will feature a feedback and rating system similar to that used in YouTube, Chu said.

Developers can add their applications to the market by registering as a merchant, uploading the content, and publishing it. Google expects to add features for developers after the initial launch, including a dashboard where developers can find analytics information about their content. Developers will also be able to upload different versions of their applications that might work better on different devices.

Android followers have wondered how Google might support application distribution. Its Android Market is a similar concept to Apple's App Store, but differs in some ways. For instance, because all iPhones run on the same software, developers don't have to create different versions for different phones. Android is open, and handset makers may decide to include different hardware capabilities or opt not to support all Android features, which has an effect on the way applications work.

Historically, the mobile market has struggled with how to best sell and distribute mobile applications. Prior to the iPhone, the best way for an application to become widely used was for a developer to convince an operator to pre-load it onto a phone, a challenging accomplishment. Mobile phone users only very seldom download applications to their phones.

In a case that could tie the hands of companies trying to protect their customers from internet threats, a website owner with past ties to a notorious piece of spyware has filed a lawsuit claiming it is being unfairly maligned by warnings from McAfee that the site poses a risk to its customers.…

Bell Labs' decision to abandon basic physics research marks the end of a brilliant chapter for the iconic institution. Many of the Labs' most famous discoveries, such as the transistor and the laser, originated in fundamental physics and have gone on to transform computing and technology.

They also brought Bell Labs international glory, including six Nobel Prizes in Physics, starting in 1937 when researcher Clinton Davisson shared the Nobel for demonstrating the wave nature of matter.

The lab will now focus on areas such as networking, high-speed electronics, wireless, nanotechnology and software -- fields that are likely to offer a more immediate payback for parent company Alcatel-Lucent.

As we say goodbye to one of the last bastions of basic research within the corporate world, we celebrate Bell Labs' greatest achievements in physics.

Left: Bell Labs' Holmden, New Jersey-based facility was home to basic physics research. Designed by architect Eero Saarinen and built in 1962, the landmark building once housed 6,000 employees. It now stands empty and neglected. Alcatel-Lucent has sold the building to a developer who plans to transform the complex into a mixed-use residential, office and retail space.

Bell Labs' U.S. headquarters in Murray Hill, New Jersey, has been the site of many innovations and scientific breakthroughs, and that location continues to remain strong, says Alcatel-Lucent. But the company's Holmdel, New Jersey, campus, the site of basic physics research, has been sold. Holmdel's technological contributions include pioneering work on Telstar, the first communications satellite, and Steven Chu's Nobel Prize-winning research into methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light.

In 1927 Clinton Davisson (shown) and Lester Germer, two researchers at Bell Labs, demonstrated the wave nature of matter by firing slow-moving electrons at a crystalline nickel target. The experiment completed the proof of the hypothesis that all matter and energy has both wave-like and particle-like properties. The findings from Davisson's experiment became part of the foundation for much of solid-state electronics. Ten years later, Davisson shared the Nobel Prize for his research in electronic interference.

The transistor was developed in 1947 as a replacement for bulky vacuum tubes and mechanical relays. The invention revolutionized the world of electronics and became the basic building block upon which all modern computer technology rests. In 1956, Bell Labs scientists William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for the transistor.

Shockley also founded Shockley Semiconductor in Mountain View, California -- one of the first high-tech companies in what would later become known as Silicon Valley.

Bell Labs scientist Philip Anderson shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1977 for developing an improved understanding of the electronic structure of glass and magnetic materials. His work opened the doors for the development of electronic switching and memory devices in computers. In 2006, based on a study carried out by José Soler, a statistical physicist at the University of Madrid, Anderson was called the most creative physicist in the world. Anderson retired from Bell Labs in 1984 is now a professor at Princeton University.

According to the Big Bang theory, the early universe was very hot; as it expanded, the gas within it cooled. The theory predicts that the universe should be filled with radiation -- the remnants of that primordial heat. But it took Bell Labs researchers to prove it. In 1965, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, working at Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey, discovered this "cosmic microwave background radiation." The radiation was acting as a source of excess noise in a radio receiver they were building. Penzias and Wilson shared the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physics for their discovery.

This photo shows the Horn antenna on which Penzias and Wilson discovered the cosmic microwave background radiation.

The idea of using lasers to trap and cool molecules began as a lunch conversation at the Holmdel, New Jersey, campus of Bell Labs. Steven Chu, one of the researchers who later won the Nobel in Physics, had joined Bell Labs in 1978. "I was one of roughly two dozen brash, young scientists that were hired within a two-year period. We felt like the 'Chosen Ones,' with no obligation to do anything except the research we loved best. The joy and excitement of doing science permeated the halls," Chu says in his biography on the Nobel Prize site. Chu is now the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory at University of California in Berkeley.

Left: A sample of cooled trapped sodium atoms.

In 1998, Bell Labs researchers Horst Stormer, Robert Laughlin (now at Stanford University) and Daniel Tsui (now at Princeton University) bagged the Nobel in Physics for their discovery and explanation of the fractional quantum Hall effect. The trio found that electrons acting together in strong magnetic fields can form new types of particles, called quasiparticles, that have charges that are mere fractions of the charge carried by a single electron.

This image shows electrons that have been scattered and scanned, showing interference patterns created by quasiparticles.

Bell Labs' decision to abandon basic physics research marks the end of a brilliant chapter for the iconic institution. Many of the Labs' most famous discoveries, such as the transistor and the laser, originated in fundamental physics and have gone on to transform computing and technology.

They also brought Bell Labs international glory, including six Nobel Prizes in Physics, starting in 1937 when researcher Clinton Davisson shared the Nobel for demonstrating the wave nature of matter.

The lab will now focus on areas such as networking, high-speed electronics, wireless, nanotechnology and software -- fields that are likely to offer a more immediate payback for parent company Alcatel-Lucent.

As we say goodbye to one of the last bastions of basic research within the corporate world, we celebrate Bell Labs' greatest achievements in physics.

Left: Bell Labs' Holmden, New Jersey-based facility was home to basic physics research. Designed by architect Eero Saarinen and built in 1962, the landmark building once housed 6,000 employees. It now stands empty and neglected. Alcatel-Lucent has sold the building to a developer who plans to transform the complex into a mixed-use residential, office and retail space.

Bell Labs' U.S. headquarters in Murray Hill, New Jersey, has been the site of many innovations and scientific breakthroughs, and that location continues to remain strong, says Alcatel-Lucent. But the company's Holmdel, New Jersey, campus, the site of basic physics research, has been sold. Holmdel's technological contributions include pioneering work on Telstar, the first communications satellite, and Steven Chu's Nobel Prize-winning research into methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light.

In 1927 Clinton Davisson (shown) and Lester Germer, two researchers at Bell Labs, demonstrated the wave nature of matter by firing slow-moving electrons at a crystalline nickel target. The experiment completed the proof of the hypothesis that all matter and energy has both wave-like and particle-like properties. The findings from Davisson's experiment became part of the foundation for much of solid-state electronics. Ten years later, Davisson shared the Nobel Prize for his research in electronic interference.

The transistor was developed in 1947 as a replacement for bulky vacuum tubes and mechanical relays. The invention revolutionized the world of electronics and became the basic building block upon which all modern computer technology rests. In 1956, Bell Labs scientists William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for the transistor.

Shockley also founded Shockley Semiconductor in Mountain View, California -- one of the first high-tech companies in what would later become known as Silicon Valley.

Bell Labs scientist Philip Anderson shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1977 for developing an improved understanding of the electronic structure of glass and magnetic materials. His work opened the doors for the development of electronic switching and memory devices in computers. In 2006, based on a study carried out by José Soler, a statistical physicist at the University of Madrid, Anderson was called the most creative physicist in the world. Anderson retired from Bell Labs in 1984 is now a professor at Princeton University.

According to the Big Bang theory, the early universe was very hot; as it expanded, the gas within it cooled. The theory predicts that the universe should be filled with radiation -- the remnants of that primordial heat. But it took Bell Labs researchers to prove it. In 1965, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, working at Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey, discovered this "cosmic microwave background radiation." The radiation was acting as a source of excess noise in a radio receiver they were building. Penzias and Wilson shared the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physics for their discovery.

This photo shows the Horn antenna on which Penzias and Wilson discovered the cosmic microwave background radiation.

The idea of using lasers to trap and cool molecules began as a lunch conversation at the Holmdel, New Jersey, campus of Bell Labs. Steven Chu, one of the researchers who later won the Nobel in Physics, had joined Bell Labs in 1978. "I was one of roughly two dozen brash, young scientists that were hired within a two-year period. We felt like the 'Chosen Ones,' with no obligation to do anything except the research we loved best. The joy and excitement of doing science permeated the halls," Chu says in his biography on the Nobel Prize site. Chu is now the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory at University of California in Berkeley.

Left: A sample of cooled trapped sodium atoms.

In 1998, Bell Labs researchers Horst Stormer, Robert Laughlin (now at Stanford University) and Daniel Tsui (now at Princeton University) bagged the Nobel in Physics for their discovery and explanation of the fractional quantum Hall effect. The trio found that electrons acting together in strong magnetic fields can form new types of particles, called quasiparticles, that have charges that are mere fractions of the charge carried by a single electron.

This image shows electrons that have been scattered and scanned, showing interference patterns created by quasiparticles.