The Sky is falling...Check out the Oceans

Motorola is issuing an SOS call for help.....According to FT.com, "Motorola, the struggling US mobile phone maker, on Tuesday forecast a larger than expected loss in the current quarter, suspended its quarterly dividend and announced the departure of its chief financial officer after reporting a $3.58bn fourth quarter loss. Greg Brown, chief executive, said the dividend suspension would save $350m this year and, coupled with the latest round of (4000) job cuts announced last month, would contribute to cost-cutting measures designed to save $1.5bn in 2009. shipped about 19.2m handsets in the fourth quarter, less than half the 40.9m in the year-ago period, and its market share slipped to about 6.5 per cent ranking it the fifth largest global mobile phone maker."

(from ft.com) UPS, the transportation behemoth, reported a quarterly profit that missed Wall Street’s estimates and gave investors little reason to expect a recovery this year. "The severe decline in economic activity around the world resulted in sharply lower package and freight volumes for UPS,” Scott Davis, UPS chief executive, said in a statement. ”Consequently, we’re making the tough decisions necessary to adapt our enterprise to today’s realities.”The bleak outlook echoed similar forecasts by arch-rival FedEx, which called the downturn ”the worst economic conditions in the company’s 35-year operating history” and unveiled a series of measures to slash expenses.

While UPS offered fewer details on its cost-cutting measures, the company said it would look to offset the slowdown by consolidating air and package-handling operations, freezing managers’ salaries and suspending matching contributions to employees’ retirement-savings accounts.....Ouch..a firm reports net income of $254 million and then suspends 401-k matching contributions.

Google continues to show that innovation is still churning...Google has lifted the lid on its first major upgrade to its global mapping software, Google Earth. Google Ocean expands this map to include large swathes of the ocean floor and abyssal plain. Users can dive beneath a dynamic water surface to explore the 3D sea floor terrain. The map also includes 20 content layers, containing information from the world's leading scientists, researchers, and ocean explorers.