AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - Consumer navigation devices have gone from expensive gadgets to mainstream gear in just three years, but Europe’s largest maker is struggling.

The experience of Netherlands-based TomTom NV — which saw earnings fall 83 percent in the first quarter — suggests the market for stand-alone global-positioning systems is at a turning point.

“What we saw for the first time is that selling prices fell, but volumes didn’t improve enough to compensate,” analyst Eric de Graaf of Petercam said after the results were reported Wednesday. “It’s a signal the market is getting saturated.”

Some analysts believe that as stand-alone versions are overtaken by cell phones and other devices with navigation technology built in, GPS devices will become low-margin commodity products, like pocket calculators. But others think a smart company could turn GPS devices into premium products the way Apple Inc. made its iPod music player stand out from a host of cheaper devices.

For now, TomTom’s larger U.S. competitor, Cayman Islands-based Garmin Ltd., appears to be faring better by virtue of its greater range of products.

Including Taiwan’s MiTAC International Corp. — owner of the Navman and Mio brands — the top three GPS makers hold around an 80 percent market share, giving them scale advantages over smaller players. But competition is coming from many directions, including big names like Nokia Corp., Sony Inc., Google Inc. and probably Apple.

“TomTom and Garmin are branded well,” said Thilo Koslowski of Gartner Research. “But functionally there’s not much difference” yet among GPS devices.

In 2007 alone, including strong holiday sales, 33.9 million units sold, almost triple the 11.9 million sold in 2006. Now, 10 percent of U.S. drivers and 20 percent of those in Europe own a navigation device. But prices for basic stand-alone devices have fallen below $200 from $500 or more.

TomTom reported a net profit of $12 million in the first quarter, which ended March 31, down from $70.3 million a year earlier. Sales revenue fell 22 percent to $147 million. Some analysts now fear TomTom’s $4.63 billion bid to buy digital mapmaker Tele Atlas NV, also based in the Netherlands, could come undone.

MiTAC and Garmin have yet to report first quarter results. But sales figures posted on MiTAC’s Web site show a 15 percent decline in the first quarter. Garmin, due to report on April 30, hasn’t altered its guidance since February, when it said it expected strong sales growth in 2008 despite price declines.

Garmin benefits from offering high-end devices for aviation and marine navigation — and from reporting in dollars. Also, it plans to meet the cell phone threat with its own combination phone and navigation device later this year, and it has announced a partnership integrating AOL’s MapQuest into its devices.

By 2010, Gartner estimates, 500 million cell phones capable of navigation will cell annually, compared to just 95 million pure navigation devices. Most cell phones can’t yet match the easy touch interface of the devoted devices, but Apple’s iPhone offers evidence that that may not be true for long.

Other competitors are getting smarter too: Both Google and Microsoft have introduced the option this spring of taking traffic conditions into account in their mapping instructions, using traffic data from vendors to calculate time to travel instead of distance. Some drivers may prefer to stick with that option, printing route maps before they set out in the car. Others buy built-in navigation systems that integrate with a car’s design.

But analyst David Niederman of Pacific Crest Securities said many other drivers will still want stand-alone devices for their dashboards because they’re more straightforward and easier to read.

TomTom Chief Executive Harold Goddijn said on a conference call he believed 50 percent of drivers will eventually own navigation devices, leaving plenty of room for growth in the coming three to five years. He predicted that prices will stabilize in the current quarter, now that retailers are done selling excess inventory.

Garmin may be broadening its offerings, but TomTom Chief Operating Officer Alexander Ribbink said his company’s strategy is to focus on the in-car market, improving basic navigation and keeping the interface simple.

One upgrade TomTom recently introduced lets users share map corrections. Another embeds GPS chips in phones to collect and distribute real-time data about traffic conditions. Yet Ribbink was skeptical about the threat from phones themselves.

“Navigation on the phone is difficult for a number of reasons: it cuts into battery life and you have small screens,” Ribbink said.

The large market share of Garmin, TomTom and MiTAC should help them fend off competition a while longer.

But De Graaf of Petercam said a bare-bones navigation device can now be produced for $80 to $110.

And that leaves plenty of room for more price cuts.

RENO, Nev. - The fate of basic industries across the Intermountain West — grazing, mining, energy — soon could be at least partially tied to that of a bird about the size of a chicken.

The federal government is under a judge’s order to reconsider an earlier decision against listing the sage grouse as endangered, and wildlife biologists are scouring the species’ customary mating grounds to see how many are left.

The species was seen as recently as 2004 over an area as large as California and Texas combined, but its habitat used to be close to twice that and research has shown that many types of human activity continue to harm it.

States and even some companies have made efforts to protect the sage grouse on their own, hoping to avoid a federal listing that could stretch across 11 states.

The prospect of listing the species has drawn comparisons to the northern spotted owl, whose listing as a threatened species in 1990 drew the ire of logging interests in the Northwest.

But the grouse occupies several times as much land as the owl.

“It will affect everything we do and know (as) a Western state, everything from livestock grazing to mining to development of sage brush habitat, wind energy,” said Ken Mayer, director of the Nevada wildlife department.

“I don’t think we have ever been in this position before.”

Ranchers and the oil and gas industry dodged stiff regulations in January 2005 when the government decided the bird didn’t need to be listed as an endangered species.

But in December, U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill in Boise overturned that decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, partly because it was tainted by political pressure from Assistant Interior Secretary Julie MacDonald. She resigned last May amid questions about alleged interference in dozens of other endangered species decisions.

“Her tactics included everything from editing scientific conclusions to intimidating staffers,” Winmill wrote.

The agency has until December to issue a new decision. It has given wildlife agencies in 11 states until June 24 to update information on local populations, the threat the sage grouse faces and the steps being taken to conserve them.

The grouse — mottled brown, black and white — is found on sagebrush plains and high desert from Colorado to California and north into southern Canada. Their courtship rituals, where males puff up bright yellow air sacks under their neck and fan out the pointy feathers in their tails, are imitated in dances of several American Indian tribes.

The birds return each spring to breeding and nesting locations called leks — generally high desert with sagebrush, grass and wildflowers that provide both food and cover from predators.

Wildfires, development and industry have steadily cut into that habitat.

“The last 17 years, more than 16 million acres have burned in the Great Basin,” Assistant Interior Secretary Stephen Allred recently told the National Association of Conservation Districts.

Allred said 75 sage grouse leks were destroyed last summer in Idaho near the Nevada line by just one set of fires.

The sage grouse now occupy about half of their original, year-round habitat. The Fish and Wildlife Service estimated in 2005 there were 100,000 to 500,000 greater sage grouse.

The birds’ reproductive and survival rates are also down in states hit hard by drought and invasive plants such as cheat grass, which elbow out sage brush and native grasses after fires. West Nile virus also is taking a toll.

In Nevada, for example, the numbers of chicks per hen hit a historic low of 0.58 last fall compared to a more typical figure of 1.8 to 2.0, said Shawn Espinosa, a wildlife biologist with the Nevada Department of Wildlife.

Biologists are quick to remind that grouse populations operate in cycles, but Espinosa said “the highs and lows are getting lower and lower and the overall trend of sage grouse population is going down.”

Environmentalists who have been pushing for federal protection for more than a decade are convinced its population is on a path toward extinction.

An “honest assessment” of the bird’s numbers and the threats it faces will show that it must be listed, said Katie Fite, director of biodiversity for the Idaho-based Western Watersheds Project, which sued the Fish and Wildlife Service over its 2005 decision.

“Unfortunately, in several Western states, efforts seem to be under way to be creative with grouse counting and mask how much numbers are down,” she said. “Populations do sort of cycle, but part of the last upward trend was a result of agencies taking great pains to find and count grouse.”

Pat Deibert, a Fish and Wildlife Service biologist based in Wyoming and the federal coordinator of the new review, said lek counts are up in her state and others report the same in parts of Oregon and Colorado thanks to recent rainy springs and the absence of significant wildfires.

But she said those areas may be the exception.

Since last fall, Wyoming has undertaken nearly two dozen projects to help grouse, including restoring habitat, purchasing easements on ranch lands, improving livestock grazing practices and researching ways to reduce the effects of oil and gas drilling.

“A number of individual companies have done conservation actions as well. Often they move well locations voluntarily to get out of a lek,” said Cheryl Sorenson, vice president of the Petroleum Association of Wyoming in Casper.

“We did not want to even consider having this animal listed,” she said.

RENO, Nev. - Scientists urged residents of northern Nevada’s largest city to prepare for a bigger event as the area continued rumbling Saturday after the largest earthquake in a two-month-long series of temblors.

More than 100 aftershocks were recorded on the western edge of the city after a magnitude 4.7 quake hit Friday night, the strongest quake around Reno since one measuring 5.2 in 1953, said researchers at the seismological laboratory at the University of Nevada, Reno.

The latest quake swept store shelves clean, cracked walls in homes and dislodged rocks on hillsides, but there were no reports of injuries or widespread major damage.

Seismologists said the recent activity is unusual because the quakes started out small and continue to build in strength. The normal pattern is for a main quake followed by smaller aftershocks.

“A magnitude 6 quake wouldn’t be a scientific surprise,” John Anderson, director of the seismological lab, said Saturday. “We certainly hope residents are taking the threat seriously after last night.”

But Anderson stressed there was no way to predict what would happen, and said the sequence of quakes also could end without a major one.

Reno’s last major quake measured 6.1 on April 24, 1914, and was felt as far away as Berkeley, Calif., said Craig dePolo, research geologist with the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology.

A rockslide triggered by Friday night’s quake was blamed for causing a 125-foot breach in a wooden flume that carries water to one of two water treatment plants in Reno, a city of about 210,000.

A backup pump was used to divert water to the plant, and the breach was not expected to cause any water shortages, said Aaron Kenneston, Washoe County emergency management officer.

The U.S. Geological Survey said Friday night’s quake was centered around Mogul, just west of Reno. The area of upscale homes along the eastern Sierra was rattled by more than 100 quakes the day before, the strongest a magnitude 4.2 that caused high-rise casinos to sway in downtown Reno.

The strongest aftershock measured 3.7 and was recorded early Saturday.

Mike Lentini of Reno said Friday night’s quake felt “like a big truck hit the building” and awakened his family.

“It’s the unknown. It’s shaking, and when’s it going to stop?” he said Saturday. “And when stuff starts falling off the shelves it’s a whole other ballgame.”

Jars of mayonnaise and bottles of ketchup and shampoo fell from shelves at a Wal-Mart store in northwest Reno. Overhead televisions swayed at a sports bar in neighboring Sparks, 11 miles east, where bartender Shawn Jones said the rumble was significantly stronger than Thursday’s event.

“The bottles were shaking, so I sent everybody outside,” he said.

Hundreds of mostly minor quakes have occurred along one or possibly more faults since the sequence began Feb. 28, said Ken Smith, a seismologist at the Reno laboratory. The quakes have occurred along an area about 2 miles long and a half-mile wide.

“We can’t put a number on it, but the probability of a major earthquake has increased with this sequence,” Smith said Saturday. “People need to prepare for ground shaking because there’s no way to say how this will play out.”

Among other things, scientists urged residents to stock up on water and food, to learn how to turn off water and gas, and to strap down bookshelves, televisions and computers.

“It’s getting a little bit frightening,” Daryl DiBitonto of Reno told the Reno Gazette-Journal. “I’m very concerned about this increase in not only activity, but also in magnitude.”

The quakes around Reno began a week after a magnitude 6 temblor in the northern Nevada town of Wells, near the Utah border. The Feb. 21 quake caused an estimated $778,000 in damage to homes, schools and historic downtown buildings, dePolo said.

Scientists said they’re unsure whether the seismic activity at opposite sides of Nevada is related.

Nevada is the third most seismically active state in the U.S. behind California and Alaska. The Wells quake was the 15th of at least magnitude 6 in the state’s 143-year history.

A magnitude-7.4 quake south of Winnemucca in 1915 is the most powerful in state history.

While some scientists suggested that by injecting sulphate compounds into the upper atmosphere, global warming could be neutralized, others believe that this method would severely damage the ozone layer, especially over the Arctic region.

Dr. Simone Tilmes, of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder explained: “Our research indicates that trying to artificially cool off the planet could have perilous side effects. While climate change is a major threat, more research is required before society attempts global geo-engineering solutions.”

With the help of computer simulations, Dr. Simone Tilmes and her team estimated that the ozone layer would be slowly destroyed due to chemical reactions produced by the sulphate injections in reaction to other atmospheric compounds. This would also slow down the processes of recreating the ozone layer above the Arctic Ocean, adding at least 30 to 70 years more to the process.

“If the successful control of ozone-depleting substances allows for a full recovery of the ozone hole over Antarctica, we may finally see the interior of Antarctica begin to warm with the rest of the world,” said Judith Perlwitz of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, a joint institute of CU-Boulder and NOAA, according to the Associated Press.

As changes in our atmosphere become more drastic each year, scientists need to consider all possibilities before adopting such a solution. In this case, an attempt to cool the planet by using sulphate injections would have disastrous effects on the ozone layer.

Most scientists believe global warming is inevitably going to accentuate in the years to come, unless we do something about it. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s latest report on greenhouse emissions, carbon dioxide concentrations rose 0.6 percent, the equivalent of 19 billion tons, in the past year alone, due to the intense use of fossil fuels (coal, oil, gas).

Apart from dioxide carbon emissions, methane levels have also increased for the first time in the past decade, and although methane is just half as harmful as carbon dioxide, its climate related effects should draw alarm signals: we should tend towards a less fossil fuel – dependable world.

WASHINGTON (AFP) — It may seem unfathomable, but DNA testing has shown the towering Tyrannasaurus rex’s closest living animal relatives include the humble chicken, a new study has found.

The research published this week in the journal Science marked “the first use of molecular data to place a non-avian dinosaur in a phylogenetic tree that traces the evolution of species,” the journal said.

“These results match predictions made from skeletal anatomy, providing the first molecular evidence for the evolutionary relationships of a non-avian dinosaur,” co-author Chris Organ, a postdoctoral researcher in organismic and evolutionary biology at Harvard University said.

“Though we only had six peptides — just 89 amino acids — from T. rex, we were able to establish these relationships with a relatively high degree of support,” he added.

“With more data, we’d likely see the T. rex branch on the phylogenetic tree between alligators and chickens and ostriches, though we can’t resolve this position with currently available data,” he added.

Scientists long suspected birds, and not more basal reptiles, are dinosaurs’ closest living relatives. But that hypothesis had rested largely on morphological similarities in bird and dinosaur skeletal structure.

The bits of dinosaur protein were taken from a fossil femur found in 2003 by John Horner of the Museum of the Rockies in a fossil-rich stretch of land spanning Wyoming and Montana.

WELLINGTON (AFP) - New Zealand’s largest glacier is shrinking fast due to climate change and will eventually disappear altogether, scientists said Thursday.

The 23-kilometre (14.3 mile) long glacier in the South Island’s Southern Alps is likely to shrink at a rate of between 500 and 820 metres a year, said Martin Brook, a physical geography lecturer at Massey University.

“In the last 10 years the glacier has receded a hell of a lot,” Brook said on the university website.

“It’s just too warm for a glacier to be sustained at such a low altitude — 730 metres above sea level — so it melts rapidly and it is going to disappear altogether.”

The rapid melting has seen a lake seven kilometres long and two kilometres wide form at the base of the glacier. Thirty-five years ago, the lake did not exist.

“The last major survey was in the 1990s and since then the glacier has retreated back 180 metres a year on average,” Brook said.

The lake at the foot of the glacier is speeding up the melting as more ice is submerged under the surface of the water.

A study last year by the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research found the volume of ice in the Southern Alps had shrunk almost 11 percent in the past 30 years.

More than 90 percent of this loss was due to the melting of the 12 largest glaciers in the mountain range due to rising temperatures, the university report said.