News : Bush ducks flying shoes

An Iraqi reporter called U.S. President George W. Bush a 'dog' in Arabic and threw his shoes at him during a news conference in Baghdad.

Bush was forced to duck to avoid the thrown shoes, one sailing over his head and smacking into the wall behind him as he stood next to the Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Iraqi security officers and U.S. secret service agents leapt at the man and dragged him struggling and screaming out of the room where the U.S. leader was giving a news conference with the Iraqi Prime Minister.

Bush smiled uncomfortably and Maliki looked strained.

"It doesn't bother me," Bush said, urging everyone to calm down as a ruckus broke out in the conference room.

When asked about the incident shortly after, Bush made light of it. "I didn't feel the least threatened by it," he said.

Other Iraqi journalists apologised on behalf of their colleague, a television journalist.

Bush arrived in Baghdad earlier on Sunday on a farewell visit before he leaves office in January.

News : Ruins in Peru

Archaeologists in Peru find evidence of human sacrifices and death.

Deborah Lutterbeck reports.

News : Archeologists in Peru unearth ancient Wari city

By Dana Ford

LIMA (Reuters) - Researchers digging at the Cerro Patapo archeological site in northern Peru have discovered the ruins of an entire city, which may provide the "missing link" between two ancient cultures, investigators said on Tuesday.

Scientists say the find, located 14 miles from the Pacific coast city of Chiclayo, likely dates to the Wari culture, which existed in what is now Peru between about 600 AD and 1100 AD.

If initial assumptions prove correct, the discovery would connect the ancient Wari civilization to the Moche culture, which flourished from about 100 AD to 600 AD.

Researchers say the buried city includes ceramics, bits of clothing and the well-preserved remains of a young woman.

The sprawling site, which stretches over 3 miles, also shows evidence of human sacrifice, with special spots designated for the purpose and a heap of bones at the bottom of a nearby cliff.

"It provides the missing link because it explains how the Wari people allowed for the continuation of culture after the Moche," Cesar Soriano, chief archeologist on the project, told Reuters.

He said the discovery provides the first evidence of Wari culture, which expanded from the country's south, at the northern site.

The Wari people made their capital near modern-day Ayacucho, in the Andes, but traveled widely and are known for their extensive network of roads. Earlier this year, archeologists at the Huaca Pucllana ruins in Lima, located some 500 miles south of Chiclayo, discovered a mummy that is also thought to be Wari.

Peru is a country rich in archeological treasures. It has hundreds of sites that date back thousands of years and span dozens of cultures, including the Incan empire that was in power when Spanish explorers arrived in the early 1500s.

(Editing by Terry Wade and Eric Walsh)

News : Lawyers turn to Facebook to serve legal papers

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Lawyers in Australia expect the social network site Facebook to become a new way of tracking down defendants after a landmark court ruling.

The Supreme Court in Australia's capital Canberra has ruled that Facebook is a sufficient way of serving legal documents to defendants who cannot be found.

The case surrounded a couple who defaulted on a loan, but who couldn't be found.

"We couldn't find the defendants personally after many attempts so we thought we would try and find them on Facebook," lawyer Mark McCormack said.

"We did a public search based on the email address we had and the defendants Facebook page appeared."

He said that was enough to convince the court, which found Facebook was a sufficient way of communicating legal papers when it is the plaintiff's responsibility to personally deliver documents.

(Reporting by James Grubel; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)

News : Iraq shoe-thrower inspires Bush-bashing Web games

By Lin Noueihed

DUBAI (Reuters) - A shoe-throwing incident at an Iraqi news conference with George W. Bush has inspired a spate of Internet games where the players hurl footwear at moving targets of the U.S. president.

The games, which have mushroomed online and spread by email, range from animations to cut-up footage of the now-infamous news briefing on Sunday when an Iraqi reporter threw his shoes at the president who ordered the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Pelting someone with shoes is considered a grave insult in the Arab world.

One game, which appears on the site www.sockandawe.com -- a pun on "shock and awe," the term used by U.S. military officials to describe the initial air assault on Baghdad in 2003 -- gives players 30 seconds to try to hit Bush with a shoe as many times as possible, with the score appearing in a corner of the screen.

Players are greeted with the command: "OBJECTIVE: Hit President Bush in the face with your shoes! Do it!"

On-target shots are met with a "well done" message.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki can be seen peeping over a lectern next to a dipping and diving Bush in the cartoon game.

The television reporter who threw the shoes, Muntazer al-Zaidi, has become an instant sensation in the Arab world. A Facebook profile set up in his honor had enlisted 1,871 fans by Wednesday afternoon, many of whom had posted disparaging messages about the outgoing U.S. leader.

Zaidi, who admitted his action in court on Tuesday, remains in custody pending an investigation by the judge. He could be sent for trial under a clause in Iraq's penal code that punishes anyone who tries to murder Iraqi or foreign presidents.

Zaidi's family says he harbored deep anger against Bush, blaming him for the tens of thousands of Iraqis who died after the U.S.-led invasion unleashed a wave of sectarian and insurgent violence that has only now begun to die down.

Many ordinary Arabs opposed the U.S.-led invasion and blame Bush for the violence that followed.

Another game at bushbash.flashgressive.de, includes a leader board on which players can post their best scores.

An animated version -- "a shoe at Bush?" -- claims over 2.2 million direct hits since its December 15 start date.

"Bush's Boot Camp" starts with an audio quote of Bush saying "those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere."

The White House, meanwhile, has said Bush has no hard feelings about the shoe-throwing incident.

"The president just thinks that, it was just a shoe, people express themselves in lots of different ways," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.

(Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

News : Yahoo cuts personal data storage time to three months

By Kim Dixon

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Yahoo! will cut to three months the time it stores personal data gathered from Web surfing, making its retention policy the shortest among peers, the company said on Wednesday.

The company will "anonymize" the computer addresses of its users within three months in most cases, from a prior standard of 13 months. It is reserving the right to keep data for up to six months if fraud or system security are involved.

Internet search companies have come under pressure from European and other data protection officials to do more to protect the privacy of users.

Earlier this year, industry leader Google Inc halved the amount of time it stores personal data to nine months. Microsoft Corp has said it will cut the time to six months if its rivals did the same.

"Google first went to 18 months and started this competition," said Ari Schwartz, vice president at the Center for Democracy and Technology, a privacy advocacy group.

Yahoo's pledge "is more significant because they are getting rid of some data after 90 days and they actually have an implementation plan to get this done," he added.

The European Union has recommended that companies keep data no more than six months and urged the sector to adopt an industry-wide standard.

"This was our attempt to put a stake in the ground" on the issue, Yahoo vice president of policy and privacy chief Anne Toth said.

Internet search engines get their revenue by matching advertisements to searches, so advertisers can peg their ads to what is on the searcher's mind.

Once the companies make commitments on data retention, they are enforceable under federal and state laws in the United States, Schwartz added.

(Editing by Andre Grenon)

News : Peru student clashes

Students at a university in Lima throw stones at police as protests over a road project turn violent.

Benet Allen reports.

News : Spy gadget sales defy recession

An alarm clock fitted with a pin-sized video camera, a GPS-enabled tracking device and recording device doubling as a power adaptor are hot items this winter.

The UK internet retail outlet Spycatcher online says its sales are up dramatically on last year, due in part to the availability of items that facilitate real-time surveillance over longer distances.

However, as is often the case in such matters, there is more to the story than meets the eye.

Reuters Technology Correspondent Matt Cowan reports.

News : Huddle LinkedIn to growth

The London-based company which provides internet-based collaboration tools is benefitting from its inclusion on the new LinkedIn platform.

In November, Huddle became the only non-US company chosen as a collaboration application by the professional networking site LinkedIn.

The company's two co-founders say that's just one factor behind the growth they're seeing amid a gloomy economic climate.

Reuters Technology Correspondent Matt Cowan reports.

News : Google executive departs for LinkedIn

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A Google executive will depart in January to join LinkedIn, the professional social networking company said on Wednesday.

Dipchand "Deep" Nishar will be vice president of products for the company, which until now has focused on social networking, a LinkedIn spokesman said.

Nishar was most recently Google's senior director of products, Asia-Pacific.

A Google spokesman praised Nishar.

"We're grateful for Deep's contributions over the last five and a half years and wish him well in his new job," said Matt Furman in a statement.

Nishar is among several executives who have left Google for senior positions in less prominent firms.

(Reporting by David Lawsky, editing by Matthew Lewis)

News : FCC free Internet plan faces lawmaker opposition

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A top Democratic lawmaker is expected to ask the Federal Communications Commission on Friday to delay voting on a controversial auction of radio spectrum, which includes a requirement for free Internet services, said a source following the issue in Washington.

The FCC is scheduled to consider the action, known as the AWS-3, at its meeting next on Thursday.

Cell phone companies, in particular Deutsche Telekom AG's T-Mobile, oppose the proposal, saying it will create interference, among other concerns. T-Mobile paid about $4.2 billion for an adjacent piece of spectrum.

The FCC has said its engineers examined the issue and found no technical interference issues.

Democrat Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, who is expected to head the Senate Commerce Committee when the new Congress convenes in January, wants the FCC to refrain from taking up major items while it oversees the February 2009 transition to digital television.

On February 17, all U.S. television broadcasting must switch from analog to digital transmission under a congressional mandate. The change requires many Americans to buy a digital adapter for older television sets, while consumers who receive cable or satellite television will not be affected.

(Editing by Andre Grenon)

News : Ex-chairman urges Intel to make car batteries

(Reuters) - Andrew Grove, the former chairman of Intel Corp, is pushing the chipmaker to make advanced batteries for plug-in electric cars, the Wall Street Journal said.

Grove, who retired in 2005 but still advises Intel, is urging Chief Executive Paul Otellini to steer the company to battery production as a way to diversify the business and fill a strategic niche as automakers shift to the production of plug-in electric vehicles, the paper said.

Otellini declined to comment, but an Intel spokesman said the company already has investments in battery-related companies through its Intel Capital unit, the paper said.

Grove told the paper that Intel's deep pockets gives it the ability to figure out ways to improve batteries and drive down costs.

Intel and Grove could immediately be reached for comment by Reuters.

(Reporting by Pratish Narayanan in Bangalore; Editing by Greg Mahlich)

News : East-West divide in media habits: survey

By Andrew Wallenstein and James Li

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - The so-called digital divide between emerging and developed economies worldwide might not be that wide after all.

A new online survey conducted by Nielsen finds that while Western countries tend to be heavy users of such media hardware as DVD players and gaming consoles, next-generation devices like video-enabled handsets are more popular in up-and-coming markets, particularly in Asia.

The online population of the Philippines, for instance, emerged first among the 52 countries surveyed with the highest levels of usage across a range of devices, one of five Asia-Pacific countries that filled the top 10. The Philippines also topped a pair of rankings that tracked usage of digital media and video games.

The findings emerged from the entertainment portion of the biannual Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey, which reached 26,000 online users in September. Rankings were computed by measuring a range of scores in response to thematically similar survey questions.

Klaas Hommez, who oversaw the survey's entertainment portion as vp of Nielsen Entertainment, said that many Asian consumers largely skipped landlines in favor of wireless technology. "The same leapfrogging is taking place with entertainment," he said. "For example, consumers are circumventing the need for a relatively expensive gaming console to play subscription-based video games online."

Hommez identified other factors responsible for media usage in many Asian countries, such as the broad uptake of mobile because of widespread use of public transportation and government policies maximizing broadband access in China and Singapore.

In contrast, Western countries tended to score better on such less-mobile offerings as console video games and DVD players. But when it came to streaming and downloading content, Eastern nations like China proved no match.

Although the Philippines was joined in the top 10 by China, Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand, the quartet of booming economies known as the BRIC countries -- Brazil, Russia, India and China -- fared even better on a regional basis. Brazil finished second to the Philippines in the overall media usage ranking and first in the music category.

"Piracy has kept the cost of acquiring music down both on CDs and downloads," Hommez said.

The Philippines is a media market known for remarkably high mobile usage, largely because landline penetration is quite small. Research has noted high levels of text messaging and social networking; the site Friendster gets about one-fifth of its global traffic from that country alone. While its broadband infrastructure pales in comparison to other Asian countries, the Philippines compensates somewhat with a robust market for cafes that provide Internet access.

Rounding out the top finishers in overall media consumption behind the Philippines and Brazil were the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan and Russia.

The Nielsen study also yielded a sense of which media devices are used most worldwide.

The desktop or laptop computer managed to edge out the television set, with 77% of respondents indicating they had used a PC during the past month versus 75% for TV.

The CD player finished with 50%, followed by DVD player (48%). The emergence of wireless devices also registered, but ones with media capabilities were behind those without. Mobile phones without video or Web capabilities were used by 40%, while video-enabled phones finished with 30%.

The elevated usage scores of emerging nations can be explained in several ways. Emerging economies that tend to have low Internet penetration are more likely in an online survey to skew toward heavy media users. In more developed countries where Internet access is near universal, the sample will be a more natural representation of the general population, with both casual and heavy media users.

Another likely factor skewing media usage in favor of emerging countries is that the average age of their online population is more than 10 years younger than in the West.

Furthermore, countries plagued by content piracy problems also are likely to perform strongly in results for the survey, which does not make a distinction between users engaging in legal or illegally obtained media.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter

News : Nanotechnology plans seen falling short

By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The current U.S. plan for the emerging field of nanotechnology lacks vision, fails to assess risk and leaves the industry vulnerable to public mistrust, a report by the National Research Council found.

The report, released on Wednesday, found serious gaps in the government's current plan for determining if there are risks posed by nanomaterials. It called for an effective national plan for identifying and managing potential risks.

"The current plan catalogs nano-risk research across several federal agencies, but it does not present an overarching research strategy needed to gain public acceptance and realize the promise of nanotechnology," committee chairman David Eaton, a public health expert at the University of Washington in Seattle, said in a statement.

Nanotechnology, the design and manipulation of materials thousands of times smaller than the width of a human hair, has been hailed as a way to make strong, lightweight materials, better cosmetics and even tastier food. But scientists are only starting to look at the impact such tiny objects might have.

Some studies suggest that nano-sized objects may have different effects in the body than larger ones.

Currently, more than 600 products involving nanomaterials are already on the market. Most are health and beauty products, but many researchers are working on ways to use the materials for medical therapies, food additives and electronics.

In its report, the committee said the current U.S. strategy, developed by the National Nanotechnology Initiative, does not provide for adequate research to ensure the safety of workers, consumers and the environment from unexpected and possibly toxic properties of these materials.

LACKING VISION

The committee said the plan lacks "essential elements" including a vision, clear objectives, a comprehensive assessment of the state of the science, and a "road map that describes how research progress will be measured and the estimated resources required to conduct such research."

David Rejeski, director of the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, an advocacy group, said the report echoes calls by industry and congressional leaders for a revamped research plan for nanotechnology.

"The administration's delay has hurt investor and consumer confidence," Rejeski said in a statement.

"It has gambled with public health and safety. It has jeopardized the $14 billion investment governments and private industry have made in this technology and its great promise for significant advances in healthcare, energy and manufacturing."

University of Wisconsin researchers reported in Monday's issue of the journal Nature Nanotechnology that nearly 25 percent of Americans surveyed found nanotechnology to be morally unacceptable, compared to 7 percent of Italians, 18 percent of Belgians and 66 percent of Irish.

They said the more religious a society was, the more likely citizens were to reject nanotechnology as immoral.

The group said the report should help guide the administration of President-elect Barack Obama.

The National Research Council is one of the National Academy of Sciences, an independent organization that guides the federal government on medical, scientific and engineering policy.

(Editing by Maggie Fox)

News : Bosnians want Serb group shut down on Facebook

SARAJEVO (Reuters) - Over 6,000 Bosnians joined in less than 48 hours a group on social networking site Facebook which wants to shut down a Serb nationalist group celebrating the massacre of 8,000 Muslims in Srebrenica.

The group, created on Monday under the name "Close Group Noz Zica Srebrenica," alerted administrators about the language of hatred against Muslims on the site.

"Administrator, we ask you to close the group 'Noz, Zica, Srebrenica', which glorifies the acts of genocide that took place in Srebrenica, where 8,000 men and boys were murdered," read the Bosnian group header on Facebook.

"In addition, this group propagates hatred to all Muslims," it said. Muslims or Bosniaks account for nearly half of the population of Bosnia, which they share with Roman Catholic Croats and Orthodox Serbs.

Young Serbian nationalists set up the group "Noz Zica Srebrenica" (The Knife, The Wire, Srebrenica), which relates to the detention and killing of around 8,000 Muslim men and boys by the Bosnian Serb forces in 1995. The group was set up in Serbian Cyrillic script.

"For all those who respect the acts of Ratko Mladic," the 930-member group said in an appeal to new members. "For all those who think that Muslims are best on the spit and while swimming in sulphur acid," the site said.

The Srebrenica massacre, seen as Europe's worst atrocity since World War Two, was masterminded by Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic, who was jailed in July, and his military chief General Ratko Mladic, who is still at large.

Many in Serbia, including young people, still regard the two men as national heroes. But quite a few Serbs have opposed the group's calls on the Internet, calling them fascist and shameful.

No one at Facebook was immediately available to comment.

(Reporting by Daria Sito-Sucic; Editing by Louise Ireland)

News : Sony to axe 8,000 jobs

Electronics giant Sony became the latest firm to restructure in the wake of global recession Tuesday, planning to cut 8,000 jobs as well as investment.

The job cuts, the most by an Asian firm so far in the financial crisis, and reduced spending intend to shave $1.1 billion in costs, trimming Sony's 186,000 global work by about 4 percent.

Dan Sloan reports.

News : Five easy steps to plug online music leaks

By Antony Bruno

DENVER (Billboard) - When an album leaks online before it arrives in stores, it can be a real punch in the gut.

Recent new releases from rock bands Guns N' Roses, Metallica and AC/DC all found their way onto peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing networks before they reached the stores, proving that even the most closely guarded projects are vulnerable.

But it's not the end of the world. After angrily beating your head against the wall, there are several measures you can implement to mitigate the damage. Here are five recommendations not intended for artists or managers who deliberately leak their own material.

1. FIND THE SOURCE

Leaks infuriate managers and artists, because they usually occur after an album has been delivered to the label. The culprit is often someone in the production chain who's gone rogue or a talent rep trusting the wrong person with an advance copy. So the label needs to take every step possible to determine where the leak occurred and take action against who is responsible. "You can't unring the bell," says Mike McGuire, an analyst at research firm Gartner Inc. "But if it is an internal leak, then somebody needs to be punished."

2. STOP THE BLEEDING

Once the leak has sprung, it's almost impossible to stop it from spreading. But targeting the top online sources of leaked material can pay dividends by at least stemming the flow long enough for the release to be distributed through legitimate channels. Make sure you've updated the audio fingerprinting of partners who use them to filter out unwanted content. Contact the MP3 bloggers with whom you have relationships. And send takedown notices or cease-and-desist letters when necessary. "The strategy is one of containment," says Eric Garland, CEO of consulting firm BigChampagne. "Chase everybody everywhere with your legal eagles and have the Internet scrubbed clean. It's got to be a coordinated, rapid response."

3. COMMUNICATE WITH FANS

In cases where the leaked album is not the final version, artists and labels should get the word out to fans that what's available online is not the finished product. The goal is to convince them to wait for the final, official version by promising better sound quality or other bonuses. Be specific about how the official version of the album will be different from what's been leaked and provide a firm date for the authorized release. "Make sure you're clear on when it is going to be done and give people that," Gartner's McGuire says. "Managing the PR is about setting expectations."

4. RUSH THE RELEASE

Skip all the marketing plans and just get the album into stores or make it available through authorized channels as soon as possible. This serves two purposes: it responds to the increased demand that a leaked album creates for the final product and takes advantage of the one positive aspect of a leak -- marketing. Many industry observers say that P2P is today's radio, and the buzz that a leaked track creates can often supplant the best-laid marketing plans -- as long as the feedback is positive, of course.

"We live in a word-of-mouth world, and the unfettered Internet is a platform for evaluation, promotion and marketing," BigChampagne's Garland says. "It is hard for me to think of an instance where a marketing plan is more important than the immediate need to get out there with a legitimate offering." For added measure, package the authorized release with such exclusive, previously unreleased material as a new track or other bonus content to help differentiate it from the leaked version.

5. PRE-EMPTIVE MEASURES

One of the best ways to insulate yourself from an Internet leak is by taking action well in advance. Letting fans pre-order the album is one good solution, since it locks in sales before any potential leak. Another is building buzz by posting streaming-only singles when appropriate or taking advantage of programs like iTunes' Complete My Album feature to sell songs from an album before its release. "Establishing a transaction and an implicit social contract is one of the ways you remove incentive to find leaked material," McGuire says.

Reuters/Billboard

News : Young graduates struggle for Silicon Valley jobs

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Young professionals and recent graduates have struggled to find work in a sliding economy, but one area -- Silicon Valley -- has been relatively immune. Until now.

Silicon Valley companies that initially resisted the swooning of the economy are looking to cut costs and shed entry-level positions, and people in their 20s are finding a college degree is no longer their golden ticket to a dream job in high tech.

"I feel like I put in all the work (in school) to not have a job," said Jillian Crawford, 25, who's been looking for a marketing job with a tech company since she graduated with honors from San Jose State University in June.

Crawford has applied to about 25 marketing jobs without receiving much of a response from employers. She remains committed to finding a job in Silicon Valley and would be dismayed if she had to look elsewhere.

That may not be easy.

Silicon Valley has been hit hard by the global economic crisis as tech companies, including Hewlett Packard Co, Yahoo Inc, Sun Microsystems Inc and Applied Materials Inc, have shed 140,000 jobs in the last few months, according to Challenger, Gray and Christmas, a consulting group.

Instead, employers are putting an increased value on experience and tenure, something recent graduates lack. And many companies are moving seasoned employees around to fill open positions rather than add another person to the payroll, according to Kerry Kiley, Bay Area regional manager for employment firm Adecco.

"Things out there are very, very tough right now and seem to be getting tougher before they're getting better -- even for the educated," she said. Only engineers buck the trend.

It has been tough for Crawford. She moved back home with her parents a little over a month ago to save money while searching for a job.

"I was thinking (it would take) maybe a couple weeks, maybe three weeks, before finding a job I was really interested in," said Crawford. "I am completely still shocked at how long it's taken."

HARD FIGURES

U.S. unemployment statistics show Crawford has plenty of company. Americans between 20 and 29 years old have the highest unemployment rate of any age group, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The unemployment rate for Americans ages 25 to 29 years-old jumped to 7.3 percent in November from 5 percent a year earlier, while for Americans 20 to 24 it rose to 10.4 percent from 7.7 percent. The national unemployment rate is 6.7 percent.

Unemployment among young adults usually spikes during bad times, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics economist Amar Mann. Unemployment rates among 20- to 29-year-olds rose faster than older age groups during the two most recent U.S. recessions, in 1990 and 2001.

It's also common for young Americans to head to graduate school or extend their undergraduate education rather than enter the workforce during tough economic times. Mann observed slight increases in graduate school enrollment during 1990 and 1991.

"Getting a master's or a PhD eventually does equate to a higher salary," Mann said. "Especially when your job prospects aren't that bright, you might be more willing to forgo two years in the workforce to get more education to increase your marketability."

Many college graduates in the Valley are grappling with the decision to take a service job or continue to hold out for a position that utilizes the skills they gained in college.

"I don't want to go into a restaurant (and work). I want to be able to use my degree," said Christine Chase, 24, of Campbell, California. Chase was laid off from her contractor job at AT&T in August and is struggling to pay her bills with her unemployment benefit.

With the holidays approaching and four fruitless months on the job search, Chase recently registered with a recruiting agency for help finding a job.

"I'm going to have to be a little more flexible now and take what I can get."

Employers will be more attracted to those who adopted a flexible attitude toward the job search and took advantage of open employment opportunities, regardless if the job required a college degree, according to Kiley.

"This is not the time that pride is going to stand in the way of your paycheck," said Kiley. "Sometimes you have to humble yourself."

(Reporting by Jennifer Martinez; Editing by Peter Henderson and Eddie Evans)

News : Electronics industry axes jobs, sees bleak Christmas

By Nathan Layne and Tarmo Virki

TOKYO/HELSINKI (Reuters) - Sony Corp (6758.T: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) axed thousands of jobs on Tuesday and bearish comments from Samsung (005930.KS: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Texas Instruments (TXN.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) added to the gloom in the technology sector as consumers shun the latest gadgets.

Demand for consumer electronics has slumped in the run-up to Christmas as the financial crisis has grown into a broad recession that has already engulfed the U.S., parts of Europe and is dampening demand in emerging markets.

"Consumers have essentially stopped buying," said Brian Halla, Chief Executive of chipmaker National Semiconductor. "For the first time in a long time, you think before you buy the new gadget or choose to upgrade your phone."

Japan's Sony said it would slash 8,000 jobs, about 4 percent of its workforce, scale back investments and pull out of businesses as it aims to cut $1.1 billion in costs out of its ailing electronics operations.

The cuts -- the biggest announced by an Asian firm so far in the financial crisis -- and other restructuring steps underscore challenges facing Sony, which has fallen well behind Apple Inc's (AAPL.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) iPod in portable music and is struggling to make money on flat panel TVs.

Korean electronics giant Samsung Electronics Co Ltd said late on Monday it was cutting its targets for sales, capital expenditures and profit, reflecting an increasingly tough worldwide economy.

The world's top maker of memory chips and liquid crystal displays (LCDs) is also facing a lengthy downturn in the once-reliable memory market and a rapid margin deterioration in the flat-screen TV sector.

Chu Woo-sik, head of investor relations, said at an investor conference that capital expenditures would drop 2-3 trillion won next year.

"At a time when people are worried about losing their jobs and paying their mortgages it is not surprising that the consumer electronics industry is being hit," said Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi.

"In the past, when things started to improve, it has also been one of the first industries to bounce back," she said.

Overnight, chip makers Texas Instruments Inc (TXN.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and smaller rival National Semiconductor Corp (NSM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) slashed current-quarter revenue forecasts to far below Wall Street expectations as demand for mobile phone and analog chips came to a virtual standstill.

Also smaller chipmakers Broadcom Corp (BRCM.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Altera Corp (ALTR.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) warned on Monday of weaker-than-expected demand.

"Conditions (are) likely to get worse before they get better," TI's head of investor relations Ron Slaymaker told analysts on a conference call.

The DJ Stoxx European technology index was up 1.9 percent by 1117 GMT, outperforming a 1.2 percent gain in the broader STOXX 600 . Infineon (IFXGn.DE: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) shares fell 5 percent while Ericsson (ERICb.ST: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) was up 0.8 percent.

(Additional reporting by David Lawsky and Jennifer Martinez in San Francisco, with Sinead Carew in New York; editing by Elaine Hardcastle)

News : Cruise ship stranded in Antarctica

A luxury Antarctic cruise ship carrying 122 passengers and crew started to take on water and leak fuel after it ran aground.

Navy officials said the ship lay some 186 miles (300km) southwest of Argentina's Marambio military base on the Antarctic Peninsula, in a sheltered strait near Isla Bravante.

Pavithra George reports.

News : Desktop supercomputing Tesla

The U.S. computer graphics firm Nvidia launches the Tesla personal computer in the UK which it says offers the power of a supercomputer at 1/100th the price.

Billed as "the world's first supercomputing PC", Nvidia says its new Tesla PC will give scientists access to the same processing capabilities as a supercomputing cluster at a fraction of the cost.

Reuters Technology Correspondent Matt Cowan reports.

News : "Big Bang" collider repairs to cost up to $29 million

By Laura MacInnis

GENEVA (Reuters) - Repairing the giant particle collider built to simulate the "Big Bang" could cost up to 35 million Swiss francs ($29 million), the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) said on Friday.

Announcing a further delay to the Large Hadron Collider's resumption, now expected in summer, CERN spokesman James Gillies said repairs will cost 15 million Swiss francs, and spare parts would cost another 10-20 million Swiss francs.

The massive collider, the largest and most complex machine ever made, has already cost 10 billion Swiss francs to build, supported by CERN's 20 European member states and other nations including the United States and Russia.

"We will not be going to our member states asking for more money, we will deal with it within the current CERN budget," Gillies said.

The collider was designed to recreate conditions just after the Big Bang, believed by most cosmologists to have created the universe 13.7 billion years ago.

It sends beams of sub-atomic particles to smash into each other at nearly the speed of light. Physicists plan to look at the results of those explosions for new or previously unseen particles that could unlock more secrets of science.

Scientists started it up with great fanfare in September, firing beams of proton particles around its 27-km (17-mile) underground tunnel. But nine days later they were forced to shut it down when an electrical fault caused a helium leak.

Gillies said that helium leak caused "quite considerable mechanical damage to the accelerator."

Repairing it will require 53 of the 57 magnets in the collider's tunnel, buried under the Swiss-French border near Geneva, to be removed and then re-installed.

Some 28 have already come out, and all the magnets should be back in place by the end of March, Gillies said. CERN now expects the machine to be powered up again for tests by June, after which particle beams can be sent around again.

"We don't have a precise date for it yet," the spokesman said. CERN had originally said the machine would be restarted in the spring.

(Editing by Stephanie Nebehay and Richard Balmforth)

News : Microsoft taps key ex-Yahoo executive for post

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp tapped on Thursday a former senior Yahoo Inc executive, Qi Lu, to head its online services group.

The software giant, which tried and failed to buy Yahoo earlier this year, is looking to revamp its search-ad strategy to better compete with the industry juggernaut, Google Inc.

Microsoft also has decided it does not want to buy Yahoo any more, although it has left open the possibility of a search deal with the company. Lu, who was responsible for development of the Web search and monetization platforms at Yahoo, left the company in August after 10 years.

He will begin work at Microsoft in January and report directly to Chief Executive Steve Ballmer.

Last month, Microsoft hired Sean Suchter, another former Yahoo search executive.

Microsoft also said Brian McAndrews, the former CEO of aQuantive, which the company acquired last year for $6 billion, is leaving the company. He was senior vice president of the advertiser and publisher solutions group, which will be overseen by Lu in his new role.

Shares of Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft closed at $19.11, down 76 cents or 3.8 percent, while shares of Sunnyvale, California-based Yahoo closed down 45 cents or 3.9 percent at $11.05.

(Reporting by Gabriel Madway, editing by Matthew Lewis)

News : "Koobface" virus turns up on Facebook

By Jim Finkle

BOSTON (Reuters) - Facebook's 120 million users are being targeted by a virus dubbed "Koobface" that uses the social network's messaging system to infect PCs, then tries to gather sensitive information such as credit card numbers.

It is the latest attack by hackers increasingly looking to prey on users of social networking sites.

"A few other viruses have tried to use Facebook in similar ways to propagate themselves," Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt said in an e-mail. He said a "very small percentage of users" had been affected by these viruses.

"It is on the rise, relative to other threats like e-mails," said Craig Schmugar, a researcher with McAfee Inc.

Koobface spreads by sending notes to friends of someone whose PC has been infected. The messages, with subject headers like, "You look just awesome in this new movie," direct recipients to a website where they are asked to download what it claims is an update of Adobe Systems Inc's Flash player.

If they download the software, users end up with an infected computer, which then takes users to contaminated sites when they try to use search engines from Google, Yahoo, MSN and Live.com, according McAfee.

McAfee warned in a blog entry on Wednesday that its researchers had discovered that Koobface was making the rounds on Facebook.

Facebook requires senders of messages within the network to be members and hides user data from people who do not have accounts, said Chris Boyd, a researcher with FaceTime Security Labs. Because of that, users tend to be far less suspicious of messages they receive in the network.

"People tend to let their guard down. They think you've got to log in with an account, so there is no way that worms and other viruses could infect them," Boyd said.

Social network MySpace, owned by News Corp, was hit by a version of Koobface in August and used security technology to eradicate it, according to a company spokeswoman. The virus has not cropped up since then, she said.

Privately held Facebook has told members to delete contaminated e-mails and has posted directions at www.facebook.com/security on how to clean infected computers.

Richard Larmer, chief executive of RLM Public Relations in New York, said he threw out his PC after it became infected by Koobface, which downloaded malicious software onto his PC. It was really bad. It destroyed my computer," he said.

McAfee has not yet identified the perpetrators behind Koobface, who are improving the malicious software behind the virus in a bid to outsmart security at Facebook and MySpace.

"The people behind it are updating it, refining it, adding new functionalities," said McAfee's Schmugar.

(Reporting by Jim Finkle, Additional reporting by Emily Kaiser; Editing by Toni Reinhold)

News : Rockefeller Center Tree lighting

For many Americans, it's the kickoff to the holiday season - the lighting of the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree in New York City.

This year's tree is a 72 ft. Norway Spruce decorated with thirty thousand energy-efficient LED lights and a crystal star crowning the top.

Sarah Irwin reports.

News : India uses fishermen for security

India will use fishermen to boost its security presence along the eastern coast.

The fishermen will be used as sources of surveillance along the coastline. This change comes after the Mumbai attacks which killed more than 100 people.

According to Indian authorities the attackers arrived in Mumbai by boat.

News : Apple may be chilling iTunes competition

By David Lawsky

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple might be unfairly blocking rival software makers who want to sell music for its iPhone, according to some rivals and a technology rights group.

The iTunes store accounts for four out of five songs sold on the Internet in the United States and is becoming more important as CDs fade. A milestone was reached last month when Atlantic Records announced digital sales had surpassed CD sales.

Everyone agrees Apple achieved its dominance in music downloads and players with good products and marketing, which makes it entirely legal. Apple is not a monopoly because there are hardware competitors such as Microsoft Corp's Zune.

Nonetheless, rivals and a technology rights group are concerned Apple is overly aggressive.

Apple declined to comment, but its lawyer wrote a competitor and said the company is defending its rights under copyright law.

Apple's music business operates in three parts. First there is the hardware, an iPod or iPhone. Second, iTunes software on computers manages music on the hardware. Finally, there is the iTunes store, which sells music. The whole process is easy but importing music from competitors is more difficult, the critics say.

But Susan Kevorkian of IDC reports more vigorous competition, saying Amazon.com Inc has ramped up usage of its service in a scant 10 months and Wal-Mart Stores Inc has also captured some market share.

Apple has a few small rivals for iTunes. They include WinAmp, gtkpod for the alternate operating system Linux and Songbird.

"We love Apple's products," said Rob Lord, chief executive of Songbird.

His for-profit company makes software designed to run on iPods, or any other music player.

USER CHOICE

"Users should have the choice of the iTunes store or somebody else's store," Lord said, adding consumers should be able to switch to Nokia, Blackberry In Motion Ltd or MP3 players without having to dump their entire music library.

Analysts do not believe companies such as Lord's pose a real threat to Apple's exclusive approach to music marketing.

"This may not be a big deal in the long run. Most people who go to alternatives probably wouldn't have bought songs from iTunes in the first place," said Michael Gartenberg with Jupiter Media.

But it is a big enough deal that Apple felt compelled to act last month, out of concern its copyright was violated.

Apple told the operator of website bluwiki.com to remove postings that talked about ways to work around a special Apple file, known as iTunesDB. Apple said copyright law prohibited such talk.

People such as Lord need to use iTunesDB for their software to work properly with the iPhone and iPod touch, both of which have protected versions of iTunesDB.

Sam Odio, operator of bluwiki, disliked the Apple notice, but did what it demanded, removing several postings.

"When a lawyer calls you up and implicitly threatens litigation that would bankrupt your little project you obviously have no choice but to comply," he said.

The technology rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation has taken on Odio as a nonpaying client to see if it can protect his freedom to post.

"This is a pure attack on interoperability," said Fred von Lohmann, a lawyer for the Foundation.

He said that, until a year ago, iPods worked well with many kinds of music software.

"In October of last year, they added (software) which has no purpose other than to prevent applications other than iTunes from working," he added.

Von Lohmann said court precedents make it clear others have a right to write software for iPods and iPhones.

(Editing by Andre Grenon)

News : New videogames lure players into the kitchen

By Lisa Baertlein

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A new crop of video games is encouraging fans to ignore their parents' advice and play with their food.

Fans slice, dice and feel the heat of the kitchen with a new crop of foodie games that includes Atari's "What's Cooking? With Jamie Oliver," Majesco's "Cooking Mama World Kitchen," Ubisoft's "Hell's Kitchen: The Video Game" and Nintendo's "Personal Trainer: Cooking."

Jamie Oliver, television's "Naked Chef," sees his new title for the hand-held Nintendo DS as an interactive cookbook with games.

"I'm looking at this as a digital book with a game rather than a game with a digital book," said Oliver, who has published about a dozen cookbooks and is an active campaigner to improve school meals in Britain.

Oliver's video game title, which hit shelves in October, includes more than 100 mostly exclusive recipes accompanied by mouth-watering images from food photographer David Loftus. It also features games that allow players to "cook" some of the recipes.

"What's Cooking?" players can really get their hands dirty because voice recognition technology on the DS lets them move forward or backward through a recipe's steps.

The game also includes a shopping list creator and recipe storing and swapping capabilities.

Oliver, a father of two, said his 6-year-old daughter is already pro at the game.

"My little Poppy loves it. She finds it a bit freaky that her dad is saying, 'Come on, come on, play the game.' Welcome to the test kitchen," he said.

KITCHEN QUEEN

The title that launched the North American food game craze was "Cooking Mama," a Japanese import that hit our shores in 2006. It uses the touchscreen and stylus on the DS to let users "cook" everything from pepperoni pizza to cabbage meat rolls. Players also can blow into the DS microphone to "cool off" hot dishes.

"'Cooking Mama' was a surprise hit" and the game that launched a new cooking game genre in the United States," said Sam Kennedy, editorial director at video game fan site 1UP.com.

The newest title, "Cooking Mama World Kitchen" for Nintendo's popular Wii console, is just out.

Kennedy said the interactive features in Nintendo's DS handheld (as well as its Wii console) have expanded what a game can be -- and that the real recipes in games like Oliver's add authenticity to the genre.

Kennedy he would know. He had his team try some of the recipes in "Cooking Mama" to see how they turned out.

"They didn't work at all," said Kennedy.

Nintendo, which has sold more than 22.5 million DS systems in the United States, has also gotten into the game.

Its new cooking title called "Personal Trainer: Cooking" has just been released.

That game is based on a popular Japanese title called "Cooking Navi," said Leslie Swan, Nintendo's director of localization.

Among other things, Nintendo's cooking game includes videos that teach special cooking techniques and features 245 recipes from around the world.

(Editing by Belinda Goldsmith, Reporting by Lisa Baertlein)

News : Britain's DNA database violates privacy - court

STRASBOURG, France (Reuters) - Britain violated the privacy of two people by storing their DNA profiles, Europe's human rights court ruled on Thursday, a decision that calls into question rules governing the use of the country's DNA database.

British groups campaigning for individual liberties immediately demanded a change in the law, which the government rejected.

The case centered on a boy who was charged with attempted robbery aged 11 and later acquitted, and a man who was charged with harassing his partner before the case was formally discontinued.

Both applied for their fingerprints, DNA samples and profiles to be destroyed, but police kept the information on the basis of a law allowing them to keep it indefinitely.

The two individuals argued this continued to cast suspicion on them after they had been cleared of any wrongdoing.

"The court was struck by the blanket and indiscriminate nature of the power of retention," said the European Court of Human Rights, based in the eastern French city of Strasbourg.

"The powers of retention of the fingerprints, cellular samples and DNA profiles of persons suspected but not convicted of offences ... failed to strike a fair balance between the competing public and private interests," it said.

The 17 judges ruled unanimously that Britain had violated the right to respect for private life. They awarded the two people concerned 42,000 euros ($53,000) in expenses.

British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said she was disappointed by the ruling.

"DNA and fingerprinting is vital to the fight against crime, providing the police with more than 3,500 matches a month ... The existing law will remain in place while we carefully consider the judgment," Smith said.

The campaign group Liberty said in a statement: "The DNA profiles of roughly 85,000 innocent people should be taken off the National DNA Database.

"The decision will require the UK government to reconsider its policies under which the DNA of innocent individuals ... is permanently retained by police."

Police defended their right to retain DNA profiles, saying the practice had helped identify many criminals.

"From May 2001 to December 2005, 200,000 DNA samples were retained on the National DNA Database which would previously have had to be removed as they were taken from people charged but not convicted of offences," said Chris Sims of the Association of Chief Police Officers.

"Of these, about 8,500 profiles of individuals have been linked with crime scene profiles involving nearly 14,000 offences," Sims said.

(Reporting by Gilbert Reilhac in Strasbourg, Estelle Shirbon in Paris, Luke Baker and Michael Holden in London; Editing by Janet Lawrence)