News : Sen Edward Kennedy dies

U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy, who's been battling brain cancer, has died aged 77 at his family home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts.

Joanne Nicholson reports.

News : YouTube to share ad money with more video makers

By Yinka Adegoke

NEW YORK (Reuters) - YouTube, the world's most popular video sharing site, said on Tuesday it will start sharing advertising cash with users who upload the most popular clips of everything from skateboarding dogs to dancing babies.

The video site, which is owned by Web search giant Google Inc, said it will extend its YouTube partnership program to allow individuals to make money when their videos are deemed eligible based on the number of views and how widely they are shared with other users.

YouTube has been criticized by some Google investors, who complain that the site has failed to capitalize financially on its immense popularity.

Until now, users who regularly produced videos could earn revenue from YouTube if they formally applied to be members of the partnership program, which YouTube said has earned some video producers "thousands of dollars."

Under the new system, if a video becomes popular YouTube will email the maker an "enable revenue sharing" message. Executives declined to quantify how popular a video would need to be for its owner receive the email. YouTube said it will sell ads against the clip only if the user agrees to do so.

One recent example of a clip that became a global phenomenon was the JK wedding dance video, which showed a Minnesota couple's wedding party performing an entrance dance routine. It was seen more than 10 million times in less than a week and picked up by various TV news outlets. But according to YouTube executives, the makers never made any money from the clip.

The extension of the program, to be available only in the United States initially, is the latest step by YouTube to improve its ability to make money from the thousands of videos that are uploaded to the site every day.

"We think there's tens of thousands more partners that we can generate through this content," said Tom Pickett, director online sales at YouTube.

Goldman Sachs estimates that YouTube will post revenue this year of about $300 million, and that the figure will increase by at least 40 percent in 2010. Analysts at Credit Suisse, however, have estimated that YouTube could lose nearly $500 million this year.

As part of its drive to increase revenue, YouTube has sought to increase the number of videos from traditional television and movie companies, encouraging more big-brand marketers to buy more advertising time. Earlier this month it signed a deal with Time Warner Inc for clips of shows from CNN, TNT, Cartoon Network and Warner Bros.

(Reporting by Yinka Adegoke, editing by Gerald E. McCormick and Matthew Lewis)

News : "House" gets guerrilla ad treatment

By James Hibberd

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - "Snakes on a cane." Sound familiar? Perhaps, during commercial breaks on Fox, you've seen the flashes of a caduceus that uses a cane instead of a staff. You might have seen the symbol drawn with chalk on New York streets. Or even clicked through to the phrase's cryptic Web site.

Fox is set to announce what many who have spied the symbol already suspect: It has been a summerlong guerrilla marketing promotion for Season 6 of "House" in the fall.

Yet few would guess that the idea came from "House" star Hugh Laurie.

In the spring, the actor thought of the "snakes on a cane" phrase, sketched the symbol and mentioned it to Fox's marketing department, which ran with the idea as an innovative teaser campaign.

"Teaser campaigns are usually reserved for Year 1 shows," Joe Earley, Fox's executive vice president of marketing and communications, said. "Rarely would you do something like this for a show that's already established."

"House" is set to return September 21 and likely will continue its reign as the network's highest-rated drama. Usually networks reserve their most creative marketing efforts for new shows, but Fox elected to buck tradition to promote its veteran hit. But with competitors launching three new medical dramas this season, "House" could benefit from some extra attention.

The first part of the campaign spread the symbol without any context. The second phase added a clock counting down to the "House" premiere date on the campaign's Web site and five-second "subliminal" ads during Fox programing, which remained cryptic and avoided showing a direct connection to "House." One ad was a full-page placement in a major publication without a title or tune-in date.

Online viewers' myriad guesses about the symbol have ranged from something related to the president's health care plan to a campaign for a new movie.

"We were really able to hit a wide range of people," Earley said. "'House' doesn't need a teaser campaign, but given how brilliant it is, it's intrigued people in a new way."

The crucial part is ensuring that viewers make the connection between the teaser "snakes on a cane" imagery and "House." So Fox is set to embark on the next phase of its campaign: In addition to ads on the air and off, the network will have a vintage ambulance driving around Los Angeles bearing the symbol and tune-in information for the show.

(Editing by SheriLinden at Reuters)

News : Nokia bets on Linux in iPhone battle

By Tarmo Virki, European technology correspondent

HELSINKI (Reuters) - Nokia Oyj will try again to tackle Apple Inc's iPhone in the top-end of the handset market with a bet on Linux software, several industry sources told Reuters.

Top handset maker Nokia will show its first high-end phone running on Maemo, a version of Linux, next week at the annual Nokia World event in Stuttgart, Germany, the sources said.

But analysts said it would likely not become clear before next year at the earliest whether this would help Nokia achieve its aims.

The Finnish group has dabbled with Linux since 2005, using it in "Internet tablets" -- sleek phone-like devices used to access the Web that have failed to gain mass-market appeal in part due to their lack of a cellular radio.

"It looks like Maemo, or at least a Linux derivative of some description, will play a key role for Nokia in high-end (products) over the next year or two," said Neil Mawston from Strategy Analytics.

Nokia's workhorse Symbian operating system (OS) controls half of the smartphone market volume -- more than its rivals Apple, Research in Motion Ltd and Google Inc in total.

Yet analysts said Linux-based products could have important advantages.

"Maemo is clearly far more flexible than Symbian, so it's a better option for advanced devices using various display technologies and rapidly evolving user-interface software," said analyst Tero Kuittinen from MKM Partners.

A Nokia spokesman said the company could not comment on future phone launches.

VALUE SHARE

High-end products are important for Nokia because the company has not only lost market share in this segment but its average selling prices have declined faster than the industry average.

Goldman Sachs expects Nokia's value share (a measure reflecting average prices as well as underlying market share) for phones costing more than $350 to decline to 13 percent this year from 33 percent just two years before.

"Maemo's got to be the best bet Nokia has in that battle." said eQ Bank analyst Jari Honko.

Linux is the most popular type of free or open source operating system. It competes directly with Microsoft Corp, which charges for its Windows software and opposes freely sharing its code.

Linux suppliers earn money selling improvements and technical services.

Nokia has already talked about its work with Linux-based systems.

"Maemo is taking the desktop Linux environment and making it mobile," Kai Oistamo, the head of Nokia's key phone unit, told Reuters in a recent interview. "We have proven it really can be made, you can take desktop Linux and make it work on mobile."

Linux has had little success in cellphones so far but its role is increasing with Maemo and also with Google using it for its Android platform.

Nokia's bet on Maemo does not mean the firm would replace Symbian software -- at the same time it is moving Symbian extensively into its cheaper phones, expanding its target market.

Confirming the trend, Nokia on Tuesday unveiled a new touch screen smartphone, the 5230, which runs Symbian and is expected to sell for just 149 euros ($213.4), excluding operator subsidies and local taxes.

(Editing by David Holmes)

News : Drivers get virtual "guardian angel"

A digital co-pilot that can take over should a driver lose control of his rig is in the works for long-haul truckers.

Jim Drury reports.

News : Spider sensors monitor volcano

Scientists from NASA have placed spider-like sensors inside Mount St. Helens in hopes of detecting seismic activity earlier than has ever been possible.

Ben Gruber reports.

News : Sony adds wireless e-reader as Kindle rival

By Alexandria Sage and Franklin Paul

SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Sony Corp on Tuesday unveiled its first wireless electronic reader, a move to challenge Amazon.com Inc's momentum in the growing digital book market.

At $399, the "Daily Edition," features a 7-inch touch screen, and an aluminum body, and will go on sale in December. AT&T will provide its 3G wireless Internet service.

After a year of headlines dominated by Amazon's Kindle reader, Sony has taken the offensive, with the wireless model joining previously announced lower-priced units.

It's unclear which consumers prefer. Amazon does not provide sales figures. In January, Sony disclosed that it had sold 400,000 readers.

Sony previously introduced the "Pocket Edition" for $199 and the "Touch Edition" for $299. But Kindle has generated the lion's share of buzz, even though its 2007 introduction came a year later than Sony's first reader.

Sony and Amazon, the two largest players, are vying to establish a toehold in a market that they believe will become a profit driver as more consumers enjoy books, magazines, newspapers and other media on the book-sized tablets.

While some users have raved about convenience of digital readers, especially while traveling, analysts say the devices will remain a cachet item until prices come down.

Amazon's Kindle costs $299 for the basic version and $489 for a large screen version geared toward newspaper reading. The Kindle, though wireless, does not offer a touch screen like the "Daily Reader."

"The Kindle has captured a lot of attention because of the integrated wireless connectivity. So adding the wireless certainly fills a significant feature gap," said Ross Rubin, consumer technology analyst at NPD Group. "It is something that consumers in our research have expressed a lot of interest in."

Users of prior Sony readers have had to plug their device into a computer when it comes time to download content, which some have found inconvenient.

The wireless debut comes only weeks after Sony said it would convert its digital book store of over 1 million titles to EPUB, a publishing standard allowing users to read content on multiple devices.

That move should attract consumers who do not want to be limited by Amazon's proprietary system. Its titles can be viewed only on a Kindle or by using Amazon software on an Apple Inc iPhone or iPod Touch.

Sony's strength has traditionally been with open formats and broadly-available content, whether in televisions, DVDs or CDs, Rubin said, calling the company's EPUB format a recent extension of that.

"What Sony is doing is really leveraging a number of its strengths, like industrial design and retail distribution," he said. "It's trying to create that independence of content and device in the e-book category."

And as the market eventually broadens for e-readers, the demand will likely increase for an open format, he added.

Steve Haber, president of Sony's Digital Reading Business Division, said the e-book market was already developing rapidly. "Momentum is building tremendously. It's just a matter of time -- five years, ten years."

Sony said a new application, Library Finder, would make e-books found at libraries available to its customers. Some 8,000 retail locations will carry Sony's readers in December.

(Reporting by Alexandria Sage and Franklin Paul. Editing by Robert MacMillan, Bernard Orr.)

News : Jessica Biel tops list as most risky star in cyberspace

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Actress Jessica Biel has overtaken Brad Pitt as the most dangerous celebrity to search in cyberspace, according to Internet security company McAfee Inc.

For the third consecutive year, McAfee surveyed which A-list celebrity was the riskiest to track on the Internet after Pitt topped the list last year and Paris Hilton came in first in 2007.

Biel, 27, who shot to fame in the TV show "7th Heaven" and most recently starred in "Easy Virtue," was deemed the most dangerous, with fans having a one-in-five chance of landing at a website that has tested positive for online threats, such as spyware, adware, spam, phishing, and viruses.

"Cybercriminals are star watchers too - they latch onto popular celebrities to encourage the download of malicious software in disguise," McAfee's Jeff Green said in a statement.

"Consumers' obsession with celebrity news and culture is harmless in theory, but one bad download can cause a lot of damage to a computer."

"Every day, cybercriminals use celebrities' names and images, like Kim Kardashian and Rihanna, to lure surfers searching for the latest stories, screen savers and ringtones to sites offering free downloads laden with malware," the statement added.

Coming second in the list for the second year running was pop star Beyonce, with McAfee finding that putting "Beyonce ringtones" into a search engine yielded a dangerous website linking to a distributor of adware and spyware.

Actress Jennifer Aniston was third, with more than 40 percent of the Google search results for "Jennifer Aniston screensavers" containing nasty viruses.

Young Hollywood stars Miley Cyrus, Ashley Tisdale and Lindsay Lohan all edged out Heidi Montag and Jessica Alba who appeared on last year's list.

They also ranked higher than other young personalities including "Twilight" stars Robert Pattinson who came 30th and Kristen Stewart who was 20th, the Jonas Brothers, Taylor Swift, Lauren Conrad, Vanessa Hudgens and Zac Efron.

Megan Fox and Angelina Jolie tied as the eighth most dangerous celebrities on the Web while newlyweds Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen came in fourth and sixth respectively.

However, U.S. President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama, who have featured on most celebrities list this year, were not at the top of risky public figures to search.

The Obamas ranked in the bottom-third of this year's results, at No. 34 and No. 39 respectively.

Brad Pitt came 10th in the list this year.

(Writing by Belinda Goldsmith, Editing by Miral Fahmy)

News : Yahoo to compete with Bing despite Microsoft deal

By David Lawsky

SUNNYVALE, California (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc said on Monday it has revamped its search to compete against Microsoft Corp's Bing, even as it relies on the Redmond giant to power its queries.

The announcement of plans to put a new face on Yahoo Messenger and Mail and add functions to its search engine came after news that Google and Yahoo each lost a fraction of a point of U.S. search share to Microsoft last month.

"We are not a version of Bing," Prabhakar Raghavan, a senior vice president of Yahoo, said to reporters at the company's headquarters.

"We are Yahoo and that will continue...We collaborate on the back-end but we are competitors on the front-end," he said,

At a press event held at their headquarters, the company gave more details of its complex relationship with Microsoft.

At the end of July, Microsoft and Yahoo signed a 10-year deal under which search on Yahoo's websites will be generated by Microsoft's new Bing search engine. The companies hope the deal will take effect early next year.

Microsoft will license Yahoo's search technology, allowing it to integrate certain aspects of it into Bing. Microsoft's advertising search product, AdCenter, will also replace Yahoo's equivalent product, Panama.

Raghavan said that when Microsoft sends ads along with its answers to queries, Yahoo may or may not use all of them, depending on a complex formula.

A new series of boxes to the left of search results and ads will give users more ways to make use of what they have found, said Larry Cornett, Yahoo vice president of search products.

A box powered by Internet security company McAfee Inc, will filter dangerous links. Videos will play without leaving the search page.

A box to sites like Yelp, which provides user feedback on stores and restaurants, can be clicked to check out the quality of a sushi restaurant without leaving the search page.

Cornett, who demonstrated the new approach, said it was undergoing testing and will be available some time this year.

Comscore reported Microsoft gained 0.5 percent in July, but still only holds 8.9 percent of the search market, compared to 64.7 percent for Google and 19.3 percent for Yahoo.

Yahoo shares closed up 20 cents, or 1.35 percent, to end the day at $14.99 on the Nasdaq.

(Reporting by David Lawsky, editing by Leslie Gevirtz)

News : 99-year-old lawyer wows India

India's western Pune court honours India's oldest 'practising' Lawyer.

Jim Drury reports.

Nes : Microsoft, Yahoo join in opposing Google books deal

By David Lawsky

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp and Yahoo! Inc are joining a group of opponents to a class action settlement that gives Google Inc the right to digitize millions of books, the companies said on Friday.

The companies are becoming part of the Open Book Alliance, made up of nonprofits and libraries that have raised a red flag against Google's plan to digitize books and put them on the Internet.

"Yes, we've agreed to participate in the coalition," a spokesman for Microsoft said. A Yahoo spokeswoman said they had also signed on.

Amazon.com Inc has also reportedly joined, but a spokeswoman said: "We don't comment on rumor or speculation."

Critics say the deal gives Google the unimpeded ability to set prices for libraries, once they scan books and put them on the Internet. If the service becomes a necessity for libraries they would face monopoly pricing, Google's opponents say.

They also say it would also allow Google -- and only Google -- to digitize so-called orphan works, which could pose an antitrust concern.

Orphan works are books or other materials that are still covered by U.S. copyright law, but it is not clear who owns the rights to them.

Google took issue with the criticism. "The agreement is not exclusive. If improved by the court it will expand access to millions of books in the U.S.," said Gabriel Stricker, a spokesman for Google.

"The agreement stands to inject more competition into the digital book space, so it's understandable why our competitors would fight hard to prevent more competition," he said.

New York University law professor James Grimmelmann, who runs thepublicindex.org site, which carries documents on the case, said he is waiting to see the arguments of the Open Books Alliance.

"Google is right that there are access benefits to making books available," said Grimmelmann. "The question of whether this is good or bad for competition is hotly contested. There are clear ways that the settlement could create a concentration of power, especially over orphan books."

The deal is under review or investigation by the U.S. Justice Department, the European Commission and a group of U.S. state attorneys general.

The proposed settlement was reached in October, 2008, to settle a lawsuit filed in 2005 by the Author's Guild, when Google began scanning books.

The Guild and a group of publishers has alleged copyright infringement.

Google has agreed to pay $125 million to create a Book Rights Registry, where authors and publishers can register works and receive compensation from institutional subscriptions or book sales. A hearing on approval of the settlement is set for October 7 in U.S. District Court in New York.

(Reporting by David Lawsky; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)

News : Facebook to boost staff by 50% in 2009

(Reuters) - Online social networking site Facebook is looking to expand its staff by as much as 50 percent this year, its chief executive Mark Zuckerberg told Bloomberg news agency in an interview dated August 20.

Facebook's website says it has more than 900 employees.

The company, which counts venture capitalist Peter Thiel, Accel Partners, Microsoft Corp and Russian Internet investment firm Digital Sky Technologies among its investors, has more than 250 million registered users.

In June, rival MySpace, owned by News Corp, said it would cut 30 percent of its U.S. staff and two-thirds of its international workforce.

(Reporting by S. John Tilak in Bangalore, editing by Will Waterman)

News : Apple says Google Voice app alters iPhone

By John Poirier

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - IPhone maker Apple Inc told U.S. regulators it has not approved Google Inc's Voice application, which could challenge the wireless industry's giants, because it interferes with the iPhone "user experience."

Apple told the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) on Friday that the Google app appears to replace the iPhone's core mobile telephone functionality and user interface with its own system for telephone calls, text messaging and voicemail.

"Contrary to published reports, Apple has not rejected the Google Voice application, and continues to study it," Catherine Novelli, Apple vice president for worldwide government affairs, said in a letter to the FCC.

The letter was in response to an inquiry launched last month by the FCC, which under new leadership is taking a fresh look into the state of competition in the wireless industry.

The FCC, chaired by Julius Genachowski, wants to know why Apple rejected the Google Voice and what was discussed among Apple, Google and AT&T Inc, the exclusive U.S. carrier for the iPhone.

Responses by the companies were due on Friday. The FCC had no immediate comment.

The application by Google, which has entered the wireless market with its own smartphone operating system called Android, is seen by some as a competitive threat to the voice services that come with the iPhone.

"AT&T was not asked about the matter by Apple at any time, nor did we offer any view one way or the other," said Jim Cicconi, AT&T senior executive vice president for external and legislative affairs.

T-Mobile, a unit of Deutsche Telekom AG, provides service for Google's Android.

ROLE OF VOIP

The issue could have far reaching implications for the U.S. telecom industry. Depending on how the FCC responds, it could either pave the way for new entrants or hinder their ability to use large carriers' phones to offer discount services.

With some prodding from several U.S. senators, the FCC is also reviewing exclusive handset arrangements between wireless carriers and cell phone makers and how they affect competition and choice in the marketplace.

Experts are watching what role online calling features, such as voice over Internet protocol (VoIP), will play in the fast changing wireless industry.

Apple said it does not know if there is a VoIP element in the way Google Voice calls and sends text messages but said it has approved some VoIP applications like Skype, owned by online auction site eBay Inc, for use over Wi-Fi but not on AT&T's 3G network.

Apple said there is a provision in its agreement with AT&T that obligates Apple not to include functionality that allows a customer to use AT&T's cellular network to originate or terminate a VoIP session, without first getting AT&T's permission.

"Apple honors this obligation," Novelli said.

AT&T, however, said it regularly reviews its policies regarding certain features and capabilities, leaving open the possibility of allowing the use of VoIP on its network.

"We plan to take a fresh look at possibly authorizing VoIP capabilities on the iPhone for use on AT&T's 3G network," Cicconi said.

Google also filed a response letter with the FCC but portions concerning why Apple rejected its Voice application were redacted.

The Mountain View, California-based company said in the letter that it had no additional proposed iPhone applications pending with Apple.

(Reporting by John Poirier; Additional reporting by Sinead Carew in New York and Gabriel Madway in San Francisco; Editing by Gary Hill, Toni Reinhold)

News : Valve to help sick lungs breathe

A tiny device could help the millions of people worldwide who suffer from emphysema by giving them a less painful alternative to surgery.

Ben Gruber reports.

News : The 'pay what you want' video game

The video game manufacturer Eidos is offering downloads of its 2010 Championship Manager for as little as 1 UK penny, as a means of building a following for the franchise.

Matt Cowan reports.

Nes : Label hunts hackers who stole Lewis/Timberlake song

LONDON (Reuters) - Record label SyCo and music trade body IFPI have called in the police to help them hunt down computer hackers who leaked a track by Leona Lewis and Justin Timberlake on the Internet.

The song, "Don't Let Me Down," is being considered as the first single release from the X Factor winner's next album, according to the Sun newspaper.

"IFPI is working with SyCo and law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and Europe to trace the individuals who stole the Leona Lewis/Justin Timberlake track," said Jeremy Banks, head of IFPI's Internet Anti-Piracy Unit.

"The police investigation is ongoing," he said in a statement. "Such pre-release leaks, however they are sourced, are highly damaging to our members who invest considerable budgets in marketing and promoting music ahead of release."

The music industry has seen revenues slump in recent years amid rampant internet piracy in some regions, and the rise in legal digital downloads has failed to make up for losses in physical music purchases.

SyCo is music promoter and television talent show judge Simon Cowell's division of Sony Music Entertainment, which signs up acts who appear on The X Factor show in Britain.

Lewis won The X Factor in 2006, and her debut album "Spirit" topped charts around the world. Her second album is slated for release in November.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White; Editing by Steve Addison)

News : MySpace to buy Web music service iLike

By Yinka Adegoke

NEW YORK (Reuters) - News Corp's MySpace said on Thursday it has agreed to buy music recommendation service iLike, as the once-hot social networking site tries to reinvent itself as an entertainment portal.

MySpace declined to disclose financial terms of an acquisition that brings iLike's twin brother founders Ali and Hadi Partovi and Nat Brown into the MySpace fold.

The site was backed by venture capital funds and Ticketmaster Entertainment. Several blogs, including AllThingsDigital, reported earlier in the week that iLike would be bought by MySpace for around $20 million.

iLike is best known as a popular social music discovery service on Facebook, the social networking site that has overtaken MySpace as the top Web destination for friends and family to share photos, messages, video clips and other media.

MySpace, which was once the most popular and fastest growing social networking site just two years ago, has lost ground with users who have moved onto Facebook or other sites.

"We think that integration of iLike should help drive stickier traffic and ultimately improve monetization of MySpace user base," said JP Morgan analyst Imran Khan.

The acquisition comes as News Corp owner Rupert Murdoch has pressed to reinvent MySpace as an entertainment portal, taking advantage of its continued strength in areas like music and movies.

While it is still one of the most popular video and music sites, data from Nielsen shows time spent by users on MySpace fell by 31 percent between April 2008 and April 2009. In the same period, user time on Facebook grew 700 percent.

MySpace Chief Executive Owen Van Natta said on a conference call that iLike's social discovery technology can be extended to other areas for MySpace users beyond music -- areas such as entertainment, video and games.

He explained this is why MySpace, rather than MySpace Music, made the acquisition. MySpace Music, which launched last September, is a joint venture between MySpace and the four major music companies EMI Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and Universal Music Group.

(Reporting by Yinka Adegoke; Editing Bernard Orr)

News : LED display technology gets a twist

By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. researchers said on Thursday they have found a way to make large-scale flexible display screens that can be stretched to fit the contours of a bus yet are transparent enough so riders can see out windows.

The thin, light screens might be used to make brake light indicators that follow the contours of a car, or health monitors or imaging devices that wrap around a patient like a blanket, said John Rogers of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, whose study appears in the journal Science.

He said the large display screens combine the scale and durability of light-emitting diodes, or LED technology, used to make flat, lighted billboards, with the flexibility of screens made using organic -- carbon-containing -- materials.

"If you look at these giant billboard displays along the road side, those are made out of inorganic light emitting diodes (LEDs). Our feeling is those systems are quite impressive," Rogers said in a telephone interview.

"The question became is it possible to take that technology and use it in a non-billboard format."

Rogers said current technology using inorganic materials produces chunky individual LED lights that need to be arranged piecemeal with a robotic arm. Screens made using organic materials can be sprayed or painted onto a film surface, but they are not as bright or durable, he said.

To solve this challenge, researchers built their LEDs on a thin layer of film later dissolved by a chemical and then affixed tiny plastic tabs on two corners to ensure the LEDs did not wash away in the chemical bath.

The team used a special stamping technology to deposit and assemble the inorganic LEDs onto glass, plastic or rubber surfaces. The system works much like a rubber stamp and ink pad, using the LEDs as ink.

"The new approach can lift large numbers of small, thin LEDs from the wafer in one step, and then print them onto a substrate in another step," Rogers said.

The LEDs can be interconnected and wired with a conventional process used to wire computer chips, he added. And because LEDs can be placed far apart and still provide enough light, the panels and displays can be nearly transparent.

"We can put them on a strip of plastic and make brake lights," said Rogers, who noted that the project was initially funded in part by Ford Motor Co, which was looking for a way to make brake lights that can follow the contour of a car.

The National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy also funded the project.

(Editing by Maggie Fox and Paul Simao)

News : Mouse created from skin cells

Chinese researchers say a live mouse they've created from reprogrammed skin cells represents a major scientific breakthrough that they hope will one day allow humans to regrow damaged organs from their own tissue.

Kitty Bu reports.

News : IBM uses DNA to make next-gen microchips

By Clare Baldwin

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - International Business Machines Corp is looking to the building blocks of our bodies -- DNA -- to be the structure of next-generation microchips.

As chipmakers compete to develop ever-smaller chips at cheaper prices, designers are struggling to cut costs.

Artificial DNA nanostructures, or "DNA origami" may provide a cheap framework on which to build tiny microchips, according to a paper published on Sunday in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

Microchips are used in computers, cell phones and other electronic devices.

"This is the first demonstration of using biological molecules to help with processing in the semiconductor industry," IBM research manager Spike Narayan said in an interview with Reuters.

"Basically, this is telling us that biological structures like DNA actually offer some very reproducible, repetitive kinds of patterns that we can actually leverage in semiconductor processes," he said.

The research was a joint undertaking by scientists at IBM's Almaden Research Center and the California Institute of Technology.

Right now, the tinier the chip, the more expensive the equipment. Narayan said that if the DNA origami process scales to production-level, manufacturers could trade hundreds of millions of dollars in complex tools for less than a million dollars of polymers, DNA solutions, and heating implements.

"The savings across many fronts could add up significantly," he said.

But the new processes are at least 10 years out. Narayan said that while the DNA origami could allow chipmakers to build frameworks that are far smaller than possible with conventional tools, the technique still needs years of experimentation and testing.

News : Apple probes iPhone explosion reports

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Apple Inc is investigating media reports that one or more of the company's iPhones have exploded in Europe, a European Commission spokeswoman said on Tuesday.

The spokeswoman for the EU executive, which oversees the safety of consumer products sold in the 27-country bloc, said Apple had described the reported incidents as isolated.

Apple said it was aware of the media reports, which include a case in which a teenager in France said he was slightly injured when his iPhone made a hissing noise and shattered, but did not comment on any contacts with the Commission.

"Apple have come back to us ... and what they've said to us is that they consider these are isolated incidents. They don't consider that there's a general problem," Commission spokeswoman Helen Kearns told a news briefing.

"They're trying to get more information on the specific details of those incidents (reported in the media) and they will do tests as necessary to investigate the possible cause," she said.

Apple did not comment on the Commission spokeswoman's remarks.

But a spokesman for Apple Europe Ltd said: "We are aware of these (media) reports and we are waiting to receive the iPhones from the customers. Until we have the full details, we don't have anything further to add."

(Reporting by Timothy Heritage; editing by John Stonestreet)

News : Da Vinci's mechanical lion walks

An idea described by Leonardo Da Vinci for mechanical lion is turned into reality by a French museum dedicated to the Italian artist.

The lion which is life-sized weighs 100 kgs and is made of wood and paper-mache.

It has a clockwork mechanism which is hand-wound to set it in motion.

Da Vinci left no plans or sketches of the mechanical lion, but did leave written descriptions with detailed drawings of mechanisms that give insight into how he may have made it work.

Reports from Da Vinci's time said a mechanical lion that could walk was presented to King Francois I by the Florentine community in the French city of Lyon in 1519, to celebrate a new alliance between Florence and France.

News : U.S. business welcomes Obama export control review

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. high-technology exporters on Friday welcomed President Barack Obama's decision to undertake a comprehensive review of U.S. export controls rooted in Cold War fears of the former Soviet Union.

"The economic and security challenges our country faces continue to grow more complex, and we must have a modern export control system that protects U.S. technology while allowing us to cooperate and trade with our close allies and partners," Marion Blakey, president of the Aerospace Industries Association, said in statement.

Many U.S. companies are frustrated by licensing and procedures that limit export sales of commercial high-tech goods that also have military applications. They complain countries such as China can easily buy some of the technology on the open market from other suppliers.

Beijing also has pressed Washington to loosen restrictions, arguing that would help close the U.S. trade deficit with China, which reached a record $268 billion last year.

"The U.S. has one of the most robust export control systems in the world," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said on Thursday. "But it is rooted in the Cold War era of over 50 years ago and must be updated to address the threats we face today and the changing economic and technological landscape."

That statement accompanied Obama's decision to extend the Commerce Department's emergency authority to continue administering export controls for another year.

The 1979 Export Administration Act expired in 2001 and since then Congress has been unable to agree on reforms to replace the highly technical piece of legislation.

"Export control reviews are frequently announced, occasionally begun, and never completed. The really good news will be when it is finished," Bill Reinsch, president of the National Foreign Trade Council, said in a statement.

Representative Howard Berman, chairman of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, has already begun a congressional review of U.S. export controls and plans to introduce reform legislation early next year.

(Reporting by Doug Palmer; Editing by John O'Callaghan)

News : U.S. tests technology to break foreign Web censorship

By Jim Finkle

BOSTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government is covertly testing technology in China and Iran that lets residents break through screens set up by their governments to limit access to news on the Internet.

The "feed over email" (FOE) system delivers news, podcasts and data via technology that evades web-screening protocols of restrictive regimes, said Ken Berman, head of IT at the U.S. government's Broadcasting Board of Governors, which is testing the system.

The news feeds are sent through email accounts including those operated by Google Inc, Microsoft Corp's Hotmail and Yahoo Inc.

"We have people testing it in China and Iran," said Berman, whose agency runs Voice of America. He provided few details on the new system, which is in the early stages of testing. He said some secrecy was important to avoid detection by the two governments.

The Internet has become a powerful tool for citizens in countries where governments regularly censor news media, enabling them to learn about and react to major social and political events.

Young Iranians used social networking services Facebook and Twitter as well as mobile phones to coordinate protests and report on demonstrations in the wake of the country's disputed presidential election in June.

In May, ahead of the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown, the Chinese government blocked access to Twitter and Hotmail.

Sho Ho, who helped develop FOE, said in an email that the system could be tweaked easily to work on most types of mobile phones.

The U.S. government also offers a free service that allows overseas users to access virtually any site on the Internet, including those opposing the United States.

"We don't make any political statement about what people visit," Berman said. "We are trying to impart the value: 'The more you know, the better.' People can look for themselves."

In addition to China and Iran, targets for the FOE technology include Myanmar, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam, he said.

Berman, however, said there would be modest filtering of pornography on the system. "There is a limit to how much (U.S.) taxpayers should have to pay for," he said.

(Reporting by Jim Finkle, editing by Matthew Bigg and Paul Simao)

News : Obama Gives Medal of Freedom to 16 Luminaries

By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
WASHINGTON — President Obama took a break from the vitriol of the health care debate on Wednesday to bestow the Presidential Medal of Freedom on 16 luminaries in theater, sports, science, the humanities and politics, including Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the tennis great Billie Jean King, the actor Sidney Poitier and the physicist Stephen Hawking.

Doug Mills/The New York Times
Justice Sonia Sotomayor hugged her mother, Celina Sotomayor, at a White House reception with the president in the East Room.
“This is a chance for me — and for the United States of America — to say thank you to some of the finest citizens of this country and of all countries,” Mr. Obama said at the ceremony in the East Room of the White House, praising the recipients for reminding Americans that excellence is still possible “in a moment when cynicism and doubt too often prevail.”

It was Mr. Obama’s first chance to award the medal, the highest civilian honor a president can bestow, and there were some emotional moments. When the president hugged Mr. Poitier, it was a poignant reminder of how the actor, who broke racial barriers, had paved the way for Mr. Obama’s own journey to the White House. Ms. King, who was honored for her work advocating for the rights of women and gays, touched her medal to her lips when Mr. Obama draped it around her neck.

And Mr. Kennedy’s daughter, Kara, seemed to blink back tears as she accepted the award on behalf of her father, who is battling brain cancer. Mr. Obama introduced the honorees in alphabetical order, but saved Senator Kennedy for last, praising him as someone who has fought for soldiers, working families and students for nearly half a century, and whose life “has made a difference for us all.”

Two of the awards — to Jack Kemp, the one-time Republican vice-presidential candidate, and Harvey Milk, the slain gay rights activist whose life story was chronicled in a film starring Sean Penn — were delivered posthumously. Mr. Kemp’s widow, Joanne Kemp, accepted his award; Mr. Milk’s award was accepted by his nephew, Stuart Milk.

The ceremony was not without controversy. The recipients included Mary Robinson, the former president of Ireland and human rights advocate, whose award has drawn the ire of Jewish groups and lawmakers who accuse her of exhibiting bias against Israel. The White House said Mr. Obama had no second thoughts about the award; during the ceremony, the president praised Mrs. Robinson for her work as “an advocate for the hungry and the hunted, the forgotten and the ignored.”

The honorees spanned cultures and disciplines. They included Chita Rivera, who became famous when she played the role of Anita in “West Side Story”; Dr. Pedro Jose Greer Jr., who founded a medical clinic to treat Miami’s poor; Mohammad Yunus, a Bangladeshi economist who pioneered microfinance; the Rev. Joseph E. Lowery, the civil rights advocate and co-founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; and Joseph Medicine Crow, a World War II veteran and Native American historian and educator who wore a traditional feathered headdress at the ceremony.

Nancy Goodman Brinker, who was chief of protocol for Mr. Obama’s predecessor, President George W. Bush, was honored for her work as founder of the Susan G. Komen Foundation, which raises money for breast cancer research. Dr. Janet Davison Rowley, who took up serious medical research at age 40, after raising four children, and went on to discover that genetic abnormalities can cause cancer, also received the medal.

Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court, was also among the honorees.

News : Obama Gives Medal of Freedom to 16 Luminaries

News : Smelly, the elephant

A baby elephant is rescued after plunging down a drain shaft in the Thai beach town of Rayong.

Paul Chapman reports.

News : First Wi-Fi pacemaker in U.S.

After relying on a pacemaker for 20 years, Carol Kasyjanski has become the first American recipient of a wireless pacemaker that allows her doctor to monitor her health from afar -- over the Internet.

When Kasyjanski heads to St. Francis Hospital in Roslyn, New York, for a routine check-up, about 90 percent of the work has already been done because her doctor logged into his computer and learned most of what he needed to know about his patient.

Ben Gruber reports.

News : Frustrated Russian throws cup at Mona Lisa

PARIS (Reuters) - A Russian woman frustrated at failing to obtain French nationality hurled a ceramic cup at the Mona Lisa but did not damage Leonardo da Vinci's famed portrait, a spokesman for the Louvre Museum said on Tuesday.

The attack happened on August 2 and the unnamed assailant was immediately arrested.

"The woman threw an empty cup at the Mona Lisa, but there was no damage as the cup smashed when it hit the screen protecting the painting," said Louvre spokesman David Madec.

"She was visibly upset," he added, saying she had subsequently undergone psychiatric testing.

The Mona Lisa, which is protected by a bullet-proof screen, is one of the most prized works in the Louvre and was seen by some 8.5 million visitors last year.

The woman had hidden the ceramic cup in a bag and later told police she had been upset because she had not been granted French nationality. She has since been released, but faces legal action from the Louvre.

Other museums in France have had problems.

In 2007, a man broke into the Musee D'Orsay in Paris and punched and damaged a painting by the French impressionist Claude Monet.

In 2008 a Cambodian woman was made to do community service after kissing a painting by American artist Cy Twombly at a gallery in southern France, leaving lipstick on the canvas.

(Reporting by Joseph Tandy, editing by Crispian Balmer)

News : Facebook buys social media start-up FriendFeed

By Alexei Oreskovic

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Facebook, the world's largest social networking site, said it will buy FriendFeed, netting a group of prized ex-Google engineers in the fast-growing Internet business.

FriendFeed, an up-and-coming social media startup, lets people share content online in real time across various social networks and blogs.

The service is similar to, though less popular than Twitter, the microblogging site that Facebook tried to buy for $500 million in 2008, according to sources familiar with the matter.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed on Monday, but Facebook said FriendFeed would operate as it has for the time being as the teams determine long-term plans.

Facebook's big gain in the acquisition is the engineering talent at FriendFeed, rather than the actual product, which has won critical praise, but lagged in popularity compared to Twitter, said Forrester Research analyst Jeremiah Owyang.

"These guys know how to build scalable, social applications," said Owyang.

In a statement, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he admired the FriendFeed team for having created a service he described as simple and elegant.

"As this shows, our culture continues to make Facebook a place where the best engineers come to build things quickly that lots of people will use," said Zuckerberg.

FriendFeed's four founders are former Google Inc employees who count well known products like Gmail and Google Maps among their accomplishments.

Facebook said the founders will hold senior roles on its engineering and product teams.

FriendFeed had talked with Facebook "casually" for a couple of months, and that it became clear that the teams were "cut from the same cloths," FriendFeed co-founder Bret Taylor told Reuters in an interview.

He declined to say whether FriendFeed had been in talks with other companies.

One bridge between Facebook and FriendFeed might have been Matt Cohler, Facebook's former management vice president. He joined FriendFeed backer Benchmark Capital last year.

Asked what role the connection played in the deal, FriendFeed's Taylor said the decision to be acquired by Facebook was made entirely by the team at FriendFeed.

Facebook has more than 250 million registered users. In May, the social networking company announced a $200 million investment from Russian investor Digital Sky Technologies that pegged the value of its preferred shares at $10 billion.

Facebook has said its revenue is on track to rise 70 percent this year, and board member Mark Andreessen has said the company will bring in more than $500 million in revenue in 2009.

But Forrester's Owyang said that Facebook must make the content generated within the site more accessible to the public instead of only to closed networks of Facebook friends, so that the company can sell more ads.

Earlier this year, Facebook announced changes to its privacy controls to allow people to make their status messages and posts viewable to a broader Internet audience.

(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic; Editing Bernard Orr and Robert MacMillan)