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News : Vargas Llosa gana el Nobel de Literatura

2010-10-07T11:16:00.000-05:00

ESTOCOLMO (AP) — Mario Vargas Llosa, uno de los escritores latinoamericanos más célebres, fue galardonado con el premio Nobel de Literatura 2010 y se convirtió en el primer ganador de habla hispana desde 1990.

"Ha sido una sorpresa total, una sorpresa agradable", declaró Vargas Llosa la mañana del jueves a la estación radial WQBA 1140 de Miami, en una entrevista telefónica.

"Es un estímulo formidable, supongo que en estos días mi vida se va a complicar un poco ... pero no creo que en lo fundamental cambie nada en lo que se refiere a mi trabajo", añadió el escritor peruano.

La Academia Sueca dijo que le otorgó el galardón al autor de 74 años, "por su cartografía de las estructuras de poder y sus imágenes mordaces de la resistencia, la rebelión y la derrota del individuo".

Vargas Llosa, quien se encuentra en Nueva York dando clases en la Universidad de Princeton, explicó que estaba despierto temprano en la mañana cuando su esposa recibió una llamada que le pasó porque no entendió quién era el que hablaba.

La llamada se cortó, y cuando él volvió a atender se enteró que era el secretario de la academia sueca informándole que había ganado el premio Nobel de Literatura y que en 14 minutos se haría el anuncio público.

"Me quedó en la cabeza la duda, no vaya a ser una broma... Todavía ando un poco sorprendido. La verdad es que no me lo esperaba", relató Vargas Llosa, cuya próxima novela, "El sueño del celta", sale a la venta el 3 de noviembre.

El peruano, nacionalizado español, es el primer ganador de habla hispana del Nobel de Literatura desde que fue otorgado al escritor mexicano Octavio Paz en 1990. El escritor colombiano Gabriel García Márquez lo recibió en 1982. Anteriormente habían sigo galardonados el novelista guatemalteco Miguel Angel Asturias y los poetas chilenos Gabriela Mistral y Pablo Neruda.

El secretario permanente de la academia, Peter Englund, dijo que Vargas Llosa "tiene el don divino de la narrativa... es uno de los grandes autores del mundo de habla hispana".

Añadió que el escritor se encontraba en Nueva York el jueves cuando recibió la noticia por teléfono. Está dictando un curso en la Universidad de Princeton, en Nueva Jersey.

"Estaba muy, muy feliz", dijo Englund. "Y muy conmovido".

El gran éxito internacional llegó a Vargas Llosa con la novela "La ciudad y los perros", de 1960.

Vargas Llosa ha escrito más de 30 novelas, obras de teatro y ensayos, como "Conversación en la Catedral" y "La casa verde". En 1995, fue galardonado con el Premio Cervantes, el galardón literario más distinguido del mundo de habla española. Entre sus obras de teatro se cuentan "La señorita de Tacna", "La Chunga" y "Katy y el hipopótamo".

Vargas Llosa nació en Arequipa, Perú, en 1936. Inició su vida en un entorno familiar que para la época era desalentador. De madre divorciada, en una sociedad peruana conservadora, y que se mantuvo alejado de su padre, al que conoció cuando cumplió 10 años, tuvo una difícil ruta en sus primeros años.

Su madre decidió viajar a Cochabamba, Bolivia, para criar a su hijo alejado de presiones, y en esa ciudad serrana hizo sus estudios básicos.

A su retorno a Perú, en 1946, estudió en el colegio militar Leoncio Prado, lo que le marcó y sirvió de base para una de sus obras más famosas: "La ciudad y los perros", que obtuvo el prestigioso premio Biblioteca Breve de la editorial Seix Barral en 1962.

Otra de sus novelas más célebres, "La tía Julia y el escribidor" (1977), narra también sus experiencias juveniles y de paso a la adultez, como su relación con su tía política Julia Urquidi, de mayor edad que él, y con la que se casó en 1953 cuando tenía 18 años, mientras trataba de subsistir como periodista de radio y prensa, e incluso como encargado de revisar los nombres de las tumbas de un cementerio.

Sus esfuerzos por no desligarse de las letras, le dieron frutos en 1959, cuando su obra "Los jefes" fue premiada y empezó a ser reconocido dentro y fuera de las fronteras de Perú, al tiempo que difundía sus ideas socialistas, como el apoyo a la revolución cubana.

Como reflejo de esta influencia, Vargas Llosa viajó a La Habana en 1962 como enviado especial de la radio-televisión francesa durante la crisis de los misiles que la entonces Unión Soviética instaló en la isla y que provocó una fuerte tensión con el gobierno estadounidense de John F. Kennedy.

En esta época, escribió "Conversación en la Catedral", en 1969, una de sus obras más destacadas, que mezcla un cuento con la realidad de la alta sociedad vinculada con la política peruana; y "La casa verde", mientras alternaba su residencia en Perú y Argentina. Luego viajó a Europa, donde vivió en París, Barcelona, y Londres.

Su período de idealista de izquierda terminó en 1971, cuando Vargas Llosa dio un giro intelectual hacia la centro izquierda. En ese año publica "García Márquez: Historia de un Deicidio", obra que destaca el proceso creativo de su entonces amigo, el premio Nobel de Literatura (1982), el colombiano Gabriel García Márquez.

La novela "Pantaleón y las visitadoras", publicada en 1973, fue llevada al cine por él en 1976, con poco éxito, aunque luego fue realizada nuevamente en el 2000 por otro peruano, Francisco Lombardi, con gran acogida del público y la crítica.

En la década de los ochenta, Vargas Llosa intercaló su ininterrumpido trabajo literario con el periodismo, y en 1983 realizó una destacada investigación acerca de la muerte de ocho periodistas a manos de indígenas, que los habían confundieron con guerrilleros.

En esa década, una de las más prolíficas, salen a la luz sus libros "La guerra del fin del mundo", "Contra viento y marea", "Historia de Mayta", y "¿Quién mató a Palomino Molero?".

Aunque hasta ese momento se mantenía alejado de la política, en 1987 mostró su oposición radical al gobierno del presidente Alan García (1985-1990), en ese entonces en su primer mandato presidencial, por las duras posturas nacionalistas y de tinte socialista que había ejecutado.

Vargas Llosa participó como candidato presidencial en las elecciones de 1990 y aparecía como favorito, pero fue derrotado sorpresivamente por las promesas populistas de Alberto Fujimori. Su desenvolvimiento político de ese entonces fue puesto en papel en su obra "El pez en el agua", publicada en 1993.

En ese año retornó a Europa, y sumó la nacionalidad española a la peruana, lo que causó el recelo en su país de origen.

"Jamás he renunciado a mi nacionalidad peruana, la he enriquecido añadiéndole la española", dijo haciendo precisiones a la controversia, en tanto escribía novelas, realizando análisis noticiosos y criticaba fuertemente al gobierno de Fujimori y a otros regímenes autoritarios de la región.

Inició el siglo XXI publicando la novela "La fiesta del chivo", de gran éxito comercial, y que fue llevada al cine en el 2005. La novela está ambientada en la República Dominicana en los últimos años de la dictadura de Trujillo.

News : Apple likely to show off new iPods Sept 1

2010-08-26T11:32:00.001-05:00

SEATTLE/LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Apple Inc is expected to show off a snazzier line of iPods on September 1, as speculation mounts the consumer electronics giant may also unveil plans to reinvigorate its long-neglected TV project.
Analysts expect the makers of the iPhone and the iPad, which has always labeled Apple TV a hobby, to showcase a new iPod Touch with dual cameras in time for the holidays.
Its shares climbed 1.2 percent. The company has in recent years used splashy September events to showcase new iPod models for the year-end spending spree. It typically also describes tweaks and new features for its iTunes online media store.
Last year's event marked the return of Steve Jobs to the public eye after a long hiatus, during which he underwent a liver transplant. This year, blogs are afire with talk about a souped-up Apple TV, though analysts deem unlikely a major announcement on that front next week.
Sources have told Reuters Apple is in the throes of negotiations with the major U.S. TV networks from Walt Disney Co's ABC to General Electric Co's NBC, hoping to offer TV shows for rent via iTunes for 99 cents per episode.
But those sources also said it was not a done deal. Apple and the media companies have declined to comment.
"From our checks with supply chain and industry sources, we believe potential changes could turn Apple TV into a bigger hobby and a multimillion unit seller," Shaw Wu of Kaufman Bros wrote.
Apple will hold the event at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, where it introduced the iPad in April. This year's invitation carried a prominent picture of a guitar's front, with an Apple logo standing in for the sound hole.
The company's iPods dominate the music- and media-player market, but growth there has moderated in past years and it has turned its attention toward the iPhone and iPad. In the June quarter, Apple said it sold 9.41 million iPods in the June quarter, down from 10.2 million a year earlier.
In contrast, analysts estimate the company sells about 1 million Apple TV units annually.
Still, some analysts expect Apple to eventually revamp -- and enhance -- its long-neglected TV device as the electronics maker continues to merge content with gadgets and ensconce itself in the home.
Wu expects to revamped Apple TVs in stores as early as this holiday, or the first half of 2011.
"In the grander scheme of things, it takes them a step closer" in that effort," Wu said. The device is "perhaps a precursor into a bigger effort to address the home entertainment space down the road."

(Reporting by Bill Rigby and Edwin Chan; Editing by Richard Chang)

News : Netflix makes available free iPhone, iPod app

2010-08-26T11:29:00.002-05:00

(Reuters) - Web video subscription service Netflix Inc launched on Thursday a free iPhone and iPod application that allows subscribers to watch TV shows and movies on Apple Inc's handheld devices.
Netflix said the app is available on iTunes for subscribers to plans starting at $8.99.
Earlier this month, Netflix struck a $1 billion deal with pay TV channel Epix to become the exclusive web-only distributor of films from Paramount, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios and Lions Gate Entertainment.
(Reporting by Jennifer Saba, editing by Gerald E. McCormick)

News : Spies behind 2008 cyber attack, U.S. official says

2010-08-26T11:27:00.001-05:00

By Phil Stewart

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A foreign spy agency led a 2008 cyber attack on U.S. military computer systems, a top Pentagon official said, shedding light on what he called the most significant breach of American military cyber security.
Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn said the attack took place after an infected flash-drive was inserted into a U.S. military laptop at a base in the Middle East, uploading malicious computer code onto the Central Command network.
"That code spread undetected on both classified and unclassified systems, establishing what amounted to a digital beachhead from which data could be transferred to servers under foreign control," Lynn wrote in an article for Foreign Affairs magazine published on Wednesday.
"This previously classified incident was the most significant breach of U.S. military computers ever."
Lynn did not say which country's spy agency was behind the attack. But he said that more than 100 foreign intelligence organizations were trying to break into U.S. networks.
"Some governments already have the capacity to disrupt elements of the U.S. information infrastructure," he wrote.
Every year, he said, hackers steal enough data from U.S. government agencies, businesses and universities to fill the U.S. Library of Congress many times over.
When it comes to attacks on the military, the difficulty identifying culprits behind attacks make them very hard to respond to and alluring for hostile governments, he said.
"Cyber attacks offer a means for potential adversaries to overcome overwhelming U.S. advantages in conventional military power and to do so in ways that are instantaneous and exceedingly hard to trace," he wrote.
KILL SWITCHES
Counterfeit hardware had already been detected in systems that had been procured by the Defense Department, Lynn said -- a danger since computer chips can be written with remotely operated "kill switches" and hidden backdoors.
"The risk of compromise in the manufacturing process if very real and is perhaps the least understood cyber threat," Lynn wrote.
Rogue code, including so-called "logic bombs" that cause malfunctions, can also be inserted into software as its being developed, he said.
Lynn said the attack was a wake-up call for the Pentagon, which has since launched a Cyber Command and taken measures to bolster defenses.
Policymakers now need to consider whether Pentagon capabilities should be extended to shield civilian infrastructure from attack, Lynn said. He noted that U.S. defense contractors have already been targeted "and sensitive weapons systems have been compromised."
"The U.S. government has only just begun to broach the larger question of whether it is necessary and appropriate to use national resources, such as defenses that now guard military networks, to protect civilian infrastructure," he said.
(Editing Xavier Briand)

News : Mozilla launches Firefox 4 beta 4, rolls in Sync, Panorama tab manager

2010-08-24T23:21:00.000-05:00

Firefox Panorama: How To from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.
Mozilla Tuesday updated Firefox 4 to its fourth beta release, adding two major new features: Firefox Sync and Panorama.
Firefox Sync lets users access browser history, password keychain, bookmarks, and open tabs across their different desktop computers, iOS, or Maemo-based mobile devices. Sync is available as an add-in for Firefox 3.5 and 3.6, but in Firefox 4, it is a built-in feature.

Firefox Panorama was formerly known as Tab Candy, and it debuted in alpha several months ago to critical acclaim. To solve the problem of too many browser tabs being open at once, and turning into a cluttered mess; the feature lets the user arrange their tabs into groups. The result is similar to HTC and Samsung's Android UI layers that let the user zoom out and see all the homescreens at once.

Mozilla's Aza Raskin Tuesday said, "While there are many directions still left to explore...there is a strong set of design principles that have and will continue to guide development. We've already seen activity from extension authors to extend the capabilities of Panorama, which makes now a perfect time to discuss Panorama's design principles."

News : Halo Reach hacked, leaked weeks before anticipated release date

2010-08-23T23:29:00.001-05:00

Halo: Reach, a prequel to Microsoft's billion-dollar Halo first person shooter series was scheduled to launch on September 14 worldwide, but a pre-release version of the game leaked early and has found its way across the Web.
Microsoft put the full version of Halo: Reach on Xbox Live Marketplace for media and reviewers to download with a pricetag of 99,999 Microsoft points to prevent the public from accessing it. A group of users on a game modding site called Game-Tuts.com took credit last week for cracking Halo: Reach.
A user going by the name Joakim posted: "So after alot of .xex cracking etc. Me and my team finally did it, we got Halo: Reach! This is not released for public, and we are not really planning on releasing either."
The file, however, found its way out within 24 hours of that post. The precise source of the leak has not yet been determined.
To play the game, an Xbox 360 hardware modification called JTAG is required. With this, users can install any size hard drive or launch unsigned games through a parallel PC connection.

News : UK students on electric car crusade

2010-08-23T23:21:00.000-05:00

News : China's Tencent buys Google-backed social-networking co

2010-08-23T23:18:00.000-05:00

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China's largest Internet company Tencent Holdings Ltd has bought a Google-backed Chinese social networking company for more than $60 million, the China Business News reported on Tuesday.

Tencent, China's No.1 online game operator and its largest instant messaging provider, had bought Comsenz, a Beijing-based social-networking provider, Comsenz said in a statement on its website. Comsenz is backed by Google Inc, Sequoia Capital and Morningside Ventures.
The deal was reportedly worth more than $60 million, the newspaper said, quoting a source familiar with the situation.
Tencent could not be reached for comment.
Tencent, which bought a 10 percent stake in Russian Facebook investor Digital Sky Technologies (DST) for $300 million earlier this year, could be on the look out for more acquisitions as it seeks to expand its dominance beyond China.
China's Internet space is becoming more cut-throat as users become more sophisticated and selective over which products and services they use and companies jostle for attention in an increasingly crowded arena. China is the world's largest Internet market by users with 420 million online.
(Reporting by Melanie Lee; Editing by Chris Lewis)

News: Taiwanese LCD maker files second suit against Sony

2010-08-23T23:15:00.000-05:00

Sony Computer Entertainment's new Play Station 3 (PS3) game console is displayed during a news conference in Tokyo August 19, 2009.

Credit: Reuters/Yuriko Nakao

By Liana B. Baker

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Taiwan's Chimei Innolux Corp sued Japan's Sony Corp for infringing on patents used in PlayStation 3 video game consoles, televisions, computer notebooks and cameras.
Sony engaged in "widespread infringement" of three patents dating back to 1998 Chimei said in its lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court in Delaware on Monday.
Chimei said the infringement came after it had invested tens of millions of dollars in developing liquid crystal display (LCD) panels and related products.
The complaint was filed a month after Chimei filed a similar lawsuit against Sony in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas.
Chimei is seeking unspecified compensatory damages, which it wants tripled because of what it considers Sony's "willful" misconduct, and other remedies.
Neither company returned calls seeking comment.
Sony, the world's second-largest camera maker and the third-largest flat screen TV maker, posted an operating profit of 67 billion yen ($785 million) in its fiscal quarter ended in June.
Chimei Innolux was formed in a three-way merger in March and overtook AU Optronics as Taiwan's No. 1 LCD maker. It reported a second-quarter net profit of T$9.54 billion (US$298 million) on August 9
The case is: Chimei Innolux Corp v. Sony Corp et al, U.S. District Court, District of Delaware, No. 10-00706.
The case in the Western District of Arkansas is Chimei Innolux Corp v Sony Corp, et al, No. 5:10-cv-05122.
(Reporting by Liana B. Baker; editing by Leslie Gevirtz)

News : Video Intel powers Creators Project

2010-08-22T23:55:00.000-05:00

News : Facebook "Places" lets users track friends and services

2010-08-22T23:40:00.000-05:00

By Alexei Oreskovic

PALO ALTO Calif (Reuters) - Facebook's 500 million-plus users will soon be able to track friends' whereabouts across the United States, as the world's largest Internet social network adds technology to increasingly tie its virtual world to everyday life.
The new "Places" feature -- which begins rolling out on Wednesday to some users and goes nationwide within weeks -- is touted as a tool to help users share where they are, figure out who is in the vicinity, and check out happenings and services within the same locale.
The addition of so-called location services to Facebook -- a move that industry observers have speculated about for months -- opens new revenue opportunities for the company, but also presents it with delicate privacy challenges.
"Places" will be accessible via an Apple iPhone app that Facebook designed from Thursday, or from the social network's own mobile version on touchscreen smartphones.
"This is not about broadcasting your location to the world, it's about sharing where you are with your friends," said Michael Sharon, product manager for "Places."
Users will be able to declare their whereabouts whenever they want, thereby opening themselves up potentially to offers, suggestions or advertisements about nearby businesses. Facebook on Wednesday said it had no immediate plans however to pursue such money-making opportunities.
Users can "check in" from their smartphones, broadcasting their location -- anywhere from a restaurant to a park -- to their own Facebook friends. Their whereabouts are then flashed through the network's popular status updates.
Users can look up the locations of friends who are similarly "checked in" -- either via updates or on a separate Web page -- or tag friends who happen to physically be with them, thus declaring where they are.
But with privacy in mind, Facebook will allow users to block "Places" functions as part of a comprehensive set of privacy controls and other safeguards.
The new services could help Facebook grab a bigger piece of a local advertising market driven by small businesses like restaurants and stores. The vast size of that market -- estimated in the tens of billions of dollars a year in the United States alone -- has attracted online companies like Google and Yelp.
The feature could let Facebook eventually target users with ads based on their location, or offer special coupons when a user nears a certain business, supplementing the $700 million to $800 million that Facebook generated in revenue last year, according to people familiar with the matter.
LOCATION, LOCATION
Location services like Foursquare, Gowalla and Loopt, which allow consumers to use their cell phones to keep track of their friends whereabouts and earn rewards for frequenting brick-and-mortar businesses, have caught on among technology aficionados.
Foursquare and Gowalla executives popped up onstage alongside Facebook on Wednesday, saying they will team up with the social network and tailor their own services to work alongside its "Places" feature.
Foursquare, one of the fastest-growing location services, has amassed 2.7 million users since its March 2009 launch and raised $20 million in venture capital funding in June. Facebook and Yahoo both unsuccessfully sought to acquire Foursquare earlier this year, according to media reports.
Whether location services appeal to the mainstream audience on Facebook however remains to be seen, particularly given the concerns many people may have about a service that reveals their physical location.
Privacy has been a persistently thorny issue for social networking companies, which must balance users' concerns about how much of their personal information is made public with the need to generate revenue by sharing information about users with advertisers.
In May, Facebook introduced tools to give users more control over what personal information is shared on its service, following criticism from many privacy advocates.
Google Buzz, a microblogging service for broadcasting short messages to friends and contacts, was faulted for lax privacy settings as soon as it launched in January, a stumble from which the service never recovered, say analysts.
"They want to make sure they've done their homework, because privacy does become a concern right out of the gate," said Michael Gartenberg, a partner at consulting and analyst firm Altimeter Group. "They don't' want to introduce this and then have to come back and fix it."

(Editing by Edwin Chan and Valerie Lee)

News : Yahoo begins transition to Bing search, kills SearchMonkey

2010-08-18T10:55:00.000-05:00

Yahoo said Tuesday that it would begin to switch over its search backend to the Microsoft platform in the US and Canada, the cornerstone of an agreement reached between the two companies last July. A "Powered by Bing" graphic would appear at the bottom of its search pages after the transition, the company said.
It would still be some time yet before other markets worldwide transition to Bing, for which Yahoo gave no timeline, although it's expected the full transition wouldn't be complete until 2012. Of course, one notable example would be Japan: that division is switching to a Google backend pending regulatory approval and any legal challenges.
While the innards of Yahoo would change, the search company stressed that most of the functionality around the search would stay the same. Web services product SearchMonkey is a notable exception: that service shutters effective October 1.
"As a result, third party custom result apps, infobar apps, and data services will no longer appear on Yahoo!'s search results," product manager Natasha Fattedad wrote in a blog post announcing the move.
Yahoo would continue to offer its Search BOSS, YQL, and Site Explorer tools, although the company said it was still evaluating others, and would charge for access to some of them.
The fact that Yahoo's development tools will remain should not be too surprising: in essence, the Microsoft deal only really covered the search results portion of Yahoo. Most of Yahoo's other services were unaffected.
Paid search accounts would also begin the transition to Microsoft's adCenter platform this week as well. Current Yahoo Search Marketing customers would be prompted to create adCenter accounts through a transition portal, and Yahoo and Microsoft hope to have this portion of the transition completed by the end of the year.

News : Co-op to make juice from apples that inspired Newton

2010-01-04T11:09:00.001-05:00

The Co-op has bought 1,000 varieties of rare and endangered British apples for use in a new “heritage drink”

By Chris Farnell

The rare apples were purchased from the Brogdale Horticultural Trust. The Trust is in the process of moving its National Fruit Collection to Reading University, and decided to sell three identical collections of its rarer apples in a bid to ensure their survival.

The Co-operative bought one of the three collections 18 months ago, and went to grow and harvest the apples on its own fruit farm in Tillington, Herefordshire.

The collection includes one variety of apple which is identical to, and originated from, the same tree that legendarily dropped its fruit on Isaac Newton’s head, inspiring the theory of gravity.

Juice from these apples, and other rare and endangered species, will be used in The Co-operative Farms Truly Irresistable Tillington 1,000 pressed apple juice, 10,000 bottles of which will be available in selected stores.

Christine Tacon, Managing Director of The Co-operative Farms, said: "These apples offer a real taste of British history, and many of them, like ‘Isaac Newton's Tree', have stories behind them.

"The apples were in danger of disappearing forever, so to be able to turn them into a delicious and unique drink is very exciting. It is a great example of what The Co-operative can achieve, as both the UK's largest farming business and as a major food retailer."

Truly Irresistible Tillington 1,000 apple juice will be sold as part of The Co-operative's "Grown by Us" range, which sells food and drink grown by The Co-operative Farms, or made using ingredients grown by the business.

Today marks the 366th birthday of Isaac Newton.

Edited by Ellie Duncan

News : Freescale takes aim at tablet computer market

2010-01-04T11:06:00.002-05:00

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Chipmaker Freescale Semiconductor Inc is staking its claim on the tablet computer market, an emerging product category that will generate plenty of interest in 2010.

Although next-generation tablet PCs are scarcely evident on the market, the technology world is abuzz about their potential, as Apple Inc is expected to unveil its offering in 2010.

Freescale's announcement comes ahead of this week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where rival chipmakers are expected to show off new so-called smartbooks, which aim to bridge the gap between laptops and smartphones.

Privately held Freescale unveiled its reference design for a 7-inch, touchscreen tablet running on the company's low-power ARM-based processor and priced at less than $200.

The company said such a device will be able to run either Google Inc's Android mobile software or Linux, with Wi-Fi and 3G capability.

Although Freescale declined to name any potential vendors for its tablet design, it said devices could hit retail shelves as soon as this summer. The company expects to show prototypes at CES.

Freescale makes chips for a variety of products, including the automotive market. Its application processor is used in Amazon.com Inc's Kindle.

Henri Richard, senior vice president of sales and marketing for Freescale, called a smartbook tablet the "missing link" between PCs and smartphones.

"The PC has been stale in terms of its ability to innovate. Smartphones have been making progress ... but they have limitations," he said.

Qualcomm Inc and Nvidia Corp are also expected to unveil smartbooks based on their chips at CES.

The devices will seek to break Intel Corp's stranglehold on stripped-down, low-cost PCs. Intel's Atom processor dominates the fast-growing netbook market.

Austin, Texas-based Freescale was spun off from Motorola Inc in 2004. The company was taken private in a $17.6 billion leveraged buyout in 2006. Sales in 2008 totaled $5.2 billion.

(Reporting by Gabriel Madway; Editing by Andre Grenon and Jan Paschal)

News : Robot festival in Tokyo

2009-11-30T11:15:00.000-05:00

An international robot exhibition in Tokyo showcases the changing face of robotics.

Chris Meyers reports.

News : British Library's new time machine

2009-11-30T11:11:00.000-05:00

Reuters Television has an exclusive first look at the high-density, oxygen-controlled facility built to house seven million items from the UK's national library's collection.

SOUNDBITES: Steve Morris, Director of Finance and Corporate Services, British Library

Alison Stephenson, Library worker

Matt Cowan, Reuters

News : Weird, wild creatures of the deep

2009-11-30T11:07:00.000-05:00

A far-reaching global marine census is shining a light on the previously undiscovered life inhabiting the darkest and most remote regions of Earth - the oceans.

Ben Gruber reports.

News : "Big Bang" collider sets particle beam record

2009-11-30T11:04:00.001-05:00

By Robert Evans

GENEVA (Reuters) - The "Big Bang" experiment at CERN near Geneva scored a world record on Monday by accelerating beams to the highest energy ever achieved in a particle collider, the research center announced.

Scientists at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, said the achievement marked a major milestone on the way to tests next year which they hope will unlock secrets of the origins and make-up of the universe.

The energy of the twin beams circulated around 27-km tunnels deep underground went, at 1.18 trillion electric volts (TeV), well past the previous highest -- just under 1 TeV -- in a collider at the U.S. Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.

The achievement in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) came 10 days after the world's largest scientific experiment was restarted following an accident soon after its launch in September 2008.

"We are still coming to terms with just how smooth the LHC commissioning is going," said CERN Director General Rolf Heuer as the record was announced. "It is fantastic."

The beam energy now achieved in the LHC -- a vast complex of huge magnets, electronics and computers costing some $10 billion underground on the Franco-Swiss border -- leaves some way to go before the real "Big Bang" experiments can begin.

The object of these is to smash particles together at a force of some 7 TeV and create conditions one billionth of a second after the explosion 13.7 billion years ago that shaped the universe and everything in it.

Data gathered when those collisions occur will be recorded and analyzed by a network of 10,000 researchers not just at CERN at the foot of the French Jura mountains but also in some 30 countries around the world.

Scientists hope to learn how matter, and what is called anti-matter, was created and whether the so-called "Higgs Boson" -- which Scottish physicist Peter Higgs suggests helped matter come together -- actually exists.

But despite the rapid and seamless progress since the first beams were injected into the repaired LHC on November 20, leaders of the project remained cautious about the moment when they will start what they call "first physics."

Said Heuer: "We are continuing to take it step by step, and there is a lot to do before we start physics in 2010. I'm keeping my champagne on ice until then."

Over the next few weeks, scientists will move into a commissioning phase aimed at slowly increasing the beam intensity and producing good quality collision data that the monitoring machines can test their capacities on.

The first major collisions at 7 TeV are due to take place some time in the first quarter of next year, CERN says.

(Editing by Janet Lawrence)

News : Shoppers already whetting holiday appetite online

2009-11-30T11:01:00.002-05:00

By Alexandria Sage

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Holiday shopping online hit a record for Black Friday, several days before the retail industry-coined Cyber Monday gets underway, as more consumers said they used the web to seek deals.

The strong start for web retailers should continue into what is otherwise expected to be a lackluster holiday season, benefiting Amazon.com, Wal-Mart Stores Inc's online unit and Google Inc, analysts said.

Analytics firm comScore said Sunday that U.S. online spending on Black Friday was the strongest it has ever been, up 11 percent over the prior year, with $595 million spent online.

Sales at retail stores rose 0.5 percent to $10.66 billion on that day, the official kick-off to holiday shopping, according to ShopperTrak.

"That's pretty significant in a recessionary environment -- to get a record like that and be that far ahead," said comScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni. "I still expect Monday should be a much bigger day online than Black Friday."

Cyber Monday is the day when many consumers head back to work after the U.S. Thanksgiving weekend and use fast Internet connections to make holiday purchases, away from the prying eyes of spouses and children. The day has always spurred a flood of special online offers, but this year more are showing up even earlier, experts said.

Forrester analyst Sucharita Mulpuru said she was not surprised by the online strength over the holiday weekend.

"I anticipate this momentum to continue for the next several weeks," Mulpuru said. "It's a good sign. It shouldn't slow down significantly from here."

Forrester Research has estimated that U.S. online sales in November and December should rise 8 percent this year, up from a 5 percent rise in the year-ago period. ComScore has forecast a 3 percent rise for the period.

AFTER BLACK FRIDAY, THE REST IS ONLINE

Yolanda and Victor Rebagliati were shopping at a San Francisco Old Navy store when it opened Sunday morning for some $5 clothing deals, but said they next planned to head online for an iPod from Apple Inc and a netbook.

"After today, the rest is online!" said Yolanda.

Experts say bargain hunting is driving the online strength. Searches for "Black Friday ads" on Thanksgiving and Black Friday were up 50 percent from the prior year, while those for "Target Black Friday and Walmart Black Friday" were up more than 75 percent in the same period, according to Google Insights for Search.

Online retailers Walmart.com and Amazon have spurred an online price war, and rivals are anxious to keep up, with web deals and free shipping offers advertised from Kohl's Corp, Toys R Us and Best Buy Co Inc.

Jefferies analyst Youssef Squali wrote in a recent note that Amazon and Google are the biggest likely beneficiaries of the online holiday season -- the retailer with its value-priced goods and the search giant that drives traffic to bargains.

Experian Hitwise, which measures traffic to websites, said on Sunday that Amazon was the top visited retail site on Black Friday for the second year in a row -- followed by Wal-Mart and Target Corp.

While retail experts say there is little to inspire a consumer to enter stores in the weeks leading up to Christmas, there is room to rise for online sales.

Fulgoni said he noticed more online deals offered on Black Friday this year than last.

"It looks like the retailers figured out that there is no reason for them to leave these deals to Cyber Monday," he said. "Everyone is well tuned to the fact that there is a consumer strapped for cash and you have to attract their attention."

Last year, online spending on Cyber Monday rose 15 percent to $846 million, according to comScore.

A savvier consumer that recognizes that some doorbuster deals offered by retailers in stores won't last long due to lower inventory levels this year could also be driving sales.

"If you didn't get it at 6 a.m. (in stores) you can probably get it at 9 a.m. on Macys.com," said Amanda Pires, a spokeswoman for eBay Inc online payments unit PayPal, which found that Black Friday payment volume rose 20 percent, with a 25 percent gain on Thanksgiving.

"There were some great Black Friday deals and people were out early to get them," Pires said. "That mentality has spilled over into the online world."

(Reporting by Alexandria Sage; Editing by Diane Craft

News : Black Friday Web shopping up 11 pct

2009-11-30T10:58:00.001-05:00

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Holiday shoppers in the United States spent some $595 million online on Black Friday, up 11 percent from last year, with Amazon.com and Walmart.com the most visited sites, according to analytics firm comScore.

Visits to Amazon.com (AMZN.O) rose 28 percent, followed by the online unit of Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT.N), which grew 22 percent. The two companies have already engaged in a heated battle for market share this holiday, with each lowering prices on select merchandise.

Since November 1, some $10.57 billion has been spent online in the United States for the holiday season, representing a 3 percent gain, according to comScore (SCOR.O).

"This is a very encouraging start," said comScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni in a statement.

Earlier this week, the company said it expects total holiday e-commerce spending to rise 3 percent to $28.8 billion from $28 billion in the previous season when shoppers sharply curtailed spending amid the global financial meltdown.

The robust Web sales on Black Friday speak to retailers' attractive discounts online even on a weekend known for driving shoppers to brick-and-mortar stores, said Fulgoni.

"While this acceleration in spending suggests the online holiday season may be shaping up slightly more optimistically than anticipated, it may also reflect the heavy discounting and creative promotions being put forth by retailers that now encompass the use of social networks such as Facebook and Twitter," said Fulgoni.

Cyber Monday is the day considered the kick-off to the online spending season, when consumers return to work from the long Thanksgiving weekend and use their employers' fast Internet connections to purchase online.

(Reporting by Alexandria Sage, editing by Matthew Lewis)

News : Churchill and Roosevelt chit-chat

2009-11-13T10:47:00.001-05:00

Statues of Sir Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt are brought to life in London's West End to promote the release of 'Night at the Museum 2' on DVD.

Churchill can be heard complaining bitterly about the pigeons, parodying his famous "We shall never surrender" speech before the House of Commons during the Second World War in June 1940.

A team of digital artists spent two months planning the stunt which uses a series of light projections to give the impression that the statues' eyes and mouths were moving

News : Hi-tech holy water controls H1N1

2009-11-13T10:41:00.000-05:00

Italian worshippers use an electronic holy water dispenser to help prevent the spread of swine flu at a church at Capriano Briosco, about 50 kilometres north of Milan.

Matthew Stock reports.

News : FDA tackles gray area of social media

2009-11-13T10:33:00.002-05:00

By Deepa Seetharaman

WASHINGTON (Reuters)- Drug makers, Internet companies and nonprofits called for clarity on what is a gray area for U.S. health regulators: how drug promotion on Twitter, Wikipedia, blogs and other social media can be regulated.

The two-day Food and Drug Administration hearing aims to find out if the agency needs to specifically regulate how drugs and medical devices it oversees are promoted on the Internet.

"The lack of clarity today is creating confusion among the advertising community," said David Zinman, vice president at Yahoo Inc.

The FDA already has strict rules governing what drug makers can say in magazine, newspaper and television advertisements, but the fast-evolving online world is a Wild West when it comes to what is -- and is not -- possible to regulate.

In April, the FDA sent warning letters to 14 companies including Eli Lilly and Co and Merck & Co Inc about their drug marketing online, saying that ads for certain products were misleading and did not contain any risk information.

Since those letters, pharmaceutical companies have changed the way they design their ads and no longer include the brand name, Google Inc and Yahoo representatives said.

Google officials said the click-through rate on these ads "dramatically decreased" after April. They offered another ad design that offers consumers links to risk information.

"Users see all these links and they don't know exactly where they're going until they get there," Zinman said.

TACKLING TRICKY QUESTIONS

More than 800 people tried to register for the event, which was held in a conference room that seats 350. Others followed the speeches online and posted messages about it on Twitter.

The FDA organized about 30 different presentations on Thursday on topics ranging from drug makers' role in monitoring Internet content to data on how consumers get their health news.

Participants were asked to consider a number of questions, including how much responsibility drug makers bear for online content about their products and how to determine when online chats about a medicine are influenced by the manufacturer.

"We don't think companies should be responsible for policing the entire Internet for information about their products," said Johnson & Johnson executive Elizabeth Forminard.

One advocate noted there is a general lack of consistency about the quality of information on frequently-used third-party websites, such as Wikipedia.

"Because the risk of providing inaccurate information on medical products is so high, the FDA needs to establish ongoing relationships with ... websites consumers are relying on," Diana Zuckerman, president of the National Research Center for Women and Families, said in her remarks.

Thomas Abrams, director of FDA's drug marketing arm, is one of a dozen FDA officials who will analyze the public comments to decide what action, if any, the agency needs to take.

The agency is accepting comments through February 2010.

The FDA is webcasting the hearing at: here

(Reporting by Deepa Seetharaman; editing by Tim Dobbyn and Andre Grenon)

News : Dell to introduce smartphone based on Android

2009-11-13T10:29:00.002-05:00

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Dell Inc said on Friday it will sell smartphones equipped with Google Inc's Android mobile software, as the computer maker enters a market that is growing fast but crowded with competitors.

Dell plans to sell its new Mini 3 smartphones through Claro, part of the America Movil network, and China Mobil.

Details on the phones will be announced when the devices are available in stores late in November for China Mobile and around the end of the year for Claro, it said.

A source had said in October that Dell plans to launch an Android-based smartphone in the United States on AT&T's network.

Dell's announcement on Friday did not mention when the Round Rock, Texas-based company will sell the phones in the United States.

Dell becomes the latest tech manufacturer to bet on the fast-growing market dominated by Apple Inc's iPhone and Research in Motion's BlackBerry.

Worldwide factory shipments of smartphones are expected to rise to 235.6 million units in 2010, up 27.9 percent from 184.2 million in 2009, according to iSuppli.

Dell's phone would also boost Google's fledgling mobile platform, which vies with Apple's and Microsoft's platforms.

Hapoalim Securities USA analyst Kevin Hunt said that it was tough to see how Dell could have any advantage over established phone makers using Android, including HTC Corp, Motorola Inc and Samsung Electronics.

"They could have modest success. I wouldn't see it being a big driver," Hunt said, also noting that Dell is unlikely to make much higher margins in phones than it does in computers.

(Reporting by Ritsuko Ando, Franklin Paul and Sinead Carew; Editing by Derek Caney)

News : Facebook provides alibi for robbery suspect

2009-11-13T10:28:00.001-05:00

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A 19-year-old New York man who was arrested for armed robbery has been exonerated thanks to a status update he posted on social networking site Facebook.

Rodney Bradford was arrested and held for 12 days in connection with an October 17 armed robbery of two people in the Brooklyn housing project where he lives, prosecutors said.

But he insisted he was in Manhattan at the time of the crime -- a claim he backed up by an update he made to his Facebook page from a computer in his father's Manhattan building, prosecutors said.

A spokesman at the Brooklyn District Attorney's office acknowledged that Facebook played a role in the dismissal of charges.

(Reporting by Edith Honan; Editing by Michelle Nichols)

News : Israeli companies tackle water leaks

2009-11-10T11:16:00.000-05:00

Israeli companies are making water thrift easier, with a drone that reads water meters and a turbine that generates electricity from inside pipes. The innovations will be unveiled at a conference in Tel Aviv next month.

Stuart McDill reports

News : Call of Duty guns for record sales

2009-11-10T11:11:00.002-05:00

Despite a difficult economic climate, the first-person shooter video game "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare" has been selling briskly after receiving a record number of preorders.
Matt Cowan reports.

News : Can Apple take Microsoft's perch atop tech pile?

2009-11-10T11:06:00.002-05:00

By Gabriel Madway - Analysis

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Inc's (AAPL.O) phoenix-like rise from the ashes has propelled its market value to $180 billion, raising the possibility that it could challenge Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) for the technology crown.

Microsoft is now the world's most valuable tech company with a commanding market capitalization of $250 billion. Its Windows software is in nine out of 10 personal computers.

It would take impressive execution for any company to unseat Microsoft at the top of the technology heap. But Apple, flush with cash and fat margins, has catalysts in the iPhone, the Mac PC and a highly anticipated but unconfirmed tablet device expected to launch next year, analysts and investors say.

"Apple's revenue growth continues to outpace, driven by market-changing innovation and sticky software offerings that lead to repeat purchases," said David Dillon, a portfolio manager at HighMark Capital Management, which owns both Apple and Microsoft shares.

He said Microsoft is more of a value-based play, with "a strong product cycle coming with Windows 7."

Apple's revenue is still far smaller than that of its arch nemesis, but it is growing at a more rapid rate. Apple's annual revenue has more than doubled since 2005 to $36.5 billion, with earnings per share up more than four-fold to $6.29.

Over the same period, Microsoft's revenue has risen 47 percent to $58.4 billion, with EPS up 45 percent to $1.62.

Barton Hooper, an analyst with Weitz Funds, which owns shares of Microsoft but not Apple, called the giant software company a "moderate growth story" with a strong balance sheet.

"The rate of growth of Microsoft isn't happening nearly as fast as it is for Apple," he said. But he noted that Microsoft still has solid growth drivers, such as the corporate PC refresh cycle and its server and tools business.

Apple trades at around 24 times forward earnings estimates, as does Google Inc (GOOG.O), which has a similar market capitalization and is viewed as another potential challenger to Microsoft. Microsoft trades at roughly 16 times forward earnings.

(For a comparison of the companies' performance since 2005, see here)

THE REBIRTH OF APPLE

Apple's last quarterly results blew past Wall Street estimates and sent its shares to a record-high $208.71.

While the stock has retreated in recent weeks in a broad market pullback, analysts have a price target as high as $280 on Apple, which would give it a market value of $250 billion.

Following its quarterly report last month, analysts also boosted their price targets on Microsoft to as high as $36, which would take its market cap to $320 billion.

Apple is now visible in Microsoft's rearview mirror, but a decade ago the picture was far different.

Both companies were born in the 1970s at the dawn of the personal computer era. But by the late 1990s, Apple was struggling with annual losses, management turmoil and layoffs as the company worked to improve its operating system. Meanwhile, Microsoft was at the height of its dominance.

In 1997, after years of legal wrangling, Microsoft invested $150 million in Apple -- which angered some of the Apple faithful, but which sent Apple shares up more than 30 percent.

At the end of 1998, Microsoft was the most valuable company in the world with a market cap of around $270 billion, according to an annual ranking compiled by the Financial Times. Apple was scarcely on the radar, valued at roughly $5 billion.

But after the return of Steve Jobs, Apple's fortunes began to improve. The company branched into consumer electronics and entertainment, and the phenomenal success of the iPod, iTunes and, in the last two years, the iPhone has remade Apple into a leading light of the technology world.

Erick Maronak, chief investment officer for the Victory Large Cap Growth Fund, said he would not be surprised to see Apple's market cap approach Microsoft's in the next two years, though he also likes the software company's growth prospects.

"The biggest overriding reason why the company still has room to run is that its business is growing ... The day they introduce the tablet, that's going to drive a lot of earnings," said Maronak, whose fund owns shares in both companies.

Apple's shareholders have been handsomely rewarded over the past decade, with its stock up close to 900 percent. Over the same period, Microsoft's shares have fallen around 35 percent.

Investors and analysts repeatedly point to Apple's robust cash generation -- perhaps even more than its track record for innovation -- as a reason for the stock's rich valuation.

Apple's cash flow from operations was $3.1 billion in its most recent quarter, and it sits on a war chest of $34 billion in cash and marketable securities, with no debt, the equivalent of around $37 a share in cash.

Low interest rates and conservative tax decisions on offshore cash have helped to "collectively understate Apple's reported earnings power relative to its peers," according to a research note by Sanford Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi.

"We believe on a cash flow basis the stock remains attractively valued and that earnings estimates are likely to continue to increase going forward," he wrote.

(Reporting by Gabriel Madway, editing by Tiffany Wu and Gerald E. McCormick)

News : Google consulting with DOJ on books deal

2009-11-10T11:02:00.002-05:00

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google Inc and a group representing authors and publishers said they are in talks with the U.S. government over modifications to a controversial electronic books licensing deal and they plan to file an amended version of the plan with the court on Friday.

The parties have been in discussions with the Department of Justice prior to and following a hearing last month, the parties said in a letter to U.S. District Court Judge Denny Chin on Monday.

"We met with the Department as recently as this past Friday, November 6," the letter said.

Google and the parties agreed to revise the settlement in the face of widespread criticism from competitors and regulators. The U.S. Department of Justice had indicated in a court filing that there was a significant chance the deal as written would not pass antitrust muster and could break copyright law.

The settlement is an effort to resolve a 2005 lawsuit brought by the Authors Guild and others against Google's effort to scan libraries full of books. In that suit, authors and publishers accused Google of copyright infringement.

Google and the authors and publishers groups had been expected to file the revised settlement on Monday.

The proposed settlement, which was reached last October, would establish a registry to pay authors for works in Google's book search.

Under the terms of the settlement, Google will pay $125 million to create a Book Rights Registry, where authors and publishers register works and are paid for books and other publications the search giant would put online.

The case is Authors Guild et al v Google Inc 05-08136 in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (Manhattan)

(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic and Diane Bartz; editing by Gary Hill and Andre Grenon)

News : LinkedIn and Twitter link up

2009-11-10T10:59:00.002-05:00

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - LinkedIn and Twitter have linked up. Starting immediately, users of LinkedIn and Twitter can cross-file to each other's services, by checking a box on either Twitter or LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is the largest professional social network, with 50 million members around the world who post information about themselves, such as resumes, to help find jobs or employees, and to stay in touch with each other.

Twitter allows people to broadcast short messages up to 140 characters to subscribers, who are called "followers."

LinkedIn also has an update box, which happens to be 140 characters.

Allen Blue, a co-founder of Twitter who is its vice president of product strategy, said LinkedIn members would be able to automatically post recent Tweets if they wanted.

Blue said users will have the option of sending only selected materials to Twitter.

He said that in addition to the obvious advantage of increasing the audience for either tweets or LinkedIn information there were two other advantages to the new system.

Twitter "wants to take advantage of the strong identity in LinkedIn to make those professional tweeters more successful." While anyone may sign up for a Twitter account without revealing their real identity, LinkedIn is based on the social networking idea that people put their identities on the Web.

Second, LinkedIn users who cross-post will be speaking both to their followers and to the broader Twitter audience that searches for tweets by keywords, location, user and the most current, Blue said.

Both companies are privately held.

(Reporting by David Lawsky; editing by Carol Bishopric)

News : Eager fans greet Call of Duty launch

2009-11-10T10:55:00.002-05:00

By Gabriel Madway and Robert MacMillan

SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Activision Blizzard Inc's hugely anticipated "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2" videogame went on sale early Tuesday morning, welcomed by eager fans who lined up hours in advance of the release.

The first-person shooter game is set to be one of the biggest and fastest-selling titles in history, challenging records set by blockbuster releases from the "Grand Theft Auto" series.

This despite a dicey economic climate that is pinching consumer spending. Videogame industry revenue in the United States, the world's largest market, is down 13 percent this year, according to industry tracker NPD.

But Call of Duty arrives amid high expectations and plenty of hype. Activision partnered with retailers including GameStop Corp and Best Buy Co for more than 10,000 midnight store openings in North America.

At the GameStop store near Union Square in New York City, around 80 mainly young people were lined up Monday night ahead of the launch, some for two hours.

"This is the only game I'm probably going to do this for," said Paola Altamirano, 21, who was waiting in the queue. She said she planned to play Call of Duty against another friend online later that night.

With what Activision called a record level of preorders, there was little doubt about the strong demand for a game.

"Gamers are enthusiastic about picking this stuff up at midnight," said Paul Swiderski, who works at the Union Square Gamestop.

Analysts' sales estimates for the $60 game range from 11-13 million units by the end of 2009. Call of Duty is likely to account for a sizable chunk of Activision's profits in the fourth quarter, analysts say, so there is plenty at stake in the launch.

HARD-CORE AUDIENCE

The audience for the latest Call of Duty -- the sixth installment in the franchise -- is primarily younger men, the gaming demographic that makes up the core of the estimated $50 billion global industry.

John Paneto, 20, was lined up outside a Best Buy store in San Francisco with about 10 others at around 10 P.M. Monday. He said he played a number of the other games in the Call of Duty franchise.

"I'm going to be up all night playing it, until I crash," he said.

Analysts say so-called hard-core gamers are unlikely to be dissuaded from buying a big-name title by economic concerns, as some casual gamers are.

But Call of Duty will have to turn in an impressive performance to top that of last year's mega-hit from Take-Two Interactive Software Inc, "Grand Theft Auto IV." The title sold 3.6 million units on the first day, and 6 million in its first week or more than $500 million in sales.

Key to Call of Duty's success will be its international performance. Analysts say shooter titles are mainly popular in the United States and Britain.

And the game is facing little competition from other big-name titles. Industry watchers say Activision's rivals either pushed up the dates of their key releases or decided to delay them into next year.

Santa Monica, California-based Activision's stock, up more than 30 percent this year, closed up 2.6 percent at $11.54 on the Nasdaq on Monday.

(Reporting by Gabriel Madway in San Francisco, with Robert MacMillan and Franklin Paul in New York; Editing by David Holmes)

News : Playfish sees social games as industry driver

2009-11-04T11:03:00.002-05:00

By Matt Cowan

LONDON (Reuters) - The video games sector has yet to gain from a downturn where consumers stay home to play, but social games creator Playfish says the industry is just beginning a new growth spurt.

The company that invented Pet Society, Restaurant City and Who Has The Biggest Brain? -- games played by tens of millions on sites such as Facebook and MySpace -- believes the $50 billion industry has many more converts to win.

Two-year-old startup Playfish makes games for people to play on ordinary computers with their family and friends, unlike traditional video games that need dedicated consoles.

The London-headquartered company is backed by Accel Partners and Index Ventures, and is already profitable -- thanks to the virtual goods such as clothes, furnishings and weapons it sells for real money within its games.

"What social gaming allows us to do is to grow the aggregate size of the industry... by getting those people who are not so interested in slaying the monsters on their 42 inch plasma screen but are really interested in playing with their friends and family involved," said Chief Executive Kristian Segerstrale.

The video games industry is facing crunch time this December holiday season, with publishers and console makers pinning their hopes on a slew of big games releases to make up for sales that have fallen 13 percent this year so far in the United States.

Price cuts in recent months for Sony's PlayStation 3, Microsoft's Xbox and the Nintendo Wii failed to have a dramatic effect on sales of games.

Nintendo, whose Wii console brought video gaming to millions of new, casual gamers, lost its leading position in the gaming market last quarter and slashed its full-year earnings forecast last week after a 52 percent drop in quarterly profit.

Segerstrale believes, however, that engaging non-traditional gamers to play within their existing social networks represents the next paradigm shift in the industry.

"The video-gaming market is in the middle of this fundamental tectonic-plate shift, away from being a physical product-driven industry to being a digital service-driven industry," he told Reuters Television in an interview (here)

Segerstrale expects video games giants such as Electronic Arts or Activision Blizzard as well as startups to benefit. EA has been rumored to be about to buy Playfish, but Segerstrale has said the company is not for sale.

Playfish said it is owned by its founders, management, staff and outside investors including Index and Accel.

Pet Society, in which players custom-design virtual pets who then interact with their creators as well as other pets in the game, has more than 20 million active Facebook users per month.

With this many users, even micropayments of just a few cents for a virtual item soon add up. Playfish sold 4 million bouquets of flowers in Pet Society during Valentine's week this year.

Media executives skeptical of Playfish's ability to make serious money out of virtual goods asked Segerstrale at an industry conference last week how far he expected to be able to take it.

"We have barely scratched the surface of what's possible in getting people to pay for things that don't exist," he replied.

(Writing by Georgina Prodhan; Editing by Hans Peters)

News : Yahoo teams with OneRiot on real-time search

2009-11-04T11:00:00.002-05:00

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc, looking to match rivals in providing up-to-the-minute Internet search results, is running tests with several real-time search partners, sources familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.

Among the companies providing real-time results to Yahoo on a trial basis is OneRiot, whose data will be available initially to about 10 percent of Yahoo's users, said a person familiar with the matter, who was not authorized to speak about the deal and asked for anonymity.

A representative from OneRiot said she could not comment on the matter.

A second source familiar with the matter said Yahoo was conducting real-time search tests with other companies, as well.

Real-time search is emerging as a popular way to find information on the Internet, due in large part to the popularity of microblogging service Twitter, which lets users broadcast 140-character messages.

By searching streams of Twitter messages, a Web surfer can often get information faster than through some standard Web pages retrieved through traditional Internet searches.

Last month, Google Inc and Microsoft Corp announced back-to-back deals to make Twitter messages retrievable by their search engines.

Yahoo said in a statement that it was testing a new "search shortcut" that would include real-time results at the top of search results pages.

"The shortcut will only appear on certain queries that will be determined by Yahoo. This is a test designed to discover if showing such content is useful to people," the company said.

Yahoo signed a separate 10-year search deal with Microsoft in July, which is expected to close next year. Under the terms of that deal, any data Microsoft's search engine has access to also would be accessible to Yahoo, Yahoo Chief Technology Officer Ari Balogh said last month.

He said at the time that Yahoo had been testing the limited inclusion of Twitter messages within search results to certain users.

Yahoo's deal with OneRiot, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, does not include any revenue sharing elements, according to the first source familiar with the matter.

One Riot, based in Boulder, Colorado, collects real-time Internet information from various sources, including Twitter, Digg and its own network of 3 million users that use the company's software. The company has raised $27 million in funding to date.

(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic)

News : Cyborg beetle flies by wireless

2009-09-29T10:42:00.000-05:00

Scientists in the U.S. have unveiled a major advance in cyborg technology -- using wireless radio controls they can now completely control the flight of a living beetle.

Rob Muir reports.

News : Next up, mind-controlled gadgets?

2009-09-29T10:37:00.001-05:00

A wheelchair operated by brainwaves is just the first step toward a future where electrical appliances are turned on and operated through our thoughts.

Julie Gordon reports.

News : Russians take the most snaps of themselves

2009-09-29T10:34:00.001-05:00

LONDON (Reuters) - Nearly half of all the photographs Europeans take end up online, according to a survey, with Russians the keenest on taking snaps of themselves, just ahead of the Austrians.

The Nikon poll of 12,259 people in 12 European countries showed 46.8 percent of the pictures taken by Europeans are posted on the Internet.

Britons are more reserved: only 33 percent of their snaps are posted and just 5.6 percent of them take self-portraits.

By contrast, 34.2 percent of Russians take pictures of themselves, just ahead of the Austrians on 24.9 percent.

Russians also top the poll for taking intimate snaps of themselves, with Greeks not far behind, the poll found.

Some people have also become choosy about how they are projected online, the survey found.

For example, 16.8 percent would ask friends to remove photos that they don't like and some even insist on approving any image of themselves before it gets anywhere near the Internet.

"The photographs that many of us take, especially younger generations, are no longer kept safe within the family or personal album, to be got out only in the presence of close friends and relatives," said photography scholar Martin Lister.

"Now, once online, our photographs enter a semi-public space. Here it is not the family that is the consuming and viewing unit but extended peer groups and networks of loosely connected people."

Nikon and etiquette experts Debrett's offered this advice to those posting pictures on the Web:

* Don't post embarrassing pictures of other people without their permission.

* Ensure that you are happy for the pictures you choose to be on the web for all to see.

* Remember that your boss, family and friends may look at your pictures, so don't post any inappropriate images.

* Don't endlessly post pictures of yourself -- you'll come across as self-obsessed, rather than interesting.

* Think about the impact your photos will have on other people before you share or project them.

(Reporting by Stephen Addison; editing by Paul Casciato)

News : Apple passes 2 billion app downloads

2009-09-29T10:30:00.002-05:00

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Apple Inc said on Monday that downloads from its iTunes applications store had passed 2 billion and that it now has more than 85,000 apps available for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

It did not say how many of the applications delivered were sold and how many were free. The store has inspired rival stores and helped boost iPhone sales since the summer of 2008.

Apple said it has sold more than 50 million iPhones and iPod Touch devices in 77 countries. AT&T Inc is the exclusive U.S. provider for iPhone.

Google Inc also runs an app store for its Android mobile platform but has fewer apps than Apple.

(Reporting by Sinead Carew)

News : Warner, YouTube near deal for music videos

2009-09-29T10:28:00.001-05:00

By Paul Thomasch

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Warner Music Group and YouTube are finalizing an agreement that would allow music videos from artists such as Madonna and Green Day to once again be featured on the popular web site, according to sources close to the deal.

The deal, which one source described as imminent, would resolve a dispute over licensing rights that caused Warner Music to pull music videos by its artists from Google Inc's YouTube in December.

YouTube and Warner, the third largest music company, declined comment on the deal, first reported by AdAge on Monday.

A deal would mean that Warner Music's stable of artists would once again appear on the world's most popular video sharing site, joining those from EMI Music, Sony Music Entertainment and Universal Music Group, all of which have renewed deals.

Financial details are unclear; but Warner Music Chief Executive Edgar Bronfman has made known his desire to improve terms of his previous deal with YouTube. Like other industry executives, he faces a music market that has been stung by tumbling CD sales and slowing digital music growth.

The deal would also open the door to a possible role for Warner in a new music video website called Vevo, which is backed by Universal and Sony and will be supported by YouTube's technology platform.

At the moment, talks about Warner joining Vevo are still in "early stages" and could break down over a range of issues, one source said. The source declined to be named because of the sensitive nature of the discussions.

Music industry insiders say that Web videos are catching up with radio and music television as one of the most important music discovery tools for fans.

They say Vevo would create a more sophisticated way to experience music on the web, describing a site that would be the music industry's version of Hulu, the popular U.S.-based online TV service backed by NBC Universal, News Corp and Walt Disney Co.

Former Universal Music digital chief Rio Caraeff was appointed as Vevo's top executive earlier this summer. The venture has held talks with major advertisers and deals with at least four big brand names are expected to be ready in time for its debut later this year.

(Reporting by Paul Thomasch, editing by Gerald E. McCormick)

News : 3D holograms go tactile

2009-09-25T10:49:00.000-05:00

Researchers in Japan are using science to bounce elephants in the palms of their hands -- only these elephants are a new type of hologram you not only see, but you can also feel.

Julie Gordon reports.

News : Judge delays hearing on Google books deal

2009-09-25T10:45:00.002-05:00

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A judge delayed a hearing on a $125 million deal that would allow Google Inc to create a massive digital library.

In a two-page order on Thursday, U.S. District Judge Denny Chin postponed the fairness hearing scheduled for October 7 regarding a controversial settlement between Google and groups representing authors and publishers.

The settlement, which would allow Google to distribute and sell digital versions of out-of-print, copyrighted books, was criticized by the U.S. Justice Department on Friday. The DOJ urged the parties to modify the settlement, which it said appeared to pose antitrust issues.

On Tuesday, the authors and publishers groups that struck the deal with Google last year asked the court to delay the hearing in order to resolve the DOJ's concerns.

Judge Chin said that while the proposed settlement would offer many benefits to society, it also raises significant issues, as demonstrated by the number of objections to the deal by various parties, including countries, states and nonprofit

organizations.

"Under all the circumstances, it makes no sense to conduct a hearing on the fairness and reasonableness of the current settlement agreement, as it does not appear the current settlement will be the operative one," wrote Judge Chin.

Instead of the hearing on October 7, the judge scheduled a "status conference" on that date to determine how to proceed with the case.

Google issued a statement citing the Judge's statement that the settlement would benefit society.

"If approved by the court, this settlement stands to unlock access to millions of books in the U.S., while giving authors and publishers new ways to distribute their work," said the statement.

The case is Authors Guild et al v Google Inc 05-08136 in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic; Editing by Richard Chang)

News : EU seeks to ensure Microsoft ballot offers choices

2009-09-25T10:42:00.001-05:00

By Foo Yun Chee

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union antitrust regulators are seeking to ensure that an offer by U.S. software company Microsoft to give users the chance to choose rivals' Web browsers was workable for consumers and its rivals.

Microsoft proposed to the European Commission in July to install a ballot screen that would allow users to set up rival browsers on its latest Windows operating system, a move which could end a decade-long dispute with the EU executive.

The Commission, competition watchdog for the 27-country European Union, has to date slapped a total 1.68 billion euros ($2.47 billion) in fines on Microsoft for infringing EU antitrust rules.

A confidential Commission questionnaire obtained by Reuters showed regulators were concerned whether users would understand they were being offered a choice of browsers and whether they would actually use the ballot screen.

"In your view, is the proposed approach to downloading and installing competing browsers as seamless and straightforward as necessary from a user experience perspective for the ballot screen to be used effectively to exercise consumer choice between competing web browsers?" the questionnaire asked.

It also asked respondents to comment on the proposed design and implementation of the ballot screen. The questionnaire dated from July, with a late August deadline set for replies. The Commission has not disclosed when it will decide on Microsoft's offer.

In an interview with the International Herald Tribune on Wednesday, Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said she wanted to reach a deal with Microsoft before her term ends this year.

Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser competes with those from Google, the Mozilla Foundation, Norwegian Opera, and others.

(Editing by Dan Lalor)

News : RIM seen facing increased market-share pressure

2009-09-25T10:39:00.002-05:00

By Wojtek Dabrowski

TORONTO (Reuters) - BlackBerry maker Research In Motion could see its share of the smartphone market eroded by competing devices like Apple's iPhone, analysts warned on Friday as RIM's shares plunged 15 percent in wake of a disappointing profit and outlook report.

Analysts again wondered whether RIM would be able to hold its own as it fights an increasingly intense battle for retail and corporate subscribers, even as the economy seems to be stabilizing.

Such worries first surfaced ahead of the iPhone's launch in the summer of 2007, but RIM maintained it would be unshaken. It continued to post impressive subscriber gains and in late 2008 rolled out the touchscreen-based BlackBerry Storm, its answer to the iPhone.

Now, in wake of a profit and outlook report that fell short of expectations, analysts are again starting to doubt the Waterloo, Ontario-based company will be able to sustain its success.

"RIM is unlikely to maintain its over 50 percent share in North America in the face of increasing competition from Apple, Motorola, and Palm, among others," Goldman Sachs analyst Simona Jankowski wrote in a note to clients.

"Even in a still-benign competitive environment and with two newly launched products, RIM lost share for the second consecutive quarter," Jankowski added.

Goldman also cut its rating on the stock to "neutral" from "buy."

Part of RIM's strength in the smartphone market is its impressively sized distribution network. Retail consumers and corporate clients can buy the BlackBerry from more than 500 carriers and distribution partners in about 170 countries around the world.

But as the iPhone and other rivals expand their reach, RIM could find itself fighting for previously uncontested territory.

Canada, RIM's home turf, is a good example. The iPhone is currently available from only one of the country's Big Three carriers, Rogers Communications.

However, the other two big players -- BCE Inc and Telus Corp -- are working together on a network upgrade that could let them offer the iPhone as early as next year.

All three carriers currently offer the BlackBerry.

RIM has also historically reported strong growth outside North America, but Jankowski cautioned this could now be stalling.

"A second consecutive decline in international sales tempers our expectations for share gains overseas," the Goldman analyst wrote.

RIM's shares were down 15.6 percent at $70.10 on Nasdaq on Friday morning. In Toronto, the stock was down 15.4 percent at C$76.25. The company issued its latest earnings report after markets closed on Thursday.

Brokerage firm Raymond James also cut its rating on RIM to "market perform" from "outperform."

Phillip Huang, an analyst at UBS, maintained a "neutral" rating on RIM, saying the shares would likely be range-bound until the company could show stronger top line momentum.

He added that "sentiment could be muted near-term due to increasing competition (and) a potential relationship between Apple and Verizon Wireless."

($1=$1.09 Canadian)

(Additional reporting by Euan Rocha and John McCrank, editing by Rob Wilson)

News : Bloodsucker or cancer cure?

2009-09-23T10:53:00.000-05:00

They may be bloodsucking parasites, but scientists say the saliva of the common South American tick could hold the cure to several forms of cancer.

Julie Gordon reports.

News : Archaeologists find suspected Trojan war-era couple

2009-09-23T10:49:00.002-05:00

ANKARA (Reuters) - Archaeologists in the ancient city of Troy in Turkey have found the remains of a man and a woman believed to have died in 1,200 B.C., the time of the legendary war chronicled by Homer, a leading German professor said on Tuesday.

Ernst Pernicka, a University of Tubingen professor of archaeometry who is leading excavations on the site in northwestern Turkey, said the bodies were found near a defense line within the city built in the late Bronze age.

The discovery could add to evidence that Troy's lower area was bigger in the late Bronze Age than previously thought, changing scholars' perceptions about the city of the "Iliad."

"If the remains are confirmed to be from 1,200 B.C. it would coincide with the Trojan war period. These people were buried near a moat. We are conducting radiocarbon testing, but the finding is electrifying," Pernicka told Reuters in a telephone interview.

Ancient Troy, located in the northwest of modern-day Turkey at the mouth of the Dardanelles not far south of Istanbul, was unearthed in the 1870s by Heinrich Schliemann, the German entrepreneur and pioneering archaeologist who discovered the steep and windy city described by Homer.

Pernicka said pottery found near the bodies, which had their lower parts missing, was confirmed to be from 1,200 BC, but added the couple could have been buried 400 years later in a burial site in what archaeologists call Troy VI or Troy VII, different layers of ruins at Troy.

Tens of thousands of visitors flock every year to the ruins of Troy, where a huge replica of the famous wooden horse stands along with an array of excavated ruins.

(Writing by Ibon Villelabeitia; Editing by Ralph Boulton)

News : Microsoft developing new tablet PC

2009-09-23T10:46:00.002-05:00

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp is developing a small tablet-style PC to rival a similar product that may be launched by Apple Inc, technology blog Gizmodo reported on Tuesday.

The booklet-shaped device, called Courier, is in the "late prototype" stage of development, Gizmodo reported, without identifying the source of its information.

Microsoft did not immediately answer a request for comment.

The Courier device has dual 7-inch screens that are touch sensitive and can be used in conjunction with a stylus, Gizmodo reported.

Apple has long been expected to launch its own tablet PC -- essentially a large version of its iPhone -- but has so far announced no plans to do so.

(Reporting by Bill Rigby; Editing by Gary Hill)

News : Apple, Eminem may face trial over music downloads

2009-09-23T10:43:00.001-05:00

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Apple and rapper Eminem may be headed for trial on Thursday if they are unable to resolve a lawsuit over whether the singer's songs could be used on the popular iTunes service.

Eight Mile Style LLC, Eminem's music publisher, and another plaintiff, Martin Affiliated LLC, are claiming in a lawsuit in federal court in Detroit that Apple was never authorized to use 93 songs in a downloadable format on iTunes, court papers show.

Also being sued is Aftermath Records, which has control of Eminem recordings, and which the plaintiffs say had no right to enter agreements for digital downloads.

The plaintiffs have contended in court papers that Apple "has provided and continues to provide digital downloading of recordings of compositions which Eight Mile and Martin are owners of, or have copyright ownership interest in," without obtaining permission or providing compensation.

In contrast, the defendants have said authorization for the downloads had been granted, and that Eminem's publisher has received "substantial royalties" on the songs, court papers show.

It was not clear how much money Eminem's publisher could recover. Among the songs at issue is "Lose Yourself," a hit from Eminem's 2002 film "8 Mile".

Lawyers for the parties did not immediately return calls seeking a comment. A conference that could lead to a trial being averted was scheduled for Wednesday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Virginia Morgan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, according to court records.

It was not clear if Eminem -- whose given name is Marshall Mathers -- would testify at a trial.

The case is Eight Mile Style LLC v. Apple Computer Inc, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Michigan (Detroit), No. 07-13164.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel, editing by Maureen Bavdek)

News : Stun-gun maker Taser blogs to beat bad buzz

2009-09-23T10:40:00.002-05:00

By Bhaswati Mukhopadhyay and Saumyadeb Chakrabarty

BANGALORE (Reuters) - When the 49ers were battling the Cardinals in a National Football League game earlier this year, a Facebook update by stun gun maker Taser proclaimed that the San Francisco-based team's "Taser formation" could be the tipping factor.

The company, whose main product is a lightning rod for criticism, is increasingly using blogs and social networks to promote new products and dispel anxieties about them.

Tasers, also known as conductive energy weapons, disable people with a 50,000-volt jolt of electricity, and have become increasingly popular with police around the world.

Taser's latest X3 gun, which can shoot multiple targets simultaneously, assumes the company's Facebook persona, evangelizing about products and engaging customers with football banter.

The 49ers did go on to win the game using their Taser formation, as the Facebook update said. And that was another small step for the company in taking its much-maligned guns closer to the people.

On average, the Scottsdale, Arizona-based company spends about $4 million a year in litigation-related expenses -- more than its annual net profit in 2008.

Taser currently has 46 pending lawsuits related to the use of its guns. One of the company's priorities is to reduce this burden on the company's numbers.

And this is one reason why the company has taken to blogging, Twittering, using networking sites and creating an online evidence "warehouse."

"We use Facebook and Twitter not only as marketing teasers, but also as a way to influence information in terms of making it fun and making it relevant to the younger generation," Steve Tuttle, Taser's vice president for communications, said.

The company has launched Evidence.Com, a website that collects video grabs of confrontations that can be used as evidence later.

The site works in conjunction with Taser's AXON gun, which comes fitted with a camera, and it allows law enforcement agencies to create secure groups to share evidence and collaborate on cases.

Taser guns are bought not only by the police, military and correction facilities, but also by individuals, casinos and companies' corporate security chiefs.

The company's stun guns, which have been featured in films such as "Hangover," "X-Men Origins: Wolverine," "Hannibal" and "Time Cop," are not considered firearms in the United States and are legal for civilian use in most states. In 2007, footage showing a University of Florida student being shot with a Taser gun surfaced on the Internet. Despite his pleas to "Don't tase me, bro," a campus police officer did just that. The phrase spread like wildfire, appearing on T-shirts and in commercials and a rap artist turned it into a song. In the same year, the death of a Polish immigrant at the Vancouver International Airport led to widespread media coverage and the setting up of a commission to study the effects of using conductive energy weapons such as Tasers.

Earlier this year, the commission noted that there had been more than 300 deaths in the United States and 25 in Canada associated with their use.

Reacting to the Canadian controversy and the commission's observations, Tuttle said, "It appears that the politics trumped the science. Most of the negativity comes from the lack of publicity about the correct use of Tasers."

Tuttle said the company disagrees with a few of the commission's recommendations and is readying a response. While traditional methods of communication were still the company's mainstay, he said, "We wanted to make sure we do not become a dinosaur, using only the traditional methods." The company said software like Evidence.Com helps it take data from devices and integrate it using advanced geospatial mapping technology to give police a real situational awareness of what is going on in their jurisdictions.

The latest post on the Taser blog talks about the delivery of the first batch of the new X3 guns to the Lee County Sheriff's office in Florida.

But what's in it for the readers of the blog? Well, they get an extra two-pack of cartridges and a free target with every purchase of the civilian C2 gun.

News : Seedcamp start ups get serious

2009-09-22T10:38:00.001-05:00

The third edition of the technology competition aimed at fostering European technology entrepreneurs through mentoring and funding is more business-focussed than in years past.

Matt Cowan reports.

News : A cure for the color blind?

2009-09-22T10:35:00.001-05:00

Successful gene therapy experiments in monkeys may offer clues to curing color blindness in humans.

Julie Gordon reports.

News : Chinese cyberattacks target media ahead of anniversary

2009-09-22T10:32:00.002-05:00

By Lucy Hornby

BEIJING (Reuters) - Foreign media in China have been targeted by emails laden with malicious computer software in attacks that appear to be tied to the run-up to the National Day military parade on October 1.
While spam and viral attacks are not uncommon, the latest wave is part of a pattern of increasingly sophisticated emails tailored to tempt foreign reporters, rights activists and other targets to open infected attachments.

On Oct 1, the Communist Party is celebrating 60 years of rule over mainland China with a military parade. Beijing has tightened security ahead of the anniversary, with armed paramilitary troops at subway exits during rehearsals and neighborhood residents recruited to watch over the streets.

"There is definitely a pattern of virus attacks in the run-up to important dates on the Chinese political calendar," said Nicholas Bequelin of Human Rights Watch in Hong Kong. He noted that non-government organizations are also favorite targets.

"Whether the government is behind it, closes its eyes to it, supports it or has nothing to with it is unclear. There are also patriotic hackers, so there is no way to know for sure who is behind it."

While poor English used to be a giveaway, new techniques include mimicking a known and trusted sender, or resending legitimate emails from activist organizations with a fake, malware-laden attachment.

The impersonating emails require more effort by the mystery senders but they are also more likely to be opened than easily identifiable, anonymous spam.

Chinese employees working for foreign news organizations in Beijing and Shanghai got identical emails on Monday, each with an attachment carrying malware meant to exploit Adobe Acrobat software, a common application used to read PDF files.

The email, which appeared to be from an economics editor named Pam Bouron, was a polite request for help lining up interviews during an upcoming visit to Beijing. It was tailored so that "Pam" appeared to work for each news organization.

The clue was that Reuters does not have an economics editor named Pam Bouron. Others who received the "Pam Bouron" email include the Straits Times, Dow Jones, Agence France Presse, and Italian news agency Ansa.

Similar emails carrying viruses, also attacking foreign news agencies and non-government organizations, were common ahead of the Beijing Olympic Games last year. In March this year, researchers at Infowar Monitor in Canada found widespread cyber-infiltration of the Tibetan government in exile.

The "Pam Bouron" emails on Monday targeted Chinese news assistants, whose names often do not appear on news reports and who must be hired through an agency that reports to the Foreign Ministry.

They were followed by two suspicious emails on Tuesday morning received by many foreign reporters in Beijing. (Editing by Jan Dahinten)

News : Silicon Valley reinvents the lowly brick

2009-09-22T10:28:00.002-05:00

By David Lawsky

NEWARK, California (Reuters) - Forget microchips.

Silicon Valley sees a profitable future in the humble brick thanks to a low-energy production process that illustrates the greening of the U.S. technology capital.

Brick maker Calstar Products is heavy on PhDs and backed by venture capitalists whose vision is to create buildings less expensively and in a way that saves energy.

"We think it is time for a second industrial revolution," said Paul Holland, a partner at Foundation Capital, which invested $7 million in Calstar. EnerTech Capital led another round that raised $8 million for the business.

"We and dozens of others are trying to create green alternatives for all the things that happen in the building industry," Holland said.

Currently about 40 percent of U.S. energy use goes toward the heating, cooling and general operation of buildings.

Silicon Valley is finding high-tech ways to make age-old materials, pursuing carbon dioxide-eating concrete, windows that insulate better than walls, and wood substitutes.

The field is still new. Venture investments in green buildings have waxed and waned with the recession, but involved 45 deals worth about $350 million the past year, according to Cleantech Group LLC.

3,000-YEAR WAIT

Bricks have been made pretty much the same way for 3,000 years, until Calstar's scientists came up with their new technique, said Chief Executive Michael Kane.

Ordinary bricks are fired for 24 hours at 2,000 degrees F (1,093 C) as part of a process that can last a week, while Calstar bricks are baked at temperatures below 212 F (100 C) and take only 10 hours from start to finish, Kane said.

The recipe incorporates large amounts of fly ash -- a fluffy, powdery residue of burned coal at electric plants, that can otherwise wind up as a troublesome pollutant.

"Ours is a precise product" that relies on getting the chemistry right, said Amitabha Kumar, Calstar's director of research and development.

The process of making the bricks, which look and feel like any other brick, requires 80 to 90 percent less energy and emits 85 percent less greenhouse gas than ordinary bricks, according to Calstar.

Lower energy costs mean higher profit, allowing the company to pay for its research and compete against large companies that have economies of scale. The new bricks -- which the Brick Industry Association says are not actually bricks -- will sell for the same price as traditional clay-based ones. The Brick Industry Association says there is also no proof that products using fly ash will last as well as traditional brick.

BRICKS FOR CHINA?

The low-carbon footprint in the production process also gives the bricks a strong environmental cachet, and Calstar is targeting the "green materials" market with the goal of competing against traditional clay brick makers like Glen-Gery of Pennsylvania and Endicott of Nebraska.

The company's headquarters and research facility is based in a warehouse on the shores of San Francisco Bay but its first plant is under construction in Caledonia, Wisconsin, the heartland of brick-using country. It is near a Wisconsin Energy Corp plant that can supply calcium-rich fly ash.

The plant is to be running before year's end. At first, the company will make only "facing brick," used on the outside of buildings, a $2 billion annual U.S. market. It plans to branch out into paving stones, roofing tile and other brick markets.

The company has signed 16 distributors to sell 12 million or more bricks the first year, and plans to make 100 million bricks for sale throughout the Midwest and South, Kane said.

After that, fast-growing markets like China beckon.

(Reporting by David Lawsky, editing by Matthew Lewis)

News : EU court adviser backs Google on Net ads

2009-09-22T10:26:00.002-05:00

LUXEMBOURG (Reuters) - An adviser to the European Union's top court backed Google in a row with luxury goods maker LVMH over Internet advertising, saying the Web search firm had not infringed trade mark rights.

The case centers on whether Google has the right to sell brand names for Internet search advertising -- a money-spinner for the group.

Companies such as shoe stores, for example, pay Google so their name appears alongside Internet search results for a brand of designer shoes they sell.

LVMH's Louis Vuitton fashion brand and others have been fighting such advertising after makers of imitation products piggybacked on those brands in online searches to attract customers.

But the European Court of Justice said on Tuesday that Advocate General Poiares Maduro "considers that Google has not infringed trade mark rights by allowing advertisers to buy keywords corresponding to registered trade marks."

The French courts last year referred the case to the EU tribunal, seeking guidance on whether Google's use of keywords contravened companies' rights under EU trade mark laws.

Maduro said in his opinion the use of the trade marks was limited to the selection of keywords, which concerned only Google and the advertisers.

"When selecting keywords, there is thus no product or service sold to the general public. Such a use cannot therefore be considered as being a use made in relation to goods or services covered by the trade marks," he said.

He added that Internet users' access to information concerning a trade mark should not be limited by its owner.

Google may be liable if it features content that involves trade mark infringement, the adviser said.

But trade mark owners would have to point to specific instances "giving rise to Google's liability in the context of illegal damage to their trade marks," the court statement said.

Google said it was awaiting the decision of the court, reiterating that selecting a keyword to trigger the display of an ad did not amount to trade mark infringement.

The Luxembourg-based court follows the opinion of its advocates general in a majority of cases. The judges are beginning their deliberations in this case and will give judgment at a later date, the court statement said.

News : With a fresh focus on design, laptops come of age

2009-09-22T10:23:00.002-05:00

By Gabriel Madway

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Say goodbye to the "black brick" laptop. The era of the plain, dowdy PC is officially over.

As computer makers roll out their new notebooks and netbooks ahead of the end-year holiday shopping season, razor-thin, sleek and colorful are most definitely in, as are arresting designs in an ever-expanding array of choices.

Hewlett-Packard Co and Dell Inc are now more likely to point to subtle etchings in the exterior shell, or a famous artist behind a new design, than to the "speeds and feeds" that PC makers used to tout when they wrestled for technological superiority.

It was only a few years ago that most laptops were some variation of a dull box that came in gray or black, with the exception of Apple Inc, which was making distinctive laptops back in the 1990s.

Now, design is permeating the PC market like never before as the increasing commoditization of machines leaves few major differentiators on performance, so a stylish case is one of the last remaining areas of competition.

Ed Boyd, vice president of design for consumer products at Dell, the world's No. 2 PC maker, arrived at the company nearly two years ago from Nike Inc. He said the PC market is transforming in the way that athletic shoes did.

Nike "took a commoditized product -- sneakers -- and made it hip and cool and relevant," he said. "What you're witnessing is the same transformation in the PC business ... this phenomenon is crossing both the enterprise and the consumer space"

As PCs have become ever more light and portable, consumers and businesses are placing a premium on the look of machines that are now more likely to travel out of the home or office.

And PC makers are using design to target different demographics, such as HP's collaboration with fashion designer Vivienne Tam on netbooks aimed at fashion-forward women.

Stacy Wolff, director of notebook product design at HP, said the world's largest maker of PCs took a "big gamble" when it began to focus on design in 2005 -- one that he said has paid off. Prior to that, HP notebooks were essentially "technology in kind of a nondescript container," he said.

Wolff said HP's new focus was immediately evident in its income statement: "Once we made it a strategic element of any development, our financials have just skyrocketed."

PLASTIC SLABS

At the dawn of personal computing in the early 1980s, the first mobile PCs began to emerge from companies like Tandy, Osborne, NEC, Epson and others. Many of the early models resembled slabs of beige plastic, bulkier than desktops today.

The early 1990s saw the launch of Apple's PowerBook line, which helped set the standard for design, along with IBM's ThinkPad. Sony's sleek Vaio notebooks followed later in the decade, along with Apple's colorful iBook line.

But PCs 10 years ago were still largely seen as vessels for technology, rather than design or fashion statements.

Jeff Barney, general manager of Toshiba America's digital products division, said the company introduced color in PCs earlier this decade, but they failed to catch on. "The consumer wasn't ready for it," he said. "We were just ahead of the trend."

As components became cheaper and lighter, PC vendors found more room to explore their creative side, bringing in new materials and finishes, and paying closer attention to design details to catch the eye of buyers.

"We think that design is one of the key buying criteria in retail for laptops," said Barney.

Thin and slick is one of the hottest trends, and the category is growing ever more competitive with Apple's MacBook Air, Dell's Adamo and HP's new Envy line.

A PC buyer today can choose from a dizzying array of colors, textures and designs. "Personalization" is the order of the day. For example, Dell offers more than 200 exterior designs.

IDC analyst Richard Shim said the market began to shift around 2005 with lower PC prices. "Consumers started to become the overriding voice in the PC industry and what they were saying is: 'Look there's enough performance here for me to do what I need to do ... but what I want is a PC that doesn't look like everyone else's,'" he said.

PC makers are first and foremost technology companies, he said, but they have realized that many buyers are more interested in what a notebook looks like than what's inside. (Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

News : Mac on auction block

2009-09-18T10:58:00.003-05:00

In what may just be a perfect storm of technology geek gadget lust, an auction house in Southern California is preparing to auction off the first Apple Macintosh Plus ever made–a computer that was owned by “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry. The event promises to bring together two of the most famously devoted fan bases– Apple buyers and Trekkies.

Profiles in History, an auctioneer of Hollywood memorabilia, will offer the aging Mac at an auction scheduled for Oct. 8-9. (For those keeping score at home, the device bears the serial number F4200NUM0001.)

The Macintosh Plus was launched in 1986 and featured a whopping 1 megabyte of RAM (today’s comparable desktop computers come loaded with a base 1 gigabyte of RAM — a 1,000 times more). It was the third model in the Mac line and cost $2,600, according to Wikipedia. The very first Mac Plus to roll off an Apple assembly line was presented to Roddenberry as a gift. He died in 1991.

The auction house said It has an estimated sale price of $800-$1200.

Also on the auction list is Michael Jackson’s white glove that he wore on the Victory Tour. One would expect a somewhat higher price for that cultural artifact.

News : Eye-tooth restores sight

2009-09-18T10:56:00.001-05:00

Doctors in the U.S. use a tooth to anchor a lens in the eye of a blind woman to bring back her sight.

Paul Chapman reports.

News : Microsoft files lawsuits against "malvertisers"

2009-09-18T10:52:00.002-05:00

(Reuters) - Microsoft Corp on Thursday filed five civil lawsuits in Seattle, Washington against alleged "malvertisers."

Malvertising is the term used to describe harmful online advertising and works by camouflaging malicious code as harmless online advertisements, Microsoft's associate general counsel Tim Cranton wrote in a blog.

"The lawsuits allege that individuals using the business names "Soft Solutions," "Direct Ad," "qiweroqw.com," "ITmeter Inc" and "ote2008.info" used malvertisements to distribute malicious software or present deceptive websites that peddled scareware to unsuspecting Internet users," he said.

Cranton added that names of specific individuals behind these activities were not known and the lawsuits were being filed to help uncover the people responsible.

(Reporting by Santosh Nadgir in Bangalore; Editing by Jon Loades-Carter)

News : Google revamps DoubleClick exchange

2009-09-18T10:49:00.002-05:00

By Alexei Oreskovic

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google Inc announced a major overhaul of the DoubleClick ad exchange it acquired last year, an important step in the Internet search giant's plan to extend its advertising business into the market for graphical, display ads.

Google acquired DoubleClick for more than $3 billion in March 2008, in hopes of supplementing its lucrative business serving text-based ads alongside search results with the more visual display ads used in corporate branding campaigns -- a market dominated by online rivals Yahoo Inc and Time Warner's AOL.

Ad exchanges play an increasingly important role in the Internet ad industry by providing a forum for publishers to sell the unsold ad space on their websites to the highest bidding advertisers. The market for online advertising has become more fragmentary as Web users spend more time on social networks and blogs instead of relying on portals and other destination sites.

With Thursday's announcement, Google will for the first time combine the DoubleClick exchange with its own advertising system and technology.

"We want to make display advertising as accessible and open as possible, like search advertising is today," Neil Mohan, vice president of product management at Google, said in an interview with Reuters.

Mohan said the new version of the DoubleClick exchange features tools that allow brand advertisers to more precisely target the audiences their ads are shown to and to monitor the results.

And Google is linking the DoubleClick exchange to its own advertising auction systems -- AdWords and AdSense -- significantly expanding the number of marketers and Web publishers that can use the exchange.

"The way the DoubleClick exchange was set up previously, it just didn't have enough liquidity," said ThinkEquity analyst William Morrison.

According to Google, more than 40 percent of online ad inventory often goes unsold because publishers don't have an efficient way to sell the slots.

The latest changes to the DoubleClick exchange could make Google the dominant exchange for display advertising on the Internet, said ThinkEquity's Morrison, though he noted that it would not happen overnight.

Yahoo currently operates the largest ad exchange through RightMedia, a business that Yahoo purchased for $650 million in 2007.

In a statement, Yahoo said it expected the market for online display ads to be fragmented and for there to be other ad exchanges.

"We welcome these exchanges, and look forward to working with them and integrating with them for our partners," said the statement.

In July, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said that display advertising is likely to be "the next billion dollar business" at Google.

Google generated nearly $22 billion in sales last year, virtually all of it from its paid search ad business, according to analysts.

(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic; Editing Bernard Orr)

News : Steve Jobs puts the LP into iTunes

2009-09-17T10:55:00.002-05:00

Apple's iconic CEO Steve Jobs made his return to the public stage after a near 6-month medical leave of absence in a music-themed Apple launch event.

Matt Cowan reports.

News : Scientists say Super-Earth has rocky surface

2009-09-17T10:52:00.002-05:00

LONDON (Reuters) - Detailed data about the smallest planet ever found outside our solar system suggest it is a rocky "super-Earth" world very like our own, European astronomers said on Wednesday.

The so-called exoplanet, whose initial discovery was announced in February, has a mass five times that of Earth, which when combined with its radius suggests it has a solid surface and a density similar to our terrestrial home.

"This is science at its thrilling and amazing best," said Swiss astronomer Didier Queloz, the leader of the team that made the observations.

About 330 exoplanets have been found orbiting other stars besides the Earth's sun, most of which are gas giants with characteristics similar to Neptune, which has a mass 17 times that of earth.

But the planet at the center of Wednesday's study -- called CoRoT-7b -- is different. It orbits only 2.5 million kilometres from its star once every 20 hours and has a high temperature between 1,000 and 1,500 Celsius, meaning no life could survive there. Its radius is about 80 percent greater than Earth's.

In a report in the Astronomy and Astrophysics journal, the scientists said their findings put CoRoT-7b into the category of "super-Earth" exoplanets.

About a dozen such "super-Earths" have been detected, but this is the first time that the density has been measured for such a small exoplanet, they said.

The findings are important because they represent the first solid evidence about the mass and density of such a small planet.

To get their measurements, the astronomers used what they dubbed "the best exoplanet-hunting device in the world," called a high accuracy radial velocity planet searcher (HARPS) -- which is a spectrograph attached to the European Southern Observatory's telescope at the La Silla observatory in Chile.

"Even though HARPS is certainly unbeaten when it comes to detecting small exoplanets, the measurements of CoRoT-7b proved to be so demanding that we had to gather 70 hours of observations," said Francois Bouchy, another of the European-wide group of scientists who conducted the study.

Fellow astronomer Artie Hatzes said the work represented a "tour de force" of astronomical measurements.

(Reporting by Kate Kelland; editing by Ben Hirschler)

News : Google turns scanned books back into paper

2009-09-17T10:49:00.001-05:00

Posted by: Alexei Oreskovic

Google’s plan to digitize copyrighted books is under legal attack.

But the Internet giant is stepping up its PR offensive to convince consumers of the benefits wrought by its broader book scanning project.

Exhibit A: the Espresso Book Machine.

The contraption pictured here can produce bound paperback books, from hard-to-find works of literature to little-known cookbooks, in a matter of minutes.

The machine itself is not Google’s; it’s the creation of On Demand Books. On Wednesday, the companies announced a deal giving On Demand and its Espresso Machine access to Google’s digital library of 2 million public domain titles.

Until now, the works digitized by Google were available only as digital files for reading on computer screens or electronic readers. With the Espresso machine, the companies say, consumers will be able to bury their noses in old-fashioned, hardcopy versions of their desired books – many of which have been have been out of print for years.

On Demand Books says it currently has 16 of its book-making machines at bookstores, libraries and other locations and plans to have 34 of the machines (which are priced starting at $75,000) next year.

The machine will only crank out books from Google’s archive with expired copyrights, which in the United States means they were published before 1923. Google is currently seeking court approval of a settlement with groups representing publishers and authors regarding its use of scanned copyrighted books.

News : Virtual reality used for blind to map real world

2009-09-17T10:46:00.001-05:00

By John Gaudiosi

RALEIGH, North Carolina (Reuters) - Virtual reality can let video game players escape from the real world but a group of researchers are using virtual reality to help the blind join the real world more, by navigating real places.

Researchers at the University of Chile and Harvard Medical School are using three audio-based PC games that allow players to navigate a labyrinth, a subway system and real-world buildings based on audio cues. "Essentially the games work by interpreting information generated by spectral sounds like footsteps and door knocks," said Lotfi B. Merabet, PhD of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School and co-author of "AER Journal: Research and Practice in Visual Impairment and Blindness."

"The player uses a keyboard to move and interact with the virtual world. By sequentially interacting within the virtual 3-D environment, the user learns to build a spatial cognitive map of their surroundings."

The goal was to develop audio-based gaming to help blind children develop spatial, cognitive and social skills.

"(We've) concentrated on developing the gaming software as a rehabilitation tool to allow blind users to survey unfamiliar buildings before actually navigating through them in real life, as well as conducting brain imaging studies to uncover how the brain of a blind individual accomplishes this task," said Merabet.

According to the World Health Organization, there are about 314 million visually impaired people worldwide and about 45 million of them are blind.

There are over 50 audio-based games for the blind currently available, according to Kelly Sapergia, who reviews games created by and for blind people for the American Council of the Blind's "Main Menu" radio program.

She said these vary from pinball to "Space Invaders"-style games to "GMA Tank Commander," which is a World War II game that lets you drive a tank and shoot various weapons at enemies.

Blind gamers also have access to the classic text-based games that preceded the video game explosion, including titles like "Zork" from Infocom. Sapergia said blind gamers can plug in an audio synthesizer and have the text-based adventure read to them.

There are even games that offer a level playing field regardless of sight. Since 2001, AllinPlay has offered subscription-based online community games like "Texas Hold-em," "Crazy Eights," and "The Anagram Game" that were designed for both blind and sighted people.

Previous research efforts have also become games for the blind. In 2005, the Utrecht School of the Arts in the Netherlands developer a racing game called "Drive" in cooperation with the Bartimus Institute for the Blind. The game lets players drive a shuttle along a fixed track with a co-pilot named Bob. But compared to the millions of copies of PC and console games sold every week, the market for games for the blind is tiny.

"There's a community of blind gamers, but I think the main drawback has been that the big game publishers like Nintendo and Sony haven't created games that are more accessible for blind people," said Sapergia.

Merabet and fellow researcher Jaime Sanchez from the Department of Computer Science at the University of Chile do not view audio-based computer games as a replacement for current rehabilitative techniques but they hope this research will provide a complementary technique.

(Editing by Belinda Goldsmith)

News : Turk crowned world's tallest man at 8ft 1in

2009-09-17T10:42:00.002-05:00

LONDON (Reuters Life!) - Making his first ever trip outside his native Turkey to tour London this week, Sultan Kosen is guaranteed a unique view of the English capital -- at more than eight feet tall he will tower above the crowds.

Crowned the world's tallest man Thursday, 26-year-old Kosen stands at 8 feet 1 inch, making him the first person in more than a decade to officially measure over 8 feet, and one of only 10 confirmed cases in history, according to Guinness World Records.

He takes the title from China's Bao Xi Shun who, at 7 feet 8.95 inches, regained the title last year after 8 feet 5.5 inch Ukrainian Leonid Stadnyk's claim was discredited when he refused to be independently measured.

Kosen lists being able to see a long way into the distance as one of the main advantages of his height, as well as helping his mum with domestic jobs such as changing light bulbs and hanging curtains.

But he admits finding shoes to fit his 36.5 cm (14.4 inch) feet -- the world's largest -- or big enough clothes, are a disadvantage.

While being able to find a car that accommodates his size is one of Kosen's hopes after receiving the official title, his ultimate quest is romance.

"My biggest dream is to get married and have children," he told reporters. "I'm looking for love."

Kosen's trip was organized to mark the launch of the Guinness World Records 2010 edition, which also features the world's most pierced man -- 78-year-old former British bank manager John Lynch, who has 241 piercings -- and the world's youngest billionaire, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerman, who made his first billion dollars aged 23 years 296 days.

(Reporting by Kylie MacLellan; Editing by Steve Addison)

News : Skype founders sue eBay investors

2009-09-17T10:40:00.002-05:00

By Gabriel Madway

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The founders of Skype have sued owner eBay Inc and an investor group that has agreed to buy the Webphone service, accusing them of copyright violation and potentially disrupting the $1.9 billion deal.

The lawsuit brought by Joltid Ltd, a Swedish firm owned by Skype founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, says Skype used its technology without authorization. It comes on the heels of a legal dispute between Joltid and Skype in Britain over software rights.

Filed in Northern California U.S. District Court this week, the latest suit seeks a permanent injunction against Skype and damages. EBay has denied the allegations.

Joltid believes damages are piling up at a rate of more than $75 million a day.

"The Skype companies have continued to infringe Joltid's copyrighted works on a massive scale," the lawsuit said. "Each day that the Skype Companies continue to make available its Internet telephone software for download, Skype users download Joltid's copyrighted works approximately six times per second."

Ebay licenses peer-to-peer technology from Joltid for Skype, but has begun to develop its own alternative software given the uncertain outcome of pending litigation with Joltid.

"Their allegations and claims are without merit and are founded on fundamental legal and factual errors," eBay said in a statement.

Analysts have said the once-celebrated Skype business is an incongruous division of an Internet sales and auction house, and many have long urged the firm to spin off the unit or unload it.

The Internet auction house said on Wednesday it remained on track to close the Skype transaction in the fourth quarter.

JOOST BUSINESS

Ebay agreed to sell a 65 percent stake in Skype for $1.9 billion to a consortium including Netscape founder Marc Andreessen's Andreessen Horowitz, venture firm Index Ventures, private equity firm Silver Lake, and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.

Joltid's suit named those investors as defendants, along with Skype, eBay, and Mike Volpi.

Sources last week said Zennstrom and Friis had contacted several private equity firms to try and buy back their old business.

Days ago, Web TV firm Joost -- also owned by Zennstrom and Friis -- removed Volpi as chairman.

Volpi had joined Index Ventures by that time. Joost said they were investigating Volpi's actions during his tenure at the company, but did not elaborate.

Wednesday's developments are the latest in an escalating legal tussle. Earlier this year, Skype filed a claim in the United Kingdom against Joltid, trying to resolve a dispute over a software licensing agreement between the parties that Joltid was seeking to terminate.

Joltid brought a counterclaim, reiterating that it holds the rights to the peer-to-peer technology and that Skype is in violation of the original agreement.

A trial is expected to take place in early 2010 in the United Kingdom.

Skype, whose 2008 revenue rose 44 percent to $551 million, charges for calls to regular telephones but provides free computer-to-computer voice, video and text services. It had about 405 million registered users at the end of 2008.

EBay's deal valued Skype at $2.75 billion but that was well below the $3.1 billion eBay spent in acquiring Skype.

Its shares rose slightly in extended trade to $24.38 after closing at $24.32.

(Additional reporting by Sinead Carew and Ritsuko Ando in New York; Editing by Tim Dobbyn, Bernard Orr)

News : Scientists find virtual reality helps relieve pain

2009-09-15T10:40:00.001-05:00

By Ben Gruber

SEATTLE, Washington (Reuters) - Teenager Jordan Robinson has faced excruciating pain since a backyard prank went wrong but treatment with virtual reality has given him some relief.

Robinson, 18, and his friends thought it would be fun to shoot flaming arrows at bags full of gasoline in his backyard but it turned out to be a very bad idea, landing him in hospital with severe burns on both of his legs.

"I've broken bones, I have done all sorts of stuff and I have never felt a pain like this," he told Reuters TV.

Robinson is taking morphine, but he also has access to a tool not commonly used in most hospitals -- virtual reality pain reduction.

While nurses manipulate his scarred and tender body through physical therapy, his mind is far away, immersed in a computer-generated world of snow and ice using virtual reality.

Normally he'd be in great pain as his burned legs are made to bend and straighten during therapy but in his virtual world, Robinson is too busy throwing snowballs at penguins and snowmen to notice much pain.

"It helps a lot. I wasn't expecting it to as helpful as it was. I haven't ever done anything like that before but I definitely wasn't expecting it to make as big of a difference as it did," he said.

Robinson has Hunter Hoffman, the director of the Virtual Reality Research Center at the University of Washington to thank for the extra pain relief. Hoffman created "SnowWorld."

"What virtual reality does is give them a place to escape. There is a natural tendency when you are in pain to want to leave the room or to get away from what is causing the pain," said Hoffman who is continually working to refine his techniques.

ESCAPE FROM REALITY

"In this case, we need their bodies to stay there while they are being worked on but their minds can escape into "SnowWorld" and they have this illusion of going into this computer generated world. That leaves less attention available to process the pain signals."

David Patterson, also a professor at Washington University and the head of psychology at the Department of Rehab Medicine at Harbor View Medical Center in Seattle, has been working with Hoffman for several years on the virtual reality project.

He explains that virtual reality is used two ways to help manage pain in burn victims -- by distracting the patient and by using hypnotic suggestion during burn care.

Patterson said pain distraction alone has been proven to decrease the pain during burn treatment by between 30 and 50 percent in a clinical setting.

He hopes combining both techniques they can get even better results, ultimately leading to smaller doses of pain drugs.

Robinson's mother, Kate, has been sitting by her son's hospital bed as he heals and is hoping for a full recovery -- although she hasn't forgotten what put her son in hospital.

"As we were driving here I told him that I loved him and that I cared about him and that I was really sorry that he was going through all of this pain. But as soon as they get him all patched back together, I'm probably going to kill him," she said.

(Editing by Belinda Goldsmith)

News : Google’s Fast Flip Trick

2009-09-15T10:26:00.001-05:00

Posted by: Alexei Oreskovic

Google wants its online news site to feel more like the good old print product.

And the company is prepared to pay for it.

Google took the wraps off of Fast Flip on Monday, a slick online tool that lets readers flip through articles from newspapers and magazines as quickly and effortlessly as if they were turning the pages of a magazine.

The company said it will share advertising revenue with the 30 publishers whose content is currently available on Fast Flip, including the New York Times, the Washington Post and Newsweek.

Obsessive Google-watchers may recall that rumors of this product emerged back in June.

But the company officially released Fast Flip on Monday, making it available on Google Labs, the company’s outlet for products that are still in the testing phase.

Google is essentially hosting images of the first page of various articles from its partner publishers. A Web surfer can browse by topic or news source and scroll through fast-loading snapshots of all the relevant articles. There’s a “recommended” section that aggregates the most popular articles thanks to a new recommendation tool that Google has added (watch out Digg!).

Google is running banner ads alongside the article thumbnails, the proceeds of which will be split with publishers (though Google won’t disclose the terms of the revenue split). If a Web surfer wants to read the full article, they’re redirected to the publisher’s actual Web site.

“The publishing industry faces many challenges today, and there is no magic bullet,” said Google Distinguished Researcher Krishna Bharat in a blog post announcing Fast Flip. “However, we believe that encouraging readers to read more news is a necessary part of the solution. We think Fast Flip could be one way to help, and we’re looking to find other ways to help as well in the near future.”

It’s a fine balancing act by Google, which can continue to stand behind its argument that it helps news sites by sending traffic their way while also sharing a bit of the wealth.

But Bharat acknowledged in an interview with Reuters that various aspects of Fast Flip, including the business model, are subject to change.

Whether the current iteration will be enough to assuage some of Google’s most vocal news industry critics remains to be seen.

Missing among the list of FastFlip partners is Dow Jones, whose chief executive called Google a “digital vampire” this summer.

News : GDP linked to light density

2009-09-03T11:35:00.000-05:00

Researchers at Brown University are using satellite photography to help illuminate Gross Domestic Product numbers of countries in the developing world.

Ben Gruber reports.

Nes : Robonurse cares for elderly

2009-09-03T11:33:00.000-05:00

Researchers develop robot nurse to take care of Japan's elderly.

Catherine Macdonald reports.

News : Computer algorithm to decipher ancient texts

2009-09-03T11:29:00.002-05:00

By Ari Rabinovitch

BEERSHEBA, Israel (Reuters) - Researchers in Israel say they have developed a computer program that can decipher previously unreadable ancient texts and possibly lead the way to a Google-like search engine for historical documents.

The program uses a pattern recognition algorithm similar to those law enforcement agencies have adopted to identify and compare fingerprints.

But in this case, the program identifies letters, words and even handwriting styles, saving historians and liturgists hours of sitting and studying each manuscript.

By recognizing such patterns, the computer can recreate with high accuracy portions of texts that faded over time or even those written over by later scribes, said Itay Bar-Yosef, one of the researchers from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

"The more texts the program analyses, the smarter and more accurate it gets," Bar-Yosef said.

The computer works with digital copies of the texts, assigning number values to each pixel of writing depending on how dark it is. It separates the writing from the background and then identifies individual lines, letters and words.

It also analyses the handwriting and writing style, so it can "fill in the blanks" of smeared or faded characters that are otherwise indiscernible, Bar-Yosef said.

The team has focused their work on ancient Hebrew texts, but they say it can be used with other languages, as well.

The team published its work, which is being further developed, most recently in the academic journal Pattern Recognition due out in December but already available online.

A program for all academics could be ready in two years, Bar-Yosef said.

And as libraries across the world move to digitize their collections, they say the program can drive an engine to search instantaneously any digital database of handwritten documents.

Uri Ehrlich, an expert in ancient prayer texts who works with Bar-Yosef's team of computer scientists, said that with the help of the program, years of research could be done within a matter of minutes.

"When enough texts have been digitized, it will manage to combine fragments of books that have been scattered all over the world," Ehrlich said.

(Editing by Jon Hemming)

News : Nokia seeking developers' help in Apple rivalry

2009-09-03T11:23:00.002-05:00

By Tarmo Virki, European technology correspondent

STUTTGART (Reuters) - Nokia Oyj said on Thursday it would start to open its software platforms to external developers in a bid to boost the quantity and quality of software for Nokia phones.

"We are putting a relatively big part of our future into the hands of third-party developers because this is the only way we can be relevant to consumers," Niklas Savander, the head of Nokia's mobile Internet services unit, said at the annual "Nokia World" event in Stuttgart.

Apple's success in the wireless industry has been boosted by its extremely popular application store, which has attracted consumers and developers alike.

Nokia has been looking for business opportunities in offering services, like music downloads or games, to cell phone users as the handset market matures, but so far its offerings have had limited traction.

U.S. SUCCESS LINKED TO PHONES

Savander said the firm's Internet services have to succeed in the key U.S. market, but success would depend on the firm selling more phones there.

"The U.S. is where we must succeed. The success will need to go hand-in-hand with our devices," he said.

Nokia controls less than 10 percent of the U.S. phone market, while its global market share is close to 40 percent.

Nokia has also struggled in the U.S. with its services offering -- it has delayed the launch of its music service, and a function to enable mobile operators to bill customers for application store purchases was delayed.

Marco Argenti, the head of Nokia's media business, said in a speech that operator billing with AT&T would be available in the United States in late November.

LOOKING FOR ACQUISITIONS

Savander said Nokia continued to look at buying small technology firms to improve its offering of Internet services, focusing on companies with talented teams developing services that Nokia itself plans to offer in the future, enabling the Finnish company to roll those services out faster.

"It is likely we will find small technology companies," Savander said.

Nokia bought U.S. digital maps firm Navteq last year for $8.1 billion and has acquired more than 10 smaller firms to jumpstart its Internet services business as growth in the cell phones market is set to stall.

Nokia has revamped the services unit over the last year, selling some non-core businesses, but the company has stuck to two sales channels for mobile games -- in addition to its Ovi Store, it sells games through its specialized N-Gage service.

Savander said the success of many application stores was raising the question whether N-Gage was needed, but the answer up until now had been that it was.

Nokia says it has 55 million Internet services users, and the business created April-June revenues of 140 million euros ($200 million).

Nokia shares were up 4.4 percent at 9.76 euros at 1250 GMT, while the DJ Stoxx Tech Index was up 1.6 percent.

(Editing by Rupert Winchester/Will Waterman)

News : "Digi-novel" combines book, movie and website

2009-09-03T11:19:00.002-05:00

By Michelle Nichols

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Is it a book? Is it a movie? Is it a website?Actually it's all three. Anthony Zuiker, creator of the "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" U.S. television series, is releasing what he calls a "digi-novel" combining all three media -- and giving a jolt to traditional book publishing.

Zuiker has created "Level 26," a crime novel that also invites readers to log on to a website about every 20 pages using a special code to watch a "cyber-bridge" -- a three-minute film clip tied to the story.

Starting next Tuesday, readers can buy the book, visit the website, log in to watch the "cyber-bridges," read, discuss and contribute to the story.

"Just doing one thing great is not going to sustain business," he said. "The future of business in terms of entertainment will have to be the convergence of different mediums. So we did that -- publishing, movies and a website."

He said he did not believe the digi-novel would ever replace traditional publishing, but said the business did need a shot in the arm.

"They need content creators like myself to come in the industry and say, 'Hey, let's try things this way,'" he said.

Zuiker put together a 60-page outline for the novel, which was written by Duane Swierczynski, and wrote and directed the "cyber-bridges." He said the book could be read without watching the "cyber-bridges."

GADGETS CHANGE READING LANDSCAPE

Zuiker said the United States was infatuated with technology and it had become such a permanent part of people's lives that more entertainment choices were needed.

Increasingly, people are reading books on electronic readers like Amazon.com's Kindle and Sony Corp's Reader.

Those devices don't play videos, so "Level 26" readers still need to log on to the Internet on a different device. Apple Inc is said to be developing a touchscreen tablet, which some analysts envision as a multimedia device that could play videos.

Zuiker said people's attention span was becoming shorter and shorter and that it was important to give people more options on how they consumed entertainment and books.

"Every TV show in the next five, 10 years will have a comprehensive microsite or website that continue the experience beyond the one-hour television to keep engaging viewers 24/7," he said. "Just watching television for one specific hour a week ... that's not going to be a sustainable model going forward."

"I wanted to bring all the best in publishing, in a motion picture, in a website and converge all three into one experience," he said.

"And when the book finished and the bridges finished, I wanted the experience to continue online and in a social community."

Zuiker said he came up with the idea for the "digi-novel" during a three-month TV writers strike in 2007/08.

(Editing by Claudia Parsons and David Storey)

News : YouTube may stream movie rentals

2009-09-03T11:05:00.002-05:00

By Yinka Adegoke and Alexei Oreskovic

NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Online video site YouTube is in talks with several major movie studios about renting movies to users by streaming the movies over the Internet according to a person familiar with the talks on Wednesday.

It would mark the first time the world's most popular video site would charge its users to watch videos.

YouTube, which is owned by Internet search giant Google Inc, has held discussions with Lions Gate Entertainment Corp, Sony Pictures, a unit of Sony Corp, and Time Warner Inc's Warner Brothers about online movie rentals, the person said.

In many cases, the movies would be available for rental for a fee in a system similar to Web rental programs from Apple Inc's iTunes, Netflix and Amazon.com with newer movies. YouTube would likely charge a similar fee around $3.99 a rental.

YouTube, which is the world's No.1 video website, currently offers video for free, on an advertising-supported basis.

It currently has a range of archive movies, TV shows and promotional clips from the three named studios and other partners on its site.

"We hope to expand on both our great relationship with the movie studios and the selection and types of videos we offer our community," said YouTube spokesman Chris Dale.

YouTube is in the midst of talks and negotiations with a wide range of media content partners as it ramps up efforts to build a substantial library of current and archive professional movies and videos that it can monetize.

The site, best known as a place to seek out fun videos uploaded by users that feature themes such as skateboarding dogs and dancing babies, recently started to emphasize a growing amount of professional videos.

Advertisers are believed to favor professionally made videos over those of users. Hulu, a video site owned by News Corp, Walt Disney Co and NBC Universal, has had relative success attracting both users and advertisers with a range of full-length TV shows and older movies.

Last month, YouTube announced a partnership with Time Warner Inc properties including CNN and TNT. It agreed a similar deal in March with Walt Disney.

YouTube owner Google has come under growing criticism from Wall Street analysts and investors concerned the expense of serving millions of videos to users around the world everyday is costing the company more money than it earns from advertising.

(Reporting by Yinka Adegoke and Alexei Oreskovic; editing by Andre Grenon.)