Thieves stole more than $1 million worth of Apple products during a New Years Eve heist

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China tightens Internet controls, legalizes post deletion

BEIJING (Reuters) – China unveiled tighter Internet controls on Friday, legalizing the deletion of posts or pages which are deemed to contain “illegal” information and requiring service providers to hand over such information to the authorities for punishment.

The rules signal that the new leadership headed by Communist Party chief Xi Jinping will continue muzzling the often scathing, raucous online chatter in a country where the Internet offers a rare opportunity for debate.

The new regulations, announced by the official Xinhua news agency, also require Internet users to register with their real names when signing up with network providers, though, in reality, this already happens.

Chinese authorities and Internet companies such as Sina Corp have long since closely monitored and censored what people say online, but the government has now put measures such as deleting posts into law.

“Service providers are required to instantly stop the transmission of illegal information once it is spotted and take relevant measures, including removing the information and saving records, before reporting to supervisory authorities,” the rules state.

The restrictions follow a series of corruption scandals amongst lower-level officials exposed by Internet users, something the government has said it is trying to encourage.

Li Fei, deputy head of parliament’s legislative affairs committee, said the new rules did not mean people needed to worry about being unable to report corruption online. But he added a warning too.

“When people exercise their rights, including the right to use the Internet, they must do so in accordance with the law and constitution, and not harm the legal rights of the state, society … or other citizens,” he told a news conference.

Chinese Internet users already cope with extensive censorship measures, especially over politically sensitive topics like human rights and elite politics, and popular foreign sites Facebook, Twitter and Google-owned YouTube are blocked.

Earlier this year, the government began forcing users of Sina’s wildly successful Weibo microblogging platform to register their real names.

The new rules were quickly condemned by some Weibo users.

“So now they are getting Weibo to help in keeping records and reporting it to authorities. Is this the freedom of expression we are promised in the constitution?” complained one user.

“We should resolutely oppose such a covert means to interfere with Internet freedom,” wrote another.

The government says tighter monitoring of the Internet is needed to prevent people making malicious and anonymous accusations online, disseminating pornography and spreading panic with unfounded rumors, pointing out that many other countries already have such rules.

Despite periodic calls for political reform, the party has shown no sign of loosening its grip on power and brooks no dissent to its authority.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard and Sally Huang; Editing by Nick Macfie)

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Analysis: For tech investors, it’s hard to know when to bolt

(Reuters) – When Hewlett-Packard Co agreed to buy British software company Autonomy in August last year for $ 11.1 billion, two well-known investors made diametrically different bets on how the big deal would play out.

To short seller Jim Chanos, who had been raising red flags on Autonomy for years and had started shorting shares of HP in 2011, the deal was another nail in the coffin of the Silicon Valley tech giant, according to a source familiar with his thinking.

But to activist investor Ralph Whitworth, co-founder of Relational Investors LLC, it was time to commit to HP and the turnaround story the company was trying to sell to Wall Street. His fund bought more than 17.5 million HP shares after the deal was announced, and Whitworth received a seat on the company’s board. This year, Relational roughly doubled its stake in HP.

In the wake of HP’s decision to take an $ 8.8 billion write-down on the deal because of alleged accounting irregularities at Autonomy, it appears Chanos – whose call to short Enron before the energy company collapsed in a corporate scandal may be his most famous trade – was more astute.

HP’s shares are down 36 percent since Relational, which declined to comment, built its stake in the third quarter of 2011.

BARRIERS TO ENTRY

Relational’s big move into HP is a reminder that even smart investors can get things wrong in the fast-evolving technology sector, where once hot global names like Research in Motion and Yahoo can quickly become yesterday’s news.

It is a world where a company may effectively erect barriers to entry in a market only to have them torn down by a rival with a new whizz-bang product – just as Apple‘s iPhone broke the dominance that Research in Motion’s BlackBerry had enjoyed.

One warning sign that a tech company may be on the verge of losing its edge is when it makes acquisitions outside of its main area of expertise to move into new product lines. Savvy tech investors also say be wary of companies that experience a succession of management changes, or when a successful core business starts looking tired.

The pace of change in the technology sector is much faster than in other industries, said Kaushik Roy, an analyst at Hercules Technology Growth Capital. “It attracts new talent and capital, many startups are formed, which can be extremely disruptive to incumbents,” Roy said. “In other words, yesterday’s winners can rapidly become today’s losers and vice versa.”

In the case of HP, the company not only has had four CEOs since 1999, it has been striving to find another niche to dominate as demand for one of its core products – computer printers – wanes and as its PC business stumbles.

Or consider online search pioneer Yahoo, which has gone through six chief executives and is struggling to keep pace with Google.

Josh Spencer, a portfolio manager at T. Rowe Price, said frequent turnover in the executive suite at Yahoo was a warning sign to him. Spencer said he does not own Yahoo shares and has not in the recent past.

RED FLAGS

While a company may view an acquisition as a fresh start – that is what HP was trying to say about Autonomy – some investors see it as a warning the core business is struggling.

Spencer noted that the technology industry’s most successful companies – Apple and Samsung – generally have not made acquisitions and instead developed new products internally.

For Margaret Patel, managing director at Wells Capital Management, one of the first red flags she saw at HP was when former CEO Carly Fiorina bought Compaq for roughly $ 25 billion in 2002.

“I felt then that the acquisition was too large and expensive, and personal computers were not their core strength,” said Patel, who has since avoided investing in HP.

Of course, timing can be everything even if an investor is eventually proven right. Patel missed out on a 137 percent gain in HP’s stock price from the time of the Compaq deal up until the end of 2010.

PREMIUM VALUATIONS

A few money managers see a flashing yellow light in the big sell-off of Apple shares in the past few months.

Apple, the most valuable U.S. company, has shed nearly 30 percent of its value in the last three months.

Since the death of co-founder Steve Jobs – the driving force behind Apple’s iPod, iPhone and iPad – DoubleLine co-founder Jeffrey Gundlach has been recommending that investors short the company’s shares because “the product innovator isn’t there anymore.”

Gundlach said he began shorting Apple’s stock at around $ 610 and maintains that it could drop to $ 425. He declined to comment on Tim Cook, who succeeded Jobs over a year ago and is seen by many as less visionary and innovative than Jobs.

Christian Bertelsen, chief investment officer at Global Financial Private Capital, with assets under management of $ 1.7 billion, said his firm began paring back its exposure to Apple this fall because he felt the expectations for the company’s new iPhone5 had gotten overheated.

He said his firm dramatically took down its exposure to Apple shares when the stock hit $ 670 a share. “For us, the light bulb went off this fall,” he said. Mind you, Apple’s shares still remain up about 25 percent for the whole year.

And then there’s Research in Motion. Once a leader in smartphones, it’s now in danger of becoming irrelevant.

“They saw the move towards all touch-screen phones and didn’t move with it,” said Stuart Jeffrey, an analyst at Nomura Securities who noted how the BlackBerry 10 touch-screen phone will debut on January 30, 2013, six years after Apple released its first iPhone in 2007.

Robert Stimpson, a portfolio manager at Oak Associates Funds whose fund does not own any shares of Research in Motion, said the company’s BlackBerry phones are on a downward slope and it will be tough for the company to regain its lost luster.

“The end of the road is a long, lonely journey,” Stimpson said of Research in Motion. “I think they will fight the good fight for many years, probably unsuccessfully.”

(Reporting by Nicola Leske and Sam Forgione in New York; Editing by Paritosh Bansal, Tiffany Wu, Jennifer Ablan and Matthew Goldstein; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

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Nokia Lumia 920′s fascinating Christmas sets stage for battle with BlackBerry 10

The Chinese version of Nokia’s (NOK) new flagship Windows Phone model recently debuted in Shanghai. According to pictures posted to Chinese websites, the Lumia 920T drew a big crowd… and sold out in two hours. So the debate over whether there is wide mass market demand for the model rages on.

[More from BGR: Microsoft Surface trampled at the bottom of the tablet pile this Christmas]

The very limited early supply makes it hard to gauge the demand in China. The Lumia 920 did hit Amazon China’s (AMZN) top-five list a week ago, but sold out quickly and dropped out. There are now rumors about China Mobile planning to further subsidize the Lumia 920T in January, making it effectively free on contract. This would be China Mobile’s revenge on Apple (AAPL) for its refusal to cut a sweetheart deal with the giant carrier and its 700 million subscribers.

[More from BGR: Purported photo of new BlackBerry phone with QWERTY keyboard leaks]

Nokia may thus be close to landing the Chinese version of the role that Motorola played for Verizon (VZ) in 2010. Back then, the U.S. carrier used DROID models to flaunt the fact that it did not really need the iPhone as badly as many assumed.

China Mobile is now planning to show Apple it can turn even Windows Phones into mass-market hits in China with its marketing and subsidy machine. This could be great for Nokia — if Apple isn’t forced into a cutting a quick deal in coming months. The iPhone’s ho-hum market share performance in markets like Latin America and Asia is piling pressure on Apple right about now.

In a fascinating U.S. twist, the Lumia 920 climbed the Amazon charts again over the past week as its supply has improved. The black variant of the Lumia 920 debuted in the top-three in November, dropped out of top-40 after Amazon’s delivery time stretched to two weeks… and has now staged a comeback to No.14. This makes it the second-biggest AT&T (T) phone on Amazon right now, with only the blue version of the Galaxy S III outperforming the 920.

The Lumia 822 is fizzling badly at Verizon, but Nokia just might be gaining a toehold at AT&T even after the pre-Christmas supply drama. It is now clear that the Lumia 920 is beating its biggest Windows rival, the HTC Windows Phone 8X, convincingly at AT&T.

This sets up a very interesting rivalry when AT&T debuts the new generation of BlackBerry 10 models sometime in February or March. The battle for the third mobile ecosystem at AT&T will be effectively waged by Nokia and RIM (RIMM) this spring. The loser may well find out that it does not have strong subsidy or marketing support in 2013.

AT&T has an incentive to build up a third rival for the Apple and Android ecosystems, but it has little reason to support both minor operating systems.

This article was originally published by BGR

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Boston Cop Rescues Drowning Woman

A Boston police officer is being hailed a hero after he jumped into the frigid cold water to rescue a drowning woman.

Cell phone video showed police officer Edward Norton plunging into Fort Point channel Friday afternoon during a torrential downpour to rescue the unidentified woman who’d reportedly fallen in by accident.

Norton, who just happened to be in the right place at the right time, says he didn’t think twice about jumping in.

“It just kind of happened. I saw here there. Someone had to do it,” Norton told ABC News. “As I was in the air, I was thinking I don’t know what’s under the water.”

Once in the water, Norton’s bullet-proof vest weighed him down, making the rescue more complicated than he anticipated. Onlookers did their part by tossing in a life preserver, which helped keep the frantic woman afloat.

“She kept saying stuff like, ‘I can’t hold on.’ So, I told her, ‘Hold on. Help is coming,’” Norton said. The officer remained with the woman in the water until firefighters arrived on the scene and pulled them both out of the water to safety.

Both were taken to local hospitals and checked for hypothermia, but were released with a clean bill of health.

As for the people calling Norton a hero, he says, not really because it’s all in a day’s work.

“I feel like I did what I would expect to do for one of my loved ones. My wife, my daughter, anyone,” Norton said.

While everyone made it out of the water safely with no injuries, there was one casualty so to speak. Norton says his wedding band slipped off when he hit the water and hero or not, his wife is none too pleased.

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Facebook Shrugs Off Instagram’s New Class Action Lawsuit

For Instagram, there’s good news and there’s bad news about the class action lawsuit just filed against them. Bad news first: Somebody just filed a class action lawsuit. Good news: the lawyers from Instagram’s parent company, Facebook, have plenty of practice getting rid of these pesky things. That might explain why they’re so dismissive about the legal inconvenience a group of disgruntled Instagram users left under its tree this year. “We believe this complaint is without merit and we will fight it vigorously,” says Facebook spokesman Andrew Nusca. It’ll obviously take more than the half-hearted apology Instagram CEO and co-founder Kevin Systrom made at the end of last week.

RELATED: It’s Time to Accept the Existence of a Social Media Bubble

The lawsuit’s complaint is somewhat understandable. If you’ve so much as heard the word “Instagram” you’ve heard about how much their new terms of service stink. In it, the company declared that it “may share User Content and your information (including but not limited to, information from cookies, log files, device identifiers, location data, and usage data)” with Facebook, its subsidiaries and its “affiliates.” Instagram users understood this to mean that Instagram could sell their photos to advertisers, though Systrom pushed back at that in his blog post when he more or less said that the company would revert to its old terms of service. “We don’t own your photos – you do,” he said. 

RELATED: And the Actual Retail Price for Instagram Is…

Instagram kept three key new details in place, though. One, the company maintained the ability to serve ads in your feed. Two, it said “that we may not always identify paid services, sponsored content, or commercial communications as such.” Lastly, it left in place the mandatory arbitration clause that it added with the new terms of service, forcing users to waive their right to participate in class action lawsuit. That obviously didn’t discourage this group of plaintiffs who said in the lawsuit that “Instagram declares that ‘possession is nine-tenths of the law and if you don’t like it, you can’t stop us.’”

RELATED: Mark Zuckerberg Disappears from Google+ Due to Privacy Settings

No big deal. Instagram is a part of Facebook now, and Facebook has dealt with class action lawsuits before. Just seven months ago, it got slammed with a $ 15 billion class action suit from users who said that the social network was ”improperly tracking the internet use of its members even after they logged out of their accounts.” They haven’t settled yet, but if it winds up anything like the class action lawsuit over the Beacon advertising program a few years ago, it could take years to resolve and could cost Facebook millions. With some good lawyering, though, this latest lawsuit won’t cost as many millions as it could. But Instagram will never be the same.

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RIM loses BlackBerry subscribers for first time

TORONTO (AP) — Research In Motion‘s stock plunged in after-hours trading Thursday after the BlackBerry maker said it plans to change the way it charges fees.

RIM also announced that it lost subscribers for the first time in the latest quarter, as the global number of BlackBerry users dipped to 79 million.

In a rare positive sign, the Canadian company added to its cash position during the quarter as it prepared to launch new smartphones on Jan. 30. The new devices are deemed critical to the company’s survival.

RIM’s stock initially jumped more than 8 percent in after-hours trading on that news, but then fell $ 1.48, or 10.4 percent, to $ 12.65 after RIM said on a conference call that it won’t generate as much revenue from telecommunications carriers once it releases the new BlackBerry 10 platform.

RIM is changing the way it charges service fees, putting an important source of revenue at risk. RIM CEO Thorsten Heins said only subscribers who want enhanced security will pay fees under the new system.

“Other subscribers who do not utilize such services are expected to generate less or no service revenue,” Heins said. “The mix in level of service fees revenue will change going forward and will be under pressure over the next year during this transition.”

RIM’s stock had been on a three-month rally that has seen the stock more than double from its lowest level since 2003.

But Mike Walkley, an analyst with Canaccord Genuity, said BlackBerry 10 will change RIM’s services revenue model dramatically. He said that instead of getting about $ 6 per device each month from carriers and users RIM could get as little as zero.

“That’s what turned the stock from being up 10 percent to being down 10 percent,” Walkley said. “That’s been part of our worry. How do they come back with a new platform and get carriers to continue to share the higher revenue —which sounds like they are not going to— and then subsidize the phone to make it affordable for consumers and enterprises.”

“People are seeing that the services revenue has a lot of risk to it now with the BlackBerry 10 migration.”

Three months ago, RIM had 80 million subscribers. Analysts said the loss of 1 million subscribers was expected. Once coveted symbols of an always-connected lifestyle, BlackBerry phones have lost their luster to Apple’s iPhone and phones that run on Google’s Android software.

RIM is banking its future on its much-delayed BlackBerry 10 platform, which is meant to offer the multimedia, Internet browsing and apps experience that customers now demand.

“We believe the company has stabilized and will turn the corner in the next year,” Heins said. He noted that the company’s cash holdings grew by $ 600 million in the quarter to $ 2.9 billion, even after the funding of all its restructuring costs. RIM previously announced 5,000 layoffs this year.

Heins said subscribers in North America showed the largest decline, but said there is growth overseas.

Colin Gillis, an analyst with BGC Financial, said before the conference call that the company bought itself more time.

“It doesn’t mean (BlackBerry) 10 will gain traction. A lot of people said 10 would be DOA, but I don’t think that’s going to be the case,” he said.

Jefferies analyst Peter Misek also earlier called the results better than expected, noting that RIM added a significant amount of cash. RIM will need the money to advertise the new BlackBerrys and operating system.

Misek also called it a positive development that RIM said there would not be another delay to BlackBerry 10.

“The success or failure of this company will be on BlackBerry 10,” Misek said.

RIM posted net income of $ 14 million, or 3 cents per share for its fiscal third quarter, which ended Dec. 1. That compares with a profit of $ 265 million, or 51 cents per share, in the same quarter a year ago.

The latest figure includes a favorable tax settlement. Excluding that adjustment, RIM lost 22 cents per share. Analysts polled by FactSet were expecting a wider loss of 27 cents.

RIM reported revenue of $ 2.7 billion, down 47 percent from a year ago.

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Apple is dominating the small and medium business market in Q4

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Samsung Galaxy Muse is like an iPod Shuffle that Syncs with Your Phone

In perhaps the most awkwardly titled tech press release ever, Samsung Mobile announced the launch of the new Samsung Galaxy Muse, a device which appears to have nothing to do with “CORRECTING and REPLACING and ADDING MULTIMEDIA” but everything to do with being a music player crossed with a smartphone accessory.

​Say goodbye to iTunes?

While most handheld music players (and smartphone or tablets with music apps) sync with a PC or Mac music app, like iTunes or Banshee, the Samsung Galaxy Muse syncs with your Android phone itself. It uses the Muse Sync app, which Google Play says will install on devices like the Nexus 7 tablet but which Samsung says will only work with the Galaxy S II, Galaxy S III, Galaxy Note and Galaxy Note II smartphones.

​Plug it in, turn it on

The pebble-shaped Muse connects to your Samsung phone via its headset jack. It doesn’t have a screen, so you have to control it iPod Shuffle style, and use the Muse Sync app to see how much of its 4 GB of space are free and decide which playlists to sync. Since it only has those 4 GB, it can only hold a fraction of the music that can be put on the much more powerful smartphones.

​Who is Samsung selling the Galaxy Muse to?

Samsung says “users can sync the songs they want and leave their phone behind,” the usefulness of which may depend on whether or not you feel limited by having to bring your smartphone with you. The press release mentions its “wearable design and small form factor,” and suggests taking it “in place of [your] smartphone … at the gym or on the go.”

​What other gadgets are like the Galaxy Muse?

The most obvious comparison is to the iPod Shuffle, Apple’s similarly tiny and screen-less portable music player. At $ 49, it costs the same as the Galaxy Muse (although a Droid-Life tipster found a $ 25 off coupon code for the Muse), but comes in seven different colors and has an embossed click-wheel controller instead of a flat and featureless surface. It requires you to use iTunes on a desktop PC or Mac, though.

​On the upside

The Galaxy Muse’s six hours of battery life may not be suitable for all-day listening, but may at least take the pressure off of a battery-hungry smartphone (so long as it’s one of Samsung’s flagship models). And as PCMag’s Chloe Albanesius notes, “it’s not very convenient to strap a 5.5-inch Galaxy Note II to your arm when you hit the gym.”

Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.
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Amazon smartphone reportedly set for 2013 launch

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Cisco hires bank to sell home wireless router unit: report

(Reuters) – Networking equipment company Cisco Systems Inc has hired Barclays to sell its Linksys home router unit, a report said on Sunday.

The business, which Cisco acquired for $ 500 million in 2003, will likely be valued for less because it has low margins, according to Bloomberg.

The sale is part of Cisco’s strategy to shed its consumer unit and focus on its software and technology services businesses.

Last year, Cisco axed its Flip camera business as part of this strategy.

(Reporting By Olivia Oran; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

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Ten Commandments join Isaac Newton’s notes online

LONDON (Reuters) – A copy of The Ten Commandments dating back two millennia and the earliest written Gaelic are just two of a number of incredibly rare manuscripts now freely available online to the world as part of a Cambridge University digital project.

The Nash Papyrus — one of the oldest known manuscripts containing text from the Hebrew Bible — has become one of the latest treasures of humanity to join Isaac Newton‘s notebooks, the Nuremberg Chronicle and other rare texts as part of the Cambridge Digital Library, the university said on Wednesday.

“Cambridge University Library preserves works of great importance to faith traditions and communities around the world,” University Librarian Anne Jarvis said in a statement.

“Because of their age and delicacy these manuscripts are seldom able to be viewed – and when they are displayed, we can only show one or two pages.”

Before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Nash Papyrus, was by far the oldest manuscript containing text from the Hebrew Bible and like most fragile historical documents, only available to select academics for scrutiny.

The university’s digital library is making 25,000 new images, including an ancient copy of the New Testament, available on its website (http://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/), which has already attracted tens of millions of hits since the project was launched in December 2011.

The latest release also includes important texts from Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism.

In addition to religious texts, internet users can also view the 10th century Book of Deer, which is widely believed to be the oldest surviving Scottish manuscript and contains the earliest known examples of written Gaelic.

“Now… anyone with a connection to the Internet can select a work of interest, turn to any page of the manuscript, and explore it in extraordinary detail,” Jarvis said.

The technical infrastructure required to get these texts to web was in part funded by a 1.5 million pound ($ 2.4 million) gift from the Polonsky Foundation in June 2010.

($ 1 = 0.6210 British pounds)

(Reporting by Dasha Afanasieva, editing by Paul Casciato)

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Pope needs help sending out blessing in first tweet

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – After weeks of anticipation bordering on media frenzy, Pope Benedict solemnly put his finger to a computer tablet device on Wednesday and tried to send his first tweet – but something went wrong.

Images on Vatican television appeared to show the first try didn’t work. The pope, who still writes his speeches by hand, seems to have pressed too hard and the tweet was not sent right away. So, he needed a little help from his friends.

Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli of the Vatican‘s communications department showed the pontiff how to do it, but the pope hesitated. Celli touched the screen lightly himself and off went the papal tweet.

“Dear friends, I am pleased to get in touch with you through Twitter. Thank you for your generous response. I bless all of you from my heart,” he said in his introduction to the brave new world of Twitter.

The tweet was sent at the end of weekly general audience in the Vatican before thousands of people.

The pope actually has eight linked Twitter accounts. @Pontifex, the main account, is in English. The other seven have a suffix at the end for the different language versions. For example, the German version is @Pontifex_de, and the Arabic version is @Pontifex_ar.

The tweets will be going out in Spanish, English, Italian, Portuguese, German, Polish, Arabic and French. Other languages will be added in the future.

The pope already had just over a million followers in all of the languages combined minutes before he sent his first tweet and the number was growing.

PAPAL Q AND A

Later on Wednesday after the audience was over and the television cameras turned off, the pontiff answered the first of three questions sent to him at #askpontifex.

The first question answered by the pope was: “How can we celebrate the Year of Faith better in our daily lives?”

His answer: “By speaking with Jesus in prayer, listening to what he tells you in the Gospel and looking for him in those in need.”

The pope, who, as leader of the Roman Catholic Church already has 1.2 billion followers in the standard sense of the word, won’t be following anyone else, the Vatican has said.

After his first splash into the brave new world of Twitter on Wednesday, the contents of future tweets will come primarily from the contents of his weekly general audience, Sunday blessings and homilies on major Church holidays.

They are also expected to include reaction to major world events, such as natural disasters.

The Vatican says papal tweets will be little “pearls of wisdom”, which is understandable since his thoughts will have to be condensed to 140 characters, while papal documents often top 140 pages.

The Vatican said precautions had been taken to make sure the pope’s certified account is not hacked. Only one computer in the Vatican’s secretariat of state will be used for the tweets.

After Wednesday, Benedict won’t be pushing the button on his tweets himself. They will be sent by aides but he will sign off on them.

The pope’s Twitter page is designed in yellow and white – the colors of the Vatican, with a backdrop of the Vatican and his picture. It may change during different liturgical seasons of the year and when the pope is away from the Vatican on trips.

The pope has given a qualified welcome to social media.

In a document issued last year, he said the possibilities of new media and social networks offered “a great opportunity”, but warned of the risks of depersonalization, alienation, self-indulgence, and the dangers of having more virtual friends than real ones.

In 2009, a new Vatican website, www.pope2you.net, went live, offering an application called “The pope meets you on Facebook”, and another allowing the faithful to see the pontiff’s speeches and messages on their iPhones or iPods.

The Vatican famously got egg on its face in 2009 when it was forced to admit that, if it had surfed the web more, it might have known that a traditionalist bishop whose excommunication was lifted had for years been a Holocaust denier.

(Reporting By Philip Pullella, editing by Paul Casciato)

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‘Dishonored’ tops a diverse year in video games

The video game universe in 2012 is a study in extremes.

At one end, you have the old guard striving to produce mass-appeal blockbusters. At the other end, you have a thriving community of independent game developers scrambling to find an audience for their idiosyncratic visions. Can’t we all just get along?

Turns out, we can. For while some industry leaders are worried (and not without cause) about “disruptive” trends — social-media games, free-to-play models, the switch from disc-based media to digital delivery — video games are blossoming creatively. This fall, during the height of the pre-holiday game release calendar, I found myself bouncing among games as diverse as the bombastic “Halo 4,” the artsy “The Unfinished Swan” and the quick-hit trivia game “SongPop.”

Some of my favorite games this year have benefited from both sides working together. The smaller studios get exposure on huge platforms like Xbox Live or the PlayStation Network. The big publishers seem more willing to invite a little quirkiness into their big-budget behemoths. Gamers win.

1. “Dishonored” (Bethesda Softworks, for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC): Arkane Studios’ revenge drama combined a witty plot, crisp gameplay and an uncommonly distinctive milieu, setting a supernaturally gifted assassin loose in a gloriously decadent, steampunk-influenced city.

2. “Mass Effect 3″ (Electronic Arts, for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii U, PC): No 2012 game was more ambitious than BioWare’s sweeping space opera. Yes, the ending was a little bumpy, but the fearless Commander Shepard’s last journey across the cosmos provided dozens of thrilling moments.

3. “The Walking Dead” (Telltale Games, for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC, iOS): This moving adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s comics dodged the predictable zombie bloodbath in favor of a finely tuned character study of two survivors: Lee, an escaped convict, and Clementine, the 8-year-old girl he’s committed to protect.

4. “Journey” (Thatgamecompany, for the PlayStation 3): A nameless figure trudges across a desert toward a glowing light. Simple enough, but gorgeous visuals, haunting music and the need to communicate, wordlessly, with companions you meet along the way translate into something that’s almost profound.

5. “Borderlands 2″ (2K Games, for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC): Gearbox Software’s gleeful mash-up of first-person shooting, role-playing and loot-collecting conventions gets bigger and badder, but what stuck with me most were the often hilarious encounters with the damaged citizens of the godforsaken planet Pandora.

6. “XCOM: Enemy Unknown” (2K Games, for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC): A strategy classic returns, as the forces of Earth fight back against an extraterrestrial invasion. It’s a battle of wits rather than reflexes, a stimulating change of pace from the typical alien gorefest.

7. “Fez” (Polytron, for the Xbox 360): A two-dimensional dude named Gomez finds his world has suddenly burst into a third dimension in this gem from indie developer Phil Fish. As Gomez explores, the world of “Fez” continually deepens, opening up mysteries that only the most dedicated players will be able to solve.

8. “Spec Ops: The Line” (2K Games, for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC): This harrowing tale from German studio Yager Development transplants “Apocalypse Now” to a war-torn Dubai. It’s a bracing critique, not just of war but of the rah-rah jingoism of contemporary military shooters.

9. “Assassin’s Creed III” (Ubisoft, for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii U, PC): A centuries-old conspiracy takes root in Colonial America in this beautifully realized, refreshingly irreverent installment of Ubisoft’s alternate history franchise.

10. “ZombiU” (Ubisoft, for the Wii U): The best launch game for Nintendo’s new console turns the Wii U’s GamePad into an effective tool for finding and hunting down the undead.

Runners-up: “Call of Duty: Black Ops II,” ”Darksiders II,” ”Dust: An Elysian Tail,” ”Far Cry 3,” ”Halo 4,” ”Mark of the Ninja,” ”Need for Speed: Most Wanted,” ”Paper Mario: Sticker Star,” ”Papo & Yo,” ”The Unfinished Swan.”

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California PUC Finalizing Free Cell Phone Service for the Poor

As noted by KGO, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) intends to approve a free lifeline cell phone plan that benefits California‘s poor and homeless residents. Funding for initial setup will come from the federal government.

What are the initial details of the plan?

Qualifying Californians pay an initial $ 20 fee to sign up for a monthly cell coverage plan. It offers 250 free minutes as well as 250 free text messages. From then on, the minutes and message count refill every month as long as the participant qualifies for the program. Assured Wireless — the name of the plan devised by Virgin Mobile, KERN Radio notes — has proposed this coverage to the CPUC.

Unlike the landline lifeline service, which only reduces a phone bill, this cell phone service is actually free of charge for participants. The company notes that plan participants can pay extra for international calling and for the purchase of additional minutes. The phone is free and network service is provided by Sprint. It is not known at this time if paying cell phone service customers will be charged a surcharge or fee to fund the program.

Who benefits from the free cell phone service?

The Coalition on Homelessness notes that those living on the streets will see an immediate benefit. “It’s so huge if you’re living outside you can dial 9-1-1 in the middle of the night; if you need to get in touch with your loved ones, you have a phone, if you’re trying to get in touch with a potential employer,” the Coalition on Homelessness’ Jennifer Friedenbach explained. Low-income wage earners, too, benefit since they no longer have to take money from other budget line items to afford a cell phone.

What is the wage income maximum for a qualifying program participant?

Participants cannot earn more than about $ 15,000 per year to qualify for the free cell phone program.

Is this type of program new?

This is not a new program. There are already 36 states that offer cell phone lifeline programs. The California PUC has thus far been unwilling to approve the program for the State of California.

Why does California need free cell phone service in the first place?

Although the State of California does participate in the federal lifeline landline service via local phone service providers, the number of landlines in service has decreased by 43 percent since 2000. On the flipside, the number of cell phones in use has increased by 123 percent.

What do critics say?

As noted by KERN, there is a question of taxpayer and cell phone customer cost. In other states, Sprint contributes to the program. It then has the option of charging its paying customers a fee that funds the program.

What do proponents say?

As noted by 4-Traders, Assurance Wireless has crunched the numbers for the entire nation and purports, “If all 28.5 million adults eligible for Lifeline Assistance were to take advantage of the program and earn at the same rate and level as [the study] sample, it would result in $ 3.7 billion in fresh income for the poor and near poor.”

What happens next?

As noted by the San Francisco Chronicle, the CPUC has already approved the Golden State’s participation in the program. It now needs to work out the details of Assurance Wireless’ promotional programs to advertise the free cell phone service. Program finalization is tentatively set for two weeks from now.

Sylvia Cochran is a Los Angeles area resident with a firm finger on the pulse of California politics. Talk radio junkie, community volunteer and politically independent, she scrutinizes the good and the bad from both sides of the political aisle.

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Software guru McAfee wants to return to United States

GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) – Software guru John McAfee, fighting deportation from Guatemala to Belize to face questions about the slaying of a neighbor, said on Saturday he wants to return to the United States.

“My goal is to get back to America as soon as possible,” McAfee, 67, said in a phone call to Reuters from the immigration facility where he is being held for illegally crossing the border to Guatemala with his 20-year-old girlfriend.

“I wish I could just pack my bags and go to Miami,” McAfee said. “I don’t think I fully understood the political situation. I’m an embarrassment to the Guatemalan government and I’m jeopardizing their relationship with Belize.”

The two neighboring countries in Central America are locked in a decades-long territorial dispute and voters in 2013 will decide in a referendum how to proceed.

Responding to McAfee’s remarks, a U.S. State Department spokeswoman said U.S. citizens in foreign countries are subject to local laws. Officials can only ensure they are “treated properly within this framework,” she said.

On Wednesday, Guatemalan authorities arrested McAfee in a hotel in Guatemala City where he was holed up with his Belizean girlfriend.

The former Silicon Valley millionaire is wanted for questioning by Belizean authorities, who say he is a “person of interest” in the killing of fellow American Gregory Faull, McAfee’s neighbor on the Caribbean island of Ambergris Caye.

The two had quarreled at times, including over McAfee’s unruly dogs. Authorities in Belize say he is not a prime suspect in the investigation.

Guatemala rejected McAfee’s request for asylum on Thursday. His lawyers then filed several appeals to block his deportation. They say it could take months to resolve the matter.

The software developer has been evading Belize authorities for nearly four weeks and has chronicled his life on the run in his blog, www.whoismcafee.com.

McAfee claims authorities will kill him if he turns himself in for questioning. He has denied any role in Faull’s killing and said he is being persecuted by Belize’s ruling party for refusing to pay some $ 2 million in bribes.

Belize’s prime minister has rejected this, calling McAfee paranoid and “bonkers.

BEATING HEAD AGAINST WALL

After making millions with the anti-virus software bearing his name, McAfee later lost much of his fortune. For the past four years he has lived in semi-reclusion in Belize.

He started McAfee Associates in the late 1980s but left soon after taking it public. McAfee now has no relationship with the company, which was later sold to Intel Corp.

Hours after his arrest, McAfee was rushed to a hospital for what his lawyer said were two mild heart attacks. Later he said the problem was stress. McAfee said he fainted after days of heavy smoking, poor eating and knocking his head against a wall.

He told Reuters he no longer has access to the Internet and has turned over the management of his blog to friends in Seattle, Washington. On Saturday, they began posting a series of files claiming to detail Belize’s corruption.

Residents and neighbors in Belize have said the eccentric tech entrepreneur, who is covered in tribal tattoos and kept an entourage of bodyguards and young women on the island, had appeared unstable in recent months.

Police in April raided his property in Belize on suspicion he was running a lab to make illegal narcotics. There already was a case against him for possession of illegal firearms.

McAfee says the charges are an attempt to frame him.

“People are saying I’m paranoid and crazy but it’s difficult for people to comprehend what has been happening to me,” he said. “It’s so unusual, so out of the mainstream.”

(Editing by Dave Graham and Bill Trott)

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New iPad mini orders will be delivered in time for Christmas

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U.S. agency backs Apple in essential patent battle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Google unit Motorola Mobility is not entitled to ask a court to stop the sale of Apple iPhones and iPads that it says infringe on a patent that is essential to wireless technology, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission said on Wednesday.

In June, Judge Richard Posner in Chicago threw out cases that Motorola, now owned by Google, and Apple had filed against each other claiming patent infringement. Both companies appealed.

In rejecting the Google case, Posner barred the company from seeking to stop iPhone sales because the patent in question was a standard essential patent.

This means that Motorola Mobility had pledged to license it on fair and reasonable terms to other companies in exchange for having the technology adopted as a wireless industry standard.

Standard essential patents, or SEPs, are treated differently because they are critical to ensuring that devices made by different companies work together.

Google appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The FTC said in its court filing that Posner had ruled correctly.

The commission, which has previously argued against courts banning products because they infringe essential patents, reiterated that position on Wednesday.

“Patent hold-up risks harming competition, innovation, and consumers because it allows a patentee to be rewarded not based on the competitive value of its technology, but based on the infringer’s costs to switch to a non-infringing alternative when an injunction is issued,” the commission wrote in its brief.

The case is Apple Inc. and NeXT Software Inc. V. Motorola Inc. and Motorola Mobility Inc., in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, no. 2012-1548, 2012-1549.

(Reporting By Diane Bartz)

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iOS users generate double the Web traffic of Android users

According to the latest numbers from Chitika Insights, iOS users generate more than twice the amount of Web traffic as Android users. The six-month study found that while the two operating systems were nearly tied when it came to smartphone Web traffic, Apple (AAPL) has a substantial lead with its iPad tablet. Despite Android’s commanding share of the overall mobile market, the Cupertino-based company’s platform totaled 67% of Web traffic measured in the past six months, compared to Android’s 35% share.

“Despite all the new Android and Apple devices that have been released over the past six months, little has changed in the overall Web traffic distribution between iOS and Android,” the research firm wrote. “iOS’s share has hovered around 65%, while Android largely has stayed around 35%, the OS hit a peak of 40% in late August thanks partially to strong Samsung Galaxy S III sales. Apple then regained some share with the release of the iPhone 5 in the September timeframe.”

To qualify for the study Chitika Insights analysed billions of ad impressions coming from iOS or Android devices from May 27th to November 27th.

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News Corp shutting down iPad newspaper ‘The Daily’ on December 15th

News Corp’s iPad newspaper “The Daily” is officially dead. Launched in February 2011, The Daily was a “ bold experiment in digital publishing and an amazing vehicle for innovation,” but like so many pioneering ideas, it “could not find a large enough audience quickly enough” to keep the publication going, according to Rupert Murdoch, the Chairman of News Corporation and Chairman and CEO of Fox Group. The Daily will officially cease publishing on December 15th and will see Jesse Angelo, its Editor-in-Chief and Executive Editor of The New York Post move into the role of Publisher for the latter. The Daily was supposed to signal a new era of app-based interactive newspapers, but alas, in a world of Flipboard, Instapaper and social media, finding a new channel to distribute and aggregate news has proven to be challenging, even for corporations with plenty of resources.

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