Tech frenzy over mobile - Seattle Times

BARCELONA, Spain — The crowd outside the auditorium at Mobile World Congress on Monday was a restive mass of executives waiting to hear Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer. It was worse than the dressing-room line at Nordstrom Rack.

The pushing and shoving among men in suits to get a seat were a microcosm of the fierce competition and frenetic pace of a wireless industry here for its largest annual gathering. It was a stampede of the electronics industry to mobility.

The Mobile World Congress trade show, which started Monday, could draw as many as 53,000 attendees and 1,400 companies setting up booths and battling for sales and partnerships with hardware makers, software developers and wireless carriers. That compares with 49,000 attendees and 1,300 booths in 2010.

In addition to Ballmer, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo also spoke Monday.

With the industry drawing much of tech world's attention, the world's largest software company still had a lot of explaining to do about Windows Phone 7, the mobile operating system that started selling in October. The platform is growing slowly and has shipped 2 million copies to phone makers — the largest metric it has disclosed so far.

"We're off to a strong start; we know we've got a lot of work to do," Ballmer said in his speech.

But, no matter how Windows Phone 7 sales are characterized and despite Microsoft's eyebrow-raising partnership announced Friday with Nokia, the platform faces huge challenges.

Software update

Ballmer's speech was, at the end of the day, mostly a software update for an industry hungry for big technology leaps. This crowd has been spoiled by Apple's steady stream of new products and Google's stratospheric growth in mobile.

In fact, Google's mobile platform, Android, seems ubiquitous at the show, the launchpad for new products from all corners.

Samsung, for instance, announced both a new Galaxy smartphone and tablet, only a few months after releasing its first one. Sony Ericsson announced a smartphones running PlayStation games is coming in March. The platform common to all of them: Android.

Chip maker Qualcomm promoted software-development kits for new technologies such as augmented reality, also running on Android. An example of augmented reality is the yellow first-down line TV viewers of football games see on their screens.

Apple, too, looms large over the show, even though it is not at the conference in an official or public way, with many companies showing software built on the iPhone and iPad.

By contrast, Microsoft had no new devices running Windows Phone 7 to show here, and Nokia has not said when its first Windows Phone will be ready.

Even more telling is both Apple and Google are the platforms for tablets most developers here are targeting — and tablets are the hot topic at the conference.

Microsoft had no specific news about an operating system for tablets. The last update came at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, when the company showed a very rough chip prototype for the next version of Windows on tablets.

With this as a backdrop, Ballmer drummed on the phrase "fast paced" in his speech to describe Microsoft's mobile progress over the past 12 months.

The company announced plans for Windows Phone 7 about 12 months ago, began selling devices in the fall and on Friday announced the exclusive deal to put Windows Phone 7 on smartphones for the world's largest phone maker, Nokia.

Nokia CEO Stephen Elop, formerly president of Microsoft's Business division, joined Ballmer in the Monday appearance.

"The world is shifting from a battle of devices to a war of ecosystems," he said. "... Microsoft and Nokia together represent a natural partnership."

Ballmer shared a laundry list of updates coming to Windows Phone 7 this year in his speech. One, planned for March, will add a copy-and-paste feature for Windows Phone 7 users.

Later this year, Windows Phone 7 will get Twitter integration into its People Hub, its address book. When people pull up their address books on the phone, they will also see their most recent tweets. (Facebook is already integrated.)

Multitasking between programs is also coming to Windows Phone 7. Corporate Vice President Joe Belfiore showed the ability to pause and switch between two games on the phone.

Internet Explorer 9, Microsoft's Web browser in progress, will have a version ready for Windows Phone 7 this year. The browser is a major update for Microsoft because it supports HTML5, a Web programming standard that lets developers build richer, more applike websites.

Microsoft will also expand the integration of SkyDrive on Windows Phone so people can access Office documents created in Office Web Apps on their phones.

Kinect connection

Microsoft also showed Windows Phone 7 working with Xbox Kinect. In a video, a Windows Phone user controlled balls in an Xbox "Kinect Adventures" handball game while another player tried to hit them in a game.

"My sense is they're doing better than people expected," Will Stofega, an analyst with Framingham, Mass.-based IDC, said of Windows Phone 7. "People said they would sell 10,000 copies."

He said the key is for Microsoft not to let Nokia get in the way of other phone makers such as Samsung and LG, which are already selling Windows Phones.

Sharon Pian Chan: 206-464-2958 or schan@seattletimes.com

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Mom, tot found dead in dumpster - Boston Herald

BROCKTON — The bodies of a young Ecuadorean and her toddler son were found stuffed in a Dumpster behind their downtown apartment house, and authorities said yesterday the mother and child may have been there for days.

“It’s a terrible crime scene, especially when you think about what happened to a small child and his mom. I mean, who would do that to a 2-year-old child?” said Plymouth District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz.

Until autopsies determine the cause and manner of their deaths, Cruz refused to speculate on what evil may have befallen Maria Avelina Palaguachi-Cela, 25, and Brian Palaguachi, 2, except to say the mother was last seen at her home at 427 Warren Ave. on Thursday.

“We do not believe this is a random act,” Cruz said.

No arrests have been made.

A New York cousin of the child’s father — day laborer Manuel Caguana — told the Herald last night Caguana was questioned by police, but had been working “far, far away” for about two weeks when his son and Palaguachi-Cela were found by cops Sunday night.

The baby’s father had called his family repeatedly last week “and there was no answer, no answer. So he was worried,” said the cousin, who is also named Manuel Caguana. “He was like, my wife, my son, where are they?”

When the father returned home, “everything was quiet, clean, just as he had left it, so he was shocked when the police came and told him she was dead,” Caguana said.

The family “were good people,” the cousin added. “They were always going to church.”

Denise Agnello, who lives across the street from Palaguachi-Cela’s spearmint-colored triple-decker, said the young woman lived with a man, whom she saw police talking to after the gruesome find.

Agnello said detectives questioned her, too. When she asked what was going on, “All they said to me was, ‘We found a young woman in the Dumpster in a duffel bag, dead,’ ” she said.

Cruz refused to comment on whether a duffel bag was involved or how the remains were positioned —in part, he explained, because police don’t know if the presumed crime scene was disturbed. “My understanding,” he said, “is the bodies involved in this were fully intact.”

Agnello said she usually saw Palaguachi-Cela — a quiet, petite woman — on a daily basis, but not in the past week.

“Right across the street — it’s just awful,” she said.

According to Manuel’s cousin, Manuel Caguana and Palaguachi-Cela originally met as neighbors in Ecuador and reconnected in the United States. Manuel had been living in New York, but moved to Massachusetts “for love” of Palaguachi-Cela, his cousin said.

The couple had been married for about four years but, the cousin said, Palaguachi-Cela had a prior relationship with a man who he believes may also live in Massachusetts.

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Obama's Budget Plan Complicates Talks on Corporate Tax Overhaul - BusinessWeek

February 15, 2011, 12:05 AM EST By Ryan J. Donmoyer and Richard Rubin

(See {EXT2 } for more on the budget.)

Feb. 15 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama renewed his call to raise taxes paid by U.S.-based multinational corporations and oil and gas companies, complicating efforts to overhaul the corporate tax code this year.

The president, in a $3.7 trillion budget plan released yesterday in Washington, revived dozens of proposals that Congress has rejected, including $129 billion in higher taxes on the overseas profits of U.S. companies. He also proposed changing the tax treatment of oil, gas and coal companies, which would raise about $46 billion.

The proposals revived opposition from businesses. They had been looking for a signal of a friendlier tax stance.

“There was the hope they would consider some of the arguments and concerns that were raised by the multinationals” after Obama included similar proposals in his first two budgets, said Lindy Paull, a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP in Washington.

Obama and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in the past few months have held a series of meetings with corporate executives, who have pushed for reducing taxes on global profits rather than increasing them.

‘Fundamental Changes’

“There is disappointment that those proposals were not revised and that they’re continued to be labeled loophole closers when they are pretty fundamental changes to the tax code,” Paull said. “People have spent a lot of time and effort trying to discuss that with the administration.”

Michigan Representative Dave Camp, a Republican who would play a pivotal role in any rewrite of the tax code as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, blasted Obama’s proposals.

“Rather than setting the stage for broad-based, pro-growth tax reform, this budget goes in the opposite direction with more tax hikes,” Camp said.

The proposal also would bring back pre-2001 tax rates on income and capital gains for individuals earning more than $200,000 annually and married couples making more than $250,000. The estate tax would return to 2009 levels with a $3.5 million per-person exemption and a 45 percent top rate. Under a law Obama signed in December, lower rates expire at the end of 2012.

“The president was unable to reverse the Bush tax cuts this past year with a majority in each house of Congress, so it’s very difficult to see how he will be successful over the next two years with the Republicans firmly in control of the House,” said Neal Weber, managing director in charge of RSM McGladrey’s Washington national tax office.

Limits on Deductions

The budget plan would limit itemized deductions for top earners to 28 percent, curbing the value of tax breaks for charitable contributions, home mortgage interest and state and local taxes. That proposal has been included in every budget of Obama’s presidency and was rejected as a revenue-raising provision to fund his overhaul of the health system last year.

Under the budget’s assumptions, federal revenue as a percent of the economy would increase from 14.9 percent in 2010 to 20 percent in 2021. Part of that increase stems from projected economic growth, not from policy changes.

A key Senate Republican also criticized the tax increases in the budget.

“This budget fails to preserve the pro-growth policies needed to expand our economy, create jobs and reduce the deficit,” said Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, the top Republican on the Finance Committee.

Administration officials said the budget is balanced with proposals favorable to business, such as making permanent a tax credit for conducting research.

Tax Incentives

Obama proposed an array of other tax incentives. They include the elimination of capital gains on some small business stock and one to revive the Build America Bonds program, which expired at the end of 2010.

The budget also proposes converting a deduction for energy- efficient buildings into a credit. Obama wants to extend a provision expiring at the end of 2011 that allows certain energy tax credits to be converted into grants.

Instead, many in the business community are focusing on renewed proposals to place limits on multinational companies’ ability to defer income taxes on profits they earn outside the U.S. These plans have drawn criticism from corporations such as Microsoft Corp. and Cisco Systems Inc.

The budget also revives a proposal that Congress require executives of investment partnerships including private-equity firms to pay ordinary tax rates on the profits they receive as compensation. This pay, known as carried interest, currently can qualify for lower capital gains tax rates. The proposal would raise $14.8 billion over 10 years.

--Editors: Jodi Schneider, Jim Rubin.

To contact the reporters on this story: Richard Rubin in Washington at rrubin12@bloomberg.net; Ryan J. Donmoyer in Washington at rdonmoyer@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Silva at msilva34@bloomberg.net

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Drumming Up More Addresses on the Internet - New York Times

Certainly not Vint Cerf.

In 1976, Mr. Cerf and his colleagues in the R.& D. office of the Defense Department had to make a judgment call: how much network address space should they allocate to an experiment connecting computers in an advanced data network?

They debated the question for more than a year. Finally, with a deadline looming, Mr. Cerf decided on a number — 4.3 billion separate network addresses, each one representing a connected device — that seemed to provide more room to grow than his experiment would ever require, far more, in fact, than he could ever imagine needing. And so he was comfortable rejecting the even larger number of addresses that some on his team had argued for.

“It was 1977,” Mr. Cerf said, in an interview last week. “We thought we were doing an experiment.”

“The problem was, the experiment never ended,” added Mr. Cerf, who is a former chairman of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or Icann, a nonprofit corporation that coordinates the Internet naming system. “We had no idea it would turn into the world’s global communications network.”

Today, the Internet that Mr. Cerf helped create more than 30 years ago is about to max out. Within the next 12 to 18 months, or perhaps sooner, every one of the 4.3 billion Internet Protocol addresses will have been allocated, and the Internet, at least as it exists today, will have reached full capacity.

I.P. addresses are the unique sequence of numbers assigned to each Web site, computer, game console or smartphone connected to the Internet. They are distinct from domain names, which identify Web sites, like nytimes.com.

“There are 4.3 billion addresses, and a lot of people have more than one,” said Leo Vegoda, manager of number resources at Icann. “And there are seven billion people on the planet. That’s a big mismatch.”

The rapid expansion of Internet adoption in Asia has sped things up even more.

Experts saw this problem coming years ago, and the transition to a new system, referred to as Internet Protocol version 6, is well under way. This new standard will support a virtually inexhaustible number of devices, experts say. But there is some cause for concern because the two systems are largely incompatible, and as the transition takes place, the potential for breakdowns is enormous.

“This is a major turning point in the ongoing development of the Internet,” Rod Beckstrom, Icann’s president and chief executive, said. “No one was caught off guard by this.”

Still, the question looms, is the Internet industry prepared?

The answer depends on whom you ask. While it is true that no one has been caught off guard, some parts of the industry responded faster than others, leaving some technology companies scrambling to catch up. Software companies like Google, Microsoft and Facebook, along with PC makers, say they have been taking the problem seriously for years in hopes of thwarting any major calamities. The major operating systems — like Microsoft’s Windows 7 and Apple’s Mac OS X — have already incorporated the new system. And providers, including Comcast, say they are ready to make the switch.

But Mr. Cerf is critical of Internet service providers, along with the manufacturers of Internet devices, for not addressing the problem sooner, saying that many chose to wait until customers started asking for the new system.

“How can customers be expected to know what they need?” Mr. Cerf said. He compared Internet protocols to the internal workings of a car engine. “It’s like changing a gear in a car’s transmission,” he said. “People shouldn’t have to worry about that.”

I.P. addresses are allocated by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, which is operated by Icann, to five registries representing regions of the globe. Those registries distribute the addresses to Internet service providers like cable and phone companies, universities, governments and large corporations. Millions of new devices will be attached.

At a ceremony early this month in Florida, the last block of addresses based on the original standard, known as IPv4, were allocated to the five registries.

Comcast began working on the problem nearly six years ago, and last year began customer trials nationwide. Jorge Alberni, a Comcast spokesman, said the trials so far had gone smoothly.

Comcast is now beginning to distribute dual-mode cable modems, for example, that support both the original and the new Internet Protocol versions. By the time the transition is fully under way, Mr. Alberni said, most Comcast customers will already be using cable boxes and modems that support IPv6, as the new version is commonly called. In some case, customers with older equipment will have to make a swap.

“We don’t foresee any problems for our customers,” he said.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 14, 2011

Because of an editing error, a previous version of this story misstated Vint Cerf's relationship with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or Icann. He is a former chairman, not the current chairman.

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US will review death of student - Boston Globe

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Hours after a New York State grand jury declined yesterday to indict any of the police officers involved in the fatal shooting of Pace University student Danroy “D.J.’’ Henry Jr., of Easton, the US Department of Justice announced plans to examine the case.

“Consistent with our practice in cases of this kind, the Department of Justice will review all of the available evidence with respect to the death of Danroy Henry Jr., including the evidence available to the Westchester County district attorney’s office, to determine whether there were any violations of the federal criminal civil rights laws,’’ said Ellen Davis, a spokeswoman for the US attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York.

Federal officials had been urged to review the case by Henry’s family, and Senator Scott Brown has called for a thorough investigation. The Justice Department, which had been monitoring the case, was awaiting the results of the state and local investigation before beginning its own.

Davis’s announcement followed a statement from Janet DiFiore, the Westchester, N.Y., district attorney, in which she said that after “due deliberation on the evidence presented in this matter, the grand jury found that there was no reasonable cause to vote an indictment.’’

The finding of “no true bill’’ indicates that the grand jury found no criminal wrongdoing by police who fatally shot Henry during the early morning hours of Oct. 17 outside a bar at a shopping center in Mount Pleasant, about 30 miles north of New York City.

The decision angered Henry’s family, whose members are pursuing a $120 million lawsuit against the Town of Mount Pleasant and Village of Pleasantville, N.Y.

“There are no words to express our disappointment in the grand jury’s decision,’’ Henry’s father, Danroy Henry Sr., said in a statement yesterday.

“Conclusions appear to have been drawn at the outset,’’ he said, “and the entire process appears now to have been nothing short of an attempt to create better optics for the DA and her office.’’

The district attorney said the grand jury, which began hearing testimony Jan. 10, had made “an exhaustive and thorough review of the evidence’’ that included appearances by 85 witnesses and more than 100 exhibits.

The Henry family members and their New York civil rights lawyer, Michael Sussman, have long questioned why local police were allowed to investigate a shooting by one of their own officers. The case has been investigated by New York State Police and local officers, along with the district attorney.

A lawyer for Pleasantville Officer Aaron Hess, who has acknowledged shooting at Henry, said that Henry was responsible for his own death and that Hess and his family were grateful for the grand jury’s decision.

“The loss of life that occurred that morning is regrettable and tragic, but any reasonable view of the evidence as to what took place that night demands recognition of the fact that Aaron Hess acted properly and D.J. Henry did not,’’ John K. Grant, Hess’s lawyer, said. “Sometimes the truth is painful, and in this case the painful truth is that D.J. Henry brought about his own death. Lost has been the fact that Aaron Hess too is a good and decent human being, who went to work that night to help keep his community safe.’’

Before that statement was issued, the elder Henry said: “This process is most analogous to a person committing a crime which their siblings investigate and for which their closest relatives determine their punishment. All the while the crime victim is left in the dark until the family decides how [to] handle the misdeed of their own.’’

During a fiery conference call with reporters shortly after the decision, Sussman also questioned the impartiality of the local district attorney, who works closely with local police.

Sussman said that the grand jury process is heavily weighted toward the prosecution and that indictments would have come down if prosecutors were truly seeking them.

“A district attorney can indict a ham sandwich,’’ Sussman said, quoting a 1985 New York appellate court judge’s comments on the grand jury process.

Speaking of police and prosecutors, he declared: “To say they rely on each other is to say that the fetus relies upon the mother.’’

Sussman called the shooting “an orgy of violence directed toward students.’’

Police responded to the bar where many students had gathered after the homecoming game between Pace and Stonehill College. Henry, 20, a junior, was shot after he hit two officers with his car after refusing to stop, police allege.

Conflicting reports have surfaced from witnesses, who have said Henry was trying to move his car at the request of a police officer. A police officer mounted the hood and fired repeatedly through the front windshield, killing Henry.

The elder Henry also accused prosecutors of softballing the grand jury, not aggressively pursuing an indictment against the officers who shot his son, who played on the Pace football team.

“We firmly believe that we have a good handle on what happened,’’ he said. “We never believed for a second that this district attorney was pursuing an indictment, so we already contemplated going around her, which is why we’re going to the Justice Department.’’

The officers involved in the shooting have taken criticism from police specialists, who have said that there is no training module in policing that involves jumping on a moving car and firing at the driver. In a notice of claim filed with both communities in December, Sussman alleged that police were improperly trained and unqualified to serve as armed officers.

While Sussman said he was confident the whole story will come out during the coming civil lawsuit, he said yesterday’s ruling was a reminder of racial inequity in the criminal justice system. Henry was black, and the officers who shot him are white.

“We have no lack of confidence in our ability, but the criminal justice system is supposed to be here for every American, and today is a sign that it’s not, regardless of who’s president of the United States,’’ Sussman said.

“To me, it sends a clear message to every parent of color who has a child away at college that they better be darn worried if something happens to them.’’

Bonita E. Zelman, a New York civil rights attorney lawyer representing five other Pace students, also criticized yesterday’s finding. “No citizen should accept a murder committed by anyone, certainly not a murder committed by a person sworn to protect the public good,’’ Henry’s father said.

Martin Finucane of the Globe staff contributed to this report. John M. Guilfoil can be reached at jguilfoil@globe.com.

© Copyright 2011 Globe Newspaper Company.

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IBM's Watson bores as 'Jeopardy' big shot Sherlock - CNET

Watching IBM's Watson supercomputer make its debut tonight on "Jeopardy," one thought dominated: why, oh, why did they make him sound like Hal's diffident nephew?

This was the future freaks' big chance to make themselves acceptable to the human race. This was national television.

Watson had been created by human beings who pride themselves in their ability to teach a machine, rather than a child, to be as smart as they are. So why did they not think about giving Watson a little character? A shock of long, green hair, perhaps. Oversize purple ears would have been a plus.

At the worst, a voice resembling Morgan Freeman with a lisp would have been welcome.

Instead, this technological Trojan Horse presented himself to a nationwide audience with all the presence of boiled soot.

To be fair, it wasn't even Watson before the cameras. It was an avatar created to represent him, as his vast bulk and din wouldn't have made this a TV event for the aged, never mind the ages.

I understand that many scientists will have felt entirely giddy at the idea that a computer could compete against two "Jeopardy" superstars: a nice man from Seattle and an equally nice man who used to live in Pennsylvania but is now is hoping to be a TV star in LA.

But if this is the future, some might wish to google details of that elegant euthanasia clinic in Switzerland.

Watson performed very well. If, by performance, you mean getting quite a lot of "Jeopardy" conundrums correct.

Watson in rehearsals. He's the one in the middle.

(Credit: Caroline McCarthy/CNET)

Former "Jeopardy" champion Ken Jennings, the man with a preacher's side parting and the remnants of Conan's ginger hair, stood transfixed as Watson beat him to question after question, answer after answer.

However, this is a best of three. And Jennings and fellow humanoid competitor Brad Rutter allowed the machine to strut its stuff. They knew he had to falter. This machine had never seen the bright lights before.

Perhaps sweating backstage while his avatar faced the orchestra, Watson suddenly managed to repeat one of Jennings' wrong answers.

"No, Ken said that," explained Alex Trebek, the professorial host of "Jeopardy."

If Watson had wanted to endear himself to the world, his programmers might have given him a line like: "Silly, me. I'm just a stupid ole' piece of metal."

Instead, he stood there like a nerd who's been looking for the local chess club and has stumbled into the Playboy mansion.

This first show was a little stunted, as Trebek spent considerable minutes explaining to the audience why the less familiar contestant was less expressive than some but more expensive than all.

It was a fine ad for the forthcoming IBM empire, though those with eyes for these things would have been more warmed by the footage of IBM's engineers preparing for Watson's big day. Most of them had PCs, but one was definitely stroking a Mac.

Watson's dilemma, which became increasingly clear as the show went on, was that he has to have a certain level of probability before pressing his button. Machines don't guess. That would be far too blessedly human.

The mean-spirited (i.e. excessively human) might have rejoiced on one particular exchange.

The contestants were asked to find the question to: "From the Latin for end, this is where trains can also originate."

Watson, still impassive, but allegedly 97 percent confident (his confidence levels were shown on screen when the clues were given), replied: "What is finis?" He should have considered terminus.

This was only the beginning. Tomorrow is Double and Finis Jeopardy. Wednesday, there's more. Even now, Watson is tied with Rutter on $5,000 and $3,000 ahead of the mesmerizing Jennings.

Can this possibly end well?

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Subway slash victim's harrowing tale: 'I can't die on this train' - New York Post

Joseph Lozito, blood pouring from a gaping slash on his head, had a harsh warning for Brooklyn butcher Maksim Gelman after taking him down aboard a packed No. 3 train .

"You better hope I f---ing die, because I’m going to kill you if I don’t," he screamed as two hero cops subdued the 23-year-old accused killer, who allegedly stabbed three people to death and fatally ran another down during a blood-soaked 28-hour crime spree Friday and Saturday.

MADMAN'S RANT: 'SHE HAD TO DIE'

STALKER COULDN'T TAKE NO FOR ANSWER

TIMELINE: GELMAN'S 28-HOUR TRAIL OF CARNAGE

Joseph Lozito, 40, was attacked by alleged murder-rampage madman Maksim Gelman on a No. 3 train.

Lozito, speaking today from his hospital bed at Bellevue, gave The Post a harrowing account of his brush with death as he came face to face with the drug-addled psycho.

Lozito, a married father of two boys age 7 and 10, said he was sitting on the train on his regular commute from suburban Philadelphia to his box office job at Avery Fisher Hall when Gelman caught his eye.

"I was on the seat right near the door (to the motorman’s compartment). This guy walked by and he looked creepy. He looked shady," said Lozito, a burly 40-year-old who stands 6-foot-2 and weighs 265.

The suspect tapped on the motorman’s door. Transit cops were inside, and Officer Terrence Howell asked "Who are you? " recalled Lozito, his wife Andrea by his side.

"He said ‘Police! Police!’ and the cop said ‘No you’re not,’ " Lozito said. "He’s two or three feet away from me, and he pulls this knife out, looks me in the eye and says ‘You’re gonna die! You’re gonna die!’ And he lunged at me with the knife."

Gelman swung wildly and stabbed Lozito on the back of the head. As Gelman drew his arm back for what might have been a fatal cut, Lozito saw an opening.

"There was a split second, as soon as I saw his arm go back, I knew it was my chance to move. I tried to take him down with a wrestling move called a single leg takedown, but it ended up more like a football tackle," Lozito said.

As the pair scuffled, Howell and Officer Tamara Taylor sprang into action, with Howell jumping on Gelman and Taylor grabbing the blood-smeared carving knife, one of six the suspect carried during the violent rampage.

"I was begging everybody, cops and passengers, to get me off the train. I said ‘I got a wife and two kids, I can’t die on this train,’ " he said.

One passenger applied pressure to his head wound to stanch the flow of blood.

"I owe him a debt of gratitude. To me, he’s the reason I’m alive," he said.

Despite his wounds, a courageous Lozito said he was glad Gelman targeted him.

"I’m glad he didn’t go after a child, or after a woman, or after an elderly person, because I can defend myself," he said.

Gelman, who has a lawyer and is not talking to the police, was expected to be arraigned later today. The Brooklyn DA’s office said he would be charged with four counts of second-degree murder, single counts of first-degree and second-degree assault and three counts of counts of first-degree robbery.

Another victim, Arty DiCrescento, told The Post today he’s lucky to be alive, but it was pure bad luck that put him in the Gelman’s path in the middle of his murderous rampage.

"I’m lucky in one sense," he said today from his hospital bed at Brooklyn’s Lutheran Medical Center. "But in another sense, I never should have been there and it never should have happened."

An angry DiCrescento, 60, said it was clear to him that the madman who hacked three people to death, fatally mowed down another and stabbed three more was out for blood.

"He’ll probably use the insanity defense but it was premeditated. He went after three people he knew first," said the burly DiCrescento, his hands and wrists bandaged and a large bruise on his neck.

DiCrescento was double-parked in his Pontiac Bonneville on E. 24th Street in Brooklyn Friday afternoon when Gelman, who’d already allegedly fatally stabbed his stepfather Alexsandry Kuznetsov, 54, a one-time date Yelena Bulchenko, 20, and her mother Anna, 56, pulled one of six kitchen knives he was carrying and stabbed him in the chest.

Gelman then sped off in DiCrescento’s car and mowed down Steve Tannenbaum, 60 , who was crossing Ocean Avenue near Avenue R. Tannenbaum later died at Kings County Hospital.

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Tehran Beats Back New Protests - Wall Street Journal

Iranian police used tear gas and electric prods to crack down on the country's biggest antigovernment protests in at least a year, as demonstrators buoyed by activism across the Middle East returned to the country's streets by the tens of thousands Monday.

European Pressphoto Agency Iranian demonstrators clash with Iranian riot-police during a demonstration in Tehran. The opposition reported that tear gas had been fired near Tehran's University and Azadi Square.

The day of planned antigovernment rallies began largely peacefully, according to witnesses, with protesters marching silently or sitting and chanting. But as demonstrators' ranks swelled, police and antiriot forces lined the streets, ordered shops to shut down and responded at times with force, according to witnesses and opposition websites, in a repeat of the official crackdown that helped snuff out months of spirited opposition rallies a year ago.

By day's end, online videos showed garbage bins on fire, protesters throwing rocks at the police and crowds clashing with motorcycle-mounted members of the pro-regime Basij militia.

Thousands of Iranians gathered in several locations across Tehran Monday, heeding calls in recent days by opposition leaders to demonstrate in solidarity with Egyptian and Tunisian protesters. Farnaz Fassihi has details.

Monday's protests come as calls for regime change have led to the popular ousters of Egypt's Hosni Mubarak and Tunisia's Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali. They mark a broadening from Iranian rallies that drew hundreds of thousands through 2009 and early 2010.

Those rallies targeted what opposition leaders said was a flawed presidential election that they say unfairly returned President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power. Monday's protests, by comparison, demanded that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the core of power in the Islamic Republic, step down.

"Mubarak! Ben Ali! It's now the turn for Seyed Ali!" people chanted, according to witnesses and videos, referring to the country's spiritual head.

In Tehran's Enghelab Avenue, the main route for the rally, a crowd of young men and women on Monday evening stomped on a giant banner depicting Mr. Khamenei and set it on fire, a sign of deepest disrespect in the Muslim world. Videos of the scene showed crowds cheering in response.

Iran's government and its opposition alike have sought to identify themselves with the mood of change sweeping the Middle East. Iranian officials sought to paint this year's Arab revolts as Islamic uprisings like the Iranian revolution that toppled the U.S.-backed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi more than 30 years ago.

Iran's opposition protesters, meanwhile, have renewed their challenge to the government, emboldened by rallies led by a similar cadre of educated, tech-savvy youth seeking better economic opportunity and more political freedoms.

Hussein Malla/Associated Press An Egyptian police officer, center, confronted anti-Mubarak protesters in Tahrir Square in Cairo Monday.

Those who saw the rallies in Tehran placed the number of protesters in the capital in the tens of thousands. Witnesses in the cities of Mashad, Isfahan and Tabriz saw crowds they estimated at thousands of demonstrators each, with blog reports and other online dispatches placing overall participation in such cities at over 10,000 each.

Iranian officials have all but banned reporting on anti-regime protests, making it difficult to estimate not only the size of crowds, but the number of casualties, fatalities and arrests.

Iran's protests coincided with a visit Monday by Turkish President Abdullah Gul, who briefly addressed the unrest sweeping the Mideast at a joint press conference with Mr. Ahmadinejad. "We see that sometimes when the leaders and heads of countries do not pay attention to the nations' demands, the people themselves take action," Mr. Gul said. He didn't mention Iran.

Iranian officials didn't comment on Monday's protests. The Fars News Agency, affiliated with the country's Revolutionary Guards, reported that a "group of thugs" commissioned by the U.S. and Israel had taken to the streets to cause riots. Fars News said protestors had shot and killed one person and injured several others.

WSJ's Charles Levinson and Jerry Seib report on how public protests in Egypt have sparked protests throughout the Middle East, namely Bahrain, Libya, Algeria, Yemen and Iran.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday charged Tehran's leadership with hypocrisy following its stated support for Egyptian protesters.

Iran's government "over the last three weeks has constantly hailed what went on in Egypt, and now, when given the opportunity to afford their people the same rights…once again illustrate their true nature," Mrs. Clinton told reporters in Washington. "We wish the opposition and the brave people in the streets across cities in Iran the same opportunity that they saw their Egyptian counterparts seize in the last week."

To support Iranian protestors, the State Department began using social media, particularly Twitter—sending its messages, for the first time, in Farsi—in calling on Iran's government to allow protestors to freely assemble and communicate.

Separately, an online collective known as "Anonymous" said it had launched so-called denial of service attacks on a number of high-profile Iranian government sites. In a DOS attack, computers flood a server to prevent it from displaying a web page.

The group, which has attacked a number of corporate and other websites in apparent retaliation for moves against the document-leaking organization WikiLeaks, targeted the websites of Iran's state news broadcaster and the website of President Ahmadinejad, among others. It is unclear how successful the attacks were, but those two sites weren't accessible late Monday.

This year's uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt have inspired populations across the Middle East, showing how rulers once thought invulnerable could be toppled in a wave of popular discontent. Iran's regime has so far provided a counterexample, as it has shown less reluctance to take a violent line against its people. Opposition groups and human-rights organizations say more than 100 people were killed and more than 5,000 jailed in Iran's demonstrations of late 2009 and early 2010.

Opposition leaders in Iran started with relatively modest goals after the 2009 election, including nullifying the election results, which they said were rigged. Iranian officials said the results reflected the will of the people.

Now, analysts say, revolts in Egypt and Tunisia have galvanized Iranian protesters around the goal of regime change. "It's very clear that we are now way beyond a post-election crisis," said Hamid Dabashi, professor of Iranian studies at Columbia University. "People are going after the regime."

Monday's protests began peacefully in the early afternoon as men and women streamed on foot along pre-designated routes in multiple cities such as Tehran, Isfahan, Mashad and Shiraz. Drivers honked in support. Shopkeepers waved the victory sign.

In response, the government deployed heavy security. Cellphone and text-messaging service was down along the protest routes, Iranians reported.

As the afternoon waned, crowd swelled and began chanting against Mr. Khamenei, according to eyewitnesses and reports posted on the Internet. Security forces attacked people with electric prods and tear gas. Protesters ran and hid, and then regrouped defiantly a few feet away.

Agence France-Presse/Getty Images Turkey's Gul, left with Ahmadinejad, said Monday that leaders should pay attention to their peoples' demands.

One witness described a scene in which a flower-decorated car in a bridal convoy became stuck in the protests. With security forces in pursuit of demonstrators, a bride in full regalia stepped out of the car and helped shove protesters inside to protect them, this person said.

Witnesses said the plain-clothes Basij militia were dispatched on motorbikes and vans later in the evening. They took position in side streets and beat protesters with sticks and batons, witnesses said.

Various observers reported several injuries and arrests. Their accounts weren't possible to verify.

"I saw a young woman thrown to the sidewalk, her head split open and she was bleeding, but the guy kept kicking her," a young man from Tehran said via Internet chat.

A young female activist said by telephone from the city of Isfahan that plain-clothes Basij militia had attacked a group of young men and women and dragged them into a parking lot on Revolution Avenue. They locked the gate and began beating them with wooden sticks and electric batons as the protesters fell to the ground and screamed, the activist said.

"Everyone was terrified and we felt helpless. All we could do was shout 'Death to the Dictator,' but the police chased us," said the activist.

Opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi had called the protest and vowed to participate. But they were put under house arrest all day, according to opposition web sites. When Mr. Mousavi and his wife attempted to leave the house, security forces stopped them, and blocked their street with multiple police cars, according to the website.

As darkness fell on Tehran, the city was rocked again by the chants from residents on rooftops across the capital: "God is great," and "Death to the dictator," according to witnesses. The Facebook page of the protest, 25 Bahman, said it would soon announce further plans for demonstrations in the following days.

—Jay Solomon in Washington and Cassell Bryan-Low in London contributed to this article.

Write to Farnaz Fassihi at farnaz.fassihi@wsj.com

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UN urges permanent cease-fire over Thai-Cambodian border dispute+ - RealClearPolitics

February 14, 2011 The Associated Press

(Kyodo) _ The U.N. Security Council expressed "grave concern" Monday over recent armed clashes between Cambodian and Thai forces at the border between the countries and called on both sides to establish a "permanent" cease-fire.

The council members "called on the two sides to display maximum restraint and avoid any action that may aggravate the situation" and "further urged the parties to establish a permanent cease-fire," said a statement issued after the day's closed-door meeting convened at the request of Cambodia.

The members also urged the two countries to "resolve the situation peacefully and through effective dialogue," according to the statement.

Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya, Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor Namhong and their Indonesian counterpart Marty Natalegawa, who was invited in his capacity as chairman of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, met with the 15-member council.

"The Security Council meeting aimed at supporting bilateral efforts and regional efforts, mediation and facilitation efforts," Brazilian Ambassador Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti, who is serving as the council president of the month, told reporters.

She also gave the council's backing to an upcoming meeting of ASEAN foreign ministers slated for Feb. 22 in Jakarta to discuss the border conflict.

"The idea is to work in synergy with regional efforts and right now regional efforts are in full force," the president added.

Natalegawa emphasized the common goal of the council in seeking ways to ensure the resolution of the contentious issue "peacefully through dialogue and negotiations."

The ASEAN chairman said the situation must ultimately be solved by the two countries, but noted there was room for regional groups to help resolve the issue.

"Obviously this is a matter that will have to be resolved in the final analysis bilaterally between the two sides, but it does not mean that there is not a space and role for regional countries to play," he said.

After the meeting, Natalegawa said he felt "far more optimistic than I was before about where we were."

Thailand has accused Cambodia of trying to internationalize the bilateral dispute as Phnom Penh had sent a letter to the Security Council asking for it to convene an urgent meeting and to consider sending peacekeepers to the Thai-Cambodian border.

Bangkok had also sent to the council a letter regarding its position on the conflict over land surrounding the 11th-century Preah Vihear Temple, a World Heritage site that the international court in 1962 ruled belongs to Cambodia. Since it was registered as a World Heritage Site in 2008, several rounds of border clashes have occurred.

In remarks to the council, Hor Namhong called the attacks carried out Feb. 4 to 7 a "war of aggression against Cambodia committed by Thailand" and stressed the need to have U.N. observers, peacekeepers or at least a fact-finding mission to ensure no fresh hostilities begin.

He also claimed that the Thai side used cluster bombs despite a worldwide ban on the weapons.

"Of course we regret that the United Nations Security Council cannot send observers on the ground in order to guarantee a cease-fire, however, we agree with the press statement of the Security Council that the ASEAN chair, Indonesia, will play a very active role to help both parties to respect the cease-fire," the Cambodian foreign minister told reporters.

Denying that his country had used the cluster bombs and blaming the Cambodian side for provoking the attacks, Kasit also relayed the message that the issue was a bilateral one, which could be solved through time and political will.

Describing the issue as "a political problem" in his remarks to the council meeting, the Thai foreign minister said, "It will ultimately require political will on both sides to resolve it."

He also urged the council to back the continued bilateral process, which he said "can be strengthened by the support and encouragement from the ASEAN family."

At least eight people have so far been killed, nearly 100 others wounded and thousands of civilians displaced in the recent border row.

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Government contractors targeted Chamber of Commerce's critics - Los Angeles Times

Hoping to win a lucrative agreement with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, three data security contractors for federal defense and intelligence agencies developed a proposal to monitor and manipulate the chamber's left-leaning critics, according to recently released e-mail correspondence.

Employees of the firms compiled short dossiers on a few activists that included photographs, references to their families and charts of their relationships with other liberal and labor leaders.

A review of the correspondence, dating from late October through last week, suggested that the surveillance and intelligence gathering had begun only on a superficial basis in anticipation of a coming meeting with chamber officials.

The proposals were received by Hunton & Williams, a law firm that represents the chamber.

The firm, which also represents Bank of America, solicited a separate proposal from the security firms to help the bank deal with a threat by WikiLeaks, the international hacker organization, to release some of the bank's internal data.

Chamber officials as well as a spokesman for Bank of America said they knew nothing of the surveillance proposals until the e-mails were released Friday by Anonymous, a group that is sympathetic to WikiLeaks.

"No money, for any purpose, was paid to any of those three private security firms by the chamber, or by anyone on behalf of the chamber, including Hunton & Williams," the chamber said in a statement.

Hunton & Williams did not respond to requests for comment.

But in some of the e-mails, employees of the security firms and lawyers at Hunton & Williams refer to contacts they had made with the chamber about the proposed intelligence gathering.

The revelations in the e-mails triggered anxiety among some of those who were targeted.

"We are appalled at the allegations that have come to light in these e-mails," said Inga Skippings, communications director of the Service Employees International Union, some of whose allies were the subject of the intelligence gathering project. "The chamber should immediately come clean about its involvement with Hunton & Williams and the private security firms that allegedly planned these underhanded tactics."

ThinkProgress, an arm of the liberal Center for American Progress and a consistent critic of the chamber, first reported on the e-mails on its blog last week.

In a statement, the chamber accused its critics of "perpetrating a smear campaign by trying to create the illusion of a connection" between it and the security firms.

Officials for two of the security firms, Palantir Technologies and Berico Technologies, confirmed the authenticity of the e-mails sent by their employees but said top executives had no previous knowledge of them.

A spokeswoman for the third company, HBGary Federal, said executives could not address the details of the proposed work for Hunton & Williams, citing a nondisclosure agreement covering all parties.

Copies of the e-mails were provided to the Los Angeles Times by the labor and activist groups.

The correspondence shows that starting last fall, Hutton & Williams lawyers discussed with the security companies a project to be pitched to the chamber.

The three security firms, all of which are government contractors with secret clearances, proposed coming together as "Team Themis," apparently named after a Greek goddess of law and order, to monitor and possibly disrupt chamber opponents.

"Who better to develop a corporate information reconnaissance capability than companies that have been market leaders within the [Defense Department] and Intelligence Community," the companies wrote in a pitch to Hunton & Williams.

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Pittsburgh weather forces NHL to move Winter Classic to night - USA Today

PITTSBURGH — When it comes to NHL games, you win some, lose some and now some get postponed by rain.With weather forecasts calling for rain all day on New Year's Day, the NHL has moved the fourth annual Winter Classic outdoor game between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Washington Capitals from 1 p.m. to 8 p.m. ET at Heinz Field. It will still be televised by NBC

"I don't care if they play at midnight," Washington coach Bruce Boudreau said. "Let's get going."

The AccuWeather.com forecast calls for a cloudy New Year's evening, with a gametime temperature of 41 degrees. There is no rain in the evening forecast.

That's a sharp contrast from the daytime forecast, which calls for rain from 4 a.m. until 6 p.m. There's a 24% chance of a thunderstorm.

A light rain will freeze quickly on the 22-degree ice, but a steady rain is dangerous because it creates pools of water and because it limits player visibility.

"It's the same risk for both teams," Boudreau said. "So if it was a gravel (surface) it wouldn't matter."

The decision on when to play is an important one for the NHL because the Winter Classic has become its best marketing day. The first three Winter Classics have drawn an average of 4 million television viewers. The game between Detroit and Chicago on Jan. 1, 2009, drew 4.4 million viewers, which made it the most watched NHL regular-season game in 35 years.

This will be the first primetime airing for the Winter Classic

"It would be a shame not to have a game this weekend," said Pittsburgh Penguins owner Mario Lemieux.

The NHL wanted the Washington vs. Pittsburgh matchup because the teams have a rivalry and Pittsburgh's captain Sidney Crosby and Washington's Alex Ovechkin are considered the NHL's top two players. The HBO reality series "24/7" has added more hype to the game.

"When you walked in here today. You saw thousands of people in the stands," Boudreau said. "You look at the enormity of the building and you go, 'Wow, this is going to be a real cool event.' "

Added Boudreau: "We're thinking in the room, when they have the Super Bowl and they've got a week of this before the buildup, I can't imagine."

Should the NHL not be able to hold an official game (at least two full periods) Saturday, the Winter Classic will be held Sunday (noon, NBC). The stadium is available because the Pittsburgh Steelers are playing in Cleveland.

But the Sunday scenario is far less appealing because the NHL would have to compete against NFL games instead of bowl games for viewers.

"Whatever the scenario is, we have all been pretty open minded to whatever happens," Crosby said. "We should be all enjoying ourselves not matter what scenario."

The teams will switch ends in the middle of the third period to assure fairness in dealing with the weather conditions.

Said Crosby: "I think everyone is ready for whatever comes."

An alumni game, plus Capitals and Penguins practices, were all held on the ice Friday with temperatures around 50 degrees.

"The ice was great," said Lemieux, who played in the alumni game. "A couple times in the neutral zone there was a little puddle, but they came out and fixed it."

The ice actually received mixed reviews. "Not too bad, what you would expect on a sheet on a football field," said Pittsburgh defenseman Alex Goligoski.

Pittsburgh coach Dan Bylsma said the ice was soft, but the puck moved surprisingly well on it.

"The guys commented that, given the conditions, it was better than we thought it would be," Bylsma said. "… they were passing it fine."

Bylsma did note that goalie Marc-Andre Fleury said his slide across the crease was different because of the weather conditions.

But Bylsma said he felt like the conditions were good enough to play.

"It was an exciting day," he said. "I put it up there with a lot of my best experiences in hockey."

The Caps practiced last and found the conditions less than ideal. "The ice was not that good, but we have 24 hours," said Washington's Alex Ovechkin.

In the only competition news of the day, Bylsma said Jordan Staal's status will be a gametime decision. Staal has been practicing, but hasn't played this season because of injuries.

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Obama to cap off year with family talent show - Los Angeles Times

President Obama will mark the end of an often tumultuous year with a distinctly lighthearted fete: a family talent show.

It's just the latest feature in a holiday vacation that has been a study in consistency. On Thursday, Obama traveled across Oahu for an annual barbecue with family, friends and staff – one year to the day when he did so in 2009. He celebrated Christmas with a surprise visit to dining servicemen at Marine Corps Base Hawaii – which was less of a surprise considering he's done so each of the last two visits as well.

He also made expected stops to the same "shave ice" stand and upscale restaurant locals have come to expect. Every day but one, he's started his morning with a workout on the nearby base. And, of course, there's been golf.

As for the talent show, White House spokesman Bill Burton offered only that it's another annual tradition. And it turns out that Obama, known for his oratorical gifts, is also apparently something of a singer as well. A Time magazine story said the president one year sang "You Are the Sunshine of My Life" when it was his turn to perform. The first lady opted for a hula hoop display.

The trip to Hawaii, which has been extended twice since Obama arrived late on Dec. 22, has definitely been a working vacation as well. But Obama is doing some reading beyond briefing papers and an evaluation of staff prepared for him by top aides. The White House shared Friday some additional selections from his recreational reading list: "The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet," by David Mitchell, and "Our Kind of Traitor," a Russian spy drama from John le Carre.

From the nonfiction genre, Obama is reading a biography of Ronald Reagan from Lou Cannon called, "The Role of a Lifetime."

Obama is set to depart Honolulu late on Monday.

mmemoli@tribune.com

twitter.com/mikememoli

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Young Patriots Threaten Protests and More in Ivory Coast - Voice of America

Nico Colombant 31 December 2010

Young Patriots are threatening a return to the streets where they have won previous victories for incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo. (File Photo)

So-called Young Patriots who support incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo in Ivory Coast are now threatening street protests against his rival, internationally recognized President Alassane Ouattara.  

Friday, the Young Patriots leader who is now the Youth Minister in the disputed Gbagbo government, Charles Ble Goude, reiterated a warning against Mr. Ouattara and the United Nations. He says if after January first U.N. peacekeepers are still protecting Mr. Ouattara at the Golf Hotel in the main southern city Abidjan, Young Patriots will take their responsibilities in their own hands and liberate the compound.

Ble Goude says he is waiting to see if the peacekeepers will force Mr. Ouattara to leave.  If not, he says, Young Patriots will decide how to proceed.

The former student leader has been on a list of U.N. asset freeze and travel sanctions since 2006 for previously inciting mob violence.

After one of his previous actions several years ago forced international peace mediators to back down on requests they were making, Ble Goude had this to say to VOA. "Now this is a victory. Therefore I asked all the Young Patriots in discipline to leave the streets and to go home. The day I will see or I will feel the danger coming I will ask them to come back in the street again," he said.

Core members of the group include former and current student activists as well as unemployed young men from southern and western ethnic groups.

Stephen Smith, a U.S-based anthropologist who previously worked as a journalist in Ivory Coast says the Young Patriots could give the already worrisome Ivorian crisis a new dimension. "It is the struggle over the streets, it is the struggle of what Ivorians sometimes refer to as being the Ministry of the Street, which means who controls the public space, and if they can bring together the people maybe sometimes by paying but also obviously there are followers. (Mr.) Gbagbo got 45, 46 percent of the vote, so they are people who really stand behind him and if they all come together there can be 100,000, 200,000 people gathering in Abidjan, that intimidates, that makes other people feel that there is no way they will ever get (Mr.) Gbagbo to relinquish power," he said.

The Ivorian constitutional council threw out votes of the November, 28 election, from northern Ivory Coast, which remains under the control of former rebels, giving victory to Mr. Gbagbo.

But the United Nations which helped organize the vote said Mr. Ouattara, who is extremely popular in the north, had won the vote by a wide margin. International bodies are now threatening the use of force against Mr. Gbagbo if he does not leave power.

Daniel Chirot, a U.S.-based sociologist who saw Young Patriots up close during recent research he did in Ivory Coast, says a lot is at stake for their members. "You could see them, their leaders going around in nice cars, with guns, with pretty girls, and benefiting from the situation and they are not going to lie down. For them, if (Mr.) Gbagbo loses power, it is a disaster, because they lose their sources of revenue, their livelihood, and they are armed so it is not just a popular movement," he said.

The Young Patriots deny they are armed.  They say they are fighting for Africa's second independence from outside interference.  Their Ivorian political opponents say they are thugs who ally themselves with militias and mercenaries to create chaos whenever Mr. Gbagbo's power is under threat.  

Mr. Gbagbo's initial election victory in Ivory Coast in 2000 against a former military ruler was also marred by violence and confusion over ballot counting.  Two years later, the northern rebellion began, as did the Young Patriots southern-based movement.

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Report: iPad will grow 250% in 2011 at the expense of PCs - Apple Insider

Report: iPad will grow 250% in 2011 at the expense of PCs

By Daniel Eran Dilger

Published: 03:00 PM EST

A new report claims tablet sales will more than triple next year, but says Apple will hold on to its dominant position with the iPad, jumping from 14 million units in 2010 to 36 million next year.

The report, cited by John Paczkowski of the Wall Street Journal Digital Daily blog, was prepared by Caris & Co. analyst Robert Cihra.

"We model Apple?s iPad continuing to dominate [?] in 2011,? Cihra wrote. "iPad not only launched with phenomenal early uptake but effectively sent all wannabes back to the drawing board, delaying most competitive tablet launches well into CY11.

"Yet we now already look forward to the first iPad 2 refresh in March (i.e., establishing annual cadence for iPads in March, iPhone each June and iPods in Sept). An enormous multi-year opportunity, we continue to view iPads less about the ?product? but rather igniting an explosion toward ?thin-client? Access computing.?

Android licensees, including Acer, Motorola and possibly HTC, are expected to demo new tablets at CES, but those devices won't be ready until Google finishes Android OS 3.0 Honeycomb, which isn't expected for release until March 2011. RIM is still struggling to put its PlayBook technologies together, while HP prepares its first webOS tablet, expected to be named PalmPad. Microsoft is also believed to be attempting a second shot at launching tablets running Windows 7 at CES.

A large number of new competing mobile platforms will make it easier for Apple's iPad to stand up as an established product, with thousands of apps and mature enterprise support, in a sea of incompatible tablet designs attempting to deliver a wide range of screen sizes and other feature packages.

Tablets to expand at the expense of conventional PCs

Cihra estimates global tablet sales at 54 million in 2011, with Apple taking 67 percent market share with its iPad. That growth, he said, would come at the expense of PCs.

"We see cannibalization from ?thin-client? iPads/tablets, particularly vs. netbooks and in multi-PC homes, already growing to 1/7th the size of the overall PC market in 2011 and shaving 5 percentage points off what PC growth might otherwise have been,? Cihra wrote. PC growth, excluding tablets, is expected to drop from 14 percent this year to just 9 percent in 2011.

However, if tablets are defined as a new PC form factor they would turn the situation around, as Cihra presented graphically in the report (below).

Defining the iPad as a PC, which Microsoft's chief executive Steve Ballmer did earlier this year, also more than doubles Apple's market share and establishes the company as the largest mobile PC maker in the US and the third largest worldwide, behind only HP and Acer, and just ahead of Dell.

While the iPad is devastating growth among low end notebooks and netbooks, they haven't had a discernible impact upon Apple's MacBook sales, which have been bolstered by the recent release of the MacBook Air. Apple doesn't sell any PCs on the extreme low end, isolating it from the cannibalization other PC makers are experiencing in the wake of the iPad's release. Instead, the iPad has bolstered Apple's earnings while appearing to only offer a halo effect that supports Mac sales and growth.

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Roberts Urges Obama on Judicial Nominees - New York Times

The plea, in the chief justice’s annual year-end report on the federal judiciary, was an echo of one from his predecessor, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who made front-page news on New Year’s Day in 1998 by criticizing the Senate for failing to move more quickly on President Bill Clinton’s judicial nominees.

Both chief justices were appointed by Republican presidents, and both said that their interest was not in particular appointees but in a judiciary functioning at something like full strength.

“We do not comment on the merits of individual nominees,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote on Friday. “That is as it should be. The judiciary must respect the constitutional prerogatives of the president and Congress in the same way that the judiciary expects respect for its constitutional role.”

But he identified what he called a systemic problem.

“Each political party has found it easy to turn on a dime from decrying to defending the blocking of judicial nominations, depending on their changing political fortunes,” he said.

The upshot, he said, was “acute difficulties for some judicial districts.”

The chief justice noted that the Senate recently filled a number of vacancies. Including 19 recently confirmed judges, the Senate has confirmed 62 of Mr. Obama’s nominees. There are 96 federal court vacancies, according to the Administrative Office of the United States Courts.

“There remains,” the chief justice wrote, “an urgent need for the political branches to find a long-term solution to this recurring problem.”

The chief justice’s report, which was 12 pages long and included four pages of statistics, was largely focused on the judicial branch’s efforts to save money in difficult economic times. It did not explicitly press for an increase in judicial pay, a topic that has been a major theme in earlier reports.

The report opened with a sketch of the financial and cultural climate in 1935, during the Great Depression. “Many Americans sought respite from the nation’s economic troubles at their local movie theaters, which debuted now-classic films, such as ‘Mutiny on the Bounty,’ ‘Top Hat’ and ‘Night at the Opera,’ ” Chief Justice Roberts wrote.

“Moviegoers of that era enjoyed a prelude of short features as they settled into their seats,” he continued. “As the lights dimmed, the screen beamed previews of coming attractions, Merrie Melody cartoons, and the Movietone newsreels of current events.”

Those current events included, though the chief justice did not say so, a clash between President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Supreme Court over New Deal legislation that may foreshadow a similar conflict when lawsuits over the recent health care legislation reach the court.

Chief Justice Roberts did describe newsreels showing the new Supreme Court building, which opened that year. “Seventy-five years later, the Supreme Court’s majestic building stands out as a familiar and iconic monument to the rule of law,” he wrote.

But he said nothing about the court’s decision this year to close its front doors to people seeking to enter, for reasons of security.

That decision, in May, was criticized by Justices Stephen G. Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who said they hoped the day would come when it would be possible “to restore the Supreme Court’s main entrance as a symbol of dignified openness and meaningful access to equal justice under law.”

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Google takes heat over Android tablet OS - Computerworld

IDG News Service - Android device makers around the world are anticipating great things from the next version of Google's mobile software, and they need the boost. Apple has a strong head start with sales of its popular iPad, while the App Store and iTunes give it apps and content, to boot.

But after a year of prodding Google, device makers think they've finally won with the upcoming "Honeycomb" upgrade to Android, which is expected by the end of the first quarter and is supposed to be the first version of the software designed for tablets instead of smartphones.

Earlier this year, for example, Samsung Electronics, had to fight to have the Android Market app, which connects users to the software's online treasure trove of over 150,000 apps, on its Galaxy Tab, according to one executive who asked not to be named due to his company's close relationship with Google.

At the time that Samsung was developing the Galaxy Tab to use Android, Google was struggling to decide if it wanted to put its upcoming Chrome OS in tablets and make Android exclusive to smartphones. The Chrome OS better fits Google's Cloud strategy, the executive said.

A Google spokesperson declined to comment on the issue.

Google's decision to make a tablet-friendly version of Android became a must after Apple launched its groundbreaking iPad, analysts say.

"Earlier in the year, Google probably thought that Chrome OS might be the right platform for tablets. However, the importance of the compatibility of apps across smartphones and tablets, evident from the iPad experience, has created the need for Google to ensure that the commercial success of apps can be preserved in the tablet proposition," said Martin Bradley, an analyst at Strategy Analytics.

Apple sold nearly 8 million iPads through the end of September, making it one of the hottest products of the year. (That tally is from official Apple figures from its quarterly earnings conference call and doesn't include holiday sales.)

By being first, Apple has set the tone for the entire market. Tablet makers need to put out the same OS for their smartphones and tablets so apps can be shared on either device. Even more important, apps specifically designed for tablets need to be made available, to take advantage of the larger screens, more powerful processors and expanded memory on board.

Of the 300,000 or so apps available to Apple iPhone and iPod Touch users, 40,000 are specifically designed for the iPad, and they are marketed that way on Apple's App Store.

By contrast, Google's Android Market does not offer any tablet-only apps to users, only smartphone apps. However, upstart Appslib is filling the void with its own tablet-only app store for Android lovers. Appslib is not affiliated with Google.

Reprinted with permission from IDG.net. Story copyright 2010 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

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A Christian priest faces grim New Year in Iraq - Los Angeles Times

Father Nadheer Dako, left, leads mourners as they carry in the coffin of Fawzi Rahim, 76, for funeral Mass at St. George Chaldean Church in Baghdad. (Khalid Mohammed, Associated Press / December 31, 2010)

Father Nadheer Dako started the last day of 2010 with a funeral service for an elderly couple killed by a bomb during a string of attacks against Iraq's small Christian community.

The previous night Fawzi Ibrahim, 80, and his 75-year-old wife Jeanette had opened their door to find a piece of luggage. When they touched the bag a hidden bomb exploded. Their house was one of ten Christian targets hit by militants Thursday night.

Now Dako, who is always ready with a sarcastic barb and a smirk, had to round up enough parishioners to join five relatives for the service at St. George Chaldean Church in Baghdad. It was a cold day with gray skies. Rain pounded the sidewalk and flooded the half-paved streets.

He gathered together 20 people and they entered the yellow brick church with its cross standing out among the neighborhood's Islamic flags.

Dako, 38, is used to living with death. He had become accustomed to danger even before an Oct. 31 siege by Islamic militants at another Baghdad church that left 58 people dead and ushered in a new campaign of attacks against Iraq's Christian minority.

In 2007, he had played a cat-and-mouse game as he hid from would-be kidnappers who surrounded his church; that same year he narrowly escaped a bomb apparently meant for him. He had watched too many Christians leave the city for safety elsewhere. But he was not going to let himself fall into depression.

He would scowl and shout from the pulpit and jab the air with his finger. He would smile and indulge in ghoulish humor. Or he would sing.

And on Friday, he would bury a couple, victims of a senseless act of violence, and later in the day would celebrate life again.

"It was a good Santa Claus this year," he said with a wicked look in his eyes and a sardonic grin after returning home from the funeral.

He quickly veered off into angry screeds against the United States, blaming the 2003 invasion for his country's woes. He grinned as he said the names of U.S. officials as if speaking four-letter words. He hectored: "Where are you Americans. You promised bring us good democracy and good government. Where is [former U.S. administrator J. Paul] Bremer?"

At the service for the Ibrahims, he read to the mostly empty pews a verse from St. Paul. "God gives us a soul of power and charity, not a soul of fear."

He had admired the couple; their children had left years before for the United States and Europe but the Ibrahims refused to leave Iraq. He thought they had been preparing to die. They had readied tombstones months in advance.

As the small group of relatives traveled with the bodies to the cemetery, Dako prepared for his New Year's service that evening. He sat in his rectory, his collar loosened and a scarf tied tight around his neck and thought about what he should say. He made it clear his group was resilient and would never surrender.

"Jesus asks us not to be afraid, to be a disciple and share the light with the people," he said.

A baby's cry came from the next room, where a Christian couple were staying with their infant after fleeing from the northern city of Mosul.

Dako changed into white vestments and stood by the altar before a small crowd at 4:30 p.m. The decorations blinked on a white Christmas tree and candles gleamed by the altar. He raised his hands in the air.

"God is the light and peace," he said. "Protect the dignity of all, Muslims, Christians, Yazidis, Shabak, Sudanis, Pakistanis."

Some leaned their heads against the wooden benches in thought. For a minute, the power went out and his voice bellowed in the dark.

Later in the evening Dako planned to eat and drink wine with friends. He would call his siblings and mother, who are scattered around the world as a result of the turmoil.

He promised: "Life will continue, and never, never will it stop, even if I die, it will continue. It is God's will."

ned.parker@latimes.com

Salman is a Times staff writer.

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2010 in Review: The Year for the Mac - PC World

In 2010, iOS (Apple's mobile operating system) and iOS devices (iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad) commanded the spotlight for much of the year. And for over nine months, Mac users saw the usual computer updates from Apple, but not much else. The combination of the iOS success and the stagnant Mac led some vocal tech analysts, pundits, and even Mac users to ponder whether Apple gave a damn about the Mac anymore. Some even went so far as to declare the Mac dead.

However, Apple gave new life to the Mac in mid-October, when CEO Steve Jobs took the stage and gave Mac users a taste of what's to come during a "Back to the Mac" presentation.

To paraphrase literary icon Mark Twain, the death of the Macintosh was an exaggeration, considering what Apple has in the works. On the last day of 2010, let's take a look back at the previous 12 months, from a Mac perspective.

A sneak peek at Lion

In October, Apple announced a forthcoming version of Mac OS X: Version 10.7, code-named Lion, will have features that are inspired by iOS. According to Steve Jobs, you can think of Lion as, "Mac OS X meets the iPad."

Lion will allow you to enter a full-screen mode as you work in your apps, and if you use a trackpad, you can swipe to switch between open apps. Lion will also feature the Launchpad, a full-screen display of all your apps (think of it as an iOS-like presentation of OS X's current /Applications folder); and Mission Control, which shows a view of open full-screen apps, the Dock, and the desktop.

Apple says that Lion will be available in the summer of 2011. Pricing has not been released.

With the demonstration of Lion and how it uses finger gestures, a particular accessory could possibly become mandatory for Mac users: the Magic Trackpad. Released in July, the Magic Trackpad is basically the glass trackpad found in Apple's laptops made into a self-standing input device. Such a device can help bridge the gap in the whole Apple user expereince between Mac OS X and iOS.

Mac App Store

Of all the Mac-related announcements made in 2010, the new Mac App Store is the most significant. The Mac App Store will work similarly to the iOS App Store, providing an easy-to-access marketplace.

While software developers will be able to use the Mac App Store as a way to get their software in front of a large population of Mac users, developers will have to write software according to the Mac App Store guidelines. (On a related note, Apple decided that its Mac OS X Downloads site will "no longer offer apps" and that developers should submit software to the Mac App Store.) There's also a concern that the Mac App Store would lead to the Mac becoming a closed system, like iOS.

We won't have to wait much longer to see the effect of the Mac App Store on the Mac marketplace. The Mac App Store will open on January 6, 2011, in 90 countries.

Small laptop makes huge impression

The MacBook Air had become the forgotten machine in Apple's Mac lineup. Then in October 2010, Apple introduced the 11-inch MacBook Air, and it immediately became Apple's newest darling. The smallest Mac portable Apple has ever created features a full-size keyboard, an impressive 1366-by-768-pixel display, and flash storage to help provide a dramatic performance boost over the previous 13-inch MacBook Air.

Most importantly, the MacBook Air gave many longtime customers what they've been waiting for: a true heir to the legendary 12-inch PowerBook. Now, road warriors don't need to compromise with an iPad, or lug around excess weight and size with a MacBook or a 13-inch MacBook Pro. The 11-inch MacBook Air is the ultraportable that's long been missing from Apple's lineup.

Apple also updated the 13-inch MacBook Air with a new graphics processor and flash memory. The flash memory helped the 13-inch MacBook Air outperform the current 13-inch 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro in our tests.

The MacBook and MacBook Pro lines saw dramatic changes before 2010, so the changes to those machines this year were simple refreshes. Apple did introduce Intel's Core i5 and Core i7 processors to the MacBook Pro line in the 15- and 17-inch models-expect to see faster Core i5 and i7 processors in the MacBook line in 2011. Perhaps we'll even see the 13-inch MacBook Pro's Core 2 Duo processor replaced by a Core i5.

Mac mini makeover

On the desktop, Apple's smallest machine, the Mac mini, was redesigned with an aluminum case that made the Mac mini even smaller than its predecessor. It also features a new plastic hatch that you can easily open to make memory upgrades. Apple also reduced the number of Mac mini models available, offering only one standard configuration model.

The iMac continues to offer the best bang for your buck among Apple's Mac lineup. Apple's all-in-one computer now has discrete ATI graphics chips, and the Core 2 Duo processors were phased out in favor of Core i3 and Core i5 processors in the standard configurations. Apple also added a flash-storage drive, build-to-order (BTO) option that can help boost the iMac's performance.

The iMac's aluminum case design was introduced in 2007. Could it be due for a major change in 2011? Besides the iMac becoming thinner and lighter, the basic design concept of the case works well, so it may not change much. The dramatic changes will probably be inside the case, where we could see the iMac taking a cue from the MacBook Air-flash storage could replace the hard drive completely, instead of being a BTO option. That is, if the price of flash storage in larger capacities drops enough to make this feasible.

The Mac Pro was refreshed in August. In addition to four-core and eight-core models, Apple now offers a 12-core Mac Pro. The Mac Pro continues to offer a combination of performance and expandability that's ideal for demanding users.

Mac software

iLife '11 was finally released in October, and it's well worth the upgrade if you are an iMovie, GarageBand, or iPhoto user. iWeb and iDVD had no new features, however.

Speaking of no new features, 2010 went by without a major update for Final Cut Studio. According to reports, the Final Cut development team was reshuffled, but Apple declared that it is still dedicated to the professional video-editing software suite. What's really going on with Final Cut is anyone's guess. Apple tends to make announcements for Final Cut around the time of the National Association of Broadcasters Show, so April is the time to be on the alert.

There are signs that Apple is still interested in its pro apps. A major update for Logic Pro and Logic Express was released in October. And in the spring of 2010, Apple released Aperture 3.

iWork also spent 2010 without a major update, though Apple did ship iWork for iPad. iWork has made its way through the rumor mill, however, with speculation that iWork '11 will be the marque software suite featured in the Mac App Store when it opens on January 6, 2011.

Jobs is alive and well

All this talk about the death of the Mac made us almost forget that it wasn't long ago that Steve Jobs was facing his own mortality. In 2009, Jobs took a leave of absence from Apple and had a liver transplant, which left many doubting whether Jobs could continue as Apple's CEO.

But in 2010, Jobs was back in full force. He appeared on stage giving keynotes, though he now lets others perform the deep-dive into products. He checks his e-mails from the general public, and replies in a terse style that's become a signature of the Apple CEO. He makes public appearances to promote organ donation. He's having coffee with other CEOs. And he even has time to take a jab or two at competitors and products that don't follow in The Apple Way.

Jobs led Apple to record profits and sales in 2010 and the company seems poised and ready for the new year.

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LittleBigPlanet 2 hands-on - GamePro.com

by Eric NeigherDecember 31, 2010 11:10 AM PTWe go heads first into LBP2's new creation tools, including the infinitely customizable logic boards, which should aid intrepid level builders immensely.

What we're talking about: LittleBigPlanet 2, the sequel to the do-it-yourself platformer extraordinaire, LittleBigPlanet.

Where we saw it: This one was hands-on all the way, played through an early build of the game by my lonesome.

What you need to know:

LBP2 will be compatible with all the content that you or anybody else created for the original LBP, according to Sony. So all your favorite custom levels, all the nifty little add-ons and tweaks, you'll be able to revisit them with the new engine in LBP2.
LBP2 will feature a new system in which players will be able to create "logic boards" for vehicles and other machines. That is: they'll be able to create simple sets of instructions for these machines that can be transferred to similar machines anywhere in the game. For example, players could set up a system where a Corvette will move forward at a press of the X button and stop with square. That set of instructions could be removed and transferred (like a circuit board) to any similar wheeled vehicle, thus saving time and allowing for creativity to build on itself.
Gameplay will no longer be restricted simply to platforming - instead LBP2 will allow for seamless transitions between game levels (without having to return to a central hub level), customization of the game's HUD itself, and a vastly improved and expanded palette of graphics will allow LBP2 players to create full-on RPGs, recreations of their favorite old-school titles, and even things like racing games.
LBP2 features "Sackbots," diminutive, AI-controlled versions of Sackboy that can assist with solving puzzles, or act as cogs in a larger design scheme for a level. While these can be a little creepy with their glowing red eyes, for the most part they're awfully helpful and expand what can be done in a level.
There will be a single-player campaign in the game, featuring Sackboy traversing a variety of levels using LBP2's solid platforming engine. So don't despair that if you don't have an internet connection you won't be able to play this game at all - but to be honest, you're going to want an internet connection.

Point in development cycle: I played a pre-release beta version of the game that was fully functional, but lacked the online sharing and community due to the fact that it hadn't been released yet.

My take: For fans of LBP, the future couldn't look brighter. This game not only incorporates and improves upon all the features they loved in the original, but it adds clever new tools and even sharper graphics, as well. The new logic-boards feature seems like it has a ton of potential, but in all fairness, because I was playing a pre-release version of the game, I didn't have a chance to test it out in all its glory.

For those of you who haven't played LBP before, but have played (or are familiar with) games like Minecraft - LBP2 is a game you should seriously consider taking a look at. It taps very heavily into that creative instinct that seems so prevalent among gamers, and does so in a far slicker, if somewhat less free-form, way than Minecraft or The Sims does.

But even if you're not the creative type, LBP2 will allow you to quickly and easily partake in others' creations with its upgraded content browser. It's now much easier to search for custom content - I'd say it was faster, too, but since there wasn't really any available in the build I played I can only comment on how the interface worked.

It's clear that the designers have listened very closely to fan demands on this game - not only by implementing some requests from the peanut gallery, but by making LBP2 even more susceptible to being customized and tweaked than the original was. From where I'm standing, this one looks like it could be the game that keeps on giving; you've really got a whole universe of possibilities with the tools it gives you.

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Life of the Party - New York Times

Right, you from Florida and Tim Scott from South Carolina.
I think that there is a changing wind. There are black conservatives out there, and their voices need to be heard.

Like other Tea Party candidates endorsed by Sarah Palin, you came from a nonpolitical background. A longtime Army officer who rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel, you retired in 2004 after being investigated for firing a handgun close to the head of an Iraqi policeman during an interrogation. Is that correct?
Yes, I did that, but let me tell you what happened. I went through what is called a nonjudicial punishment, where I was fined $5,000. I redeployed from Iraq, and I retired with full rank and benefits and an honorable discharge, and that’s the end of it.

Do you consider President Obama a good leader?
Not really.

Do you think those in the military respect him?
I don’t know, you gotta ask guys in the military, but I will tell you this: I think that going in in the middle of the night doesn’t show leadership.

Are you referring to that recent three-hour trip to a base in Afghanistan? He needs to consider his own safety, doesn’t he?
Leaders lead by example, and if I’m asking my young men and women to go out there and puttheir lives on the line, I should be willing and able to do the exact same thing. As I told my soldiers when I was commander in Iraqin 2003, the most expendable person in our battalion was me.

Didn’t George W. Bush go in for a surprise visit to Iraq under similar circumstances? Remember the platter-of-turkey photo op on Thanksgiving Day?
I’m not saying that’s right, either. I’m saying that my understanding of leadership is a little bit different. Leadership is about being a servant first.

Even though you’re a Republican, did you feel a sense of pride when President Obama was elected?
I don’t look to a man to get pride in myself. It’s not about having a black president, it’s about having a good president, and I think that’s the most important thing. This country needs a good leader, and I don’t care if he’s purple or green but yes, there are some people that saw in him a sense of pride.

Michael Steele, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, said last year that blacks don’t have a reason to vote Republican because Republicans haven’t given them one.
I think that there are some objective criteria that you can look at that Chairman Steele needs to try to work through.

What made you become a Republican?
When I retired out of the military, I registered myself as a Republican because my views and perspectives were more in line with that party.

You were raised in Atlanta, in a military family of Democrats, and were the middle of three boys. Are your wife and two daughters Republicans?
After all of the crap that I was put through in this election campaign, I don’t think they’ll be liberals any time soon.

What do you mean by crap?
When you turn on the television and people are accusing you of being a member of a white outlaw motorcycle gang and saying that you run drugs and deal with prostitution, I think that’s a little bit over the top. My opponent was very nasty.

You haven’t started your new job. But you probably feel ready to retire.
No. I have not yet begun to fight, as John Paul Jones said.

INTERVIEW HAS BEEN CONDENSED AND EDITED.

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