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New "privacy glasses" make avoiding pictures easy Whether you are camera shy or just like to remain anonymous, avoiding being photographed just became a lot easier. A new high-tech line of glasses from a company called AVG make it possible to shield your identity from facial recognition software.The privacy glasses are equipped with infrared LEDs that give off a light only visible to digital cameras. If someone does snap a picture of you, a bright light will overexpose the photo around the eyes and nose, making it generally undesirable and unusable.While you are mostly visible in the photo, the infrared light obscures your features enough that facial recognition software will not be able to identify you. This means programs on social media platforms like Facebook can't automatically tag you in photos -- something they're getting scarily good at doing. Whether you are an adult playing hooky from work, or a kid hiding a party from your parents, the glasses could be very useful.The glasses have not been put into production yet, but if developed and made stylish, they are definitely tempting.

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Obama chooses Clancy to be Secret Service director President Barack Obama has chosen Joseph Clancy as the new head of the U.S. Secret Service, the White House said on Wednesday, after a series of high profile security lapses led to a shake-up in the troubled agency's leadership.Clancy, who personally helped guard the lives of three U.S. presidents, has been head of the agency on an interim basis for the past four months. Director Julia Pierson stepped down in October after an embarrassing Sept. 19 White House breach in which a man carrying a knife jumped the fence and ran into the executive mansion.Obama chose Clancy, a 27-year veteran of the Secret Service, despite the recommendation of an independent review panel in December that the next director be someone from outside the agency, which it said had become too insular. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Clancy has "a lot of credibility built up inside the agency and he used that credibility to put in place reforms that were recommended by this outside panel" appointed by Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson."Over the course of the last several months, Director Clancy has demonstrated the kind of leadership that frankly many of us expected him to demonstrate," Earnest said at a news briefing. Republican U.S. Representative Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which has investigated the Secret Service's problems, said he was disappointed Obama did not appoint someone with a fresh perspective."The good men and women of the Secret Service are screaming for a fresh start," he said in a statement. "At this moment in time, the Secret Service would best be served by a transformative and dynamic leader from outside the agency."Clancy rejoined the service after leaving his job as head of security for the Comcast (CMCSA.O) media corporation in the Philadelphia area where he grew up.In addition to the fence-jumper with a knife in September, the service's credibility also was damaged in 2012 when it was revealed that members had hired prostitutes while in Cartagena, Colombia, in advance of an Obama trip and in 2011 when a man hit the White House with automatic rifle fire, although the damage was not discovered until four days later.

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Space station astronauts cleared for third spacewalk International Space Station managers Friday cleared astronauts Barry "Butch" Wilmore and Terry Virts to proceed with a third spacewalk Sunday, as originally planned, after concluding a small amount of water in Virts' space helmet after an EVA Wednesday was an understood condition and not a threat to crew safety. The six-and-a-half-hour spacewalk is scheduled to begin around 7:10 a.m. EST Sunday when the astronauts switch their spacesuits to battery power and exit the station's airlock. The spacewalkers plan to install four antennas, laser reflectors and cabling to permit communications with approaching and departing commercial crew capsules being built by Boeing and SpaceX. "We're going to lay down over 400 feet of cable," Virts told a reporter Thursday. "These cables are going to attach to some antennas that are going to be used for the future American vehicles that are going to be docking, bringing crew to the space station starting in a few years. "So we need to put these antennas and the cables there for them, and also some reflectors so their on-board navigation systems that use lasers (to) know where the station is and what orientation it's in and will be able to dock properly. There's a lot of moving from one end to the other on the station and a lot of equipment and hardware that we're going to be bringing out there." During spacewalks last Saturday and Wednesday, Wilmore and Virts laid out some 340 feet of power and data lines needed by two new docking mechanisms what will be installed later this year and made preparations to relocate a storage module and a docking port extension. Virts also lubricated the grapple mechanisms on the end of the station's robot arm. During airlock repressurization Wednesday, Virts noticed a small blob of water floating in his helmet and reported that a water absorption pad at the back of his helmet was damp, indicating seepage through the helmet's air duct. During a spacewalk in July 2013, Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano endured a potentially catastrophic water leak that forced him to make a quick retreat to the safety of the airlock. That leak was blamed on a clogged filter inside the suit's water cooling system. But in Virts' case, the water intrusion occurred after the spacesuit had been reconnected to a station umbilical and after airlock repressurization had begun. As it turns out that same spacesuit experienced similar incidents after seven previous spacewalks, the result of condensation in the suit's cooling system after airlock repressurization. "When you connect to the umbilical, you have a lot of cold air that's going past the cooling system of the suit and this air will often condense," Alex Kanelakos, a NASA spacewalk officer, said Friday. "And as we repress, we have high-density gas that's flowing past this condensed water that can often move the water over the crew member's helmet." Up to 57 milliliters, or about four tablespoons, of "sublimator water carryover" is considered acceptable, far less than what was experienced by Parmitano. In Virts' case, only about 15 milliliters -- three teaspoons -- of water made it into the helmet. "This spacesuit is known to have what we call carryover water," Kanelakos said. "We've had seven other occurrences of this carryover on the spacesuit. ... It's not expected every time, but it's a known feature. That's why we monitor a lot of the parameters on the ground. We're continually getting data and we're watching that to see if we're having any occurrences of this situation or the situation that Luca had. And they're very different occurrences." Speaking to a reporter Thursday, Virts said "I'm completely confident I'm not going outside unless we're sure it's a good suit."

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Biologists using CSI-like clues to find invasive species When salmon, salamanders or other aquatic animals poop or shed skin cells, they leave behind traces of their DNA in the water, like clues left behind at a crime scene. It's this evidence that Kit Paulsen is seeking as she wades into an urban creek east of Seattle and fills a 4-liter jug with water. In a few minutes, she has a sample that will reveal whether a tiny destructive New Zealand mudsnail is present in the salmon-bearing stream. At one-eighth of an inch, the snails are incredibly hard to find. That's why scientists are turning to environmental DNA, or eDNA, an emerging surveillance tool that detects the presence of an organism by analyzing cellular material such as urine, hair, feathers or skin cells that are left behind in the environment. Whether it's Asian carp in Chicago-area waters, salamanders in Kentucky or great crested newts in the United Kingdom, biologists are using the tool to help look for reclusive or rare imperiled species, monitor unwanted creatures or gauge the overall biodiversity of a lake or stream. "We're starting to realize its potential," said Caren Goldberg, an assistant professor at Washington State University who is managing editor of a special issue on environmental DNA in the journal Biological Conservation. Her lab in Pullman, Washington, will analyze samples that Paulsen and her team collects. Paulsen, the city of Bellevue's watershed planning supervisor, consulted with Goldberg after hearing about the method, and this spring, the city plans to test samples from 22 urban streams and eight beaches. Bellevue has invested so much time and millions in salmon habitat and restoration that it can't afford to let the invasive snails take hold, Paulsen said. The snails multiply rapidly, compete with native fish for food and can't be eliminated once they infest a stream. Using eDNA is cheaper and quicker than visual surveys, Paulsen said, though it's not meant to replace it. At about $50 a test, including equipment and lab costs, the total cost of $12,500 is less than what it would take if employees walked those streams turning over rocks, she said. Environmental DNA has been used for about a decade to detect microorganisms in soils and sediments. More recently, it's been used to monitor endangered Chinook salmon in Washington state, secretive amphibians in Idaho, and protected eastern hellbenders in Ohio and Kentucky. In one study, scientists found that eDNA was more effective than traditional methods, such as visual searches for eggs, in detecting imperiled great crested newts in the United Kingdom. They concluded it could be used effectively for a national citizen-monitoring program. Environmental DNA, however, won't tell scientists exactly how many animals are there, only that they're present, or whether the animal is alive or dead. Material also typically breaks down in the environment in a week or two. And like any test, there's a possibility for false positives if certain collection or other protocols aren't followed. Still, many supporters say it holds huge potential for conservation biology. In northeastern Washington, the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation had been looking for affordable ways to monitor efforts to reintroduce spring Chinook in the Upper Columbia River. Spring is a difficult time to detect the fish because of high runoff, and it's also hard to get out into backcountry areas, said Matthew Laramie, a U.S. Geological Survey ecologist in Boise, Idaho. He and others tested whether eDNA could be a good tool. They confirmed Chinook salmon in sites where they were known to be, and also picked up evidence of the fish in areas where they had not been seen before but could actually swim to. Separate tests did not pick up signs of the fish in areas where they could not swim to. Laramie said it likely won't replace fish counts, "but it's a way to weed through a large system and prioritize resources." Back in Bellevue, Paulsen and another worker collected water samples and brought them back to a lab where they poured them through a filter. Any genetic material is captured on the filter, which is then shipped to Goldberg's lab. Based on the results, city officials will decide how aggressive it needs to be in requiring people to decontaminate boots and other gear at construction projects near streams this summer. "The more tools we have, the better," Paulsen said. "They're so small I'm not sure I can detect them at low levels."

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High-tech video camera "sees" gas leaks as they happen Methane leaks are bad for the environment. They're also bad for business -- unless your job is to find them. "Reducing methane emissions is extremely important," optical engineer Robert Kester told CBS News. "Methane is a very potent greenhouse gas. But on the other hand, methane is also a valuable resource that can be used for energy as well as feedstock for chemicals, plastics, etc., so it's not good business to waste it." Kester is cofounder and chief technology officer of Rebellion Photonics, which leverages a technology he developed to detect gas leaks in the air using a special hyperspectral video camera. The camera can immediately spot leaks in oilfields and refineries, and even determine the type of gas that's being emitted. That includes methane, a powerful greenhouse gas with 25 times the climate-warming potential as carbon dioxide. "I never expected an oil and gas service company to be so rewarding," said Rebellion CEO and cofounder Allison Lami Sawyer. "If we can come in and help our customers lower their methane emissions even by 10 percent, that would have a really big impact in the world and our future." While studying cancer in pursuit of a Ph.D. in bioengineering at Rice University, Kester invented a hyperspectral camera that attached to a microscope and could take pictures of cells at 30 frames per second. The device could "see" chemicals, allowing researchers to shoot live video of cancer cells to determine whether they were malignant or benign. "Once I developed a new way to do hyperspectral imaging, I knew I wanted to start my own company based on this invention," Kester said. "But I needed help." He reached out to a local startup incubator called Houston Technology Center, where he met Sawyer, who was getting her MBA at Rice. They formed Rebellion Photonics in 2010 to sell systems for biomedical applications. But one day, Sawyer suggested another idea."Allison came to me and asked if it was possible to detect gases using our technology," Kester said.Hyperspectral imaging is a way to visualize wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum that are outside the range of what the human eye can see. Different minerals and gasses each have their own spectral fingerprint, what Kester likened to a barcode. Hyperspectral cameras are able to read these unique bar codes and represent each one as a color. Typically these colors would appear in a static image, but Kester's camera could do the same thing in video, and in real time. After months of research and experimentation, he figured out how to harness the technology for wide-field imaging, like across oilfields. Ultimately he came up with the Gas Cloud Imaging camera that could sense a cloud of gas in the air and show it on a live video feed."The first time we detected methane with our camera was so cool because no one had ever done it like this before and it validated the initial hunch I had," he said.The standard detectors the petroleum industry uses for gas monitoring and detection only cover a small fraction of a rig or refinery, according to Kester. The gas fumes must touch the sensors before operators are alerted to their presence. His hyperspectral imaging camera represents a huge leap, seeing gas a it escapes from the source, long before it spreads far enough to reach a remote sensor.The camera automatically notifies operators when an invisible (to the naked eye) and dangerous gas plume is present. Based in Houston, Texas, Rebellion Photonics now manufactures its cameras and sells its services as a monthly subscription to companies in the oil and gas industry, including giants such as BP, Chevron and Southwestern Energy. It also landed an $800,000 military contract to put its cameras on Air Force drones.For its oil industry customers it offers a truck-mounted camera for upstream sites, where drilling and fracking occurs, and a fixed-installation camera at many downstream sites, where oil is refined. One surprising -- and disturbing -- finding that seems to crop up again and again: Many gas leaks come from hatches that weren't closed properly."About 90 percent of the emissions we see are caused by human errors and are easily fixable," Sawyer said. She found that at many of the oil and gas processing sites, dehydrators used to remove water from natural oil and gas -- specifically the ones built before 1990 -- were responsible for emitting tons of methane themselves. Sawyer also has learned that a lot of oil and gas companies are running equipment and engines off the natural gas they collect, which emits a lot of methane, too. Her solution? "Instead, run it off plain old diesel, because trucking it in is a lot better." Named Wall Street Journal's Startup of the Year in 2013, Rebellion Photonics is well positioned to benefit from an increasing focus on reducing methane emissions across the country and around the world.In January, President Obama announced an ambitious new goal to cut methane emissions from the oil and gas sector by 40 to 45 percent below 2012 levels by 2025."It looks like the EPA is getting more involved and they're going to make federal laws, so now all the states are going to have to monitor methane emissions more closely," Sawyer said. "This is a good thing, but it will keep our company very, very busy." She and Kester are now expanding to international markets, including the Middle East and Western Europe. "We all have to breathe the same air," Kester said. "So from an environmental perspective, I think it's great to finally be able to provide the industry with an easy-to-use solution that can allow companies to operate their business better in terms of safety and efficiency."

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The best place to hide during a zombie apocalypse Cornell University researchers suggest that in the event of a zombie outbreak the best place for Americans to hide during the full-scale takeover would be the northern Rocky Mountains - or just about anywhere but a major city. The study, titled "The Statistical Mechanics of Zombies," will be presented March 5 at the American Physical Society meeting in San Antonio, according to CBS Houston."We build up to a full scale simulation of an outbreak in the United States, and discover that for 'realistic' parameters, we are largely doomed," the study's abstract said. "Modeling zombies takes you through a lot of the techniques used to model real diseases, albeit in a fun context," Cornell physics graduate student Alex Alemi told Phys.org.The research team used various equations factoring in population and rate-of-infection to determine how and where a fictional zombie outbreak would spread across the U.S. The researchers noted that films often portray a zombie outbreak as affecting "all areas at the same time" but Alemi said that's not "how it would actually go down." Alemi recommended that the best possible place for survival is the northern Rockies. Major cities would fall quickly, but zombies may take weeks or even months to penetrate into the less densely populated areas of the country. "Given the dynamics of the disease, once the zombies invade more sparsely populated areas, the whole outbreak slows down -- there are fewer humans to bite, so you start creating zombies at a slower rate," he elaborated. "I'd love to see a fictional account where most of New York City falls in a day, but upstate New York has a month or so to prepare."

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Would you buy a cellular plan from Google? Google will soon be offering cellular network plans in a bid to bridge the gap between the realms of Internet services and mobile device software it dominates. Vice President Sundar Pichai says Google, the leading Internet search engine and mobile software provider, is working with unnamed network operators on developing a cellular plan. "You will see us announce it in the coming months," he said at the Mobile World Congress wireless show in Barcelona. "I think we are at a stage where it is important to think about hardware, software and connectability together. "We want to be able to experiment along those lines." A Google spokesperson confirmed to CBS News that the company "plan[s] to announce more details about a wireless project we're working on in the coming months." Pichai called Google's plan to offer cellular services "a project" and insisted that the Internet company isn't a threat to traditional telephone and Internet service providers. Google will act as a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), which means the company won't have its own cellular network. Rather, it will piggyback on other carriers' infrastructure. Pichai did not reveal who they'd be partnering with, though rumors have pointed to deals with Sprint and T-Mobile. Pichai compared Google's latest move to its decision to launch its own line of Nexus smartphones, which he said Google uses not to compete with other smartphone makers, rather to introduce innovations in the greater world of mobile hardware. "We don't intend to be a network operator at scale," he said. "Our goal here is to drive a set of innovations which we think the ecosystem should evolve and hopefully will get traction. Again, we will do it on a small enough scale so that, just like Nexus devices, people see what we are doing and hopefully carrier partners think our ideas are good." Pichai offered finding a way to provide a "seamless" Internet connection when a device moves from Wi-Fi to cellular coverage as one example of goals Google would like to target. Pichai said that Google is also working on "Android Pay," a mobile payment system similar to "Apple Pay," that will work across all Android-powered devices. The announcement came at the same tech show where Samsung this weekend announced that its new Galaxy S6 smartphones will support its own contactless payment system, similarly named "Samsung Pay."

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NASA probe closes in on Ceres, sees unusual lights NASA's Dawn spacecraft is closing in on the dwarf planet Ceres, the largest body in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, beaming back increasingly sharp pictures revealing a heavily cratered world with unexpected -- and so far, mystifying -- spots of light that may be reflections off exposed ice or some other material.Whatever they are, the surprising spots have generated widespread interest among scientists and non scientists alike as Dawn completes its rendezvous and slips into orbit around Ceres early Friday, three years and more than 900 million miles after wrapping up a year-long study of the rocky asteroid Vesta. "Suffice it to say, these spots were extremely surprising to the team, and they have been puzzling to everybody who's seen them," Carol Raymond, Dawn deputy principal investigator, told reporters Monday. "The team is really, really exited about this feature because it is unique in the solar system." A movie made up of recent Dawn images shows Ceres rotating through a complete 9.1-hour "day." The bright spots stop shining when they rotate into darkness, indicating they are, in fact, reflected sunlight, possibly from exposed ice or salt deposits. The presumed deposits may have been uncovered by a recent impact or possibly the result of some much less probable mechanism like ultra-low temperature "cryovolcanism." But for now, no one knows. And given their unusual brightness, interest is high. "We will be revealing its true nature as we get closer and closer to the surface," Raymond said. "So the mystery will be solved, but it is one that's got us on the edge of our seats."The $473 million project is "one of the coolest missions to one of the last unexplored worlds in the solar system," said Robert Mase, the Dawn project manager at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Dawn is the first spacecraft to orbit more than one body, the first to visit a dwarf planet -- Ceres -- and the first operational science probe to rely on ion propulsion, using solar-generated electricity to accelerate xenon ions to enormous velocities, producing a gentle but almost continuous thrust. "We go from zero to 60 in about four days," Mase said. "However, ion engines are about 10 times more efficient than conventional chemical systems, and we can continue to thrust and accelerate for days and weeks and months or, as Dawn has now for more than five years, to generate tremendous velocities." Ceres was discovered in 1801 by the Italian astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi. It was the first asteroid ever discovered and it is the largest in the asteroid belt, a roughly spherical body measuring 606 by 565 miles. "One of the first things you notice is how round Ceres is," Raymond said. "And Ceres' roundness is one of its planetary characteristics. We also know that Ceres is much lighter than the rocky planets and so we know it retained a lot of water and light volatile elements that were present in the solar nebula when Ceres was formed." In contrast, bodies like the moon and Vesta suffered melting from major impacts that caused the water and other light elements to boil away, "leaving them dry and rocky," Raymond said. "One of the prime motivations of the Dawn mission is to examine these building blocks of the planets, Vesta and Ceres, which are two intact proto-planets from the very dawn of the solar system," she said. "They're literally fossils that we can investigate to really understand the processes that were going on at that time." The initial views of Ceres have revealed remarkably smooth areas, chaotic fracture zones and craters of all sizes, she said. The terrain likely holds clues about the dwarf planet's internal structure and whether a layer of ice exists that might be a remnant of a now frozen sub-surface ocean."So, we do expect that in the past there was ocean in contact with the rock beneath an ice cap and that at present it's an ice layer that's beneath a crust of infalls and dust and clays and deposits from sublimation." Last year, a European spacecraft studying Ceres from afar detected traces of water vapor in specific longitudinal zones. Raymond said the bright spots are in one of those zones "so it might be related to that water vapor emission." "It's association with the impact crater may indicate that impact heating resulted in exposure of underlying ice, it's vaporization, and perhaps we're seeing a deposit that was left behind, which is rich in material like salts," she said. Dawn is equipped with redundant multi-filter cameras sensitive to visible and near infrared light, a gamma ray and neutron detector that can characterize the elemental makeup of the upper few feet of the crust and a visible and infrared mapping spectrometer to study the mineralogy of the dwarf planet. If all goes well, Dawn will reach its science mapping orbit in December and complete its primary mission in June 2016. A few months later, supplies of hydrazine maneuvering fuel, used to aim the spacecraft and its instruments at Ceres and to reorient the probe to transmit data back to Earth, are expected to run out and Dawn's mission will come to an end. "Dawn will get down to its lowest orbit, and the plan is for the spacecraft to stay there indefinitely," Mase said. "That's where the mission would end. The orbit is designed such that it's stable for a very long period of time, so Dawn will actually stay in that orbit for ...hundreds of years."

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Streaming HBO and the uncertain future of cable HBO has been working on a streaming service that could be coming as soon as next month.The service is rumored to be called HBO Now and might cost $15 for a monthly subscription. Customers will not need a cable or satellite hookup to watch shows on HBO Now. They'll just need a subscription and a good Internet connection.The launch will follow on the heels of Dish Network's release of its $20 a month subscription service, Sling TV. Sony's ramping up to start a streaming service called PlayStation Vue. Showtime is also looking to enter market, and CBS News recently launched an online streaming news channel, CBSN. HBO Now will likely be released as an app on Apple TV. The move could put cable providers on edge, as HBO is a major draw for many cable customers. It might indeed be considered another nail in cable's coffin as viewers continue to cut the cord and get more of their TV online. And with smart TVs and boxes like Apple TV and Roku, which play Web content on your television set, increasingly abundant, watching online feels more like the old fashioned TV experience. As long as you have fast enough Internet, that is.

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Why 1 billion could be at risk for hearing loss Grab the earplugs, turn down the headphones and move away from the speakers. That's what the World Health Organization recommends for teens and young adults in a report sounding the alarm about hearing loss. In its "Make Listening Safe" report, the United Nations agency estimates one billion young people across the globe are potentially at risk of hearing loss due to "unsafe listening practices." Those practices include attending loud concerts or cranking up the headphones on personal listening devices."With the popularization of technology, devices such as music players are often listened to at unsafe volumes and for prolonged periods of time," the report warns.In middle- and high-income countries, the report finds, nearly 50 percent of teens and young adults are exposed to unsafe levels of sound from such devices. From 1990 to 2005, the number of people listening to music through headphones increased by 75 percent, according to the report's analysis of data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.WHO identifies eighty-five decibels as the "highest safe exposure level up to a maximum of eight hours." Personal audio devices can sometimes sounds as high as 136 decibels, and, according to the report, users typically set their devices at between 75 and 105 decibels.Sound levels at bars can range from 104 to 112 decibels. The louder the noise, the less amount of time one can safely listen to it. The level of sound produced by a subway train, identified in the report as 100 decibels, can only safely be heard for 15 minutes a day."Exposure to loud sounds for any length of time causes fatigue of the ear's sensory cells," the report explains. "When the exposure is particularly loud, regular or prolonged, it can cause permanent damage of the sensory cells and other structures, resulting in irreversible hearing loss." To avoid hearing loss, the WHO recommends wearing earplugs and moving away from the speakers at loud venues, reducing the volume and using noise-cancelling headphones when listening to music, and taking short listening breaks.The WHO also advises reducing daily use of personal audio devices to less than an hour.Governments have a role in combatting hearing loss, the report states, hailing a 2014 mover by the Minneapolis City Council to force bars and clubs to offer free earplugs to their customers, "reducing the risk of noise exposure for those who frequent such venues." "Noise induced hearing loss is preventable, and more must be done to ensure that this loss is avoided."

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Global cost of flooding to increase tenfold by 2030 The numbers of people impacted by floods around the world could nearly triple to 54 million by 2030, driven in part by climate change and unchecked development, according to a new study. The findings come from the Aquaduct Global Flood Analyzer, an interactive online flood-tracking tool developed by the World Resources Institute and four Dutch research organizations. They also found a similar trend with regard to the economic impact. It concluded that, today, economic activity to the tune of $96 billion in GDP is disrupted annually and that number could increase more than five times to $521 billion by 2030.Poor countries in Asia would be hit hardest of the 170 countries analyzed. India is by far the most vulnerable with 4.8 million citizens put at risk by flood waters followed by Bangladesh, Vietnam, Pakistan and Indonesia."Our analysis shows a clear trend across the world. In lower- and middle-income countries, socioeconomic development is expected to concentrate more people, buildings, infrastructure and other assets in vulnerable regions," the researchers wrote in a blog post. "So, the developing world is expected to see more GDP exposed to flood risks in 2030, driven largely by socioeconomic change." India, for example, faces more potential change in exposed GDP than any other country. Using a middle-of-the road scenario, the analysis estimates that $14 billion of GDP is already exposed annually with that number rising tenfold to $154 billion in 2030.Researchers said the findings demonstrate that climate change will worsen flood risk as a result of rising sea levels. But they acknowledged the impacts of global warming would be dwarfed by socioeconomic growth, in particular due to the concentrated growth of Southeast Asia's megacities in flood-prone areas.The only developed nation in the top 20 countries most vulnerable to flooding damage was the the United States. It came in 18th just behind Mexico and ahead of Sudan with 170,000 residents and $7 billion in GDP at risk. By 2030, that figure is expected to rise to 262,000 people and the GDP impact will more than double. Breaking it down further, the analysis found that Florida ($890 million in lost GDP) was currently most at risk of all U.S. states. It was followed by Louisiana, California, Texas, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, Indiana and New York.By 2030, Florida continues to be the most at risk with as much as $5.5 billion in GDP at stake. But Oregon, Washington, Nevada and Tennessee replace Michigan, Indiana, New York and Ohio in the top 10. The flood analyzer is the first publicly available online tool to assess current and future river flood risk - measuring the flood risk in dollar amount, including urban damage, affected GDP and affected population. Users can also look at flood risk by country, river basin or state and see the extent that floods will inundate any given place. "Through this flood analyzer, the complex data really comes alive and becomes available to a nonspecialist audience far beyond the research arena," Hessel Winsemius, a researcher with Deltares, one of the four Dutch organizations, told reporters."It really transforms these data layers into actionable information informing users like governments and businesses which developments in their region are at risk," he said. "On the positive side, the user can actually see a first cut of how much benefit flood protection can provide in reducing this risk both at present day as well as in future in real economic dollars values. This really opens the door to actions, how to achieve this protection." Erin Coughlan, a program officer at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent's Climate Center, said the tool would be a great benefit for the disaster response community, noting that almost half of the natural disasters in 2013 were floods. "As the Red Cross, we often find ourselves in the place of firefighting and responding to these disasters after people have been surprised by the flooding event itself," Coughlan said. "A tool like this is incredibly useful to us because it does take into account how extremes can change in the future ... This powerful tool helps us focus our efforts on flood early warning systems or resilience building interventions in these flood-prone areas to reduce the actual damage which will ensure over time." Alanna Simpson, a specialist at the Global Facility for Disaster Risk Reduction, also said the tool will be helpful for city planners and developers who are already thinking about projects decades into the future. With this tool in hand, Simpson said they can better plan evacuation routes, designate which areas are safe and those which are not and it could motivate them to consider smarter building design. "We need to be able to show decision makers what Dhaka (Bangladesh) will look like in 50 years because they are building for the Dhaka of 50 years from today, not the Dhaka of today," she said. "We need to be able to help them visualize what their future looks like and, therefore, what action they can take today to mitigate the risk in the future."

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World's highest mountain facing feces problem Human waste left by climbers on Mount Everest has become a problem that is causing pollution and threatening to spread disease on the world's highest peak, the chief of Nepal's mountaineering association said Tuesday.The more than 700 climbers and guides who spend nearly two months on Everest's slopes each climbing season leave large amounts of feces and urine, and the issue has not been addressed, Ang Tshering told reporters. He said Nepal's government needs to get the climbers to dispose of the waste properly so the mountain remains pristine. In addition to biological waste, the troves of trekkers also leave behind a massive amount of trash. Last year, the Nepali government instituted a new rule to persuade trekkers to clean up after themselves on the mountain.Nepali officials at Everest base camp now check that each climber descends the mountain with approximately 18 pounds of trash -- the amount the government estimates an exhausted climber discards along the route.More than 4,000 climbers have scaled the 8,850-meter or 29,035-foot summit since 1953, when it was first conquered by New Zealand climber Edmund Hillary and his Sherpa guide Tenzing Norgay. Hundreds of others have died in the attempt, while many have succeeded only with help from oxygen tanks, equipment porters and Sherpa guides.Hundreds of foreign climbers attempt to scale Everest during Nepal's mountaineering season, which began this week and runs through May. Last year's season was canceled after 16 local guides were killed in an avalanche in April.

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White House says Congress shouldn't sidestep Islamic State measure White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough on Sunday said the Republican-led Congress should not sidestep the president's request to formally authorize military action against Islamic State forces, saying lawmakers must not "take a pass".Under President Barack Obama's orders, the U.S. military has carried out air strikes against Islamic State forces in Iraq and Syria since last summer but has done so without explicit authorization from Congress. Obama sent a formal request to Congress on Wednesday but ran into immediate resistance both from Republicans who want stronger measures and from many of his fellow Democrats wary of another war in the Middle East. Despite differences that could make passage of a resolution difficult, McDonough said: "What they shouldn’t do this time is what they did in 2013, when they took a pass on this issue." Congress can change the language in the proposed resolution, he said, but not avoid action altogether."They need to take a position, to say what they are for and what they are against on this," McDonough said on CBS's "Face the Nation". "It's very important in questions of war and peace for Congress to be heard."Obama has defended his authority to lead an international coalition against Islamic State since Aug. 8 when U.S. warplanes began attacks in Iraq. The formal request he sent last week, which would cover the next three years, eased criticism of Obama's failure to seek the backing of Congress, where some accused him of exceeding his constitutional authority.In 2013, Obama sent draft legislation to Congress for authorization to use military force in response to the use of chemical weapons in Syria's civil war. Ten days later he asked Congress to postpone the vote while he pursued a Russian proposal for international monitors to take over and destroy Syria's arsenal of chemical weapons. The vote in Congress was never held.House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, speaking on the "Fox News Sunday" program, said "it’s too early to predict" whether Congress will pass authorization legislation for the fight against Islamic State. Boehner said House Republicans plan "exhaustive hearings" on the matter. "The president is asking for less authority than he has today under previous authorizations. I don’t think that’s smart," Boehner said.Republican Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, also speaking on CBS, said "robust" hearings were planned in the Senate.Obama's plan does not authorize "long-term, large-scale ground combat operations" such as those in Iraq and Afghanistan. The draft allows for certain ground combat operations including hostage rescues and the use of special forces.

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SpaceX rocket boosts 2 satellites toward orbit By the light of the waxing moon, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket roared to life Sunday night and boosted a pair of Boeing-built communications satellites into orbit, the first commercial relay stations featuring all-electric propulsion, to save weight and dramatically lower launch costs. Right on time, at 10:50 p.m. EST, the rocket's nine first stage engines ignited and throttled up to full power. After a lightning round of last-instant computer checks, the booster was released from its firing stand at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, kicking off a nine-minute climb to space. Initially climbing straight up from launch complex 40, the 224-foot-tall Falcon 9 arced away to the east and quickly accelerated as it consumed its load of liquid oxygen and kerosene rocket fuel. The first stage appeared to work normally, shutting down and falling away just under three minutes into flight. The second stage's single engine then ignited with a brilliant burst of fiery exhaust to continue the climb to space. A second, very short second stage burn about 25 minutes after liftoff apparently went off without a hitch, putting the spacecraft into a highly elliptical orbit. The planned high point, or apogee, was expected to be around 27,200 miles with a low point, or perigee, of about 250 miles. The ABS 3A satellite was released from the Falcon 9 second stage a half hour after launch, followed by Eutelsat's 115 West B relay station five minutes later. To reach the 22,300-mile-high circular orbit required for geostationary communications satellites, both relay stations will use innovative low-thrust ion propulsion systems instead of traditional liquid-fueled rocket thrusters. The advantage is a tremendous weight savings, allowing the Falcon 9 to launch two relatively lightweight but more powerful comsats at the same time, sharing the cost for launch services. The downside is ion propulsion systems generate very low-level thrust compared to chemical rockets and the two satellites launched Sunday will need six to seven-and-a-half months to reach their operational locations instead of 30 days or so. Ion propulsion, which uses solar electricity to accelerate xenon ions and produce a gentle but continuous thrust, is not new. But it has never been used before as the sole means of raising a relay station's orbit to geostationary altitude. "Normally, they would have only been used for station-keeping and not for orbit-raising," Ken Betaharon, chief technology officer of ABS, told Spaceflightnow.com. "They have been used for part of the orbit-raising in some of Boeing's other missions. In those cases it took two or three months. But in this case, it's 100 percent orbit-raising using electric thrusters." While the satellites will need six to seven times longer to reach the desired orbit, the cost savings is enormous. "The advantage of that, of course, is you don't carry liquid chemical fuel, which is very heavy," Betaharon said. "This particular satellite, each of them weigh around 2,000 kilograms. Typically, if you get a satellite like that from other manufacturers, or even from Boeing using chemical propulsion, they would weigh something around 3,500 to 4,000 kilograms, or in some cases maybe more. That's why, because it's lower mass, we managed to put two of them on one rocket, which right away reduces your launch costs in half." When ABS and Eutelsat signed up for Falcon 9 launch services several years ago, the rocket cost about $60 million. "We paid under $30 million for each satellite, which is almost unheard of," Betaharon said. ABS 3A, featuring three C-band beams and four Ku-band feeds, will be positioned at 3 degrees west longitude, providing VSAT services, TV distribution, maritime and internet connectivity for the Americas, Europe, Africa and the Middle East. The Eutelsat spacecraft, featuring 12 C-band transponders and 34 Ku-band channels, will be positioned at 114.9 degrees, providing coverage from Alaska to South America, including the Galapagos and Easter Island. The new satellite "will be of particular interest to ISPs, aeronautical, maritime, oil and gas, telecom operators and government agencies, as well as news, sports and entertainment broadcasters," the company said on its web site. During recent launches, SpaceX has been attempting to bring a Falcon 9 first stage back to a landing on an off-shore barge, part of company founder Elon Musk's long-range plans to eventually recover, refurbish and relaunch booster stages to reduce costs even more. But because of the weight of the satellites launched Sunday -- a combined 9,260 pounds -- and the high orbit the relay stations require, the Falcon 9 did not have enough fuel to attempt a first stage landing. The next landing attempt is planned for a Falcon 9 space station resupply mission scheduled for launch April 10. Sunday night's launch, the 16th of a Falcon 9, was a purely commercial endeavor. Another commercial flight is planned for March 21, when a Falcon 9 is expected to launch the TurkmenAlem52E/MonacoSat communications satellite, built by Thales Alenia Space for the government of Turkmenistan. The busy launch pace is challenging, but Betaharon said he was impressed with the SpaceX operation. "SpaceX has a bunch of really bright young people," he told Spaceflightnow.com. "They need a little more experience, but to be fair to them, I think they have really worked very hard to accommodate us. They need a little bit more experience in planning. ... They often have to make real-time decisions in their next steps and schedule, but I think that's going to slowly disappear once they have enough launches behind them. "They are, like I said, a bunch of bright young people, and we've been here to support them. They need a little bit of adult supervision," he joked, "otherwise they are OK. But I think they are really hard-working people and very accommodating." After the April flight, SpaceX plans three more space station resupply missions before the end of the year with launches tentatively targeted for June 22, Aug. 2 and Dec. 5. A half-dozen commercial flights are expected in 2015.

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Chemicals from face creams, toothpaste turning up in Antarctica Chemicals used in personal care products like skin creams and deodorants have for the first time been discovered in Antarctica. A team of scientists with the Spanish Council For Scientific Research found cyclic volatile methylsiloxanes -- chemicals often used to give cosmetics a creamy texture -- in soil and plant samples in remote sites in Antarctica. They also found evidence of the chemicals in krill and phytoplankton specimens. In their paper, published Friday in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, the team said the discovery "questions previous claims that these compounds are 'flyers' and do not significantly reach remote ecosystems." The team turned to Antarctica after finding the chemicals six years ago in the Pyrenees Mountains. Concerned they might have reached other remote locations, the team travelled to Antarctica and collected soil and plant samples from 10 different locations on the South Shetland Islands.They also tested krill and phytoplankton from 11 different locations around the islands. The team found that the chemicals were at similar levels to what has been recorded in soils and fish in North America and Europe. The findings build on earlier work in the same journal in 2013 that found these chemicals in the Arctic air and demonstrate the pervasiveness of these and many other chemicals in the environment.In the United States, there has been a growing concern over the presence of chemicals and pharmaceuticals in the water. Earlier this month, scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey found more than 30 different pharmaceuticals, including muscle relaxants, anti-depressants and pain relievers, along with traces of personal care products downstream from septic systems in New England and New York. But it is one thing for chemicals be flushed down the toilet and end up in the groundwater. It's another for them to be transported all the way to Antarctica. So how did they reach such an isolated and frigid place? The researchers believe they may have evaporated into the air, traveled to Antarctica and returned to the land in snowfall. The snow would have melted, allowing the chemicals to make their way into the soil and eventually be taken up by plants and animals living there. It remains an open question as to whether they pose a threat to the krill and other marine species.The researchers said these chemicals "have been related to different toxicological effects" and that the EPA had included one of them, octamethylcyclotetrasiloxane (D4), on a list of 23 chemicals that it reviewed for safety in 2013. The European Commission classifies D4 as an endocrine disruptor, based on evidence that it interferes with human hormone function, the researches wrote. "The results obtained here highlight the importance of monitoring these compounds and demonstrate that they can be deposited from the atmosphere, entering into the aquatic food chain and terrestrial ecosystems, underpinning the risk of these compounds for the polar environments," the researchers wrote.

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Mars Curiosity rover shut down after short circuit Engineers are running tests to pinpoint an apparent short circuit somewhere in the complex electronics aboard NASA's Curiosity Mars rover that triggered fault protection software and interrupted robot arm science operations last week, officials said Wednesday. Jim Erickson, the Curiosity project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., told CBS News engineers should get the results of an initial round of tests shortly, "and then we'll move on." "But it's going to be a series of things that we use to try and figure out exactly where the short is occurring, whether it's transient or permanent, all the things you need to know in order to decide what to do about it," he said in a telephone interview.The problem cropped up last Friday as a mechanism in Curiosity's robot arm was in the process of shaking powder from a drilling sample into a tray so it could be sifted and transferred to experiments in the body of the spacecraft for detailed analysis. A percussive mechanism was working at the time, impacting the drill to help shake loose rock powder, a technique successfully used with five previous drilling samples. While that was going on, telemetry indicates a short was detected, which in turn triggered on-board fault-protection software that halted arm operations. Erickson said engineers do not yet know whether the short was in the drill circuitry or somewhere else in the rover. "In looking at the initial diagnostics that we are doing and what the possible root causes are, nothing shows up as a show stopper," he said. "We could be surprised, and that's one of the reasons we're doing more analysis and looking at all the data we're getting down. We're going to start out very gentle, so to speak, and very low risk and gradually move to where the data shows us we should be moving."NASAThe $2.5 billion Curiosity successfully landed in Gale Crater in August 2012. Since then, it's been slowly making its way to the base of Mount Sharp, a towering mound of layered terrain in the center of the crater, stopping frequently to examine interesting soil and rocks. The rover has already accomplished the mission's primary goals, detecting organic compounds like those necessary for life as it is known on Earth and showing Mars once featured a habitable environment. A major long-range objective is to climb up the lower slopes of Mount Sharp to reach a transition zone that might hold clues about what caused the red planet to dry out. The short circuit detected last week was not Curiosity's first. "One of the things we've seen before, and we're not saying this is the problem (now), it's just on our list of possibles, we'd previously seen an RTG short," Erickson said, referring to the rover's radioisotope thermoelectric generator. "It could have been another one, perfectly timed to look like it was related to the drilling." The RTG generates the rover's electricity. The previous short cleared itself up when "eventually, there was enough current that it blew the little whisker that was growing in the RTG and that ended the short," Erickson said. "One of the options is that this thing might be something that happened just at the same time as we started transferring the drill powder ... for further processing, that's one of the possibilities," he said. "Another possibility is that it's something in the drill itself." Before launch, engineers had problems with the drill's percussive mechanism, designed to "basically pound on the drill to get more progress through the drilling cycle." But the drill is used so sparingly, a failure would "be sort of a surprise," Erickson said. "To put it frankly, it is a surprise no matter what," he added. "Something has happened, and we have to figure out exactly what." Curiosity will simply stay where it is while engineers carry out tests and study telemetry. "Then, after we've gotten as much information as we can in that position, then we're going to finish getting the powder out of the drill, do the sample drop off ... and then we'll be in position where we can move to the next location while we do testing and analysis to isolate the problem."

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​Curt Schilling takes action against daughter's online bullies Former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling is considering taking legal action against people who tweeted vulgar comments about his daughter.It started last week when Schilling, a proud father, sent a tweet congratulating his daughter on being accepted to Salve Regina University where she'll play softball."I was excited," said Schilling. Schilling and his wife Shonda say the tweet was inexplicably met with multiple responses. First mild, then vulgar and sexually explicit.Schilling says some of the tweets were more than just offensive -- they were against the law. He says he has been contacted by the FBI and two local police departments, and is discussing filing possible criminal charges."You attacked my child, the rules kind of go out the window when you attack family," said Schilling. "This wasn't harmless, this wasn't a joke, this wasn't some guys having some beers and making fun. These were people who were malicious, who don't like me, who tried to destroy my daughter." Schilling says two people have already been fired from jobs as a result of their tweets; one is a disc jockey at a local community college in New Jersey and the other was a part-time ticket seller for the New York Yankees.

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Ikea to put wireless phone charging in furniture Hate the clutter of cords messing up your perfect catalogue-looking living room? Ikea is coming to the rescue. The company will be putting charging stations into some of its furniture so you can charge your phone just by setting it down on the right spot on your end table. The charging will be powered by Qi, one of leading inductive charging technologies. But here's the rub: You have to have a compatible phone to make it work. The new Samsung Galaxy S6 has the capability built it. The iPhone doesn't. Special cases can be put on your phone to give it the wireless-charging ability, but as CNET's Dan Ackerman told CBS News, "I still think we're years off from it being really universal."

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Scientists hope "Frozen Zoo" will help save endangered species Scientists at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park are looking at new ways to breathe life into critically endangered animals. They're collecting samples from thousands of creatures, including rhinos, teetering on the brink of extinction, reports CBS News correspondent John Blackstone.Meet Chutti, a scampering baby rhino who was born on Thanksgiving. His name means "holiday" and he's one of 68 greater one-horned rhinos bred at Safari Park, increasing the numbers of this endangered species to around 3,000 worldwide. But rhino keeper Jane Kennedy keeps close watch over one in particular, a northern white rhinoceros named Nola. Nola is just one of five northern white rhinos left in the world. "She's almost 41, so essentially think of herlike a mid-80-year-old woman. She's at the end of her life," Kennedy said.Rhinos are being driven to extinction in large part because of poaching. In 2014 in South Africa alone, 1,215 were killed for their horns. The horns are prized in some cultures, mistakenly believed to be aphrodisiacs and miracle cures. "The horn is made out of keratin, the same thing as your fingernail," Kennedy said. "If rhino horn cured cancer, then all you'd have to do is chew on your fingernails and there would be no more cancer in the world."The northern white rhino's best chance for avoiding extinction might be inside a vat of liquid nitrogen at Safari Park's "frozen zoo." It's the world's largest genetic bank with samples from some 10,000 animals, including 12 northern whites. Barbara Durrant, director of reproductive physiology at the San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research, said it's "certainly our hope" that the northern white rhino can be in the wild again. "We think it's a possibility, yes," Durrant said.That hope hangs on a futuristic technology. It's a complex procedure where skin cells become stem cells, which then become egg and sperm necessary for in-vitro fertilization. The embryo would be carried by a surrogate mom from a related species.This has been done in a mouse, but it's never happened with the rhino, Durrant said, adding that it's a "moonshoot," but a "well-educated and calculated moonshot."That calculation comes from a successful track record using less complex methods to help other endangered species reproduce, from giant pandas to California condors.While some critics say the money should be spent on saving the animals from the wild, Durrant said people are already doing that."Our focus, our mission is to save these animals through science," Durrant said. "What zoos need to focus on is improving the conditionsfor the animals who are already in their care, not pouring millions and millions of dollars into a futile effort to clone animals, for whom there is no natural habitat left on earth," said Brittany Peet, deputy director of captive animal law enforcement at PETA. The Safari Park maintains their animals' well-being is paramount. Nola's health is carefully monitored. She needs regular pedicures and enjoys having her back scratched with a brush."The fact that we have all known and loved the northern white rhinos, it's a personal thing," Durrant said. Despite successful breeding program, there are still few rhinos calves, so Chutti's playmate is a cow named Moo Moo Kitty. It's a friendship that wouldn't happen in the wild, but can cure some of the loneliness for an animal on the edge of extinction. "If we don't do something as a human species, our grandchildren and great grandchildren will never see these animals," Kennedy.

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Android, Apple browsers threatened by "FREAK attack" Millions of people may have been left vulnerable to hackers while surfing the web on Apple and Google devices, thanks to a newly discovered security flaw known as "FREAK attack." There's no evidence so far that any hackers have exploited the weakness, which companies are now moving to repair. Researchers blame the problem on an old government policy, abandoned over a decade ago, which required U.S. software makers to use weaker security in encryption programs sold overseas due to national security concerns. Many popular websites and some Internet browsers continued to accept the weaker software, or can be tricked into using it, according to experts at several research institutions who reported their findings Tuesday. They said that could make it easier for hackers to break the encryption that's supposed to prevent digital eavesdropping when a visitor types sensitive information into a website. About a third of all encrypted websites were vulnerable as of Tuesday, including sites operated by American Express, Groupon, Kohl's, Marriott and some government agencies, the researchers said. University of Michigan computer scientist Zakir Durumeric said the vulnerability affects Apple web browsers and the browser built into Google's Android software, but not Google's Chrome browser or current browsers from Microsoft or Firefox-maker Mozilla. Apple Inc. and Google Inc. both said Tuesday they have created software updates to fix the "FREAK attack" flaw, which derives its name from an acronym of technical terms. Apple said its fix will be available next week and Google said it has provided an update to device makers and wireless carriers. A number of commercial website operators are also taking corrective action after being notified privately in recent weeks, said Matthew Green, a computer security researcher at Johns Hopkins University. But some experts said the problem shows the danger of government policies that require any weakening of encryption code, even to help fight crime or threats to national security. They warned those policies could inadvertently provide access to hackers. "This was a policy decision made 20 years ago and it's now coming back to bite us," said Edward Felten, a professor of computer science and public affairs at Princeton, referring to the old restrictions on exporting encryption code.

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Comet Lovejoy's tail offers scientists a few surprises Scientists have snapped rare images of the comet Lovejoy's rapidly changing tail. Using the Subaru Telescope in Japan, researchers from the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, Stony Brook University and Tsuru University in Japan found that extreme, short-term changes took place in the tail of the comet - visible shifts that occurred in just 20 minutes. Stony Brook's Jin Koda, the principal investigator the night the images were shot, wasn't even focused on Lovejoy initially. But since he knew the comet was in the in the sky that night, his team started snapping images with the telescope's wide-field prime-focus Suprime-Cam for "educational and outreach purposes." "The single image from the previous night revealed such delicate details along the tail it inspired us further to take a series of images on the following night," Koda said. "As we analyzed the images, we realized that the tail was displaying rapid motion in a matter of only a few minutes! It was just incredible!" The plasma tail of a comet forms when gas molecules and atoms coming out from the comet encounter the solar wind, which consists of charged particles constantly sweeping out from the sun. These interactions with solar wind can affect the behavior and appearance of a comet's tail, though the reason for such changes is poorly understood. Lovejoy has for the past few weeks been putting on a show in the sky. Its green colors were so bright in late January that sky watchers could see it with their naked eye.

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Animal experimentation up 73 percent, study says The use of animals in experiments at leading federally-funded labs has increased nearly 73 percent in the past 15 years, according to a new study conducted by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). The study, in the Journal of Medical Ethics, found the number of animals tested rose from 1,566,994 in 1997 to 2,705,772 in 2012 in testing by the top 25 institutional recipients of National Institute of Health grants.Mice represented the largest increase in research with their numbers going from 1.2 million to nearly 1.9 million in that period. Other animals also saw increases. Nonhuman primates, for example, increased from 7,292 to 11,167, though the change was not statistically significant. Cats and dogs saw their numbers decline slightly. PETA has long campaigned for a reduction in animals used experiments and there has been a shift way from using them for such things as chemical toxicity testing and medical education. Europe, for example, has banned the sale of cosmetics with ingredients tested on animals. The study estimated that 17 million to 100 million animals are still used in laboratories. "Despite new research technology, evidence that animal experiments often don't faithfully translate to humans, and the fact that a growing majority of the public opposes experiments on animals, laboratories are abusing more animals than ever before," said PETA Director of Laboratory Investigations Justin Goodman, who was a co-author on the study. He and the other authors said the sharp increase in mice used in experiments that their study revealed could be driven by federal restrictions on the use of chimpanzees, dogs and cats due to growing public pressure, and the fact that mice and other smaller animals are not included in the Animal Welfare Act. The use of mice "reflects scientists' and laypersons' greater moral concern for animals in laboratories who are typical viewed as companion animals or as being human-like or having higher mental abilities," the authors wrote. "This bias persists despite extensive evidence that - like dogs, cats and primates - animals such as mice, rats and fish experience pain, stress and distress." A spokesman for the National Institute of Health dismissed the study, saying the methods could not be used to quantify the numbers of animals being used in research. "It is data from reports gathered every four years regardingan average daily inventory to get a snapshot of the numbers of animals in a facility at a given time," Megan Columbus, the communications director for the NIH Office of Extramural Research, told CBS News. "It is inappropriate to use the data in the way the authors suggest." Columbus also said the increased numbers of animals could simply be due to the fact that "research grant awards has increased over the time period reported in the paper." "Thus, while the numbers of some species reported in the Animal Welfare Assurances have risen, this may reflect the overall increase in research and not that a larger proportion of the funded research involves animals," she said.The study accused the federally-funded labs of breeding mice to carry genes that "predispose them to crippling diseases and other maladies.""Because 95 percent of mice bred for these cruel experiments don't carry the desired gene, they're typically killed right after birth," PETA said in a statement accompanying the study. "The spread of this inefficient and inhumane practice has caused animal use to skyrocket." PETA also alleged that individuals on testing oversight committees are often involved in animal research themselves, which creates a potential conflict of interest. In an article accompanying the study, Lisa Hara Levin of the animal welfare group Animal Care and Control of New York and William Reppy of Duke University said the study illustrated the need to reform policies related to animal research. They called for avoiding the use of animals in experiments when a non-animal alternative is available, increased transparency regarding animal experiments and a greater willingness to negotiate with responsible representatives of the animal rights and welfare community about problems they have concerning animals in institutions. "Inviting collaboration with people having broad intellectual backgrounds could result in sensible dialogue regarding the use of animals in research," they wrote. "Ideally, this would replace poorly informed debate, minimize invective and balance the world's drive for scientific advance with the need to ensure animal protections."

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Google's wireless play is all about the data Google (GOOG) has confirmed that it will offer a wireless service of its own. Sundar Pichai, senior vice president of products for Google, told the Mobile World Congress on Tuesday the company is in talks with carriers and will make a detailed announcement "in the coming months," although it's unclear whenit would begin offering a service. Pichai downplayed the potential market impact: "We don't intend to be an operator at scale. Our goal is to drive a set of innovations we think should arrive, but do it a smaller scale, like Nexus devices, so people will see what we're doing." That's all well and good, but it takes an aggressive naiveté to assume that Google is only trying to showcase capabilities. Far more is going on in the expansion into communications infrastructure. Google raised some eyebrows when rumors first broke in January that it planned to offer wireless service. Given the advancements that such carriers as AT&T (T), Verizon (VZ) and Sprint (S) have made, in addition to some aggressive investments in expanding infrastructure, the situation in wireless isn't the same as in handsets.Google may have created the Nexus Android phone as a way to push hardware partners into offering more advanced designs to compete with Apple's (AAPL) iPhone. But even that explanation seems questionable, given that the company bought and then sold Motorola Mobility. Google was clearly interested in establishing a serious beachhead in hardware but, for a variety of reasons, failed. Wireless isn't Google's first expressed interest in an infrastructure business. It has a growing gigabit fiber-optic Internet connectivity business and recently announced expansion to four additional metropolitan areas. The company is also looking at five other new areas. That speaks to a serious intent to get into the telecom carrier business. What wired and wireless access have in common that would be of great interest to Google is data. Information on the detailed online activities of consumers is highly valuable to Google, which makes its major income from advertising. The more details it has, the better it can target ads and the more it can charge for them, potentially reversing the downward pressure on ad prices it has experienced. Working with existing wireless carriers and becoming what's called a mobile virtual network operator would be unlikely to add major revenue directly to the company's coffers. MVNOs have not historically been raging financial successes.But Google could experiment and learn to operate its own network, so long as it didn't lose a lot. In that case, the data it would accumulate would be more than enough of a reason to get deeply into the business.

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Central American governments disappointed by U.S. immigration delay Several Central American governments and Mexico said on Tuesday they were disappointed after a U.S. judge in Texas blocked President Barack Obama's steps to ease the threat of deportation for 4.7 million undocumented immigrants, many of them from the region.Last year, tens of thousands of child migrants fled Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, which are among the poorest and most violent in the world, overwhelming the southern U.S. border and creating a political storm in Washington.In November, Obama imposed the most sweeping immigration reform in a generation, bypassing the U.S. Congress by issuing executive orders that were to begin taking effect on Wednesday.Late on Monday, however, the plan was stalled when U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen in Brownsville, a city along the Texas border with Mexico, issued a temporary suspension, backing 26 states that argued Obama had overstepped his legal authority. "Although we respect this decision as part of the United States' internal legislation, it's evidence of the fact that there are certain political sectors trying to torpedo a decision that would ... help to alleviate the social and economic pressures that buffet our countries," Honduran presidential advisor Marvin Ponce said.Guatemala's foreign ministry said it was saddened by the judge's injunction and urged Guatemalans not to fall for cons perpetrated by those seeking to take advantage of the confusion surrounding U.S. immigration reform.Some argue that last year's spike in child migrants was partly caused by Central American human traffickers taking advantage of misinformation surrounding immigration law. "We recommend that the Guatemalan community keeps itself informed, prepared and doesn't allow itself to be surprised by unscrupulous people and organizations who might try to abuse of their good faith," the foreign ministry said in a statement. El Salvador's foreign ministry urged the United States in a statement to find a quick way to stabilize immigration law for law abiding immigrants in the country.

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China announces first-ever ban on ivory imports China has imposed a one-year ban on ivory imports amid criticism that its citizens' huge appetite for ivory has fueled poaching that threatens the existence of African elephants. The State Administration of Forestry declared the immediate ban in a public notice posted on its official site this week, in which it said the administration would not handle any import request. In an explanatory news report, an unnamed forestry official told the state-run Legal Evening News that authorities hope the ban would be a concrete step to reduce the demand for African tusks and to protect wild elephants. The official said the temporary ban would allow authorities to evaluate its effect on elephant protection before they can take further, more effective steps. China is the world's largest importer of smuggled tusks, although Beijing has campaigned against illegal ivory. Six tons of illegal ivory was pulverized last year in the southern city of Dongguan, and Chinese courts have stepped up prosecution of illegal ivory trade.The government also has warned its citizens not to bring back any ivory, but critics say the public awareness campaign is inadequate, as many Chinese do not know that tusks can only obtained by killing the elephant. Technically, there has been a ban on the sale of ivory since 1989. But due to the demand in China and widespread corruption in Africa, poaching has worsened significantly over the past five years - with some 100,000 elephants killed for their tusks between 2010 and 2012. Rising poaching rates have prompted a debate on how to respond, with some calling for greater resources to help impoverished African countries fight poaching gangs. Others have said the answer is getting China and other Asian nations like Vietnam and Thailand to stiffen laws against poaching and limit the sale of ivory, which is found in everything from chopsticks to bracelets to religious figurines. China's move got a mixed reception from environmentalists, who said it showed the country was finally showing leadership on the issue but needed to go much further than a temporary ban. "A lengthy moratorium on all domestic ivory sales, as well as imports, is the greatest hope for Africa's elephants and for quashing the transnational crime of elephant poaching and ivory trafficking that undermines local, regional, and global security," WCS President and CEO Cristian Samper, who serves on President Obama's Advisory Council on Wildlife Trafficking, said. "China's continued leadership will be essential if we are to make progress reducing these losses and preventing the extinction of one of the world's most intelligent, social, and iconic species."

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Super slo-mo reveals how the praying mantis avoids a crash landing The wingless praying mantis might be called the long jumper of the insect world. These lanky critters have an uncanny ability to jump at lighting speed -- less than a tenth of a second or a blink of an eye -- and land on the same spot every time. But how do they do it? While they don't have the advantage of a running start or the momentum of swinging arms, scientists writing in Current Biology found the insects have a few tricks up their sleeves to pull off the feat."Maintaining stability so that the body does not rotate uncontrollably in mid-air is a difficult task," said Malcolm Burrows of the University of Cambridge, who along with Gregory Sutton of the University of Bristol studied 381 high-speed videos of 58 young mantises jumping from a flat surface onto a perpendicular black rod. "When the movement is rapid, as it is in a jump, and you don't have wings, then the task is even more difficult," he said. "Nevertheless, a praying mantis moves rapidly and controls the rotation of its body so that it lines up precisely with a target, and does all of this in less than 100 milliseconds."First, the insects sway their heads sideways, scanning for their targets. Then, they rock their bodies backward and curl their abdomens up -- shifting their body weight around. "It's trying to rotate its body so that it is at an angle appropriate for landing on this vertical target," Burrows said of black stick that was substituted in the lab for a tree branch or blade of grass. With a push from their legs, the mantises' bodies launch into the air. As they fly, the insects rotate three distinct body parts -- the abdomen, front legs, and hind legs -- independently and in a complex sequence. By adjusting their rotation rates, they are able to land on their intended target. The natural world is filled with animals and insects that use various techniques to control their jumping. Geckos use their tails to control up or down movements, cats rotate their bodies when falling, while ants take advantage of wind resistance against their legs and thorax.But Burrows said the mantises -- known for pouncing on prey and for females of the species eating males after mating -- could have among the most complicated jumps of all. "They are moving three different parts and sequencing four different combinations of movements," he said. "It's pretty remarkable isn't it?" Burrows and Sutton said their work could go far beyond understanding the biomechanics of these insects. They are hopeful their findings might one day help scientists build better jumping robots. "One of the problems with jumping robots is that as soon as they get airborne, they can't control their spin," Burrows said. "They can't land on anything because they are going head over heels," he said. "If you could build those control systems (from a mantis) into a robot, you might get a stable robot like you have a stable mantis."

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​What did Stegosaurus weigh? Now we know Researchers at London's Natural History Museum used 3D modeling to figure out the mass of its prize Stegosaurus skeleton, the world's most complete specimen.The 150-million-year-old skeleton was unearthed in Wyoming in 2003 and brought to London in December 2013. Scientists there assembled the 360 bones that make up the 18-foot-long, 9.5-foot-tall stegosaur, then imaged them with laser and CT scans and 360-degree photographs to create an accurate 3D model. From that, they extrapolated the overall size and shape of the young adult dinosaur to calculate its volume, which they compared to modern animals of known size to estimate its weight. They then used another approach to come up with a second estimate, measuring the circumference of the skeleton's leg bones and lining that up against the corresponding masses of animals with similarly sized leg bones.Both methods yielded the same result: 1,600 kilograms (3,530 pounds). That's about the size of a small rhino. Or 176 dachshunds. Or four people riding in a Honda Civic. "These findings identify just how important exceptionally complete specimens like this are for scientific research and collections," said professor Paul Barrett, lead dinosaur researcher at the Natural History Museum. "Now we know the weight, we can start to find out more about its metabolism, feeding requirements and the growth rates of Stegosaurus. We can also use the same techniques on other complete fossils to find out much more about the wider ecology of dinosaurs." The modeling also revealed to the researchers that this particular stegosaur "probably would have had quite a large rear end."

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Web activists unleash Grumpy Cat on Comcast The message to Comcast (CMCSA) couldn't be any clearer: Grumpy Cat has never been happier.Advocates for "net neutrality" took to the skies Friday to "meow" trash following the federal government's move yesterday to block broadband providers from manipulating the speed of online content that travels over their networks.To celebrate the legal victory, the activists had a plane tow a 2,000 square-foot banner past Comcast's Philadelphia headquarters that featured a picture of Grumpy Cat, the feline Internet celebrity, and that read "Comcast: Don't Mess With the Internet." The banner also displayed the hashtags #SorryNotSorry and #NetNeutrality.The Federal Communications Commission voted Thursday to regulate the Internet under Title II of the 1934 Communications Act, which will let the agency pass rules that restrict Internet service providers like Comcast, AT&T (T) and Verizon (VZ) from creating paid "fast lanes" for web traffic or otherwise slowing content."This is a victory of the Internet, by the Internet and for the Internet," said David Segal, executive director of Demand Progress, one of the groups behind the stunt. "Comcast and cable allies spent big for the right to degrade the very service they provide to their customers, and they tried to ignore the millions of public comments in support of Net Neutrality. But they can't ignore the FCC's vote yesterday -- or a plane flying over their corporate headquarters today." Comcast and other ISPs have blasted the FCC's decision, accusing the government of applying outdated regulations designed for telephone companies to the Internet arena.Grumpy Cat -- real name Tarder Sauce -- emerged as an Internet sensation in 2013 when her photo became popular on social media.

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Close calls between drones, planes alarm FAA On the heels of releasing new proposed rules on drones, CBS News has learned that the Federal Aviation Administration is concerned about a dramatic increase in the number of unmanned aircraft flying near planes. They said the number of drone and model aircraft incidents reported by pilots of planes have gone up significantly. Just in the first few weeks of the new year, the average is two a day -- well ahead from that of 2014, CBS News' Jeff Pegues reports. The FAA said every day there have been roughly 60 reported sightings of drones from general aviation or helicopter pilots each month so far this year.Major commercial airline crews have also spotted them. In some cases, pilots have had to alter course to avoid a collision. "We believe that there's a significant number of people that are out there that simply don't know what the rules are," FAA Administrator Michael Huerta said. "At the same time, we have enforcement tools that are available to us, and we do take reports of reckless activity very, very seriously."Less than two weeks ago, the FAA released proposed rules for the commercial use of small drones weighing under 55 pounds. Following new regulations, drones could be flown up to 100 mph during daylight hours.They must remain within visual line of sight, and operators would have to be at least 17 years old with an unmanned aircraft operator certificate. Under the current rules, hobbyists can fly drones up to 400 feet, but according to the FAA, there have been some recent reports of drones reaching 9,000 feet in the air, flying in the same airspace as commercial jets. New York Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer believes the penalties currently in place don't deter operators from flying drones recklessly in the national airspace. "I think there has to be tough enforcement actions, absolutely because safety has to come first," Schumer said. "God forbid there's a day where a drone collides with a major airliner and there are fatalities." The new proposed rules will not become final perhaps for at least another year.

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Living dinosaur moth discovered in Australia A moth with iridescent gold and purple wings that dates back to at least 40 million years ago has been discovered in Australia. About the size of a small coin, scientists are calling Enigmatinea glatzella a living dinosaur. Using DNA analysis, an international team described their find in the journal Systematic Entomology. It is the first time since the 1970s that a new family of primitive moths has been identified anywhere in the world. The enigma moth lives on Kangaroo Island of South Australia's coast in Southern Cypress pine trees, a very ancient element of our flora going back to the supercontinent Gondwana. The lives of these adult moths are short. They emerge from their cocoons, mate, females lay their eggs, and then die - all in one day. Ted Edwards of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization in Australia, who was jointly responsible for describing the new family, said it showed the evolution of moths and butterflies is even more complex than previously thought. Edwards, an honorary fellow with CSIRO's Australian National Insect Collection told The Age newspaper that the moth has many of the structural features found in primitive moth species that lived 40 to 50 million years ago. "It's really quite remarkable because it means that that ancestral line has continued right through without changing a lot of its basic structures," he said. Australia is thought to be home to about 22,000 species of moths and butterflies, of which about half have been named. And the country is something of a haven for species that thrived tens of million years ago."Our fauna is so exciting we can still find new primitive species," Edwards added. "Australia is so rich in moths that vast numbers still remain to be discovered."

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Stephen Hawking thinks these 3 things could destroy humanity Stephen Hawking may be most famous for his work on black holes andgravitational singularities, but the world-renowned physicist has alsobecome known for his outspoken ideas about things that could destroyhuman civilization.Hawking suffers from a motor neuron diseasesimilar to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, which left himparalyzed and unable to speak without a voice synthesizer. But thathasn't stopped the University of Cambridge professor from makingproclamations about the wide range of dangers humanity faces -- includingourselves.Here are a few things Hawking has said could bring about the demise of human civilization. [End of the World? Top Doomsday Fears]Artificial intelligenceHawking is part of a small but growing group of scientists who have expressed concerns about "strong" artificial intelligence (AI) -- intelligence that could equal or exceed that of a human."The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end ofthe human race," Hawking told the BBC in December 2014. The statementwas in response to a question about a new AI voice-synthesizing systemthat Hawking has been using.Hawking's warnings echo those of billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk,CEO of SpaceX and Tesla Motors, who has called AI humanity's "biggest existential threat."Last month, Hawking, Musk and dozens of other scientific bigwigs signedan open letterdescribing the risks, as well as the benefits, of AI."Because of the great potential of AI, it is important to research howto reap its benefits while avoiding potential pitfalls," the scientists wrote in the letter,which was published online Jan. 11 by the Future of Life Institute, avolunteer organization that aims to mitigate existential threats tohumanity.But many AI researchers say humanity is nowhere near being able to develop strong AI."We are decades away from any technology we need to worry about," DemisHassabis, an artificial intelligence researcher at Google DeepMind,told reporters this week at a news conference about a new AI program hedeveloped that can teach itself to play computer games. Still, "It'sgood to start the conversation now," he added.Human aggressionIf our machines don't kill us, we might kill ourselves. Hawking now believes that human aggression might destroy civilization.The physicist was giving a tour of the London Science Museum to AdaezeUyanwah, a 24-year-old teacher from California who won a contest fromVisitLondon.com. When Uyanwah asked, "What human shortcomings would youmost like to alter?" Hawking responded:"The human failing I would most like to correct is aggression. It mayhave had survival advantage in caveman days, to get more food, territoryor partner with whom to reproduce, but now it threatens to destroy usall," The Independent reported.For example, a major nuclear war would likely end civilization, andcould wipe out the human race, Hawking added. When asked which humanquality he would most like to magnify, Hawking chose empathy, because"it brings us together in a peaceful, loving state."Hawking thinks space exploration will be important to ensuring thesurvival of humanity. "I believe that the long-term future of the humanrace must be space, and that it represents an important life insurancefor our future survival, as it could prevent the disappearance ofhumanity by colonizing other planets," Cambridge News reported.Alien lifeBut Hawking had made ominous warnings even before these recent ones.Back in 2010, Hawking said that, if intelligent alien life exists, it may not be that friendly toward humans."If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as whenChristopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn't turn out verywell for the Native Americans," Hawking said during an episode of "Intothe Universe with Stephen Hawking," a show hosted by the DiscoveryChannel, reported The Times, a U.K.-based newspaper.Advanced alien civilizations might become nomads, looking to conquerand colonize whatever planets they could reach, Hawking said. "If so, itmakes sense for them to exploit each new planet for material to buildmore spaceships so they could move on. Who knows what the limits wouldbe?"From the threat of nefarious AI, to advanced aliens, to hostile humans, Hawking's outlook for humanity is looking pretty grim.

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Science explains why people can't agree on the color of this dress Ah, the power of the viral Internet. Yesterday it was llamas on the l(l)oose and today it's #TheDress. David Maynard, Ph.D., a color vision expert and psychology professor at the University of Pennsylvania, is happy to hear it. "Color science has captured the imagination of the universe," he told CBS News.He and several colleagues were trading calls and emails Friday morning while the entire world seemed divided between two camps: those who saw a picture of a dress originally posted on Tumblr and said it was blue and black, and those who saw the same picture and were positive it was white and gold. "I don't really know what's going on," Maynard began, "I'd guess it's a confluence of different factors." First, there's the easy explanation, the one Maynard called the "uninteresting fact" that colors can be rendered quite differently on different screens. That means that looking at the picture on your phone or on your computer or on your extra monitor can completely change the way it looks. The resolution and the color calibration can create huge visual differences.The light in the room at the time also affects the way your eyes perceive the image. Add in that there are several versions of the same picture floating around online, and it could easily be a question of which picture you're looking at and what device you're viewing it on. Then there's the "interesting" fact that people looking at the same picture on the same screen in the same lighting conditions are still in disagreement, and suddenly the easy answer goes out the window. To unravel this part you need to look at a few things: the original photograph, the nature of light and our wacky, wonderful brains. Different light sources throw off light of different colors. Sunlight is very yellow. Shade casts a bluish hue. This changes the color of light reflecting off an object and into your eye. But the reason we don't see the color of a flower differently in sunlight versus shade versus under an incandescent or fluorescent lamp is that our brain takes account of the illumination changes and adjusts our perception accordingly. But in the case of the mysterious dress, this doesn't seem to be working quite right. "Those pictures completely defeat the brain's natural mechanism for discounting illumination," Maynard explained."If you look at the photo, the lower right is very yellow and the upper right is very blue. Both of those areas are providing information. The brain is trying to do this process in an image that doesn't work quite the same as it does in natural viewing." Sarah Allred, Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychology at Rutgers University, also saw problems presented by the picture itself. (She was also excited about all the hubbub: "I find it interesting that my usually-considered-boring research area is getting some attention," she told CBS News.) "It is very easy (especially in photographs) to change the perceived color of an object by changing the illumination. This is because the color of the light entering your eye from an object mixes up the color of the illumination and the color of the object," she wrote in a blog post Friday. "Is the blue light reaching your eye a white dress under a blue light or a blue dress under a white light? Your brain has lots of tricks for 'unmixing,' so such illusions rarely occur in real life. But much real-world information is lost in photographs, and this can sometimes cause illusions..." The way your brain uses light conditions to interpret what you're seeing is evidenced in the checker shadow optical illusion created by MIT professor Edward H. Adelson. The squares marked A and B appear to be different colors -- A looks gray while B looks white. Right?Well, they're actually both the exact same shade of gray. Your eyes "know" this, but your brain tells you a different story. It figures that B is in the shadow and therefore, in order to explain how both squares could be sending the same amount of light to your eye, it determines that it must be white. Just like the dress, it can feel impossible to believe. But it's true:What strikes Maynard as particularly odd about all of this is that while after seeing most optical illusions, people are typically able to force themselves to switch back and forth between one interpretation and another. Consider the famous face/vase image. Once you've seen both the face and the vase, you can make yourself see either one. But that doesn't seem to be happening with this dress, hence the vehement debate. "That's the part where I'd say I don't myself have a full understanding," said Maynard. "I don't find this one easy. I can't stare at this image and make myself see it as white and gold or blue and black. At the moment it's looking pretty blue and black to me."

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​Over 30? Tinder Plus will cost you more Wanna date? If you're too old, it's gonna cost you. By the way, "too old" means over 30. The popular dating app Tinder launched a premium addition to its service Monday called Tinder Plus, which offers users two oft-requested features. One is the ability to change your location, so you can look for potential dates anywhere in the world -- and perhaps arrange a hook-up before you travel elsewhere. It also lets users take back a regrettable dismissal. The central function of the app is to give users a stream of potential mates. Upon landing on one, a person either swipes right on his or her photo to show interest, or swipes left to move on to the next option. The new "Rewind" feature lets you undo a left-swipe.And how much do these benefits cost? Just under $10 a month. Unless you're over 30, in which case the price could double to $19.99.Is it ageism, or pure capitalist opportunism? Tinder contends the latter. A spokesperson told CBS News that in several months of testing Tinder Plus, the company determined "that these price points were adopted very well by certain age demographics."She pointed to Spotify as another company that has a tiered pricing structure based on age, charging less for students."Tinder is no different; during our testing we've learned, not surprisingly, that younger users are just as excited about Tinder Plus, but are more budget constrained, and need a lower price to pull the trigger." TechCrunch reports that it has seen a $14.99 per month rate for one female user in the 30-and-over age bracket, while reports from the U.K. show $23 a month charges for users 28 and up.Users in developing countries can upgrade for as little at $2.99 per month, Tinder said. The company has not confirmed the specific age-related pricing tiers.Moral of the story: Thirtysomethings are not being discriminated against for being so very, very old. They're being gently taken advantage of for having more disposable income (and possibly being just a little more desperate). Consider it a lesson in free market dating.

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Facebook rolling out suicide prevention tool To date, social media has played a disturbing role as a place where people -- often very young people -- have announced their intention to and been driven to kill themselves. Now, Facebook is trying to change that. Facebook worked with mental health organizations including the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline to "provide more resources, advice and support to people who may be struggling with suicidal thoughts and their concerned friends and family members." The company announced a new tool that allows users to report to Facebook if a friend has posted a threat to commit suicide. These reports will be reviewed by teams who can "send help." The poster in question may receive a private message from Facebook saying, "...a friend thinks you might be going through something difficult and asked us to look at your recent post." It will then direct the person to options to talk to a friend or helpline worker, or to get tips and support. In 2010 Rutgers student Tyler Clementi killed himself after bullying and harassment -- much of it online -- from his college roommate. Before hurtling himself into the Hudson River, Clementi left a message on Facebook: "jumping off the gw bridge sorry." That was only months after Long Island teen Alexis Pilkington took her own life following vicious taunts on social networking sites,which persisted postmortem on Internet tribute pages, worsening the grief of her family and friends. Facebook's new features will roll out over the next couple months and will also offer support to concerned friends and family.

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Obama Administration: Netanyahu win won't affect Iran talks The White House said Netanhahu's victory will have no effect on nuclear talks with Iran. In fact, Secretary of State Kerry called to congratulate Netanyahu from the ongoing negotiations in Switzerland. In the video above, CBS News correspondent Major Garrett explains that the administration did say it will reevaluate how to pursue a two-state solution in light of Netanyahu's reversal from his 2009 endorsement of a separate Palestinian state.

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New York school districts to stop asking about immigration status School districts in 14 New York counties have agreed to stop inquiring about the immigration status of prospective students and their guardians, the state attorney general said on Thursday.Twenty school districts had illegally asked for items including copies of Social Security cards and the disclosure of visa status in their enrollment material, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said in a statement. "Schoolhouse doors must be open to all students in our diverse state, regardless of their immigration status," Schneiderman said. "More than 30 years after the Supreme Court guaranteed a free public education for undocumented children, we must do everything we can to uphold the law and ensure equal access for all our students." Requiring the disclosure of citizenship and immigration status by students or their guardians can discourage undocumented students from enrolling, impeding their access and right to public education, Schneiderman's office said.In 1982, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution undocumented immigrant students were guaranteed under the right to a free elementary and secondary public education. The attorney general's office investigation into the affected school districts followed an October article in The New York Times that said several districts had unlawfully inquired about immigration status, the Times said. An initial New York State Education Department review of school district enrollment policies focused on four districts in the New York City metropolitan area that had recently seen an influx of unaccompanied minors from Central and South America. The attorney general's office expanded its investigation after receiving complaints about districts from around the state that were unlawfully making immigration inquiries. In addition to removing immigration-related questions from enrollment materials, the affected school districts must provide training to personnel about proper enrollment procedures.

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​Arctic sea ice "thinning dramatically," study finds Arctic sea ice -- the ice that freezes and floats on Arctic waters -- is thinning at a steadier and faster rate than researchers previously thought, a new study finds. Using modern and historic measurements, the researchers got an extensive view of how the thickness of Arctic sea ice has changed over the past few decades. According to measurements from multiple sources, the ice in the central Arctic Ocean thinned 65 percent between 1975 and 2012, from 11.7 feet (3.59 meters) to 4.1 feet (1.25 m). The thinning is even steeper for September sea-ice levels, when sea ice is at its lowest after the summer melt. During the same 37-year stretch, September ice thickness thinned 85 percent, or from 9.8 feet (3.01 m) to 1.4 feet (0.44 m). [On Ice: Stunning Images of Canadian Arctic] "The ice is thinning dramatically," said lead researcher Ron Lindsay, a climatologist at the University of Washington (UW) Applied Physics Laboratory. "We knew the ice was thinning, but we now have additional confirmation on how fast, and we can see that it's not slowing down." The study may help researchers gauge when the Arctic Ocean will be ice-free during parts of the year, he added. The researchers acquired the data from a number of different sources, making them the first to combine all available observations on Arctic sea-ice thickness into one study. For instance, from 1975 to 1990, most ice-thickness readings were from under-ice submarines. These vessels once used sonar to measure ice drift so they could figure out where they could safely surface. The submarine data suggest that from 1975 to 2000, the Arctic sea ice thinned 36 percent, a little less than half of what the new study found, the researchers said. "This confirms and extends that study," Lindsay said. The larger data set used in the new study shows that the leveling off of sea ice thinning in the 1990s was only temporary, he said. Since 2000, readings are largely based on airborne and satellite measurements -- such as NASA's IceSat satellite and IceBridge aircraft -- and other methods that involve people directly measuring the ice thickness. Data dump All of the data in the study are now in the Unified Sea Ice Thickness Climate Data Record, which gets as many as 50,000 new measurements a month. The record is curated by researchers at the University of Washington, and stored at the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center.Lindsay also works with a UW group who puts together a popular calculation of monthly sea-ice volumes that blends weather data, sea-surface temperatures and satellite measurements of sea-ice concentration for ice thickness maps, the researchers said. Critics have said those calculations of ice loss seemed too rapid, and questioned their value, the researchers said. But the new study shows the ice may be thinning at an even faster rate than the calculations showed, the researchers said. "At least for the central Arctic basin, even our most drastic thinning estimate was slower than measured by these observations," said co-researcher Axel Schweiger, a polar scientist at the UW Applied Physics Laboratory. The new study also shows that hands-on ice-measuring methods used by people on the ground are just as accurate as other methods, Schweiger said. "Using all these different observations that have been collected over time, it pretty much verifies the trend that we have from the model for the past 13 years, though our estimate of thinning compared to previous decades may have been a little slow," Schweiger said. The data in the new study goes up to 2012, when summer sea-ice levels dropped to a record low. Since then, ice levels have slightly increased, the researchers said. "What we see now is a little above the trend, but it's not inconsistent with it in any way," Lindsay said. "It's well within the natural variability around the long-term trend." The findings were published in the March issue of the journal The Cryosphere.

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Smart sneakers track kids' every step To add to the tracking apps and smart bands already on the market to help parents keep an eye on their kids even when they're out of sight, now there are smart sneakers.CNET's Rich Trenholm checked out the MediaTek 361 smart shoes at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week. With tech from Taiwanese chipmaker MediaTek and shoes from a Chinese manufacturer called 361, the colorful kicks have a microprocessor and GPS chip embedded in the heel, which beam geolocation data to an app on your smartphone.The chip doesn't use a lot of juice, so the battery will last a day or two. But when the shoes need to be recharged, it can be done wirelessly, with an induction charging pad that acts as a home base for the pair. As with other tracking technologies, the shoes come with their own set of questions and quandaries about privacy and hacking. As Trenholm wrote, "Parents face a uniquely modern dilemma: would you rather face the risks of not knowing where your kids are, or the risk that others may be able to access that data too?" This is one of the many enduring questions that comes up as we give kids cellphones and start watching their every move with our own.But the shoes do answer one question that other tracking devices don't, which is how to make sure children keep the GPS chip on them at all times. It can be easy to lose a phone or a wristband, but even the most forgetful child is probably not going to go running off without his sneakers. The shoes will go on sale in China next month for 500 yuan ($80).

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Samsung Galaxy S6 coming soon: What to expect Android fans have been patiently waiting for the next iteration in the Galaxy smartphone line to arrive. And it's almost here. Samsung is set to announce the phone Sunday at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. There have been plenty of rumors circulating about the details since the fall, along with leaked photos and lots of speculation. Now, just days before the record is to be set straight, Lewis Hilsenteger of Unbox Therapy claims he has the real scoop: two exclusive high-resolution photos and a full list of specs. If the pictures are to be believed, Samsung will be showing off a sleek Galaxy S6 and a Galaxy S6 Edge, which will have a screen that curves over the side, like the Galaxy Note Edge, which was released in November. In his YouTube video, Hilsenteger highlighted the S6's new camera with a large aperture for better pictures in low-light settings and a slimmer, narrower body than the S5.He described the phone as a "more premium feeling device" owing to its having Gorilla Glass 4 front and back and an aluminum frame. The fancy form factor should put it more in line with the status-symbol iPhone 6. It will also have a redesigned fingerprint sensor that will work more like Apple's Touch ID. But the other ways in which it is like an iPhone may be disappointing. The change to the body means no removable back -- which means no removable battery -- and no MicroSD slot for extra memory. The phone will, however, come ready for wireless charging. For the full summary of the rumor mill, head over to CNET.com. Watch Unbox Therapy's revealing video below. Then check in Sunday to see if Hilsenteger got it right.

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Salus Capital complaint urges cap on credit bid for RadioShack Salus Capital LLC filed an adversary complaint on Wednesday in RadioShack Corp's Chapter 11 bankruptcy that seeks to hold credit bidding in the electronic retailer's upcoming auction to $111 million.RadioShack won bankruptcy court approval last month to auction about 2,000 of its stores with an initial $200 million bid from Standard General hedge fund, which will keep about half of the stores open and operate them under an agreement with Sprint Corp (S.N).Credit bidding allows a creditor to use the debt it is owed as currency during a bankruptcy auction sale. It is unclear how much of its credit Standard General plans to use in its bid at the March 23 auction.               RadioShack owes Salus, a middle-market lender and subsidiary of Harbinger Group Inc, and Cerberus Capital Management $250 million for a loan.Salus and RadioShack declined to comment on the filing. Standard General was not immediately available for comment.The case is In re: RadioShack Corp, et al., Case No. 15-10197 in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware

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EU joins U.S. to try to stop China's new technology rules The European Union on Thursday sharply criticized China's new cyber security rules, joining a global effort to challenge measures that U.S. and EU companies say could force them out of the Chinese market.Calling them a "tremendous barrier" for foreign companies competing in the information technology sector, the European Commission said the rules proposed late last year went far beyond other security standards around the world."China continues to consider that only Chinese-developed information security technology is regarded as 'safe', and applies a concept of 'national security' far beyond normal international practice," the Commission, the EU executive, said in its annual report on trade barriers.China's banking regulator has adopted new standards requiring tech products to be "secure and controllable" for use in the financial sector. Those that have not been developed in China must be registered with the government, putting at risk corporate secrets, secure emails and encrypted data. The United States has led a global push to pressure Beijing to change course, the latest friction in a difficult trade relationship between the West and the world's no. 2 economy."The EU is concerned by the lack of transparency in the development of these measures and by the potential impact on EU companies," EU trade spokesman Daniel Rosario said.U.S. President Barack Obama told Reuters this month he had raised the issue with Chinese President Xi Jinping, and a senior U.S. trade official spoke again with Chinese officials during a visit to Beijing last week.Japan is also concerned, while the EU has spoken to Chinese officials and brought up the issue at a special committee at the World Trade Organization. In response to the U.S.-led push, China's foreign ministry said this week that "China's Internet development must also respect China's own laws and rules."Many European and U.S. companies worry the requirements would be extended to other industries and limit foreign investment in China's information technology market. The European Commission's report follows a letter from European and U.S. companies last month to the Commission asking for help to stop the new rules.In the Feb. 25 letter, companies said the "worrisome" Chinese regulations "could close the door for many foreign IT companies to the Chinese banking IT market".China is a potentially lucrative retail banking market and European companies hope an investment accord being negotiated between Brussels and Beijing will give them greater access."We oppose demands to require source codes, backdoors and localization of intellectual property by the Chinese government," said Christian Borggreen at technology lobbying group Computer & Communications Industry Association, whose members include Google and Microsoft.

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Alibaba investors face lock-up battered but largely unbowed As Alibaba (BABA.N) was preparing to sell shares to U.S. investors for the first time, Jerry Verseput tried to persuade his clients not to throw money at the giant China-based e-commerce company because he thinks IPOs are a gamble, especially those with a lot of hype. "I said if you want to go play with the money, I will do it for you but understand this is for entertainment purposes and not an investment strategy," said Verseput, president of Veripax Financial Management in Folsom, California, who manages about $65 million. For the two clients that insisted on buying stock, Verseput made sure they only invested less than one percent of their assets in the IPO.That was probably good advice. Six months after Alibaba’s IPO, the shares are down more than 29 percent from their November high. Alibaba opened on Sept. 19 at $92.70, ended its first day at $93.89 and reached its peak on November 13, when it hit $120. Alibaba, which already commands 80 percent of the Chinese market and handles more ecommerce than Amazon (AMZN.O) and eBay (EBAY.O) combined, trades at a price-to-earnings ratio of about 30, compared with Seattle-based Amazon, which sports a three-digit P/E.On Wednesday, a lock-up period expired allowing insiders owning a total of 437 million Alibaba shares to sell, although 100 million of those shares owned by employees remain restricted until May when the company will report quarterly earnings. A larger lock-up of more than a billion shares held by insiders, including Yahoo! Inc (YHOO.O) expires in September. Some investors are worrying about further drops in the stock as insiders sell.At TD Ameritrade (AMTD.N), which typically serves retail investors, more than half of those who bought shares of Alibaba at the IPO still own the stock, while 24 percent sold within a month of buying."It's been ugly," said Alan Haft, a Newport, California-based financial adviser who said he "shamefully went on CNBC touting the stock" before the IPO and talked about a dozen of his clients into buying it. He says he still sees a good long term picture for Alibaba, but not right away. "The stock is probably going to get worse so in the short term it's a regret."While some anticipated a small drop in the stock price Wednesday as a result of the lockup, many analysts believe the end of the lockup has already been priced in.And given Alibaba's size, any selling will get absorbed easily, said Gil Luria, managing director of equity research for Wedbush Securities. The 25-day average trading volume for Alibaba is 14.5 million shares.Alibaba's shares were little changed on Wednesday at $84.59 a share, about 24 percent above the $68 IPO price.Still, some investors have come back down to earth after seeing its most recent quarterly results. While non-GAAP net income, which strips out exceptional items, rose 25 percent to 13.12 billion yuan ($2.1 billion) in the quarter ended December 2014, investors zeroed in on disappointing sales growth: revenue rose 40 percent from the previous year, down from a 53.7 percent gain in the September quarter. Alibaba's underwhelming holiday quarter performance and a public verbal tussle with a powerful Chinese industry regulator helped trigger the stock's decline. They brought to the fore two major risks to further gains:: politics and the shift to mobile commerce. The lower-than-expected December-quarter revenue underscored how Alibaba earns less on smartphones and tablets as its users shift toward mobile shopping.As of Feb 27, short interest in the stock came to almost 57 million shares, or 2.3 percent of Alibaba's outstanding stock (2.488 billion). That's more than double the 21 million shares as of Sept 30, when the Nasdaq began compiling data."Typically there is a lot of pent-up anticipation around the expiration but history shows that a vast majority of times that anticipation doesn't manifest," said Adam Sarhan, chief executive of Sarhan Capital in New York, who is short Alibaba shares. "When the time comes for expiration you don't see a big decline in the stock unless if there is something fundamentally wrong or something has happened to change the investment thesis."Several of the biggest hedge fund managers, including Leon Cooperman's Omega Advisors, David Tepper's Appaloosa Management and Barry Rosenstein's Jana Partners LLC dissolved their stakes in Alibaba at the end of last year, while others reduced their holdings, according to U.S. regulatory filings.Other money managers, like Haft, expect more rockiness in coming months, but think Alibaba will make them money. COUNTERFEIT QUESTIONAlibaba's stock has taken a hit as Chinese regulators stepped up their scrutiny of counterfeit products on its ecommerce sites. In late January China's State Administration for Industry and Commerce issues a now-retracted report accusing Alibaba for allowing the sale of fake products on its sites, among other things.However, Alibaba has ramped up its focus on identifying and removing counterfeits from its sites."I think in the longer term Alibaba is going to be a more credible company in the international market," Haft said. "It will take another six months to a year for the stock to cycle back, but I think the fundamentals of the company are strong."September's lockup of more than one billion shares could have a bigger effect on the stock, but how much will depend on whether Alibaba has made significant progress on dealing with the counterfeiting issue, said Henry Guo, a senior analyst with Greenwich, Connecticut-based JG Capital Corp.Robert H. Christie, an Alibaba spokesman, declined to comment.As for Verseput's two clients, they're hanging on. "They are thinking it's a big company and 20 years from now it should be a good investment," he said.

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Confidential FTC report found Google anticompetitive tactics: WSJ Key staff members at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission were in favor of suing Google Inc for violating antitrust rules before the agency settled its investigation in 2013, according a confidential report cited by the Wall Street Journal on Thursday. The report by the staff of the FTC's competition bureau argued that the owner of the world's No. 1 Internet search engine illegally took information from rival websites to improve its own search results and placed restrictions on websites and advertisers. The report recommended suing Google for several of its business practices. The FTC settled its multiyear investigation of Google in 2013, concluding that the company had not manipulated its search results to hurt rivals. Details of the report, which the Journal said were inadvertently disclosed in an open-records request, come as European antitrust regulators decide their next steps in a four-year investigation of Google.Google said in a statement that "after an exhaustive 19-month review, covering 9 million pages of documents and many hours of testimony, the FTC staff and all five commissioner agreed that there was no need to take action on how we rank and display search results." "Speculation about potential consumer and competitor harm turned out to be entirely wrong," Google said.A representative of the FTC said the agency had no comment on the report.

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Founder Wang takes over as CEO as Taiwan's HTC seeks turnaround HTC Corp on Friday named Cher Wang as chief executive, giving its founder and chairwoman a bigger role in leading a potential turnaround of the Taiwanese smartphone maker. The return of Wang, a scion of one of Taiwan's most prominent families, comes as HTC's phones have often struggled to translate positive early reviews into strong sales, and the former contract manufacturer has found it tough to build a strong consumer brand in a competitive market.HTC said Wang has been increasingly involved in running various aspects of the business. She replaces Peter Chou, who will lead product development as head of the HTC Future Development Lab, an executive role focusing on identifying future growth opportunities.Chou is known to be more focused on research and development, so the change is positive in that respect, said Jimmy Chen, a technology analyst with Masterlink Securities Investment Advisory in Taipei.But Chou also built a reputation as an abrasive manager whose demanding style hit morale at the company, according to executives previously interviewed by Reuters.It remains unclear if HTC can overcome its challenges, Masterlink's Chen said. "If you don't bring in fresh blood then there's probably less of a chance to improve the operations."HTC recently named a new marketing chief, filling a post that had been vacant for four months.Revenue at HTC, which once had a 10 percent share of the global smartphone market, has largely flatlined after gradually sliding over the past two years.Net income has fared worse, with the company reporting either losses or a slim profit at best since hitting a peak in the third quarter of 2011.Like other, larger mobile phone makers such as Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics, HTC is trying to diversify into other 'connected' devices to find new growth outside an increasingly commoditized space."We are seeing rapid changes in the industry, with the smartphone as our personal hub connecting us to a growing world of smart devices," Wang said in a company statement announcing the management changes.But despite forging a partnership with Google Inc to develop a smartwatch based on its Android operating system over a year ago, HTC has yet to deliver one to the market.Wang's father, the late Wang Yung-Ching, was chairman of Taiwanese conglomerate Formosa Plastics Group. Cher Wang was considered a pioneer in Taiwan's male-dominated technology industry, founding HTC in 1997 and establishing it as a leader in a then fast-growing mobile segment.

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GoDaddy's IPO to value web-hosting company at up to $2.87 billion Web-hosting company GoDaddy Inc's initial public offering is expected to value the company at up to $2.87 billion, and comes at a time when there has been a steep fall in the number of companies going public in the United States.Including debt, the company could be valued at $4 billion.The IPO market has had a slow start this year compared with 2014 when U.S. IPOs raised about $93 billion, the highest since 2000.Only two technology companies have gone public this year including online data storage provider Box Inc, whose shares have dropped about 27 percent since the company's market debut in January.IPO analysts expect GoDaddy, which manages about a fifth of the world's Internet domains, to fare better than Box due to demand for stock offerings from well-established brands with steady revenue streams."GoDaddy is a much more seasoned company than Box," said Josef Schuster, founder of IPO investment firm IPOX Schuster LLC.GoDaddy's offering of 22 million class A shares is expected to be priced between $17 and $19 per share, and raise up to $418 million, the company said in a regulatory filing on Thursday. The Internet domain registrar, many of whose Super Bowl advertisements featured race car driver Danica Patrick, had filed to go public in 2006. It later withdrew, citing unfavorable market conditions.The company, known for ads that feature scantily clad women, was founded in 1997 and in 2011 was acquired by a private equity consortium led by KKR & Co LP and Silver Lake Partners LP for $2.25 billion, including debt. It has since expanded from its roots in Internet domains to provide services to small and medium-sized businesses such as website building and web hosting. After the offering, KKR's class A share stake will fall to 23.9 percent from 27.9 percent. The private equity firm would continue to hold 20.9 percent of GoDaddy's class B shares.Founder Bob Parsons, who stepped down as executive chairman in June, will hold 40 percent of GoDaddy's class B shares and nearly 24 percent of class A shares after the offering.The company, which serves 12.7 million customers, is led by Blake Irving, who was Yahoo Inc's chief product officer from 2010 to 2012.GoDaddy's revenue rose 22.7 percent to $1.4 billion in the year ended Dec. 31 from a year earlier. Net loss narrowed to $143.3 million from $200 million.The company's shares are expected to list on the New York Stock Exchange under "GDDY".Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan, Citigroup are the lead underwriters of the offering.

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New bugs uncovered in encryption software New bugs in the widely used encryption software known as OpenSSL were disclosed on Thursday, though experts say do not pose a serious threat like the "Heartbleed" vulnerability in the same technology that surfaced a year ago. "Heartbleed" triggered panic throughout the computer industry when it was reported in April 2014. That bug forced dozens of computers, software and networking equipment makers to issue patches for hundreds of products, and their customers had to scour data centers to identify vulnerable equipment.Cybersecurity watchers had feared the new round of bugs would be as serious as "Heartbleed," according to experts who help companies identify vulnerabilities in their networks. The concerns surfaced after the OpenSSL Project, which distributes OpenSSL software, warned several days ago that it planned to release a batch of security patches."You need to take all vulnerabilities seriously, but I’m kind of disappointed. There's been a week building up to this," said Cris Thomas, a strategist with cybersecurity firm Tenable Network Security Inc. The OpenSSL project released updates for four versions of the software, covering 12 security fixes for vulnerabilities reported to them in recent months by several cybersecurity researchers. The threats include one that makes affected systems vulnerable to so-called denial-of-service attacks that disrupt Web traffic, though none threaten the "crypto" technology used to encrypt data, Ristic said. Ivan Ristic, director of application security with Qualys Inc, said he was not too concerned about the new bugs because most involved programming errors in a new version of OpenSSL, which is not widely used."It doesn't seem a big story," Ristic said. "I think people feared it would be bad, which is where all the hype came from."

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Illinois governor's budget seeks cuts to end structural deficit Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner proposed a fiscal 2016 budget on Wednesday that he said will eliminate a $6.2 billion structural deficit without relying on higher taxes or borrowing.Instead, the $32 billion general funds spending plan for the fiscal year that begins July 1 would dramatically reduce spending by $6.6 billion, with one-third of the savings coming from shifting government workers into pension plans with reduced benefits, according to budget documents. Those proposals are likely to hit roadblocks in the Democratic-controlled Senate and House and also antagonize public labor unions which are now negotiating for new contracts. Michael Madigan, the powerful Democrat and longtime House speaker, called tapping the anticipated pension savings for the budget "reckless conduct." He also took issue with Rauner's rejection of additional revenue in the proposed budget."I think that the elimination of the deficits will require a blend of service cuts plus new revenue," Madigan told reporters, adding he would once again push for a 3 percent income tax surcharge on earnings over $1 million to raise about $1 billion for schools.Illinois has a chronic structural budget deficit, as well as the lowest credit ratings and worst-funded pension system among the 50 states. The fiscal crisis is the most severe the state has seen in decades, according to budget experts. Rauner said reforms must precede new revenue and that his budget plan was a first step. "It will take time to restore Illinois to fiscal health," he said in his budget address to the legislature.Rauner, a political neophyte who took office in January, is the first Republican elected governor in Illinois since 1998.Medicaid, the state and federally funded healthcare program for the poor and the biggest single cost item in Illinois' budget, would be cut by $1.5 billion, according to a budget briefing by Rauner's staff. Ironically, the Rauner administration considered opting out of the U.S. Affordable Care Act, despite Illinois' status as home state of the act's leading advocate, President Barack Obama. Rauner also plans to put $700 million in savings in worker healthcare coverage on the table during ongoing union contract negotiations. LOOMING LABOR BATTLE Fiscal pain would spread to higher education, which would get a $400 million funding drop, and to mass transit, with the Chicago area's bus, rail and subway services losing $127 million. Revenue sharing to local governments would fall by $600 million as the governor also seeks a two-year local property tax freeze. Primary and secondary schools would receive a $300 million funding boost.Rauner proposed moving future retirement benefits for all state workers into the less-generous pension plan that the state imposed on workers hired after Jan. 1, 2011. The move would save more than $2.2 billion in the coming fiscal year and more than $100 billion over 30 years. A buyout option would give workers a lump sum payment and a defined contribution plan in return for a voluntary reduction in cost-of-living adjustments.State pension payments are squeezing spending on essential state services and a 2013 law aimed at easing a $105 billion unfunded liability is being challenged in court by unions and others. The Illinois Supreme Court on Tuesday set oral arguments over the constitutionality of the law for March 11.Unions immediately blasted Rauner's pension proposal."These unfair cuts are clearly in violation of the plain language of the constitutional pension clause," said a statement from union coalition We Are One Illinois.State Senate President John Cullerton, a Democrat, said Rauner's budget "raises significant questions about its viability in the legislative process." "For all the pain that Governor Rauner’s budget plan would extract from the most vulnerable people with human service needs, the basic math still doesn’t work in his proposal," Cullerton said in a statement, taking issue with the $2.2 billion budgeted from pension savings.Republicans, on the other hand, were heartened by Rauner's budget message."It's refreshing to hear a governor say we're going to live within our means," House Republican Leader Jim Durkin said in an interview on local public television.

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Canadians to be allowed to 'pick and pay' TV channels Canadian television viewers will no longer be forced to pay for vast numbers of channels they do not watch, the country's broadcast regulator said in a sweeping ruling on Thursday.The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) said cable and satellite providers had to offer viewers an affordable basic package and allow them to choose additional channels.Most distributors currently package groups of channels into thematic bundles, which they say means more choice is available at a lower per-channel cost. Consumer advocates complain that viewers are forced to pay for channels they never watch.The CRTC said cable and satellite companies will have until March 2016 to provide an entry-level television service that includes local channels capped at C$25 ($19.70) a month.Subscribers will be then be able to add individual channels - known as "pick-and-pay" - or small packages. Companies will have to offer either the pick-and-pay or small bundle option by March 2016, and offer both by December 2016.CRTC chairman Jean-Pierre Blais said the commission was not making decisions for viewers."It is about setting out a roadmap to give all Canadians the freedom to choose the television content that meets their unique needs, budgets and realities," he told reporters.The move will be closely watched south of the border, where U.S. media companies have resisted flexible programming, arguing that costs for individual channels will rise sharply.While the new framework could hurt channels that are left to live or die on their own merits rather than being packaged with popular channels, it could also help cable companies limit viewer defections to cheaper Internet-based offerings from companies such as Netflix Inc (NFLX.O)."There may indeed be services that will not survive, and there will be job losses," said Blais, adding he was confident "good companies" would find ways to thrive. The ruling could fundamentally alter how distribution deals are structured, since it will also allow pay-television services to offer feeds on an individual basis.For example, viewers currently cannot watch HBO Canada without also subscribing to an associated movie service.Federal Heritage Minister Shelly Glover - who has overall responsibility for broadcasting - welcomed the ruling."Canadian families expect choice and fair treatment when it comes to their spending on everyday items and services," she said in a statement.

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Apple supplier Jabil Circuit forecasts revenue above Street Jabil Circuit Inc, which makes phone casings for Apple Inc, forecast revenue for the current quarter above average analyst estimate, helped by strong demand for iPhones.Apple, one of Jabil's biggest customers, had said it sold a 74.5 million iPhones in the December quarter.Jabil said it expects manufacturing services revenue to rise 42 percent for the third quarter ending May 31. The business makes iPhones casings.The company also forecast third-quarter core earnings of 43-55 cents per share on revenue of $4.35 billion-$4.55 billion.Analysts on average were expecting a profit of 47 cents per share on revenue of $4.43 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.The contract electronics maker reported a net income attributable of $52 million, or 27 cents per share, in the second quarter ended Feb. 28, compared with a loss of $38.7 million, or 19 cents per share, a year earlier.The company reported core earnings of 50 cents per share. Revenue rose to $4.31 billion from $3.58 billion a year earlier.Analysts had expected core earnings of 45 cents per share on revenue of $4.27 billion.Shares of Jabil, whose customers include Apple Inc, Cisco Systems Inc and Ericsson, closed at $22.65 on the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday.

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Angry Birds maker bets on animated movie as profit drops Finnish mobile games maker Rovio pinned its hopes on Thursday on a costly 3D movie project helping it return to growth, after a 73 percent profit drop gave the latest sign its mainstay Angry Birds brand is losing appeal.A decline in its business licensing the Angry Birds brand on toys, clothing and sweets is adding to the problems of Rovio, which has yet to repeat the success of its original slingshot-based game which became the No.1 paid mobile app of all time after its launch in 2009. Rovio said total sales fell 9 percent last year to 158.3 million euros ($169 million), although revenue from mobile games grew 16 percent to 110.7 million on the back of new offerings.Operating profit slumped to 10 million euros from 36.5 million."As (Rovio's) franchise begins to falter, the question of whether it is a one-hit wonder rears up again," said Steve Bailey, games analyst at IHS Technology.He noted that while competition intensifies in mobile games, Rovio's toy business also faces big competition from a new category of physical toys that connect into virtual games, such as Nintendo amiibo and Disney Infinity."Angry Birds as a game isn't sufficiently advanced to make a 'smart toy' yet... As a player, you just don't have a longer-term relationship with it."Rovio, whose aim is to become an entertainment brand on a par with Walt Disney, has also expanded Angry Birds into a spin-off TV series and is backing an animated movie set to premiere in May 2016.Rantala said the production cost of the Angry Birds movie will be about $80 million, and marketing costs, which will be partly paid by Sony Entertainment, would total more than the production budget."The movie will help us get the licensing business back to growth," he said. "Pretty soon we will be able to publish new major partnership deals."Meanwhile, the company is striving to build new characters to be expanded into new games, consumer products and animations, Rantala said.Analysts said Rovio has been slow to respond to a shift to freely available mobile games, where revenue comes from in-game purchases and advertising."We are still in transition, we have launched free-to-play games but there is room to improve the monetizing in this area," Rantala said.Analyst Bailey noted that movies and merchandise sales are dependent on sustaining interest in the core game business."The performance of the movie will be very telling about where the franchise can go next and how much life it has left in it."

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India's regulator preparing new policy for start-up IPOs in 3-4 months Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) Chairman U.K. Sinha said on Friday the capital markets regulator expected to have a new policy for initial public offerings for start-up companies in three to four months.Reuters had reported this week SEBI was planning rule changes that will make it easier for home-grown start-ups to list their shares on local bourses, citing sources involved in the process.Sinha, in an interaction with reporters, also said SEBI was in talks with the Reserve Bank of India about a new policy for willful defaulters. Under Indian law willful defaulters are classified as companies or individuals who deliberately thwart repayment of dues to lenders.

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Branson says Virgin working on electric cars: Bloomberg TV Billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson's Virgin Group may take on Tesla Motors Inc and other companies in developing electric cars, Bloomberg reported on Thursday.Branson, whose empire ranges from airlines to music stores, mobile phones and spaceships, said electric cars may be next. "We have teams of people working on electric cars," Branson told Bloomberg TV in Miami where his Virgin Racing team competed in the all-electric Formula E race that involves battery-powered cars. "So you never know, you may find Virgin competing with the Tesla in the car business as we do in the space business. We will see what happens."Branson's Virgin Galactic is a commercial spaceflight company that competes with SpaceX, which was founded by Tesla CEO Elon Musk."We are working with the Virgin Formula E team to develop the plan for next season's cars," Virgin Group spokesman Nick Fox told Reuters. "Our aim is to build a leading engine and car for next season. Maybe ultimately that could be used in the broader car market in the future."In addition to Tesla, most of the world's automakers sell or are developing electric cars. There are also signs Apple Inc may be working on an electric car and Google Inc is developing a car that can drive itself. However, broader acceptance of electric cars has been held back by the premium consumers must pay for the technology and fears about the driving range of an all-electric vehicle.Branson told Bloomberg TV, "Tesla is as sexy as any other car on the road today."

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Mexico's Axtel to become virtual operator on Slim's network Mexican telecommunications company Axtel will become the first virtual operator on billionaire Carlos Slim's mobile network, Axtel said in a statement on Wednesday.The arrangement came about as part of talks that ended a long-standing dispute about interconnection charges between Axtel and Slim's America Movil.Axtel said it received 950 million pesos ($62.81 million) for agreeing to end those disputes.A reform to Mexico's phone and television businesses paved the way for mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) in the country.Telefonica's Movistar network has drawn the most new operators, including Virgin Mobile.The 2013 reform also brought in rules to prevent America Movil from charging competitors for connecting to its network, rendering moot many outstanding legal claims against Slim's company and leading to the settlement of Axtel's claims, which dated to 2005.

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U.S. will press China on bank cybersecurity rules: U.S. official The Obama administration will continue to push China on its new bank cybersecurity rules until the country backs down, the deputy U.S. trade representative said on Wednesday.Deputy Trade Representative Robert Holleyman said he raised the issue with Chinese officials during a visit last week."There are a lot of angles that are being used here and we're going to keep pursuing it at the highest levels until we get a satisfactory resolution," he told the National Lieutenant Governors Association.

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Sony's PlayStation Vue online TV service launches at $50 a month Sony Corp on Wednesday launched its PlayStation Vue Web video service in three cities, targeting customers looking for cheaper alternatives to cable with packages starting at $50.The Web and cloud-based television service, which allows users to access live TV and on-demand video, has been in test mode since November. Sony joins several new competitors in online video services with one of the largest packages of channels.Vue will be available initially on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3 video game consoles in New York, Chicago and Philadelphia starting Wednesday, then expand to other cities and for iPad users shortly. Sony's service will have more than 85 channels, including programming from three major networks, CBS, Fox and NBCUniversal [CMCSAN.UL] in addition to media companies Discovery Communications , Scripps Networks Interactive, Turner Broadcasting [TWXTB.UL] and Viacom. The $50-per-month starter package offers over 50 channels.AMC Network content will also be available from April, said Eric Lempel, vice president of business and operations, Americas at Sony Network Entertainment. More content deals were in the works, he added. Viewers can also opt for a $60-a-month package that also includes local sports channels. A $70-a-month service adds some music, lifestyle and family channels, Sony said. PlayStation Vue will compete with Dish Network Corp, which unveiled a $20-a-month video streaming service, named Sling TV, targeted at younger consumers who shun pricey cable and satellite subscriptions. Netflix Inc and Amazon Inc have been offering on-demand online video content through licensing deals with media networks for years. Wireless carrier Verizon Communications Inc is gearing up to launch its own online video service this summer.Sling TV is available through Internet-connected devices such as Amazon Fire TV, Roku and Google Inc's Nexus Player for TVs, tablets, computers and smartphones and includes TV programming from ABC, ESPN and Maker Studios, Time Warner's TNT, CNN, TBS, Cartoon Network and Adult Swim, and Food Network, HGTV and Travel Channel.Apple Inc is in talks with programmers to offer a slimmed-down bundle of about 25 channels, including ABC, CBS and Fox networks this fall, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter.That would be available across all devices powered by Apple's iOS operating system, including iPhones, iPads and Apple TV set-top boxes, the newspaper said.

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Alibaba shares fall as lock-up period expires Alibaba Group Holding Inc declined on Wednesday, as a six-month period prohibiting insiders from selling their shares expired, an event that many thought could expose the Chinese e-commerce giant's stock to more weakness.Shares were down 0.9 percent at $83.70. Consolidated volume was about 18.3 million after the first hour of trading, topping its 10-day average of 16.8 million. The stock has shed nearly 30 percent since its Nov. 10 closing high.The lock-up period that expires Wednesday will allow insiders owning a total of 437 million Alibaba shares to sell. By the time all those shares are released, that chunk, representing about 18 percent of outstanding shares, exceeds the 368 million it sold in the IPO, though about 100 million held by employees cannot be sold until the company reports results in May."Lock up expiration dates are fraught with selling," said Kim Forrest, senior equity research analyst, Fort Pitt Capital Group in Pittsburgh. "Who knows what people actually paid or what their cost basis is. But a lot of the time, people don’t care, they just want some cash, some liquidity, and that is what drives prices lower regardless of the fundamentals of the company."A larger lock-up of more than a billion shares held by insiders, including Yahoo! Inc, expires in September. That has raised investor concerns about further drops in the stock as insiders sell.Alibaba opened Sept. 19 at $92.70, ended its first day of trading at $93.89 and reached its peak Nov. 13 at $120. The stock closed Tuesday at $84.50, about 24 percent above the $68 initial public offering price.As of Feb 27, short interest in the stock came to almost 57 million shares, or 2.3 percent of Alibaba's outstanding stock (2.488 billion). That's more than double the 21 million shares as of Sept 30, when the Nasdaq began compiling data.

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Rakuten buying eBook firm OverDrive for $410 million in U.S. push Japanese online retailer Rakuten Inc (4755.T) is buying U.S. eBook company OverDrive Inc for about $410 million, deepening its push into the U.S. market and into what it calls the "sharing economy."Rakuten's announcement on Thursday of the OverDrive deal comes a week after it led a $530 million funding round for U.S. ride-sharing service Lyft, signaling Rakuten's shift in focus toward more rental-based businesses.Rakuten is purchasing Cleveland, Ohio-based OverDrive from Insight Venture Partners, a U.S.-based venture capital and private equity firm that first invested in it in 2010. The acquisition of OverDrive, which currently offers eBook rental services to U.S. libraries and schools, is expected to be completed in April.The deal will push Rakuten's eBook business EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization) for 2015 closer to profit, the company said in a statement."OverDrive can be described as a 'sharing economy' business as it shares books," said Takahito Aiki, head of Rakuten's global eBook business.Aiki said Kobo Inc, a Canadian eBook company Rakuten bought in 2011 for $315 million, is "phase 1" of its eBook business as it allows consumers to buy eBooks. As part of "phase 2," OverDrive will allow libraries and schools to rent eBooks, he said.Another reason for the purchase is the firm's reach in the U.S. market, Aiki said.Rakuten has been on a buying spree in recent years to reduce reliance on its home market in Japan. In October it bought U.S. discount store Ebates.com for about $1 billion.The San Francisco-based boutique investment bank Qatalyst Partners advised OverDrive on the deal.

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U.S. establishes policy for exports of armed drones The U.S. government on Tuesday established a policy for exports of military and commercial drones, including armed ones, and plans to work with other countries to shape global standards for the use of the controversial weapons systems.The State Department said it would allow exports of lethal U.S. military drones under strict conditions, including that sales must be made through government programs and that recipient nations must agree to certain "end-use assurances."The policy comes after a two-year review amid growing demand from U.S. allies for the new breed of weapons that have played a critical role in U.S. military action in Afghanistan, Iraq and Yemen. It could help U.S. companies boost sales of U.S. military and commercial drones in an increasingly competitive global market. Privately-held General Atomics, Northrop Grumman Corp, Textron Inc and other drone makers have been urging Washington for years to loosen strict export curbs, which they say have caused them to lose orders to Israel and others in the growing market.The shift came just days after U.S. aviation regulators proposed rules on Sunday that would lift some restrictions on drone use for commercial purposes, but would still limit activities such as inspections of pipelines.The change also follows stern warnings by top U.S. officials about rapid advances in weapons technology by China, Russia and other potential foes, including unmanned systems.The new policy will make it easier for America's closest allies to buy armed drones, but will maintain stringent controls on the sale of such weapons, U.S. officials said. Until now, Britain was the only country allowed to buy armed U.S. drones, but France and Italy fly Reaper surveillance drones built by General Atomics.A State Department official declined comment on an existing request by Italy to add weapons to the Reaper drones it already flies, or Turkey's request for sales of an armed drone, but said such requests would be reviewed in light of the new policy.The official said the United States would carefully monitor the use of any unmanned aerial systems (UAS) approved for export, much as it does other weapons.The policy maintains "a strong presumption of denial" of sales of the biggest drones, so-called Category I aircraft that have a range of at least 300 km and can carry a payload of at least 500 kg, but will allow such exports on "rare occasions."The official said there was no formal list of countries that would be eligible for exports of armed drones, and said all requests would be evaluated on a case-by-case basis and in accordance with existing U.S. export laws."As with any other sale, all UAS sales will continue to be reviewed for human rights, regional power balance, and other implications," the official said.Sales of armed drones could boost Lockheed Martin Corp , which builds Hellfire missiles that are used by Predator and Reaper drones, but could also help companies like L-3 Communications Holdings Inc and Raytheon Co, which build sensors and simulators for the unmanned systems."The new policy ensures appropriate participation for U.S. industry in the emerging commercial UAS market, which will contribute to the health of the U.S. industrial base, and thus to U.S. national security, which includes economic security," the State Department official said.Under the policy, buyers of military drones will have to agree to strict conditions, including adherence to international law, and a ban on using the drones for unlawful surveillance or to crack down on their domestic populations.

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German court bans Uber's unlicensed taxi services A German court on Wednesday banned Uber from running services using unlicensed cab drivers and set stiff fines for any violations of local transport laws by the pioneering online taxi firm.    Uber, worth an estimated $40 billion making it the world's most valuable venture-backed start-up, has set out to revolutionise local transport services worldwide, from taxis to carpools to fast-food delivery.Born out of the frustration of two Silicon Valley entreprenuers trying to catch a cab in Paris, Uber's popular mobile phone taxi-hailing services have mushroomed since being launched in 2010 and are offered in nearly 270 cities worldwide.But Uber also has become a magnet for criticism of its business style of moving first and asking permission later. It has faced complaints around the world over how it pays drivers, charges passengers and ensures their safety.The latest case, brought in the Frankfurt regional court by German taxi operator group Taxi Deutschland against UberPOP, is one of more than a dozen lawsuits filed in countries across Europe in recent months against the San Francisco-based company.Dieter Schlenker, chairman of the Taxi Deutschland cooperative, said the ruling would protect taxi drivers from competition from unlicensed part-time drivers used by Uber. His taxi group is part of an association dating back to 1919.UberPOP, an online service that links private drivers with passengers via their mobile phones, is the target of most suits."What does is mean for the 255,000 taxi drivers and employees in 700 radio taxi control centres? It means legal certainty, 255,000 real jobs and taxpayers will remain in Germany," Schlenker said following the ruling.PROTESTS AND RAIDSEach violation of the German court order covering violations of local passenger transport licensing laws by Uber and its uberPOP online service was subject to a 250,000 euro ($264,825) fine, a three-judge panel of the Frankfurt regional court ruled.Uber will continue to operate services in Germany using licensed limousine and taxi drivers. It also said it was working on a new service designed to comply with the German court's interpretations of existing laws.To date, Uber has been hit by court injunctions in Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain. Taxi driver protests against Uber have clogged streets in major European cities.This week, French police raided Uber's Paris offices and confiscated 1,200 cell phones, some computers and documents as part of an investigation begun in November into the uberPOP service and questions of whether Uber illegally retained customers' personal data, a French judiciary source said. The head of Uber France told the L'Obs magazine website he considered the raid heavy-handed and on thin legal ground.In December, a Dutch court banned uberPOP on similar grounds that it fell foul of licensing laws for commercial drivers. Since then, a handful of uberPOP drivers have been given stiff fines for violating the ban on unlicensed drivers.In the past week, two Amsterdam taxi drivers were arrested for reckless driving after blocking an Uber driver. Another Uber driver reported his car had been blocked and tires slashed, although no suspects have been identified, city police said.DRIVING ONA spokesman for Uber said the company expected to appeal the Frankfurt court's decision, but would await the full ruling."We will not give up on the German market: our UberBLACK and uberTAXI services remain unaffected by today's judgment," an emailed statement from the company said, refering to the services that use licensed taxi and limousine drivers.The Frankfurt regional court's presiding judge Joachim Nickel said during a hearing ahead of the ruling that Uber violated German laws on commercial passenger transportation since its drivers did not have the right kinds of licences. He said Uber's business model violated both national and European Union laws because it did not fully insure drivers or passengers in the event of accidents.Attorneys representing Uber denied it was subject to rules governing taxi operators, claiming the company merely acts as an exchange connecting drivers with clients.In response, Uwe Eilers, one judge on the three-judge panel, said: "In that case, you should include in your business description that Uber offers rides for free."

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U.S. software executives urge action on fast-track trade bill Software industry executives urged lawmakers on Friday to pass legislation that would speed trade deals through Congress and include rules to ensure data can flow freely across borders.In a letter to the heads and senior members of congressional committees responsible for trade, the directors of lobby group BSA The Software Alliance said software was increasingly delivered remotely but business models depended on the ability to move data across borders.“We are seeing a growing number of countries enacting measures that restrict cross-border data flows or require data processing to occur within the nation’s borders," the letter said."We urge prompt action on (trade promotion authority) to set specific goals on open markets for digital trade.”Lawmakers are working on a bill that would allow Congress to set objectives for trade deals in exchange for a yes-or-no vote, without amendments. The letter was signed by senior executives from companies including Adobe Systems Inc, Apple Inc, IBM, Microsoft Corp and Symantec Corp.

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FBI probes possible China military link in cyber attack: FT The FBI is looking into whether the Chinese military was involved in a cyber attack on Register.com, a unit of Web.com, the Financial Times reported Wednesday, citing sources familiar with the probe.A Federal Bureau of Investigation spokesperson said she was not familiar with the probe and that the agency does not comment on such matters.According to the Financial Times, hackers apparently have had access to Register.com's network for about a year, but the attack did not disrupt or result in theft of client data.It was not clear what the Chinese military would be looking for or what it would gain from Register.com's data.Register.com says on its website it manages more than 2.5 million domain names, and also provides web management and design services.

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Tag Heuer, Intel challenge Apple with Android smartwatch Tag Heuer, French luxury group LVMH's (LVMH.PA) biggest watch maker, said it will launch a smartwatch later this year using Google Inc's (GOOGL.O) Android operating system in a venture with Intel Corp (INTC.O) to compete head-on with the Apple Watch.Tag Heuer Chief Executive Jean-Claude Biver declined to give any details about pricing, functionality or design, but said on Thursday that it aimed to launch what would be the first Android luxury smartwatch in the fourth quarter.The Apple Watch is due to go on sale on April 24 and will range in price from $350 to $17,000 for an 18-karat gold model. It is the company's first major new product in five years and consumer demand for the device is being closely watched by competitors and investors. The device needs an Apple iPhone to work fully, and analysts say the most likely pool of initial buyers will already have an Apple smartphone in their pockets."We believe wearable technology will take off," Michael Bell, vice president of Intel's New Devices unit, said at a news conference with Tag Heuer at the Baselworld watch and jewellery fair.Intel struck partnerships with several consumer goods companies last year to develop smart wearable products, including eyewear brand Oakley, owned by Luxottica (LUX.MI), watchmaker Fossil (FOSL.O), and U.S. fashion brand Opening Ceremony."Tag Heuer’s decision to partner with technology companies to deliver a smartwatch ... will likely be the first of many similar deals," Ben Wood, chief of research at CCS Insight, said."With Apple Watch hitting the market it's no longer viable for Swiss watchmakers to bury their heads in the sand. Now Tag Heuer has signalled its intention to enter the smartwatch market we are certain others will follow."Gucci said on Thursday that it would develop a smartband with i.am+ whose functions would include phone calls, text messages, emails and music. The unit of French luxury group Kering (PRTP.PA) gave no details of pricing or launch timing.Some luxury executives remained sceptical about smartwatches, however.Marc Hayek, who heads Swatch Group (UHR.VX) watch brands Breguet, Jaquet Droz and Blancpain, joined the chorus of luxury executives alongside Hermes (HRMS.PA) and Patek Philippe who said they had no plans to launch a smartwatch."The Apple Watch is not a real watch but a consumer electronic," he told Reuters in Basel on Thursday.Hayek forecast his three brands would enjoy a similar year in terms of sales growth to 2014, although trading in Hong Kong, one of his biggest markets, remained difficult.

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Indonesia's Lippo continues e-commerce push with payment service Indonesian conglomerate Lippo Group plans to launch payment, chat and other online services early next year as it continues expanding in the nascent e-commerce industry of the world's fourth-most populous country, a senior executive told Reuters.Lippo has already earmarked $500 million for a new online department store, and investment in services planned for the first quarter of 2016 will be on top of that, director John Riady said in an interview late on Wednesday.Indonesia has one of Asia's biggest untapped e-commerce markets which is only recently drawing major investors in search of the next Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. Japan's SoftBank Corp late last year led a $100 million investment in Indonesian online marketplace Tokopedia. Lippo owns the infrastructure that makes e-commerce possible, such as fiber optic cables, satellites, data centers and fourth-generation mobile network base stations, and will be focusing on "what goes through those pipes", Riady said."It's all about the flow of money, data and merchandise," Riady said. "We are beginning with MatahariMall.com which addresses the flow of merchandise, but we are also looking at the flow of money and data."Lippo will make a "significant" investment in a payment service similar to U.S. offering PayPal but with localized features, while data services could include chat and news functions, Riady said. The conglomerate is also open to partnerships to quicken its e-commerce push, he said.Investors have been pouring money into firms that they hope could be the next e-commerce giant or social networking site like Facebook Inc, spurring concern of lofty valuations.In January, SoftBank, Alibaba and others invested about $600 million in Chinese taxi app operator Travice. SoftBank also put $627 million into Indian online marketplace Snapdeal last year.Riady said some investment in the sector reflects "pockets of euphoria" rather than a technology bubble."Today, it's not just about how many eyeballs you have, which was the case in the 2000 dotcom era" when many technology firms went bankrupt, Riady said. "Today, companies have real revenue and there is underlying economic activity.""Whether that justifies the high valuations, I don't know. But at least you know there is really underlying stuff, it's not all just fluff."Lippo Group, founded by Riady's grandfather, includes PT Matahari Department Store Tbk, PT Siloam International Hospitals Tbk, PT First Media Tbk and property developer PT Lippo Karawaci Tbk.The group is planning an initial public offering this year for its satellite television company, through which it could raise "a lot more" than $100 million, Riady said.

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Discovery Channel founder starts nonfiction streaming video service Discovery Channel founder John Hendricks on Wednesday launched a subscription streaming service for fans of science, technology and history, with the goal of dominating the nonfiction category in on-demand, online video.Hendricks said the ad-free service CuriosityStream fulfilled his long-held desire to deliver programming that people can watch whenever they want. He hopes it will become viewers' third or fourth online video subscription after choices like Netflix Inc and Hulu. "I've been dreaming and scheming about this for over 20 years," Hendricks said in an interview. To pursue the project, Hendricks retired in 2014 from Discovery Communications Inc, which operates the Discovery Channel and other networks that are sold in bundles through cable television operators."This needs to be independent of the legacy business," he said. "It's really difficult to just break ranks and threaten your existing revenue stream."CuriosityStream costs $3 a month for standard resolution or $6 a month for high-definition. A sharper-definition option, known as 4K, is planned for later this year. The service is available in the United States and will expand worldwide over five years.Like other Internet-delivered video, CuriosityStream will compete for viewers in a sea of online content as networks like Time Warner Inc's HBO and CBS jump into the streaming mix. Apple Inc also is in talks with some broadcasters about an online service, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. Programming on CuriosityStream includes short videos of less than eight minutes and longer documentary-style series that were produced for the service or acquired from partners such as British Broadcasting Corp or Japanese broadcaster NHK. "Destination Pluto" follows a team that sent a space probe to the planet. Another series features a photographer's interviews with celebrities such as Ray Charles and Martin Scorsese.Hendricks said he remained a "very bullish" shareholder of Discovery, citing the growth potential of its cable TV business in international markets. He said CuriosityStream was aimed primarily at viewers who watch video online and will pay for commercial-free content.Hendricks said he may add live streams of events to CuriosityStream and was exploring virtual reality applications that could immerse people in experiences such as hang gliding or a trip to the moon.

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Global push aims to change China's mind on bank rules: U.S. official The United States has joined forces with Japan and the European Union to pressure China on new bank cybersecurity rules that have upset foreign companies, a senior U.S. official said on Wednesday.Deputy Trade Representative Robert Holleyman said the United States would keep lobbying China to put a hold on the rules, which would force technology vendors to Chinese banks to hand over secret source code and adopt Chinese encryption algorithms, until there was a "satisfactory resolution.""We are working to try to break down those barriers, and we have also secured support from our allies and trade partners in Japan and the EU," Holleyman, who raised the issue with Chinese officials during a visit to Beijing last week, told the National Lieutenant Governors Association."This is not just a U.S.-led initiative; it's an important global initiative." Asked about Holleyman's remarks, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei told reporters: "China's Internet development must also respect China's own laws and rules."Brussels has also raised the issue with Beijing at the ministerial level and plans to flag its concerns at the World Trade Organization's next meeting on technical trade barriers."The EU is concerned by the lack of transparency in the development of these measures and by the potential impact on EU companies," a European Commission spokesperson said. Chinese banks had until Sunday to submit plans for how to comply with the new regulations, which Holleyman said would largely shut U.S. technology and ATM providers out of the Chinese market. Washington is also pressing for China to pause the implementation of a draft counterterrorism law which could hit IT companies as well. Victoria Espinel, who succeeded Holleyman as president of lobbying group BSA The Software Alliance, said the U.S. industry was working "very closely" with colleagues overseas."What we have been doing very successfully (is) to make clear towards the United States government, the European government, the Japanese government (and) the government of China that this is a concern," she said."It is not good for Chinese companies to be cut off from being able to choose the best products and services they want, it's not good for China ... as an economy." U.S. State Department Under Secretary for Economic Growth Catherine Novelli said the combined approach should pay dividends."Hearing these things from so many different channels is the proof that ... this actually is the generally widely held view of those who know about technology," she said earlier this month.

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Sharp considering various restructuring steps, nothing decided Japanese electronics maker Sharp Corp, on course for its third annual net loss in four years, said on Thursday it is considering various options to restructure its business although no decisions have been made.The statement followed a Nikkei business report that Sharp plans to cut jobs at home and abroad, lower the pay scale for workers in Japan and restructure operations in unprofitable businesses.Sharp said the report was not based on anything it has announced.

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Tencent looks to Facebook for inspiration as revenue growth declines Tencent Holdings Ltd, China's biggest social network and online media firm, is taking inspiration from Facebook Inc in growing advertising revenue, executives said on Wednesday, after posting its slowest revenue growth in seven years.Tencent has long depended on online gaming to generate revenue, but the company which competes on several fronts with Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and Baidu Inc, also wants to emulate Facebook's success in making money from mobile advertising, as well as its online video platform. At the same time, Tencent said it would continue to look at investments in Chinese and in foreign companies, particularly entertainment content providers. The Shenzhen-based company plans to increase spending on video content in 2015, executives told a conference call, after fourth-quarter earnings showed net income had missed forecasts while sharing and content costs ate into sales.Tencent, which rules the roost for Chinese social networks with its ubiquitous WeChat and QQ messaging services, wants to expand social advertising in China, gunning for the same kind of domination enjoyed by Facebook in the United States, said Martin Lau, Tencent's president."Given what Facebook has achieved in the U.S., we see promising long-term potential," Lau said on a conference call.Tencent also flagged its 2014 shopping spree should continue in 2015. The company shelled out more than $2 billion on acquisitions last year, a splurge unlikely to end as it grapples with rival internet firms Alibaba and Baidu to gain the upper hand on mobile devices in China, the world's largest smartphone market.That excludes doling out large sums for video content, the extent of which Tencent declines to disclose. But it saw a ramp-up this year. It has recently inked licensing deals for television, film, sport and music, including with U.S. cable broadcaster HBO and the NBA.Tencent's revenue grew 24 percent to 20.98 billion yuan ($3.4 billion) in the three months through December, slightly above forecasts of 20.5 billion, on the back of strong sales from online gaming on PCs and smartphones linked to its social networks.Net income rose 51 percent to 5.95 billion yuan, below estimates of 6.26 billion, according to a Thomson Reuters SmartEstimate poll of 11 analysts. Tencent said in 2015 it would focus on two other areas besides entertainment and advertising: enabling offline business transactions with their mobile internet services; and building up its online payment system.

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In boon for bitcoin, UK to regulate digital currency exchanges Britain took a significant step towards becoming a global bitcoin hub on Wednesday as the government announced it would regulate digital currencies for the first time by applying anti-money laundering rules to exchanges. Already the center of the $5-trillion-a-day market for traditional currencies, the UK is fast emerging as a center for digital currencies too, cementing its place as European's financial technology, or "FinTech", capital. In a report published alongside finance minister George Osborne's annual budget statement, Britain's Treasury said the new regulation would support innovation and prevent criminal use of digital currencies. The proposals will be consulted on early in the next parliament. Tom Robinson, co-founder of Elliptic, the world's first bitcoin insurance vault in London, and a board member of the UK Digital Currency Association, said the new regulation effectively served as a "stamp of approval" from the government."It provides enough oversight to provide legitimacy without stifling innovation," he said. "I think it is a good balance between on the one hand the U.S. and specifically New York, which I think have gone too far, and what a lot of countries are doing which is just completely ignoring it." The potential for digital currencies to be used for illicit financial transactions has led many to steer well clear of the them. They were dubbed the "Wild West" of finance by U.S. regulators last year, since they are not backed by a central bank or government like conventional money.The so-called "cryptocurrencies" are also prone to wild swings in value and can be a target for hackers. Last year Mt. Gox, a Tokyo-based bitcoin exchange, was forced to file for bankruptcy after hackers stole an estimated $650 million worth of customer bitcoins.But bitcoin's supporters are numerous, and say that the technology behind it could be revolutionary. Last week Reuters revealed that International Business Machines Corp is considering adopting the technology to create a digital cash and payment system for major currencies.Even the Bank of England has got behind bitcoin, despite last year warning that digital currencies may be at increasing risk of fraud and could damage Britain's economy if they find widespread use. In a discussion paper in February, the BoE said digital currencies showed "considerable promise" and that it was possible to transfer value securely without a trusted third party. The bank also raised the question of whether central banks should themselves issue digital currencies. Along with the Treasury document on Wednesday, the government also released a report from its Office for Science on the future of FinTech more broadly. "Digital currencies such as bitcoin have the potential to replace traditional currency and, by extension, the need for central banking and regulatory systems," the paper said.The Treasury further announced on Wednesday a new research initiative on digital currency technology, and said it would inject an additional 10 million pounds ($14.66 million) into the area. It will work with the British Standards Association to develop a set of standards that will protect consumers, it said.

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Mississippi asks Supreme Court to review ruling blocking abortion law Mississippi asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday to review a lower court decision blocking a law that would shut the state's sole abortion clinic.Mississippi is among several states that have passed laws requiring abortion doctors to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of their clinics. Some of the measures are under court review.A federal district court judge issued a temporary injunction in 2012 blocking the Mississippi law because it would have forced women seeking abortions to go out of state. The same judge issued a second injunction in 2013, which was upheld by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last November.The Mississippi Attorney General's Office argued in its filing that the U.S. Supreme Court should weigh in on whether closing Mississippi's sole abortion clinic places an undue burden on women seeking the procedure when it is available in adjoining states. A spokeswoman for Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood, a Democrat, declined to comment on the petition.Abortion rights advocates urged the high court not to take the case."The Court should decline to review the sound determination that Mississippi women would be irreparably harmed if the state were allowed to close its last clinic," said Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights.Abortion rights supporters say the law in Mississippi and similar ones elsewhere impose medically unnecessary requirements targeting providers of the procedure.Anti-abortion advocates have countered they are intended to protect women's health, although some have also said they would likely shutter clinics.If the high court does not review the case, abortion rights advocates expect it to move forward at the trial court later this year.

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Uber signs auto discount, financing accord with China dealership Yongda Ride-hailing service Uber Technologies Inc said late on Wednesday it has struck a deal with China Yongda Automobiles Services Holdings Ltd, a Chinese luxury auto dealer, to provide discounts and financing for Uber drivers' cars.Under the agreement, Yongda will provide Uber's partners - transportation firms and independent drivers - discounts on new car purchases, finance and after-sales service. Uber contracts with independent drivers and livery services in 55 countries to provide transportation hailed via its smartphone app.The deal comes as the fast-growing San Francisco-based company faces intensifying competition in its efforts to expand in the potentially lucrative Chinese market. Kuaidi Dache and Didi Dache - two richly-funded startups that share roughly 99 percent of the ride-hailing market in China - recently merged in a $6 billion tie-up.Yongda said it would set aside at least hundreds of millions of yuan to fund the program, and that the two companies have already rolled out the purchase incentives on German auto maker Volkswagen AG's (VOWG_p.DE) Audi and Volkswagen models.

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U.S. court rules AT&T's lawyers too late to appeal patent loss AT&T Inc was too late to appeal a $40 million loss in a patent infringement case because its lawyers did not read key rulings in time, a federal appeals court said on Thursday.AT&T, which was represented by a team of lawyers from the law firm Sidley Austin, failed to file its notice of appeal within the requisite 30 days after a judge from a federal court in San Antonio denied several of the company's post-trial motions, according to a decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.The case began in 2009 when a Colorado company, Two-Way Media Llc, accused Dallas-based AT&T of infringing several Internet media streaming patents. A jury in 2013 found AT&T infringed two of the patents and awarded $27.5 million in damages, to which U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia added interest, according to court filings. In October 2013, AT&T filed motions asking Garcia to overturn the verdict, which Garcia denied the next month. The court posted the denials on its docket, but with labels that omitted the actual substance of the rulings. Attorneys on both sides received emailed notices of the court filings with those labels. The labels were updated with descriptions of the underlying orders a few days later, but no new notices were sent to attorneys. The Sidley Austin lawyers did not discover the November orders until 51 days later, in January, after the appeal period had expired. The company tried to extend or reopen the appeal period, but Garcia denied the request. Garcia said it was "troublesome" that none of the 18 lawyers and assistants who received the electronic notices "bothered to read the orders issued by the court." He admonished the attorneys for relying only on emailed notifications. AT&T appealed, with Sidley Austin partner Carter Phillips arguing it was improperly notified of the orders. The Federal Circuit on Thursday said Garcia did not abuse his discretion in denying the extension because even no notice would not justify an extension. Sidley Austin did not immediately respond to requests for comment. AT&T declined to comment, while representatives for Two-Way Media could not be reached. The case is Two-Way Media Llc v AT&T, Inc et al, No. 14-1302, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

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U.S. trade groups seen leading lawsuits against new Internet rules Trade associations representing large U.S. Internet service providers are expected to take the lead in suing the Federal Communications Commission over its new web traffic regulations, according to several people familiar with the plan.U.S. telecom and cable firms have said they would challenge the FCC's latest "net neutrality" rules in court. But at least some companies, including Verizon Communications Inc (VZ.N), are currently not planning to bring individual lawsuits and instead aim to participate through trade groups, the sources said.Such an approach would allow companies to streamline their litigation efforts and could help firms avoid drawing any fire individually, as Verizon did after it challenged the previous version of net neutrality rules on its own in 2010.At least three trade groups are expected to file legal challenges: CTIA-The Wireless Association, the National Cable and Telecommunications Association and the broadband association USTelecom, the sources said. The three trade groups declined comment.Other trade groups such as the American Cable Association and the National Association of Manufacturers are weighing whether to participate in litigation, representatives said."We believe there will be a lot of litigation, which will probably be led by industry associations," Verizon Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo told Reuters this week.The company is likely to hold back from filing an individual lawsuit, said an industry source familiar with Verizon's plan, citing the company's shared concerns with other members of trade associations. T-Mobile, too, said on Wednesday it was not planning to get involved in lawsuits at this point. "We have not at all been vocal on the negative side of the camp and the folks that are talking about litigation," Chief Technology Officer Neville Ray said in an interview.Internet service providers such as Verizon, AT&T (T.N) and Comcast (CMCSA.O) have decried the FCC's vote last month to regulate broadband as a "telecommunications service" similar to traditional telephone service, instead of a more lightly regulated "information service."Representatives of AT&T and Comcast declined comment on Wednesday. CHALLENGE TO MERITS, PROCESSThe industry lawsuits are likely to challenge both the merits of broadband reclassification as well as the administrative process used to adopt it, according to two telecom lobbyists familiar with the discussions.The first angle would likely involve an argument that the FCC overstepped its statutory authority and dramatically changed the way it regulates Internet service providers without adequate legal basis, the sources said. The companies have argued that the FCC has unduly decided to treat Internet providers as "common carriers" bound by stricter oversight, after deciding against it years ago. The wireless carriers in particular say that the law has long exempted them from common carrier treatment.The second argument would be that the FCC did not properly inform stakeholders and the public that it was seriously thinking about switching the classification and ignored some of the arguments the companies had presented during the rulemaking, the sources said.FCC officials have said they fully expected court challenges and believe their rules are on much firmer legal ground than previous iterations that were rejected by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The FCC wrote the latest Internet rules after Verizon won its court case against prior rules in January 2014.

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Credit Suisse launches digital private banking push Credit Suisse (CSGN.VX) is rolling out its new private banking app in Asia as it seeks to fend off competition from rivals offering cheaper, faster digital services for wealthy clients.Zurich-based Credit Suisse and other private banks face competition from new digital wealth managers promising a private bank performance without the frills, and at a lower price.Tech firms such as Facebook (FB.O) and Apple (AAPL.O) are also looking to expand into mobile payment systems."We are making significant investments in digital technology to capture this opportunity and deepen the relationship with our current and next generation of private banking client," Hans-Ulrich Meister head of private banking and wealth management at Credit Suisse said in a statement.The Credit Suisse app includes an overview of clients' investment performance, tools for trading securities and foreign exchange and ways such as instant messaging to help clients communicate with their bankers."Just looking at the features, it's what you need to have nowadays," Bank Vontobel analyst Andreas Venditti said.Credit Suisse, Switzerland's second biggest bank, said it was rolling out the app in Asia Pacific initially and has chosen Singapore as the first launch location, underlining the bank's focus on the world's fastest growing region for new wealth.This was highlighted last week when the bank named Tidjane Thiam, who built up a strong Asian track record while head of Prudential (PRU.L), as its next chief executive.

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Orange buys Thales, CDC's stakes in Cloudwatt JV French telecoms groups Orange said on Friday that it was buying shares held by French defense group Thales and the CDC state-backed lender in its cloud computing joint venture Cloudwatt.With support from the French state, the company was launched in 2012 to provide an alternative to big U.S. companies dominating the sector but it has struggled to take off."The technologies and services offered by Cloudwatt complement Orange's own portfolio and represent an opportunity to accelerate the deployment of a sovereign public cloud both in France and in Europe," Orange said in a statement.Orange said it was buying Thales' 22.2 percent stake and the CDC's 33.3 percent stake as well as taking on all of Cloudwatt's employees. Orange did not provide financial details.

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U.S. regulators give Amazon go-ahead for drone tests Amazon.com Inc has won approval from U.S. federal regulators to test a delivery drone outdoors, as the e-commerce company pursues its goal of sending packages to customers by air, even as it faces public concern about safety and privacy.The Federal Aviation Administration said on Thursday it issued an experimental airworthiness certificate to an Amazon business unit and its prototype drone, allowing test flights over private, rural land in Washington state.The FAA also granted Amazon an exemption from other flight restrictions so the experimental drone can conduct those flights.The approval is a win for Seattle-based Amazon, the largest e-commerce company in the United States, and advances plans by the company and others to deliver packages using small, self-piloted aircraft.There are limitations, however. The experimental certificate applies to a particular drone and Amazon must obtain a new certification if it modifies the aircraft or flies a different version, making it difficult to adapt the model quickly in the field. Amazon's petition for permission indicated it was testing several iterations of a drone at an indoor facility in Seattle.Amazon must keep flights below 400 feet (120 meters) and keep the drone in sight, according to the FAA.The company had asked for permission to fly at altitudes up to 500 feet (150 meters.)The drone operators must have a private pilot licenses and current medical certification. Amazon must supply monthly data to the regulators.The company did not respond to requests for comment. Amazon public policy chief Paul Misener is set to testify at a congressional hearing on drones next Tuesday.As part of Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos' plan to deliver packages under a program dubbed "Prime Air," the company is developing drones that fly at speeds of 50 miles per hour (80 kph), operate autonomously and sense and avoid objects. Amazon also is working with NASA on an air-traffic management system for drones. Amazon sought permission from the FAA to test drones in outdoor areas near Seattle, where one of its research and development labs is developing the technology. The company has conducted test flights outside the United States, in countries with looser restrictions.In February, the FAA proposed long-awaited rules to try to set U.S. guidelines for drones, addressing growing interest from both individual and corporations in using unmanned aerial vehicles. The draft rules still must undergo public comment and revision before becoming final, which is expected to take at least a year.

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Reuters websites become inaccessible in China The news websites of Reuters, including those in English and Chinese, were inaccessible in China on Friday, after users first experienced difficulties accessing them late on Thursday.The websites of Bloomberg News, the New York Times and News Corp's Wall Street Journal have all been inaccessible in China for some time.It was not immediately clear why users were hindered from using the Reuters sites.The websites of some major news organizations, including Reuters, have at times become inaccessible in China in whole or part, often after the publication of stories on issues about which the Chinese government is sensitive.The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), the country's Internet regulator, did not immediately respond to a written request for comment."Reuters is committed to practicing fair and accurate journalism worldwide. We recognize the great importance of news about China to all our customers, and we hope that our sites will be restored in China soon," a Reuters spokeswoman said in an emailed statement.Reuters is the news division of Thomson Reuters Corp. Thomson Reuters also sells financial news and data services to clients in China. These services remained available.

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Microsoft must face Xbox 360 class action claims Microsoft Corp must face class action claims by Xbox 360 owners who say the video game console has a design defect that causes game discs to be gouged, a federal appeals court ruled on Wednesday.The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Seattle said a lower court judge misapplied the law in finding that Xbox owners in the United States could not sue for damages as a group. It did not decide whether a class action should be certified.Class actions can lead to larger damages or broader remedies than individual lawsuits, which can be costly to pursue.Microsoft has sold tens of millions of Xbox 360 consoles since their Nov. 2005 launch.But owners have claimed that the console's optical disc drive cannot withstand even small vibrations. They said this causes game discs to spin out of control and become scratched even under normal playing conditions, rendering them unplayable.Microsoft countered that class certification was improper because just 0.4 percent of Xbox owners reported disc scratches, and that misuse was the cause. In March 2012, U.S. District Judge Ricardo Martinez in Seattle dismissed the class-action claims. He relied on a 2009 ruling in a similar case in which another judge said the dearth of complaints ruled out class certification.But the 9th Circuit reversed the decision underpinning that ruling in 2010, in a case addressing whether a suspected defect caused premature tire wear in Land Rover vehicles.The appeals court said Martinez did not properly take this reversal into account when he deferred to the 2009 ruling."Plaintiffs’ breach of express warranty claim presents a common factual question-is there a defect?-and a common mixed question of law and fact-does that defect breach the express warranty?" Circuit Judge Johnnie Rawlinson wrote for the appeals court. "The district court erred in finding that individual issues of causation predominate over these common questions."The 9th Circuit returned the case to Martinez for further proceedings."We've won in the lower court previously and believe the facts are on our side," said a spokesman for Microsoft, which is based in Redmond, Washington.Benjamin Gould, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said his clients are pleased with the decision.The case is Baker et al v. Microsoft Corp, 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 12-35946.

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Xelflex smart fabric gives intelligent feedback for athletes Technology developers from the UK have designed a new wearable technology where the garment itself becomes an active motion sensor. Xelflex uses bend-sensitive fiber-optic that are stitched inside the clothing to provide intelligent feedback for athletes without encumbering them with bulking electronics.The makers say that until now smart fabrics have had multiple electronic sensors, making them bulky and sensitive to moisture. Xelflex's fiber-optic thread is robust enough for use in sportswear, with only a small, credit card-sized, electronics pack being the only other component.Xelflex inventor Martin Brock said making a wearable technology that was comfortable was a key factor: "Xelflex is a breakthrough sensing technology based on optical fibers; where the optical fiber is actually integrated into the garment. And really it behaves like any other thread in that garment, there's no compromise between having a sensor that gives you feedback on your motion or your performance; and having some clothing that is comfortable and wearable and elegant as part of the everyday activities."The technology built on the developers' extensive experience in industrial fiber-optic sensors and low-cost impulse radar. Brock explained that Xelflex measures the scattering of light in the optic fibers where bending the fiber results in increased scattering and reflection, which can then be measured."As I flex my joint there, it changes how much that optical fiber is bent. And as that bending changes the properties of the light in the optical fiber change so that more light is scattered back towards the source. And we pick up on that extra scattering and that allows us to measure how much that joint is bent," said Brock.Algorithms turn the results from the sensors into feedback that is useful for wearer; for example, correcting posture and movement, and coaching them on how to improve."At the most basic level is what we're doing is measuring joint angles. That in itself is not useful, because you don't want to know you've bent your wrist through 37 degrees; you want some more useful feedback. So what we then do is process those raw joint motions into something that gives intelligent feedback, acting like a virtual coach to improve your technique, or just allowing you to record your body motions in a training session with a coach and then compare what you're doing a couple of weeks later to what you were taught to do, to see if you've lapsed into your old bad habits," said Brock, who sees correcting a tennis serve, golf swing or ski technique as immediate applications for the tech.Cambridge Consultants' Duncan Smith said Xelflex improves on current 'smart garments' which he says are little more than clothing acting as a support for a conventional electronic sensor, with no synergy between the two and where the electronic component often detracts from the garment. He wants to bridge the gap between technologists and fashion designers."Xelflex represents a major step forward in wearable technology because it's truly wearable - the sensor is actually built in to the fabric so you're able to design clothes that have the sensor built into them. This means that fashions designers can design the clothes rather than technologists designing wearable technology that's just a wristband or something like that. And that's a big step forward."The developers say the Xelflex technology is now at an advanced stage, and they are looking to work with fashion and design companies who are able to integrate their fiber-optic into truly desirable sports clothing.

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China's Huawei leads international patent filings: WIPO Chinese telecom giant Huawei Technologies Co Ltd [HWT.UL] became the world's No. 1 applicant for international patents in 2014, a United Nations agency said Thursday, underscoring the innovative strides made by Chinese technology companies.Huawei was followed by San Diego-based chipmaker Qualcomm Inc while Huawei's crosstown rival ZTE Corp, which was the world's leading applicant in 2012, took third place in its number of filings, according to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).WIPO's report, which is sometimes viewed as a rough barometer of a country's technological progress, noted that China was the only country to see double-digit growth in its filings, although U.S. companies led by far. High-tech and automotive powerhouse Japan, home to last year's leading applicant Panasonic Corp, saw its total filings slide.In recent years China's top policymakers have offered incentives to nudge Chinese companies to shift from low-value, low-cost manufacturing to fostering innovation. The country has also made a series of reforms to improve IP enforcement within its legal system, long considered dubious by foreign and Chinese firms alike.The emphasis on innovation was reiterated this month at China's annual parliamentary session by Premier Li Keqiang, who made a high-profile visit to Huawei's research and development center in January.Huawei has touted its yearly research and development budget - equal to 10 percent of its revenue - as proportionally higher than many of its peers in industry. Chief Executive Ken Hu told reporters in Barcelona this month Huawei will spend $600 million on 5G wireless research and development from 2013 to 2018. Chinese technology industry observers say Qualcomm's antimonopoly settlement reached this year with Chinese regulators could spark a patent war as Chinese firms such as ZTE use their IP portfolios - and a stronger legal regime - to extract royalties from smartphone makers.

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Dilemma for Jeb: How Bush 3.0 would deal with Iraq Two U.S. presidents named Bush have legacies dominated by wars in Iraq. That leaves a potential third, Jeb Bush, facing a uniquely sharp dilemma over how to tackle the current crisis in that region, having to explain how he would step up the fight against Islamic State militants without getting bogged down in another war.With Bush expected to be a front-runner among Republican candidates jockeying for the 2016 presidential nomination, strategists say he will need to set his own course on U.S. policy toward the region without getting entangled in a debate about the legacy of his father and older brother. The former Florida governor, who has limited foreign policy experience, is expected to begin fleshing out his views on U.S. policy in the region in a speech in Chicago on Wednesday.There are early indications that Bush will argue for a more robust response to Islamic State than President Barack Obama, seeking greater use of air power and more diplomatic engagement, without sending more American ground troops."We have to be engaged," he said in a speech earlier this month in Detroit. "And that doesn't necessarily mean boots on the ground in every case."The rise of Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, known as ISIS or ISIL, has become the top foreign policy issue in the early days of the 2016 race. There's a deep divide between Republicans and Democrats over the root cause, and how to respond.Democrats accuse Jeb's brother, former President George W. Bush, of giving rise to the current turmoil in the region with the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq over weapons of mass destruction that were never found. The prolonged conflict damaged George W. Bush's second term and his popularity.Twelve years earlier, Jeb's father, former President George H.W. Bush, assembled a global coalition to push Iraq out of Kuwait, a swift war that was far more popular at home.Republicans say the extremist Islamic State would never have gained its footing if Obama had reached an agreement with the Iraqi government to leave a U.S. military force in the country. Bush aides declined to discuss what Jeb Bush would say on Wednesday in his speech, but Jeb told reporters in Florida on Friday, when asked how he would handle Iraq and Afghanistan differently than his brother, that he would focus on the future. "It's not about re-litigating anything in the past," he said.He has said in the past that he supports his brother's decision to go to war in Iraq, which could leave him open to attack from Democrats should he win the nomination."A lot of things in history change over time," Jeb told CNN's "State of the Union" in 2013. "I think a lot of people will respect the resolve that my brother showed both in defending the country and the war in Iraq."His complaint about the recent past in Iraq is that Obama has let American influence wane in the region.DON'T LOOK BACKJeb Bush has been relying on foreign policy advice from a wide range of experts, a group that sources said includes Meghan O'Sullivan, a former national security aide to George W. Bush who was an early advocate for the 2007 troop surge that helped stabilize Iraq at the time. Her presence is seen positively by those Republican foreign policy veterans who support a pragmatic approach, while more hawkish Republicans view her with suspicion.Republican foreign policy veterans say Jeb Bush should not dwell on the past but offer his own ideas."He needs to lay out his specific views on our current and future national security concerns. I would argue there’s no need to look back to the problems with entering Iraq but to give us his views on ISIS in Iraq and Syria right now," said Richard Grenell, who was the U.S. spokesman at the United Nations for much of George W. Bush's administration.Democrats say Jeb Bush inevitably will be asked to explain to war-weary Americans how he would handle Iraq differently than his brother. "It's a hard problem for him because he's obviously going to say that going to war in Iraq was the right thing to do," said Democratic strategist Bob Shrum, who was campaign manager for the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, who lost to George W. Bush. "He's going to try to shift the question to what should be done about ISIS."While Jeb Bush and other Republican candidates need to be wary of Americans' war fatigue, the party's national security veterans say there are ways to intensify the air campaign against militants who have seized large parts of Iraq and Syria.The former Bush presidents are expected to recognize that Jeb will lay out his own plan on Iraq, rather than be influenced by the family's policy legacy. "They support him because they think he'd be a good president," said a former Bush administration official. "That doesn't mean he has to subscribe to the same policy prescriptions that came before him. In fact, because of changed circumstances in the world, he'll have to chart his own course."

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LVMH's Tag Heuer surfs wave of smartwatch partnerships Tag Heuer plans to unveil a smartwatch on Thursday among a wave of partnerships expected at the world's biggest watch fair this week as luxury watchmakers fight back against Apple.The Swiss watch brand, the biggest at French luxury group LVMH, will announce it is teaming up with U.S. chip maker Intel Corp to create a digital version of one of its best-selling model, industry sources have said.Tag Heuer is planning to launch next autumn a smartwatch version of its Carrera watch that will offer many of the same functions as the Apple watch such as geolocation, distance walked and altitude.The major difference is that the watch will be a digital replica of the original Tag Heuer black Carrera, known for its bulky, sporty allure, and will look like the original."People will have the impression that they are wearing a normal watch," Tag Heuer Chief Executive Jean-Claude Biver told Reuters in an interview at Baselworld, the industry's biggest fair where retailers place their orders for the year.Biver agreed with Swatch Group Chief Executive Nick Hayek who said the smartwatch "would increase the cake" for the industry as a whole."Apple will get young people used to wearing a watch and later maybe they will want to buy themselves a real watch," Biver said. The jury is still out on whether Apple's smartwatch will be a major success once it hits the stores next month but Swiss watch makers have been busy trying to come up with attractive alternatives ahead of time.Many analysts predict Apple's watch, to be priced from $349 to $17,000, will dent sales at several Swatch Group brands, such as Tissot and Omega. JPMorgan estimates 33 percent of Swatch Group's profit is exposed to Apple's watch threat. Swatch Group has told analysts it will integrate near field communication (NFC) into several of its watch brands, first Swatch, then Tissot and Omega.It said its competitive advantage would be longer battery life than Apple's watch as its smartwatches, having more limited capabilities, would require less energy. Apple watches must be recharged every 18 hours, meaning they typically cannot be worn overnight.Tissot, which has long been making watches with touch screens, on Wednesday unveiled its new connected T-Touch fitted watch with a solar battery.Makers of traditional mechanic watches such as Hermes and family-owned Patek Philippe said there would always be demand for the real thing.Their argument is that the technology of smartwatches such as that of Apple will be obsolete after a few years while luxury watches could last centuries. They also pointed out that Apple's watch needed an iPhone to be in close proximity to function fully."When you are buy a Patek Philippe, you buy a timeless piece of art," said Patek Philippe Chairman Thierry Stern. "It would be as if you told people to no longer buy paintings but TV screens projecting the image of a painting."Stern also said he believed many consumers would prefer wearing a traditional watch with a suit or a black tie, rather than a smartwatch. Both Patek Philippe sand Hermes said they had no plans to market smartwatches. "For the moment, Hermes is observing what is going on," said Guillaume de Seynes, a managing director at Hermes. "We still do not know how the smartwatch market will evolve."

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Sharp to ax more than 10 percent of Japanese workforce: Nikkei Sharp Corp is cutting more than 10 percent of its Japanese workforce starting in April, according to a Nikkei report.The embattled electronics manufacturer will slash about 3,000 jobs through voluntary retirements and expects to book about 30 billion yen ($250.00 million) in retirement-related expenses for 2015, the business daily said.Sharp's could also shed its North American television business as part of its plans to restructure operations in unprofitable businesses, the Nikkei said. (s.nikkei.com/1FBRPPX)The company could also cut more than 2,000 jobs mostly in the Americas, representing about 10 percent of its workforce outside Japan, the Nikkei reported.Sharp is also expected to lower the pay scale for its domestic workers in 2015, to curb personnel costs. The company plans to cut fixed costs by 50 billion yen ($416.67 million), the newspaper said.

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Global push aims to change China's mind on bank rules: U.S. official The United States has joined forces with Japan and the European Union to pressure China on new bank cybersecurity rules that have upset foreign companies, a senior U.S. official said on Wednesday.Deputy Trade Representative Robert Holleyman said the United States would keep lobbying China to put a hold on the rules, which would force technology vendors to Chinese banks to hand over secret source code and adopt Chinese encryption algorithms, until there was a "satisfactory resolution.""We are working to try to break down those barriers, and we have also secured support from our allies and trade partners in Japan and the EU," Holleyman, who raised the issue with Chinese officials during a visit to Beijing last week, told the National Lieutenant Governors Association."This is not just a U.S.-led initiative; it's an important global initiative." Brussels has also raised the issue with Beijing at the ministerial level and plans to flag its concerns at the World Trade Organization's next meeting on technical trade barriers.“The EU is concerned by the lack of transparency in the development of these measures and by the potential impact on EU companies," a European Commission spokesperson said. Chinese banks had until Sunday to submit plans for how to comply with the new regulations, which Holleyman said would largely shut U.S. technology and ATM providers out of the Chinese market. Washington is also pressing for China to pause the implementation of a draft counterterrorism law which could hit IT companies as well.Victoria Espinel, who succeeded Holleyman as president of lobbying group BSA The Software Alliance, said the U.S. industry was working "very closely" with colleagues overseas."What we have been doing very successfully (is) to make clear towards the United States government, the European government, the Japanese government (and) the government of China that this is a concern," she said."It is not good for Chinese companies to be cut off from being able to choose the best products and services they want, it's not good for China ... as an economy." U.S. State Department Under Secretary for Economic Growth Catherine Novelli said the combined approach should pay dividends."Hearing these things from so many different channels is the proof that ... this actually is the generally widely held view of those who know about technology," she said earlier this month.

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T-Mobile takes aim at business market with new cellular plans T-Mobile US Inc rolled out cellular and data plans for business customers, taking aim at a lucrative market segment long dominated by larger rivals AT&T Inc and Verizon Communications Inc.Companies with more than 1,000 lines will pay $10 per month for each line. Other firms with multiple lines will be charged $15 a line. In both cases, every line comes with 1 gigabyte of high-speed data and allows unlimited calls and text messages.Verizon and AT&T account for 87 percent of the $83 billion in wireless revenue from businesses, T-Mobile Chief Executive John Legere said at the company's "Uncarrier 9.0" event in New York on Wednesday.T-Mobile's bid to lure rivals' business customers reflects an increasingly competitive U.S. cellular market in which new customer growth is hard to come by, forcing the dominant players to seek growth by targeting each other's existing subscribers.T-Mobile, controlled by Germany's Deutsche Telekom, hopes to encourage business owners to switch to its network by offering their family members plans with discounts, Legere said.As added sweeteners for prospective clients, T-Mobile will offer each business client a free GoDaddy.com domain, a website and email addresses from Microsoft Office 365. Turning to the consumer market, T-Mobile said it would make permanent various promotional offers from recent months that had been labeled temporary. It also broadened a previous offer to lure other companies' customers by paying up to $650 in early termination fees to also cover those potential customers' equipment costs. Over the last two years, T-Mobile has focused on the consumer market, aggressively cutting prices and shaking up the market with moves to simplify signing up for and keeping cellular and data plans. The company is taking a similar approach as it enters the business market for wireless, Mike Sievert, T-Mobile’s chief operating officer said in an interview. “We’re a relatively small player today in the business space,” Sievert said.

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U.S labor board says some T-Mobile policies are illegal The U.S. National Labor Relations Board ruled that certain labor policies of wireless carrier T-Mobile US Inc were unfair, including some practices that discouraged workers from organizing.NLRB Judge Christine Dibble said in an order on Wednesday that several provisions in T-Mobile's employee handbook, code of conduct, confidentiality agreement and form asking employee's to comply with unlawful work rules were unfair labor practices. Dibble ordered Bellevue, Washington-based T-Mobile to "revise or rescind the unlawful rules, and advise its employees in writing" about the violations.Employees of T-Mobile and its MetroPCS business had said company policies, such as those prohibiting workers from complaining about work conditions, exchanging information on wages and discussing details of internal investigations, were illegal. The NLRB consolidated the complaints in April. The case against T-Mobile's policies was led by the Communications Workers of America, a union representing workers in industries such as telecommunications, media and cable. The CWA had said T-Mobile's policies restrained employees from organizing. T-Mobile's 45,000 employees across the United States are not unionized. The CWA has been trying to organize the company's work force.The judge ruled that 11 of the 13 corporate policies brought forth in the case were illegal, the CWA said.A T-Mobile spokesman said the judge's decision involved "a technical issue in the law that relates to policies that are common to companies across the country." He said there were no allegations that the policies had affected any employee.

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Sharp to ax more than 10 percent of Japanese workforce: Nikkei Sharp Corp is cutting more than 10 percent of its Japanese workforce starting in April, according to a Nikkei report.The embattled electronics manufacturer will slash about 3,000 jobs through voluntary retirements and expects to book about 30 billion yen ($250.00 million) in retirement-related expenses for 2015, the business daily said.Sharp's could also shed its North American television business as part of its plans to restructure operations in unprofitable businesses, the Nikkei said. (s.nikkei.com/1FBRPPX)The company could also cut more than 2,000 jobs mostly in the Americas, representing about 10 percent of its workforce outside Japan, the Nikkei reported.Sharp is also expected to lower the pay scale for its domestic workers in 2015, to curb personnel costs. The company plans to cut fixed costs by 50 billion yen ($416.67 million), the newspaper said.

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Telecom Italia proposes to trim power of majority slate in board vote Telecom Italia on Thursday proposed to change some of its bylaws that would reduce the appointment power of the majority slate in a board election.In a statement, the Italian phone group proposed that whichever slate wins more votes at a shareholder meeting will appoint two-thirds of its board instead of the current four-fifths.Telecom Italia's board has for years been dominated by holding company Telco in a set up that has made it difficult for minority investors to be properly represented. The proposed change in bylaws comes as Telco is in the process of being dismantled and French media group Vivendi is likely to become Telecom Italia's largest single shareholder.

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Chinese military denies role in reported U.S. hacking China's Defense Ministry on Friday denied that it had anything to do with a cyber attack on Register.com, a unit of Web.com, following a report in the Financial Times that the FBI was looking into the Chinese military's involvement."The relevant criticism that China's military participated in Internet hacking is to play the same old tune, and is totally baseless," the ministry said in a fax to Reuters in response to a question about the story.According to the Financial Times, hackers apparently have had access to Register.com's network for about a year, but the attack did not disrupt or result in theft of client data.It is not clear what the Chinese military would be looking for or what it would gain from Register.com's data.Register.com says on its website it manages more than 2.5 million domain names, and also provides web management and design services.China and the United States regularly accuse each other of hacking attacks.State news agency Xinhua, citing a report from the National Computer Network Emergency Response Technical Team/Coordination Center of China, said that last year, 4,761 IP addresses in the United States controlled 5,580 Chinese websites through backdoor programs, allowing remote access to a computer.It did not provide an on-year comparison.The ministry repeated the government's standard line that China is one of the world's biggest victims of hacking."The Chinese government has all along resolutely opposed and dealt with in accordance with the law Internet hacking and other relevant criminal activities, and the Chinese military has never been involved in or participated in any activities to steal commercial secrets online," it added.The United States needs to "give a clear explanation" to the world of its theft of secrets and online surveillance "and not make thoughtless remarks about other people", the ministry said.

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Tesla to offer hands-free steering on Model S in three months Tesla Motors Inc will soon offer upgrades including hands-free steering on its Model S sedan, Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk said on Thursday, but the news did not help the electric carmaker's volatile shares which fell more than 2 percent.Tesla is set to offer the automatic steering feature in three months, about a year ahead of other automakers. It will be available only when driving on freeways or major roads, as part of a continuing series of free software upgrades delivered wirelessly to Model S owners, Musk said.General Motors Co has said it plans to offer a similar set of hands-free driving features next year on its new Cadillac CT6 sedan. Other automakers and suppliers are working on similar automated systems. Tesla is among several automakers, including BMW and Daimler AG's Mercedes-Benz, offering software updates wirelessly through a car's built-in modem. Tesla has been more aggressive than most others in pushing such "over-the-air" software updates, which Musk said would continue to be released every three or four months.Investors, who had pushed the stock higher ahead of Musk's announcement, sold off on the news. Shares were down 2.3 percent in mid-day trade to $196.18 by 2:21 p.m. EDT.The company's stock has fallen from a peak last September of $291.42. Shares rose above $200 after Musk tweeted on Sunday that Tesla planned a March 19 press conference to announce the software update.On Thursday, Tesla also announced the release of a new Range Assurance feature that will warn Model S drivers before they run out of battery power. The feature will be bundled with a trip planner that will help owners map "optimal" travel routes, Musk said.He said the range assurance and trip planning features, which will be released in about 10 days, will make it "almost impossible for a Model S driver to run out of range." The latest version of the Model S has a range between charges of about 280 miles.Among new features to be delivered later this year, in what Musk said would be Version 7.0 of the car's operating software, is one that will enable owners to summon their car remotely from the garage.Another feature will be a valet mode that limits vehicle speed and access to confidential information.The Version 7.0 software also will be installed in the new Model X crossover that goes into production this summer.Tesla this year has come up under increasing scrutiny by investors after several misfires, including missing sales targets in China and, more recently, falling short of Wall Street's expectations on profit and sales volume.Of particular concern is the company's free cash flow. Tesla burned through $455 million in the fourth quarter as it overhauled and expanded its California assembly plant and finalized development of the Model X.When the company announced year-end results in February, Chief Financial Officer Deepak Ahuja said he expected cash burn this year to be less than $1.0 billion.

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Thailand's outdated tech sector casts cloud over economy Next month the last batch of televisions will roll off the production line at LG Electronics' plant in Thailand's Rayong province, just east of Bangkok.The company said on Tuesday that it's moving production 1,500 kilometers northeast to the Vietnamese coastal city of Hai Phong, where labor costs are cheaper and China-based suppliers that much closer.The move is part of a downward trend for Thailand's once-booming electronics industry, that is struggling to find a foothold in the global supply chain for modern technology like smartphones and tablet computers. In January, the country's manufacturing index fell for the 22nd consecutive month, with production of goods like televisions and radios down 38 percent year-on-year.The decline is raising concerns that Thailand's economic slowdown is not a temporary problem caused by its political upheaval but a structural one caused by the manufacturing industry's failure to adapt and the increasing attractiveness of its lower-cost neighbors. "It's time for products with high technology but nobody has invested in them here," said Visnu Limwibul, chairman of the Thai Electrical, Electronics, Telecommunication and Allied Industries Club.Electronics is Thailand's largest export sector, making up about 15 percent of the total, and is crucial for a country where goods sold overseas are equal to over 60 percent of its economic output. The country is the world's second-biggest maker of hard disk drives (HDDs) after China, with Western Digital and Seagate Technology among the big producers based there. But HDDs, used mainly in PCs, are being displaced by solid state drives (SSDs), which store data in flash memory chips and are used in products like ultra-thin computers and tablets.Thai exports of HDDs rose 5.8 percent in January year-on-year although those to China slipped 21 percent. Makers of SSDs and other, more cutting edge technology, are looking to new markets to base their production. CHEAPER NEIGHBORSSamsung Electronics Co. Ltd has opted to site two large smartphone factories in Vietnam, and made around $11 billion worth of investment pledges into the Vietnamese economy in 2014, according to government newspaper Dau Tu.In 2009, Vietnam's electronics exports were worth $2.8 billion, a tenth of the size of Thailand's. Last year they had reached $37.3 billion, compared with Thailand's $33 billion. Vietnam's lower wage costs - the minimum wage there is around $6.35 a day compared with $9.14 in Thailand, according to the Kasikorn Research Center - and the government incentives to lure producers are behind its appeal. Microsoft Corp, Canon Inc and Intel Corp have all set up facilities there in recent years. Thailand's electronics industry has been looking at ways to reinvent itself. Thai Delta Electronics said in October that it had produced electronic converters for hybrid cars for the first time, complementing Thailand's still relatively strong auto sector.But economists say this is not enough, and while it is trying, the country is not as nimble as other low-cost economies to adapt to newer types of technology. Thailand's innovation ranking in the World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Index, fell to 67 in 2014 from 33 in 2007."When you look at the context of the continuous decline, you see there is a structural competitiveness problem that has been eroding Thailand," said Santitarn Sathirathai, senior economist of Credit Suisse in Singapore. That means hopes Southeast Asia's second-largest economy can achieve an expected long-term average growth rate of around 4.5 percent to 5 percent a year are likely to be dashed. "Going forward, the new normal for Thailand growth is probably more around 3.5 percent, that is the signal we take on the continuous decline in the industrial sector," said Santitarn.

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Obama says disagrees with Texas judge's immigration ruling President Barack Obama said on Tuesday he disagreed with a Texas judge's ruling to block executive actions that shield millions of illegal immigrants from deportation and said he believed the issue would be resolved in the White House's favor."With respect to the ruling ... I disagree with it," Obama told reporters in the Oval Office. "I think the law is on our side and history is on our side."

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Salus Capital complaint urges cap on credit bid for RadioShack Salus Capital LLC filed an adversary complaint on Wednesday in RadioShack Corp's Chapter 11 bankruptcy that seeks to hold credit bidding in the electronic retailer's upcoming auction to $111 million.RadioShack won bankruptcy court approval last month to auction about 2,000 of its stores with an initial $200 million bid from Standard General hedge fund, which will keep about half of the stores open and operate them under an agreement with Sprint Corp.Credit bidding allows a creditor to use the debt it is owed as currency during a bankruptcy auction sale. It is unclear how much of its credit Standard General plans to use in its bid at the March 23 auction.               RadioShack owes Salus, a middle-market lender and subsidiary of Harbinger Group Inc, and Cerberus Capital Management $250 million for a loan.Salus and RadioShack declined to comment on the filing. Standard General was not immediately available for comment.The case is In re: RadioShack Corp, et al., Case No. 15-10197 in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware

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Sharp says not considering LCD spin-off as banks seek overhaul Loss-making Japanese electronics firm Sharp Corp (6753.T) said it's not considering spinning off its liquid crystal display business as part of a bailout plan under discussion with lenders seeking restructuring moves in return for extending support. "This is not something we announced, nor is it something we are considering," Sharp said in a statement on Friday. The firm issued the statement after the Sankei daily newspaper earlier reported the company plans to spin off the LCD unit.Sankei's report followed other media coverage on expected changes at Sharp, including a possible exit from North American TV manufacturing, in return for a bailout by banks. Sharp will likely cut 12 percent of its workforce in a global restructuring expected to cost more than $1.7 billion, a person familiar with the plan told Reuters on Thursday.Sharp Chief Executive Kozo Takahashi has been negotiating terms of a rescue plan with the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, part of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (8306.T), and Mizuho Financial Group's (8411.T) Mizuho Bank. It would be its second major bailout since 2012, and comes after the company last month warned of its third annual loss in four years.

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Nearly 40 percent of iPhone owners interested in Apple Watch: poll About 40 percent of adult Apple iPhone owners in the United States are interested in buying the company's new Apple Watch, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll. The high-tech smartwatch, which will range in price from $350 to $17,000 for an 18-karat gold model, is Apple Inc’s (AAPL.O) first major new product in five years and consumer demand for the device is being closely watched by competitors and investors. Owners of the iPhone are a particularly important market for Apple as it launches the new watch, which goes on sale April 24. Because the watch needs an iPhone to work fully, analysts say the most likely pool of initial buyers will already have an Apple smartphone in their pockets. BTIG analyst Walter Piecyk said that with more than 100 million active iPhone users in the United States and closer to half a billion globally, the survey was "pretty encouraging" for a product that has not been seen in shops, even if was unclear how much of the interest would translate into purchases.Pacific Crest Securities analyst Andrew Hargreaves said it was not clear how many people wanted or needed a smartwatch. But he expected Apple's cache and marketing might to deliver strong initial sales of the Apple Watch.“Winning Apple customers is more realistic at this point,” said Hargreaves.The watch allows users to check email, listen to music and make phone calls. Ipsos surveyed 2,469 Americans aged 18 and older online between March 9 and March 17 and found that 24 percent expressed an interest in purchasing the Apple Watch, including 10 percent of those describing themselves as “very interested.” The data was weighted to reflect the U.S. population and has a credibility interval, a measure of accuracy, of plus or minus 2.2 percentage points. Among the iPhone owners, 39 percent were interested in purchasing the Apple watch, including 17 percent describing themselves as very interested. There were 788 iPhone owners in the survey with a credibility interval of plus or minus 4 percentage points. Discussions about the watch have flooded online social media channels such as Twitter and Facebook since Apple held a splashy event in San Francisco on March 9 to showcase the watch. Social media chatter about the Apple watch was 15 percent positive and 5 percent negative in the week following Apple’s event, according to an analysis that the firm Networked Insights conducted for Reuters. The remaining 80 percent was neutral. By contrast, the social conversation for Apple’s iPhone 6 during the same week was 5 percent positive and 0 percent negative, according to the analysis. Among the conversations relating to the Apple watch during the one-week period, 5.8 percent of the comments showed an intent to purchase, according to Networked Insights, which analyzes tweets, public Facebook posts and other sources. Social comments about the iPhone 6, which has been on sale since September, showed a 2.9 percent purchase intent during the same week. Apple is among several large tech companies looking to jumpstart a new market for “wearable” electronic devices. Samsung Electronics(005930.KS), Sony Corp(6758.T) and LG Electronics (066570.KS) have all released their own smartwatches, many of them powered by software developed by Internet company Google Inc (GOOGL.O).More than half of iPhone users in the Reuters/Ipsos survey believe that a smartwatch in the near future will be an essential gadget that’s as common as the smartphone, whereas 44 percent a broader poll of U.S. adults felt that way.

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Tencent to increase investment, spend aggressively in video in 2015 Chinese social network and online entertainment group Tencent Holdings will continue to boost investment and spend aggressively on video content this year, company executives said after it posted 2014 results on Wednesday.Tencent declined to disclose how much it spends on video content, but it has been signing licensing and distribution deals for television, film, sport and music, including with U.S. cable broadcaster HBO and the NBA.Tencent's fourth-quarter net income missed estimates, with revenue growth at its slowest in seven years.

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Facebook to allow users to send money to friends through Messenger Facebook Inc said it is adding a new feature to its messaging app that allows friends to send and receive money through it.Users can tap or click a dollar icon in a new chat window to send money to their friends, after they link a Visa or MasterCard debit card issued by a U.S. bank to their accounts. (bit.ly/1xvuNDm)The free feature will roll out over the next few months for users in the United States who access Facebook Messenger through desktop computers or Google Inc's Android and Apple Inc's iOS operating systems on mobile devices.Users can create a PIN or enable Touch ID if they have an iPhone to add a level of security to the payments. Snapchat had launched a similar service last November, called Snapcash.The mobile messaging company partnered with online payments company Square to allow Snapchat users to link their debit cards to their account and quickly send money to a contact by starting a chat on a smartphone.

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U.S. jury clears Apple of infringing wireless tech patents A federal jury in Texas on Monday said Apple Inc did not infringe five wireless technology patents owned by Canadian patent licensing firm Conversant Intellectual Property Management Inc [GEGGIM.UL] .Core Wireless Licensing Sarl, a subsidiary of Ottawa-based Conversant, sued Apple in 2012 in a federal court in Tyler, Texas, alleging the iPhone maker used its patents on wireless data transmission in its iPhones and iPads without permission.The jury deliberated for about five hours before delivering its verdict on Monday night. The company, whose patents were originally held by Nokia Corp, was seeking $100 million in damages at trial. It said it was entitled to a portion of Apple's device sales, and of similar, future devices. Apple pegged damages, if any, at less than $1 million. The jury also rejected Apple's claim that Core Wireless breached its obligation to license its patents, which are considered essential in the industry, on fair and non-discriminatory terms.Conversant acquired Core Wireless and its 2,000 Nokia patents and patent applications in 2011. At the time, as part of an agreement with Nokia, Microsoft Corp had a license to those patents, according to Conversant company documents. In its purchase of Core Wireless, Conversant agreed to return two-thirds of any revenue from licensing and litigating the patents back to Microsoft and Nokia, according to the documents. A Microsoft representative on Monday night could not confirm whether that agreement was still in force. When it originally filed the lawsuit, Core Wireless alleged Apple infringed more than a dozen of its patents. But twice last year it removed several patents from the litigation in order to streamline the case, leaving just five at the core of the trial. Apple is the most targeted company for lawsuits filed by companies that make money through licensing and enforcing their patents rather than making products. Last month, a jury in the same courthouse in Tyler ordered Apple to pay $532.9 million - one of the largest patent verdicts ever - after it found that the company's iTunes software infringed three patents owned by patent licensing firm Smartflash LLC. Representatives from Apple and Conversant did not immediately return requests for comment. The case is Core Wireless Licensing Sarl v. Apple Inc, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, No. 12-cv-100.

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Premera Blue Cross breached, medical information exposed Health insurer Premera Blue Cross said on Tuesday it was a victim of a cyberattack that may have exposed medical data and financial information of 11 million customers in the latest serious breach disclosed by a healthcare company.It said the attackers may have gained access to claims data, including clinical information, along with banking account numbers, Social Security numbers, birth dates and other data in an attack that began in May 2014. It is the largest breach reported to date involving patient medical information, according to Dave Kennedy, an expert in healthcare security who is chief executive of TrustedSEC LLC.About 6 million of the people whose accounts were accessed are residents of Washington state, where customers include employees of Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O), Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) and Starbucks Corp (SBUX.O), according to Premera. The rest are scattered across every state in the United States.The breach at Anthem and another large one disclosed last year by hospital operator Community Health Systems Inc (CYH.N) involved larger numbers of records than the attack on Premera. Yet those companies said they believed the attackers did not access medical information. Medical records are highly valuable on underground criminal exchanges where stolen data is sold because the information is not only highly confidential, it can also be used to engage in insurance fraud."Medical records paint a really personal picture of somebody's life and medical procedures," Kennedy said. "They allow you to perpetrate really in-depth medical fraud."The insurer said it has so far uncovered no evidence to show that member data was "used inappropriately."The breach was uncovered on Jan. 29, the day that insurer Anthem Inc (ANTM.N) disclosed a cyber attack involving records of some 79 million members in Blue Cross Blue Shield plans across the country.Premera spokesman Eric Earling said the two attacks were unrelated and that his company independently identified its breach.Still, experts expect that other healthcare companies will uncover that they have been breached as the latest attack prompts them to look for intrusions."I think other insurance providers are compromised today and we still don't know it. More and more are going to disclose attacks," Kennedy said.Premera hired FireEye Inc (FEYE.O) to investigate the matter and is also working with the FBI.The attack affected Premera Blue Cross, Premera Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alaska, and affiliated brands Vivacity and Connexion Insurance Solutions.

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Alibaba leaning away from plans to invest in India's Snapdeal: Recode Alibaba Group Holdings Ltd may scrap plans to invest in Indian online marketplace Snapdeal, technology website Recode reported, citing a person who was familiar with the matter.Last week, a person informed about the deal had told Reuters that Alibaba was in talks with Snapdeal over a potential cash investment in what could have been the Chinese e-commerce giant's first direct investment in India.Alibaba has held discussions with Snapdeal about a possible investment, but the Chinese company is leaning away from investing in Snapdeal right now, Recode said.Snapdeal competes in India with bigger rivals Flipkart.com and Amazon.com, and media reports had said it was seeking $1 billion in its latest funding round to fuel growth.Alibaba and Snapdeal's talks, however, did not involve a deal close to the $1 billion number reported, Recode cited the source as saying.Representatives for Alibaba and Snapdeal could not be reached for a comment.

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Microsoft tackles China piracy with free upgrade to Windows 10 Microsoft Corp is making its biggest push into the heavily pirated Chinese consumer computing market this summer by offering free upgrades to Windows 10 to all Windows users, regardless of whether they are running genuine copies of the software. The move is an unprecedented attempt by Microsoft to get legitimate versions of its software onto machines of the hundreds of millions of Windows users in China. Recent studies show that three-quarters of all PC software is not properly licensed there.Terry Myerson, who runs Microsoft's operating systems unit, announced the plan at the WinHEC technology conference in Shenzhen, China."We are upgrading all qualified PCs, genuine and non-genuine, to Windows 10," he said in a telephone interview with Reuters. The plan is to "re-engage" with the hundreds of millions of users of Windows in China, he said, without elaboration.Myerson said Windows 10 would be released globally sometime "this summer". That is the first time Microsoft has put a time frame on the release, although it has been expected in autumn, based on Microsoft's release history.Microsoft said in January it would offer free upgrades to Windows 10 for users of Windows 7 or later in an attempt to hold onto users and make up for lost revenue by selling services such as Office over the Internet.Microsoft is working with Lenovo Group Ltd, the world's biggest PC maker, to help roll out Windows 10 in China to current Windows users, Myerson said.It also is offering Windows 10 through security company Qihoo 360 Technology Co and Tencent Holdings Ltd, China's biggest social networking company, which will build a Windows 10 app that will work on smartphones and PCs for its popular QQ gaming and messaging service. QQ has more than 800 million users.Lenovo said in a statement that it will make phones running Windows software, available through China Mobile, sometime later this year.Microsoft also said it is working with Chinese handset maker Xiaomi Technology Co Ltd [XTC.UL] - which generally uses a form of Google Inc's Android on its devices - to offer some customers a test version of Windows 10 on their smartphones."

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