Archive for May 6th, 2008
Reuters.com
Posted on: May 6, 2008
(Reuters) – Russia’s deployment of extra troops in the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia has brought the prospect of war “very close”, a minister of ex-Soviet Georgia said on Tuesday.
Separately, in comments certain to fan rising tension between Moscow and Tbilisi, the “foreign minister” of the breakaway Black Sea region was quoted as saying it was ready to hand over military control to Russia.
“We literally have to avert war,” Temur Iakobashvili, a Georgian State Minister, told reporters in Brussels.
Asked how close to such a war the situation was, he replied: “Very close, because we know Russians very well.”
“We know what the signals are when you see propaganda waged against Georgia. We see Russian troops entering our territories on the basis of false information,” he said.
Georgia, a vital energy transit route in the Caucasus region, has angered Russia, its former Soviet master with which it shares a land border, by seeking NATO membership.
Did Tom Cruise’s humbling before Oprah Winfrey improve his Oscar chances? : Gold Derby by Tom O’Neil : The Envelope – Los Angeles Times
Posted on: May 6, 2008
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There something’s weird about the timing of Tom Cruise groveling before Oprah Winfrey this past week. Why now? I think it’s no coincidence that it comes just a month or so after the news that the release of his next big pic, “Valkyrie,” got bumped from this fall to next spring — and therefore out of Oscars competition.
Sure, Tom Cruise appeared on Oprah’s show to celebrate his 25th year in films. But if the powwow had been, say, two months ago, back when “Valkyrie” was still skedded to launch the next Oscar derby, I don’t think we would’ve seen Tom so eagerly gobble up a dozen humble pies. He would’ve done damage control for his ole couch dance, yes, but in the past few days we’ve witnessed a surrender that has, I’m convinced, an underlying Oscar message.
In the past, Cruise was the kind of guy who never backed down, even daring to bully poor Matt Lauer on the “Today” show. But at Oprah’s knee these past few days, he caved on every point. He admitted that he shouldn’t have badgered Matt about kids taking psychiatric medication. Parents should make that decision for themselves, Tom now says. He shouldn’t have attacked Brooke Shields either. He regrets that his Scientology videos were “taken out of context.” Etc. Etc.
Just eight weeks ago “Valkyrie” was still skedded to launch Oscar derby season this fall and confident Cruise was poised to make another run for the gold he’s lost three times (“Magnolia,” “Jerry Maguire,” “Born on the Fourth of July”). But I think Tom learned a scary lesson over the past two months and he saw it through Oscar’s eyes.
At first glance, “Valkyrie” looks like pure Oscar bait. It’s based upon a real, heroic person during wartime — even better, one with a handicap (that eye patch) — being the story of a Nazi officer who schemed to bump off Hitler. Seems like a perfect vehicle for a superstar ridiculously overdue for a chunk of academy gold, eh? (CLICK HERE – read MORE!) Early buzz within United Artists was that the actual film by wunderkind director Bryan Singer (who got an Oscar for Kevin Spacey in “The Usual Suspects”), was great, so it seemed like a no-brainer to sked its release at the start of the derby season.
But back in February there were early warning signs of trouble. At the end of the Razzies ceremony, “Valkyrie” was not only flagged as a film widely expected to be in the running next year, but the audience howled and cheered when a pic was shown of Tom Cruise donning that eye patch. (READ MORE)
Miley Cyrus Thanks Fans At Disney Channel Games – News Story | Music, Celebrity, Artist News | MTV News
Posted on: May 6, 2008
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‘Hannah Montana’ star avoids questions about controversial pics by skipping down red carpet.
In her first major public appearance since near-topless photos, which were shot for Vanity Fair, stirred considerable debate among fans, parents and celebs like Madonna and Hilary Duff, “Hannah Montana” star Miley Cyrus appeared Saturday night at the Disney Channel Games concert, held at Orlando, Florida’s Walt Disney World, and thanked her fans for their undying support.
“I hope you had an awesome time,” Cyrus was quoted as saying on People.com. The Disney moneymaker skipped her way down the event’s red carpet, seemingly to avoid questions about the photo scandal. “I saw a sign back there that said, ‘Miley, I’m praying for you.’ I could not be more appreciative. Thank you, guys, for all your support. Without you, none of this would be possible. I love every one of you, and I could not be more appreciative. God bless you.”
Cyrus’ set opened with “See You Again,” and later on, the star previewed two tracks — “Fly on the Wall” and “Breakout” — from her forthcoming, yet-untitled album, which hits stores July 22.
Other performers that took the stage Saturday included the Jonas Brothers, the Cheetah Girls and Jordan Pruitt.
But the fans weren’t the only ones backing Cyrus up. In an interview with the Orlando Sentinel, Cyrus’ “Hannah Montana” co-star Jason Earles said she’s taking last week’s controversy in stride. “She’s one of the strongest people I’ve ever met,” he told the paper. “She’ll do everything to make sure she does right by her fans. It will be all right. I know what kind of person she is. She has a great heart.”
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Hollywood actress Scarlett Johansson and actor Ryan Reynolds, who have been silently dating for over a year, decided to take their relationship to the next level and got engaged, Johansson’s rep confirmed in a statement to People.
“They’re both thrilled,” Johansson’s rep Marcel Pariseau was quoted by People as saying.
However, according to E!Online, a source close to Johansson claims that the couple have actually been betrothed “for a little while,” and they have kept the engagement on the down-low because “they want to keep things private.”
The two started dating in the spring of 2007, shortly after Reynolds, 31, broke off his engagement to singer Alanis Morissette following a four-year relationship. Scarlett also dated her “Black Dahlia” co-star, Josh Hartnett, for about two years until the end of 2006.
Earlier this year, the 23-year-old actress was spotted shopping for wedding dresses in Los Angeles, but immediately rejected engagement rumors, explaining that a member of her family was getting married, not her.
The couple is next expected to attend the Metropolitan Museum Costume Institute Gala in New York, where Johansson will undoubtedly debut her ring.
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Google wants to make darn sure that when Verizon opens up its wireless network, it actually opens up its wireless network.
In a new petition (PDF) to the US Federal Communications Commission, the world’s largest search engine questions whether Verizon is planning to sidestep the commission’s new open access rules, urging Kevin Martin and crew to put an extra clamp on the mega telco.
Thanks to some heavy lobbying from Google and friends, the FCC has attached an open access requirement to the so-called 700-MHz C Block, a prime portion of the US airwaves auctioned off earlier this year. Verizon ended up winning the auction with bids totaling more than $4.7m, and in theory, it must open the block to any device and any application. But Verizon has spent many years keeping its world as closed as possible.
Yes, Verizon has told everyone it will open up its entire network by the end of the year. But Google wonders if its rival is playing fast and loose with the word open.
In previous FCC filings, Verizon has advocated a so-called “two door” open access policy where open access doesn’t apply to Verizon-sold phones, and Google argues that this sort of open access policy is less than open.
“Verizon has taken the public position that it may exclude its handsets from the open access condition,” Google’s petition reads. “Verizon believes it may force customers who want to access the open platform using a device not purchased from Verizon to go through ‘Door No. 1,’ while allowing customers who obtain their device from Verizon access through ‘Door No. 2.’ As Google previously made clear, Verizon’s position would completely reverse the meaning of the rule such that the open access condition would apply to none of Verizon’s customers, and thereby render the condition a nullity.”
Memo to Jerry Yang: How to make Yahoo great again | Tech news blog – CNET News.com
Posted on: May 6, 2008
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Re: Getting your company back on track
Now that Yahoo appears to be on its own path, it’s time for the company to find in its past what could again make it great.
Contrary to popular opinion, the key to the future isn’t becoming a technological marvel to rival Google. Instead, Yahoo should home in on what it made it special before the dot-com bust: The Yahoooooo! (cowboy twang inserted) of yesteryear.
Yahoo was an Internet media pioneer. The company built or bought every massively popular feature on the Web today–think Broadcast.com (video), Launch (music) and Groups (social networks). It also developed an advertising engine that could deliver on the dream campaign of any marketer with the data to back up that promise. You could argue Yahoo failed to take advantage of many of those assets in recent years, but the shortcomings haven’t been in vision, they’ve been in execution.
So how does Yahoo move forward? It needs to rebrand itself an Internet media company, quit chasing Google on Web search, and get damn good at selling brand advertising to Madison Avenue once again. And it has to get it done before Google figures out how to turn the creative ad process over to robots. Does technology play a role in that future? Of course. But the emphasis should be on technology that makes ad sales possible, not ad sales that make the technology possible.
“Yahoo was basically built for brand advertisers before brand advertisers came online in a big way. Now that they have come online, Yahoo has to have better technology to allow for better targeting and scale,” said Rishad Tobaccowalo, CEO of the futures-consulting company Denuo, a unit of advertising agency holding company Publicis.
Yahoo certainly has been selling technology, but not in the way Tobaccowalo is talking about. Earlier this year, executives started beating the drum about getting back to the technology roots with new products like advanced e-mail, mobile-search technology, and a universal log-on for Yahoo members across services like Flickr, Mail and Address Book.
Those initiatives are worthwhile, but Yahoo should be selling a bigger story to Madison Avenue, particularly as Google tries to build a division for selling brand advertising alongside search. Sure, Yahoo has advertising platforms like Panama, but the company still isn’t reaping the full value of its media network. Quite simply, it isn’t showing the swagger of its younger years among advertisers. (Note: avoid the cockiness that turned some advertisers off in the early years.)
The Associated Press: Yahoo teams with McAfee to offer search results security
Posted on: May 6, 2008
This April 30, 2008 file photo shows an exterior view of Yahoo headquarters in Sunnyvale, Calif. Microsoft Corp. has withdrawn its $42.3 billion bid to buy Yahoo Inc., scrapping an attempt to snap up the tarnished Internet icon in hopes of toppling online search and advertising leader Google Inc. The decision to walk away from the deal came Saturday May 3, 2008 after last-ditch efforts to negotiate a mutually acceptable sale price proved unsuccessful. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File)
Yahoo Inc. and McAfee Inc. are joining to offer alerts about potentially dangerous Web sites alongside search results generated at Yahoo.com.
With the new security feature — slated to take effect Tuesday — people who search the Internet using Yahoo will see a red exclamation point and a warning next to links McAfee has identified as serving dangerous downloads or using visitors’ e-mail addresses to send out spam.
Dangerous downloads can include “adware,” which shows unwanted advertisements; “spyware,” which secretly tracks users’ keystrokes and other actions; and other malicious programs that can give criminals control over users’ computers.
Yahoo and McAfee hope the move will quell users’ anxiety about accidentally clicking on malicious links.
“Yahoo users have clearly told us that among the most important concerns for them are all these lurking threats on the Internet,” said Priyank Garg, director of product management for Yahoo’s search division. “They know the damage they can do but they don’t know how to protect themselves.”
Yahoo has decided to simply nuke the worst offenders — sites that attempt “drive-by downloads,” or trying to automatically install malicious code on visitors’ computers by exploiting coding flaws in their Web browsers.
If McAfee has identified a site as having employed such tactics, Yahoo users won’t see the link at all.
“When a user gets a set of search results, there’s really no indication of who’s a good guy and who’s a bad guy,” said Tim Dowling, vice president of McAfee’s Web Security Group. “You’re really leaping off a platform of faith that you’re clicking on a site that’s safe and not one that’s bad. And the bad guys really try hard to look good.”
The companies declined to reveal the financial terms of the partnership.
The deal represents the latest attempt by Sunnyvale-based Yahoo to lure more search requests, snap out of its recent financial funk and steal advertising dollars from search leader Google Inc. as it tries to justify its rebuff of Microsoft Corp.’s $47.5 billion takeover bid.
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The Josef Fritzl case has provoked huge public soul-searching in Austria
A barman at a brothel frequented by Josef Fritzl, the Austrian man who imprisoned his own daughter in a dungeon under his house, has told how some of the prostitutes were so frightened by his perversions that they refused to accept him as a client.
He listed various extreme demands made by the retired electrical engineer, who liked to inflict pain on the women and asked them to act like corpses.
Christoph F, 38, worked at the Villa Ostende in Linz for six years and said that Mr Fritzl, a regular customer, was notorious for being “domineering” towards the staff.
“Ninety-five per cent of the guests are entirely normal, 3 per cent are slightly ‘derailed’, but Fritzl belonged to the last 2 per cent of extreme perverts, who are surely mentally deranged,” Mr F told the Oesterreich newspaper.
He said that some of the prostitutes would refuse to go upstairs with him – which was extremely rare in this business” – because of demands including sadism and “demanding that a girl should pretend to be a corpse.”
Prostitution is legal in Austria, and the Villa Ostende charges its customers €150 an hour. Most of the prostitutes come from Eastern Europe and change every few weeks.
The barman said that Mr Fritzl, who kept his daughter Elisabeth captive in the cellar of the family home for 24 years and fathered seven children by her, was a longstanding customer renowned for his meanness.
“I was working there for six years and Fritzl would come regularly. I will never forget his stinginess,” he said. “If he would consume drinks for €97 and would pay with a €100 bill – he would demand the €3 back.
“At the bar he was domineering. If he liked a girl he would order champagne for her, but after a short while he would start behaving like a headmaster with pupils and say things like ‘Sit straight!’ or ‘Don’t speak nonsense!’. Such behaviour is unusual in sex clubs.”
In the aftermath of the Fritzl case, the Austrian Parliament is to discuss the introduction of more severe punishments for sex offenders.
The Nationalrat will discuss the case tomorrow, when MPs will debate a motion on whether to change the law to introduce tougher penalties for rapists, as well as to allow criminal records to be kept for a longer period of time.
Despite the fact that Mr Fritzl had a previous conviction for rape he was allowed to adopt, or become the foster parent, of three of the children claiming he was their grandfather. This is because Austrian law sees files on convictions for sex offences removed from the records after ten to 15 years.
Bloomberg.com: Worldwide
Posted on: May 6, 2008
May 6 (Bloomberg) — UBS AG, battered by $17.3 billion of first-quarter losses at its investment-banking unit, plans to cut 5,500 jobs and said clients withdrew a net $12.2 billion from its asset- and wealth-management divisions.
The headcount reductions, which amount to about 7 percent of the workforce, will include as many as 2,600 positions at the securities division, the company said in a statement today. The bank also said it plans to exit the municipal bond business and sell $15 billion in distressed assets to a newly created fund managed by BlackRock Inc. UBS had a net loss of 11.5 billion francs ($10.9 billion) in the first quarter.
UBS fell as much as 5.6 percent in Swiss trading, the most in seven weeks, after clients withdrew more assets than they added for the first time in almost eight years. Chief Executive Officer Marcel Rohner told analysts he expects “tough business conditions,” which already caused $38 billion of markdowns at Switzerland’s biggest bank, to continue.
“The bank’s reputation is tarnished,” said Dieter Winet, a senior portfolio manager who helps oversee 63 billion francs at Swisscanto Asset Management in Zurich. “They pointed out some problems in private banking, which is their last jewel. The other two divisions have even bigger problems, as one nearly drove UBS to bankruptcy.”
Earnings Breakdown
Pretax profit at the wealth management and business banking unit fell 1.7 percent to 2.15 billion francs, while profit from asset management slumped 17 percent to 330 million francs. The 18.2 billion-franc loss at the securities unit compares with a profit of 1.54 billion francs a year ago.
The job cuts are on top of 48,000 reductions announced by the world’s biggest banks and securities firms in the past year, as writedowns and losses from the U.S. subprime crisis swelled to $319 billion.
The measures will save about 3 billion francs a year, UBS said. The bank’s first-quarter loss after writedowns of $19 billion was in line with its estimate on April 1. It had a 3.03 billion-franc profit a year earlier.
UBS fell 5.2 percent to 34.96 francs as of 2:15 p.m. in Zurich, valuing it at about 76.1 billion francs. The company lost more than half its value in the past 12 months, making it the fifth-worst performer in the Bloomberg Europe Banks and Financial Services Index of 59 stocks.
PC World – Business Center: HTC Beats Apple to 3G With Microsoft-based IPhone Rival
Posted on: May 6, 2008
High Tech Computer announced the HTC Touch Diamond on Tuesday, a smartphone running Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional and with a touch screen designed for one-handed use.
The new handset is the next generation of HTC’s popular Touch smartphone, which has sold over 3 million units in the 10 months since its launch. The Touch Diamond updates the series to 3G (third generation mobile telecommunications), beating rival Apple to the punch again.
Last year, HTC launched its first Touch handset nearly a month ahead of the iPhone. The Touch Diamond will be available throughout Europe starting in June, followed by Asia and the Middle East. The handset will hit North and South America in the second half of the year.
Apple has not said when it will launch a 3G iPhone, but industry analysts expect one within the next few months.
The HTC Touch Diamond works on WCDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access) networks and offers data rates up to 7.2M bits per second using HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) thanks to a chipset from Qualcomm.
HTC CEO Peter Chou is so excited about the Touch Diamond that he predicts it will be an even bigger seller than the original Touch. “This is going to be the biggest product of my life,” he said by phone from London.
HTC’s focus on improving touch-screen technology on the Touch Diamond’s 2.8-inch, 640 pixel by 480 pixel display pays testament to how serious it is about competing against the iPhone.
The company revamped its TouchFlo software to make give a 3D effect to screen images. People can access photos, music, messages, use push-e-mail and more on the touch screen.
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