G-DERR

Review: Eee Pad tablet transforms into laptop

2011-05-18T17:56:00.001-07:00

NEW YORK – The tablet computers that compete with the iPad have mostly been uninspiring. The Eee Pad Transformer stands out with a design that isn't just copied from the iPad: It's a tablet that turns into a laptop.

For $399, $100 less than the cheapest iPad, you get a tablet computer with a 10-inch screen and hardware that doesn't cut corners. It's fully usable on its own. For another $149, you can buy a keyboard that connects to the tablet. Together, they look and open like a small laptop.

The Transformer is made by Asustek Computer Inc., the Taiwanese company that started the brief "netbook" craze a few years ago by selling small, inexpensive laptops. With the keyboard attached, the Transformer is nearly indistinguishable from a netbook.

But before you get too excited about the prospect of a laptop-tablet hybrid that combines the best of both worlds, I have to tell you that you're not getting a Windows laptop in the bargain. The Transformer runs Google Inc.'s Android software, originally designed for smartphones.

That means it doesn't run full-blown Windows programs or connect to peripherals such as scanners. This isn't all a bad thing, as Android comes with important advantages, such as a long battery life, programs designed for touch input and a computer that comes to life almost immediately when you open the lid.

The keyboard may sound a bit expensive for $149, but it does more than help with typing. It has a track pad with "mouse buttons," just as you'd find on a laptop. It also contains an extra battery that charges the tablet's battery, two USB ports for connecting peripherals and a slot for SD memory cards, used in most digital cameras.

I tested the battery life by playing a high-definition video over and over again, with the screen set to medium brightness. I got a respectable nine hours from the tablet alone and 13 hours with the keyboard attached. That compares with 10 hours for the iPad 2.

The screen uses the same technology as the iPad's, making it easy to read from any angle and in any orientation. It is slightly larger than the iPad's and has a slightly higher resolution.

The Transformer has two cameras, as we expect from this year's tablets. The picture quality is so-so but more than adequate for videoconferencing through Google Talk.

Of course, you could get an iPad and an accessory keyboard instead. There are good reasons for doing so — I'll talk more about the software below — but let's stick for the moment to discussing what's good about the Transformer.

The iPad doesn't make any particular accommodation for a keyboard. The accessory ones connect using short-range Bluetooth wireless technology, which can be a hassle to connect and troubleshoot. It also means the keyboards need separate batteries — Apple's own model uses two AAs. The battery in the Asus keyboard doesn't need to be charged for the keyboard to work, and in any case, it uses the same charger as the tablet.

Most iPad keyboards don't attach to the tablet itself, because there's nothing to hang on to. This is fine if you're at a table, but juggling an iPad and a separate keyboard on your lap can be difficult. Some iPad keyboards are built into a case, which covers the tablet and forms a laptop-like unit, though an inelegant one.

The Transformer has two slots for the keyboard to lock into, forming a sturdy whole that's easy to use on a lap or tummy, for those really lazy moments on the couch.

There's another nice thing about the Transformer keyboard: The keys are designed for the software. There are keys that bring you to the Home screen and Settings. Others control screen brightness, volume and media playback. There are buttons for the Back and Menu functions of Google's Android software.

This isn't the first time we've seen small laptops running Android, but it is the first time I've used one that runs Honeycomb, the first Android version specifically designed for tablets rather than smartphones. The update makes Android much better at taking advantage of a 10-inch screen.

But as tablet software, Android is still far behind Apple's iOS software for the iPad. The biggest problem is the low quality and poor selection of applications from outside companies. Many of my favorite iPad apps, including Netflix and The Wall Street Journal are not available at all. Others, such as The New York Times, are available only in inferior versions, designed for the smartphone screen rather than the tablet.

I also had frequent crashes when using the applications. The Transformer is perhaps the best Android tablet out there, especially considering the price, but the software is still a major weakness. Still, the beautifully integrated keyboard should tempt people who don't want to decide between a tablet and a laptop.

Toshiba Creates Phone Display With Highest Pixel Density Ever

2011-05-18T17:54:00.001-07:00

The iPhone 4's crown of having the highest-density screen among smartphones could soon be usurped. Toshiba just unveiled a 4-inch screen with a density of 367 pixels per inch (ppi), making it the highest pixel density for any commercial display.

When Apple first showed the iPhone 4 last year, Steve Jobs famously proclaimed its 326ppi screen as a "retina" display, implying that it was so sharp, it was beyond the point where the human eye was able to discern the pixels. Those claims were later said to have beenexaggerated, though the display is still notable for having the highest pixel density among phones.

The Toshiba screen, a low-temperature polysilicon (LTPS) display that was shown this week at a trade show in Los Angeles, bests the iPhone 4's 3.5-inch 960x640 LCD with a 4-inch 1,280x720 screen. That's enough pixels to play 720p HD video at full resolution—on a phone.

The achievement, while technologically impressive, has questionable applicability. It would be difficult for most to see any actual difference in resolution between a 326ppi display and a 367ppi one.

Still, having the highest-resolution screen in a category is a talking point that Apple has shown can be a useful marketing tool, and phone makers will no doubt implement Toshiba's high-density screen in some the high-end handsets of tomorrow, possibly even Apple. Apple's current supplier for the iPhone 4 display is LG, although the company is rumored to be working with Toshiba on the next generation of the device.

Does that mean Toshiba's 367ppi screen could make its way into the next iPhone? It's possible—Apple is also rumored to be completely redesigning the iPhone for the next model to accommodate a 4-inch screen, but a shift from the current 1.5:1 aspect ratio to a widescreen one (like the Toshiba screen has) is unlikely since it would affect all apps, which have already been designed for the original ratio. If the rumors are true, however, that could mean Toshiba has a different display, with an iPhone-like aspect ratio, in the works.

The new display follows on the heels of Samsung's unveiling of a 10-inch "retina" screen for tablets with 2560x1600-pixel resolution. If the trend toward ever-higher resolution continues, mobile devices that can display full 1080p resolution video could become common—as long as their processors can keep up.

Costa Rica replaces Japan in Copa America

2011-05-18T17:53:00.001-07:00

TOKYO – Costa Rica has accepted an invitation to replace Japan in the Copa America, the soccer championship of South America.

Japan withdrew Tuesday because of problems forming a team following March's earthquake and tsunami.

Costa Rica will send a team of players mostly under 23, with five older players.

"We are not just going to take part, we want to play a good role," Costa Rica federation president Eduardo Li said. "We firmly believe going to the Copa America is important."

Costa Rica and Mexico are invited guests to the tournament, which will be held in Argentina from July 1-24.

Andrea Pirlo leaving AC Milan after 10 seasons

2011-05-18T17:52:00.001-07:00

MILAN – Italian midfielder Andrea Pirlo is leaving AC Milan after 10 seasons with the club.

Pirlo, who turns 32 on Thursday, is expected to join Juventus.

He told reporters outside Milan's downtown offices on Wednesday that "after 10 unforgettable years, I want to thank the club and fans for all their affection."

Pirlo missed several months of action this season with a right knee injury but returned to help the club win its 18th Serie A title.

Defender Alessandro Nesta and forward Filippo Inzaghi renewed their contracts through June 30, 2012.

Defender Thiago Silva, extended his contract through June 2016 on Tuesday, and midfielder Mark van Bommel and No. 3 goalkeeper Flavio Roma extended their deals through next season.

Inzaghi signs new deal but Pirlo leaving Milan

2011-05-18T17:51:00.000-07:00

ROME (AFP) – Veteran forward Filippo Inzaghi on Wednesday signed a new one-year contract with AC Milan tying him to the club until the end of next season when he will be 38.

But midfield playmaker Andrea Pirlo revealed that he would be leaving the champions Milan after 10 years.

"I'm here to say goodbye," Pirlo told reporters when he arrived at the club's headquarters in Milan.

"After 10 unforgettable years I want to thank the club and the fans for their affection."

He said the decision to part company was mutual but that he had yet to decide on his next destination.

"I haven't yet spoken to Juventus and we (with Milan) didn't speak of any offers," he added. "It was already in my mind to leave, it was a mutual decision."

Pirlo, who turns 32 on Thursday, joined the club in 2001 after three years at cross-town rivals Inter Milan.

He started his career at Brescia and moved to Inter in 1998 but was only a bit-part player and had loan spells at Reggina and back at Brescia.

He won two Champions League crowns and two Serie A titles with Milan and the World Cup with Italy in 2006.

Inzaghi missed most of this season due to a cruciate knee ligament injury.

"Fortunately my career will finish at Milan, that's the best thing after all that has happened these last years," he said.

"At my age the thing that counts more is the affection and esteem from the directors and the stadium (fans)."

The 37-year-old also joined in 2001 from Juventus having also played for Parma, Atalanta, Verona and Leffe since beginning his career at Piacenza.

He was also part of Italy's 2006 World Cup winning squad and has won the same trophies as Pirlo at Milan while he also lifted the Serie A title once with Juve.

Smile To Unlock: iPhone App Uses Facial Recognition to Secure Your Phone

2011-05-18T17:49:00.001-07:00

It there's one thing really irritating about leaving your iPhone out with friends, it's when they unlock to unleash all kinds of madness (usually on your Facebook) while your back's turned. You can always use a passcode, but maybe it's time to add an extra step to the "Slide to Unlock" screen, by adding facial recognition.

RecognizeMe is an app aimed at jailbroken iPhones, and basically gives you the option of not just using a passcode to unlock your phone, but to require facial recognition too. After adding a few images into an image

gallery ("Training Sets"), the app will simply give you the option when you next try to unlock your phone to either type in a passcode or use facial recognition.

It'll scan a few times before deciding if you are the real owner of the phone--though you can adjust the security, meaning people who look ever so slightly like you might be able to get in.

Although the creator (currently only found on YouTube) says it's still a little rough, a few testers have foundthat even pushing the security to "80% secure" still lets others in, and that it can take up to 20 seconds to verify you. Still, if the sheer sight out the app scanning their face is enough to keep your friends from leaving strange status updates on your social networking profiles, it's worth it.

Although it's not quite available to the public, it is currently processing in the CydiaStore and its believed that it'll cost $6.99 when it becomes available. Check out the video to find out how it works:

Angry Birds, the next Mickey Mouse?

2011-05-18T17:48:00.000-07:00

PARIS (Reuters) – Mikael Hed is unrepentant about the 200 million minutes per day that people around the world fritter away playing Angry Birds, the iPhone game created by the company he heads.

"It's great. Think of all the other stuff they could be doing that's so much more boring," said the chief executive of Rovio Mobile, a Finnish start-up almost unheard of before it unleashed the addictive game on an unsuspecting world in 2009.

Angry Birds, the most popular paid-for game in the Apple App Store's four-year history, has just passed 200 million downloads.

The deceptively simple puzzle game in which players use a slingshot to fire birds at green pigs hiding in buildings has hooked a whole new audience, many of whom were never interested in video games before.

"These new touchscreen portable devices have changed the way that people behave. Nowadays, people have to be entertained all the time, whenever you have just a few moments spare," Hed told the Reuters Global Technology Summit in Paris this week.

"Much of those 200 million minutes comes from this type of micro spare time, filling the little gaps."

Rovio plans to use its hold over of those millions of spare moments as a wedge to expand into Hollywood and possibly even Disney-style theme parks.

"Believe it or not, we have had such suggestions, and I believe Angry Birds Land was actually the name they used."

"Whether there will be a theme park dedicated to Angry Birds or not, I don't know, but I would be surprised if within 10 years there wouldn't be at least a theme park with something related to Angry Birds in it," said Hed.

MICKEY MOUSE

For now, the next step is to build the birds' characters and flesh out the rather thin Angry Birds story, which is that the birds are attacking the pigs because the pigs stole their eggs.

Hed says there would be news in the next days relating to Rovio's media ambitions, but declined to elaborate.

Already, Rovio has teamed up with News Corp's 20th Century Fox to hitch a new game to the animated 3-D movie Rio, which has taken hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office around the world.

A clue to Angry Birds Rio even featured in 20th Century Fox's ad at this year's SuperBowl -- the year's highest-profile advertising spot in the United States.

Hed has held talks with Hollywood studios about an Angry Birds feature film but so far has not found the right partner or deal. He said he wants to proceed with caution to protect the brand, and sees Mickey Mouse as a brand to aspire to.

These may seem grand ambitions for a company with just one megahit to its name, and Rovio is under pressure to show it is not a one-hit wonder. Angry Birds was its 52nd game.

Rovio plans to cement the popularity of Angry Birds with a version for Facebook this summer -- which will add social aspects to the essentially solitary game by building in features for players to help one another.

Hed also says a new Angry Birds game and another, different type of game are in the works. But he seems relaxed about their likely success.

"At some point you get to a point where you no longer associate a brand with just one product," he says.

"While games will always be our strong area, I also believe that Angry Birds is already beyond that point. It has the critical mass where it doesn't really need the game in order to be very known."

Rovio has just raised $42 million in venture capital funding but is already thinking about going public in two to three years' time.

Hed says the company has had takeover approaches but has so far resisted. "We're having too much fun to be a part of something bigger. That said, people do crazy things when presented with obscene amounts of money."

Asked whether he has been offered such sums, he answers: "Well, we're still independent, so not obscene enough."

Japan economy slumps more than expected in first quarter

2011-05-18T17:46:00.001-07:00

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan's economy shrank in the first quarter at nearly double the pace expected, effectively slipping into recession as the devastating earthquake in March hit business spending and private consumption.

Gross domestic product fell 0.9 percent in the first quarter, much more than a median market forecast for a 0.5 percent contraction.

That translates into an annualized decline of 3.7 percent against a forecast of a 2.0 percent fall, Cabinet Office data showed on Thursday.

The second straight quarter of contraction puts Japan effectively into recession with analysts projecting the economy to shrink again in April-June as supply constraints triggered by the March catastrophe continue to weigh on output and exports.

Japan's economy is expected to recover later this year, helped by reconstruction efforts and government spending, though risks remain as electricity shortages in the summer could delay a recovery in factory output, analysts say.

"Maybe the economy could grow slightly in second quarter, but the problem is the pace of the recovery. The pace could be very slow and very far away from normalization," said Seiji Adachi, senior economist at Deutsche Securities in Tokyo.

"I worry about the second quarter, which is the beginning of the new fiscal year. Many companies could revise down their capital expenditure plans."

Net exports shaved 0.2 percentage point off GDP, against the median estimate that it would trim 0.1 point off growth.

Private consumption, which accounts for about 60 percent of the economy, was down 0.6 percent against the median forecast of a 0.5 percent decline, marking the second straight quarter of decrease.

Corporate capital spending fell 0.9 percent against the market forecast of a 1.2 percent decline.

Japan is facing its worst crisis since World War Two after the 9.0 magnitude earthquake and a deadly tsunami battered its northeast coast on March 11, leaving more than 24,000 dead or missing and crippling a nuclear plant.

The Bank of Japan is expected to keep monetary policy steady on Friday but stress its readiness to ease further if the quake's damage to the economy proves bigger than expected.

The central bank has said that once supply constraints ease, the economy will recover moderately because demand for goods has not evaporated. Unless this view comes under threat or a renewed yen spike hurts business sentiment, it is expected to hold off on easing policy further.

5 foreign journalists freed by Libya and Iran

2011-05-18T17:44:00.000-07:00

TRIPOLI, Libya – The Libyan government released four foreign journalists on Wednesday and a fifth reached freedom in Qatar after disappearing while on assignment in Syria, the latest reporters to be freed after being swept up while covering unrest in the Middle East.

Americans Clare Morgana Gillis and James Foley, along with British freelance reporter Nigel Chandler and Spanish photographer Manuel Varela, appeared at a Tripoli hotel after being released from six weeks detention in Libya.

Earlier, Iranian-born Dorothy Parvaz, who also has U.S. and Canadian citizenship and works for Al-Jazeera television, arrived at her network's home base in Doha after being freed by Iran. All five were reported in good health.

"I've spoken to our son," Diane Foley of Rochester, N.H., told The Associated Press. "He's in good health, he's feeling very, very relieved. He's feeling very hopeful."

She said the first thing he said to her on the phone was "'Hey, ma, it's me. It's Jim. I'm fine, we're at a hotel.'" She said he told her the four were to be taken early Thursday to the border with Tunisia, where they would cross out of Libya .

Three of the journalists — Gillis, who freelances for The Atlantic and USA Today, Foley who writes for the Boston-based news agency GlobalPost and Varela, who works under the name Manu Brabo — were detained on April 5 near the Libyan town of Brega. Chandler was detained separately.

They were freed a day after the Libyan government said it had given them a one-year suspended sentence on charges of illegally entering the country.

Jane Gillis of New Haven, Conn., expressed relief at the news. "We're ecstatic and we are looking forward to seeing her," she said in a Web posting by The Atlantic.

Editor James Bennet said the magazine had been in close touch with the U.S. government, media colleagues and intermediaries on the ground in Libya. "We're hugely grateful today to diplomats, Americans and others, who have played a role" in securing the release, he said.

The 39-year-old Parvaz, who previously worked as a reporter and columnist for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, disappeared soon after arriving in Syria on April 29 to cover the anti-government protests there; the Damascus government disclosed on May 4 that she had been deported to Iran.

Though she herself was not harmed, Parvaz said that while in Syria, she witnessed the torture of Syrian civilians.

"The beatings I heard almost around the clock were savage," she told the Al-Jazeera network. "The first night they took me out blindfolded and handcuffed into a courtyard, I'm fairly certain to scare me. I heard two separate interrogations and beatings. These young men ... being beaten so harshly."

Parvaz's fiance, Todd Barker, said he was surprised when she called him early Wednesday from Qatar as she was clearing customs.

"I looked at my phone, saw it was her number and God, it was ... unreal," he said. Parvaz told him that "she was interrogated, but she's fine," he added. He said she would be traveling to Vancouver, Canada, though he was not certain when.

There was no word on the fate of another missing journalist, photographer Anton Hammerl, who disappeared in Libya about the same time as the four journalists released Wednesday. Gillis said she had not seen him.

Penny Sukhraj, wife of the 41-year-old Hammerl, who holds dual South African and Austrian citizenship, said she had been contacted by diplomats who confirmed her husband was not among those freed.

Hammerl, a 41-year-old dual South African and Austrian national, has been missing since early April after being detained close to the eastern city of Brega.

"Our understanding was that he was detained with the four others, but we don't have any clarity on where he is. We're hoping that now the four have been released, they may be able to shed some light," Sukhraj, a London-based journalist and mother of the couple's two children, told the AP.

Libyan government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said Libya holds no other reporters. "At the moment I think we have released all journalists, unless some have been captured in the past two days and I haven't heard about it," he said.

Porto win Europa League title

2011-05-18T17:43:00.000-07:00

DUBLIN (AFP) – Porto manager Andre Villas-Boas insists it would cost Europe's super-powers a fortune to break up his Europa League winners.

Villas-Boas and several of Porto's squad will be highly prized after a triumphant campaign reached a new high with a 1-0 victory over Braga in the Europa League final on Wednesday.

Colombia striker Falcao scored the winner with a superb header on the stroke of half-time at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin as Porto added Europe's second tier trophy to the Portuguese title they won without losing a single match.

At just 33, Villas-Boas is the youngest coach to win a UEFA club competition and his meteoric rise has drawn admiring glances from Chelsea, Juventus, Inter Milan and Roma.

It would be no surprise if Porto receive an official approach for Villas-Boas, as well as Falcao and fellow forward Hulk, before next season.

But Villas-Boas revealed the buy-out clause in his contract and those of Hulk and Falcao may prove prohibitive.

"The speculation is normal with managers and players all around the world. Porto has such an incredible year that people speculate about exits," he said.

"But Porto has the highest release clauses in the market so it is not easy for these talents to leave us.

"Hulk has a release clause of £100 million. It is not easy for any club to pay and Falcao has a release clause of £30 million, which is not easy to pay either.

"My release clause is very high. It is something that is not normal. I am proud to have that because it reflects on Porto.

"Of course you can say that is a number that doesn't scare people but there is not a lot of money in peoples' pockets. It is not impossible but let's hope we can keep everyone for next year."

Villas-Boas did acknowledge that he would love to test himself in one of world's top leagues eventually, but he plans a short career in the game and would happily retire to a life of motorbike riding within 10 years.

"I have an ambition to leave a mark in the game and to win much more. The greatest leagues in the world are the Spanish, English and Italian leagues and one day I hope to be part of it," he said.

"But I am happy in Porto, it is my home town. I want to have a short career because it is very stressful.

"Normally it would be 10 years. I am crazy about motorsports so maybe I will buy a new car or bike and jet off."

After spending several years as Jose Mourinho's opposition scout at Porto, Inter Milan and Chelsea, Villas-Boas has inevitably been compared to the Special One.

In truth his relationship with Real Madrid coach Mourinho has fractured since they parted ways at Inter.

He was willing to dedicate the trophy to his compatriot but was far more glowing in his tribute to the influence Barcelona coach Pep Guardiola has had on his career.

Villas-Boas is huge admirer of Guardiola's attacking principles and he said: "I should pay a compliment to Pep Guardiola. He was always an inspiration for me because of his methodology and the way Barca play fantastic football.

"I had the chance to meet him this year. He is an inspiration everyday. His philosophy is Barcelona's philosophy.

"The other I should mention is Jose Mourinho, he introduced me to professional football and gave me a lot. I would like to dedicate the trophy to him and also to my family and to Bobby Robson, who gave me my start."

While Villas-Boas can justifiably contemplate a bright future, Braga coach Domingos Paciencia is also expected to go onto greater things.

Paciencia had already announced he would leave after the final, with Sporting Lisbon mooted as his likely next club.

"I'm sad because this team has been working together for two years. We went through unique moments," Paciencia said "It is a cycle that has been broken. I hope Braga will grow stronger.

"We reached the final and that shows this team has lots of qualities. It's normal that there is a bit of frustration but we should be proud of reaching a final of this magnitude."

Gaddafi's wife and daughter in Tunisia: source

2011-05-18T17:41:00.000-07:00

TUNIS/TRIPOLI (Reuters) – The wife and daughter of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi crossed the border into Tunisia, a Tunisian security source said, but it was unclear whether they were on a diplomatic mission or seeking safe haven.

Arabic television stations quoted Tunisian officials as denying that the family members were in the country, saying that Safia Gaddafi and her daughter Aisha were on a U.N. sanctions list and would therefore not be allowed in.

However, the security source said the two women came to Tunisia with a Libyan delegation on May 14 and have been staying on the southern island of Djerba near the Libyan border.

It did not appear that they were traveling with Shokri Ghanem, Libya's top oil official, who is believed to have also crossed into Tunisia several days ago and defected.

Government officials in Tripoli were not immediately available for comment.

The Tunisian Interior Ministry denied that any members of the Gaddafi family were in the country in remarks to Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya TV.

Al Jazeera quoted a ministry spokesman as saying Tunisia would arrest any members of the Gaddafi family should they enter the country under a U.N.-imposed travel ban.

A Libyan opposition source said the women were in Djerba to accompany Aisha's husband, who he said had been injured in the Libyan conflict, and was seeking treatment in Tunisia.

A commentator on a daily political talkshow on state-run Libyan TV dismissed reports Gaddafi and members of his family had left Libya as "rumors" and "psychological war" spread by rebels and the West.

"Those people (Gaddafi and his children) live among other people and if any of those rumors were true it would be possible to find this out," the commentator said.

Italian officials have speculated that Gaddafi, who has been in power for four decades, was wounded during a NATO air strike in the capital last month which killed his youngest son and three of his grandchildren.

Libyan television has shown footage of the leader since the bombardment and aired an audio message in which he taunted NATO forces, saying he was in a place where their artillery could not reach him.

Since the revolt began in February against Gaddafi's rule, Aisha Gaddafi has made several public appearances backing her father, and attacking the rebels and Western powers trying to overthrow him.

A month ago she appeared at her father's Bab al-Aziziyah compound in Tripoli and addressed cheering crowds of supporters in an event broadcast live on Libyan state television.

"Talk about Gaddafi stepping down is an insult to all Libyans because Gaddafi is not in Libya, but in the hearts of all Libyans," she said.

On Tuesday, Libyan rebels and a Tunisian security source said the head of Libya's National Oil Corporation, Shokri Ghanem, had defected and fled to Tunisia. If confirmed, the defection would undermine Gaddafi's efforts to cling to power.

Ghanem would be the most senior Libyan official to defect since former foreign minister Moussa Koussa switched sides in Britain earlier this year after passing through Tunisia.

Amazon Will Now Pay You For Your Old Electronics

2011-05-18T17:36:00.000-07:00

Amazon has expanded its trade-in program to allow customers to send in their used electronics for gift cards that can be used on the ecommerce site. The retail giant will eat the shipping costs in the deal, letting users price out the value of their products -- including cell phones, tablets and digital cameras -- on the Amazon trade-in site, assign a condition (“like new, “ “good,” or “acceptable,”) and print off a shipping label.

[More from Mashable: Polaroid 300 Brings Back the Fun of Instant Film]

Assuming Amazon agrees with the customer’s assessment of the product’s condition, the company says it will credit their account “generally in less than 48 hours” after receiving it.

The move puts Amazon in competition with Gazelle, which has paid out more than $25 million in cash to customers for used electronics since launching in 2008. At first glance, it would appear that Amazon is offering slightly more ($178 to $158 for a good condition iPhone 3GS 16GB, $271 to $260 for a Motorola Xoom tablet), though Gazelle is offering cash to Amazon’s gift cards.

[More from Mashable: Take a Seat: 5 Office Chair Alternatives]

Prior to today, Amazon’s trade-in program already included video games, DVDs and textbooks.

Image courtesy of Flickr, blmurch

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Capsule reviews: `Pirates,' `Midnight in Paris'

2011-05-18T17:35:00.000-07:00

"The First Grader" — Based on the true story of a Kenyan man who goes to school for the first time at age 84, this drama hits all the feel-good notes you expect it to hit. Adversity is overcome and forgiveness is granted, lessons are learned and hearts are warmed. But strong performances and a stripped-down visual aesthetic help mitigate some of the movie's potential mawkishness. Director Justin Chadwick's film, based on a script by Ann Peacock, follows the unlikely challenge Kimani N'gan'ga Maruge (Oliver Litondo) chooses for himself toward the end of his life. When he hears on the radio that the Kenyan government is offering free primary education, he walks to the tiny, rural schoolhouse near his remote village home to enroll. He's initially turned away but, quietly

undaunted, returns and insists he needs to learn how to read. Jane Obinchu (Naomie Harris), the head teacher, reluctantly agrees to take a chance on Maruge and finds space for him in her already crowded classroom. Jane and Maruge eventually form an easygoing friendship, with Maruge serving as a kind but reserved mentor to the children he towers over, all of which is sort of adorable. PG-13 for some disturbing violent content and brief nudity. 103 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.

• Christy Lemire, AP Movie Critic

___

"Midnight in Paris" — Woody Allen has found the right time and the right place with this, his lightest, funniest and most-satisfying movie in a long time. Shooting a full film in France for the first time, writer-director Allen has crafted a pastry-light romantic fantasy with virtually no dramatic pretensions, unlike the comic dramas and even outright tragedy that has dominated his work for the last eight years or so. Allen presents a wide-eyed-with-wonder view of the City of Light that nicely complements his story of an American writer (Owen Wilson) who pines for the 1920s Paris of Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Gertrude Stein. All things seem possible here, so when the impossible starts to happen, it's easy to slip into the clever conceit Allen uses to test his protagonist's devotion to a nostalgic dream of days past. "Midnight in Paris" bears similarities to 1985's "The Purple Rose of Cairo" and 1990's "Alice," in which Allen used magical elements similar to those he employs here. The new movie has little of the heft or pathos of those earlier ones, and it's not necessarily a bad thing. Rachel McAdams co-stars as Wilson's fiancée, with Marion Cotillard, Kathy Bates, Adrien Brody and a scene-stealing Alison Pill among the strong, well-cast supporting players. PG-13 for some sexual references and smoking. 94 minutes. Three stars out of four.

• David Germain, AP Movie Writer

___

"Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides" — The fourth film in the ridiculously successful Disney franchise is the shortest in the series, but it still feels overlong and overstuffed: needlessly convoluted yet, at the same time, phoned-in. And the fact that this one's in 3-D does nothing to liven up the action. Those three-dimensional digital effects mainly consist of various swords and snakes and such being flung at our faces. Boo! Did you jump? That's not to say this summer behemoth doesn't have its thrilling moments. Rob Marshall ("Chicago," "Nine") takes over for Gore Verbinski, who directed the first three "Pirates" movies, and his knack for choreography comes shining through in individual set pieces. It's everything in between that makes this such a repetitive bore. Johnny Depp's performance as the randy Capt. Jack Sparrow, which seemed like such a free, goofy, inspired bit of work when the first film came out back in 2003, now feels so dialed-down and obvious, it's as if he could do it in his sleep. As for the plot — not that it matters, really — this time it follows a search for the fabled Fountain of Youth. Penelope Cruz, Geoffrey Rush and Ian McShane co-star. PG-13 for intense sequences of action/adventure violence, some frightening images, sensuality and innuendo. 136 minutes. One and a half stars out of four.

Japan Earthquake Was 'In the Air' Days Before, Scientist Claims

2011-05-18T17:30:00.000-07:00

The atmosphere above the epicenter of the March 11 earthquake in Japan underwent unusual changes in the days leading up to the disaster, according to preliminary data.

The research has not yet been published in an academic journal or reviewed by other scientists, but it could offer an intriguing possibility for earthquake prediction — though the day scientists are able to forecast earthquakes is still "far away," said study researcher Dimitar Ouzounov, a professor of earth sciences at Chapman University in California.

Looking to the sky in hopes of predicting an earthquake is not a new idea. The theory, which in science circles is called "Lithosphere-Atmosphere-Ionosphere Coupling mechanism," goes like this: Right before an earthquake, the stressed fault releases more gases, especially the colorless, odorless radon gas. Once in the upper-atmosphere ionosphere, the radon gas strips air molecules of their electrons, splitting them into negatively charged particles (the free electrons) and positively charged particles. These charged particles, called ions, attract condensed water in a process that releases heat. [Infographic: Tallest Mountain to Deepest Ocean Trench]

And scientists can detect this heat in the form of infrared radiation.

Using satellite data, Ouzounov and his colleagues looked at what the atmosphere was doing in the days before the Japanese quake. They found that the concentration of electrons in the ionosphere increased in the days before the earthquake, as did infrared radiation. March 8, three days before the quake, was the most anomalous day, Ouzounov told LiveScience. [Read: The Science Behind Japan's Deadly Earthquake]

The researchers have crunched data for more than 100 quakes in Asia and Taiwan, Ouzounov said, and have found similar correlations for earthquakes with magnitudes bigger than 5.5 and depths less than 31 miles (50 kilometers). The team is now working to involve researchers in Japan and worldwide, as ambitious atmosphere monitoring will take international effort, Ouzounov said.

Nonetheless, the success of earthquake forecasting is far from guaranteed. No one has ever predicted an earthquake from atmospheric data, and plenty of supposed earthquake precursors, from weird animal behaviorto groundwater flowing the wrong way, have proven hit-or-miss.

"It's intriguing," said Henry Pollack, an emeritus professor of geophysics at the University of Michigan who was not involved in the research. "But it's hardly what I would call a breakthrough."

To iron out the usefulness of the atmospheric approach, Pollack told LiveScience, you'd need to look at lots of earthquakes over time to make sure the phenomena is statistically linked with fault ruptures. You'd also want to know how often these atmospheric anomalies show up without an associated quake.

Terry Tullis, an emeritus professor of geological sciences at Brown University, was similarly doubtful. Earthquake scientists have been "burned enough times in the past" and so have learned not to get excited about every potential prediction method, Tullis told LiveScience. But plans are underway to put together a workshop between earth scientists and atmospheric scientists this summer to discuss the research on the ionosphere changes, he said.

"I don't want to dismiss it out of hand," Tullis said. "But at this point, one has to be somewhat skeptical."

The full report is available at The Physics arXiv Blog. The researchers have also submitted their research report to a scientific journal.

Microsoft: One in 14 Downloads Is Malicious

2011-05-18T17:27:00.000-07:00

The next time a website says to download new software to view a movie or fix a problem, think twice. There's a pretty good chance that the program is malicious.

In fact, about one out of every 14 programs downloaded by Windows users turns out to be malicious, Microsoft said Tuesday. And even though Microsoft has a feature in its Internet Explorer browser designed to steer users away from unknown and potentially untrustworthy software, about 5 percent of users ignore the warnings and download malicious Trojan horse programs anyway.

Five years ago, it was pretty easy for criminals to sneak their code onto computers. There were plenty of browser bugs, and many users weren't very good at patching. But since then, the cat-and-mouse game of Internet security has evolved: Browsers have become more secure, and software makers can quickly and automatically push out patches when there's a known problem.

So increasingly, instead of hacking the browsers themselves, the bad guys try to hack the people using them. It's called social engineering, and it's a big problem these days. "The attackers have figured out that it's not that hard to get users to download Trojans," said Alex Stamos, a founding partner with Isec Partners, a security consultancy that's often called in to clean up the mess after companies have been hacked.

Social engineering is how the Koobface virus spreads on Facebook. Users get a message from a friend telling them to go and view a video. When they click on the link, they're then told that they need to download some sort of video playing software in order to watch. That software is actually a malicious program.

Social-engineering hackers also try to infect victims by hacking into Web pages and popping up fake antivirus warnings designed to look like messages from the operating system. Download these and you're infected. The criminals also use spam to send Trojans, and they will trick search engines into linking to malicious websites that look like they have interesting stories or video about hot news such as the royal wedding or the death of Osama bin Laden.

"The attackers are very opportunistic, and they latch onto any event that might be used to lure people," said Joshua Talbot, a manager with Symantec Security Response. When Symantec tracked the 50 most common malicious programs last year, it found that 56 percent of all attacks included Trojan horse programs.

In enterprises, a social-engineering technique called spearphishing is a serious problem. In spearphishing, the criminals take the time to figure out who they're attacking, and then they create a specially crafted program or a maliciously encoded document that the victim is likely to want to open -- materials from a conference they've attended or a planning document from an organization that they do business with.

With its new SmartScreen Filter Application Reputation screening, introduced in IE 9, Internet Explorer provides a first line of defense against Trojan horse programs, including Trojans sent in spearphishing attacks.

IE also warns users when they're being tricked into visiting malicious websites, another way that social-engineering hackers can infect computer users. In the past two years, IE's SmartScreen has blocked more than 1.5 billion Web and download attacks, according to Jeb Haber, program manager lead for SmartScreen.

Haber agreed that better browser protection is pushing the criminals into social engineering, especially over the past two years. "You're just seeing an explosion in direct attacks on users with social engineering," he said. "We were really surprised by the volumes. The volumes have been crazy."

When the SmartScreen warning pops up to tell users that they're about to run a potentially harmful program, the odds are between 25 percent and 70 percent that the program will actually be malicious, Haber said. A typical user will only see a couple of these warnings each year, so it's best to take them very seriously.

Egyptian princess was first to have heart disease

2011-05-17T22:40:00.000-07:00

LONDON – An Egyptian princess who lived more than 3,500 years ago is the oldest known person to have had clogged arteries, dispelling the myth that heart disease is a product of modern society, a new study says.

To determine how common heart disease was in ancient Egypt, scientists performed computer scans on 52 mummies in Cairo and the United States. Among those that still had heart tissue, 44 had chunks of calcium stuck to their arteries — indicating clogging.

"Atherosclerosis clearly existed more than 3,000 years ago," said Adel Allam, a cardiology professor at Al Azhar University in Cairo, who led the study with Gregory Thomas, director of nuclear cardiology education at the University of California in Irvine. "We cannot blame this disease on modern civilization."

The research was presented Tuesday at a conference on heart imaging in Amsterdam.

Allam and colleagues found the Egyptian princess Ahmose-Meryet-Amon, who lived in Thebes (now Luxor) between 1540 and 1550 B.C., had calcium deposits in two main coronary arteries, making her the oldest mummy found with heart disease. The princess' father and brother were both pharaohs. The mummy had pierced ears and a large incision in her left side made by embalmers to remove her internal organs.

Allam doubted she would have received much treatment beyond maybe taking special herbs or honey. "If she were my patient today, she would get open heart surgery," he said. He added the princess' clogged arteries looked remarkably similar to heart disease in contemporary Egyptians. The 43 younger mummies with calcium deposits showed a range of heart and artery problems.

Experts say that during the princess' lifetime, beef, pork, mutton, antelope, duck and other meats were readily available in the royal courts. Egyptians didn't eat much fish but ate many different kinds of fruits and vegetables. Salt was also likely used to preserve their food.

Joep Perk, a professor of health sciences at Linnaeus University in Sweden and a spokesman for the European Society of Cardiology, said the heart disease discovered in the mummies was probably due to the rich diet and lack of exercise among the Egyptian elite. He was not linked to the mummy research.

"The pharaohs and other royalty probably had more fat in their diet than the average Egyptian," he said. "The sculptures and hieroglyphs may show people who were very thin and beautiful, but the reality may have been different."

He added there may have been other factors, like the stress of holding onto power and genetic factors that could have made the Egyptian ruling class more susceptible to heart disease.

He said Egyptian royals were more likely to be killed by heart problems after surviving other infections that would have killed poorer Egyptians. "They simply had the good luck to live long enough to develop heart disease."

The 14 Biggest News Days on the Web

2011-05-17T22:38:00.003-07:00

Pew Internet & American Life Project recently found that, in the United States, Internet news sources are the second-most-popular way to get news after television. The rest of the world is also big on news, according to the Akamai Net Usage News Index. Since 2005, the Web-monitoring firm has been watching the traffic levels directed at about 100 of the world's most popular news sites to find out which events send the world rushing to the online home of the BBC, CNN, the New York Times, and other news sources. From the World Cup to the Egyptian Revolution to the election of Barack Obama, here's a look at Akamai's top 14 news days online.

Wimbledon and World Cup

Date: June 24, 2010

Peak views per minute: 10,357,646

Notable event: Sports junkies were entranced on a June day in 2010 when American John Isner and France's Nicolas Mahut kept battling it out under the London sun to move on to the next round of Wimbledon. The match went for 11 hours, 5 minutes over the course of three days, with Isner finally emerging victorious. At the same time, soccer fans were watching World Cup qualifying matches among the Group E and F tables. Countries facing off that day included Cameroon, Denmark, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Paraguay, and Slovakia.

UEFA Champions League

Date: November 3, 2010

Peak views per minute: 6,363,725

Notable event: Soccer news claimed second place on Akamai's list as well, when London-based Chelsea took on Spartak Moscow and Zilina went up against Marseille during the UEFA Champions League.

World Cup Kickoff

Date: June 11, 2010

Peak views per minute: 6,039,434

Notable event: The World Cup in South Africa officially started on this day. The United States won one game and tied two during the worldwide tournament before losing to Ghana in the round of 16.

Elephants Stampede Into the House

Date: November 2, 2010

Peak views per minute: 5,660,658

Notable event: Republicans roared back in 2010 after being routed in 2008. The GOP took over the House of Representatives, and the Democratic lead in the Senate narrowed to 6 seats (down from 19) by the beginning of the 112th Congress. The media initially called the election results a repudiation of President Barack Obama's policies. After the election, Obama said that voters were "expressing great frustration [that the government hadn't] made enough progress on the economy."

And Then There Were 16

Date: June 23, 2010

Peak views per minute: 5,647,432

Notable event: On this day, Team USA defeated Algeria 1-0 to move on to the final 16 at the World Cup. The revelry wouldn't last long, however, as Ghana beat the United States 2-1 just three days later.

The House of Windsor

Date: April 29, 2011

Peak views per minute: 5,398,731

Notable event: Wills and Kate were married at Westminster Abbey on April 29, 2011, and the world went wild for the big event. Journalists descended from all over the globe, retailers sold royal refrigerators plastered with the couple's faces, and some Americans got up as early as 4 a.m. Eastern to watch the blessed event. Worldwide Internet traffic peaked that day at 9:30 a.m. Eastern.

Wild Horses

Date: February 2, 2011

Peak views per minute: 4,953,655

Notable event: News junkies in the United States were glued to the online version of Al Jazeera English during the Egyptian uprising centered in Cairo's Tahrir Square. The world's interest in events unfolding in Cairo peaked around 5 p.m. Eastern during a day when thugs supporting the Mubarak regime tore through antigovernment protesters in Tahrir Square on camel and horseback. The attack, dubbed the "Battle of the Camel," sparked a night of rock throwing and other violence between the two sides.

turning to their iPads and the Web to watch the games, it's no surprise that the start of the 2011 March Madness tournament topped news-site Web traffic.

Super Packers

Date: February 6, 2011

Views per minute: 4,630,080

Notable event: Online news addicts were glued to the Web the day Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers triumphed over the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl XLV. Peak usage hit more than 4.5 million page views around 10 p.m. Eastern shortly before the Packers hoisted the Vince Lombardi trophy at Cowboys Stadium.

Tectonic Shift

struck the city of Christchurch around 6:50 p.m. Eastern on February 21. The next day online-news buffs were burning up the Web reading news about the disaster as well as the continuing drama surrounding other notable events such as the turmoil in Libya, the Wisconsin protests, and the arrest of CIA contractor Raymond A. Davis in Pakistan.

antigovernment protesters on this day by claiming that he would not seek reelection. Ultimately, Mubarak's bid to remain in power failed, and he resigned from the Egyptian presidency ten days later, on February 11. Online-news traffic peaked during the February 1 address around 4:45 p.m. Eastern, 45 minutes after the speech began.

Catastrophe
Date: March 11, 2011
Views per minute: 4,576,088
Notable event: A massive earthquake off the coast of Japan and the accompanying tsunami took more than 14,000 lives, caused tens of billions worth of damage, and set off a series of dramatic nuclear emergencies at several reactors in the island nation. Around 4 p.m. EST on the day of the quake, news-site traffic peaked as people searched for information about the natural disaster.
NFL Madness
Date: January 23, 2011
Views per minute: 4,379,108
Notable event: The games leading up to Super Bowl XLV appeared to be a big moment for Web news. Traffic peaked around 12:30 p.m. Eastern in anticipation of the Green Bay Packers facing off against the Chicago Bears, while the New York Jets got ready to take on the Pittsburgh Steelers. Other major news events that day included predictions for President Obama's State of the Union address on January 25.
election of Barack Obama as president of the United States. Traffic peaked around 11 p.m. Eastern, which was about the time the major networks were officially projecting Obama as the winner over Senator John McCain.
Almost...
Despite being major news events, some stories just weren't popular enough to become one of the most highly trafficked online-news stories. Events such as the killing of Osama bin Laden, theChilean miner rescue, and Michael Jackson's death all fell short of the top 14 online news items. "There are a lot of factors involved with why one news event might be bigger or smaller than another," says Akamai spokesperson Jennifer Donovan. "The World Cup traffic peak, for example, happened during the day when both the U.S. and Europe were in the office, and the only place to watch was online."

Distant rocky planet 'could be future human home'

2011-05-17T22:36:00.000-07:00

An image released by the European Southern
Observatory (ESO) shows an artist's impression of the …

PARIS (AFP) – A rocky world orbiting a nearby star has been confirmed as the first planet outside our solar system to meet key requirements for sustaining life, scientists said on Monday.

Modelling of planet Gliese 581d shows it has the potential to be warm and wet enough to nurture Earth-like life, they said.

It orbits a red dwarf star called Gliese 581, located around 20 light years from Earth, which makes it one of our closest neighbours.

Gliese 581d orbits on the outer fringes of the star's "Goldilocks zone", where it is not so hot that water boils away, nor so cold that water is perpetually frozen. Instead, the temperature is just right for water to exist in liquid form.

"With a dense carbon dioxide atmosphere -- a likely scenario on such a large planet -- the climate of Gliese 581d is not only stable against collapse but warm enough to have oceans, clouds and rainfall," France's National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) said in a press release.

More than 500 planets orbiting other stars have been recorded since 1995, detected mostly by a tiny wobble in stellar light.

Exoplanets are named after their star and listed alphabetically, in order of discovery.

Until now, the big interest in Gliese 581's roster of planets focussed on Gliese 581g.

It leapt into the headlines last year as "Zarmina's World," after its observers announced it had roughly the same mass as Earth's and was also close to the Goldilocks zone.

But that discovery has since been discounted by many. Indeed, some experts suspect that the Gliese 581g may not even exist but was simply a hiccup in starlight.

Its big brother, Gliese 581d, has a mass at least seven times that of Earth and is about twice our planet's size, according to the new study, which appears in a British publication, The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

The planet, spotted in 2007, had initially been dismissed as a candidate in the hunt for life.

It receives less than a third of the solar radiation Earth gets, and may be "tidally locked", meaning that one side of it always faces the sun, which would give it permanent dayside and nightside.

But the new model, devised by CNRS climate scientists Robin Wordsworth, Francois Forget and colleagues, showed surprising potential.

Its atmosphere would store heat well, thanks to its dense CO2, a greenhouse gas. And the red light from the star would also penetrate the atmosphere and warm the surface.

"In all cases, the temperatures allow for the presence of liquid water on the surface," say the researchers.

For budding travellers, though, Gliese 581d would "still be a pretty strange place to visit," the CNRS said.

"The denser air and thick clouds would keep the surface in a perpetual murky red twilight, and its large mass means that surface gravity would be around double that on Earth."

Getting to the planet would still require a sci-fi breakthrough in travel for earthlings.

A spaceship travelling close to light speed would take more than 20 years to get there, while our present rocket technology would take 300,000 years.

Android 3.1 Update Coming in June to Acer, Asus, and T-Mobile Tablets

2011-05-17T22:34:00.000-07:00

The first major update to Google's Honeycomb platform, Android 3.1, was announced last week at the Google I/O developer event, and it's slowly rolling out as an over-the-air update to mobile broadband-connected Motorola Xoom tablets. When announced, Google was vague about when we could expect Android 3.1 on other Honeycomb tablets, but today saw update details flying across the Web for both the Acer Iconia A500 and the Asus EeePad Transformer.

The details remain vague, however. According to reports on ThisIsMyNext and Engadget, Asus Italia used its Facebook page to reveal an over-the-air update was coming in June. And Acer says an update is coming in June, as well. Mind you, we don't know when in June, nor do we know if U.S. models will receive the update at the same time as other regions will. Still, add that T-Mobile says it will be doing an OTA update of the T-Mobile G-Slate,and we've got a bona fide Android 3.1 party.

I've yet to see the Android 3.1 update, but I'm looking forward to it: In addition to adding things like resizable widgets, Google says it has fixed the image rendering issue I've noted before.

Bill Gates backed Microsoft's takeover of Skype

2011-05-17T22:32:00.001-07:00

When it was announced last week that Microsoft had bought Internet phone company Skype for a whacking $8.5 billion, it caused many in the tech industry to carefully place their cup of coffee on their desk, furrow their brow slightly and say, “Eh?”

The news media was filled with stories trying to work out precisely why Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was so excited about the takeover of a company that lost $7 million last year and charges nothing for most of its services.

At the announcement of the purchase, Ballmer spoke enthusiastically about how the companies promised “universal, next-generation communications…..[that will] empower [consumers] to communicate in new and interesting ways.” And now, just as people are pondering over exactly what the “new and interesting ways” might be, Microsoft founder Bill Gates has popped up to lend some support to Ballmer.

According to an interview with the BBC to be aired on Wednesday, Gates said that he himself advocated theSkype purchase. Talking to the BBC’s Stephen Sackur on his Hardtalk one-on-one interview show, Gates said, “I was a strong proponent at the board level for the deal being done. I think it’s a great, great deal for Skype. I think it’s a great deal for Microsoft.”

Looking ahead, Gates explained that the takeover was a strategic decision, not focussed on Skype’s immediate financial situation. He said, “The idea of video conferencing is going to get so much better than it is today.” He added: “It’ll be fascinating to see how the brilliant ideas out of Microsoft research, coming together with Skype, what they can make of that.”

Skype was founded in 2003 and enables its 663 million users to make video and voice calls online. Microsoft’s purchase of the company was its biggest ever acquisition.

FIFA chief Blatter accuses English of sour grapes

2011-05-17T22:30:00.001-07:00

ZURICH (AFP) – FIFA president Sepp Blatter on Tuesday accused the English of sour grapes over their lost bid to host the 2018 World Cup.

FIFA has been rocked by new allegations of graft after a British parliamentary committee last week heard testimony about bribes being offered during the bidding process to host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.

The corruption allegations attracted wide coverage in the British press, with reports branding FIFA officials "sleazeballs" and "rotten to the core".

"The British press have always been very critical regarding football and FIFA. It didn't start with me. It's been a long time," Blatter told AFP.

"There is a sort of stubbornness against football and FIFA. Of course there is the fact that England didn't get the World Cup. But perhaps you have to analyse why.

"The English say: 'If we'd been told that the World Cup was going towards new territories, we wouldn't have bid.'

"If they'd followed the policy of the FIFA president, they would have seen that the World Cup was in the process of circulating, in Asia (2002), South Africa (2010), Brazil (2014)..."

Lord David Triesman, the former Football Association and England 2018 World Cup bid chairman, claimed last week there had been "improper and unethical behaviour" by several senior FIFA officials, including Issa Hayatou from Cameroon and Jacques Anouma from the Ivory Coast, in relation to the bid.

The accusations come after FIFA last year suspended two members of its executive committee for one to three years following a probe into alleged misdealings in bidding for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.

And Blatter, who is bidding for a fourth term as FIFA president in June, said he was doing all he could to deal with corruption in the sport.

"I'm here to put football back on track," said Blatter.

"After the turbulence, then the disruptions during October I thought that I could calmly go to the elective congress and announce my 'zero tolerance' plan, on which I had already started to work... and then my idea of a council of wise heads made up of personalities from outside the world of football.

"And now this! This British parliamentary enquiry lands in our laps.

"So either there is no proof and we classify the affair, but we can't file away the statements made by Mr Triesman, or we open an inquiry straight away with the ethics committee."

Mancini insists Tevez staying at City

2011-05-17T22:28:00.000-07:00

MANCHESTER (AFP) – Carlos Tevez is set to stay at Manchester City, according to manager Roberto Mancini.

The Argentina striker's future has been in doubt since he handed in a transfer request earlier in the season.

Even after captaining City to victory in last weekend's FA Cup final against Stoke at Wembley, Tevez suggested he might have to move back to South America for family reasons.

But Mancini, after seeing Tevez score twice in City's 3-0 Premier League win over Stoke here on Tuesday, said the forward was happy to stay put.

"He has a five-year contract and has told us he wants to stay," said Mancini. "He said that before. He never had any problem."

Tevez's double strike left the former Manchester United striker level with current Old Trafford forward Dimitar Berbatov at the top of the Premier League goalscoring table.

And upbeat Italian manager Mancini added: "Carlos has scored 20 goals this season. Every time we say Carlos is an important player. Carlos is Carlos. He is a fantastic striker and a fantastic player for us.

"I think he will stay here next year. He doesn't have a problem," he said.

"I spoke with him many times in the last 20 days. It is my opinion that Carlos stays here next season.

"In December he had a problem. But everyone can change his opinion.

"I don't know what his representatives think.

"Carlos is an important player here. The feeling for him is good."

City's victory saw them leapfrog Arsenal into third place with just one game of the Premier League season left and means that, if they stay there, they will go straight into next term's Champions League without having to play in the qualifying round.

And Mancini said the prospect of playing in European club football's leading competition would help persuade the 27-year-old Tevez to stay with north-west side City, bankrolled by their big-spending owners from Abu Dhabi.

"When we play in the Champions League, probably we will have a better squad. We can buy other good players," Mancini said. "Why should he change? I don't think this will happen.

"Carlos has scored 20 (league) goals this season. Every time we have said he is an important player.

"He is a fantastic striker and a fantastic player for us."

Depp sails fresh waters on 'Pirates' reboot

2011-05-17T22:25:00.000-07:00

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. – New pirates, new ship, new treasure — same old Jack Sparrow.

After a trilogy that hauled in $2.7 billion worldwide, "Pirates of the Caribbean" relaunches with "On Stranger Tides," a fresh start for the buccaneer-blockbuster franchise starring the franchise's one indispensable ingredient — Johnny Depp as Capt. Jack.

The new movie jettisons some characters — the trilogy's co-stars, Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom, whose story wrapped up at the end of 2007's "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End." It brings back some in new guises — Geoffrey Rush as Jack's foil Barbossa, trading in his pirate garb to sail on behalf of the king. And it introduces new ones — Penelope Cruz as Jack's old flame, daughter of the dread pirate Blackbeard (Ian McShane).

With Jack's beloved ship, the Black Pearl, in a strange state of dry-dock, he and his mates sail in search of the fountain of youth aboard Blackbeard's terrifying vessel, the Queen Anne's Revenge.

Hollywood rarely messes with a good thing to this extent, but the filmmakers are banking that audiences will be anxious to follow in Jack's wake as he storms into uncharted seas.

"I'm thinking that people will like it, because from the first second, we went well out of our way, each and every one of us, to bring something new and very fresh to something that already has kind of a backpack filled with a trilogy in it," Depp said at the Cannes Film Festival, where "On Stranger Tides" had a premiere last weekend before heading into theaters worldwide beginning Wednesday.

"So we wanted to deliver something to the people that was expressly made for the people, sculpted for the people, with them in mind," Depp said, adding with a smirk: "So if they don't like it, it's their own fault."

Unlike the trilogy that grew out of 2003's blockbuster "The Curse of the Black Pearl," the new "Pirates" installment is a stand-alone story, said producer Jerry Bruckheimer.

But even before "On Stranger Tides" hits theaters, Bruckheimer has a script for a fifth "Pirates" movie in the works. That sounds like a commander confident he's on the right course, even before leaving port.

And Bruckheimer is confident — though he still heads into the debut of his latest with trepidation similar to that he felt before "Black Pearl" opened eight years ago. Back then, there had not been a successful pirate movie in decades, Depp was a consistent box-office dud and critics were snickering at the prospect of a movie based on a Disney theme-park ride.

"I'm still worried. Because you never know if the audience, where they're going to be or what they're doing or what they're going to want to see," Bruckheimer said. "The problem you have is the expectations of other people. `Well, it was disappointing. It wasn't as big as the third one,' or this or that. And you have to deal with all that. I know it's a good movie. I know it's going to do OK, but you don't want to deal with all the other stuff that they build around it."

The "Pirates" overhaul went beyond the cast. "Chicago" director Rob Marshall took the helm after Gore Verbinski made the first three movies.

Bruckheimer, Marshall and returning screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio streamlined the "Pirates" universe to put the focus squarely on Jack and his key mates. And they introduced a range of new supernatural elements, including predatory mermaids and a ship run as much by sorcery as maritime competence by Blackbeard.

"It felt like a beginning in a way, with so many new characters, especially a female pirate," Marshall said. "That was really a huge element for me, because I thought, OK, now we have other colors for Jack Sparrow to play against. A villain like Blackbeard. That felt very new."

The filmmakers did not have a hard time enlisting new recruits. McShane, who has had a late career surge playing nasty villains such as the ruthless opportunist on his Western TV series "Deadwood," was eager to embody a figure as big and bad as Blackbeard.

Marshall asked Cruz to come aboard as they were finishing work on their 2009 musical "Nine," and she did not hesitate, especially since she previously co-starred with Depp on the crime drama "Blow."

"Working with Rob and Johnny again and doing this type of film, I've never done a movie this big," Cruz said. "I really admire what Johnny has created with this character. I've seen the other three movies, and now working with them again, I would always say yes to that, even without reading the script."

Depp and Bruckheimer have hinted that they love Jack Sparrow so much, the "Pirates" franchise could go on indefinitely, like James Bond, if they keep coming up with stories that interest them.

Critics may wonder how long fans will stay interested, but the buzz for "On Stranger Tides" seems to assure the sequel will put up huge numbers on opening weekend.

"Sometimes the more skeptical, cynical side of the audience or the press sort of go, `Come on. Four films. Enough's enough.' And I go, `the Bond franchise is 23 films old, and they still sell,'" Rush said.

"With Capt. Jack, I feel like there's much more to be had," Depp said. "There's much more fun to be had. As long as the stories, the scripts are good, with filmmakers like Rob Marshall, I think we'll be in good shape."

There is only one sure thing that could sink the franchise. If Depp jumped ship and didn't come back, Bruckheimer said he would not try to retool it to continue the voyage without him.

"It's over. It's done," Bruckheimer said. "He created the franchise, that character. Made it come alive. He is `Pirates of the Caribbean.'"

"Pirates of Caribbean" turns 4, seek fountain of youth

2011-05-17T22:23:00.000-07:00

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – For the past four years, "Pirates" fans everywhere have been languishing in the doldrums. But relief is finally on the horizon.

"Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides," the fourth movie in the lucrative Disney franchise, sets sail in U.S. theaters on Friday as one of the most eagerly anticipated releases of the summer.

Shot for the first time in 3D, Johnny Depp is back as Capt. Jack Sparrow and Geoffrey Rush returns as Barbossa in a new quest -- for the elusive Fountain of Youth -- that involves old rivalries and plenty of new attractions, including beautiful, semi-nude vampire-mermaids and zombie pirates.

Newcomers Ian McShane (the evil pirate Blackbeard) and Penelope Cruz (his bad ass daughter Angelica) take over from Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley, while Rob Marshall comes in as director from three-timer Gore Verbinski.

In a summer packed with superheroes and sequels, producer Jerry Bruckheimer said that "On Stranger Tides" is one of the first big adventure films to shoot in 3D on location, rather than against a green screen or entirely on sound stages.

But it's Depp's character, partially modeled after Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards (who once again plays Sparrow's father) whose larger-than-life persona holds the enterprise together.

The "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise has made $2.7 billion at the worldwide box office so far, and turbo-charged Depp's career.

Depp happily admits that his pirate alter ego has been hard to shake, even in his private life.

"Either fortunately or unfortunately, he's there and he's not too far from the surface kind of at all times, depending on the situation," Depp told journalists.

"I did my best, even to the point of trying to get fired on the first one, but they just couldn't bring themselves to do it. It's kind of interesting to experience that kind of a ride after essentially 20 years of enjoying a career based on failures. And then suddenly something clicks," he said.

A NEW CREW

Oscar-winner Cruz shot the film while pregnant with her first child. "We did a lot (of our sword fights and stunts) together," the Spanish actress said of her work with Depp. "They were very protective at every moment."

"She was luminescent," added Depp. "She was really glowing the whole time and she already glows, so it was multiplied by a zillion."

Marshall is better known for directing musicals like "Chicago", but said he had little trouble adapting.

"This is a very different genre for me, but once I began working on it, it felt very akin to things I've done before," he said.

"Like most people, I always loved the Disneyland ride, and for me the idea of doing an action/adventure film was incredible. I'm the first in line to see those films during the summer, so as a filmmaker, to change it up from 'Chicago,' 'Memoirs of a Geisha' and 'Nine' was really exciting," he added.

The globe-trotting three-month long shoot began in Hawaii and ended up in London, with stops in Los Angeles and Puerto Rico along the way.

London was the backdrop for the film's opening bravura action sequence, where Sparrow once again barely evades capture.

"It's a very strange little sequence," said Depp. "I've thought of doing many things in my life under the influence of -- (he paused dramatically) -- 'life,' but I've never thought of straddling two carriages while they're moving, and jumping on people's heads and onto another cart, which then catches fire. It's all a bad dream, isn't it?"

Looking ahead to future installments, Depp joked that, "There's a very clever idea that's being hatched in terms of 'Pirates 5 & 6,' where we're actually going to shoot them on the (Disneyland) ride, just going around in circles, non-stop."

Self-Compassion: The Most Important Life Skill?

2011-05-17T00:04:00.001-07:00

A charming animated baby, Kristin Neff's son Rowan retreated into himself as a toddler, losing his few words and becoming prone to inexplicable screaming fits.

There are numerous ways Neff could have reacted to Rowan's 2004 diagnosis of autism. She could have buried her emotions, become despondent or immediately found something to blame.

But Neff, an associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin, was in the midst of pioneering psychological research on self-compassion. And her findings suddenly proved invaluable to her personal life. Being sympathetic and kind to herself let her cope constructively and offered insight into how to parent her struggling son.

Neff wrote about it all in "Self-Compassion" (William Morrow, 2011), released this April. And a budding field of research has psychologists are finding that self-compassion may be the most important life skill, imparting resilience, courage, energy and creativity. [Read: 5 Ways to Foster Self-Compassion in Your Child]

It's also a skill many people lack.

Self-compassion is often misunderstood as being soft and indulgent; and the phrase alone would probably turn the stomach of Amy Chua, whose book "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" (Penguin, 2011) re-stoked the debate about how strict or lenient we should be with our kids and with ourselves.

But psychological research says neither side of this debate wins.

According to Chua, imparting self-esteem in children should stem from accomplishments, justifying the use of authoritarian tactics to force kids into achieving and thereby build their self-esteem. But the harsh punishments and criticisms this requires — Chua threatened to deny one daughter lunch and dinner for years if she did not perfect a piano piece called "The Little White Donkey" and called her other daughter "garbage" — have been associated with anxiety and depression later in life.

Conversely, current Western parenting theories say that being "given" high self-esteem paves the road to achievement. This leads parents to indulgently praise everything little Emma does and protect her from frustrations that may damage her self-esteem. However, recent research has linked such upbringing toneuroticism, emotional fragility and narcissism.

At this deadlock, psychologists have recently taken a step back. Re-examining previous research against more than a decade of new studies, some psychologists are suggesting the emphasis on self-esteem may be distracting us from a far more important life skill: self-compassion. As motivating as it is comforting, self-compassion may uproot previous paradigms that have focused, to a fault, on building self-esteem, they say.

What is self-compassion?

"It is not this nimby, bimby stuff," said Paul Gilbert, a researcher at Kingsway Hospital in the United Kingdom. "Compassion is sensitivity to the suffering of self and others and a commitment to do something about it."

Self-compassion, as defined by Neff in the academic literature, has three aspects: mindfulness, common humanity and kindness.

Mindfulness is holding your own thoughts and feelings rather than suppressing or being carried away by them. In Neff's case, when she discovered Rowan's diagnosis, mindfulness meant pausing the flood of worries and accepting her anger, disappointment and pain.

Common humanity, in part, is the understanding that your feelings and experiences are not completely unique. No matter how hard we try to avoid or hide them, all humans go through hardships and have daily pains, frustrations and disappointments. By acknowledging she wasn't the first to have a child diagnosed with autism, Neff found strength in numbers.

Being kind to yourself is not only providing comfort in the moment; it is also committing, whenever possible, to reducing future instances of such suffering. In Neff and her husband's case, being sympathetic to themselves not only helped them deal with their son's diagnosis, but it has helped them find novel ways to ease some of their son's symptoms. For instance, instead of struggling against autism, Neff said, they have accepted it as part of their son. This openness helped them discover that Rowan is calmer and more expressive around horses, which have since featured large in helping Rowan cope with his disorder. (Their story was featured in the book and documentary film "The Horse Boy.")

The problem with high self-esteem

While Neff, Gilbert and other compassion researchers find fault with Chua's hypercritical approach to parenting, they find common ground when it comes to her critique of the West's tendency to hand out empty compliments, give everyone a trophy and thus artificially inflate self-esteem.

Decades of research, particularly in the 1970s and '80s, suggested having high self-esteem is the cornerstone of happy, successful lives. This spurred an emphasis on self-esteem-building in parenting books, schools and even prisons.

But now scientists are realizing they may have been measuring the wrong thing; all the benefits of having high self-esteem are equally found among the self-compassionate, said psychologist Mark Leary, a researcher at Duke University. And when statistically looking at self-compassion alone, the negative aspects of high self-esteem, such as narcissism, disappear.

Where self-compassion is a way of relating to your self — especially when times are tough — self-esteem is a measure of yourself against others. In order to keep self-esteem high, you have to convince yourself you are better (or, preferably, the best), either by denying your faults and pains or by putting others down, and usually both. [10 Most Destructive Human Behaviors]

But putting such stress on maintaining high self-esteem can be problematic, Leary said. While often erroneously used as a source of comfort, self-esteem is supposed to guide us, telling us when to try harder or when to apologize, he said. It should work like the gas gauge in a car, Leary explained. "If you artificially get stuck on full, you are going to make bad judgments about when to fill your tank up."

With or without self-esteem interventions, most people think they are better than average on just about every trait psychologists have bothered , including self-awareness, Neff explained. And today's college students, according to a 2010 meta-analysis of past relevant research, published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, are more narcissistic than they have ever been.

They may also be less resilient and more fragile psychologically, according to experts such as Hara Estroff Marano, author of "A Nation of Wimps" (Broadway, 2008). Kids who, say, grow up constantly hearing "You are so smart," may start believing "smartness" is part of what makes them lovable. And therefore, anything that does not support this picture of themselves, such as a C on a test, a negative evaluation or a job rejection, causes them to become defensive, anxious or, in some extreme cases, completely fall apart, Marano contends.

Rather than continuing to put stock in building self-esteem, psychologists are increasingly finding, as Gilbert put it, "the secret to success is the ability to fail." And this is exactly where self-compassion steps in.

Will self-compassion make me lazy?

Due to our ever-increasing competitive societies, researchers speculate the tendency to choose self-punishment, rather than self-compassion, is on the rise. People often believe that punishing themselves will keep them in line and ultimately keep them safe. [Sidebar: The Neuroscience of Self-Esteem]

Unfortunately, self-criticism can lead to generalized hostility (toward oneself and others), anxiety and depression; these are problems that can handicap people from reaching their full potential.

Self-critics also report feeling like they have lower energy levels, researchers have found, and often subconsciously engage in self-handicapping strategies, such as procrastination, Neff told LiveScience.

Turning instead to the side that will offer a mental hug may sound soft. And according to Neff, the most common fear about becoming self-compassionate is that it will lower performance standards and encourage laziness. But researchers have found that self-compassionate people are actually less likely to sit on the couch all day eating bonbons.

"Self-compassion begins to sound like you are indulging yourself, but we don't find that. People high in self-compassion tend to have higher standards, work harder and take more personal responsibility for their actions," Leary said.

Presumably because they are not afraid of being mentally taken through the ringer, researchers also think self-compassionate people may be more aware of their own faults, have more courage and be more motivated to persevere. Those with self-compassion may even open access to higher levels of creative thinking, suggests one 2010 study in the Creativity Research Journal.

Like a good parent, the compassion-giving system also makes sure your goals are actually in your best interest. In other words, it gently nudges you away from "striving" that is fueled by addictive behaviors, such as greed, unhealthy eating and substance abuse and towards goals motivated by desires for greater health and well-being for yourself and others. For example, self-compassion training has been found to help both anorexics and people who are overweight.

Self-compassion encourages a person's "drive" while also giving it focus and healthy, wholesome boundaries. "The soothing system," as Gilbert put it, "gives the context for the striving."

Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter @livescience and on Facebook.