Sony’s radical PlayStation 4 controller concept: A motion-control device you can split in half

While Nintendo (NTDOY) has been busy innovating with unique controllers on the Wii and Wii U, Sony’s (SNE) DualShock controller for its PlayStation, PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3 has remained virtually the same since 1997. A newly discovered patent reveals Sony might be planning on a radical overhaul of the DualShock for the PlayStation 4 that’s rumored to arrive next year. U.S. patent 20120302347A1 details a “hybrid separable motion controller” that resembles a DualShock controller with two PlayStation Move sensor balls attached to it. Much like how the Wii Remote and Nunchuk controller combo separated the left and right hand input, the Sony controller patent goes one step further by allowing the two halves to be split and combined at any time – all without reducing the amount of buttons available.

The patent also highlights the inclusion of a “connection sensor for determining whether the controller is in a connected configuration or a disconnected configuration.”

One of the PlayStation Move’s biggest disadvantages is that it’s a separate controller and not the default one. As a result, most developers either saw it as merely a Wii Remote clone or as a niche controller with a limited install base not worth programming special controls for. If Sony were to include proper 1:1 motion controls within the default PS4 controller without turning its back on the “core” controller, it could greatly appeal to casual and core gamers.

Such a controller can be considered a natural evolution of the current DualShock 3 controller that sports limited motion controls using its three-axis accelerometer and gyroscope.

Of course, the controller is only a patent that may never make it to market, so don’t get your hopes up if it doesn’t happen.

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Jovan Belcher of Kansas City Chiefs dead in suspected murder-suicide

Jovan Belcher of the Kansas City Chiefs shot and killed his girlfriend, then drove to the team’s practice facility and killed himself in front of team officials, police said Saturday.

Police confirmed to the Kansas City Star the player was Belcher, 25, one of the team’s starting linebackers and a four-year veteran of the NFL.

PHOTOS: Jovan Belcher's NFL career

In a briefing outside of Arrowhead Stadium, Kansas City Police Department spokesman Darin Snapp said the player shot his girlfriend “several times” at about 7:50 a.m. local time Saturday. The victim’s mother was there and reported the shooting.

By the time police arrived, Belcher was gone. Twenty minutes later, police were called to Arrowhead Stadium’s practice facility. Belcher was outside of the facility’s front doors with a gun to his head. According to the Associated Press, Chiefs Coach Romeo Crennel and General Manager Scott Pioli were there at the time and were talking to Belcher.

The player shot himself just as police arrived.

Snapp said Belcher and his girlfriend had been arguing recently, but offered no further details.

The area where Belcher shot himself was locked down briefly but has since reopened.

The Chiefs coaches called a team meeting for later in the day, Snapp said.

NFL executives and players took to Twitter after the incident.

Said NFL Players Assn. Assistant Executive Director George Atallah: “There is nothing profound or comforting to say that can help us understand or explain a situation like this. We have been in touch with players. At a time like this, we can only come together as a family and a community.”

Oakland Raiders wide receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey tweeted: “Very sad day in the NFL FAMILY. My prayers go out [to] the Chiefs and families involved.”

Louis Murphy Jr., a wide receiver with the Carolina Panthers, tweeted: “Thoughts and prayers go out to the Kansas City Chiefs players and family.”

The Chiefs  are scheduled to play the Carolina Panthers on Sunday at Arrowhead Stadium. The NFL told the Panthers to continue traveling to Kansas City for Sunday’s game, the Charlotte Observer reported.

joseph.serna@latimes.com

twitter.com/josephserna

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JLo tones down concert in Indonesia

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — Jennifer Lopez wowed thousands of fans in Indonesia, but they didn't see as much of her as concertgoers in other countries — the American pop star toned down both her sexy outfits and her dance moves during her show in the world's most populous Muslim country, promoters said Saturday.

Lopez's "Dance Again World Tour" was performed in the country's capital, Jakarta, on Friday in line with promises Lopez made to make her show more appropriate for the audience, said Chairi Ibrahim from Dyandra Entertainment, the concert promoter.

"JLo was very cooperative ... she respected our culture," Ibrahim said, adding that Lopez's managers also asked whether she could perform her usual sexy dance moves, but were told that "making love" moves were not appropriate for Indonesia.

"Yes, she dressed modestly ... she's still sexy, attractive and tantalizing, though," said Ira Wibowo, an Indonesian actress who was among more than 7,000 fans at the concert.

Another fan, Doddy Adityawarman, was a bit disappointed with the changes.

"She should appear just the way she is," he said, "Many local artists dress even much sexy, much worse."

Lopez changed several times during her 90-minute concert along with several dancers, who also dressed modestly without revealing their chests or cleavage.

Most Muslims in Indonesia, a secular country of 240 million people, are moderate. But a small extremist fringe has become more vocal in recent years.

They have pushed through controversial laws — including an anti-pornography bill — and have been known to attack anything perceived as blasphemous, from transvestites and bars to "deviant" religious sects.

Lady Gaga was forced to cancel her sold-out show in Indonesia in May following threats by Islamic hard-liners, who called her a "devil worshipper."

Lopez will also perform in Muslim-majority Malaysia on Sunday.

"Thank you Jakarta for an amazing night," the 43-year-old diva tweeted to her 13 million followers Saturday.

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Seeking a fix for California's gasoline market problems

California will always be at risk of gasoline price spikes caused by disruptions at refineries because it is a “fuel island,” stranded by time and distance from quick delivery of gasoline from outside the state. Without interstate pipelines, California relies primarily on maritime tankers for oil and gasoline imports, which cannot move fast enough to make up for a sudden drop in supply.

Spikes in California gasoline prices experienced in 2012 were in large part due to significant, unplanned outages at three major oil refineries. When the most recent outage occurred, in Torrance on October 1, the wholesale price for gasoline followed a pattern typical of such price spikes – rising, peaking and starting to decline within a week, fewer days than it would take a gasoline shipment to arrive at a California port.

Although the state’s clean-air requirements add to the price of gasoline, the health benefits are substantial, and studies show their value exceeds the additional cost at the pump. Furthermore, the requirements are not the primary driver of price spikes, nor do they prohibit importing gasoline from elsewhere.

In fact, refiners outside California can, and sometimes do, make gasoline that meets the state’s specifications. That said, in the wake of the recent price spike, the state eased summer-blend fuel requirements, which benefited motorists by allowing in-state refiners to immediately boost gasoline production by 3% to 5%.

But there is a larger lesson here: It’s time to think beyond the gas tank.

Instead of running on fossil fuels and driving toward empty, California needs to diversify its array of transportation fuels to include more electricity, biofuels, natural gas, propane and hydrogen.

The California Energy Commission is working to do just that as it helps the state meet ambitious climate change goals. The commission supports the development and use of new vehicle technology and alternative and renewable fuels through competitive awards of AB 118 funds — made available through legislation adopted in 2007 and funded by a small surcharge on vehicle and boat registrations and smog-check and license plate fees.

The commission has awarded more than $250 million to more than 120 clean transportation projects across the state. These awards have leveraged more than $500 million in private and public investment.

These investments support a wide range of projects, including the installation of about 6,000 electric vehicle charging stations and the rollout of hundreds of alternative fuel vehicles on the road. These investments also support the innovative development of biofuels made from algae and restaurant and agricultural waste.

The efforts are already paying off: They are reducing gasoline dependency, creating more than 5,000 long-term jobs, bolstering energy security and economic competitiveness, and reducing the risk of lung cancer and asthma for all Californians by cleaning up the air.

In the longer term, these crucial investments will lead to more options for consumers and smooth out the road to a clean transportation future for California.

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Tennis umpire Lois Goodman: 'I have always maintained my innocence'

Tennis umpire Lois Goodman thanked her friends and family for supporting her and said she is "thrilled" to get her life back after a judge agreed Friday to dismiss the murder case against her.

"I feel wonderful!" Goodman said, standing in the rain outside the courthouse, flanked by her attorneys.

"I want to thank my family and my attorneys, my friends. Their support has been wonderful. And I want to thank the D.A.'s office for doing the right thing. I have always maintained my innocence."

Her niece wiped away tears as the family exited the courtroom.

Prosecutor Alan Yochelson did not explain why the Los Angeles County district attorney's office asked the judge to dismiss the case, noting only that it was "unable to proceed." Sources, who did not want to be named because the investigation is ongoing, said experts retained by authorities said the evidence in the case could show that Alan Goodman's death was an accident.

Lois Goodman has maintained that she returned to the couple's Woodland Hills home and found her 80-year-old husband dead in bed and a bloody trail leading up the stairs to their bedroom. She told authorities she believed that he had taken a fatal fall.

Paramedics thought the scene was suspicious and left Alan Goodman's body undisturbed. But police later determined that evidence at the home supported her version of events. Alan Goodman's body was taken directly to the mortuary, without a coroner's investigator or homicide detectives visiting the home.

But three days later, a coroner's investigator visited the mortuary to sign the death certificate. He reported "deep penetrating blunt force trauma" on Alan Goodman's head and ears. Those observations launched the homicide investigation.

Defense attorney Alison Triessl declined to comment on the investigation.

"Today is not the day to assess any blame," she said. "It is an amazing day for justice and Miss Goodman. She has gone through hell with this case. She has always maintained her innocence. We have always believed that she did not do it, and we have fought every day."

At the end of the news conference, Robert Sheahen, another attorney on Goodman's defense team, joked: "We're going to Disneyland!"

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No charges against Chris Brown in Fla. phone grab

MIAMI (AP) — Grammy-winning singer Chris Brown won't be charged with a crime after a woman claimed he snatched her cell phone when she tried to take his photo outside a Miami Beach club.

A memo released Friday by the Miami-Dade County State Attorney's office concludes there is no evidence that Brown intended to steal the phone in February or that he deleted the photo. One or the other is necessary for him to be charged.

Prosecutors say that Brown tossed the phone from his limo and that it was picked up by security.

A felony charge against the 24-year-old might have triggered a violation of his probation for his 2009 assault on singer Rihanna, who was his girlfriend at the time. The two have recently collaborated on a new duet.

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Labor talks for L.A., Long Beach ports run late; strike continues

Skeletal picket teams of just one or two union members per cargo terminal are maintaining a strike vigil amid sporadic rain showers at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach on Friday morning.

Seven of eight container terminals at the Port of Los Angeles remain closed. Three of six container terminals at the Port of Long Beach are also closed.

This is mainly a fight pitting the small, roughly 800-member International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 63 Office Clerical Unit against some of the world's largest shipping lines and terminal operators.

The union accuses management of trying to outsource jobs. The employers accuse the union of featherbedding, and say they are rejecting a pact that would offer an average salary of up to $195,000 a year.

The small union has managed to shut down operations because they have been backed by the larger ILWU's 10,000 Los Angeles and Long Beach dockworkers, which negotiate their labor contract separately and are honoring the picket lines.

Talks aimed at a new labor contract resumed Thursday night and continued late, said sources on both sides. Talks were set to resume again sometime Friday afternoon.

The Clerical Unit union's labor contract expired more than two years ago. They handle the vast amounts of paperwork needed to move cargo containers out of the port and onto trains and rail lines across the U.S.

A growing chorus of elected officials and retail trade associations have strongly urged both sides to resolve their differences because the ports normally handle 40% of the nation's Asian imports. They also export far more U.S. goods than any other seaport in the nation.

Jock O'Cconnell, an international trade economist who works as an advisor to Beacon Economics, said that the ports strike was having a serious economic impact.

"Extrapolating from last November's trade flows through the San Pedro Bay ports, the port closures are stranding an estimated $1.125 billion worth of merchandise a day," O'Connell said.

John Husing, founder of the Redlands firm Economics and Politics, also warned that the ports were a vital employment engine that fuels 595,000 jobs in Southern California.

At Long Beach, port officials said their SSAT container terminal at Pier A, their SSA/Matson container terminal at Pier C, and their Pacific Container Terminal at Pier J are operating. At Los Angeles, only the TraPac container terminal is still operating.

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George H.W. Bush hospitalized for bronchitis

Former President George H.W. Bush has been hospitalized with bronchitis in Houston for six days, his spokesman said. (Tom Pennington / Getty Images / March 29, 2012)

By Joe Serna

November 29, 2012, 10:10 a.m.

Former President George H.W. Bush is being treated for bronchitis in Houston’s Methodist Hospital, officials there confirmed Thursday.

Bush, 88, has been in and out of the Texas Medical Center for treatment and is scheduled to be released within the next 72 hours, his representatives said in a statement. The 41st president is listed in stable condition.

The Houston Chronicle reported Bush has been in the hospital for about a week.

The former director of the CIA has been known for his vitality in spite of his advanced age. He celebrated his 75th, 80th, and 85th birthdays by going skydiving and joined President Clinton on a humanitarian trip overseas after the 2004 tsunami and visited New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Bush suffers from vascular Parkinson’s disease and missed his first Republican National Convention in decades earlier this year.

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AP Newsbreak: New Suzanne Collins book in 2013

NEW YORK (AP) — "The Hunger Games" novelist Suzanne Collins has a new book coming out next year.

The multimillion-selling children's author has completed an autobiographical picture story scheduled for Sept. 10, 2013, Scholastic Inc. announced Thursday. The 40-page book will be called "Year of the Jungle," based on the time in Vietnam served by Collins' father, a career Air Force officer.

"Year of the Jungle" is her first book since 2010's "Mockingjay," the last of "The Hunger Games" trilogy that made Collins an international sensation. More than 50 million copies of the "Hunger Games" books are in print and the first of four planned movies has grossed more than $600 million worldwide since coming out in March.

Collins' next project will be intended for ages 4 and up, a younger audience than those who have read, and re-read, her dystopian stories about young people forced to hunt and kill each other. But "Year of the Jungle" will continue, in a gentler way, the author's exploration of war. James Proimos, an old friend from her days as a television writer who helped persuade Collins to become a children's author, illustrated the book.

"For several years I had this little wicker basket next to my writing chair with the postcards my dad had sent me from Vietnam and photos of that year. But I could never quite find a way into the story. It has elements that can be scary for the audience and it would be easy for the art to reinforce those. It could be really beautiful art but still be off-putting to a kid, which would defeat the point of doing the book," Collins, 50, said in a statement released by Scholastic.

"Then one day I was having lunch with Jim and telling him about the idea and he said, 'That sounds fantastic.' I looked at him and I had this flash of the story through his eyes, with his art. It was like being handed a key to a locked door. So, I just blurted out, 'Do you want to do it?' Fortunately he said 'Yes.'"

"How could I refuse?" Proimos said in a statement. "The idea she laid out over burritos and ice tea during our lunch was brilliant and not quite like any picture book I had ever come across. The writing is moving and personal. What Suzanne does so well here is convey complicated emotions through the eyes of a child."

According to Scholastic, "Year of the Jungle" will tell of a little girl named Suzy and her fears after her father leaves for war. She wonders when he'll come back and "feels more and more distant" as he misses family gatherings. He does return, but he has changed and his daughter must learn that "he still loves her just the same."

Collins has said before that she wanted to write a book about her father. In a 2010 interview with The Associated Press, she explained that her father was a trained historian who made a point of discussing war with his family.

"I believe he felt a great responsibility and urgency about educating his children about war," she said. "He would take us frequently to places like battlefields and war monuments. It would start back with whatever had precipitated the war and moved up through the battlefield you were standing in and through that and after that. It was a very comprehensive tour guide experience. So throughout our lives we basically heard about war."

Scholastic also announced Thursday that "Catching Fire," the second "Hunger Games" book and originally released in 2009, is coming out in June as a paperback. The paperback edition usually comes within a year of the hardcover, but "Catching Fire" had been selling so well that Scholastic waited. "Mockingjay" has yet to be released as a paperback.

Next summer, Collins' five-volume "The Underland Chronicles," published before "The Hunger Games," will be reissued with new covers.

"'The Underland Chronicles,' with its fantasy world and 11-year old protagonist, Gregor, was designed for middle readers," Collins said in a statement. "The 'Hunger Games' trilogy features a teen narrator, Katniss Everdeen, and a stark dystopian backdrop for the YA (young adult) audience. 'Year of the Jungle' attempts to reach the picture book readers by delving into my own experience as a first grader with a father deployed in Vietnam."

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Cost of Brand-Name Prescription Medicines Soaring

The price of brand-name prescription medicines is rising far faster than the inflation rate, while the price of generic drugs has plummeted, creating the largest gap so far between the two, according to a report published Wednesday by the pharmacy benefits manager Express Scripts.

The report tracked an index of commonly used drugs and found that the price of brand-name medicines increased more than 13 percent from September 2011 to this September, which it said was more than six times the overall price inflation of consumer goods. Generic drug prices dipped by nearly 22 percent.

The drop in the price of generics “represents low-hanging fruit for the country to save money on health care,” said Dr. Steve Miller, the chief medical officer of Express Scripts, which manages the drug benefits for employers and insurers and also runs a mail-order pharmacy.

The report was based on a random sample of six million Express Scripts members with prescription drug coverage.

The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the trade group representing brand-name manufacturers, criticized the report, saying it was skewed by a handful of high-priced specialty drugs that are used by a small number of patients and overlooked the crucial role of major drug makers.

“Without the development of new medicines by innovator companies, there would be neither the new treatments essential to progress against diseases nor generic copies,” Josephine Martin, executive vice president of the group, said in a statement.

The report cited the growth of specialty drugs, which treat diseases like cancer and multiple sclerosis, as a major reason for the increase in spending on branded drugs. Spending on specialty medicines increased nearly 23 percent during the first three quarters of 2012, compared with the same period in 2011. All but one of the new medicines approved in the third quarter of this year were specialty drugs, the report found, and many of them were approved to treat advanced cancers only when other drugs had failed.

Stephen W. Schondelmeyer, a professor of pharmaceutical economics at the University of Minnesota, said the potential benefits of many new drugs did not always match the lofty price tags. “Increasingly it’s going to be difficult for drug-benefit programs to make decisions about coverage and payment and which drugs to include,” said Mr. Schondelmeyer, who conducts a similar price report for AARP. He also helps manage the drug benefit program for the University of Minnesota.

“We’re going to be faced with the issue that any drug at any price will not be sustainable.”

Spending on traditional medicines — which treat common ailments like high cholesterol and blood pressure — actually declined by 0.6 percent during the period, the report found. That decline was mainly because of the patent expiration of several blockbuster drugs, like Lipitor and Plavix, which opened the market for generic competitors. But even as the entry of generic alternatives pushed down spending, drug companies continued to raise prices on their branded products, in part to squeeze as much revenue as possible out of an ever-shrinking portfolio, Dr. Miller said.

Drug makers are also being pushed by companies like Express Scripts and health insurers, which are increasingly looking for ways to cut costs, said C. Anthony Butler, a pharmaceuticals analyst at Barclays. “I think they’re pricing where they can but what they keep telling me is they’re under significant pressure” to keep prices low, he said.

Express Scripts earns higher profits from greater use of generic medicines than brand name drugs sold through their mail-order pharmacy, Mr. Butler said. “There’s no question that they would love for everybody to be on a generic,” he said.

Dr. Miller acknowledged that was true but said that ultimately, everyone wins. “When we save people money, that’s when we make money,” he said. “We don’t shy away from that.”

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Pending home sales match high set in 2007 on job creation, prices

Contracts to buy previously owned homes soared 5.2% in October, reaching a high set more than five years ago.

And index of so-called pending sales hit 104.8 last month, the same level reached in March 2007 and an improvement from 99.6 in September. The gauge is 13.2% above its year-earlier level, according to the National Assn. of Realtors.

At 100, the measure is considered healthy. Pending sales are usually seen as a forecast of finalized sales, which tend to come after a one or two month lag.

The index has risen year-over-year for the last 18 months straight, according to the trade group. The cause? Steady job creation, rising consumer confidence, record-low mortgage rates and a positive trend in home prices, according to NAR’s economists.

Contracts soared 15.6% in the Midwest from September to October and jumped 5.5% in the South. Hurricane Sandy caused a 0.1% dip in the Northeast, according to NAR, while squeezed inventory in the West resulted in a 1.1% slip.

On Wednesday, the government said new home sales dipped 0.3% last month, which dampened recent evidence of a strong housing rebound.

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Italian tax police probe Google Italy again

ROME (Reuters) – Italian police launched a new tax probe into Google Italy this week after earlier investigations found the group had failed to declare income and still owed sales tax, an economy ministry document showed on Wednesday.

The earlier probe, which was launched by Italian financial police in 2007, found that Google had developed a system to transfer profits from its Italian operations to Ireland so it could benefit from a more favorable tax regime.

The investigation is the Internet search giant’s latest entanglement with European tax authorities, following problems in France and Britain over its Irish strategy.

In Italy, investigations of the years 2002-2006 found that Google had failed to declare at least 240 million euros ($ 310 million) of income to authorities and owed more than 96 million euros in sales tax, according to the ministry’s response to questions in parliament.

It said police had launched a new probe on Monday to check the company was meeting its fiscal obligations in Italy.

Google said in a statement that it complies with tax law in every country in which it operates.

“We are confident we comply with Italian law,” a spokeswoman said, adding the firm would cooperate with authorities and answer any questions for the investigation.

Italian officials have stepped up tax surveillance and collection efforts in recent months as part of government efforts to bring Italy’s huge public debt under control.

Police have also been assessing the practices of other multinational online businesses who are managing to shift profits made in Italy into countries where they can pay less tax, the ministry said.

($ 1=0.7746 euros)

(Reporting By Danilo Masoni, Giuseppe Fonte and Catherine Hornby; Editing by Mike Nesbit)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Norquist: GOP concern over tax pledge just 'impure thoughts'

Grover Norquist on Wednesday rebuffed claims that his anti-tax crusade is losing steam, calling statements from prominent Republicans hinting at their departure from his anti-tax pledge "impure thoughts."

Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, met with Politico’s Mike Allen to offer his thoughts on the looming “fiscal cliff,” and the growing narrative that Republicans, after years of tying themselves to ATR’s pledge not to raise taxes, may be ready to jump ship.

Most recently, Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said in a private meeting with the House Republican whip team Tuesday morning that Republicans should take the opportunity to extend President George W. Bush’s tax cuts for 98% of Americans, calling it an “early Christmas present” for taxpayers.

And on Sunday, Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) and Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) joined Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) in voicing concern over continued adherence to Norquist’s pledge.

House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) responded to Cole on Wednesday, saying that though Cole is a friend and supporter, he disagrees entirely with his stance. “The goal here is to grow the economy and control spending. You’re not going to grow the economy if you raise tax rates on the top two rates,” Boehner said.

Though Norquist commented that Cole’s recommendation was “an interesting tactic,” he remained firm that his pledge remains viable, saying that anyone suggesting that opposing tax increases is no longer in vogue is “an idiot.”

The pledge, Norquist claimed, “takes weasel words out” of campaign promises to cut taxes, and provides voters a clear picture of a candidate's stance, a stance he said the Republican Party has built its brand upon.

Norquist said that signing the pledge is about informing voters and entrenching a preexisting policy stance, instead of an oath of fealty to ATR and its champion cause.

“They don’t need my permission to raise taxes,” he said, adding that such power lies in the hands of voters.

And he dismissed claims that the pledge’s powers extend beyond the promises tied to its concise wording.

“It doesn’t solve all of the world’s problems; it doesn’t design tax reform,” Norquist said.

But Norquist did design a general road map for Republicans to use in fiscal cliff negotiations.

“You need to have this conversation in public, you need to be online so you can have the moral higher ground,” he said, recommending that the GOP aim for a temporary extension of Bush’s tax cuts, with comprehensive tax reform to follow soon after.

“If the Republicans lose in such a way that they have their fingerprints on the murder weapon, then you have a problem,” he said, adding that public debate over the fiscal cliff would allow Republicans a chance to turn the tide against President Obama and the Democrats, so long as they maintain “credible clarity” in espousing their low-tax vision.

Norquist said he worries about conceding any ground to Democrats on tax increases.

“What the Democrats do is trickle-down taxation,” he said. “They tax the rich and then they screw everybody.”

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After Sandy, Keys schedules Black Ball for Dec. 6

NEW YORK (AP) — Superstorm Sandy won't stop Alicia Keys from staging her annual Black Ball.

The singer said Wednesday the New York event will now be held Dec. 6. The fundraising gala for Keys' charity, Keep a Child Alive, was originally set for Nov. 1.

Black Ball REDUX will take place at Harlem's historic Apollo Theater. Honorees Oprah Winfrey and Beninese singer Angelique Kidjo will attend. Bonnie Raitt, Jennifer Hudson and Alabama Shakes' Brittany Howard will perform. Whoopi Goldberg will be the night's emcee.

Superstorm Sandy hit the New York area hard last month, killing dozens and causing billions of dollars in damage.

Keep a Child Alive assists people affected by HIV/AIDS in Africa and India.

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F.D.A. May Tap Experts on Energy Drinks

The Food and Drug Administration said in a letter released on Tuesday that it was likely to seek advice from outside experts to help determine whether energy drinks posed particular risks to teenagers or people with underlying health problems.

The letter appears to signal a change in the agency’s approach to the drinks, which contain high levels of caffeine.

Previously, F.D.A. officials have said that they were investigating possible risks posed by popular products like 5-Hour Energy, Monster Energy and Red Bull. But an agency spokeswoman, Shelly Burgess, said the new letter was the first time that the F.D.A. had said it might turn to outside experts.

The F.D.A. letter, which was released Tuesday by Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois and Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, follows disclosures that the agency received reports of 18 deaths and over 150 injuries that mentioned the possible involvement of energy drinks.

The filing of such reports with the F.D.A. does not prove that a product was responsible for a death or an injury. Energy drink makers have said their products are safe and were not responsible for the health problems.

The officials said a review of the drinks might be “greatly enhanced by also engaging specialized expertise” from an outside group, like the Institute of Medicine, which is part of the National Academy of Sciences.

Industry analysts said the letter indicated that the F.D.A. did not plan any immediate actions on energy drinks, an interpretation that set off a rally on Tuesday in the stock of Monster Beverage, the producer of Monster Energy. Company shares closed at $51.97, up over 13 percent. Any regulatory outcome is likely to be “benign,” Judy Hong, an analyst at Goldman Sachs, said in a note to investors, according to Bloomberg News.

In Canada, however, the use of an outside panel led to limits on caffeine levels in energy drinks.

In their letter, F.D.A. officials indicated that an outside review would focus on the possible risks posed by high levels of caffeine, a stimulant, to certain groups. They reiterated that daily consumption of significant levels of caffeine, which is found in products like coffee and tea, is safe.

“Areas of particular focus would include such matters as the vulnerability of certain populations to stimulants and the incidence and consequence of excessive consumption” of energy drinks, especially by young people, F.D.A. officials wrote.

In Canada, an expert panel made several recommendations, including arguing that such beverages be labeled “stimulant drug-containing drinks.”

Health Canada, that country’s counterpart to the F.D.A., did not adopt many of the group’s recommendations, but it has put in place new rules limiting caffeine levels in cans of energy drinks to 180 milligrams.

Some larger-size cans of energy drinks sold in the United States, like the 24-ounce can of Monster Energy and the 20-ounce can of Red Bull, have caffeine levels above that limit.

An eight-ounce cup of coffee, depending on how it is made, can contain from 100 to 150 milligrams of caffeine.

In the new letter, F.D.A. officials also said that studies that had examined other ingredients, like taurine, that are often used in energy drinks had determined those substances were safe. The agency also said that a survey suggested that energy drinks constitute a small portion of the caffeine consumed in this country, even by teenagers.

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Embattled hedge fund tells investors of looming SEC action

Steve Cohen is founder and head of the hedge fund SAC Capital Advisors. (Ronda Churchill / Bloomberg via Getty Images)

By Andrew Tangel

November 28, 2012, 11:49 a.m.

NEW YORK -- The hedge fund SAC Capital Advisors told investors it has received a notice of potential action by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Looming civil action by the regulator would take direct aim at the $14-billion hedge fund after federal prosecutors accused one of its former portfolio managers -- Mathew Martoma, who worked at an SAC unit called CR Intrinsic Investors -- of taking part in history's most lucrative insider-trading scheme.

Prosecutors claim the scheme generated $276 million in profits and avoided losses for Martoma's fund. The illicit tips involved an Alzheimer's drug under development by two publicly traded drug companies.

Martoma was the latest former SAC employee to face insider-trading charges in the federal government's crackdown on Wall Street corruption.

Quiz: How much do you know about the 'fiscal cliff'?

The SEC's so-called Wells notice is a procedural step by which the agency informs targets of investigations it may take action.

While the source would not specify what claims the SEC might level, Bloomberg News reported the potential litigation could involve fraud claims stemming from Martoma's case. Bloomberg also reported the SEC indicated it might take action alleging a breakdown of the hedge fund's management and compliance system.

SAC hosted a conference call with investors Wednesday. The call was not open to the media.

Martoma's attorney has said he expected his client would be exonerated. The criminal case against him has been widely interpreted as an attempt by prosecutors to win Martoma's cooperation against Steven Cohen, who founded and runs SAC. But Cohen has not been accused of any wrongdoing and has said he acted appropriately.

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Google Breaks All Android App Reviews, Threatens Android Fans’ Safety

“A Google User” is now the number one Android game and app reviewer on Google Play, Android’s version of Apple’s App Store. That’s because every single one of the millions of existing reviews, possibly including yours, has had its author replaced with this nameless, faceless person.

Screenshots taken by Jeremiah Rice of the Android Police blog show this prolific (but completely generic) author has taken over the Google Play store. Meanwhile, if you visit the store on your Android smartphone or tablet you won’t see a name attached to most reviews at all; just the review’s title, and the device that the game or app was run on.

Believe it or not, this is all intentional. It’s the start of a new Google policy … one which may threaten some Android fans’ safety or privacy.

​Google+, whether you like it or not

Google now requires you to have a Google+ (pronounced “Google Plus”) account in order to leave reviews on Google Play, the Chrome Web Store, and Google Maps. No reason for the switchover is given in the pop-up which explains this; you simply click “Continue” if you want your reviews tied to your Google+ account, and if you don’t want them linked you don’t write them at all. If you don’t have a Google+ account, you have to sign up for one before you can write a review.

​Why Google is Plus-ifying everything

Google’s success as a company is determined by how many ads it sells. Google’s share of the ad market is being eaten into by Facebook, which has essentially “walled off” a huge part of people’s day-to-day lives in a place Google can’t index or sell any ads on. For better or for worse, Google’s execs feel that what they need to do to compete is copy Facebook, in the form of Google+.

Why? Because if everyone is “Plusing” things instead of “Liking” them, and if everything people do shows up on Google+ instead of Facebook, then now Google (instead of Facebook) knows what you’re doing online and where you’re doing it — and that gives it a much better position from which to display and sell ads.

​Why this is a problem for many

Besides the obvious privacy concerns (although Google offers limited tools to manage how much it tracks you), Google+’s “real names” policy is dangerous to anyone whose safety is jeopardized by attaching their given name to their online activities. This includes women who are victims of stalking, minors who are victims of abuse, transgender persons in transition, and dissidents in repressive political or religious regimes. By requiring a Google+ account to use more and more of its services, Google is forcing these people to choose between excluding themselves and running the risk of having ​all​ of their Google services terminated for a “real name” policy violation, including their personal Gmail accounts.

Google+ policy allows for pseudonymous accounts, if you’re widely known by that pseudonym online. Everyone’s Google+ page, however, has a button to report what anyone feels is a suspicious name, which puts marginalized persons like those listed above at the mercy of every “troll” who comes by.

Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.
Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Cyber Monday sales up 17% to nearly $2 billion, exceeding forecast

Cyber Monday online sales beat forecasts by nearly half a billion dollars.

ComScore on Monday predicted that Cyber Monday would generate $1.5 billion in online sales, but according to Adobe, the shopping day ended up raking in $1.98 billion, which was a 17% increase compared to last year.

That practically doubled online Black Friday sales, which topped $1 billion this year for the first time, according to ComScore.

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And if Cyber Monday's online sales weren't impressive enough, Adobe says that mobile shopping doubled from last year and accounted for 22% of Cyber Monday sales.

On the opposite end of that spectrum was social, which referred only a dismal 2% of total site visits on Cyber Monday. Even worse for Facebook and Twitter is the fact their number of referrals stayed the same as last year's, while Pinterest's referrals for the holiday grew 105%, accounting for 15% of social referrals.

As for what people were buying, Adobe said that toys and sporting goods led the way, followed by health and beauty. Home and auto was the third most selling category.

Adobe said you can follow its tracking of online holiday shopping with this tool, which keeps track of current sales and estimates how the rest of the holiday shopping days will fare.

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'Moonrise,' 'Silver Linings' lead Spirit Awards

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The oddball romances "Moonrise Kingdom" and "Silver Linings Playbook" picked up five nominations each Tuesday to lead the Spirit Awards honoring independent film.

Both films are competing for the best-picture prize at the Spirit Awards, one of Hollywood's first big announcements on the long road to the Oscars.

Also competing for best picture are the father-daughter tale "Beasts of the Southern Wild"; the black comedy "Bernie"; and the gay drama "Keep the Lights On."

"Silver Linings Playbook," a comic drama centered on a man just released from a mental hospital and a troubled young widow, earned lead-acting nominations for Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence. "Moonrise Kingdom," a first-love story between a precocious boy and girl who run away together, received a supporting-actor nomination for Bruce Willis.

The films each earned directing and screenplay slots for "Moonrise Kingdom" filmmaker Wes Anderson, who co-wrote the script with Roman Coppola, and "Silver Linings Playbook" filmmaker David O. Russell. "Moonrise Kingdom" also was nominated for cinematography.

Matthew McConaughey received two nominations, for best actor in "Killer Joe" and supporting actor in "Magic Mike." Past Academy Award winner Helen Hunt has a supporting-actress nomination for "The Sessions." Child star Quvenzhane Wallis, who had never acted before, has a best-actress nomination for "Beasts of the Southern Wild."

Among other acting nominees are Jack Black (best actor for "Bernie"); John Hawkes (best actor for "The Sessions"); Rosemarie DeWitt (supporting actress for "Your Sister's Sister"); Michael Pena (supporting actor for "End of Watch"); Sam Rockwell (supporting actor for "Seven Psychopaths"); and Mary Elizabeth Winstead (best actress for "Smashed").

Joining Anderson and Russell in the directing category are Julia Loktev for "The Loneliest Planet," Ira Sachs for "Keep the Lights On" and Benh Zeitlin for "Beasts of the Southern Wild," which won the top prize at last January's Sundance Film Festival.

Though the Spirit Awards honor lower-budgeted film outside the Hollywood mainstream, the nominations often overlap heavily with Oscar contenders. Last season's big Oscar winner, "The Artist," also won the top prize at the Spirit Awards, while films such as "The Descendants," ''Beginners" and "My Week with Marilyn" had wins or nominations at both shows.

The overlap may be lighter this season, with big-budget studio films such as "Les Miserables," ''Lincoln" and "Argo" shaping up as early favorites to dominate the Oscars, whose nominations come out Jan. 10.

But "Silver Linings Playbook," ''Moonrise Kingdom," ''Beasts of the Southern Wild," ''The Sessions" and other smaller films have solid prospects in some Oscar categories.

Presented by the cinema group Film Independent, the Spirit Awards will be handed out at an afternoon ceremony along the beach in Santa Monica, Calif., on Feb. 23, the day before the Oscars. The Spirit Awards show will air that night on IFC.

Nominees are chosen by panels of film professionals, which gauge contenders on such criteria as uniqueness of vision; original, provocative subject matter; how economically they were produced; and percentage of financing from independent, non-Hollywood sources. Eligible films typically range from tiny-budgeted movies shot for $500,000 or less to productions that cost as much as $20 million.

Members of Film Independent, including filmmakers and movie fans, are eligible to vote on the winners.

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Books: Woe Is Syphilis, and Other Afflictions of Famous Writers

The old Irishman was a swollen, wheezing mess, blood pressure wildly out of control, kidneys failing, heart fibrillating. “What we have here,” said his new Spanish doctor, “is an antique cardiorenal sclerotic of advanced years.”

In fact, what the doctor had there was William Butler Yeats: the poet had a long list of chronic medical problems and experienced one of his regular cardiac crises while wintering in Spain. He still had three poetically productive years ahead of him before he died of heart failure in 1939, at age 73.

What makes antique case histories like Yeats’s so compelling to research, so interesting to read? Admittedly, they have educational value — medicine moves forward by looking back — but their major attraction is undoubtedly the operatic vigor of their emotional punch. As we contemplate the poor health of historic notables, we can sigh gustily at the immense suffering our ancestors considered routine, wince at the lunatic treatments they so innocently underwent, and marvel over and over again that the body, the brain and the mind can take such divergent paths.

These pleasures are present in abundance in the newest addition to the genre of medical biography, “Shakespeare’s Tremor and Orwell’s Cough.” Dr. John J. Ross, a Harvard physician, writes that he stumbled into the field by accident while trying to enliven a lecture on syphilis with a few literary references. The discovery that Shakespeare was apparently obsessed with syphilis (and suspiciously familiar with its symptoms) hooked Dr. Ross.

The resulting collection of 10 medico-literary biographical sketches ranges from the tubercular Brontës, whose every moist cough is familiar to their fans, to figures like Nathaniel Hawthorne, whose medical stories are considerably less familiar.

Dr. Ross’s discussion of Shakespeare is unique in the collection for its paucity of relevant data: so few details are known of the playwright’s life, let alone his health, that all commentary is necessarily supposition. Dr. Ross is not the first to note that references to syphilis are “more abundant, intrusive and clinically exact” in Shakespeare’s works than those of his contemporaries. This observation, along with the apparent deterioration of Shakespeare’s handwriting in his last years, leads to the hypothesis that Shakespeare had syphilis repeatedly as a young man, and wound up suffering more from treatment than disease.

The Elizabethans dosed syphilis with a combination of hot baths (treating the disease by raising body temperature endured into the 20th century), cathartics and lavish quantities of mercury. The drooling that accompanies mercury poisoning was considered a sign of excellent therapeutic progress, Dr. Ross writes: “Savvy physicians adjusted the mercury dose to produce three pints of saliva a day for two weeks.”

And so, when Shakespeare signed his will a month before he died with a shaky hand, was his tremor not possibly a sign of residual nerve damage from the mercury doses of his sybaritic youth? No amount of scholarship is likely to confirm this theory, but details of the argument are gripping and instructive nonetheless.

The story of the blind poet John Milton runs for a while along similar lines. Much is known about the long deterioration of Milton’s vision and other particulars of his delicate health, but Dr. Ross observes that many of his problems seem to have cleared up once he actually became blind. Was he vigorously medicating himself with lead-based nostrums in hopes of forestalling what Dr. Ross argues was probably progressive retinal detachment, then recovering from lead poisoning once his vision was irretrievably gone? Another intriguing if unanswerable question.

Just as the competing injuries of disease and treatment battered the luminaries of English and American literature, so did pervasive mental illness.

Jonathan Swift was a classic obsessive-compulsive long before he succumbed to frontotemporal dementia (Pick’s disease). Poor Hawthorne, so forceful on the page, was in person a tortured shrinking violet, the embodiment of social phobia and depression. Emily Brontë’s behavior was strongly suggestive of Asperger syndrome; Herman Melville was clearly bipolar; Ezra Pound was just nuts.

Yet they all wrote on, despite continual psychic and physical torments. Perhaps the thickest medical chart of all belongs to Jack London, who survived several dramatic episodes of scurvy while prospecting in the Klondike (he was treated with raw potatoes, a can of tomatoes and a single lemon), then accumulated a long list of other medical problems before killing himself (inadvertently, Dr. Ross argues) with an overdose of morphine from his personal and very capacious medicine chest.

Dr. Ross has not written a perfect book. The fictionalized scenes he creates between some of his subjects and their medical providers should all have been excised by a kindly editorial hand, which might also have addressed more than a few grammatical errors. Frequent leaps from descriptive to didactic mode as Dr. Ross updates the reader on various medical conditions can be jarring, like PowerPoint slides suddenly deployed in a poetry reading. True literary scholars might dismiss the book as lit crit lite, a hodgepodge of known facts culled from the usual secondary sources.

But all these caveats fade into the background when Dr. Ross hits his narrative stride, as he does in chapter after chapter. Then the stories of the wounded storytellers unfold smoothly on the page, as mesmerizing as any they themselves might have told, those squinting, wheezing, arthritic, infected, demented, defective yet superlative examples of the human condition.

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Amazon.com to build third California distribution center

Amazon.com plans to build a third California distribution center in the Northern California city of Tracy. Above, the company's first California facility opened last month in San Bernardino. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times / October 18, 2012)

By Marc Lifsher

November 27, 2012, 11:10 a.m.

SACRAMENTO -- Internet retailer Amazon.com -- after years of avoiding having any physical presence in California -- is planning to open a third massive distribution center in the Golden State.

The new operation is in Tracy, a distant bedroom community for the San Francisco Bay Area south of Sacramento. The facility will be only about 30 miles from a second Amazon center being built in Patterson to the south.

Last month, the Seattle company cut the ribbon on a 950,000-square-foot facility in the city of San Bernardino, which started filling orders before the holiday shopping season.

Amazon did not respond to queries Tuesday seeking confirmation of local newspaper reports of the plans for the Tracy distribution center.

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However, the wife of Tracy Mayor Brent Ives confirmed the news, saying people in town were thrilled and looking forward to the economic development and jobs the facility would bring.

Amazon decided to build the three California facilities after agreeing in a 2011 deal with Gov. Jerry Brown to start collecting state and local sales taxes on goods purchased by California shoppers.

The company also promised to open at least two so-called fulfillment centers providing potentially thousands of badly needed jobs in such economically hard-hit regions as the Inland Empire and the Central Valley.

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Riordan abruptly ends bid to get L.A. pension measure on ballot

Former Mayor Richard Riordan speaks to the Los Angeles City Council on Nov. 20 about a half-cent sales tax increase. (Mark Boster /Los Angeles Times / November 26, 2012)

By David Zahniser and Kate Linthicum

November 26, 2012, 9:23 a.m.

Former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan's push for a May ballot measure to cut pension benefits of city employees abruptly collapsed Monday, with a spokesman saying Riordan had suspended signature-gathering efforts.

Riordan's Save Los Angeles campaign had hoped to gather 300,000 signatures by Dec. 28 for a measure that would cut the pension benefits of existing employees and require new city workers to rely on a 401(k)-style retirement plan.

But according to a statement from spokesman John Schwada, "Riordan recently concluded that the Dec. 28 deadline cannot be met."

The statement said Riordan would explore other options "to accomplish the goal of pension reform."

“I ask the mayor, the city council and union heads to work with me over the next several months to save the city from bankruptcy and drastic cuts to public services," Riordan said.

The ballot measure proposal drew wide criticism from city employee unions, including the Police Protective League, which in recent weeks has sent out email blasts attacking Riordan.

Other city employee unions staged a vigil outside of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's house in protest of the proposed ballot measure.

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