(Reuters) – Canadian patent licensing company WiLan Inc filed patent lawsuits against Apple Inc, HTC Corp and Sierra Wireless Inc‘s U.S. unit.
The company filed three suits claiming infringement of its fourth-generation LTE wireless technologies against all three companies in a federal court in Florida.
The other two suits, related to 3G HSPA handset products, were filed against Apple and Sierra in Texas.
(Reporting By Neha Dimri in Bangalore)
Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News
Posted by Copetau at 3:08 AM
WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Many fans are eagerly anticipating a return to the fictional world of Middle-earth with next week's general release of the first movie in "The Hobbit" trilogy. Director Peter Jackson and the film's stars speak to The Associated Press about making "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey":
— Jackson on shooting at 48 frames per second instead of the standard 24: "We've seen the arrival of iPhones and iPads and now there's a generation of kids — the worry that I have is that they seem to think it's OK to wait for the film to come out on DVD or be available for download. And I don't want kids to see 'The Hobbit' on their iPads, really. Not for the first time. So as a filmmaker, I feel the responsibility to say, 'This is the technology we have now, and it's different ... How can we raise the bar? Why do we have to stick with 24 frames? ...'"
"The world has to move on and change. And I want to get people back into the cinema. I want to play my little tiny role in encouraging that beautiful, magical, mysterious experience of going into a dark room full of strangers, and being transported into a piece of escapism."
— Martin Freeman (Bilbo Baggins) on shooting some scenes without other actors around: "I must admit I found the green screen and all that easier than I thought I would. ... I found the technical aspect of it quite doable. Some of it's difficult, but it's quite enjoyable, actually. It taps into when I used to play 'war' as a 6-year-old. And the Germans were all imaginary. Because I was playing a British person. So yeah, I was on the right side. ..."
On marrying his performance to that of Ian Holm, who played an older Bilbo Baggins in the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy: "I knew I couldn't be a slave to it. Because as truly fantastic as Ian Holm is in everything, and certainly as Bilbo, I can't just go and do an impression of Ian Holm for a year and a half. Because it's my turn. But it was very useful for me to watch and listen to stuff he did, vocal ticks or physical ticks, that I can use but not feel hamstrung by."
— Hugo Weaving (Elrond) on the differences in tone to the "Rings" trilogy: "This one feels lighter, more buoyant, but it's got quite profoundly moving sequences in it, too ... I think it's very different in many ways, and yet it's absolutely the same filmmaker, and you are inhabiting the same world."
— Elijah Wood (Frodo) on returning to Middle-earth in a cameo role: "It was a gift to come back ... what they'd constructed was such a beautiful remembrance of the characters from the original trilogy."
— Cate Blanchett (Galadriel) on the toughest part of filming: "Trying to keep my children off the set."
— Richard Armitage (Thorin Oakenshield) on being a 6-foot-2 guy playing a dwarf: "It's amazing how quickly you get used to it. And also, we spent most of the shoot much bigger than a 6-foot-2 guy. I mean, I had lifts in my shoes, I was wider, I was taller, and bigger-haired. And I actually think that was quite an interesting place to be, because I do think dwarfs have big ideas about themselves ..."
— Andy Serkis (Gollum) on taking on the additional role of second-unit director: "There were only a couple of times where there were really, really black days where I went away thinking, 'This is it. I can't do it.' But on the whole, Pete (Jackson) was so brilliant at allowing me to set stuff up and then critiquing my work ... but at least I would have my stab at it."
On the film itself: "I think it's a great story. I think it's a beautifully crafted film with great heart. A rollicking adventure, and it feels to me like this really massive feast that everyone will enjoy eating."
Posted by Copetau at 3:08 AM
SEATTLE (AP) — Legal marijuana possession becomes a reality under Washington state law on Thursday, and some people planned to celebrate the new law by breaking it.
Voters in Washington and Colorado last month made those the first states to decriminalize and regulate the recreational use of marijuana. Washington's law takes effect Thursday and allows adults to have up to an ounce of pot — but it bans public use of marijuana, which is punishable by a fine, just like drinking in public.
Nevertheless, some people planned to gather at 12:01 a.m. PST Thursday to smoke in public beneath Seattle's Space Needle. Others planned a midnight party outside the Seattle headquarters of Hempfest, the 21-year-old festival that attracts tens of thousands of pot fans every summer.
"This is a big day because all our lives we've been living under the iron curtain of prohibition," said Hempfest director Vivian McPeak. "The whole world sees that prohibition just took a body blow."
In another sweeping change for Washington, Gov. Chris Gregoire on Wednesday signed into law a measure that legalizes same-sex marriage. The state joins several others that allow gay and lesbian couples to wed.
That law also takes effect Thursday, when gay and lesbian couples can start picking up their wedding certificates and licenses at county auditors' offices. Those offices in King County, the state's largest and home to Seattle, and Thurston County, home to the state capital of Olympia, planned to open the earliest, at 12:01 a.m. Thursday, to start issuing marriage licenses. Because the state has a three-day waiting period, the earliest that weddings can take place is Sunday.
The Seattle Police Department provided this public marijuana use enforcement guidance to its officers via email Wednesday night: "Until further notice, officers shall not take any enforcement action — other than to issue a verbal warning — for a violation of Initiative 502."
Thanks to a 2003 law, marijuana enforcement remains the department's lowest priority. Even before I-502 passed on Nov. 6, police rarely busted people at Hempfest, despite widespread pot use, and the city attorney here doesn't prosecute people for having small amounts of marijuana.
Officers will be advising people to take their weed inside, police spokesman Jonah Spangenthal-Lee wrote on the SPD Blotter. "The police department believes that, under state law, you may responsibly get baked, order some pizzas and enjoy a 'Lord of the Rings' marathon in the privacy of your own home, if you want to."
Washington's new law decriminalizes possession of up to an ounce for those over 21, but for now selling marijuana remains illegal. I-502 gives the state a year to come up with a system of state-licensed growers, processors and retail stores, with the marijuana taxed 25 percent at each stage. Analysts have estimated that a legal pot market could bring Washington hundreds of millions of dollars a year in new tax revenue for schools, health care and basic government functions.
But marijuana remains illegal under federal law. That means federal agents can still arrest people for it, and it's banned from federal properties, including military bases and national parks.
The Justice Department has not said whether it will sue to try to block the regulatory schemes in Washington and Colorado from taking effect.
"The department's responsibility to enforce the Controlled Substances Act remains unchanged," said a statement issued Wednesday by the Seattle U.S. attorney's office. "Neither states nor the executive branch can nullify a statute passed by Congress" — a non-issue, since the measures passed in Washington and Colorado don't "nullify" federal law, which federal agents remain free to enforce.
The legal question is whether the establishment of a regulated marijuana market would "frustrate the purpose" of the federal pot prohibition, and many constitutional law scholars say it very likely would.
That leaves the political question of whether the administration wants to try to block the regulatory system, even though it would remain legal to possess up to an ounce of marijuana.
Colorado's measure, as far as decriminalizing possession goes, is set to take effect by Jan. 5. That state's regulatory scheme is due to be up and running by October 2013.
___(equals)
Johnson can be reached at https://twitter.com/GeneAPseattle
Posted by Copetau at 3:06 AM
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Western powers are whipping up fears of a fateful move to the use of chemical weapons in Syria's civil war as a "pretext for intervention", President Bashar al-Assad's deputy foreign minister said on Thursday.
He spoke as Germany's cabinet approved stationing Patriot anti-missile batteries on Turkey's border with Syria, a step requiring deployment of NATO troops that Syria fears could permit imposition of a no-fly zone over its territory.
"Syria stresses again, for the tenth, the hundredth time, that if we had such weapons, they would not be used against its people. We would not commit suicide," Faisal Maqdad said.
U.S. President Barack Obama and other NATO leaders have warned that using chemical weapons would cross a red line and "there would be consequences". Assad would probably lose vital diplomatic support from Russia and China that has blocked military intervention in the 20-month-old uprising that has claimed more than 40,000 lives.
Maqdad said Western reports that the Syrian military was preparing chemical weapons for use against rebel forces trying to close in on the capital Damascus were simply "theatre".
"In fact, we fear a conspiracy ... by the United States and some European states, which might have supplied such weapons to terrorist organizations in Syria, in order to claim later that Syria is the one that used these weapons," he said on Lebanon's Al Manar television, the voice of Hezbollah.
"We fear there is a conspiracy to provide a pretext for any subsequent interventions in Syria by these countries that are increasing pressure on Syria."
UNCONTROLLABLE
Exactly what Syria's army has done with suspected chemical weapons to prompt a surge of Western warnings is not clear. Reports citing Western intelligence and defense sources are vague and inconsistent.
The perceived threat may be discussed in Dublin on Thursday when Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton meet international Syria mediator Lakhdar Brahimi to try to put a U.N. peace process for Syria back on track.
The talks come ahead of a meeting of the Western-backed "Friends of Syria" group in Marrakech next week which is expected to boost support for rebels fighting to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Brahimi wants world powers to issue a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for a transitional administration.
In addition to the possible use of chemical bombs by "an increasingly desperate" Assad, Clinton said Washington was concerned about the government losing control of such weapons to extreme Islamist armed groups among the rebel forces.
The United States is considering blacklisting one group suspected of ties to al Qaeda. U.S. officials confirmed that Jabhat al-Nusra, an influential rebel group accused of indiscriminate tactics that has advocated an Islamic state in Syria, was under review for blacklisting.
An explosion in front of the Damascus headquarters of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent killed at least one person on Thursday, Syrian state television said.
It blamed "terrorists from al Qaeda" -- a term often employed to refer to rebel forces.
Meanwhile, activists said the army pummeled several eastern suburbs of Damascus, where the rebels are dominant, with artillery and mortar fire. The suburbs have also been cut off from the city's water and electricity for weeks, rebels say, accusing the government of collective punishment.
COLLAPSE
Assad responded to past warnings about chemical weapons by taking steps to secure them, according to Israel's vice prime minister Moshe Yaalon.
"There is speculation that the chemical arsenal will fall into the hostile and irresponsible hands of the likes of al Qaeda or other terrorist groups. In the past, clear messages were relayed to Assad on a number of occasions, and in response Assad in fact gathered up the weaponry and separated the materials," Yaalon said on Wednesday.
Rebels say they have surrounded an air base 4 km (2-1/2 mikes) from the center of Damascus, a fresh sign the battle is closing in on the Syrian capital.
Maqdad, in his interview on Thursday, argued that reports of such advances were untrue: "What is sad is that foreign countries believe these repeated rumors."
But residents inside the capital say that the sound of shelling on the outskirts has become a constant backdrop and many fear the fight will soon come to Damascus.
The Western military alliance's decision to send U.S., German and Dutch Patriot missile batteries to help defend the Turkish border would bring European and U.S. troops to Syria's frontier for the first time in the 20-month-old civil war.
The actual deployment could take several weeks.
"Some countries now are now supplying Turkey with missiles for which there is no excuse. Syria is not going to attack the Turkish people," Maqdad said.
But a veteran Turkish commentator, Cengiz Candar of the Radikal newspaper, said Ankara fears Syria's 500 short-range ballistic missiles could fall into the wrong hands.
The government is "of the view that Syria was not expected to use them against Turkey, but that there was a risk of these weapons falling into the hands of 'uncontrolled forces' when the regime collapses", he wrote.
(Writing by Douglas Hamilton; Editing by Giles Elgood)
Posted by Copetau at 4:02 AM
BANGKOK (AP) — Thai law enforcement authorities have decided to file a murder charge against former Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva in the first prosecutions of officials related to a deadly 2010 crackdown on anti-government protests.
Department of Special Investigation chief Tharit Phengdit said Thursday that investigators found Abhisit possibly culpable in the death of a taxi driver because he allowed troops to use war weapons and live ammunition against protesters.
Abhisit and former Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban will be summoned to the DSI office on Dec. 12 to be formally charged.
An inquest recently found that the taxi driver was killed by guns used by military personnel during the crackdown against protesters in Bangkok.
No comment was immediately available from Abhisit, who is currently leader of the opposition.
Posted by Copetau at 3:10 AM
GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) – Guatemalan police arrested U.S. software guru John McAfee on Wednesday for illegally entering the country and said it would seek to expel him to neighboring Belize, which he fled after being sought for questioning over his neighbor’s murder.
McAfee, who had been in hiding for three weeks, crossed into Guatemala with his 20-year-old girlfriend to evade authorities in Belize who wanted to quiz him as “a person of interest” about the killing of fellow American Gregory Faull.
“He entered the country illegally and we are going to seek his expulsion for this crime,” Interior Minister Mauricio Lopez Bonilla said. McAfee was detained by Guatemalan police and a member of Interpol at the upscale Intercontinental hotel in Guatemala City.
One of Silicon Valley’s first entrepreneurs to build an Internet fortune, the 67-year-old made millions of dollars through the antivirus software that now carries his name.
McAfee’s behavior has been increasingly erratic in recent years but there is no international arrest warrant for him. Police in Belize say he is not a prime suspect.
Government spokesman Francisco Cuevas said the entrepreneur would be expelled to Belize and he expected the process to be completed by early Thursday morning.
Fernando Lucero, spokesman for Guatemala’s immigration department, saidimmediate deportation had been ruled out. McAfee’s lawyer Telesforo Guerra was seeking an injunction to have him released and the American said on his blog www.whoismcafee.com that he would not now be returned to the Belize border until a higher judge reviewed the case.
McAfee was taken to a residence belonging to the immigration department guarded by a small group of police.
He had been seeking political asylum in Guatemala, which has been embroiled in a long-running territorial dispute with Belize. .
Residents and neighbors on the Caribbean island of Ambergris Caye, where McAfee has lived in Belize for about four years, say he is eccentric, impulsive, volatile and at times unstable, citing his love of guns and young women.
McAfee has said he believes authorities in Belize will kill him if he turns himself in for questioning. Belize’s prime minister has denied this and called him paranoid and “bonkers.”
“It’s a wild, wild country,” McAfee told Reuters in an interview in his hotel room just hours before his detention.
“Everyone sees one part of Belize,” he said. “They think it’s a wonderful, peaceful, lovely place, blue waters, so McAfee has got to be crazy. Maybe I am crazy. If I were, I wouldn’t know.”
In Belize, he was often seen with armed bodyguards dressed in camouflage, pistols tucked into his belt. McAfee’s slain neighbor had complained about the loud barking of dogs that guarded his exclusive beachside compound.
His run-in with authorities in Belize is a world away from a successful life in the United States, where the former Lockheed systems consultant started McAfee Associates in the late 1980s. McAfee has no relationship now with the company, which was sold to Intel Corp.
NO REGRETS
There was already a case against McAfee in Belize for possession of illegal firearms, and police had previously raided his property on suspicion he was running a lab to make illegal synthetic narcotics.
He says he has not taken drugs since 1983.
“(Before then) I took drugs constantly, 24 hours of the day, I took them for years and years. I was the worst drug abuser on the planet,” McAfee said. “Then I finally went to Alcoholics Anonymous, and that was the end of it.”
But he has no regrets about the path his life has taken, or the loss of the lion’s share of his fortune over the years and says he is happier now that he cares less for material things.
“My life has not declined,” he said. “My life has been on the increase ever since I decided that stuff – houses, money – doesn’t mean much. I had more money than I could spend in million lifetimes. Why would I care?”
McAfee says he has been persecuted by Belize’s ruling party because he wouldn’t pay out some $ 2 million to it.
“The misunderstanding of the severity of their request for money was my big mistake,” McAfee said. “Had I known that, I would maybe have said $ 2 million is way too much. Let’s negotiate something, just don’t rape me for the next seven months. Writing a check would have been a lot easier.”
The party has denied soliciting money from him.
McAfee has been living in the tiny Central American nation for about four years, and wants to return to live there eventually. But he says he is being framed, and denies any involvement in his neighbor’s killing.
“We had one disagreement about a dog. I had disagreements with all my neighbors about my dogs. I had a disagreement with myself about my dogs. They were noisy,” he said.
“Why would I leave behind the body and all the evidence?” he asked. “I’m not stupid.”
(Additional reporting by Gabriel Stargardter; Writing by Simon Gardner; Editing by Philip Barbara, Lisa Shumaker and Patrick Graham)
Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News
Posted by Copetau at 3:08 AM
Fun. helped break up the sound of dance and electronic music on Top 40 radio with its edgy pop-rock grooves. Frank Ocean made a bold statement in R&B — with an announcement about his sexuality and with his critically revered, multi-genre album, "channel ORANGE." And Mumford & Sons continued to bring its folk-rock swag and style to the Billboard charts with its sophomore album.
They all were rewarded Wednesday when The Recording Academy announced the nominees for the 2013 Grammy Awards.
Those acts, who scored the most nominations with six each, were joined by typical Grammy contenders like Jay-Z and Kanye West, who also got six nominations. The Black Keys' drummer, Dan Auerbach, is also up for six awards, thanks to his nomination for producer of the year. His band earned five nods, along with R&B singer Miguel and jazz pianist Chick Corea.
"It feels like alternative music is back," said fun. guitarist Jack Antonoff. His band's gold-selling "Some Nights" is up for album of the year, competing with Black Keys' "El Camino," Mumford & Sons' "Babel," Jack White's "Blunderbuss" and "channel ORANGE," the major label debut from Ocean.
Fun. is nominated in all of the major categories, including best new artist, and record and song of the year for its breakthrough anthem "We Are Young."
Ocean, whose mother attended the nominations special, scored nods in three of the top four categories. His song "Thinkin Bout You" — which he originally wrote for another singer — will compete for record of the year with Black Keys' "Lonely Boy" and four No. 1 hits: Taylor Swift's "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together," ''Somebody I Used to Know" by Gotye and Kimbra, Kelly Clarkson's "Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You)" and "We Are Young" by fun.
Song of the year, too, features some No. 1 hits, including fun. and Clarkson's jams, as well as Carly Rae Jepsen's viral smash "Call Me Maybe." But then there's Ed Sheeran's "The A Team," a slow groove about a homeless prostitute, and Miguel's "Adorn," the R&B singer-songwriter's crossover hit.
"It's like one of those songs that wrote itself and I was the vessel," the 26-year-old said in an phone interview from New York City late Wednesday, where he performed with Trey Songz and Elle Varner.
While Miguel's excited to compete for song of the year, he's more thrilled about his sophomore album's nomination for best urban contemporary album, a new category that recognizes R&B albums with edge and multiple sounds.
"That's a huge complement to say that your entire body of work was the best of the year," he said of "Kaleidoscope Dream." ''That's the one that means the most to me. I'm really hoping maybe, just maybe."
Miguel, along with Gotye, Alabama Shakes and the Lumineers, is part of the pack of nominees who have showcased individuality and have marched to the beat of their own drum in today's music industry.
Though nominated albums by The Black Keys and Mumford & Sons are platinum-sellers, their songs are not regularly heard on Top 40 radio. Electronic and dance music, which has dominated radio airplay for a few years, were left out of the top awards this year. Also, One Direction — the boy band that released two top-selling albums this years and sold-out many arenas — was snubbed for best new artist.
Lionel Richie has one of the year's top-selling albums with his country collaboration collection, "Tuskegee," but he didn't earn any nominations. And Nicki Minaj, who released a gold-selling album this year and had a hit with "Starships," wasn't nominated for a single award.
Jay-Z and West dominated the rap categories, a familiar refrain at the Grammys. Nas scored four nominations, including best rap album for "Life Is Good." Jeff Bhasker, the producer behind fun.'s breakthrough album, also scored four nods.
Swift, who released her latest album, "Red," after the Grammy eligibility date, still scored three nominations, including two for "Safe & Sound" with The Civil Wars. Country acts were mainly left out of the major categories this year, though the genre usually has success at the Grammys. Aside from Swift's pop song competing for record of the year, there is 21-year-old Hunter Hayes, who is up for best new artist against fun., Ocean, Alabama Shakes and the Lumineers.
"I'm so proud to be, as you say, representing country music in the new artist category," said Hayes, who is also nominated for best country album and country solo performance. "I don't even feel worthy of saying that, but it's so cool for me to be able to say that."
Swift hosted the CBS special with LL Cool J and it featured performances by The Who and Maroon 5, who received multiple nominations.
The five-year-old nominations show spent its first year outside Los Angeles, making its debut in Nashville, Tenn., at the Bridgestone Arena. It marked the largest venue the show has been held in.
The 55th annual Grammy Awards take place Feb. 10 in Los Angeles.
___
Online:
http://www.grammys.com
___
AP Music Writer Chris Talbott and AP Writer Caitlin R. King in Nashville contributed to this report.
Posted by Copetau at 3:08 AM
NEW BATAAN, Philippines (Reuters) - Blocked roads and severed communications in the southern Philippines frustrated rescuers on Wednesday as teams searched for hundreds of people missing after the strongest typhoon this year killed at least 283 people.
Typhoon Bopha, with central winds of 120 kph (75 mph) and gusts of up to 150 kph (93 mph), battered beach resorts and dive spots on Palawan island on Wednesday but it was weakening as it moved west.
Hardest hit was the southern island of Mindanao, where Bopha made landfall on Tuesday. It triggered landslides and floods along the coast and in farming and mining towns inland.
Interior Minister Manuel Roxas said 300 people were missing.
"Entire families were washed away," Roxas, who inspected the disaster zone, told reporters.
Most affected areas were cut off by destroyed roads and collapsed bridges and army search-and-rescue teams were being flown in by helicopter.
Power was cut and communications were down.
According to tallies provided by the military and disaster agency officials, 283 people were killed.
Thousands of people were in shelters and officials appealed for food, water and clothing. Dozens of domestic flights were suspended on Wednesday.
The governor of the worst-hit province, Compostela Valley, in Mindanao said waves of water and mud came crashing down mountains and swept through schools, town halls and clinics where huddled residents had sought shelter.
The death toll in the province stood at 160. In nearby Davao Oriental province, where Bopha made landfall, 110 people were killed.
"The waters came so suddenly and unexpectedly, and the winds were so fierce," the Compostela Valley governor, Arthur Uy, told Reuters by telephone.
He said irrigation reservoirs on top of mountains had given way sending large volumes of water down to the valleys. Torrential rain often triggers landslides down slopes stripped of their forest cover.
Damage to agriculture and infrastructure in the province was extensive, Uy said.
STUNNED
Corn farmer Jerry Pampusa, 42, and his pregnant wife were marooned in their hut but survived.
"We were very scared," Pampus said. "We felt we were on an island because there was water everywhere."
Another survivor, Francisco Alduiso, said dozens of women and children who had taken shelter in a village centre, had been swept away.
"We found some of the bodies about 10 km (6 miles) away," Alduisa told Reuters. The only building left standing in his village was the school.
Another survivor, Julius Julian Rebucas, said his mother and brother disappeared in a flash flood.
"I no longer have a family," a stunned Rebucas said.
An army commander said two dozen people had been pulled from the mud in one area and were being treated in hospital.
About 20 typhoons hit the Philippines every year, often causing death and destruction.
Almost exactly a year ago, Typhoon Washi killed 1,500 people in Mindanao.
(Additional Reporting by Rosemarie Francisco and Manny Mogato; Editing by Robert Birsel)
Posted by Copetau at 4:02 AM
NEW BATAAN, Philippines (AP) — The death toll from a powerful typhoon in the southern Philippines climbed to more than 270 people Wednesday and officials feared many more bodies could be found as rescuers reach hard-hit areas that had been isolated by landslides, floods and downed communications.
At least 151 people have died in the worst-hit province of Compostela Valley since Typhoon Bopha began lashing the region early Tuesday, including 66 villagers and soldiers who perished in a flash flood that swamped two emergency shelters and a military camp in New Bataan town, provincial spokeswoman Fe Maestre told The Associated Press.
About 80 people survived the deluge in New Bataan with injuries, but an unspecified number of villagers remain missing. On Wednesday, the farming town of 45,000 people was a muddy wasteland of collapsed houses and columns of coconut and banana trees felled by Bopha's ferocious winds.
Outside a town gymnasium, several mud-stained bodies were laid side-by-side, covered by cloth and banana leaves and surrounded by villagers covering their noses to fight the stench. A man sprayed insecticide on the remains to turn away swarms of flies.
"It's hard so say how many more are missing," Maestre said. "We're now searching everywhere."
In nearby Davao Oriental, the coastal province first struck by the typhoon as it blew inland from the Pacific Ocean, at least 115 people perished mostly in three towns that were so battered by the wind wind it was hard to find any building or house with a roof left, provincial officer Freddie Bendulo and other officials said.
"We had a problem where to take the evacuees. All the evacuation centers have lost their roofs," Davao Oriental Gov. Corazon Malanyaon said.
Disaster-response agencies reported 13 other typhoon-related deaths elsewhere.
Unlike the previous day's turbulent weather, the sun was back Wednesday, prompting residents to lay their soiled clothes, books and other belongings out on roadsides to dry and revealing the extent of the damage to farmland. Thousands of banana trees in one Compostela Valley plantation were toppled by the wind, the young bananas still wrapped in blue plastic covers.
After slamming into Davao Oriental and Compostela Valley, Bopha roared fast across southern Mindanao and central regions, knocking out power in two entire provinces, triggering landslides and leaving houses and coconut and banana plantations disheveled. More than 170,000 fled from homes to evacuation centers.
The typhoon, one of the strongest to hit the country this year, had blown past southwestern Palawan province into the South China Sea by mid-Wednesday.
The deaths came despite efforts by President Benigno Aquino III's government to force residents out of high-risk communities prone to landslides, flash floods and storm surges as the typhoon approached. Some 20 typhoons and storms lash the northern and central Philippines each year, but they rarely hit the vast southern Mindanao region.
A rare storm in the south last December killed more than 1,200 people and left many more homeless and traumatized, including in Cagayan de Oro city, where church bells rang relentlessly on Tuesday to warn residents to scramble to safety as a major river started to rise.
___
Associated Press writers Jim Gomez, Teresa Cerojano and Oliver Teves in Manila contributed to this report.
Posted by Copetau at 3:10 AM
Facebook (FB) announced on Tuesday that it will begin opening Facebook Messenger to consumers who do not have a Facebook account, starting in countries like India and South Africa, and later rolling out the service in the United States and Europe. This is a belated acknowledgement of a staggering strategic mistake Facebook made two years ago. That is when the messaging app competition was still wide open and giants like Facebook or Google (GOOG) could have entered the competition. WhatsApp, the leading messaging app firm, had just 1 million users as late as December 2009. By the end of 2010, that number had grown to 10 million. Right now, it likely tops 200 million, though there is no current official number on the matter.
SMS usage started peaking in countries like Netherlands in 2010. Companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google were being offered a giant new market on a silver platter with more than 3 billion consumers worldwide use texting on their phones and many of them started drifting away from basic SMS towards IP-based alternatives a few years ago. None of the behemoths saw or understood the opportunity.
They allowed the mobile messaging market to turn into a free-for-all between tiny start-ups like KakaoTalk, Kik, Viber, WhatsApp, etc. And with astonishing speed, the global market picked a winner and rallied around it. Back in early 2011, there was serious debate about the relative merits of different messaging apps and which one might ultimately edge ahead.
In December 2012, the competitive landscape is stark. Kik is not a Top 5 app in any country in the world. Viber is a Top 5 app in 21 countries, but they are countries like Barbados, Nepal and Tajikistan. WhatsApp is a Top 5 app in 141 countries, including the U.S,, U.K., Germany, Brazil and India. The only real weakness of WhatsApp lies in China, Japan and South Korea, where local champions still lead. But those local apps have zero chance of breaking out of their home markets.
The mobile messaging app competition is over. It turned into a red rout sometime during late 2011 and WhatsApp has emerged as the sole beneficiary of a textbook case of the network effect.
Facebook, Google and Twitter threw away their golden chance to create an SMS killer and grab hold of a billion users globally. It would have been so easy and cheap to develop a simple texting app in 2009, leverage the current user base of any of the IT giants and then watch the app soar to global prominence.
And it is so very, very hard to do now. Dislodging WhatsApp now would mean neutralizing a smartphone market penetration advantage that is hitting 80% in some markets. People often ask me why I’m so fixated on WhatsApp and the answer is simple: it’s the most popular and important mobile app in the world. And it beat Facebook, Twitter, Google and other major companies before they even realized there was an important war being waged.
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Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News
Posted by Copetau at 3:08 AM
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