Intel’s revenue forecast short of expectations






SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Intel Corp forecast current-quarter revenue that was slightly below expectations as the personal computer industry grapples with falling sales and a shift toward tablets and smartphones.


PC makers are struggling to stop a decline in sales as consumers hold off on buying new laptops in favor of spending on more nimble mobile gadgets.






Microsoft Corp‘s long-awaited launch of Windows 8 in October brought touchscreen features to laptops but failed to spark a resurgence in sales that Intel and many PC manufacturers had hoped for.


Intel said its capital spending in 2013 would be $ 13 billion, plus or minus $ 500 million, exceeding what many analysts had expected.


In the fourth quarter, Intel’s revenue was $ 13.5 billion, compared with $ 13.9 billion a year earlier. Analysts had expected $ 13.53 billion in revenue for the fourth quarter, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.


Intel estimated first-quarter revenue of $ 12.7 billion, plus or minus $ 500 million. Analysts expected $ 12.91 billion for the current quarter.


Net earnings in the December quarter were $ 2.5 billion, or 48 cents a share, compared with $ 3.4 billion, or 64 cents a share, in the same quarter last year.


(Reporting by Noel Randewich; Editing by Richard Chang)


Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Britney Spears & Jason Trawick Split: Will She Be Okay?















01/17/2013 at 05:00 PM EST







Britney Spears and Jason Trawick


Michael Kovac/Getty


The new year has already been full of change for Britney Spears.

She's left her gig as judge on The X Factor, her new puppy Hannah is gravely ill, and on Jan. 11 she announced she and fiancé Jason Trawick, 41, have called it quits after more than three years together.

While Spears, 31, told PEOPLE in an exclusive statement, "I'll always adore him, and we will remain great friends," a family source says the signer is "definitely upset about the split."

What tore the couple apart? Spears, who has two sons with ex-husband Kevin Federline, had hoped to start a family soon with Trawick, but he wasn't ready. Says the close source: "There were so many issues he wanted worked out before that" – including her neediness. "It was difficult for Jason to have his own life."

Adds an insider: "Britney is very insecure and has had a lot of trouble with jealousy." These insecurities may be heightened now. "[She] is very worried about being alone," says the family source. "She is upset, but for a long time she has treated him like a friend, not a romantic partner." The family source adds that some close to the singer, who had a breakdown in 2008, "are concerned about her future."

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S&P 500 ends flat as bank profits temper growth concerns

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The S&P 500 ended nearly flat on Wednesday as solid earnings from two major banks and a bounceback in Apple shares offset concerns about a lower forecast for global growth in 2013.


Shares of Goldman Sachs hit their highest since May 2011 as earnings nearly tripled on increased revenue from dealmaking and lower compensation expenses. JPMorgan Chase said fourth-quarter net income jumped 53 percent and earnings for 2012 set a record.


JPMorgan shares rose 1 percent to $46.82, while Goldman climbed 4.1 percent to $141.09.


They were among the first big banks to report results and helped to lift estimates for S&P 500 corporate earnings slightly, to a 2.2 percent gain, Thomson Reuters data showed.


"Pretty solid numbers from both JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs are putting a lot of momentum behind the financials, with a lot more names to report this week. But I think that's helping to put a better bid to the market overall," said Michael James, senior trader at Wedbush Morgan in Los Angeles.


Apple rebounded after three days of losses, helping the Nasdaq outperform the S&P 500 and Dow. Apple rose 4.2 percent to $506.09. It closed below $500 on Tuesday for the first time since February.


"There could not have been more negativity around Apple going into today. So was it due for an oversold bounce on a trading basis? Absolutely," James said.


A slow economic recovery in developed nations is holding back the global economy, the World Bank said on Tuesday, as it sharply scaled back its forecast for world growth in 2013 to 2.4 percent from an earlier forecast of 3.0 percent.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was down 23.66 points, or 0.17 percent, at 13,511.23. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 0.29 points, or 0.02 percent, at 1,472.63. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 6.77 points, or 0.22 percent, at 3,117.54.


The biggest drag on the Dow was Boeing , whose shares fell 3.4 percent to $74.34 on concerns about its new Dreamliner passenger jets. Japan's two leading airlines grounded their fleets of 787s after an emergency landing, adding to safety concerns triggered by a series of recent incidents.


After the bell, shares of eBay were trading up 0.7 at $53.28, reversing an initial decline following the release of its results. Also after the close, shares of CBS rose 8.3 percent to $41.10 after it said it will convert its Outdoor Americas division into a real estate investment trust. [ID:nL4N0AL98X]


Earlier in the day, U.S. economic data showed consumer prices were flat in December, pointing to muted inflation pressures that should give the Federal Reserve room to prop up the economy by staying on its ultra-easy monetary policy path.


Other data showed U.S. homebuilder confidence in the market for single family homes held steady near seven year highs in January, suggesting the outlook for the housing market remained upbeat.


Volume was roughly 5.6 billion shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and the NYSE MKT, compared with the 2012 average daily closing volume of about 6.45 billion.


Decliners outpaced advancers on the NYSE by nearly 8 to 7 and on the Nasdaq by almost 7 to 5.


(Additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Nick Zieminski and Kenneth Barry)



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Netanyahu Issues Veiled Barb in Response to Reported Criticism From Obama





JERUSALEM — Days before an Israeli election that he is expected to win, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday directed a veiled barb at President Obama, who was quoted this week as denouncing Mr. Netanyahu’s policies.




Relations between the two leaders have long been marked by tension that has erupted on occasion into open hostility, particularly over the handling of the Iranian nuclear issue and Israeli settlement plans. Israeli commentators said the latest exchange of messages seemed to suggest that future relations between Mr. Obama and Mr. Netanyahu could be equally fraught.


In a column published by Bloomberg View on Monday, Jeffrey Goldberg, an American journalist who is well acquainted with Israel, wrote that in the weeks after the United Nations General Assembly voted to upgrade the status of Palestine to nonvoting member state, “Obama said privately and repeatedly, ‘Israel doesn’t know what its own best interests are.’ With each new settlement announcement, in Obama’s view, Netanyahu is moving his country down a path toward near-total isolation.”


Responding to a journalist’s question about the comments and the timing during a televised visit to a military base on Wednesday, Mr. Netanyahu said, “I think everyone understands that only Israeli citizens will be the ones who determine who faithfully represents the vital interests of Israel.”


Many Israelis regard Mr. Goldberg as being well connected to Mr. Obama, citing a widely publicized interview by Mr. Goldberg with the president that was published in The Atlantic last March. Mr. Obama said then, regarding Iran, “I think that the Israeli government recognizes that, as president of the United States, I don’t bluff,” and, “In terms of Israeli politics, there’s been a view that regardless of whether it’s a Democratic or Republican administration, the working assumption is: we’ve got Israel’s back.”


Asked for a response to Mr. Goldberg’s column, Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said: “I can’t confirm that specific comment or what was allegedly discussed in private meetings.  The president has been clear in stating what he believes is a realistic basis for successful negotiations, and we will continue to base our efforts on that approach.”


The stinging criticism attributed to Mr. Obama made headlines in Israel, not least because of the timing. Months ago, Mr. Netanyahu was widely perceived as meddling in the American presidential campaign in favor of the Republican nominee, Mitt Romney. Now, some Israeli commentators posited, it was payback time.


Others suggested that Mr. Obama’s criticism could only help Mr. Netanyahu, a conservative who is battling political parties further to his right.


Tensions peaked last fall, before the American election, when Mr. Netanyahu publicly criticized the Obama administration for refusing to set clear “red lines” on Iran’s nuclear progress and said that as a result, the administration had no “moral right” to restrain Israel from taking military action of its own.


The Netanyahu government’s frequent announcements of plans to build more Jewish homes in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and the annexed East Jerusalem have been another continual source of friction. Washington has long viewed settlement construction as an obstacle to peace. With the Palestinians demanding a settlement freeze before returning to the negotiating table, Israeli-Palestinian talks have been stalled for years.


Mr. Netanyahu blames the Palestinians for the stagnation, saying he is ready for talks without preconditions.


Soon after the General Assembly voted in November to upgrade the status of the Palestinians, the Netanyahu government announced that it would advance plans to settle a particularly contentious area of the West Bank known as E1 in response. Mr. Obama “didn’t even bother getting angry,” Mr. Goldberg wrote. “He told several people that this sort of behavior on Netanyahu’s part is what he has come to expect, and he suggested that he has become inured to what he sees as self-defeating policies of his Israeli counterpart.”


Moshe Yaalon, Israel’s minister of strategic affairs, told Israel Radio on Wednesday that Mr. Netanyahu had led the country responsibly, and that some of his actions found favor with the United States and Europe while others did not. Asked about the timing of Mr. Goldberg’s column, so soon before Israeli elections set for Jan. 22, Mr. Yaalon said that perhaps the journalist had chosen this “sensitive time” to publish it.


Mr. Goldberg, a columnist for Bloomberg and a national correspondent for The Atlantic, dismissed speculation that his column was timed to influence the Israeli election.


“Think of the column as coming out after the E1 announcement rather than before the election,” Mr. Goldberg said by telephone. Arguing that American criticism of Israeli settlement building was nothing new, he added, “My column just reflects the ongoing concerns of the administration.”


Tzipi Livni, a former Israeli foreign minister and leader of a new centrist party that is focused on resuming the peace process, said Israelis should consider the comments attributed to Mr. Obama as a wake-up call.


Barak Ravid, the diplomatic correspondent of the liberal Haaretz newspaper, wrote on Wednesday, “So far, it’s looking like Netanyahu’s term, too, will entail confrontation with the White House.”


Mr. Obama, he added, “doesn’t intend to waste his time on Middle East peace as long as he doesn’t think Netanyahu is a serious partner.”


Mark Landler contributed reporting from Washington.



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RIM says users line up to try new BlackBerry 10 platform






TORONTO (Reuters) – BlackBerry maker Research in Motion is helping customers prepare to switch to its soon-to-be-launched BlackBerry 10 smartphones that it hopes will help it reclaim market share from rivals such as Apple Inc.


RIM is betting that the new range of touch-screen and keyboard devices, set for a January 30 launch, will revive its fortunes.






The company was “very enthused by the engagement and response of our customer base” to a program aimed at persuading them to adopt the BlackBerry 10 devices, Bryan Lee, senior enterprise accounts director, told Reuters on Wednesday.


Indeed, whether it will be successful in clawing back market share will depend on the response from RIM’s top clients, like companies and government agencies, who have long valued the strong security features that BlackBerry devices offer.


Lee said more than 1,600 customers in North America had registered for its recently launched BlackBerry 10 Ready Program and more than a thousand were actively using the program, which offers customers access to services, information and tools to ease their transition to the BlackBerry 10 and the BlackBerry Enterprise Server 10.


RIM also said its BlackBerry Enterprise Server 10, which runs the new devices on corporate networks, was in beta testing with more than 130 major government agencies and corporations in North America.


SHARES RISE


Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM, a one-time pioneer in the now ultra-competitive smartphone industry, has bled market share to Apple’s iPhone and devices powered by Google’s market-leading Android operating system, even among enterprise clients who once used BlackBerry devices exclusively.


Early adoption of the long-awaited BlackBerry 10 devices by government and corporate clients will help breathe new life into the struggling company, whose shares are down 90 percent from an all-time high of more than $ 148 in 2008.


Still, shares of RIM, which fell as low as $ 6.22 in September, have more than doubled in value over the last four months as the BlackBerry 10 launch approaches.


Lee said clients that were beta testing the new BlackBerry Enterprise Server 10 included more than 60 Fortune 500 companies and top North American government agencies.


RIM promises that its new line of devices will be faster and smoother than existing BlackBerry phones and will boast a large catalog of apps, crucial to the success of any new line of smartphones.


Shares of RIM were up 3.8 percent at $ 15.03 in afternoon trading on the Nasdaq on Wednesday, after Visa approved the smartphone company’s method of handling secure mobile payments; the technology will potentially allow users to tap their smartphones on credit card readers and pay for purchases.


RIM’s Toronto-listed shares were up 3.9 percent at C$ 14.83.


(Editing by Janet Guttsman and Bernadette Baum)


Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Jason Trawick Will Still 'Be Involved' in the Lives of Britney Spears's Sons: Source















01/16/2013 at 05:30 PM EST







Britney Spears and Jason Trawick


Michael Kovac/Getty


Britney Spears and Jason Trawick have ended their relationship, but the pop star's ex is still planning to be a part of her life.

"Jason adores [Britney's] kids; he loves them," a source tells PEOPLE. "He was like their 'other dad,' so he's not just going to walk away from their lives. He'll be involved as much as makes sense."

As for Spears's two boys, Preston, 7, and Jayden, 6, the source says they "are doing great and [their father] Kevin [Federline] is actually a huge help and is a wonderful person in their lives."

Despite reports that the former X Factor judge's desire to have more kids was a reason for the split, the insider says, "Jason is genuinely open to kids of his own."

But the source adds, "There were so many issues in their relationship that Jason really wanted those worked out before they could ever move forward with a wedding or more kids together."

In the end, Spears, 31, and Trawick, 41, do "love each other," says the source. However, "there were some major challenges and hurdles and constant work that needed to be done. ... It just wasn't working and things weren't going to change, so it was time to let go."

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Risk to all ages: 100 kids die of flu each year


NEW YORK (AP) — How bad is this flu season, exactly? Look to the children.


Twenty flu-related deaths have been reported in kids so far this winter, one of the worst tolls this early in the year since the government started keeping track in 2004.


But while such a tally is tragic, that does not mean this year will turn out to be unusually bad. Roughly 100 children die in an average flu season, and it's not yet clear the nation will reach that total.


The deaths this year have included a 6-year-old girl in Maine, a 15-year Michigan student who loved robotics, and 6-foot-4 Texas high school senior Max Schwolert, who grew sick in Wisconsin while visiting his grandparents for the holidays.


"He was kind of a gentle giant" whose death has had a huge impact on his hometown of Flower Mound, said Phil Schwolert, the Texas boy's uncle.


Health officials only started tracking pediatric flu deaths nine years ago, after media reports called attention to children's deaths. That was in 2003-04 when the primary flu germ was the same dangerous flu bug as the one dominating this year. It also was an earlier than normal flu season.


The government ultimately received reports of 153 flu-related deaths in children, from 40 states, and most of them had occurred by the beginning of January. But the reporting was scattershot. So in October 2004, the government started requiring all states to report flu-related deaths in kids.


Other things changed, most notably a broad expansion of who should get flu shots. During the terrible 2003-04 season, flu shots were only advised for children ages 6 months to 2 years.


That didn't help 4-year-old Amanda Kanowitz, who one day in late February 2004 came home from preschool with a cough and died less than three days later. Amanda was found dead in her bed that terrible Monday morning, by her mother.


"The worst day of our lives," said her father, Richard Kanowitz, a Manhattan attorney who went on to found a vaccine-promoting group called Families Fighting Flu.


The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gradually expanded its flu shot guidance, and by 2008 all kids 6 months and older were urged to get the vaccine. As a result, the vaccination rate for kids grew from under 10 percent back then to around 40 percent today.


Flu vaccine is also much more plentiful. Roughly 130 million doses have been distributed this season, compared to 83 million back then. Public education seems to be better, too, Kanowitz observed.


The last unusually bad flu season for children, was 2009-10 — the year of the new swine flu, which hit young people especially hard. As of early January 2010, 236 flu-related deaths of kids had been reported since the previous August.


It's been difficult to compare the current flu season to those of other winters because this one started about a month earlier than usual.


Look at it this way: The nation is currently about five weeks into flu season, as measured by the first time flu case reports cross above a certain threshold. Two years ago, the nation wasn't five weeks into its flu season until early February, and at that point there were 30 pediatric flu deaths — or 10 more than have been reported at about the same point this year. That suggests that when the dust settles, this season may not be as bad as the one only two years ago.


But for some families, it will be remembered as the worst ever.


In Maine, 6-year-old Avery Lane — a first-grader in Benton who had recently received student-of-the-week honors — died in December following a case of the flu, according to press reports. She was Maine's first pediatric flu death in about two years, a Maine health official said.


In Michigan, 15-year-old Joshua Polehna died two weeks ago after suffering flu-like symptoms. The Lake Fenton High School student was the state's fourth pediatric flu death this year, according to published reports.


And in Texas, the town of Flower Mound mourned Schwolert, a healthy, lanky 17-year-old who loved to golf and taught Sunday school at the church where his father was a youth pastor.


Late last month, he and his family drove 16 hours to spend the holidays with his grandparents in Amery, Wis., a small town near the Minnesota state line. Max felt fluish on Christmas Eve, seemed better the next morning but grew worse that night. The family decided to postpone the drive home and took him to a local hospital. He was transferred to a medical center in St. Paul, Minn., where he died on Dec. 29.


He'd been accepted to Oklahoma State University before the Christmas trip. And an acceptance letter from the University of Minnesota arrived in Texas while Max was sick in Minnesota, his uncle said.


Nearly 1,400 people attended a memorial service for Max two weeks ago in Texas.


"He exuded care and love for other people," Phil Schwolert said.


"The bottom line is take care of your kids, be close to your kids," he said.


On average, an estimated 24,000 Americans die each flu season, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. People who are elderly and with certain chronic health conditions are generally at greatest risk from flu and its complications.


The current vaccine is about 60 percent effective, and is considered the best protection available. Max Schwolert had not been vaccinated, nor had the majority of the other pediatric deaths.


Even if kids are vaccinated, parents should be watchful for unusually severe symptoms, said Lyn Finelli of the CDC.


"If they have influenza-like illness and are lethargic, or not eating, or look punky — or if a parent's intuition is the kid doesn't look right and they're alarmed — they need to call the doctor and take them to the doctor," she advised.


___


CDC advice on kids: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/protect/children.htm


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Dow, S&P 500 inch up with retailers but Apple drags again

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Dow and S&P 500 edged higher on Tuesday after stronger-than-expected retail data, though tech heavyweight Apple dragged on the market for a third day.


Apple was the biggest weight on both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 <.ndx> after reports on Monday of cuts to orders for iPhone parts. Shares declined 3.2 percent to $485.92 and closed below $500 for the first time since February.


Retail stocks advanced after a government report showing retail sales rose more than expected in December was seen as a favorable sign for fourth-quarter growth. A separate report showed manufacturing activity in New York state contracted for the sixth month in a row in January.


"A little better-than-expected news on retail sales once again reinforces that the consumer remains alive and reasonably well," said Mark Luschini, chief investment strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott in Philadelphia, which manages about $54 billion in assets.


Among retailers, American Eagle Outfitters Inc gained 4.8 percent to $20.58 and Gap Inc rose 3.4 percent to $32.46. The Morgan Stanley retail index <.mvr> advanced 1.5 percent.


Express Inc surged 23.8 percent to $17.40 after the apparel retailer raised its fourth-quarter and full year 2012 outlook.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was up 27.57 points, or 0.20 percent, at 13,534.89. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 1.66 points, or 0.11 percent, at 1,472.34. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was down 6.72 points, or 0.22 percent, at 3,110.78.


Apple's stock has lost about 7 percent in the last three sessions and is down 8.7 percent since the start of the year.


"It's tough to discern exactly what's putting the pressure on it. But at the end of the day, its influence, considering it's still 3 1/2 to 4 percent of the S&P 500 index, is being felt," Luschini said.


"I attribute (it) to just some of the bloom coming off of the rose. They haven't necessarily done anything wrong, as much as others have caught up."


Also keeping investors on edge is the looming debt ceiling debate. On Monday, President Barack Obama rejected any negotiations with Republicans over raising the U.S. debt ceiling. The United States could default on its debt if Congress does not increase the borrowing limit.


Resolving the debt ceiling is more a question of how than if. Investors don't expect a U.S. default, but they are also wary of another eleventh-hour agreement like the one in August 2011.


An expected lackluster earnings season, too, kept investors from taking aggressive bets. Analyst estimates for the quarter have fallen sharply since October. S&P 500 earnings growth is now seen up just 1.8 percent from a year ago, Thomson Reuters data showed.


Homebuilder Lennar reported a sharp rise in quarterly profit, but the stock declined 0.8 percent to $40.68 on worries that growth in orders was slowing.


Dell Inc shares added to Monday's gains, ending up 7.2 percent to $13.17 after sources said talks to take the computer maker private are in an advanced stage.


On the down side, shares of Facebook dropped 2.7 percent to $30.10. The company unveiled a "graph search" feature that CEO Mark Zuckerberg said would help its billion-plus users sort through content within the social network and its content feeds.


Volume was roughly 5.8 billion shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and the NYSE MKT, compared with the 2012 average daily closing volume of about 6.45 billion.


Advancers outpaced decliners on the NYSE by about 17 to 12 and on the Nasdaq by about 13 to 11.


(Additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Kenneth Barry and Nick Zieminski)



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The Lede Blog: Video of Aleppo University Bombing

Last Updated, 5:40 p.m. Video posted online by Syrian opposition activists appeared to show the moment one in a series of deadly explosions struck the campus of Aleppo University on Tuesday.

Video said to capture an explosion on the campus of Aleppo University in Syria on Tuesday, uploaded to the Web by opposition activists.

The brief clip, uploaded to the YouTube channel of the ANA New Media Association (formerly the Syrian Activists News Association), begins with a view of smoke rising from behind a university building as students mill about. Moments later, following a very loud explosion close to the camera, students run for cover and a much larger plume can be seen above the building.

The building visible in the video looks similar one pictured in a photograph of the campus uploaded to the Web in 2010, which suggests that the clip was recorded by someone standing outside the university’s college of education, looking in the direction of the school of architecture.

A description of the video posted on YouTube by ANA, which is run from Cairo by the British-Syrian activist Rami Jarrah, said that the video was filmed by an activist just after the university was hit by a missile fired from a Syrian Air Force MIG fighter jet, and captured the impact of a second airstrike.

Another video clip, uploaded to the Web earlier in the day, appeared to offer a more distant view of the plumes of smoke above the campus. Mr. Jarrah, who blogs as Alexander Page, suggested that one part of the video showed the fighter jet’s contrail in the sky over the damaged buildings.

While opposition activists insisted that the blasts, which killed more than 80 people according to the government, were the result of airstrikes by President Bashar al-Assad’s air force, state-controlled television channels claimed that “terrorists” had fired rockets at the campus.

The pro-Assad satellite channel al-Ikhbaria broadcast video of the aftermath, showing extensive damage to the campus and victims being rushed from the scene as on-screen text blamed the attack on rebel forces.

Video from the pro-government Syrian satellite channel al-Ikhbaria showed the aftermath of bombings at Aleppo University on Tuesday

Restrictions on independent reporting in Syria make it hard to confirm who was responsible for the explosions, but the university is in a government-controlled area of the city and large anti-Assad demonstrations there last May were harshly dealt with by the security forces, despite the presence of United Nations observers.

Opposition activists claimed that witnesses saw the bombs drop from jets, and one antigovernment Facebook page posted what it said was a copy of a statement from the univesity’s own press office accusing Syrian Air Force MIG fighter planes of targeting the campus in two “criminal” missile attacks three minutes apart.

A blogger in Aleppo who supported peaceful protests against the Assad government but has been fiercely critical of the armed rebellion, Edward Dark, described the carnage as a result of an air attack that was “probably a mistake, not an intentional bombing.”

A pair of video clips posted on YouTube shortly after the bombings showed extensive damage to what was described as the university’s architecture school. In one of the clips, dazed students made their way through shattered glass, carrying a wounded or dead man on a table, in the entrance hall to the architecture faculty pictured on the university’s Web site.

Video said to show the badly damaged school of architecture at Aleppo University on Tuesday.

Video of a wounded man being evacuated from Aleppo University’s school of architecture on Tuesday.

Another pro-Assad satellite channel, Addounia, broadcast a report blaming “a terrorist group” for the bombings — which was uploaded, with English subtitles, to YouTube.

A video report on bombings at Aleppo University from Addounia, a pro-Assad satellite channel.

Writing on Twitter, a Syrian-American from Aleppo who uses the pen name Amal Hanano posted links to photographs of three people identified as victims of the bombings by activists on social networks.

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$149 Android Tablet from Asus Coming in April






By the end of this month, Amazon‘s Kindle Fire may no longer be the cheapest “real” tablet out there. PC hardware manufacturer Asus, the brand name behind Google‘s Nexus 7 device, is coming out with another 7-inch tablet called the Asus MeMO Pad, which will start at $ 149. The MeMO Pad will launch in “selected markets” this January, and will make it to the United States sometime in April, according to Phandroid’s Kevin Krause.


Here’s a look at the features the MeMO Pad has that the Kindle Fire and Nexus 7 don’t, and what got cut to bring it in under the $ 150 mark.






A look at the hardware


About the same size and shape as other 7-inch tablets, the MeMO Pad is powered by an underwhelming 1 GHz single-core processor from VIA, putting it roughly in line with a budget smartphone performance-wise. It has 1 GB of RAM, 8 GB of internal storage, and basic features like a front-facing webcam and a microSD card slot for expandable storage. The MeMO Pad will come in gray, white, and pink.


Jelly Bean under the hood


While the Kindle Fire runs Amazon’s proprietary version of Android (which is so heavily modified as to basically be a “Kindle OS”), the MeMO Pad runs the same up-to-date version of Android as the Nexus 7, Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. Unlike with the Nexus device, however, which is loaded exclusively with Google apps to start with, Asus saw fit to bundle about a half-dozen of its own apps as well, like “SuperNote Lite” and “ASUS Studio.”


Unlike the Kindle Fire, which can only buy apps from Amazon’s store, the MeMO Pad will have the Google Play store (the former Android Market) preinstalled. It will be able to install the Amazon Appstore and Kindle app as well, just like other Android devices can.


Compared to other tablets


The device which compares closest, price-wise, to the MeMO Pad is Amazon’s $ 159 Kindle Fire. For the price, you get half the RAM but a dual-core 1.2 GHz processor, as well as another hour or so of battery life. The Kindle lacks the MeMO Pad’s webcam or expandable memory, but the biggest tradeoff may be the Kindle’s pure Amazon experience — complete with ads on your homescreen — versus the MeMO Pad’s almost-pure Android.


Asus’ own Nexus 7 starts at $ 199 and lacks expandable memory, but for the price you get 16 GB of storage instead of 8. (That’s more than double when you consider that Android and Asus’ apps take up part of it.) It has a much sharper screen than the MeMO Pad, and a much more powerful Tegra 3 processor, which is capable of playing “THD” enhanced games. Finally, it has (more expensive) 3G options, and is available now instead of in April.


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.


Linux/Open Source News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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