Report: Death rates from cancer still inching down


WASHINGTON (AP) — Death rates from cancer are continuing to inch down, researchers reported Monday.


Now the question is how to hold onto those gains, and do even better, even as the population gets older and fatter, both risks for developing cancer.


"There has been clear progress," said Dr. Otis Brawley of the American Cancer Society, which compiled the annual cancer report with government and cancer advocacy groups.


But bad diets, lack of physical activity and obesity together wield "incredible forces against this decline in mortality," Brawley said. He warned that over the next decade, that trio could surpass tobacco as the leading cause of cancer in the U.S.


Overall, deaths from cancer began slowly dropping in the 1990s, and Monday's report shows the trend holding. Among men, cancer death rates dropped by 1.8 percent a year between 2000 and 2009, and by 1.4 percent a year among women. The drops are thanks mostly to gains against some of the leading types — lung, colorectal, breast and prostate cancers — because of treatment advances and better screening.


The news isn't all good. Deaths still are rising for certain cancer types including liver, pancreatic and, among men, melanoma, the most serious kind of skin cancer.


Preventing cancer is better than treating it, but when it comes to new cases of cancer, the picture is more complicated.


Cancer incidence is dropping slightly among men, by just over half a percent a year, said the report published by the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Prostate, lung and colorectal cancers all saw declines.


But for women, earlier drops have leveled off, the report found. That may be due in part to breast cancer. There were decreases in new breast cancer cases about a decade ago, as many women quit using hormone therapy after menopause. Since then, overall breast cancer incidence has plateaued, and rates have increased among black women.


Another problem area: Oral and anal cancers caused by HPV, the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus, are on the rise among both genders. HPV is better known for causing cervical cancer, and a protective vaccine is available. Government figures show just 32 percent of teen girls have received all three doses, fewer than in Canada, Britain and Australia. The vaccine was recommended for U.S. boys about a year ago.


Among children, overall cancer death rates are dropping by 1.8 percent a year, but incidence is continuing to increase by just over half a percent a year. Brawley said it's not clear why.


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Wall Street edges off five-year high, awaits earnings

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks lost ground on Monday, as investors drew back from recent gains that lifted the S&P 500 to a five-year high, in anticipation of sluggish growth in corporate profits.


Shares of financial companies dipped after a group of major U.S. banks agreed to pay a total of $8.5 billion to end a government inquiry into faulty mortgage foreclosures. The KBW bank index <.bkx>, a gauge of U.S. bank stocks, was down 0.3 percent.


Other sectors were hit as well, most notably energy and utilities. The S&P 500 energy sector index <.gspe> fell 0.8 percent and the utilities sector <.gspu> was off 1.1 percent.


The day's decline came a session after the S&P 500 finished at a five-year high, boosted by a budget deal and strong economic data. The S&P 500 rose 4.6 percent last week, the best weekly gain in more than a year.


"It's a little bit of taking some risk off the table ahead of profit season, you're not going to see anything all that great" on earnings, said Larry Peruzzi, senior equity trader at Cabrera Capital Markets Inc in Boston.


Earnings are expected to be only slightly better than the third-quarter's lackluster results, and analysts' current estimates are down sharply from where they were in October. Fourth-quarter earnings growth is expected to come in at 2.8 percent, according to Thomson Reuters data.


Aluminum company Alcoa Inc begins the reporting season by announcing its results after Tuesday's market close. Alcoa shares fell 1.7 percent at $9.10.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> dropped 50.92 points, or 0.38 percent, to 13,384.29. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> fell 4.58 points, or 0.31 percent, to 1,461.89. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> lost 2.84 points, or 0.09 percent, to 3,098.81.


Ten mortgage servicers - including Bank of America , Citigroup , JPMorgan , and Wells Fargo - agreed on Monday to pay $8.5 billion to end a case-by-case review of foreclosures required by U.S. regulators.


In a separate case, Bank of America also announced roughly $11.6 billion of settlements with mortgage finance company Fannie Mae and a $1.8 billion sale of collection rights on home loans.


The bank also entered into agreements with Nationstar Mortgage Holdings and Walter Investment Management to sell about $306 billion of residential mortgage servicing rights.


Bank of America shares lost 0.2 percent at $12.09 while Nationstar Mortgage Holdings jumped 16.8 percent to $38.83.


Citigroup shares were up 0.09 percent to $42.47, and Wells Fargo shares fell 0.5 percent to $34.77.


"The financials probably have the wind behind them now with a lot of the regulations coming out ... the market has to absorb a lot of the gains, and for that reason there's a pullback from this level," said Warren West, principal at Greentree Brokerage Services in Philadelphia.


Shares of U.S. jet maker Boeing Co dropped 2 percent after a Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft with no passengers on board caught fire at Boston's Logan International Airport on Monday morning.


Amazon.com shares hit their highest price ever at $269.22 after Morgan Stanley raised is rating on the stock. Shares were up 3.6 percent at $268.46.


Video-streaming service Netflix Inc shares gained 3.4 percent to $99.20 after it said it will carry previous seasons of some popular shows produced by Time Warner's Warner Bros Television.


Walt Disney Co stock fell 2.3 percent to $50.97. The company started an internal cost-cutting review several weeks ago that may include layoffs at its studio and other units, three people with knowledge of the effort told Reuters.


Volume was lower than average, as 4.78 billion shares were traded on the New York Stock Exchange, NYSE MKT and Nasdaq. This is well below the 2012 average of 6.42 billion per session.


Declining stocks outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by 1,629 to 1,363, while on the Nasdaq decliners beat advancers 1,438 to 1,066.


(Reporting By Gabriel Debenedetti; Editing by Kenneth Barry and Nick Zieminski)



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Five accused in India rape case charged in court


NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Five men accused of raping and murdering an Indian student were read the charges in a near-empty courtroom on Monday after the judge cleared out lawyers for bickering over whether the men deserved a defense.


The 23-year-old physiotherapy student died two weeks after being gang-raped and beaten on a moving bus in New Delhi, then thrown bleeding onto the street. Protests followed, along with a fierce public debate over police failure to stem rampant violence against women.


With popular anger simmering against the five men and a teenager accused in the case, most lawyers in the district where the trial will be held refuse to represent them.


Before the men arrived for a pre-trial hearing on Monday, heckling broke out in a chamber packed with jostling lawyers, journalists and members of the public after two of the lawyers, Manohar Lal Sharma and V. K. Anand, offered to defend the men.


"We are living in a modern society," declared Lal Sharma, defending his decision. "We all are educated. Every accused, including those in brutal offences like this, has the legal right ... to defend themselves."


One woman lawyer prodded V. K. Anand in the chest, saying: "I'll see how you can represent the accused."


Unable to restore order, presiding magistrate Namrita Aggarwal ordered everyone to leave except the prosecution, and set police to guard the entrance.


She said the trial would now be held behind closed doors because of the sensitivity of the case.


FACES COVERED


Reuters video images showed the men stepping out of a blue police van that brought them from Tihar jail and walking, their faces covered, through a metal detector into the South Delhi court building.


The court was across the street from the cinema where the victim watched a film before she was attacked on her way home.


Aggarwal gave the men copies of the charges, which include murder, rape and abduction, a prosecutor in the case told Reuters.


Police have conducted extensive interrogations and say they have recorded confessions, even though the men have no lawyers.


If the men, most of them from a slum neighborhood, cannot arrange a defense, the court will offer them legal aid before the trial begins.


Two of them, Vinay Sharma and Pawan Gupta, have offered to give evidence against the others - Mukesh Kumar, Ram Singh and Akshay Thakura - possibly in return for a lighter sentence.


Mohan, describing what he called a heinous crime, said: "The five accused persons deserve not less than the death penalty."


The case has sharpened long-standing anger against the government and police for a perceived failure to protect women.


A male friend who was assaulted with the woman on December 16 said on Friday that passers-by left her unclothed and bleeding in the street for almost an hour and that, when police arrived, they spent a long time arguing about where to take them.


The woman lived for two weeks after her attack, dying in a Singapore hospital where she had been taken for treatment.


FAST-TRACK COURT


Aggarwal said the next hearing would be on January 10. The case is due to move later to another, fast-track court set up since the woman was attacked to help reduce a backlog of sex crime cases in Delhi.


Legal experts say the lack of representation for the five men may give grounds for appeal if they are found guilty. Convictions in similar cases have often been overturned years later.


Some legal experts have also warned that previous attempts to fast-track justice in India in some cases led to imperfect convictions that were later challenged.


The sixth member of the group alleged to have lured the student and a male friend into the private bus is under 18 and will be tried in a separate juvenile court.


The government is aiming to lower the age at which teenagers can be tried as adults, acknowledging public anger that the boy will face a maximum three-year sentence.


The victim was identified by a British newspaper at the weekend but Reuters has opted not to name her.


Indian law generally prohibits the identification of victims of sex crimes. The law is intended to protect victims' privacy and keep them out of the glare of media in a country where the social stigma associated with rape can be devastating.


The dead woman's father repeated on Monday that he wanted her identified and said he would be happy to release a photograph of her.


"We don't want to hide her identity. There is no reason for that. The only condition is it should not be misused," he told Reuters.


He said he was confident the trial would be quick and reiterated a call that the perpetrators be hanged.


(Writing by Frank Jack Daniel; Editing by Robert Birsel and Tom Pfeiffer)



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Mark Zuckerberg faces fine in Germany over Facebook privacy violations









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Aurora Shooting: Officer Emotionally Recalls Slipping on Bloody Floor















01/07/2013 at 04:10 PM EST







James Holmes


University of CO/Splash News Online


As a body armor-clad James Holmes calmly told police about the explosives in his apartment, other officers raced to save victims of the movie-theater massacre, the first witnesses testified Monday in Holmes's preliminary hearing.

Officer Justin Grizzle choked up on the stand recalling slipping on the bloody floor as he encountered "several bodies throughout the theater laying motionless." He testified that, as he drove six victims to the hospital, "there was so much blood I could hear it sloshing around in the back of my car."

Among the victims of the Aurora, Colo., shooting he transported was Caleb Medley, a stand-up comedian who was shot in the head and is the last victim still hospitalized. Grizzle said Medley made a "god-awful" gurgling sound as he tried to breathe.

"I shouted, 'Don’t f–––ing die on me,'" Grizzle testified.

The first witness, Officer Jason Oviatt, testified that Holmes, a 25-year-old former neuroscience student, told them explosives in his apartment would go off if they were tripped.

"He was very relaxed," Oviatt testified. "It was like there weren't normal emotional responses."

The hearing, in Centennial, Colo., is to determine if there is sufficient evidence against Holmes on the 166 criminal charges in the July 20 attack, which killed 12 people and injured at least 70.

Some of the survivors are expected to testify during the week-long proceeding. Before this week, authorities had avoided discussing details and evidence about the highly publicized attack.

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Organ donations fall in Germany after scandal


BERLIN (AP) — Organ donations have dropped sharply in Germany following a scandal over alleged corruption at several transplant clinics.


The German Foundation for Organ Transplantation says the number of organs donated fell almost 13 percent to 3,917 last year, the lowest figure in a decade.


Several German clinics are being investigated over allegations that doctors manipulated waiting lists to help some patients appear sicker than they were and so receive transplants sooner.


The foundation said Monday that the scandal had "massively shaken" the public's faith in the transplant system.


Some 12,000 people in Germany require organ transplants each year.


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"Cliff" concerns give way to earnings focus

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors' "fiscal cliff" worries are likely to give way to more fundamental concerns, like earnings, as fourth-quarter reports get under way next week.


Financial results, which begin after the market closes on Tuesday with aluminum company Alcoa , are expected to be only slightly better than the third-quarter's lackluster results. As a warning sign, analyst current estimates are down sharply from what they were in October.


That could set stocks up for more volatility following a week of sharp gains that put the Standard & Poor's 500 index <.spx> on Friday at the highest close since December 31, 2007. The index also registered its biggest weekly percentage gain in more than a year.


Based on a Reuters analysis, Europe ranks among the chief concerns cited by companies that warned on fourth-quarter results. Uncertainty about the region and its weak economic outlook were cited by more than half of the 25 largest S&P 500 companies that issued warnings.


In the most recent earnings conference calls, macroeconomic worries were cited by 10 companies while the U.S. "fiscal cliff" was cited by at least nine as reasons for their earnings warnings.


"The number of things that could go wrong isn't so high, but the magnitude of how wrong they could go is what's worrisome," said Kurt Winters, senior portfolio manager for Whitebox Mutual Funds in Minneapolis.


Negative-to-positive guidance by S&P 500 companies for the fourth quarter was 3.6 to 1, the second worst since the third quarter of 2001, according to Thomson Reuters data.


U.S. lawmakers narrowly averted the "fiscal cliff" by coming to a last-minute agreement on a bill to avoid steep tax hikes this weeks -- driving the rally in stocks -- but the battle over further spending cuts is expected to resume in two months.


Investors also have seen a revival of worries about Europe's sovereign debt problems, with Moody's in November downgrading France's credit rating and debt crises looming for Spain and other countries.


"You have a recession in Europe as a base case. Europe is still the biggest trading partner with a lot of U.S. companies, and it's still a big chunk of global capital spending," said Adam Parker, chief U.S. equity strategist at Morgan Stanley in New York.


Among companies citing worries about Europe was eBay , whose chief financial officer, Bob Swan, spoke of "macro pressures from Europe" in the company's October earnings conference call.


REVENUE WORRIES


One of the biggest worries voiced about earnings has been whether companies will be able to continue to boost profit growth despite relatively weak revenue growth.


S&P 500 revenue fell 0.8 percent in the third quarter for the first decline since the third quarter of 2009, Thomson Reuters data showed. Earnings growth for the quarter was a paltry 0.1 percent after briefly dipping into negative territory.


On top of that, just 40 percent of S&P 500 companies beat revenue expectations in the third quarter, while 64.2 percent beat earnings estimates, the Thomson Reuters data showed.


For the fourth quarter, estimates are slightly better but are well off estimates for the quarter from just a few months earlier. S&P 500 earnings are expected to have risen 2.8 percent while revenue is expected to have gone up 1.9 percent.


Back in October, earnings growth for the fourth quarter was forecast up 9.9 percent.


In spite of the cautious outlooks, some analysts still see a good chance for earnings beats this reporting period.


"The thinking is you need top line growth for earnings to continue to expand, and we've seen the market defy that," said Mike Jackson, founder of Denver-based investment firm T3 Equity Labs.


Based on his analysis, energy, industrials and consumer discretionary are the S&P sectors most likely to beat earnings expectations in the upcoming season, while consumer staples, materials and utilities are the least likely to beat, Jackson said.


Sounding a positive note on Friday, drugmaker Eli Lilly and Co said it expects profit in 2013 to increase by more than Wall Street had been forecasting, primarily due to cost controls and improved productivity.


(Reporting By Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Kenneth Barry)



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Assad "peace plan" greeted with scorn by foes


BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad rejected peace talks with his enemies on Sunday in a defiant speech that his opponents described as a renewed declaration of war.


Although the speech was billed as the unveiling of a new peace plan, Assad offered no concessions and even appeared to harden many of his positions. He rallied Syrians for "a war to defend the nation" and disparaged the prospect of negotiations.


"We do not reject political dialogue ... but with whom should we hold a dialogue? With extremists who don't believe in any language but killing and terrorism?" Assad asked supporters who packed Damascus Opera House for his first speech since June.


"Should we speak to gangs recruited abroad that follow the orders of foreigners? Should we have official dialogue with a puppet made by the West, which has scripted its lines?"


It was his first public speech to an audience in six months. Since the last, rebels have reached the capital's outskirts.


George Sabra, vice president of the opposition National Coalition, told Reuters the peace plan Assad put at the heart of his speech did "not even deserve to be called an initiative":


"We should see it rather as a declaration that he will continue his war against the Syrian people," he said.


"The appropriate response is to continue to resist this unacceptable regime and for the Free Syrian Army to continue its work in liberating Syria until every inch of land is free."


The speech was seen by many as a response to U.N. mediator Lakhdar Brahimi, who has been meeting U.S. and Russian officials to try to narrow differences between Washington and Moscow over a peace plan. Brahimi also met Assad in Syria late last month.


"Lakhdar Brahimi must feel foolish after that Assad speech, where his diplomacy is dismissed as intolerable intervention," said Rana Kabbani, a Syrian analyst who supports the opposition.


The United States, European Union, Turkey and most Arab states have called on Assad to quit. Russia, which sells arms to and leases a naval base from Syria, says it backs a transition of power but that Assad's departure should not be a precondition for any talks.


REPETITIONS


Assad's foreign foes were scornful and dismissive of the speech: "His remarks are just repetitions of what he's said all along," said Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.


"It seems he's locked himself up in a room and only reads the intelligence reports presented to him."


British Foreign Secretary William Hague said "empty promises of reform fool no one". In a Twitter message, he added: "Death, violence and oppression engulfing Syria are of his own making."


EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton said Brussels would "look carefully if there is anything new in the speech, but we maintain our position that Assad has to step aside and allow for a political transition".


The 47-year-old Assad, tall and mustachioed, in a business suit and tie, spoke confidently for about an hour before a crowd of cheering loyalists, who occasionally interrupted him to shout and applaud, at one point raising their fists and chanting: "With blood and soul we sacrifice for you, oh Bashar!"


At the end of the speech, supporters rushed to the stage, mobbing him and shouting: "God, Syria and Bashar is enough!" as a smiling president waved and was escorted from the hall past a backdrop showing a Syrian flag made of pictures of people whom state television described as "martyrs" of the conflict so far.


"We are now in a state of war in every sense of the word," Assad said in the speech, broadcast on Syrian state television. "This war targets Syria using a handful of Syrians and many foreigners. Thus, this is a war to defend the nation."


Independent media are largely barred from Damascus.


Giving the speech in the opera house, in a part of central Damascus that has been hit by rebel attacks, could be intended as a show of strength by a leader whose public appearances have grown rarer as the rebellion has gathered force.


Critics saw irony in the venue: "Assad speech appropriately made in Opera House!" tweeted Rami Khouri, a commentator for Lebanon's Daily Star newspaper. "It was operatic in its other-worldly fantasy, unrelated to realities outside the building."


DEATHS


The United Nations says 60,000 people have been killed in the civil war, the longest and bloodiest of the conflicts to emerge in two years of revolts in Arab states.


Rebels now control much of the north and east of the country, a crescent of suburbs on the outskirts of the capital and the main border crossings with Turkey in the north.


But Assad's forces are still firmly in control of most of the densely populated southwest, the main north-south highway and the Mediterranean coast. The army also holds military bases throughout the country from which its helicopters and jets can strike rebel-held areas with impunity, making it impossible for the insurgents to consolidate their grip on territory they hold.


Assad, an eye doctor, has ruled since 2000, succeeding his late father Hafez, who had seized power in a 1970 coup.


The rebels are drawn mainly from Syria's Sunni Muslim majority, while Assad, a member of the Alawite sect related to Shi'ite Islam, is supported by some members of religious minorities who fear retribution if he falls.


The conflict has heightened confrontation in the Middle East between Shi'ite Iran and Sunni Arab rulers, particularly those in the Gulf who are allied with the West against Tehran.


The plan unveiled in Sunday's speech could hardly have been better designed to ensure its rejection by the opposition. Among its proposals: rebels would first be expected to halt operations before the army would cease fire, a certain non-starter.


Assad also repeatedly emphasized rebel links to al Qaeda and other Sunni Islamist radicals. Washington has also labeled one of the main rebel groups a terrorist organization and says it is linked to the network founded by Osama bin Laden.


Diplomacy has been largely irrelevant so far in the conflict, with Moscow vetoing U.N. resolutions against Assad.


U.N. mediator Brahimi has been trying to bridge the gap, meeting senior U.S. and Russian officials to discuss his own peace proposal, which does not explicitly mention Assad's fate.


National Coalition spokesman Walid Bunni said Assad's speech appeared timed to prevent a breakthrough in those talks, by taking a position that could not be reconciled with diplomacy.


"The talk by Brahimi and others that there could be a type of political solution being worked out has prompted him to come out and tell the others 'I won't accept a solution'," Bunni said, adding that Assad feared any deal would mean his downfall.


(Additional reporting by Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman, Gulsen Solaker in Ankara and Tim Castle in London; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Alastair Macdonald)



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Riches in niches: U.S. cops, in-flight movies may be model for Panasonic survival






TOKYO (Reuters) – Panasonic Corp’s answer to the brutal onslaught on its TV sales may be in a product the Japanese firm launched 17 years ago and which is a must-have for U.S. police cars.


Two thirds of the 420,000 patrol cars in the United States are equipped with the company’s rugged Toughbook computers, and Panasonic chief Kazuhiro Tsuga sees the niche product as a model for how the sprawling conglomerate can make money beyond a gadget mass market increasingly dominated by Samsung Electronics and Apple Inc.






“What we need are businesses that earn, and they don’t necessarily have to have big sales,” Tsuga told reporters after his appointment as company president was approved in June.


Tsuga also sees avionics – Panasonic is the world’s leading maker of in-flight entertainment systems – automated production machinery, and lighting as profit earners as income from TVs and other consumer electronics dwindles.


Panasonic, Sony Corp and Sharp Corp have been hit hard by South Korean-made TVs, Blu-ray players and mobiles and Apple tablets that threaten to wipe out Japan as a global consumer electronics hub. The Toughbook, sold only to businesses and governments, was conceived as a response to the type of profit sapping competition that is now roiling TVs.


“At the time, we were losing in personal computers to Compaq and IBM,” said Hide Harada, who heads the Toughbook unit from the group’s headquarters in Osaka, western Japan. IBM later sold its laptop business to China’s Lenovo Group and Compaq was absorbed by Hewlett Packard.


“It was a guerilla strategy,” Harada said, recalling the Toughbook’s launch in 1996. Panasonic’s promotion campaign included driving jeeps over its computers, dropping them on the ground and dousing them with coffee on morning TV shows.


At rival Sony, too, signs of a niche strategy are emerging in a battle with Apple and South Korean brands that are making gains from a weaker won currency. Combining technologies from several divisions – from projectors to video cameras and headphones – Sony’s 3D Viewer head-mounted visor gives users the feel they are sitting in the middle of a 500-seat movie theater.


The target audience, says product manager Hideki Mori, are those consumers looking to immerse themselves in computer graphics and high quality movies. “Demand has been greater than anticipated,” he said, declining to give specific sales numbers.


LOSING GROUND


The two Japanese firms will show off their wares at this week’s annual CES consumer electronics show in Las Vegas, an event usually dominated by prototypes for next-generation TV technology. Tsuga is due to deliver the event’s keynote speech.


In the past, the Japanese have showcased ultra high-definition 4K televisions, while Samsung and LG Electronics Inc have displayed their ultra-thin OLED (organic light-emitting diode) screens. But, at a price tag likely 10 times that of conventional LCD screens, consumers will take a while to make the generational leap.


Meanwhile, losses at Panasonic, Sony and Sharp mount up. Panasonic has predicted a net loss of $ 8.9 billion in the year to end-March, while Sharp, which has been bailed out by banks, expects an annual loss of $ 5.24 billion. Helped by asset sales, Sony should eke out a small profit.


Japan’s share of the flat panel TV market has shrunk by around a quarter in the past two years, to around 31 percent, according to the Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association. Amid a prolonged strong yen squeeze, the industry lobby expects Japan’s share of the DVD and Blu-ray disc player market to have dropped to around half last year from nearly two-thirds in 2010. Just 8 of every 100 mobile phones sold globally are now Japanese. Manufacturers have shifted TV production overseas, with output in Japan now less than a tenth of what it was two years ago.


Tsuga, who acknowledges Panasonic is a “loser” in consumer electronics, has warned his business units they will be closed or sold if they fail to match Toughbook’s success, giving each two years to deliver at least a 5 percent operating margin.


Any niche-winning strategy that takes his company away from mass market products means Tsuga will need fewer workers, investors say. Panasonic is Japan’s biggest commercial employer with a workforce of more than 300,000. It plans to axe 10,000 jobs in the year to March on top of the 36,000 that were cut in the previous year. More big cuts in Japan, where major lay-offs are uncommon and severance packages expensive, won’t be easy, said Yuuki Sakurai, CEO at Fukoku Capital Management in Tokyo, which manages assets worth $ 18.4 billion, but doesn’t own Panasonic stock.


“It’s like trying to chase the course of a battleship. If they want to become a light cruiser or destroyer, they’ll have to lose employees,” Sakurai said.


GLOBAL STANDARD


Workers Panasonic will likely keep are those in Kobe in western Japan who build the Toughbook PCs – a category defined by a U.S. military quality benchmark that serves as a de facto global standard. Its market share is on a par with Apple’s in tablets, with most U.S. police departments willing to pay as much as $ 3,000 for the rugged laptops which can withstand bumpy high-speed chases and other rigors of street policing.


“They have been near bullet-proof. We had a patrol car catch fire and after all the heat, smoke and water dissipated the computer continued to function,” said Bill Richards, logistics commander for the Tucson police in Arizona, whose force owns close to 650 Toughbooks that connect patrol cars with dispatchers, license records and other police databases.


Other customers include the New York Police Department, California Highway Patrol, Brazilian Military Police and British and U.S. military, which use them on unmanned aerial drones.


“Panasonic is the bellwether, the most recognized brand. The Toughbook is almost synonymous with rugged notebooks,” said David Krebs, a vice president at VDC Research.


While margins in the global PC market are getting slimmer – research firm IHS iSuppli sees annual sales growth of around 7 percent over the next four years from about 216 million PCs last year – the premium-price, fatter margin, rugged PC niche is seen growing by around 10 percent a year to nearly 1.2 million computers by 2016, according to VDC Research.


ANALOG EDGE, DIGITAL SAMENESS


At the Kobe factory, Toughbooks are put through their paces: hosed down to test water resistance, baked to 50 degrees Celsius, chilled to minus 20 degrees and dropped on their tops, bottoms, sides and corners.


Harada describes it as an analog edge in digital products.


“Whoever makes them, the insides of a computer are pretty much the same. It’s the mechanical side that makes us different,” he explained.


The creators of Sony’s 3D Viewer, too, are looking for mechanical appeal as much as electronic prowess. A second, redesigned model, which is now on sale in Japan, is 25 percent lighter at 330 grams, has a better grip and gives users the option of headphones or earplugs, said Mori. “We want to make it lighter,” he added, noting engineers are looking to slim down the heaviest component, the lenses.


While Sony keeps chasing consumers, Panasonic is pursuing a business-to-business niche market model that Tsuga has put at the heart of his revival plan. High on Harada’s target list for the Toughbook are Japanese police forces, which don’t yet buy the computers.


There are no plans, he said, to make cheaper mass market models – which could protect some jobs in the group.


“We aren’t going to put it in Best Buy or Walmart. I don’t think it would turn out well.”


($ 1 = 85.9250 Japanese yen)


(Editing by Ian Geoghegan)


Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News




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Bradley Cooper's Fans Sing 'Happy Birthday' in Palm Springs















01/06/2013 at 03:00 PM EST



Bradley Cooper didn't necessarily have the wildest of birthday celebrations, but his special day certainly didn't go unnoticed.

The Silver Linings Playbook star, who turned 38 on Saturday, was greeted by a slew of screaming fans when he arrived on the red carpet at the 24th Annual Palm Springs International Film Festival Awards Gala in Palm Springs, Calif.

"Bradley started interacting with his fans and then they broke out into song, chanting 'Happy birthday to you,'" an onlooker tells PEOPLE.

Running late into the event because of the fan holdup, Cooper whisked by many of the reporters, and when asked about his birthday plans, answered with a smile, "I'm here!"

But the birthday surprises didn't end there.

After being honored with a Desert Palm Achievement Award presented by Playbook director David O. Russell, PEOPLE's former Sexiest Man Alive was given a shoutout by event host Mary Hart, who insisted the entire room sing "Happy Birthday" to the actor.

"It seemed very unexpected," the onlooker adds. "He seemed a little shy and embarrassed by it, but while managing to smile still."

– Dahvi Shira


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