As 2011 ends, Google+ is poised to cross the 100 million user threshold by February, a feat that took Facebook four years to do.
Avid Google+ watcher and Ancestry.com founder Paul Allen (not to be confused with the Microsoft co-founder) has become something of an unofficial tracking source for G+ since his prediction early on in July that the then-newborn social network would surpass 10 million within two weeks.?
In a recent post (on G+, naturally), his forecast sees G+ with 400 million users by the end of 2012. His research shows 625,000 users signing up to G+ every day and already past 62 million. But he thinks that rate is going to go up, because if it stays the way it is now, there will be only about 293 million users at the end of next year. Only! But at this rate, 100 million will join by Feb. 25 and 200 million by Aug. 3.
To spur that optimism, he pulls out this stat, which is actually quite a jolt, if it's anywhere near accurate: Nearly a quarter of all G+ users joined in December. Maybe that's due to some recent improvements, such as editing streams, the debut of G+ Pages and enhancements to Hangouts. There was also a big spike in G+ traffic when it opened up to the public, beyond private invitations, in September.
But a 60 percent decrease in traffic right after that?tempered at least some of that enthusiasm.
Now though, the outlook on G+ is bullish again.?
A recent comScore report on social networking actually upped G+'s numbers to 65 million around the world, or 5 percent of the global social networking audience. ?
Chitika Insights, the "independent research division" of the online advertising network, also saw significant upticks in the past three months, as you can see from this graph, using this methodology:?
?
Chitika Insights
The graph above shows activity index for Google+ between September and November 2011. The highest level of activity observed receives a value of 100, and the other data points are simply a function thereof. The arrows represent the percentage increase in activity witnessed between month to month data sets, all of which were sampled in the second week of each respective month.
Chitika told us that between September and November, Google+ "saw a 118 percent increase in overall online activity. From September to October Google+ posted the biggest growth figures (55 percent), followed by a growth in online activity of 41 percent between October and November."
The company, which has kept tabs on G+ for awhile, says that this?growth may be due to several key factors:
Google has been successfully integrating Google+ across its wide range of services (Android, Google Apps, Search)
Google has been heavily advertising Google+ across different channels including television spots and online placements, hoping to connect with a? main-stream audience
Google has remained dedicated to increasing the functionality and accessibility of Google+ to the public and has plans for rapid releases of new features over the course of 2012
Mind you, Google+ still has a long way to go before it gets anywhere near the 800 million currently on Facebook. But at the same time in its history, at six months old, in 2004, Facebook barely had 1 million users.
And right out of the gate, G+'s turbo-charged entry into the social media sphere blew everyone else away, attaining 20 million users in less than a month, a milestone that took Facebook more than three years to do.
But let's remember: Facebook and Twitter and other pioneers had to build up an audience in which social networking wasn't the norm yet, where only a select few were using Friendster or MySpace. Google+ has the advantage of debuting in a time when social networking dominates the time spent online.
More stories:
Check out Technolog on?Facebook, and on Twitter, follow?Athima Chansanchai, who is also trying to keep her head above water in the?Google+?stream.
Video: Will GOP abortion stance alienate average female voters?
To succeed at your New Year's diet, keep mum
A slew of psychology studies, some dating as far back as the 1920s, suggest that if you want to stick to your New Year?s diet ? or whatever your big 2012 goal may be ? you might want to shut up about it, already.
VIENNA ? Andy Warhol stopped by for a cup of his coffee. So did princes, paupers, playwrights, poets and untold thousands for whom a visit to Vienna was unthinkable without a cup of steaming brew served by the bow-tied little man with the perpetual dancing smile.
In this city of more than 1,900 cafes, Leopold Hawelka was an icon, as much part of Cafe Hawelka as its tables ? scarred by burned-out cigarettes, their marble tops worn smooth by the elbows of four generations. He served tourists, the rich and the famous, and the neediest of the needy ? the ragged Viennese masses who crowded his establishment over a free glass of water to escape the cold of their bombed-out city after World War II.
Hawelka's daughter, Herta, said he died in his sleep and "without pain" Thursday aged 100 ? leaving behind a legacy as intimately linked with the city as any of its splendid palaces or sumptuous art collections.
Cafe Hawelka was never posh. But while costly makeovers left other cafes soulless, Hawelka's grew in charm with each layer of patina laid down over the more then 70 years of ungentrified existence that left it little changed from the bleak postwar days.
Today ? as generations ago ? tuxedoed waiters flit around tables, precariously balancing countless Viennese coffee varieties and trademark yeast dumplings on silver trays. Wooden wall paneling is lovingly scarred by the initials of visitors and paintings exchanged for a cup of coffee by impoverished artists in the 1940s still hang on the walls.
Even the ashtrays survived Vienna's no-smoking laws ? though staff put them out in recent years only when ordered to do so by Hawelka, keeping a sharp eye on things from a stuffed brocade couch in the back of his establishment.
Though his visits grew increasingly rare as he neared 100, Hawelka left no doubt who was in charge when he did drop by.
"He remains our director-general," said grandson Michael Hawelka earlier this year. "Whenever he is here, he's the boss."
It was this sense of tradition that made Cafe Hawelka special ? along with reminiscences from the unassuming owner and his late wife, Josefine. Some of their best stories stretched back to the immediate postwar years, when ? split into Soviet, United States, British and French zones ? Vienna was the place of intrigue reflected by the film classic "The Third Man."
Paying tribute to the man and his legacy, Austrian Culture Minister Claudia Schmied described him Thursday as a "legend of coffee house culture."
The son of a shoemaker, Hawelka opened the coffeehouse in 1938, only to close it a year later when he was drafted into Hitler's army. A survivor of the deadly Soviet front, he reopened in 1945 ? to a cold and hungry clientele that reflected the grimness of those years.
"As soon as they saw smoke curling out of the stovepipe they came," Hawelka told The Associated Press in a 2001 interview. "It was a sign that we, at least, had it warm. Some of them sat there the whole day over a glass of water so that they could stay warm."
Over the hiss of espresso machines and the multilingual chatter rising from the tables, Hawelka recalled getting up before dawn, walking for two hours to the Vienna Woods and trudging back with a sack of firewood to keep the stove burning.
A Soviet officer was a regular back then. Eyed by hungry, silent Viennese he would bring his lunch, gobbling down thick slices of ham speared on a jackknife.
The Hawelkas themselves dealt in contraband cigarettes in those lean and hungry days, while recalling others selling black-market lard by the ton. Titles and possessions gone, the prince of Liechtenstein and other Austrian royalty held court in Cafe Hawelka and sold whatever they had been able to hide ? carpets, paintings and anything else the Nazis and Soviets didn't get to first.
Until his wife's death at 91 in 2005, the couple worked up to 14 hour days. He would open early. She closed at 2 a.m and pored over the books until dawn.
The crowd changed ? from the postwar displaced to the likes of Warhol, playwright Arthur Miller and local literary and artistic giants, to business travelers, students and tourists. But the sense of time at a near standstill stayed the same, with some guests lingering for hours over their cup of coffee and glass of water.
Although family members ? the couple had two children ? took over the business in recent years, Hawelka himself was a regular until his late 90s. Too weak to attend his 100th birthday party on April 11, 2011, his smiling portrait placed on his couch served as a reminder of his vigilant commitment to his guests and their welfare.
Back then, longtime patrons reminisced of the special place Cafe Hawelka held in their hearts.
"It was my living room when I was in Vienna," said Robert de Clercq, a 75-year-old Dutchman who first met Hawelka 42 years ago, while Annemarie Eppinger recalled how, years back, Hawelka had watched over her university student niece as she hit the books at a cafe table, shooing away those who might distract her.
Stolen iPad helps locate Christmas Day burglary suspect
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Source: abclocal.go.com --- Tuesday, December 27, 2011 The 'pinging' of an IPad helped officials track down a burglary suspect and return Christmas gifts to some happy children. ...
Japan, India shares gain in holiday-thin Asia, U.S. hopes help
(Reuters)
TOKYO (Reuters) ? Japanese and Indian stocks outperformed the rest of Asia in thin trade Monday, with sentiment partly lifted by signs of U.S. economic recovery, although trading was subdued with many markets closed for Christmas holidays.
Tokyo's Nikkei stock average (.N225) ended up 1 percent, above its 25-day moving average of 8,459, while India's main 30-share BSE index (.BSESN) rose 1.14 percent, as investors sought holiday-season bargains.
But MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan (.MIAPJ0000PUS) slipped from a two-week high touched earlier in the day to trade down 0.1 percent.
U.S., European and some Asian markets including Hong Kong and Singapore were closed Monday.
Wall Street stocks rose Friday, with the broad Standard & Poor's 500 Index (.SPX) breaking through its 200-day moving average after a four-day rally lifted stocks to bring the index up 0.6 percent for the year at last week's close.
The Dow Jones industrial average (.DJI) rose to its highest in five months Friday.
"The Nikkei is moving with New York. The gains in the U.S. and Europe gave some sense of relief to markets," said Hajime Nakajima, a wholesale trader at Cosmo Securities in Osaka, Japan.
In a sign the markets may be stabilizing for the time being, the CBOE Volatility index VIX (.VIX) fell to 20.73 on Friday, near a five-month low, reflecting receding investor desire for protection in stock index options against future losses.
The VIX -- a measure of expected volatility in the S&P 500 over the next 30 days -- fell to its lowest since the global financial crisis of October 2008 at 14.3 earlier this year, before picking up to a year high of 48 in August. It has been slipping since hitting a high above 30 earlier this month.
CONCERN ON CHINA EARNINGS
The Shanghai Composite Index (.SSEC) fell 0.5 percent on concerns over corporate earnings outlook, pushing below the psychologically important 2,200 level in light trading.
The Korea Composite Stock Price Index (.KS11) slid 0.6 percent on doubts over the euro zone debt crisis getting resolved.
"Program selling was the main drag on the index today, and despite the optimistic U.S. data, foreign investors aren't ready to re-enter the market in force as long as the (European Central Bank) isn't taking more concrete measures," said Lee Kyung-soo, a market analyst at Shinyoung Securities.
Investors will be looking for clues over the strength of the U.S. economy from data due this week, including the S&P Case-Shiller house price index for October and consumer confidence for December.
U.S. consumer spending growth was tepid and a gauge of business investment fell for a second month in November, data showed Friday, but recent labor and manufacturing figures implied a more-lasting and fundamental strengthening of the recovery.
The U.S. Congress Friday approved a two-month extension of a payroll tax cut that will preserve income for most Americans, supporting their purchases of goods and services and helping sentiment.
The euro was up 0.13 percent to $1.3060, well above its 11-month trough of $1.2945 hit earlier this month.
The latest Commodity Futures Trading Commission data showed investors reduced their short euro positions slightly, potentially giving support to the single currency.
"Given a lack of factors to trade and low liquidity, activity is expected to be lackluster this week, but sluggish results of French and Italian government debt sales scheduled this week could pressure the euro amid an absence of progress in bolstering euro zone safety net," Barclays Capital said in a research note.
The 10-year Italian government debt yield stayed near 7 percent, above which many say is unsustainable for managing public finances and the economy, while 10-year Spanish government bond yield also stood at an elevated 5.40 percent.
Wariness about European banks' health and risks of another global credit crunch made banks reluctant to borrow to each other, pushing the London interbank offered rate for three-month dollars up further Friday to 0.57575 percent, its highest since early July 2009.
(Additional reporting by Dominic Lau and Mari Saito in Tokyo, and Joonhee Yu in Seoul; Editing by Richard Borsuk)
Yorvit Torrealba suspended by Venezuela league
(AP)
CARACAS, Venezuela ? Texas Rangers catcher Yorvit Torrealba has been suspended from Venezuela's professional baseball league for 66 games for striking an umpire.
Torrealba was arguing with the home-plate umpire Friday after striking out. He angrily put a hand on the umpire's mask and shoved him. He was then ejected.
League President Jose Grasso Vecchio called Torrealba's behavior unacceptable and a violation of league rules.
Torrealba plays for the Caracas Lions when not playing in the majors. His agent, Melvin Roman, said Torrealba acknowledges he got carried away in the heat of the moment.
Bettina Browne trained tigers for Fox's new family film "We Bought a Zoo," but of all the felines she's recently wrangled for movies, she considers the toughest customers to be the ordinary house cats she was tasked with taming for director David Fincher's dark, biting thriller, Sony's "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo."
"Tigers and lions are a little bit more dog-like in the sense that they still do like to please you," said Browne, who worked for Birds and Animals Unlimited on the two films. "House cats, if they feel like it, they will. But especially when you're working with them, they're like, 'Nah, I don't really want to do that. It's work.'"
Cattitudes haven't hampered Browne's lifelong love of animals, though. As an undergraduate at USC, she studied anthropology with an emphasis on primates and considered moving to South Africa to be a safari guide. But instead, she finished her degree and tried such endeavors as gallery work and fashion styling before answering the call of the wild. "I met my husband, Eric Weld, and he had just gotten into exotic animal training," she said. "I thought, 'Ah, that's what I want to do, too.'"
On her first job, she trained 7-month-old lion cubs for a Whiskas commercial. But the first time she ever worked with a full-grown male lion ? a 550-pound creature named Felix ? was on 2007's "Prey," which she considers the biggest step in her career.
"It was an unfortunate situation actually because my husband, who was my boyfriend at the time, and another trainer on that movie, they got shot," she said. "The African farm they were staying at, these people came and robbed their bungalow and shot them, one in the shoulder and then my husband in his hand."
Browne stepped in to finish the movie with Felix and discovered that he responded much differently to a female rather than a male trainer. "They're a little more lovey, a little more accepting," she said.
Since then, Browne has trained animals of all sizes for films including "Step Brothers," "Angels & Demons" and "Zookeeper," but she saves the lion's share of her love for the big cats.
"Maybe it was from watching 'Born Free' when I was younger, but the big cats are really my first passion," she said. "I always have to step back while I'm working and just be amazed at the fact that I'm on leash, or I'm working a tiger or a lion, and I'm just loving the relationship that I can have with them."
Stars with stripes: Based on Benjamin Mee's memoir, director Cameron Crowe's "We Bought a Zoo" centers on a widowed journalist (Matt Damon) who moves his two children into a struggling California zoo. While Crowe focused on coaxing the best performances from the human actors, Browne turned her attention to the tigers.
"We had Katie, who played the old tiger, Spar," said Browne. "It was nothing too difficult, because it's a zoo. We did some interior shots where she would lie there, and Matt Damon would talk to her. He was very good with the tigers. We also had Kismet and Schicka, the younger tigers, who I actually hand-raised. We did have to teach them to jump up into where their indoor facility was on the movie set. They like to show off their jumping abilities. They all like to work for meat."
On a long leash: "One of the biggest and most important things that we taught the cats for 'We Bought a Zoo' was working on cables," said Browne. "The cables are black, plastic-coated steel aircraft cables, and they would attach to their collars. We had 10- and 20-foot cables, depending on the shot. Because we could not be close to them, they had to be secured so that they would be able to work together and around the actors safely."
Stop and go: According to Browne, house cats tend to work in teams of three, but in the case of the Sweden-set "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," one cat stole the show. "His name is Scotty, who is just a domestic short-haired brown tabby," she said. "He did a very good job playing all roles. He had to come in through the window, and then jump into the cottage and run across the floor into the kitchen."
Just act natural: "On 'The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,' I definitely learned to work a cat without food, because director David Fincher likes a lot of natural action, and natural action you can't do with food," Browne said. "Scotty's very toy- and movement-driven. So I learned to work him with my hand and just little subtle movements. I had never worked with a cat in that way before, so that was fun and new. Whenever you go on set, you never know what you're getting into. You just have to have that personality where you can go with the flow."
TURKEY ? EUROPEAN UNION Tensions between Ankara and Paris over the Armenian question
Istanbul ? Franco-Turkish relations have never been easy under President Nicolas Sarkozy. This time, the issue is not the legitimacy of Turkey?s place in Europe, but rather the genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire in 1915 against the Armenians, an action never acknowledged by the secularist state founded by Kemal Ataturk or by today?s neo-Ottomanist government under Erdogan.
The spark that set off the controversy is a bill before the French National Assembly that would criminalise denying the Armenian holocaust with up to a year in prison and a fine of 45,000 Euros. France had already recognised the Armenian genocide in 2001.
In his statements, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan was dour and bombastic, accusing France of being discriminatory, racist and xenophobic. Angry, the prime minister said that France?s ?step will open heavy wounds that will be difficult to heal?. Instead, the French should look at their own genocides in Algeria and Rwanda.
Before the bill was adopted, thousands of Turks gathered in front of the French parliament to protest. As a first response, Erdogan recalled the Turkish ambassador in Paris for consultations. He also suspended military cooperation with France, cancelled military agreements with Paris, froze bilateral deals and suspended political and economic contacts between the two countries.
Measured and conventional, French Foreign Minister Alain Jupp? urged Ankara to remain calm and not overreact. ?We have lots of things to work on together,? he said. The draft bill is expected to be go before the French Senate in February 2012 ahead of France?s presidential elections. Back in May of this year, the Senate had refused to criminalise genocide denial.
In Turkey, reactions reflect the clich?s usually associated with Erdogan and his ruling party, the AKP, closely following the official version of events, which backs Ottoman wartime policies and claims, whereby what happened in 1915 was sad but inevitable.
Various meetings and protests have also been organised by academic and commercial groups in Paris. In Turkey, the bill has allowed Erdogan to rally opposition parties, CHP and MJP, against France.
In Istanbul, the local Armenian community, especially people close to the newspaper Agos, which was edited by Hrant Dink until 2007 when he was murdered by Turkish ultra-nationalists, think that the French bill is a disaster for freedom of thought. For them, what counts is the ?human aspect of the genocide?.
The Armenian Patriarchate in Istanbul issued a press release, seen by many as deceitful and full of religious sentiments. Armenian journalist, Mark Yesayan thinks that it might have been made on the request of people in high places.
Turkey?s liberal and leftwing circles view the French law as a foolish move by Sarkozy to win the Armenian vote in the upcoming presidential elections.
They note that the attempt by the Turkish government to criticise France in the name of freedom of thought is inappropriate given Turkey?s own shortcomings in the matter. For them, Erdogan?s reference to Algerian and Rwanda cannot legitimise Turkey?s official position. Sadly, they believe the country lacks the maturity and courage, at an individual and collective level, to face its own history.
Turkish analysts believe the French Senate will approve the bill and that the European Court of Human Rights will uphold it because it does not violate European law.
Significantly, diplomatic circles in Brussels see a connection between statements by Turkey?s Minister for EU Affairs Egemen Ba???, a possible boycott of French products, and the recent crisis between the European Union and Great Britain.
Great Britain?s isolation in the European Union will hinder, not help Turkey?s EU membership bid. London has always been a keen supporter of Ankara.
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President Barack Obama, first lady Michelle Obama and their daughters Malia and Sasha arrive for Christmas service at the Kaneohe bay Chapel on Marine Corps Base Hawaii , Sunday, Dec. 25, 2011, in Kaneohe, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
President Barack Obama, first lady Michelle Obama and their daughters Malia and Sasha arrive for Christmas service at the Kaneohe bay Chapel on Marine Corps Base Hawaii , Sunday, Dec. 25, 2011, in Kaneohe, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
President Barack Obama gets a mouth full of fingers from Cooper Wall Wagner, 8 months, as he poses for a photo with Coopers and his parents Captain Greg and Meredith Wagner, as he visits members of the military during Christmas dinner at Anderson Hall on Marine Corps Base Hawaii , Sunday, Dec. 25, 2011, in Kaneohe, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
President Barack Obama laughs after getting a mouth full of fingers from Cooper Wall Wagner, 8 months, as he poses for a photo with Cooper's and his parents Captain Greg and Meredith Wagner, as he visits members of the military during Christmas dinner at Anderson Hall on Marine Corps Base Hawaii , Sunday, Dec. 25, 2011, in Kaneohe, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
President Barack Obama, first lady Michelle Obama and their daughters Malia and Sasha arrive to attend Christmas service at the Kaneohe bay Chapel on Marine Corps Base Hawaii, Sunday, Dec. 25, 2011, in Kaneohe, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
President Barack Obama, second from right, first lady Michelle Obama, left, and their daughters Malia, right, and Sasha, not seen, arrive to attend Christmas service at the Kaneohe bay Chapel on Marine Corps Base Hawaii, Sunday, Dec. 25, 2011, in Kaneohe, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
HONOLULU (AP) ? President Barack Obama blended his roles as a father and commander-in-chief this Christmas, exchanging presents and singing carols with his family, then greeting U.S. service members stationed at a Marine base in Hawaii.
The president and his family woke up early Sunday to open gifts, the White House said, then had breakfast and sang Christmas carols at the multimillion-dollar house they rent in Kailua Beach, near Honolulu.
Obama made two trips on Christmas to nearby Marine Corps Base Hawaii, first to attend church services at the base chapel. The president dressed casually in dark khaki pants and a short-sleeve blue shirt, and his wife and daughters donned sundresses for Christmas services on a bright, breezy day on the island of Oahu.
After spending a few hours at their rental home, the president and Michelle Obama returned to the base to visit with several hundred service members and their families, as they have done in past years.
The Obamas posed for posed for photos, signed autographs and stopped to chat with the military families gathered in the dining hall, where roast beef, salad and apple pie were on the Christmas Day menu.
Eight-month-old Cooper Wall Wagner, son of Capt. Greg Wagner, got up close and personal with the president, grabbing his face, then sticking his fingers in Obama's mouth.
An amused Obama said he thought the baby just liked his "big nose" ? a comment that drew laughter from several of the Marines.
Many of the service members stationed at Marine Corps Base Hawaii have deployed to Afghanistan, as well as Iraq, where the last American troops were withdrawn earlier this month.
Back in the Washington area, Vice President Joe Biden and wife Jill Biden spent Christmas visiting wounded service members and their families at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
Obama also called 10 service members stationed around the world ? two from each branch of the military ? on Christmas Eve. The White House said he thanked them for their service and the sacrifice of being away from their families at the holidays.
The Obamas were wrapping up their Christmas festivities with dinner at the rental home with friends and family. Among those joining the first family in Hawaii are the president's sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, who lives on Oahu, and several friends Obama has known since high school.
The president has kept a low profile since arriving in Hawaii on Friday evening to start a vacation delayed by the stalemate in Washington over extending payroll tax cuts. He has no public events planned, and his only outings are expected to be to the golf course or to take his daughters for shave ice, a Hawaiian snow cone.
The Obamas are expected to return to Washington shortly after New Year's Day.
___
Associated Press writer Jaymes Song in Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii, contributed to this report.
This undated photo provided by the Ohio Attorney General's office via the U.S. Marshals Service shows Dr. Victor Georgescu, the doctor at Greater Medical Advance in Wheelersburg, Ohio. Georgescu, and the clinic operator, George Adkins, were each charged with engaging in corrupt activity, conspiracy to engage in corrupt activity, funding drug trafficking and permitting drug abuse, for running a "pill mill" out of the clinic. (AP Photo/U.S. Marshals Service)
This undated photo provided by the Ohio Attorney General's office via the U.S. Marshals Service shows Dr. Victor Georgescu, the doctor at Greater Medical Advance in Wheelersburg, Ohio. Georgescu, and the clinic operator, George Adkins, were each charged with engaging in corrupt activity, conspiracy to engage in corrupt activity, funding drug trafficking and permitting drug abuse, for running a "pill mill" out of the clinic. (AP Photo/U.S. Marshals Service)
This undated photo provided by the Ohio Attorney General's office via the U.S. Marshals Service shows George Marshall Adkins, operator of Greater Medical Advance in Wheelersburg, Ohio. Adkins and the clinic's doctor, Dr. Victor Georgescu, were each charged with engaging in corrupt activity, conspiracy to engage in corrupt activity, funding drug trafficking and permitting drug abuse, for running a "pill mill" out of the clinic. (AP Photo/U.S. Marshals Service)
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) ? One patient was prescribed painkillers even after she was caught faking a urine test, while others paid a doctor to increase their prescriptions, according to documents related to the shutdown this week of a notorious clinic in a region of southern Ohio so identified with painkiller addiction that the office's standard dosage was known as "Portsmouth cocktail" after the nearby county seat.
The Greater Medical Advance clinic in Wheelersburg, an Ohio River city of about 6,000 residents, was a perpetually busy drug house where the owner carried a handgun and tens of thousands of painkillers were dispensed at inflated prices, according to charging documents and search warrants The Associated Press obtained through a public records request.
Authorities allege the clinic, the last remaining "pill mill" in painkiller-plagued Scioto County, was a destination well-known among addicts and dealers and had just one purpose: "to make as much money off illegal drug trafficking and the funding of illegal drug trafficking as possible."
The documents reveal the length to which addicts and dealers will go to get pills and illustrate the mechanics of supply and demand at a time when painkiller overdoses are now the leading cause of accidental death in more than a dozen states ? more than car crashes.
Clinics that critics call pill mills often operate as pain management centers and are known for doing cash-only business with scant patient examinations.
Dr. Victor Georgescu, now facing corruption and drug trafficking charges, told investigators he was scared by goings-on at Greater Medical but needed the work because he had been fired from four previous jobs after suffering a stroke, according to a 2010 request for a search warrant during an investigation of more than two years.
"You don't like what you were doing here," Kevin Kineer, an investigator with the Ohio Board of Pharmacy, asked the doctor.
"Right," Georgescu responded.
"You know it's wrong," the agent said.
"Yes," the doctor said.
Columbus defense attorney Mike Miller, who is temporarily representing the 50-year-old Georgescu but doesn't expect to take his case, said he hasn't reviewed the charges yet. Three other people were also charged, including clinic owner George Marshall Adkins, who faces similar charges, as well as a count of carrying a gun while involved in drug trafficking. Adkins often wore a handgun while working, according to documents.
A lawyer who has represented Adkins in the past said the clinic had safeguards against such alleged abuse.
"To my knowledge they ran the place in accordance with the way they were supposed to," said attorney Mike Mearan, of Portsmouth, the seat of Scioto County.
A judge ordered the clinic temporarily closed as a public nuisance, with a hearing next week in which authorities will argue it should be permanently shuttered. The owners of the property operated by Adkins, Billy and Katherine Inmon, deny any involvement with the clinic or knowledge of what was happening there.
"We're conservative people, people of faith, and people that don't stand for anything close to what these people are accused of doing," Billy Inmon, who owns several shopping centers around Ohio, told the AP.
Documents paint a picture of an operation where pills were readily dispensed to just about anybody who could pay.
So many patients brought in non-patients seeking drugs that the clinic had to post a sign limiting the number of visitors, according to a charging document. Husbands and wives often received the same prescriptions, as did people living at the same address, raising suspicions that drugs were prescribed with little or no diagnosis.
Clients could pay extra to have their prescriptions increased, and the "Portsmouth cocktail" was often dispensed to convicted drug dealers and addicts, according to the documents.
Clinic employee Tammy Newman would take a "pill tax" from patients, usually two to five tablets, during the pill counts, the indictment against Adkins said.
Many patients traveled long distances, sometimes from other states, bypassing other clinics and pharmacies, documents said. Many patients appeared stoned while at the clinic, and unsigned prescriptions or prescriptions with stamped signatures were found, in violation of Ohio law.
Georgescu frequently wrote prescriptions that lasted longer and with higher and stronger dosages than other doctors, according to the search warrant request. During one nine-month stretch more than 14,000 prescriptions were written.
"A review of patient records found massive failure to comply with health care standards and Ohio law," according to Adkins' indictment.
The pill mills in Scioto County ? there were once more than a dozen ? created regional collateral damage, feeding addiction and crime in surrounding counties and states that lacked the clinics but not the people they served, said Aaron Haslam, the painkiller drug czar for Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine.
Wiping them out in a single county was significant, but the painkiller addiction crisis is still responsible for huge problems that will take years to resolve.
The number of children born addicted to drugs, an increase linked to painkiller abuse, is skyrocketing in Ohio and elsewhere. Last year, nearly 1,200 Ohio newborns were diagnosed with drug withdrawal syndrome, up from just 310 in 2005.
Florida, also struggling with rampant prescription painkiller abuse, saw 1,374 babies with the syndrome discharged from hospitals last year, a nearly 300 percent increase from 2006. Kentucky, Maine and Pennsylvania have also documented the increase, among other states.
Drug overdose deaths have surpassed traffic accidents as the top cause of accidental death in Ohio, Colorado, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon and 11 other states. Substance abuse counseling centers are getting more and more referrals.
More than 1,300 people died from accidental drug overdoses in 2009 in Ohio, according to the most recent data from the Ohio Department of Health. The number of fatal overdoses has more than quadrupled from 1999, when the state recorded 327 accidental deaths, according to the department.
"A drug addict is sick; there's something that is not right, and they need help," said Angela Hamilton, 40, whose sister died in 2009 the day after getting a prescription from Georgescu, according to U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration records.
"They don't need people to be greedy and look at them as a dollar sign," said Hamilton, of Greenup County, Ky., across the Ohio River from Scioto County.
Ohio Gov. John Kasich signed a bill in May cracking down on pill mills, blamed by health officials for contributing to hundreds of overdose deaths in the state each year.
Around the country, heroin use is on the rise as addicts switch to the cheaper drug after starting with painkillers, which can be expensive, according to the DEA and doctors and counselors who treat addictions.
Haslam likened the fight against pill mills to squeezing a balloon.
"They're going to find ways to make money," he said. "If it's not in Scioto County, they're going to go to another county in Ohio or they're going to go to Kentucky, to Indiana, to Pennsylvania, to Florida, to whatever state will allow them to do this until they're policed and forced out."
___
Andrew Welsh-Huggins can be reached at http://twitter.com/awhcolumbus.
Samsung Galaxy S II Duos Headed to China with Dual GSM/CDMA Support
Samsung Galaxy S II Duos Headed to China with Dual GSM/CDMA Support After revealing a duo of dual-SIM handsets yesterday in the form of the Galaxy Y Duos and Galaxy Y Pro Duos, Samsung will add to their lineup of handsets with expanded radio capabilities. A new variation on the Samsung Galaxy S II is headed to China and will support both GSM and CDMA2000. The phone is known as ? you guessed it Read complete Samsung Galaxy S II Duos Headed to China with Dual GSM/CDMA Support >>
Samsung Galaxy S II Duos Headed to Chine with Dual GSM/CDMA Support
December 23, 2011
Samsung Galaxy S II Duos Headed to Chine with Dual GSM/CDMA Support After revealing a duo of dual-SIM handsets yesterday in the form of the Galaxy Y Duos and Galaxy Y Pro Duos, Samsung will add to their lineup of handsets with expanded radio capabilities. A new variation on the Samsung Galaxy S [...]
Samsung Announces Dual-SIM Galaxy Y Duos and Galaxy Y Pro Duos
December 22, 2011
Samsung Announces Dual-SIM Galaxy Y Duos and Galaxy Y Pro Duos Take the Samsung Galaxy Y and Galaxy Y Pro, slap on dual-SIM support, and you have the pair of handsets announced by the Korean manufacturer today. Just with the original lineup of Galaxy Y phones, the new handsets feature 830MHz [...]
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Samsung GT-B7722 Unboxing Video - Phone in Stock at www.welectronics.com
Contact: Jason Socrates Bardi jason.bardi@ucsf.edu 415-502-6397 University of California - San Francisco
Peter Walter awarded 100,000 Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize in 2012 for uncovering how cells cope with stress
Peter Walter, PhD, a professor in the Biochemistry and Biophysics Department within the School of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco has been awarded the 2012 Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize for his "outstanding research achievements in the field of cell biology."
The 100,000 German award specifically recognizes Walter's work over the last two decades on how cells cope with stressinsight that has profound implications for understanding and treating numerous human diseases, including cancer, diabetes, cystic fibrosis and neurodegenerative disorders.
The prize will be awarded in a ceremony in St. Paul's Church in Frankfurt on March 14, the birthday of immunologist Paul Ehrlich (1854-1915), a German scientist who was a towering figure in medicine at the beginning of the 20th century.
"This prize is one of the top international awards given every year for medical research, and it is a wonderful recognition of Dr. Walter's work," said Sam Hawgood, Dean of the UCSF School of Medicine. "His research captures the best this field has to offerfundamental science revealing life's mysteries at its smallest scale and with huge implications for human health worldwide."
Past recipients have included Walter's UCSF colleagues Elizabeth Blackburn, PhD, who won the prize in 2009, and Stanley Prusiner, MD, who won the award in 1995. Both Blackburn and Prusiner also won the Nobel Prize for their work.
Over the last 18 years, Walter and his colleagues have investigated an intracellular process known as the unfolded protein response, which multi-celled organisms use to deal with stress and avoid poisoning their own tissues.
The unfolded protein response regulates the processing of proteins, which all cells produce in great abundance. Some secretory cells in the body make and release the equivalent of their own weight in proteins every single day.
Protein production is tightly controlled, however, to ensure that the body does not poison itself by releasing toxic proteins that are not processed correctly. The unfolded protein response is one of the main ways cells maintain this control.
Basically, explained Walter, "The unfolded protein response makes life and death decisions for the cell."
Those decisions happen in an involuted compartment found within cells known as the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), which can be thought of as a cell's warehouse and way station rolled into one. The vast majority of all the proteins a cell produces are assembled, processed, and packaged there, and the ER ensures that proteins are folded correctly into their final shape and that no misfolded, and potentially malfunctioning and toxic, proteins are released into surrounding tissues.
The ER warehouse can become overworked and too crowded at times, putting stress on cells. When stressed, cells can exercise a sort of nuclear option, switching on a program known as apoptosis and killing themselves. The unfolded protein response is a fail-safe switch in this mechanism. It can pull a cell back from the edge by making more ER, expanding capacity for more proteins to fold properly, thereby relieving the stress.
A few years ago Walter discovered the lynchpin in the process, a protein known as IRE1. This protein is a molecular detector in the ER that gauges when things become too crowded and triggers cell changesthat expand ER space.
This process can also go awry, and when it does, it can lead to a number of different diseases, including cancer. In multiple myeloma, for instance, IRE1 appears to go haywire and the cancer cells "forget how to die," as Walter described it.
Blocking the IRE1 protein with small molecules may help people with this form of cancer, he saida therapeutic possibility that Walter and his colleagues are actively pursuing.
"The Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize is particularly special to all of us in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at UCSF because it is an award in the field of medicine that has been conferred upon one of our celebrated basic scientists," said Graeme Davis, PhD, Albert Bowers Professor at UCSF and Chair of the Department of Biochemistry & Biophysics.
"Tackling fundamental questions with direct relevance to human health is something that we all aspire to," Davis added.
###
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
A native of Berlin, Peter Walter, 57, studied chemistry as an undergraduate at the Free University of Berlin and obtained a Master of Science degree in organic chemistry from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN, on a German Academic Exchange Service grant. From 1977 to 1981, he conducted doctoral research at the Rockefeller University in New York in the laboratory of Nobel laureate Gnter Blobel. He was named assistant professor at Rockefeller University in 1982 and came to UCSF a year later, joining the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics.
Since 1997, Walter has been an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He is also a member of several prestigious scientific societies, including the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the European Molecular Biology Organization. He is a co-author of the textbook Molecular Biology of the Cell, one of the most world's most widely used standard works in the field of cell biology. Among his many awards are the Eli Lilly Award in Biological Chemistry, the Passano Award, the Searle Scholar Award, the Alfred P. Sloan Jr. Prize, the Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences, the Stein & Moore Award and the Otto Warburg Medal.
ABOUT THE PRIZE
The Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize honors scientists whose research has furthered understanding within Paul Ehrlich's fields of interest, especially immunology, cancer research, hematology, microbiology and chemotherapy. The award will be presented by Prof. Wilhelm Bender, chairman of the Trustees of the Paul Ehrlich Foundation, together with a representative of the Federal Ministry of Health. The prize, awarded since 1952, has been financed by the Federal Ministry of Health through earmarked donations from companies and the Association of Research-Based Pharmaceutical Companies.
UCSF is a leading university dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care.
More Information:
Walter Laboratory Home Page and Biography:
http://walterlab.ucsf.edu/
http://www.hhmi.org/research/investigators/walter_bio.html
Recent Review Paper by Dr. Walter on the Unfolded Protein Response:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1209038
Free Article on Discovery of the Unfolded Protein Response:
http://www.molbiolcell.org/content/21/1/15.long
UCSF Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics:
http://biochemistry.ucsf.edu/
Walter Wins Gairdner International Award
http://www.ucsf.edu/news/2009/04/8319/walter-wins-gairdner-international-award
[ | E-mail | Share ]
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Contact: Jason Socrates Bardi jason.bardi@ucsf.edu 415-502-6397 University of California - San Francisco
Peter Walter awarded 100,000 Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize in 2012 for uncovering how cells cope with stress
Peter Walter, PhD, a professor in the Biochemistry and Biophysics Department within the School of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco has been awarded the 2012 Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize for his "outstanding research achievements in the field of cell biology."
The 100,000 German award specifically recognizes Walter's work over the last two decades on how cells cope with stressinsight that has profound implications for understanding and treating numerous human diseases, including cancer, diabetes, cystic fibrosis and neurodegenerative disorders.
The prize will be awarded in a ceremony in St. Paul's Church in Frankfurt on March 14, the birthday of immunologist Paul Ehrlich (1854-1915), a German scientist who was a towering figure in medicine at the beginning of the 20th century.
"This prize is one of the top international awards given every year for medical research, and it is a wonderful recognition of Dr. Walter's work," said Sam Hawgood, Dean of the UCSF School of Medicine. "His research captures the best this field has to offerfundamental science revealing life's mysteries at its smallest scale and with huge implications for human health worldwide."
Past recipients have included Walter's UCSF colleagues Elizabeth Blackburn, PhD, who won the prize in 2009, and Stanley Prusiner, MD, who won the award in 1995. Both Blackburn and Prusiner also won the Nobel Prize for their work.
Over the last 18 years, Walter and his colleagues have investigated an intracellular process known as the unfolded protein response, which multi-celled organisms use to deal with stress and avoid poisoning their own tissues.
The unfolded protein response regulates the processing of proteins, which all cells produce in great abundance. Some secretory cells in the body make and release the equivalent of their own weight in proteins every single day.
Protein production is tightly controlled, however, to ensure that the body does not poison itself by releasing toxic proteins that are not processed correctly. The unfolded protein response is one of the main ways cells maintain this control.
Basically, explained Walter, "The unfolded protein response makes life and death decisions for the cell."
Those decisions happen in an involuted compartment found within cells known as the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), which can be thought of as a cell's warehouse and way station rolled into one. The vast majority of all the proteins a cell produces are assembled, processed, and packaged there, and the ER ensures that proteins are folded correctly into their final shape and that no misfolded, and potentially malfunctioning and toxic, proteins are released into surrounding tissues.
The ER warehouse can become overworked and too crowded at times, putting stress on cells. When stressed, cells can exercise a sort of nuclear option, switching on a program known as apoptosis and killing themselves. The unfolded protein response is a fail-safe switch in this mechanism. It can pull a cell back from the edge by making more ER, expanding capacity for more proteins to fold properly, thereby relieving the stress.
A few years ago Walter discovered the lynchpin in the process, a protein known as IRE1. This protein is a molecular detector in the ER that gauges when things become too crowded and triggers cell changesthat expand ER space.
This process can also go awry, and when it does, it can lead to a number of different diseases, including cancer. In multiple myeloma, for instance, IRE1 appears to go haywire and the cancer cells "forget how to die," as Walter described it.
Blocking the IRE1 protein with small molecules may help people with this form of cancer, he saida therapeutic possibility that Walter and his colleagues are actively pursuing.
"The Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize is particularly special to all of us in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at UCSF because it is an award in the field of medicine that has been conferred upon one of our celebrated basic scientists," said Graeme Davis, PhD, Albert Bowers Professor at UCSF and Chair of the Department of Biochemistry & Biophysics.
"Tackling fundamental questions with direct relevance to human health is something that we all aspire to," Davis added.
###
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
A native of Berlin, Peter Walter, 57, studied chemistry as an undergraduate at the Free University of Berlin and obtained a Master of Science degree in organic chemistry from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN, on a German Academic Exchange Service grant. From 1977 to 1981, he conducted doctoral research at the Rockefeller University in New York in the laboratory of Nobel laureate Gnter Blobel. He was named assistant professor at Rockefeller University in 1982 and came to UCSF a year later, joining the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics.
Since 1997, Walter has been an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He is also a member of several prestigious scientific societies, including the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and the European Molecular Biology Organization. He is a co-author of the textbook Molecular Biology of the Cell, one of the most world's most widely used standard works in the field of cell biology. Among his many awards are the Eli Lilly Award in Biological Chemistry, the Passano Award, the Searle Scholar Award, the Alfred P. Sloan Jr. Prize, the Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences, the Stein & Moore Award and the Otto Warburg Medal.
ABOUT THE PRIZE
The Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize honors scientists whose research has furthered understanding within Paul Ehrlich's fields of interest, especially immunology, cancer research, hematology, microbiology and chemotherapy. The award will be presented by Prof. Wilhelm Bender, chairman of the Trustees of the Paul Ehrlich Foundation, together with a representative of the Federal Ministry of Health. The prize, awarded since 1952, has been financed by the Federal Ministry of Health through earmarked donations from companies and the Association of Research-Based Pharmaceutical Companies.
UCSF is a leading university dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care.
More Information:
Walter Laboratory Home Page and Biography:
http://walterlab.ucsf.edu/
http://www.hhmi.org/research/investigators/walter_bio.html
Recent Review Paper by Dr. Walter on the Unfolded Protein Response:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1209038
Free Article on Discovery of the Unfolded Protein Response:
http://www.molbiolcell.org/content/21/1/15.long
UCSF Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics:
http://biochemistry.ucsf.edu/
Walter Wins Gairdner International Award
http://www.ucsf.edu/news/2009/04/8319/walter-wins-gairdner-international-award
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Springfield man who burned church after Obama election gets nearly 14 years in prison
By Milton J. Valencia, Globe Staff
One of the three men convicted of setting fire to a predominantly black church in Springfield to protest the historic election of President Obama in 2008 was sentenced today to nearly 14 years in prison.
Michael Jacques, 27, of Springfield, will also have to serve four years of supervised probation once he is released, and must pay nearly $1.6 million in restitution, including $123,570 to the Macedonia Church of God in Christ, the church he and two others torched in November 2008.
Jacques was convicted after a trial in US District Court in Springfield in April of charges of conspiracy against civil rights, destruction of religious property, and use of a fire to commit a felony.
He was the only one who went to trial. His associates pleaded guilty to the civil rights charges in June 2010. Benjamin Haskell was sentenced to nine years in prison in November 2010; Thomas Gleason is slated to be sentenced on Jan. 18.
The raging blaze at the church, was still under construction, created national headlines not only because of the nature of the crime in protest of a historic moment in United States? history, but also because of the greater community?s response in uniting and rebuilding the church.
?As evidenced in this case, hate crimes victimize not only individuals but entire communities,? United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz said in a statement. ?We remain committed to protecting our communities from violence motivated by bigotry and prejudice, and ensuring that justice is served to victims.?
Kindle Fire Update Fixes Performance, Adds Privacy
Amazon has released the promised software update for the Kindle Fire, which will supposedly fix all of the launch issues in one go. What it won’t do is add in a proper hardware volume control. The update, which will be sent automatically to your Kindle Fire, “enhances fluidity and performance, improves touch navigation responsiveness.” That takes [...]
Vaclav Havel's coffin transported to Prague Castle
(AP)
PRAGUE ? Thousands of Czechs joined Vaclav Havel's widow, relatives and friends in a somber procession through the capital Wednesday, paying their respects to the late Czech president. Thousands of others clapped as his casket rolled by.
The casket containing Havel's body was being transported from the Prague Crossroads, a former church Havel turned into a cultural center, to Prague Castle, the seat of the presidency, where the body will be on display until Friday's state funeral.
Many of those who lined the streets greeted the black car carrying the coffin with applause.
"He's a moral authority for me, an icon," said Jakub Sevcik, 35. "It's my last opportunity to say goodbye."
The presidents of France and Germany, Nicolas Sarkozy and Christian Wulff, as well as many other world leaders are expected to attend the funeral at the country's biggest and most famous church, St. Vitus Cathedral.
Thousands waited patiently for hours when the coffin with Havel's body went on display Monday to pay tribute to the former leader who died Sunday at age 75. Three days of national mourning began Wednesday.
Havel's flag-draped casket was placed on a historic caisson for the final part of the journey Wednesday and was escorted by an honor guard to the place where he spent more than 12 years as president. The caisson, drawn by six black horses, is the same that bore the coffin of Tomas Garrigue Masaryk, Czechoslovakia's first president after it was founded in 1918, during his funeral in 1937.
Havel's successor and political archrival Vaclav Klaus, Prime Minister Petr Necas and other Czech leaders joined Havel's family, while thousands packed the square in front of the castle in the cold rain and applauded.
During an official memorial on Tuesday, Klaus called Havel "a brave man" who "was not afraid of making personal sacrifices for his views."
Havel was a dissident playwright who spent years in communist prisons before he led the 1989 peaceful revolution that ended more 40 years of communist rule.
"Our Velvet Revolution will be always connected with his name," Klaus said. "He contributed to the international prestige and authority of the Czech Republic in the world as no one else."
I don't think I know anyone who takes pain drugs, so I have no personal knowledge. However, I found a short article about Methadone on the Seattle Times web site recently when I was looking at Google Health news. Even the summary seemed obviously suspicious, so I looked at the article.
To me, that article and all the data to which the Slashdot story linked screamed incompetence or fraud. Now that I've read a little of the linked data, I realize the writers are at least partly incompetent. Possibly only whoever started them looking was engaged in fraud to sell more expensive drugs.
I just discovered that I'm not the only one who thinks that. [nwsource.com] Short quotes, read the full comments:
"It does not matter if you switch every body to oxycontin or oxycodone. These drugs are terrible at controlling pain and all are very dangerous."
"... I have an issue with how the Seattle Times is drawing a correlation between poverty and methadone poisoning...."
Possibly Methadone is more often given to people who have little education, and who are therefore more likely to overdose because they didn't understand the instructions, or because they have other issues that confuse them.
Americans losing addiction to "CrackBerrys"
(Reuters)
SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK (Reuters) ? To understand what ails BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd in the U.S. market, just ask eBay Inc Chief Executive John Donahoe.
The world's biggest online auction site had about a hundred engineers developing new iterations of eBay's shopping app for Apple Inc's iPhone a few months ago, and another hundred engineers working on Google Inc's Android mobile platform.
EBay even had 50 people developing apps for Microsoft's Windows phones, but the e-commerce giant only had "one or two" working on RIM's BlackBerry, according to Donahoe.
"I still use the BlackBerry, but it's not the most developer-friendly platform," he told a group of chief technology officers at an event at Stanford University in June, when the subject of RIM came up.
By early November, it seemed Donahoe wasn't even using his BlackBerry much any more. When he met with reporters to talk about plans for the holiday shopping season, the CEO whipped out his iPhone to show how eBay's apps ran on the device. When Reuters asked Donahue about his BlackBerry, he said he still had it but didn't bother to bring it into the room.
Such stories are commonly found among RIM's once-loyal corporate and consumer customers, who are deserting the Canadian company after it has struggled to keep up with competitors' innovations.
RIM on Thursday posted a sharply lower quarterly profit, offered a dismal forecast for BlackBerry shipments this holiday season, and delayed the arrival of new phones using a make-or-break operating system in development, QNX.
"It's frustrating because I haven't heard anything good from them in a long time," said long-time BlackBerry user Kevin Nichols, the head of KLN Consulting Group, who was looking at Android and Windows phones at a Sprint Nextel Corp store in downtown San Francisco on Friday.
"They need to come out with new products soon, otherwise it looks like RIM may become the next Palm," he said, in reference to the collapse of the smartphone pioneer Palm Inc. Nichols ignored the latest BlackBerry Torch in a display case nearby, saying the device wasn't "new enough" for him to upgrade.
Even on Wall Street, where users once joked about their addiction to their "crackberries," loyalty is waning.
"The QNX delay is a concern," said Rob Romero, head of hedge fund firm Connective Capital. "Consumers like new products and vendors want something new to sell in their stores."
The chief technology officer of a Connecticut-based hedge fund said that when a top hedge fund manager wants to use an iPhone instead of a BlackBerry they can now switch, even though he prefers RIM security. "When they say I want an iPhone or an iPad configured, they get it," said the CTO, who declined to be identified.
RIM shares fell 11 percent on Nasdaq on Friday and hit their lowest level in nearly eight years.
SECURITY FEATURES
Research firm Strategy Analytics forecast RIM's share of the U.S. smartphone market to fall to 12 percent this year, a sharp drop from 2007, when RIM had a 44 percent share. By comparison, Apple, which just started selling smartphones in 2007, is expected to grab a 24 percent U.S. market share this year.
To be sure, BlackBerry still has its defenders. Robert Laikin, CEO of cellphone distributor Brightpoint, said that RIM represents between 5 percent to 10 percent of the 110 million phones his company handles globally every year.
"I still have a BlackBerry. When I talk to my friends who are business professionals, most of them still have a BlackBerry. Some of them have bought an additional device too," he told Reuters.
"All manufacturers I've worked with in the last 25 years have product delays. What RIM is going through isn't different," he said. "I believe RIM will survive because their product is very sticky."
There are still many companies who prefer their employees use BlackBerrys because they feel that RIM offers the best security features to protect corporate data. But these enterprise customers are shrinking, analysts said.
Gary Curtis, chief technology strategist at global technology consulting giant Accenture, pointed to improvements in security from Apple and Google mobile software in recent years.
"Choice and leveling of the playing field is the fundamental enabling factor for companies being able to say to employees, use the device you like," he said. "It's not a headlong rush ... but they're opening the door to more devices and people make their own choices."
Interviews with other consumers at phone stores on Friday illustrated why the former bastion of corporate smart phones faces tough competition.
"I'm a BlackBerry user but my company makes me use it," said a shopper called John who was playing with a BlackBerry Torch at an AT&T store in San Francisco. He declined to give his last name.
"Anyone who is anyone at my company has an iPhone, but they make us use BlackBerry still," he added. "I think I might break mine and buy an iPhone. The touch screen on this Torch works pretty well, but the iPhone is just easier to use."
A Sprint store manager said BlackBerry phones would sell better if they had more apps. But some app developers aren't interested in the BlackBerry platform, partly because the technology is difficult to work with.
"Of the companies that pitch to us, I can't think of any that are starting out by developing an app for the BlackBerry," said Theresia Gouw Ranzetta of venture capital firm Accel Partners, which invests in mobile app developers.
Hotel Tonight, a start-up backed by Accel's Ranzetta, has developed apps for the iPhone, Android phones and an HTML5 version for its last-minute hotel booking service.
"Will they make a dedicated BlackBerry app? Not on the roadmap," she said.
(Reporting by Alistair Barr in San Francisco and Sinead Carew in New York; Editing by Tiffany Wu, Gary Hill)
Myanmar seeks final peace pacts with ethnic rebels
(AP)
YANGON, Myanmar ? Myanmar is negotiating peace with major ethnic rebel groups and is determined to achieve a permanent peace with them in three to four years, the government's top negotiator said.
Peace talks based on mutual respect are being held with the Shan, Mon, Karen, Kayah and Kachin groups, with the government's only condition being that the groups not demand to secede, said Aung Thaung, who heads the government's Peace Committee.
He told reporters Friday that President Thein Sein ordered an end to fighting with Kachin rebels in the north Dec. 10 but skirmishes continued because communicating with troops in remote areas was difficult.
For decades, Myanmar has been at odds with the ethnic groups, who seek greater autonomy, but a military junta that took power in 1988 signed cease-fire agreements with many of them. Some of those pacts were strained as the central government sought to consolidate power, and combat resumed.
However, the new military-backed but elected government has embarked on reforms to try to end its international isolation. Western governments had imposed political and economic sanctions on Myanmar because of repression under the junta.
Ending war with ethnic rebels is one of the condition set by the West for improved relations, a point emphasized by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton during her visit to Myanmar earlier this month.
A prominent Kachin mediator said government troops are continuing to attack Kachin villages and called for the recent cease-fire to be enforced.
The Kachin have been fighting the government since June, when the army tried to break up some of their militia strongholds.
"If the president's order is not immediately implemented and fighting not stopped, it could lead to distrust and further misunderstanding," Kachin mediator Rev. Saboi Jum told The Associated Press.
He said government attacks had continued at least as late as Wednesday.
"It seems that the president's order to stop fighting has not reached to the lower levels," he said.
Aung Thaung, a top member of the ruling pro-military Union Solidarity and Development Party, vowed that the government would try its best to achieve peace.
"It could take some three to four years to achieve peace with ethnic groups, but we are determined to achieve permanent peace during our term of office," he told local reporters.
"There is no peace in the country for more than six decades," Aung Thaung said. "Myanmar is the only country in the world where ethnic conflict has continued for six decades and the world looked down upon us. Thus we have vowed to try our best to achieve peace with armed ethnic groups."
Aung Thaung led a government delegation that met for peace talks with the Kachin Independence Organization on Nov. 29 in Ruili in China's Yunnan province.
A few days later, the Shan State Army-South rebel group reached a cease-fire agreement at the provincial level with the government. The group is one of the biggest not to previously sign a cease-fire deal with the government.
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Public release date: 22-Dec-2011
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