Reuters - North Korea leader Kim has pancreatic cancer: report

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North Korea leader Kim has pancreatic cancer: report

Monday, Jul 13, 2009 2:18AM UTC

By Jack Kim

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, 67, has life-threatening pancreatic cancer, South Korean broadcaster YTN said on Monday, citing information gathered from Chinese and South Korean intelligence sources.

The report raises questions about leadership in Asia's only community dynasty and who will make decisions concerning its nuclear programs.

Kim's health is one of the most closely guarded secrets in the reclusive state but he is widely thought to have suffered a stroke a year ago, although there has never been official confirmation.

YTN said the diagnoses of the cancer came around the same time as the stroke.

A gaunt Kim with thinning hair made a rare public appearance last Wednesday at a memorial for his father and state founder Kim Il-sung. The stark figure he cast furthered speculation he was still ill.

South Korea's National Intelligence Service could not immediately comment on the report, nor could U.S. officials.

South Korean financial markets took the YTN report with caution, saying it cast a shadow over sentiment.

"Such news highlights South Korea's geopolitical uncertainty and risks and one thing that investors hate is any uncertainty," said Lee Kyoung-su, a market analyst at Taurus Investment & Securities.

North Korea has been raising tension in Asia through missile launches and a nuclear test on May 25 which was met by U.N. sanctions aimed at cutting off it arms trade, one of its few sources of hard cash.

South Korean officials said this military grandstanding was aimed at helping Kim build internal support as he prepares for succession, with his youngest son seen as the likely heir.

SURVIVAL RATE LOW

The U.S. National Cancer Institute puts the five-year survival rate for pancreatic cancer at 5.5 percent. The pancreas makes insulin and other hormones which help the body use or store energy from food.

Pancreatic cancer occurs more often in people who have diabetes than in those who do not, it said, and Kim has been long thought to suffer from diabetes.

Kim Jong-il took power in 1994 when his father died at the age of 82. He assumed the title of general secretary of the ruling Workers' Party and chairman of the National Defense Commission, but has never taken the title of president.

His youngest son Kim Jong-un, born in late 1983 or early 1984 and educated in Switzerland, is regarded as the most capable of Kim's three known sons with striking resemblance to his father.

If Jong-un were to take over soon, he is likely to remain weak, vulnerable and at the mercy of the North's old guard for years, experts said.

North Korea places great emphasis on seniority and the ruling elite around Kim Jong-il, mostly men beyond 70, are not about to take orders from the son, an intelligence source said.

Separately, Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei of China was holding talks in Seoul on Monday to try to resume six-way talks his country hosts aimed at ending Pyongyang's nuclear arms program in return for massive aid and diplomatic rewards.

(Additional reporting by Jungyoun Park; Editing by David Fox)

Reuters - News Corp won't buy Twitter, won't sell MySpace

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News Corp won't buy Twitter, won't sell MySpace

Thursday, Jul 09, 2009 3:44AM UTC

SUN VALLEY, Idaho (Reuters) - News Corp is not interested in buying popular microblogging site Twitter and will not sell its struggling social network MySpace, said the media conglomerate's chief executive, Rupert Murdoch.

Murdoch, who arrived on Wednesday at the Allen & Co investment bank's Sun Valley media and technology conference, said Twitter would be a tough investment to justify because it has not yet come up with a sustainable way to make money.

"Be careful of investing here," he said of Twitter.

Speculation is running rampant at the 27th Sun Valley conference over which company might want to buy Twitter. The service, which lets people post to Web what they are thinking or doing in 140 characters or less, is growing in popularity.

Twitter co-founder Evan Williams is widely considered one of the darlings of this year's conference. Sun Valley often features hot Internet start-ups that older media conglomerates would like to buy to enhance their own businesses.

Asked if he was considering buying Twitter, Murdoch said, "No." Asked about selling MySpace, he said, "Hell no."

News Corp bought MySpace in 2005 for $580 million when the social networking service was nearing the height of its popularity, particularly among younger Internet users.

Since then, it has ceded ground to rival Facebook as well as Twitter. News Corp recently ousted MySpace co-founder and CEO Chris DeWolfe and installed its own management team.

In a bid to cut costs, MySpace also has laid off more than 400 workers, or 30 percent of its staff, in the United States. It also has laid off more abroad.

Murdoch expressed confidence in MySpace and criticized Facebook.

"Facebook is like a directory," he said. "How they make money is another matter."

(Reporting by Robert MacMillan, editing by Tiffany Wu, Matt Daily and Steve Orlofsky)

Reuters - News Corp won't buy Twitter, won't sell MySpace

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News Corp won't buy Twitter, won't sell MySpace

Thursday, Jul 09, 2009 3:44AM UTC

SUN VALLEY, Idaho (Reuters) - News Corp is not interested in buying popular microblogging site Twitter and will not sell its struggling social network MySpace, said the media conglomerate's chief executive, Rupert Murdoch.

Murdoch, who arrived on Wednesday at the Allen & Co investment bank's Sun Valley media and technology conference, said Twitter would be a tough investment to justify because it has not yet come up with a sustainable way to make money.

"Be careful of investing here," he said of Twitter.

Speculation is running rampant at the 27th Sun Valley conference over which company might want to buy Twitter. The service, which lets people post to Web what they are thinking or doing in 140 characters or less, is growing in popularity.

Twitter co-founder Evan Williams is widely considered one of the darlings of this year's conference. Sun Valley often features hot Internet start-ups that older media conglomerates would like to buy to enhance their own businesses.

Asked if he was considering buying Twitter, Murdoch said, "No." Asked about selling MySpace, he said, "Hell no."

News Corp bought MySpace in 2005 for $580 million when the social networking service was nearing the height of its popularity, particularly among younger Internet users.

Since then, it has ceded ground to rival Facebook as well as Twitter. News Corp recently ousted MySpace co-founder and CEO Chris DeWolfe and installed its own management team.

In a bid to cut costs, MySpace also has laid off more than 400 workers, or 30 percent of its staff, in the United States. It also has laid off more abroad.

Murdoch expressed confidence in MySpace and criticized Facebook.

"Facebook is like a directory," he said. "How they make money is another matter."

(Reporting by Robert MacMillan, editing by Tiffany Wu, Matt Daily and Steve Orlofsky)

Reuters - Azeri blogger detained, oil major presses case

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Azeri blogger detained, oil major presses case

Sunday, Jul 12, 2009 7:20PM UTC

LONDON (Reuters) - An opposition blogger in Azerbaijan has been remanded in custody pending trial on hooliganism charges, prompting protests from his employer, oil major BP Plc, a media rights group said on its website.

Adnan Hajizade, a video blogger and member of the "OL!" opposition movement, was arrested along with youth activist Emin Milli at a cafe in Baku on July 8, after they were beaten up by two men, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said.

The pair were remanded in custody by a judge for two months, RSF said.

The incident came ahead of Monday's visit to Britain by Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev, who is expected to meet government and BP officials.

Hadjizade suffered a broken nose in the attack and Milli sustained a leg and other injuries, RSF said.

Hadjiazde, 26, has worked for BP's public relations team in Baku for several years. A spokesman for BP -- one of the biggest foreign investors in Azerbaijan -- said the company was making representations to the authorities.

"This is something BP is very concerned about and is taking very seriously," a spokesman said.

Critics accuse Aliyev of adopting an increasingly authoritarian style including, in recent months, a plan to place curbs on non-governmental organizations.

Rights groups and Aliyev's opponents accuse the West of muting its criticism on human rights because Azerbaijan is a supplier of oil and gas to the West in the strategically important South Caucasus.

(Reporting by Tom Bergin; Editing by Jon Boyle)

Reuters - Web manager won't say if others saw Goldman code

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Web manager won't say if others saw Goldman code

Friday, Jul 10, 2009 6:58PM UTC

By Laurence Fletcher

LONDON (Reuters) - The owner of a website onto which a purportedly stolen Goldman Sachs Group Inc computer code was downloaded has declined to say whether or not other people accessed the code while it was on the site.

Roopinder Singh, who runs file storage website xp-dev.com, told Reuters in London on Friday that computer files show whether or not the valuable code -- which U.S. prosecutors have charged former Goldman employee Sergey Aleynikov with stealing -- was viewed by others, but he declined to say what they show due to the scale of the case.

According to Singh, accounts at xp-dev.com initially have a privacy setting that only lets the user see them. However, users can change that setting to allow other people to view files.

"Private is the default," he said. "You then have the option ... You can explicitly either share it (or keep it private)."

He declined to say what the settings on Aleynikov's account were.

Singh also said German authorities had taken hardware from the website on Monday, while the UK's Serious Organized Crime Agency visited his flat in south east London several hours later that evening. He said his website was down until Wednesday morning.

"On Monday afternoon the hard drives were seized -- German authorities took away the hard drives to do forensic work on them.

"I wasn't really (initially) told it was connected to the Goldman case," Singh said. "On Wednesday morning they came back to my place and I deleted the data."

The FBI in New York said earlier this week it had taken measures to prevent code being sent from the server in Germany.

"Working through our assistant legal attache in Frankfurt and with the authorities in Germany, the FBI has taken steps to ensure that the appropriated code was not distributed," FBI spokesman Jim Margolin said.

Singh said that he had previously had no connection with Aleynikov and that anyone could set up an account on the site.

Aleynikov's lawyer said on Friday that there was confusion over what was being said and written about the code.

The lawyer, Sabrina Shroff, said: "They talk about open source code and proprietary information as though it were the same thing."

Shroff said: "He (Aleynikov) has not said anything about sharing proprietary information. In fact he denies guilt. There is no guilt, and there is no harm to Goldman Sachs."

The purported theft of the code could cost Goldman Sachs "millions upon millions of dollars", a U.S. prosecutor, Joseph Facciponte, said at 39-year-old Aleynikov's initial court appearance in New York on Saturday. He was arrested on Friday night and interviewed by the FBI.

Goldman Sachs declined to comment while a Serious Organized Crime Agency spokesman was unable to comment.

(Additional reporting by Grant McCool and Steve Eder in New York, editing by Gerald E. McCormick)

Reuters - Big media seek 21st century business models

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Big media seek 21st century business models

Saturday, Jul 11, 2009 5:43PM UTC

By Yinka Adegoke

SUN VALLEY, Idaho (Reuters) - Media moguls at this week's Sun Valley conference have spent as much time discussing how to reconfigure business models disrupted by the Web as they have worrying about the weak economy.

With difficult credit markets and an unclear future, talk of dealmaking has been at a minimum this year. Yet there has never been a more important time for media conglomerates and their financiers to act and adapt to the Internet age.

The mood at the conference was described as "somber" and "very bearish" by executives. While the recession was a key reason, the other was the uncertainty over how future profits can be made from distributing news and entertainment online and across devices like smartphones.

"We're not using long-form content on the Web because it's not clear to us that's the way people want to consume content, said David Zaslav, chief executive of Discovery Communications Inc, which owns the Discovery Channel.

"But also the business model isn't there yet, so we're taking it slow," he said in an interview on the sidelines of the event organized by boutique investment bank Allen & Co.

In the late-night bar at the Sun Valley Lodge, from which the press was banned, most of the discussions were around the issue of free versus paid content, said one senior executive who asked not to be named as his conversations with other executives were private.

The challenge is how media companies can keep alive the lucrative cable business model at a time when consumers are increasingly used to getting content for free online. Cable operators pay affiliate fees to cable networks for their programing, and both share advertising revenue.

Plans such as Time Warner Inc's "TV Everywhere" and Comcast Corp's "On Demand Online" seek to preserve that business model by offering cable shows on the Web to authenticated, paying cable TV subscribers.

"Authentication is an interesting intermediate step and is something that we're looking at," said Zaslav.

The conversations about TV Everywhere are heating up. Google Inc CEO Eric Schmidt confirmed to reporters that he has had early talks with Time Warner about the possibility of getting paid cable shows up on YouTube. But he did not elaborate.

TV VS PRINT AND MUSIC

Television studio executives do not want to repeat the experience of their colleagues in the hard-hit newspaper and music businesses, and are worried that consumers will expect TV shows, movies and all professional programing to be free.

Hulu.com, owned by News Corp, NBC Universal and Walt Disney Co, offers broadcast TV shows and movies for free on the Web, but there has been talk at Sun Valley among executives of introducing a paid content model.

Wired editor Chris Anderson argues in his book 'Free' that many companies, with media at the forefront, could build bigger and better businesses around the notion of giving away their content for free.

Many executives in Sun Valley would not agree. 'Free' -- supported by advertising -- is not a new concept. After all, broadcast TV is free but its dominance has been eroded by cable channels and its future as an advertising outlet is bleak.

Newspapers owned by News Corp and others are fervently examining news-bundling pricing models to seek ways to get users to pay to read news online. One consideration may be to bundle different properties along vertical lines, such as business and sports news, for a monthly fee.

Far from free, what media moguls would want to preserve on the Web and mobile platforms is the dual-revenue stream from subscriptions and advertising.

"The big thing for these guys is how do you come up with that dual revenue streams online," said Jeremy Alliare, chief executive of Brightcove, an online video company that partners with many major media companies. "Cable TV is a part of that but I think it's a broader industry discussion."

(Reporting by Yinka Adegoke, editing by Tiffany Wu and Richard Chang)

Reuters - Power.com countersues Facebook over user data

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Power.com countersues Facebook over user data

Friday, Jul 10, 2009 7:54PM UTC

By Gina Keating

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Power.com, a San Francisco based aggregator of social networking sites, on Friday sued Facebook in a California court to try to resolve who owns data on social networking websites -- users or the sites.

Power says users do. It plans to take a stand in its lawsuit to ensure that users have rights to "complete and total" ownership and control of their content, and to protect their content from other users and corporate entities.

The countersuit accusing Facebook of unfair competition, restraint of trade and creating a monopoly, comes about six months after Facebook sued Power.com for alleged copyright and trademark infringement, unlawful competition and fraud.

Power denied those allegations in its counterclaim, and asked that Facebook be permanently barred from "anti-competitive practices." It also requested unspecified damages and costs.

Facebook said in a statement that it made "numerous attempts" to work with Power before suing the company, "but ... they continued to put Facebook user data at risk."

The claims in Power's lawsuit are "without merit, and we will fight them aggressively," the statement said.

Power allows users to access multiple social networking accounts through a single portal and to manipulate features and data on those accounts.

In its cross complaint, Power says it "believes in a borderless Internet where users have the right to control their own data."

Facebook, which in its lawsuit says it "tightly" controls access to its network, earlier this year had to back off what appeared to users to be an attempt to take ownership of data posted on the site through a change in its terms of service.

Power Chief Executive Officer Steve Vachani says Facebook is stifling competition by restricting consumers' access to their data, echoing a similar controversy that plagued the mobile phone industry.

"If you block users' data or any tools they would like to use to get that data ... this is similar to phone companies that blocked you from moving your phone number," Vachani said. "Users have built huge amounts of time with (Facebook) ... and they lock up your information."

Facebook had similar complaints against contact management web site Plaxo, which later integrated its aggregating tools on Facebook Connect, where software developers can post approved self-service tools for Facebook users.

Power rejected the chance to post its tools on Facebook Connect, saying in its cross complaint that it could not meet Facebook's deadlines for doing so.

Power has 8 million members and aggregates Twitter, MySpace, LinkIn, HI5 and Okut. Facebook has 200 million active users.

Power.com's answer and countersuit is Facebook Inc vs. Power Ventures Inc, Case No. 5:08-05780, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

(Reporting by Gina Keating, editing by Gerald E. McCormick)

Reuters - Apps a nail in coffin of broadcast mobile TV

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Apps a nail in coffin of broadcast mobile TV

Thursday, Jul 09, 2009 12:15AM UTC

By Tarmo Virki

HELSINKI (Reuters) - For years it was the talk of the wireless industry: beaming television to the world's four billion cellphones would be the icon of the digital age. Now, just three letters are hastening the demise of that vision.

App. Short for "application," the programs people download from online stores to run on their portable phones have enabled consumers to choose for themselves which moving pictures to take in when they are on the go.

As Facebook and Twitter disrupt business models for mainstream media -- and on the platform that's a lifestyle statement for young adults -- the one-size-fits-all approach of broadcast mobile TV got stuck before it even properly took off.

"It is a financial disaster," said John Strand, a consultant who has followed the mobile industry closely for more than 12 years. "It's a nice product, but the customers won't pay for it."

One way to see why not is to watch young Brazilian footballers knocking a soccer ball around in the Helsinki Cup. A youth tournament currently playing in the Finnish capital, it's hardly a world event in the conventional sense.

But the video clips they are uploading from their phones will run on their parents' mobiles or PCs back home.

"It's even easier than with still images, and a much nicer and expressive way to tell them the news from over here," said David da Silva, spokesman for the team from Brazil.

The service they are using comes from a Web site which offers users the chance to send video from cellphones to their own TV channels on the Web. A small venture, it is one of thousands of offerings from the likes of Apple, Nokia, RIM and many others letting users drive their mobile entertainment.

BBC World and Al Jazeera English have recently launched apps for consumers to watch real-time news on their iPhones, through a London-based company, Livestation.

"This is mobile TV 2.0 -- completely reinvented and redesigned, and I think it's going to overtake the old models very very rapidly," said Matteo Berlucchi, CEO of Livestation.

Perhaps the best illustration of the fast-shifting outlook is the history of forecasts for the market. Strategy Analytics now expects the mobile TV broadcasting market to total $280 million next year. Only three years ago the firm forecast the market to reach $5.4 billion in 2010.

"We've downgraded our forecast a fair bit to reflect the slower-than-anticipated rollout of services and limited momentum from carriers and broadcasters," said Strategy Analytics analyst Nitesh Patel.

"Application and widget stores and mobile internet access have taken priority over mobile broadcast."

SATISFACTION

It's an important distinction, says Andrew Bud, Chairman of the Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF), a London-based trade association for the mobile media industry. He talks about mobile TV -- which is broadcast -- as opposed to mobile video, which you load onto your device.

"Mobile TV is all about real-time, linear transmission ... where the timing of the programing was set by the broadcaster and the consumer would dip in and dip out," he said.

"Mobile video is much more about video-on-demand. It gives the consumer much more freedom. It's also a little less stressful on the mobile networks."

A survey by KPMG and the MEF found that nearly 40 percent of consumers had at one time watched a piece of mobile video on their handset: 52 percent of them said the experience was satisfying, against 38 percent of a much smaller number of users who said they had tried broadcast mobile TV.

The biggest problem for mobile TV is that it emerged in 2004-2006, just when the media industry started to change.

Cellphone makers and mobile operators have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the infrastructure. Phones and networks are in place in many countries, and watching it is very popular in countries such as South Korea where the service is aired for free.

But even there the wide take-up has not created a flourishing business, and in the United States it has been a hard slog. Telecoms group Crown Castle International closed down its effort to launch a broadcast mobile TV network in 2007.

Technological strain has been a factor restricting the growth of broadcast television on mobiles, enabling swift-moving plug-ins to fill the gap.

"A lot of the discussion around mobile TV centered around the vexed question of broadcasting spectrum and special technical standards and it all got very tangled -- problems that haven't been fully resolved, especially in Europe," said MEF's Bud.

Others have included the lack of a clear business model, fights for broadcasting rights, numerous different technologies competing for the leading position and a lack of affordable phone models.

SNACKING

The moving pictures coming slowly onto cellphones are testing demand for different experiences: Samsung and Sony Ericsson have launched movies, the offerings for Apple's iPhone include TV shows and Nokia has worked with "Heroes" creator Tim Kring to develop new content for launch in Europe's summer.

"Consumers are hungry to snack on their favorite content, be that the latest championship soccer goals or 'Desperate Housewives'," said Ben Wood, research director at CCS Insight.

"Old-fashioned broadcasters who are wedded to the old broadcast model have the biggest challenge because those days are over; consumers expect their favorite content when they want it, on whatever platform is most convenient -- TV, PC or a mobile phone," he said.

Samsung has launched a service allowing its customers to buy or rent movies and TV series to download to their mobile phones, with 24-hour rental prices starting from 2.49 pounds ($3.55), and movies from 4.99 pounds.

The breadth of the offering, which includes over 500 blockbusters from top studios Warner Bros, Paramount and Universal, makes it competitive with other mobile media.

Sony Ericsson has unveiled a more limited offering -- PlayNow arena with movies -- a bundled movie service for selected handsets, allowing consumers to watch up to 60 movies a year on their mobile phone.

"We won't see major business in just taking TV programs to cellphones," predicted Andrea Casalini, Chief Executive of Italian firm Buongiorno, which sells mobile content like games, music, video in 57 countries and says it is the world's largest mobile entertainment firm.

"There can be big business in new formats -- in making shorter programs, shot for cellphone screens, and also in using interactivity."

(additional reporting by Matt Cowan in London and Eva Lamppu in Helsinki; Editing by Sara Ledwith)

Reuters - Lang Lang, Herbie Hancock in bold Montreux premiere

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Lang Lang, Herbie Hancock in bold Montreux premiere

Monday, Jul 06, 2009 10:56AM UTC

By Stephanie Nebehay

MONTREUX, Switzerland (Reuters) - Chinese piano virtuoso Lang Lang made his first appearance at the Montreux jazz festival on Sunday, teaming up with veteran Herbie Hancock in an audacious show blending classical and jazz music.

The two men dressed in black sat facing each other at twin grand pianos to perform a program ranging from Maurice Ravel to George Gershwin.

"I am very happy to debut here at this great jazz festival. Don't worry, there will be some jazzy stuff later on," Lang Lang, 27, reassured the Swiss audience at the sell-out event.

"We're having a quiet party now," he said after the unlikely pair launched into Ralph Vaughan Williams's Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra, accompanied by the Orchestre National de Lyon, conducted by John Axelrod.

Lang Lang, perhaps the best known young pianist on the international stage, then played two stirring solos, Liebestraum by Franz Liszt and Tango.

He took up piano aged 2 and gave his first public recital at the age of 5, going on to perform at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics last August. He lives in the United States.

Lang Lang and Hancock are booked at London's Royal Albert Hall on Saturday, July 11 on a world tour culminating at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles next month.

One could hear a pin drop in the celebrated Stravinski Auditorium, where only a day before Steely Dan and Dave Matthews led a hard-jamming Fourth of July party. The Black Eyed Peas follows on Monday night at the venue along Lake Geneva.

Festival founder Claude Nobs proposed the two musicians team up while attending the 2008 Grammy Awards in Los Angeles where he watched an improvised performance by Hancock and Lang Lang.

Hancock, making his 30th Montreux appearance at the 43-year-old festival, sat next to the spiky-haired Lang Lang for Ravel's Mother Goose Suite, rearranged for four hands.

Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue for two pianos and orchestra mesmerized the crowd of all ages who paid up to 300 Swiss francs a ticket. The pair ended with Franz Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 -- which Lang Lang says inspired him when he heard it in a Tom & Jerry cartoon at 2 years old.

Producer and composer Quincy Jones, who co-produced the Swiss festival from 1991-93, is back in town for a few days and made a cameo appearance to introduce the pair.

"I'm happy to play a tiny part in this momentous occasion. As usual, Claude knows how to make it special," he said.

"Herbie has been practicing up to five hours a day -- as serious as a heart attack," Jones said. "This is one of the highests of highs, it's as good as it gets."

(Editing by Louise Ireland)

Reuters - Sun to distribute Carbonite's PC backup service

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Sun to distribute Carbonite's PC backup service

Tuesday, Jul 07, 2009 7:13PM UTC

BOSTON (Reuters) - Sun Microsystems Inc will distribute an Internet-based PC backup service from tiny industry pioneer Carbonite, which competes with tech industry giants EMC Corp and Symantec Corp.

They are battling for dominance in a fledgling market that technology research firm Gartner projects will grow to about $820 million in 2013 from $300 million last year. The services use the Internet to copy important PC data onto remote servers.

Boston-based Carbonite said on Tuesday that Sun will offer U.S. customers a free one-month trial of the backup service when they download or update Sun's widely used Java software for personal computers.

At the end of the trial, users will be asked to buy a subscription to the service.

EMC, the world's biggest corporate data storage equipment maker, and Symantec, the largest maker of backup software, got into the market by acquiring two of Carbonite's chief rivals.

(Reporting by Jim Finkle; editing by Andre Grenon)