Portfolio Mobile - Jim Cramer Did Something Wrong. I'm Shocked! Shocked!

Jim Cramer Did Something Wrong. I'm Shocked! Shocked!







Watching Jim Cramer getting his ass kicked by Jon Stewart last night left me with mixed feelings, but mostly feelings of déjà vu. I mean, is anyone really surprised by any of this?

It is nothing new that Cramer engaged in sleazy tactics when he ran a hedge fund. Hell, that was known years ago, and was admitted in his 2002 book Confessions of a Street Addict and one by a former employer, Nicholas Maier, Trading With the Enemy. It's also a matter of public record that as a fund manager he was the subject of an SEC inquiry, later dropped.

I reviewed both books for Business Week, and the title of my review, in BW question-y style, was "Brilliant Stockpicker -- or Brazen Hustler?" and it was obvious from my review that I leaned heavily toward the latter. I had no choice -- Cramer was very forthright on the subject. I wrote:
He then opened a hedge fund, Cramer Partners, where he developed a special approach to earning money. He describes this method with such candor that some readers may be taken aback. After all, controversy is now swirling around analysts. And they were at the core of Cramer's "formula for making money every single day, day in and day out." As developed in the early '90s, the system consisted of becoming "merchants of the buzz." Cramer writes: "We would work to get upgrades or downgrades because we knew, cynically, that Wall Street was simply a promotion machine."





Cramer would look for stocks likely to move quickly on good news. Then one of his staffers would begin calling the companies, looking "to find anything good we could say about them." When he discovered a stock that seemed ready to take off, or when his staff uncovered something favorable about the company that the analyst community didn't know, Cramer would load up on options and stock and then "give the good news to our favorite analysts who liked the stock so they could go do their promotion." That would get the buzz going, and "we would then be able to liquidate the position into the buzz for a handsome profit."

In other words, Cramer used his pals in the analyst community to engage in a kind of legal pump-and-dump scheme. Part of what makes his account compelling is that Cramer is so matter-of-fact, even proud. He sees absolutely nothing wrong or unfair about the practice. In fact, at one point he says that he sees himself as "the proverbial Boy Scout, never breaking any laws, never even getting a parking ticket," a man who had "nightmares about overdue library books. I was Little Miss Goody Two-shoes." Nope, introspection is not his strong point. [emphasis added]
Maier had accused Cramer of frontrunning short positions. That turned out to be wrong, and his book was withdrawn from circulation, pulped, and a new edition released.



But the publisher's retraction was not quite as sweeping as Cramer might have liked. HarperCollins says the only inaccuracy was the specific reference to Western Digital, which the new version of Maier's book doesn't mention. But the revised book does say that Cramer was the subject of an SEC inquiry, later dropped, concerning trading in options of an unspecified stock. "Our timing on this occasion may have been too perfect," Maier says in the post-pulping version. A call to Cramer was referred to his lawyer, who says both versions are inaccurate, and that there was no SEC inquiry at all.
So I guess I can't quite figure out why people, Stewart and his researchers included, are surprised by Cramer's sleaziness, since he admitted it himself in his book. As a matter of fact, watching Cramer's awful performance last night, I couldn't understand why he didn't admit that he came clean (more or less) in a book he'd written nine years ago.





I have only limited sympathy for people who buy stocks based on what Cramer or any other market guru has said. A financial genius named Burton Malkiel has been arguing against the very concept of stock picking for years, and wrote a book called A Random Walk Down Wall Street which became a best-seller.

Three years ago I made my own modest contribution to the genre in Wall Street Versus America, whose central point was that you had to listen to Malkiel and disregard the Cramers of this world. I pleaded with people to avoid managed mutual funds, hedge funds and individual stocks, to buy stock indexes and disregard stock newsletters and market "wizards" like Cramer. As I argued in the book, there is no way to beat the markets, no way of getting rich unless everyone in the market is getting rich (or way of escaping getting poor if the market goes into a slump).



Cramer has nothing to be ashamed off that he's hustled his way to a fortune, pushing a dream of riches that countless studies have shown to be illusory, since markets are reasonably efficient. But you can't get rich being a Cassandra, and the best way to make money is to lie that you can make money for other people. Cramer knows that as well as anyone, and now he is paying the price.

by Gary WeissRelated Links
AIG: The Cramer Conspiracy Theory
Hedge Fund Datapoint of the Day
The Hedge Fund Money-Go-Round




(c) 2007 Portfolio. Powered by mLogic Media, Crisp Wireless, Inc.

Reuters - Cash-hungry U.S. states turn to Web to auction goods

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Cash-hungry U.S. states turn to Web to auction goods

Saturday, Mar 14, 2009 10:11AM UTC

By Tom Ryan

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. municipalities, strapped for cash as the recession decimates revenues, are stepping up sales of everything from old police cars, helicopters and bicycles to confiscated jewelry and slot machines in an effort to reduce swollen deficits.

And municipalities that previously relied on old-fashioned auctions conducted in local parking lots are getting more sophisticated, turning to the online world as they seek to maximize their sales.

As many as 46 states are struggling with deficits, according to the Washington-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. And governments, which are required by law to close budget gaps, are being creative in seeking ways to meet the shortfall.

"Anything that we can dispose of that generates revenue definitely helps to reduce any deficit that we have in the budget," said Greg Spearman, director of purchasing for Tampa, Florida.

Tampa recently raised more than $300,000 from the sale of a 1978 Piper police airplane. The sale was conducted by auction on www.govdeals.com, a website founded by a former investment banker and two partners to help local governments maximize returns on unwanted assets.

Listings on the site have increased significantly in recent months and governments are looking deep into their closets for things to sell, according to Chief Executive Bill Angrick.

Agencies from Alabama, for example, sold about $3 million worth of goods in the first two months of 2009, compared with $9 million for 2007 and 2008 combined. Items included a batch of 27 confiscated bicycles sold by the city of Montgomery for $270.

Georgia agencies have chalked up $1.8 million in sales in the first two months of 2009, compared with sales of $9.1 million for all of 2008. Among the goods sold was a confiscated Yukon SL Crossbow sold by the town of Rome for $147.

The Austin, Texas, police raised $388,100 in an auction of confiscated slot machines last week.

State and local governments are "getting a lot of visibility and more competition" than they would using the old-fashioned open-outcry auctions, said Angrick.

Scott Bartley, an accountant in the controller's office of Charleston County, South Carolina, said municipalities previously sold used equipment and other assets in annual auctions, typically held in a local parking lot.

That meant paying for storage until enough inventory had accumulated and relying on the largess of the few buyers who typically turned up.

Bartley said the county's revenues have roughly tripled since it stepped up efforts to generate cash, with the website helping it access a larger pool of buyers.

Since the county started using the service in 2005, revenues from sales have climbed to between $800,000 to $1 million a year from an average $170,000 to $200,000 previously.

The county is now selling up to seven used police cars a week online and "we're getting above bluebook value," he said.

About 1.2 million buyers have used the govdeals.com site, ranging from other states and municipalities to companies, entrepreneurs and resellers, all of whom are prescreened to ensure they can pay.

Vehicles are the most popular items sold on the site, although Angrick believes the second most popular item -- highway maintenance equipment -- could increase significantly with President Barack Obama's massive spending on infrastructure as part of his economic stimulus plan.

The largest ticket item auctioned in 2008 was a 1993 McDonnell Douglas MD520N helicopter sold by the Louisville-Jefferson County, Kentucky Metro Government, to a tour operator in Hawaii for $791,000.

Among the more surprising offers is an Arabian horse currently on offer from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, with a starting bid of $50. The 100-mile endurance horse was used for exercise physiology and nutrition research at the university.

The Nashville Metro Airport Authority in Tennessee is selling a 40-foot tall rotating beacon for an airport with bids starting at $200.

Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, is auctioning off a batch of confiscated jewelry including a 10-carat gold necklace and various rings and watches.

And, in November of last year, the city of Baltimore, Maryland, put its 85-foot fireboat, "Mayor, J. Harold Grady," on the block after 47 years of service.

Allan Johnson, owner of a marine contracting firm in Akron, Ohio, won the bidding at $80,000. Johnson, who was hoping to pay $50,000, still believes he got a good deal. A new one could be well over $1 million.

Of course, online auctions have not always been successful for municipalities.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, campaigning as John McCain's vice presidential running mate last year, famously trumpeted her move to put a "luxury jet" used by the previous governor up for sale on eBay. What she shied away from mentioning was that the jet failed to find a buyer on eBay and she ultimately hired a broker to sell it.

(Additional reporting by Joan Gralla; Editing by Leslie Adler)

Reuters - Web founder warns against website snooping

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Web founder warns against website snooping

Saturday, Mar 14, 2009 10:13AM UTC

By Jonathan Lynn

GENEVA (Reuters) - Surfers on the Internet are at increasing risk from governments and corporations tracking the sites they visit to build up a picture of their activities, the founder of the World Wide Web said on Friday.

Tim Berners-Lee, whose proposal for an information management system at the European Organization for Nuclear Research CERN 20 years ago led eventually to the World Wide Web, said tracking website visits in this way could build an incredibly detailed profile of who people are and their habits.

"That form of snooping I think is really important to avoid," he told an anniversary celebration at CERN.

Technology now being developed will make it easier to decide who can see material one posts on the Web, and in what circumstances. For instance people may not want prospective employers to see an album of holiday photos, he said.

Berners-Lee, a British software engineer who is now a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), said innovation on the World Wide Web was speeding up.

"The Web is not all done, it's just the tip of the iceberg," Berners-Lee said. "I am convinced that the new changes are going to rock the world even more."

One big change that is coming is "linked data," in which individual bits of data are machine-readable, not just the Web pages they appear on.

That would allow users to link readable data to similar data and manipulate it, for instance putting it in spreadsheets or plotting graphs. The sum of human knowledge would then grow exponentially in what Berners-Lee calls the Semantic Web.

Examples would be students accessing data from research institutes, or ordinary people getting hold of government data -- paid for by taxes -- to improve websites.

The system would allow investors to process the data contained in company press releases.

MULTIPLE DATA USE

People who put data on social networking sites such as Facebook, for instance tagging names on pictures, would also be able to use that data in other applications, for instance ordering a T-shirt on another website.

Berners-Lee said the future of the Web was on mobile phones, which already have more browsers than laptops do.

"In developing countries it's going to be exciting because that is the only way that a lot of people will actually get to see the Internet at all," he said.

When Berners-Lee wrote his proposal in March 1989, his boss at CERN, the world's biggest particle physics laboratory, scrawled "vague, but exciting" on the memo.

A year later, he tested the idea by justifying it as a test program for a new NeXT computer, whose software is the basis of the current OS X Macintosh operating system for computers made by Apple Inc.

In two months in 1990, Berners-Lee wrote the software that allowed users to share access to information over the Internet, coining the name World Wide Web.

The code was made freely available in 1991 and was rapidly picked up and developed by other enthusiasts. "It took off because people across the planet got involved, that's the most exciting thing about that period," he said.

Among his regrets was starting Web addresses with http:// as the two slashes were redundant, leading to billions of wasted keystrokes.

Another regret was the way web addresses were constructed. In retrospect it would have made more sense to start with the most general elements such as countries or organizations -- for instance using ch/cern/info instead of info.cern.ch as at present, he said.

(Reporting by Jonathan Lynn; editing by Tim Pearce)

Portfolio Mobile - 44, Day 52: Everyone Out of the Pool

44, Day 52: Everyone Out of the Pool





An ongoing log of the daily activities of the 44th president of the United States during his first 100 days:

-President Obama today again warned against anyone thinking they could benefit unfairly from the $787 billion stimulus plan. And Vice President Joe Biden said spending rules would be coming tomorrow. "A little hint," Biden said. "No swimming pools in this money."

-The president today met with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi in the Oval Office. Get the White House's readout here.

-We missed something yesterday. President Obama met with 13 of the nation's top travel executives, all of whom are concerned that Washington has become anti-travel as it takes companies to task for holding conventions, retreats, and conferences during these tough times. "He left with an understand that our industry means jobs, and that 17 million people in the United States are working in some form or fashion in the travel and tourism industry," Jonathan M. Tisch, chairman and chief executive of Loews Hotels, told POLITICO. "And he just asked us to stay focused and do all we can to encourage travel. As he says, he was traveling a lot, which allowed him to get this job, and he deeply understands the benefit of travel and tourism in the United States of America."



-Personnel watch: the FBI today raided the offices of the president's choice to be U.S. chief information officer. Authorities took the action on Vivek Kundra's offices (he's now the District of Columbia's chief technology officer as part of a bribery sting that last week led to the arrest of two people.

by J. Jennings Moss

Sources: The White House, Politico, CNET, and the Associated Press.Related Links
Top Tech Policy People to Watch
44, Day 22: On the Road Again
44, Day 28: Where's Click and Clack When You Need Them?




(c) 2007 Portfolio. Powered by mLogic Media, Crisp Wireless, Inc.

CNN - Police: U.S. teens were hit men for Mexican cartel

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Police: U.S. teens were hit men for Mexican cartel

Rosalio Reta sits at a table inside a Laredo Police Department interrogation room. A detective, sitting across the table, asks him how it all started.

Reta, in Spanish street slang, describes his initiation as an assassin, at the age of 13, for the Mexican Gulf Cartel, one of the country's two major drug gangs.

"I thought I was Superman. I loved doing it, killing that first person," Reta says on the videotape obtained by CNN. "They tried to take the gun away, but it was like taking candy from kid."

Rosalio Reta and his friend, Gabriel Cardona, were members of a three-person cell of American teenagers working as cartel hit men in the United States, according to prosecutors. The third was arrested by Mexican authorities and stabbed to death in prison there three days later.

In interviews with CNN, Laredo police detectives and prosecutors told how Cardona and Reta were recruited by the cartel to be assassins after they began hitting the cantinas and clubs just across the border.

CNN has also obtained detailed court records as well as several hours of police interrogation videos. The detective sitting across the table from Reta and Cardona in those sessions is Robert Garcia. He's a veteran of the Laredo Police Department and one of the few officers who has questioned the young men.

"One thing you wonder all the time: What made them this way?" Garcia told CNN. "They were just kids themselves, waiting around playing PlayStation or Xbox, waiting around for the order to be given."

Over a nearly one-year period starting in June 2005, the border town of Laredo, Texas, saw a string of seven murders. At first glance, the violence looked like isolated, gangland-style killings. But investigators started suspecting something more sinister.

Then Noe Flores was gunned down in a clear case of mistaken identity. Investigators found a fingerprint on a cigarette box inside the suspected shooter's get-away car. That clue unraveled the chilling reality and led police to arrest Gabriel Cardona and Rosalio Reta.

Prosecutors say they quickly discovered these two teenagers were homegrown assassins, hired to carry out the dirty work of the notorious Gulf Cartel.

"There are sleeper cells in the U.S.," said Detective Garcia. "They're here, they're here in the United States."

The cases against Cardona and Reta -- both are in prison serving long prison sentences for murder -- shed new light into the workings of the drug cartels.

Prosecutor and investigators say Reta and Cardona were recruited into a group called "Los Zetas," a group made up of former members of the Mexican special military forces. They're considered ruthless in how they carry out attacks. "Los Zetas" liked what they saw in Cardona and Reta.

Both teenagers received six-month military-style training on a Mexican ranch. Investigators say Cardona and Reta were paid $500 a week each as a retainer, to sit and wait for the call to kill. Then they were paid up to $50,000 and 2 kilos of cocaine for carrying out a hit.

The teenagers lived in several safe houses around Laredo and drove around town in a $70,000 Mercedes-Benz.

As the teens became more immersed in the cartel lifestyle, their appearance changed. Cardona had eyeballs tattooed on his eyelids. Reta's face became covered in tattoo markings. (Prosecutors say during his trial Reta used make-up to cover the facial markings.) And both sported tattoos of "Santa Muerte," the Grim Reaper-like pseudo-saint worshipped by drug traffickers.

"These organizations, these cartels, they function like a Fortune 500 company," Webb County, Texas, prosecutor Uriel Druker said. "We have to remember that the United States is the market they are trying to get to."

In Cardona's interrogation tape, there are clues that "Los Zetas" are reaching deeper and deeper into the United States. Cardona is asked, "Where else are the Zetas?" And Cardona responds, "I've heard in Dallas and Houston."

And that's why the cartel recruited these young Americans. Cardona and Reta could move freely and easily back and forth across the border with Mexico.

Just hours before they were arrested, federal authorities taped a phone conversation between them in which Cardona brags about killing 14-year-old Inez Villareal and his cousin, a Cardona rival.

Cardona laughs as he describes torturing the two boys and dumping their bodies in large metal drums filled with diesel fuel. He says he made "guiso," or stew, with their bodies.

As the call ends, Cardona says, "There are three left to kill, there are three left."

Reuters - Marvel delays The Avengers, Thor releases

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Marvel delays The Avengers, Thor releases

Thursday, Mar 12, 2009 12:29PM UTC

March 12 (Reuters) - Media company Marvel Entertainment Inc said it rescheduled the release dates of some of its self-produced feature film properties through 2012.

As per the revised schedule, the release date of the multi-character superhero film 'The Avengers' has been extended by about a year to May 4, 2012, from July 15, 2011.

'Thor', the big-screen adaptation of one of Marvel's popular comic book characters, will now release on June 17, 2011, instead of July 16, 2010, the company said.

"It maximizes the visibility of our single character-focused films, leading to the highly anticipated release of the multi-character The Avengers film in 2012," David Maisel, chairman of Marvel Studios, said in a statement.

The company now plans to release 'The First Avenger: Captain America' on July 22, 2011, instead of May 6, 2011.

However, 'Iron Man 2' will be released as scheduled on May 7, 2010, Marvel said.

Marvel also confirmed that Sony Pictures will release 'Spider-Man 4' on May 6, 2011. Marvel has licensed theatrical rights of Spider-Man, its most popular character, to the unit of Sony.

Shares of Marvel closed at $24.55 Wednesday on the New York Stock Exchange.

(Reporting by Bijoy Koyitty in Bangalore; Editing by Himani Sarkar)

Portfolio Mobile - Is Crowdsourcing Evil?

Is Crowdsourcing Evil?







Crowdsourcing, by its very name, encourages a comparison to outsourcing. But when Wired first published the article that entered the term into the popular lexicon, it was far from clear whether the phenomenon would realize its disruptive potential. Three years later, it seems increasingly obvious that it will. Aided by a new generation of sophisticated startups, ever cheaper creative tools and -- most of all -- a recession that is forcing cost-saving measures on businesses, crowdsourcing is rapidly migrating from the fringe to the mainstream.

Witness the upheaval afflicting the design industry, sparked by the rise of so-called "spec design" sites like crowdSpring and 99designs. Customers post creative briefs directly to the community, which then competes to create a design that best fits the clients' needs. A typical "assignment" will draw dozens of submissions. The winner receives a nominal fee (as little as $200), and the client receives a logo or website design at a fraction of what a professional agency might charge. The losers get zip, which goes a long way to explaining why working on spec ("on speculation," or without guarantee of payment) has always been considered the work of last resort for writers, designers and other creative professionals.



So one might expect crowdSpring and 99designs to wither away like so many other seemingly ill-conceived Web 2.0 startups. Instead, they seem to be flourishing. 99designs says it has paid out over $4 million to its community of 30,000 artists, and crowdSpring expects to be profitable by next year. The success of crowdsourced design has sparked a vibrant, highly emotional debate within the design industry. (The brouhaha will go live at SXSW next week, where I will moderate a panel on the subject of spec work in design.)*

Alarmed by the popularity of the spec model, a group of designers formed a protest group called No!Spec to persuade their colleagues (and prospective clients) to just say no to design contests. Their effort has not been in vain. The trade group AIGA, with around  22,000 designer members, has gone so far as to stake out an official position on spec work: "AIGA strongly discourages the practice of requesting that design work be produced and submitted on a speculative basis in order to be considered for acceptance on a project."



The controversy shifted into high gear last month after Forbes published an airy, one-sided look at crowdSpring. In more than 100 comments to the article one could read persuasive, articulate variations on a single theme: "Fuck you and crowdSpring too." Several prominent design blogs posted their own jeremiads lambasting crowdSpring. "Spec work has become a major force in devaluing the perception of graphic design in the business world," writes eyeCinq. And: "The folks that run these outfits have managed to figure out a way to get thousands of people -- some skilled enough to earn a decent living -- to work for them gratis. It's an amazing sleight-of-hand," writes The Logo Factor.



It would seem that the squabble has ignited the design community against the barbarians at their gate. And that would seem to bode ill for the future health of the spec sites, right?

Don't count on it. A similar debate was taking place in the stock photography world when we published "The Rise of Crowdsourcing" in that bygone era of June 2006. The fact this debate has been largely settled -- in favor of the barbarians -- speaks volumes about where graphic design, and, for better or worse, most other creative fields, are heading.

I made this explicit comparison on my blog last August. The demand for low-end design has ballooned in recent years alongside the profusion of start-ups and small businesses. Conveniently enough, so has the supply of what we might call "low-end designers" (amateurs, recent grads and the like). According to Forbes there are 80,000 freelance designers in the United States alone. Most of these are, proverbially speaking, waiting tables. When someone matches demand and supply, well that's kismet!



IStockphoto and other so-called "microstock" agencies capitalized on a similar disparity. The result was the total disruption of the $2 billion stock photo industry. IStock is now the third-largest purveyor of stock images, and 96 percent of its "workforce" is comprised of amateurs. In my book on crowdsourcing, I posed the question of whether stock photography was an isolated case, or just the canary in the coal mine. It was an open question as of April 2008 when I submitted the final changes to my galleys. Now it ain't. The canary is prone, lying motionless on a bed of its own droppings. It looks like it's time to find another mine.

* Two of my co-panelists have written their own distinctive takes on the debate. Please check out Threadless.com's Jeffrey Kalmikoff on the spec debate, as well as Forrester analyst Jeremiah Owyang's advice to designers. by Jeff P. Howe



Is Crowdsourcing Evil? Comment on Wired's Crowdsourcing Blog. Related Links
44, Day 46: Look at These 25 Jobs Please
How Big is AIG's Life Insurance Arm?
The Future of Health Care: Outsourcing the Patient





(c) 2007 Portfolio. Powered by mLogic Media, Crisp Wireless, Inc.

CNN - Deputy: 'It's supposed to be me getting shot, not my family'

Sent from bombastic4000@yahoo.com's mobile device from http://www.cnn.com.

Deputy: 'It's supposed to be me getting shot, not my family'

"Get home now."

Geneva County Sheriff's Deputy Josh Myers quickly hung up the phone when he got that message on Tuesday and started home to Samson, having no idea what had happened to his wife or his three children.

Then, another urgent message:

"We got notified on the radio that a trooper was chasing a suspect that had fired shots," Myers told reporters on Wednesday.

Instead of heading home, the deputy drove to Reliable Metal Products plant in the nearby town of Geneva, where the gunman had shot and killed himself after a bloody rampage in southern Alabama in which he killed 10 people -- including relatives and apparent strangers.

Myers had no idea that the man, whose body he saw at the plant, had shot and killed his wife and 1½-year-old daughter, Corinne Gracy, and shot and wounded his 3-month-old baby girl, Ella Kay.

A family friend found the couple's 4-year-old son hiding in the Myers' home after the shooting.

"He was present when it happened," Myers said. "He knows something's wrong. He asked where mama was, and I had to tell him she was with Jesus. This is going to take a long time to work through it."

Andrea Myers, 31, was holding Ella Kay and talking with her neighbors on their porch across the street when the gunman -- identified by police as Michael McLendon -- opened fire. The neighbors turned out to be McLendon's relatives, although it was unclear why he targeted them.

He said one of his neighbors saved his wounded daughter's life.

"She ran up on the porch and got my baby girl and took her to safety," Myers said.

The 10 people McLendon killed before he shot himself to death included his mother, grandmother, other relatives and strangers, police said.

Ella Kay, who was shot in the leg, will have surgery on Wednesday at a hospital in Pensacola, Florida, to remove the bullet or shrapnel that is near her femoral artery, Myers said.

A day after Tuesday's shootings, Myers stood in front of his home, across the street from the house where his family was killed, and spoke to reporters.

"It's supposed to be me out here getting shot, not my family," Myers said, speaking barely above a whisper. "I'd step out on the street any day and take a bullet for anybody in this community. Anybody. I take that risk when I go to work every day, I take that risk when I'm off.

"Nobody's family should have this done," he added, holding pictures of his wife and daughters.

Reuters - Teenage gunman attacks German school, kills 15

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Teenage gunman attacks German school, kills 15

Wednesday, Mar 11, 2009 1:34PM UTC

By Hendrik Sackmann

WINNENDEN, Germany (Reuters) - A 17-year old gunman went on a shooting spree at his former school in southwest Germany on Wednesday, killing up to 15 people before dying himself in a shootout with police, authorities said.

The former student, dressed in black combat gear, entered the school in Winnenden, a town of 27,000 near Stuttgart, at around 9.30 a.m. (3:30 a.m. EDT) and began firing.

He killed nine students and three teachers at the school, as well as one person at a nearby clinic, before fleeing with a hostage in a car. He was killed in a shootout with police.

Two additional passers-by were killed and two policemen seriously injured in the shootout, bringing the total death toll to 16 including the gunman.

It was not clear whether the gunman had been shot by police or taken his own life, Rainer Koeller, a police spokesman in nearby Waiblingen said.

"I've been president of police in Baden-Wuerttemberg for 19 years now, and I can't remember a deed as terrible as this," said Erwin Hetger, police chief in the southwestern state.

A German government spokesman in Berlin said he was "deeply shocked" by the incident. Chancellor Angela Merkel would make a statement at 4 p.m. (10:00 a.m. EDT).

The shooting is the latest to shock Germany in recent years. In 2006, a masked man armed with rifles and explosives attacked a school in the western town of Emsdetten, wounding at least 11 people before committing suicide.

In April 2002, Germany suffered its worst school shooting when a gunman killed 17 people, including himself, at a high school in the eastern city of Erfurt.

Police said the gunman had entered two classrooms at the Albertville-Realschule in Winnenden and probably opened fired at pupils indiscrminately.

The secondary school is for students aged around 10 to 16. It was evacuated and rescue workers and fire fighters were at the scene. Helicopters circled above the historic market town, which had been largely sealed off.

Television pictures showed dozens of heavily-armed black-clad SWAT teams entering the two-storey white school building.

"Police are coming through the whole time. They're obviously looking all over town for him," said Roberto Seifert, who works at a company neighboring the school. "We've never had anything like this," he told Reuters.

German media reports said the suspect had used weapons his parents legally held at home, although police could not confirm this.

Germany has strict weapons laws, with gunholders having to fulfill certain criteria on age and weapons expertise to obtain a license for firearms.

A market town whose origins stretch back to the 12th century, Winnenden is the hometown of German firm Kaercher, a maker of high pressure cleaners.

(Reporting by Holger Hansen, Dave Graham, Noah Barkin; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

(Writing by Kerstin Gehmlich; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Reuters - Nvidia kicks off global search for start-ups

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Nvidia kicks off global search for start-ups

Tuesday, Mar 10, 2009 4:39AM UTC

SAN FRANCISCO, March 10 Reuters) - Nvidia <NVDA.O> plans to launch a program to invest in and spur development of up-and-coming graphics technologies and start-ups globally, hoping to shore up the firm's lead in a highly competitive graphics card arena.

The firm's worldwide GPU Ventures Program will fund and advise start-ups developing businesses around graphics processing, said Jeff Herbst, Nvidia's vice president of business development.

Nvidia, which competes with Advanced Micro Devices <AMD.N> subsidiary ATI, has funded start-ups before. Now, executives say they want to formalize and expand the process with a full-scale program.

Nvidia said on Tuesday it will invest from $500,000 to $5 million in, and provide marketing support for, companies working on consumer and professional applications ranging from video and image enhancement to scientific discovery, financial analysis and three-dimensional interfaces.

In exchange, Nvidia will take minority stakes in the companies when appropriate, Herbst said. But, he stressed, the program's main goal is to spur uses of Nvidia's graphics processing units.

Executives said such investments will boost the number of applications running off the firm's stable of products, while potentially augmenting their own technology.

"Start-up companies need to be leaner and meaner in this new economic environment," Herbst said.

"The more applications there are in the world that support the GPU, the bigger the total market there's going to be for people like Nvidia."

There would be no cap on the number of companies that could participate in the program, but Herbst said it was likely to fall in the same range as last year, or about five companies.

Previous investments made by Nvidia included Keyhole Corp, which Google <GOOG.O> eventually acquired, and Mental Images, which Nvidia itself bought, the firm said in its statement.

To draw out potential start-ups, NVIDIA plans to host its second annual Emerging Companies Summit this fall.

(Reporting by Janet Kornblum; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)