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)

Reuters - Dell launches digital forensics service for police

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Dell launches digital forensics service for police

Tuesday, Jul 07, 2009 3:40PM UTC

LONDON (Reuters) - Dell Inc, the world's second-biggest maker of personal computers, launched a package of hardware, software and services on Tuesday designed to help police convict more criminals as digital evidence proliferates.

The company said its digital-forensics package would help police reduce backlogs that can be as long as two years as it would allow multiple analysts to work simultaneously on the same data while preserving an audit trail of evidence-handling.

The package, launched with partners including Intel, gives customers tools to build and host their own datacentre, meaning they can have the convenience of so-called cloud computing while keeping control of it themselves.

James Quarles, Dell's head of public-sector marketing in Europe, told Reuters that customers remotely accessing criminal evidence in parallel from such datacenters could gain a crucial time advantage, for example when legally constrained as to how long they could hold terrorism suspects without evidence.

Dell reorganized its operations at the end of last year to group them around customer segments, one of which was the public sector, instead of around geographical regions, and said on Tuesday this had helped its new digital-forensics push.

Josh Claman, head of Dell's European public-sector business, said in a blog the new product "embodies everything we wanted to achieve when we decided to restructure the way Public Sector customers' needs are addressed." (en.community.dell.com/blogs)

Dell made about $15 billion in sales to the public sector last year, including hospitals, government, education and defense -- about a quarter of its total revenue.

The company cited estimates by research firm IDC that the U.S. digital-forensics market would be worth $630 million this year, up from $252 million in 2004, while the international market would be worth $1.8 billion by 2011.

Apart from chipmaker Intel, partners in Dell's offering include data-storage gear maker EMC Corp, business-software maker Oracle Corp, security-software maker Symantec Corp and privately held digital-forensics specialist AccessData.

Dell will present the new service to Britain's Association of Chief Police Officers on Tuesday.

(Reporting by Georgina Prodhan; Editing by David Holmes and Hans Peters)

Reuters - Stars sing for Jackson in emotional farewell

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Stars sing for Jackson in emotional farewell

Tuesday, Jul 07, 2009 8:19PM UTC

By Bob Tourtellotte

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Mariah Carey, Stevie Wonder and Usher led an emotional public memorial for Michael Jackson on Tuesday as the music world, the Jackson family and thousands of fans bade farewell to the "King of Pop."

Jackson's brothers, each wearing a single sequined glove in homage to his signature look, carried the singer's gold-trimmed casket into the Staples Center sports arena, where Jackson had rehearsed the day before his death for a highly-anticipated series of comeback concerts.

Carey performed Jackson's 1970 ballad "I'll Be There" and singer Smokey Robinson read out tributes from former South African president Nelson Mandela and singer Diana Ross.

But it was Jackson himself who loomed larger than life over the 18,000-plus arena crowd, shown in old concert footage, music videos and news clips, singing, dancing his signature moonwalk and surrounded by adoring crowds.

"The more I think about Michael, and talk about Michael, the more I think that 'King of Pop' is not good enough," said Motown Records founder Berry Gordy, who signed The Jackson 5 in 1968. "I think he is simply the greatest entertainer that ever lived."

Jackson's sudden death from cardiac arrest in Los Angeles on June 25 at the age of 50 prompted a worldwide outpouring of grief and sent sales of his biggest hits back to the top of the music charts.

President Barack Obama, on a visit to Russia, said he was "one of the greatest entertainers of our generation, perhaps any generation," and added: "I think like Elvis, like Sinatra, like The Beatles he became a core part of our culture.

Tuesday's two-hour memorial focused on Jackson's 45-year music career, his charity work for childrens' groups and his role in opening the mainstream pop and celebrity world up to African-Americans.

Gordy was among the few who referred obliquely to the darker side of Jackson's life, which in the last 10 years had come to overshadow his prowess as a performer and his 13 Grammy awards.

"Though it ended way too soon, Michael's life was beautiful. Sure there was some sad times and maybe some questionable decisions on his part, but Michael Jackson accomplished everything he dreamed of," said Gordy.

"NOTHING STRANGE" ABOUT DADDY

Jackson was on the eve of a comeback after his career collapsed despite his acquittal in a humiliating 2005 trial on sex abuse charges.

Civil rights leader Al Sharpton, angrily denouncing the media focus on the bizarre aspects of his life, said he had a message for Jackson's three children.

"Wasn't nothing strange about your daddy. It was strange what your daddy had to deal with," he said to cheers.

Jackson's three children, Prince Michael, 12, Paris, 11 and Prince Michael II, 7, appeared with the family on stage at the end of the performances. Paris, in tears, took the microphone to say: "Ever since I was born my daddy has been the best father you can ever imagine and I just want to say I love him so much."

R&B singer Usher's voice cracked as he sang "Gone Too Soon" while actress Brooke Shields, who briefly dated the singer, remembered his laugh as "the sweetest and purest of anyone's I had ever known."

Jackson's family and close friends held a brief private ceremony earlier on Tuesday at a Los Angeles cemetery before unexpectedly bringing the singer's body to the memorial.

Fans watched from bridges as the funeral procession made its way along freeways cleared of traffic for one of the biggest celebrity events ever seen in a city accustomed to living with superstar citizens.

Police had estimated that more than 250,000 people would gather outside the arena but the orderly crowds were much smaller than expected. Many fans and downtown office workers appeared to have stayed at home to watch the ceremony live on national TV networks or on the Internet.

At the Staples Center, Los Angeles resident Parisa Ebraihimi, 28, said she had been a Jackson fan since she was five years old. "For me, his dance moves and his music -- all his songs were about a better world. He'll live on for generations," she said.

Police, security, escorts and sanitation for the memorial ceremony are expected to cost cash-strapped Los Angeles city council nearly $4 million. The city council on Tuesday launched a web site asking for fans to make donations toward the cost of hosting Tuesday's events.

(Additional reporting by Jill Serjeant and Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Mary Milliken and David Storey)

Reuters - Phelps has limited ambition one year on from Beijing

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Phelps has limited ambition one year on from Beijing

Tuesday, Jul 07, 2009 7:53AM UTC

By Steve Keating

INDIANAPOLIS (Reuters) - Michael Phelps, who 12 months ago was targeting an Olympic record eight gold medals, was this week pondering only the goal of making the U.S. world championship team.

Much has changed for Phelps in a tumultuous 12 months.

After scaling new heights in Beijing, the 24-year-old swimmer tumbled from grace, falling so hard he pondered retirement during a three-month ban from USA Swimming for being photographed inhaling from a pipe used for smoking marijuana.

But a motivated Phelps is back in the pool set to face his first true test since the Beijing Games at the U.S. Nationals, which also serve as the qualifying event for the world championships in Rome.

It seems inconceivable a swimmer in his prime with 14 Olympic and 17 world championship gold medals and a raft of world records should be concerned about such routine matters as earning a spot on the U.S. team.

But these trials hold fear for Phelps as he continues his transition from all-rounder to sprinter.

New events, a new stroke and a return to competition that has produced nearly as many defeats as victories, left Phelps cautioning that there were no guarantees he will secure spots in all four events he will contest in Indianapolis, the 100 and 200 meters freestyle and 100 and 200m butterfly.

In order to book his ticket to Rome and his fifth world championships, Phelps must place among the top two in each event at the Natatorium.

"It doesn't matter to me if I'm the favorite or I'm not," Phelps told reporters on Monday. "The one thing I enjoy the most is being able to step up against anybody if they're faster than me.

"I like stepping up and racing people.

"The 100 free, I know I'm not the best but if I have the opportunity to step up and race the best then that's something I've always enjoyed."

"I have to make the team before I decide anything. Bob (coach Bob Bowman) and I just wanted to get here and see where we stand."

UNCHARTED WATERS

What Phelps is trying to do is not unlike a Formula One driver making the jump to stock cars, yet these are not completely uncharted waters for the world's greatest swimmer.

Phelps already holds the world record in 200m butterfly and 200m freestyle as well as the American mark in the 100m free and he is rapidly closing in on the 100m butterfly world record.

Just two weeks ago in Montreal, Phelps clocked a time of 50.48 seconds in the 100m fly, the third fastest time ever in the event and just .08 off the record held by compatriot Ian Crocker.

"I think I'm back to where I want to be at this point, probably a little faster than I thought I would be," said Phelps, who will swim his first preliminary heat on Wednesday.

"I have unfinished business.

"When I retire I want to be able to look back at my career and say that I did everything I wanted to do.

"That's the only way I'll be able to look back and say that was a great career.

"The only thing that keeps me going is the goals I have."

(Editing by Ed Osmond)

Reuters - France's Montcourt dies aged 24

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France's Montcourt dies aged 24

Tuesday, Jul 07, 2009 11:49AM UTC

PARIS (Reuters) - French tennis player Mathieu Montcourt died Monday night at the age of 24, the French tennis federation said Tuesday.

It said the cause of death was unknown.

Montcourt was 119th in the ATP world rankings.

(Writing by James Mackenzie; Editing by Ken Ferris)