Reuters - "Lightning" Bolt strikes again in Beijing

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"Lightning" Bolt strikes again in Beijing

Wednesday, Aug 20, 2008 5:46PM UTC

By Andrew Cawthorne

BEIJING (Reuters) - Jamaica's Usain "Lightning" Bolt roared to gold in the 200 meters on Wednesday to become the first man since Carl Lewis in 1984 to win an Olympic sprint double.

Bolt, whose father says owes his speed and power to the island's local yam vegetable, charged to a world record time of 19.30 seconds, falling to the floor in joy at the end.

"I'm Number One," he mouthed at TV cameras, beating his chest and blowing kisses at the 91,000 crowd in the Bird's Nest.

Bolt had won the 100m at the showcase Olympic stadium in swashbuckling style at the weekend, also setting a world record.

This time, he again joked on his way to the block, firing an imaginary arrow in the air, but looked deadly serious as he opened up a big gap and steamed through the finishing line to beat Michael Johnson's 1996 record by two hundredths of a second.

"I knew the track was a fast track but I didn't think this was possible. I'm shocked," Bolt said afterwards.

Johnson dubbed Bolt "Superman 2" during commentary for the BBC. "I looked at his start and just went, 'Wow'. Guys that tall should not be able to start like that," he said.

Competitors were awe-struck. "It's a brutal ass-whipping we took," said Kim Collins, of St Kitts and Nevis, who was seventh.

Nine men have now won the double sprint in Olympic history.

Bolt, who turns 22 on Thursday, has established himself as the joint hero of the Games along with American swimmer Michael Phelps who took an unprecedented eight golds.

Just as Phelps's exploits in the Water Cube, passing Mark Spitz's 1972 Munich record, have thrilled Americans, so Bolt has swelled national pride across his Caribbean homeland.

The lanky runner started sprinting only when a school cricket coach noticed his speed as a fast bowler.

Right after Bolt's triumph, Melaine Walker added to Jamaica's joy by taking gold in the women's 400 meters hurdles.

While her team mate Bolt and America's Phelps have given the standout individual performances so far in the August 8-24 Games, it is team China whose overall record has dazzled the world.

CHINESE GOLD RUSH

The hosts, who came second to the United States in Athens 2004, have 45 gold medals, a seemingly unassailable lead that marks their emergence as an Olympics superpower.

That will delight the Communist government, for whom the $43 billion Games are a symbol of China's new global standing.

Local windsurfer Yin Jian pumped and glided her way to a first sailing gold for China. Then Wu Jingyu won gold in women's taekwondo on another successful day for the hosts.

The United States lie second with a less-than-expected 26 golds, while next Olympics hosts Britain are a surprising third with 16 golds, their best showing in a century.

Global conflict zones like Iraq, Somalia, Afghanistan and the Palestinian territories struggled to send athletes to China, and some competitors had to prepare in appalling circumstances.

Swimmers have used under-size public pools, while runners have had to dodge bullets.

Against all odds, though, Rohullah Nikpai won the first Olympic medal in Afghanistan's history -- a taekwondo bronze.

"I'm very happy," said Nikpai, who fell to his knees, hugged coaches and wept after beating world champion Juan Antonio Ramos.

Many Afghans were unaware of Nikpai's win because power is intermittent and few households have cable television.

The International Olympic Committee is delighted at unprecedented global interest in the Games.

It said online broadcasts and enormous viewership within China, the world's most populous country, had made the Beijing Olympics the most watched in history.

A record 1.2 billion people are thought to have seen the opening ceremony and 40 million people in the United States alone saw Phelps win his eighth gold medal, an 18-year high for the NBC network's Saturday evening viewing.

Trying to attract a younger audience, the Olympic movement is embracing the Internet and also allowing new telegenic sports.

In the first Olympic 10 km open water swim, Russia's Larisa Ilchenko won by less than two seconds from Britain's Keri-Anne Payne and Cassie Patten, sprinting past the pair in the last 100 meters of the jostling, rough-and-tumble contest.

South Africa amputee Natalie du Toit won admiration for her pluck in swimming the 10 km but there was no medal for the 24-year-old, who lost her left leg in a motorcycle accident in 2001. She finished 16th, around a minute behind Ilchenko.

As well as the water race, TV-friendly BMX biking got its first start, bringing some counter culture attitude to the Games.

To the sound of thumping music, bikers race down a three-storey start ramp, fly over rolling dirt bumps in helmets and protective padding, and crash their tiny bikes recklessly in action-packed races that last less than 40 seconds.

"Being a fast, intense spectator sport, it suits young people's expectations," said France's Anne-Caroline Chausson, who crashed but made it into the semi-finals.

(Reporting by Beijing Olympics bureau, editing by Ralph Gowling)

CNN - Reports: Madrid plane crash kills dozens

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Reports: Madrid plane crash kills dozens

A Spanish plane with more than 170 people on board went off the runway Wednesday at Madrid's Barajas Airport, killing at least 90 people, officials said.

The crash during take off reportedly followed an explosion on board the budget airline jet, sending up a plume of smoke visible from several kilometers away.

The official death toll is 90, according to Interior Ministry officials. But local officials are telling CNN's Spanish sister station CNN+ that 26 people taken to hospital are the only survivors.

Some of those survivors have serious injuries and others non-life threatening injuries, Spanish Red Cross spokeswoman Olivia Acosa told CNN. Many of the injured were treated for burns, she said.

The incident happened as Spanair Flight 5022 was taking off from the main runway, the official said. It was headed to Las Palmas in the Canary Islands, a more than two-hour flight.

The Red Cross said it has set up a field hospital at the airport to treat the injured and is offering psychological counseling to the victims' families.

Clouds of gray and black smoke billowed from the site, and even local media cameras could not get a close view of the accident scene. A helicopter passed overhead, dumping what appeared to be water on reported grassfires sparked by the blaze.

Ambulances were seen speeding in and out of the airport and dozens of emergency vehicles gathered at one entrance point.

Spanish journalist Carlota Fomina told CNN said she had spoken to one of the passengers who had been on board the plane at the time of the crash who described an explosion and fire at the back of the plane.

She said the plane appeared to make a relatively controlled landing.

CNN sister station CNN+ is reporting that the plane may have veered off the runway after experiencing engine problems. Spanish media reported at least 11 fire engines were dispatched to control the blaze.

The accident happened as Spanair Flight 5022 -- also carrying passengers from Lufthansa Flight 2554 -- was taking off at about 2:45 p.m. (8:45 a.m. ET), an airport official said.

Spanair, owned by Scandinavian airline SAS, is one of Spain's three major private carriers.

An SAS official said there were 166 passengers plus six crew on the plane, which was a code-share flight with Lufthansa Airline, indicating the jet may have been carrying German vacationers.

Barajas Airport closed after the crash but reopened more than two hours later, allowing a limited number of take-offs and landings, the airport official said. iReport: Send us your pictures, video, information.

It was the first fatal accident at the airport since December 1983, when 93 people were killed as two Spanish airliners collided while taxiing for takeoff.

The airport, eight miles (13 km) northeast of central Madrid, is Spain's busiest, handling more than 40 million passengers a year.

The United States' National Transportation Safety Board is sending an investigation team to Madrid to aid in the crash investigation because the aircraft is an American-made McDonnell Douglas MD-82, NTSB spokesman Keith Holloway said.

He said the group will depart "as soon as we can gather the team together."

Spanair has set up a local emergency number for family members, +34 800-400-200.

Reuters - Motorola unveils low-end phones for music and Web

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Motorola unveils low-end phones for music and Web

Wednesday, Aug 20, 2008 9:47AM UTC

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Motorola Inc, the world's third-largest handset maker, unveiled two new low-end phones on Wednesday that allow users to listen to songs and surf the Web.

Motorola, which has failed to come up with a strong follow-up to its once-lauded Razr phone, has lost out to market leader Nokia and other rivals since early last year.

The firm, which faces stiff competition from handsets such as Apple Inc's popular touch-screen iPhone, has said it would launch 50 new devices this year, including advanced phones.

One new handset is a music-enabled camera phone -- the W388 -- that sells for under $100.

The second device is a low-end third-generation (3G) mobile phone -- the VE538 -- which goes for less than $250 and offers one-click mobile social networking, photo uploading and blogging at various websites.

The two new products will be shipped to Asia-Pacific markets first -- before being rolled out globally -- by September.

"People don't buy products any more, they buy what those products can create for them -- solutions, dreams, whatever they are looking for in life," said Ian Chapman-Banks, the General Manager for Motorola's Mobile Devices business in Asia. In July, Motorola posted a small quarterly profit after more than a year of disappointing results, as it sold more mobile phones than expected, thanks to strength in North America.

The firm, which narrowly kept its No. 3 ranking in the global phone market ahead of South Korea's LG Electronics Inc, also forecast a full-year profit that beat Wall Street estimates as it plans new products and further cost cutting.

It plans to separate its mobile phone unit from the rest of the company in the third quarter of 2009.

(Reporting by Jennifer Tan; Editing by Kim Coghill)

Reuters - McCain takes lead over Obama: poll

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McCain takes lead over Obama: poll

Wednesday, Aug 20, 2008 3:16PM UTC

By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In a sharp turnaround, Republican John McCain has opened a 5-point lead on Democrat Barack Obama in the U.S. presidential race and is seen as a stronger manager of the economy, according to a Reuters/Zogby poll released on Wednesday.

McCain leads Obama among likely U.S. voters by 46 percent to 41 percent, wiping out Obama's solid 7-point advantage in July and taking his first lead in the monthly Reuters/Zogby poll.

The reversal follows a month of attacks by McCain, who has questioned Obama's experience, criticized his opposition to most new offshore oil drilling and mocked his overseas trip.

The poll was taken Thursday through Saturday as Obama wrapped up a weeklong vacation in Hawaii that ceded the political spotlight to McCain, who seized on Russia's invasion of Georgia to emphasize his foreign policy views.

"There is no doubt the campaign to discredit Obama is paying off for McCain right now," pollster John Zogby said. "This is a significant ebb for Obama."

McCain now has a 9-point edge, 49 percent to 40 percent, over Obama on the critical question of who would be the best manager of the economy -- an issue nearly half of voters said was their top concern in the November 4 presidential election.

That margin reversed Obama's 4-point edge last month on the economy over McCain, an Arizona senator and former Vietnam prisoner of war who has admitted a lack of economic expertise and shows far greater interest in foreign and military policy.

McCain has been on the offensive against Obama during the last month over energy concerns, with polls showing strong majorities supporting his call for an expansion of offshore oil drilling as gasoline prices hover near $4 a gallon.

Obama had opposed new offshore drilling, but said recently he would support a limited expansion as part of a comprehensive energy program.

That was one of several recent policy shifts for Obama, as he positions himself for the general election battle. But Zogby said the changes could be taking a toll on Obama's support, particularly among Democrats and self-described liberals.

"That hairline difference between nuance and what appears to be flip-flopping is hurting him with liberal voters," Zogby said.

Obama's support among Democrats fell 9 percentage points this month to 74 percent, while McCain has the backing of 81 percent of Republicans. Support for Obama, an Illinois senator, fell 12 percentage points among liberals, with 10 percent of liberals still undecided compared to 9 percent of conservatives.

OBAMA NEEDS TO WORK ON BASE

"Conservatives were supposed to be the bigger problem for McCain," Zogby said. "Obama still has work to do on his base. At this point McCain seems to be doing a better job with his."

The dip in support for Obama, who would be the first black U.S. president, cut across demographic and ideological lines. He slipped among Catholics, born-again Christians, women, independents and younger voters. He retained the support of more than 90 percent of black voters.

"There were no wild swings, there isn't one group that is radically different than last month or even two months ago. It was just a steady decline for Obama across the board," Zogby said.

Obama's support among voters between the ages of 18 and 29, which had been one of his strengths, slipped 12 percentage points to 52 percent. McCain, who will turn 72 next week, was winning 40 percent of younger voters.

"Those are not the numbers Obama needs to win," Zogby said about Americans under 30. The 47-year-old is counting on a strong turnout among young voters, a key bloc of support during his primary battle with New York Sen. Hillary Clinton.

It made little difference when independent candidate Ralph Nader and Libertarian Party candidate Bob Barr, who are both trying to add their names to state ballots.

McCain still held a 5-point edge over Obama, 44 percent to 39 percent, when all four names were included. Barr earned 3 percent and Nader 2 percent.

Most national polls have given Obama a narrow lead over McCain throughout the summer. In the Reuters/Zogby poll, Obama had a 5-point lead in June, shortly after he clinched the Democratic nomination, and an 8-point lead on McCain in May.

The telephone poll of 1,089 likely voters had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

The poll was taken as both candidates head into their nominating conventions and the announcements of their choices of vice presidential picks. The Democratic convention begins on Monday in Denver, with the Republican convention opening the next Monday, September 1, in St. Paul, Minnesota.

(Editing by Patricia Wilson and Patricia Zengerle)

CNN - Is GPS a high-tech crime-fighting tool or Big Brother?

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Is GPS a high-tech crime-fighting tool or Big Brother?

It's the stuff crime movies are made of: Determined police officers shadowing their suspect as he drives around town, watching and waiting for his next move, always careful not to lose him.

But now, investigators can track a potential bad guy without ever leaving their desks, thanks to the Global Positioning System, or GPS.

The technology is easy to use and the devices are hard to detect.

All police have to do is attach a GPS receiver to a suspect's car and they easily go along for the ride online, tracking the individual's exact location in real time from their computer.

"I think it's a good use of resources. It doesn't put any officers in danger, which is a good thing," said Mike Brooks, a CNN security enforcement analyst and a former Washington police detective.

"You can sit at a computer and find exactly where [a suspect] goes."

But because investigators often track without a warrant, privacy advocates say the tactic threatens to monitor innocent people as well.

"Law enforcement has a legitimate right to try to solve crimes and track suspects, provided that there are protections so that the innocent are not improperly snooped upon," said Norman Reimer, executive director of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

He wondered how many people would be comfortable knowing that police could attach something to their car and be able track their whereabouts 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week.

A recent case illustrates how investigators use the technology.

Court documents show Fairfax County, Virginia, police followed David Lee Foltz Jr. without a warrant in February by placing a GPS device inside the bumper of his van.

Police began watching Foltz, who had previously been convicted of rape, after 11 attacks on women in the area where he lived, The Washington Post reported.

Foltz is facing trial, charged with abduction and sexual battery. He is charged in connection with an attack that happened after the monitoring began, according to the Post.

The attacks stopped after his arrest in February, the newspaper reported.

Foltz's attorney tried to get the GPS evidence thrown out of court. Chris Leibig wouldn't discuss the case with CNN, but said the tracking constituted illegal search and seizure, a violation of his client's Fourth Amendment right.

"Our main point with this is that before installing a GPS tracking device secretly on someone's vehicle, a judicial officer should make the decision about how much evidence is good enough, how long the tracking can be for, and the parameters of the tracking," Leibig said.

"I want to point out it's very easy to get a warrant if the police have a good reason, it doesn't take a long time, and if there is a real reason, the warrant will be granted."

Leibig described GPS tracking as more intrusive than just an investigator following someone down the street.

"It's a lot more like a police officer tagging along inside your car, an invisible police officer inside your car," Leibig said.

Despite Leibig's motion to suppress, a judge has allowed the evidence to be used at Foltz's trial this October, The Washington Post reported.

Police involved in the case would only say there is an internal review before GPS tracking can be used. Many privacy advocates say that's not enough.

The Supreme Court has yet to address GPS tracking without warrants, so the legal standards vary from state to state. Most allow it or haven't ruled on it. Courts in Washington and Oregon, however, have ruled police need a warrant before using GPS.

"It's a wonderful tool for law enforcement," Reimer said.

"The question always comes down to how much are we willing to give up in freedom and privacy for how much marginal increase in our security."

Reuters - New York Web site gives juicy details on city's notables

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New York Web site gives juicy details on city's notables

Thursday, Aug 14, 2008 9:59PM UTC

By Michelle Nichols

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Which failed presidential hopeful from New York once married his second cousin and who married the same person twice? Which New Yorker gave his girlfriend a $1 million Rolls Royce birthday gift? And which top literary agent drove a cab?

The answers are part of a new Web site, www.cityfile.com, which lists profiles of the 2,121 most notable people in New York City and has sparked questions by some wannabe movers and shakers as to why they are not on the list.

"We have had quite a few e-mails from people suggesting other people to include or (to include) themselves," said Cityfile founder Remy Stern.

While he would not name names, he said: "Society wannabes are the kinds of people who want to be on the list. They desperately want to be taken seriously."

Cityfile has sparked controversy among some of those on the list by revealing some potentially embarrassing details of their private lives and where they live, in some cases even including a picture of their front door.

"There were people who just really objected to it, found it invasive and were unhappy that we listed where they lived or the names of their kids or put up satellite imagery of their house in the Hamptons," Stern, 34, said.

"It's a little amusing when people complain because it's stuff that's really easy to find on the Internet," he said.

Stern, who was born and raised in Manhattan and called on family and friends to help fund Cityfile, said his small editorial team spent the past year determining the city's most influential people.

He likened Cityfile to the Zagat guides, which rate restaurants, clubs, bars and stores. On Cityfile, the most notable are rated by visitors to the site and on Thursday long-time Village Voice columnist Michael Musto was No. 1.

"I'm very flattered, but I don't feel that popular," Musto said, adding that he didn't have a problem with the Web site. "It's fun because it's a place for the 'bold-faced' names of New York. A place to catch up on their antics.

The most viewed profiles are currently Vogue editor Anna Wintour, businessman Aviv Nevo, socialite Tinsley Mortimer, Fox News host Shepard Smith and film producer Harvey Weinstein.

Stern said the Web site aims to be impartial and trustworthy, giving people the "straight scoop on the good the bad and the ugly."

"There's really no place to go to look up who people are and how they're connected," Stern said. "You search for people online and pull up a corporate bio that's full of the charities they donate to, but doesn't tell you the guy spent three years in jail in the '80s or he's been married eight times."

As for the New Yorker who married his second cousin, that was former mayor Rudy Giuliani. Playwright Neil Simon married the same person twice and rapper Jay-Z gave Beyonce, then his girlfriend and now his wife, a $1 million 1959 Rolls Royce for her 25th birthday.

And top New York literary agent Andrew "The Jackal" Wylie once drove a cab.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Leslie Gevirtz)

Reuters - HP introduces lightweight business laptops

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HP introduces lightweight business laptops

Monday, Aug 18, 2008 2:13PM UTC

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Hewlett-Packard Co <HPQ.N> has announced a line of portable lightweight computers aimed at business travelers to compete with a product range announced by rival Dell Inc <DELL.O> last week.

HP said on Monday that the lineup included the EliteBook 2530p, which is the smallest and lightest of its computers with a weight of just over 3 pounds and an extended battery life.

The company said its EliteBook 2730p is an ultra-thin computer that converts to a touch-screen pen-based tablet computer with a twist of its screen and weighs 3.7 pounds.

HP said it expected the HP EliteBook 2530p and HP EliteBook 2730p to become available by early September, with estimated prices of $1,499 and $1,670, respectively.

(Reporting by Sinead Carew; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

CNN - U.S. at risk of cyberattacks, experts say

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U.S. at risk of cyberattacks, experts say

The next large-scale military or terrorist attack on the United States, if and when it happens, may not involve airplanes or bombs or even intruders breaching American borders.

Instead, such an assault may be carried out in cyberspace by shadowy hackers half a world away. And Internet security experts believe that it could be just as devastating to the U.S.'s economy and infrastructure as a deadly bombing.

Experts say last week's attack on the former Soviet republic of Georgia, in which a Russian military offensive was preceded by an Internet assault that overwhelmed Georgian government Web sites, signals a new kind of cyberwar, one for which the United States is not fully prepared.

"Nobody's come up with a way to prevent this from happening, even here in the U.S.," said Tom Burling, acting chief executive of Tulip Systems, an Atlanta, Georgia, Web-hosting firm that volunteered its Internet servers to protect the nation of Georgia's Web sites from malicious traffic.

"The U.S. is probably more Internet-dependent than any place in the world. So to that extent, we're more vulnerable than any place in the world to this kind of attack," Burling added. "So much of what we're doing [in the United States] is out there on the Internet, and all of that can be taken down at once."

"This is such a crucial issue. At every level, our security now is dependent on computers," said Scott Borg, director of the United States Cyber Consequences Unit, a nonprofit research institute. "It's a whole new era. Political and military conflicts now will almost always have a cyber component. The chief targets will be critical infrastructure, and the attacks will emerge from within our own computer systems."

Hackers mounted coordinated assaults on Georgian government, media, banking and transportation sites in the weeks before Russian troops invaded. Known as distributed denial of service, the attacks employ multiple computers to flood networks with millions of simultaneous requests, overwhelming servers and crippling Web sites.

Hackers shut down the Web site of the Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili, for 24 hours and defaced the Georgian parliament site with images of Adolf Hitler. Saakashvili blamed Russia for the attacks, although the Russian government said it was not involved.

Web sites and computer networks have been targeted by hackers for decades, although large-scale, coordinated cyberattacks are still a relatively new phenomenon. Some Internet-security experts believe that the Georgia conflict marks the first time a known cyberattack has coincided with a ground war, but others said that similar computer attacks have accompanied military operations in the Middle East and elsewhere.

The challenge to U.S. security experts is that such attacks can be mounted anonymously, and relatively cheaply, from anywhere in the world. Georgia's attackers employed "botnets," or malicious automated programs that take root undetected in far-flung computers and barrage their targets with useless data. By last Friday, some of those botnets were originating from Comcast Internet addresses in the United States, Burling said.

"It only takes a couple of experts; it doesn't take a whole cyber infantry division to pull something like this off," said Don Jackson, director of threat intelligence for SecureWorks, an Atlanta-based computer security firm. "For a very small investment in resources, you can have a huge impact."

In the United States, government computer networks parry millions of attempted intrusions every day, Internet-security experts say. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security created a National Cybersecurity Center this year to coordinate federal cyberdefense efforts and quicken responsiveness. However, a recent Homeland Security Department intelligence report, obtained by The Associated Press, concluded that there are no effective means to prevent a coordinated attack on U.S. Web sites.

"When it comes to our government IT security, we're pretty strong in protecting against [attacks]," Homeland Security spokesman William R. Knocke told CNN. "But I wouldn't say ... we're 100 percent impenetrable."

So what would a cyberattack on the United States look like? And where is the U.S. most vulnerable? It depends on who you talk to.

Borg does not believe that the U.S. is susceptible to the kind of attacks launched at Georgia.

"We can command so much bandwidth that it's hard to overwhelm our servers," he said. "We are vulnerable to more sophisticated attacks, but right now most of the people who want to do us harm don't have those capabilities."

The Web sites of key government security agencies, such as the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency, are difficult to bring down, experts said. So are the computer networks of large American banks. But experts say a successful, large-scale attack on U.S. computer systems could hobble electric-power grids, transportation networks and industrial-supply chains.

"You'd see some disruption of essential services, like electricity. You'd definitely see espionage," said James A. Lewis, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "Would it be decisive? No. Nobody's going to win a conflict with the United States in cyberspace. But would it be disruptive and irritating? Yes."

Federal researchers who launched an experimental cyberattack last year in Idaho caused a generator to self-destruct, prompting fears about the effect of a real attack on the nation's electrical supply.

And a May report by the Government Accountability Office found that the Tennessee Valley Authority, which supplies power to almost 9 million people in the southeastern U.S., had not installed sufficient cybersecurity measures. Spokesman Jim Allen said the TVA, the nation's largest publicly owned utility company, is "on track" to correct the problems.

What frustrates computer-security experts is that the features that make the Internet such an invaluable resource -- its openness and interconnectedness -- also make it easier for hackers to do harm. As a staple of 21st-century warfare, cyberattacks will become increasingly sophisticated, forcing governments and private industry to build ever-stronger firewalls and other defenses, experts said.

Also, vague international laws and a lack of accountability will continue to make tracking down and prosecuting cyberattackers difficult.

"We don't know quite what the rules are for this kind of conflict. If it's spying, it's illegal. But is it an act of war? And who do you arrest?" Lewis asked. "We're much safer [in the U.S.] than we were a year ago. But we still have a long way to go."

USA TODAY - Inventors are sure cars can fly

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LOS ANGELES
By Chris Woodyard and Sharon Silke Carty, USA TODAY

The auto industry has seen its share of technological leaps, whether it was the advent of electric starters, automatic transmissions or hybrid gas-electric powertrains. And don't forget hideaway headlights.

One leap that engineers and tinkerers have never quite made, however, but refuse to let die: the flying car.

PHOTO GALLERY: Those incredible flying and driving machines

Year after year a few more try. Of all those stuck stewing in traffic gridlock, who hasn't imagined soaring Jetsons-style directly to a destination?

Most flying cars never get off the page, let alone the ground. The few that do are bedeviled by lack of funding, impracticality, limited appeal or fears they may simply break apart in flight as some have.

The fact is that these keystones of modern transportation cars and planes have basic differences that make them a match made in hell.

"It's like trying to mate a pig and an elephant," says Lionel Salisbury, editor of the Roadable Times, a website that has made him a de facto chronicler of flying car attempts. "You don't get a very good elephant, or a very good pig."

Today, a new crop of magnificent men and women believe advanced materials and sounder business practices finally will allow their flying machines to defy skeptics.

They range from a guy who just built a prototype three-wheel flying motorcycle in the driveway of his Los Angeles home to a Woburn, Mass., company with more than 50 orders for a two-seat car that flies. Some designs call for wings that telescope. Some fold, manually or at the push of a button.

No dreamers allowed. Only cold-eyed realists. Aware of how quickly they can be branded kooks, the new breed deliberately discourages the label "flying cars" and eschews Hollywood fantasies such as Harrison Ford cruising the skies of Los Angeles in Ridley Scott's 1982 Blade Runner.

Their preferred terminology is "roadable aircraft" a plane you can drive to the airport, then sprout wings and fly off into the sunset. They see early adopters as private pilots.

"You get a lot of people who have the Jetsons dream of one of these things in everyone's driveway. Maybe that will happen someday, but it's not something you can build a business on now," says Carl Dietrich, CEO of Massachusetts-based Terrafugia.

The effort has been helped by innovations in cheap, lightweight engines and strong, light materials such as carbon-fiber composites. They could finally lead to an affordable vehicle equally at home on the interstate or the runway.

Today's group follows pioneers such as Paul Moller, who has pursued his vision of a flying car since 1970. He predicted to USA TODAY in 1994 that he would be mass producing his M400 Skycar by 2000 and selling it for as little as $30,000. His company is still alive and he's still trying to start production.

Moller was far from the first. Salisbury, a former pilot living north of Toronto, says he's found records of attempts at a flying car formulated "within months of the Wright brothers." The first patent was issued 15 years later in 1918.

At least 100 serious tries followed. The original Aerocar of the 1950s was among the most successful, with five built, says Jake Schultz, author of A Drive in the Clouds The Story of the Aerocar. It was a novel design: The wings detached to turn into a trailer towed behind the car. He says at least one is still flying and three are in museums.

Developed by private pilot Molt Taylor, the Aerocar was one of only two flying cars to be certified by the predecessor agency to the FAA. An aircraft company later known as Ling-Temco-Vought looked at the Aerocar, but didn't get enough orders to justify production. Ford Motor looked, too, but lost interest, so Taylor started building sport aircraft.

Salisbury says it was 1970s entrepreneur Henry Smolinski who developed a wing and engine to be hooked to the back of a Ford Pinto, a subcompact car in the era, with hopes of production.

"It was fun," says Bert Boeckmann, whose Galpin Motors in Los Angeles is the nation's largest Ford dealership. He took a test ride in the Flying Pinto to an altitude of about 10 feet.

But the operation "was kind of working on a shoestring" and didn't pay enough attention to safety. Smolinski and a colleague were killed in 1973 when a wing collapse led to a fiery crash.

"Henry said if he ever died, he would like to die in his Flying Pinto," Boeckmann recalls.

Such structural risks inevitably come into play as inventors try to make a car light enough to get off the ground.

"Weight is one of the problems," says Bob Blake, an auto historian in North Carolina. "You're trying to make something that's designed for the highway to go into the sky. Even now, with the lightweight composite materials, it's more of a novelty than something practical."

But the latest entrepreneurs believe otherwise and are convinced they can strike the balance. Drivable aircraft now being developed include:

Terrafugia Transition.

Dietrich says he thought most interest in his carbon-fiber craft would be from "wealthy playboy types. We have a couple of those but have a lot of retired couples who want to use it to fly around for fun."

He says his company has 10 employees and that he's been working on the Terrafugia Transition's design since 2004. Design goals include a range of 500 miles and conversion from car to plane or vice versa in about 15 seconds.

Dietrich says more than 50 have already been ordered. The first flight is planned by the end of the year, and he hopes deliveries can begin in 2010.

At a projected price of $194,000, the Transition "is not a replacement for a Honda," he says, Rather, it's meant to provide "a fundamental new freedom that has never existed in one package. And we know there is a market for it."

LaBiche FSC-1.

Mitch LaBiche believes he has the winning formula for his flying car: The wings extend from the car with the push of a button, instead of being bolted on or unfolded.

LaBiche Aerospace settled on the configuration after interviewing about 3,000 people to find out what they wanted in a car that could fly. "Most people most interested in flying cars were already pilots," LaBiche says. "They wanted to drive to a local airport, take off, land at their destination and then reverse the whole process to come home."

He says, "People basically structure their lives around where they live and work. We are a car-based society, and 75% of our travel is less than 80 miles, so people want something that acts more like a car than a plane."

LaBiche is taking orders for the FSC-1 as a buildable kit costing $175,000. He hopes eventually to get the craft federally certified an expensive proposition so it can be sold as a fully-built unit.

"We want to show people what we can do," he says of his six-worker company. "Once we have enough of them out there, some history and some backing, we can go out and attract the $250 million we need."

Samson SkyBike.

Sam Bousfield came up with a futurist design for a three-wheeled flying motorcycle with wings that telescope so it won't be blown around on the highway.

Bousfield, whose Samson Motorworks is based near Sacramento, says engineering is underway and he hopes to have a half-scale, radio-controlled model flying in a few months.

He hopes to be able to produce a full-size kit version that could sell for about $50,000. At that price, "We feel we can sell at least 1,000 kits a year," he says.

Caravella CaraVellair.

After a decade working at Rocketdyne, a big aerospace company, Joseph Caravella had saved up more than $100,000 to be able to quit and pursue his dream: a flying three-wheel motorcycle.

The idea came to him after he got a speeding ticket driving from Indiana to Virginia while in college. He'd been clocked by an aircraft.

Caravella Aerospace's design calls for a lightweight single engine that powers both the motorcycle and a rear-mounted propeller from an enclosed cockpit. Aimed at commuters, he sees cost as a key advantage for the single-seat CaraVellair, as he's named it: He believes it can be produced as a kit for $50,000. He hopes to have a version flying by 2010.

Caravella spent months working in his garage and driveway with dad Joe Sr. to finish the non-flying prototype in time for EAA AirVenture Oshkosh aviation show earlier this month in Wisconsin. Terrafugia and Samson also were displayed at the show.

Moller Neuera.

While Moller's Skycar won attention, it has been grounded by cost. Moller International has moved to a less ambitious project designed to make sales, not just headlines.

Moller is working on a saucer-like, ground-effect vehicle. The M200X prototype, possibly to be marketed as the Neuera (pronounced: new era), would "fly" actually hover at less than 10 feet and travel for an hour at speeds of up to 75 miles per hour. It is not a true plane and, the company says, would not require a pilot's license.

Moller general manager Bruce Calkins says the 17-worker company in Davis, Calif., hopes to build 40 for delivery starting in 2010 at up to $250,000 each. But he considers it just a way station on the way to producing a car that really flies. "Eventually, the common vision of having a flying car is going to be true."

Matt Novak, however, remains unconvinced. The host of Paleofuture.com, a blog that looks at past predictions of the future, says flying cars look even further away these days.

"We had this sort of optimism in the '50s and '60s, a feeling that things were inevitable because of technology. And flying cars were on the short list," Novak says. "I don't think we're going to have freeways in the sky any time soon."

Woodyard reported from Los Angeles and Carty from Detroit.

Website address: http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2008-08-17-flying-cars_N.htm

Reuters - Xbox 360 beats PS3 in Japan

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Xbox 360 beats PS3 in Japan

Monday, Aug 18, 2008 7:17AM UTC

TOKYO (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp's <MSFT.O> Xbox 360 beat Sony Corp's <6758.T> PlayStation 3 in Japan weekly sales for the first time two weeks ago, riding robust demand for a recent Xbox 360 title produced by Namco Bandai Holdings <7832.T>, a magazine publisher said.

Microsoft sold 28,116 units of the Xbox 360 in the week ended August 10, compared with 10,705 units of the PS3, driven by the August 7 launch in Japan of Namco Bandai's "Tales of Vesperia" role-playing game, Ascii Media Works said.

Microsoft, locked in a three-way game console battle with Sony and Nintendo Co Ltd <7974.OS>, has been struggling to stir up demand for the Xbox 360 in Japan.

During the week, the Microsoft machine still lagged behind Nintendo's Wii, which sold 41,044 units, according to an Ascii Media Works report dated August 14.

The Wii has been leading the global video game console market since its launch in late 2006 thanks to its easy-to-learn motion-sensing controller, low price and innovative software titles such as "Wii Fit" exercise game.

Namco Bandai plans to launch "Tales of Vesperia", an Xbox 360 exclusive, in North America on August 26.

(Reporting by Kiyoshi Takenaka; Editing by Hugh Lawson)