Thomson Reuters News Pro story - There's more water on the moon than anyone thought

water on the moon?

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"There's more water on the moon than anyone thought"

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - There is far more water on the moon than just about anyone thought and it is likely widespread deep under its surface, according to a report released on Monday.

Science News

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Thomson Reuters News Pro story - Facebook profitable with '09 revenue near $800 million

moneytime

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"Facebook profitable with '09 revenue near $800 million"

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Facebook's financial performance is stronger than previously believed, as the Internet social network's explosive growth in users and advertisers boosted 2009 revenue to as much as $800 million, according to two sources familiar with the situation.

Internet News

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Thomson Reuters News Pro story - Cameroon Lions ready to devour Japan

cameroon baby yeah,

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"Cameroon Lions ready to devour Japan"

By Angus MacSwan

BLOEMFONTEIN, South Africa, June 13 (Reuters) - Cameroon's Indomitable Lions look set to feast on struggling Japan when they meet in their opening World Cup match on Monday (1400 GMT).

The nation that thrilled the world with the emerging power of African soccer by reaching the quarter-finals in the 1990 tournament have not been on such great form in recent years.

But spearheaded by striker Samuel Eto'o, they have rediscovered their roar under coach Paul Le Guen and will carry the hopes of many people not just in Cameroon but across the African continent as it hosts its first World Cup.

Japan are putting on a brave face but they have struggled to score goals and look destined to be the supporting cast in Group E, which also features Denmark and Netherlands.

Eto'o will need to put a spat with former Cameroon great Roger Milla behind him when he leads his team out at Bloemfontein's Free State Stadium.

Milla questioned the Inter Milan player's commitment to his country, prompting Eto'o to threaten to miss the tournament. But the three-times Africa Player of the Year had a thumbs-up and smile for the crowd when he arrived in Durban on Thursday.

Frenchman Le Guen, who has turned Cameroon around since his appointment in July last year, said the strong and experienced squad was in good fettle despite the Milla/Eto'o row and the failure to win any of their warm-up games.

"We had a good preparation and we are optimistic," he said. "We have pressure but it's not a surprise for me. It's normal. We have good players, we have a good team, I am hopeful."

The partnership of Jean Makoun and Alexandre Song in central midfield will also be crucial if Cameroon are to repeat former glories and dance once more around the corner flag, as Milla memorably did in 1990 after scoring.

The Lions were the first African side to reach the last eight and have the most appearances by any African nation.

JAPANESE FAILURE

Struggling Japan have failed to win a World Cup match on foreign soil and are desperate to find their scoring touch.

Fans of the Blue Samurai will place their hopes on attacking midfielder Keisuke Honda, who might even be used as a striker.

"I have practised this way of playing form time-to-time and I have been told there is possibility of having this role," the 23-year-old told reporters after Japan laboured to goalless draw against Zimbabwe in their last warm-up game on Thursday.

"It is the first time for me to take that role and I found it fairly comfortable. The playing time was short but I had a good number of chances. We didn't score but created some good attacking patterns," he said.

The Zimbabwe result followed four matches in which Japan managed just one goal, in a 2-1 defeat by England.

Midfielder Makoto Hasebe acknowledges the lack of firepower is a problem but still believes Japan have a fighting chance.

"Our problem in scoring goals is an issue that has needed addressing for quite some time and it is something we are acutely aware of," he said.

"I think we have a real chance of beating Cameroon as they are not at their best. It won't be easy, of course, but the main thing is that we are all in top condition."

Japan qualified for the finals in style behind Australia in the Asia/Oceania group but will find the power and pace of Cameroon, Denmark and Netherlands a different ball game to facing the likes of Qatar and Uzbekistan.

Reuters Football - World Cup 2010

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Reuters - Big expectations for RIM at BlackBerry trade show

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Big expectations for RIM at BlackBerry trade show

Thursday, Apr 22, 2010 6:2PM UTC

By Susan Taylor

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Research In Motion Ltd needs to produce evidence next week that it is close to unveiling a more consumer-friendly BlackBerry experience if it hopes to disarm critics who question its competitive chops.

A growing chorus of analysts say Apple's iPhone, Motorola's Droid and other rival smartphones could keep taking market share from the BlackBerry until RIM delivers an improved operating system and browser.

That has heightened the anticipation surrounding RIM's annual Wireless Enterprise Symposium this year. The event, which runs April 27-29 in Orlando, Florida, is expected to draw thousands of analysts, BlackBerry customers, partners and developers.

Many wonder if RIM is close to taking the wraps off phones that feature what the industry likes to call "a compelling, high-end user experience".

Even some devout BlackBerry fans find fault with the look, feel and operation of a device that is built around its email function. Analysts say RIM could sweeten the appeal of its phones by adding multi-touch technology and other intuitive, easy-to-use features that have defined Apple's iPhone.

Should RIM deliver, "I think that will put a lot of the naysayers' concern to rest," said Avian Securities analyst Matthew Thornton.

"The expectation is that they can't compete at the high end so they're increasingly pushing down price scale to the lower end, and that will run out of room at some point and it'll have implications for profitability."

As RIM faces ever-increasing competition in North America, it has made a concerted push into fast-growth international markets, where its cheaper but still profitable smartphones find favor.

RIM says it is still a contender in the consumer market, but analysts want to hear details about how it plans to win that fight. Its effort to increase the number of apps that run on its phones, for example, is a key part of that strategy and an area where it falls well short of Apple's success.

POSITIVE VIBE BOOSTS STOCK

In the past, RIM used the WES event to show off new products and partnerships, generating a positive vibe that has boosted its stock.

"In the past three years, WES has been a positive catalyst for RIM's shares, outpacing both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq by 5 percent plus," said Oppenheimer analyst Ittai Kidron in a note to clients.

RIM co-Chief Executive Jim Balsillie heightened expectations recently by promising major product launches in the year ahead. He told analysts on a conference call that if they saw the company's playbook they would be "blown away".

Speculation has centered on RIM unveiling several new handsets at the show, most notably the high-end BlackBerry 9670. The device, expected to be shaped like a clamshell, could become the first RIM phone to use the new operating system.

The company may also use the trade show to launch the long-awaited high-end Bold 9650 and lower-end 3G Pearl.

"I want to walk away from this event feeling like these guys do have another high-end product cycle that is worth paying attention to," Avian's Thornton said.

This week, respected tech blogger Boy Genius posted screen shots of the 9670 and details of what the blog said was RIM's upcoming operating system. The system got a highly favorable review.

Canaccord Adams analyst Peter Misek said he will look for details on RIM's 2010 growth plan and how it plans to differentiate itself from market-hungry rivals gnawing away at sales.

The Waterloo, Ontario-based company may do this at a full-day analyst meeting on Monday, the day before WES opens.

Evidence of the stiff competition that RIM faces was brought into sharp relief on Tuesday when Apple posted blowout results on the back of record iPhone sales.

By comparison, RIM reported quarterly profit, revenue, and phone shipments March 31 that came in below market expectations, raising concerns about its prospects.

Particularly troubling for RIM investors are Apple's inroads in international markets such as Asia, which is regarded as a key expansion region for RIM.

($1=$1.00 Canadian)

(Additional reporting by Nicole Mordant in Vancouver; editing by Frank McGurty and Peter Galloway)

Reuters - Speedy scanner re-writes book on publishing technology

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Speedy scanner re-writes book on publishing technology

Friday, Apr 16, 2010 7:13AM UTC

TOKYO (Reuters Life!) - Simply flipping through a book may not seem like the best to way to scan it, but a Japanese research group at Tokyo University has created new software that allows hundreds of pages to be scanned within minutes.

Scanning paper is normally a tedious process with each page having to be inserted into a flat-bed scanner, but the team led by professor Masatoshi Ishikawa use a high speed camera that takes 500 pictures a second to scan pages as they are flipped.

Normal scanners can only scan the information that is actually before them on the page. The new scanner being developed is able to deal with the fact that pages that are being flipped are normally deformed in some fashion.

"It takes a shot of the shape, then it calculates the shape and uses those calculations to film the scanning," Ishikawa said, explaining the system used to reconstruct the original page.

"As it can film while understanding the underlying shape, it's very easy to then take the pages that are being scanned and save them as a normal flat copy."

The current system is able to scan an average 200-250 page book in a little over 60 seconds using basic computer hardware that is available off-the-shelf.

While it now requires extra time to process the scanned images, the researchers hope to eventually make the technology both faster and much smaller.

"In the more the distant future, once it becomes possible to put all of this processing on one chip and then put that in a iPad or iPod, one could scan just using that chip. At that point, it becomes possible to scan something quickly to save for later reading," Ishikawa told Reuters.

Being able to scan books with an iPhone may be further off, but Ishikawa says that a commercial version of the large-scale computer based scanning system could be available in two to three years.

While the technology has the potential to take paper books into the digital age, it remains to be how publishers will react to people scanning their books while just flipping through them.

(Reporting by Chris Meyers, editing by Miral Fahmy)

Reuters - Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" in Twitter twist

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Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" in Twitter twist

Tuesday, Apr 13, 2010 7:4PM UTC

LONDON (Reuters) - One of Shakespeare's most famous plays gets a 21st century makeover in a new version of "Romeo and Juliet" which will unfold through Twitter messages and on the YouTube video website.

Entitled "Such Tweet Sorrow," the experiment is a collaboration between the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) and Mudlark, which produces entertainment on mobile telephones.

Organizers have already outlined a contemporary "narrative arc" loosely based on the original tragedy, and the cast will improvise the rest through Tweets which have already begun to appear on the website www.suchtweetsorrow.com.

The production will take place over five weeks and allows for the characters to interact not only among themselves but also with members of the "audience."

Each character writes their own tweets, guided by an existing storyline and diary which outlines where they are at any moment in the adventure.

And so two families named after the original adversaries the Montagues and Capulets have loathed each other for years after a fatal car crash in an unnamed English market town in 2000.

Juliet, played by actress Charlotte Wakefield, is just turning 16 and wonders whether she should have a birthday party to celebrate. She posts a video on YouTube showing viewers a typical teenager's bedroom.

Her Twitter name is @julietcap16 while Romeo's entry into the messaging world comes later as "he is too busy on his Xbox."

"We have no real idea of what the next five weeks will bring, but we are holding onto our seatbelts," said Charles Hunter from Mudlark.

Michael Boyd, artistic director of the RSC, added: "Our ambition is always to connect people with Shakespeare and bring actors and audiences closer together.

"Mobile phones don't need to be the antichrist for theater. This digital experiment ... allows our actors to use mobiles to tell their stories in real time and reach people wherever they are in a global theater."

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)

Reuters - Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" in Twitter twist

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Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" in Twitter twist

Tuesday, Apr 13, 2010 7:4PM UTC

LONDON (Reuters) - One of Shakespeare's most famous plays gets a 21st century makeover in a new version of "Romeo and Juliet" which will unfold through Twitter messages and on the YouTube video website.

Entitled "Such Tweet Sorrow," the experiment is a collaboration between the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) and Mudlark, which produces entertainment on mobile telephones.

Organizers have already outlined a contemporary "narrative arc" loosely based on the original tragedy, and the cast will improvise the rest through Tweets which have already begun to appear on the website www.suchtweetsorrow.com.

The production will take place over five weeks and allows for the characters to interact not only among themselves but also with members of the "audience."

Each character writes their own tweets, guided by an existing storyline and diary which outlines where they are at any moment in the adventure.

And so two families named after the original adversaries the Montagues and Capulets have loathed each other for years after a fatal car crash in an unnamed English market town in 2000.

Juliet, played by actress Charlotte Wakefield, is just turning 16 and wonders whether she should have a birthday party to celebrate. She posts a video on YouTube showing viewers a typical teenager's bedroom.

Her Twitter name is @julietcap16 while Romeo's entry into the messaging world comes later as "he is too busy on his Xbox."

"We have no real idea of what the next five weeks will bring, but we are holding onto our seatbelts," said Charles Hunter from Mudlark.

Michael Boyd, artistic director of the RSC, added: "Our ambition is always to connect people with Shakespeare and bring actors and audiences closer together.

"Mobile phones don't need to be the antichrist for theater. This digital experiment ... allows our actors to use mobiles to tell their stories in real time and reach people wherever they are in a global theater."

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)

CNN - Source: Terror plot targeted Times Square, Grand Central stations

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Source: Terror plot targeted Times Square, Grand Central stations

The three men accused of plotting to bomb the New York City subway last year planned to attack trains at Times Square and Grand Central stations, a federal law enforcement source said Monday.

Najibullah Zazi and his two co-defendants wanted to inflict maximum casualties around the anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, the source said.

The trio, wearing homemade bombs, plotted to position themselves in the middle of busy subway cars in order to kill the most people, probably targeting the 1, 2, 3, or 6 line trains, the source said.

Since his arrest, Zazi has given authorities information about the plot. The law enforcement source said Zazi would probably have chosen September 14 for the attack, but was also considering the September 15 or 16.

Zazi's co-defendants, Adis Medunjanin and Zarein Ahmedzay, are indicted in the plot and have pleaded not guilty.

All three men went to the same high school in Flushing, Queens, New York.

The plot was foiled when the FBI began following Zazi and police stopped him on a bridge into New York. Zazi said that prompted him to dump his bomb materials and return to Denver, Colorado, where he was working as a shuttle driver, authorities said.

Prosecutors have said they plan one or two more arrests overseas.

Zazi is scheduled for sentencing in June.

Reuters - Magnitude 7.8 quake shakes Indonesia's Sumatra

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Magnitude 7.8 quake shakes Indonesia's Sumatra

Tuesday, Apr 06, 2010 10:57PM UTC

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A major earthquake of 7.8 magnitude shook the northwestern coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra, the U.S. Geological Survey said on Tuesday.

A local tsunami watch was in effect for Indonesia, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said.

"A destructive widespread tsunami threat does not exist based on historical earthquake and tsunami data," the center said.

But it added "there is the possibility of a local tsunami that could affect coasts" no more than 100 km (62 miles) from the epicenter of the quake.

The quake was centered 127 miles west-northwest of Sibolga and was at a depth of 28.6 miles, the USGS said. It initially reported the quake's magnitude at 7.6.

In December 2004, a magnitude 9.15 quake off the coast of Sumatra's Aceh province triggered an Indian Ocean tsunami that killed about 226,000 people in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand and nine other countries.

(Reporting by World Desk Americas)

Reuters - Apple's iPad hits store shelves; testing begins

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Apple's iPad hits store shelves; testing begins

Saturday, Apr 03, 2010 9:9PM UTC

By Sinead Carew and Paul Thomasch

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Apple Inc's iPad hit store shelves on Saturday after months of breathless buildup, kicking off a critical sales period that will determine if the sleek tablet computer becomes the next blockbuster.

At Apple's flagship store on Fifth Avenue in New York City, cheers went up from employees as shoppers entered the shop at 9 a.m. (1300 GMT), emerging a few minutes later carrying the first iPads, a device touted as a bridge between a laptop and smartphone.

Hours after the doors opened, the store remained loud and bustling. Some customers, like Simon Cox, immediately cracked open their new iPads for a trial run.

Cox, a high school math teacher visiting from Manchester, England, said he tested his device with a quick email to friends and family.

"It looks fantastic, so nice to hold and play and touch," he said, noting that the iPad is smaller than he expected. "It's easier to carry around. I certainly know I'll use it when I'm out and about."

Technology experts also rushed to have a firsthand look at the gadget, taking apart the iPad to catalog its components and inner workings. One firm, iFixit, an Apple parts and repair specialist, revealed the iPad includes chips from Samsung Electronics, Broadcom, and Texas Instruments.

Wall Street is curious to see if the device -- which went on sale at the company's more than 200 retail outlets in the United States, along with many Best Buy stores -- can win a mass following and will be monitoring crowds this weekend to gauge its appeal.

If so, it could provide another boost to Apple, whose stock has been hitting record highs, as well as companies that provide parts and components for the iPad.

Crowds built steadily at stores around the country beginning early on Friday, with shoppers waiting at locations in New York, Washington, Boston and San Francisco. But the lines were noticeably shorter than those that ushered in the iPhone in 2007.

Will Kiefer, 28, who waited at a store at Burlington Mall, north of Boston, said he hoped the iPad would allow him to break away from his desktop computer -- and avoid buying a laptop.

"I think this will do everything for me that I need. ... I'll do my random New York Times reading from the iPad," said Kiefer, a freelance software developer who is among those hoping to develop some apps for the new device.

In Richmond, Virginia, about 100 people gathered at an Apple store, drinking coffee and mingling in a festive atmosphere.

Matt Reidy, IT director at a company called snagajob.com, said he got there at 1 a.m. and was first in line. "My wife thinks I'm crazy," said Reidy, 43. "She said I'd be the oldest person out there."

Because customers have been able to pre-order the gadget since mid-March, there was little reason to stand in line for the launch. Those who ordered early enough online were to get their iPads on Saturday, from store pickups or home delivery.

Analysts say the company received several hundred thousand pre-orders, with sales estimated at anywhere from 4 million to 7 million in the gadget's first year.

MUCH AT STAKE

Apple has plenty riding on the iPad, which it introduced in January and calls a new category of device: a lightweight media consumption device that tries to fuse the best attributes of a smartphone and a laptop.

The iPad's touchscreen measures 9.7 inches. At 1.5 pounds (680 g), it resembles an oversized iPhone and runs on the same operating system. It starts at $499 for a short-range Wi-Fi model, topping out at more than $800 for a 3G-enabled version.

The iPad is designed for using media of all sorts, including games, video, pictures, e-books and magazines. It can access roughly 150,000 existing iPhone apps, as well as new ones freshly designed for the iPad.

Apple is also launching its own digital book business to compete with the Kindle from Amazon.com Inc and other e-readers and e-books.

The iPad is the first in a wave of lightweight tablet devices expected to land this year from rival vendors, including Hewlett-Packard Co and Dell Inc.

The question is whether the iPad can attract a mainstream following beyond the first few months of excitement.

Technology enthusiasts have praised the iPad's beautiful screen and fast Web browser, but also have pointed out some missing pieces. It lacks a camera, cannot run more than one app at a time, and it cannot view popular video sites that use Adobe's Flash software.

Reviewers at The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal said the iPad works nicely for Web surfing and multimedia -- but may appeal less to people who need computers for more heavy-duty chores.

Saturday's iPad launch is only in the United States, and only for the Wi-Fi model.

(Additional reporting by Gabriel Madway in Richmond, Va. and Ros Krasny in Boston, and Christopher Michaud in New York; Editing by Edwin Chan, Jan Paschal and Doina Chiacu)