Singer-songwriter Carole King to receive U.S. Gershwin prize






(Reuters) – American singer-songwriter Carole King will be awarded the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, the U.S. national library said on Thursday.


The multiple Grammy Award winner co-wrote her first No. 1 hit at age 17 with then-husband Gerry Goffin and was the first female solo artist to sell more than 10 million copies of a single album, with her 1971 release “Tapestry.”






The prize honors individuals for lifetime achievement in popular music, the library said. It is named after songwriting brothers George and Ira Gershwin.


King, now 70, topped the charts with the song “It’s Too Late” in 1971, but is best known for her work performed by others, including “You’ve Got a Friend” by James Taylor and “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” by Aretha Franklin.


“I was so pleased when the venerable Library of Congress began honoring writers of popular songs with the Gershwin Prize,” King said in a statement. “I’m proud to be the fifth such honoree and the first woman among such distinguished company.”


King and Goffin wrote some the biggest hits of the 1960s before their nine-year marriage ended in 1968. They rose to prominence in 1960 writing “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” for the Shirelles.


The duo also scored hits with “Take Good Care of My Baby,” performed by Bobby Vee in 1961, “The Loco-Motion,” performed by Little Eva in 1962 and “Pleasant Valley Sunday,” performed by The Monkees in 1967, among others.


New York-born King did not hit it big as a singer until 1971, when “Tapestry” topped the U.S. album charts for 15 weeks, then a record for a female solo artist.


Past recipients of the award include Paul Simon, Stevie Wonder, Paul McCartney and songwriting tandem Burt Bacharach and Hal David.


(Reporting by Eric Kelsey; Editing by Jill Serjeant and Xavier Briand)


Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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Newtown Shooting: Young Kids Cope With Horror






Witnesses at Sandy Hook Elementary School reported horrific scenes as a shooter took 27 lives today — the shattering sounds of gunshots, children locked in the bathrooms and parents crying outside in the parking lot.


Experts say that the young children who saw events first-hand can have lasting psychological scars, but those whose home lives are stable and supportive will have fewer long-term scars.






“It was horrific,” said Kaitlin Roig, a 29-year-old teacher, who was in a morning meeting when the gunman entered the school.


“Suddenly, I heard rapid fire, like an assault weapon,” the first grade teacher told ABC. She rounded up her 14 students and locked them and herself in the bathroom. “I helped kids climb on the toilet dispenser [so they could all fit in].


“I thought we were going to die.”


CLICK HERE for more on the Newtown, Conn., School Shooting.


Children in such a situation “are terrified, and they don’t have the cognitive or emotional capacities to make sense of this,” said Dr. Nadine Kaslow, professor and vice chair of the department of psychiatry at Emory School of Medicine.


“Not that any of us can make any sense of this,” said Kaslow. “It’s truly inconceivable.”


At least 27 people, mostly children under the age of 10, were shot and killed at the K-to-4 school this morning, federal and state sources tell ABC News.


The massacre drew SWAT teams to the school and the town of Newtown locked down all its schools, authorities said today.


According to federal sources, the gunman was identified as Adam Lanza, 20. His mother, who worked at the elementary school, was one of the victims.


CLICK HERE for more photos from the scene.


One mother named Christine who has a child at Sandy Hook told ABC about the chaos that ensued when she arrived at the school this morning.


“When I got there, there were just parents running into the firehouse because they were directing us there. That’s where children had been evacuating to, and we went in and people were just grabbing their children and hugging and crying. There were lots of children crying.”


She said another parent who had been at the school at the time was “pretty broken up.” Many parents didn’t know where their children were.


In 1996 in Dunblane, Scotland, 15 children and a teacher were killed in a similar massacre.


Parents and caregivers play the most important role in a child’s recovery from a traumatic event, according to Dr. Gene Beresin, director of training in child and adolescent psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital.


“Children need to know that they are safe,” he said. “Are people taking care of me? How is this going to affect my life? They need to be reassured.”


“Thinking about kids in all disasters, you think about the airlines — when the oxygen mask drops, you put your mask on first and then help the child next,” said Beresin.


“Parents need to take care of themselves first. [The children] need to know you are calm and in control,” he said.


Adults and community support is critical, according to Beresin.


Young children who witness violence can have acute or post-traumatic stress disorder. “The immediate reaction is shock and horror,” he said.


After events like this, communities typically set up crisis centers in a church or other public place where people can seek professional and spiritual help.


Turn the television off, say experts, but answer your children’s questions. Don’t disregard an older sibling who is watching the news unfold and is worried. They need assurance, too, he said.


According to Beresin, young children may not have “discreet memories” of the event, but they can still have an emotional reaction, experiencing nightmares or, conversely, emotional numbing, said Beresin.


“Some kids shut down,” he said. “They may actually turn off and not want to be hugged or cuddled — that’s a normal response. Some kids are clingy, and others will withdraw.”


Kids can also regress in the aftermath of a traumatic event.


Parents should not force a child to open up, but “don’t let them be alone,” he said.


One way young children can work out problems are through reenactment. “They may be playing a game about shooting and dying, and parents should not stop that,” said Beresin. “Let them do it.”


Young children can also ask questions that don’t directly relate to the event, according to Rahill Briggs, assistant professor of pediatrics at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City.


“They can ask directly or less directly about guns, or heaven or death or about a pet that died,” she said.


In studies of 9/11 one of the findings — not a surprising one — after the terrorist attacks was that those who were most directly affected “suffered the most,” according to Briggs. Coping with grief long-term depended on the cohesion of the child’s family — “how well the caregiving system responds to distress. When it is proactive, by definition the children do better.”


“What was the most incredibly predictive five years out was how everyone was doing before the incident,” said Briggs. “It is the same for mental health in general, those who are coping well in their lives before a trauma are the most likely to cope well afterwards — even if they saw the towers fall.”


Also Read
Parenting/Kids News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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Man City losses halve in 2011-12







Manchester City has revealed that its financial losses for 2011-12 have halved from a year earlier.






The Premier League champions announced a pre-tax loss of £93.4m, down from £189.6m in 2010-11.


Revenues increased 51% to £231.1m, with the club’s first appearance in the Uefa Champions League contributing more than £22m in new revenue.


The club’s sponsorship deal with Etihad Airways helped commercial partnership revenue double from £48.5m to £97m.


City’s operating loss also improved from a record £194.9m to £104.1m.


Uefa’s Financial Fair Play rules, which say clubs must break even over three years, come into full effect in 2013-14.


Investment impact


City was acquired by Sheikh Mansour of Abu Dhabi in 2008. In its annual report, the club said it had undergone a “significant period of investment” since then. Over that time, it has spent about half a billion pounds on new players.


“The club’s performance in the 2011-12 reporting period demonstrates the tangible and positive impacts of that investment across many areas of our operations,” it said.


It added that its player recruitment strategy had transitioned from one of rebuilding to one of refinement.


“With a relatively young squad that has won an FA Cup and a Barclays Premier League in consecutive seasons, our recruitment needs have been reduced.


“As a result, the amortisation of player contracts and the net impact of player trading on the club’s bottom line has decreased by 27% (£30.3m) over the previous year, consistent with our belief that the peak of the club’s investment in its playing squad has passed.”


The club’s wage bill increased to £178.2m from £153.7m the previous year.


That covered 237 football players and staff and 239 commercial and administration staff.


BBC News – Business


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NKorea rocket launch shows young leader as gambler






PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — A triumphant North Korea staged a mass rally of soldiers and civilians Friday to glorify the country’s young ruler, who took a big gamble this week in sending a satellite into orbit in defiance of international warnings.


Wednesday’s rocket launch came just eight months after a similar attempt ended in an embarrassing public failure, and just under a year after Kim Jong Un inherited power following his father’s death.






The surprising success of the launch may have earned Kim global condemnation, but at home the gamble paid off, at least in the short term. To his people, it made the 20-something Kim appear powerful, capable and determined in the face of foreign adversaries.


Tens of thousands of North Koreans, packed into snowy Kim Il Sung Square, clenched their fists in a unified show of resolve as a military band tooted horns and pounded on drums.


Huge red banners positioned in the square called on North Koreans to defend Kim Jong Un with their lives. They also paid homage to Kim Jong Un’s father, Kim Jong Il, and his grandfather, North Korean founder Kim Il Sung.


Pyongyang says the rocket put a crop and weather monitoring satellite into orbit. Much of the rest of the world sees it as a thinly disguised test of banned long-range missile technology. It could bring a fresh round of U.N. sanctions that would increase his country’s international isolation. At the same time, the success of the launch could strengthen North Korea’s military, the only entity that poses a potential threat to Kim’s rule.


The launch’s success, 14 years after North Korea’s first attempt, shows more than a little of the gambling spirit in the third Kim to rule North Korea since it became a country in 1948.


“North Korean officials will long be touting Kim Jong Un as a gutsy leader” who commanded the rocket launch despite being new to the job and young, said Kim Byung-ro, a North Korea specialist at Seoul National University in South Korea.


The propaganda machinery churned into action early Friday, with state media detailing how Kim Jong Un issued the order to fire off the rocket just days after scientists fretted over technical issues, ignoring the chorus of warnings from Washington to Moscow against a move likely to invite more sanctions.


Top officials followed Kim in shrugging off international condemnation.


Workers’ Party Secretary Kim Ki Nam told the crowd, bundled up against a winter chill in the heart of the capital, that “hostile forces” had dubbed the launch a missile test. He rejected the claim and called on North Koreans to stand their ground against the “cunning” critics.


North Korea called the satellite a gift to Kim Jong Il, who is said to have set the lofty goal of getting a satellite into space and then tapped his son to see it into fruition. The satellite, which North Korean scientists say is designed to send back data about crops and weather, was named Kwangmyongsong, or “Lode Star” — the nickname legendarily given to the elder Kim at birth.


Kim Jong Il died on Dec. 17, 2011, so to North Koreans, the successful launch is a tribute. State TV have been replaying video of the launch to “Song of Gen. Kim Jong Il.”


But it is the son who will bask in the glory, and face the international censure that may follow.


Even while he was being groomed to succeed his father, Kim Jong Un had been portrayed as championing science and technology as a way to lift North Korea out of decades of economic hardship.


“It makes me happy that our satellite is flying in space,” Pyongyang citizen Jong Sun Hui said as Friday’s ceremony came to a close and tens of thousands rushed into the streets, many linking arms as they went.


“The satellite launch demonstrated our strong power and the might of our science and technology once again,” she told The Associated Press. “And it also clearly testifies that a thriving nation is in our near future.”


Aside from winning him support from the people, the success of the launch helps his image as he works to consolidate power over a government crammed with elderly, old-school lieutenants of his father and grandfather, foreign analysts said.


Experts say that what is unclear, however, is whether Kim will continue to smoothly solidify power, steering clear of friction with the powerful military while dealing with the strong possibility of more crushing sanctions. The United Nations says North Korea already has a serious hunger problem.


“Certainly in the short run, this is an enormous boost to his prestige,” according to Marcus Noland, a North Korea analyst at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington.


Noland, however, also mentioned the “Machiavellian argument” that this could cause future problems for Kim by significantly boosting the power of the military — “the only real threat to his rule.”


Successfully firing a rocket was so politically crucial for Kim at the onset of his rule that he allowed an April launch to go through even though it resulted in the collapse of a nascent food-aid-for-nuclear-freeze deal with the United States, said North Korea analyst Kim Yeon-su of Korea National Defense University in Seoul.


The launch success consolidates his image as heir to his father’s legacy. But it could end up deepening North Korea’s political and economic isolation, he said.


On Friday, the section at the rally reserved for foreign diplomats was noticeably sparse. U.N. officials and some European envoys stayed away from the celebration, as they did in April after the last launch.


Despite the success, experts say North Korea is years from even having a shot at developing reliable missiles that could bombard the American mainland and other distant targets.


North Korea will need larger and more dependable missiles, and more advanced nuclear weapons, to threaten U.S. shores, though it already poses a shorter-range missile threat to its neighbors.


The next big question is how the outside world will punish Pyongyang — and try to steer North Korea from what could come next: a nuclear test. In 2009, the North conducted an atomic explosion just weeks after a rocket launch.


Scott Snyder, a Korea specialist for the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote recently that North Korea‘s nuclear ambitions should inspire the U.S., China, South Korea and Japan to put aside their issues and focus on dealing with Pyongyang.


If there is a common threat that should galvanize regional cooperation, “it most certainly should be the prospect of a 30-year-old leader of a terrorized population with his finger on a nuclear trigger,” Snyder said.


____


Jon Chol Jin in Pyongyang, and Foster Klug and Sam Kim in Seoul, South Korea, contributed to this report. Follow Jean H. Lee on Twitter: (at)newsjean.


Asia News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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McAfee says will not return to Belize, willing to talk to police






(Reuters) – U.S. software pioneer John McAfee said that he will not return to Belize where police want to question him about a murder case, but that he is willing to let authorities from the Central American nation interview him in a “neutral country.”


McAfee, 67, went into hiding after his American neighbor Gregory Faull was fatally shot in November. He made his way secretly to neighboring Guatemala, but the authorities there deported him to Miami on Wednesday.






“I will not go back to Belize. I had nothing to do with the murder,” a relaxed-looking McAfee said in an interview on CNBC.


Police in Belize want to question McAfee as a “person of interest” in Faull’s killing, though authorities there say he is not a prime suspect. McAfee said he barely knew Faull and had “absolutely nothing” to do with his death.


Belize police say their country’s extradition treaty with the United States extends only to suspected criminals, a designation that does not apply to McAfee.


McAfee, an eccentric tech pioneer, made a fortune from the anti-virus software bearing his name and had lived in Belize for four years.


He has charged that authorities have persecuted him because he refused to pay $ 2 million in bribes, and that the extortion attempt occurred after armed soldiers shot one of his dogs, smashed up his property and falsely accused him of running a methamphetamine laboratory.


Belize’s prime minister has rejected the allegations, calling McAfee paranoid and “bonkers.”


(Reporting by Jim Finkle; Editing by Nick Zieminski)


Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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A Minute With: Director Peter Jackson on shooting “The Hobbit”






LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – After bringing J.R.R. Tolkien‘s “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy to life, filmmaker Peter Jackson is back in the world of Middle Earth with the author’s prequel, “The Hobbit.”


The three-film series is due to open in U.S. theaters on Friday with “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.”






The Oscar-winning director, 51, told Reuters about the 3D film, including the 48 frames per second (fps) format he used, which was widely debated by fans and critics.


Q: You originally intended “The Hobbit” to only be two parts. Why stretch it out to three?


A: “Back in July, we were near the end of our shoot and we started to talk about the things that we had to leave out of the movies. There’s material at the end of ‘The Return of the King’ (the final part of ‘The Lord of the Rings‘ trilogy) in the appendices that takes place around the time of ‘The Hobbit.’


“We were thinking, this is our last chance because it’s very unlikely we’re ever going to come back to Middle Earth as filmmakers. So we talked to the studio and next year we’re going to be doing another 10 to 12 weeks of shooting because we’re now adapting more of Tolkien’s material.”


Q: At what point did you decide you would direct the film yourself after originally handing it to Guillermo del Toro?


A: “At the time (we wrote the script), I was worried about repeating myself and worried that I was competing with myself. I thought it would be interesting to have another director with a fresh eye coming in and telling the story. But after Guillermo left, having worked on script and the production for well over a year at that stage, I was very emotionally attached to it. I just thought, this is an opportunity I’m not going to say no to.”


Q: You hired Gollum actor Andy Serkis to do second unit directing on the film, something he has never done before. What made you hand the task to a novice?


A: “I know how strongly Andy has been wanting to direct. One of the problems with second unit is that you tend to have conservative footage given to you by the director. They play it safe. I knew that I wouldn’t get that from Andy because he’s got such a ferocious energy. He goes for it and doesn’t hold back. I knew that if Andy was the director I would be getting some interesting material, that it would have a life and energy to it.”


Q: What inspired you to make a film in 48 fps?


A: “Four years ago I shot a six or seven minute King Kong ride for Universal Studios’ tram ride in California. The reason we used the high frame rate was that we didn’t want people to think it’s a movie. You want that sense of reality, which you get from a high frame rate, of looking in to the real world. At the time, I thought it would be so cool to make a feature film with this process.”


Q: Not everyone has embraced “The Hobbit” in 48 fps.


A: “For the last year and a half there’s been speculation, largely negative, about it and I’m so relieved to have gotten to this point. I’ve been waiting for this moment when people can actually see it for themselves. Cinephiles and serious film critics who regard 24 fps as sacred are very negative and absolutely hate it. Anybody I’ve spoken to under the age of 20 thinks it’s fantastic. I haven’t heard a single negative thing from the young people, and these are the kids that are watching films on their iPads. These are the people I want to get back in the cinema.”


Q: Why all the hoopla over a frame rate?


A: “Somehow as humans, we have a reaction to change that’s partly fear driven. But there are so many ways to look at movies now and it’s a choice that a filmmaker has. To me as a filmmaker, you’ve got to take the technology that’s available in 2012, not the technology we’ve lived with since 1927, and say how can we enhance the experience in the cinema? How can we make it more immersive, more spectacular?”


Q: George Lucas sold Lucasfilm to Disney for $ 4 billion. Do you think you will sell your New Zealand facility Weta someday?


A: “I would if I want to retire at some stage and want to have a nice easy life, which will hopefully happen one day. But in the foreseeable future, the fact that I’m an owner of my own digital effects facility is a fantastic advantage for me.”


Q: How so?


A: “When we asked the studio if we could shoot ‘The Hobbit‘ at 48 fps, we promised the budget would be the same. But it actually does have a cost implication because you’ve got to render twice as many frames and the rendering takes more time. The fact that we owned Weta and could absorb that in-house was actually part of the reason we were able to do the 48 frames.”


(Editing by Patricia Reaney)


Celebrity News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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Google Maps Restores Order to the Universe






Well, that pretty much settles it. Everyone please go back to whatever you were doing.


Today, Google (GOOG) released its free Google Maps for iPhone app in Apple’s (AAPL) App Store. Besides reestablishing galactic tranquility, the new app brings iPhone users all the features they were missing by using Apple’s new home-grown Maps app. Apple’s Maps were pretty and slick, but the service was crippled from the get-go. Sure, turn-by-turn directions were great to have, but losing such things as transit information was a pretty severe price to pay for it.






Google Maps also adds a delightful new feature that Apple’s map app was lacking: accuracy. Reports from Apple Maps users of wrong directions and incorrect information have been legion. I, for one, used Apple’s Maps app to find a bookstore to buy a present for a seven-year-old girl’s birthday party. Apple’s Maps sent me to a Barnes & Noble (BKS), but it was a Barnes & Noble-operated college bookstore at St. Francis College (I’m sure the birthday girl is smart, but the gifts there weren’t terribly festive). When I looked it up on Google’s app after the fact, the special status of the bookstore was indicated.


Google’s new, native app (in this weird interregnum, iPhone users could continue to use a Web version of Google Maps, but the new app is faster, smoother, and more feature-laden) includes old friends such as Street View, so you can see what a destination looks like, as well as public transit information: Bus lines, subways, and commuter rail are all part of the navigation mix. Try to look that information up in Apple’s Maps, and the app suggests third-party apps to provide this data. That’s like a restaurant serving you an appetizer, then refusing to provide an entrĂ©e but very nicely suggesting some other places you can go to get a main course. Um, thanks, but I’m already here—why can’t I have a full dinner?


Google’s new app also incorporates more data for the locations you may be looking for. Look up a restaurant on Apple’s maps app, and you could pull some data from Yelp (YELP), but the same search on Google Maps yields Zagat ratings, menus, links to OpenTable and other useful information.


Here’s what you don’t get with Google Maps instead of Apple’s Maps: You’ll lose Flyover, Apple’s gee-whiz feature where you can see a satellite-image of an area in a 3D-like perspective. Flyover was impressive to look at, but it’s always been little more than a gimmick. After all, being able to travel virtually over land and between buildings is not nearly as useful as Google’s Street View, where you can actually see where you’re going. Unless you’re Superman, I suppose. OK, fine—if you’re Superman, Flyover is incredibly useful. The rest of us are better off with more terrestrial navigation capabilities.


You also lose Siri integration, so you can’t activate Google Maps by voice. That’s a bummer, but not a dealbreaker. Google Maps more than compensates for that by linking to your Google account, so any Maps search you’ve performed on your PC will be listed in the history of the Google Maps app. This is particularly helpful if you’re planning a trip: You can find your destinations on your laptop or tablet at home (which is easier than entering all that info on a tiny touch screen), and all your places will be a tap away on your phone when you get in the car.


Last but not nearly least, Google Maps now has turn-by-turn navigation, a feature that had previously been reserved for Android users only. Find a destination, and Google will guide you by voice and image, showing and telling you the next turn you have to make.


And for this, we actually have Apple’s Maps app to thank. Turn-by-turn navigation was the one feature you couldn’t get through Google Maps, part of the ongoing blood feud between the two companies. But once Apple offered the feature in its mapping app, Google was forced to respond. Presumably, Apple engineers and coders are hard at work at their answer to this latest salvo from Mountain View.


As consumers, we should be happy, as all this competition works to our benefit. Think about it that way, and Apple Maps was the best thing that ever happened to Google Maps.


Businessweek.com — Top News


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Cuban lawmakers meet to consider economy, budget






HAVANA (AP) — Cuban lawmakers are holding the second of their twice-annual sessions with a year-end report expected on the state of the country’s economy.


Legislators are also to approve next year’s budget.






Cuban leaders have sometimes used the parliamentary gatherings to make important announcements or policy statements.


Observers will be watching for word on the progress of President Raul Castro‘s economic reform plan and efforts to promote younger leaders.


The unicameral parliament will reconvene in February with a new membership following elections. It is then expected to name Castro to another five-year term.


State-run media said Castro presided over Thursday’s session.


It was not open to international journalists.


Latin America News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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iPhone 5 hits China as Apple market share slips






SHANGHAI (Reuters) – The China release of its iPhone 5 on Friday should win Apple Inc some respite from a recent slide in its share of what is likely already the world’s biggest smartphone market, but its longer-term hopes may depend on new technology being tested by China‘s top telecoms carrier.


Cupertino, California-based Apple has been in talks about a tie-up with China Mobile for four years. A deal with China’s biggest carrier is seen as crucial to improve Apple’s distribution in a market of 290 million users – which is forecast to double this year.






China is Apple’s second-largest and fastest-growing market – it brings in around 15 percent of total revenue – but the company’s failure to strike a deal with China Mobile means it is missing out on a large number of phone users. As the China pie grows, Apple’s sales increase, but without China Mobile, it’s losing ground at a faster rate compared to other brands.


“In absolute terms, this (iPhone 5) launch will certainly result in strong sales for Apple in China. However, in relative terms, I don’t believe it will move the needle enough in market share,” said Shiv Putcha, a Mumbai-based analyst at Ovum, a global technology consultant.


China Mobile and Apple initially said they were separated only by a technical issue – as the Chinese carrier runs a different 3G network from most of the world – but that has evolved into a broader and more complex issue of revenue-sharing.


“China Mobile and Apple still have to solve many issues, such as the business model, articles of cooperation and revenue division, but I believe we will reach an agreement eventually,” China Mobile CEO Li Yue was reported by Chinese media as saying in Guangzhou last week.


Apple China declined to comment. China Mobile said it had no update to the Apple discussions.


STRONG PRE-ORDERS


Apple’s ranking in China’s smartphone market slipped to sixth in July-September, according to research firm IDC, [ID:nL4N09G1QK] but investors, primed to look to China product launches for an uptick in Apple’s quarterly sales, have good headline numbers to digest – more than 300,000 iPhones pre-ordered on one carrier alone. But it’s the lack of a deal with the No.1 carrier that prevents those numbers being stronger.


The iPhone is currently sold through Apple’s seven stores, resellers and through China Unicom and China Telecom – which together have fewer than half the mobile subscribers of bigger rival China Mobile.


“Apple’s market share declined because of the transition between the iPhone 4S and 5. Their market share will recover (with the iPhone 5), but if you don’t have China Mobile, the significant market share gains will be very difficult,” said Huang Leping, an analyst at Nomura in Hong Kong.


TD-LTE: STILL DISTANT


Cutting a deal with a Chinese state-owned carrier may be less optimal than the deals Apple is used to in other markets, and analysts note that China Mobile wouldn’t necessarily open the flood gates for Apple.


Ovum’s Putcha believes Apple and China Mobile will eventually strike a deal – though this would be for an iPhone running on China Mobile’s next-generation network rather than its current 3G network.


Of China Mobile’s 704 million subscribers, only 79 million are on its 3G network, and Apple has been reluctant to sign up to China Mobile’s under-utilized, homegrown TD-SCDMA technology. “Apple likely doesn’t see the return-on-investment in extending themselves for TD-SCDMA,” Putcha said.


China Mobile is currently trialling its next-generation network, TD-LTE, which could be of more interest to Apple, but full-scale commercial use – and an iPhone tie-up – could still be years away.


ANDROID THREAT


Meanwhile, rivals are circling, eating away at Apple’s smartphone market share. Samsung Electronics, Lenovo Group and little-known Chinese brand Coolpad held the top three slots in the third quarter, according to IDC.


All three have relationships with China Mobile and offer smartphone models at different price points. Apple competes exclusively at the high-end, and even there, rivals are rolling out models with China Mobile. Last week, Nokia said it planned to release its latest Lumia smartphone with China’s top carrier, which is also expected to launch Research in Motion’s new Blackberry 10, analysts predict.


“The threat will still come more from the Android camp where they have many vendors already working with China Mobile and offering high-end phones,” said TZ Wong, a Singapore-based IDC analyst.


While these smartphones don’t generate the buzz of a new iPhone, Chinese buyers are not known for their brand loyalty, and this could siphon away users considering an Apple upgrade.


“I’ve used a Blackberry, Android and iOS and, personally, I want to try the Windows 8,” said Andy Huang, a 37-year-old fund manager, who owns most iPad models, an iPhone 4 and a 4S. “I think the Windows 8 is very innovative.”


With a China Mobile deal looking some way off, Apple could always boost market share by offering cheaper models – the basic iPhone 5 will cost 5288 yuan ($ 850) without a contract – though this appears an unlikely route for a high-end brand.


“If they want to expand market share, probably the only way to do it here dramatically would be to put out a lower cost phone,” said Michael Clendenin, managing director at RedTech Advisors. “It’s really uncertain if they’d decide to go that route … Apple’s a mystery in that regard.”


($ 1 = 6.2518 Chinese yuan)


(Additional reporting by the Shanghai Newsroom and Jane Lee; Editing by Kazunori Takada and Ian Geoghegan)


Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News


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How “Life of Pi” animators visualized Ang Lee’s blank slate






LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – “Life of Pi” is a movie that has the proverbial cast of thousands… of animals, that is. In one shot set on the ocean, there are 40,000 flying fish. In another one set on a floating island, there are 60,000 meerkats. And not one of them was living and breathing, of course.


“No real meerkats were used,” senior animation supervisor Erik-Jan De Boer told the audience at an effects-themed Q&A following TheWrap’s screening of the movie at the Landmark Theatre on Monday night. “Except of course we went to meerkat sanctuaries and zoos to shoot a lot of reference footage…”






“And the two of us watched every episode of ‘Meerkat Manor,’” interrupted visual effects supervisor Bill Westenhofer. “We were gonna watch one, but it gets addictive.”


That was about all the time these two had to indulge in reality TV during the long gestation and post-production of Pi, which establishes a new benchmark for awe-inspiring digital trickery – particularly in 3D, or “stereo,” as Westenhofer and De Boer refer to the effects-complicating process.


“In total,” De Boer told TheWrap’s editor-in-chief Sharon Waxman, “we animated 580 animals in about 290 shots for the movie, which includes a giraffe, a fox, a fish, and of course the hyena and orangutan.” Not to mention the little matter of the tiger, “Richard Parker,” whose appearances as one of the movie’s co-leads are 15 percent real, 85 percent digital.


That’s not including the aforementioned meerkat and flying fish extras, brought to life via a software program appropriately titled Massive. (If only it had been around in Cecil B. DeMille‘s day.)


“The flying fish sequence is where we start to take some artistic liberties, since Pi’s telling you a tale,” said Westenhofer. “Maybe there were a thousand flying fish in reality, or even a hundred, but you’re seeing his mind’s eye, which saw this multitude, so we have 40,000 in one particular spot. The Massive software is almost artificial intelligence, where you write a little program that’s the brain for each individual fish, and it decides if it’s going to hop out of the water, and how long it’s going to fly; if it sees someone in its path, it does avoidance.”


But before any of that was animated, there was the live-action filming that took place on a 70 meter-by-30 meter wave tank that director Ang Lee had specially built for the film. And there, said Westenhofer, “you had (star) Suraj Sharma on a boat with two guys in rubber rafts just chucking rubber fish at him as hard as they possibly can. It’s a good mixture of the low-tech and the high-tech.”


Of course, it wasn’t fish but previous experience with big cats that got Rhythm & Hues the assignment from Lee to go from lions to tigers and Pi. “He knew we had done the lion in the first Narnia movie. He asked, ‘Does a digital character look more or less real in 3D?’ We looked at each other and thought that was a pretty good question.”


As well as a leading one, since Lee had already made the decision at that point, in 2009, to shoot in 3D. “We took one of the shots and rendered it in stereo and said ‘Yeah, it gives it a little more presence and makes it more real.’” Good answer! “That was the start of our relationship with him.”


Although “Life of Pi” doesn’t exactly go for documentary-style realism, every effort was made to keep the tiger’s actions and reactions to what experts and trainers told them a creature would really do in those situations. Not having him spout any Aslan-style aphorisms was a nice start on that de-anthropomorphizing.


“We always strive for photorealism,” said De Boer – even when they’re working on a Narnia or Cats and Dogs. “Motion-wise we strive for perfect physicality and try to get that animal to behave as characteristically as possible – and then we always have to make them talk or dance or do something really weird, and the realism goes out the window and everybody knows that we were there. For me what was really cool about this movie is not only do we stick with the real animal but we also have to intercut it with a live-action animal, so that made the challenge for us that much bigger.”


Added Westenhofer, “We told the crew we wanted to work ourselves out of any recognition by making it look as real as possible.”


It was at least as big of a challenge, as far as Westenhofer was concerned, to make the digital waves match or amplify the real tank waves – and to create the film’s skies completely from scratch. “There’s not many films where we spend this much time on the water. I think ‘Old Man and the Sea’ harkens back! But even with ‘Titanic,’ you’ll see the water and then go inside.” For much of “Life of Pi,” “inside” amounts to a few furtive peeks under a tarp.


Hence what, on a project like this, becomes a fine line where digital effects providers are also, to some extent, taking over the role of cinematography and art direction. Going to work on filling up these blue-screen shots, the Rhythm & Hues people might well have been humming Bruce Springsteen’s “Empty Sky” to themselves.


“What I’m absolutely most proud of is with these visual effects is that we were given a blank slate for a lot of these shots,” Westenhofer told the audience. “We were given a boat in front of a blue screen, and it was the visual effects team who really were a lot of the creative innovators on the movie. Certainly it was Ang’s vision we were creating. But we’d start a shot, and though Ang absolutely knows what he wants, his communication is sometimes not as specific as you want. Instead of saying ‘I want a three-quarters cloudy sky with yellow over here and some blue,’ he’d say ‘I want a pensive sky.’


Or, ‘I want it to be operatic.’ So it would be our job to go translate that, and the team did a great job of supplying that.


“And Claudio Miranda did an awesome, awesome job on the cinematography, but a lot of the cinematography on the ocean is digital effects.”


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