Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/193393269?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Tuesday 31 January 2012
Monday 30 January 2012
Insight: From darkest India, an enlightened leader (Reuters)
PATNA, India (Reuters) ? There's an apocryphal story about Bihar, a sprawling state on the Gangetic plains of eastern India that for decades held the dubious honor of being the most violent, poverty-stricken and corrupt in the land.
A Japanese minister visiting in the 1990s, shocked at the decrepit buildings, the darkness at night even in the centre of town and the crumbling roads, declared that it was all solvable.
"Give me three years," he told a state leader, "and I can turn Bihar into Japan."
"That's nothing," came the laconic reply from his host. "Give me three days and I will turn Japan into Bihar."
Bihar is no longer the butt of jokes, however, not since Nitish Kumar took charge of the ruined state in 2005 and began to turn it around -- winning such respect that he stands a decent chance of one day becoming prime minister of India.
"My first priority was governance, my second priority was governance and my third priority was governance," Chief Minister Kumar told Reuters at his office in the state capital, Patna, a dusty city where property prices have soared to levels paid in far away New Delhi, even as its streets teem with the desperately poor.
"Bihar suffered not because of bad governance but because of a lack of governance."
When India launched reforms to open up its state-stifled economy 20 years ago, many states surged ahead, leaving behind the 3.5 percent "Hindu rate of growth" that had plagued the decades after the country's independence from Britain in 1947, and with it Bihar.
Bihar is still India's most impoverished state: landlocked, not blessed with resources and prone to catastrophic flooding, its annual per-capita income of about $400 is just a third of the national average. Its 104 million overwhelmingly farm-dependent people have India's worst literacy rate and the lowest proportion of households with electricity, and the state scores miserably on the U.N.'s Human Development Index.
It's hard to imagine that in ancient times Bihar was the centre of the flourishing Magadha empires and the region where the Buddha lived and attained enlightenment.
And yet the state's dismally low income level has grown 250 percent since Kumar took the helm, more than double the national average. The growth of its economy has surged into double figures to become India's second-fastest growing state, driven by hefty public spending on roads and buildings and rapid expansion in services such as hotels and restaurants.
RESTORING FAITH
Kumar has done much more than bring growth. Working until midnight most days for the past six years, he has declared war on crime and corruption, introduced an act that gives citizens the right to efficient public services, launched a frenzy of road-building, empowered women and promoted education, offering a free bicycle to every girl that registers in a Grade 9 class.
"Everything had gone to the dogs," said Prakash Jha, one of Bihar's favorite sons, a Bollywood film-maker who has chronicled many of the state's ills, including the once-thriving industry of kidnapping businessmen.
"What Nitish Kumar has been able to do is restore faith in the society of Bihar. We had almost given up, but now you feel you can do things in Bihar," said Jha, who has put his money where his mouth is, spending $12 million on a shopping mall and cinema multiplex in Patna, the state's first.
Kumar is not without detractors: critics say he is poor at delegating, causes bottlenecks by amassing all decision-making in his office and accomplishes far less than he claims.
"This is a government of denting, painting and decorating," said state opposition leader Abdul Bari Siddiqui. "It's all on the surface. Nitish Kumar will hold a ceremony to inaugurate the ditch and then another for the bridge built over it."
Still, the contrast between the hyper-active chief minister of Bihar and the central government in New Delhi could hardly be more stark after months of drift and policy paralysis under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh that have contributed to a slowdown in the country's stellar economic growth.
AN IDEOLOGY OF HUMANISM
A vegetable garden borders the path that leads to the simple Patna bungalow where the chief minister has his office. On a shelf inside his sparsely furnished room, there are several trophies awarded by media groups for "Indian of the Year." There is just one picture on the wall, an image of Mahatma Gandhi, father of independent India.
Kumar's father was a freedom-fighter during British rule, but the son has always been implacably opposed to the Congress party that led the struggle for independence and its Nehru-Gandhi dynasty of leaders, defining himself more by his vision of social justice than any political group.
"His is not an ideology of a political party, it's an ideology of humanism," said M.J. Akbar, one of India's best-known newspaper editors and a former member of parliament for a Bihar constituency.
Meticulously turned out in a creaseless cream tunic, sleeveless Nehru jacket and a grey scarf, 60-year-old Kumar smiles gently as he explains his style of governance: "pro-poor and pro-people."
An engineering graduate, Kumar first got a toehold in state politics and then in New Delhi, where he was a member of parliament and the country's railways minister in a coalition led by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
He won elections in Bihar for his Janata Dal (United) party six years ago and, in a ringing endorsement of his policies, he was voted back to power in 2010.
Kumar's party is still aligned with the BJP, and popular wisdom has is that if their coalition wins the general election in 2014 he could be a strong contender to become prime minister.
Does he dream of leading the country one day?
"Not really," he says diffidently. "Serving my own people gives me satisfaction. I don't have any ambition. I don't have that kind of desire."
Not content to sit in Patna for long, Kumar gets around Bihar's 38 districts, talking to people on streets and in village squares to find out what they want fixed. These audiences are followed by meetings with district officials at which he prods the state's bureaucracy to respond.
"Why is there darkness around the lamp?" he asked at one such meeting in Patna recently, when he was informed that a scheme to provide free meals for schoolchildren was least effective in and around the city. "This is the capital, you all live here, we have to improve this."
Later, when told of plans to hire more land records staff, he instructed officials to make sure there were desks and offices ready for them. "We don't want them loitering in the corridors," he said, his voice restrained but still dominating the room filled with more than 100 bureaucrats.
This direct and no-nonsense delivery belies his apparent bonhomie.
"He is a very confident person who disguises his confidence with a great amount of modesty," said Akbar.
VOTES ARE 'CASTE'
It is sometimes said that in Bihar people "don't cast their votes, they vote for their caste."
That is because, besides being blighted by poverty, its people have long been sharply divided by Hinduism's social hierarchy. In the fairly recent past, upper and lower caste groups kept private armies, and pitched battles between them or massacres by one side or another were common.
Fanning the caste-based politics of Bihar in the 1990s was Lalu Prasad Yadav, now a lawmaker in New Delhi. A charismatic leader from a "backward" caste whose trademark humor can make a budget speech sound like a stand-up routine, Yadav's reign was dubbed the "Jungle Raj" as the rule of law broke down.
Kumar also belongs to a minority "backward" caste and was aligned with Yadav for years before they parted ways. One factor behind his rise has been his resolve to woo voters not by social blocs but on the basis of his government's performance.
"Caste is the reality in the Indian system, but I have proved that caste does not decide the outcome of an election," he said.
Corruption is still endemic despite Kumar's crackdown. He has confiscated the houses of two corrupt officials to turn them into schools, and many others face the same fate, but critics say he is actually too tolerant of the graft around him.
Law and order remains a serious problem, too. In 2010, Bihar ranked second among the country's states for the number of people killed in violent crimes, and police seize tens of thousands of illegal firearms every year.
Still, many feel that Bihar is a safer place since Kumar launched an anti-crime drive. Residents now feel less frightened to drive at night in rural areas, where roadside hold-ups and kidnappings were once routine.
"Five years ago, if we had to travel from Gaya to Patna, we would leave by 3 in the afternoon so we could get to the city before dark," said Navendu Kumar Thakur, who runs a construction company in the state. Gaya is about 100 km (60 miles) south of the state capital. "Now, it doesn't matter if we leave at 9 at night, there's no problem on the road."
Kumar says restoring faith in the police and judiciary was a top priority.
"A reign of terror used to prevail in the society, Bihar used to be in the news for all the wrong reasons," he said. "My first task was to ensure rule of law and trust in the system."
WEAK ECONOMIC BASE
With the improvement in law and order, there has been tentative interest in setting up industries in Bihar, which is 90 percent dependent on agriculture after the mineral-rich region of Jharkhand was hived off into a separate state in 2000.
New industries in Bihar can receive up to 300 percent of capital invested in VAT refunds over 10 years, in addition to a host of other incentives.
"He (Kumar) has shown that grass can grow in a desert," said Prem Kumar Agrawal, part-owner of a biscuit-making plant in the Hajipur industrial park near Patna, where half a dozen factories have opened in the past six months. With 300 workers, his enterprise produces 70-75 tonnes of biscuits per day.
"I give Nitish 9 out of 10 in terms of industrial policy," Agrawal said. "Bihar is now on the map."
But the new factories are only part of the story: abandoned buildings litter the rest of the industrial park, the metal fences on road dividers are rusty and the link to the nearby highway is a potholed and narrow road.
Manufacturing has in fact contributed very little to the surge in the economy's growth: with power cuts common, highways often jammed and graft still thriving, few investors are willing to brave Bihar yet. No surprise, then, that Bihar was ranked bottom last year in a state-by-state survey of economic freedom.
Official figures show that even agriculture, the mainstay of the economy, has contracted for the past six years, suggesting that the Bihar boom has been far from inclusive. Much of the growth has instead been generated by hefty public spending on construction, which means the Bihar boom may not have a solid enough base to be sustainable.
Indeed, Bihar is Exhibit A for the case that India is a two-track economy, with industry-friendly seaboard states rushing ahead as others grow from extremely low bases.
Shaibal Gupta, secretary of the Asian Development Research Institute in Patna, reckons that even if Bihar's growth continues at its current double-digit clip it would take 18 years to catch up with the present-day wealth of Maharashtra, home to the financial capital, Mumbai.
"We can't call it a miracle," Gupta said. "It's some change at an initial level that should have happened 60 years ago."
(Editing by Alex Richardson)
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How Google+ Can Win: Make Publishing Universal
Larry Page recently announced that he is quite thrilled with Google+?s explosive growth -- with 90 million registered accounts and 80% of the people engaging on a weekly basis across all Google properties. The problem, of course, is that very few of these 90M users are actively publishing on Google+. The Google+ strategy of fine-grained sharing of personal content using Circles has not been very effective. It takes a lot of effort to create and maintain circles, and Facebook has proven that most users seem to be comfortable sharing personal content such as family albums and baby pictures with their complete social graph.Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/jzNTTj5JPeI/
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Sunday 29 January 2012
EU rejects call for control over Greek budget (AP)
BRUSSELS ? The European Union's executive body is rejecting calls from Germany to establish a eurozone budget commissioner who would directly control tax and spending decisions in debt-ridden Greece.
The European Commission said Saturday that "executive tasks must remain the full responsibility of the Greek government, which is accountable before its citizens and its institutions."
The Commission, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund already have unprecedented powers over Greek spending, after negotiating with Athens stringent austerity measures and economic reforms in return for a first, multi-billion euro bailout.
They are reviewing implementation of these measures and discussing a second bailout.
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Peter, Paul and Mary bassist Dick Kniss dies at 74
In this undated photo provided by Gloria Jean, Dick Kniss plays the acoustic bass. Kniss, who performed for five decades with Peter, Paul and Mary and co-wrote the John Denver hit "Sunshine on My Shoulders," died on Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2012 in Saugerties, N.Y. He was 74. (AP Photo/Gloria Jean) NO SALES
In this undated photo provided by Gloria Jean, Dick Kniss plays the acoustic bass. Kniss, who performed for five decades with Peter, Paul and Mary and co-wrote the John Denver hit "Sunshine on My Shoulders," died on Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2012 in Saugerties, N.Y. He was 74. (AP Photo/Gloria Jean) NO SALES
SAUGERTIES, New York (AP) ? Dick Kniss, a bassist who performed for five decades with the folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary and co-wrote the John Denver hit "Sunshine on My Shoulders," has died. He was 74.
Kniss died Wednesday of pulmonary disease at a hospital near their home in the Hudson Valley town of Saugerties, said his wife, Diane Kniss.
Kniss was born in Portland, Oregon, and was an original member of Denver's 1970s band. He also played with jazz greats including Herbie Hancock and Woody Herman.
Active in the 1960s civil rights movement, Kniss performed at benefits for a range of causes and played during the first celebration of Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday as a national holiday.
Peter, Paul and Mary's Peter Yarrow said in a statement that Kniss was "our intrepid bass player for almost as long as we performed together.
"He was a dear and beloved part of our closest family circle and his bass playing was always a great fourth voice in our music as well as, conceptually, an original and delightfully surprising new statement added to our vocal arrangements," Yarrow said.
Visiting hours are set for 1 to 3 p.m. Sunday at the Seamon-Wilsey Funeral Home in Saugerties.
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Ask Engadget: Best HD LED Pico Projector for a small room?
We know you've got questions, and if you're brave enough to ask the world for answers, here's the outlet to do so. This week's Ask Engadget inquiry is from Ellio, who fancies switching up his home entertainment kit with a HD LED projector. If you're looking to send in an inquiry of your own, drop us a line at ask [at] engadget [dawt] com.
So, what's it gonna be dear friends? If you don't know the drill: it's a jump to your left, a step to your right, put your hands on your hips and leave a comment below."I'm looking to buy a small HD LED projector to use at home for movies and games etc. I'd prefer it to be small to avoid having another large black box cluttering up the place and LED because of the decent lifetime compared to traditional projectors. I'd be happy with a 720p resolution device, but a lot of pico projectors are under 30 lumens, is this level sufficient for a decent size-display in a dim room? Thanks a bunch!"
Ask Engadget: Best HD LED Pico Projector for a small room? originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 28 Jan 2012 21:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | | Email this | CommentsSource: http://www.engadget.com/2012/01/28/ask-engadget-best-hd-led-pico-projector-for-a-small-room/
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Saturday 28 January 2012
Romney responds to Gingrich immigration shot
Republican presidential candidates, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney participate in the Republican presidential candidates debate in Jacksonville, Fla., Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Republican presidential candidates, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney participate in the Republican presidential candidates debate in Jacksonville, Fla., Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Republican presidential candidate former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney speaks during the Republican presidential candidates debate in Jacksonville, Fla., Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Republican presidential candidates, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney talk during a commercial break at the Republican presidential candidates debate in Jacksonville, Fla., Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Republican presidential candidates, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney talk during a commercial break at the Republican presidential candidates debate in Jacksonville, Fla., Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Notable moments from the GOP presidential debate Thursday night in Jacksonville, Fla.
___
IMMIGRATION FIGHT
Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney had their sharpest exchange when Gingrich said Romney was the most anti-immigrant candidate in the GOP field. Romney responded indignantly, reminding Gingrich that Romney's father, George, was born in Mexico.
"The idea that I'm anti-immigrant is repulsive," Romney fired at Gingrich. "Don't use a term like that. You can say we disagree on certain policies, but to say that enforcing the U.S. law to protect our borders, to welcome people here legally, to expand legal immigration, as I have proved, that that's somehow anti anti-immigrant is simply the kind of over-the-top rhetoric that has characterized American politics too long."
Romney also asked Gingrich for an apology for an ad Gingrich recently pulled from airwaves that attacked Romney on immigration policy. Gingrich didn't offer one.
___
MOON SHOTS
Gingrich's proposal for a permanent American colony on the moon was mocked by Romney, who said Gingrich is developing a pattern of pandering to local voters.
"If I had a business executive come to me and say I want to spend a few hundred billion dollars to put a colony on the moon, I'd say, 'You're fired,'" said Romney, a former businessman.
He then noted Gingrich's calls for a new interstate highway in South Carolina, a new VA hospital in northern New Hampshire, and widening the port of Jacksonville to accommodate the larger ships that will soon be able to transit the Panama Canal. Romney said promises like that were what had caused a massive budget deficit in the first place.
Gingrich defended himself saying he'd find plenty of things to cut and shouldn't be mocked for setting priorities.
"You don't just have to be cheap everywhere. You can actually have priorities to get things done," he said.
___
MEDICAL RECORDS
The oldest candidate in the race, 76-year-old Rep. Ron Paul, said he'd be happy to share his medical records with the public if he were the nominee. Then he one-upped his fellow candidates by challenging them to a 25-mile bike ride.
He had no takers.
All of the candidates said they'd release their medical records for scrutiny. Paul, who would be the oldest president ever elected, said his records are short, about a page long.
Gingrich vouched for his competitor's fitness. "I'm confident that Dr. Paul is quite ready to serve if he's elected. Watching him campaign, he's in great shape," he said with a laugh.
___
FIRST LADY CHATTER
Asked what their wives would bring to the position of first lady, the candidates were happy to gush about their better halves.
Paul, married for 54 years, says he's got an anniversary coming up next week. He also plugged his wife's work as an author ? of "The Ron Paul Cookbook."
Romney praised his wife for battling multiple sclerosis and breast cancer.
"She is a real champion and a fighter," he said.
Gingrich said he's met each of the candidates' wives and said they'd all be "terrific first ladies." He says his wife, Callista, would bring a tremendous artistic focus and would be a strong advocate for music and music education.
Rick Santorum says his wife is "my hero" because she gave up a successful career to help raise their seven children.
___
MOM IN THE HOUSE
Santorum got a big applause line when he introduced his mom, 93-year-old Catherine Santorum. During the debate's introductions Santorum said he was glad to have his mother at the debate. And, it turns out, she can help turn out the vote for her son ? she is a north Florida resident. When she stood up to be recognized, the debate hall gave her loud applause.
___
NO LOVE FOR TSA
Even before the debate started a rowdy, Paul-supporting crowd at the University of North Florida debate site shouted jeers toward the Transportation Security Administration. The anti-TSA chants came days after Paul's son, GOP Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, was stopped by security at the Nashville airport when a scanner set off an alarm and Paul declined to allow a security officer to pat him down.
Police escorted Paul away, but allowed him to board a later flight.
Ron Paul has already used his son's experience to promote his "Plan to Restore America," which would cut $1 trillion of federal spending in a year and eliminate the TSA. He has said the incident reflects that the "police state in this country is growing out of control."
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Obama Pitches 'All Of The Above' Energy Strategy
President Obama promoted the sale of new oil and gas drilling leases in the Gulf of Mexico and the promise of cars running on natural gas, defending his energy agenda Thursday against critics who say his policies have stifled domestic energy production.
"We need an all-out, all-in, all-of-the-above strategy that develops every source of American energy ? a strategy that's cleaner and cheaper and full of new jobs," Obama said at a Nevada UPS center, flanked by large trucks bearing the company's logos.
Obama announced plans for the sale of new oil and gas drilling leases for nearly 38 million acres in the central Gulf of Mexico and highlighted the completion of a highway corridor for vehicles that run on liquefied natural gas. It came days after he drew sharp Republican criticism for rejecting a cross-country oil pipeline that would have delivered Canadian tar sands oil to refineries in Texas.
The parcels the Obama administration is putting up for lease in June are part of an offshore drilling plan for 2007-12 put in place by President George W. Bush. But after the massive BP oil spill led to an overhaul of the government's oversight of offshore exploration and production, some of those areas had to be re-evaluated for the environmental risks associated with drilling, in some cases delaying the original auction date.
The two leases that will be sold off next summer were originally scheduled for 2011 and this year.
"We're going to keep moving on American energy," Obama said.
Combined with other parts of Obama's energy pitch, the White House is portraying the president as willing to seek the middle ground on energy after Republicans and the industry criticized him for the moratorium put in place after the Gulf disaster, the rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada, and other policies they say have hampered production, jobs and national energy security.
Some of those critics on Thursday weren't convinced anything has changed. They accused Obama of taking credit for work done to increase oil and gas production by previous administrations.
"Announcing a scheduled lease sale that doesn't open any new areas for energy production and that should have happened a year ago shouldn't be a `major announcement,"' said Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee.
The lease proposal includes Obama administration measures designed to encourage oil and gas exploration companies to develop the leases. The Interior Department has increased the minimum bid for deepwater leases to $100 an acre from $37.50. Administration officials said Wednesday that the increase was designed to give leaseholders incentives to invest in acreage they would be more likely to explore. Escalating rental rates are also designed to encourage faster exploration and development.
Later, speaking at Buckley Air Force Base in Colorado, Obama was expected to highlight the expanded use of clean energy by the Defense Department. The Air Force is installing a one-megawatt solar array on the base, and it tested jets last year that are powered by advanced biofuels.
In choosing Nevada and Colorado, Obama is returning to two states that are important to his re-election campaign.
Obama last visited both states in late October, using the trip to launch a phase of his campaign to jumpstart the economy. With economic indicators improving, Obama this time visited on a higher note.
Both states hold their presidential caucuses within the next two weeks events that have grown in importance as the Republican contest for the White House continues to shift and narrow to a choice between former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
Obama won both Nevada and Colorado in 2008. Nevada has had the nation's highest unemployment, in excess of the national average. But a poll in December by the Las Vegas Review-Journal showed Obama with a 6-percentage-point lead over Romney and a 12-point lead over Gingrich.
Colorado offers an example of a state with a mix of energy programs, from a booming solar-energy industry to natural gas extraction that is a result of a compromise between energy companies and environmentalists.
Obama kicked off his post-State of the Union tour on Wednesday in Iowa and Arizona, pushing for tax incentives for manufacturers. His three-day trip concludes Friday in Michigan.
Source: http://www.npr.org/2012/01/26/145918384/obama-pitches-all-of-the-above-energy-strategy?ft=1&f=1007
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Friday 27 January 2012
Nielsen: Obama's smallest State of Union audience (AP)
NEW YORK ? The interest among television viewers in President Barack Obama's annual State of the Union addresses is dwindling.
The Nielsen measurement company said Wednesday an estimated 37.8 million people watched Obama's speech the night before on one of the 14 networks airing it. Obama's audience for the speech has dropped each year, from a high of 52.4 million in 2009.
Obama narrowly missed President George W. Bush's least-watched State of the Union. Bush's last one was seen by 37.5 million people in 2008.
The largest individual audience for Obama's speech was NBC's, more than 8 million. On cable, MSNBC beat CNN for the first time for second place behind Fox News Channel.
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Thursday 26 January 2012
EU and Haiti sign deal to lengthen rural highway (AP)
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti ? The Haitian government and European Union have signed an agreement for building a road to connect the capital with the country's second largest city.
The European Union will spend 40.7 million euros ($52.6 million) on a project that will first pave a dirt national highway linking the central towns of Hinche and St. Raphael. It is 27 miles (44-kilometer) long.
The second phase of the project calls for the highway to be extended 20 miles (33 kilometers) from St. Raphael to Cap-Haitien, a coastal city on the northern end of Haiti.
The work is to begin in 2012. Organizers hope the paved highway will improve commerce between the north and the capital.
The agreement was signed Wednesday.
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Wednesday 25 January 2012
Profile: Insider is surprise pick as new RIM CEO (Reuters)
FRANKFURT (Reuters) ? Insider Thorsten Heins, the new chief executive at BlackBerry maker RIM, is a surprise choice for those looking for a "transformational" leader from outside to turn around the Canadian group's fortunes.
Tall, soft-spoken and bespectacled, the Munich-born Heins, 54, spent most of his working life at German engineering giant Siemens, where he oversaw a mobile telephone business which faced fierce pricing pressure and quality issues.
An avid fan of NBA basketball team the Miami Heat after having lived in Florida for four years, Heins rides a BMW motorbike when he is not road cycling or embarking on long-distance charity rides.
"We will take this to new heights," said Heins after taking over at Research in Motion from co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, who finally bowed to investor pressure and resigned. "Innovation is endless, we will have a lot of fun."
Heins spent more than 20 years at Siemens, having joined straight from university in 1984 where he met his wife Petra, a mathematician and physicist. The couple have a 21-year-old son and a 23-year-old daughter.
Heins' German roots were evident when he was asked about his choice of motorcycle. "Of course it's a BMW, I'm German."
By the mid-2000s, he had worked his way up to the helm of Siemens's mobile phone business, so he was no stranger to mobiles when he joined RIM.
The business was sold to Taiwan's BenQ in 2005, after Heins was promoted to the management board of the new Communications business, which was dismantled a year later.
"Unfortunately, it was too late to turn mobile devices because this division was already in a difficult situation, and therefore missed its opportunity to accelerate and improve itself," said Thomas Ganswindt, who was Heins's boss on the Communications board.
Heins was a "very strong" leader and someone "able to recognize what is needed by an ailing business," he said.
In his career at Siemens, Heins worked in R&D, customer service, sales and product management, ending as chief technology officer. He joined RIM in December 2007.
BATTLING APPLE
By the end of a mid-2011 restructuring, Heins was one of two chief operating officers, responsible for sales and for both hardware and software product engineering. "He played key roles in the creation of RIM's product portfolio," the company said.
Activist investors have clamored in recent months for a new, "transformational" leader to compete with Apple's iPhone and iPad and the slew of large-screen and powerful devices from Samsung and others using Google's Android operating system.
RIM marked Heins's ascent to the top role with a seven-minute YouTube video in which the 6 foot 6 inches CEO gave his vision for success with a noticeable German accent.
"He is not very well known outside of the company. He has been working in both Balsillie's and Lazaridis' shadow," said Alexandre Peterc, analyst at Exane BNP Paribas.
"He does strike me as someone who knows the industry very well given his background at Siemens. On the plus side he is a veteran of the industry and he knows his stuff, but that said, his background is very much tech and process orientated as opposed to strategic vision orientated.
"You don't say 'this is the next Steve Jobs' because a Steve Jobs is hard to come by," Peterc said.
"In our view, a CEO with a strong consumer electronics and supply chain background would have been ideal," Shaw Wu, Senior Technology Analyst at Sterne Agee, said.
Most who knew him paid tribute to his leadership skills.
"It is not a job that many people would have taken," said Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi.
"Thorsten is highly respected in terms of his knowledge of the industry and given that this appears to be a rather sudden turn of events, they needed someone who can quickly takeover the helm," said CCS Insight's Ben Wood.
RIM has been at pains to underline the orderly nature of the handover.
However, one analyst, who asked not to be named because of his relationship with the group, said it was astounding that the COO at a company of this size should have been so invisible to the market and investor community.
He said he had heard previously from executives within RIM that Heins was very highly regarded and that he was very much on top of his brief. "His name came up repeatedly, with regards to people at RIM who really rate him."
As takeover talk swirled and the financial world pondered whether Heins had been appointed to lead a turnaround or prepare RIM for sale, he clearly now is going to have to communicate quickly, get to know investors and raise his public profile.
(Reporting by Maria Sheahan; Additional reporting by Marilyn Gerlach, Nicola Leske, Kate Holton and Paul Sandle)
This story update corrects the spelling of analyst to Shaw in the 18th paragraph
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Tuesday 24 January 2012
Manning, Giants heading to Indy to face Pats again
New York Giants Eli Manning lifts the George Halas Trophy in the locker room after the Giants won in overtime at the NFC Championship NFL football game Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012, in San Francisco. The Giants won 20-17 to advance to Super Bowl XLVI. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
New York Giants Eli Manning lifts the George Halas Trophy in the locker room after the Giants won in overtime at the NFC Championship NFL football game Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012, in San Francisco. The Giants won 20-17 to advance to Super Bowl XLVI. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady wears a championship hat and t-shirt after their AFC Championship NFL football game against the Baltimore Ravens Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012, in Foxborough, Mass. The Patriots defeated the Ravens 23-20 to win the AFC Championship. (AP Photo/Winslow Townson)
New York Giants head coach Tom Coughlin, center, celebrates with players in the locker room after the NFC Championship NFL football game against the San Francisco 49ers Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012, in San Francisco. The Giants won 20-17 in overtime to advance to Super Bowl XLVI. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick tips his hat to the crowd during the trophy presentation after the AFC Championship NFL football game Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012, in Foxborough, Mass. The Patriots defeated the Ravens 23-20 to win the AFC Championship. (AP Photo/Winslow Townson)
Hey, Indianapolis. A Manning will be playing in your Super Bowl, after all.
No, not that one.
It'll be Eli Manning leading the New York Giants to a Super Bowl rematch against the New England Patriots ? and this time on older brother Peyton's home field.
"It doesn't matter to me where you're playing it or the fact that it's in Indianapolis," Eli Manning said. "I'm just excited about being in one."
And if the Giants can pull this one off, Eli will have sibling bragging rights with one more Super Bowl ring than Peyton, who missed this season for the Colts after having neck surgery.
It sure won't be easy for the Giants, though. Four years after New York stunned previously undefeated New England in the Arizona desert, they'll play a Super sequel.
Eli vs. Brady. Coughlin vs. Belichick. The Giants vs. the Patriots.
Sound familiar? Here we go again.
"It's awesome and we look forward to the challenge," Giants defensive end Osi Umenyiora said. "They are a great football team. They have always been a great football team. We are looking forward to it, and it's going to be a great game."
Well, judging from the last time these teams met in the Super Bowl ? David Tyree's jaw-dropping, helmet-pinning catch and all ? it just might be.
"Being in this situation is a great moment," Patriots nose tackle Vince Wilfork said. "You have to cherish this moment."
New England (15-3) opened as a 3-point favorite for the Feb. 5 game against New York (12-7), but the Patriots know all about being in this position. They were favored by 12 points and pursuing perfection in 2008, but New York's defense battered Brady, and Manning connected with Plaxico Burress on a late touchdown to win the Giants' third Super Bowl.
That TD came, of course, a few moments after one of the biggest plays in playoff history: Manning escaping the grasp of Patriots defenders and finding Tyree, who put New York in scoring position by trapping the football against his helmet.
"Hopefully, we will have the same result," Umenyiora said. "We still have one more game to go, but this is truly unbelievable."
Especially since the Giants appeared on the verge of collapsing with Tom Coughlin's job status in jeopardy just a month ago, when they fell to 7-7 with an embarrassing loss to the Washington Redskins on Dec. 18.
"We've been here before," linebacker Mathias Kiwanuka said at the time, "and we'll get back."
Boy, was he right.
The Giants were facing elimination against the rival Jets and Rex Ryan, who boldly declared that his team ruled New York. Well, Coughlin's crew silenced Ryan with a 29-14 victory. The Giants followed that with a 31-14 win over Dallas in the regular-season finale to clinch the NFC East and get to the playoffs for the first time since the 2008 season.
New York dominated Atlanta at home in the opening round. Then came a stunner: a 37-20 victory at Green Bay ? knocking out the defending Super Bowl champions.
On Sunday, Manning extended the best season of his career with one more solid performance, and Lawrence Tynes kicked the Giants past the San Francisco 49ers 20-17 in overtime for the NFC title.
"I'm just proud of the guys, what we've overcome this year, what we've been through," Manning said, "just never having any doubts, keep believing in our team that we could get hot and start playing our best football."
The Patriots are rolling into the Super Bowl having won 10 straight, with their last loss being to ? you guessed it ? the Giants, 24-20 back in early November.
"We know they're a great team," Manning said. "We played them already this year. They've been playing great football recently."
They sure have. And now Brady and the Patriots are in familiar territory, playing in the Super Bowl for the fifth time in 11 years ? and first since the stunning upset in Arizona.
New England hopes to avoid all that sort of drama this time around. Unless it goes in the Patriots' favor, as it did in the AFC title game.
Brady was unusually subpar in the Patriots' 23-20 victory over Baltimore, throwing for 239 yards with two interceptions and, for the first time in 36 games, no TD passes. But he got some help from the Patriots' much-maligned defense, which made some crucial stops down the stretch.
A few mistakes by the Ravens helped greatly, too, as Billy Cundiff shanked a 32-yard field goal attempt with 11 seconds left ? soon after Lee Evans had a potential winning touchdown catch ripped out of his hands in the end zone.
"Childlike joy. It's all about childlike joy," linebacker Jerod Mayo said. "Last night felt like the day before Christmas for me and I haven't had that feeling in a long time."
New England last won the Super Bowl in 2005, a long drought considering that the Patriots took home Lombardi trophies three times in four years. There are only a handful of players left from that team, with guys like Corey Dillon, Tedy Bruschi and Rodney Harrison replaced by young up-and-comers such as Mayo, Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez.
"It doesn't even feel right, especially playing with the veterans here," Gronkowski said. "I watched them go to the Super Bowl as I was growing up, and now I'm part of it? It is an unreal moment."
The constants, though, are Brady and Bill Belichick. And that's been a winning combination for New England, combining to become the first QB-coach combination to win five conference championships in the Super Bowl era.
Belichick did perhaps his finest coaching job this season, piecing together a defense that ranked second-to-last in the league during the regular season. That led to plenty of shootouts, and Brady was more than up to the task, throwing for a career-high 5,235 yards while tossing 39 touchdown passes.
"They're an amazing team," Patriots owner Robert Kraft said. "They're a great brotherhood; they're a family."
And they're all looking to lift another Super Bowl trophy together. Patriots-Giants. One more time.
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Comet's fiery plunge may tell us how planets form
For the first time, scientists have caught a glimpse of a comet's final minutes before it was vaporized by the sun.?The comet was flying at about 1.4 million miles an hour.
For the first time, scientists have caught a comet in the Icarus-like act of zipping too close to the sun ? and watched as it paid the ultimate price.
Skip to next paragraphIn catching a glimpse of the comet's final vaporization, researchers not only have been able to piece together a detailed picture of the comet itself ? something usually reserved for spacecraft fly-bys. They also may have a found a way to use similar comets as test dummies for making key measurements of the sun's atmosphere, or corona.
And by throwing the break-up process into reverse, they may be able to answer a nagging question tied to the formation of planets in the solar system some 4.5 billion years ago: How does the clumping process that gathers tiny dust grains into ever bigger lumps and finally to planet-size objects really work?
The comet observations, published in the Jan. 20 issue of the journal Science, "are pioneering a new form of cometary study," writes Carey Lisse, a researcher at the Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md.
The comet, C/2011 N3, was discovered July 4, 2011, a scant two days before its demise, as researchers looked at data from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft, a joint NASA-European Space Agency project.
Sun-grazing comets, such as C/2011 N3, are nothing new to SOHO. It has observed more than 2,100 of them, according to NASA. It finds them with an instrument designed to mask the sun's disk so the instrument can observe the glowing corona.
But that's also a problem. Sun-grazers SOHO sees vanish behind this mask. And like Las Vegas, what goes on behind the mask stays behind the mask.
It took data from three craft ? SOHO, as well as NASA's STEREO and Solar Dynamics Observatory ? to piece together the full picture of C/2011 N3's final 20 minutes.
The C/2011 N3 belongs to a family known as Kreutz sungrazers ? a vast collection of comet fragments thought to have come from the break-up of a larger comet around 2,500 years ago. Scientists estimate that the parent object's nucleus was as large as 60 miles across. Comet Halley, which makes its closest approach to the sun every 75 years, has a nucleus roughly 7 miles across.
Based on its observations, the team, led by Lockheed Martin Corporation solar physicist Karel Schrijver, estimates that C/2011 N3 was hurtling toward the sun at about 1.4 million miles an hour ? fast enough to turn a three-day trip to the moon into a four-hour sprint. When it vanished, it had closed within 62,000 miles of the sun's surface.
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Monday 23 January 2012
Apple starts selling interactive iPad textbooks (AP)
NEW YORK ? Apple Inc. on Thursday launched its attempt to make the iPad a replacement for a satchel full of textbooks by starting to sell electronic versions of a handful of standard high-school books.
The electronic textbooks, which include "Biology" and "Environmental Science" from Pearson and "Algebra 1" and "Chemistry" from McGraw-Hill, contain videos and other interactive elements.
But it's far from clear that even a company with Apple's clout will be able to reform the primary and high-school textbook market. The printed books are bought by schools, not students, and are reused year after year, which isn't possible with the electronic versions. New books are subject to lengthy state approval processes, making the speed and ease with which ebooks can be published less of an advantage.
Major textbook publishers have been making electronic versions of their products for years, but until recently, there hasn't been any hardware suitable to display them. PCs are too expensive and cumbersome to be good e-book machines for students. Dedicated e-book readers like the Kindle have small screens and can't display color. IPads and other tablet computers work well, but iPads cost at least $499. Apple didn't reveal any new program to defray the cost of getting the tablet computers into the hands of students.
All this means textbooks have lagged the general adoption of e-books, even when counting college-level works that students buy themselves. Forrester Research said e-books accounted for only 2.8 percent of the $8 billion U.S. textbook market in 2010.
Pearson PLC of Britain and The McGraw-Hill Cos. of New York are two of the three big companies in the U.S. textbook market. The third, Boston-based Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, also plans to supply books to Apple's store, but none were immediately available.
The new textbooks are legible with a new version of the free iBooks application, which became available Thursday.
The textbooks will cost $15 or less, said Phil Schiller, Apple's head of marketing. He unveiled the books at an event at New York's Guggenheim Museum. Schools will be able to buy the books for its students and issue redemption codes to them, he said.
Albert Greco, a professor of marketing at Fordham University in New York and a former high-school principal, said schools would need to buy iPads for its students if it were to replace printed books.
It wouldn't work to let students who can afford to buy their own iPads use them in class with textbooks they buy themselves, alongside poorer students with printed books.
"The digital divide issue could be very embarrassing. Because if you don't have the iPad, you can't do the quiz, you don't get instant feedback ... that is an invitation for a lawsuit," Greco said. "I would be shocked if any principal or superintendent would let that system go forward."
Greco said hardback high-school textbooks cost an average of about $105, and a freshman might need five of them. However, they last for five years.
That means that even if an iPad were to last for five years in the hands of students, the e-books plus the iPad would cost more than the hardback textbooks.
At the private Xavier High School in New York, student Omar Soria welcomed the idea of getting rid of printed textbooks.
"They get pretty heavy, about maybe one pound per textbook. And depending on all the other books, which is binders and notebooks, it can get pretty heavy," he said.
Apple also released an app for iTunes U, which has been a channel for colleges to release video and audio from lectures, through iTunes. The app will open that channel to K-through-12 schools, and will let teachers present outlines, post notes and communicate with students in other ways.
Greco called the new app "a shot across the bow" of Blackboard Inc., a privately held company that provides similar electronic tools to teachers. It, too, has applications for cellphones and tablets.
Apple also revealed iBook Author, an application for Macs that lets people create electronic textbooks.
According to biographer Walter Isaacson, reforming the textbook market was a pet project of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, even in the last year of his life. At a dinner in early 2011, Jobs told News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch that the paper textbooks could be made obsolete by the iPad. Jobs wanted to circumvent the state certification process for textbook sales by having Apple release textbooks for free on the tablet computer.
Jobs died in October after a long battle with cancer.
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Yemeni president says he will travel to US
FILE - In this Friday, April 8, 2011 file photo, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh reacts while looking at his supporters, not pictured, during a rally supporting him, in Sanaa,Yemen. Yemeni officials say outgoing President Ali Abdullah Saleh will leave soon to Oman, en route to medical treatment in the United States. Washington has been trying to get Saleh out of Yemen _ though not to settle in the U.S. _ to allow a peaceful transition from his rule. However, there appear to be differences whether Saleh would remain in exile. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen, File)
FILE - In this Friday, April 8, 2011 file photo, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh reacts while looking at his supporters, not pictured, during a rally supporting him, in Sanaa,Yemen. Yemeni officials say outgoing President Ali Abdullah Saleh will leave soon to Oman, en route to medical treatment in the United States. Washington has been trying to get Saleh out of Yemen _ though not to settle in the U.S. _ to allow a peaceful transition from his rule. However, there appear to be differences whether Saleh would remain in exile. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen, File)
SANAA, Yemen (AP) ? Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh said Sunday he will travel to Washington for medical treatment and he asked Yemenis for forgiveness, saying it is time to hand over power in a farewell speech, state media reported.
The mercurial president told Yemeni TV networks that he had formally handed power to his vice president but would return to his homeland before early presidential elections scheduled for next month as the head of the General People's Congress Party.
An official at Sanaa airport said that a presidential plane had left the country Sunday morning, but he declined to say who was on board. Two other airport officials said that Saleh had already left the country, but the claims could not be confirmed.
The reports come a day after Yemeni parliament approved a law that gives Saleh immunity from prosecution and is in line with the timetable set in a U.S.-backed power-transfer deal aimed at ending months of political stalemate and violence.
Facing continued protests demanding his ouster, Saleh in November agreed to step down. A unity government between his party and the opposition has since been created. However, Saleh ? still formally the president ? has continued to influence politics from behind the scenes through his family and loyalists in power positions.
The deal was widely rejected by millions of street protesters who have staged anti-Saleh demonstrations inspired by the Arab \ of revolutions that have successfully led to the ouster of autocratic leaders in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. Protesters reject the immunity clause, insisting Saleh should be prosecuted for the alleged killings of protesters and corruption.
The president, who has ruled for more than 33 years, left the country once before, traveling to Saudi Arabia for medical treatment after coming under attack and he has repeatedly gone back and forth on whether he would leave again.
His remarks, reported by the official Yemeni news agency, were the strongest indication that he was preparing to leave as he said Vice President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi "is the one responsible now" and urged rival political parties and youth to unite and achieve "reconciliation."
Saleh gave no date for his departure, and it was not clear if he would go directly to Washington. Yemeni officials said Saturday that the president planned to travel to Oman first.
Washington has been trying for weeks to find a country where Saleh could live in exile to allow a peaceful transition from his rule of more than 33 years, since it does not want him to settle permanently in the United States.
Aides to the president told The Associated Press that Saleh gathered top political, military and security officials and announced Hadi to the rank of marshal. He is set to replace Saleh.
"I appeal to you to forgive my past mistakes," one top ruling party official who was there quoted Saleh as saying. "Today, I leave the country in your hands," he was quoted as saying.
Another aide who attended the meeting quoted Saleh as saying, "I am leaving this good country, today. I want to bid you farewell from this place. I thank each one of you and offer my apology to the people and ask for forgiveness."
A third official said that Saleh declined to hold a public departure ceremony and preferred to offer his farewell behind closed doors.
All the officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to reporters.
After signing the deal in November, civil servants and employees have staged almost daily protests, each in front of their institution and agency demanding uprooting Saleh's regime members from the top government positions.
Among the latest protests, army forces used armored vehicles to briefly close runways at the military air base, which is attached to Sanaa airport, early Sunday, demanding that the commander of the country's air force be replaced. The commander is Saleh's brother, Maj. Gen. Mohammed Saleh.
Later Sunday, Republican Guard forces, which are commanded by Saleh's son, Ahmed, stormed the airport, fired rubber bullets and water cannons, dispersing the protesters and reopening the airport.
In the southern city of Taiz, security officers staged similar protests demanding the ouster of their commander.
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Sunday 22 January 2012
Report: Lakers star's wife to keep 3 mansions (AP)
SANTA ANA, Calif. ? Records show the wife of Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant will keep their three California homes as part of the couple's divorce plans.
Orange County property records reviewed by the Los Angeles Times (http://lat.ms/xUxzQv) show that the three mansions in Newport Coast, valued at $18.8 million total, were transferred into Vanessa Bryant's name since their divorce proceedings began in December.
Vanessa Bryant filed a divorce petition in Orange County Superior Court in December, citing "irreconcilable differences." The couple released a joint statement then saying that they had "resolved all issues incident to their divorce privately."
The Times says neither of the attorneys representing the couple was available for comment.
___
Information from: Los Angeles Times, http://www.latimes.com
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Obama campaign sends the most popular Obama to campaign in battleground Florida (Washington Bureau)
Saturday 21 January 2012
Afghanistan: Avalanches Kill Dozens In Badakhshan Province
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan ? A suicide attacker blew himself up Thursday at an entrance to a sprawling base for U.S. and NATO operations in southern Afghanistan, killing at least six civilians, police said.
It was the second suicide bombing in as many days in southern Afghanistan, which is the birthplace of the Taliban insurgency.
"He arrived on foot and tried to get near the gate of Kandahar Air Field and then he blew himself up," said Abdul Razaq, police chief in Kandahar province.
The incident was confirmed by Gen. Mohammad Hameed, head of the Afghan National Army in the province, who said other civilians were wounded in the blast.
On Wednesday, dozens of civilians, coalition troops and Afghan security forces were killed and wounded when a suicide attacker blew himself up in a bazaar in neighboring Helmand province. Daud Ahmadi, a provincial spokesman, said a bomber on a motorcycle killed at least 12 Afghans, including two policeman, and wounded at least 23 other people in Kajaki district.
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Acer Iconia A200 now available at Best Buy for $349
As if deciding on an Android tablet wasn't hard enough now yet another one is available to make things harder. The Acer Iconia A200 is now available from Best Buy, both online and in stores, for $349. The A200 is a Honeycomb-based tablet, but all signs point to a mid-Febuary ICS update -- and there's a giant sticker on the box saying that an upgrade is coming. So, will this be your next tablet? Be sure to stay tuned as we review this bad boy!
Source: Best Buy; thanks to everyone who sent this in!
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/androidcentral/~3/cFwtOgpNjgo/story01.htm
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Friday 20 January 2012
Pockets of Internet go dark to protest piracy bills (Reuters)
(Reuters) ? Wikipedia, the world's free online encyclopedia, went dark on Wednesday and other Internet players including Google put black censorship bars on portions of their websites in protest of pending U.S. legislation designed to curb online piracy.
The unusual protest was visible across the Internet in many forms on Wednesday, with dozens of commercial and non-profit websites either closing down for the day or urging visitors to oppose what had until recently been a relatively obscure and technical legislative proposal.
Internet companies aim to get U.S. lawmakers to back off of bills designed to shut down access to overseas websites that traffic in stolen content or counterfeit goods.
The effort has gained traction. The White House over the weekend warned that overly broad legislation could harm free speech, and on Wednesday, House Speaker John Boehner acknowledged there was a lack of consensus on the bills.
Several members of Congress said the legislation appeared stalled, with some reversing earlier support for the measures.
The legislation, known as SOPA in the U.S. House of Representatives and PIPA in the Senate, has been a major priority for entertainment companies, publishers, pharmaceutical companies and many industry groups, who say it is critical to curbing online piracy that costs them billions of dollars a year.
But Internet players argue the bills would undermine innovation and free speech rights and compromise the functioning of the Internet.
"Something this big - which looks to be the largest and most prolific online protest ever in the short history of the Internet - that's bound to get the attention of lawmakers across the board," said Jeffrey Silva, an analyst at Medley Global Advisors.
Wikipedia mounted a 24-hour protest starting at midnight by converting their English page to shadowy black background and warning readers that "the U.S. Congress is considering legislation that could fatally damage the free and open Internet."
It included a link to help Internet users contact their representatives.
Craigslist, the free Internet classifieds site, also went black in protest, while Google's home search page included a black bar slapped over its logo, and asked readers: "Tell Congress: Please don't censor the web!"
Smaller sites, such as Reddit.com and BoingBoing.net, were also dark, with BoingBoing noting that the proposed anti-piracy bills "would put us in legal jeopardy if we linked to a site anywhere online that had links to copyright infringement."
Bill Allison, editorial director at the Sunlight Foundation, a lobbying watchdog group, said the Internet companies' 24-hour boycott was an effective campaign.
"It's a way of engaging the public in something that had been a very much behind closed doors kind of business as usual in Washington thing. It's a way to get the public aware and alerted to it, and somewhat on their side," Allison said.
MOMENTUM COOLS
The bills were seemingly on track for approval by Congress, but sentiment has shifted in recent weeks and an implicit veto threat from the White House has cast doubt on whether legislation will pass.
Republican Representative Tom Price, head of the House Republican Policy Committee, said in a hallway interview, "I don't think it is going anywhere."
"There is real confusion about it, number one, but number two, there are real concerns about whether or not it would it would shutdown the ability of entrepreneurs, new businesses and the like to utilize the Internet for their purposes," Price said.
When asked about the anti-piracy legislation at a news conference on Wednesday, Boehner said lawmakers will continue to try to find support for it, but that it's not there now.
"It's pretty clear to many of us that there is a lack of consensus at this point," Boehner said.
STAYING ON THE SIDELINES
Big tech names including Facebook and Twitter declined to participate in a boycott despite their opposition to the legislation.
The companies were not prepared to sacrifice a day's worth of revenue and risk the ire of users for a protest whose impact on lawmakers would be hard to gauge.
Google's solution allows the search engine giant to keep revenue attached to its searches, while still highlighting the issue.
The protest drew some criticism ahead of its launch.
"This publicity stunt does a disservice to its users by promoting fear instead of facts," Lamar Smith, Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and a sponsor of SOPA, said in a statement on Tuesday. "Perhaps during the blackout, Internet users can look elsewhere for an accurate definition of online piracy."
Former Senator Chris Dodd, who now chairs the Motion Picture Association of America, labeled the blackout a "gimmick" and called for its supporters to "stop the hyperbole and PR stunts and engage in meaningful efforts to combat piracy."
(Reporting by Sarah McBride in San Francisco and Jasmin Melvin in Washington D.C.; Additional reporting by Diane Bartz and Thomas Ferraro; Editing by Maureen Bavdek and Tim Dobbyn)
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