RIM faces its day of reckoning with BlackBerry 10 launch

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The innovative line of BlackBerry smartphones that Research In Motion Ltd will formally unveil on Wednesday has already succeeded on one crucial count – getting RIM back in the conversation.

The new BlackBerry 10 has created a buzz among technology watchers and financial analysts, thanks to nifty features that may set it apart in an overcrowded smartphone market. RIM stock has almost tripled over the past four months on hopes the devices can restore RIM to sustained prosperity.

Reviewers like the browser speed and the intuitive keyboard on RIM’s new touchscreen. A feature called BlackBerry Balance, which keeps corporate and personal data separate, could help RIM rebuild its traditional base of big business customers.

It’s a welcome start for RIM, the smartphone pioneer that has teetered on the brink of irrelevance. But success will come only if consumer and business customers embrace the new technology in the weeks and months after CEO Thorsten Heins takes the wraps off the phone at a glitzy New York launch.

RIM is gambling its survival on the much-delayed BlackBerry 10, hoping to claw its way back into an industry now dominated by Apple Inc’s iPhone and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd’s Galaxy.

The timing may be just right. The new phone hits the market just as the iPhone’s remarkable run is showing some signs of slowing.

“I really do believe that the consumer market as a whole is ready for something new,” said Kevin Burden, head of mobility at Strategy Analytics, an industry consulting firm.

“I have to believe that there is some level of user fatigue that plays into the longevity of some of these platforms,” he added, referring to Google Inc’s Android and Apple’s iOS, which are both more than five years old. “RIM is probably timing it right.”

U.S. BATTLEGROUND

To be sure, RIM shares are about 90 percent below a 2008 peak near $ 150 a share and the company still has a tough fight ahead. It may take investors some time to determine whether RIM’s big gamble on an untested technology has paid off.

RIM’s market share collapsed in the three years ahead of the launch. Strategy Analytics data shows RIM’s global share of the smartphone market was about 3.4 percent in the fourth quarter, down from around 20 percent just three years ago.

While RIM has done well in developing markets, it has hemorrhaged customers in the United States, a market that sets technology trends. RIM’s fourth-quarter North American market share fell to 2 percent from more than 40 percent three years ago.

Acknowledging that it is crucial to win back U.S. customers, RIM will hold its main BlackBerry 10 launch in New York, although there are simultaneous events in six cities across the globe.

Underscoring the point, RIM is splurging on a costly Super Bowl ad to tout its new devices and attempt to brighten its faded image in the U.S. market.

BIG QUESTIONS

Over 150 carriers already have tested the new devices and RIM has said the launch will be the largest ever global rollout of a new platform.

The two big questions the market expects RIM to answer on Wednesday are when the phones – a full touch-screen device and one with a traditional physical keyboard – will hit store shelves, and how much they will cost.

The company is expected to unveil specifics on pricing and availability in different regions at the launch.

“The Street is expecting mid-February for a launch. Anything earlier than that is a positive, anything later will be viewed as negative,” said RBC Dominion Securities analyst Paul Treiber.

That said, there are few mysteries to be cleared up on Wednesday. Leaked photos and specifications of the devices have been splashed across the tech world.

“We’ve had the beta devices for a few weeks and in terms of the devices, they are right up there with the competition,” said Andy Ambrozic, head of IT Infrastructure at Ricoh Canada. “The Balance feature is crucial for corporations that are becoming increasingly concerned about data security.”

Scotiabank analyst Gus Papageorgiou feels RIM has a good chance of a comeback. He says the new BB10 operating system outpaces Apple’s iOS platform and Google’s market-leading Android system in every category except app selection and content.

“There is, we believe, huge potential for the platform and devices to bring people back to BlackBerry or draw entirely new users into the platform,” said Papageorgiou, who has a “sector outperform” rating on the stock.

BlackBerry 10 will not be able to compete on the number of apps, but RIM says its operating system will have the largest application library for any new platform at launch, with more than 70,000 apps available.

It has already gathered big-name music and video partners for its BlackBerry 10 storefront, including Walt Disney Studios and Sony Pictures, Universal Music and Warner Music Group.

Wireless carriers already report strong demand for the new devices. Rogers Communications Inc, Canada’s top wireless carrier and the first globally to take pre-orders for the new devices, said orders are already in the thousands.

“Our customers are excited,” said John Boynton, Rogers’ head of marketing, adding that some users are holding off on upgrades in anticipation of the BB10 launch.

(Additional reporting by Alastair Sharp and Allison Martell in Toronto; Editing by Frank McGurty, Janet Guttsman and Andre Grenon)

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Seal Pup Finds Shelter from the Storm on a Car Dashboard

People Pets

By Alison Schwartz

01/29/2013 at 06:35 PM EST

That's one adorable backseat driver!

After braving the stormy Dumfries, Scotland, weather, a savvy seal found some shelter ... on the dashboard of a car.

The 6-month-old pup, fittingly named Smartie, was first discovered wandering the area surrounding the Cairnryan ferry terminal. Concerned, staff tried to return the seal to the water. When Smartie refused, an employee put him in the trunk of his car to wait until animal rescuers arrived on the scene.

But Smartie needed a change of scenery.

The seal managed to wiggle his way from the the trunk to the vehicle's dashboard by pushing down one of the rear seats, reports the U.K.'s Daily Mail.

"He is clearly a very smart seal as he ended up watching the storm out the windscreen of the car from his warm, dry spot on the dash," said a spokesman for the Scottish SPCA, the rescue group that scooped up the pup.

Now, Smartie is living at the National Wildlife Rescue Centre near Alloa, Scotland. "We hope to return Smartie to the wild in about a month's time," said the rescue's manager, Colin Seddon, "but only when we're sure he's fully fit and able to fend for himself."

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Soldier with new arms determined to be independent

BALTIMORE (AP) — After weeks of round-the-clock medical care, Brendan Marrocco insisted on rolling his own wheelchair into a news conference using his new transplanted arms. Then he brushed his hair to one side.

Such simple tasks would go unnoticed in most patients. But for Marrocco, who lost all four limbs while serving in Iraq, these little actions demonstrate how far he's come only six weeks after getting a double-arm transplant.

Wounded by a roadside bomb in 2009, the former soldier said he could get by without legs, but he hated living without arms.

"Not having arms takes so much away from you. Even your personality, you know. You talk with your hands. You do everything with your hands, and when you don't have that, you're kind of lost for a while," the 26-year-old New Yorker told reporters Tuesday at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Doctors don't want him using his new arms too much yet, but his gritty determination to regain independence was one of the chief reasons he was chosen to receive the surgery, which has been performed in the U.S. only seven times.

That's the message Marrocco said he has for other wounded soldiers.

"Just not to give up hope. You know, life always gets better, and you're still alive," he said. "And to be stubborn. There's a lot of people who will say you can't do something. Just be stubborn and do it anyway. Work your ass off and do it."

Dr. W.P. Andrew Lee, head of the team that conducted the surgery, said the new arms could eventually provide much of the same function as his original arms and hands. Another double-arm transplant patient can now use chopsticks and tie his shoes.

Lee said Marrocco's recovery has been remarkable, and the transplant is helping to "restore physical and psychological well-being."

Tuesday's news conference was held to mark a milestone in his recovery — the day he was to be discharged from the hospital.

Next comes several years of rehabilitation, including physical therapy that is going to become more difficult as feeling returns to the arms.

Before the surgery, he had been living with his older brother in a specially equipped home on New York's Staten Island that had been built with the help of several charities. Shortly after moving in, he said it was "a relief to not have to rely on other people so much."

The home was heavily damaged by Superstorm Sandy last fall.

"We'll get it back together. We've been through a lot worse than that," his father, Alex Marrocco, said.

For the next few months, Marrocco plans to live with his brother in an apartment near the hospital.

The former infantryman said he can already move the elbow on his left arm and rotate it a little bit, but there hasn't been much movement yet for his right arm, which was transplanted higher up.

Marrocco's mother, Michelle Marrocco, said he can't hug her yet, so he brushes his left arm against her face.

The first time he moved his left arm was a complete surprise, an involuntary motion while friends were visiting him in the hospital, he said.

"I had no idea what was going through my mind. I was with my friends, and it happened by accident," he recalled. "One of my friends said 'Did you do that on purpose?' And I didn't know I did it."

Marrocco's operation also involved a technical feat not tried in previous cases, Lee said in an interview after the news conference.

A small part of Marrocco's left forearm remained just below his elbow, and doctors transplanted a whole new forearm around and on top of it, then rewired nerves to serve the old and new muscles in that arm.

"We wanted to save his joint. In the unlucky event we would lose the transplant, we still wanted him to have the elbow joint," Lee said.

He also explained why leg transplants are not done for people missing those limbs — "it's not very practical." That's because nerves regrow at best about an inch a month, so it would be many years before a transplanted leg was useful.

Even if movement returned, a patient might lack sensation on the soles of the feet, which would be unsafe if the person stepped on sharp objects and couldn't feel the pain.

And unlike prosthetic arms and hands, which many patients find frustrating, the ones for legs are good. That makes the risks of a transplant not worth taking.

"It's premature" until there are better ways to help nerves regrow, Lee said.

Now Marrocco, who was the first soldier to survive losing all four limbs in the Iraq War, is looking forward to getting behind the wheel of his black 2006 Dodge Charger and hand-cycling a marathon.

Asked if he could one day throw a football, Dr. Jaimie Shores said sure, but maybe not like Baltimore Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco.

"Thanks for having faith in me," Marrocco interjected, drawing laughter from the crowd.

His mother said Marrocco has always been "a tough cookie."

"He's not changed that, and he's just taken it and made it an art form," Michelle Marrocco said. "He's never going to stop. He's going to be that boy I knew was going to be a pain in my butt forever. And he's going to show people how to live their lives."

___

Associated Press Chief Medical Writer Marilynn Marchione in Milwaukee and AP writer David Dishneau in Hagerstown, Md., contributed to this report.

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Wall Street advances as defensive stocks extend rally

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks advanced on Tuesday, led by defensive sectors, in a sign the cash piles recently moving into the market are being put to use by cautious investors to pick up more gains.

The S&P 500 is on track to post its best monthly performance since October 2011 and its best January since 1997 as investors poured $55 billion in new cash into stock mutual funds and exchange-traded funds in January, the biggest monthly inflow on record. [ID:nL1N0AX45Q] The Dow Jones industrial average has been flirting with 14,000, a level it hasn't seen since October 2007.

Shares of Amazon.com jumped nearly 7 percent in extended trade after the world's largest Internet retailer posted fourth-quarter revenue that jumped 22 percent to $21.27 billion. The stock closed down 5.7 percent at $260.35 in regular trading.

Among rising defensive shares, which are companies relatively immune to economic swings, were drugmaker Pfizer , up 3.2 percent to $27.70 after posting earnings and AT&T , 1.6 percent higher at $34.68.

"Cyclical were moving very nicely, now you see balance with some of the defensive. Many managers use that as an internal hedge in equity portfolios," said Quincy Krosby, market strategist at Prudential Financial in Newark, New Jersey.

She said the market is cautious ahead of Wednesday's statement following the Federal Reserve's two-day meeting. In addition, defensive stocks would hold up better if Friday's payrolls report surprises on the downside.

The S&P hovered near 1,500, and market technicians say the benchmark is at an inflection point which will determine the overall direction in the near term.

"The public is pouring in now," said Carter Worth, chief market technician at Oppenheimer & Co in New York. "It reflects complacency and that typically leads to hubris, and hubris leads to trouble. Everyone's buying."

The top performing sectors on the S&P 500 were healthcare <.spxhc> and telecom services <.splrcl>, so-called defensive sectors, both up more than 1 percent.

The energy sector also advanced, on the back of strong earnings from Valero Energy Corp and a hedge fund move to break up Hess Corp to boost investor returns.

Valero shares jumped 12.8 percent to $43.77 and Hess gained 9 percent to $68.11.

The equity gains have largely come on a strong start to earnings season, though results were mixed on Tuesday with Pfizer rising but Ford Motor Co down after its report.

Both companies reported profits that topped expectations, but Ford also forecast a wider loss in its European segment. Ford dropped 4.6 percent to $13.14 as one of the biggest percentage losers on the S&P 500.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was up 72.49 points, or 0.52 percent, at 13,954.42. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was up 7.66 points, or 0.51 percent, at 1,507.84. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was down 0.64 points, or 0.02 percent, at 3,153.66.

Thomson Reuters data showed that of the 174 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported earnings this season, 68.4 percent have been above analyst expectations, which is a higher proportion than over the past four quarters and above the average since 1994.

Disappointing outlooks from Seagate Technology and BMC Software pressured their shares. Seagate lost 9.4 percent to $33.91 and BMC fell 6.3 percent to $41.71.

D.R. Horton Inc's quarterly profit more than doubled as it managed to sell more homes at higher prices, leading the No. 1 U.S. homebuilder to forecast a good spring selling season. The stock jumped 11.8 percent to $23.82.

U.S. home prices rose in November to rack up their best yearly gain since the housing crisis began, a further sign that the sector is on the mend, but consumer confidence fell to its lowest level in more than a year in the wake of higher taxes for many Americans.

(Reporting By Angela Moon; Editing by Nick Zieminski)

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Japan to Ease Restrictions on U.S. Beef

Reflecting diminishing fears over mad cow disease, Japan eased its decade-old restriction on imports of American beef on Monday. But industry experts say beef producers have many more challenges to overcome if they are going to reverse a prolonged slump that has pared the nation’s herd to its lowest level in 60 years and sent prices soaring.

A Japanese government council that oversees food and drug safety cleared a change in import regulations on Monday that would permit imports of meat from American cattle aged 30 months or younger, rather than the current 20 months, according to materials distributed at the council’s meeting in Tokyo.

The change is set to take effect on Feb. 1 for American beef processed after that date, and shipments could start arriving in Japan in mid-February, according to the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture. Bans remain on parts of cattle considered to carry a higher risk of transmitting the disease.

Japan, the world’s largest net importer of food, slapped a ban on American beef in 2003 after bovine spongiform encephalopathy, an illness more commonly known as mad cow disease, was found in a single cow in Washington State. Humans are thought to catch the disease’s fatal human variant, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, by eating meat, including the brain and spinal cord, from contaminated carcasses.

Japan eased the ban in 2006 but only for meat from cattle 20 months or younger, an age limit American exporters said had no scientific basis. Japanese officials argued that the incidence of the disease was higher in older animals.

Aside from the reduction in exports, ranchers have also been grappling over the last half-dozen years or so with rising feed prices —as ethanol producers drove up the price of corn — and with drought that has parched grazing land and deprived their animals of water. The recession and changing consumer tastes contributed to the woes. While the industry has had boom and bust cycles lasting on average four to five years, the current decline is firmly entrenched.

“Previous cycles of production and prices going back 100 years related to the particular workings of the beef industry and were usually self-correcting,” said Derrell Peel, professor of agricultural economics at Oklahoma State. “But the current cycle is largely due to external factors and that is really why we are at this historic low.”

Cameron Bruett, the spokesman for one of the largest beef processors, JBS, welcomed Japan’s decision, saying it would help increase business certainty and reduce complexity for the company’s beef production, which operates in Brazil, Argentina, Canada and the United States. “While the declining herd remains a challenge for the industry, any time you increase access to additional consumers that benefits the whole supply chain,” Mr. Bruett said.

JBS has eight processing facilities in the United States and Canada. While another major producer, Cargill, announced plans two weeks ago to close a plant in Texas — one of 10 it has in the United States — Mr. Bruett said JBS has no closure plans.

Japan’s decision will mark a bright spot at the annual gathering next week in Tampa of what Chandler Keys, a beef industry consultant, calls “the hat and boots crowd,” or the members of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. 

“It should be a shot in the arm to the market, which will be helpful,” said Bob McCan, a rancher who will be named the association’s president-elect at that meeting. Mr. McCann and his family operate a ranch in Victoria, Tex., with more than 3,600 head of Braford cattle, down from 5,000 six years ago. “Everyone looks at the high price of beef and says we must be making money, “ he said. “But profitability is more difficult due to the drought that started in Texas, the biggest cattle producing state, almost five years ago and has since widened into the Midwest.”

That has raised the cost of production, as corn used in feed has become more scarce and animals have to rely on pumped water rather than water holes.

“The bottom line is that the beef production system we have used for the last 40 or 50 years depends heavily on the incentive of very cheap grain,” Professor Peel said. “Now we don’t have cheap grain, and we are seeing fundamentally higher production costs that I don’t think are going to go away.”

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What the ‘Bqhatevwr’ Did Scott Brown Tweet?

What do politicians do after losing their re-election bids? Take to Twitter, of course. Former Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts has been doing just that.

Brown has been tweeting about his everyday life post-politics, posting blurbs about house chores, football, and his family, but Brown’s tweets are somewhat less refined than those tweeted by his skilled staffers when he was serving in Congress.

On his verified Twitter account on Friday morning, the former senator tweeted about seeing his daughter, Ayla perform at Pejamajo Café in Holliston.

“Yes. Get ready.” The tweet read, but without the finesse of Brown’s tweeting staff, one of his followers misunderstood the message.

“Oh we are. You have no idea how ready #MaPoli is to vote to keep you in the private sector & out of #MASen” @MattinSomerville tweeted back.

Brown responded with a series of three tweets delivered after midnight.

“Your brilliant Matt,” he first tweeted.

“Whatever,” followed.

And finally Brown tweeted, “Bqhatevwr.”

Though he deleted his tweets, “Bqhatevwr” trended on Twitter nearly as quickly as #eastwooding.

The trending typo drew both bipartisan support and mockery. Some taunted the former senator for his late night slip-up, creating Internet memes and “Bqhatevwr” quips, while others defended Brown, saying that he is just an average Joe who committed a typical Twitter faux pas.

But what most Twitter enthusiast failed to recognize what that Brown’s first “Your brilliant” tweet was grammatically incorrect, too.

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Soldier who lost 4 limbs has double-arm transplant

On Facebook, he describes himself as a "wounded warrior...very wounded."

Brendan Marrocco was the first soldier to survive losing all four limbs in the Iraq War, and doctors revealed Monday that he's received a double-arm transplant.

Those new arms "already move a little," he tweeted a month after the operation.

Marrocco, a 26-year-old New Yorker, was injured by a roadside bomb in 2009. He had the transplant Dec. 18 at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, his father said Monday.

Alex Marrocco said his son does not want to talk with reporters until a news conference Tuesday at the hospital, but the younger Marrocco has repeatedly mentioned the transplant on Twitter and posted photos.

"Ohh yeah today has been one month since my surgery and they already move a little," Brendan Marrocco tweeted Jan. 18.

Responding to a tweet from NASCAR driver Brad Keselowski, he wrote: "dude I can't tell you how exciting this is for me. I feel like I finally get to start over."

The infantryman also received bone marrow from the same dead donor who supplied his new arms. That novel approach is aimed at helping his body accept the new limbs with minimal medication to prevent rejection.

The military sponsors operations like these to help wounded troops. About 300 have lost arms or hands in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Unlike a life-saving heart or liver transplant, limb transplants are aimed at improving quality of life, not extending it. Quality of life is a key concern for people missing arms and hands — prosthetics for those limbs are not as advanced as those for feet and legs.

"He was the first quad amputee to survive," and there have been four others since then, Alex Marrocco said.

The Marroccos want to thank the donor's family for "making a selfless decision ... making a difference in Brendan's life," the father said.

Brendan Marrocco has been in public many times. During a July 4 visit last year to the Sept. 11 Memorial with other disabled soldiers, he said he had no regrets about his military service.

"I wouldn't change it in any way. ... I feel great. I'm still the same person," he said.

The 13-hour operation was led by Dr. W.P. Andrew Lee, plastic surgery chief at Johns Hopkins. It was the seventh double-hand or double-arm transplant done in the United States.

Lee led three of those earlier operations when he worked at the University of Pittsburgh, including the only above-elbow transplant that had been done at the time, in 2010.

Marrocco's "was the most complicated one" so far, Lee said in an interview Monday. It will take more than a year to know how fully Marrocco will be able to use the new arms.

"The maximum speed is an inch a month for nerve regeneration," he explained. "We're easily looking at a couple years" until the full extent of recovery is known.

While at Pittsburgh, Lee pioneered the immune-suppression approach used for Marrocco. The surgeon led hand-transplant operations on five patients, giving them marrow from their donors in addition to the new limbs. All five recipients have done well, and four have been able to take just one anti-rejection drug instead of combination treatments most transplant patients receive.

Minimizing anti-rejection drugs is important because they have side effects and raise the risk of cancer over the long term. Those risks have limited the willingness of surgeons and patients to do more hand, arm and even face transplants.

Lee has received funding for his work from AFIRM, the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine, a cooperative research network of top hospitals and universities around the country that the government formed about five years ago. With government money, he and several other plastic surgeons around the country are preparing to do more face transplants, possibly using the new immune-suppression approach.

Marrocco expects to spend three to four months at Hopkins, then return to a military hospital to continue physical therapy, his father said. Before the operation, he had been fitted with prosthetic legs and had learned to walk on his own.

He had been living with his older brother in a specially equipped home on New York's Staten Island that had been built with the help of several charities. Shortly after moving in, he said it was "a relief to not have to rely on other people so much."

The home was heavily damaged by Superstorm Sandy last fall.

Despite being in a lot of pain for some time after the operation, Marrocco showed a sense of humor, his father said. He had a hoarse voice from the tube that was in his throat during the long surgery and decided he sounded like Al Pacino. He soon started doing movie lines.

"He was making the nurses laugh," Alex Marrocco said.

___

Associated Press Writer Stephanie Nano in New York contributed to this report.

___

Online:

Army regenerative medicine:

http://www.afirm.mil/index.cfm?pageid=home

and http://www.afirm.mil/assets/documents/annual_report_2011.pdf

___

Follow Marilynn Marchione at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP .

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S&P 500 eases, ends longest winning run in eight years

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The S&P 500 eased slightly on Monday after an eight-day run of gains, while the Nasdaq edged higher as Apple shares rebounded.

The index remained above 1,500, however, after closing above that level on Friday for the first time in more than five years. The S&P 500's eight sessions of gains was its longest winning streak in eight years.

Caterpillar shares helped limit losses on the Dow industrials even as the company posted a 55 percent drop in quarterly profit due to a charge connected with accounting fraud at a Chinese subsidiary and weak demand among its dealers. Caterpillar's shares, down 2.2 percent in the past three sessions, rose 2 percent Monday to $97.45.

"I think this multi-year high is really something that's in play both for shorter-term traders and with folks with money on the sidelines," said Bucky Hellwig, senior vice president at BB&T Wealth Management in Birmingham, Alabama.

Bargain hunters lifted Apple after the tech giant's stock dropped 14.4 percent in the previous two sessions. With Apple's stock up 2.3 percent at $449.83, the iPad and iPhone maker regained the title as the largest U.S. company by market capitalization as Exxon Mobil fell 0.7 percent to $91.11 and slipped back to second place.

On the down side, Boeing fell 1.4 percent to $74 on worries about the potential hit from delays in its 787 Dreamliner program.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was down 14.05 points, or 0.10 percent, at 13,881.93. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was down 2.78 points, or 0.18 percent, at 1,500.18. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was up 4.59 points, or 0.15 percent, at 3,154.30.

Investors poured $55 billion in new cash into stock mutual funds and exchange-traded funds in January, the biggest monthly inflow on record, research provider TrimTabs Investment Research said.

"What we have seen this year is, it appears the individual investor is allocating some 401(k) money to equities. Hopefully that's a decision that will be with us for a while," Hellwig said.

Data on Monday pointed to growing economic momentum as companies sensed improved consumer demand.

U.S. durable goods orders jumped 4.6 percent in December, a pace that far outstripped expectations for a rise of 1.8 percent. Pending home sales, however, unexpectedly dropped 4.3 percent. Analysts were looking for an increase of 0.3 percent.

Corporate earnings so far have mostly been stronger than expected. Thomson Reuters data showed that of the 150 companies in the S&P 500 that have reported earnings so far, 67.3 percent have beaten analysts' expectations, which is a higher proportion than over the past four quarters and above the average since 1994.

After the bell, shares of Yahoo rose 4.4 percent to $21.21 following the release of its results.

During the regular session, Hess Corp shares shot up 6.1 percent to $62.48 after the company said it would exit its refining business, freeing up to $1 billion of capital. Separately, hedge fund Elliott Associates is looking for approval to buy about $800 million more in Hess stock.

Stocks have also gained support from a recent agreement in Washington to extend the government's borrowing power. On Monday, Fitch Ratings said that agreement removed the near-term risk to the country's 'AAA' rating.

Volume was roughly 6.1 billion shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq and the NYSE MKT, compared with the 2012 average daily closing volume of about 6.45 billion.

Decliners outpaced advancers on the NYSE by nearly 4 to 3, while advancers beat decliners on the Nasdaq by about 7 to 5.

(Additional reporting by Rodrigo Campos; Editing by Jan Paschal and Nick Zieminski)

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Britain Warns Its Citizens in Somaliland to Flee

LONDON — Citing a “specific threat to Westerners,” the British government issued a warning on Sunday for any of its citizens living in Somaliland to flee the breakaway territory that lies between Ethiopia and the Gulf of Aden, on the northern tip of the Horn of Africa.

The notice came only days after Britain and other European nations issued urgent warnings to their citizens to leave the Libyan city of Benghazi, 2,500 miles northwest of Somaliland, because of what Britain described as “a specific, imminent threat to Westerners.”

A person who has been briefed on the new British warning said that a terrorist organization, most likely the Shabab, had threatened to kidnap foreigners in Hargeisa, the capital of Somaliland. As the Shabab fighters have been routed from parts of Somalia by African Union forces, many have moved north, to Somaliland and the semiautonomous Puntland region of northeastern Somalia, Western intelligence officials have said.

The Foreign Office in London linked its Benghazi warning on Thursday to the French military intervention against Islamic militant rebels in Mali. Its advisory then said there was a risk of retaliatory attacks against Western interests in the region in the wake of the French campaign in Mali and the attack on a remote gas plant in Algeria, described by some of those claiming to be its masterminds as a response to events in Mali.

There was no repeat of the link to the Mali conflict in the new British warning on Somaliland, only a brusque note appended on the Foreign Office Web site saying, “We cannot comment further on the nature of the threats at this time.”

But Africa experts in London said there was little doubt that a common thread in the two warnings was the high-profile role the British government had taken in its response to the surging tempo of Islamic militancy in North Africa.

Britain was the first European country to pledge support for the French effort in Mali, deploying two C-17 military transport aircraft to carry French troops, vehicles and equipment to Mali. On Friday, while renewing its vow not to join in ground combat in Mali, Britain said it had deployed a military spy plane to the region to bolster French intelligence gathering.

But it has been Prime Minister David Cameron’s strident warnings about the events in Mali and Algeria and their significance as milestones in the metastasizing threat of Islamic militancy that has attracted the greatest attention to Britain.

Describing it as a “global threat,” he has said that it will require a “global response” that will last “years, even decades, rather than months,” and he has warned other countries, including the United States, not to underestimate the gravity of the challenge.

At the height of the gas plant siege, in which six Britons are believed to have died, Mr. Cameron said that Al Qaeda’s ambition was to establish “Islamic rule” across the Sahel, the vast region stretching more than 3,000 miles from the Atlantic in the west to the Horn of Africa in the east, and that the militants’ ambitions were a threat not only to the nations involved, but “to us,” meaning Britain, the rest of Europe and the United States.

It was in that context that the Benghazi warning, and now the Somaliland one, were issued, Africa experts in London said.

Somaliland has been in international limbo since a secessionist rebellion seeking independence from Somalia erupted 20 years ago, and its history throughout that period has been marked by assassinations, abductions and bombings.

Jeffrey Gettleman contributed reporting from Nairobi, Kenya.

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As world of gadgets grows, online industry tunes in to video ads

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Internet video ads, long a sideshow in the online advertising market, are gaining in importance to marketers and Web publishers as they look to capitalize on consumers’ changing viewing habits and tap a $ 70 billion television market.

The ever-expanding array of gadgets that display online video, from tablets to Internet-connected TVs and DVD players, along with technology such as social media that facilitates distribution, has spurred new interest.

The growing trend means websites like Google Inc’s YouTube, Yahoo , AOL and Hulu have a better shot at tapping the mother lode of television advertising budgets, though video ads have a long way to go before they become as dominant a part of the marketing landscape as TV ads.

Research firm eMarketer says video is the fastest growing form of online advertising, with spending increasing 46 percent last year, and outpacing popular formats such as search ads and display ads.

Google does not break out financial results for its YouTube business, but CEO Larry Page said on Tuesday that spending among YouTube’s top 100 advertisers increased by more than 50 percent in 2012 compared with the year before.

There have been media reports that Facebook is developing a video ad service, and analysts will likely be looking for answers on that avenue when the social networking giant delivers its quarterly results on Wednesday.

At Yahoo, “one of our highest priorities was to create more online video experiences, because that’s where the demand is for advertising,” said Tim Morse, the former Yahoo finance chief who became CFO of video advertising technology company Adap.TV this month.

Advertisers are increasingly fond of video ads, Morse said, because of the similarities to TV.

“It’s the closest to what they’ve had offline. They’re looking for the same kind of medium where they can connect with consumers,” he told Reuters.

TURNING POINT

Chevrolet has been running online video ads for several years, but significantly ramped up its activities and investment in 2012, said Carolin Probst-Iyer, the manager of digital consumer engagement for the General Motors division.

“Last year was a bit of a turning point,” she said, as Chevrolet put greater emphasis on creating original video ads and looking for new ways to distribute spots, rather than simply running existing TV ads on YouTube and TV network websites.

One recent ad for the buzz-worthy new Corvette Stingray was viewed more times on mobile devices than it was on PCs, she said.

For Web publishers, video ads are good business. While typical banner ad rates can generate a few dollars per thousand views, video ad rates can reach $ 20 per thousand views, said eMarketer’s David Hallerman.

“All of the Internet advertising to date has come from print sources,” such as newspapers, magazines and yellow pages, said RBC Capital Markets analyst Mark Mahaney.

“We’re are at a point where television ad budgets are likely to come online.”

The explosion of new screens such as smartphones and tablets greatly increases the venues where consumers can watch video, whether they’re at their desks or on a bus. And social networking, which makes it easy for users to share favorite videos, has given marketers added incentive to produce video ads that can gain additional exposure by tapping into the social slipstream.

YouTube’s head of industry development, Suzie Reider, said marketers are increasingly developing ads that are tailored for specific audiences, making it more likely that Web surfers will actually watch them.

“We’re living in a day and age where nobody has to watch an ad that they don’t want to watch,” said Reider. “You can skip them on the Web, you can skip them on TV.”

To make its website more appealing to advertisers, YouTube has helped create hundreds of “premium channels” featuring professionally produced video as opposed to the amateur clips YouTube is famous for. And it’s developed a type of video ad that users can skip after five seconds – advertisers only pay if the ad is watched all the way through.

PRICE DEFLATION?

Despite the growth in Web video ad spending, which eMarketer estimates reached $ 2.93 billion in the United States last year, the firm said the spending still represents only about 10 percent of the broader online advertising market.

And that is a mere drop in the bucket compared with the $ 68 billion that Kantar Media estimates was spent on television advertising in 2011.

One potential constraint is the way big brands and agencies organize their marketing budgets, says Pivotal Research Group analyst Brian Wieser. Online video ads are typically funded from Web ad budgets rather than a much larger pool set aside for TV.

Analysts also note that the rich rates websites collect for video ads will decrease as more Internet sites open to ads – something that’s already happening thanks to technology that automatically pairs ads with videos on websites.

Still, many analysts and industry executives are optimistic about what they see as the bigger picture.

“The number of people watching TV seems to be stagnating or declining, and the number of people turning to the Internet for entertainment is surging,” said RBC’s Mahaney. “It almost inevitably drives these TV budgets online”

(Reporting By Alexei Oreskovic; additional reporting by Gerry Shih; Editing by Leslie Adler)

Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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