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Arizona jury fails to decide if Jodi Arias should be executed

Posted: 23 May 2013 10:44 PM PDT


By Tim Gaynor and David Schwartz

PHOENIX (Reuters) - An Arizona jury failed on Thursday to reach a unanimous verdict on whether Jodi Arias should be put to death for the brutal murder of her ex-boyfriend, prompting the judge to set a date for a new sentencing phase of the trial.

Arias, a former waitress from California, was found guilty this month of murdering Travis Alexander, whose body was found slumped in the shower of his Phoenix-area home in June 2008. He had been stabbed 27 times, had his throat slashed and been shot in the face.

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Sherry Stephens, who had told the jury on Wednesday to resume deliberations after the panel indicated it was struggling to reach consensus, set July 18 as the date for a retrial of the penalty phase and ordered a status hearing for June with attorneys in the case.

Arias, a petite figure who had earlier pleaded with the eight men and four women on the jury to spare her life for the sake of her family, appeared to breathe a sigh of relief. Alexander's relatives wept and hugged in court.

The marathon trial that began in January had included graphic testimony and photographs, and attracted the attention of U.S. television audiences with its tale of a soft-spoken young woman charged with an unspeakable crime. Arias, 32, had argued the killing was in self-defense.

Following the penalty phase deadlock, the state has the option to retry the sentencing portion of the trial and have a new death penalty jury impaneled. Should such a jury also deadlock, capital punishment would be taken off the table.

Should prosecutors opt against a full penalty-phase jury retrial, the judge would be left to hand down a verdict of life in prison.

Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery said in a statement that his office appreciated the jury's work and would now assess its next steps, but was proceeding "with the intent to retry the penalty phase."

Alexander's family, including his younger siblings, Steven and Samantha, regularly attended the trial and declined through an attorney to comment after the sentencing mistrial.

Among the issues that came up during the sentencing deliberations was whether a life term meant Arias would spend the remainder of her life in prison or would have the possibility of parole after 25 years.

Defense attorney Jennifer Willmott had advised jurors that if they sentenced Arias to life in prison, they were "sentencing her to die in prison," and there was no procedure in place to grant parole.

Prosecutor Juan Martinez countered that while there was no mechanism now to grant Arias parole, one could be put in place later.

DOUBTS OVER NEW JURY

Some legal analysts questioned whether prosecutors should go forward with a new penalty-phase jury proceeding.

"The jury that looked at all the evidence and heard five months of testimony could not agree that a death sentence was appropriate. Even though the state can take a second bite, this case should end now," said Dale Baich, an assistant federal public defender who represents death-row prisoners' appeals.

"The trial phase and the aggravation are going to have to be presented to this new jury, and Maricopa County has spent a lot of money on this case already. The question is, do they want to spend more?" Baich said.

During her trial, Arias admitted she had killed Alexander, 30, but said it was in self-defense after he attacked her because she dropped his camera while taking snapshots of him in the shower. She said she did not remember stabbing him.

Prosecutors said Arias repeatedly stabbed Alexander, a businessman and motivational speaker, for two minutes as he tried to escape and that she then followed him down a hallway and slashed his throat, at which point he knew he was going to die but was unable to resist.

Legal analysts also questioned how an impartial jury could be seated for a new penalty phase considering the wide attention the case had attracted.

"This case has taken on the character of a circus rather than a trial," said Michael Kimerer, a criminal defense attorney in Phoenix. "I don't see how you are going to do it."

Arias is being held in a 7-foot-by-11-foot cell for 23 hours a day in a local jail, the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office said.

If Arias is sentenced to death, she would join a small number of condemned women in the United States. While women account for about one in eight U.S. murder arrests, less than 2 percent of death row inmates are women, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Only one woman - convicted killer Eva Dugan - has ever been executed in Arizona. Dugan was hanged in 1930.

(Additional reporting by David Schwartz in Phoenix; Editing by Cynthia Johnston, Stacey Joyce, David Brunnstrom and Peter Cooney)

Amazing Ash Cloud Spied from Space Station

Posted: 23 May 2013 10:20 PM PDT

Clear skies and a passing space station combined for an extraordinary view of Alaska's erupting Pavlof volcano on May 18.

An astronaut aboard the International Space Station snapped a photo of ash streaming from the fiery peak in the Aleutian Islands, about 625 miles (1,000 kilometers) southwest of Anchorage.

Before Mount Pavlof started erupting on May 13, the volcano was as snowy white as its twin, Pavlof Sister, seen sitting directly northeast of the active volcano in the astronaut picture. The combination of melting ice and snow, volcanic gases and lava has sent pyroclastic flows racing down Pavlof's slopes, seen in earlier satellite images tracking the eruption. Pyroclastic flows are lethally hot, superfast flows of gas and rock fragments.

Satellites and earthquake monitors help scientists at the Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO) track the ongoing eruption at Pavlof and the more than 30 active volcanoes in Alaska, many of which are far from towns, but can threaten planes with their ash. America's biggest state relies on small planes to ferry people and supplies to remote villages, and international cargo travels from Anchorage to Asia. When clouds hide the ash cloud, satellite heat imagery and seismic tremors help researchers confirm volcanoes such as Pavlof are still actively erupting. Local pilots also call in reports of ash and gas plumes to AVO scientists.

Pavlof's ash column has reached as high as 22,000 feet (7,000 meters), forcing regional airlines to occasionally delay or cancel flights to local villages and towns. Ashfall has been reported in nearby communities, including Sand Point, Nelson Lagoon, King Cove and Cold Bay, according to the AVO.

Scientists are also monitoring an ongoing eruption at Cleveland volcano farther to the west in the Aleutian Islands. With no seismic network at the remote site, scientists rely on satellites and infrasound low-frequency sounds created below the range of human hearing for eruption monitoring at Cleveland volcano.

Email Becky Oskin or follow her @beckyoskin. Follow us @OAPlanet, Facebook & Google+. Original article on LiveScience's OurAmazingPlanet.

50 Amazing Volcano Facts The World's Five Most Active Volcanoes Volcanoes from Space Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Captive-Bred Wallabies May Spread Antibiotic Resistance

Posted: 23 May 2013 07:43 PM PDT

Wallabies in captivity carry antibiotic-resistant gut bacteria, which they could potentially transmit to wild populations, a new study finds.

Brush-tail rock wallabies (Petrogale penicillata) are endangered, so in order to restore populations of these marsupials, conservationists are breeding them in captivity and releasing them into the wild.

The new study found that fecal samples from captive wallabies contained bacterial genes encoding resistance to the antibiotics streptomycin, spectinomycin and trimethoprim. None of these resistance genes were found in the five wild populations the researchers sampled.

"We found that antibiotic resistance genes from human pathogens have been picked up by endangered rock wallabies in a breeding program, and may spread into the wild when the wallabies are released," study author Michelle Power of Macquarie University in Australia said in a statement.

The scientists don't know how the captive wallabies acquired the genes for antibiotic resistance, but exposure to humans likely played a role. The wallabies may have been exposed to resistant bacteria from humans or other animals in their water or feed via contaminated groundwater or runoff.

The researchers analyzed the gut bacteria of wallabies for genetic markers of antibiotic resistance called integrons. They detected these markers in 48 percent of captive wallabies, but not in any of the wild wallabies.

The development of antibiotic resistance in captive animal populations shows the ease with which pathogens can be passed among wildlife, which could promote the spread of disease, the researchers say.

The findings were detailed Wednesday (May 22) in the journal PLOS ONE.

Brush-tailed wallabies live on steep rocky outcroppings in the Great Dividing Range in South Eastern Australia. Their numbers have dwindled and their habitation range has shrunk since the arrival of European settlers, prompting the establishment of captive breeding programs.

Follow Tanya Lewis on Twitter and Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on LiveScience.com.

Marsupial Gallery: A Pouchful of Cute Tiny & Nasty: Images of Things That Make Us Sick 10 Deadly Diseases That Hopped Across Species Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

87-year-old woman loses to Trump in civil case

Posted: 23 May 2013 07:37 PM PDT


CHICAGO (AP) An 87-year-old grandmother took on billionaire Donald Trump. And on Thursday, she lost.

Jurors sided with the real estate mogul-turned-TV showman in a weeklong civil trial focused on Jacqueline Goldberg's claim that Trump cheated her in a bait-and-switch scheme connected to condos in a Chicago skyscraper he built.

The federal jury in Chicago returned with a finding in Trump's favor after deliberating for more than five hours over two days. Goldberg, of Evanston, had sought damages totaling around $6 million.

As the judge read the decision in court, Goldberg showed little emotion herself though her attorney, Shelly Kulwin, slumped over and buried his head on a courtroom table.

Outside court, Goldberg, clutching an Agatha Christie detective novel in one hand, told reporters she has no regrets about suing Trump.

"I think I have exposed him for what he is. I had to try," she said, adding that she hoped the litigation would dissuade others from doing business with Trump.

Several hours later in a phone interview with The Associated Press, Trump heralded the verdict as "a complete and total victory."

Asked about Goldberg's comments, he bristled.

"She's not glad she took me on because she lost," the famous executive said. And he called her comment about hoping to drive business away from him "disgraceful."

The case pitted the suburban Chicago woman against a New Yorker who revels in his image as a big talker with big ideas. Many know him best for his catchphrase "You're fired!" from his "Apprentice" TV show.

In a sarcasm-filled closing, Kulwin described Trump as villainous and greedy.

"The thought of my grandma being in the same room with that guy. Yuck!" he boomed.

The dispute centered on the glitzy Trump International Hotel & Tower in Chicago, one of several showcase towers Trump has named after himself in such places as New York, Las Vegas and Hawaii.

Goldberg accused Trump of wooing her into buying two condos at $1 million apiece in the mid-2000s by dangling a promise to share in building profits then reneging after she committed to buying.

At trial, Kulwin portrayed Goldberg as a former waitress who learned her values living through the Depression.

Trump lashed out at that portrayal Thursday. He said Goldberg was a successful, sophisticated investor who signed a contract stipulating he could do what he did: cancel the profit-sharing plan anytime he saw fit.

"I don't have any admiration for her," the mogul told the AP. "She knew exactly what she was doing. She should be ashamed of herself."

A court clerk said jurors had chosen not to speak to reporters afterward. But the fact Goldberg signed a contract with the stipulation Trump could change the terms may have been the deciding factor.

An often-scowling Trump spent two days testifying himself, bragging about the quality of his developments and verbally sparring with Kulwin.

On the stand, Trump denied he ever cheated anyone. Off it, he blasted the woman who brought him there, telling reporters he was the victim, not Goldberg. He declared, "She's trying to rip me off."

Goldberg isn't the first to complain about a Trump development.

Dozens of investors in Las Vegas' five-year-old Trump International Hotel & Tower sued Trump, alleging he manufactured "a purchasing frenzy" to get them to buy in before the property market collapsed.

An arbiter, though, sided with Trump in 2011, and U.S. District Judge Gloria M. Navarro in Las Vegas later refused the disgruntled investors' request to nullify the arbitration finding.

Trump's testimony in Chicago offered a rare inside look at the business style of the 66-year-old. He said he couldn't remember when key business decisions were made because he and his top executives aren't in the habit of taking notes.

At times, the trial was an odd, off-beat spectacle.

During his testimony, Trump kept talking over Kulwin while Kulwin kept rolling his eyes at Trump's answers, prompting Judge Amy St. Eve to order both men to behave.

City pride also intervened at one point in closings when Kulwin made an unfavorable reference to executives in New York.

"Judge, he's mocking New York," Trump attorney Stephen Novack said, standing to object.

"I can't mock New York?" Kulwin shot back. "I thought it was every Chicagoan's right to do that."

After Thursday's verdict, Novack said the jurors in Chicago didn't buy into the appeal to city pride and, instead, based their decision on the evidence.

"None of them," he said, "bought into the, 'Let's hate New York.'"

___

Follow Michael Tarm at http://www.twitter.com/mtarm .

British police ponder conspiracy after soldier murder

Posted: 23 May 2013 07:32 PM PDT


By Guy Faulconbridge and Michael Holden

LONDON (Reuters) - Police investigating the murder of a soldier hacked to death on a busy London street were looking on Friday into whether the two suspected killers, British men of Nigerian descent, were part of a wider conspiracy.

The two suspects, aged 22 and 28, are under guard in hospitals after being shot and arrested by police following the murder of 25-year-old Afghan war veteran Lee Rigby on Wednesday in broad daylight. They have not yet been charged.

Detectives were also questioning another man and a woman, arrested on Thursday on suspicion of conspiracy to murder, as they tried to determine whether those responsible had links to militants in Britain or overseas.

"This is a large, complex and fast-moving investigation which continues to develop," police said in a statement.

"Many lines of inquiry are being followed by detectives, and the investigation is progressing well."

One of the assailants, filmed justifying the killing as he stood near the body holding a knife and meat cleaver in bloodied hands, was named by acquaintances as 28-year-old Londoner Michael Adebolajo, a British-born convert to Islam.

Little is known so far about the other man.

The murder, just a month after the Boston Marathon bombing and the first Islamist killing in Britain since local suicide bombers killed 52 people in London in 2005, revived fears of "lone wolves" who may have had no direct contact with al Qaeda.

Police chiefs said they would have 1,200 extra officers on the streets in London overnight and at key locations such as religious venues and transport hubs.

"It will be assessed on a rolling basis depending on the picture. I'm sure there will be heightened numbers for a little while to come," a spokesman said.

A source close to the investigation told Reuters the attackers were known to Britain's MI5 internal security service, raising questions about whether it could have been prevented. Adebolajo had handed out radical Islamist pamphlets, but neither was considered a serious threat, a government source said.

Another source close to the inquiry said the local backgrounds of the suspects in a multicultural metropolis - nearly 40 percent of Londoners were born abroad - and the simplicity of the attack made prevention difficult.

"Apart from being horribly barbaric, this was relatively straightforward to carry out," the source said. "This was quite low-tech, and that is frankly pretty challenging."

Anjem Choudary, one of Britain's most recognised Islamist leaders, told Reuters Adebolajo was known to fellow Muslims as Mujahid - a name meaning 'fighter': "He used to attend a few demonstrations and activities that we used to have in the past."

He added that he had not seen him for about two years: "He was peaceful, unassuming, and I don't think there's any reason to think he would do anything violent."

POLICE LOOKING FOR LINKS

The two men used a car to run down Drummer Rigby outside Woolwich Barracks in southeast London and then attacked him with a meat cleaver and knives, witnesses said.

The pair told shocked bystanders they acted in revenge for British wars in Muslim countries.

"We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you. The only reason we have done this is because Muslims are dying every day," Adebolajo was filmed saying by an onlooker. "This British soldier is an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth."

Rigby, who had a two-year-old son, was not in uniform. The bandsman was working locally as an army recruiter.

"All he wanted to do from when he was a little boy was to be in the army," his family said in a statement. "He wanted to live life and enjoy himself."

In Nigeria, with a mixed Christian-Muslim population and where the authorities are battling an Islamist insurgency, a government source said there was no evidence the Woolwich suspects were linked to groups in west Africa.

British investigators are looking at information that at least one of the suspects may have had an interest in joining Somalia-based Islamist rebel group al Shabaab, which is allied to al Qaeda, a source with knowledge of the matter said.

Al Shabaab linked the attack to the Boston bombing and last year's gun attacks in the southern French city of Toulouse.

"Toulouse, Boston, Woolwich ... Where next? You just have to grin and bear it, it's inevitable. A case of the chickens coming home to roost!" the rebels said on Twitter.

Peter Clarke, who led the investigation into the 2005 bombings, popularly known as 7/7, said that if the Woolwich attackers did turn out to be acting alone, it showed the difficulty the security services faced in trying to stop them.

"An attack like this doesn't need sophisticated fund raising and sophisticated communications or planning," he told Reuters. "It can be organised and then actually delivered in a moment."

(Editing by Will Waterman)

Italy's Berlusconi in tax fraud scheme as PM, judges say

Posted: 23 May 2013 07:28 PM PDT


MILAN (Reuters) - Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was involved in a tax fraud scheme while he was head of government, a Milan court said in a document released on Thursday explaining its earlier decision to uphold his four-year conviction.

Berlusconi's mounting legal difficulties have created tension in Italy's fragile coalition government, over which he has veto power, and the tax fraud case is nearing its final appeal with a definitive judgment possible within a year.

On May 8 the appeal court upheld the sentence for tax fraud in connection with the media mogul's television network Mediaset. In the Italian judicial system, courts publish the reasons for their rulings some time after the sentence.

The document released on Thursday said evidence showed Berlusconi managed the scheme, in which he is accused of inflating the price paid for television rights to avoid taxes, for many years including when he was prime minister.

His involvement "continued despite the public roles undertaken", the document said, taking advantage of complicity both inside and outside the Mediaset group.

It rejected Berlusconi's argument that he had been too busy working in politics to be involved in such a plan, saying he still handled top-level Mediaset decisions, including the management of television rights.

It said Berlusconi had directly orchestrated the first stages of the evasion scheme, in which offshore companies were used to artificially inflate the price of film distribution rights, with part of the extra money skimmed off to create illegal slush funds.

The 76-year-old, whose mounting legal troubles include a separate trial on charges of paying for sex with a minor, headed four governments between 1994 and 2011.

Berlusconi is the head of the center-right People of Freedom party, part of Italy's fragile coalition government, giving him veto power over legislation and the ability to bring the government down in parliament.

Neither the four-year jail sentence nor a five-year ban on public office also handed down will take effect unless the conviction is upheld in a final appeal.

Berlusconi denies wrongdoing and says he is the victim of prosecutors and judges who are politically opposed to him.

(Reporting by Sara Rossi; Writing by Naomi O'Leary; Editing by Michael Roddy)

LIVE CHAT with Xbox exec Larry Hryb aka Major Nelson!

Posted: 23 May 2013 07:23 PM PDT


Microsoft unveiled the Xbox One at a a doozy of an event on Tuesday, showing off a totally redesigned console and Kinect, and teasing several new games and entertainment features.We're sure you still have several questions about the new Xbox, so we thought we'd bring in someone who definitely knows his stuff. At 4PM ET, we'll be joined by Larry Hryb aka Major Nelson, the Director of Programming for Xbox Live and one of the top Xbox evangelists in the world. Mr. Nelson is super excited for the Xbox One and is ready to answer any questions you might have (I'll save you some time on the first two: It will be released some time this year, and pricing will be announced at a later date.) You can submit a question in our chat below; we'll be choosing the best ones to be answered by Major Nelson. Game on! You can follow @YahooTech on Twitter for all our latest live chats, tech news, opinion and more.

Xbox One vs. PlayStation 4: PS4 wins on specs

Posted: 23 May 2013 07:15 PM PDT

Xbox One Vs PlayStation 4 With the first round of announcements behind us, the only thing that s clear in the inevitable and perpetual Xbox One vs. PlayStation 4 battle is that there is no clear winner. Microsoft finally unveiled its next-generation video game console on Tuesday and once all the dust settled, Anandtech s Anand Lal Shimpi took a step back and laid out everything we know about these two beastly consoles. Lal Shimpi s analysis is extensive and thorough, as always, but it boils down to this: Based on what we know at this point, Sony has the edge in terms of specs and raw power.

[More from BGR: HTC reportedly in utter freefall ]

Lal Shimpi compiled all the known specs for the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 alongside the current-generation Xbox 360 in the following grid:

[More from BGR: Video: Samsung shows how the Galaxy S4 is the perfect gadget for stalkers]

Anandtech s complete analysis is recommended reading, but here are the nuts and bolts in terms of hardware:

While both consoles make use of an eight-core AMD Jaguar processor which is a big win for AMD the PlayStation 4 features 1,152 GPU cores compared to the Xbox One s 768 graphics cores. Sony s new console drives 1.84 TFLOPS as a result, compared to the new Xbox s peak shader throughput of 1.23 TFLOPS.

The PlayStation 4 also has the edge when it comes to system memory, featuring 8GB of 5500MHz GDDR5 memory compared to the Xbox One s 8GB of 2133MHz DDR3 RAM. Embedded memory and embedded memory bandwidth for the Xbox One are still unknown.

What does all this mean? In terms of raw gaming power, Sony s PlayStation 4 is the clear winner. As we have discussed in the past, however, Microsoft and Sony s missions appear to be diverging to an extent, as Microsoft continues to layer more home entertainment features on top of the Xbox s gaming features.

For hardcore gamers though, the PlayStation 4 seems like the better bet at this point assuming the allure of Microsoft s IllumiRoom project is removed from the equation.

This article was originally published on BGR.com

Active Hurricane Season Expected, US Forecasters Say

Posted: 23 May 2013 07:11 PM PDT

Get ready for a busy and possibly "extremely active" hurricane season, said forecasters who today (May 23) unveiled their predictions of the number and intensity of storms expected in the Atlantic Ocean basin during the 2013 hurricane season.

Scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said they expect to see 13 to 20 named storms, a designation that includes tropical storms and hurricanes. This range means the season should be an "above normal and possibly an extremely active" one, said Kathryn Sullivan, NOAA's acting director.

Sullivan said that NOAA expects to see seven to 11 hurricanes (those storms with sustained winds of at least 74 mph, or 119 km/h). Of these, three to six are likely to be major hurricanes, Sullivan said, referring to those hurricanes of Category 3, 4 or 5, with winds of 111 mph (179 km/h) or higher. [Image Gallery: Hurricanes From Above]

This forecast is well above the seasonal average of 12 named storms, six hurricanes and three major hurricanes, according to NOAA.

A confluence of factors

The above-normal season is likely thanks to a "confluence of factors" that favor cyclone formation, Sullivan said. These include above-average sea-surface temperatures in the Atlantic and Caribbean where these storms form. Warm waters fuel cyclones and make them stronger. The El Ni o climate pattern is not in effect, which favors Atlantic hurricanes, since El Ni o's easterly winds can tear apart developing cyclones.

Since 1995, other atmospheric patterns over the Atlantic have also been in an active phase for hurricanes. These conditions are expected to last until at least 2020, Sullivan said.

Hurricane season officially begins on June 1 and ends on Nov. 30, though storms can, and have, formed outside of those dates when conditions were favorable.

While forecasters can make an educated guess as to how many storms are likely to form in a given season, the computer models used to inform predictions cannot say this early in the season where hurricanes or cyclones are likely to hit. "Anybody could be hit in the Atlantic and Gulf Coast," Sullivan said.

Due to in part to improvements in the Doppler radar used by NOAA's hurricane hunter aircraft, intensity forecasts are also likely to be 10 percent to 15 percent more accurate than in the past, said Gerry Bell, the lead hurricane season forecaster for NOAA's Climate Prediction Center.

Last year

Last year's season was expected to be average, but surpassed early predictions. It will be remembered primarily for Hurricane Sandy, which killed more than 100 people and cost nearly $50 billion in damage along the U.S. Northeast. But Sandy was only the last hurricane in a very active and unusual season.

One of the busiest on record, the 2012 season also saw weaker-than-average cyclones and began earlier than usual. There were 19 named tropical storms last year in the Atlantic Ocean basin, tying 2012 at third for most named-storms in recorded history. The top spot goes to the 2005 season, which saw 28 named storms.

Two storms, Alberto and Beryl, spun up this spring before the official hurricane season start date of June 1, an unusual occurrence. The named storms resulted from warmer-than-average sea-surface temperatures throughout the Atlantic. Beryl was the earliest second-named storm of any season since record-keeping began in 1950, according to government records. The official start date is a human-imposed one based on statistical averages of hurricane season starts.

Email Douglas Main or follow him on Twitter or Google+. Follow us @OAPlanet, Facebook or Google+. Original article on LiveScience's OurAmazingPlanet.

Watch the 2012 Hurricane Season in 4.5 Minutes | Video On the Ground: Hurricane Sandy in Images 50 Amazing Hurricane Facts Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

GameStop says 2013 outlook improved after Xbox One news

Posted: 23 May 2013 07:05 PM PDT

By Chandni Doulatramani and Malathi Nayak

(Reuters) - GameStop Corp raised the lower end of its full-year earnings forecast on Thursday after beating fourth-quarter estimates, counting on a boost from new gaming consoles due later this year and further growth in digital and mobile sales.

The videogame industry, which has struggled with declining sales as gamers migrate to mobile and social media platforms, is hoping for a strong finish to 2013 with the release of new titles like Take-Two Interactive Software's "Grand Theft Auto V" and Electronic Arts Inc's "Battlefield 4."

New gaming consoles like Microsoft's Xbox One and Sony Corp's Playstation4 are expected to launch in coming months. Investors hope the advent of new gaming hardware will give the video game industry a shot in the arm.

GameStop raised the lower end of its full-year earnings forecast to $2.90 to $3.15 per share, from $2.75 to $3.15 per share previously.

"The expectations are that we're going to have a tough first half until we see titles like Grand Theft Auto and new consoles," Chief Financial Officer Robert Lloyd told Reuters.

Sony Corp said in February it would release its next-generation PlayStation this year, its first videogame console in seven years. And on Tuesday, Microsoft unveiled the Xbox One, its first new gaming console in eight years, making its strongest push so far to dominate consumers' living rooms with an array of exclusive media and video game content.

GameStop shares, which have risen about 46 percent in the last three months, were trading flat at $36.20 in the afternoon.

Analysts say there remained confusion over whether Microsoft planned to take a cut on revenue for used games played on the Xbox One, following news reports that suggested the software company may charge used-game users a fee.

"It appears that Microsoft will assign a unique ID to each game disk loaded onto the Xbox, which could require a second user to pay Microsoft a fee to access Xbox services," R. w. Baird analyst Colin Sebastian said in a note on Tuesday.

GameStop executives said they would wait for the software company to communicate that.

"The majority of how the stock is going to trade is going to be the market interpretation of how "Xbox One" is going to handle used-game sales," National Alliance Securities analyst Mike Hickey told Reuters.

Total U.S. sales of videogame hardware and software in April saw a 25 percent drop, following a downward trend that has continued month over month since last year, according to a report by market research firm NPD.

Quarterly profit of the world's largest video games retailer fell to 46 cents per share, but beat analysts' estimates of 40 cents per share.

The company, which said its year-to-date market share of PS3 and Xbox 360 software in the United States was 47.7 percent, reported first-quarter revenue of $1.87 billion. Mobile sales rose 290 percent to $46.8 million.

Analysts on average were expecting sales of $1.82 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Quarterly profit fell to 46 cents per share, but beat analysts' estimates of 40 cents per share.

For the second quarter, GameStop expects earnings of 1 cent per share to 7 cents per share. Analysts are expecting a profit of 8 cents per share.

(Reporting by Chandni Doulatramani in Bangalore and Malathi Nayak in San Francisco; Editing by Roshni Menon and Alden Bentley)

The New Shazam Is an Advertising Bug for Your House

Posted: 23 May 2013 06:58 PM PDT

Shazam, the song-identifying app whose logo keeps making its way onto TVs for second-screen expansion, has expanded its smart-listening deeper into your life with a new automatic tagging feature that basically turns your iPhone or iPad into a personal little wiretap. (The new feature isn't available for Android yet.) To save users time, Shazam no longer requires users to tag songs, shows, or advertisements to get a fuller experience about said ditty, program, or marketing campaign. Now it just does that for you, tagging all background noises automatically — noises it can tag, that is, and presumably not your conversations.

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Sure, it sounds a bit creepy to have an app always recording your entertained life, but it's also way more convenient. "The one lingering concern from our partners was, maybe a 30-second TV ad is not long enough for someone to pull out their device and Shazam a commercial," David Jones, Shazam's marketing chief, told Variety's Todd Spangler. Before the new upgrade, Shazam took approximately 12 seconds to boot up and tag, but auto-tagging speeds up the process to one to three seconds. In practice, Shazam will only tell a user about some bit of entertainment (or advertising) if they inquire, by physically tapping the tag. You'll then get all the extra information Shazam provides, without having to pull out your iPhone or iPad to hit the Shazam button. That information — and that information only — will also inform the app's second screen advertising, in which Shazam present users with "custom experiences" during commercial breaks of television shows they're watching. When a user Shazams a compatible program or television advertisement, not only does it pull up information about the program, but the branding kicks in on top. See? Convenience! But at what privacy cost?

RELATED: The Government Steps in on App Privacy

As one of the most successful apps of all time, the London-based Shazam recognizes the frightening implications of turning its music-ID software into a kind of always-on household eavesdropper, insisting that the company doesn't plan on using all the data it will inevitably collect for evil. "We're not trying to do anything like audience measurement on a grand scale across our user base. We're only interested in what our consumers actually engage in, not what auto-tagging may pick up around you," Shazam's executive vice president of marketing, David Jones, told The Guardian's Stuart Dredge. Although the app tags everything it hears, it will only consider a sound "meaningful" if a user "engages" with said tag. "If the device just auto-tags it and it stays unopened, we'll treat it as something that wasn't of interest to you," he further explained. But what does that really mean? And can, like, the Justice Department come calling one day?

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Well, probably, yeah, they could call. But you should probably actually worry more about your newfound willful overengagement than your illicit conversations with friends while the TV is on: "We're already sitting on a goldmine of data, and we're being respectful and thoughtful about how we monetise that," Shazam's Jones added. And, of course, auto-tagging gives Shazam even more data than that "goldmine" by recording and tagging everything around us. Shazam says it will use all this information responsibly — but that's now, during expansion. As we've seen with lots of other data collection websites (ahem, Facebook) tunes change when investors and founders get agitated by the lack of profits generated by their free services.

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There remains one very encouraging option for those with privacy fears: The new Shazam recording option is opt-in. And, hey, sometimes it might make sense to have the auto-tagging feature turned on, when the benefits outweigh the idea that Shazam is always listening. Like, during a commute, as Jones used as an example for GigaOm's Janko Roettgers. "My entire commute's music was sitting there," he said.

IMF's Lagarde questioned over French arbitration case

Posted: 23 May 2013 06:55 PM PDT


By Chine Labb

PARIS (Reuters) - IMF chief Christine Lagarde was questioned in court by French magistrates on Thursday over her role in a 285-million-euro ($366 million) arbitration payment made to a supporter of former president Nicolas Sarkozy.

Lagarde, in court the entire day, risks being placed under formal investigation when the hearing wraps up on Friday for her 2007 decision as Sarkozy's finance minister to use arbitration to settle a court battle between the state and businessman Bernard Tapie.

Under French law, that step would mean there exists "serious or consistent evidence" pointing to probable implication of a suspect in a crime. It is one step closer to trial but a number of such investigations have been dropped without trial.

Such a move could prove uncomfortable for the International Monetary Fund, whose former head, Frenchman Dominique Strauss-Kahn, quit in 2011 over a sex assault scandal, and for a woman rated the most influential in France by Slate magazine.

In Washington, the IMF reaffirmed its confidence in her.

"The board has been briefed on the matter a few times, including recently, and continues to express its confidence in the managing director's ability to effectively carry out her duties," IMF spokesman Gerry Rice said.

Lagarde smiled and waved at reporters crowded outside the court as she arrived in the morning and as she left at 9 p.m. (1900 GMT), some 13 hours later, with a breezy: "See you tomorrow."

Her lawyer made no comment on the day's proceedings. The decision on whether to place her under investigation or give her "supervised witness" status will be announced at the end of the hearing on Friday.

The case goes back to 1993 when Tapie, a colorful and often controversial character in the French business and sports world, sued the state for compensation after selling his stake in sports company Adidas to then state-owned bank Credit Lyonnais.

A one-time Socialist minister who later supported the conservative Sarkozy, Tapie said the bank had defrauded him after it resold the stake for a much higher sum. Credit Lyonnais, now part of Credit Agricole, has denied wrongdoing.

Lagarde is not accused of financially profiting herself from the payout and has denied doing anything wrong by opting for an arbitration process that enriched Tapie. With interest, the award amounted to 403 million euros.

However, a court specializing in cases involving ministers is targeting her for complicity in the misuse of funds because she overruled advisers to seek the settlement.

Her lawyer, Yves Repiquet, has told French media Lagarde merely approved the use of an arbitration procedure that had been decided by the state-owned holding company, Consortium de Realisation, set up to take over the debts and liabilities of Credit Lyonnais when it fell into difficulty in the early 1990s.

TAPIE UNRUFFLED

Sources close to the IMF board have said they are not worried by the affair and are confident Lagarde herself did not profit from it. But they added the board might review its position if judicial procedures took her away from her duties.

French government spokeswoman Najat Vallaud-Belkacem said she supposed Lagarde would be asked to quit her post if put under investigation.

"Objectively, knowing the IMF and the way these institutions work, I would tend to think that if she were placed under investigation she would probably be asked to step down," she told BFM television.

Tapie said on Thursday he was "delighted" the affair was being investigated. While earlier probes had found his settlement to be perfectly legal, further examination would show how justified he had been in seeking compensation, he said.

"If there had been anything untoward in the arbitration it would have come out a long time ago," he told Europe 1 radio, adding: "None of these legal cases are to see if I am dishonest, they are to find out how much I was robbed of."

Lagarde, who has worked to move the IMF on from the Strauss-Kahn scandal, has taken a firm yet pragmatic stance in the austerity-versus-growth debate as Europe struggles to pull itself out of a long economic slump.

Appointed in part for the negotiating skills she used in brokering Europe's response to the 2008/09 global financial crisis, she has shown firmness in insisting on the need for nations to stick to budgetary rigor when possible.

Current Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici told Le Monde newspaper Lagarde retained the support of the French government, but said that it would appeal against the arbitration award if she was placed under formal investigation.

(Writing by Catherine Bremer; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall and Robin Pomeroy)
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