PC titans take notes from tablets to regain customers

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Personal computer makers, trying to beat back a tablet mania that's eating into their sales, are making what may be a last-ditch attempt to sway customers by mimicking the competition.

Many of the laptops to be unveiled around the world in coming months will be hybrids or "convertibles" - morphing easily between portable tablets and full-powered laptops with a keyboard, industry analysts say.

The wave of hybrids comes as Intel Corp and Microsoft Corp, long the twin leaders of the PC industry, prepare to report results this week and next. Wall Street is predicting flat to sluggish quarterly revenue growth for both, underscoring the plight of an industry that has struggled to innovate.

In 2013, some are hoping that will change.

With the release of Microsoft's touch-centric, re-imagined Windows 8 platform in October and more power-efficient chips from Intel, PC makers are trying to spark growth by focusing on creating slim laptops with touchscreens that convert to tablets and vice versa.

Microsoft, expanding beyond its traditional business of selling software, is expected this month to roll out a "Surface Pro" tablet compatible with legacy PC software developed over decades.

That's a major selling point for corporate customers like German business software maker SAP, which plans to buy Surface Pros for employees that want it, said SAP Chief Information Officer Oliver Bussmann.

"The hybrid model is very compelling for a lot of users," Bussmann told Reuters last week. "The iPad is not replacing the laptop. It's hard to create content. That's the niche that Microsoft is going after. The Surface can fill that gap."

Apple's iPad began chipping away at demand for laptops in 2010, an assault that accelerated with the launch of Amazon.com Inc's Kindle Fire and other Google Android devices like Samsung Electronics' Note.

With sales of PCs falling last year for the first time since 2001, this year may usher in a renaissance in design and innovation from manufacturers who previously focused on reducing costs instead of adding new features to entice consumers.

"People used to be able to just show up at the party and do well just because the market was going up," Lisa Su, a senior vice president at Advanced Micro Devices, which competes against Intel. "It's harder now. You can't just show up at the party. You have to innovate and have something special."

At last week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, devices on display from Intel and others underscored the PC industry's plan to bet more on convertible laptops.

Lenovo's North America President Gerry Smith told Reuters last week that over the holidays he sold out of the company's "Yoga", a laptop with a screen that flips back behind its keyboard, and the "ThinkPad Twist", another lightweight laptop with a swiveling screen.

Intel itself showed off a hybrid prototype laptop dubbed "North Cape", housed in a thin tablet screen that attaches magnetically to a low-profile keyboard. And Asus showed a hefty 18-inch, all-in-one Windows 8 PC that converts to a tablet running Google's Android operating system.

Lenovo and Asus, which have both won positive reviews for their devices in recent months, increased their PC shipments by 14 percent and 17 percent respectively last year, according to Gartner.

"The number of unique systems that our partners have developed for Windows has almost doubled since launch. That gives an indication of how much innovation is going into the PC market," Tami Reller, chief financial officer of Microsoft's Windows unit, told Reuters.

FINGER-POINTING

To be sure, hybrids with detachable or twistable screens do not yet account for a significant proportion of global PC sales, and consumers still need to be sold on their benefits.

Previous attempts by PC makers to reinvigorate the market have had limited success. Pushed by Intel, manufacturers launched a series of slimmed down laptops early last year with features popular on tablets, like solid-state memory.

They were too expensive, often at more than $1,000 apiece, and failed to arrest the PC decline.

Microsoft's Windows 8 launch in October brought touchscreen features but failed to spark a resurgence in PC sales many manufacturers had hoped for. A round of finger-pointing ensued, with PC and chip executives blaming a shortage of touchscreen components and others saying it was the manufacturers that sharply underestimated consumer demand for touch devices.

Regardless, the entire PC ecosystem is onboard for 2013. Almost half of the Windows laptops rolled out this year may have touch screens. Of those, most will be in convertible form, according to IDC analyst David Daoud.

Further blurring the distinction between kinds of devices, about a quarter of upcoming Windows 8 gadgets will be tablets that can easily act as laptops with the help of keyboard accessories, he added.

But buyers may have to wait until the second half of the year to see many of them.

"The most likely scenario today is for the industry to have these products ready for the back-to-school season," Daoud said.

(Reporting and writing by Noel Randewich; Additional reporting by Poornima Gupta and Bill Rigby in Seattle; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)

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Story of Te'o girlfriend death apparently a hoax

SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) — The wrenching story of Notre Dame football star Manti Te'o's girlfriend dying of leukemia — a loss he said inspired him to play his best all the way to the BCS championship — was dismissed by the school as a hoax perpetrated against the linebacker.

Notre Dame said Wednesday night it believes Te'o was duped into an online relationship with a woman whose "death" was then faked by the perpetrators of the hoax.

The school made the statement following a lengthy story by Deadspin.com, saying it could find no record that Lennay Kekua ever existed.

"This is incredibly embarrassing to talk about, but over an extended period of time, I developed an emotional relationship with a woman I met online," Te'o said in a statement. "We maintained what I thought to be an authentic relationship by communicating frequently online and on the phone, and I grew to care deeply about her. "

However, he stopped short of saying he had ever met her in person or correcting reports that said he had. Throughout his All-American season and campaign for the Heisman Trophy , he stated their relationship was special but never mentioned details of face-to-face meetings.

"To realize that I was the victim of what was apparently someone's sick joke and constant lies was, and is, painful and humiliating," he said.

"In retrospect, I obviously should have been much more cautious. If anything good comes of this, I hope it is that others will be far more guarded when they engage with people online than I was."

Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick said at a news conference that Te'o told coaches on Dec. 26 he had received a call while at an awards ceremony earlier in the month from Kekua's phone number.

"When he answered it, it was a person whose voice sounded like the same person he had talked to, who told him that she was, in fact, not dead. Manti was very unnerved by that, as you might imagine," Swarbrick said.

Swarbrick said the school hired investigators and their report indicated those behind the hoax were in contact with each other, discussing what they were doing.

The investigators "were able to discover online chatter among the perpetrators that was certainly the ultimate proof of this, the joy they were taking," Swarbrick said. "The casualness among themselves they were talking about what they accomplished."

Swarbrick said Notre Dame did not take the matter to the police, saying that the school left it up to Te'o and his family to do so. He added that Notre Dame did not plan to release the findings of its investigation.

"We had no idea of motive, and that was really significant to us. ... Was somebody trying to create an NCAA violation at the core of this? Was there somebody trying to impact the outcome of football games by manipulating the emotions of a key player? Was there an extortion request coming? When you match the lack of sort of detail we lacked until we got some help investigating it with the risk involved, it was clear to me until we knew more we had to just to continue to work to try to gather the facts," Swarbrick said.

The Deadspin report changed all that.

Friends and relatives of Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, a high school classmate of Te'o, told Deadspin they believe he created Kekua. She does not have a death certificate, Deadspin reported. Stanford, where she reportedly went to school, has no record of anybody by that name, the website said. Attempts by The Associated Press to reach Tuiasosopo by telephone were unsuccessful.

Deadspin said a record search produced no obituary or funeral announcement. There is no record of her birth in the news.

There are a few Twitter and Instagram accounts registered to Lennay Kekua, but the website reported photographs identified as Kekua online and in TV news reports are pictures from the social-media accounts of a 22-year-old California woman who is not named Lennay Kekua, the website reported.

Still, Swarbrick said, "Nothing about what I have learned has shaken my faith in Manti Te'o one iota."

Te'o talked freely about their relationship after her supposed death and how much she meant to him.

In a story that appeared in the South Bend Tribune on Oct. 12, Manti's father, Brian, recounted a story about how his son and Kekua met after Notre Dame had played at Stanford in 2009. Brian Te'o also told the newspaper that Kekua had visited Hawaii and the met with his son. Brian Te'o told the AP in an interview in October that he and his wife had never met Manti's girlfriend but they had hoped to at the Wake Forest game in November. The father said he believed the relationship was just beginning to get serious when she died.

The Tribune released a statement saying: "At the Tribune, we are as stunned by these revelations as everyone else. Indeed, this season we reported the story of this fake girlfriend and her death as details were given to us by Te'o, members of his family and his coaches at Notre Dame."

The week before Notre Dame played Michigan State on Sept. 15, coach Brian Kelly told reporters when asked that Te'o's grandmother and a friend had died. Te'o didn't miss the game. He said Kekua had told him not to miss a game if she died. Te'o turned in one of his best performances of the season in the 20-3 victory in East Lansing, and his playing through heartache became a prominent theme during the Irish's undefeated regular season.

"My family and my girlfriend's family have received so much love and support from the Notre Dame family," he said after that game. "Michigan State fans showed some love. And it goes to show that people understand that football is just a game, and it's a game that we play, and we have fun doing it. But at the end of the day, what matters is the people who are around you, and family. I appreciate all the love and support that everybody's given my family and my girlfriend's family."

He was asked again about his girlfriend on Jan. 3 prior to the BCS title game, saying: "This team is very special to me, and the guys on it have always been there for me, through the good times and the bad times. I rarely have a quiet time to myself because I always have somebody calling me, asking, 'Do you want to go to the movies?' Coach is always calling me asking me, 'Are you OK? Do you need anything?'"

Te'o was a Heisman Trophy finalist, finishing second in the voting, and led Notre Dame to its first appearance in the BCS championship. His widely reported story was among the most heartwarming of the season.

"It further pains me that the grief I felt and the sympathies expressed to me at the time of my grandmother's death in September were in any way deepened by what I believed to be another significant loss in my life," Te'o said in his statement.

"I am enormously grateful for the support of my family, friends and Notre Dame fans throughout this year. To think that I shared with them my happiness about my relationship and details that I thought to be true about her just makes me sick. I hope that people can understand how trying and confusing this whole experience has been."

Te'o and the Irish lost the title game to Alabama, 42-14 on Jan. 7. He has graduated and was set to begin preparing for the NFL combine and draft at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., this week.

"Fortunately, I have many wonderful things in my life," he said in his statement, "and I'm looking forward to putting this painful experience behind me as I focus on preparing for the NFL Draft."

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Pregnant Kim Kardashian wants to be more private

NEW YORK (AP) — As the tabloids speculated about whether Jessica Simpson is expecting again (she is) and the media zeroed in on Kate Middleton‘s acute morning sickness, Kim Kardashian says it was nice to be out of the media spotlight during the early stages of her pregnancy.

“I’m obviously so happy for them, but if anything I loved the privacy,” the 32-year-old reality TV star said in an interview Wednesday.

That bit of privacy went out the window when Kardashian’s boyfriend, Kanye West, revealed during a Dec. 30 concert in Atlantic City, N.J., that they are expecting their first child together.

Now that the word is out, Kardashian says her motherly instincts have made her pull back from being so open about her personal life.

“I think that definitely kicks in where you’re like, ‘OK, I have to go in protect mode,’ and as ironic as it sounds, you live your life on a reality show but then when you grow up … certain things change your life that make you want to be more private and this is definitely one of them.”

The couple went public with their relationship in March.

Kardashian married NBA player Kris Humphries in August 2011 and their divorce is not finalized.

West rarely grants interviews, and the 35-year-old rapper is the ying to the Kardashian family’s “out there” yang. Kardashian says she is somewhat influenced by West’s approach.

“When you spend time with someone, you learn things from them, so I see what (his) views are in wanting to be private, so that’s a choice we make together as a family just in how we’re gonna raise our kid,” she said. “… But my personal experience of having really open relationships on the show, I’ve done that, and for me I feel like I got really scrutinized when people didn’t maybe understand my decisions at some point, so I feel like after that experience I’ve become more private more so than just like Kanye’s views or anything.”

Kardashian is due in July.

A new season of her reality show with her sister Kourtney, “Kourtney and Kim Take Miami,” premieres Sunday on E! (9 p.m. EST).

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Online:

http://www.eonline.com/shows/kourtney_and_kim_take_miami

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Alicia Rancilio covers entertainment for The Associated Press. Follow her online at http://www.twitter.com/aliciar

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Large study confirms flu vaccine safe in pregnancy

NEW YORK (AP) — A large study offers reassuring news for pregnant women: It's safe to get a flu shot.

The research found no evidence that the vaccine increases the risk of losing a fetus, and may prevent some deaths. Getting the flu while pregnant makes fetal death more likely, the Norwegian research showed.

The flu vaccine has long been considered safe for pregnant women and their fetus. U.S. health officials began recommending flu shots for them more than five decades ago, following a higher death rate in pregnant women during a flu pandemic in the late 1950s.

But the study is perhaps the largest look at the safety and value of flu vaccination during pregnancy, experts say.

"This is the kind of information we need to provide our patients when discussing that flu vaccine is important for everyone, particularly for pregnant women," said Dr. Geeta Swamy, a researcher who studies vaccines and pregnant women at Duke University Medical Center.

The study was released by the New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday as the United States and Europe suffer through an early and intense flu season. A U.S. obstetricians group this week reminded members that it's not too late for their pregnant patients to get vaccinated.

The new study was led by the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. It tracked pregnancies in Norway in 2009 and 2010 during an international epidemic of a new swine flu strain.

Before 2009, pregnant women in Norway were not routinely advised to get flu shots. But during the pandemic, vaccinations against the new strain were recommended for those in their second or third trimester.

The study focused on more than 113,000 pregnancies. Of those, 492 ended in the death of the fetus. The researchers calculated that the risk of fetal death was nearly twice as high for women who weren't vaccinated as it was in vaccinated mothers.

U.S. flu vaccination rates for pregnant women grew in the wake of the 2009 swine flu pandemic, from less than 15 percent to about 50 percent. But health officials say those rates need to be higher to protect newborns as well. Infants can't be vaccinated until 6 months, but studies have shown they pick up some protection if their mothers got the annual shot, experts say.

Because some drugs and vaccines can be harmful to a fetus, there is a long-standing concern about giving any medicine to a pregnant woman, experts acknowledged. But this study should ease any worries about the flu shot, said Dr. Denise Jamieson of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"The vaccine is safe," she said.

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Online:

Medical journal: http://www.nejm.org

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Obama calls for research on media in gun violence

NEW YORK (AP) — Hollywood and the video game industry received scant attention Wednesday when President Barack Obama unveiled sweeping proposals for curbing gun violence in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., school shooting.

The White House pressed most forcefully for a reluctant Congress to pass universal background checks and bans on military-style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines like the ones used in the Sandy Hook Elementary massacre.

No connection was suggested between bloody entertainment fictions and real-life violence. Instead, the White House is calling on research on the effect of media and video games on gun violence.

Among the 23 executive measures signed Wednesday by Obama is a directive to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and scientific agencies to conduct research into the causes and prevention of gun violence. The order specifically cited "investigating the relationship between video games, media images and violence."

The measure meant that media would not be exempt from conversations about violence, but it also suggested the White House would not make Hollywood, television networks and video game makers a central part of the discussion. It's a relative footnote in the White House's broad, multi-point plan, and Obama did not mention violence in entertainment in his remarks Wednesday.

The White House plan did mention media, but suggested that any effort would be related to ratings systems or technology: "The entertainment and video game industries have a responsibility to give parents tools and choices about the movies and programs their children watch and the games their children play."

The administration is calling on Congress to provide $10 million for the CDC research.

The CDC has been barred by Congress to use funds to "advocate or promote gun control," but the White House order claims that "research on gun violence is not advocacy" and that providing information to Americans on the issue is "critical public health research."

Since 26 were killed by a gunman at Sandy Hook in December, some have called for changes in the entertainment industry, which regularly churns out first-person shooter video games, grisly primetime dramas and casually violent blockbusters.

The Motion Picture Association of America, the National Association of Broadcasters, National Cable & Telecommunications Association and the Independent Film & Television Alliance responded to Wednesday's proposal in a joint statement:

"We support the president's goal of reducing gun violence in this country. It is a complex problem, and as we have said, we stand ready to be a part of the conversation and welcome further academic examination and consideration on these issues as the president has proposed."

After the Newtown massacre, Wayne Pierre, vice-president of the National Rifle Association, attacked the entertainment industry, calling it "a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells and sows violence against its own people." He cited a number of video games and films, most of them many years old, like the movies "American Psycho" and "Natural Born Killers," and the video games "Mortal Kombat" and "Grand Theft Auto."

President Obama's adviser, David Axelrod, had tweeted that he's in favor of gun control, "but shouldn't we also question marketing murder as a game?"

Others have countered that the same video games and movies are played and watched around the world, but that the tragedies of gun violence are for other reasons endemic to the U.S.

The Entertainment Software Association, which represents video game publishers, referenced that argument Wednesday in a statement that embraced Obama's proposal.

"The same entertainment is enjoyed across all cultures and nations, but tragic levels of gun violence remain unique to our country," said the ESA. "Scientific research an international and domestic crime data point toward the same conclusion: Entertainment does not cause violent behavior in the real world."

Several R-rated films released after Newton have been swept into the debate. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the former California governor and action film star, recently told USA Today in discussing his new shoot-em-up film "The Last Stand": "It's entertainment. People know the difference."

Quentin Tarantino, whose new film "Django Unchained" is a cartoonish, bloody spaghetti western set in the slavery-era South, has often grown testy when questioned about movie violence and real-life violence. Speaking to NPR, Tarantino said it was disrespectful to the memory of the victims to talk about movies: "I don't think one has to do with the other."

In 2011, the Supreme Court rejected a California law banning the sale of violent video games to children. The decision claimed that video games, like other media, are protected by the First Amendment. In dissent, Justice Stephen G. Breyer claimed previous studies showed the link between violence and video games, concluding "the video games in question are particularly likely to harm children."

In the majority, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that the government can't regulate depictions of violence, which he said were age-old, anyway: "Grimm's Fairy Tales, for example, are grim indeed."

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AP Entertainment Writer Derrik J. Lang contributed to this report from Los Angeles

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FAA grounds Dreamliners in U.S.

Federal officials say they are temporarily grounding Boeing's 787 Dreamliners until the risk of possible battery fires is addressed. (Jan. 16)

With its new plane ordered to stay on the ground, Boeing Co. confronts a full-fledged crisis as it struggles to regain the confidence of passengers and the airline customers who stood by the 787 Dreamliner during years of cost overruns and delivery delays.

A second major incident involving "a potential battery fire risk'' prompted the Federal Aviation Administration on Wednesday to temporarily ground all 787s operated by U.S. carriers until it is determined that the lithium-ion batteries on board are safe.

The order affects United Airlines, which is the first U.S. customer. The FAA gave no indication how soon the plane could resume flying.

The decision came the same day Japanese airlines grounded their 787s after an emergency landing and five days after the FAA and U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood declared that the flying public is safe on Dreamliners. When it offered those assurances Friday, however, the FAA also announced a comprehensive review of the 787's design, manufacture and assembly.

The grounding represents a significant setback for Chicago-based Boeing, which is marketing the fuel-efficient, mainly carbon-composite jetliner as a vision of the future of commercial passenger aviation. The development of the plane was marred by long production and delivery delays, but it is selling well and has customers around the world.

"We stand behind its overall integrity. We will be taking every necessary step in the coming days to assure our customers and the traveling public of the 787's safety and to return the airplanes to service," Jim McNerney, Boeing's chairman and chief executive, said in a statement. He said Boeing is working with the FAA to find answers as quickly as possible.

Chicago-based United Airlines has six 787s, but it has been flying only one on flights between O'Hare International Airport and Houston. The airline said Wednesday night that it will accommodate customers on other planes. The domestic 787 flights were to end in late March, when United's first 787s were to begin serving international routes. 

United said it "will work closely with the FAA and Boeing on the technical review as we work toward restoring 787 service."

Foreign carriers are not affected by the FAA order, but LOT Polish Airlines canceled its inaugural flight celebration at O'Hare on Wednesday night, even before the flight landed from Warsaw.

"We just think it would be inappropriate to go ahead with the activities," said Frank Joost, regional sales director of the Americas for LOT. He described the FAA grounding of 787 flights as a "surprise."

LOT also canceled the Dreamliner's return flight to Warsaw. Passengers hoping to depart on the 9:55 p.m. flight said they were disappointed. Many were rebooked on Lufthansa through Munich.

The FAA decision to ground all U.S.-registered 787s was the direct result of an in-flight incident involving a battery earlier in the day in Japan, FAA officials said. It followed another 787 battery fire that occurred Jan. 7 on the ground in Boston.

Both failures resulted in the release of flammable materials, heat damage, smoke and the potential for fire in the electrical compartments, the FAA said.

"Before further flight, operators of U.S.-registered Boeing 787 aircraft must demonstrate to the FAA that the batteries are safe," the regulatory agency said. The statement said the FAA will work with Boeing and airlines "to develop a corrective action plan to allow the U.S. 787 fleet to resume operations as quickly and safely as possible."

The FAA said it took drastic action because it determined that battery failures are "likely to exist or develop" in other planes.

Lithium-ion batteries can catch fire if they are overcharged, and the fires are difficult to extinguish, Boeing has previously said. Still, lithium-ion is the right choice for the 787, Boeing officials said.

Earlier Wednesday, Japan's two largest airlines grounded their fleets of 787s after one of the jets made an emergency landing and passengers were evacuated via emergency slides.

All Nippon Airways said instruments aboard a domestic flight Wednesday indicated a battery error, triggering emergency warnings to the pilots. A second warning light indicated smoke, said Shigeru Takano, a senior safety official at Japan's Civil Aviation Bureau.

Wednesday's incident was described by a Japanese transport ministry official as "highly serious," language used in international safety circles as indicating there could have been an accident.

ANA said the battery in the forward cargo hold was the same lithium-ion type as one involved in a fire on another Dreamliner operated by Japan Airlines in Boston last week. ANA grounded all 17 of its 787s, and Japan Airlines suspended its 787 flights scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday.

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ANA grounds Boeing 787s after emergency landing

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's two leading airlines grounded their fleets of Boeing 787s on Wednesday after one of the Dreamliner passenger jets made an emergency landing, heightening safety concerns over a plane many see as the future of commercial aviation.

All Nippon Airways Co said it was grounding all 17 of its 787s and Japan Airlines Co said it was suspending all flights scheduled for departure on Wednesday. The two carriers operate around half of the 50 Dreamliners delivered by Boeing to date.

"I think you're nearing the tipping point where they need to regard this as a serious crisis," said Richard Aboulafia, a senior analyst with the Teal Group in Fairfax, Virginia. "This is going to change people's perception of the aircraft if they don't act quickly."

ANA said instruments on domestic flight 692 to Haneda Airport near Tokyo from Yamaguchi in western Japan indicated a battery error, triggering emergency warnings to the pilots. The carrier said the battery was the same type as one that caused a fire on another Dreamliner at a U.S. airport last week.

All 129 passengers and eight crew were evacuated safely via the plane's inflatable chutes. At a news conference, ANA said a smell was detected in the cockpit and the cabin, and pilots received emergency warning of smoke in the forward electronic compartment.

The incident follows a series of mishaps for the new Dreamliner. The sophisticated plane, the world's first mainly carbon-composite airliner, has suffered fuel leaks, a battery fire, wiring problem, brake computer glitch and cracked cockpit window in recent days alone.

SMOKE ON BOARD

Flight 692 left Yamaguchi Airport shortly after 8 a.m. local time (6:00 p.m. EST Tuesday), but made an emergency landing in Takamatsu at 8:45 a.m. after smoke appeared in the cockpit, an Osaka airport authority spokesman said.

Records of the flight show the plane left 10 minutes after its scheduled departure time for a 65-minute flight, according to flight-tracking website Flightaware.com. About 18 minutes later, at 30,000 feet, it began a descent. It descended to 20,000 feet in about four minutes and landed about 16 minutes later.

Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said five people were slightly injured during the evacuation.

Boeing spokesman Marc Birtel told Reuters: "We've seen the reports, we're aware of the events and are working with our customer."

The Teal Group's Aboulafi said regulators could ground all 50 of the 787 planes now in service, while airlines may make the decision themselves. "They may want to protect their own brand images," he said.

Australia's Qantas Airways said its order for 15 Dreamliners remained on track, and its Jetstar subsidiary was due to take delivery of the first of the aircraft in the second half of this year. Qantas declined to comment further on the issues that have plagued the new light, fuel-efficient aircraft.

Last August, Qantas cancelled orders for 35 787-9 aircraft to cut costs after posting a full-year net loss for the first time in 17 years. It still has options and purchase rights for 50 of the planes from 2016. The Jetstar order is for 787-8s, the smaller variant of the wide-body, twin-engine jet.

India's aviation regulator said it was reviewing the Dreamliner's safety. State-owned Air India has six of the aircraft in service and more on order.

Shares of Dreamliner suppliers in Japan came under pressure on Wednesday, with Fuji Heavy Industries, GS Yuasa Corp -- which makes the plane's batteries -- Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, IHI and Toray Industries Inc down between 1.6 percent and 4.2 percent, while the benchmark Nikkei dropped 1.5 percent. ANA shares slipped 0.5 percent.

Japan's transport minister on Tuesday acknowledged that passenger confidence in the Dreamliner was at stake, as both Japan and the United States have opened broad and open-ended investigations into the plane after the recent incidents.

Japanese authorities said on Monday they would investigate fuel leaks on a JAL-operated 787, and the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said later its agents would analyze the lithium-ion battery and burned wire bundles from a fire aboard another JAL 787 at Boston's Logan Airport last week.

The NTSB said via Twitter late on Tuesday that it was gathering information on the ANA flight's emergency landing.

(Additional reporting by Tim Kelly, Olivier Fabre, Kentaro Sugiyama and Alwyn Scott; Writing by Ian Geoghegan; Editing by Paul Tait and Alex Richardson)

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Facebook rolls out friends-based search product

MENLO PARK, California (Reuters) - Facebook Inc took the wraps off a new search tool on Tuesday that lets people trawl their network of friends to find everything from restaurants to movie recommendations, an improvement that's likely to increase competition with review websites like Yelp and potentially even Google Inc.

The so-called graph search marks the company's biggest foray into online search to date, though it displays only information within the walls of the social network rather than links to sites available across the Internet.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's 28-year-old founder and chief executive, introduced the new product at the company's first major product launch since a rocky initial public offering in May.

"Graph search is designed to take a precise query and return to you the answer, not links to other places where you might get the answer," Zuckerberg told reporters at its Menlo Park, California, headquarters. "What you've seen today is a really different product from anything else that's out there."

Facebook shares, which have climbed 15 percent since the start of the year, slid 3 percent Tuesday to just above $30. The product news fell short of some of the most optimistic predictions, which included speculation that the social network would introduce its own smartphone or an Internet search engine.

Dubbed "graph search" because Facebook refers to its growing content, data and membership as the "social graph," the function will be available at first only as a "beta," or trial, for just hundreds of thousands of its billion-plus users.

It will let users browse mainly photographs, people, places and members' interests. Zuckerberg stressed that people can sort through only content that has been shared with them, addressing potential privacy concerns.

Shares in Yelp dived more than 6 percent on fears that Facebook's new friends-based search concept will begin to draw users away from the popular reviews site, which also lets people maintain a circle of trusted friends. Google stock held steady.

Some analysts said Facebook may be taking a tiny step toward eventually challenging Google on its home turf, but said that was a much more challenging undertaking and a long-term possibility at best.

Zuckerberg stressed that the new graph search did not encompass Internet searches, Google's specialty.

Sterne Agee analyst Arvind Bhatia said the product was inevitable. "We think this will enable them to expand beyond display ads and ultimately compete with Google," he said.

THE PROMISE AND THE THREAT

The world's largest online social network, Facebook is moving to regain Wall Street's confidence after the IPO and concerns about its long-term financial prospects.

Much of Facebook's recent focus has been on making money from users who are migrating to mobile devices. Zuckerberg said he could foresee a business in search over time, but analysts advised caution. Facebook has come under fire numerous times for unclear privacy guidelines.

While Tuesday's revelation fell short of some of the wilder guesses about what Facebook planned to reveal in its highest-profile news briefing since its market debut, analysts said it was overdue for a well-rounded search tool, given its current inadequacies.

Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter argued that recommendations from trusted friends were more valuable than from strangers on the Web.

Facebook has a vast amount of information in its social network, including roughly 200 billion photos. But some analysts noted that the information each user has access to through a network of friends is not always that extensive and could limit the usefulness of Facebook's search offering.

"Very well-connected individuals have a rich treasure trove of data that they can mine, but the average person's storehouse of data is much sparser and has less relevance to these queries," said Ray Valdes, an analyst for Gartner Inc.

Facebook's announcement underscores the increasing overlap between social media and traditional Web search engines. Google, the world's No. 1 search engine, launched the Google+ social network in 2011 and has been integrating data between Google+ into its search engine.

In the works for more than a year, Facebook's new search feature will initially be available for the English language only and for use on desktop PCs.

Bringing the search tool to mobile devices, such as smartphones, would probably require a change in design of the product, noted Valdes. "It might be that they have to come up with innovation like voice search, a Siri-like voice assistant to get it to work well on mobile," he said, referring to the technology available on Apple Inc's iPhone.

Facebook executives at the event showcased a variety of different potential uses of the product, such as finding a date by searching for single men who live in San Francisco and are from India, and creating a holiday card by finding all the photos in which spouses appear together.

The search technology will use the "likes," "check-ins" and star-ratings that Facebook users have posted about restaurants to determine the order of the recommendations displayed, though Facebook search engineering head Lars Rasmussen noted that users' comments about restaurants don't currently affect search result rankings.

Zuckerberg said the search tool was a work in progress that would take the company years to fully build out. He pointed to a variety of additional features on the horizon, such as support for additional languages and the ability to incorporate data from third-party services, like online music services, which connect to Facebook.

"I don't necessarily think that a lot of people are going to start coming to Facebook to do Web search because of this, that isn't the intent," said Zuckerberg. "But in the event that you can't find what you're looking for, it's really nice to have."

(Additional reporting by Malathi Nayak in San Francisco and Himank Sharma in Bangalore, writing and editing by Edwin Chan; Editing by Phil Berlowitz and Prudence Crowther)

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Anti-doping officials want Armstrong under oath

A televised confession by Lance Armstrong isn't enough.

Anti-doping officials want the disgraced cyclist to admit his guilt under oath before considering whether to lift a lifetime ban clouding his future as a competitive athlete. That was seconded by at least one former teammate whom Armstrong pushed aside on his way to the top of the Tour de France podium.

"Lance knows everything that happened," Frankie Andreu told The Associated Press on Tuesday. "He's the one who knows who did what because he was the ringleader. It's up to him how much he wants to expose."

Armstrong has been in conversations with U.S. Anti-Doping Agency officials, touching off speculation that he may be willing to cooperate with authorities there and name names.

Interviewer Oprah Winfrey didn't say if the subject was broached during the taping Monday at a downtown Austin hotel. In an appearance on "CBS This Morning," she declined to give details of what Armstrong told her, but said she was "mesmerized and riveted by some of his answers."

Asked whether the disgraced cyclist appeared genuinely contrite after a decade of fierce denials, Winfrey replied, "I felt that he was thoughtful, I thought that he was serious, I thought that he certainly had prepared for this moment. I would say that he met the moment."

She was promoting what has become a two-part special, Thursday and Friday, on her OWN network.

Around the same time, World Anti-Doping Agency officials issued a statement saying nothing short of "a full confession under oath" would cause them to reconsider Armstrong's lifetime ban from sanctioned events.

The International Cycling Union also urged Armstrong to tell his story to an independent commission it has set up to examine claims that the sport's governing body hid suspicious samples from the cyclist, accepted financial donations from him and helped him avoid detection in doping tests.

The ban was only one of several penalties handed to Armstrong after a scathing, 1,000-page report by USADA last year. The cyclist was also stripped of his seven Tour de France titles, lost nearly all of his endorsements and was forced to cut ties with the Livestrong cancer charity he founded in 1997.

The report portrayed Armstrong as the mastermind of a long-running scheme that employed steroids, blood boosters such as EPO, and a range of other performance-enhancers to dominate the tour. It included revealing testimony from 11 former teammates, including Andreu and his wife, Betsy.

"A lot of it was news and shocking to me," Andreu said. "I am sure it's shocking to the world. There's been signs leading up to this moment for a long time. For my wife and I, we've been attacked and ripped apart by Lance and all of his people, and all his supporters repeatedly for a long time. I just wish they wouldn't have been so blind and opened up their eyes earlier to all the signs that indicated there was deception there, so that we wouldn't have had to suffer as much.

"And it's not only us," he added, "he's ruined a lot of people lives."

Armstrong was believed to have left for Hawaii. The street outside his Spanish-style villa on Austin's west side was quiet the day after international TV crews gathered there hoping to catch a glimpse of him. Nearby, members of his legal team mapped out a strategy on how to handle at least two pending lawsuits against Armstrong, and possibly a third.

The AP reported earlier Tuesday that Justice Department officials were likely to join a whistleblower lawsuit against Armstrong by former teammate Floyd Landis, citing a source who works outside the government and requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record about the matter.

The lawsuit by Landis, who was stripped of the 2006 Tour de France title after testing positive, alleges that Armstrong defrauded the U.S. government by repeatedly denying he used performance-enhancing drugs. The deadline to join the False Claims Act lawsuit, which could require Armstrong to return substantial sponsorship fees and pay a hefty penalty, is Thursday.

Landis is hardly the only one seeking money back from Armstrong.

During his long reign as cycling champion, Armstrong scolded some critics in public, didn't hesitate to punish outspoken riders during the race, and waged legal battles against still others in court.

The London-based Sunday Times has already filed a lawsuit to recover about $500,000 it paid Armstrong to settle a libel case, and Dallas-based SCA Promotions, which tried to deny him a promised bonus for a Tour de France win, has threatened to bring another lawsuit seeking to recover more than $7.5 million awarded by an arbitration panel.

In Australia, the government of the state of South Australia said it will seek the repayment of several million dollars in appearance fees paid to Armstrong for competing in the Tour Down Under in 2009, 2010 and 2011.

"We'd be more than happy for Mr. Armstrong to make any repayment of monies to us," South Australia Premier Jay Weatherill said.

___

Litke reported from Chicago, Vertuno from Austin, Texas. Pete Yost in Washington and John L. Mone in Dearborn, Mich., also contributed to this report.

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Americans favor “Lincoln” for top Oscars: poll

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Director Ben Affleck and “Argo” may have been the big winners at the Golden Globes, but many Americans think Steven Spielberg and “Lincoln” should take home the top Oscars at next month’s awards.

Nearly a quarter of Americans questioned in an Ipsos poll for Reuters thought the Civil War drama “Lincoln” should win the Oscar for best picture at the 85th Academy Awards in Los Angeles on February 24. Spielberg was also their top choice for best director, with 36 percent choosing him.

Only 4 percent of Americans thought “Argo,” which depicts the rescue of American diplomats in Iran in the 1970s, should win the Academy Award for best picture.

The poll results have little if any implication for who will ultimately win the Oscars, which are voted on by movie industry professionals.

The Golden Globes are sometimes looked to for hints on the eventual Oscar victors, the biggest prizes in the film industry, as many Globe winners have gone on to Oscars success. But Affleck is not even in the running for best director after he was snubbed by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences which announced its nominations last week.

Americans chose Daniel Day-Lewis as their clear favorite to follow up his Golden Globe win for his portrayal of Abraham Lincoln with a best actor Oscar.

Twenty-two percent chose him over Denzel Washington in “Flight,” who polled 16 percent while Hugh Jackman, who won a Golden Globe for his role in the musical “Les Miserables” was third.

But the choice for best actress was less clear cut. Twelve percent of the 1,158 Americans polled voted for Naomi Watts as the distraught mother in the tsunami drama “The Impossible,” followed by 10 percent for Jennifer Lawrence in “Silver Linings Playbook” and 9 percent for Jessica Chastain in the search for Osama Bin Laden thriller, “Zero Dark Thirty.”

Lawrence won the Golden Globe on Sunday for best actress in a comedy or musical, while Chastain took home the prize for best actress in a drama.

“Lincoln” was also the top choice in the poll for the supporting categories, with Tommy Lee Jones and Sally Field favorites for their performances in the film.

Comedians Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, who won praise for their first stint hosting the Golden Globes, will be a hard act to follow but 42 percent of Americans approved of the choice of outspoken comedian and creator of “Family Guy” Seth MacFarlane to helm the Academy Awards.

If given the opportunity to select the host for the Oscars, 15 of people said they would opt for comedian Billy Crystal, followed by 12 percent who chose Ellen DeGeneres while 10 percent wanted Steve Martin.

To view the full poll results go to http://link.reuters.com/deh35t

The poll, which was conducted online from January 11-15, has a credibility interval of plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.

(Reporting by Patricia Reaney; editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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