$35 Raspberry Pi computer gets its own app store

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Facebook unveils new privacy controls

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Facebook Inc began rolling out a variety of new privacy controls on Wednesday, the company’s latest effort to address user concerns about who can see their personal information on the world’s largest social network.

New tools introduced on Wednesday will make it easier for Facebook’s members to quickly determine who can view the photos, comments and other information about them that appears on different parts of the website, and to request that any objectionable photos they’re featured in be removed.

A new privacy “shortcut” in the top-right hand corner of the website provides quick access to key controls such as allowing users to manage who can contact them and to block specific people.

The new controls are the latest changes to Facebook’s privacy settings, which have been criticized in the past for being too confusing.

Facebook Director of Product Sam Lessin said the changes were designed to increase users’ comfort level on the social network, which has roughly one billion users.

“When users don’t understand the concepts and controls and hit surprises, they don’t build the confidence they need,” said Lessin.

Facebook, Google Inc and other online companies have faced increasing scrutiny and enforcement from privacy regulators as consumers entrust ever-increasing amounts of information about their personal lives to Web services.

In April, Facebook settled privacy charges with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission that it had deceived consumers and forced them to share more personal information than they intended. Under the settlement, Facebook is required to get user consent for certain changes to its privacy settings and is subject to 20 years of independent audits.

Facebook’s Lessin said some users don’t understand that the information they post on their Timeline profile page is not the only personal information about them that may be viewable by others. Improvements to Facebook’s so-called Activity Log will make it easier for users to see at a glance all the information that involves them across the social network.

Facebook also said it is changing the way that third-party apps, such as games and music players, get permission to access user data. An app must now provide separate requests to create a personalized service based on a user’s personal information and to post automated messages to the Facebook newsfeed on behalf of a user – previously users agreed to both conditions by approving a single request.

The revamped controls follow proposed changes that Facebook has made to its privacy policy and terms of service. The changes would allow Facebook to integrate user data with that of its recently acquired photo-sharing app Instagram, and would loosen restrictions on how members of the social network can contact other members using the Facebook email system.

Nearly 600,000 Facebook users voted to reject the proposed changes, but the votes fell far short of the roughly 300 million needed for the vote to be binding, under Facebook’s existing rules. The proposed changes also would eliminate any such future votes by Facebook users.

(Reporting By Alexei Oreskovic)

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Valve Confirms New Game Console on Its Way

In an interview with Kotaku’s Jason Schreier at the Spike TV Video Game Awards, Valve co-founder Gabe Newell confirmed that a “living-room-friendly PC package,” designed to “compete with next-gen consoles from companies like Microsoft and Sony,” will be available for purchase starting next year.

What makes a PC a PC

Most of the machines Newell described, which he expected “companies” would “start selling” next year, would be powered by Microsoft Windows like normal PCs. However, they would be more like home theater PCs than regular computers; they would be designed to fit in the living room and plug into an HDTV, and they would use a much-simplified interface which eschews pointing and clicking in favor of using a game controller.

Getting the (Big) Picture

That interface is Steam’s Big Picture mode, launched last week as a free upgrade to the Steam digital store. Gamers can click a button on the Steam window to be taken to a screen much like an Xbox 360′s dashboard or PlayStation 3′s XMB, where they can use a game controller to buy things from the store and play their installed games.

Games which can be played using only a controller get special branding and status in Big Picture mode. Steam held an enormous sale to promote such games when Big Picture mode launched, including titles like Sonic Generations which are also available on game consoles.

Steam-powered penguins?

Besides Big Picture mode, Valve’s other big project as of late has been porting Steam to Linux, starting with the popular Ubuntu version. The Linux version of Steam, currently in beta, also supports Big Picture mode. Newell said in the interview that a working Linux version would “give Valve more flexibility when developing their own hardware,” and dozens of games are already available for Linux gamers on Steam.

What will this hardware look like?

Newell’s talk of “companies” making computers like this suggests a Valve-created standard, like the Intel ultrabook or like Google’s requirements for Android devices, which PC manufacturers would have to adhere to. He also talked about Valve making its own hardware, which might be similar to Google’s Nexus lineup of tablets and smartphones.

Besides that, these game console style PCs won’t be as “malleable” as a normal computer, according to Newell. Like with today’s laptops, it may be difficult or impossible to get at the internals and upgrade parts, the way dedicated PC gamers like to do with their machines.

How much will these machines cost?

Newell’s statement that they will compete with “next-gen” consoles from Sony and Microsoft, which probably means the long-awaited new PlayStation and Xbox consoles expected next year, implies that they will be cost-competitive in some way. Gaming PCs typically have prices starting at $ 600 – $ 800 at the very lowest, while the PlayStation 3′s $ 599 USD launch price made it a pariah of the game console world for years. A Steam-powered game console may have to invent its own price bracket.

However, the original Xbox was basically an Intel Celeron PC with a custom-made case. So it’s possible that Steam has a similar plan in mind.

Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.
Linux/Open Source News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Pope Benedict offers blessings with his first tweet

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – After weeks of anticipation, Pope Benedict sent his first tweet on Wednesday.

“Dear friends, I am pleased to get in touch with you through Twitter. Thank you for your generous response. I bless all of you from my heart.”

The tweet was sent when the 85-year-old pope tapped on a touch screen at the end of his weekly general audience in the Vatican before thousands of people.

(Reporting By Philip Pullella, editing by Paul Casciato)

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Top Google executive forced off Twitter

Working at Google (GOOG) has its benefits — for one thing, the company’s reputation as an innovator is nearly unmatched — however things aren’t always as simple as they look. After making a joke on Twitter about Microsoft and Nokia’s Windows Phone partnership, Google’s senior vice president of engineering Vic Gundotra was told to stop using the micro-blogging site. Gundotra had been using the social network since December 2007 and suddenly stopped in July 2011. It had been previously speculated that Google CEO Larry Page had told the executive to stop, however nothing had been confirmed until now. While speaking at the SMX Social Media Marketing conference on Thursday, Gundotra confirmed that his “boss” had asked him to stop using the service.

“I was asked not to do that by my boss,” he said, according to TheNextWeb. “I tweeted a tweet about two companies that went viral, went very very viral and made a lot of headline news. And honestly, I didn’t anticipate that my comments would be interpreted in the way they were interpreted.”

The tweet in question was posted on February 11th 2011 and quipped that “two turkeys do not make an Eagle,” a shot at Microsoft (MSFT) and Nokia (NOK) joining to release a new wave of Windows Phones.

Gundotra admitted that he still checks Twitter and Facebook (FB), noting that it is part of his job to keep up on innovation. He can predominantly be found using Google+ these days, however.

Get more from BGR.com: Follow us on Twitter, Facebook

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Netflix says CEO’s Facebook post triggered SEC notice

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Netflix Inc said on Thursday securities regulators warned they may bring civil action against the company and its chief executive for violating public disclosure rules with a Facebook post, in a case that raises questions about how public companies communicate on social media.

The high-profile Silicon Valley CEO, Reed Hastings, dismissed the contention and said he did not believe the Facebook post was “material” information.

Hastings wrote in the post on the company’s public Facebook page on July 3: “Netflix monthly viewing exceeded 1 billion hours for the first time ever in June.” The post was accessible to the more than 244,000 subscribers to the page.

Netflix received what is known as a Wells Notice from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which means the SEC staff will recommend the full commission pursue either a cease-and-desist action and/or a civil injunction against Netflix and Hastings over the alleged violation.

Netflix may have run afoul of the SEC’s Regulation FD, adopted in 2000, which requires public companies to make full and fair public disclosure of material non-public information.

“We think posting to over 200,000 people is very public, especially because many of my subscribers are reporters and bloggers,” Hastings said on Thursday in a letter. He also said that he did not believe the Facebook posting was “material” information.

The SEC believes that figure is material information that should have been disclosed in a press release or regulatory filing, according to Hastings’ letter.

“We remain optimistic this can be cleared up quickly through the SEC’s review process,” said Hastings in the public letter to shareholders that the online video streaming company submitted alongside a regulatory filing citing the receipt of the “Wells Notice” from the SEC.

Netflix’s stock jumped from $ 67.85 a share on July 2, the day before Hastings’ post, to $ 81.72 on July 5. On July 25 its stock fell 22 percent to $ 60.28 when the company reported second-quarter earnings fell from $ 68.2 million a year earlier to $ 6.2 million this year.

“It’s totally disingenuous to say that his statement wasn’t material when the stock went from under $ 70 a share to more than $ 80 and the only data point was that post,” said Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter.

REGULATORY GREY AREAS?

But legal and securities experts say the fast-changing world of social media leaves room for regulatory grey areas.

“The evolution of social media presents the SEC with some very interesting regulatory challenges. But if they’re worried about social media, there are ways for them to address that without threatening to sue Reed Hastings. They should have a rulemaking where they can ventilate these issues,” said Joseph Grundfest, former SEC commissioner and Stanford Law School professor.

“This situation has nothing to do with the problems that Regulation FD was designed to address.”

Joseph Marrow, an attorney at the Waltham, Massachusetts law firm Morse Barnes-Brown Pendleton, said there are conflicting views on what constitutes disclosure in circumstances like this, also noting the rules are not settled in this area.

“I would not suggest companies publish material non-public information on Facebook and Twitter without discussing it before with in-house counsel. Companies are putting together social media policies,” he said.

“If Netflix doesn’t have a policy, I bet they will have one very soon,” he said, adding the issue was unlikely to be serious enough to threaten Hastings’ position as CEO of Netflix, but could result in some type of financial penalty for the company.

Netflix shares fell 1.4 percent to $ 85 in after-hours trading on Thursday.

(Reporting by Ronald Grover and Sue Zeidler in Los Angeles Additional reporting by Alexei Oreskovic and Alistair Barr in San Francisco; Editing by Dan Grebler, Phil Berlowitz and Muralikumar Anantharaman)

Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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iPad mini shortages may soon be resolved

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Apple overcomes last hurdle, iPhone 5 cleared for sale in China as Android continues to dominate

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India: 2 policemen suspended, magistrate transferred for arrest of 2 women over Facebook post

NEW DELHI – An Indian official says two senior policemen have been suspended for arresting two women over a Facebook post criticizing the shutdown of Mumbai for the funeral of a powerful politician.

Maharashtra state Home Minister R.R. Patil said Tuesday the policemen were suspended indefinitely and the magistrate who registered the case against the women has been transferred to another district.

Police also arrested nine men who vandalized a medical clinic run by the uncle of one of the women, Patil said.

One of the women had posted a Facebook comment complaining that Mumbai had come to a standstill after the death of rightwing leader Bal Thackeray. Her friend “liked” the post.

Their arrest last week was seen as a misuse of Internet laws and an attempt to curb freedom of expression.

Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Saudi telco regulator suspends Mobily prepaid sim sales

(Reuters) – Saudi Arabia‘s No.2 telecom operator Etihad Etisalat Co (Mobily) has been suspended from selling pre-paid sim cards by the industry regulator, the firm said in a statement to the kingdom’s bourse on Sunday.

Mobily’s sales of pre-paid, or pay-as-you-go, sim cards will remain halted until the company “fully meets the prepaid service provisioning requirements,” the telco said in the statement.

These requirements include a September order from regulator, Communication and Information Technology Commission (CITC). This states all pre-paid sim users must enter a personal identification number when recharging their accounts and that this number must be the same as the one registered with their mobile operator when the sim card was bought, according to a statement on the CITC website.

This measure is designed to ensure customer account details are kept up to date, the CITC said.

Mobily said the financial impact of the CITC’s decision would be “insignificant”, claiming data, corporate and postpaid revenues would meet its main growth drivers.

The firm, which competes with Saudi Telecom Co (STC) and Zain Saudi, reported a 23 percent rise in third-quarter profit in October, beating forecasts.

Prepaid mobile subscriptions are typically more popular among middle and lower income groups, with telecom operators pushing customers to shift to monthly contracts that include a data allowance.

Customers on monthly, or postpaid, contracts are also less likely to switch provider, but the bulk of customers remain on pre-paid accounts.

Mobily shares were trading down 1.4 percent at 0820 GMT on the Saudi bourse.

(Reporting by Matt Smith; Editing by Dinesh Nair)

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Girls, guns and yoga: John McAfee’s odd life in “pirate haven”

SAN PEDRO, Belize (Reuters) – To the many people who crossed his path on a tropical island in Belize, it was apparent John McAfee’s life had taken some bizarre turns in the past few years.

The anti-virus software guru, who started McAfee Associates in 1989, has been in hiding since police said they wanted to question him about the weekend murder of his neighbor, fellow American Gregory Faull, with whom McAfee had quarreled.

Despite his disappearance, McAfee, 67, has remained in contact with the media, providing a stream of colorful bulletins over his predicament, state of mind and his claim that Belize’s authorities want to kill him.

Residents of the Caribbean island of Ambergris Caye and others who know him paint the picture of an eccentric, impulsive man who gave up a career as a successful entrepreneur in the United States for a life of semi-seclusion in the former pirate haven of Belize, surrounded by bodyguards and young women.

“Never mind the dog, beware of owner,” counsels a small sign, embellished with a sketched hand gripping a large pistol, tacked to the fence separating McAfee’s beachfront swimming pool from the pier that cuts into the azure sea.

McAfee, a yoga fan who has lived on the island for about four years, often moves around with bodyguards, wearing pistols in his belt. Since going into hiding, he has compared his lot to that of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is battling extradition from Britain from inside the Ecuadorean Embassy.

Officials suspect McAfee used designer drugs, and neighbors say he tried to chase them off the public beach in front of his house. Inside his home, a blue-roofed cottage complex, he kept a small arsenal of shotguns and scope-fitted rifles.

There were also complaints about the millionaire’s numerous and noisy dogs. Officials say the poisoning of four of the dogs may be linked to the murder of Faull, a 52-year-old Florida building contractor who was shot dead at his salmon-hued two-story villa about 100 yards (meters) down the beach from McAfee.

Faull was one of the locals who had complained about McAfee’s attitude and his dogs.

McAfee told Wired magazine, with whom he first kept up a running conversation, that he was disguised and holed up in what he describes as a lice-infested refuge. In comments to the magazine, McAfee denied he shot Faull and said he fears that the police will kill or torture him. Police, who believe he is still in Belize, say they just want to talk to him about the killing.

McAfee, who has not responded to requests for comment by Reuters, blamed Belize’s “pirate culture” for his troubles in an essay Wired said he had sent to the magazine.

“Belize is still a pirate haven and is run more or less along the lines established centuries ago by the likes of Captain Morgan, Blackbeard and Captain Barrow,” McAfee said.

Belize Prime Minister Dean Barrow has urged McAfee to help police with their inquiries, calling him “bonkers.”

In an interview with CNBC television by phone on Friday, McAfee said he would not seek refuge in the U.S. Embassy.

“What would happen? They will offer me either sanctuary where I will spend my days living in the embassy like poor Julian Assange or when I leave … I will be nabbed by the police. My ultimate goal is they’ll figure out who killed the man, it will have nothing to do with me and they will leave me alone. Or if enough international pressure is applied,” he said.

‘PARANOID’

Many locals in San Pedro describe the tattooed McAfee, who made a fortune developing the Internet anti-virus software that bears his name, as a generous but unstable man.

“He’s a good guy, he helped a lot of people. The problem was when he wanted something he wanted it right now. And when he didn’t get it, he’d get paranoid,” said one islander, a former McAfee employee, who like many people here spoke on condition their name not be used for fear of retribution.

“He’s a complex man, very impulsive,” the islander added.

Doug Singh, Belize’s former police minister, told Reuters he was at a loss to explain McAfee’s recent comments.

“Mr. McAfee seems to have a bit of a divorce from reality and it seems to be consistent in his behavior and some of the things he has said recently. He’s way out of line and out of proportion. Nobody has anything against Mr. McAfee,” Singh said.

After making millions with his anti-virus product, McAfee decided to abandon the United States for Belize, a languid coastal paradise. It is a path that has been taken by a number of rich Americans over the years.

He took a beachfront compound on the island’s isolated and exclusive north side, 6 miles from the town of San Pedro by boat or by driving over badly cratered asphalt and dirt track. It is a world away from California’s Silicon Valley, which he once called home.

He took the company public in 1992 and left two years later following accusations that he had hyped the arrival of a virus known as Michelangelo, which turned out to be a dud, to scare computer users into buying his company’s products.

Officials at the company he created and its parent, Intel, have declined to comment on the controversy.

But one long-time McAfee manager who recently left said company executives were likely monitoring the news closely. He said they have tracked reports of John McAfee’s activities over the years out of concern they might need to do damage control.

A case is already pending in Belize against McAfee for possession of illegal firearms, and police previously suspected him of running a lab to make illicit synthetic drugs.

But McAfee said this week he was opposed to drugs.

“My life is f—-d up enough without drugs, and always has been,” McAfee told Wired magazine.

BENEFACTOR

For all his trouble with authorities, McAfee has worked hard to be the island’s benefactor. Upon arriving in Belize he bought a $ 1 million boat for the country’s new coast guard, and donated equipment to the local police force, according to local reports.

He tipped generously everywhere he went, and hired a steady stream of taxis for frequent female guests on the $ 150 round trip from the small airstrip in San Pedro out to his house.

“Not two or three, a lot of women,” said Artemio Awayo, 24, a local waiter. “Every time I saw him it was a different woman.”

Those who knew him said he didn’t drink and never hung out at the island’s many bars. But employees at a restaurant near the pier where McAfee’s water taxi company is based said his actions grew more bizarre following a police raid last April on his mainland hacienda outside the town of Orange Walk.

Even for casual lunches, McAfee began regularly coming to town with at least two bodyguards, clad in camouflage and each packing pistols, they said.

“Generally, you don’t need a bodyguard in Belize,” said Jorge Alana, a San Pedro Sun reporter who interviewed McAfee several times, noting top elected officials don’t have them. “It does call attention when you move with so many guards.”

McAfee’s home is in a stretch of Ambergris where the wealthiest foreigners hole up. Raw lots of land 100 feet by 200 feet can cost up to $ 500,000 here. Even modest-looking houses reflect multimillion-dollar investments.

On Thursday afternoon, a 23-year-old calling herself Tiffany used a key to enter McAfee’s home with another young woman and said he had spent Saturday night with them – around the time police said Faull’s murder took place.

They had not spoken to McAfee since Sunday, she said.

On Friday, an outside light was still on at his beachfront complex, and a dog roamed freely around the grounds.

Like McAfee, many of his north shore neighbors tend to favor being left alone, rarely coming to town and loath to mix with tourists.

“That’s why they come to San Pedro,” said Daniel Guerrero, the tour guide and real estate broker now serving as the town’s mayor. “They like the quietness. They like the isolation.”

But even fishing, scuba diving and sunset daiquiris can get tiresome. Accustomed to hard work and achievement, newcomers established and kept up the island’s charities, locals say. Quite a few foreigners, like McAfee, started local businesses. And some fall out of synch with local culture.

“It’s one thing to vacation here and another thing living here,” said Wyoming native Tamara Sniffin, owner and editor of the San Pedro Sun, the local newspaper.

Immortalized in song by Madonna as La Isla Bonita, Ambergris Caye stretches 27 miles along the blue Caribbean below the Mexican border, flanking the world’s second-largest barrier reef and some of its finest sport fishing waters.

Those attributes have attracted well-heeled foreign retirees and celebrities such as actor Leonardo DiCaprio, who owns a small island nearby.

“Here it’s just party, party, work, party,” said Iris Mavel, 27, a waitress at a restaurant favored by McAfee. “A lot of couples who come here leave divorced. That’s why they call it Temptation Island.”

The island also has a darker side. Dumped at sea and carried ashore by the tides, bundles of Colombian cocaine flow through the island not far from McAfee’s house and on, many say, toward the Mexican border. Cocaine not recovered by the smugglers is collected by islanders, supplying a thriving local drug market that has sparked low-level gang feuds and occasional killings.

International fugitives have taken refuge here. In the summer, a Slovak man accused of murdering a woman, her 10-year-old son and a gangster in his home country was arrested on an international warrant, processed for extradition but then released by a Belizean judge.

Some townsfolk suspect McAfee is hiding on a yacht off of San Pedro. Others note that Mexico is only an hour away by the sort of fast boat McAfee owns and that passports are never checked for people landing in the oceanfront villages there.

San Pedro’s mayor believes he will surface.

“I have the feeling that this guy will turn up,” Guerrero said. “But he’ll turn up with his attorneys. He’s a big guy.”

(Additional reporting by Jose Sanchez in Belize, Jim Finkle in Boston, Noel Randewich in San Francisco and Mike McDonald in Guatemala; Editing by Dave Graham, Kieran Murray and Bill Trott)

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Review: Nintendo Wii U blows up dual-screen gaming

When Nintendo first broached the idea of multiple-screen video games in 2004, many critics were skeptical that players could focus on two images at once. Yet the handheld DS, blending one touch-sensitive screen with a slightly larger video display, became a runaway hit.

Turns out the portable DS may have just been a dress rehearsal for Nintendo‘s latest home console, the Wii U, which blows up the dual-screen concept to living-room size. It goes on sale in the U.S. on Sunday, starting at $ 300.

The Wii U is the heir to the Nintendo Wii system, whose motion-based controls got couch potatoes around the world to burn calories as they swung virtual tennis rackets, bowled and flailed around in their living rooms. The new console still allows you to use your old “Wiimotes,” but its major advancement is a new controller, the GamePad, with a built-in touch screen that measures 6.2 inches diagonally.

The GamePad looks like the spawn of a tablet computer and a classic game controller. Its surface area is a little smaller than an iPad’s, but it’s about three times as thick, largely because it has hand grips that make it more comfortable over prolonged game sessions. It has an accelerometer and gyroscope for motion-controlled games, as well as a camera, a microphone, speakers, two analog joysticks and a typical array of buttons.

It’s the touch screen that really makes the difference. In some cases, it houses functions that are typically relegated to a game’s pause screen. In others, it allows a group of people playing the same game together to have different experiences depending on the controller used. Nintendo Co. calls this “asymmetric gaming.”

In the mini-game collection “Nintendo Land,” you can shoot arrows or fling throwing stars by swiping on the touch screen. One of the games in the collection, “Mario Chase,” uses the GamePad to provide a bird’s-eye view of a maze through which you can guide the hero. His pursuers — up to four players using Wiimotes — see the maze from a first-person perspective on the TV screen.

“New Super Mario Bros. U” brings the asymmetric approach to cooperative action. While Wiimote-wielding players scamper across its side-scrolling landscapes, the GamePad user can create “boost blocks” to help them reach otherwise inaccessible areas. If you’re going solo, you can play the entire adventure on the GamePad screen, freeing up the TV for family members who might want to watch something else.

On a more basic level, the GamePad lets you select your next play or draw new routes for your receivers in Electronic Arts Inc.’s “Madden NFL 13.” You use it to adjust strategy or substitute players in 2K Sports’ “NBA 2K13.”

Ubisoft’s “ZombiU” — the best original game at launch — turns the GamePad into your “bug-out bag.” It’s where you’ll find all your undead-fighting supplies, from bats and bullets to hammers and health kits. It lets you access maps and security-camera footage as you navigate the devastated streets of London. If you hold it vertically, you can scan the virtual space in three dimensions to locate zombies who are lying in wait.

Essentially, the GamePad functions like the bottom half of the portable DS, with triggers, buttons and the touch screen offering additional information and an added dimension of control. In this comparison, your living-room TV would be the equivalent of the DS’ top display.

It’s somewhat gimmicky: Much of the time, you can easily imagine playing with just a regular joystick. But in “ZombiU,” the GamePad adds to the atmosphere, creating the panicky feeling of scrambling around in a backpack while another undead horde approaches.

The high-definition graphics produced by the Wii U are close to those of Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox 360 and Sony Corp.’s PlayStation 3. That should bring back some of the game makers who had fled the underpowered Wii — at least until Microsoft and Sony bring out their next-generation consoles (neither company has announced any plans yet).

Some fine games from the past couple of years — Warner Bros.’ “Batman: Arkham City,” Electronic Arts’ “Mass Effect 3″ and THQ Inc.’s “Darksiders II” — are finally coming to a Nintendo console. The enhanced GamePad controls don’t substantially alter their DNA, and if you’ve already played them on the Xbox or PS3, you aren’t missing much. But if I’d had the option to play them the first time around with the enhanced GamePad controls, I would have.

The Wii U’s online functions include video chat, its own social network and the ability to search for TV shows and movies from services such as Netflix and Hulu. These are all free. I wasn’t able to test those features before writing this review. Nintendo said Friday that many of these features won’t be available until next month.

I don’t expect the Wii U to make as big a splash as the original Wii did six years ago. Nintendo‘s competitors are dipping their toes into the dual-screen pool as well: Some Sony games link the PS3 with the handheld Vita, while Microsoft’s SmartGlass app for tablet computers adds bonus material to Xbox games such as “Halo 4″ and “Forza Horizon.”

Still, the Wii U goes all in on the multiscreen concept for a relatively inexpensive price. And in a world where people tweet on their iPads while watching sports or reality shows on their TVs, the whole GamePad concept feels perfectly natural.

The Wii U’s success will depend on what Nintendo and other developers do with that second screen. The early results are very promising.

___

About the Wii U:

The basic Wii U model, with 8 gigabytes of internal storage, costs $ 300. The deluxe set, with 32 GB, “Nintendo Land” and a charging stand for the controller, costs $ 350. It comes to the U.S. on Sunday, later this month in Europe and Dec. 8 in Japan.

Both versions come with the GamePad, but you’ll need to snag old-school Wii controllers from older Wiis or buy them separately.

___

Follow Lou Kesten at http://twitter.com/lkesten

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In Britain, spate of prosecutions for Twitter and Facebook tirades spark free-speech debate

LONDON – One teenager made offensive comments about a murdered child on Twitter. Another young man wrote on Facebook that British soldiers should “go to hell.” A third posted a picture of a burning paper poppy, symbol of remembrance of war dead.

All were arrested, two convicted, and one jailed — and they’re not the only ones. In Britain, hundreds of people are prosecuted each year for posts, tweets, texts and emails deemed menacing, indecent, offensive or obscene, and the number is growing as our online lives expand.

Lawyers say the mounting tally shows the problems of a legal system trying to regulate 21st century communications with 20th century laws. Civil libertarians say it is a threat to free speech in an age when the Internet gives everyone the power to be heard around the world.

“Fifty years ago someone would have made a really offensive comment in a public space and it would have been heard by relatively few people,” said Mike Harris of free-speech group Index on Censorship. “Now someone posts a picture of a burning poppy on Facebook and potentially hundreds of thousands of people can see it.

“People take it upon themselves to report this offensive material to police, and suddenly you’ve got the criminalization of offensive speech.”

Figures obtained by The Associated Press through a freedom of information request show a steadily rising tally of prosecutions in Britain for electronic communications — phone calls, emails and social media posts — that are “grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character — from 1,263 in 2009 to 1,843 in 2011. The number of convictions grew from 873 in 2009 to 1,286 last year.

Behind the figures are people — mostly young, many teenagers — who find that a glib online remark can have life-altering consequences.

No one knows this better than Paul Chambers, who in January 2010, worried that snow would stop him catching a flight to visit his girlfriend, tweeted: “Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You’ve got a week and a bit to get your (expletive) together otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high.”

A week later, anti-terrorist police showed up at the office where he worked as a financial supervisor.

Chambers was arrested, questioned for eight hours, charged, tried, convicted and fined. He lost his job, amassed thousands of pounds (dollars) in legal costs and was, he says, “essentially unemployable” because of his criminal record.

But Chambers, now 28, was lucky. His case garnered attention online, generating its own hashtag — (hash)twitterjoketrial — and bringing high-profile Twitter users, including actor and comedian Stephen Fry, to his defence.

In July, two and half years after Chambers’ arrest, the High Court overturned his conviction. Justice Igor Judge said in his judgment that the law should not prevent “satirical or iconoclastic or rude comment, the expression of unpopular or unfashionable opinion about serious or trivial matters, banter or humour, even if distasteful to some or painful to those subjected to it.”

But the cases are coming thick and fast. Last month, 19-year-old Matthew Woods was sentenced to 12 weeks in jail for making offensive tweets about a missing 5-year-old girl, April Jones.

The same month Azhar Ahmed, 20, was sentenced to 240 hours of community service for writing on Facebook that soldiers “should die and go to hell” after six British troops were killed in Afghanistan. Ahmed had quickly deleted the post, which he said was written in anger, but was convicted anyway.

On Sunday — Remembrance Day — a 19-year-old man was arrested in southern England after police received a complaint about a photo on Facebook showing the burning of a paper poppy. He was held for 24 hours before being released on bail and could face charges.

For civil libertarians, this was the most painfully ironic arrest of all. Poppies are traditionally worn to commemorate the sacrifice of those who died for Britain and its freedoms.

“What was the point of winning either World War if, in 2012, someone can be casually arrested by Kent Police for burning a poppy?” tweeted David Allen Green, a lawyer with London firm Preiskel who worked on the Paul Chambers case.

Critics of the existing laws say they are both inadequate and inconsistent.

Many of the charges come under a section of the 2003 Electronic Communications Act, an update of a 1930s statute intended to protect telephone operators from harassment. The law was drafted before Facebook and Twitter were born, and some lawyers say is not suited to policing social media, where users often have little control over who reads their words.

It and related laws were intended to deal with hate mail or menacing phone calls to individuals, but they are being used to prosecute in cases where there seems to be no individual victim — and often no direct threat.

And the Internet is so vast that policing it — even if desirable — is a hit-and-miss affair. For every offensive remark that draws attention, hundreds are ignored. Conversely, comments that people thought were made only to their Facebook friends or Twitter followers can flash around the world.

While the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that First Amendment protections of freedom of speech apply to the Internet, restrictions on online expression in other Western democracies vary widely.

In Germany, where it is an offence to deny the Holocaust, a neo-Nazi group has had its Twitter account blocked. Twitter has said it also could agree to block content in other countries at the request of their authorities.

There’s no doubt many people in Britain have genuinely felt offended or even threatened by online messages. The Sun tabloid has launched a campaign calling for tougher penalties for online “trolls” who bully people on the Web. But others in a country with a cherished image as a bastion of free speech are sensitive to signs of a clampdown.

In September Britain’s chief prosecutor, Keir Starmer, announced plans to draw up new guidelines for social media prosecutions. Starmer said he recognized that too many prosecutions “will have a chilling effect on free speech.”

“I think the threshold for prosecution has to be high,” he told the BBC.

Starmer is due to publish the new guidelines in the next few weeks. But Chambers — reluctant poster boy of online free speech — is worried nothing will change.

“For a couple of weeks after the appeal, we got word of judges actually quoting the case in similar instances and the charges being dropped,” said Chambers, who today works for his brother’s warehouse company. “We thought, ‘Fantastic! That’s exactly what we fought for.’ But since then we’ve had cases in the opposite direction. So I don’t know if lessons have been learned, really.”

___

Jill Lawless can be reached at http://Twitter.com/JillLawless

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Software pioneer McAfee says framed for murder in Belize

BELIZE CITY (Reuters) – Computer security industry pioneer John McAfee says he has gone into hiding in Belize because he believes authorities there are trying to frame him for the murder of a neighbor, a crime he says he did not commit, according to Wired magazine.

Belize police are searching for McAfee as “a person of interest” in a murder investigation.

“You can say I’m paranoid about it, but they will kill me, there is no question. They’ve been trying to get me for months. They want to silence me,” Wired quoted McAfee as saying on its website. “I am not well liked by the prime minister. I am just a thorn in everybody’s side.”

The magazine reported that McAfee, 67, contacted one of its reporters by telephone after his neighbor Gregory Faull, was found dead on Sunday in a pool of blood. The 52-year-old American was apparently shot in the head in his home on the island of Ambergris Caye.

Police say McAfee had a history of conflict with Faull, whose post-mortem was expected to be conducted on Tuesday.

McAfee, who amassed a fortune by building the anti-virus company that bears his name, has homes and businesses in the Central American country where police say he has lived for at least two years.

It was not the first time McAfee, who has tattoos, a goatee beard and mustache, and a penchant for guns, has drawn police attention in Belize.

His premises were raided earlier this year after he was accused of holding firearms, though most were found to be licensed. The final outcome of the case is pending.

He was also suspected of running a lab to make the synthetic drug crystal meth.

“He was suspected (of making crystal meth) but he was not convicted nor was he charged. He was only suspected,” said Belize police spokesman Raphael Martinez.

McAfee also owns a security company in Belize as well as several properties, an ecological enterprise and a water taxi and ferry business.

Reuters could not reach McAfee, who police want to question.

“It would be quite nice for him to come in and answer some of the questions that could lead to the closure of this case,” Martinez said. “He is not wanted for murder, but he is wanted for questioning as a person of interest.”

One man in Belize who knows McAfee well told Reuters he believed the American’s troubles began when he turned down requests for donations to the ruling United Democratic Party (UDP) to help fund its successful re-election bid in March.

“He rejected them because he doesn’t believe in participating in politics,” said the man, who spoke on condition of anonymity, calling McAfee an “honorable person.”

McAfee said earlier this year he had refused to donate to the UDP, which could not immediately be reached for comment.

The Belize police department has reached out to counterparts in neighboring Mexico and Guatemala, asking them to detain McAfee if he leaves Belize overland.

McAfee was one of Silicon Valley’s first entrepreneurs to amass a fortune by building a business off the Internet.

The former Lockheed systems consultant started McAfee Associates in 1989, initially distributing anti-virus software as “shareware” on Internet bulletin boards.

He took the company public in 1992 and left two years later following accusations that he had hyped the arrival of a virus known as Michelangelo, which turned out to be a dud, to scare computer users into buying his company’s products.

McAfee currently has no relationship with the software company, which has since been sold to Intel Corp.

(Reporting by Jim Finkle in Boston, Jose Sanchez in Belize City, Simon Gardner and Dave Graham in Mexico City; Editing by Kieran Murray and Eric Walsh)

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Sharp aims for near full-output from display plant – media

TOKYO (Reuters) – Sharp Corp aims to raise the output from its Kameyama No.2 plant to near 100 percent, from a current 30 percent, as early as the end of 2012, by mass producing larger, high definition, power-saving IGZO screens, the Yomiuri newspaper said on Sunday.

The Kameyama plant makes IGZO displays, which consume 10 percent to 20 percent of the power required by conventional panels, for Apple Inc‘s iPad tablet.

The company has won orders for larger 30-inch displays from manufacturers, the report said, without citing sources.

The panels would be used for computed tomography (CT) or game monitors that require clearer definition than conventional high-definition displays, the report added.

Sharp, which secured $ 4.6 billion in emergency loans from its banks in September, is looking to IGZO to spark a revival in its fortunes, as it forecasts a 450 billion yen ($ 5.66 billion) net loss for the current business year ending next March.

($ 1 = 79.4500 Japanese yen)

(Reporting by Osamu Tsukimori; Editing by Michael Perry)

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First Person: Unfriending a Facebook Friend to Save a Friendship

Yahoo News asked voters to share stories about relationships gone sour during the election — and how they’re working to mend fences. Here’s one person’s story.

FIRST PERSON | Because of the election,I had to ignore one of my oldest friends.

My name is Kathy Foust from Knox, Ind., and I am in my late 30s. If there is one thing I have learned during my time on this Earth, it is the value of relationships that span the decades and embrace even the worst personality flaws.

I met Matt when we were teens. We had both gotten into trouble and as a result, we each were sent to live in a residential placement for wayward teens. There, we experienced some travesties that can only serve to bring a group of people closer. Attempted suicides, attempted arson, violence, tears, broken hearts, friends with self-made wounds from the war in their hearts, and pretty much every other teenage dilemma that could possibly manifest itself in physical form were all part of our daily lives.

We lost touch, but found it again on Facebook. A small group of us reconnected and care as much for each other as we ever did.

I almost let politics change all that with Matt. What teenage years and the trauma of all that we went through could not tear apart, the 2012 presidential election had the potential to annihilate.

There was no one single argument. There were no words of separation. A simple click of a button took my friend from someone who was on a select list to someone who no longer existed in my virtual world. In truth, we never actually said a harsh word to each other. We did say plenty about politics though.

He used terms like “lazy,” “stupid,” “welfare,” and “socialist,” while I threw out terms like “compassion,” “opportunity,” and “equality.”

We debated political topics in Facebook, sometimes in such a harsh manner that friends outside of our personal little circle would voice questions as to how we ever became friends in the first place. That’s when I knew I had to unfriend a political adversary in order to keep a friend.

On the night of the election, we made the choice to resume our friendship in the morning, no matter who won.

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Icahn says has mulled Netflix takeover, no decision made

(Reuters) – Activist investor Carl Icahn, who holds an almost 10 percent stake in Netflix, said on Thursday he has considered a hostile takeover bid for Netflix, but it was uncertain he stood a chance of acquiring the Internet streaming service.

Asked by TV network CNBC whether he would “go hostile” on Netflix, Icahn said, “The thought had certainly entered my mind. I have to admit I think about it, but we haven’t made that decision.”

While Icahn said a hostile takeover was “certainly an alternative,” he downplayed the possibility several times. He added that he would not be able to pay as much for Netflix as a “synergistic buyer” looking to acquire an Internet movie and TV subscription service.

Netflix has been the subject of periodic acquisition speculation, with potential names tossed around from Microsoft Corp to Amazon.com Inc.

Icahn last month disclosed he had amassed control of 9.98 percent of Netflix shares. Most of his purchases were in the form of call options that expire in September 2014. The billionaire, who is known for shaking up corporate management, has said Netflix was undervalued and an attractive acquisition target for a number of companies.

Netflix has since adopted a poison pill defense to prevent a hostile takeover, a move that Icahn on Thursday called “reprehensible.”

A Netflix spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Icahn’s remarks.

(Reporting By Liana B. Baker in New York; Additional reporting by Katya Wachtel and Sam Forgione in New York and Lisa Richwine in Los Angeles; Editing by Leslie Adler)

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