Turkish agency blamed by U.S. companies for intercepted Web pages

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - An agency of the Turkish government deployed a deceptive version of some Google Inc web pages, possibly to monitor activity by its employees, major Internet companies said on Thursday.
The reports are the latest in a series of incidents in which hackers or governments have taken advantage of the loose rules surrounding the standard security for financial and other sensitive sites, those with Web addresses starting with Https.
In the most recent case, an Ankara public transit agency known as EGO, obtained the capacity to validate such Web pages from a Turkish Internet authority called TurkTrust, which is among the hundreds of entities treated as reliable by all major Internet browsers, Microsoft Corp said in a blog post.
Last month, EGO issued an improper certificate that told some visitors to Google they had reached it securely when they had not, Google said. The ruse was detected because unlike other browsers, Google's Chrome warns users and the company if an unexpected certificate is authenticating a Google site.
Google asked TurkTrust, which said it had "mistakenly" granted the right to authenticate any site to two organizations in August 2011. Google also warned browser makers including Microsoft and Mozilla, makers of Internet Explorer and Firefox, and all three will now block sites that were authenticated by EGO and another TurkTrust customer.
Though only Google was demonstrably faked, giving EGO access to Gmail and search activity, many other pages could have been faked without any of the real companies knowing about it. Spokesmen for the Turkish Embassy in Washington and the consulates in New York and Los Angeles could not be reached for comment.
Few details were provided by the technology companies, but one person involved with the issue said that it appeared that the fake Google.com had been displayed on one internal network.
"The logical theory is that the transportation agency was using it to spy on its own employees," said Chris Soghoian, a former Federal Trade Commission technology expert now working for the American Civil Liberties Union.
Validation authority alone isn't enough to intercept traffic, the most likely goal of the project. The authenticator would also have to come in contact with the Web user.
A similar situation developed in 2011, when Dutch certificate authority DigiNotar said it had been hacked and that certificates had been stolen. Google later warned that a fake certificate for its site was showing up in Iran, and it warned Gmail users in that country to change their passwords.
Soghoian and other technologists have complained for years that the system behind Https sites is broken, but the industry has been slow to change.
Among other issues, the certificate authorities can resell the right to authenticate and don't have to disclose who their customers are.
"The entire Web relies on every single certificate authority being honest and secure," Soghoian said. "It's a ticking time bomb."

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Huawei launches the Ascend P1 in the U.S. for $450 through Amazon

Despite its attempts to attract new customers with high-end phones, Huawei (002502) remains relatively unknown to U.S. consumers. The company is looking to change that and on Thursday announced the availability of the Ascend P1 smartphone. The Android-powered device is equipped with a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED display, a 1.5GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM and an 8-megapixel rear camera. The handset is also one of the thinnest smartphones on the market, measuring in at 7.6 millimeters. BGR reviewed the Ascend P1 earlier this year and found it to be a decent smartphone. Huawei is offering the device carrier-unlocked through Amazon (AMZN) for $449.99. Read more for Huawei’s press release.
[More from BGR: Samsung confirms plan to begin inching away from Android]
Huawei’s Ascend P1 Launches in U.S.
[More from BGR: ‘iPhone 5S’ to reportedly launch by June with multiple color options and two different display sizes]
Super thin Huawei Ascend P1 comes with 1.5 GHz dual-core processor and Android 4.0 ICS OS
PLANO, Texas, Jan. 3, 2013 /PRNewswire/ — Huawei, a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider, today announced an unlocked version of the Huawei Ascend P1 is available to U.S. consumers through Amazon.com. The Huawei Ascend P1 comes equipped with 1.5 GHz dual-core processor and is one of the fastest models in class, capable of handling 3D games effectively.
“The Ascend P1 is perfect for consumers looking to get the most out of their device,” said Michael Chuang, Executive Vice President of Huawei Device USA. “Whether it’s for playing games, streaming music and videos, or sharing multimedia in the home or workplace, the Ascend P1 offers unparalleled performance and a truly unique mobile experience.”
The Ascend P1 offers users a movie theatre-quality cinematic experience with its super AMOLED, 4.3 inch screen and 5.1 Dolby Surround Sound System. In addition, at only 7.69 mm thick, the Huawei Ascend P1 is one of the thinnest smartphones on the market. The 64.8 mm frame allows the Ascend P1 to sit comfortably in the user’s palm, giving them the ability to navigate all the phone’s features with a single hand.
The Huawei Ascend P1 is available online at Amazon.com for $449.99.

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Relive Every Great Moment of 2012 in Just 4 Minutes

The ball has dropped which means it's time to begin alphabetizing your New Year's resolutions. But before welcoming in 2013 and throwing out last year's memories, take one last chance to relive all the glorious, splendid, heartbreaking, tragic, viral, sweet, crazy and fantastic moments of the past 12 months.
[More from Mashable: Google Wants You to Add to Its Global New Year’s Resolution Map]
From Honey Boo Boo to the birth of Blue Ivy, SOPA to NASA, iPhone 5 releases to GIF domination, Gabby Douglas' golden moments to Chick-Fil-A PR nightmare, cannibals to a Cruise-Holmes split, to a string of mass shootings that will make us remember this year's incredible heroes and victims -- here's to you, 2012.
SEE ALSO: Emotional Viral Video Looks Back at 'What Brought Us Together' in 2012
[More from Mashable: 8 Tech Resolutions for the New Year]
And best of luck 2013, you've got no Mayan apocalypse, Olympic games or U.S. presidential election on the books -- just hope K-Stew cheats on R-Patz again so we'll all have something to eulogize in 2014.
BONUS: 16 Things You Forgot Happened in 2012
1. GoDaddy Supported SOPA and Faced the Consequences
Technically this debacle took place in the last week of 2011, but the backlash lasted well into 2012. GoDaddy, the popular domain registrar and web hosting company, showed early support for the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), a hotly contested bill regarding copyright violations that was introduced by U.S. Representative Lamar S. Smith. Many Internet users believed SOPA would lead to extreme censorship of the web and were shocked to hear that GoDaddy supported it. As a result, hundreds of high-profile sites joined a boycott and mass-transfer movement sparked by Ben Huh, founder of the Cheezburger Network, moving their domains away from GoDaddy. The company eventually withdrew its support for SOPA, but not before it lost many customers. In September 2012, GoDaddy faced another PR nightmare when its DNS servers went down due to a distributed denial of service attack, and with the servers went many customers' websites for a long period of time. The company apparently didn't have a backup plan, furthering soiling its reputation. Image courtesy of Flickr, dsleeter_2000.

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Tubular raises $2.5 million to serve burgeoning YouTube industry

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Tubular, a small San Francisco start-up that provides analytics for YouTube content creators, has raised $2.5 million in venture capital in the latest sign of how far the business ecosystem has evolved around the Google-owned video repository.
YouTube was once known as Wild West of online video, but over the past two years Google has focused on raising the quality of YouTube content through a series of direct investments and the cultivation of third-party "networks".
The result is a cluster of small studios, mostly based in Los Angeles, that acts like a digital Hollywood, pumping out slick YouTube hits.
With the ultimate goal of hosting enough high-quality content to lure big-spending advertisers to YouTube, Google doled out more than $100 million last year in grants to its networks and bedroom stars.
In May Google led a group of investors who poured $35 million into Machinima, a leading network, to stoke growth in the YouTube industry.
That market has now grown to the point that it can support its own start-ups, says Tubular's founder Rob Gabel.
COMPETITION
As more semi-professional and professional YouTube creators enter the sector, with increasing competition among them, there is a growing need for analytical services.
Tubular is one such service, allowing customers to monitor and measure when videos get the most views and comments, or the sources of referred traffic.
The software includes a dashboard that displays the real-time analytics, which are generated by tapping into a stream of data provided by YouTube.
"If YouTube is a multibillion-dollar market, then that's billions of dollars going out to content creators who can then invest that again," said Gabel, a former Machinima employee.
"On every platform, from Google to Facebook to Twitter, people have turned to third parties' helpful tools."
At a high level, the pie is large and continuing to grow rapidly. Former Citi analyst Mark Mahaney estimates that YouTube will bring Google a total of $3.6 billion in 2012.
Rich Heitzmann, a co-founder of FirstMark Capital, which led Tubular's latest funding round, said that Google is far from wringing out all of the potential revenue from YouTube.
"We think the ecosystem is at least the size of Facebook's, considering it has a billion users and if you consider the time spent on YouTube," Heitzmann said.
"The advertising opportunities are there, and yet the ecosystem hasn't evolved technologically."
SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS
Other investors in Tubular's first tranche of equity financing included High Line Venture Partners, SV Angel, Lerer Ventures and Bedrocket Media Ventures.
Still, Gabel is betting that he can create a long-term, sustainable business on YouTube's platform at a time when some Silicon Valley companies are wary of building on the backs of larger companies.
Twitter, for instance, courted controversy this year when it made a business decision to shut off its firehose of data for a number of popular third-party developers to drive more visitors to its own site.
Allen DeBevoise, the CEO of Machinima who is also a Tubular investor, said that YouTube has reason to foster its independent developers rather than squash them.
"It's a thriving and fast-moving ecosystem now," he said. "But a lot of players are needed to make it all work."
Though Gabel acknowledges that the YouTube industry's rapid expansion is no guarantee of success, he has high hopes.

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Instagram tests new limits in user privacy

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Instagram, which spurred suspicions this week that it would sell user photos after revising its terms of service, has sparked renewed debate about how much control over personal data users must give up to live and participate in a world steeped in social media.
In forcefully establishing a new set of usage terms, Instagram, the massively popular photo-sharing service owned by Facebook Inc, has claimed some rights that have been practically unheard of among its prominent social media peers, legal experts and consumer advocates say.
Users who decline to accept Instagram's new privacy policy have one month to delete their accounts, or they will be bound by the new terms. Another clause appears to waive the rights of minors on the service. And in the wake of a class-action settlement involving Facebook and privacy issues, Instagram has added terms to shield itself from similar litigation.
All told, the revised terms reflect a new, draconian grip over user rights, experts say.
"This is all uncharted territory," said Jay Edelson, a partner at the Chicago law firm Edelson McGuire. "If Instagram is to encourage as many lawsuits as possible and as much backlash as possible then they succeeded."
Instagram's new policies, which go into effect January 16, lay the groundwork for the company to begin generating advertising revenue by giving marketers the right to display profile pictures and other personal information such as who users follow in advertisements.
The new terms, which allow an advertiser to pay Instagram "to display your username, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata)" without compensation, triggered an outburst of complaints on the Web on Tuesday from users upset that Instagram would make money from their uploaded content.
The uproar prompted a lengthy blog post from the company to "clarify" the changes, with CEO Kevin Systrom saying the company had no current plans to incorporate photos taken by users into ads.
Instagram declined comment beyond its blog post, which failed to appease critics including National Geographic, which suspended new posts to Instagram. "We are very concerned with the direction of the proposed new terms of service and if they remain as presented we may close our account," said National Geographic, an early Instagram adopter.
PUSHING BOUNDARIES
Consumer advocates said Facebook was using Instagram's aggressive new terms to push the boundaries of how social media sites can make money while its own hands were tied by recent agreements with regulators and class action plaintiffs.
Under the terms of a 2011 settlement with the Federal Trade Commission, Facebook is required to get user consent before personal information is shared beyond their privacy settings. A preliminary class action lawsuit settlement with Facebook allows users to opt-out of being included in the "sponsored stories" ads that use their personal information.
Under Instagram's new terms, users who want to opt-out must simply quit using the service.
"Instagram has given people a pretty stark choice: Take it or leave, and if you leave it you've got to leave the service," said Kurt Opsahl, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a Internet user right's group.
What's more, he said, if a user initially agrees to the new terms but then has a change of mind, their information could still be used for commercial purposes.
In a post on its official blog on Tuesday, Instagram did not address another controversial provision that states that if a child under the age of 18 uses the service, then it is implied that his or her parent has tacitly agreed to Instagram's terms.
"The notion is that minors can't be bound to a contract. And that also means they can't be bound to a provision that says they agree to waive the rights," said the EFF's Opsahl.
BLOCKING CLASS ACTION SUITS
While Facebook continues to be bogged in its own class action suit, Instagram took preventive steps to avoid a similar legal morass.
Its new terms of service require users with a legal complaint to enter arbitration, rather than take the company to court. It prohibits users from joining a class action lawsuit unless they mail a written "opt-out" statement to Facebook's headquarters in Menlo Park within 30 days of joining Instagram.
That provision is not included in terms of service for other leading social media companies like Twitter, Google, YouTube or even Facebook itself, and it immunizes Instagram from many forms of legal liability, said Michael Rustad, a professor at Suffolk University Law School.
Rustad, who has studied the terms of services for 157 social media services, said just 10 contained provisions prohibiting class action lawsuits.
The clause effectively cripples users who want to legally challenge the company because lawyers will not likely represent an individual plaintiff, Rustad argued.
"No lawyers will take these cases," Rustad said. "In consumer arbitration cases, everything is stacked against the consumer. It's a pretense, it's a legal fiction, that there are remedies."
Instagram, which has 100 million users, allows consumers to tweak the photos they take on their smartphones and share the images with friends. Facebook acquired Instagram in September for $715 million.
Instagram's take-it-or-leave-it policy pushes the envelope for how social networking companies treat user privacy issues, said Marc Rotenberg, the executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
"I think Facebook is probably using Instagram to see how far it can press this advertising model," said Rotenberg. "If they can keep a lot of users, then all those users have agreed to have their images as part of advertising.

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FTC tightens rules protecting children's online privacy

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The government announced tighter rules on Wednesday to protect children's online privacy by restricting the collection of data, like the child's location, unless parents consent.
The actions by the Federal Trade Commission mark an update to rules that were based on the 1998 Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, developed when most computers were big beige boxes sitting under office desks instead of smartphones in backpacks, and online social media was unheard of.
"The Commission takes seriously its mandate to protect children's online privacy in this ever-changing technological landscape," FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said in a statement.
Under the updated rule, IP addresses, which are unique to each computer, will be added to the list of personal information that cannot be collected from children without parental consent if the data will be used for behavioral advertising or tracking.
Location, photos, videos and audio files were also added to the definition.
Leibowitz said the commission struck "the right balance between protecting innovation that will provide rich and engaging content for children, and ensuring that parents are informed and involved in their children's online activities."
But Senator John Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat and chair of the Senate Commerce, Science and Technology Committee, which oversees the FTC, said he had wanted legislation that went further.
"There are groups that will complain about it (COPPA being too weak), and so will I, but we can't do anything more about it right now," he said. "Children's privacy as far as I am concerned is an absolutely top line issue."
Privacy advocates and advertising companies had been watching closely to see if the agency would go through with a pledge made in August to add IP addresses to the restrictions.
Advertisers had argued against the move since several people in a family - adults and children - could use the same computer. Privacy advocates said it was needed to protect children.
Also under the updated rule, plug-ins and other third parties connected to children's websites and apps cannot allow third parties to collect information on children without parental consent.
Big companies would be able to deal with the changes but the tighter regulators could be onerous for smaller firms, said John Feldman of the law firm Reed Smith LLP.
"I represent companies who are trying to sell products and services," he said. "The bigger companies feel like they can deal with it. There are significant costs that will be associated with this."
Privacy advocate Kathryn Montgomery, who teaches at American University, said the update was needed, given the growth of social networks and mobile computing. She urged the FTC to be tough about enforcing the rules.
"The new rules should help ensure that companies targeting children throughout the rapidly expanding digital media landscape will be required to engage in fair marketing and data collection practices," she said.
The proposal also specifies that family websites, which are websites aimed at children and adults, would be allowed to screen users to determine their ages and only provide protection to children under age 13.
Currently, all visitors to the websites must be treated as if they are under age 13.
The FTC's rule implementing COPPA became effective in 2000.
The updated rule takes effect on July 1. It was approved by a vote of three to one with one commissioner abstaining.

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Vatican takes first spot in Internet domain name draw

The Vatican has come out in first place in a long-awaited draw to expand the Internet address system with new domain names that go beyond the usual .com, .org or .net endings.
ICANN, the corporation that oversees the Internet address system, announced this week the domain name .catholic written in Chinese characters will be the first bid it considers in a drive to expand and reorganize sites on the World Wide Web.
The same extension in Arabic letters ranked 25th in the random draw and the Vatican's application for a version in Cyrillic for Russian and other Slavic languages came in 96th.
Ranking high means the applicant could get approval early next year to operate the new domain and approve addresses using it. In the Vatican's case, Rome could then ensure only genuine Roman Catholic institutions get to use that domain name.
"This is a way to give a coherence and authentication to our presence in the digital arena," said Monsignor Paul Tighe, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications.
"Anyone looking online will recognize the site belongs to an institution that belongs to the Catholic Church," he said, adding the new, so-called top level domain names (|TLDs) could also help speed online searches.
.BIBLE AND .ISLAM
For online retailers such as Amazon, whose application for .store in Japanese came in second, early approval could mean a competitive advantage and prompt a quick introduction of the new name.
But the Vatican did not enter the draw for commercial reasons and would not rush to launch its TLDs, Tighe said. In addition, the main TLD it seeks - .catholic in Latin letters - ended up in 1,366th place and may take months before it is approved.
Website owners are now restricted to a few dozen TLDs such as .com and country code domains such as .co.uk or .fr. Many of the 1,930 applications for new TLDs came from companies, including Internet giants such as Amazon and Google.
Several other faith-based groups applied for other TLDs such as .bible or .islam. The extension .mormon was the next-highest religious application drawn, coming in at 118th place.
ICANN (www.icann.org), the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, has stressed that assigning a certain TLD does not imply any endorsement of the religious group seeking it, just recognition it is the best suited to use the name.
Tighe said the ICANN draw handled applications for TLDs in non-Latin alphabets first, which explained why the Vatican's Chinese, Arabic and Cyrillic extensions came out far ahead of its main TLD in Latin letters.
INTERNET IMPRIMATUR
ICANN invited comments on applications earlier this year. The Vatican's application for exclusive use of .catholic drew criticism from members of several Protestant churches that also use the term, which comes from the Greek for "universal".
"This request is a move by a powerful group to squelch the voices and rights of other Christians," Dave Daubert, pastor of Zion Lutheran Church in Elgin, Illinois, wrote on the ICANN webpage for comments on the applications.
Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, apparently saw no hope of a consensus on religious TLDs and opposed them all.
Some religions seem to have kept out of the fray entirely. There were no applications for .buddhist, .hindu or .jewish.

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Vatican says pope beats Justin Bieber on re-tweets

Pope Benedict, white-haired, 85, and a neophyte to social media site Twitter, has beaten out 18-year old heartthrob Justin Bieber to set a percentage record for re-tweeting by his followers, the Vatican said on Thursday.
The Vatican newspaper said that as of noon Italian time on Thursday the pope had 2.1 million followers on Twitter, eight days after his first tweet was sent.
While Canadian singer-songwriter Bieber has roughly 15 times as many followers - 31.7 million - the Vatican newspaper said Benedict had beaten Bieber on re-tweets.
It said about 50 percent of the pope's followers had re-tweeted his first tweet on December 12 while only 0.7 percent of Bieber's followers had re-tweeted one of the singer's most popular tweets on September 26, when he commented on the death by cancer of a six-year-old fan.
The Vatican said this was part of a wider trend in which people were looking for more spiritual content.
The pope already tweets in English, German, Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish and Arabic. The newspaper said he will start tweeting in Latin and Chinese soon.

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Google Enterprise boss says company is ‘doubling down’ on business services, targeting Microsoft

In an interview with AllThingsD, Amit Singh, Google’s (GOOG) VP of Enterprise, said the company is embracing the consumerization of the enterprise in 2013 based on the successes its seen with Google Drive and Google Apps this year. Singh says Google is finally confident that it can deliver enterprise services and tools that rival those of Microsoft (MSFT) with cloud applications that scale better and have stronger security. Not only that, but Singh believes Microsoft is stuck in the past, creating services built around the desktop and not around Web services.
[More from BGR: Microsoft Surface trampled at the bottom of the tablet pile this Christmas]
“It’s time to really embrace [the enterprise],” Singh told AllThingsD. “We’re doubling down on the Enterprise. It’s an increasingly important part of Google, and a place where we plan to invest and to support our customers.”
[More from BGR: Mark Cuban: Nokia Lumia 920 ‘crushes’ the iPhone 5]
So how is Google looking to steal away Microsoft’s enterprise customers? With QuickOffice features that match Microsoft Office point for point.
“Our goal is to get to the 90 percent of users who don’t need to have the most advanced features of Office,” said Singh. ”We know the gaps between our features and theirs. We’re improving them week by week. We’re going to get to the 90 percent.”
Having a carbon-copy of Microsoft Office won’t be enough though, and Singh knows it. In the end, Singh understands that success is directly related to developers and ecosystems.
“The way you look at a successful business is its ecosystem,” said Singh. “For us at Google, it’s all about the ecosystem and developers.”
As a company known for its robust Web services, Google is well-positioned to sway users who are looking to escape Microsoft’s tight grip on the enterprise. Perhaps Singh and Google can finally make the enterprise “sexy.

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Delays litter long road to vehicle rearview rules

 In the private hell of a mother's grief, the sounds come back to Judy Neiman. The SUV door slamming. The slight bump as she backed up in the bank parking lot. The emergency room doctor's sobs as he said her 9-year-old daughter Sydnee, who previously had survived four open heart surgeries, would not make it this time.
Her own cries of: How could I have missed seeing her?
The 53-year-old woman has sentenced herself to go on living in the awful stillness of her West Richland, Wash., home, where she makes a plea for what she wants since she can't have Sydnee back: More steps taken by the government and automakers to help prevent parents from accidentally killing their children, as she did a year ago this month.
"They have to do something, because I've read about it happening to other people. I read about it and I said, 'I would die if it happens to me,'" Neiman says. "Then it did happen to me."
There is, in fact, a law in place that calls for new manufacturing requirements to improve the visibility behind passenger vehicles to help prevent such fatal backing crashes, which the government estimates kill some 228 people every year — 110 of them children age 10 and under — and injures another 17,000.
Congress passed the measure with strong bipartisan backing, and Republican President George W. Bush signed it in 2008.
But almost five years later, the standards have yet to be mandated because of delays by the U.S. Department of Transportation, which faced a Feb. 28, 2011, deadline to issue the new guidelines for car manufacturers. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has pushed back that deadline three times — promising this past February that the rules would be issued by the end of 2012.
With still no action, safety advocates and anguished parents such as Neiman are asking: What's taking so long to remedy a problem recognized by government regulators and automakers for decades now?
"In a way, it's a death sentence, and for no good reason," said former Public Citizen president Joan Claybrook, who once directed the federal agency responsible for developing the rules.
The proposed regulations call for expanding the field of view for cars, vans, SUVs and pickup trucks so that drivers can see directly behind their vehicles when in reverse — requiring, in most cases, rearview cameras and video displays as standard equipment.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, charged with completing the new standards, declined requests to discuss the delays. Spokeswoman Karen Aldana said the agency would not comment while the rulemaking process was ongoing but was on track to meet LaHood's latest cutoff date. In a letter to lawmakers in February, LaHood said his agency needed more time for "research and data analysis" to "ensure that the final rule is appropriate and the underlying analysis is robust."
Others insist the issue is money, and reluctance to put any additional financial burdens on an industry crippled by the economic crisis. Development of the new safety standards came even as the Obama administration was pumping billions of dollars into the industry as part of its bailout package.
"They don't want to look at anything that will cost more money for the automobile industry," said Packy Campbell, a former Republican state lawmaker from New Hampshire who lobbied for the law.
NHTSA has estimated that making rear cameras standard on every car would add $58 to $88 to the price of vehicles already equipped with dashboard display screens and $159 to $203 for those without them.
The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, a lobbying group that represents automakers, puts the total cost to the industry at about $2 billion a year. The organization endorsed the 2008 law after a series of compromises. But last December, eight days after Sydnee Neiman's death, its leader met with White House budget officials to propose a less expensive alternative: reserving cameras for vehicles with extra-large blind zones and outfitting the rest with curved, wide-angle exterior mirrors.
The alliance declined comment, but earlier this year the group's vice president, Gloria Bergquist, told The Associated Press that it urged the government to explore more options as a way to reduce the costs passed on to consumers.
"There are a variety of tools that could be used," she said, adding that automakers also were concerned that the cumulative effect of federal safety regulations is driving up the average price of a new car, now about $25,000.
Industry analysts also question whether cameras are needed on smaller, entry-level class cars with better rearview visibility.
"It may just be a couple hundred dollars, but it can grow pretty significantly if you are talking about ... an inexpensive car that was not originally conceived to have all these electronics and was only going to have a simple car stereo," said Roger Lanctot, an automotive technology specialist.
Before the delays, all new passenger vehicles were to carry cameras and video displays by September 2014. The industry has now asked for two more years after the final rules are published to reach full compliance.
Despite its resistance, the industry on its own has been installing rearview cameras, a feature first popularized two decades ago in Japan and standard on nearly 70 percent of new cars produced there this year. In the United States, 44 percent of 2012 models came with rear cameras standard, and 27 percent had them as options, according to the automotive research firm Edmunds.
Nine in 10 new cars had console screens available, according to market research firm iSuppli, which would put the price of adding a camera on the low end of the NHTSA's estimates.
These backing crashes are hardly a new phenomenon. Emergency room doctors, the National Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the NHTSA have produced dozens of papers on the problem since the 1980s.
Researchers at the University of California, Irvine, started looking into the issue in the 1990s after noticing toddlers showing up in hospital databases of injured child pedestrians. They found that many of those children had been killed or hurt by vehicles backing out of home driveways.
In 1993, the NHTSA sponsored several studies that noted the disproportionate effect of backup accidents on child victims. One report explored sensors and cameras as possible solutions, noting the accidents "involve slow closing speeds and, thus, may be preventable." Still another 1993 report estimated that 100 to 200 pedestrians are killed each year from backing crashes, most of them children.
Three years later, Dee Norton, a reporter at The Seattle Times, petitioned the NHTSA to require improved mirrors on smaller commercial trucks and vans after his 3-year-old grandson was killed by a diaper delivery truck that backed over him.
The NHTSA started looking into technology as a solution, but in one proposal — issued in November 2000 — it noted that sensors, cameras and monitors were still expensive and promised to later reevaluate the feasibility of such emerging technologies.
Adding to the scrutiny was the advocacy work of a child safety group called KidsandCars.org, which in 2002 started trying to persuade federal regulators to take on the problem. After the groups' president, Janette Fennell, brought the issue to the attention of Consumer Reports, the magazine started measuring "blind zones" to determine how far away a toddler-sized traffic cone had to be before a driver looking though the rear window, rearview mirror and side mirrors could see it.
The research found an overall trend of worsening rear visibility — due in part to designs favoring small windows and high trunk lines, said Tom Mutchler, the magazine's automotive engineer.
"Cameras are basically the only technology that is going to let you see something right behind the bumper," he said.
With a growing body of research, better statistics and inaction by regulators, advocates such as KidsandCars.org's Fennell and Sally Greenberg, then with Consumers Union, turned to Congress for a solution.
In 2003, U.S. Rep. Peter King, R-New York, introduced the Cameron Gulbransen Kids and Cars Safety Act, named for a 2-year-old Long Island boy whose pediatrician father backed over him in their driveway. Five years later, it finally became law.
While no one doubts that cameras could help reduce deaths, they aren't regarded as a perfect solution either.
One recent study by a researcher at Oregon State University found that only one in five drivers used a rearview camera when it was available, but 88 percent of those who did avoided striking a child-sized decoy.
In its proposed rule, the NHTSA estimated that rearview video systems could substantially reduce fatal backing crashes — by at least 95 a year — and result in at least 7,000 fewer injuries.
Judy Neiman's 2006 Cadillac Escalade didn't have any cameras installed. They weren't added as an optional package until the following model year. Instead, her vehicle was equipped with a "rear parking assist system" — bumper sensors, an alarm and lights that are supposed to go off within 5 feet of objects or people.
Neither Neiman nor the 10-year-old neighbor boy who had accompanied her and her daughter to the bank on Dec. 8, 2011, would recall hearing any alert, according to a police report.
Sydnee was carrying her purple plastic piggy bank and account book, so she could deposit $5 from her weekly allowance. After the transaction, Neiman slid behind the wheel and waited for the children. She heard the door slam, then saw the boy sitting on the right side of the back seat as she put the car into reverse.
She figured Sydnee was seated behind the driver's seat. Instead, the boy had gotten in first, telling Sydnee to go around and get in from the left side. He would later tell a police investigator that the girl had dropped her piggy bank on her way around the SUV.
Even if she were upright, at 4 feet, 3 inches tall, Sydnee would have been practically invisible through the rear window, the bottom edge of which was a few inches taller than she was.
As the first anniversary of her daughter's death passed, Neiman hoped that sharing her story might spare other parents from enduring the pain she feels every day.
She tortures herself by replaying a conversation she had with Sydnee the summer before she died. Her daughter always had taken her heart condition, a congenital defect, in stride. She never complained or showed fear, despite her many surgeries.
Then one night Sydnee started crying, and she wouldn't tell her mother what was troubling her until the next morning.
"She said, 'I don't want to die, Mom,' and when she died, that's all I could think about. She didn't want to die," Neiman says. "She survived four open heart surgeries. If God had taken her at that time, I could accept it. But who could take her with her being hit by my car? And my hitting her

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Chipmaker Marvell loses $1.17 billion patent verdict

A federal jury on Wednesday found that Marvell Technology Group infringed two patents held by Carnegie Mellon University, and ordered the chipmaker to pay $1.17 billion in damages.
The award is one of the largest by a jury in a U.S. patent case, and is nearly twice Marvell's profit in its latest fiscal year. It followed a month-long trial in the U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh, the home of Carnegie Mellon.
Jurors also found that Marvell's patent infringement was willful. This could enable the trial judge, Nora Barry Fischer, to award triple damages, a sum close to the $3.96 billion market value of Marvell, whose chips are used for reading and writing data on hard disk drives.
Shares of Marvell fell 10.3 percent on Wednesday, closing down 85 cents at $7.40 on the Nasdaq.
Carnegie Mellon said it was gratified by the verdict. "Protection of the discoveries of our faculty and students is very important to us," it said.
Marvell and its law firm, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The company had argued that it had acted in good faith, and the Carnegie Mellon patents were invalid. In a November 29 regulatory filing, Marvell said it intended to litigate vigorously in any potential appeal if it lost at trial.
Carnegie Mellon had accused Marvell of infringing patents used in technology for hard disk drive circuits to read data from high-speed magnetic disks, according to a statement from the university's law firm, K&L Gates.
The law firm said the patents related to systems and methods developed by Carnegie Mellon Professor Jose Moura and a doctoral student, Aleksandar Kavcic, who is now a professor at the University of Hawaii.
Through its verdict, the jury found that Marvell had sold billions of chips incorporating the technology without being licensed to do so, K&L Gates said.
Marvell is based in Hamilton, Bermuda. Its U.S. operating unit Marvell Semiconductor Inc is based in Santa Clara, California, and was also a defendant in the case.
The company posted a $615.1 million profit on net revenue of $3.39 billion in its most recent fiscal year, which ended on January 28. It counts Western Digital Corp and Seagate Technology Plc among its largest customers.
The trial judge set a May 1, 2013, hearing to consider a final judgment in the case, court records show.
The case is Carnegie Mellon University v. Marvell Technology Group Ltd et al, U.S. District Court, Western District of Pennsylvania, No. 09-00290.

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Phablet wars heat up with ZTE’s quad-core Nubia Z5

2013 is shaping up to be the year of the “phablet” with virtually ever major handset maker preparing to challenge Samsung’s (005930) impressive Galaxy Note lineup. While there’s no clear definition on how large a phablet is, most tend to have screens that hover in the 5-inch range, though Huawei’s upcoming 6.1-inch smartphone will only push that boundary. ZTE’s newly announced Nubia Z5 packs a 5-inch display with full-HD 1,920 x 1,080 resolution, an aluminum case, a 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM, 32GB of internal storage, a 13-megapixel rear, a 2-megapixel front camera, Dolby sound and Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. It even edges out HTC’s (2498) slim DROID DNA in terms of size with slightly thinner dimensions and a larger battery: 2,300 mAh versus the DNA’s 2,020 mAh. The only deal-breaker is the Nubia Z5 likely won’t be available in the U.S., but importers drooling over its specs can pick one up in China for about $554.

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Temple Run was downloaded more than 2.5 million times on Christmas Day

Millions of men, woman and children awoke on December 25th to find a smartphone or tablet under their Christmas tree. After opening these gifts, users are typically quick to fire up their new devices and download the most popular apps. Keith Shepherd, founder of Imangi Studios, announced on Wednesday that the company’s Temple Run game saw unprecedented attention on Christmas Day. The executive revealed on his Twitter page that the Indiana Jones-esque ”runner” game was downloaded more than 1 million times on iOS, more than 1 million times on Android and over 500,000 times on Amazon’s Appstore during the 24-hour period. Earlier this year, Temple Run was the top free and top grossing app on Apple’s (AAPL) App Store with over 40 million downloads and 7 million daily active users.

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Meeting delay a sign of cooling US-Vietnam ties

The U.S. and Vietnam, former enemies who share concerns about China's rise, are finding that one issue — human rights — is keeping them from becoming closer friends.
Stress between the nations is clear from a delay in an annual meeting between Washington and Hanoi on human-rights concerns. Such consultations have been held every year since 2006, but the last ones in November 2011 produced little, and a senior State Department official said the two sides were still working to "set the parameters" of the next round so it would yield progress.
The U.S. is frustrated over Vietnam's recent crackdown on bloggers, activists and religious groups it deems a threat to its grip on power, and over the detention of an American citizen on subversion charges that carry the death penalty.
"We have not seen the improvements that we would like," the State Department official said last week on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly. "We would very much like to see concrete actions."
The delay in holding the meeting, to be hosted by Hanoi, could just be a matter of weeks. But it underscores how Vietnam's worsening treatment of dissidents over the last two years has complicated efforts to strengthen its ties with the U.S.
Vietnam's foreign affairs ministry spokesman Luong Thanh Nghi said the human rights dialogues had "contributed to enhancing trust" between the two countries and that both sides were in discussion on the timing of the next round. A U.S. Embassy spokesman also said the countries were discussing when to hold the talks.
Like Washington, Vietnam wants deeper trading and security relations, but the U.S. says it must be accompanied by improvements in human rights. Some influential members of Congress are also pressing the Obama administration to get tougher on Hanoi's suppression of dissent and religious freedom.
Vietnam's relationship with the U.S. has improved greatly in recent years, largely because of shared concerns over China's increasing assertiveness in Southeast Asia. Their shared strategic interests are reflected most clearly in U.S. diplomacy in the South China Sea, where Beijing's territorial claims clash with those of Vietnam and four other countries in the region.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Vietnam has opened its economy but has been unwilling to grant religious or political freedom to its 87 million people. The U.S. and Vietnam restored diplomatic relations in 1995, 20 years after the end of the Vietnam War, and their rapprochement has accelerated as President Barack Obama has prioritized stronger ties with Southeast Asia.
Vietnam's crackdown on dissent follows a downturn in its once-robust economy. Analysts say Hanoi's leadership is defensive about domestic criticism of its economic policies, corruption scandals and infighting, much of it being spread on the Internet, out of their control.
Last year, Vietnam locked up more than 30 peaceful activists, bloggers and dissidents, according to Human Rights Watch. This year, 12 activists have been convicted in short, typically one-day trials, and sentenced to unusually long prison terms. Seven others are awaiting trial. The country is also preparing laws to crackdown on Internet freedoms.
"The internal party ructions have trumped everything," said Carl Thayer, an expert on Vietnam from the University of New South Wales. "They are so paranoid about criticism they don't care about the U.S."
The detention and looming trial of American democracy activist Nguyen Quoc Quan may be the clearest example of Hanoi's unwillingness to listen to American concerns over human rights.
Quan, 59, was arrested at Ho Chi Minh City airport in April soon after arriving on a flight from the United States, where he has lived since fleeing Vietnam by boat as a young man. Quan's family and friends say he is a leading member of Viet Tan, a nonviolent pro-democracy group that the Vietnamese authorities have labeled a terrorist outfit. He was detained in 2007 in Vietnam for six months.
Authorities initially accused Quan of terrorism, but he is now charged with subversion against the state, which carries a punishment ranging from 12 years in prison to death.
With the investigation now complete, his trial could be near. Court dates are typically released only a few days in advance.
According to a copy of the indictment obtained by The Associated Press, Quan met with fellow Vietnamese activists in Thailand and Malaysia between 2009 and 2010 and discussed Internet security and nonviolent resistance. The indictment said he traveled to Vietnam under a passport issued under the name of Richard Nguyen in 2011, when he recruited four other members of Viet Tan.
His wife doesn't deny that Quan wants to change Vietnam's political system.
"He wanted to talk to the young people and bring up the idea of democracy in Vietnam," Huong Mai Ngo, said in an interview with The Associated Press by phone from Sacramento. "He has lived in the U.S., he has had freedom here and he wants them to have the same."
Congress members with large Vietnamese-American constituencies are pressuring the Obama administration.
Rep. Frank Wolf, a leading critic, maintains the government has neglected human rights as it looks to forge economic and security ties. With three Republican colleagues, the Virginia congressman has demanded the sacking of U.S. Ambassador David Shear, accusing him of failing to invite democracy and rights activists to the July 4 celebration at the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi after giving assurances he would.
"The administration's approach has been a disaster. All they care about are economic and defense issues," said Wolf, who also took aim at Shear for failing to visit Quan in prison. "Human rights and religious freedom should be the number one priority."
U.S. officials have visited Quan five times in jail, mostly recently in late September.
"We believe no one should be imprisoned for peacefully expressing their political views or their aspirations for a freer, more democratic and prosperous future," embassy spokesman Christopher Hodges said. "We continue to call on the government of Vietnam to quickly and transparently resolve this case."
Wolf and other lawmakers interested in Vietnam do not have much say in setting policy, but can make life awkward for the Obama administration. Wolf hinted that he could propose amendments to budget legislation to put more pressure on the administration over its Vietnam policy. Wolf is a senior member of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, which oversees much of the federal budget.
The U.S. has some leverage if it wishes to try and get Vietnam to improve its human rights record: Vietnam is one of the largest recipients of American aid in Asia and is currently negotiating a free trade deal with Washington and seven other countries.
The Vietnamese government declined to comment on the charges against Quan, but Hanoi is aware of U.S. sensitivities in this case. Many observers say Quan is likely to be convicted but sentenced to time served and quickly expelled, though even that is likely to raise congressional pressure on the White House to tie the trade deal and aid to progress on human rights.
"It would be a disaster for Vietnam if they come down on U.S. citizen with an extreme sentence for peacefully advocating human rights," said Linda Malone, a professor at William and Mary Law School who is advising Quan's local counsel on his defense. "They will lose tremendous ground on what they seek to advance themselves."

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Court OKs sale of U.S. government-backed A123 to Chinese firm

China's largest auto parts maker got court approval on Tuesday for its controversial purchase of A123 Systems Inc, a bankrupt maker of electric car batteries, but the judge said he was troubled that a U.S. rival might be working to kill the deal.
A123, which was partly funded with U.S. government money, was sold at an auction on Saturday for $256.6 million to Wanxiang Group of China, which outbid Johnson Controls Inc of Milwaukee.
The auction result prompted outcry from U.S. politicians who objected to A123's taxpayer-financed lithium-ion technology ending up in the hands of an economic rival. Johnson Controls has said it remains interested in A123 if Wanxiang fails to get approval from the U.S. government, which is coming under pressure to block the deal.
"I'm troubled by suggestions that someone who participated in the auction may in fact already be working against it," said Delaware Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Carey at the end of Tuesday's hearing.
Carey ordered into escrow a $5.5 million fee from the sale that was earmarked for Johnson Control's in return for it being the lead bidder to support the A123 auction. The money will be released when the sale closes or after an investigation by A123 creditors.
William Baldiga of Brown Rudnick, who represents the official committee of unsecured creditors, had told Carey he had a confidential letter that suggested Johnson Controls planned to undermine Wanxiang if the Chinese company won the auction.
Johnson Controls attorney, Joshua Feltman of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, said the company should not be punished "because we sympathize with Michigan Congressional delegation."
A123 has several facilities in Michigan and its politicians have been vocal in opposing the sale to Wanxiang.
A123 has never turned a profit and received a $249 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to develop lithium-ion batteries.
A Department of Energy official said on Monday the grant, which has about $120 million remaining, would not be transferred to Wanxiang.
Opposition to the deal will now shift to Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS).
Pressure has been building on Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, the head of the panel, to block the takeover.
Chinese firms have been pouring cash into overseas investments, and with that money has come concerns around the globe that firms with ties to Beijing may not play by free-market rules.
CFIUS recently rejected a bid to build wind farms in Oregon by Ralls Corp, owned by two executives of China's Sany Group, and has blocked multiple deals by Huawei Technologies Co, a Chinese telecom equipment manufacturer.
China's state-owned oil company CNOOC Ltd received approval on Monday for the country's biggest foreign takeover, a $15.1 billion acquisition of Nexen Inc after intense scrutiny. CNOOC withdrew its bid for California-based Unocal Corp in 2005 in the face of political opposition.
Wanxiang has tried to blunt some of the political opposition by excluding A123's defense contracts from its bid.
A123 filed for bankruptcy in October as demand for electric vehicles did not live up to expectations and it was forced to recall defective car batteries. Its customers include Fisker Automotive, General Motors Co and BMW.
If the foreign investment committee does not approve the sale in the coming weeks, Wanxiang could walk away, although it would forfeit a $25 million deposit that would go toward repaying A123's creditors.
If that were to happen, A123 could then go back on the block. Johnson Controls and NEC Corp of Japan made a final runner-up bid of about $251 million, according to Alex Molinaroli, president of Johnson Controls Power Solutions.
The only other company that qualified for the auction, Siemens AG of Germany, does not appear to have made a bid, according to a transcript of the auction.
If the foreign investment committee has not approved the sale by January 15, the deal could still close by transferring A123 to a trust controlled by U.S. citizens, which would not need CFIUS approval.
Wanxiang's money would then be turned over to repay the creditors of A123, which filed for bankruptcy with $376 million in liabilities.
The Chinese company is no stranger to investing in the United States.
Wanxiang generates about $1 billion in revenue in the United States by supplying parts to GM and Ford Motor Co and has bought or invested in more than 20 U.S. companies, many of them in bankruptcy, said a congressional report published in October.
The case is A123 Systems Inc, Delaware Bankruptcy Court, No. 12-12859.

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Google explains cause of massive Gmail, Chrome outages

Users took to social networks on Monday to vent their displeasure with Google (GOOG) following a 40-minute disruption of service affecting the company’s Chrome Web browser and Gmail service. It was previously unclear what caused the services to simultaneously crash and some suspected the company was hit with a denial-of-service attack. Google engineer Tim Steele took to the company’s developer forums to clear up the confusion and confirmed what some developers had already suspected: The reason for the crash had to do with the Google Sync servers getting overwhelmed following a change in the code, not a DDoS attack.
“It’s due to a backend service that sync servers depend on becoming overwhelmed, and sync servers responding to that by telling all clients to throttle all data types,” he said, noting that the “throttling” messed things up in the browser and caused it to crash.
Google Sync keeps bookmarks, extensions, apps and settings in the Chrome browser synchronized across a variety of devices and services. Along with Chrome and Gmail, the worldwide outage also affected Google Docs, Drive and Apps, all of which rely heavily on Google Sync.

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Facebook helps FBI bust cybercriminals blamed for $850 million losses

 Investigators led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and aided by Facebook Inc, have busted an international criminal ring that infected 11 million computers around the world and caused more than $850 million in total losses in one of the largest cybercrime hauls in history.
The FBI, working in concert with the world's largest social network and several international law enforcement agencies, arrested 10 people it says infected computers with "Yahos" malicious software, then stole credit card, bank and other personal information.
Facebook's security team assisted the FBI after "Yahos" targeted its users from 2010 to October 2012, the U.S. federal agency said in a statement on its website. The social network helped identify the criminals and spot affected accounts, it said.
Its "security systems were able to detect affected accounts and provide tools to remove these threats," the FBI said.
According to the agency, which worked also with the U.S. Department of Justice, the accused hackers employed the "Butterfly Botnet". Botnets are networks of compromised computers that can be used in a variety of cyberattacks on personal computers.
The FBI said it nabbed 10 people from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, New Zealand, Peru, the United Kingdom, and the United States, executed numerous search warrants and conducted a raft of interviews.
It estimated the total losses from their activities at more than $850 million, without elaborating.
Hard data is tough to come by, but experts say cybercrime is on the rise around the world as PC and mobile computing become more prevalent and as more and more financial transactions shift online, leaving law enforcement, cybersecurity professionals and targeted corporations increasingly hard-pressed to spot and ward off attacks.

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As China handset makers upgrade chips, pressure remains on profit margins

Chinese mobile phone makers chasing market share with lower prices in the world's biggest smartphone market will see their margins continue to be pressured as they upgrade to quad-core chips to satisfy demand from users for faster speeds and flashier graphics.
Most smartphones now are equipped with single and dual-core chips, but Chinese handset makers are planning quad-core powered devices as consumers get more picky with the speed of screen swipes, how fast they can download movies, send a photo via WeChat messaging or seal a purchase on Taobao online mall.
"The Chinese handset vendors have now extended their reach and low-price strategy to the quad-core phone segment," Lisa Soh, an analyst with Macquarie, said in a report. "This hurts the hope that the Chinese handset makers can improve margins through moving up product segments."
Already, Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, ZTE Corp, Lenovo Group Ltd and Xiaomi Technology, have unveiled quad-core smartphones running on Google Inc's Android operating system. They are using chips mainly from Samsung, Qualcomm and Nvidia.
Industry executives expect more quad-core models next year as chipmakers such as Qualcomm and Mediatek introduce processors customized with Chinese applications that will make it easier, quicker and cheaper for handset makers to launch new products.
U.S.-based Qualcomm Inc and Taiwan's Mediatek Inc have unveiled the high-end chips with designs that will help Chinese mobile phone makers launch smartphones in a shorter time at lower costs.
On Wednesday, Mediatek, Taiwan's biggest chip designer that sells more than 80 percent of its mobile phone processors to Chinese vendors, launched its quad-core chip and expects its partners to unveil handsets early next year, executives said.
Smartphone sales are booming in China, which has more than 1 billion subscribers. Sales will grow to 165-170 million units this year from 78 million a year earlier, research firm Gartner said, helped by the proliferation of Internet use.
Currently, Samsung is the top smartphone brand in China, but Chinese vendors are fast gaining traction. China's Lenovo, Coolpad and Huawei are now ranked No. 2, 3 and 5 respectively in the Chinese smartphone market, IDC said.
"The only gap between the smartphone versus the consumer in emerging countries is the price," said David Ku, CFO of Mediatek, which expects to ship more than 110 million smartphone chips this year.
Jeff Lorbeck, senior vice president for Qualcomm's product management told Reuters this month that it was likely that some of the quad-core powered smartphones could sell below 1,000 yuan ($160).
"I like to use my phone to buy things online, update my status on Renren (a social networking site) and read what friends are up to on weibo microblogs," said Liu Liang, a 24-year-old financial executive who lives in Beijing and uses a quad-core Samsung Galaxy Note II.
"I haven't bought a Chinese smartphone. But if my friends start recommending me good models and Chinese smartphones step up in their branding, I'll definitely consider one."

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