Google defends data policy

PARIS, France (Reuters) -- Google will tell Brussels it needs to hold on to users' search data for up to two years for security and commercial reasons after being warned it could be violating European privacy laws by doing so.
The world's top Internet search engine on Friday said it would respond by June 19 to a letter from a European Union data protection advisory group expressing concern it was keeping information on users' searches for too long.
"The concern of EU law is that a company that collects data on its customers should keep it as long as it is necessary, but not longer," Peter Fleischer, Google's global privacy counsel, told Reuters in a telephone interview.
With every search, Google gathers information about a customer's tastes, interests and beliefs that could potentially be used by third parties such as advertisers, but the company stresses it never passes it on.
Google last week received a letter from the Article 29 working party, a group of national advisory bodies that counsels the EU on privacy policy, which asked the company to justify its data retention practices.
"I will tell the working party that Google needs to hold on to its log database to protect itself and the system from attacks and refine and improve the effectiveness of our search results," Fleischer said.
He said Google, at its own initiative, had decided in March to limit the time it kept engine search information to between 18 and 24 months. The company previously had no set time limit.
He called on rivals Yahoo! and Microsoft to clarify their data retention practices and policies.
"Will the working party focus on other players in the industry?" Fleischer asked.
Copyright 2007 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Citywide Wi-Fi struggles to reach users

(AP) -- Adam DuVander likes to surf the Internet from his laptop wherever he happens to be -- at home, a coffee shop or a neighborhood park. He has been able to do so in recent years thanks to wireless hotspots set up by networking activists in Portland, Oregon.
So when Portland announced it would try to blanket the entire city with similar Wi-Fi technology, the Web programmer and blogger got excited -- until he tried using it.
"For me ubiquitous access means I don't have to base my life around wherever my office is," DuVander said. "I tried it out as soon as I could and found that it wasn't for me. The quality of the connection is not up to my standards."
Blame physics and the use of a short-range technology designed for smaller quarters, not citywide deployments.
Simply put, signals don't travel far or penetrate building walls well.
That's fine for a coffee shop. The equipment is indoors, as are its users. That's also fine for a park. There are enough users concentrated there to justify installing lots of wireless antennas.
But it wouldn't be economical to place an access point inside every home and on every street lamp.
Portland's contractor, MetroFi Inc., is putting roughly 25 access points per square mile, so that users would generally be no farther than 500 feet from the nearest one, said Logan Kleier, the city's manager for the Unwired Portland project.
Cutting that distance in half, to 250 feet, would require about four times as many access points, because they need to be installed in all four directions.
"The network cost gets completely out of whack," he said. "The business model breaks in its entirety."
Network operators, meanwhile, are recommending signal boosters for as much as $150 to get indoor coverage. Many people in Portland and elsewhere plan to stick with their existing DSL or cable provider instead.
An emerging technology called WiMax -- promising much longer ranges -- might be able to blanket a larger area more easily than Wi-Fi can. Sprint Nextel Corp. already has announced plans to offer WiMax service in several cities by next year, with initial deployments this year in Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Baltimore.
But Wi-Fi still has its advantages. It's been around longer so the technology is stable and equipment relatively cheap.
And although Wi-Fi continues to evolve -- an industry group will soon start certifying products under its emerging, faster "n" flavor -- devices made tomorrow will likely work with networks built today. On the network side, some equipment can be upgraded by pushing new software remotely, said Esme Vos, an expert on municipal Wi-Fi systems.
Regardless of the specific wireless technology, though, wired services remain a better choice over wireless for many basic needs. Wired networks are generally faster and have fewer security risks. Prices for DSL, in particular, have dropped.
Wireless networks are good as backups during emergencies and away from home, but "it's very hard to have a wireless network compete as a primary connection," said Dave Burstein, editor of the industry newsletter DSL Prime.
"Where you have a choice, DSL or cable compared to wireless, you are going to go for DSL or cable unless it's ridiculously overpriced."
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

MySpace will turn over names of sex offenders

RALEIGH, North Carolina (AP) -- MySpace.com will provide a number of state attorneys general with data on registered sex offenders who use the popular social networking Web site, the company said Monday.
Attorneys general from eight states demanded last week that the company provide data on how many registered sex offenders are using the site and where they live. MySpace initially refused, citing federal privacy laws.
MySpace obtained the data from Sentinel Tech Holding Corp., which the company partnered with in December to build a database with information on sex offenders.
"We developed 'Sentinel Safe' from scratch because there was no means to weed them out and get them off of our site," said Mike Angus, MySpace's executive vice president and general counsel.
Angus said the company, owned by media conglomerate News Corp. had always planned to share information on sex offenders it identified and has already removed about 7,000 profiles out of a total of about 180 million.
"This is no different than an offline community," he said. "We're trying to keep it safe."
Angus said the company had also made arrangements to allow law enforcement to use the Sentinel software directly.
MySpace is owned by media conglomerate News Corp.
Attorneys general in North Carolina, Connecticut, Georgia, Idaho, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Ohio and Pennsylvania asked for the Sentinel data last week.
North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper's office said in a statement the information could potentially be used to look for parole violations or help in investigations.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Inventor: Camera phone evolution has only just begun

SANTA CRUZ, California (AP) -- The chilling sounds of gunfire on the Virginia Tech campus; the hateful taunts from Saddam Hussein's execution; the racist tirade of comedian Michael Richards.
Those videos, all shot with cell phone cameras and seen by millions, are just a few recent examples of the power now at the fingertips of the masses. Even the man widely credited with inventing the camera phone in 1997 is awed by the cultural revolution he helped launch.
"It's had a massive impact because it's just so convenient," said Philippe Kahn, a tech industry maverick whose other pioneering efforts include the founding of software maker Borland, an early Microsoft Corp. antagonist.
"There's always a way to capture memories and share it," he said. "You go to a restaurant, and there's a birthday and suddenly everyone is getting their camera phones out. It's amazing."
If Kahn feels a bit like a proud father when he sees people holding up their cell phones to snap pictures, there's good reason: He jury-rigged the first camera phone while his wife was in labor with their daughter.
"We were going to have a baby and I wanted to share the pictures with family and friends," Kahn said, "and there was no easy way to do it."
So as he sat in a maternity ward, he wrote a crude program on his laptop and sent an assistant to a RadioShack store to get a soldering iron, capacitors and other supplies to wire his digital camera to his cell phone. When Sophie was born, he sent her photo over a cellular connection to acquaintances around the globe.
A decade later, 41 percent of American households own a camera phone "and you can hardly find a phone without a camera anymore," said Michael Cai, an industry analyst at Parks Associates.
Market researcher Gartner Inc. predicts that about 589 million cell phones will be sold with cameras in 2007, increasing to more than 1 billion worldwide by 2010.
Mix in the Internet's vast reach and the growth of the YouTube generation, and the ubiquitous gadget's influence only deepens and gets more complicated. So much so that the watchful eyes on all of us may no longer just be those of Big Brother.
"For the past decade, we've been under surveillance under these big black and white cameras on buildings and at 7-Eleven stores. But the candid camera is wielded by individuals now," said Fred Turner, an assistant professor of communications at Stanford University who specializes in digital media and culture.
The contraption Kahn assembled in a Santa Cruz labor-and-delivery room in 1997 has evolved into a pocket-friendly phenomenon that has empowered both citizen journalists and personal paparazzi.
It has prompted lawsuits -- a student sued campus police at UCLA for alleged excessive force after officers were caught on cell-phone video using a stun gun during his arrest; and been a catalyst for change -- a government inquiry into police practices ensued in Malaysia after a cell-phone video revealed a woman detainee being forced to do squats while naked.
On another scale, parents use cell-phone slideshows -- not wallet photos -- to show off pictures of their children, while adolescents document their rites of passage with cell phone cameras and instantly share the images.
One of the recipients of Kahn's seminal photo e-mail was veteran technology consultant Andy Seybold, who recalled being "blown away" by the picture.
"The fact that it got sent wirelessly on the networks those days -- that was an amazing feat," Seybold said.
Kahn's makeshift photo-communications system formed the basis for a new company, LightSurf Technologies, which he later sold to VeriSign Inc. LightSurf built "PictureMail" software and worked with cell phone makers to integrate the wireless photo technology.
Sharp Corp. was the first to sell a commercial cell phone with a camera in Japan in 2000. Camera phones didn't debut in the U.S. until 2002, Kahn said.
Though Kahn's work revolved around transmitting only digital still photographs -- video-related developments were created by others in the imaging and chip industries -- his groundbreaking implementation of the instant-sharing via a cell phone planted a seed.
"He facilitated people putting cameras in a phone, and he proved that you can take a photo and send it to someone with a cell phone," Seybold said.
Kahn, 55, is well aware of how the camera phone has since been put to negative uses: sneaky shots up women's skirts, or the violent trend of "happy slapping" in Europe where youths provoke a fight or assault, capture the incident on camera and then spread the images on the Web or between mobile phones.
But he likes to focus on the technology's benefits. It's been a handy tool that has led to vindication for victims or validation for vigilantes.
As Kahn heard the smattering of stories in recent years about assailants scared off by a camera phone or criminals who were nabbed later because their faces or their license plates were captured on the gadget, he said, "I started feeling it was better than carrying a gun."
And though he found the camera-phone video of the former Iraqi dictator's execution disturbing, Kahn said the gadget helped "get the truth out." The unofficial footage surreptitiously taken by a guard was vastly different from the government-issued version and revealed a chaotic scene with angry exchanges depicting the ongoing problems between the nation's factions.
Kahn also thinks the evolution of the camera phone has only just begun.
He wouldn't discuss details of his newest startup, Fullpower Technologies Inc., which is in stealth mode working on the "convergence of life sciences and wireless," according to its Web site.
But, Kahn said, it will, among other things, "help make camera phones better."
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Google unifies search results

MOUNTAIN VIEW, California (Reuters) -- Google Inc. said on Wednesday it is combining its different Web search services into one "Universal Search" service that will present Web sites, news, video and other results on one page.
The move, a significant overhaul of Google's most-used function, will take effect on Wednesday and be improved over time, executives told reporters at the company's "Googleplex" headquarters.
"I think of it as a pretty natural evolution, with the one interesting thing being the video side of it," said Martin Pyykkonen, an analyst with Global Crown Capital.
"The thing everyone is wondering right now is what will an advertiser be willing to pay for a video link," Pyykkonen said. "From the advertiser standpoint, I think they will be interested in how to hook their customer better."
Universal Search means that standard Google searches will draw results from separate properties covering books, local information, images, news, and video, said Marissa Mayer, vice president of search and user experience.
"It's breaking down the silos of information that have been built up. It's a broad, long-term vision that will unfold over the next few years," Mayer said. "We are really excited about what Universal Search could evolve to in the future."
The combined search includes any site indexed by Google's services. On the video side, for example, it will include YouTube, Google Video and independent sites like Metacafe.com.
Mayer did not directly discuss advertising plans, but she indicated the new service could open the door to more relevant ads on search result pages, which accounted for roughly half of the $10.6 billion in revenue Google did last year.
"For us, ads are (search) answers as well. I would hope that we can bring some of these same advances, in terms of richness of media, to ads," Mayer said.
In addition, the company is introducing new navigation features at the top of every Google page that let users to quickly hop between its different properties.
For example, users of Google's e-mail service, Gmail, can jump instantly to search, calendar, documents, and other services, according to a demonstration at the briefing.
The company also is preparing a translation service that converts queries into other languages, allowing a user to comb a broader swath of the Web, Google's Vice President of Engineering, Udi Manber, said at the event.
The technique will translate queries in any of a dozen languages into English, find additional search results, then automatically translate those back into the language of the original query. This will give users in any supported language a broader view of information on the Web.
"That by itself will open the whole Web to different languages," Manber said.
Copyright 2007 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Google: 10 percent of sites are dangerous

Google is warning Web users of the increasing threat posed by malicious software that can be dropped onto a computer as a Web surfer visits a particular site.
The search giant carried out in-depth research on 4.5 million Web sites and found that about one in 10 Web pages could successfully "drive-by download" a Trojan horse virus onto a visitor's computer. Such malicious software potentially enables hackers to access sensitive data stored on the computer or its network, or to install rogue applications.
Google's report (PDF: The Ghost in the Browser: Analysis of Web-based Malware), published last week, said the rise in Web-based malicious software has been aided by the increasing role that the Internet plays in everyday life, along with the ease in setting up Web sites.

Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos, said Google is highlighting a worsening trend and "a considerable problem" for businesses and individual Web navigators.
An average of 8,000 new URLs containing malicious software emerged each week during April, Cluley said, adding that the notion that such software resides only in the darker corners of the Internet is very outdated. Seventy percent of Web pages hosting rogue software are found on legitimate sites targeted by hackers, according to Sophos.
To place malicious software on Web sites, hackers are manipulating Web server security, user-posted content, advertising and third-party widgets, Cluley said. "They used to spread malware by e-mail attachment. What they do now is spam out URLs."
Cluley warned businesses that they "cannot protect users by restricting what sites they go to. You need to start protecting your Web access as well as your e-mail gateway."
Tim Ferguson of Silicon.com reported from London.

Study: iPods can make pacemakers malfunction

CHICAGO, Illinois (Reuters) -- iPods can cause cardiac implantable pacemakers to malfunction by interfering with the electromagnetic equipment monitoring the heart, according to a study presented by a 17-year-old high school student to a meeting of heart specialists on Thursday.
The study tested the effect of the portable music devices on 100 patients, whose mean age was 77, outfitted with pacemakers. Electrical interference was detected half of the time when the iPod was held just 2 inches from the patient's chest for 5 to 10 seconds.
The study did not examine any portable music devices other than iPods, which are made by Apple Inc.
In some cases, the iPods caused interference when held 18 inches from the chest. Interfering with the telemetry equipment caused the device to misread the heart's pacing and in one case caused the pacemaker to stop functioning altogether.
The study was held at the Thoracic and Cardiovascular Institute at Michigan State University. The results were presented at the Heart Rhythm Society annual meeting in Denver.
Jay Thaker, lead author of the study and a student at Okemos High School in Okemos, Michigan, concluded that iPod interference can lead physicians to misdiagnose actual heart function.
Thaker, whose father is an electrophysiologist and whose mother is a rheumatologist, said he asked his dad about a potential interaction between pacemakers and iPods.
"We looked online but didn't see anything. Then, one of his patients asked him if there would be a problem, so (my father) put me in touch with Dr. Krit (Jongnarangsin)," Thaker said in a telephone interview.
Jongnarangsin, a long-time friend of Thaker's father, is the senior author of the study and an assistant professor in the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine at the University of Michigan.
"Most pacemaker patients are not iPod users," Jongnarangsin said. For that reason, he said, it is unclear how often iPods cause misdiagnosis.
"This needs to be studied more," Jongnarangsin added.
Thaker said he is interested in doing a similar study about how implantable cardioverter defibrillators, known as ICDs, are affected by iPods.
Copyright 2007 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

The supermarket of the future

CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- Standing in a long line at the grocer soon might get you through the checkout faster.
That's because a British company has designed a system to track and predict the movements of supermarket shoppers using thermal imaging. A computer analyzes data from infrared cameras, then advises when and where additional cashiers are needed.
"The idea is that the more pleasant the checkout experience, the more you will buy," said Nick Stogdale, senior sales manager for InfraRed Integrated Systems' SMARTLANE product. The system is being tested by two U.S. chains.
The SMARTLANE was one of many new food-related technologies on display at this week's Food Marketing Institute show, where speed, ease, sanitation and a touch of theater ruled.
Take the case of rotisserie chicken, one of the most popular items in the fast-growing prepared foods category: The latest crop of chicken roasters -- those ubiquitous ovens that endlessly twirl crisp, golden chickens at grocers across the nation -- are designed not just to cook, but also to capture your attention with good looks and funky design.
Hence, the Multisserie, an upright, clear cylindrical oven by Netherlands-based Fri-Jado that spins the chickens on end, like a giant top. "We try to bring a very high show element to it," marketing director Ernst Goettsch said Sunday.
The same thinking also influenced the design of Montreal-based Hardt's Inferno Rotisserie, which offers a crowd-pleasing self-cleaning function that looks like a sprinkler gone wild.
"The more a supermarket can do to create a show or to create a restaurant-style experience, the more sales they make," said Michael Griffin, a vice president of sales for Hardt.
For those who prefer their food slightly pixelated, food industry analyst Phil Lempert has teamed with Kraft Foods and the National Grocers Association to launch a virtual supermarket in the online fantasy world known as Second Life.
Though visitors to Phil's Supermarket can't actually buy groceries, they can guide their avatars (online parlance for a user's digital personification) through the store to explore products, watch cooking demos and see the latest food and health news.
The idea is to help people navigate the real world of food by letting them "pre-shop," accessing nutritional data and other information on various products, previewing a showcase of just-launched items or scoring coupons.
"The average consumer only spends 22 minutes food shopping," said Lempert, who launched the site Monday. "That's not a whole lot of time to see new products. But what I hear from consumers is that they want to hear about what's new and exciting."
Lempert expects to have 100,000 products on the site by the end of summer. Visitors can "taste" many of the products, then offer reviews. How meaningful those reviews are, of course, depend on whether users have tried the product in the analog world.
Beyond wanting to know more about their food, consumers also want to know more about its safety.
On display this week are products such as G & K Services' line of ProSura clothing. Intended for food service workers such as meat cutters and chefs, these clothes are like hand sanitizer you can wear.
Though the clothing resembles the white cotton garments common to butcher shops and professional kitchens, ProSura products have chlorine chemically bonded to the fibers, claiming to kill microbes that touch them.
G & K marketing manager Christine Fischer says that for many companies this level of sanitation probably isn't necessary, but they see it as a way of demonstrating to customers that they are willing to spend extra to ensure the safety of their food.
And spending on sanitation might be smart money. According to a Harris Poll Online released Monday by FMI, just 66 percent of consumers feel at least somewhat confident in the safety of supermarket food, down from 82 percent in 2006.
The food industry has been hit by a number of recent food safety problems, including E. coli in spinach and melamine contamination of pet food and animal feed, and FMI spokesman Bill Greer says the study reflects that.
Which means business could boom for companies such as PureCart, which makes a sort of disinfecting car wash for shopping carts. But despite consumer concerns, PureCart president Jim Kratowicz says products such as his still have a tough sell.
That's because even though consumers want clean carts, companies worry about sending the wrong message.
Consumers might wonder, "What are grocers telling me? They're telling me they have dirty carts," he said.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

NYC cabbies not sold on touch-screens

NEW YORK (AP) -- To taxi officials, the touch-screen monitors popping up in cabs help passengers make the most of the 13 New York minutes spent on an average ride.
Passengers can pay by credit card -- no more fumbling for cash and tip. As a cab heads through Greenwich Village, for example, passengers can find ads and reviews for neighborhood bars and restaurants. They can also view news stories and an electronic map of their cab's progress.
The monitors are now in 200 city cabs as an experiment, but a plan to put them in all 13,000 cabs has angered many drivers. They see the technology as an expensive imposition that would cost them money and allow taxi owners and officials to check up on them.
The issue has a delicate history: A 2003 experiment with touch-screen television in taxis ended within months, amid passenger antipathy. And the drivers' group leading the opposition to the monitors notes that it carried out a crippling one-day taxi strike over other issues in 1998.
The Taxi and Limousine Commission is scheduled Thursday to consider an October 1 deadline for all of the city's cabs to start installing the systems.
"This project is nothing short of revolutionary and evolutionary for the taxi industry," Taxi and Limousine Commissioner Matthew W. Daus wrote in a recent agency newsletter.
The commission called for the technology while approving a 26 percent fare increase in 2004, and the agency argues that both riders and drivers stand to benefit.
The credit-card option is expected to prove popular with customers in what is now a mostly cash, $1.8 billion-a-year business. Officials say it could translate to bigger tips and more fares from riders short on cash.
The global positioning system in the technology will also automate required record-keeping and give drivers crucial information about traffic or lost items. If a customer reports losing a wallet, for example, the taxi commission could send alerts to drivers in the neighborhood where the customer was dropped off to be on the lookout.
The commission has approved tests of four systems and may endorse them for sale within days. Taxi owners would choose from the four systems, at a maximum three-year cost of $7,200 for equipment and various fees, although commission officials expect the cost will be far less in many cases. Vendors say advertising can offset at least some of owners' costs.
Objecting drivers have raised concerns about the costs of the hardware, credit-card fees and potential working time lost if the systems need repair. Some worry that the global-positioning system will be used to track their movements, although the taxi commission says it will record only the pickup and drop-off points and fare, which drivers already are required to log.
"It's trampling on our constitutional rights, and it will cut deeply into our income," said Bill Lindauer, who drove a cab for 30 years and is a member of the organizing committee of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, a drivers' advocacy group with more than 7,000 members.
The alliance held a rally in March to protest the new systems, and Lindauer said this month that the group was exploring legal and political avenues for trying to block the plan.
But some drivers embrace the technology, which came free for those who offered their cabs as proving grounds.
Cesar Norena, a 17-year taxi driver testing a system made by Englewood, New Jersey-based TaxiTech, says passengers have made liberal use of its features, and he believes the credit-card option will boost business.
"People really like it," he said, "and as a driver, I really like it, too."
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Hacker accesses students' personal information

COLUMBIA, Missouri (AP) -- A computer hacker accessed the Social Security numbers of more than 22,000 current or former students at the University of Missouri, the second such attack this year, school officials said Tuesday. The FBI is investigating.
University officials said campus computer technicians confirmed a breach of a database last week by a user or users whose Internet accounts were traced to China and Australia.
The hacker accessed personal information of 22,396 University of Missouri-Columbia students or alumni who also worked at one of the system's four campuses in St. Louis, Kansas City, Rolla or Columbia in 2004.
The hacker obtained the information through a Web page used to make queries about the status of trouble reports to the university's computer help desk, which is based in Columbia. The information had been compiled for a report, but the data had not been removed from the computer system.
In January, a hacker obtained the Social Security numbers of 1,220 university researchers, as well as personal passwords of as many as 2,500 people who used an online grant application system.
The university is contacting people affected by the latest breach and providing instructions on how to monitor their credit reports and other financial records for suspicious activity, officials said.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Apple seeking end to music copy restrictions

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- The last time Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs took on major recording companies, he refused to budge on his 99-cent price for a song on iTunes.
As a new round of talks ramp up this month, however, Jobs has opened the door to higher prices -- as long as music companies let Apple Inc. sell their songs without technology designed to stop unauthorized copying.
Jobs contends that would "tear down the walls" by allowing consumers to play music they buy at Apple's iTunes store on any digital music player, not just the company's iPods.
Although most of the major labels insist that safeguards are still needed to stave off online piracy and make other digital music business models work, one company has already struck a deal with Apple.
Last month, Britain's EMI Music Group PLC, home to artists such as Coldplay, Norah Jones and Joss Stone, agreed to let iTunes sell tracks without the copy-protection technology known as digital-rights management. The DRM-free tracks cost 30 cents more than copy-restricted versions of EMI songs and feature enhanced sound quality.
The other major labels -- Warner Music Group Corp., Vivendi's Universal Music Group, and Sony BMG Music Entertainment, a joint venture of Sony Corp. and Bertelsmann AG -- will be watching closely to see how the unrestricted EMI tracks sell.
"At this point, no one can ignore Apple or what Apple wants, given its position in the marketplace," said Michael Gartenberg, an analyst with Jupiter Research. "The fact that they were able to do this deal with EMI puts more pressure on some of the other labels to follow suit."
For their part, at least two of the recording companies will ask Jobs to sell a wider variety of content in digital bundles of songs, videos and other multimedia, according to two recording company executives familiar with their companies' plans. They spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the confidential nature of the negotiations.
Apple already sells some bundled tracks, but the music companies hope expanding those offerings will boost online revenue and help offset lagging CD sales.
Apple and the recording companies declined official comment on their negotiations.
Four years ago, the majors bought into Jobs' one-price-fits-all vision and agreed to such licensing terms at a time online music services were failing to attract significant interest from music fans.
Since then, the popularity of Apple's iPods has swelled and the sleek devices now dominate more than 70 percent of the digital music player market, by some estimates.
While studies have suggested that only a fraction of the music on most iPods is actually purchased on iTunes, the service has ridden the iPod's coattails and helped cement its position as the top-selling online music service and one of the biggest music retailers overall.
That's given Apple considerable leverage in its dealings with the recording industry.
Last year, the main issue that dominated iTunes licensing talks was pricing, as some of the big music companies urged Jobs to entertain charging more for some songs than others.
The dispute percolated for months, but Jobs didn't budge, not wanting to complicate iTunes' simple pricing scheme for singles.
Eventually, the music companies each agreed to one-year deals, which expire this spring.
Now, Apple is facing pressure in Europe to license its brand of DRM technology to rivals, so consumers can play the music they buy on iTunes on any digital music player, not just iPods.
Critics of the recording industry have argued for years that the labels are alienating customers by placing copy restrictions on legal music downloads, especially as many CDs have been sold without them.
The technology behind such measures differs, depending on the retailer and the music device. Apple, for example, has its own version, called FairPlay, that only works with iPods, making it cumbersome for consumers to transfer songs they bought across other portable digital devices. Likewise, DRM systems used at other online stores won't work with iPods.
Many music fans who don't want to deal with the hassle simply turn to online file-sharing networks to download no-strings tracks for free.
The recording industry has argued that copy protection software itself is not what makes some songs incompatible with some digital players, but the fact that there are different versions of the technology in use. The music companies have called on Jobs to license out FairPlay to makers of rival devices.
Jobs has countered that the best way to get rid of technological barriers is for record labels to strip the copy safeguards from their music. He defends keeping FairPlay closed, saying that if it was widely available, it would become easier for hackers to figure out how to bypass it.
No matter what, Apple plans to continue selling standard, copy-restricted versions of songs for 99 cents each. With the EMI deal, Apple will this month start selling $1.29 premium tracks that are not only DRM free but also of higher quality, compressed at twice the usual bit rate.
John Heard, an iTunes user in Santa Monica, said he would jump at the chance to buy no-strings download, even if it costs more.
"If I have the choice between something that doesn't have copy protection or it does, I'm always going to choose the thing that doesn't have copy protection," said Heard, 28, a television producer who spends about $300 a year on music, almost all on iTunes.
Buying a better-sounding track is appealing to David Sholle, 54, of Long Beach, a college professor who has purchased several hundred songs from iTunes.
"I'd be willing to pay for that," he said.
Anticipating a more competitive market, other companies are looking to break into online music sales. Online retailer Amazon.com Inc. first approached the major recording companies 18 months ago about launching an online music store.
A recent meeting prompted speculation that Amazon might begin selling unrestricted MP3s and other music downloads as early as this month. The company has declined to comment.
David Pakman, president and CEO of eMusic, said the elimination of copy protection could help his company mine the rare, catalog recordings owned by major labels but not typically available on iTunes.
EMusic already sells music from independent labels in the MP3 format and boasts some 300,000 subscribers.
Pakman believes the major record labels will also eventually relent on requiring copy restrictions.
"We really think the market is breaking our way," Pakman said. "A noteworthy major will probably take some steps in this direction later this year."
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Americans Divided on Gadget Use

(NEW YORK) — A broad survey about the technology people have, how they use it, and what they think about it shatters assumptions and reveals where companies might be able to expand their audiences.
The Pew Internet and American Life Project found that adult Americans are broadly divided into three groups: 31 percent are elite technology users, 20 percent are moderate users and the remainder have little or no usage of the Internet or cell phones.
But Americans are divided within each group, according to a Pew analysis of 2006 data released Sunday.
The high-tech elites, for instance, are almost evenly split into:
• "Omnivores," who fully embrace technology and express themselves creatively through blogs and personal Web pages.
• "Connectors," who see the Internet and cell phones as communications tools.
• "Productivity enhancers," who consider technology as largely ways to better keep up with their jobs and daily lives.
• "Lackluster veterans," those who use technology frequently but aren't thrilled by it.
John Horrigan, Pew's associate director, said he started the survey believing that the more gadgets people have, the more they are likely to embrace technology and use so-called Web 2.0 applications for generating and sharing content with the world. "Once we got done, we were surprised to find the tensions within groups of users with information technology," Horrigan said.
Many longtime Internet users, the lackluster veterans, remain stuck in the decade-old technologies they started with, Horrigan said. That a quarter of high-tech elites fall into this category, he said, shows untapped potential for companies that can design next-generation applications to pique this group's interest.
The moderate users were also evenly divided into "mobile centrics," those who primarily use the cell phone for voice, text messaging and even games, and "connected but hassled," those who have used technology but find it burdensome.
Mobile companies, he said, can target the mobile centrics with premium services, especially once faster wireless networks become available.
The Pew study found 15 percent of all Americans have neither a cell phone nor an Internet connection. Another 15 percent use some technology and are satisfied with what it currently does for them, while 11 percent use it intermittently and find connectivity annoying.
Eight percent — mostly women in the early 50s — occasionally use technology and might use more given more experience. They tend to still be on dial-up access and represent potential high-speed customers "with the right constellation of services offered," Horrigan said.
The telephone study of 4,001 U.S. adults, including 2,822 Internet users, was conducted Feb. 15 to April 6, 2006, and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.

'Monitor Queen' of Malaysia gives computers a new life

PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania (AP) -- In her native Malaysia, Mary Tiong developed a reputation for selling leftover computer monitors for a large manufacturer behind the industry's best-known brands. She earned a nickname: The Monitor Queen.
From her new base in Pittsburgh, Tiong continues to move large quantities of monitors. But now, she ships thousands of discarded models with computers back to Malaysia, where they are rebuilt and sold in poor countries, mostly in Southeast Asia.
Tiong, 41, says her company, Second Life Computer Remanufacturing, has environmental and philanthropic goals: It helps stem a rising tide of electronic waste in the United States and fulfills a need for basic computer equipment in the developing world.
But she hopes to expand her operations by establishing a training program to teach local students how to rebuild aging computers, which often can be used for office work, Web surfing and e-mail -- and saved from the scrap heap.
The program would create jobs and demonstrate that "somebody's junk is another person's treasure," Tiong said.
Her office is in a small warehouse jammed with monitors and PCs wrapped in plastic and stacked on wooden pallets. The computers and monitors, some plucked from U.S. classrooms, law offices or pharmacies, might have been donated to or purchased by Tiong for $10 or less a piece.
"But I know that if you can make it work and get somebody to use it, the value is much better than a few dollars," she said.
Since 2005, Tiong's firm has sent 35 shipping containers to remanufacturing facilities in Kuala Lumpur and Penang, Malaysia. One container holds as many as 2,000 computers, or between 800 and 1,000 monitors.
In Malaysia, workers test and repair the equipment, perhaps cracking open computers to replace parts or polishing monitor tubes and repainting their plastic cases in bright hues.
In many cases, the devices are returning to their country of origin -- Malaysia. Tiong, who was born in Malaysia's Sarawak state on Borneo Island, says that gives her a unique perspective on the discarded technology.
"Because I'm from Asia ... I know where they come from," she said.
After working as a distributor for the Taiwanese electronic parts maker Lite-On Technology Corp., Tiong began traveling on her own to the United States in 1998. She bought containers loaded with monitors and shipped them back to Malaysia, where she had a factory that rebuilt or refurbished them. She then sold the equipment to customers in Singapore, Russia and Papua New Guinea.
The following year, Tiong began dealing in computers as well, buying old PCs in Atlanta, Georgia, Boston, Massachusetts and San Francisco, California, among other cities. In 2000, she expanded to suppliers in Australia and, in 2004, to Canada.
She came to Pittsburgh in 2004 and formed Babylon Industries, the parent company of Second Life Computers. She said her company's revenue fluctuates, but that it probably averages about $500,000 annually.
The units are sent to schools and other customers in Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and Argentina; Tiong's distributors are hoping to tap into markets in Peru and South Africa. Some equipment is sold at minimal cost -- less than $100 -- to rural villagers, she said. Some have been refurbished in Pittsburgh and donated to local schools.
Jim Rapoza, chief technology analyst for the publication eWeek, said "getting rid of old equipment is a big issue" for many businesses.
"Usually, you can't find anyone interested in buying this stuff," though the pace of computer technology has slowed enough that slightly older machines are still useful for many tasks, including Web surfing and e-mail, he said.
Tiong tries to avoid recycling -- destroying the machines or breaking them down for parts -- saying her mission is to restore them so they can be used by people who are unable to afford the latest technology.
She is not alone. Many U.S.-based groups collect and refurbish computers and send them abroad, according to Rob Zopf, vice president of operations at the National Cristina Foundation, a Greenwich, Connecticut-based group that distributes donated computers to schools and charities across the country.
"The other side of the issue is there are people who collect equipment here in the U.S. (and) send it overseas in the name of reuse, although they're really sending it as a way of disposing of e-waste in a much less environmentally friendly way than one might like by taking components we might not want in our landfills and giving them to the Third World," he said.
Second Life says on its Web site that less than 1 percent of its refurbished equipment, 2 percent of its remanufactured equipment and 5 percent of its recycled equipment goes to the landfill. Tiong said little is wasted because even small parts, such as chips, can be reused.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Review: 'Spider-Man 3' video game a blockbuster

(CNN) -- With the video game version of "Spider-Man 3" and its theatrical counterpart hitting the United States on Friday, we're not just seeing the continuation of a hugely successful movie franchise.
We're seeing the continuation of a video game franchise that's hugely successful in its own right.
"As popular as 'Spider-Man' is in the movie world, he's as popular in the video game world," says Bryan Intihar, Previews Editor for the video game magazine Electronic Gaming Monthly.
Activision's video game versions of the last two "Spider-Man" movies have grossed a staggering $462 million in the United States, according to market research firm NPD.
That's almost $100 million more than what the "Spider-Man 2" movie took in at the box office.
Usually, Intihar points out, you only see video game legends like "Grand Theft Auto" or "Halo" pulling those kinds of numbers.
The "Spider-Man" games have won commercial and critical kudos for their mostly faithful re-creations of the movies, and for a unique "open environment" that allows players to fight bad guys and swing through a dizzyingly accurate virtual recreation of Manhattan.
Activision's Neven Dravinski also credits the cooperation his "Spider-Man 3" team received from the movie's director, studio and stars (most of the film's cast, including, Tobey McGuire, do voice work for the game).
Dravinski says early in the film's production the gamemakers were able to see storyboards and initial special effects shots from some of the "Spider-Man 3" film's more memorable action sequences, including Peter Parker's nighttime aerial battle with the Green Goblin and Spider-Man's subway confrontation with Sandman. (Watch "Spider-Man 3: The Game" merge movie, video game )
Both sequences are featured in the game.
"Thankfully," Dravinski says, "we were able to see a lot of these sequences early and get a sense of what [the filmmakers] were doing."
The new "Spider-Man 3" game includes enhanced powers and new combat moves for Spidey; a bigger and more lifelike rendering of Manhattan; and storylines that diverge from the movie, including Spidey's battles against three elaborate street gangs that threaten to take over parts of New York (think "Spider-Man" meets "The Warriors").
Sure, the "Spider-Man" games can never match the popular action shooters for edge-of-your seat, pulse-pounding thrills (Spidey's gaming appeal has always been more "Wee!" than "Wow!").
But their re-creations of some well-loved movies, and of one well-loved character, may be what set them apart.
Still bleary-eyed after having unveiled the game at "Spider-Man 3" movie premieres in London, England, and Japan, Activision's Dravinski brightens at the memory of the reception the game got from fans. "At every premiere, I was the most popular guy because every kid, and every 40-year-old kid, would be like: 'Oh, my God -- Spider-Man!' "
It's that kind of international enthusiasm that makes for successful video game franchises.

Couple uses MySpace in adoption search

TAYLOR, Michigan (AP) -- A Michigan couple who spent five years trying to conceive has turned to MySpace.com in search of birth parents so they can adopt a child.
Sherry and Karl Dittmar already have a biological son and two adopted sons, but they also want a little girl.
"Dear birthmother," their MySpace posting begins. "We cannot imagine how difficult making an adoption plan for your child must be. ... Thank you for including our profile in your search for the right family to raise your baby."
The MySpace page had not drawn any offers of a baby by Wednesday morning, although the couple got a lead on a pregnant teen who was considering adoption, Sherry Dittmar told The Associated Press. She said she had received more than 1,700 messages since Monday alone.
"It's crazy," said the 31-year-old homemaker.
It was not clear if others had used the social site, popular primarily with young people, to find pregnant women considering adoption. Other Web sites specifically about adoption also post hopeful adoptive parents' profiles.
On the Web site, the Dittmars urged prospective birth parents to choose them.
"We would be thrilled to welcome a baby girl ... to our home," their posting says. "We hope you feel our family is the right family for your child."
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Digg mobbed by its own crowd

(Business 2.0 Magazine) -- "Letting users control your site can be terrifying at first," said Kevin Rose, the cofounder of popular news-aggregator site, Digg, told Business 2.0 Magazine recently.
But yesterday, Rose learned just how terrifying it can really be. Thousands of users rose up in protest over the site's decision to ban articles and comments that contained a 16-digit code that can be used to crack anti-copying technology on HD-DVDs.
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After users bombarded the site with more articles containing the offending code, Digg decided to yield to the power of the crowd.
Digg founder Kevin Rose announced on his blog that the site had changed its stance and has re-instated the offending articles after reading thousands of comments from angry users complaining about censorship.
Can HP revolutionize the DVD?
"You've made it clear," Rose writes. "You'd rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company. We hear you, and effective immediately we won't delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be." Rose added, "If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying."
The trouble started when lawyers for the format's digital rights management technology sent cease and desist letters to Digg, warning the site that that making the code public violates the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.
Digg began removing articles and comments that contained the code, but then the site was met with a furious backlash, as users began flooding the site with stories containing the code.
At one point, the top ten tech stories on Digg were stories that mentioned the banned code, and the torrent of posts temporarily crashed Digg's servers.
Digg at first defended its decision to remove stories containing the code, saying it was only obeying the law. Jay Adelson, the site's CEO, wrote in a posting to users, "Whether you agree or disagree with the policies of the intellectual property holders and consortiums, in order for Digg to survive, it must abide by the law." But by the end of the day when user protests reached a fever pitch, Digg decided to reverse course.
As Digg told Business 2.0 last December when he gave readers advice about how to succeed in business: "It's about allowing users to define the site and police the site themselves."
Yesterday, following his own advice turned out to be harder than Rose might have imagined.
Tom McNichol is a senior writer at Business 2.0 Magazine. Read his blog at The Other End of the Telescope.

Google expands personalization with iGoogle

MOUNTAIN VIEW, California (Reuters) -- Google Inc. is stepping up efforts to allow its users to personalize how they search the Web, moving beyond the one-size-fits-all approach to search it already offers.
Officials told reporters at Google's Silicon Valley headquarters on Monday of moves to allow users to share their own writings, photos, lists and other creative efforts, as well as to give consumers personalized views of the Web through use of their geographical location and search history.
The world's top provider of Web search services is bringing together the more idiosyncratic approach to finding information on the Internet under the umbrella term "iGoogle," the new name for its enhanced personalized home page services.
"We want to personalize the traditional notion of search," Sep Kamvar, lead engineer for the personalization push, told reporters. "I am an eclectic person. But everyone is. We can't go about designing products for the average person."
Reinventing the classic Google.com home page -- with its simple, uncluttered design -- the company is introducing features that range from colorful new Web page designs to helping users publish their own creative content.
Google is borrowing or reinventing ideas that have already become popular features on many social network sites such as MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, Bebo and Photobucket, where users are encouraged to share their own creative work with friends.
To help users create personalized features on iGoogle, the company introduced "Gadget Maker," which allows any user who knows how to upload a photo and fill out a simple Web form to publish their content without knowing computer coding.
Google introduced seven templates for creating personalized "gadgets" -- publishing features -- that include tools for publishing photos, sending virtual greeting cards or creating personal profiles or lists of favorite songs or films.
"I look at personalized search and I think it is one of the biggest advances we have had in the last couple of years," Marissa Mayer, Google's vice president in charge of search and user experience, told a news briefing.
Google's personalized home page, introduced two years ago, offers users the ability to choose from thousands of regularly updating Web features on one page. Tens of millions of users have signed up so far for the personalized approach to search and they are some of Google's most active users, Mayer said.
Last week, Google introduced the ability for users to refer back to their personal Web search history over the past several years. The history feature is optional and only for users who give permission to Google to store their Web surfing activity.
Google officials were asked whether users might be shocked to see how much information Google stores on searches.
"Web history tells the user what we (Google) know about you," Mayer replied. "You actually have full insight into what we know," she said, adding that users can delete any personal information they do not want to be recorded from searches.
Google is moving cautiously to avoid the mistakes of a decade ago, when the first wave of Web portals used personalization features on their sites to help marketers target ads rather than giving the user greater control.
"At some point we will turn our attention to advertising," Mayer said, but stressed that iGoogle will remain non-commercial for the foreseeable future.
Google is also introducing a geographic aspect to search results based on the location that users select as their home location on Google Maps.
Users who accept this option will see Google search results that are tailored to their location, so a search for "pizza" will return links to nearby pizza restaurants, not just the most heavily visited pizza sites across the Web.
The company is also expanding the number of countries and languages in which it will offer personalized search services.
This week, iGoogle personalized Web search will be available in 40 countries and 26 languages, up from 22 nations and 15 languages where personalization is now offered, said Jessica Ewing, the product manager for iGoogle.
Copyright 2007 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Next-generation toys read brain waves

SAN JOSE, California (AP) -- A convincing twin of Darth Vader stalks the beige cubicles of a Silicon Valley office, complete with ominous black mask, cape and light saber.
But this is no chintzy Halloween costume. It's a prototype, years in the making, of a toy that incorporates brain wave-reading technology.
Behind the mask is a sensor that touches the user's forehead and reads the brain's electrical signals, then sends them to a wireless receiver inside the saber, which lights up when the user is concentrating.
The player maintains focus by channeling thoughts on any fixed mental image, or thinking specifically about keeping the light sword on. When the mind wanders, the wand goes dark.
Engineers at NeuroSky Inc. have big plans for brain wave-reading toys and video games. They say the simple Darth Vader game -- a relatively crude biofeedback device cloaked in gimmicky garb -- portends the coming of more sophisticated devices that could revolutionize the way people play.
Technology from NeuroSky and other startups could make video games more mentally stimulating and realistic. It could even enable players to control video game characters or avatars in virtual worlds with nothing but their thoughts.
Adding biofeedback to "Tiger Woods PGA Tour," for instance, could mean that only those players who muster Zen-like concentration could nail a put. In the popular first-person shooter "Grand Theft Auto," players who become nervous or frightened would have worse aim than those who remain relaxed and focused.
NeuroSky's prototype measures a person's baseline brain-wave activity, including signals that relate to concentration, relaxation and anxiety. The technology ranks performance in each category on a scale of 1 to 100, and the numbers change as a person thinks about relaxing images, focuses intently, or gets kicked, interrupted or otherwise distracted.
The technology is similar to more sensitive, expensive equipment that athletes use to achieve peak performance. Koo Hyoung Lee, a NeuroSky co-founder from South Korea, used biofeedback to improve concentration and relaxation techniques for members of his country's Olympic archery team.
"Most physical games are really mental games," said Lee, also chief technology officer at San Jose-based NeuroSky, a 12-employee company founded in 1999. "You must maintain attention at very high levels to succeed. This technology makes toys and video games more lifelike."
Boosters say toys with even the most basic brain wave-reading technology -- scheduled to debut later this year -- could boost mental focus and help kids with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, autism and mood disorders.
But scientific research is scant. Even if the devices work as promised, some question whether people who use biofeedback devices will be able to replicate their relaxed or focused states in real life, when they're not attached to equipment in front of their television or computer.
Elkhonon Goldberg, clinical professor of neurology at New York University, said the toys might catch on in a society obsessed with optimizing performance -- but he was skeptical they'd reduce the severity of major behavioral disorders.
"These techniques are used usually in clinical contexts. The gaming companies are trying to push the envelope," said Goldberg, author of "The Wisdom Paradox: How Your Mind Can Grow Stronger As Your Brain Grows Older." "You can use computers to improve the cognitive abilities, but it's an art."
It's also unclear whether consumers, particularly American kids, want mentally taxing games.
"It's hard to tell whether playing games with biofeedback is more fun -- the company executives say that, but I don't know if I believe them," said Ben Sawyer, director of the Games for Health Project, a division of the Serious Games Initiative. The think tank focuses in part on how to make computer games more educational, not merely pastimes for kids with dexterous thumbs.
The basis of many brain wave-reading games is electroencephalography, or EEG, the measurement of the brain's electrical activity through electrodes placed on the scalp. EEG has been a mainstay of psychiatry for decades.
An EEG headset in a research hospital may have 100 or more electrodes that attach to the scalp with a conductive gel. It could cost tens of thousands of dollars.
But the price and size of EEG hardware is shrinking. NeuroSky's "dry-active" sensors don't require gel, are the size of a thumbnail, and could be put into a headset that retails for as little as $20, said NeuroSky CEO Stanley Yang.
Yang is secretive about his company's product lineup because of a nondisclosure agreement with the manufacturer. But he said an international toy manufacturer plans to unveil an inexpensive gizmo with an embedded NeuroSky biosensor at the Japan Toy Association's trade show in late June. A U.S. version is scheduled to debut at the American International Fall Toy Show in October.
"Whatever we sell, it will work on 100 percent or almost 100 percent of people out there, no matter what the condition, temperature, indoor or outdoors," Yang said. "We aim for wearable technology that everyone can put on and go without failure, as easy as the iPod."
Researchers at NeuroSky and other startups are also building prototypes of toys that use electromyography (EMG), which records twitches and other muscular movements, and electrooculography (EOG), which measures changes in the retina.
While NeuroSky's headset has one electrode, Emotiv Systems Inc. has developed a gel-free headset with 18 sensors. Besides monitoring basic changes in mood and focus, Emotiv's bulkier headset detects brain waves indicating smiles, blinks, laughter, even conscious thoughts and unconscious emotions. Players could kick or punch their video game opponent -- without a joystick or mouse.
"It fulfills the fantasy of telekinesis," said Tan Le, co-founder and president of San Francisco-based Emotiv.
The 30-person company hopes to begin selling a consumer headset next year, but executives would not speculate on price. A prototype hooks up to gaming consoles such as the Nintendo Wii, Sony PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Xbox 360.
Le, a 29-year-old Australian woman, said the company decided in 2004 to target gamers because they would generate the most revenue -- but eventually Emotive will build equipment for clinical use. The technology could enable paralyzed people to "move" in virtual realty; people with obsessive-compulsive disorders could measure their anxiety levels, then adjust medication accordingly.
The husband-and-wife team behind CyberLearning Technology LLC took the opposite approach. The San Marcos-based startup targets doctors, therapists and parents of adolescents with autism, impulse control problems and other pervasive developmental disorders.
CyberLearning is already selling the SmartBrain Technologies system for the original PlayStation, PS2 and original Xbox, and it will soon work with the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The EEG- and EMG-based biofeedback system costs about $600, not including the game console or video games.
Kids who play the race car video game "Gran Turismo" with the SmartBrain system can only reach maximum speed when they're focused. If attention wanes or players become impulsive or anxious, cars slow to a chug.
CyberLearning has sold more than 1,500 systems since early 2005. The company hopes to reach adolescents already being treated for behavior disorders. But co-founder Lindsay Greco said the budding niche is unpredictable.
"Our biggest struggle is to find the target market," said Greco, who has run treatment programs for children with attention difficulties since the 1980s. "We're finding that parents are using this to improve their own recall and focus. We have executives who use it to improve their memory, even their golf."
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.