Sony ignites talk of PS4 unveil with Playstation meeting

TOKYO (Reuters) – Sony Corp will this month host its first major Playstation meeting in two years, sparking a flare-up in online speculation the Japanese consumer electronics giant is preparing to unveil the successor to its 70 million-selling PS3 games console.

Sony declined to say whether it would release a new product at the meeting in New York on February 20. “We will be talking about the Playstation business,” spokesman Masaki Tsukakoshi said on Friday. A Google search for “Sony Feb 20 Playstation” returned more than 7 million hits.

The last time Sony held a Playstation event, in January 2011, it presented a protoype of its handheld Vita console. Before that, it convened a gathering in 2005 two months after it first demonstrated the PS3 concept. A meeting in 1999 revealed designs for the PS2.

It has been more than six years since Sony launched the PS3 home console, a longer gap than between it and its PS2 predecessor, adding to the anticipation that it will soon disclose its next gaming concept.

Since Sony’s last home console launch, the games market has been transformed by the boom in smartphones and tablet computers that have wooed players with free or cheap games.

Sony and other console makers Nintendo Co Ltd and Microsoft Corp now have to contend with competition from hand-held devices made by Apple Inc, Samsung Electronics and others.

Analysts expect that tablets and other mobile devices will match the power and graphics of today’s games consoles within a few years.

Struggling under competitive pressure, Nintendo on Wednesday cut its sales target for the Wii U, successor to its 100 million-selling Wii, to 4 million machines by the end of March from its launch in November, compared with an earlier forecast for 5.5 million.

(Reporting by Tim Kelly; Editing by Daniel Magnowski)

Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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American Idol Discovers Big Talent in Texas and California

TV Watch

American Idol

By Jamie Bufalino

01/30/2013 at 11:00 PM EST

From left: Randy Jackson, Mariah Carey, Ryan Seacrest, Nicki Minaj and Keith Urban

Michael Becker/FOX.

It's the final week of American Idol's cross-country talent search. And as the judges head to San Antonio, Texas, a surprising lack of diva-on-diva trash-talking allowed the focus to fall squarely on the contestants who seemed like they could be serious contenders this season (or at least keep things interesting).

Case in point: 19-year-old Mississippi native Papa Peachez who described himself as "a cute little white boy and ... so much more than that. I'm really just a big black woman trapped in a trapped in a little boy's body."

After Peachez belted out an original song, Nicki Minaj immediately showed him some love. "I think that you are a superstar," she said. The other judges weren't as convinced, but Minaj managed to twist enough arms (not literally) to get the boy through to Hollywood.

Peachez is going to have some steep competition from another 19-year-old – San Antonio's Adam Sanders, who blew away the judges with his rendition of the Etta James classic "At Last."

"You shocked us all, Dawg," Randy Jackson told the singer before giving him a standing ovation along with Mariah Carey and Keith Urban.

Other notables from the Lone Star State included an Arkansas beauty queen, a vibrant mariachi singer and 16-year-old Senni M'mairura, whose rendition of the Jackson 5's "Who's Lovin You" drew raves and left Minaj sputtering about other things that apparently make her feel good: "Candy canes, strawberries, whip cream, rainbows and sunny skies," she said.

Next the judges hopped aboard the Queen Mary in Long Beach, Calif., to see what the West Coast had to offer. That's where Jesaiah Baer, 16, had to contend with an impromptu fire drill but still managed to blaze her way to Hollywood.

Then, after an emotional number from Iraq war veteran Matt Farmer, the episode ended with two powerful stories from young, would-be Idols who've overcome bullying.

Briana Oakley, 16, had to change schools after her classmates turned on her when she found success on a televised talent show. But she won the judges over with her performance Patty Griffin's "Up to the Mountain."

And 21-year-old Matheus Fernandes, who was quite a bit shorter than everyone else in the room, broke down in tears after getting praise from the judges for his version of "A Change Is Gonna Come."

"To me," Randy told him, "You're 10 feet tall."

Thursday American Idol heads to Oklahoma – and next week to Hollywood.

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Sex to burn calories? Authors expose obesity myths

Fact or fiction? Sex burns a lot of calories. Snacking or skipping breakfast is bad. School gym classes make a big difference in kids' weight.

All are myths or at least presumptions that may not be true, say researchers who reviewed the science behind some widely held obesity beliefs and found it lacking.

Their report in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine says dogma and fallacies are detracting from real solutions to the nation's weight problems.

"The evidence is what matters," and many feel-good ideas repeated by well-meaning health experts just don't have it, said the lead author, David Allison, a biostatistician at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Independent researchers say the authors have some valid points. But many of the report's authors also have deep financial ties to food, beverage and weight-loss product makers — the disclosures take up half a page of fine print in the journal.

"It raises questions about what the purpose of this paper is" and whether it's aimed at promoting drugs, meal replacement products and bariatric surgery as solutions, said Marion Nestle, a New York University professor of nutrition and food studies.

"The big issues in weight loss are how you change the food environment in order for people to make healthy choices," such as limits on soda sizes and marketing junk food to children, she said. Some of the myths they cite are "straw men" issues, she said.

But some are pretty interesting.

Sex, for instance. Not that people do it to try to lose weight, but claims that it burns 100 to 300 calories are common, Allison said. Yet the only study that scientifically measured the energy output found that sex lasted six minutes on average — "disappointing, isn't it?" — and burned a mere 21 calories, about as much as walking, he said.

That's for a man. The study was done in 1984 and didn't measure the women's experience.

Among the other myths or assumptions the authors cite, based on their review of the most rigorous studies on each topic:

—Small changes in diet or exercise lead to large, long-term weight changes. Fact: The body adapts to changes, so small steps to cut calories don't have the same effect over time, studies suggest. At least one outside expert agrees with the authors that the "small changes" concept is based on an "oversimplified" 3,500-calorie rule, that adding or cutting that many calories alters weight by one pound.

—School gym classes have a big impact on kids' weight. Fact: Classes typically are not long, often or intense enough to make much difference.

—Losing a lot of weight quickly is worse than losing a little slowly over the long term. Fact: Although many dieters regain weight, those who lose a lot to start with often end up at a lower weight than people who drop more modest amounts.

—Snacking leads to weight gain. Fact: No high quality studies support that, the authors say.

—Regularly eating breakfast helps prevent obesity. Fact: Two studies found no effect on weight and one suggested that the effect depended on whether people were used to skipping breakfast or not.

—Setting overly ambitious goals leads to frustration and less weight loss. Fact: Some studies suggest people do better with high goals.

Some things may not have the strongest evidence for preventing obesity but are good for other reasons, such as breastfeeding and eating plenty of fruits and vegetables, the authors write. And exercise helps prevent a host of health problems regardless of whether it helps a person shed weight.

"I agree with most of the points" except the authors' conclusions that meal replacement products and diet drugs work for battling obesity, said Dr. David Ludwig, a prominent obesity research with Boston Children's Hospital who has no industry ties. Most weight-loss drugs sold over the last century had to be recalled because of serious side effects, so "there's much more evidence of failure than success," he said.

___

Online:

Obesity info: http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/trends.html

New England Journal: http://www.nejm.org

___

Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

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Asian shares off highs, Fed's stance underpins markets

TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares took a breather from recent rallies on Thursday though sentiment was underpinned by the U.S. Federal Reserve's pledge to retain its stimulus policy and on signs of stabilization in the euro zone.

Positive economic reports from Asia failed to lift markets as investors continued to assess regional earnings results and ahead of key data such as China's official manufacturing PMI and U.S. monthly nonfarm payrolls on Friday.

The MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus> fell 0.4 percent after rising 1.3 percent over the past two sessions to nearly an 18-month high. The index was set for a monthly gain of about 2.4 percent.

Australian shares <.axjo> eased 0.4 percent, taking a breather from their 10-day winning streak, the longest in more than nine years, which hoisted local shares to 21-month highs.

"Certainly 2013 has started with an air of optimism. U.S. politicians show some willingness to deal with problems, no fresh issues have emerged in Europe and the Chinese economy is exhibiting firmer growth. Volatility has receded with investors keen to put cash to work in other asset classes," said Craig James, a strategist at CommSec in Sydney.

Southeast Asian stock markets were generally softer but remained near their highs. The Philippines <.psi> hit a record high for the third day running on Wednesday and Thailand's <.seti> market surged to a more than 18-year high on Wednesday.

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday kept in place its monthly $85 billion bond-buying stimulus plan, arguing the support was needed to lower unemployment.

Underscoring the Fed's cautious view, data on Wednesday showed the U.S. economy unexpectedly contracted in the fourth quarter. Still, a lot of that weakness came from a plunge in defense spending, suggesting the underlying fundamentals were not as bad as the headline figures indicated.

In Asia, the data on Thursday provided cause for optimism. Taiwan raised its economic growth forecast for 2013, after the fourth quarter expanded faster than expected and posted its best growth in five quarters on improved demand for the island's electronics exports and stronger consumption.

"Taiwan's economic growth will be better this year as Europe's outlook is becoming positive, it will have a bigger rebound as an export-oriented economy," said Scott Chen, economist at Sinopac Commercial Bank in Taipei.

The Philippines said on Thursday its economy grew 1.5 percent in the December quarter from the previous three months, better than market forecasts.

YEN OFF LOWS

Japan's benchmark Nikkei stock average <.n225> shed 0.6 percent after soaring 2.3 percent to a 33-month high the day before, taking its cue from the yen firming from fresh lows hit on Wednesday. <.t/>

"It's too early to take profit," a trader at a foreign bank said. "People should look for names which are still undervalued, still haven't moved (in line with the rally in the Nikkei) and could outperform."

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's approach of revitalizing Japan's economy through an aggressive mix of fiscal steps and monetary easing is expected to keep the yen on a weakening path.

The dollar eased 0.3 percent to 90.81 yen after reaching 91.41 yen on Wednesday, its highest since June 2010. The euro also fell 0.3 percent to 123.24 yen, after hitting 123.87 on Wednesday, its peak since May 2010.

Japan's December factory output rose at the fastest pace in a year and a half and firms expect further gains, raising hopes that stabilizing global demand and exports will help pull the economy from its slump.

EUROPE IMPROVING

The euro held near a 14-month high of $1.3588 scaled on Wednesday.

Reports from the euro zone on Wednesday underscored views that the debt crisis-hit region may be overcoming the worst, with economic sentiment improving more than expected across all sectors in January and a gauge for the phase of the business cycle also rising this month.

"The rise in the EUR is a sign of the success of the European Central Bank on the credit front, which matters far more than a short term rise in EUR/USD. Money is flowing into Europe and from North back to the South or from ECB funding to money market funding," Sebastien Galy, strategist at Societe Generale, said in a note to clients.

Spot gold hovered near its one-week high of $1,683.39 an ounce reached on Wednesday.

U.S. crude futures steadied around $97.93 a barrel and Brent crude was up 0.2 percent to $115.09.

(Additional reporting by Dominic Lau in Tokyo and Miranda Maxwell in Melbourne; Editing by Jacqueline Wong and Shri Navaratnam)

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Israeli Airstrike in Syria Targets Arms Convoy, U.S. Says

Jim Hollander/European Pressphoto Agency

In East Jerusalem, Israelis distributed gas masks on Wednesday as worries about security spread. More Photos »

JERUSALEM — Israeli warplanes carried out a strike deep inside Syrian territory on Wednesday, American officials reported, saying they believed the target was a convoy carrying sophisticated antiaircraft weaponry on the outskirts of Damascus that was intended for the Hezbollah Shiite militia in Lebanon.

The American officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Israel had notified the United States about the attack, which the Syrian government condemned as an act of “arrogance and aggression.” Israel’s move demonstrated its determination to ensure that Hezbollah — its arch foe in the north — is unable to take advantage of the chaos in Syria to bolster its arsenal significantly.

The predawn strike was the first time in more than five years that Israel’s air force had attacked a target in Syria. While there was no expectation that the beleaguered Assad government had an interest in retaliating, the strike raised concerns that the Syrian civil war had continued to spread beyond its border.

In a statement, the Syrian military denied that a convoy had been struck. It said the attack had hit a scientific research facility in the Damascus suburbs that was used to improve Syria’s defenses, and called the attack “a flagrant breach of Syrian sovereignty and airspace.”

Israeli officials would not confirm the airstrike, a common tactic here. But it came after days of intense security consultations with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regarding the possible movement of chemical and other weapons around Syria, and warnings that Jerusalem would take action to thwart any possible transfers to Hezbollah.

Thousands of Israelis have crowded gas-mask distribution centers over the last two days. On Sunday, Israel deployed its Iron Dome missile defense system in the north, near Haifa, which was heavily bombed during the 2006 war with Lebanon.

Syria and Israel are technically in a state of war but have long maintained an uneasy peace along their decades-old armistice line. Israel has mostly watched warily and tried to stay out of Syria’s raging civil war, fearful of provoking a wider confrontation with Iran and Hezbollah. In November, however, after several mortars fell on Israel’s side of the border, its tanks struck a Syrian artillery unit.

Several analysts said that despite the increased tensions, they thought the likelihood of retaliation for the airstrike was relatively low.

“It is necessary and correct to prepare for deterioration — that scenario exists,” Danny Yatom, a former chief of the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, told Ynet, a news Web site. “But in my assessment, there will not be a reaction, because neither Hezbollah nor the Syrians have an interest in retaliating.”

Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, “is deep in his own troubles,” Mr. Yatom said, “and Hezbollah is making a great effort to assist him, in parallel with its efforts to obtain weapons, so they won’t want to broaden the circle of fighting.”

In the United States, the State Department and Defense Department would not comment on reports of the strike.

Russia, which has carried out a vigorous diplomatic battle to deter foreign military intervention in the Syrian conflict for more than a year, issued a statement of concern early on Thursday, describing the strikes as “an attack by Israel’s air force on objects in Syria, near Damascus.”

“If this information is confirmed, this is an unprovoked attack on the territory of a sovereign nation, which blatantly violates the U.N. charter and is unacceptable and unjustified whatever its motives,” said a statement posted on the web site of the Russian Foreign Ministry.

Moscow said it would take immediate steps to clarify what had happened, and reiterated its longstanding insistence on a political solution and “the unacceptability of any kind of external intervention.”

The episode illustrated how the escalating violence in Syria, which has already killed more than 60,000, is drawing in neighboring states and threatening to destabilize the region further.

Iran has firmly allied itself with Mr. Assad, sending personnel from its Islamic Revolutionary Guards Quds Force to Syria and ferrying military equipment to Syria through Iraqi airspace.

Isabel Kershner reported from Jerusalem, and Michael R. Gordon from Washington. Reporting was contributed by Anne Barnard, Hania Mourtada and Hwaida Saad from Beirut, Lebanon; Ellen Barry from Moscow; Eric Schmitt from Washington; and Rick Gladstone from New York.

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Timeline: From RIM to BlackBerry, a company in transition

(Reuters) – Research In Motion Ltd has launched its new line of re-engineered BlackBerry smartphones, taking the wraps off the long-delayed devices at a series of events around the world on Wednesday.

The company used the occasion to announce that it was changing its name to BlackBerry, hoping a new brand identity will polish its tarnished image and help give it a fresh start.

The company, which has steadily lost ground in the hyper-competitive market to Apple Inc’s iPhone and devices running Google Inc’s Android operating system, is gambling its future on the BlackBerry 10. It sees the new line as make-or-break – its best hope for a comeback in an industry it once dominated.

Here are important milestones in the company’s history:

February 1985 – Mike Lazaridis and Douglas Fregin co-found Research In Motion as an electronics and computer science business based in Waterloo, Ontario, the Canadian university city where Lazaridis studied.

1989 – RIM develops a network gateway later introduced as RIMGate, a predecessor to its BlackBerry Enterprise Server.

1992 – Jim Balsillie joins RIM as co-CEO, mortgaging his house and investing $ 250,000.

1994 – RIM launches a handheld point-of-sale card reader, which verifies debit and credit transactions directly to a bank.

1995 – RIM builds its own radio modem for wireless email.

1997 – RIM lists on the Toronto Stock Exchange, raising more than $ 115 million.

January 1999 – RIM launches rebranded BlackBerry email service across North America, offering the first wireless device to synch with corporate email systems. Sales jump 80 percent to $ 85 million. The next year revenue reaches $ 221 million.

Late 1999 – The company lists its shares on Nasdaq, raising another $ 250 million. RIM introduces BlackBerry 850 Wireless Handheld, combining email, wireless data networks and a traditional “Qwerty” keyboard. Demand explodes.

Sept 11, 2001 – People trapped in New York’s World Trade Center use their BlackBerrys to communicate after cellular networks collapse.

November 2001 – NTP sues RIM for patent infringement, the start of a five-year legal tussle. Late in the battle, the U.S. Justice Department says a threatened BlackBerry shutdown would damage the public interest due to the government’s reliance on the system.

2002 – RIM adds voice transmission to the BlackBerry.

2004 – RIM’s subscriber base surpasses 1 million BlackBerry users.

March 2006 – RIM pays $ 612 million to settle NTP dispute.

January 2007 – Apple Inc’s Steve Jobs unveils first iPhone, and the company launches the BlackBerry competitor in June. Time magazine honors the phone as Invention of the Year.

October 2007 – RIM passes 10 million subscribers. News of a China distribution deal boosts shares, making it for a time the most valuable company in Canada by market capitalization.

November 2007 – Google’s open source Android platform is unveiled. It launches in October 2008.

May 2008 – RIM introduces the Bold, a major redesign and still one of its top-tier products. The new model matches the resolution, but not size, of Apple’s iPhone screen.

July 2008 – Apple opens App Store in 22 countries and releases iPhone 3G, preloaded with App Store support.

November 2008 – RIM launches BlackBerry Storm, its first touchscreen and keyboard-less device. The screen uses a tactile feedback technology known as haptics, allowing a user to click down to select actions. The model bombs.

April 2009 – RIM’s App World goes live.

June 2009 – Apple announces and releases iPhone 3GS.

June 2010 – RIM pays C$ 200 million for QNX Software Systems, getting an industrial-strength operating system used in massive Internet routers, nuclear power plants and car infotainment systems. In same month Apple launches iPhone 4.

August 2010 – RIM launches BlackBerry Torch, a touchscreen phone with slide-out keyboard and improved web browser.

Sept 27, 2010 – RIM announces the PlayBook tablet, running on a version of the QNX system.

December 2010 – RIM acquires user interface company The Astonishing Tribe.

February 2011 – Nokia, the world’s largest smartphone vendor by volume, abandons its Symbian operating system to form alliance with Microsoft Corp.

March 2, 2011 – Apple unveils iPad 2 and ships it later in the same month.

April 19, 2011 – RIM launches PlayBook in United States and Canada. Early reviews pan the tablet for lacking core BlackBerry functions such as email and organizer functions. The company says it plans to add them in February 2012.

April 28, 2011 – RIM slashes an already dismal financial forecast for current quarter but maintains a full-year earnings outlook of $ 7.50 a share.

June 16, 2011 – RIM misses its lowered quarterly revenue target, gives more limp forecasts and resets the full-year outlook to between $ 5.25 and $ 6 a share. It says it will slash more than 10 percent of its workforce and buy back stock.

July 12, 2011 – Executives deflect criticism at annual general meeting after an activist shareholder withdrew a motion to force co-CEOs Lazaridis and Balsillie to relinquish their other shared role as board chairmen.

Sept 6, 2011 – A second activist shareholder asks the board to wrest control from Lazaridis and Balsillie and consider RIM putting itself up for sale or spinning off units.

Sept 15, 2011 – RIM reports another poor quarter including a sharp drop in phone and tablet shipments. It points to the low end of latest full year earnings outlook.

Oct 10-13, 2011 – Millions of BlackBerry users on five continents are left without email, Internet and instant messaging service by a massive failure of RIM’s infrastructure.

Nov 29, 2011 – In an acknowledgement of its slipping grip on the corporate sector, RIM offers to manage rival devices including Apple’s iPhone and iPad.

Dec 2, 2011 – The company books a huge writedown on PlayBook inventory, which it is discounting heavily to provoke sales.

Dec 15, 2011 – RIM delays its QNX-based BlackBerry 10 phones until late 2012 and gives tepid short-term outlook. The co-CEOs agree to an immediate pay cut to $ 1 each.

Jan 22, 2012 – RIM says Lazaridis and Balsillie are stepping down from their shared roles as chief executives and chairmen roles they share. The company appoints Thorstein Heins as CEO and Barbara Stymiest as chair of the board.

March 29, 2012 – Heins promises a strategic overhaul as RIM reports a slump in BlackBerry shipments and says RIM will no longer issue financial forecasts.

May 29, 2012 – RIM says it has hired bankers to assist with a strategic review and warns that it will likely report a fiscal first-quarter operating loss.

June 28, 2012 – RIM delays BlackBerry 10 again, putting off the launch to early 2013.

Sept 24, 2012 – RIM’s Toronto-listed stock touches C$ 6.10, its lowest level in nearly a decade.

Sept 27, 2012 – RIM surprises investors with a narrower-than-expected loss and boosts its cash reserves, sparking a rally that will extend into late December.

Nov 12, 2012 – RIM says it will launch BlackBerry 10 on January 30.

Dec 21, 2012 – RIM shares plunge more than 20 percent on fears that a new fee structure for its high-margin services segment could put pressure on a business that has set the company apart from its competitors.

Jan 30, 2013 – Heins formally unveils the BlackBerry 10 at a glitzy launch event in New York, with simultaneous gatherings in other cities around the world.

In conjunction with the launch, Heins announces that the company is changing its name to BlackBerry.

(Reporting by Alastair Sharp and Allison Martell; Editing by Peter Galloway)

Linux/Open Source News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Ashley Judd Splits from Husband Dario Franchitti

01/29/2013 at 08:05 PM EST

Ashley Judd and Dario Franchitti

Robin Marchant/Wireimage

Ashley Judd and Dario Franchitti are splitting after more than a decade of marriage.

"We have mutually decided to end our marriage. We'll always be family and continue to cherish our relationship based on the special love, integrity, and respect we have always enjoyed," Judd, 44, and Franchitti, 39, tell PEOPLE exclusively in a statement on Tuesday.

After being engaged for about two years, the Missing star and the racecar driver tied the knot in a highly private ceremony in Scotland in 2001.

Judd's sister, Wynonna Judd, served as maid of honor, while the groom's brother Mario was the best man. – Julie Jordan

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Asian shares gain on global recovery outlook

TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares advanced on Wednesday as investor confidence in the global economic outlook strengthened on solid U.S. data, giving comfort to investors ahead of the U.S. Federal Reserve's monetary policy decision due later in the session.

Optimism over economic recovery from strong U.S. housing data and China's promising economic growth forecast for 2013 raised expectations for robust demand for fuel and industrial commodities, underpinning oil prices and lifting copper.

European markets are seen pausing after hitting two-year highs, with financial spreadbetters predicting London's FTSE 100 <.ftse>, Paris's CAC-40 <.fchi> and Frankfurt's DAX <.gdaxi> would open nearly flat. A 0.1 percent drop in U.S. stock futures suggested a cautious start on Wall Street. <.l><.eu><.n/>

The MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus> rose 0.4 percent, after rising to near a 18-month high, building on the previous day's 1 percent rally. Gains were led by a 1 percent rise in the energy sector <.miapjen00pus>.

London copper added 0.5 percent to $8,146.50 a tonne after hitting $8,159, its highest since January 11, while U.S. crude oil held steady around $97.56 a barrel after rising over 1 percent on Tuesday on expectations of higher demand. Brent inched up 0.1 percent to $114.45.

Shanghai rebar steel futures climbed more than 1 percent to their highest since May on views demand from top steel consumer China will pick up after a week-long holiday in February.

"Sentiment has changed this year, with signs of stabilization in the euro zone, a U.S. economic recovery and a shift to a new Chinese political regime removing obstacles which had stood in the way of investors taking risks last year," said Xiao Minjie, an independent economist based in Tokyo.

"Domestic demand holds the key this year. Beijing's drive to urbanize inner China will boost infrastructure spending while Southeast Asia will also likely see expansion in domestic demand accelerating," he said.

Commodity-reliant Australian shares <.axjo> inched up 0.2 percent to a fresh 21-month high, with rising copper prices bolstering top miners. It was the 10th straight day of gains, the longest winning run since October 2003.

"The bar is set almost embarrassingly low for the vast majority of key macro indicators for the U.S., and anything mildly positive is serving to feed more buying enthusiasm. The prevailing market psyche is easily pleased," said Tim Waterer, senior trader at CMC Markets.

Hong Kong shares <.hsi> jumped 0.8 percent and Shanghai shares <.ssec> rose 0.3 percent.

Japan's Nikkei stock average <.n225> soared 2.3 percent to a fresh 33-month high, partly due to a weaker yen. <.t/>

FED STATEMENT EYED

The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield rose to as high as a nine-month high of 2.021 percent in Asia on Wednesday.

"A big question is whether the Fed is still cautious on the economy following recent improvements in Europe and U.S. fiscal cliff talks," said Hiroki Shimazu, fixed income analyst at SMBC Nikko Securities, adding that a more optimistic Fed economic assessment could pressure Treasuries.

The Fed ends a two-day policy meeting on Wednesday, and few market watchers expect any near-term shift in its current, very accommodative stance.

But investors will focus on the statement for any clues to the Fed's thinking on if and when it might pull back from its aggressive easing stimulus. The minutes from the December meeting, released earlier this month, hinted at uneasiness within the Fed around its asset-buying program and sparked a sell-off in Treasuries and lifted yields up out of ranges.

Morgan Stanley said in a research note that global stimulus efforts and structural reallocation paved the way for a sustained period of asset-price reflation.

"This has three implications: Reflation would lend support to higher-yielding emerging markets assets, safe-haven assets would continue to weaken, and expectations about emerging markets policy would likely shift," it said.

The yen stayed pressured, with the Bank of Japan set to pursue strong monetary easing as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's administration pushes for radical reflationary policies to end stubborn deflation.

The dollar rose 0.2 percent to 90.93 yen, near its highest level since June 2010 of 91.32 reached on Monday. The euro gained 0.2 percent to 122.66 yen, not far from 122.91 also touched on Monday, its highest point since April.

The prospect of continued weakness in the yen and rising risk appetite lifted the Australian dollar to four-year highs on the yen and New Zealand dollars hovered near a four-year high against the yen.

Aussie rose as high as 95.34 yen while Kiwi rose as high 76.27 yen, close to 76.37 set Friday, its strongest since 2008.

The euro traded at $1.3496, a tad below Tuesday's 14-month high of $1.3498.

Asian credit markets underperformed the region's equities as the spread on the iTraxx Asia ex-Japan investment-grade index widened by 2 basis points on an increase in new issues and some caution before the Fed's statement.

(Additional reporting by Miranda Maxwell in Melbourne, Gyles Beckford in Wellington and Hideyuki Sano in Tokyo; Editing by Eric Meijer & Kim Coghill)

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India Ink: India Ink Is Taking Your Questions for Thomas Friedman

New York Times Op-Ed columnist Thomas L. Friedman has been a regular visitor to India for a decade.

During his travels here and in China, he developed his widely followed theory of the inevitability of globalization, and the need for businesses and individuals to adapt to the accompanying changes. In India, he met former Infosys chief executive Nandan Nilekani, who coined the phrase “The world is flat,” which became the title of Mr. Friedman’s best-selling 2005 book.

A three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, Mr. Friedman was a correspondent in Washington, Beirut and Jerusalem before leaving the news side of The Times for its editorial side, becoming the paper’s foreign-affairs Op-Ed columnist in 1995.

This week, Mr. Friedman is in India on what has become an almost annual pilgrimage, meeting with a wide range of business executives and government officials. He will be a keynote speaker at the Sustainable Development conference in New Delhi on Friday.

Later this week, Mr. Friedman will also take questions from India Ink readers about India’s role in the global economy, and the changes he has seen in that role in recent years.

Have a question for Mr. Friedman? Please leave it in the comments below, or send it to IndiaInk@nytimes.com.

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Critical, long-overdue BlackBerry makeover arrives

TORONTO (AP) — BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd. will kick off a critical, long-overdue makeover when chief executive Thorsten Heins shows off the first phone with the new BlackBerry 10 system in New York on Wednesday.

Repeated delays have left the once-pioneering BlackBerry an afterthought in the shadow of Apple’s trend-setting iPhone and Google’s Android-driven devices. There has even been talk that the fate of the company that created the BlackBerry in 1999 is no longer certain.

Now, there’s some optimism. Previews of the BlackBerry 10 software have gotten favorable reviews on blogs. Financial analysts are starting to see some slight room for a comeback. RIM‘s stock has more than doubled to $ 15.66 from a nine-year low in September, though it’s still nearly 90 percent below its 2008 peak of $ 147.

RIM redesigned the system to embrace the multimedia, apps and touch-screen experience prevalent today. The company is promising a speedier device, a superb typing experience and the ability to keep work and personal identities separate on the same phone.

Most analysts consider a BlackBerry 10 success to be crucial for the company’s long-term viability. Doubts remain about the ability of BlackBerry 10 to rescue RIM.

“We’ll see if they can reclaim their glory. My sense is that it will be a phone that everyone says good things about but not as many people buy,” BGC Financial analyst Colin Gillis said.

Jefferies analyst Peter Misek called it a “great device” and said RIM does have some momentum just months after the Canadian company was written off for dead.

“Six months ago we talked to developers and carriers, and everybody was just basically saying ‘We’re just waiting for this to go bust,’” Misek said. “It was bad.”

The BlackBerry has been the dominant smartphone for on-the-go business people and crossed over to consumers. But when the iPhone came out in 2007, it showed that phones can do much more than email and phone calls. Suddenly, the BlackBerry looked ancient. In the U.S., according to research firm IDC, shipments of BlackBerry phones plummeted from 46 percent of the market in 2008 to 2 percent in 2012.

RIM promised a new system to catch up, using technology it got through its 2010 purchase of QNX Software Systems. RIM initially said BlackBerry 10 would come by early 2012, but then the company changed that to late 2012. A few months later, that date was pushed further, to early 2013, missing the lucrative holiday season. The holdup helped wipe out more than $ 70 billion in shareholder wealth and 5,000 jobs.

Although executives have been providing a glimpse at some of BlackBerry 10′s new features for months, Heins will finally showcase a complete system at Wednesday’s event. Devices will go on sale soon after that. The exact date and prices are expected Wednesday.

Regardless of BlackBerry 10′s advances, though, the new system will face a key shortcoming: It won’t have as many apps written by outside companies and individuals as the iPhone and Android. RIM has said it plans to launch BlackBerry 10 with more than 70,000 apps, including those developed for RIM’s PlayBook tablet, first released in 2011. Even so, that’s just a tenth of what the iPhone and Android offer. Popular service such as Instagram and Netflix won’t have apps on BlackBerry 10.

Gillis said he’ll be looking to see when RIM releases a keyboard version of the new phone. The first BlackBerry 10 phone will have only a touch screen. RIM has said a physical keyboard version will be released soon after. He said a delay could alienate RIM’s 79 million subscribers.

“The No. 1 feature that they like is the physical keyboard,” Gillis said.

Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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