American Idol: It's a Guys' Night in Hollywood






American Idol










02/06/2013 at 11:00 PM EST







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


George Holz/FOX


Caution: Contains spoilers!

"It does feel a bit like The Hunger Games," said Keith Urban, ramping up the drama as American Idol kicked off the first day of Hollywood Week. Although producers didn't unleash any tracker jackers on the contestants, they did throw in a couple unexpected twists: This season the week started off as a guys-only competition (the girls arrive in Hollywood next week), and after surviving a round of sudden death solo sing-offs, contestants would then be put into groups from which they couldn't escape.

During the solo round, the standouts included two memorable contestants from the nationwide auditions. First up, Navy man Micah Johnson, who developed a speech impediment after suffering through a botched surgery to remove his tonsils. After a rousing rendition of Elton John's "Bennie and the Jets," Johnson was the first to get the green light to the next round.

Joining him soon after was Cuban-American Lazaro Arbos, a 21-year-old ice cream scooper from Naples, Fla., who speaks with a severe stutter but sings with ease. Although Arbos admitted to being both "scared" and "petrified," he quickly won the judges over – Nicki Minaj made her fingers into a heart-shape while he sang – with his take on the Robbie Williams hit, "Angels."

When it came time to form groups of four, the Idol producers threw a few more curveballs – such as pairing a couple of country crooners with two flamboyant (think glitter and faux fur) dudes Ryan Seacrest described as the show's "resident divas."

The result: a quartet that dubbed themselves Country Queen, which delivered a train wreck of a performance. Still, somehow three of the four made it through.

Meanwhile, Arbos's group experience also proved to be a bit of a disaster – which some of his cohorts blamed on his inability to quickly learn the lyrics and melody to the Beach Boys hit "Wouldn't It Be Nice." Although his main nemesis got the boot, a tearful Arbos got the chance to sing another day.

The day of auditions came to a close with what was possibly the most heartbreaking Idol exit ever. New York City subway singer Frankie Ford got a case of the jitters before going on stage, then proceeded to screw up the lyrics and sing off key – leaving the judges no choice but to pull the plug on his dreams. Before walking off into the night, a sobbing Ford stared into the camera and said, "I swear to God I'm coming back next year and I'm going to win."

There will be more solos Thursday (8 p.m. ET), as the judges have to whittle the 43 men left in the competition down to 20 lucky fellas.

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Critics seek to delay NYC sugary drinks size limit


NEW YORK (AP) — Opponents are pressing to delay enforcement of the city's novel plan to crack down on supersized, sugary drinks, saying businesses shouldn't have to spend millions of dollars to comply until a court rules on whether the measure is legal.


With the rule set to take effect March 12, beverage industry, restaurant and other business groups have asked a judge to put it on hold at least until there's a ruling on their lawsuit seeking to block it altogether. The measure would bar many eateries from selling high-sugar drinks in cups or containers bigger than 16 ounces.


"It would be a tremendous waste of expense, time, and effort for our members to incur all of the harm and costs associated with the ban if this court decides that the ban is illegal," Chong Sik Le, president of the New York Korean-American Grocers Association, said in court papers filed Friday.


City lawyers are fighting the lawsuit and oppose postponing the restriction, which the city Board of Health approved in September. They said Tuesday they expect to prevail.


"The obesity epidemic kills nearly 6,000 New Yorkers each year. We see no reason to delay the Board of Health's reasonable and legal actions to combat this major, growing problem," Mark Muschenheim, a city attorney, said in a statement.


Another city lawyer, Thomas Merrill, has said officials believe businesses have had enough time to get ready for the new rule. He has noted that the city doesn't plan to seek fines until June.


Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other city officials see the first-of-its-kind limit as a coup for public health. The city's obesity rate is rising, and studies have linked sugary drinks to weight gain, they note.


"This is the biggest step a city has taken to curb obesity," Bloomberg said when the measure passed.


Soda makers and other critics view the rule as an unwarranted intrusion into people's dietary choices and an unfair, uneven burden on business. The restriction won't apply at supermarkets and many convenience stores because the city doesn't regulate them.


While the dispute plays out in court, "the impacted businesses would like some more certainty on when and how they might need to adjust operations," American Beverage Industry spokesman Christopher Gindlesperger said Tuesday.


Those adjustments are expected to cost the association's members about $600,000 in labeling and other expenses for bottles, Vice President Mike Redman said in court papers. Reconfiguring "16-ounce" cups that are actually made slightly bigger, to leave room at the top, is expected to take cup manufacturers three months to a year and cost them anywhere from more than $100,000 to several millions of dollars, Foodservice Packaging Institute President Lynn Dyer said in court documents.


Movie theaters, meanwhile, are concerned because beverages account for more than 20 percent of their overall profits and about 98 percent of soda sales are in containers greater than 16 ounces, according to Robert Sunshine, executive director of the National Association of Theatre Owners of New York State.


___


Follow Jennifer Peltz at http://twitter.com/jennpeltz


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Dell to go private in landmark $24.4 billion deal


SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Michael Dell struck a deal to take Dell Inc private for $24.4 billion in the biggest leveraged buyout since the financial crisis, partnering with the Silver Lake private equity firm and Microsoft Corp to try to turn around the struggling computer company without Wall Street scrutiny.


The deal, which requires approval from a majority of shareholders excluding Dell himself, would end a 24-year run on public markets for a company that was conceived in a college dorm room and quickly rose to the top of the global personal computer business - only to be rendered an also-ran over the past decade as PC prices crumbled and customers moved to tablets and smartphones.


Dell executives said on Tuesday that the company will stick to a strategy of expanding its software and services offerings for large companies, with the goal of becoming a full-service provider of corporate computing services in the mold of the highly profitable IBM. They played down speculation that Dell might spin off the low-margin PC business on which it made its name.


Dell did not give specifics on what it would do differently as a private entity, angering some shareholders who said they needed more information to determine whether the $13.65-a-share deal price - a 25 percent premium over Dell's stock price before buyout talks leaked in January - was adequate.


"This feels like the ultimate insider trade. Why weren't the plans and projections that Michael Dell has going forward been shared with me and other shareholders?" said Frederick "Shad" Rowe, general partner of Greenbrier Partners and a trustee of the $22 billion Texas Employees Retirement System. Rowe said he dumped about 400,000 shares of Dell on Tuesday, adding, "I was so irritated I didn't want to think about it anymore.


Dell spokesman David Frink said the board had conducted an extensive review of strategic options before agreeing to the buyout to ensure that the best interests of all stockholders were served.


Although Dell shares were trading at more than $18 a year ago, many analysts said they believed the majority of shareholders will accept the buyout because of pessimism over the growth prospects of the PC business.


"A private Dell is likely to more aggressively cut costs, in our view. But we think merely restructuring only postpones the inevitable, creating a value trap," said Discern Inc analyst Cindy Shaw. "Dell needs to do more than reduce its cost structure. It needs to innovate."


Dell was regarded as a model of innovation as recently as the early 2000s, pioneering online ordering of custom-configured PCs and working closely with Asian component suppliers and manufacturers to assure rock-bottom production costs. But it missed the big industry shift to tablet computers, smartphones and high-powered consumer electronics such as music players and gaming consoles.


As of 2012's fourth quarter, Dell's share of the global PC market had slipped to just above 10 percent from 12.5 percent a year earlier as its shipments dived 20 percent, according to research house IDC.


Some of Dell's rivals took pot shots at the deal, in unusually pointed comments that reflect how bitter the struggle is in a commoditized PC industry that has wrestled to reverse a decline in sales globally.


Hewlett-Packard Co, which itself has suffered years of turmoil in the face of challenges in the PC business, said in a statement that Dell's deal would "leave existing customers and innovation at the curb," and vowed to exploit the opportunity.


Lenovo, which consists largely of the former IBM PC unit, referred to the "distracting financial maneuvers and major strategic shifts" of its rival while emphasizing its own stability and strong financial position.


The deal will be financed with cash and equity from Michael Dell, $1 billion cash from private equity firm Silver Lake, a $2 billion loan from Microsoft Corp, and between $11 billion and $12 billion in debt financing from Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Barclays, Credit Suisse and RBC Capital Markets.


The company said Michael Dell will contribute his 16 percent stake in the company but did not say how much cash he would inject. The company will now conduct a 45-day "go-shop" process in which others might make higher offers.


"Though we were hoping for a higher price, we trust that the Dell board has properly done its job by conducting a process open to any third-party offers and reviewing all strategic options," said Bill Nygren, who manages the $7.3 billion Oakmark Fund and $3.2 billion Oakmark Select Fund, which have a $250 million position in Dell.


"Should we hear evidence to the contrary, we'll raise a ruckus."


Sources with knowledge of the matter said Dell's board, advised by the Boston Consulting Group, had considered everything from a leveraged recapitalization to a breakup of the company before agreeing to the LBO.


Although the deal will load Dell with more debt, some Wall Street analysts said that was relatively low compared to the cash the company generates.


Bernstein Research analyst Toni Sacconaghi said that if Dell were to use 40 percent of its annual cash flow of about $2.5 billion to $3 billion to pay down debt, a sale of the company in about five years could net Silver Lake, Mike Dell and other investors close to $10 billion, or 5 times free cash flow at the time.


Helped by acquisitions, Dell has been building a business selling servers, IT services and other products for corporate clients that - while still dwarfed by IBM's and HP's - is growing at a near-10 percent clip. Critics say it will not be easy for Dell to beat IBM and HP in this area, no matter what its corporate structure.


Sales of PCs still make up the majority of Dell's revenues. Dell said in a regulatory filing that no new job cuts were expected but it indicated more acquisitions down the road. The company has spent $13 billion since fiscal 2008 to acquire more than 20 companies including several large software and services companies as it seeks to reconfigure itself as a broad-based supplier of technology for big companies.


"We recognize this process will take more time," Chief Financial Officer Brian Gladden told Reuters. "We will have to make investments, and we will have to be patient to implement the strategy. And under a new private company structure, we will have time and flexibility to really pursue and realize the end-to-end solutions strategy."


Gladden said the company's strategy would "generally remain the same" after the deal closed, but "we won't have the scrutiny and limitations associated with operating as a public company."


Shares of Dell closed 1.1 percent higher at $13.42.


FALL FROM GRACE


Michael Dell returned to the company as CEO in 2007 after a brief hiatus but has been unable to engineer a turnaround thus far. Analysts said Dell could be more nimble as a private company, but it will still have to deal with the same difficult market conditions.


There is little history to suggest whether going private makes such a transition easier. IBM's famously successful transition from hardware vendor to corporate IT partner took place while it was trading on public markets.


Freescale, formerly the semiconductor division of Motorola, was taken private in 2006 for $17.6 billion by a group of private equity firms including Blackstone Group LP, Carlyle Group and TPG Capital LP. Analysts say the resulting debt load hurt its ability to compete in the capital-intensive chip business. Freescale cut just under 5 percent of its work force last year as it continued to restructure.


Microsoft's involvement in the Dell deal piqued much speculation about a renewed strategic partnership, but the software company is providing only debt financing and Dell said there were no specific business terms attached to the transaction. Dell has long been loyal to Microsoft's Windows operating system, which has been at the heart of its PC business since its inception.


Microsoft's loan will take the form of a 10-year subordinated note with roughly 7 percent to 8 percent interest, a source close to the matter told Reuters.


The Dell deal would be the biggest private equity-backed leveraged buyout since Blackstone Group LP's takeout of the Hilton Hotels Group in July 2007 for more than $20 billion and is the 11th-largest on record.


The parties expect the transaction to close before the end of Dell's 2014 second quarter, which ends in July. News of the talks first emerged on January 14, although they reportedly started in the latter part of 2012. Michael Dell had previously acknowledged thinking about going private as far back as 2010.


J.P. Morgan and Evercore Partners were financial advisers, and Debevoise & Plimpton LLP was the legal adviser to the special committee of Dell's board. Goldman Sachs was financial adviser, and Hogan Lovells was legal adviser to Dell.


Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz was legal adviser to Michael Dell. BofA Merrill Lynch, Barclays, Credit Suisse and RBC Capital Markets were financial advisers to Silver Lake, and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP was its legal adviser. Lazard Ltd advised Microsoft.


(Additional reporting by Aaron Pressman in Boston; Writing by Ben Berkowitz and Edwin Chan; Editing by Tiffany Wu, Leslie Gevirtz and Cynthia Osterman)



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Tsunami Fear After Quake Off Solomons





AUCKLAND, New Zealand — Residents of islands from the South Pacific to Australia were alerted to the possibility of a damaging tsunami on Wednesday after an 8.0-magnitude earthquake off the Solomon Islands, according to scientists and news reports from the area, but the warnings were called off a few hours later.




Edmal Palmer, the chief reporter of the Solomon Star newspaper in Honiara, the capital of the Solomon Islands, said in a telephone interview that reports from Lata, the capital of the Temotu province, were sketchy but indicated that the wave apparently had struck three villages.


“We have heard that a wave 103 centimeters high” — nearly three and a half feet — “has hit Lata, swamping the town, and five people are still missing at the moment,” Mr. Palmer said.


Lata, where the quake struck, is in Temotu Province, where the population is around 30,000. It is a three-hour flight from the Solomons’ capital, Honiara, which was not damaged by the earthquake or tsunami.


Mr. Palmer said Honiara residents were not concerned by the tsunami: “Most of us are getting ready for tonight’s UB40 concert.”


“Sea level readings indicate a tsunami was generated,” the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said on its Web site. The earthquake struck around 11 a.m. local time in the Santa Cruz Islands, part of the Solomon chain. There were conflicting reports as to the depth of the quake.


The center said the tsunami warning was limited to the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Tuvalu, New Caledonia, Kosrae, Fiji, Kiribati, Wallis and Futuna.


A lesser alert, a tsunami watch, was declared for American Samoa, Australia, Guam, the Northern Marianas, New Zealand and eastern Indonesia.


The earthquake was not only powerful but also “shallow,” giving it significant potential to do damage, said Barry Hirshorn, a geophysicist with the National Weather Service in Hawaii. Moreover, it was a thrust earthquake, he said, meaning that the sea floor moved up or down, not sideways, contributing to the potential for a dangerous tsunami.


But after the earthquake, as scientists watched to see how far a tsunami might spread, there were few early indications of a major threat beyond the immediate area, Mr. Hirshorn said. A water rise of about three feet had been observed close to the quake, he said, still high enough to be potentially damaging but probably not big enough to threaten distant shores.


In New Zealand, thousands of people were at the beach, swimming in the sea on a glorious summer afternoon on Waitangi Day, a national holiday — quite oblivious to the potential for a tsunami. Tsunami sirens were set off late in the afternoon there, and people in coastal areas were being told to stay off beaches and out of the sea, rivers and estuaries.


The New Zealand Herald reported Wednesday afternoon on its Web site that tsunami sirens in Suva, the capital of Fiji, had been warning people to stay inside or go to higher ground.


The Sydney Morning Herald reported on its Web site Wednesday that the Solomon Islands’ National Disaster Management Office had advised those living in low-lying areas, especially on Makira and Malaita, to move to higher ground.


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HTC bills its ‘ultrapixel’ camera as an historic event







HTC (2498) wants you to know that its upcoming “ultrapixel” camera is a big deal. How big, you ask? So big that it deserves to be on a timeline with the invention of the Polaroid and the world’s first camera phone. The Verge points us to a post on HTC’s official blog that outlines “a brief history of photography” and that concludes with a “mystery entry” for 2013 that reads, “HTC kicks off a new sound and camera experience.” Although HTC has not yet announced details surrounding its new camera on the upcoming M7 smartphone, leaked details provided to Pocket-Lint suggest it will be a 13-megapixel camera that will feature “three 4.3-megapixel sensor layers” that are “combined to give a resulting single image.” Regardless of whether this sort of innovation deserves to be placed on the same pedestal as the invention of the Polaroid camera, it does sound intriguing.


[More from BGR: Google’s big potential problem: The ‘Galaxy’ brand is starting to beat the ‘Android’ brand]






This article was originally published on BGR.com


Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Kim Kardashian's Pregnancy Is No Reason to Speed Divorce, says Kris Humphries















02/05/2013 at 09:20 PM EST







Kris Humphries and Kim Kardashian


Seth Browarnik/StarTraks


Kim Kardashian's baby is not even born yet and already is being drawn into mama's divorce.

Kardashian, carrying boyfriend Kanye West's child, has bristled at what she sees as stall tactics by estranged husband Kris Humphries to close the legal books on their 72-day marriage.

But Humphries's lawyer Marshall W. Waller writes that "what is really going on here is that an 'urgency' in the form of an apparently unplanned pregnancy" is being used by Kardashian as "an opportunity to gain a litigation advantage (to) prematurely set this matter for trial."

He adds parenthetically that the pregnancy is "something (Humphries) had nothing to do with."

Waller explains his reasoning for calling the pregnancy as unplanned: "Indeed, why would (she) plan to get pregnant in the midst of divorce proceedings?"

Kardashian, herself, recently addressed the timing.

"God brings you things at a time when you least expect it," she said last month. "I'm such a planner and this was just meant to be. What am I going to? Wait years to get a divorce? I'd love one. It's a process."

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Bullying study: It does get better for gay teens


CHICAGO (AP) — It really does get better for gay and bisexual teens when it comes to being bullied, although young gay men have it worse than their lesbian peers, according to the first long-term scientific evidence on how the problem changes over time.


The seven-year study involved more than 4,000 teens in England who were questioned yearly through 2010, until they were 19 and 20 years old. At the start, just over half of the 187 gay, lesbian and bisexual teens said they had been bullied; by 2010 that dropped to 9 percent of gay and bisexual boys and 6 percent of lesbian and bisexual girls.


The researchers said the same results likely would be found in the United States.


In both countries, a "sea change" in cultural acceptance of gays and growing intolerance for bullying occurred during the study years, which partly explains the results, said study co-author Ian Rivers, a psychologist and professor of human development at Brunel University in London.


That includes a government mandate in England that schools work to prevent bullying, and changes in the United States permitting same-sex marriage in several states.


In 2010, syndicated columnist Dan Savage launched the "It Gets Better" video project to encourage bullied gay teens. It was prompted by widely publicized suicides of young gays, and includes videos from politicians and celebrities.


"Bullying tends to decline with age regardless of sexual orientation and gender," and the study confirms that, said co-author Joseph Robinson, a researcher and assistant professor of educational psychology at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. "In absolute terms, this would suggest that yes, it gets better."


The study appears online Monday in the journal Pediatrics.


Eliza Byard, executive director of the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network, said the results mirror surveys by her anti-bullying advocacy group that show bullying is more common in U.S. middle schools than in high schools.


But the researchers said their results show the situation is more nuanced for young gay men.


In the first years of the study, gay boys and girls were almost twice as likely to be bullied as their straight peers. By the last year, bullying dropped overall and was at about the same level for lesbians and straight girls. But the difference between men got worse by ages 19 and 20, with gay young men almost four times more likely than their straight peers to be bullied.


The mixed results for young gay men may reflect the fact that masculine tendencies in girls and women are more culturally acceptable than femininity in boys and men, Robinson said.


Savage, who was not involved in the study, agreed.


"A lot of the disgust that people feel when you bring up homosexuality ... centers around gay male sexuality," Savage said. "There's more of a comfort level" around gay women, he said.


Kendall Johnson, 21, a junior theater major at the University of Illinois, said he was bullied for being gay in high school, mostly when he brought boyfriends to school dances or football games.


"One year at prom, I had a guy tell us that we were disgusting and he didn't want to see us dancing anymore," Johnson said. A football player and the president of the drama club intervened on his behalf, he recalled.


Johnson hasn't been bullied in college, but he said that's partly because he hangs out with the theater crowd and avoids the fraternity scene. Still, he agreed, that it generally gets better for gays as they mature.


"As you grow older, you become more accepting of yourself," Johnson said.


___


Online:


Pediatrics: http://www.pediatrics.org


It Gets Better: http://www.itgetsbetter.org


___


AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner


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Asian shares drop on euro zone worry, soft U.S. data

TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian shares slid on Tuesday as investors saw opportunities to cash in from recent strong rallies in the face of weak U.S. data and worries that a potential political shake-up could disrupt the eurozone's efforts to resolve its debt crisis.


The MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan <.miapj0000pus> tumbled 0.8 percent, dragged lower by a steep 1.8 percent fall in Hong Kong shares <.hsi>.


The euro took the brunt of renewed focus on the euro zone problems, having risen 2.3 percent so far this year against the U.S. dollar, up about 5.4 percent against sterling and 1.8 percent higher against the Australian dollar.


The euro eased 0.1 percent to $1.3496, retreating further from Friday's 14-1/2-month peak of $1.3711, ahead of the European Central Bank's policy meeting on Thursday.


The euro's fall helped euro/crosses recover, underpinning such currencies as the Australian dollar against the U.S. unit.


Aussie eased 0.1 percent to $1.0423 after the Reserve Bank of Australia kept its cash rate steady at 3.0 percent, as expected, having just cut in December.


Spain's opposition party on Sunday called for Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy to resign over a corruption scandal, an allegation Rajoy denies, pushing Spanish 10-year bond yields to six-week highs.


In Italy, 10-year Italian government bond yields hit their highest since late December, as chances of former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi regaining power raised worries about Rome's ability to fix its fiscal problems.


"Markets have been increasingly comfortable with European risks over the past few months and are largely not positioned for this increase in political problems. The outcomes in Spain and Italy are far from certain and may represent stumbling blocks for further expansion in risk appetite," Barclays Capital said in a research note.


The yen took a breather, firming from lows against a broad range of currencies.


The dollar was down slightly at 92.31 yen after scaling its highest since May 2010 of 93.185 on Monday, while the euro eased 0.1 percent to 124.61 yen, off its loftiest since April 2010 of 126.97 hit on Friday.


"Markets are broadly undergoing a correction and the euro is definitely facing profit-taking, given the pace of its climb. Worries about the euro zone debt crisis always remain a downside risk for the euro, and could push it lower to $1.32-$1.33," said Hiroshi Maeba, head of FX trading Japan at UBS in Tokyo. "But the trend is still upward for dollar/yen, cross/yen. The dollar could reach 95 yen by the end of the month."


As long as markets hold out expectations for the Bank of Japan to implement aggressive monetary easing to beat decades of deflation in Japan, the yen will stay pressured. Any correction to the dollar's rise against the yen was also be seen as shallow, with many traders and analysts seeing a firm floor around 87-88 yen.


Relatively positive data from China on Tuesday failed to change the bearish mood, weighed down by a fall in overnight U.S. equities, which have rallied 6 percent so far this year, on discouraging U.S. factory orders and euro zone jitters.


The HSBC services purchasing managers' index rose to a four-month high of 54 in January from December's 51.7, underlining confidence in the world's second-biggest economy, which is expected to grow 8.1 percent this year, off a 13-year low of 7.8 percent hit in 2012.


"The data globally is unquestionably better but the recovery still seems gradual. (China) hit the bottom and they had a bit of a bounce but nothing much else happened. We don't really seem to have preconditions for a much stronger bounce than that (8 percent growth)," said Richard Yetsenga, Head of Global Markets at ANZ Research.


Japan's benchmark Nikkei stock average <.n225> fell 1.3 percent, after scaling a 33-month high on Monday. <.t/>


U.S. stocks slid on Monday, leaving the Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> at its worst day since November after the index rose just 60-odd points away from its all-time intraday high of 1,576.09 on Friday.


(Editing by Eric Meijer)



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Gas Buildup and Spark Blamed in Pemex Blast





MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s attorney general said Monday that a buildup of gas ignited by a spark from a faulty electrical system had caused the explosion at the headquarters of Mexico’s state-owned oil company, which killed at least 37 people last week.




Jesús Murillo Karam, the attorney general, said a team of investigators from Mexico, Spain, the United States and Britain had found no evidence of explosives. He noted that there were no burn marks like those usually produced by explosives, nor were there signs of a crater, nor did investigators find any bomb-making materials in the office building where the blast occurred Thursday, just behind the company’s Pemex tower.


“We found no residue of any kind of explosive device,” Mr. Murillo said. He added that it had been a “diffuse” explosion, causing damage consistent with an accumulation of gas. The pressure pushed several floors of the building up, he said, and then they fell, collapsing on dozens of workers, including two more found dead this weekend buried in the rubble.


His explanation, delivered at a news conference late Monday, brought to a close several days of speculation. The government had been heavily criticized for not sharing enough information about the cause even as experts warned that investigations of this kind often take several days to figure out.


There are still some unanswered questions. Mr. Murillo said officials had yet to discover the source of the gas, which had built up in the basement of the building. Investigators believe it was methane that leaked from several ducts and tunnels underneath or connected to the building, he said. Why they leaked, who failed to notice (Pemex is responsible for inspecting its own buildings) and what exactly caused the gas to explode have not been clearly determined.


Mr. Murillo said that while there appeared to be no evidence of criminal wrongdoing, criminal charges were still a possibility.


When the blast occurred in the basement of an administrative building next to the 52-story tower, about 4 p.m. Thursday, windows shattered, the ground shook and thousands of panicked employees fled.


At the time, company officials said there was significant damage to the first floor and mezzanine of the building, and witnesses said they saw rescue workers helping trapped employees who had been pinned under falling debris, while others dragged out the injured and the dead.


The future of Pemex is a subject of debate. The national institution has been plagued by declining production, theft and an abysmal safety record that includes a major pipeline explosion almost every year. A pipeline blast in September killed 30 workers.


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“GameStick” Kickstarter Succeeds with More Than Half a Million in Funding






Hot on the heels of Ouya’s record-breaking Kickstarter success, GameStick‘s designers have received more than $ 647,000 in funding from their successful campaign. It’s less than a tenth of the $ 8.5 million the other Android-based game console pulled in during its run, but it’s more than six times what GameStick’s designers asked for, and they’re now pushing ahead to their April launch.


What is GameStick?






GameStick is basically a wireless controller, with a slot for a tiny USB stick sized device which plugs into a TV and is the actual console itself. It’s the second of the new generation of game consoles which are powered by AndroidGoogle‘s free-to-use, open-source operating system — and financed through the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter, which allows people to preorder devices while they’re still in the concept stage. Especially generous backers receive early access to devices, or the ability to influence the product’s design.


This model has worked for both Ouya and GameStick because a slew of AAA mobile games are already available for Android on the proprietary Google Play store, many of which already support console-style game controllers. It’s only a matter of convincing their developers that a new console will be popular enough that it’s worth bringing their titles to it — a fact which is easily demonstrated by the amount of support and funding Kickstarter brings to a product before its launch.


Which developers are bringing their titles to GameStick?


According to GameStick’s Jan. 29 update, written two days before its Kickstarter funding round closed, “100′s of Indies” have signed up for its developer program, along with top-tier Android developers like Madfinger Games (creators of Dead Trigger and Shadowgun) and DotEmu (reponsible for porting Android versions of classic games Raiden, Another World, and R-TYPE).


What changes have been made to GameStick since it started?


First, an optional dock accessory was previewed on the GameStick Kickstarter blog, and offered to people who pledged $ 20 more than the $ 89 “GameStick bundle with case” level. It’s the size of the GameStick controller itself, and supports wireless charging and “a wide range of peripheral[s].” It will have ethernet, HDMI, and USB ports, as well as a full-sized SD card slot which will support up to 64 GB SDHC cards.


Second, the GameStick controller itself has been redesigned, to be more streamlined and ergonomic than the classic NES style controller originally previewed on Kickstarter. GameStick’s Facebook page shows a 3D render of the new controller design, while its blog discusses the redesign.


Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.


Linux/Open Source News Headlines – Yahoo! News




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