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U.S. troops could help secure Syrian weapons

January 11, 2013 By Leave a Comment

U.S. troops could help secure Syrian weapons

Story Highlights

A big concern is that chemical weapons don’t end up in the wrong hands if the regime falls
At least 60,000 people have died during Assad’s two-year crackdown on rebels
The U.S. is preparing no options for having U.S. , Panetta says

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States has largely ruled out sending in ground troops to secure Syrian chemical weapons under hostile circumstances, but the could provide some forces if the Assad regime ever agrees to a , Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Thursday.

Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint , acknowledged that it will be nearly impossible to prevent the from using its chemical weapons, so the U.S. must rely on and continue warning Syria that using them would be unacceptable.

“The act of preventing the use of chemical weapons would be almost unachievable,” Dempsey said during a Pentagon press conference. “You would have to have such clarity of intelligence, you know, persistent surveillance, you’d have to actually see it before it happened, and that’s — that’s unlikely, to be sure.”

Speaking to Pentagon reporters, Panetta says his biggest concern is how the U.S. and allies would secure the sites scattered across Syria and ensure the components don’t end up in the wrong hands if the regime falls, particularly under violent conditions. He said the U.S. is preparing no options for having U.S. ground troops in that country if the regime falls while under attack.

But, he added, “you always have to keep the possibility that, if there is a peaceful transition and international organizations get involved, that they might ask for assistance in that situation.”

There are widespread worries among allies and countries in the region that if is toppled, could gain control of Syria’s stockpile of chemical weapons, which includes sarin and . And there are lingering worries that Assad might use his chemical weapons, perhaps on his own people, in a last-ditch effort to save his regime.

President Barack Obama has said the regime’s use of chemical weapons against the rebels would be a “red line” and change his “calculus” about possible military intervention there.

Fears escalated early last month when U.S. officials said there was evidence that Syrian forces had begun preparing sarin, a nerve agent, for possible use in bombs. But Panetta later said that it appeared the Syrian government had slowed its preparations for the possible use of the weapons.

The Pentagon has put together a variety of options for securing the weapons under a range of circumstances, Dempsey said. And he acknowledged the U.S. has been in contact with NATO allies, such as the Czech Republic, who have developed capabilities for handling chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. But Dempsey said not specific request has been made of the Czech Republic.

At least 60,000 people have died during Assad’s two-year crackdown on rebels, according to a recent U.N. estimate. Opposition fighters have seized large swaths of territory in northern Syria, and on Thursday activists said they now control parts of a strategic air base. But despite significant rebel advances on the battlefield, the opposition remains outgunned by government forces and has been unable to break a stalemate on the ground.

Panetta on Thursday said he believes there is a strong likelihood that Assad will ultimately leave power.

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Google’s N. Korea visit could harm U.S. sanction plans

January 8, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Googles N. Korea visit could harm U.S. sanction plans
(Photo: , AP)

Story Highlights

Former governor says visit is ‘a private ’
State Department says trip is ‘ill-advised’
U.S. pushes U.N. for more penalties on regime

(PhatzNewsRoom / ) — A visit to by former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson and Google chairman could harm U.S. efforts to sanction the dictatorship for refusing to curb its nuclear program and missile production, Korea experts say.

The U.S. State Department complained Monday that the visit by Richardson and Schmidt was poorly timed given that the United States is trying to persuade the United Nations to further sanction North Korea.

“We think the timing is ill-advised,” State said.

The reason for State’s objection is that North Korea and its allies in China will use the visit to convey “an image of openness and to the outside,” said Evans Revere, the State Department’s deputy chief negotiator with North Korea during the Clinton administration.

The visit helps the regime “convey a sense of legitimacy and and acceptance to its own people” at the very moment that the State Department is preparing to respond with sanctions in the U.N. Security Council, Revere said.

Richardson described the visit as “a private humanitarian mission.” He said he hoped to meet with U.S. citizen Kenneth Bae, who was born in South Korea and arrested in North Korea during a tourist visit in November.

Richardson, a former U.S. and a former candidate for the , has traveled to North Korea at least twice before to seek the release of American detainees.

Schmidt heads one of the world’s richest companies, and Google ranks 73rd on Forbes’ list of 500 top companies. He is part of a delegation that will spend four days in the nation but has yet to say what he is doing there and whom he will meet.

He is due to arrive in China on Thursday, and Richardson says he expects to hold a news conference then.

Schmidt characterizes himself as an advocate for the freedom of information worldwide. He is traveling with Jared Cohen, head of Google Ideas, the company’s think tank, with whom Schmidt is writing a book about how the Internet is changing the world.

The Internet is banned in North Korea. The country has no independent media, popular elections do not exist and the government is among the most repressive in the world. By contrast, South Korea has among the highest rates of Internet access in the world and a market economy that is fully integrated into the global economy.

A private visit to North Korea is not illegal, though goods, services and technology from North Korea may not be imported into the USA without a license from the Treasury Department.

The visit comes in the wake of a series of hostile North Korean actions and threats toward the United States and its allies, among them an attack in 2010 on a South Korean warship and an artillery bombardment on the South’s Yeonpyeong Island that killed four people that same year.

In December, the North defied warnings from the United States and other nations and launched an alleged weather satellite that the United States suspects was a test for an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching U.S. shores. The North has refused to abide by its obligations under international treaties to open up its nuclear facilities to inspection.

The North Koreans have launched a campaign of more friendly signals over the past few weeks toward South Korea, Japan and the United States, countries that have given assistance to North Korea when it agreed to negotiate with them.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s New Year’s Day speech included statements on improving the North’s economy and called for reunification with South Korea.

Revere says Richardson and Schmidt’s visit “is smartly used by the North Koreans to communicate an atmosphere of openness and willingness to re-engage with the United States and others.”

Bruce Klingner, a former chief of the CIA’s Korea branch who is at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, says China is likely to seize on the visit as an argument against new U.N. Security Council sanctions.

“China would say North Korea is showing it’s more open, so it would be counterproductive to put penalties on them when they’re showing they’re turning over a new leaf,” Klingner said.

The problem, he and Revere said, is that no real evidence exists that North Korea is reforming.

For the world’s most reclusive regime to open up to Google “would go against 60 years of history in North Korea,” Klingner said.

Contributing: Roger Yu

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Phew! Asteroid to miss Earth in 2040, NASA says

December 24, 2012 By Leave a Comment

121222021259 asteroid threat story top Phew! Asteroid to miss Earth in 2040, NASA says
The position data obtained for near-Earth asteroid 2011 AG5 in October was used to reduce its future orbital uncertainties.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS

The asteroid previously had a 0.2% chance of hitting the Earth
More observation by astronomers in Hawaii shows no risk of collision
A collision would have released about 100 megatons of energy
Observing the asteroid wasn’t easy

() — On a day when global doomsday predictions failed to pan out, NASA had more good news for the Earth: An asteroid feared to be on a collision course with our planet no longer poses a threat.

Uncertainties about the orbit of the asteroid, known as 2011 AG5, previously allowed for a less than a 1% chance it would hit the Earth in February 2040, NASA said.

To narrow down the asteroid’s future course, NASA put out a call for more observation. Astronomers from the at Manoa took up the task and managed to observe the asteroid over several days in October.

“An analysis of the new data conducted by NASA’s Near-Earth Object Program Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, shows that the risk of collision in 2040 has been eliminated,” NASA declared Friday.

The new observations, made with the Gemini 8-meter telescope in Mauna Kea, Hawaii, reduce the orbit uncertainties by more than a factor of 60. That means the Earth’s position in February 2040 is not in range of the asteroid’s possible future paths.

The asteroid, which is 140 meters (460 feet) in diameter, will get no closer to Earth than 890,000 kilometers (553,000 miles), or more than twice the distance to the moon, NASA said.

A collision with Earth would have released about 100 megatons of energy, several thousand times more powerful than the that ended , according to the Gemini Observatory.

Observing the asteroid wasn’t easy, said David Tholen, an astronomer at the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy.

The asteroid’s position was very close to the sun, so astronomers had to observe it when the sky was dark. Tholen told CNN there was about a half-hour between when the asteroid got high enough in the sky for the telescope to point at it and before the sky became too light to observe it.

Because the astronomers were looking at the asteroid low in the sky, they were viewing it through a lot of atmosphere, which scattered some of the light and made the object fainter, he said.

“The second effect is the turbulence of the atmosphere makes things fainter,” Tholen said. “We had to keep trying over and over until we got one of those nights when the atmosphere was calm.”

Tholen and the team also discovered the asteroid is elongated, so that as it rotates, its brightness changes. That was another challenge for the astronomers: Because they didn’t know the asteroid’s rotation period, they didn’t know when it would wax and wane, and when it would grow too faint to see.

“This object was changing its brightness by a factor of three or four — it was just enormously variable,” Tholen said. “It was hit and miss depending on which night you observed it.”

Many predicted the end of the world would come Friday, the day on which a long phase in the ancient Mayan calendar came to an end. Some believe the day actually comes Sunday.

Modern-day Mayans say the end of the calendar phase doesn’t mean the end of the world — just the end of an era, and the start of a new one.

NASA estimates 4,700 ‘potentially hazardous’ asteroids

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Spy planes help detect roadside bombs in Afghanistan

July 16, 2012 By Leave a Comment

af6712f8860a15306b6402ca3cd3ebd1 Spy planes help detect roadside bombs in Afghanistan

( News / ) — WASHINGTON – Images from and sensors that detect wires that trigger have helped to mitigate the No. 1 threat to U.S. — roadside bombs — over the past year.

The has filled the skies over Afghanistan with high-tech sensors, and the effect has been measurable. From March through May, troops in vehicles found 64% of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) before they blew up, an 11 percentage-point increase over the previous quarter. Troops on discovered 81%, a 4 percentage-point increase, according to the ’s (JIEDDO).

The rate of discovery before bombs exploded hovered around 50% for years. The most important measure of progress: IEDs caused less than half of troop deaths for the first time in five years.

“We are, in terms of detection of all types of IEDs, vastly better than we were a year ago,” Deputy Defense Secretary told USA TODAY in an interview. He credited airborne surveillance with driving progress against IEDs.

Detectors on aircraft, first used in Iraq, have successfully assisted troops in locating wires attached to bombs, which allows them to be defused. Radar is trained on the Afghan-, giving commanders a view of bombmakers’ escape and supply routes.

“Where we still have a problem… is in the use of Pakistani territory: , safe supply,” Carter said. “But we’ve gotten better at interdicting those sources of supply with, for example, airborne radars to watch people as they come over the desert or over the mountains. Those have been introduced during the last year.” He did not specify the aircraft or detection systems used. But the Pentagon has fielded new systems in the past three years aimed at finding command wires or ground that has been disturbed to hide IEDs. They include:

•Desert Owl. JIEDDO started deploying this ground-penetrating radar in 2009, according to the department’s annual report released in 2010. It is deployed on a piloted aircraft, Army records show.

•Copperhead. This was developed at the same time as Desert Owl. Both systems “use unique radar for command wire detection, complemented by advanced image-processing algorithms,” according to congressional testimony in 2008 by Lt. Gen. Thomas Metz, who led JIEDDO at the time. It is deployed on an unmanned drone.

The United States’ technological edge appears to be overwhelming the Taliban’s blunt force, says John Pike, executive director of Globalsecurity.org, a defense policy organzation. Cameras and sensors have become cheaper and faster, and computing ability has increased to sort through the growing amounts of data collected, Pike says.

“Everywhere we turn, we’re producing sensors that are cheaper, faster, better,” Pike says. “The enemy’s stuck with that damn fertilizer bomb. It is an unequal contest. It is not a level playing field.”

Nearly 90% of the IEDs are fashioned from homemade explosives, according to JIEDDO. A 110-pound bag of calcium ammonium nitrate, a common fertilizer produced in Pakistan, can produce 82 pounds of explosives, enough to destroy an armored truck or 10 smaller bombs targeting troops on foot. An IED, detonated with a wire, punctured the hull of a Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) truck on July 8, killing six soldiers.

Biometric data – fingerprints and retinal scans, for example – have been collected from a growing number of Afghans, including those joining security forces or applying for benefits or licenses, Carter said.

“What that means is that, if you have a checkpoint and you start stopping people randomly, it’s much easier to pick out the people who are malefactors,” Carter said. “We take latent fingerprints off of IEDs and later associate them with the guy who made them.”

Success hasn’t been cheap. JIEDDO has spent more than $18 billion to counter the threat.

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Apple CEO sees TV as area of “intense interest”

May 30, 2012 By Leave a Comment

a25eed8a1b879d1d84f346c3ecf4681e Apple CEO sees TV as area of intense interest

() – Apple Inc Chief Executive Tim Cook said technology for televisions was of “” but stressed the company’s efforts would unfold gradually amid the iPad and maker was on the brink of unveiling a revolutionary iTV.

In one of his more revealing interviews since assuming the helm of the world’s most valuable company, Cook also said he hoped someday to see Apple products manufactured in the United States and outlined his approach to managing an organization long-associated with its late founder .

“Another thing that Steve taught us all is to not to be focused on the past,” Cook told this year’s All Things Digital conference, an annual gathering of A-list technology and in the upscale California coastal resort town of Rancho Palos Verdes.

and executives say Apple may unveil a TV-based device in late 2012 or 2013 that has the potential to shake up the cozy television content and distribution industry the way the iPod and iPhone disrupted music and mobile content, but Cook has steered clear of commenting on that issue directly.

“This is an area of intense interest for us,” Cook said, referring to Apple’s existing television set-top box product. “We’re going to keep pulling this string and see where it takes us.”

When asked specifically if Apple was making a television set, Cook said he was not going to answer that question.

Apple already sells a $99 set top box called Apple TV that streams and other content. Cook, who has previously said the Apple TV product had a hobby status inside the company, noted the company was sticking with it despite not being known as a “hobby kind of company.”

“Here’s the way we would look at that, not just at this area but other areas, and ask can we control the key technology?” he said in response to a question about how Apple thinks about improving the television experience for consumers. “Can we make a significant contribution, far beyond what others have done in this area? Can we make a product that we would want?”

Apple has been in negotiations with content companies for its devices. It began talks earlier this year to stream films owned by EPIX, which is backed by three major movie studios.

The company has a good relationship with content owners and doesn’t see the need to own a content business, Cook said, adding he has met with several people in that business recently.

MADE IN USA?

In wide-ranging remarks, Cook said he would like to see more of the company’s products assembled at home than in China and contain more U.S. components such as semiconductors.

Apple has been criticized for relying on low-cost Asian manufacturers to assemble its products and for contributing to the decline of the U.S. manufacturing sector.

Cook, who took the helm of the world’s most valuable technology company in August shortly before founder Steve Jobs died, said manufacturing in the United States was difficult because of declining tool-and-die manufacturing expertise, among other things, but he was working on it.

“There are things that can be done in the U.S., not just for the U.S. market but that can be exported for the world,” Cook said. “On the assembly piece, could that be done in the U.S.? I hope so, again, one day,” he added.

Apple’s final assembly is done through Asian contract manufacturers, particularly Taiwan’s Foxconn Technology Group and its listed entity Hon Hai Precision. Cook noted that Apple does some component manufacturing in the United States, including the main microchip that runs the iPhone and iPad.

Apple makes the A5 processor in a 1.6 million square-foot factory in Austin, Texas, owned by Korean electronics giant .

Cook also said some of the glass for the iPhone and iPad is made in a plant in Kentucky.

The CEO talked about how the iPad was just in the “first innings,” but declined to say what was in store for it next.

He reiterated his belief that many consumers will use the iPad more than computers. In response to a question about PC software-maker ’s efforts to enter the tablet market, Cook brushed off the threat.

“The more you look at the tablet as a PC, the more the baggage from the past affects the product,” he said.

Apple released the iPad in 2010 and it has quickly defined the tablet computer market, selling more than 67 million units so far.

DOUBLING DOWN ON SECRECY

The 51-year old Cook said he spends less time focused on marketing and design as CEO than his predecessor, who Cook said spent “virtually all of his time on those two things.”

At a company the size of Apple, Cook said, having a strong team is critical.

“You could have an S on your chest and a cape on your back and not be able to do everything,” said Cook, who later cited Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr as well as Walt Disney Co Chief Executive Bob Iger as figures that he looks up to.

Cook also discussed efforts to make the company more transparent on certain issues, such as supplier responsibility and environmental matters, but stressed he was committed to preserving Apple’s culture.

One Jobs legacy that Cook flagged is Apple’s well-known penchant for going to great lengths to keep details of new products under tight wraps, noting that he planned to “double down on secrecy” on products.

But he suggested Apple would not be constrained by its past.

“I love museums, but I don’t want to live in one,” he said.

(Editing by Matt Driskill and Mark Potter)

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Apple,Samsung CEOs in U.S. court talks over patent row

May 21, 2012 By Leave a Comment

4357008ca7ec55608691910229b80b54 Apple,Samsung CEOs in U.S. court talks over patent row

() – The chief executives of Apple Inc and Co Ltd come face to face on Monday in court-directed mediation in the United States over a dispute in which the maker claims the Korean firm has “slavishly” copied some of its products.

Apple’s and Samsung’s Choi Gee-sung have been instructed by a federal judge to appear for mediation in San Francisco to help resolve the bitter patent litigation between the two firms.

The U.S. case, the most closely watched in a global patent war between the two companies involving some 20 cases in 10 countries, is set for trial at the end of July in San Jose, California. Each company denies the other’s allegations of .

Patent expert Florian Mueller cautioned against any expectations that mediation, which is being increasingly used to try to resolve U.S. civil disputes, would lead to a significant breakthrough in the case.

“This dispute isn’t ripe for settlement,” he said. “Under the present circumstances, the two companies’ delegations should spend a couple of fun days in Yosemite Park or Napa Valley, rather than meet in court only to pretend they’re being constructive.”

Apple, the maker of hit products such as the iPod, and iPhone, has a complex relationship with Samsung, a conglomerate that makes computer chips, gadgets including its Galaxy range of smartphones, and televisions.

While Samsung’s smartphones and tablets run on ’s Android operating system and compete with Apple’s products, Samsung is also a key components supplier to Apple.

The U.S. company, which investors value at close to $600 billion, has accused Samsung of “slavishly” copying the iPhone and iPad through products that run on Android. Samsung, which has a value of about $161 billion, has counter-sued with claims accusing Apple of infringing its patents.

A Samsung representative declined to comment, while Apple spokeswoman Kristin Huguet reiterated a prior statement that Apple needs to protect its intellectual property against “blatant copying”.

Both companies have a lot at stake in the case. Their share prices hit record highs this year as they reported soaring profits, partly fueled by their dominant position in the sector.

Samsung sold 44.5 million smartphones in the first quarter of 2012, giving it a 30.6 percent share of the global high-end market. Apple’s sales of 35.1 million iPhones gave it a 24.1 percent share.

“BIG GAP”

On Sunday in Seoul, the head of Samsung’s mobile division said the South Korean company wanted to resolve differences with Apple.

“There is still a big gap in the patent war with Apple,” JK Shin said, before departing for the United States for the mediation talks. “But we still have several negotiation options.”

Court documents show the two companies have had at least one mediation session, although it is not clear if Cook and Choi were involved.

The latest mediation session scheduled for Monday and Tuesday will be overseen by U.S. Magistrate Judge Joseph Spero. He declined to comment.

Legal experts say the two firms are far from a settlement.

Samsung, for example, argues its technologies are worth 402,000 won ($350), or 60 percent of the iPhone retail price of 671,000 won, on the basis that 3G is the only function differentiating the phone from Apple’s digital music player iPod Touch.

Apple says Samsung’s technology should be confined to modem chip prices, or 2.9 percent of iPhone prices at best.

In July 2010, just a month after Samsung introduced its first Galaxy product, Apple expressed its concerns to Samsung over its smartphone design and interface and demanded changes, according to Apple lawyers.

Samsung didn’t reflect those issues and continued to release products that copied Apple’s innovation, they said.

“Apple needs more time than it originally thought to reach a tipping point at which it has serious leverage over Samsung,” said Mueller.

Cook became Apple CEO last year, taking over from the company’s co-founder and inspiration, , who had told his biographer he intended to go “thermonuclear” on Android. Jobs died in October after a long illness.

Cook has echoed Jobs’ mantra that Apple’s top priority is to make “great products” but he has also made his mark by revealing the U.S. company’s production partners and initiating investigations into allegations of labor abuses in its supply chain.

Choi, 61, became Samsung’s leader in 2010, after more than three decades with the company. He is seen as a mentor to Jay Lee, the only son and heir apparent of Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-hee. Choi, asked by reporters on Sunday about the court mediation, declined to comment.

An eventual Apple and Samsung settlement could have wider implications because the U.S. company is locked in disputes with major Android phone makers HTC Corp of Taiwan and Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc of the United States.

U.S. courts are increasingly demanding parties in civil disputes try mediation, although success if far from certain.

Last year, Oracle’s Larry Ellison and Google’s Larry Page undertook mediation in an intellectual property fight over Android, but no settlement was reached and a trial in the case is entering its sixth week.

“I can’t imagine that the heads of a major enterprise of that kind would take any more seriously a decision of that magnitude, simply because they are in the room together,” said Vaughn Walker, a former northern California federal judge who now works as a mediator.

(Additional reporting by Kim Miyoung in SEOUL; Editing by Amy Stevens, Vicki Allen, Maureen Bavdek and Dale Hudson)

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Yahoo threatens Facebook as patent war looms

February 28, 2012 By Leave a Comment

4ef3fcad7798dfc0e4a755d071ce06a1 Yahoo threatens Facebook as patent war looms

() – Yahoo has demanded licensing fees from for use of its technology, the companies said on Monday, potentially engulfing social media in the patent battles and lawsuits raging across much of the tech sector.

Yahoo has asserted claims on patents that include the technical mechanisms in the Facebook’s ads, privacy controls, and messaging service, according to a source briefed on the matter.

Representatives from the two companies met on Monday and the talks involved 10 to 20 of Yahoo’s patents, said the source, who was not aware of what specific dollar demands Yahoo may have made for licenses.

Yahoo did not elaborate in an emailed statement on details of its discussions with Facebook, but indicated it would not flinch at taking the giant to court over its patents.

Yahoo said other companies have already licensed some of the technologies at issue, and that it would act unilaterally if Facebook refused to pay for a patent license.

“Yahoo has a responsibility to its shareholders, employees and other stakeholders to protect its intellectual property,” the company said.

The meeting between the two companies was first reported by the New York Times.

A Facebook spokesman said: “Yahoo contacted us at the same time they called the New York Times and so we haven’t had the opportunity to fully evaluate their claims.”

Should Yahoo wind up suing Facebook, it would mark the first major legal battle among in the social media sphere and a major escalation of that has already swept up the and tablet sectors and high-tech such as Apple Inc, Microsoft Corp and Motorola Mobility.

Yahoo’s patent claims follow Facebook’s announcement of plans for an that could value the company at about $100 billion.

Several social networking companies, including Facebook, have seen an in patent claims asserted against them as they move through the IPO process.

However, most of those lawsuits have been filed by patent aggregators that buy up intellectual property to squeeze value from it via licensing deals, and none by a large tech company such as Yahoo.

(Reporting By Dan Levine; Editing by Edmund Klamann)

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Facebook unveils $5bn stock market flotation plans

February 2, 2012 By Leave a Comment

a2f186c536006b7e6d5f5a0fda9eda92 Facebook unveils $5bn stock market flotation plans

(Phatfrums News / BBC News) — The world’s largest site, , has announced plans for a flotation.

Facebook said it would seek to raise $5bn (£3.16bn, 3.8bn euros), about half the amount many analysts expected.

But the (IPO) is still expected to be the biggest sale of shares by an internet company.

Facebook, just eight years old and started by Harvard University students, now has 845 million users and made a profit of $1bn last year.

Facebook filed its intention to float with the Commission after the US stock markets closed.

“Start Quote

For Facebook the issue is whether its turnover will continue to rise at an exponentially fast rate – basically whether it can generate ever growing revenues from its 845m monthly active users.”

Robert Peston Business editor, BBC News

Facebook and Glenstrata: Which is bubblier?

The documents revealed for the first time information about the company that had previously been the subject of .

This included news that Facebook’s net income in 2011 rose 65% to $1bn, off revenues of $3.71bn.

It was disclosed that founder Mark Zuckerberg owns 28.4% of Facebook and has more than 50% of . It also revealed that the network now has 845 million monthly users of which 443 million are daily users.

A letter from Mr Zuckerberg said: “Facebook was not originally created to be a company. It was built to accomplish a social mission – to make the world more open and connected.

“We think it’s important that everyone who invests in Facebook understands what this mission means to us, how we make decisions and why we do the things we do.”

Mega

: raises $1.67bn for 7% of the company in 2004
Rosneft: raises $10.4bn for 15% of the company in 2006
Visa: raises $19.1bn for 50% of the company in 2008
Agricultural Bank of China: raises $22.1bn in 2010 making it the world’s largest IPO to date

The $5bn being raised would be the most for an internet initial public offering since Google and its early backers raised $1.67bn in 2004.

“The company is a lot more profitable than we thought,” said Kathleen Smith, principal of IPO investment advisory firm Renaissance Capital.

She said Facebook’s numbers were “very impressive,” but she added that Facebook needed to talk more about where it saw its growth coming from.

“What new areas of business is it expecting to pursue beyond display ads?” she said.

The final amount Facebook will raise is likely to change as Facebook’s bankers gauge the investor demand for the shares over the coming months.

The story of the company was made the subject of a 2010 Hollywood film, The Social Network, and the firm has made the verb “to friend” a part of everyday language.

Valuation justified

Reports have suggested the company could be worth $100bn, roughly the same as US giants Amazon and McDonald’s.

Facebook currently makes most of its money from online advertising.

“As it is not a paying service, you are not the customer, you are the product,” explains the BBC’s technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones.

“What Facebook is selling to the world is users’ time and their attention, their likes and dislikes, all that time and data they pour into the site, so that they can be very precisely targeted with adverts matching our interests,” our correspondent says.

Analysis
Rory Cellan-Jones Technology correspondent, BBC News

For the first time, we have some detailed insight into the finances this extraordinary company.

What the documents show is that Facebook has been growing very rapidly and very profitably. In two years, revenues – almost entirely from advertising – have increased fivefold, with profits quadrupling to exactly $1bn in 2011.

But alongside the mass of numbers, we also get a letter from Mark Zuckerberg rather different from the conventional CEO boilerplate.

Facebook, he affirms, exists to make the world more open and connected, and not just to build a company.

Whether investors will be happy with that mission statement remains to be seen – although the document makes clear that Mr Zuckerberg will retain majority control of the business after the flotation.

So, anyone buying into Facebook is buying into its young founder’s vision of the future.

Watch Rory’s report

As a private company, Facebook has not had to publish detailed accounts so it has not had to make public whether, or how much, profit it makes. This has been the subject of much speculation, however.

Releasing much more detailed information on its finances will become part of the Facebook’s duties as a publicly listed firm.

“The company does change when you go public,” co-founder of online travel site Lastminute.com Martha Lane Fox told the BBC.

“Whatever Mark Zuckerberg says about continuing to run the company for users, for employees, not for shareholders… it does mean there is a level of scrutiny and accountability not known in a private company.”

Planning the IPO

“The IPO of Facebook is the one that investors have all been waiting for, given that it is now an iconic global brand with huge scope to expand even further,” said Phil Wong, stockbroker at Redmayne Bentley.

“The major investment banks have competed to be selected as lead advisors given the status of the firm, and investors are sure to be equally eager to acquire a holding in the business.”

Facebook is the latest in a series of online firms to sell shares to the public in recent months.

Online voucher firm Groupon went public in November 2011 and online games maker Zynga in December 2011.

Zynga’s stock market value immediately fell below its asking price on the first day of trading, whilst Groupon only climbed past its offer price three months after the float.

Shares in the Linkedin fell below their May 2011 offer price after its shares became freely tradeable.

However stock market traders remain positive about Facebook’s flotation.

“Facebook is worth the expected $80-$100bn valuation because we believe it is and will be the dominant social media platform globally,” said Richard Nunn at Charles Stanley Securities.

“It has more than 100m more US users than Google did when it IPO’d, and Google is valued at $180bn, and most importantly for advertisers, the average dwell time of 6hrs 51m per month spent on Facebook trounces the competition by some way.’

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Wikipedia, Reddit plan blackout in SOPA protest

January 17, 2012 By Leave a Comment

94601a4ade02241aaf05ece911e17a2f Wikipedia, Reddit plan blackout in SOPA protest

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — A handful of large websites will go dark on Wednesday to protest an anti-piracy bill that critics say will wreck the Internet as we know it.

, user-submitted news site Reddit, the blog Boing Boing and the Cheezburger network of comedy sites all plan to participate in the . The protest is their response to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) bill, a piece of proposed legislation that is working its way through Congress.

Introduced in the House of Representatives in late October, the bill aims to crack down on by restricting access to sites that fuel it. Its targets include “rogue” overseas sites like torrent hub The Pirate Bay, which essentially operates as a trading ground for illegal downloads of movies and other digital content.

A similar bill called the Protect IP Act was approved by a in May and is now pending before the full Senate.

The controversial legislation has turned into an all-out war between Hollywood and . Media companies have united in favor of it, while tech’s power players are throwing their might into opposing it.

If SOPA passes, copyright holders would be able to complain to law enforcement officials and get websites shut down. and other providers would have to block rogue sites when ordered to do so by a judge. Sites could be punished for hosting pirated content in the first place — and are worried that they could be held liable for users’ actions.

As BoingBoing wrote: “Making one link would require checking millions (even tens of millions) of pages, just to be sure that we weren’t in some way impinging on the ability of five Hollywood studios, four multinational record labels, and six global publishers to maximize their profits.”

White House jumps in: The was supposed to hold a hearing with on Wednesday, which is why sites targeted that day for a blackout.

But Rep. Darrell Issa, a Republican from California who opposes SOPA, postponed the hearing on Friday after House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said the bill won’t move in its current form.

Cantor’s comments sparked some news reports claiming that SOPA is dead, but an aide in Issa’s office said “that’s probably a little premature.”

Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian was slated to testify in Washington, but he said he will now instead attend a protest rally in New York City organized by the group NY Tech Meetup. They plan to assemble outside the offices of New York senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand.

The White House released its first statement about the bill on Saturday. The Obama administration wrote that it would not support legislation that mandates “tamper[ing] with the technical architecture of the Internet through manipulation of the Domain Name System (DNS).”

As originally written, SOPA would have required Internet access providers and other companies to block access to targeted sites in ways that were rife with potential unintended consequences. The White House said its analysis of the original legislation’s technical provisions “suggests that they pose a real risk to cybersecurity.”

The White House’s statement came shortly after one of SOPA’s lead sponsors, Texas Republican Lamar Smith, agreed to remove SOPA’s DNS blocking provisions.

Issa’s aide says that isn’t enough: “Merely taking out the DNS-blocking provisions doesn’t not rectify a bill that’s fundamentally flawed.”

The controversial bill, once expected to sail quickly through committee approval in the House, is now being extensively reworked before it comes up for a commitee vote.

Rupert Murdoch, the CEO of News Corp. (NWS), voiced his frustration with the White House’s stance in a series of tweets over the weekend.

“Obama has thrown in his lot with Silicon Valley paymasters who threaten all software creators with piracy, plain thievery,” Murdoch wrote on Twitter.

In addition to Murdoch, SOPA has drawn support from groups including the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America, which say that online piracy leads to U.S. job losses by depriving content creators of income. Time Warner, the parent company of CNNMoney, is among the industry supporters of the legislation.

Proponents of the bill dismiss accusations of censorship, saying that the legislation is meant to revamp a broken system that doesn’t adequately prevent criminal behavior.

But SOPA’s critics say that say that the bill’s backers don’t understand the Internet, and therefore don’t appreciate the implications of the legislation they’re considering.

Meanwhile, a bipartisan group of House members has proposed an alternative bill, the Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade Act (OPEN).

This legislation would allow rights holders to ask the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) to enforce current laws by targeting the actual content pirates. OPEN’s backers have posted the draft legislation online and invited the Web community to comment on and revise the proposal.

SOPA supporters counter that the ITC doesn’t have the resources for such enforcement, and that giving it those resources would be too expensive. To top of page

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