TAIPEI, Taiwan – China and Taiwan made economic history Tuesday with a bold agreement that allows planes and ships to travel directly across the Taiwan Strait — the place where many have feared they would fight their next battle.
Still the Asian rivals appear far from resolving the root causes of nearly six decades of hostilities and distrust. The pact was possible because negotiators set aside thorny political disputes and only focused on trade and economics.
The new deal allows passenger flights directly across the 100-mile-wide Taiwan Strait that separates Taiwan from mainland China. In the past, planes had to fly into Hong Kong airspace while traveling between the two sides. Cargo ships, which used to have to stop at the Japanese island of Okinawa northeast of Taiwan, will be allowed to sail directly to the other side and cut hundreds of miles out of each trip.
The deal is significant for businesses and drew applause from three chambers of commerce representing Japan, the U.S. and Europe. The groups said in a joint statement the restrictions on flights and shipping have kept Taiwan from fully participating in the global and Asian economies.
"Taiwan can only benefit from having greater interaction with one of the world's fastest growing markets," it said.
In the eyes of China's leaders, Taiwan is a Chinese province that must eventually unite with the mainland or be invaded by the mainland's massive military.
A conflict could quickly draw in the U.S., which has long warned China's government it may defend Taiwan — a major buyer of American weapons. Even as they talk to China, the Taiwanese have been loading up on more U.S. arms, including Apache helicopters and Patriot missiles.
China-Taiwan relations are so awkward and strained that Chinese envoy Chen Yunlin, who signed the deal Tuesday, has yet to call Taiwanese leader Ma Ying-jeou by his proper title: president. When they meet Thursday, Chen will likely just address him as "Mr. Ma."
Chen — the highest-ranking Chinese official to visit Taiwan — is sticking to Beijing's policy of not formally recognizing the island's government.
Taiwan's top official for China policy, Lai Shin-yuan, urged critics to embrace the deal and stop obsessing about sensitive political issues.
"This is something people should support, instead of making an issue of how I am addressed by the Chinese side," Lai told reporters. "Our sovereignty has not been harmed during the meeting this time."
Most Taiwanese are not ready to unify with China and do not want Beijing meddling in their political affairs. Many favor independence, and China's refusal to recognize their government infuriates them. About 200 protesters scuffled with police Tuesday night outside a hotel where the Chinese envoy attended a banquet.
The Taiwanese president, who took office in May, has promised not to begin unification negotiations during his four-year term.
Some fear that closer ties with China — even if they only involve trade and economics — will sacrifice Taiwan's sovereignty by making it overly dependent on the mainland.
That's the view of Taiwan's previous president, Chen Shui-bian, who was vilified by Beijing because he favored independence. Chen on Tuesday accused the new government of being too friendly with China.
"We have strived to be the masters of Taiwan," he said. "But now we are becoming slaves to China."
But Alexander Huang, a political science professor at Taipei's Tamkang University, doubted the economic agreements will lead to Taiwan being absorbed by its massive neighbor.
"Taiwanese have enjoyed their democracy and don't want to have officials appointed by the mainland," said Huang, who also thought the pact would help decrease the threat of a war.
Huang added the agreement shows China is eager to win the hearts and minds of Taiwanese. Beijing, which refused to talk to Chen's government for eight years, also doesn't want Taiwan to drift further toward permanent independence.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Asians uneasy over Obama trade stance
BEIJING – Indian outsourcing companies, Cambodian textile workers and Korean automakers took a close look Wednesday at Barack Obama's trade stance, wondering what Democratic victories in the White House and Congress would spell for free trade.
Obama has said he is in favor of free trade agreements if they benefit the United States. He has criticized the one with South Korea, saying it does not adequately address an imbalance in auto trade. South Korean automakers sold 772,482 vehicles in the United States in 2007, while the U.S. sold 6,235 in South Korea, according to industry statistics.
"He appears to be a protectionist," said Chea Mony, president of the Free Trade Union of Workers in Cambodia, which has an export-driven textile industry. "I am quite concerned about that because most of our clothing products are exported to America."
In an Oct. 24 letter to the U.S. National Council of Textile Organizations, Obama pledged "strong enforcement" of trade remedy laws, which can include added tariffs on imports that are deemed to hurt American businesses. Obama said he would include labor and environmental standards in free trade agreements — a measure that many in Asia view as a possible pretext to shield U.S. companies from foreign competition.
Obama also has said he would pressure China to end what he calls the manipulation of its exchange-rate system. Washington and other trading partners say Beijing's currency, the yuan, is kept undervalued, giving its exporters an unfair price advantage and adding to China's multibillion-dollar trade surplus.
Indian outsourcing companies — accused by critics of stealing U.S. jobs — have also expressed some apprehensions about an Obama victory.
The potential for a protectionist backlash is "something we have to factor in," S. Ramadorai, chief executive of Tata Consultancy Services, India's largest software services provider, said shortly before the election.
Other analysts said that despite Obama's pre-election comments, he was likely to follow the example of previous U.S. presidents and take a moderate line in office to preserve important trade relations with Asia.
"He may have talked tough, but based on past experience, that's just a tool to win over voters," said Qiang Yongchang, a professor at the Economy Institute at Shanghai's Fudan University.
___
AP Business Writers Tomoko Hosaka and Yuri Kageyama in Tokyo, Elaine Kurtenbach in Shanghai, Jeremiah Marquez in Hong Kong and Kelly Olsen in Seoul, Associated Press Writer Ker Munthit in Phnom Penh and AP researcher Bonnie Cao in Beijing contributed to this report.
Obama has said he is in favor of free trade agreements if they benefit the United States. He has criticized the one with South Korea, saying it does not adequately address an imbalance in auto trade. South Korean automakers sold 772,482 vehicles in the United States in 2007, while the U.S. sold 6,235 in South Korea, according to industry statistics.
"He appears to be a protectionist," said Chea Mony, president of the Free Trade Union of Workers in Cambodia, which has an export-driven textile industry. "I am quite concerned about that because most of our clothing products are exported to America."
In an Oct. 24 letter to the U.S. National Council of Textile Organizations, Obama pledged "strong enforcement" of trade remedy laws, which can include added tariffs on imports that are deemed to hurt American businesses. Obama said he would include labor and environmental standards in free trade agreements — a measure that many in Asia view as a possible pretext to shield U.S. companies from foreign competition.
Obama also has said he would pressure China to end what he calls the manipulation of its exchange-rate system. Washington and other trading partners say Beijing's currency, the yuan, is kept undervalued, giving its exporters an unfair price advantage and adding to China's multibillion-dollar trade surplus.
Indian outsourcing companies — accused by critics of stealing U.S. jobs — have also expressed some apprehensions about an Obama victory.
The potential for a protectionist backlash is "something we have to factor in," S. Ramadorai, chief executive of Tata Consultancy Services, India's largest software services provider, said shortly before the election.
Other analysts said that despite Obama's pre-election comments, he was likely to follow the example of previous U.S. presidents and take a moderate line in office to preserve important trade relations with Asia.
"He may have talked tough, but based on past experience, that's just a tool to win over voters," said Qiang Yongchang, a professor at the Economy Institute at Shanghai's Fudan University.
___
AP Business Writers Tomoko Hosaka and Yuri Kageyama in Tokyo, Elaine Kurtenbach in Shanghai, Jeremiah Marquez in Hong Kong and Kelly Olsen in Seoul, Associated Press Writer Ker Munthit in Phnom Penh and AP researcher Bonnie Cao in Beijing contributed to this report.
Plane crash leaves Mexico interior secretary dead
MEXICO CITY – One of Mexico's top pointmen in the war against drug trafficking died when a government jet crashed into a Mexico City street, setting fire to dozens of vehicles and dealing crusading President Felipe Calderon a serious blow.
Officials said the Tuesday crash appeared to be an accident but the loss of Interior Secretary Juan Camilo Mourino, former anti-drug prosecutor Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos and six others thinned the ranks of Mexico's already embattled leadership.
U.S. Ambassador Antonio Garza praised the two officials and suggested them as models for the fight against organized crime.
"Their dedication and commitment to accomplishing their work, especially that which strengthened our bilateral fight against those who attack the security of our two countries, certainly will be a model for all of us in a common effort that will continue to strengthen," Garza said in a statement.
Mourino, 37, was one of President Felipe Calderon's closest advisers but has been embroiled in scandal since taking office in the midst of Mexico's violent fight against drug cartels. He was in charge of the country's security.
"With his death, Mexico has lost a great Mexican, intelligent, loyal and committed to his ideals and his country," Calderon told a news conference. "I ask all Mexicans that they don't allow any event, no matter how difficult or painful, to weaken them in the pursuit of a better Mexico."
Calderon has sent tens of thousands of federal police and army troops throughout Mexico to fight drug cartels that are fighting increasingly bloody turf battles and killing police officials.
Presidential spokesman Max Cortazar said Mourino and a group of advisers had attended the launching of a program to welcome returning migrants in the city of San Luis Potosi on Tuesday, and were headed back to Mexico City's international airport when the plane went down.
Officials said no distress call had been received and the crash appeared to be an accident, but Calderon said his administration "will carry out all the necessary investigations to find out the causes of this tragedy."
U.S. experts from the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board will arrive on Wednesday to assist in the investigation, officials said.
Mexico's fleet of government aircraft have suffered accidents in the past and the country has long said it needs new helicopters and planes to fight drug cartels. Mexico is slated to receive more helicopters and planes as part of a $400 million U.S. aid package known as the Merida Initiative approved in June, but which has not been yet released.
In 2005, a helicopter crash blamed on poor weather conditions killed Mexico's top police official, public safety secretary Ramon Martin Huerta, the head of federal police and seven other people.
The Learjet carrying Mourino crashed on a street in the posh Lomas de Chapultepec neighborhood, an area filled with tall office buildings. Officials evacuated about 1,800 people from area offices.
Mayor Marcelo Ebrard said all those aboard the plane were killed and that more people may have died on the ground. "It's likely that we will find other bodies in the vehicles," Ebrard told the Televisa news network.
Hundreds of police, firefighters and soldiers swarmed the scene, which was littered with the burned-out hulks of vehicles and pieces of what appeared to be bodies.
Eight bodies were recovered and at least 40 people were injured, seven of them seriously. The jet seats eight and Calderon listed eight people — including assistants and spokespeople for Mourino — but it was unclear whether all the bodies recovered were from the plane. The bodies were too badly burned to be immediately identified.
Santiago Vasconcelos, who was previously in charge of pursuing extraditions against drug traffickers, had been the target of at least one planned assassination attempt in the past.
The plane's wreckage came to rest just yards from tall office buildings and Ebrard said many more people would almost certainly have died had the plane hit one of the towers.
Civil aviation officials were investigating the cause of the crash.
Mourino was one of the most controversial officials when he joined Calderon's Cabinet in January because of his family's involvement with private contracts to Mexico's state-owned oil company, precisely at a time when Calderon sought to open up the legal framework for more such contracts.
The Mourino family's dealing in contracts for the transport of fuel angered many here, who view the state oil company as a point of national pride and oppose any openings to private involvement in the industry.
Born in Spain and educated at the University of Tampa in Florida, some also criticized the fact that he was foreign-born, arguing he shouldn't be able to hold one of the top Cabinet security posts.
He became a Mexican citizen about two decades ago, served as a federal legislator and went on to become Calderon's closest adviser as head of the Office of the Presidency. He was one of the youngest men to have held the politically sensitive post of interior secretary.
Spanish firms have recently made major inroads in Mexico's telecommunications and banking sector, drawing criticism from some Mexicans who resent the influence of the country's former colonial master.
Officials said the Tuesday crash appeared to be an accident but the loss of Interior Secretary Juan Camilo Mourino, former anti-drug prosecutor Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos and six others thinned the ranks of Mexico's already embattled leadership.
U.S. Ambassador Antonio Garza praised the two officials and suggested them as models for the fight against organized crime.
"Their dedication and commitment to accomplishing their work, especially that which strengthened our bilateral fight against those who attack the security of our two countries, certainly will be a model for all of us in a common effort that will continue to strengthen," Garza said in a statement.
Mourino, 37, was one of President Felipe Calderon's closest advisers but has been embroiled in scandal since taking office in the midst of Mexico's violent fight against drug cartels. He was in charge of the country's security.
"With his death, Mexico has lost a great Mexican, intelligent, loyal and committed to his ideals and his country," Calderon told a news conference. "I ask all Mexicans that they don't allow any event, no matter how difficult or painful, to weaken them in the pursuit of a better Mexico."
Calderon has sent tens of thousands of federal police and army troops throughout Mexico to fight drug cartels that are fighting increasingly bloody turf battles and killing police officials.
Presidential spokesman Max Cortazar said Mourino and a group of advisers had attended the launching of a program to welcome returning migrants in the city of San Luis Potosi on Tuesday, and were headed back to Mexico City's international airport when the plane went down.
Officials said no distress call had been received and the crash appeared to be an accident, but Calderon said his administration "will carry out all the necessary investigations to find out the causes of this tragedy."
U.S. experts from the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board will arrive on Wednesday to assist in the investigation, officials said.
Mexico's fleet of government aircraft have suffered accidents in the past and the country has long said it needs new helicopters and planes to fight drug cartels. Mexico is slated to receive more helicopters and planes as part of a $400 million U.S. aid package known as the Merida Initiative approved in June, but which has not been yet released.
In 2005, a helicopter crash blamed on poor weather conditions killed Mexico's top police official, public safety secretary Ramon Martin Huerta, the head of federal police and seven other people.
The Learjet carrying Mourino crashed on a street in the posh Lomas de Chapultepec neighborhood, an area filled with tall office buildings. Officials evacuated about 1,800 people from area offices.
Mayor Marcelo Ebrard said all those aboard the plane were killed and that more people may have died on the ground. "It's likely that we will find other bodies in the vehicles," Ebrard told the Televisa news network.
Hundreds of police, firefighters and soldiers swarmed the scene, which was littered with the burned-out hulks of vehicles and pieces of what appeared to be bodies.
Eight bodies were recovered and at least 40 people were injured, seven of them seriously. The jet seats eight and Calderon listed eight people — including assistants and spokespeople for Mourino — but it was unclear whether all the bodies recovered were from the plane. The bodies were too badly burned to be immediately identified.
Santiago Vasconcelos, who was previously in charge of pursuing extraditions against drug traffickers, had been the target of at least one planned assassination attempt in the past.
The plane's wreckage came to rest just yards from tall office buildings and Ebrard said many more people would almost certainly have died had the plane hit one of the towers.
Civil aviation officials were investigating the cause of the crash.
Mourino was one of the most controversial officials when he joined Calderon's Cabinet in January because of his family's involvement with private contracts to Mexico's state-owned oil company, precisely at a time when Calderon sought to open up the legal framework for more such contracts.
The Mourino family's dealing in contracts for the transport of fuel angered many here, who view the state oil company as a point of national pride and oppose any openings to private involvement in the industry.
Born in Spain and educated at the University of Tampa in Florida, some also criticized the fact that he was foreign-born, arguing he shouldn't be able to hold one of the top Cabinet security posts.
He became a Mexican citizen about two decades ago, served as a federal legislator and went on to become Calderon's closest adviser as head of the Office of the Presidency. He was one of the youngest men to have held the politically sensitive post of interior secretary.
Spanish firms have recently made major inroads in Mexico's telecommunications and banking sector, drawing criticism from some Mexicans who resent the influence of the country's former colonial master.
Russia to station missiles near Poland
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian President Dmitry Medvedev pledged on Wednesday to station new missiles near Poland's border in response to U.S. plans for an anti-missile system and proposed extending the presidential term to six years from four.
In an assertive first annual address to the nation, he defended Russia's war with Georgia, appealed to nationalism and attacked Washington's "selfish" foreign policy and "economic blunders" which he said caused the global financial crisis.
The harsh tone and repeated attacks on the United States the day after Democrat Barack Obama's electoral victory surprised some observers who had expected a more liberal style and more detail on how Russia would tackle a financial crisis.
"To neutralize -- if necessary -- the (U.S.) anti-missile system, an Iskander missile system will be deployed in the Kaliningrad region," Medvedev said, referring to a Russian enclave bordering European Union members Poland and Lithuania.
Russia would electronically jam the U.S. system, parts of which are due to be deployed in Poland and the Czech Republic, and Moscow would scrap plans to stand down three Cold War-era nuclear missile regiments, the president said.
"Medvedev was very assertive in his delivery," said Ronald Smith, chief strategist at Alfa Bank in Moscow. "(He) appeared to be staking out strong positions on various issues ahead of the entry of the new American presidential administration."
Medvedev's 85-minute address also included surprise proposals to extend the presidential term from four to six years, a move that may benefit his predecessor Vladimir Putin.
Putin, now a highly influential prime minister, listened attentively from the front row of the audience in the grand, marble-clad St George Hall of the Kremlin and nodded at times as Medvedev spoke.
Still Russia's most popular politician, Putin stepped down in May after serving the maximum two consecutive terms allowed, but is free to return for another two terms when Medvedev's four years in power end in 2012.
Medvedev also announced plans to lengthen legislators' terms by a year and make it easier for small parties to win parliamentary representation. He did not say when the changes might take effect.
Small parties are among the most critical of the government and they were eliminated from the federal legislature under Putin's eight-year rule.
CRITICISM OF UNITED STATES
One day after Barack Obama won the U.S. presidential election, Medvedev reserved his harshest criticism for the United States, blaming its "selfish" foreign policy for Russia's brief war in August with Georgia, a U.S. ally.
"The conflict in the Caucasus was used as a pretext for sending NATO warships to the Black Sea and then for the forceful foisting on Europe of America's anti-missile systems," Medvedev said in his speech, broadcast live on television and radio.
The war with Georgia over the rebel region of South Ossetia was "among other things, the result of the arrogant course of the U.S. administration which hates criticism and prefers unilateral decisions," he added.
Speaking to around 1,000 parliamentarians, top government officials, religious leaders and journalists, Medvedev linked the war in Georgia to the global financial crisis, saying they both began as localized events but took on broader significance.
"We will overcome the consequences of the world economic crisis and will come out of it even stronger than we were," Medvedev, who took office in May, said to applause.
But the financial and Georgia crises also showed the need for fundamental reform of global institutions, he added.
"The lessons of the mistakes and crises of 2008 have proved to all responsible nations that the time has come to act, and it is necessary to radically reform the (international) political and economic system," the president said.
Russia's war with Georgia handed Moscow a quick military victory but serious defeat with international investors, who dumped Russian assets in a selling spree that made the stock market one of the world's worst performing this year.
Medvedev's inaugural speech coincided with Russian stock markets giving up most of the day's big gains, though it was not immediately clear how much was due to international factors.
"This is speech designed very much for domestic audience... and the incoming U.S. administration. This was not a message aimed at investors or the business community," said Chris Weafer, chief strategist at Moscow bank Uralsib.
(Editing by Ralph Boulton)
In an assertive first annual address to the nation, he defended Russia's war with Georgia, appealed to nationalism and attacked Washington's "selfish" foreign policy and "economic blunders" which he said caused the global financial crisis.
The harsh tone and repeated attacks on the United States the day after Democrat Barack Obama's electoral victory surprised some observers who had expected a more liberal style and more detail on how Russia would tackle a financial crisis.
"To neutralize -- if necessary -- the (U.S.) anti-missile system, an Iskander missile system will be deployed in the Kaliningrad region," Medvedev said, referring to a Russian enclave bordering European Union members Poland and Lithuania.
Russia would electronically jam the U.S. system, parts of which are due to be deployed in Poland and the Czech Republic, and Moscow would scrap plans to stand down three Cold War-era nuclear missile regiments, the president said.
"Medvedev was very assertive in his delivery," said Ronald Smith, chief strategist at Alfa Bank in Moscow. "(He) appeared to be staking out strong positions on various issues ahead of the entry of the new American presidential administration."
Medvedev's 85-minute address also included surprise proposals to extend the presidential term from four to six years, a move that may benefit his predecessor Vladimir Putin.
Putin, now a highly influential prime minister, listened attentively from the front row of the audience in the grand, marble-clad St George Hall of the Kremlin and nodded at times as Medvedev spoke.
Still Russia's most popular politician, Putin stepped down in May after serving the maximum two consecutive terms allowed, but is free to return for another two terms when Medvedev's four years in power end in 2012.
Medvedev also announced plans to lengthen legislators' terms by a year and make it easier for small parties to win parliamentary representation. He did not say when the changes might take effect.
Small parties are among the most critical of the government and they were eliminated from the federal legislature under Putin's eight-year rule.
CRITICISM OF UNITED STATES
One day after Barack Obama won the U.S. presidential election, Medvedev reserved his harshest criticism for the United States, blaming its "selfish" foreign policy for Russia's brief war in August with Georgia, a U.S. ally.
"The conflict in the Caucasus was used as a pretext for sending NATO warships to the Black Sea and then for the forceful foisting on Europe of America's anti-missile systems," Medvedev said in his speech, broadcast live on television and radio.
The war with Georgia over the rebel region of South Ossetia was "among other things, the result of the arrogant course of the U.S. administration which hates criticism and prefers unilateral decisions," he added.
Speaking to around 1,000 parliamentarians, top government officials, religious leaders and journalists, Medvedev linked the war in Georgia to the global financial crisis, saying they both began as localized events but took on broader significance.
"We will overcome the consequences of the world economic crisis and will come out of it even stronger than we were," Medvedev, who took office in May, said to applause.
But the financial and Georgia crises also showed the need for fundamental reform of global institutions, he added.
"The lessons of the mistakes and crises of 2008 have proved to all responsible nations that the time has come to act, and it is necessary to radically reform the (international) political and economic system," the president said.
Russia's war with Georgia handed Moscow a quick military victory but serious defeat with international investors, who dumped Russian assets in a selling spree that made the stock market one of the world's worst performing this year.
Medvedev's inaugural speech coincided with Russian stock markets giving up most of the day's big gains, though it was not immediately clear how much was due to international factors.
"This is speech designed very much for domestic audience... and the incoming U.S. administration. This was not a message aimed at investors or the business community," said Chris Weafer, chief strategist at Moscow bank Uralsib.
(Editing by Ralph Boulton)
Iraq: No hasty change in US policy with Obama win
BAGHDAD – Many in Iraq said Wednesday they don't expect an immediate shift in U.S. policy toward their country when Barack Obama takes over as the new U.S. president, despite his calls for a complete withdrawal of U.S. troops within 16 months.
But top Iraqi officials said they do recognize the new president-elect's perspective on the war in Iraq differs greatly from current U.S. President George W. Bush.
"We don't expect any change to happen overnight or any hasty change in U.S. policy and commitment toward Iraq," Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told Al-Arabiyah TV moments after Obama claimed victory over Republican John McCain.
But he acknowledged that Obama "will not have the same enthusiasm and momentum for this situation" in Iraq as Bush.
The foreign minister said Obama told Iraqi leaders earlier this year during meetings in Baghdad and Washington that "any decision that concerns Iraq would be taken after thorough discussions with the Iraqi government and field military leaders."
Salim Abdullah, spokesman for the largest Sunni parliamentary bloc, agreed.
"We are not concerned that he will take a unilateral decision to move troops quickly from Iraq," Abdullah told The Associated Press.
Some Iraqis, however, are eager to see an end to a U.S. military presence they consider foreign occupation. American officials insist the troops are here to defend the Iraqi people against terrorists.
Salah al-Obeidi, spokesman of anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, said Wednesday that with Obama's victory, "we expect that big changes will take place."
The Sadrists are among the most outspoken opponents of the U.S. military presence in Iraq.
Wali Mohammed, a 22-year-old college student in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, said he wants Obama to stand pat on his campaign pledge to pull the 151,000 U.S. troops out of Iraq.
"We hope Obama will stick to his word," Mohammed said.
Other Iraqis fear their leaders and security forces are not ready to take over and don't want the Americans to leave too soon.
U.S. exit polls showed that only one in 10 American voters called the Iraq war their top concern when making their presidential choice, reflecting expectations Obama will focus more on domestic issues and the economy once he takes over.
Obama's election win comes as U.S. and Iraqi officials scramble to reach a deal on a new security agreement that would end the U.S. military presence in the country by 2012 and give Iraqis a greater role in managing combat operations.
Violence has dropped sharply in the country since Iraqi security forces and the U.S. military gained the upper hand against extremists this spring.
But a string of bombings in Baghdad this week have killed more than 30 people, underscoring that insurgents still pose a threat. And U.S. commanders warn the security gains are reversible.
It remains unclear what impact the Democrat's victory will have on negotiations over the security agreement, but Iyad Jamal-Aldin, a lawmaker from the Iraqiya List, said he doesn't expect it "will speed up the signing of the pact."
Opinions in the run-up to Tuesday's vote differed somewhat in Kurdistan, the generally peaceful three northern provinces where Kurds have enjoyed self-rule since 1991 and have used their ties to Washington to defend their autonomy.
Some Kurdish officials had expressed concern that Obama might not continue the close relationship.
Kurdish lawmaker Mahmoud Othman said Wednesday he thinks the Democrat's administration will usher in a fresh approach from Washington toward the Middle East.
"I think that it's a natural change to take place after a long period with the Republicans in office," said Othman, who praised the Democrat's idea of holding talks with Iraq's neighbor, Iran.
In Baghdad, government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said in a statement that Iraq hopes to cooperate with the president-elect to achieve "security and stability in Iraq, to preserve its sovereignty and protect its people's interests."
__
Associated Press writers Sinan Salaheddin and Hamid Ahmed contributed to this report.
But top Iraqi officials said they do recognize the new president-elect's perspective on the war in Iraq differs greatly from current U.S. President George W. Bush.
"We don't expect any change to happen overnight or any hasty change in U.S. policy and commitment toward Iraq," Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told Al-Arabiyah TV moments after Obama claimed victory over Republican John McCain.
But he acknowledged that Obama "will not have the same enthusiasm and momentum for this situation" in Iraq as Bush.
The foreign minister said Obama told Iraqi leaders earlier this year during meetings in Baghdad and Washington that "any decision that concerns Iraq would be taken after thorough discussions with the Iraqi government and field military leaders."
Salim Abdullah, spokesman for the largest Sunni parliamentary bloc, agreed.
"We are not concerned that he will take a unilateral decision to move troops quickly from Iraq," Abdullah told The Associated Press.
Some Iraqis, however, are eager to see an end to a U.S. military presence they consider foreign occupation. American officials insist the troops are here to defend the Iraqi people against terrorists.
Salah al-Obeidi, spokesman of anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, said Wednesday that with Obama's victory, "we expect that big changes will take place."
The Sadrists are among the most outspoken opponents of the U.S. military presence in Iraq.
Wali Mohammed, a 22-year-old college student in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, said he wants Obama to stand pat on his campaign pledge to pull the 151,000 U.S. troops out of Iraq.
"We hope Obama will stick to his word," Mohammed said.
Other Iraqis fear their leaders and security forces are not ready to take over and don't want the Americans to leave too soon.
U.S. exit polls showed that only one in 10 American voters called the Iraq war their top concern when making their presidential choice, reflecting expectations Obama will focus more on domestic issues and the economy once he takes over.
Obama's election win comes as U.S. and Iraqi officials scramble to reach a deal on a new security agreement that would end the U.S. military presence in the country by 2012 and give Iraqis a greater role in managing combat operations.
Violence has dropped sharply in the country since Iraqi security forces and the U.S. military gained the upper hand against extremists this spring.
But a string of bombings in Baghdad this week have killed more than 30 people, underscoring that insurgents still pose a threat. And U.S. commanders warn the security gains are reversible.
It remains unclear what impact the Democrat's victory will have on negotiations over the security agreement, but Iyad Jamal-Aldin, a lawmaker from the Iraqiya List, said he doesn't expect it "will speed up the signing of the pact."
Opinions in the run-up to Tuesday's vote differed somewhat in Kurdistan, the generally peaceful three northern provinces where Kurds have enjoyed self-rule since 1991 and have used their ties to Washington to defend their autonomy.
Some Kurdish officials had expressed concern that Obama might not continue the close relationship.
Kurdish lawmaker Mahmoud Othman said Wednesday he thinks the Democrat's administration will usher in a fresh approach from Washington toward the Middle East.
"I think that it's a natural change to take place after a long period with the Republicans in office," said Othman, who praised the Democrat's idea of holding talks with Iraq's neighbor, Iran.
In Baghdad, government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said in a statement that Iraq hopes to cooperate with the president-elect to achieve "security and stability in Iraq, to preserve its sovereignty and protect its people's interests."
__
Associated Press writers Sinan Salaheddin and Hamid Ahmed contributed to this report.
Hamas fires rockets at Israel after 6 killed
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Hamas militants pounded southern Israel with a barrage of rockets Wednesday, hours after Israeli forces killed six gunmen in a fresh bout of violence that threatened to unravel a five-month-old truce that has brought relief to both Gaza and southern Israel.
The clashes began late Tuesday after the Israeli forces burst into Gaza to destroy what the army said was a tunnel being dug near the border to abduct Israeli troops.
Despite the outbreak of violence, both Israeli authorities and officials with Gaza's Hamas government said they wanted to restore the calm that has largely prevailed over the past five months.
After the Israeli incursion, Hamas gunmen battled Israeli forces and Gaza residents reported the sound of explosions, gunshots and helicopter fire. One Hamas fighter was killed, prompting a wave of mortar fire at nearby Israeli targets.
An Israeli airstrike then killed five Hamas militants preparing to fire mortar shells. Hamas responded with the barrage of rockets.
Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said the rockets were in "response to Israel's massive breach of the truce."
"The Israelis began this tension and they must pay an expensive price. They cannot leave us drowning in blood while they sleep soundly in their beds," Barhoum said.
The Israeli military said 35 rockets were fired, including one that reached the coastal city of Ashkelon, about 10 miles north of Gaza — underscoring the militants' growing ability to strike deeper into Israel.
Police said the rocket landed in an empty area and there were no reports of injuries or property damage. However, the army said four soldiers were wounded, two moderately, in the border fighting.
The violence was the worst since Israel and Hamas agreed to an Egyptian-mediated truce in June.
In scenes not seen for months, Gaza residents crowded into hospitals, as ambulances delivered the dead and injured. Grieving militants in military fatigues fired rounds of automatic weapon fire into the air to commemorate their fallen comrades. Over Gaza City, the thudding sound of rockets being fired into Israel was audible. Unmanned Israeli aircraft, often used to target militants, buzzed in the sky overhead.
Israeli rescue services said their teams in southern Israel had been placed on high alert with ambulances on standby.
While Israel and Hamas blamed each other for the violence, neither would say the truce was over.
"We want to see the quiet in the south continued," said Mark Regev, Israeli government spokesman. "This operation was in response to a Hamas intrusion of the quiet and we hope we won't see an escalation here."
Barhoum, the Hamas spokesman, said the militant group was in touch with Egypt to try to restore calm.
Each side has a strong interest in keeping things quiet. Israel has little appetite for a return to the rocket barrages that have made life in southern border towns unbearable in recent years, while Hamas is interested in strengthening its hold on power in Gaza. Hamas violently seized control of the coastal strip in June 2007.
Israeli defense officials said they had discovered a 300-yard tunnel days ago and concluded the passage was to be used for a kidnapping. Hamas already is holding an Israeli soldier that militants captured in a cross-border raid more than two years ago.
The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because the information was classified, said Defense Minister Ehud Barak approved Tuesday's operation. Defense officials said they knew the raid could jeopardize the cease-fire, but concluded that Gaza's Hamas rulers would have an interest in restoring the calm.
The Israeli army said a special army unit moved about 300 yards into Gaza late Tuesday to destroy the tunnel. It said the unit completed its mission and returned to Israel early Wednesday.
The army called its incursion a "pinpoint operation" required because the tunnel posed an immediate kidnapping threat, but signaled it had no intention of intensifying the fighting.
Israel and Palestinian militant groups reached the Egyptian-mediated cease-fire in June after months of indirect negotiations. The deal halted a deadly cycle of Palestinian rocket attacks and Israeli reprisals.
Sporadic rocket attacks on southern Israel have persisted, but the attacks were carried out by smaller militant Gaza groups seeking to embarrass Hamas for preserving a truce with the Jewish state.
The clashes began late Tuesday after the Israeli forces burst into Gaza to destroy what the army said was a tunnel being dug near the border to abduct Israeli troops.
Despite the outbreak of violence, both Israeli authorities and officials with Gaza's Hamas government said they wanted to restore the calm that has largely prevailed over the past five months.
After the Israeli incursion, Hamas gunmen battled Israeli forces and Gaza residents reported the sound of explosions, gunshots and helicopter fire. One Hamas fighter was killed, prompting a wave of mortar fire at nearby Israeli targets.
An Israeli airstrike then killed five Hamas militants preparing to fire mortar shells. Hamas responded with the barrage of rockets.
Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said the rockets were in "response to Israel's massive breach of the truce."
"The Israelis began this tension and they must pay an expensive price. They cannot leave us drowning in blood while they sleep soundly in their beds," Barhoum said.
The Israeli military said 35 rockets were fired, including one that reached the coastal city of Ashkelon, about 10 miles north of Gaza — underscoring the militants' growing ability to strike deeper into Israel.
Police said the rocket landed in an empty area and there were no reports of injuries or property damage. However, the army said four soldiers were wounded, two moderately, in the border fighting.
The violence was the worst since Israel and Hamas agreed to an Egyptian-mediated truce in June.
In scenes not seen for months, Gaza residents crowded into hospitals, as ambulances delivered the dead and injured. Grieving militants in military fatigues fired rounds of automatic weapon fire into the air to commemorate their fallen comrades. Over Gaza City, the thudding sound of rockets being fired into Israel was audible. Unmanned Israeli aircraft, often used to target militants, buzzed in the sky overhead.
Israeli rescue services said their teams in southern Israel had been placed on high alert with ambulances on standby.
While Israel and Hamas blamed each other for the violence, neither would say the truce was over.
"We want to see the quiet in the south continued," said Mark Regev, Israeli government spokesman. "This operation was in response to a Hamas intrusion of the quiet and we hope we won't see an escalation here."
Barhoum, the Hamas spokesman, said the militant group was in touch with Egypt to try to restore calm.
Each side has a strong interest in keeping things quiet. Israel has little appetite for a return to the rocket barrages that have made life in southern border towns unbearable in recent years, while Hamas is interested in strengthening its hold on power in Gaza. Hamas violently seized control of the coastal strip in June 2007.
Israeli defense officials said they had discovered a 300-yard tunnel days ago and concluded the passage was to be used for a kidnapping. Hamas already is holding an Israeli soldier that militants captured in a cross-border raid more than two years ago.
The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because the information was classified, said Defense Minister Ehud Barak approved Tuesday's operation. Defense officials said they knew the raid could jeopardize the cease-fire, but concluded that Gaza's Hamas rulers would have an interest in restoring the calm.
The Israeli army said a special army unit moved about 300 yards into Gaza late Tuesday to destroy the tunnel. It said the unit completed its mission and returned to Israel early Wednesday.
The army called its incursion a "pinpoint operation" required because the tunnel posed an immediate kidnapping threat, but signaled it had no intention of intensifying the fighting.
Israel and Palestinian militant groups reached the Egyptian-mediated cease-fire in June after months of indirect negotiations. The deal halted a deadly cycle of Palestinian rocket attacks and Israeli reprisals.
Sporadic rocket attacks on southern Israel have persisted, but the attacks were carried out by smaller militant Gaza groups seeking to embarrass Hamas for preserving a truce with the Jewish state.
Apple hires IBM exec to head iPods; IBM objects
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Apple Inc has named a former IBM executive, Mark Papermaster, to head its iPod and iPhone development team, a hire that IBM has vowed to fight in court.
Apple on Tuesday said it hired Papermaster as senior vice president of Devices Hardware Engineering, replacing Tony Fadell, who will stay on as an adviser to Chief Executive Steve Jobs.
Papermaster was until late October vice president of International Business Machines Corp's Blade Development unit, which develops powerful computers for corporate data centers.
IBM last week filed a lawsuit to prevent the hiring, saying that as a top manager, Papermaster had access to IBM secrets and that he had agreed not to work for a competitor for a year.
IBM spokesman Doug Shelton said the case is proceeding.
"Mr. Papermaster's employment is a violation of his agreement with IBM against working for a competitor should he leave IBM," he said. "We will vigorously pursue this case in court.
Apple's statement made no mention of the court case. It said Tony Fadell and his wife Danielle Lambert, who is vice president of Human Resources at Apple, are "reducing their roles" to devote more time to their family.
(Reporting by Franklin Paul, additional reporting by Supantha Mukherjee in Bangalore; Editing by David Holmes and Brian Moss)
Apple on Tuesday said it hired Papermaster as senior vice president of Devices Hardware Engineering, replacing Tony Fadell, who will stay on as an adviser to Chief Executive Steve Jobs.
Papermaster was until late October vice president of International Business Machines Corp's Blade Development unit, which develops powerful computers for corporate data centers.
IBM last week filed a lawsuit to prevent the hiring, saying that as a top manager, Papermaster had access to IBM secrets and that he had agreed not to work for a competitor for a year.
IBM spokesman Doug Shelton said the case is proceeding.
"Mr. Papermaster's employment is a violation of his agreement with IBM against working for a competitor should he leave IBM," he said. "We will vigorously pursue this case in court.
Apple's statement made no mention of the court case. It said Tony Fadell and his wife Danielle Lambert, who is vice president of Human Resources at Apple, are "reducing their roles" to devote more time to their family.
(Reporting by Franklin Paul, additional reporting by Supantha Mukherjee in Bangalore; Editing by David Holmes and Brian Moss)
IPod's "father" leaving Apple
SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) – Apple announced on Tuesday that the employee credited with being the "father of the iPod" is stepping down from his post at the iconic California company.
Apple said iPod division vice president Tony Fadell and his wife, Danielle Lambert, who is vice president of the company's human resources department, are "reducing their roles" to "devote more time to their young family."
While the spotlight routinely shines on Apple's notoriously involved chief executive Steve Jobs, Fadell is said to be the one behind the idea for iPod MP3 players that rocketed to global success and revived the company's fortunes.
"Tony and Dani have each made important contributions to Apple over the past eight years," Jobs said in a release.
"We're sorry to see Dani go, and are looking forward to working with Tony in his new capacity."
Lambert is to leave Apple at the end of the year and Fadell is to become an advisor to Jobs.
IBM executive Mark Papermaster has been hired to replace Fadell. Papermaster's former employer is challenging the move on the grounds Papermaster is contractually restricted from working for a competitor.
Apple said iPod division vice president Tony Fadell and his wife, Danielle Lambert, who is vice president of the company's human resources department, are "reducing their roles" to "devote more time to their young family."
While the spotlight routinely shines on Apple's notoriously involved chief executive Steve Jobs, Fadell is said to be the one behind the idea for iPod MP3 players that rocketed to global success and revived the company's fortunes.
"Tony and Dani have each made important contributions to Apple over the past eight years," Jobs said in a release.
"We're sorry to see Dani go, and are looking forward to working with Tony in his new capacity."
Lambert is to leave Apple at the end of the year and Fadell is to become an advisor to Jobs.
IBM executive Mark Papermaster has been hired to replace Fadell. Papermaster's former employer is challenging the move on the grounds Papermaster is contractually restricted from working for a competitor.
Q&A: Symbian's switch to open source
Symbian, the U.K.-based maker of the world's most popular smartphone operating system, is going through big changes.
As well as being taken over by Nokia, the company is preparing to convert its closed code into open source.
ZDNet.co.uk caught up with Symbian's research chief, David Wood, at this week's Symbian Smartphone Show at Earls Court in London, to discuss the complications of such a process, as well as what the next few years hold for smartphone technology.
Q: It seems as though everyone is waiting for the Nokia takeover to happen before the code starts getting stripped. When is the acquisition likely to be completed? Wood: We expect the approval for the deal sometime in Q4 this year. It's not an exact science. It's been approved in most parts of the world that need to approve it, but there's a small number left. That will happen almost certainly this year, and that will then allow us to do some of the integration. We can't do any integration at all now--it's illegal. What we're doing now is a lot of planning, but no actual change in what we're doing.
In the first half of next year, the Symbian Foundation will be established. On day one, sometime in March or April, the first version of the Foundation software will become available.
What can we expect from that version? It won't be stripped of third-party code yet, will it? Wood: Correct. That will be available only to people who join the Foundation and who sign up to the Foundation license. There will be some parts that are open source.
So the Foundation license is not the open-source license. Wood: The Foundation license is very similar to the open-source license, but it allows the companies to share the code only within the Foundation. It's a community source license, with as much as possible in common with the eventual (open source) license that will take over.
There is some code available as open source from day one, but completion (of the open sourcing) will be sometime in 2010. It's a sensible engineering approach--a stage-by-stage release of the code.
I was speaking earlier to the chief executive of a software firm whose code is currently in Symbian. He said there was no problem in having some proprietary elements within open-sourced code, and that this was acceptable under the GNU General Public License. That doesn't sound right. Wood: We're not using the GPL--it's the EPL (Eclipse Public License). The EPL is indeed able to link to proprietary software. The GPL is less clear. In fact, a straight reading of the GPL says if you link to other software then that other software falls under the same license. Under the EPL, if you link to other software then there's no obligation on that other software to take the same license. EPL is weak "copyleft," whereas GPL is the most famous example of strong copyleft. So I agree with that part, that there could be code that's linked to. This is to encourage innovation.
We're not saying all software should be free of charge. We do realize that there will always be new, interesting software that people will want to monetize by selling for a license. If you change the Symbian code, that has to be given back--you can't hang onto that, so that's the copyleft part of this message.
We're not saying all software should be free of charge. We do realize there will always be software people will want to monetize by selling for a license. But there is code from this company within Symbian's code--won't that have to be scraped out? Wood: Something has to be done, and I don't really want to talk about an individual case, but in principle several things could happen. We could throw money at a supplier, and we could say to them: "We will buy this off you in perpetuity and we will make it available." Or we could say we'll leave this outside the platform and we can put something else in instead. It won't be quite the same, and we might go back to the kind of offering that we had in previous versions of Symbian. It's always possible that someone else will come along and do comparable software and make that available. There should be plenty of ways for companies (whose code is currently within Symbian's code) to recoup their investment, either by selling the software (to Symbian), or by developing a better version and making that available for an additional fee.
Can you give any indication of how many third-party players there are whose code is currently within Symbian's? Wood: There are scores. We have numbers, but it's not clear how many of them are serious cases. In some cases they can be dealt with probably straight away, but scores could take some serious thought. Whether that's nearer 20 or 100, we need to investigate. There's something like 100 cases that we're looking at. In many cases, it looks like it's a trivial solution. In other cases, the software is in a class of its own.
What do you count as "trivia"? Something that can be easily replicated? Wood: Either where it's easily replicable, or where we are confident that we can change the licensing terms. It might be code that's currently under the GPL, so we might pass that through. In reality people will make a phone by taking this and adding in other things that are easily available. So there will be other stuff, GPL, floating around in the broader community. So we will say to people: "Right, you build a phone by taking this Symbian offering and adding in these additional components." Webkit, for example--that's currently under a GPL license.
There are things we might look at and say: "Well, this is easy to solve. It's not an integral part of the system. It will be available as part of what we call a distro." So people will combine what they get from Symbian with other things that are designed to slot in.
So we will see distributions of the Symbian core and some free plug-ins? Wood: Yes, and other plug-ins that people might even pay money for. The point is, there are many business models that are possible. Just as Linux has given rise to many companies that do their labors with Linux, there will be many companies that do things on top of Symbian. We're not looking for different flavors of Symbian in the sense of changing the core, but there will be people who are, for example, specialists in software for navigation devices.
Of course, many of the smartphones are actually navigation devices in their own right, but you can imagine some people might make a navigation device which happens to be a smartphone, as opposed to a smartphone that happens to be a navigation device. There might be people who specialize in that kind of thing and say: "Here's Symbian's offering and we've got some extra navigation stuff that we add in to make us the right starting point."
A lot of manufacturers are likely to bring out Android handsets. Wood: Lots of people will look at bringing out an Android handset. Let's wait and see what actually happens.
Symbian has scale and popularity but Android is starting from zero. It doesn't have to strip out code. For a developer, is there not a period of uncertainty at the moment, because they're not sure of what they're addressing? The message in the keynotes was that addressing Series 60 means addressing the next version of Symbian, but is that actually the case? Some bits may have to be stripped out. Wood: I think that the proportion that might end up being changed in that way is very small. The vast majority of software that's written can be preserved.
For our developer readers, when is that moment of uncertainty going to pass? Wood: It's going to be stage by stage. We have a road map. We will be sharing more information sometime around the middle of (the first half of) 2009. There will be a whole lot more information shared.
What innovations can we expect from Symbian between now and the next Smartphone Show, and how much will the open-sourcing process affect that innovation? Wood: The first phone with Symbian OS 9.4 has been shown, which is the Nokia (5800) Tube device. That runs S60 fifth edition. We have already released Symbian 9.5 to our customers, and there is considerable progress on the next two releases, which you can imagine might be called 9.6 and 9.7. At some stage, they will fall into the new numbering system that will be used for the Symbian Foundation.
What will that numbering system look like? Wood: It's still being discussed. I quite like the idea of staying at 9 forever, because it emphasizes compatibility. But the key thing is, there are two more releases for which we have a road map.
The main core feature for the next releases is twofold. One of them is support for symmetrical multiprocessing (SMP), which we believe is going to be really important for the future. That comes out in two phases: in the release after 9.5 we've made all the software SMP-safe, which means it won't fall over if there are suddenly more processors in there; and the one afterwards is called SMP-optimized, which is when we actually restructure some of the software to run better when there are multiple cores. That will be the software that lands on phones with multiple cores, sometime around 2010.
The Nokia Tube has got pen inputs and there's about five different ways people can choose to input data into that. Will all five be equally important? Probably not, but let the market decide. What is the point in having SMP on a handset? Wood: It will allow the phone to do more without running the batteries to the same extent, because the individual cores will run at a lower clock speed. It turns out, if you have two cores running at a lower clock speed, you can actually end up calculating more but using less power.
People will use this for all kinds of things; to take one example, real-time language translation. Currently most of the real-time language translation services on smartphones tend to rely on server-side work. So you might speak into it, it might send it off to the network and it comes back with a translation. Now, imagine if you could do more of that kind of calculation on the phone.
Then there's all the multimedia applications. Graphics never get poorer--there are more and more pixels and colors, and all of that requires oomph from the processors. If you can spread that out over multiple processors, it delivers a faster user experience and more functionality without running out of battery.
Does Symbian still believe the smartphone will take over from PCs, as it predicted two years ago? The input and display issues remain, and Netbooks have come into the picture. Wood: I don't think we ever said PCs would disappear. PCs will remain--there will be a whole host of devices that remain. But (smartphones) will be more capable and people will be more comfortable using that will more and more features. Take the (Nokia E71)--people are often surprised that it is actually quite easy to type into it even though the keys are so small. There's some very clever hardware design in that. It's part of the overall step-by-step improvements in input.
The Nokia Tube has got pen inputs and there's about five different ways people can choose to input data into that. Will all five be equally important? Probably not, but let the market decide which ones will be most important. That will make input easier. Also, because there are more pixels on the screen and the pictures are clearer, people often say they don't need their big screen anymore. Perhaps phones will come in due course with projectors as well.
The other thing is that the new generation will just automatically be comfortable in using these devices for these extra capabilities. They won't think of it as squashing down what they are used to; they will just grow up learning how to use them, and take it for granted.
David Meyer of ZDNet UK reported from London.
As well as being taken over by Nokia, the company is preparing to convert its closed code into open source.
ZDNet.co.uk caught up with Symbian's research chief, David Wood, at this week's Symbian Smartphone Show at Earls Court in London, to discuss the complications of such a process, as well as what the next few years hold for smartphone technology.
Q: It seems as though everyone is waiting for the Nokia takeover to happen before the code starts getting stripped. When is the acquisition likely to be completed? Wood: We expect the approval for the deal sometime in Q4 this year. It's not an exact science. It's been approved in most parts of the world that need to approve it, but there's a small number left. That will happen almost certainly this year, and that will then allow us to do some of the integration. We can't do any integration at all now--it's illegal. What we're doing now is a lot of planning, but no actual change in what we're doing.
In the first half of next year, the Symbian Foundation will be established. On day one, sometime in March or April, the first version of the Foundation software will become available.
What can we expect from that version? It won't be stripped of third-party code yet, will it? Wood: Correct. That will be available only to people who join the Foundation and who sign up to the Foundation license. There will be some parts that are open source.
So the Foundation license is not the open-source license. Wood: The Foundation license is very similar to the open-source license, but it allows the companies to share the code only within the Foundation. It's a community source license, with as much as possible in common with the eventual (open source) license that will take over.
There is some code available as open source from day one, but completion (of the open sourcing) will be sometime in 2010. It's a sensible engineering approach--a stage-by-stage release of the code.
I was speaking earlier to the chief executive of a software firm whose code is currently in Symbian. He said there was no problem in having some proprietary elements within open-sourced code, and that this was acceptable under the GNU General Public License. That doesn't sound right. Wood: We're not using the GPL--it's the EPL (Eclipse Public License). The EPL is indeed able to link to proprietary software. The GPL is less clear. In fact, a straight reading of the GPL says if you link to other software then that other software falls under the same license. Under the EPL, if you link to other software then there's no obligation on that other software to take the same license. EPL is weak "copyleft," whereas GPL is the most famous example of strong copyleft. So I agree with that part, that there could be code that's linked to. This is to encourage innovation.
We're not saying all software should be free of charge. We do realize that there will always be new, interesting software that people will want to monetize by selling for a license. If you change the Symbian code, that has to be given back--you can't hang onto that, so that's the copyleft part of this message.
We're not saying all software should be free of charge. We do realize there will always be software people will want to monetize by selling for a license. But there is code from this company within Symbian's code--won't that have to be scraped out? Wood: Something has to be done, and I don't really want to talk about an individual case, but in principle several things could happen. We could throw money at a supplier, and we could say to them: "We will buy this off you in perpetuity and we will make it available." Or we could say we'll leave this outside the platform and we can put something else in instead. It won't be quite the same, and we might go back to the kind of offering that we had in previous versions of Symbian. It's always possible that someone else will come along and do comparable software and make that available. There should be plenty of ways for companies (whose code is currently within Symbian's code) to recoup their investment, either by selling the software (to Symbian), or by developing a better version and making that available for an additional fee.
Can you give any indication of how many third-party players there are whose code is currently within Symbian's? Wood: There are scores. We have numbers, but it's not clear how many of them are serious cases. In some cases they can be dealt with probably straight away, but scores could take some serious thought. Whether that's nearer 20 or 100, we need to investigate. There's something like 100 cases that we're looking at. In many cases, it looks like it's a trivial solution. In other cases, the software is in a class of its own.
What do you count as "trivia"? Something that can be easily replicated? Wood: Either where it's easily replicable, or where we are confident that we can change the licensing terms. It might be code that's currently under the GPL, so we might pass that through. In reality people will make a phone by taking this and adding in other things that are easily available. So there will be other stuff, GPL, floating around in the broader community. So we will say to people: "Right, you build a phone by taking this Symbian offering and adding in these additional components." Webkit, for example--that's currently under a GPL license.
There are things we might look at and say: "Well, this is easy to solve. It's not an integral part of the system. It will be available as part of what we call a distro." So people will combine what they get from Symbian with other things that are designed to slot in.
So we will see distributions of the Symbian core and some free plug-ins? Wood: Yes, and other plug-ins that people might even pay money for. The point is, there are many business models that are possible. Just as Linux has given rise to many companies that do their labors with Linux, there will be many companies that do things on top of Symbian. We're not looking for different flavors of Symbian in the sense of changing the core, but there will be people who are, for example, specialists in software for navigation devices.
Of course, many of the smartphones are actually navigation devices in their own right, but you can imagine some people might make a navigation device which happens to be a smartphone, as opposed to a smartphone that happens to be a navigation device. There might be people who specialize in that kind of thing and say: "Here's Symbian's offering and we've got some extra navigation stuff that we add in to make us the right starting point."
A lot of manufacturers are likely to bring out Android handsets. Wood: Lots of people will look at bringing out an Android handset. Let's wait and see what actually happens.
Symbian has scale and popularity but Android is starting from zero. It doesn't have to strip out code. For a developer, is there not a period of uncertainty at the moment, because they're not sure of what they're addressing? The message in the keynotes was that addressing Series 60 means addressing the next version of Symbian, but is that actually the case? Some bits may have to be stripped out. Wood: I think that the proportion that might end up being changed in that way is very small. The vast majority of software that's written can be preserved.
For our developer readers, when is that moment of uncertainty going to pass? Wood: It's going to be stage by stage. We have a road map. We will be sharing more information sometime around the middle of (the first half of) 2009. There will be a whole lot more information shared.
What innovations can we expect from Symbian between now and the next Smartphone Show, and how much will the open-sourcing process affect that innovation? Wood: The first phone with Symbian OS 9.4 has been shown, which is the Nokia (5800) Tube device. That runs S60 fifth edition. We have already released Symbian 9.5 to our customers, and there is considerable progress on the next two releases, which you can imagine might be called 9.6 and 9.7. At some stage, they will fall into the new numbering system that will be used for the Symbian Foundation.
What will that numbering system look like? Wood: It's still being discussed. I quite like the idea of staying at 9 forever, because it emphasizes compatibility. But the key thing is, there are two more releases for which we have a road map.
The main core feature for the next releases is twofold. One of them is support for symmetrical multiprocessing (SMP), which we believe is going to be really important for the future. That comes out in two phases: in the release after 9.5 we've made all the software SMP-safe, which means it won't fall over if there are suddenly more processors in there; and the one afterwards is called SMP-optimized, which is when we actually restructure some of the software to run better when there are multiple cores. That will be the software that lands on phones with multiple cores, sometime around 2010.
The Nokia Tube has got pen inputs and there's about five different ways people can choose to input data into that. Will all five be equally important? Probably not, but let the market decide. What is the point in having SMP on a handset? Wood: It will allow the phone to do more without running the batteries to the same extent, because the individual cores will run at a lower clock speed. It turns out, if you have two cores running at a lower clock speed, you can actually end up calculating more but using less power.
People will use this for all kinds of things; to take one example, real-time language translation. Currently most of the real-time language translation services on smartphones tend to rely on server-side work. So you might speak into it, it might send it off to the network and it comes back with a translation. Now, imagine if you could do more of that kind of calculation on the phone.
Then there's all the multimedia applications. Graphics never get poorer--there are more and more pixels and colors, and all of that requires oomph from the processors. If you can spread that out over multiple processors, it delivers a faster user experience and more functionality without running out of battery.
Does Symbian still believe the smartphone will take over from PCs, as it predicted two years ago? The input and display issues remain, and Netbooks have come into the picture. Wood: I don't think we ever said PCs would disappear. PCs will remain--there will be a whole host of devices that remain. But (smartphones) will be more capable and people will be more comfortable using that will more and more features. Take the (Nokia E71)--people are often surprised that it is actually quite easy to type into it even though the keys are so small. There's some very clever hardware design in that. It's part of the overall step-by-step improvements in input.
The Nokia Tube has got pen inputs and there's about five different ways people can choose to input data into that. Will all five be equally important? Probably not, but let the market decide which ones will be most important. That will make input easier. Also, because there are more pixels on the screen and the pictures are clearer, people often say they don't need their big screen anymore. Perhaps phones will come in due course with projectors as well.
The other thing is that the new generation will just automatically be comfortable in using these devices for these extra capabilities. They won't think of it as squashing down what they are used to; they will just grow up learning how to use them, and take it for granted.
David Meyer of ZDNet UK reported from London.
Motorola to use Android for showcase phones: WSJ
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Motorola Inc. plans to use Android, Google's open-source software platform, as the operating system for its showcase mobile phones, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.
The newspaper, citing "people familiar with the matter," said Sanjay Jha, who took over as Motorola's co-chief executive in August, also plans job cuts at the Illinois-based company.
It said Jha, who heads the struggling mobile devices division in addition to being co-CEO, was expected to detail his plans as early as Thursday, when Motorola reports its quarterly earnings.
The Journal said Jha was expected to announce thousands of layoffs at the company, which has its headquarters in Schaumburg, Illinois, and employs some 66,000 people.
It said he notably plans to cut back on the number of software platforms the company uses in its mobile phones.
Jha is looking at using Google's Android operating system and just two other software platforms -- Microsoft's Windows Mobile and its own P2K platform -- and would abandon at least four other platforms, the paper said.
The paper noted that Nokia Corp. uses just two operating systems for most of its handsets while Motorola has more than a half a dozen.
It said Motorola is hoping that using an open-source platform will spur outside developers to come up with applications that would allow Motorola to compete with Apple's iPhone and Research In Motion's BlackBerry.
The Journal said Motorola was not expected to deliver an Android-based phone until next year
Android is the operating system for the T-Mobile G1 phone which went on sale this month and is Internet search king Google's first venture into the mobile market.
The newspaper, citing "people familiar with the matter," said Sanjay Jha, who took over as Motorola's co-chief executive in August, also plans job cuts at the Illinois-based company.
It said Jha, who heads the struggling mobile devices division in addition to being co-CEO, was expected to detail his plans as early as Thursday, when Motorola reports its quarterly earnings.
The Journal said Jha was expected to announce thousands of layoffs at the company, which has its headquarters in Schaumburg, Illinois, and employs some 66,000 people.
It said he notably plans to cut back on the number of software platforms the company uses in its mobile phones.
Jha is looking at using Google's Android operating system and just two other software platforms -- Microsoft's Windows Mobile and its own P2K platform -- and would abandon at least four other platforms, the paper said.
The paper noted that Nokia Corp. uses just two operating systems for most of its handsets while Motorola has more than a half a dozen.
It said Motorola is hoping that using an open-source platform will spur outside developers to come up with applications that would allow Motorola to compete with Apple's iPhone and Research In Motion's BlackBerry.
The Journal said Motorola was not expected to deliver an Android-based phone until next year
Android is the operating system for the T-Mobile G1 phone which went on sale this month and is Internet search king Google's first venture into the mobile market.
Intel to establish software center in Taiwan
TAIPEI, Taiwan – Intel Corp. announced Thursday it will join the Taiwanese government in setting up a Linux software center in Taiwan to help better market locally produced laptops and mobile Internet devices to the world.
The announcement by Intel Chief Executive Officer Paul Otellini came after two leading Taiwanese computer makers launched "nettops" and "netbooks," cheap and extremely portable laptops with wireless Internet access capabilities.
Both Taiwan-based Acer Inc. and Asustek Computer have adopted Intel's latest Atom chips in their laptops, ranging from $300-$1000. The products allow their customers to choose between the Linux-based and Microsoft's Windows operating systems. Linux is a freely distributed operating system
Otellini told reporters the software development center is being set up as part of Intel's efforts to help Taiwan maintain its competitive edge in the field.
"The center's engineers will provide training and consulting ... to accelerate the adoption of mobile technologies," he said. "These efforts aim to reduce the time to market for shipping Intel Atom processor- and Moblin-based systems."
Moblin is a Linux-based operating system designed to fit nettops and netbooks.
Otellini said Intel Capital, Intel Corp.'s investing arm, intends to invest 386 million New Taiwan dollars ($11.5 million) in Taiwanese WiMAX technology carrier VMAX, making it the 30th WiMAX technology company in the world to get a financial injection from Intel Capital.
WiMAX — short for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access — expands broadband wireless access over longer distances of up to 30 miles (50 kilometers) and reduces the cost of implementing broadband.
Otellini said its collaboration with Taiwan aims to enhance the competitiveness of Taiwan's WiMAX products on the global stage, in line with its endorsement of the WiMAX technology.
Intel's investment will help VMAX to deploy Taiwan's first nationwide WiMAX fourth generation wireless network, Otellini said.
The VMAX service will be available in Taiwan in the first half of 2009, he said.
The announcement by Intel Chief Executive Officer Paul Otellini came after two leading Taiwanese computer makers launched "nettops" and "netbooks," cheap and extremely portable laptops with wireless Internet access capabilities.
Both Taiwan-based Acer Inc. and Asustek Computer have adopted Intel's latest Atom chips in their laptops, ranging from $300-$1000. The products allow their customers to choose between the Linux-based and Microsoft's Windows operating systems. Linux is a freely distributed operating system
Otellini told reporters the software development center is being set up as part of Intel's efforts to help Taiwan maintain its competitive edge in the field.
"The center's engineers will provide training and consulting ... to accelerate the adoption of mobile technologies," he said. "These efforts aim to reduce the time to market for shipping Intel Atom processor- and Moblin-based systems."
Moblin is a Linux-based operating system designed to fit nettops and netbooks.
Otellini said Intel Capital, Intel Corp.'s investing arm, intends to invest 386 million New Taiwan dollars ($11.5 million) in Taiwanese WiMAX technology carrier VMAX, making it the 30th WiMAX technology company in the world to get a financial injection from Intel Capital.
WiMAX — short for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access — expands broadband wireless access over longer distances of up to 30 miles (50 kilometers) and reduces the cost of implementing broadband.
Otellini said its collaboration with Taiwan aims to enhance the competitiveness of Taiwan's WiMAX products on the global stage, in line with its endorsement of the WiMAX technology.
Intel's investment will help VMAX to deploy Taiwan's first nationwide WiMAX fourth generation wireless network, Otellini said.
The VMAX service will be available in Taiwan in the first half of 2009, he said.
AOL.com rolls out homepage redesign
WASHINGTON (AFP) – AOL.com, the web portal of America Online, rolled out a redesigned homepage on Thursday it hopes will become a central station of sorts for Internet travelers by letting people coordinate social networks, email accounts and more without switching from site to site.
The move comes a month after AOL.com, the number four gateway to the web after Google, MSN and Yahoo, revamped its homepage to allow users to preview outside email accounts without having to leave a homepage.
With "My Networks," users can now log onto their Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, AIM or Twitter accounts directly from the homepage and send a status update to all of them simultaneously.
"AOL.com is the first traditional big portal to offer access to popular social networking sites all in one place," said Bill Wilson, executive vice president, AOL Programming.
"Now consumers can connect with their numerous networks and information sources all from AOL.com," he said in a statement.
The new RSS Feed Browser allows users to receive news from other websites and display it in scrollable window at the bottom of the page.
Entering the name of a US city or zip code provides a feed of local news and weather.
Another feature, "Themes," gives users the possibility of personalizing the homepage by choosing a color or backdrop of their own design.
AOL, a subsidiary of media giant Time Warner Inc., was a powerful player in the early days of the Internet but has lost ground since then and is trying to refashion itself as a popular one-stop portal.
The move comes a month after AOL.com, the number four gateway to the web after Google, MSN and Yahoo, revamped its homepage to allow users to preview outside email accounts without having to leave a homepage.
With "My Networks," users can now log onto their Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, AIM or Twitter accounts directly from the homepage and send a status update to all of them simultaneously.
"AOL.com is the first traditional big portal to offer access to popular social networking sites all in one place," said Bill Wilson, executive vice president, AOL Programming.
"Now consumers can connect with their numerous networks and information sources all from AOL.com," he said in a statement.
The new RSS Feed Browser allows users to receive news from other websites and display it in scrollable window at the bottom of the page.
Entering the name of a US city or zip code provides a feed of local news and weather.
Another feature, "Themes," gives users the possibility of personalizing the homepage by choosing a color or backdrop of their own design.
AOL, a subsidiary of media giant Time Warner Inc., was a powerful player in the early days of the Internet but has lost ground since then and is trying to refashion itself as a popular one-stop portal.
Apple Fixes MobileMe Service on the Sly
Apple has gotten to the core of the problems plaguing the company's MobileMe Internet service since its July launch, and has resolved several technical glitches.
Subscribers to MobileMe have been dealing with problems since the service launched and, in an e-mail to employees just weeks after the launch, Apple CEO Steve Jobs admitted the company prematurely released the service. What MobileMe is supposed to do is keep e-mail, contacts and calendars up to date across several devices, including an iPhone, iPod touch, Mac and PC. Instead, it has been a mobile mess.
Challenges have included problems with the Reply All function, Internet Explorer 7 issues, and difficulties with keyboard shortcuts. Other challenges included using the MobileMe Calendar in Mozilla and Firefox 3, and problems with the MobileMe Gallery, where users share photos with friends and family.
Jobs, in his e-mail to employees made public, said it was not the company's finest hour, and the service needed more testing and should not have been launched at the same time as the iPhone 3G, iPhone 2.0 software, and the App Store.
Apple corrected several issues, but did so in stealth mode by not alerting its customers to the upgrade or posting any news about the update on its blog. Instead, the company issued an article about MobileMe's recent improvements and resolutions of known problems.
"Apple is always working to improve MobileMe," the company said. "Since MobileMe is primarily a server-side, or 'cloud'-based, service, the MobileMe team can make improvements and push updates to MobileMe without any action being required of MobileMe customers. Since server-side updates are a bit more innocuous than a standard software update to Mac OS X or Microsoft Windows, it's easy not to notice that updates are occurring. Usually the only hint of these updates is that things just 'work better.'"
Resolutions to Problems
Apple lists several resolutions to each MobileMe problem in the support article and points out changes made to MobileMe's calendar, contacts, gallery and mail.
Resolutions to MobileMe Mail include being able to add contacts, being able to erase a draft message after it has been sent, and fixing problems in replying to messages.
Users also benefit from better performance, according to Apple. Now users see a "loading" message instead of a blank page to show that messages are still being loaded. And performance is said to be improved when a junk-mail filter is enabled.
For MobileMe accounts, there were also some changes. The update now improves accuracy of data-transfer details, addresses an inaccuracy of used storage space in iDisk, and allows users to be fully logged out when clicking "logout."
Those who love snapping photos will be happy with MobileMe's improved viewing experience on an iPhone and iPod touch. And editing a photo's information in www.me.com/gallery will now correctly update the photo on gallery.me.com/membername.
And MobileMe users will no longer make international calls in the middle of the night, thanks to Apple improving the international time-zone handling. Other calendar changes include better performance with a large to-do list, increased performance in Mozilla Firefox 3, and better handling of reoccurring events.
From:yahoo
Subscribers to MobileMe have been dealing with problems since the service launched and, in an e-mail to employees just weeks after the launch, Apple CEO Steve Jobs admitted the company prematurely released the service. What MobileMe is supposed to do is keep e-mail, contacts and calendars up to date across several devices, including an iPhone, iPod touch, Mac and PC. Instead, it has been a mobile mess.
Challenges have included problems with the Reply All function, Internet Explorer 7 issues, and difficulties with keyboard shortcuts. Other challenges included using the MobileMe Calendar in Mozilla and Firefox 3, and problems with the MobileMe Gallery, where users share photos with friends and family.
Jobs, in his e-mail to employees made public, said it was not the company's finest hour, and the service needed more testing and should not have been launched at the same time as the iPhone 3G, iPhone 2.0 software, and the App Store.
Apple corrected several issues, but did so in stealth mode by not alerting its customers to the upgrade or posting any news about the update on its blog. Instead, the company issued an article about MobileMe's recent improvements and resolutions of known problems.
"Apple is always working to improve MobileMe," the company said. "Since MobileMe is primarily a server-side, or 'cloud'-based, service, the MobileMe team can make improvements and push updates to MobileMe without any action being required of MobileMe customers. Since server-side updates are a bit more innocuous than a standard software update to Mac OS X or Microsoft Windows, it's easy not to notice that updates are occurring. Usually the only hint of these updates is that things just 'work better.'"
Resolutions to Problems
Apple lists several resolutions to each MobileMe problem in the support article and points out changes made to MobileMe's calendar, contacts, gallery and mail.
Resolutions to MobileMe Mail include being able to add contacts, being able to erase a draft message after it has been sent, and fixing problems in replying to messages.
Users also benefit from better performance, according to Apple. Now users see a "loading" message instead of a blank page to show that messages are still being loaded. And performance is said to be improved when a junk-mail filter is enabled.
For MobileMe accounts, there were also some changes. The update now improves accuracy of data-transfer details, addresses an inaccuracy of used storage space in iDisk, and allows users to be fully logged out when clicking "logout."
Those who love snapping photos will be happy with MobileMe's improved viewing experience on an iPhone and iPod touch. And editing a photo's information in www.me.com/gallery will now correctly update the photo on gallery.me.com/membername.
And MobileMe users will no longer make international calls in the middle of the night, thanks to Apple improving the international time-zone handling. Other calendar changes include better performance with a large to-do list, increased performance in Mozilla Firefox 3, and better handling of reoccurring events.
From:yahoo
Google Makes PDF Files Searchable
Google has rarely included scanned documents in its search results because it had no way to determine the nature of the content, but that's about to change. The search engine giant says it will use optical character recognition (OCR) software to make it possible for Web surfers to search any Web-hosted document stored in the PDF file format developed by Adobe Systems.
Google is using the technology to convert scanned documents into equivalent text files that can be searched, indexed and returned as responses to Google search queries, noted Evin Levey, a Google product manager.
"This is a small but important step forward in our mission of making all the world's information accessible and useful," Levey said.
A Boon for Books
The company's brute-force application of OCR technology to the Web is also expected to aid Google Book Search -- the ambitious and controversial book-scanning project that the search engine giant first unveiled at the 2004 Frankfurt Book Fair. Ever since, Google has been scanning the book collections at the world's major libraries at a rate of 3,000 book titles per day.
Though the project initially raised copyright concerns, Google has just concluded an agreement with the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers under which Google will be able to expand online access to millions of in-copyright books and other written materials in the United States. The agreement resolves lawsuits that had challenged Google's plan to digitize, search and show snippets of in-copyright books and to share digital copies with libraries without the explicit permission of the copyright owner.
Google's Chief Legal Officer David Drummond says the agreement is truly groundbreaking because it will give readers online access to millions of in-copyright books for the very first time.
"Second, it will create a new market for authors and publishers to sell their works," Drummond explained. "And third, it will further the efforts of our library partners to preserve and maintain their collections while making books more accessible to students, readers and academic researchers."
Pursuing the Holy Grail
Given the continuing exponential growth of multimedia on the Web, however, the text-based nature of today's search-engine technology is clearly inadequate. That's because current-generation search engines can only locate multimedia material that has been tagged in text -- a cumbersome, time-consuming process that content producers often overlook.
This explains why a number of researchers are hot in pursuit of the Holy Grail of search -- the means whereby search engine providers can directly scan multimedia content and match results to search queries and the ad placement requests of their customers. Adobe Systems has already taken a step along the road to producing the next generation of search technology.
In July, the company revealed that it had optimized its Adobe Flash Player technology to enable search engines to index multimedia content produced in the Flash file format -- content that previously had been undiscoverable.
"We are initially working with Google and Yahoo to significantly improve search of this rich content on the Web," explained David Wadhwani, Adobe's vice president. "And we intend to broaden the availability of this capability to benefit all content publishers, developers and end users."
Google is using the technology to convert scanned documents into equivalent text files that can be searched, indexed and returned as responses to Google search queries, noted Evin Levey, a Google product manager.
"This is a small but important step forward in our mission of making all the world's information accessible and useful," Levey said.
A Boon for Books
The company's brute-force application of OCR technology to the Web is also expected to aid Google Book Search -- the ambitious and controversial book-scanning project that the search engine giant first unveiled at the 2004 Frankfurt Book Fair. Ever since, Google has been scanning the book collections at the world's major libraries at a rate of 3,000 book titles per day.
Though the project initially raised copyright concerns, Google has just concluded an agreement with the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers under which Google will be able to expand online access to millions of in-copyright books and other written materials in the United States. The agreement resolves lawsuits that had challenged Google's plan to digitize, search and show snippets of in-copyright books and to share digital copies with libraries without the explicit permission of the copyright owner.
Google's Chief Legal Officer David Drummond says the agreement is truly groundbreaking because it will give readers online access to millions of in-copyright books for the very first time.
"Second, it will create a new market for authors and publishers to sell their works," Drummond explained. "And third, it will further the efforts of our library partners to preserve and maintain their collections while making books more accessible to students, readers and academic researchers."
Pursuing the Holy Grail
Given the continuing exponential growth of multimedia on the Web, however, the text-based nature of today's search-engine technology is clearly inadequate. That's because current-generation search engines can only locate multimedia material that has been tagged in text -- a cumbersome, time-consuming process that content producers often overlook.
This explains why a number of researchers are hot in pursuit of the Holy Grail of search -- the means whereby search engine providers can directly scan multimedia content and match results to search queries and the ad placement requests of their customers. Adobe Systems has already taken a step along the road to producing the next generation of search technology.
In July, the company revealed that it had optimized its Adobe Flash Player technology to enable search engines to index multimedia content produced in the Flash file format -- content that previously had been undiscoverable.
"We are initially working with Google and Yahoo to significantly improve search of this rich content on the Web," explained David Wadhwani, Adobe's vice president. "And we intend to broaden the availability of this capability to benefit all content publishers, developers and end users."
China top target for computer attacks: Microsoft
SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) – Chinese computer users have become chief targets for online criminals, according to a security report released Monday by Microsoft.
The global software giant's latest assessment of threats and vulnerabilities reveals that attackers favor hiding malicious programs in seemingly innocent Web browser applications and that China is their preferred target.
"The majority of (exploits) we are finding is where the local language is set to Chinese," said Microsoft malware protection center general manager Vinny Gullotto.
"It reflects a lot of what is happening in the Chinese market. There is so much going on out there with the Internet today that it seems to be somewhat natural that we might see this happen there."
Approximately 47 percent of software "exploits" found stalking the Internet in the first half of 2008 were in Chinese while 23 percent were in English, the second most common language for attack programs.
These include programs which can record a user's keystrokes or steal passwords and credit card and banking information.
Microsoft security watchdogs say they find higher computer-infection rates in developing countries where fledgling Internet users aren't savvy to tricks and traps used by hackers and online criminals.
"They are exploring this whole new world and not thinking about what problems they might face," Gullotto said.
The weapons of choice for online attacks are "Trojan Horses," software applications hidden inside programs that computer users are duped or coaxed into downloading, according to the Microsoft report.
"The area of concern specifically is browser-based exploits," Gullotto said.
"If you are out surfing the Web, good or bad, there is the possibility some exploit on that page is going to take advantage of you and compromise some information on your computer."
Overall, the number of computer vulnerabilities was down 19 percent in the first half of this year as compared to the same period in 2007. A higher amount of the vulnerabilities that do exist are ranked "high severity."
"Updating is vitally important," Gullotto said of protecting computers by keeping operating systems and other software current.
"The newer technology you have in the environment the more secure situation you are going to be in -- infection rates come down dramatically."
The global software giant's latest assessment of threats and vulnerabilities reveals that attackers favor hiding malicious programs in seemingly innocent Web browser applications and that China is their preferred target.
"The majority of (exploits) we are finding is where the local language is set to Chinese," said Microsoft malware protection center general manager Vinny Gullotto.
"It reflects a lot of what is happening in the Chinese market. There is so much going on out there with the Internet today that it seems to be somewhat natural that we might see this happen there."
Approximately 47 percent of software "exploits" found stalking the Internet in the first half of 2008 were in Chinese while 23 percent were in English, the second most common language for attack programs.
These include programs which can record a user's keystrokes or steal passwords and credit card and banking information.
Microsoft security watchdogs say they find higher computer-infection rates in developing countries where fledgling Internet users aren't savvy to tricks and traps used by hackers and online criminals.
"They are exploring this whole new world and not thinking about what problems they might face," Gullotto said.
The weapons of choice for online attacks are "Trojan Horses," software applications hidden inside programs that computer users are duped or coaxed into downloading, according to the Microsoft report.
"The area of concern specifically is browser-based exploits," Gullotto said.
"If you are out surfing the Web, good or bad, there is the possibility some exploit on that page is going to take advantage of you and compromise some information on your computer."
Overall, the number of computer vulnerabilities was down 19 percent in the first half of this year as compared to the same period in 2007. A higher amount of the vulnerabilities that do exist are ranked "high severity."
"Updating is vitally important," Gullotto said of protecting computers by keeping operating systems and other software current.
"The newer technology you have in the environment the more secure situation you are going to be in -- infection rates come down dramatically."
AT&T to try limits on monthly Internet traffic
NEW YORK – AT&T Inc., the country's largest Internet service provider, is testing the idea of limiting the amount of data that subscribers can use each month.
AT&T will initially apply the limits in Reno, Nev., and see about extending the practice elsewhere.
Increasingly, Internet providers across the country are placing such limits on the amount of data users can upload and download each month, as a way to curb a small number of "bandwidth hogs" who use a lot of the network capacity. For instance, 5 percent of AT&T's subscribers take up 50 percent of the capacity, spokesman Michael Coe said Tuesday.
But the restrictions that Internet providers are setting are tentative. And the companies differ on what limits to set and whether to charge users for going beyond the caps.
Starting in November, AT&T will limit downloads to 20 gigabytes per month for users of their slowest DSL service, at 768 kilobits per second. The limit increases with the speed of the plan, up to 150 gigabytes per month at the 10 megabits-per-second level.
To exceed the limits, subscribers would need to download constantly at maximum speeds for more than 42 hours, depending on the tier. In practice, use of e-mail and the Web wouldn't take a subscriber anywhere near the limit, but streaming video services like the one Netflix Inc. offers could. For example, subscribers who get downloads of 3 megabits per second have a monthly cap of 60 gigabytes, which allows for the download of about 30 DVD-quality movies.
The limits will initially apply to new customers in the Reno area, AT&T said. Current users will be enrolled if they exceed 150 gigabytes in a month, regardless of their connection speed.
"This is a preliminary step to find the right model to address this trend," Coe said. The company may add another market to the test before the end of the year, he said.
Customers will be able to track their usage on an AT&T Web site. The company will also contact people who reach 80 percent of their limit. After a grace period to get subscribers acquainted with the system, those who exceed their allotment will pay $1 per gigabyte, Coe said.
Comcast Corp., the nation's second-largest Internet service provider and AT&T's competitor in Reno, last month officially began a nationwide traffic limit of 250 gigabytes per subscriber. Comcast doesn't charge people extra for going over the limit, but will cancel service after repeated warnings. Previously, it had a secret limit.
Two other ISPs, Time Warner Cable Inc. and FairPoint Communications Inc., are planning or testing traffic limits as low as 5 gigabytes per month, which is easily exceeded by watchers of DVD-quality online video.
Among the largest ISPs, Verizon Communications Inc. is a holdout, and has said it does not plan to limit downloads.
AT&T will initially apply the limits in Reno, Nev., and see about extending the practice elsewhere.
Increasingly, Internet providers across the country are placing such limits on the amount of data users can upload and download each month, as a way to curb a small number of "bandwidth hogs" who use a lot of the network capacity. For instance, 5 percent of AT&T's subscribers take up 50 percent of the capacity, spokesman Michael Coe said Tuesday.
But the restrictions that Internet providers are setting are tentative. And the companies differ on what limits to set and whether to charge users for going beyond the caps.
Starting in November, AT&T will limit downloads to 20 gigabytes per month for users of their slowest DSL service, at 768 kilobits per second. The limit increases with the speed of the plan, up to 150 gigabytes per month at the 10 megabits-per-second level.
To exceed the limits, subscribers would need to download constantly at maximum speeds for more than 42 hours, depending on the tier. In practice, use of e-mail and the Web wouldn't take a subscriber anywhere near the limit, but streaming video services like the one Netflix Inc. offers could. For example, subscribers who get downloads of 3 megabits per second have a monthly cap of 60 gigabytes, which allows for the download of about 30 DVD-quality movies.
The limits will initially apply to new customers in the Reno area, AT&T said. Current users will be enrolled if they exceed 150 gigabytes in a month, regardless of their connection speed.
"This is a preliminary step to find the right model to address this trend," Coe said. The company may add another market to the test before the end of the year, he said.
Customers will be able to track their usage on an AT&T Web site. The company will also contact people who reach 80 percent of their limit. After a grace period to get subscribers acquainted with the system, those who exceed their allotment will pay $1 per gigabyte, Coe said.
Comcast Corp., the nation's second-largest Internet service provider and AT&T's competitor in Reno, last month officially began a nationwide traffic limit of 250 gigabytes per subscriber. Comcast doesn't charge people extra for going over the limit, but will cancel service after repeated warnings. Previously, it had a secret limit.
Two other ISPs, Time Warner Cable Inc. and FairPoint Communications Inc., are planning or testing traffic limits as low as 5 gigabytes per month, which is easily exceeded by watchers of DVD-quality online video.
Among the largest ISPs, Verizon Communications Inc. is a holdout, and has said it does not plan to limit downloads.
Yahoo-Google deal may flounder, analyst says
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – The new search advertising deal between Yahoo Inc and Google Inc is unlikely to win U.S. antitrust approval, and therefore may open the door to a new bid for Yahoo from Microsoft Corp, an analyst said on Tuesday.
Under the revised deal the two companies have proposed to the Justice Department, Yahoo and Google significantly scaled back the scope of their agreement, including shortening the length of the partnership to two years from 10, a source told Reuters on Monday.
Sanford Bernstein analyst Jeffrey Lindsay called the revised offer a "desperate gambit." He said in a note that he expected the Justice Department to defer a decision until next year, and expects the agreement to eventually fall apart.
Should that happen, Microsoft might renew its effort for Yahoo with an offer of around $20 a share, Lindsay said. Microsoft had offered as much as $33 per share for Yahoo earlier this year.
"We expect the DoJ to defer a decision to next year and believe they are preparing for an antitrust showdown with Google," Lindsay wrote. "We expect the Google-Yahoo deal to founder, leaving Yahoo unable to acquire AOL's portal and stuck in a stand-alone value trap."
Yahoo has been in talks with Time Warner Inc about the advertising and content assets of AOL.
Shares of Yahoo rose 4.71 percent to close at $13.35, while Google shares climbed 5.9 percent to $366.94. Microsoft added 4.02 percent at $23.53 on Nasdaq.
(Reporting by Gabriel Madway, editing by Richard Chang)
Under the revised deal the two companies have proposed to the Justice Department, Yahoo and Google significantly scaled back the scope of their agreement, including shortening the length of the partnership to two years from 10, a source told Reuters on Monday.
Sanford Bernstein analyst Jeffrey Lindsay called the revised offer a "desperate gambit." He said in a note that he expected the Justice Department to defer a decision until next year, and expects the agreement to eventually fall apart.
Should that happen, Microsoft might renew its effort for Yahoo with an offer of around $20 a share, Lindsay said. Microsoft had offered as much as $33 per share for Yahoo earlier this year.
"We expect the DoJ to defer a decision to next year and believe they are preparing for an antitrust showdown with Google," Lindsay wrote. "We expect the Google-Yahoo deal to founder, leaving Yahoo unable to acquire AOL's portal and stuck in a stand-alone value trap."
Yahoo has been in talks with Time Warner Inc about the advertising and content assets of AOL.
Shares of Yahoo rose 4.71 percent to close at $13.35, while Google shares climbed 5.9 percent to $366.94. Microsoft added 4.02 percent at $23.53 on Nasdaq.
(Reporting by Gabriel Madway, editing by Richard Chang)
Yahoo, Google revise deal in hopes of approval: source
WASHINGTON/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Yahoo Inc and Google Inc have drastically scaled back the scope of their search advertising deal, a person close to the discussions said on Monday, in a last-ditch effort to win U.S. antitrust approval.
The move comes after Google appeared to be on the verge of walking away from the partnership, which was announced in June to foil Microsoft Corp's takeover attempt of Yahoo. The deal has since drawn scrutiny from U.S. regulators amid a growing chorus of criticism from advertisers.
The two Internet companies have submitted a reworked proposal to the U.S. Department of Justice that shortens their partnership to just two years from 10 years, the source said.
The revised deal also caps the percentage of search revenue that Yahoo can collect from Google at no more than 25 percent, and lets Google advertisers opt out of being placed on Yahoo, the source said.
Yahoo spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler said in an emailed statement the company continues to work with the Justice Department and discussions are ongoing.
Google spokesman Adam Kovacevich declined to discuss the details of the process.
Analysts said the new terms could help the deal get past regulators, but questioned whether such a limited partnership would be financially lucrative to Yahoo, which is a distant No. 2 to Google in the web search market.
Mukul Krishna, digital media global director at consulting firm Frost and Sullivan, described the revised terms as "more of a Band-Aid than the extensive surgery that is needed" for Yahoo.
"This sweetens the deal to go through antitrust red flags and gives (Yahoo CEO) Jerry (Yang) some breathing space, but how much money it would add to Yahoo's top line would be very crucial," Krishna said. "And it doesn't answer the question, what after two years?"
Mark May, an analyst with Needham & Co, said Yahoo's willingness to limit the scope of the deal "tells us that other alternatives are either not available or not attractive at all."
SEEKING ALTERNATIVES
Yahoo has been trying to build an independent growth strategy after fending off Microsoft's hostile bid, even as its stock price has plunged to under $13, well below the $31-a-share the software company offered in February.
The first piece of its alternative strategy was to strike a deal with Google, once its archrival. Yahoo also continues to hold talks with Time Warner Inc about buying the advertising and content assets of its AOL division, sources have told Reuters.
In the meantime, several executives have also left Yahoo in recent months amid uncertainty about its future.
Yahoo said on Monday it will appoint Jeff Dossett, a former Microsoft manager, to lead its U.S. media business replacing Scott Moore, who is leaving the company to pursue other opportunities.
Yahoo also said that Alan Warms, the general manager of Yahoo News, is quitting and will be replaced by Neeraj Khemlani, Yahoo's vice president of programing.
The search ad deal, which would let Google place ads alongside Yahoo's search results, was expected to boost Yahoo's cash flow by up to $450 million in the first year, the companies had said in June.
Needham & Co's May said the benefit to Yahoo might be far less -- between $80 million and $100 million -- than the original target, bumping up the web company's share price by only a couple of dollars if regulators let the deal through.
The deal has run afoul of advertisers who fear high prices because Google and Yahoo dominate the U.S. Web search market. Google's market share widened to 63 percent in August, while Yahoo dropped to 19.6 percent and Microsoft slipped to 8.3 percent, according to comScore Inc.
"It sounds like they are addressing legitimate concerns of the Justice Department," said Evan Stewart, an antitrust attorney with Zuckerman Spaeder LLP. "This is a negotiation ... It sounds like it's getting closer."
The revised deal terms were first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
While the Justice Department does not comment on pending merger matters, there had been hints that it planned to challenge the partnership -- particularly by hiring veteran litigator Sandy Litvack to work on the probe.
Litvack was the department's antitrust chief under President Jimmy Carter and was Walt Disney Co's former vice chairman.
Shares of Google and Yahoo were little changed in extended trading after news of the modified proposal broke. Google edged up $1.51 to $348 from its $346.49 close, while Yahoo slipped 7 cents to $12.68 from its $12.75 close.
(Editing by Carol Bishopric, Tim Dobbyn, Gary Hill)
The move comes after Google appeared to be on the verge of walking away from the partnership, which was announced in June to foil Microsoft Corp's takeover attempt of Yahoo. The deal has since drawn scrutiny from U.S. regulators amid a growing chorus of criticism from advertisers.
The two Internet companies have submitted a reworked proposal to the U.S. Department of Justice that shortens their partnership to just two years from 10 years, the source said.
The revised deal also caps the percentage of search revenue that Yahoo can collect from Google at no more than 25 percent, and lets Google advertisers opt out of being placed on Yahoo, the source said.
Yahoo spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler said in an emailed statement the company continues to work with the Justice Department and discussions are ongoing.
Google spokesman Adam Kovacevich declined to discuss the details of the process.
Analysts said the new terms could help the deal get past regulators, but questioned whether such a limited partnership would be financially lucrative to Yahoo, which is a distant No. 2 to Google in the web search market.
Mukul Krishna, digital media global director at consulting firm Frost and Sullivan, described the revised terms as "more of a Band-Aid than the extensive surgery that is needed" for Yahoo.
"This sweetens the deal to go through antitrust red flags and gives (Yahoo CEO) Jerry (Yang) some breathing space, but how much money it would add to Yahoo's top line would be very crucial," Krishna said. "And it doesn't answer the question, what after two years?"
Mark May, an analyst with Needham & Co, said Yahoo's willingness to limit the scope of the deal "tells us that other alternatives are either not available or not attractive at all."
SEEKING ALTERNATIVES
Yahoo has been trying to build an independent growth strategy after fending off Microsoft's hostile bid, even as its stock price has plunged to under $13, well below the $31-a-share the software company offered in February.
The first piece of its alternative strategy was to strike a deal with Google, once its archrival. Yahoo also continues to hold talks with Time Warner Inc about buying the advertising and content assets of its AOL division, sources have told Reuters.
In the meantime, several executives have also left Yahoo in recent months amid uncertainty about its future.
Yahoo said on Monday it will appoint Jeff Dossett, a former Microsoft manager, to lead its U.S. media business replacing Scott Moore, who is leaving the company to pursue other opportunities.
Yahoo also said that Alan Warms, the general manager of Yahoo News, is quitting and will be replaced by Neeraj Khemlani, Yahoo's vice president of programing.
The search ad deal, which would let Google place ads alongside Yahoo's search results, was expected to boost Yahoo's cash flow by up to $450 million in the first year, the companies had said in June.
Needham & Co's May said the benefit to Yahoo might be far less -- between $80 million and $100 million -- than the original target, bumping up the web company's share price by only a couple of dollars if regulators let the deal through.
The deal has run afoul of advertisers who fear high prices because Google and Yahoo dominate the U.S. Web search market. Google's market share widened to 63 percent in August, while Yahoo dropped to 19.6 percent and Microsoft slipped to 8.3 percent, according to comScore Inc.
"It sounds like they are addressing legitimate concerns of the Justice Department," said Evan Stewart, an antitrust attorney with Zuckerman Spaeder LLP. "This is a negotiation ... It sounds like it's getting closer."
The revised deal terms were first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
While the Justice Department does not comment on pending merger matters, there had been hints that it planned to challenge the partnership -- particularly by hiring veteran litigator Sandy Litvack to work on the probe.
Litvack was the department's antitrust chief under President Jimmy Carter and was Walt Disney Co's former vice chairman.
Shares of Google and Yahoo were little changed in extended trading after news of the modified proposal broke. Google edged up $1.51 to $348 from its $346.49 close, while Yahoo slipped 7 cents to $12.68 from its $12.75 close.
(Editing by Carol Bishopric, Tim Dobbyn, Gary Hill)
Obama Elected President as Racial Barrier Falls
Barack Hussein Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States on Tuesday, sweeping away the last racial barrier in American politics with ease as the country chose him as its first black chief executive.
The election of Mr. Obama amounted to a national catharsis — a repudiation of a historically unpopular Republican president and his economic and foreign policies, and an embrace of Mr. Obama’s call for a change in the direction and the tone of the country.
But it was just as much a strikingly symbolic moment in the evolution of the nation’s fraught racial history, a breakthrough that would have seemed unthinkable just two years ago.
Mr. Obama, 47, a first-term senator from Illinois, defeated Senator John McCain of Arizona, 72, a former prisoner of war who was making his second bid for the presidency.
To the very end, Mr. McCain’s campaign was eclipsed by an opponent who was nothing short of a phenomenon, drawing huge crowds epitomized by the tens of thousands of people who turned out to hear Mr. Obama’s victory speech in Grant Park in Chicago.
Mr. McCain also fought the headwinds of a relentlessly hostile political environment, weighted down with the baggage left to him by President Bush and an economic collapse that took place in the middle of the general election campaign.
“If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer,” said Mr. Obama, standing before a huge wooden lectern with a row of American flags at his back, casting his eyes to a crowd that stretched far into the Chicago night.
“It’s been a long time coming,” the president-elect added, “but tonight, because of what we did on this date in this election at this defining moment, change has come to America.”
Mr. McCain delivered his concession speech under clear skies on the lush lawn of the Arizona Biltmore, in Phoenix, where he and his wife had held their wedding reception. The crowd reacted with scattered boos as he offered his congratulations to Mr. Obama and saluted the historical significance of the moment.
“This is a historic election, and I recognize the significance it has for African-Americans and for the special pride that must be theirs tonight,” Mr. McCain said, adding, “We both realize that we have come a long way from the injustices that once stained our nation’s reputation.”
Not only did Mr. Obama capture the presidency, but he led his party to sharp gains in Congress. This puts Democrats in control of the House, the Senate and the White House for the first time since 1995, when Bill Clinton was in office.
The day shimmered with history as voters began lining up before dawn, hours before polls opened, to take part in the culmination of a campaign that over the course of two years commanded an extraordinary amount of attention from the American public.
As the returns became known, and Mr. Obama passed milestone after milestone —Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Iowa and New Mexico — people rolled spontaneously into the streets to celebrate what many described, with perhaps overstated if understandable exhilaration, a new era in a country where just 143 years ago, Mr. Obama, as a black man, could have been owned as a slave.
For Republicans, especially the conservatives who have dominated the party for nearly three decades, the night represented a bitter setback and left them contemplating where they now stand in American politics.
Mr. Obama and his expanded Democratic majority on Capitol Hill now face the task of governing the country through a difficult period: the likelihood of a deep and prolonged recession, and two wars. He took note of those circumstances in a speech that was notable for its sobriety and its absence of the triumphalism that he might understandably have displayed on a night when he won an Electoral College landslide.
“The road ahead will be long, our climb will be steep,” said Mr. Obama, his audience hushed and attentive, with some, including the Rev. Jesse Jackson, wiping tears from their eyes. “We may not get there in one year or even one term, but America, I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you, we as a people will get there.” The roster of defeated Republicans included some notable party moderates, like Senator John E. Sununu of New Hampshire and Representative Christopher Shays of Connecticut, and signaled that the Republican conference convening early next year in Washington will be not only smaller but more conservative.
Mr. Obama will come into office after an election in which he laid out a number of clear promises: to cut taxes for most Americans, to get the United States out of Iraq in a fast and orderly fashion, and to expand health care.
In a recognition of the difficult transition he faces, given the economic crisis, Mr. Obama is expected to begin filling White House jobs as early as this week.
Who voted for Obama
Senator Barack Obama won the election by gaining an extraordinary level of support among young people, African-Americans and new voters, exit polls show.
Senator John McCain maintained his lead among older voters and evangelicals, but his lead among men evaporated.
The figures from the National Election exit poll, based on interviews with voters at polling stations around the country, show that Mr Obama succeeded in mobilising his key supporters.
And they suggest that the economy was overwhelmingly the most important issue for voters.
YOUNG VOTERS
Mr Obama had an unprecedented level of support among young people and new voters in the 2008 election.
He won the votes of those under 30 by an impressive 66% to 31%, much higher than in any previous election.
He also has a huge majority of those who voted for the first time, who supported him by 71% to 29%.
This compares to just a slight advantage that the Democrats had in this group in 2004, when John Kerry won new voters by 53% to 46%.
Mr McCain retained the Republican advantage among older voters but lost among the middle-aged, who had supported President George W Bush in 2004.
NON-WHITE VOTERS
Barack Obama has made a strong showing among women, exceeding the normal Democratic advantage, while fighting a virtually even battle among men, who went heavily Republican in 2004.
Mr Obama won 56% of the female vote, compared with 51% of women who voted for John Kerry last time.
And he was essentially tied among men, erasing the 55% to 45% advantage that President Bush enjoyed in 2004.
Larry Sabato, political science professor at the University of Virginia, says that the Democrat's appeal to women has been one of the most important keys to his success.
THE PALIN EFFECT
One group that Mr McCain has held on to are evangelical Christians, who make up about one quarter of the electorate.
This group voted by three-to-one for the Republicans despite attempts by Mr Obama to reach out to faith groups - little changed from the previous two elections.
Larry Sabato adds that Sarah Palin's nomination as vice-presidential candidate helped secure this group for Mr McCain.
However, she may have been a negative for his campaign as a whole.
Over 60% of those surveyed said she was not qualified to be president if necessary, compared with 38% who said she was.
IT'S THE ECONOMY
The exit polls suggest that the economy was by far the dominant concern in the election, with 62% citing it as the most important issue facing the US.
Only 10% cited Iraq and 9% terrorism, two issues that dominated the headlines one year ago, while 9% cited healthcare.
Asked what what they thought of the state of the economy, those who said it was in the direst straits were also the strongest backers of Mr Obama.
Larry Sabato says that, barring other factors, a struggling economy has been a strong predictor of success for the party that is out of power.
The enthusiasm gap
Perhaps the biggest factor in deciding the election was the enthusiasm gap - the difference between the intensity of feeling between McCain and Obama supporters.
One-third of the Obama voters were "excited" by the prospect of his victory, as opposed to just 14% of McCain voters.
That enthusiasm translated into more personal contacts, with twice as many Obama supporters having been contacted in person as McCain supporters.
And 80% of those contacted did in the end vote for the Democrat, suggesting targeting paid off.
The National Election Exit Poll is a sample of 10,500 voters surveyed on election day after they have left the polling booth on behalf of AP and the major US TV networks.
Senator John McCain maintained his lead among older voters and evangelicals, but his lead among men evaporated.
The figures from the National Election exit poll, based on interviews with voters at polling stations around the country, show that Mr Obama succeeded in mobilising his key supporters.
And they suggest that the economy was overwhelmingly the most important issue for voters.
YOUNG VOTERS
Mr Obama had an unprecedented level of support among young people and new voters in the 2008 election.
He won the votes of those under 30 by an impressive 66% to 31%, much higher than in any previous election.
He also has a huge majority of those who voted for the first time, who supported him by 71% to 29%.
This compares to just a slight advantage that the Democrats had in this group in 2004, when John Kerry won new voters by 53% to 46%.
Mr McCain retained the Republican advantage among older voters but lost among the middle-aged, who had supported President George W Bush in 2004.
NON-WHITE VOTERS
Barack Obama has made a strong showing among women, exceeding the normal Democratic advantage, while fighting a virtually even battle among men, who went heavily Republican in 2004.
Mr Obama won 56% of the female vote, compared with 51% of women who voted for John Kerry last time.
And he was essentially tied among men, erasing the 55% to 45% advantage that President Bush enjoyed in 2004.
Larry Sabato, political science professor at the University of Virginia, says that the Democrat's appeal to women has been one of the most important keys to his success.
THE PALIN EFFECT
One group that Mr McCain has held on to are evangelical Christians, who make up about one quarter of the electorate.
This group voted by three-to-one for the Republicans despite attempts by Mr Obama to reach out to faith groups - little changed from the previous two elections.
Larry Sabato adds that Sarah Palin's nomination as vice-presidential candidate helped secure this group for Mr McCain.
However, she may have been a negative for his campaign as a whole.
Over 60% of those surveyed said she was not qualified to be president if necessary, compared with 38% who said she was.
IT'S THE ECONOMY
The exit polls suggest that the economy was by far the dominant concern in the election, with 62% citing it as the most important issue facing the US.
Only 10% cited Iraq and 9% terrorism, two issues that dominated the headlines one year ago, while 9% cited healthcare.
Asked what what they thought of the state of the economy, those who said it was in the direst straits were also the strongest backers of Mr Obama.
Larry Sabato says that, barring other factors, a struggling economy has been a strong predictor of success for the party that is out of power.
The enthusiasm gap
Perhaps the biggest factor in deciding the election was the enthusiasm gap - the difference between the intensity of feeling between McCain and Obama supporters.
One-third of the Obama voters were "excited" by the prospect of his victory, as opposed to just 14% of McCain voters.
That enthusiasm translated into more personal contacts, with twice as many Obama supporters having been contacted in person as McCain supporters.
And 80% of those contacted did in the end vote for the Democrat, suggesting targeting paid off.
The National Election Exit Poll is a sample of 10,500 voters surveyed on election day after they have left the polling booth on behalf of AP and the major US TV networks.
McCain: 'We must work together'
Republican John McCain says he has spoken to Democrat Barack Obama and congratulated him on winning the US election.
Speaking of his disappointment he added "we must work together to get this country moving again".
Speaking of his disappointment he added "we must work together to get this country moving again".
Obama wins historic US election
Democratic Senator Barack Obama has been elected the first black president of the United States.
"It's been a long time coming, but tonight... change has come to America," the president-elect told a jubilant crowd at a victory rally in Chicago.
His rival John McCain accepted defeat, saying "I deeply admire and commend" Mr Obama. He called on his supporters to lend the next president their goodwill.
The BBC's Justin Webb says the result will have a profound impact on the US.
He says the American people have made two fundamental statements about themselves: that they are profoundly unhappy with the status quo, and that they are slamming the door on the country's racial past.
Mr Obama appeared with his family, and his running mate Joe Biden, before a crowd of tens of thousands in Grant Park, Chicago.
Many people in the vast crowd, which stretched back far into the Chicago night, wept as Mr Obama spoke.
"If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer," he said.
He said he had received an "extraordinarily gracious" call from Mr McCain.
He praised the former Vietnam prisoner-of-war as a "brave and selfless leader".
"He has endured sacrifices for America that most of us cannot begin to imagine," the victor said.
He had warm words for his family, announcing to his daughters: "Sasha and Malia, I love you both more than you can imagine, and you have earned the new puppy that's coming with us to the White House."
But he added: "Even as we celebrate tonight, we know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime - two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century.
"The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. But America - I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there."
Hours after Mr Obama's victory was announced, crowds were still celebrating in Chicago and in Washington DC.
From red to blue
Mr Obama captured the key battleground states of Pennsylvania and Ohio, before breaking through the winning threshold of 270 electoral college votes at 0400 GMT, when projections showed he had also taken California and a slew of other states.
Then came the news that he had also seized Florida, Virginia and Colorado - all of which voted Republican in 2004 - turning swathes of the map from red to blue.
Projected results have yet to be announced for the states of North Carolina and Missouri, but at 1100 GMT, Mr Obama's share of the popular vote stood at 52.3%, compared with Mr McCain's 46.4%.
"It's been a long time coming, but tonight... change has come to America," the president-elect told a jubilant crowd at a victory rally in Chicago.
His rival John McCain accepted defeat, saying "I deeply admire and commend" Mr Obama. He called on his supporters to lend the next president their goodwill.
The BBC's Justin Webb says the result will have a profound impact on the US.
He says the American people have made two fundamental statements about themselves: that they are profoundly unhappy with the status quo, and that they are slamming the door on the country's racial past.
Mr Obama appeared with his family, and his running mate Joe Biden, before a crowd of tens of thousands in Grant Park, Chicago.
Many people in the vast crowd, which stretched back far into the Chicago night, wept as Mr Obama spoke.
"If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer," he said.
He said he had received an "extraordinarily gracious" call from Mr McCain.
He praised the former Vietnam prisoner-of-war as a "brave and selfless leader".
"He has endured sacrifices for America that most of us cannot begin to imagine," the victor said.
He had warm words for his family, announcing to his daughters: "Sasha and Malia, I love you both more than you can imagine, and you have earned the new puppy that's coming with us to the White House."
But he added: "Even as we celebrate tonight, we know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime - two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century.
"The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. But America - I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there."
Hours after Mr Obama's victory was announced, crowds were still celebrating in Chicago and in Washington DC.
From red to blue
Mr Obama captured the key battleground states of Pennsylvania and Ohio, before breaking through the winning threshold of 270 electoral college votes at 0400 GMT, when projections showed he had also taken California and a slew of other states.
Then came the news that he had also seized Florida, Virginia and Colorado - all of which voted Republican in 2004 - turning swathes of the map from red to blue.
Projected results have yet to be announced for the states of North Carolina and Missouri, but at 1100 GMT, Mr Obama's share of the popular vote stood at 52.3%, compared with Mr McCain's 46.4%.
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