Microsoft Surface trampled at the bottom of the tablet pile this Christmas

While it does have drawbacks just like anything else, Microsoft’s (MSFT) Surface is a great slate for those looking for a fresh new take on the modern tablet. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like very many people were looking for a fresh new take on the modern tablet this holiday season. In a recent note to investors, R.W. Baird analyst William Power recounted recent conversations had at retailers including Best Buy (BBY) and Staples (SPLS). While speaking with sales reps at the stores, Apple’s (AAPL) iPad was the most highly recommended tablet while Amazon’s (AMZN) Kindle Fire line and Samsung’s (005930) Galaxy Tab line were both recommended as alternatives. Microsoft’s Surface tablet, on the other hand, was not pushed by reps at either chain.

[More from BGR: Purported photo of new BlackBerry phone with QWERTY keyboard leaks]

From Power’s note, as picked up by Barron’s:

[More from BGR: Sprint salesman refuses to sell iPhone to customer, says his ‘fingers are too fat’ to use it]

Microsoft’s Surface, which Best Buy just recently started carrying, was not recommended to us by reps without us asking about it specifically. When asked about sales to date, reps noted that the device was new and indicated that early demand has been modest relative to the iPad and Kindle Fire. We would also note that the device was in stock at every store we contacted […] We contacted Staples stores in an effort to further gauge Microsoft Surface sales, though our impression from speaking with reps was tablets are not a major seller at Staples. Tellingly, Staples doesn’t currently carry the iPad. When pressed for details, Staples reps indicated that Surface volumes have been modest to date. Most reps told us that the primary appeal to Surface buyers is the ability to run Microsoft Office. Consistent with our Best Buy checks, the Surface was also in stock at all Staples stores we contacted. Outside of the Surface, the Google Nexus 10 was cited as another strong tablet option.

Further supporting the idea that Microsoft’s debut tablet wasn’t a big seller this holiday season, Twitter user A.X. Ian did a quick analysis of tweets discussing new tablets during a 24-hour period around Christmas Eve.

Based on his data, 1,795 people tweeted about getting a new iPad during that time span while 250 tweeted about their new Kindle Fires, 100 mentioned their new Nexus 10 tablets and just 36 tweets were posted by users who had received a new Surface.

This article was originally published by BGR

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Just Kidding! Shakira's Baby News Is a Prank

Mom & Babies
Celebrity Baby Blog

12/28/2012 at 11:00 AM ET

XPosure

Hold off on the congratulations — at least for now.

News and social media sites lit up on Thursday after Shakira‘s boyfriend, FC Barcelona soccer star Gerard Piqué, posted a message on Twitter, announcing the arrival of their baby boy.

“”Our son has been born!” he wrote in Spanish. “We’re very happy! Thank you all for your messages!”

But the baby buzz was short-lived after the father-to-be’s fan following started calling out the coincidental timing of it all — Dec. 28 is Dia de Los Santos Inocentes in Spain and other parts of Latin America, a holiday much like April Fools’ Day.

And all bets on baby’s birth were officially off when Piqué confessed to his prank with a follow-up message Friday morning.

“He has a name! His name is Innocence!” he Tweeted. “Happy Day of the Innocents to everyone!”

– Aaron Parsley and Anya Leon

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Kenya hospital imprisons new mothers with no money

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The director of the Pumwani Maternity Hospital, located in a hardscrabble neighborhood of downtown Nairobi, freely acknowledges what he's accused of: detaining mothers who can't pay their bills. Lazarus Omondi says it's the only way he can keep his medical center running.

Two mothers who live in a mud-wall and tin-roof slum a short walk from the maternity hospital, which is affiliated with the Nairobi City Council, told The Associated Press that Pumwani wouldn't let them leave after delivering their babies. The bills the mothers couldn't afford were $60 and $160. Guards would beat mothers with sticks who tried to leave without paying, one of the women said.

Now, a New York-based group has filed a lawsuit on the women's behalf in hopes of forcing Pumwani to stop the practice, a practice Omondi is candid about.

"We hold you and squeeze you until we get what we can get. We must be self-sufficient," Omondi said in an interview in his hospital office. "The hospital must get money to pay electricity, to pay water. We must pay our doctors and our workers."

"They stay there until they pay. They must pay," he said of the 350 mothers who give birth each week on average. "If you don't pay the hospital will collapse."

The Center for Reproductive Rights, which filed the suit this month in the High Court of Kenya, says detaining women for not paying is illegal. Pumwani is associated with the Nairobi City Council, one reason it might be able to get away with such practices, and the patients are among Nairobi's poorest with hardly anyone to stand up for them.

Maimouna Awuor was an impoverished mother of four when she was to give birth to her fifth in October 2010. Like many who live in Nairobi's slums, Awuor performs odd jobs in the hopes of earning enough money to feed her kids that day. Awuor, who is named in the lawsuit, says she had saved $12 and hoped to go to a lower-cost clinic but was turned away and sent to Pumwani. After giving birth, she couldn't pay the $60 bill, and was held with what she believes was about 60 other women and their infants.

"We were sleeping three to a bed, sometimes four," she said. "They abuse you, they call you names," she said of the hospital staff.

She said saw some women tried to flee but they were beaten by the guards and turned back. While her husband worked at a faraway refugee camp, Awuor's 9-year-old daughter took care of her siblings. A friend helped feed them, she said, while the children stayed in the family's 50-square-foot shack, where rent is $18 a month. She says she was released after 20 days after Nairobi's mayor paid her bill. Politicians in Kenya in general are expected to give out money and get a budget to do so.

A second mother named in the lawsuit, Margaret Anyoso, says she was locked up in Pumwani for six days in 2010 because she could not pay her $160 bill. Her pregnancy was complicated by a punctured bladder and heavy bleeding.

"I did not see my child until the sixth day after the surgery. The hospital staff were keeping her away from me and it was only when I caused a scene that they brought her to me," said Anyoso, a vegetable seller and a single mother with five children who makes $5 on a good day.

Anyoso said she didn't have clothes for her child so she wrapped her in a blood-stained blouse. She was released after relatives paid the bill.

One woman says she was detained for nine months and was released only after going on a hunger strike. The Center for Reproductive Rights says other hospitals also detain non-paying patients.

Judy Okal, the acting Africa director for the Center for Reproductive Rights, said her group filed the lawsuit so all Kenyan women, regardless of socio-economic status, are able to receive health care without fear of imprisonment. The hospital, the attorney general, the City Council of Nairobi and two government ministries are named in the suit.

___

Associated Press reporter Tom Odula contributed to this report.

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Wall Street heads for longest losing streak in three months

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks fell on Friday, putting the S&P 500 on track for a fifth straight decline, as President Barack Obama and top congressional leaders were set to make a last-ditch attempt to steer the country away from severe fiscal austerity next year.

Obama and lawmakers from both political parties will meet at the White House on Friday afternoon for talks in an effort to agree on a solution before a New Year's deadline to keep large tax hikes and spending cuts from taking effect. Economists say that combination of automatic higher taxes and lower government spending - known as the "fiscal cliff" - could push the U.S. economy into a recession.

Trading was volatile and stocks rebounded from their session lows after unconfirmed reports that President Obama was about to offer a new plan to Republicans.

But investors' pessimism about achieving anything more than a stop-gap deal by the deadline was reflected in the benchmark S&P 500's drop of 1.3 percent so far this week. The broad index was on pace for its worst weekly performance since mid-November.

A five-day decline would be the S&P 500's longest losing streak in three months.

"There's a pretty good chance that we won't have something in hand by year-end," said Jonathan Golub, chief U.S. equity strategist at UBS, in New York. "It should be pretty obvious that that is now the majority case."

Golub, however, said investors were still counting on a deal that would avoid most of the tax hikes and spending cuts next year even if it does come after the deadline.

"It is widely believed that we're going to get a deal," he said. "We are not going to go over the cliff to the extent that we have a huge economic contraction."

With time running short, members of Congress may attempt to pass a retroactive fix to neutralize tax increases and spending cuts soon after the automatic fiscal policies come into effect on January 1.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> fell 65.65 points, or 0.50 percent, to 13,030.66. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> dropped 6.03 points, or 0.43 percent, to 1,412.07. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> slipped 7.29 points, or 0.24 percent, to 2,978.62.

"It doesn't matter which side wins, but at this point, nobody wants to play a game where there aren't rules," said Joe Costigan, director of equity research at Bryn Mawr Trust, in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.

"So everybody is talking about what the prospects are for changes in the rules. But at the end of the day, nothing is happening."

Highlighting Wall Street's sensitivity to developments in Washington, stocks tumbled slightly more than 1 percent on Thursday after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid warned that a deal was unlikely before the deadline. But late in the day, the three major U.S. stock indexes rebounded and ended down just 0.1 percent after the U.S. House of Representatives said it would hold an unusual Sunday session to work on a fiscal solution.

With many investors away for the holiday-shortened week, volume is expected to remain light and that could exacerbate the stock market's swings.

Positive economic data failed to alter the market's downtrend.

The National Association of Realtors said contracts to buy previously owned U.S. homes rose in November to their highest level in 2-1/2 years, while a report from the Institute for Supply Management-Chicago showed business activity in the U.S. Midwest expanded in December.

Barnes & Noble Inc shares rose 6.2 percent to $15.24 after the top U.S. bookstore chain said British publisher Pearson Plc had agreed to make a strategic investment in its Nook Media subsidiary. But Barnes & Noble also said its Nook business will not meet its previous projection for fiscal year 2013.

Shares of magicJack VocalTec Ltd jumped 8.5 percent to $17.67 after the company, which provides VoIP or voice over Internet protocol services, forecast more than $39 million in GAAP revenue and over 70 cents per share in operating income for the fourth quarter. The company also said it has appointed Gerald Vento as president and CEO, effective January 1.

The U.S.-listed shares of Canadian drugmaker Aeterna Zentaris Inc surged 16.1 percent to $2.52 after the company said it had reached an agreement with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on a special protocol assessment by the FDA for a Phase 3 registration trial in endometrial cancer with AEZS-108 treatment.

(Reporting by Edward Krudy; Editing by Jan Paschal)

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Guangzhou Journal | Changing of the Guard: With Focus on Unity, China Looks to Nationalist Past

Shiho Fukada for The New York Times

Tourists at the Whampoa Military Academy, on Changzhou Island in Guangzhou.

GUANGZHOU, China — It was 1926, not long after the fall of the Qing dynasty, and much of China had been divided among warlords. In the south, leaders of the young Kuomintang mustered an army. At its head rode Chiang Kai-shek, who called to his side officers he had helped train, and together they marched north to take down the warlords, one by one.

The Northern Expedition was one of the first major tests for graduates of the Whampoa Military Academy, founded just two years earlier on quiet Changzhou Island, about 10 miles east of central Guangzhou, then known to the West as Canton. Mr. Chiang was the academy’s first commandant, appointed by Sun Yat-sen, the idealistic firebrand who wanted to build an army that would unite China.

The academy, now a collection of two-story white buildings near an active naval yard, stands as one of the most potent symbols of the nationalist movement led by Mr. Sun, which has strong contemporary echoes in the rallying cry that Xi Jinping made to his fellow Chinese after taking over in November as general secretary of the Communist Party.

Mr. Xi has spoken of a “great revival of the Chinese nation,” apparently to be accomplished through further opening the economy, tackling official corruption and building up the military. This month, on his first trip outside Beijing, Mr. Xi traveled to several cities here in Guangdong Province; the tour included visits with senior officers of the People’s Liberation Army and a photo opportunity on a naval destroyer. Though he did not visit the Whampoa academy, the message Mr. Xi was telegraphing was the same one Mr. Sun had relayed a century ago.

“When Sun Yat-sen founded the Whampoa academy, his goal was to unite China and to revive China as a nation, which is exactly the same mission that Secretary Xi is on,” said Zeng Qingliu, a historian with the Guangzhou Academy of Social Sciences who wrote a television script for a drama series on Whampoa. “Under that goal and that mission, Chinese people from all over the world and across the country were attracted to Whampoa.”

In fits and starts since the end of the Mao era, the Communists and the Kuomintang, who decamped to Taiwan after losing the civil war in 1949, have been engaging in rapprochement. The Whampoa academy represents an era when the two sides cooperated for a greater good, and recent exhibitions organized there by a museum portray the Kuomintang in a relatively conciliatory light. That, too, has resonance with Mr. Xi’s clarion call, which is meant to inspire all Chinese, even those outside the mainland, including in Taiwan, to take part in the Communist-led project of reviving the motherland.

The first class at Whampoa had 600 students, 100 Communists among them, Mr. Zeng said. Prominent Russian advisers worked at the school. Zhou Enlai was the political director, and other famous Communists held posts or trained there. But the school was never under the party’s control.

The Kuomintang moved it to the city of Nanjing in 1927, after a split with the Communists, and then to the southwestern city of Chengdu, after the Japanese occupied Nanjing, then known as Nanking. After the Kuomintang moved to Taiwan, they established a military academy there that they called the successor to Whampoa. But when historians speak of Whampoa, they mean the original incarnation of the school, before it moved from Guangzhou, Mr. Zeng said.

Japanese bombs decimated the campus in 1938; it was not rebuilt until after 1984, when plans were made to establish a museum. The white buildings interlaced with thick wooden beams are recreations of the originals. A statue of Mr. Sun overlooks the site from a hill. Military enthusiasts, history buffs and other tourists reach the museum by a 10-minute ferry ride from a quiet pier on the east side of Guangzhou.

On a recent afternoon, a young woman guided a handful of soldiers. They walked along a balcony on the second floor and peered into the recreated rooms, including a dormitory with dozens of simple beds on wooden floorboards, a dining room and Mr. Sun’s office.

Outside the main gate, not far from a black wall inscribed with the names of fallen soldiers, tour groups posed for photographs. Then they walked slowly through the gallery rooms to gaze at the black-and-white photos and paintings that showed, from a party-approved perspective, the history of China’s 20th-century wars.

This year, there was a special exhibition on Chinese soldiers who had fought the Japanese in southwest China, along the Burma Road. The exhibition included photographs of Lt. Gen. Claire Lee Chennault, the American aviator who led the “Flying Tigers” unit in that theater. One showed him with Mr. Chiang.

Mia Li contributed research.

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Apple still said to account for 87% of North American tablet traffic as Kindle Fire, Nexus 7 gain

Apple’s (AAPL) share of the global tablet market is in decline now that low-cost Android slates are proliferating, but the iPad still appears to be the most used tablet by a huge margin. Ad firm Chitika regularly monitors tablet traffic in the United States and Canada and in its latest report, Apple’s iPad was responsible for almost 90% of all tablet traffic across the company’s massive network.

[More from BGR: Samsung looks to address its biggest weakness in 2013]

Using a sample of tens of millions of impressions served to tablets between December 8th and December 14th this year, Chitika determined that various iPad models collectively accounted for 87% of tablet traffic in North America. That figure is down a point from the prior month but still represents a commanding lead in the space.

[More from BGR: New purported BlackBerry Z10 specs emerge: 1.5GHz processor, 2GB RAM, 8MP camera]

The next closest device line, Amazon’s (AMZN) Kindle Fire tablet family, had a 4.25% share of tablet traffic during that period, up from 3.57% in November. Samsung’s (005930) Galaxy tablets made up 2.65% of traffic, up from 2.36%, and Google’s (GOOG) Nexus 7 and Nexus 10 tablets combined to account for 1.06% of tablet traffic in early December.

“Despite these gains by some of the bigger players in the tablet marketplace, there has been a negligible impact to Apple’s dominant usage share,” Chitika wrote in a post on its blog.

This article was originally published by BGR

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It's a Girl for Kings of Leon's Nathan Followill

Mom & Babies
Celebrity Baby Blog

12/27/2012 at 11:50 AM ET

Splash News Online

Christmas came late for this King!

Nathan Followill and his wife Jessie Baylin welcomed daughter Violet Marlowe Followill on Wednesday, Dec. 26 in Nashville, his rep confirms to PEOPLE.

“Mom, Dad and baby are doing well and are so in love!” a rep for the band says.

Violet, who was born at 4:01 p.m. weighing 7 lbs., 13 oz, is the first child for the Kings of Leon drummer, 33, and the singer/songwriter, 28, who announced the pregnancy in June.

“I’m beyond excited/anxious,” Followill, who wed Baylin in November 2009, Tweeted at the time of the announcement.

Baby girl is in good company — she joins cousins Dixie Pearl, the daughter of frontman Caleb Followill and Lily Aldridge, and Knox Cameron Patrick, the son of guitarist Matthew Followill.

– Anya Leon with reporting by Kevin O’Donnell

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Kenya hospital imprisons new mothers with no money

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The director of the Pumwani Maternity Hospital, located in a hardscrabble neighborhood of downtown Nairobi, freely acknowledges what he's accused of: detaining mothers who can't pay their bills. Lazarus Omondi says it's the only way he can keep his medical center running.

Two mothers who live in a mud-wall and tin-roof slum a short walk from the maternity hospital, which is affiliated with the Nairobi City Council, told The Associated Press that Pumwani wouldn't let them leave after delivering their babies. The bills the mothers couldn't afford were $60 and $160. Guards would beat mothers with sticks who tried to leave without paying, one of the women said.

Now, a New York-based group has filed a lawsuit on the women's behalf in hopes of forcing Pumwani to stop the practice, a practice Omondi is candid about.

"We hold you and squeeze you until we get what we can get. We must be self-sufficient," Omondi said in an interview in his hospital office. "The hospital must get money to pay electricity, to pay water. We must pay our doctors and our workers."

"They stay there until they pay. They must pay," he said of the 350 mothers who give birth each week on average. "If you don't pay the hospital will collapse."

The Center for Reproductive Rights, which filed the suit this month in the High Court of Kenya, says detaining women for not paying is illegal. Pumwani is associated with the Nairobi City Council, one reason it might be able to get away with such practices, and the patients are among Nairobi's poorest with hardly anyone to stand up for them.

Maimouna Awuor was an impoverished mother of four when she was to give birth to her fifth in October 2010. Like many who live in Nairobi's slums, Awuor performs odd jobs in the hopes of earning enough money to feed her kids that day. Awuor, who is named in the lawsuit, says she had saved $12 and hoped to go to a lower-cost clinic but was turned away and sent to Pumwani. After giving birth, she couldn't pay the $60 bill, and was held with what she believes was about 60 other women and their infants.

"We were sleeping three to a bed, sometimes four," she said. "They abuse you, they call you names," she said of the hospital staff.

She said saw some women tried to flee but they were beaten by the guards and turned back. While her husband worked at a faraway refugee camp, Awuor's 9-year-old daughter took care of her siblings. A friend helped feed them, she said, while the children stayed in the family's 50-square-foot shack, where rent is $18 a month. She says she was released after 20 days after Nairobi's mayor paid her bill. Politicians in Kenya in general are expected to give out money and get a budget to do so.

A second mother named in the lawsuit, Margaret Anyoso, says she was locked up in Pumwani for six days in 2010 because she could not pay her $160 bill. Her pregnancy was complicated by a punctured bladder and heavy bleeding.

"I did not see my child until the sixth day after the surgery. The hospital staff were keeping her away from me and it was only when I caused a scene that they brought her to me," said Anyoso, a vegetable seller and a single mother with five children who makes $5 on a good day.

Anyoso said she didn't have clothes for her child so she wrapped her in a blood-stained blouse. She was released after relatives paid the bill.

One woman says she was detained for nine months and was released only after going on a hunger strike. The Center for Reproductive Rights says other hospitals also detain non-paying patients.

Judy Okal, the acting Africa director for the Center for Reproductive Rights, said her group filed the lawsuit so all Kenyan women, regardless of socio-economic status, are able to receive health care without fear of imprisonment. The hospital, the attorney general, the City Council of Nairobi and two government ministries are named in the suit.

___

Associated Press reporter Tom Odula contributed to this report.

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Dow falls more than 1 percent

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Dow fell 1 percent as stocks added to losses on Thursday. The Nasdaq and S&P 500 earlier declined more than 1 percent, with worries about the U.S. "fiscal cliff" after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid warned the United States appeared poised to head over it.

The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> was down 143.83 points, or 1.10 percent, at 12,970.76. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> was down 17.60 points, or 1.24 percent, at 1,402.23. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.ixic> was down 38.09 points, or 1.27 percent, at 2,952.07.

(Reporting By Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Kenneth Barry)

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Shinzo Abe Selected as Japan’s Prime Minister

TOKYO — Parliament formally elected Shinzo Abe as prime minister on Wednesday, ending a three-year break from decades of near-constant rule by his conservative Liberal Democratic Party.

The victory puts Mr. Abe, 58, a former prime minister and an outspoken nationalist, at Japan’s helm as it faces the growing burden of its aging population, years of industrial decline and the challenge of an increasingly assertive China. The change in prime ministers is the seventh in six years, a high turnover that is itself a sign of the nation’s inability to escape its long economic funk.

Mr. Abe won the support of 328 members of the 480-seat lower house, a total that included votes from the Liberal Democrats’ coalition partner, a small Buddhist party.

Mr. Abe’s pro-business party won a landslide victory over the left-leaning Democratic Party in lower-house elections on Dec. 16. Earlier on Wednesday, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and his cabinet resigned to make way for the new leader.

Despite Mr. Abe’s vows to strengthen control of a chain of islands in the East China Sea that both Japan and China claim, he has played down any confrontations between Tokyo and its Asian neighbors since the elections, instead focusing his agenda on lifting Japan’s economy out of recession before the upper-house elections next summer.

Mr. Abe has vowed to encourage growth quickly by offering 10 trillion yen, or about $120 billion, in public works and other emergency stimulus spending. He has also promised to force the central bank to move more aggressively to combat deflation and to weaken the value of the yen, actions that would offer relief to beleaguered export industries by making Japanese products cheaper abroad.

The measures are intended to revive the economy ahead of the elections in June, to give Mr. Abe’s party a better chance of winning the upper house and, with it, control of Parliament. Mr. Abe will have to hurry to retain the support of Japan’s weary voters, who have shown themselves quick to turn against leaders who fail to deliver on promises of change.

Immediately after the vote on Wednesday, Mr. Abe began appointing a cabinet filled with relatively young and unknown faces. While many of these appointees are Mr. Abe’s friends, the fresh lineup is also apparently intended to emphasize that the party has changed since it was driven from power three years ago.

Among the few veterans in the cabinet is Taro Aso, 72, a former prime minister, who was appointed finance minister. The post of foreign minister went to Fumio Kishida, 55, a former minister in charge of Okinawan affairs. He is expected to try to smooth ties with the United States, which have been frayed by a dispute over an American air base on Okinawa.

Mr. Abe will face other early challenges, like bridging a rift within his party over whether Japan should join a new regional free-trade agreement led by the United States. The pact, called the Trans-Pacific Partnership, is supported by business leaders but opposed by farmers, two groups that are among the staunchest supporters of the Liberal Democrats.

Another challenge will be responding to China’s stepped-up efforts to assert its claims to the disputed islands, which Japan calls the Senkaku and China calls the Diaoyu. Chinese ships and, more recently, aircraft now make almost daily incursions into Japanese-controlled waters and airspace near the islands, with no signs of letting up.

Mr. Abe has been vague about whether he will shift his energies to his long-held desire to rewrite Japan’s antiwar Constitution to allow for a full-fledged military.

Mr. Abe and other conservatives say such a step is needed for Japan to stand up for itself in light of China’s growing strength, and to share more of the regional security burden with the United States. However, the move could also be seen as provocative by China and South Korea, two victims of Japan’s World War II-era militaristic policies.

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