BlackBerry searching high and low in India, Indonesia

NEW DELHI/JAKARTA (Reuters) – Research in Motion Ltd must chart a tough course in its two key emerging markets of India and Indonesia: quickly launch cheaper handsets to woo lower-end subscribers while restoring its tattered brand among the countries’ status-conscious.

The company, which is rebranding itself BlackBerry after its best-known smartphone, has won millions of followers in these two Asian countries, mostly by selling cheaper handsets and offering service packages as low as $ 2 a month. So it’s unlikely that the Z10 model introduced last week, which operators in India expect to sell for around $ 750, will appeal to the users it must reach if it is to build market share.

“It’s clear that not only are India and Indonesia among the largest markets but in terms of future smartphone growth, they’re amongst the ones with the most potential,” said Melissa Chau, senior research manager at technology research group IDC in Singapore. “But the two devices that have been launched are not well aligned to the needs of these two markets.”

While the company does not break down its sales by country, data from IDC shows that Indonesia was BlackBerry’s biggest market outside the United States and Britain last year, while India was ninth.

ABI Research said that BlackBerry accounted for nearly half of Indonesia’s smartphone shipments in 2012. Compare this with a global share of just 5.3 percent. In India, the world’s second-largest mobile phone market, BlackBerry ranks third after Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and Nokia.

In both countries, young people are drawn by low-cost handsets allowing them to communicate for free on the BlackBerry Messaging Service (BBM). Almost all carriers offer services for the device. Indonesia’s XL Axiata Tbk PT, for example, saw a 45 percent jump in BlackBerry subscribers last financial year after offering packages for as little as 20 cents per day.

But this picture is changing rapidly.

The rise of messaging services such as WhatsApp that are not confined to any single operating system and the proliferation of cheap Android devices have diluted the BlackBerry’s appeal.

Mickey Nayoan, a 32-year old product designer in Jakarta, swapped his BlackBerry for a Samsung phone six months ago and isn’t missing it.

“I survived without BlackBerry because there’s WhatsApp,” he said. “More and more people use it and so I don’t need BBM anymore.”

At the same time, higher-end users have deserted what is increasingly seen as a low-end brand.

“When they came up with the cheaper versions, that took the allure off the brand for many Indonesians who are very status-conscious,” said Ong Hock Chuan, a Jakarta-based communications consultant.

ANDROID MAKES INROADS

While BlackBerry remained the number one smartphone brand in Indonesia in the second quarter of last year, the most recent period for which rankings were available, Android overtook it as the most popular operating system, according to IDC.

IDC said when it released the data last September that this was partly because of delays in the launch of the BlackBerry 10. The Z10 is likely to launch in the second half of February in India and in late March in Indonesia.

Data from StatCounter, a website which estimates mobile web traffic, shows BlackBerry’s share in Indonesia falling from about 20 percent in 2011 to about 5 percent last year.

On the other hand, carriers and users say, glitches with BlackBerry services and a perception that the brand has lost some of its luster mean that it will be hard to sell the Z10 and a keyboard model, the Q10, even to better-off users.

“It really depends on how BlackBerry 10 performs. If it can fix problems of previous BlackBerry (services) it could succeed in the market,” said Hasnul Suhaimi, CEO of Indonesia’s XL Axiata. But for now, he said, “it will just be about people swapping out existing devices.”

To reverse this, BlackBerry must announce cheaper devices quickly, analysts say. BlackBerry launched handsets designed on its old platform for just such users in India and Indonesia last year.

“The Z10… is obviously a high-end product and India is not a market at that price point,” said Anshul Gupta, an industry analyst at technology advisory firm Gartner in Mumbai. “We don’t know exactly what will be coming here, but I would expect them to launch different models in India which would give them more traction.”

(Additional reporting by Henry Foy in Mumbai and Jeremy Wagstaff in Singapore; Writing by Jeremy Wagstaff; Editing by Emily Kaiser)

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Kirkuk Suicide Bomber Kills Dozesn

BAGHDAD — A suicide car bomber attacked a provincial police headquarters in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk on Sunday morning, the police and the city’s civil defense director said, killing at least 36 people and wounding 105. Three other suicide attackers who tried to enter the police headquarters after the blast were killed by the police.

Security forces cordoned off the site and closed government buildings and the main roads in Kirkuk as ambulances took the wounded to a hospital. The commander of the Kirkuk police was among those wounded and was taken to Erbil for treatment.

Nauzad Mohamed, a police officer who was wounded in the attack, said the bomber was “driving a police car and wearing a police uniform.”

“The explosion happened when we asked him to stop for a search,” Mr. Mohamed said. “Then everything collapsed. I can’t believe I survived.”

After the blast, others attacked the police headquarters on foot.

Faris Mustafa, a police officer who also was wounded, said: “I saw the three suicide bombers running into the police building. They were throwing hand grenades at us. We opened fire on them and killed them immediately.”

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. Kirkuk’s governor blamed terrorist gangs seeking to destabilize the city, about 180 miles north of Baghdad.

Kurdish troops and Iraqi government security forces have been sharing responsibility for security in Kirkuk. Kurds want to incorporate it into their semiautonomous region in northern Iraq, but Arabs and Turkmens in the city oppose such a move.

The attack on Sunday was the third in recent weeks in the area.

An employee of The New York Times contributed reporting from Kirkuk, Iraq.

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Gasol help Lakers hold on to beat Pistons 98-97

AUBURN HILLS, Mich. (AP) — Pau Gasol had 23 points and 10 rebounds and was the last line of defense for Los Angeles, contesting Detroit's last-second alley-oop attempt and helping the Lakers hold on for a 98-97 victory over the Pistons on Sunday.

Los Angeles blew an 18-point third-quarter lead but went back ahead for good on Kobe Bryant's driving three-point play with 1:09 remaining. That gave the Lakers a 98-95 lead, and they held on despite missing four free throws in the final 16.8 seconds.

The normally reliable Steve Nash missed two with 2.7 seconds left, giving Detroit one more chance. Down by one, the Pistons inbounded from midcourt with 1.2 seconds to play. They tried a lob to rookie big man Andre Drummond, but with Gasol contesting the play, Drummond couldn't convert his one-handed dunk attempt.

The Lakers have won five of six, including their last two games without Dwight Howard. The All-Star center has been out with a right shoulder problem.

Detroit was still without guard Jose Calderon, who the Pistons acquired from Toronto on Wednesday. Calderon has not been available to play because of unresolved visa issues.

The Lakers trail eighth-place Houston by 3½ games in the Western Conference playoff race.

Bryant scored 18 points but shot poorly from the perimeter. After an airball with the score tied at 95, he decided to drive to the basket the next time down. Bryant muscled through a foul and scored a basket that was counted on a continuation call.

Detroit's Will Bynum cut the lead to one, and after Gasol missed, Drummond missed a baseline fadeaway that would have given the Pistons the lead. Earl Clark missed two free throws for Los Angeles with 16.8 seconds left, but Bynum's driving shot over Gasol went off the glass and rattled in and out.

Nash entered the game as a 90.4-percent free throw shooter for his career — the top mark in NBA history for players with at least 1,200 attempts.

When he missed two in the final seconds, the Pistons shockingly had a chance to win, but Drummond just missed his dunk attempt and looked surprised that no foul was called on the play.

The Lakers scored 10 straight points early in the third quarter to take a 72-54 lead. Bryant highlighted that run with a one-handed dunk while Detroit's Brandon Knight tried in vain to prevent an easy basket.

The Pistons rallied quickly, with the 6-foot-11 Drummond showing off his athleticism around the basket. Drummond's two-handed dunk over Gasol made it 76-70, and the Lakers led 78-72 after three.

Bynum had 18 points and 10 assists for the Pistons, and Greg Monroe added 20 points and 12 rebounds.

Clark had 17 points for Los Angeles. Nash had 11 points and 10 assists.

Detroit's Rodney Stuckey was called for his third foul in the first quarter, then picked up a technical to boot. The Pistons did their best to exploit the Lakers in transition, but Knight missed a layup in the second quarter, and Kyle Singler missed one of his own moments later.

Detroit turned the ball over nine times in the half, and the Pistons finished the second quarter with a terrible defensive breakdown. Bryant was inbounding around midcourt with 0.4 seconds left in the half, and Clark somehow slipped free for an alley-oop dunk at the buzzer that gave Los Angeles a 62-51 lead.

The Lakers did a better job defending that situation on the final play of the game.

NOTES: Knight became tangled with Metta World Peace of the Lakers with 1:43 left in the first half. That got a rise out of the crowd, which no doubt remembered World Peace's role in the infamous "Malice at the Palace" brawl on the Pistons' court in 2004. World Peace was assessed a flagrant foul this time, but the situation didn't escalate. ... Bryant had five assists, snapping his streak of five straight games with at least eight.

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Concerns About A.D.H.D. Practices and Amphetamine Addiction

Before his addiction, Richard Fee was a popular college class president and aspiring medical student. "You keep giving Adderall to my son, you're going to kill him," said Rick Fee, Richard's father, to one of his son's doctors.

VIRGINIA BEACH — Every morning on her way to work, Kathy Fee holds her breath as she drives past the squat brick building that houses Dominion Psychiatric Associates.

Matt Eich for The New York Times

MENTAL HEALTH CLINIC Dominion Psychiatric Associates in Virginia Beach, where Richard Fee was treated by Dr. Waldo M. Ellison. After observing Richard and hearing his complaints about concentration, Dr. Ellison diagnosed attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and prescribed the stimulant Adderall.

It was there that her son, Richard, visited a doctor and received prescriptions for Adderall, an amphetamine-based medication for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. It was in the parking lot that she insisted to Richard that he did not have A.D.H.D., not as a child and not now as a 24-year-old college graduate, and that he was getting dangerously addicted to the medication. It was inside the building that her husband, Rick, implored Richard’s doctor to stop prescribing him Adderall, warning, “You’re going to kill him.”

It was where, after becoming violently delusional and spending a week in a psychiatric hospital in 2011, Richard met with his doctor and received prescriptions for 90 more days of Adderall. He hanged himself in his bedroom closet two weeks after they expired.

The story of Richard Fee, an athletic, personable college class president and aspiring medical student, highlights widespread failings in the system through which five million Americans take medication for A.D.H.D., doctors and other experts said.

Medications like Adderall can markedly improve the lives of children and others with the disorder. But the tunnel-like focus the medicines provide has led growing numbers of teenagers and young adults to fake symptoms to obtain steady prescriptions for highly addictive medications that carry serious psychological dangers. These efforts are facilitated by a segment of doctors who skip established diagnostic procedures, renew prescriptions reflexively and spend too little time with patients to accurately monitor side effects.

Richard Fee’s experience included it all. Conversations with friends and family members and a review of detailed medical records depict an intelligent and articulate young man lying to doctor after doctor, physicians issuing hasty diagnoses, and psychiatrists continuing to prescribe medication — even increasing dosages — despite evidence of his growing addiction and psychiatric breakdown.

Very few people who misuse stimulants devolve into psychotic or suicidal addicts. But even one of Richard’s own physicians, Dr. Charles Parker, characterized his case as a virtual textbook for ways that A.D.H.D. practices can fail patients, particularly young adults. “We have a significant travesty being done in this country with how the diagnosis is being made and the meds are being administered,” said Dr. Parker, a psychiatrist in Virginia Beach. “I think it’s an abnegation of trust. The public needs to say this is totally unacceptable and walk out.”

Young adults are by far the fastest-growing segment of people taking A.D.H.D medications. Nearly 14 million monthly prescriptions for the condition were written for Americans ages 20 to 39 in 2011, two and a half times the 5.6 million just four years before, according to the data company I.M.S. Health. While this rise is generally attributed to the maturing of adolescents who have A.D.H.D. into young adults — combined with a greater recognition of adult A.D.H.D. in general — many experts caution that savvy college graduates, freed of parental oversight, can legally and easily obtain stimulant prescriptions from obliging doctors.

“Any step along the way, someone could have helped him — they were just handing out drugs,” said Richard’s father. Emphasizing that he had no intention of bringing legal action against any of the doctors involved, Mr. Fee said: “People have to know that kids are out there getting these drugs and getting addicted to them. And doctors are helping them do it.”

“...when he was in elementary school he fidgeted, daydreamed and got A’s. he has been an A-B student until mid college when he became scattered and he wandered while reading He never had to study. Presently without medication, his mind thinks most of the time, he procrastinated, he multitasks not finishing in a timely manner.”

Dr. Waldo M. Ellison

Richard Fee initial evaluation

Feb. 5, 2010

Richard began acting strangely soon after moving back home in late 2009, his parents said. He stayed up for days at a time, went from gregarious to grumpy and back, and scrawled compulsively in notebooks. His father, while trying to add Richard to his health insurance policy, learned that he was taking Vyvanse for A.D.H.D.

Richard explained to him that he had been having trouble concentrating while studying for medical school entrance exams the previous year and that he had seen a doctor and received a diagnosis. His father reacted with surprise. Richard had never shown any A.D.H.D. symptoms his entire life, from nursery school through high school, when he was awarded a full academic scholarship to Greensboro College in North Carolina. Mr. Fee also expressed concerns about the safety of his son’s taking daily amphetamines for a condition he might not have.

“The doctor wouldn’t give me anything that’s bad for me,” Mr. Fee recalled his son saying that day. “I’m not buying it on the street corner.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 3, 2013

An earlier version of a quote appearing with the home page presentation of this article misspelled the name of a medication. It is Adderall, not Aderall.

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Iceland, Prosecutor of Bankers, Sees Meager Returns

Ilvy Njiokiktjien for The New York Times

"Greed is not a crime. But the question is: where does greed lead?" said Olafur Hauksson, a special prosecutor in Reykjavik.

REYKJAVIK, Iceland — As chief of police in a tiny fishing town for 11 years, Olafur Hauksson developed what he thought was a basic understanding of the criminal mind. The typical lawbreaker, he said, recalling his many encounters with small-time criminals, “clearly knows that he crossed the line” and generally sees “the difference between right and wrong.”

Today, the burly, 48-year-old former policeman is struggling with a very different sort of suspect. Reassigned to Reykjavik, the Icelandic capital, to lead what has become one of the world’s most sweeping investigation into the bankers whose actions contributed to the global financial crisis in 2008, Mr. Hauksson now faces suspects who “are not aware of when they crossed the line” and “defend their actions every step of the way.”

With the global economy still struggling to recover from the financial maelstrom five years ago, governments around the world have been criticized for largely failing to punish the bankers who were responsible for the calamity. But even here in Iceland, a country of just 320,000 that has gone after financiers with far more vigor than the United States and other countries hit by the crisis, obtaining criminal convictions has proved devilishly difficult.

Public hostility toward bankers is so strong in Iceland that “it is easier to say you are dealing drugs than to say you’re a banker,” said Thorvaldur Sigurjonsson, the former head of trading for Kaupthing, a once high-flying bank that crumbled. He has been called in for questioning by Mr. Hauksson’s office but has not been charged with any wrongdoing.

Yet, in the four years since the Icelandic Parliament passed a law ordering the appointment of an unnamed special prosecutor to investigate those blamed for the country’s spectacular meltdown in 2008, only a handful of bankers have been convicted.

Ministers in a left-leaning coalition government elected after the crash agree that the wheels of justice have ground slowly, but they call for patience, explaining that the process must follow the law, not vengeful passions.

“We are not going after people just to satisfy public anger,” said Steingrimur J. Sigfusson, Iceland’s minister of industry, a former finance minister and leader of the Left-Green Movement that is part of the governing coalition.

Hordur Torfa, a popular singer-songwriter who helped organize protests that forced the previous conservative government to resign, acknowledged that “people are getting impatient” but said they needed to accept that “this is not the French Revolution. I don’t believe in taking bankers out and hanging them or shooting them.”

Others are less patient. “The whole process is far too slow,” said Thorarinn Einarsson, a left-wing activist. “It only shows that ‘banksters’ can get away with doing whatever they want.”

Mr. Hauksson, the special prosecutor, said he was frustrated by the slow pace but thought it vital that his office scrupulously follow legal procedure. “Revenge is not something we want as our main driver in this process. Our work must be proper today and be seen as proper in the future,” he said.

Part of the difficulty in prosecuting bankers, he said, is that the law is often unclear on what constitutes a criminal offense in high finance. “Greed is not a crime,” he noted. “But the question is: where does greed lead?”

Mr. Hauksson said it was often easy to show that bankers violated their own internal rules for lending and other activities, but “as in all cases involving theft or fraud, the most difficult thing is proving intent.”

And there are the bankers themselves. Those who have been brought in for questioning often bristle at being asked to account for their actions. “They are not used to being questioned. These people are not used to finding themselves in this situation,” Mr. Hauksson said. They also hire expensive lawyers.

The special prosecutor’s office initially had only five staff members but now has more than 100 investigators, lawyers and financial experts, and it has relocated to a big new office. It has opened about 100 cases, with more than 120 people now under investigation for possible crimes relating to an Icelandic financial sector that grew so big it dwarfed the rest of the economy.

To help ease Mr. Hauksson’s task, legislators amended the law to allow investigators easy access to confidential bank information, something that previously required a court order.

Parliament also voted to put the country’s prime minister at the time of the banking debacle on trial for negligence before a special tribunal. (A proposal to try his cabinet failed.) Mr. Hauksson was not involved in the case against the former leader, Geir H. Haarde, who last year was found guilty of failing to keep ministers properly informed about the 2008 crisis but was acquitted on more serious charges that could have resulted in a prison sentence.

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The Next PlayStation: 5 Lessons I Hope Sony’s Learned

From wishful thinking to shockingly sudden all-but-certainty, Sony‘s next game system may be here at last (I’ll try to avoid calling it things Sony hasn’t, like “PlayStation 4″ or “Orbis”), apparently head-faking Microsoft to debut earlier than expected at what’ll no doubt be a media circus in New York (and online) come Feb. 20.

The event invite cleared my inbox last night accompanied by, well, see for yourself in Sony’s slick dubstep tease above. Sony labeled the event “PlayStation Meeting,” which is sort of like calling E3 “L.A. Occurrence,” but, well, marketing.

(MORE: How to Watch the Super Bowl Live Online)

At this point, your guess would have been as good as mine: probably the next PlayThing, because what else is Sony going to hype for three weeks and drag folks to from all corners of the earth? Still, I could have flown around the room on a broomstick: a PlayStation VitaPad, a PlayStation Phone (pPhone!), or heck, even Sony’s answer to Google‘s Project Glass (Sony GlassStation!).

But no, the Wall Street Journal went and spoiled the fun by claiming that, yes indeed, Sony’s going to give us a peek at its next games console and ship the thing later this year, probably around the holidays. I consider that slightly more plausible than hearsay since it’s the Journal, but bear in mind it’s still a claim based on unidentified sources (the Journal pulls the phrase “people familiar with the matter” off the shelf at least four times).

No surprise, the story’s taken off like a guy air-riding a horse, prompting a bunch of people to throw odd notions at the wall based on even sketchier sourcing. Instead of regaling you with tales of mystical multi-core processors pulling contextually meaningless speeds, why don’t we look back at some of the things I suspect we’d all agree Sony needs to do better the next time around.

Don’t launch at $ 500-$ 600. I still can’t imagine what Sony was thinking in 2006 (well, beyond “we can barely afford to build this franken-thing!”). Yes, everyone loved the PlayStation 2, and no, not enough to spend that kind of money on the PlayStation 3. No, I don’t know what the company ought to sell a new game console for, but I’ll refer you down the aisle to the Wii U: currently struggling at $ 300-$ 350. If Sony launches higher (and doesn’t include something like a free iPad), especially in a weak economy, it may find it’s looking for dance partners all over again.

(MORE: Are Weak Wii U Sales a Bellwether of Shifting Game Demographics?)

The new PlayStation Network (or whatever Sony rebrands it) needs to be seamless. None of this irritating “synchronizing trophies” business, waiting ages for features like background downloads or “cross-voice game chat is really coming!” except it’s really not. Also, while my lizard brain still sort of responds to the nerdy elegance of the PlayStation 3′s XrossMediaBar, after all these years there’s just something warmer and friendlier about Xbox LIVE. I have a roughly equal number of friends in both ecosystems, so it’s not that; I’ve just come to prefer navigating TV environments that feel a little less clinical. (The Journal says Sony’s new system is more social media-driven, so unless Sony’s launching a standalone answer to Facebook, I expect we’ll see the interface sporting newfangled riffs on Twitter/Facebook/Instagram/Google+/etc. integration.)

Resist the urge to go all three-ring-circus on us. Sitting through Sony/Microsoft pressers sometimes feels like watching Tim Robinson and Will Ferrell squeeze bottles of Cookie Dough Sport over their heads. Spare us the strobe lights and sizzle reels and maybe just level with us like we’re adults and not a bunch of Red Bull-amped teenage boys at a Lady Gaga concert.

Don’t make it all about the graphics. I mean sure, we all like pretty games, but 5x, 10x, 100x the PS3′s oomph…it’s now all kind of abstract and pointless given how sophisticated games already look today. I want to know what those extra cycles are going to do for me gameplay-wise, and I don’t mean visually, e.g. better “god-rays” or “subsurface scattering” or a gazillion bendable blades of grass. Can this thing sustain an artificially intelligent being that’d pass a Turing Test? And can you work that into a game that’s actually fun to play?

Don’t be the last kid to the party. Hello, stuff like Grand Theft Auto IV and Skyrim DLC. Microsoft scored coup after coup this round in terms of timed exclusive or outright exclusive content. And yes, I’m sure it cost the company a pretty penny, but gamers are going to go where the games they want to play live. If their sense is that’s not Sony, well, it’s not rocket science. And some of the dropped balls this round were doozies: Skyrim‘s one of the bestselling games of all time and it’s been out since November 2011. Bethesda just announced today that PS3 users can finally get their hands on the downloadable content in a few weeks, whereas Xbox 360 users have had at it for months.

MORE: 3 Things That Still Worry Me About BlackBerry

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The Lede Blog: Frank Video of Mass Sexual Assault in Cairo Is Released by Anti-Harassment Activists

Egyptian activists released a brutally frank video on Friday, using images recorded during the mass sexual assault of a woman last week in Cairo’s Tahrir Square to urge volunteers to join their campaign against attacks during demonstrations.

The video, created by the filmmakers Aida Elkashef and Salam Yousry, uses disturbing overhead images of a crowd of men swarming around a woman being assaulted just out of view to explain the work of Op Anti-SH, one of two new initiatives to combat the sexual harassment and rape of female protesters.

A video produced by Egyptian activists uses images recorded during the mass sexual assault of a woman in Cairo’s Tahrir Square last week, on the second anniversary of the Egyptian revolution.

While the video includes no graphic images and shows that volunteers did eventually manage to help the woman to a safe location — near the KFC in the square — its detailed description of the woman’s assault stunned some viewers. Activists argued that the events described in the video are depressingly routine two years after the Egyptian revolution began.

Everyone is so shocked by the video. This is what happens to women during mob sexual assault.

— Sarahngb (@Sarahngb) 1 Feb 13

Despite that reality, the Op Anti-SH activists vow to continue their struggle.

Our fight against mob sexual assaults is at the heart of the revolution, against a regime & a mentality that are killing us. We won´t stop!

— قوة ضد التحرش (@OpAntiSH) 2 Feb 13

In a video interview on the initiative published on Saturday, one of the women involved in Op Anti-SH, Engy Ghozlan, said: “This is our country, and we will not be silent about sexual harassment, not the type that happens to us every day, nor that of Tahrir. It will end, it cannot continue, because we believe Egypt deserves better.”

“In Egypt,” she added, “there is no revolution without the participation of women or without their security.”

A video report by a journalist, Simon Hanna, on Op Anti-SH for the news site Ahram Online.

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Why is Beckham sitting on the bench for nothing?

PARIS (AP) — David Beckham has won league championships in three countries on two continents, earns millions of dollars in endorsements and his name is practically synonymous with celebrity itself. He has his own cologne, for goodness sake. So why is he even bothering to sit on the bench for the Paris Saint-Germain football club?

His royal highness of football doesn't need the money — and he's said he'll donate his PSG salary to charity — but he does need to start thinking about life after the game. At 37, Beckham is practically a dinosaur for the sport, and he acknowledged in his welcoming press conference on Thursday that he probably won't be in the team's starting lineup.

Instead, Beckham may be beginning to put in place a plan for life after the final whistle. Ellis Cashmore, a sociologist who writes about sports and media culture at Staffordshire University, said that prolonged exposure is always useful to celebrities building empires. In that way, the deal with PSG does double work: It keeps his name in lights for longer and also garners extra attention for the charitable contribution.

"When he does stop playing, which is going to be quite soon, his overall brand appeal will inevitably decline because we will inevitably forget about this guy," he said. "I think he's probably thinking, I want to stay in the shop window for a bit longer."

But Cashmore also cautioned against being too cynical in assessing Beckham's motives: "The guy is an athlete. He wants to do what he loves to do."

Bruno Satin, an independent players' agent who was with IMG for a decade, also said that the move to PSG — even if it's to sit on the bench — is a step up for Beckham.

"For him, to be on the PSG team, it's a higher level than being on the Los Angeles Galaxy," he said. "For the world of football, for real football, the Los Angeles Galaxy is nothing on the map of football."

Some wondered if Beckham was trying to avoid the notoriously sticky fingers of the French state with his plans to donate his salary.

But Sandra Hodzic, a tax lawyer with Salans, said the deduction an individual can take on such contributions is limited. Instead, it would be smarter for PSG to directly donate the salary — and take a big tax break in the process.

Doing so would have an added benefit for the club: UEFA, the governing body for European football, mandates that clubs break even. The donation could allow PSG to essentially write off Beckham's entire salary — a huge help for a team notorious for mega-contracts.

Beckham, meanwhile, would be better off trying to avoid becoming a French tax resident at all. So far, Hodzic said, he is making all the right moves: His family is staying in London, he plans to live only part-time in the country for less than six months, and his primary source of income —whether or not he donates his salary — isn't being earned in France.

Beckham's agent did not return calls for comment on specifics of the contract.

Still, the charitable contribution has raised the question about what Beckham is getting out of the deal. For one, he likely is still getting a cut of rights to his image. Jerseys with his name on them were already selling out at the PSG store on the Champs-Elysees on Friday.

Cashmore, who wrote a book called "Beckham," calls him a "marketing phenomenon" and estimates that about 70 percent of Beckham's income comes from endorsement deals — with Adidas, for instance. That makes salary almost irrelevant — especially for a man estimated by the Sunday Times Rich List to be worth 160 million pounds ($253 million).

But the football feeds the endorsements, Cashmore says.

"It makes an awful lot of business sense to perpetuate, to prolong his active competitive football career," he said, especially with a team that's doing fairly well this year. "It makes an awful lot of sense for him to showcase himself because it will generate more income from his various other sponsorship and licensing activities."

But certainly this move, as any at this late-stage in his playing career, is being made with an eye on what will come next. Cashmore said that when Beckham signed with the L.A. Galaxy, there was an understanding that he would eventually become an ambassador for American soccer. That plan clearly fell by the wayside — perhaps because Major League Soccer decided it was just too expensive to keep on the star after his presence on American soil failed to generate more interest in the game.

It's possible, Cashmore said, that Beckham is looking for a similar deal after his stint at PSG, which is Qatari-owned. The tiny, wealthy nation is hosting the World Cup in 2022, and Beckham's contract with PSG will establish a relationship with it; from there, a role as, say, an ambassador for the tournament would seem more natural.

"For his after-career conversion, it's important to have links with major actors in the world of sports," said Satin. And Qatar is certainly one. It has poured money into PSG, drawing major names like striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic. It also funds the satellite network Al Jazeera, which could provide Beckham with a platform. And then there's the World Cup.

In the end, though, Satin said the clue to Beckham's thinking may be as simple as the eternal draw of Paris.

"PSG has become a glamorous club, a pretty nice club in a beautiful city," said Bruno Satin, an agent. "It's just two hours on the Eurostar (train) from London."

____

AP Sports Writer Rob Harris contributed to this report from London.

____

Follow Sarah DiLorenzo at http://www.twitter.com/sdilorenzo

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Americans Closest to Retirement Were Hardest Hit by Recession

David Maxwell for The New York Times

Susan Zimmerman, 62, has three part-time jobs.

Michael Stravato for The New York Times

Arynita Armstrong, 60, at her home in Willis, Tex. She last worked five years ago. “When you’re older, they just see gray hair and they write you off,” she says.

In the current listless economy, every generation has a claim to having been most injured. But the Labor Department’s latest jobs snapshot and other recent data reports present a strong case for crowning baby boomers as the greatest victims of the recession and its grim aftermath.

These Americans in their 50s and early 60s — those near retirement age who do not yet have access to Medicare and Social Security — have lost the most earnings power of any age group, with their household incomes 10 percent below what they made when the recovery began three years ago, according to Sentier Research, a data analysis company.

Their retirement savings and home values fell sharply at the worst possible time: just before they needed to cash out. They are supporting both aged parents and unemployed young-adult children, earning them the inauspicious nickname “Generation Squeeze.”

New research suggests that they may die sooner, because their health, income security and mental well-being were battered by recession at a crucial time in their lives. A recent study by economists at Wellesley College found that people who lost their jobs in the few years before becoming eligible for Social Security lost up to three years from their life expectancy, largely because they no longer had access to affordable health care.

“If I break my wrist, I lose my house,” said Susan Zimmerman, 62, a freelance writer in Cleveland, of the distress that a medical emergency would wreak upon her finances and her quality of life. None of the three part-time jobs she has cobbled together pay benefits, and she says she is counting the days until she becomes eligible for Medicare.

In the meantime, Ms. Zimmerman has fashioned her own regimen of home remedies — including eating blue cheese instead of taking penicillin and consuming plenty of orange juice, red wine, coffee and whatever else the latest longevity studies recommend — to maintain her health, which she must do if she wants to continue paying the bills.

“I will probably be working until I’m 100,” she said.

As common as that sentiment is, the job market has been especially unkind to older workers.

Unemployment rates for Americans nearing retirement are far lower than those for young people, who are recently out of school, with fewer skills and a shorter work history. But once out of a job, older workers have a much harder time finding another one. Over the last year, the average duration of unemployment for older people was 53 weeks, compared with 19 weeks for teenagers, according to the Labor Department’s jobs report released on Friday.

The lengthy process is partly because older workers are more likely to have been laid off from industries that are downsizing, like manufacturing. Compared with the rest of the population, older people are also more likely to own their own homes and be less mobile than renters, who can move to new job markets.

Older workers are more likely to have a disability of some sort, perhaps limiting the range of jobs that offer realistic choices. They may also be less inclined, at least initially, to take jobs that pay far less than their old positions.

Displaced boomers also believe they are victims of age discrimination, because employers can easily find a young, energetic worker who will accept lower pay and who can potentially stick around for decades rather than a few years.

“When you’re older, they just see gray hair and they write you off,” said Arynita Armstrong, 60, of Willis, Tex. She has been looking for work for five years since losing her job at a mortgage company. “They’re afraid to hire you, because they think you’re a health risk. You know, you might make their premiums go up. They think it’ll cost more money to invest in training you than it’s worth it because you might retire in five years.

“Not that they say any of this to your face,” she added.

When older workers do find re-employment, the compensation is usually not up to the level of their previous jobs, according to data from the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University.

In a survey by the center of older workers who were laid off during the recession, just one in six had found another job, and half of that group had accepted pay cuts. Fourteen percent of the re-employed said the pay in their new job was less than half what they earned in their previous job.

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Apple edges out Samsung for mobile phone sales lead in fourth quarter

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Apple Inc became the top mobile phone seller for the first time in the lucrative U.S. market during the fourth quarter of 2012, outshining arch rival Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, a report by Strategy Analytics showed.

Apple‘s share of the U.S. mobile phone market, including feature phones and smartphones, jumped to 34 percent from 26 percent, while Samsung’s share grew to 32.3 percent from 31.8 percent, the research firm said.

Samsung had been the top mobile phone vendor in the US since 2008, the firm said. Indeed, for the full year, Samsung still held the crown for mobile phone sales; it had a 31.8 percent share of the U.S. market in 2012, against Apple’s 26.2 percent.

Apple investors have recently been anxious about the future growth prospects for the company amid intense competition from Samsung’s cheaper phones, powered by Google’s Android software, and signs the premium smartphone market may be close to saturation in developed markets.

Overall, mobile phone shipments rose 4 percent to 52 million units in the U.S. during the fourth quarter of 2012, driven by strong demand for 4G smartphones and 3G feature phones.

But in all of 2012, U.S. mobile phone shipments fell 11 percent to 166.9 million, Strategy Analytics said.

Apple sold 17.7 million iPhones in the U.S. in the fourth quarter, up 38 percent from the previous year, driven by aggressive marketing of its new iPhone 5 and steep carrier subsidies, the firm said. Samsung shipped 16.8 million phones during the same period.

In the international arena, Samsung Electronics, with a range of handsets, has overtaken Apple as the world’s top smartphone seller.

(Reporting by Poornima Gupta; Editing by Bernadette Baum)

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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