Troubled smartphone pioneer RIM prepares to raise the curtain on BlackBerry 10

NEW YORK, N.Y. – After several technical blunders, two unexpected delays and one major shakeup in its leadership, BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion is about to raise the curtain for its new smartphone devices in hopes that consumers share the excitement.

The unveiling of the phones and operating system on Wednesday marks the start of an advertising blitz that will stretch to social media, the Super Bowl and beyond as RIM tries to regain the cool factor that was once firmly in its grasp.

If all goes according to plan, the event will also mark the end of a troublesome 12 months that has seen RIM try to stay afloat while its future was constantly in question by outsiders, and its stock price tumbled to the lowest level in about a decade.

While the first hurdles to overcome on Wednesday are the opinions of tech analysts and investor reaction, the true measure of success — actual sales of the phones — is still weeks away.

As a crowd of thousands gathers Wednesday at Pier 36, a massive entertainment venue on the shores of Manhattan, chief executive Thorsten Heins will step onto the stage holding the BlackBerry that has been at once considered the company’s last hope, but also its biggest hurdle.

Just over a year ago, when Heins took over the top spot at RIM, the smartphone maker was in a state of flux as its marketshare tumbled in North America against growing competition from Apple’s iPhone and various devices on the Android operating system.

Analysts had widely blamed the lack of leadership from former co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis as the reasons that RIM failed to innovate its way out of trouble, but they also said that Heins had much to prove in hardly any time.

The company was in a bubble, insisting that it hadn’t lost its footing in the smartphone industry, even though from the outside their downfall was indisputable.

But as the dust settled from Balsillie’s exit in March 2012, Heins began to face the realities of RIM’s problems and launched a major overhaul of its middle management and deep cuts to its operations.

While Heins preferred to call it removing a “little fat on the hips,” the changes at RIM were a far more strategic and complex surgery.

The company closed some of its manufacturing facilities and announced plans to lay off about 5,000 workers, as it aimed to save $ 1 billion across RIM’s operations by February 2013. Heins reached that savings goal, and he did it three months ahead of schedule.

“He is probably one of the least dogmatic people at RIM,” said Carl Howe, vice-president of consumer research at Yankee Group.

“I think he learned from his predecessors.”

Despite all of the changes, Heins was still up against the fact that development of the BlackBerry 10 operating system was woefully behind schedule. Already delayed from a launch in 2011, the CEO was forced in June to further push the debut into 2013, missing crucial sales periods like the back-to-school and Christmas holiday shopping seasons.

While analysts hated the idea of another delay, it also bought the company some extra time to tweak the software to capitalize on the weaknesses of competitors’ smartphones.

One of those features is the BlackBerry Balance technology, which allows one phone to operate as both a business and personal device entirely separate from each other. Another one lets users seamlessly shift between the phone’s applications like they’re flipping between pages on a desk.

The BlackBerry Messenger chat program will also get an update that includes video chat and screen sharing options.

RIM’s executives also began an aggressive campaign last year to win the developer community. Under its previous leadership, the BlackBerry had practically ignored the growing popularity of smartphone applications for services like Netflix, Skype and Instagram.

A sea of change was coming under its new leaders, and Heins had managed to at least steady a company that was swaying on its pillars by coming up with unconventional ideas.

As the BlackBerry lost steam in North America and Europe, he turned to developing countries like Indonesia and Nigeria to keep revenues flowing in the near term. In those places, consumers were hungry for low-cost smartphones and the BlackBerry was still considered a status symbol.

The decision helped RIM keep its subscriber base steady, and maintain its $ 2-billion cash reserve, which was set aside for emergencies. It will use some of that money to promote the new phones.

“Up until now I think everything (Heins) laid out in terms of his plan … he’s shown that he’s executed on it,” said Richard Tse, an analyst at Cormark Securities Inc.

“In terms of what they’ve done on the development side, in terms of streamlining the operations and preserving the cash, I think he’s done a very good job to date.”

Investors aren’t satisfied with all of his decisions, however, especially when Heins unveiled a rough plan in December that will likely eat into the lucrative service fees charged to BlackBerry subscribers.

Heins told analysts on its most recent earnings conference call that RIM plans to launch an a la carte menu of services where both enterprise customers and casual smartphone users can pick their packages. The change would likely mean reduced revenues in one of the most lucrative areas of its business.

Even on the dawn of the new BlackBerry unveiling, there are still questions about whether RIM will exist in its current form this time next year. Some analysts have said the company will eventually be forced to sell off at least its hardware division, if not more.

“They’re in such a difficult position that I can’t think of a management change that would help them get out of it,” Tim Long of BMO Capital Markets.

“Clearly there are people out there that think the BlackBerry 10 is going to be something that gets them back on the map. We don’t think so.”

Long said his checks within the mobile phone industry have shown that carriers aren’t particularly interested in RIM’s touchscreen smartphone, but they’re more anxious for the keypad version, or QWERTY phone, due sometime after the initial launch.

“We think that’s an issue,” he said.

If the stock price is any sign, RIM’s investors are at least more confident this month then they’ve been in a long time. As of Monday’s closing price, RIM’s shares have risen 167 per cent from its lowest level in about a decade, reached in September, on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

Several analysts have boosted their target prices for the company’s stock in the past two weeks.

Whatever happens after the new BlackBerrys are unveiled, it’s certain that RIM isn’t in the clear yet.

“Product transitions are always pretty ugly,” said Howe.

“The good news is if you can get yourself through to the other side … you have an opportunity to disrupt the market yourself.”

Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Anne Hathaway Says She 'Met A Lot of Bad Ones' Before Meeting Her Husband

Caught in the Act

01/29/2013 at 06:00 AM EST

Adam Shulman and Anne Hathaway

Christopher Polk/WireImage

Following the Screen Actors Guild Awards on Sunday, Anne Hathaway was feeling the love at an after party at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills.

Hathaway – who won an Actor for her role in Les Misérables – was overheard saying, "I'm in a celebratory mood."

With a drink in her hand, Hathaway told friends that her engagement ring from husband Adam Shulman is her "prized possession" and that her wedding band "isn't bad either," an onlooker tells PEOPLE.

Hathaway – who, according to a source "was playing matchmaker all night" – was later overheard telling her friends that she "met a lot of bad ones" before meeting Shulman.

– Patrick Gomez

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Soldier talks about his new arms after transplant

BALTIMORE (AP) — A soldier who lost all four limbs in an Iraq roadside bombing has two new arms following a double transplant at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Twenty-six-year-old Brendan Marrocco along with the surgeons who treated him will be at the Baltimore hospital on Tuesday to discuss the new limbs.

The transplants are only the seventh double-hand or double-arm transplant ever conducted in the United States.

The infantryman was injured by a roadside bomb in 2009. The New York City man also received bone marrow from the same dead donor. The approach is aimed at helping his body accept the new arms with minimal medication to prevent rejection.

The military is sponsoring operations like these to help wounded troops. About 300 have lost arms or hands in the wars.

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Legislation proposed to help California launch healthcare overhaul

SACRAMENTO — The state Legislature gaveled in a special session on healthcare Monday, pushing forward with sweeping proposals to help California implement President Obama's healthcare overhaul.

The measures, including a major expansion of Medi-Cal, the state's public insurance program for the poor, would cement the state's status as the nation's earliest and most aggressive adopter of the federal Affordable Care Act. Beginning in January 2014, the law requires most Americans to buy health insurance or pay a penalty.

Gov. Jerry Brown called the special session so healthcare bills that he signs can take effect within 90 days rather than next year.

State lawmakers are racing to pass rules for enrollment in a new state-run insurance market in October. They include a requirement for insurers to cover consumers who have preexisting medical conditions.

Legislative leaders in both houses sponsored bills that would dramatically expand Medi-Cal. Under the proposals, individuals earning up to 138% of the federal poverty level — or $15,415 a year — would be covered, potentially adding more than 1 million Californians to the rolls.

The federal government would subsidize costs for the first three years, phasing down to 90% afterward.

"Ensuring that every Californian has access to quality, affordable healthcare is one of the most important public policy challenges we face," said Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez (D-Los Angeles) at a Capitol news conference. "No Californian should ever face bankruptcy or severe financial setbacks due to illness and injury."

Brown, in his State of the State speech last week, sounded a note of caution even as he embraced the federal law. The long-term costs are unknown, he said, and hold the potential to undermine California's precariously balanced budget.

He called the Medi-Cal expansion "incredibly complex," adding that "it will take more time" to achieve than other parts of the healthcare overhaul. Brown has said the change could allow the state to reduce the roughly $2 billion it gives to counties to care for the uninsured, but county officials and healthcare advocates say that such a move could hurt their ability to help the millions of Californians who will still lack coverage.

The special-session legislation would also streamline the Medi-Cal enrollment process to help sign up hundreds of thousands of Californians who are currently eligible but not enrolled. According to a recent study by the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, that change could add 240,000 to 510,000 people to the Medi-Cal rolls by 2019.

Brown has earmarked $350 million in his budget proposal to pay for the increased participation. Costs for the currently eligible group would be split evenly between the state and federal governments.

For all their enthusiasm, legislative leaders also said they were working within fiscal constraints. Pérez defended the state's moves, for instance, to slash Medi-Cal reimbursement rates two years ago. Healthcare providers have appealed a federal court's decision allowing the cuts, arguing that the reductions would cause community clinics to close and prompt doctors to turn away Medi-Cal patients.

California, Pérez said, lacks the resources to better compensate doctors, hospitals and pharmacists.

"I don't think we're in a situation to make fundamental changes to that," he said.

michael.mishak@latimes.com

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India Ink: One Delhi Gang Rape Suspect Is Ruled a Minor

NEW DELHI

The Indian Juvenile Justice Board ruled Monday that one suspect in the recent fatal gang rape of a young woman on a moving bus is officially a juvenile, which could result in a lenient sentence if he is found guilty of the crime.

The teenager, who school records show is 17 years old, could receive a maximum sentence of three years in a detention facility if found guilty. Five other men accused of the premeditated rape and killing of a 23-year old physiotherapy student on Dec. 16 could face life imprisonment or the death penalty if found guilty.

The December gang rape and the victim’s subsequent death of injuries sustained during the rape prompted widespread protests in India over the lack of safety and justice for women, and calls for the rapists to be executed.

Some criminal and legal experts expected the juvenile to be forced to undergo a bone ossification test, which is sometimes used to determine age in India where birth records are not always accurate. But the juvenile board’s ruling Monday makes that unlikely.

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Jennifer Lawrence Feeling Better Thanks to a 'Lot of Medication'

By Dahvi Shira

01/28/2013 at 07:00 AM EST

Jennifer Lawrence is on the mend.

The ailing Silver Linings Playbook starlet is finally feeling fine after a reported bout with pneumonia.

"I'm so much better," Lawrence, 22, told reporters backstage at Sunday's Screen Actors Guild Awards, where she won for lead female actor. "I'm a lot better. I've been on a lot of medication and got a really cool inhaler, so I'm doing much better."

The actress – who was "laying low all week," a source told PEOPLE – missed Saturday's Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts International Awards due to the illness, according to her costar Jacki Weaver.

"Poor Jen is really sick," Weaver reportedly said, after accepting an award for Lawrence. "She really is sick. She has pneumonia."

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CDC: Flu seems to level off except in the West

New government figures show that flu cases seem to be leveling off nationwide. Flu activity is declining in most regions although still rising in the West.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says hospitalizations and deaths spiked again last week, especially among the elderly. The CDC says quick treatment with antiviral medicines is important, in particular for the very young or old. The season's first flu case resistant to treatment with Tamiflu was reported Friday.

Eight more children have died from the flu, bringing this season's total pediatric deaths to 37. About 100 children die in an average flu season.

There is still vaccine available although it may be hard to find. The CDC has a website that can help.

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CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/

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Unarmed man killed by deputies was shot in the back, autopsy says

A Culver City man who was fatally shot by Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies after a pursuit in November was struck by bullets five times in the back and once each in the right hip and right forearm, also from behind, according to an autopsy report obtained by The Times.

Jose de la Trinidad, a 36-year-old father of two, was killed Nov. 10 by deputies who believed he was reaching for a weapon after a pursuit. But a witness to the shooting said De la Trinidad, who was unarmed, was complying with deputies and had his hands above his head when he was shot.

Multiple law enforcement agencies are investigating the shooting.

De la Trinidad was shot five times in the upper and lower back, according to the Los Angeles County coroner's report dated Nov. 13. The report describes four of those wounds as fatal. He was also shot in the right forearm and right hip, with both shots entering from behind, the report found.

"Here's a man who complied, did what he was supposed to, and was gunned down by trigger-happy deputies," said Arnoldo Casillas, the family's attorney, who provided a copy of the autopsy report to The Times. He said he planned to sue the Sheriff's Department.

A sheriff's official declined to discuss specifics of the autopsy report because of the ongoing investigation. But he emphasized that the report's findings would be included in the department's determination of what happened that night.

"The sheriff and our department extend its condolences to the De la Trinidad" family, said Steve Whitmore, a sheriff's spokesman.

"Deadly force is always a last resort," he said. "The deputies involved were convinced that the public was in danger when they drew their weapons."

On Saturday, relatives of De la Trinidad and about 100 other people marched through the streets of Compton, shouting, "No justice, no peace! No killer police!"

His widow, Rosie de la Trinidad, joined the march with the couple's two young daughters.

"He was doing everything he was supposed to," she said of her husband, fighting back tears. "All we're asking for is justice."

Jose de la Trinidad was shot minutes after leaving his niece's quinceañera with his brother Francisco. He was riding in the passenger seat of his brother's car when deputies tried to pull them over for speeding about 10:20 p.m., authorities said. After a brief car chase, De la Trinidad got out of the car in the 1900 block of East 122nd Street in Compton and was shot by deputies.

The Sheriff's Department maintains that the deputies opened fire only after De la Trinidad appeared to reach for his waist, where he could have been concealing a weapon.

But a woman who witnessed the officer-involved shooting told investigators that De la Trinidad had complied with deputies' orders to stop running and put his hands on his head to surrender when two deputies shot him. The witness said she watched the shooting from her bedroom window across the street.

"I know what I saw," the witness, Estefani — who asked that her last name not be used — said at the time. "His hands were on his head when they started shooting."

According to the deputies' account: De la Trinidad jumped out of the passenger seat. His brother took off again in the car. One of the four deputies on the scene gave chase in his cruiser, leaving De la Trinidad on the sidewalk and three deputies standing in the street with their weapons drawn.

The deputies said De la Trinidad then appeared to reach for his waistband, prompting two of them to fire shots at him. The unarmed man died at the scene.

Unbeknown to the deputies at the time, Estefani watched the scene unfold from her bedroom window. A short while later, she told The Times, two sheriff's deputies canvassing the neighborhood for witnesses came to her door.

The deputies, she said, repeatedly asked her which direction De la Trinidad was facing, which she perceived as an attempt to get her to change her story.

"I told them, 'You're just trying to confuse me,' and then they stopped," she said. Authorities later interviewed Estefani a second time.

Whitmore said the two deputies involved in the shooting were assigned desk duties immediately after the incident but returned to patrol five days later. He said this was standard practice for deputies involved in shootings.

Although such investigations typically take months, Whitmore said the department has given special urgency to this case and hopes to complete its probe in a timely manner.

"We want to have answers about what happened that night soon rather than later," he said. "Even then, we know it doesn't change the grief the family is experiencing."

As with all deputy-involved shootings, De la Trinidad's killing is subject to investigation by the district attorney, the sheriff's homicide and internal affairs bureaus and the Sheriff's Executive Force Review Committee.

wesley.lowery@latimes.com

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IHT Rendezvous: The Clinton Doctrine of American Foreign Policy

The partisan political theater, of course, was top-notch. Sen. Rand Paul’s declaration that he would have fired Hillary Rodham Clinton; her angry rebuttal of Sen. Ron Johnson’s insistence that the Obama administration misled the American people about the Benghazi attack; Sen. John McCain’s continued outrage at the slapdash security the State Department provided its employees.

Beneath the posturing, though, ran larger questions: what strategy does the United States have to counter the militant groups running rampant across North and West Africa? And what kind of secretary of state has Ms. Clinton been? In her last Congressional hearing in that position, Ms. Clinton expressed exasperation with Washington’s political trench warfare.

“We’ve got to get our act together,” she said.

Ms. Clinton has been a very good but very cautious secretary of state, many analysts say – one who, for the most part, kept her distance from Afghanistan, Israel-Palestine and other seemingly intractable conflicts.

One State Department official, while praising Ms. Clinton’s tenure, nonetheless looked forward to the arrival of Sen. John Kerry, her designated successor: “I came to admire Clinton as secretary of state, her focus on women and innovation in particular,” the official told me. “But am really happy to have someone in the job who does not retain political ambitions.”

In a recent assessment of Clinton’s tenure, Michael O’Hanlon of the Brookings Institution argued that she had enjoyed some success, including restoring the United States’ image abroad, but she made no historic breakthroughs, he said.

Mr. O’Hanlon argued that Ms. Clinton’s famed work ethic paid off. She made few mistakes, no major gaffes and did not “needlessly antagonize” friends or enemies. O’Hanlon called Ms. Clinton’s role in the administration’s “pivot to Asia” and tough stance toward China arguably “her greatest and most memorable contribution.”

The problem, as last week’s hearing showed, is that the Middle East and the threat of terrorism continue to dominate American foreign policy. Even as the United States becomes more energy independent, terrorist attacks like the kidnappings in a remote oil facility in Algeria will make headlines and influence markets. And barring a massive shift in American domestic politics, Israel’s security will continue to be viewed as a vital interest of the United States.

Ms. Clinton, to her credit, made forty trips to Europe that helped produce crippling new sanctions on Iran. Last fall, she helped broker a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. But she failed to personally engage in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

To be fair, the Obama White House may have limited her options. After promising more open debate than occurred under President George W. Bush, the Obama White House tightly controlled the formulation of American foreign policy. Critics have also accused Mr. Obama of being overly cautious in foreign affairs.

With the exception of the Libya intervention and the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, Mr. Obama was “coolly calculating and reluctant to engage” in his first-term foreign policy, The Economist magazine recently argued.

Mr. Obama, of course, is trying to avoid the over-reach his predecessor displayed in Iraq. He also faces enormous fiscal pressures at home. But there is a risk that the pendulum is swinging too far toward a smug isolationism in Washington.

As Ms. Clinton departs, worrying trends are emerging in the way America engages with the world. The new U.S. weapon of choice is the drone strike – a tactic that carries zero political risk at home but spreads anti-Americanism abroad.

Complex foreign policy problems that threaten American security are increasingly seen as “entanglements” best avoided. And there is a convenient view that there are no “good guys” in the power struggles now unfolding in the post-Arab-Spring Middle East.

The potential lesson of the bruising political battle over Benghazi is simple: Take few risks, turn embassies into bunkers and avoid political firestorms at home. In her testimony, Ms. Clinton passionately argued against that approach.

Declaring Somalia and Colombia success stories, she said the United States could counter militancy in Africa and the Middle East by working with regional organizations and training local security forces. U.S. funding and training of an African Union Mission in Somalia, or AMISOM, Ms. Clinton said, had slowly succeeded in driving back al-Shabaab and other Islamist forces. In Colombia, the government has driven back FARC rebels and narco-traffickers.

There have been setbacks and the efforts in both countries are imperfect. But local security forces trained and funded by the international community slowly gained ground in painstaking efforts over many years.

“What we have to do is recognize that we’re in for a long-term struggle here,” Ms. Clinton said at the hearing. “And that means we’ve got to pay attention to places that historically we have not chosen to or had to.”

During their heated exchange, Mr. McCain criticized Ms. Clinton and the Obama administration for not doing enough to train Libya’s security forces. Secretary Clinton replied that House Republicans had put a hold on the funding the administration requested to train Libyans.

“If this is a priority and we are serious about trying to help this government stand up security forces,” she said, “then we have to work together.”

Ms. Clinton is right. And so is Mr. McCain. Congressional politicking hinders the State Department. And the State Department executed terribly in Benghazi. But Ms. Clinton, who I have criticized in the past, won the day.

“We are in a new reality,” she said, referring to the change sweeping across the Middle East. “We are trying to makes sense of events that nobody had predicted but that we’re going to have to live with.”

Ms. Clinton called for the United States to show “humility” abroad and stop making national security issues “political footballs” at home. She said a Cold War style bipartisan agreement should be reached to launch a long-term American effort to strengthen local security forces and promote democracy across Africa and the post-Arab-Spring Middle East.

“Let’s be smart and learn from what we’ve done in the past,” she said. “Put forth a policy that wouldn’t go lurching from administration to administration but would be a steady one.”

“We have more assets than anyone in the world,” Ms. Clinton added, “but I think we’ve gotten a little bit off track in trying to figure out how best to utilize them.”

A “little bit off track” is a euphemism for partisanship endangering national security. If the U.S. doesn’t get its act together, expect more Benghazis.

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SAG Awards: Watch Live with PEOPLE

01/27/2013 at 09:30 AM EST

Happy Screen Actors Guild Awards!

On a night when the biggest stars of TV and film honor each other, we will be covering every inch of the red carpet beginning at 6 p.m. ET (3 p.m. PT) on our live pre-show, hosted by PEOPLE's Deputy Managing Editor Peter Castro and PEOPLE StyleWatch Managing Editor Susan Kaufman, right here on PEOPLE.com.

Join our @StyleWatchMag and @peoplemag Twitter party on Sunday to discuss the best dresses, the hottest hair and makeup and the most eye-popping jewels that nominees like Claire Danes, Jessica Chastain and Jennifer Lawrence will be wearing. Just use hashtag #PeopleSAG and your comments could appear on PEOPLE.com.

Once the show starts at 8 p.m. ET (5 p.m. PT), the fun continues as we track the winners, losers and best speeches of the night. PEOPLE editors and the stars, including Busy Phillips, will be Tweeting commentary, exclusive photos, behind-the-scenes tidbits and more on one of Hollywood's most heartfelt nights.

The 19th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards will air live on TNT and TBS on Sunday, Jan. 27, at 8 p.m. ET (5 p.m. PT) from the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. Be sure to join us!

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