Analysis: Once reliable technology sector drags down earnings

NEW YORK (Reuters) – This earnings season, the U.S. technology industry is in an unusual position – dragging corporate America down, rather than lifting it up.

Wall Street expects the tech sector’s fourth-quarter earnings to be down 1.1 percent from a year ago, the first drop since the third quarter of 2009, even though overall S&P 500 profits are still forecast to show growth, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Chip companies are expected to be among the worst performers because of softer-than-expected personal computer sales. Weak overseas demand and worries about the U.S. fiscal crisis have also likely caused corporations to put off IT spending.

“The lack of economic growth we’ve seen in Europe, the deceleration of emerging markets – that has put a significant amount of pressure, particularly on technology,” said Omar Aguilar, chief investment officer for equities at Charles Schwab Corp, in San Francisco.

Tech stocks have struggled recently and further weakness could dent the bullish 2013 forecasts many strategists have for the U.S. stock market. But some investors and analysts say weak fourth-quarter numbers have already been baked into many tech stock prices and valuations are attractive.

Analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch wrote in a note this week that tech stocks are undervalued by about 32 percent, more than any other sector, based on current forward price-to-earnings ratios. Every tech industry except IT services is trading well below historical levels, the note said.

Within tech, “you’re finding a lot of cash-rich companies trading at reasonably cheap multiples. So to value investors like us … it starts to seem intriguing,” said Eric Kuby, chief investment officer at North Star Investment Management Corp in Chicago, whose firm owns Microsoft Corp and Intel Corp.

It is unusual for tech, the largest of the Standard & Poor’s 500 index’s 10 industry sectors and accounting for nearly 23 percent of earnings, to underperform. Tech has been in the top half of S&P sectors for the last four earnings periods and it has posted stronger profit growth than the overall market 83 percent of the time in the last 10 years, according to Thomson Reuters.

Apple Inc usually provides one of the biggest boosts to U.S. corporate earnings, but this time its December quarter profit is forecast to fall 3.8 percent year on year, compared with the S&P 500‘s overall 1.8 percent profit growth, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Apple has only missed analyst earnings expectations four times in the last 10 years, two of those in the most recent reporting periods, Thomson Reuters data showed. Its shares are down again this week after reports the company is ordering fewer components because of lower-than-expected demand for its iPhone5.

But even Apple stock, which fell below $ 500 a share on Monday for the first time since February, is looking more attractive to value investors, Kuby said.

INTEL FIRST

The bulk of technology companies do not start to report results until next week, but Intel is due out on Thursday.

Among tech’s sub-industries, 13 semiconductor companies are expected to report an aggregate 28.4 percent fall in quarterly profit and four semiconductor equipment makers are expected to see a 50.7 percent drop, Thomson Reuters data showed.

Texas Instruments Inc was among top chip companies that have warned on the fourth quarter, along with Applied Materials Inc. Texas Instruments, which last cut its profit target in December, cited restructuring charges. The stock closed on Tuesday at $ 32.28, off its $ 34.24 high in March.

Others warnings have come from Cisco Systems Inc, Hewlett Packard Co and Qualcomm Inc.

The S&P 500 tech sector rose 13.2 percent in 2012, about the same as the S&P 500‘s 13.4 percent gain, but tech stocks by at least one measure have been underperforming since September. The SPDR XLK technology fund ETF ended last quarter with a loss of 6.1 percent, while the S&P 500 was down just 1 percent.

“The S&P 500 peaked in mid-September, had a pullback and it’s already pretty close to that September high. Contrasting that, the XLK hasn’t even come close to getting back to where it was in September,” said Chris Burba, co-founder and chief technical strategist at miAnalysis Inc in New York.

(Reporting by Caroline Valetkevitch; Editing by Tiffany Wu and Andre Grenon)

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Voter turnout push could challenge Israeli leader

JERUSALEM (AP) — With large numbers of Israelis expected to sit out next week’s election, centrist activists have launched a last-ditch appeal to get out the vote, hoping to defy what appears to be a guaranteed victory for a hard-line bloc led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

This grassroots effort could be the moderate camp’s only chance. Moderate, secular voters tend to turn out in smaller numbers than ideologically motivated hard-liners. Reversing this trend, experts say, is the surest way to take on the government’s handling of major issues like stalled peacemaking with the Palestinians, Iran’s nuclear program and a troubled economy.

Polls published in Israeli newspapers over the weekend projected Netanyahu and his traditional right-wing and religious allies winning between 64 and 71 seats, enough to secure a majority in the 120-member parliament, compared to 49 to 56 for centrist and Arab parties.

Pollster Camil Fuchs says those numbers reflect current trends. “But a four to five percentage point change in turnout could change things,” he said.

The get-out-the vote campaigners, including television personalities and local celebrities, present their efforts as non-partisan, but many are perceived to be aligned with Netanyahu’s opponents.

Netanyahu’s opponents say the stakes are especially high in the current election. Critics point to the deadlock in peace efforts with the Palestinians, his repeated run-ins with President Barack Obama and Iran’s suspect nuclear program. Without a strong alliance with the U.S., they say, it would be difficult to halt the Iranians or rally international support for Israel’s positions toward the Palestinians.

Netanyahu’s Likud Party has fielded an especially hawkish slate of candidates who reject concessions to the Palestinians. The rise of “Jewish Home,” a pro-settler party that could play a major role in the next coalition government, could further affect peace efforts. Jewish Home’s leader, Naftali Bennett, and many inside Likud have advocated annexing parts of the West Bank.

Reflecting his hawkish line Monday, Netanyahu told Israel‘s Channel 2 TV that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas does not want to negotiate. “We don’t have to say that we don’t have a future here because Abu Mazen doesn’t want to negotiate with us,” Netanyahu said, referring to Abbas by his nickname. Abbas blames Israel for a four-year stalemate in peace talks.

The Palestinians claim all of the West Bank and east Jerusalem, territories captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war, for their hoped-for state. Israeli moderates warn that Israel’s continued control of these territories and their millions of Palestinian residents threaten Israel’s status as a Jewish democracy.

Despite the pressing issues, turnout in recent elections has been just over 60 percent. Fuchs said turnout among supporters of Netanyahu and his allies is generally higher than among the rest of the population.

According to pollsters, turnout is especially low among several key groups — political moderates, people under 30 and Israeli Arabs. These constituencies all tend to favor Netanyahu’s opponents.

Political parties are conducting classic get-out-the-vote campaigns, with automated phone calls, parlor meetings, transportation to polling stations and specific appeals to groups, like women and young voters.

Other groups not directly affiliated with specific parties are also getting out the message.

Israel’s president, Shimon Peres, teamed up with people from Israel’s popular TV satire “A Wonderful Country” to produce a get-out-the-vote video clip for his Facebook page. In his largely ceremonial post, Peres, 89, is supposed to avoid politics, but the Nobel peace laureate’s dovish leanings are well known.

Social activists who drew hundreds of thousands of protesters into the streets last year to demonstrate against the gaps between rich and poor have recruited dozens of artists, TV personalities and journalists to take part in an ad campaign called “2013 elections — this time we’re all voting.” In ads, they don black shirts that read, “Vote or they’ll vote for you.”

Israeli film producer Ofir Kedar, who is based in London, is pushing a get-out-the-vote campaign with two YouTube videos he hopes will go viral. One of the clips, produced with the “One Voice” non-profit organization, shows a potential voter having a nightmare in which he is fired from his job and Israel is under attack and isolated internationally. He snaps out of it only when his young son says “wake up,” followed by a call to go vote.

“I’m trying to help the center-left bloc, not necessarily a specific party, but those who support a two-state solution,” Kedar said.

Under Israel’s system of proportional representation, voters cast ballots for parties, not individuals, and parties receive seats in parliament based on the percentage of votes they win. To enter parliament, a party must win at least 2 percent of all votes cast, or about 70,000, giving them a minimum of two seats.

“If two … parties on the left pass the threshold, that could change the blocs,” Fuchs said. “The chance for a big change is small but it exists.”

A recent poll by the University of Haifa predicted that just half of Israeli Arabs will vote. Two-thirds of those surveyed said they have no faith that Arab parties will be able to improve the lot of their communities, which suffer from poverty and discrimination.

If the Arab voters were to increase their turnout by 10 percentage points, they could win an additional five or six parliamentary seats, said Ytzhak Katz, of the Maagar Mohot survey service. “They could tap their electoral potential and strengthen themselves, but they don’t do it,” he said.

Helmi Kittani, executive director of the Center for Jewish-Arab Economic Development, has appealed to Arab voters directly, telling them it’s not too late to speak up.

“It’s not right to sit in your chairs and watch others wage your just struggle,” he said. “Elections are an opportunity to change your lives. Don’t sit at home.”

____

Online: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-kvsmXvUhU

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Apple stock wilts on worries about iPhone demand

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Apple‘s stock slipped below $ 500 for the first time in 11 months on Monday as investors reacted to reports signaling the company’s latest iPhone is falling further behind a slew of sleek alternatives running Google’s Android software.

The latest indication that Apple, the world’s most valuable company, is seeing sluggish demand for its iPhone 5 emerged in separate stories published Monday in the Japanese newspaper Nikkei and The Wall Street Journal. Both publications cited unnamed people familiar with the situation saying Apple has dramatically reduced its orders for the parts needed to build the newest iPhone because the device isn’t selling as well as the company hoped.

The adjustment means Apple will buy about half as many display screens for the iPhone as management originally planned for the opening three months of the year, according to the newspapers.

Apple Inc., which is based in Cupertino, Calif., declined to comment Monday. Spokeswoman Natalie Kerris said Apple executives would share their views on market conditions Jan. 23 when the company is scheduled to release its financial results for the final three months of 2011. The period covers the first full quarter that the iPhone 5 was on sale.

Although Apple hailed the iPhone 5 as the best version yet of a product that has revolutionized the telecommunications and computing industry, the company’s stock has wilted since the device hit the market.

After peaking at $ 705.07 on the day of the iPhone 5′s Sept. 21 release, Apple’s stock has plunged nearly 30 percent. The shares fell $ 18.55, or 3.6 percent, to close Monday’s regular trading at $ 501.75, dragging the company’s market value nearly $ 190 billion below where it stood in late September. The stock traded at $ 498.51 earlier in the day, its lowest price since February.

The stock’s decline hasn’t been entirely caused by concerns about the iPhone 5′s sales performance. Industry analysts are also worried about the recent introduction of a smaller, less expensive iPad cutting into the company’s profits.

But the biggest fears hover around the iPhone because it has become Apple’s most valuable product since the company’s late CEO, Steve Jobs, unveiled the first model in 2007. Apple has sold more than 271 million of the devices since then, and in the company’s last fiscal year ending in September, the iPhone generated $ 80 billion in sales to account for more than half of the company’s total revenue.

But Apple’s upgrades of the iPhone in the past two years have disappointed gadget lovers who have been clamoring for Apple to do more to stay in front of device makers relying on the free Android software made by Google Inc. For instance, there were high hopes for a larger iPhone screen with the release of the 2011 model, but Apple waited until last September to take that leap. And when Apple moved to a larger display screen with the iPhone 5, it didn’t include a special chip to enable users to make mobile payments by tapping the handset on another device at the checkout stand. Such a mobile payment feature is available on some Android phones.

Finally, Apple has insisted that wireless carriers subsidize so much of the iPhone’s cost in exchange for customers’ two-year commitments on data plans that the carriers make little or no money by selling the devices. That has prompted more wireless carriers to tout less expensive Android phones in their stores, undercutting the demand for iPhones, said Darren Hayes, who has been studying the shifting market conditions as chairman of the computing systems program at Pace University in New York.

Through the third quarter of last year, Android devices represented 75 percent of smartphone shipments worldwide according to the research firm International Data Corp. That was up from 58 percent at the same point 2011. Meanwhile, Apple’s share of worldwide smartphone shipments has fallen from a peak of 23 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011 to 15 percent in the third quarter of last year.

Samsung Electronics, in particular, has been benefiting from the growing popularity of its Android-powered phones, led by its Galaxy S line. The company said Monday that it sold more than 100 million Galaxy S phones in less than three years. It took the iPhone nearly four years to reach that milestone.

“This is a real wake-up call for Apple,” Hayes said. “They need to be more flexible in how they do things.” Among other things, Hayes thinks Apple may have to reduce the financial burden on wireless carriers selling the iPhone and spend more money advertising the devices, especially with the recent wave of phones running on Microsoft Corp.’s Windows software. Apple’s efforts to sell more iPhones to companies also could be short-circuited if Research in Motion Ltd.’s upcoming release of a revamped BlackBerry proves to be a hit. The BlackBerry is due out Jan. 30.

In an attempt to regain its competitive edge, Apple already is considering the release of a less expensive version of the iPhone made of cheaper parts to boost sales in less affluent countries, according to a report last week in The Wall Street Journal. The company so far hasn’t commented on that speculation, either. The least expensive iPhone 5 without a wireless contract sells for $ 649. With the subsidy included with a two-year wireless service contract, the iPhone 5 sells for as little as $ 199.

Even as it loses ground to Android products, the iPhone remains a solid seller. Some analysts believe Apple sold more than 50 million iPhones in its last quarter ending in December, which would be far the most units that the company has ever shipped during any previous three-month period.

What’s more, the iPhone 5 got off to a torrid start in China, where Apple expects to eventually sell more devices than it does in the U.S. Apple said it sold more than two million iPhone 5s in the three days after its debut in China last month.

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Natalie Wood may have sustained bruises before drowning death: report

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Actress Natalie Wood had bruising on her arms and wrists and scratches on her neck when her body was pulled from the Pacific Ocean in 1981, suggesting she was injured before she hit the water, according to a report released by Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office on Monday.

But the report, written in June 2012, said there was not enough evidence to say that her death was definitively “non accidental.”

The body of the “West Side Story” star, 43, was found floating in a Santa Catalina Island cove off the coast of Southern California in 1981 after she had spent a night of dining and drinking on the island and on a yacht with her husband, television star Robert Wagner, and actor Christopher Walken.

The case has been surrounded by mystery and suspicion for decades and Los Angeles homicide detectives reopened the investigation into Wood’s death in 2011.

In June 2012, authorities changed Wood’s death certificate to “drowning and other undetermined factors” from the original finding of accidental drowning, but did not explain why.

The change was based on a 10-page document, drawn up as an addendum to the original autopsy report, that said Wood died shortly after she entered the water.

“The location of the bruises, the multiplicity of the bruises, lack of head trauma, or facial bruising, support bruising having occurred prior to the entry into the water,” the supplemental coroner’s report states.

“This medical examiner is unable to exclude non-volitional, unplanned entry into the water … Since there are many unanswered questions and limited additional evidence available for evaluation, it is opined by this medical examiner that the manner of death should be left as undetermined,” it adds.

A spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said on Monday the case was still open but declined to discuss any new evidence that may have been discovered.

The Sheriff’s Department has said that neither Wagner, now 82, nor Walken are suspects.

Wood starred opposite James Dean in the classic 1955 film “Rebel Without a Cause,” and later in musical “West Side Story” and “Splendor in the Grass.”

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey; Editing by Mohammad Zargham)

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Some docs screen for prostate cancer without asking

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – One in four family doctors doesn’t ask male patients before screening them for prostate cancer, according to a new survey.

So-called prostate specific antigen (PSA) testing has been controversial in recent years because of uncertainty about whether it actually saves lives and concern about side effects from potentially unnecessary and invasive follow-up tests and treatments.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, a government-backed panel, recommended against PSA tests for normal-risk men in 2012, saying there is no evidence that screening has more benefits than harms.

Screening is still acceptable, according to the USPSTF, if the man being tested understands the possible outcomes – good and bad – and makes the personal decision to get tested.

But that may not always happen, researchers found.

“There’s some amount of confusion for providers about what the right course of action is,” said Dr. Craig Pollack, who has studied doctors’ attitudes toward prostate cancer screening at Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland.

In addition, “one of the big drivers of PSA screening is patient expectations – that doctors think their patients expect to get screening,” said Pollack, who was not involved in the new research.

For the current study, Robert Volk from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and his colleagues surveyed 246 family doctors in 2007 and 2008 about whether and how they screened their male patients for prostate cancer.

Of those doctors, 24 percent said they ordered PSA tests without first discussing screening with patients.

Another 48 percent talked about the possible benefits and harms with their patients and let men decide for themselves whether to get screened.

Most of the remaining doctors also discussed screening’s pluses and minuses but specifically recommended it, Volk’s team reported Monday in the Annals of Family Medicine.

It’s concerning that some men may not know all the implications of being screened but get PSA tests anyway, researchers said.

“One of the main concerns with PSA screening is it can set people down a pathway of getting the biopsy, potentially getting a cancer diagnosis and treatment that may not have (been) needed,” Pollack told Reuters Health.

Volk agreed, calling prostate cancer screening the beginning of a “slippery slope.” That’s because some men will be diagnosed with slow-growing cancer and will need to decide whether to get treatment – and risk side effects such as impotence and incontinence – or wait to see if the cancer grows and poses any danger.

“Men really need to be aware of these issues (when they are) making a decision about screening, because of all the decisions that come after that,” he told Reuters Health.

About one in six men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during his lifetime, according to the American Cancer Society. However far fewer – about one in 36 – will die of the disease, in part because prostate cancer is often slow-growing and affects mostly older men.

“A fairly large proportion of men will die with their prostate cancer instead of from their prostate cancer,” Pollack explained.

Volk said men “need to be given quality information” about the benefits and risks of PSA tests, including what could happen after a positive test.

Men, he added, “should feel empowered to ask their doctors about screening and have a very frank discussion about what’s important to them.”

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/cZf2s9 Annals of Family Medicine, online January 14, 2013.

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Is Michael Dell Finally Taking His Company Private?

On June 3, 2010, Michael Dell was sitting before a room full of analysts and investors at a Sanford C. Bernstein (AB) conference in New York City. Dell was asked whether he ever thinks about taking his computer company private. His simple answer: “Yes.” The stock closed at $ 13.76 a share that day, up almost 5 percent.

Dell took no more questions at the time, though obviously he’s since come to a decision: As our Bloomberg News colleagues Serena Saitto and Jeffrey McCracken have just reported, citing two unnamed sources, Dell (DELL) is in talks to go private.

That the company finds itself in this situation is not much of a surprise. Michael Dell returned as chief executive officer in early 2007 and has spent the last few years promising a shift toward higher-profit businesses and away from being so dependent on PCs. According to recent data from Gartner (IT), Dell’s PC sales slowed by about 20 percent in the fourth quarter, as the company lost ground to Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and Lenovo (992). PC shipments overall fell 5 percent during the quarter, to 90.3 million units.

In the meantime, Dell has become an acquisition machine, gobbling up storage system specialists, software makers, and services companies, including its flashy $ 3.9 billion deal for Perot Systems. Its revenue has become more diverse, and some of these big bets have started to pay off. Wall Street, however, has continued to push its shares down—Dell’s market value fell 31 percent last year—seeing the company as tied to technology that’s past its heyday.

The notion of Dell going private has been floated time and again. Michael Dell still owns almost 16 percent of his creation, according to the most recent filings, and the company continues to earn substantial profits.

The knock on Dell is that it’s hard to see how it can deliver a more exciting future. The company’s strategy hasn’t looked all that original. It’s essentially trying to become more like IBM (IBM) and Hewlett-Packard by having a more diverse product and services portfolio. Its rivals, though, headed in this direction years ago. (And, as our recent cover story showed, things haven’t worked out terribly well for HP.) Dell has argued that it can cater to smaller and midsize companies better and perform services work, for example, cheaper than its much larger competitors.

Going private would carry with it some measure of embarrassment for Michael Dell. For years he was held up as an entrepreneurial hero who forged the company from a college dorm room. During Dell’s glory days and Apple’s (AAPL) darkest hour, Michael Dell infamously suggested Apple should go private and return the money to shareholders rather than continuing on as a going concern. Apple, of course, came up with the mother of all second acts with the iPod—and then a third and fourth with the iPhone and iPad, respectively.

Will Michael Dell’s latest move give his company a glorious second act? It’s not impossible, but it sure won’t be easy, as San Francisco-based analyst Shaw Wu told Bloomberg Businessweek back in June 2010. Going private “really doesn’t change anything, because the fundamental disadvantages don’t go away,” Wu said. “The competitors are still there.”

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UPDATE 3-Cricket-New Zealand show fight against South Africa

(Adds details, quotes)

PORT ELIZABETH, South Africa, Jan 13 (Reuters) – New Zealand fought bravely to move to 157 for four in their second innings, following on and still 247 runs behind South Africa, at the close of the third day’s play in the second test on Sunday.

Unbeaten pair BJ Watling (41) and Dean Brownlie (44) provided stern resistance and the duo looked relatively untroubled as they added an unbroken fifth-wicket partnership of 73 off 27.2 overs to steer their team to the close of play.

Opener Martin Guptill contributed 48 before being bowled by seamer Rory Kleinveldt who went on to have Daniel Flynn (0) caught behind with his next delivery.

Kleinveldt ended the day with two for 31 while left-arm spinner Robin Peterson, who accounted for Brendon McCullum (11) and Kane Williamson (11), claimed two for 29.

The tourists showed far more determination with the bat than they had in their first innings when they subsided to 121 all out in reply to the top-ranked hosts’s 525-8 declared.

Watling said that while the pitch was providing some variable bounce it was still good for batting which would aid New Zealand’s seemingly impossible task of at least forcing South Africa to bat again.

“It is a little bit variable and there are a few balls staying quite low. It’s still a reasonable track and we need to keep fighting away tomorrow morning and keep wearing them out,” Watling told a news conference.

The morning session had belonged to speedster Dale Steyn, the world’s top-ranked bowler, who claimed five for 17 off 13 overs to bundle New Zealand out 30 minutes before lunch, at that stage trailing South Africa by 404 runs.

Watling provided the one shining light for the tourists in their first dig as his battling 63 off 87 balls with 13 fours added some gloss to the innings.

ATTACK OR DEFEND?

Steyn, while expressing some sympathy for the situation that New Zealand find themselves in, said that the introduction of the second new ball soon after the start of play on day four could settle the test.

“It’s a difficult situation when you have been asked to follow on and you are so many runs behind. How do you go about batting? Do you attack or do you defend? It is a tough one for them,” he said.

“We are 13 overs away from the second new ball so if we can knock one over tomorrow with the older ball then get the new ball to talk a bit and get some swing then that would help,” he added.

New Zealand began the day on a parlous 47 for six and the pair of Watling and Doug Bracewell (7) added 14 runs to the overnight total before the right-handed Bracewell prodded at a Steyn delivery to send an outside edge through to keeper De Villiers.

Steyn struck again one run later when he trapped the left-handed Neil Wagner (0) leg-before with an in-swinging delivery.

The 29-year-old Steyn was not done yet and in his next over he bowled Jeetan Patel (0) after the batsman backed away from a good length delivery.

Steyn enjoyed a wonderful morning as he claimed his 19th five-wicket haul in tests as he sent down a spell that produced figures of 5-3-3-3.

Watling and Trent Boult (17 not out) then provided some late resistance with a last-wicket stand that produced 59 runs, a New Zealand record 10th-wicket partnership against South Africa beating the 57 scored by Simon Doull and Richard de Groen scored in Johannesburg during the 1994/95 season.

The aggressive Watling was the last man out, caught at first slip off the bowling of paceman Morne Morkel.

South Africa hold a 1-0 series lead. (Writing by Jason Humphries in Durban, Editing by Tom Pilcher)

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HTC seeks Myanmar edge with local font phones

YANGON (Reuters) – Peter Chou, CEO of Taiwan smartphone company HTC Corp, will on Monday launch what he hopes will be a major boost to both a backward tech sector in Myanmar, his country of birth, and to his company’s share of one of the few untapped mobile markets: a phone that locals can use out of the box.

Until now, Chou says, Myanmarese users of mobile phones and computers must install fonts in their own language, a process that is cumbersome, often invalidates the device’s warranty and has, he says, slowed innovation and the embrace of technology.

HTC has instead teamed up with a local distributor and a software developer to customize Google’s Android operating system so its devices display local fonts and sport a dedicated and, Chou says, intuitive, Myanmar language onscreen keyboard.

“You don’t have to spend two months to learn how to type it,” Chou said in an interview ahead of the launch. “You just type it. We want to give people here a computing device they don’t have to learn. They just try it, they just use it, they just get it.”

Myanmar IT experts say that while the country’s alphabet is no more complex than some other Asian scripts, a failure to agree how to apply an international standard for language symbols called Unicode to existing versions of the computer font has made it difficult to bake the language into software.

As a result, web pages and apps will often be unreadable.

BIG CHALLENGES, LITTLE PENETRATION

The issue of fonts may seem a basic one, but reflects the challenges Myanmar faces in catching up with its neighbors as it sheds decades of military control over politics and the economy. Myanmar has one of the lowest mobile penetration rates in the world, with only 3 percent of the population owning a phone in 2011, according to the World Bank. In neighboring Bangladesh, 56 percent of people have a mobile phone.

When IT enthusiasts met last year for a conference on the future of technology called Barcamp Yangon, much of the discussion revolved around such basic issues, participants said. With at least two competing types of font software available, disagreements remain.

The problem is worse on smartphones, says Soe Ngwe Ya, general manager of KMD, HTC’s distribution partner for the new phones. In order to install such fonts on mobile devices users must first “root” the phone, effectively bypassing the manufacturer’s controls on customizing the phone’s operating system. That often invalidates any warranty. “It’s a major issue,” he says.

HTC also hopes it can claw back some ground from its biggest competitor in Android phones, Samsung Electronics, which has established a first mover advantage in Myanmar.

Samsung has at least two distributors for its handsets and its advertisements are visible around the capital. Soe says KMD will act as HTC’s distributor, open a flagship store and service HTC users.

Chou, who was born in Myanmar but left to work and study in Taiwan more than 30 years ago, says that at least for now the Myanmar fonts and keyboard will only be available on HTC devices. He denied that this undermined his claims of contributing to his homeland.

“While sometimes you can be idealistic,” he said, “the first thing you have to show the people is something to get excited about.”

(Editing by Ian Geoghegan)

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Waltz wins supporting-actor Globe for ‘Django’

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — Christoph Waltz has won the supporting-actor Golden Globe for his role as a genteel bounty hunter who takes on an ex-slave as apprentice in “Django Unchained.”

Sunday’s win was Waltz’s second supporting-actor prize at the Globes, both of them coming in Quentin Tarantino films. Waltz’s violent but paternal and polite “Django” character is a sharp contrast to the wickedly bloodthirsty Nazi he played in his Globe and Oscar-winning role in Tarantino’s 2009 tale “Inglourious Basterds.”

“Let me gasp,” Waltz said. “Quentin, you know that my indebtedness to you and my gratitude knows no words.”

Show hosts Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, who co-starred in the 2008 big-screen comedy “Baby Mama,” had a friendly rivalry at the Globes. Both were nominated for best actress in a TV comedy series, Fey for “30 Rock” and Poehler for “Parks and Recreation.”

“Tina, I just want to say that I very much hope that I win,” Poehler told Fey at the start of the show.

“Thank you. You’re my nemesis. Thank you,” Fey replied.

Poehler also had a quip about television vs. film at the Globes, where the small-screen category typically takes a backseat to the big-screen nominees.

“Only at the Golden Globes do the beautiful people of film rub shoulders with the rat-faced people of television,” Poehler said.

An unusually chilly day in southern California left Globe guests looking glamorous but feeling frigid.

Debra Messing from “Smash” came in a strapless black gown and goosebumps. Asked how she was coping with the cold, she replied, “Not well.” Melissa Rauch of “The Big Bang Theory” also shivered in her strapless red gown. “I’m absolutely freezing!” she said.

Claire Danes of “Homeland” in Versace and Zooey Deschanel of “New Girl” in a strapless Oscar de la Renta gown walked near heat lamps as the mercury stayed in the high 50s. “I’m so cold. My legs aren’t cold but my arms are,” said Deschanel.

Not everyone was grousing. “I’m totally comfortable,” Glenn Close, whose Zac Posen dress was paired with matching jacket, told NBC. “Usually, it’s really hot, so I’m having a nice time so far.”

The Globes are in a rare place this season, coming after the Academy Award nominations, which were announced earlier than usual and threw out some shockers that have left the Globes show a little less relevant.

Key Globe contenders lined up largely as expected, with Steven Spielberg‘s Civil War saga “Lincoln” leading with seven nominations and two CIA thrillers — Kathryn Bigelow‘s “Zero Dark Thirty” and Ben Affleck‘s “Argo” — also doing well.

All three films earned Globe nominations for best drama and director. Yet while “Lincoln,” ”Argo” and “Zero Dark Thirty” grabbed best-picture slots at Thursday’s Oscar nominations, Bigelow and Affleck were snubbed for directing honors after a season that had seen them in the running for almost every other major award.

The Globe and Oscar directing fields typically match up closely. This time, though, only Spielberg and “Life of Pi” director Ang Lee have nominations for both. Along with Spielberg, Lee, Bigelow and Affleck, Quentin Tarantino is nominated for directing at the Globes. At the Oscars, it’s Spielberg, Lee, “Silver Linings Playbook” director David O. Russell and two surprise picks: veteran Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke for “Amour” and first-time director Benh Zeitlin for “Beasts of the Southern Wild.”

That forces some top-name filmmakers to put on brave faces for the Globes. And while a Globe might be a nice consolation prize, it could be a little awkward if Affleck, Bigelow or Tarantino won Sunday and had to make a cheery acceptance speech knowing they don’t have seats at the grown-ups table for the Feb. 24 Oscars.

That could happen. While “Lincoln” has the most nominations, it’s a purely American story that may not have as much appeal to Globe voters — about 90 reporters belonging to the Hollywood Foreign Press Association who cover entertainment for overseas outlets.

The Bigelow and Affleck films center on Americans, too, but they are international tales — “Zero Dark Thirty” chronicling the manhunt for Osama bin Laden and “Argo” recounting the rescue of six U.S. embassy workers trapped in Iran amid the 1979 hostage crisis.

Globe voters might want to make right on a snub to Bigelow three years ago, when they gave their best-drama and directing prize to ex-husband James Cameron’s sci-fi blockbuster “Avatar” over her Iraq war tale “The Hurt Locker.”

Bigelow made history a month later, becoming the first woman to win the directing Oscar for “The Hurt Locker,” which also won best picture.

Globe voters like to be trend-setters, but they missed the boat on that one. Might they feel enough chagrin to hand Bigelow the directing trophy this time?

Spielberg already has won two best-director Globes, so that might be a further inducement for the foreign-press members to favor someone else this time.

Their votes were locked in before the Oscar nominations came out. Globe balloting closed Wednesday, the day before the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced its awards lineup.

The Globe hosts had a wisecrack at Cameron’s expense. Poehler noted that she had not been following the controversy over “Zero Dark Thirty,” which has drawn criticism for indicating torture was pivotal in producing the tip that led to Bin Laden.

But “when it comes to torture, I trust the lady who was married for three years to James Cameron,” Poehler said.

The Globes feature two best-picture categories — one for drama and one for musical or comedy. Most of the Globe contenders also earned Oscar best-picture nominations, including all of the drama picks: “Argo,” ”Lincoln,” ”Life of Pi,” ”Django Unchained” and “Zero Dark Thirty.”

Yet only two of the Globe musical or comedy nominees — “Les Miserables” and “Silver Linings Playbook” — are in the running at the Oscars. That’s not unusual, though, since Oscar voters tend to overlook comedy. The other Globe nominees for musical or comedy are “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,” ”Moonrise Kingdom” and “Salmon Fishing in the Yemen.”

Globe acting recipients usually are a good sneak peek for who will win at the Oscars. All four of last season’s Oscar winners — Meryl Streep for “The Iron Lady,” Jean Dujardin for “The Artist,” Octavia Spencer for “The Help” and Christopher Plummer for “Beginners” — took home a Globe first.

Jodie Foster will receive the Globes’ Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement at the 70th Globes ceremony.

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Top Venezuelan leaders in Cuba to support Chavez

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela‘s three most powerful government figures after President Hugo Chavez gathered in Havana on Sunday to check on their ailing leader’s condition and meet with Cuban allies.

Vice-President Nicolas Maduro, Congress head Diosdado Cabello, and Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez have been shuttling to and from Cuba since the 58-year-old socialist president’s fourth and most serious cancer operation a month ago.

Chavez, who missed his own inauguration for a new, six-year term last week, has not been seen or heard from in public since the surgery. Many Venezuelans are assuming his momentous 14-year rule of the South American OPEC nation could be nearing an end.

Though acknowledging the gravity of the situation and a severe lung infection Chavez is suffering, officials are trying to stay upbeat on the president’s hopes for recovery. His brother on Saturday denied that Chavez was in a coma.

“We are all Chavez!” and “Chavez will return!” were among slogans sang and chanted at numerous solidarity rallies, meetings and concerts across Venezuela over the weekend drawing thousands of passionate and anxious supporters.

Venezuelan state TV on Sunday split its screen into four to show events going on around the nation. “Commander, take your time returning to us,” Trujillo state Governor Henry Rangel said at one.

Information Minister Ernesto Villegas said Maduro, who Chavez recently designated as his successor, informed Venezuela’s leader of the outpouring at home. He gave no more details of their encounter or the president’s condition.

State media said Maduro, Cabello, Ramirez – who also heads the powerful state oil company PDVSA – and Attorney General Cilia Flores all met Cuban President Raul Castro over the weekend. But there were no details of the talks.

‘TELL THE TRUTH’

The joint presence of top Venezuelan officials in Havana inevitably deepens rumors Chavez is at death’s door – and draws opposition criticism that Raul and Fidel Castro are giving instructions behind the scenes.

But officials have been lashing “necrophilic” opponents for such speculation, and Chavez’s brother said on Saturday that, on the contrary, he was improving daily.

One opposition leader, Julio Borges, said on Sunday the secrecy around Chavez’s exact condition was unacceptable.

“No one is asking for details of the operation or the president’s treatment, but that simply they tell the truth about his health prognosis,” said Borges, a right-wing legislator who wants Chavez formally declared absent from office.

That would trigger the naming of a caretaker president, and an election within a month, but Venezuela’s Supreme Court has ratified that Chavez remains president with Maduro in charge as No. 2 until his health situation is clarified.

“It’s been a year-and-a-half of contradictions and announcements of his complete curing followed by relapses,” Borges added, saying problems like inflation, housing shortages and power-cuts were being neglected during a political impasse.

Since the disease was discovered in mid-2011, Chavez has in fact wrongly declared himself cured twice, in an extraordinary and unsettling saga for Venezuela’s 29 million people.

The stakes are high for the wider region too. Cuba and a handful of other leftist-ruled nations have for years been depending on Chavez’s aid to bolster fragile economies.

Should Chavez die or be incapacitated, the most likely next step would be an election pitting Maduro, 50, against Henrique Capriles, 40, the main opposition leader who lost to Chavez in an October presidential election.

In a statement on Sunday, Capriles railed against the “national paralysis” but said the opposition would not be drawn into confrontation or street protests. That tactic failed spectacularly for them a decade ago when Chavez was briefly toppled but came back stronger than before.

“Just as the president has the right to attend his ill health, so Venezuelans do not deserve urgent problems to be put on hold,” Capriles said. “We are not going to play the game of calling people onto the street to create a confrontation that will benefit the violent and radical ones.”

(Editing by Diego Ore and Paul Simao)

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