Red Hat divulgará los resultados del tercer trimestre del año fiscal 2013 a través de un webcast

Red Hat Inc. (NYSE: RHT), proveedor líder mundial de soluciones de código abierto, analizará los resultados del tercer trimestre del año fiscal 2013 el jueves, 20 de diciembre de 2012, a partir de las 5:00 p. m., hora del Este.

Se puede acceder a un webcast en vivo en la página de Relaciones con los Inversores de Red Hat en http://investors.redhat.com y la reproducción se encontrará disponible a partir de aproximadamente dos horas luego de finalizados los eventos en vivo.

Acerca de Red Hat, Inc.

Red Hat es el proveedor líder mundial de soluciones de software de código abierto; utiliza un enfoque basado en la comunidad para tecnologías confiables y de alto rendimiento en la nube, Linux, middleware, almacenamiento y virtualización. Red Hat también ofrece servicios galardonados de consultoría asistencia y capacitación. Como centro de conectividad de una red global de empresas, socios y comunidades de código abierto, Red Hat ayuda a crear tecnologías relevantes e innovadoras que liberan recursos para el crecimiento y preparan a los clientes para el futuro de la tecnología de la información. Obtenga más información en: http://www.redhat.com.

Declaraciones a futuro

Ciertas declaraciones del presente comunicado de prensa pueden constituir “declaraciones a futuro” dentro del significado de la Ley de Reforma de Litigios Sobre Valores Privados (Private Securities Litigation Reform Act) de los EE. UU. de 1995. Las declaraciones a futuro ofrecen expectativas actuales de eventos futuros en base a determinados supuestos e incluyen cualquier declaración que no se relaciona directamente con cualquier hecho actual o histórico. Los resultados reales pueden diferir sustancialmente de los indicados por dichas declaraciones a futuro, como resultado de varios factores importantes, incluso: riesgos relacionados con retrasos o reducciones en el gasto en tecnología de la información; los efectos de la consolidación del sector; la capacidad de la Compañía de competir en forma eficaz; la incertidumbre y los resultados adversos en litigios y acuerdos relacionados; la integración de adquisiciones y la capacidad de comercializar en forma exitosa las tecnologías y productos adquiridos; la incapacidad de proteger adecuadamente la propiedad intelectual de la Compañía y el posible incumplimiento o violación de reclamaciones de licencia o relacionadas con la propiedad intelectual de terceros; la capacidad de entregar y estimular la demanda de nuevos productos e innovaciones tecnológicas en forma oportuna; los riesgos relacionados con la vulnerabilidad de la seguridad de datos y de información; la gestión ineficaz de, y control sobre las operaciones internacionales y el crecimiento de la Compañía; las fluctuaciones en las tasas de cambio; y cambios en el personal clave y una dependencia del mismo, así como otros factores presentes en nuestro más reciente Informe Trimestral en el formulario 10-Q (copias del cual se encuentran disponibles en el sitio Web de la Comisión de Bolsa y Valores en http://www.sec.gov), incluidos los que se encuentran en el título “Factores de riesgo” y “Análisis y Discusiones de la Gerencia sobre Condiciones Financieras y Resultados de Operaciones”. Además de estos factores, el desempeño futuro real, y los resultados pueden diferir sustancialmente debido a más factores generales que incluyen (entre otros) las condiciones generales del mercado y de la industria y las tasas de crecimiento, las condiciones económicas y políticas, los cambios en las políticas públicas y gubernamentales y el impacto de los desastres naturales como terremotos e inundaciones. Las declaraciones a futuro incluidas en este comunicado de prensa representan las opiniones de la Compañía a la fecha de este comunicado de prensa y estas ideas podrían cambiar. Sin embargo, si bien la Compañía puede elegir actualizar estas declaraciones a futuro en algún momento, la Compañía en forma específica renuncia a cualquier obligación de hacerlo. No debe confiar en estas declaraciones a futuro como si representaran las opiniones de la empresa a partir de cualquier fecha posterior de la fecha de este comunicado de prensa.

Red Hat y JBoss son marcas comerciales de Red Hat, Inc. registradas en los EE. UU. y en otros países. Linux® es la marca comercial registrada de Linus Torvalds en los EE. UU. y en otros países.

El texto original en el idioma fuente de este comunicado es la versión oficial autorizada. Las traducciones solo se suministran como adaptación y deben cotejarse con el texto en el idioma fuente, que es la única versión del texto que tendrá un efecto legal.

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Lupus forces singer Toni Braxton into LA hospital

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Singer Toni Braxton has been hospitalized in Los Angeles.

The R&B performer says in a Tweet on Friday that she's been hospitalized because of "minor health issues" related to Lupus. A spokeswoman confirmed the hospitalization but had no other details. "But no worries!," Braxton wrote to fans. "I will be out any day now."

The 45-year-old singer of "Un-break My Heart" revealed two years ago she has Lupus, a potentially deadly autoimmune disease that killed Braxton's uncle. She also suffers from a narrowing of the blood vessels in her heart.

Braxton said in a recent "20/20" interview that doctors told her the Lupus diagnosis meant her performing career would likely be diminished and the disease helped push her into a recent bankruptcy.

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Online:

http://tonibraxton.com

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U.S. Adds 146,000 Jobs; Jobless Rate Falls to 7.7%

Shaking off the effects of Hurricane Sandy and the looming fiscal impasse in Washington, the economy created 146,000 jobs in November, well above the level economists had been expecting.

Gary Cameron/Reuters

Job applicants at a job fair for veterans and their spouses this week at Nationals Park in Washington.

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

The report released Friday by the Labor Department also showed the unemployment rate fell to 7.7 percent, the lowest level in four years. But the drop came largely from a decline in the number of people seeking work and counted as officially unemployed.

Among specific industries, the retail sector was especially healthy, adding 53,000 jobs as the holiday shopping season approached. In the last three months, retail employment has increased by 140,000.

One notable point of weakness was the manufacturing sector, which lost 7,000 jobs in the month. Demand from Europe and other overseas markets has weakened recently, while some manufacturing companies have held off on spending as political leaders square off in Washington over how to cut the deficit.

The Labor Department revised job growth in previous months downward somewhat. October growth fell to 138,000 from an initial estimate 171,000, and September’s declined to 132,000 from 148,000. Average hourly earnings in November rose 0.2 percent, the report showed.

By the widest measure of joblessness, unemployment also eased slightly: after factoring in people looking for work as well as those forced to take part-time positions because full-time work wasn’t available, the total unemployed fell to 14.4 percent in November from 14.6 percent in October.

The report for November was relatively strong, economists said, and showed fewer effects from Hurricane Sandy that had been expected. In Friday’s announcement, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said the storm did “not substantively impact the national employment and unemployment estimates for November.”

Ethan Harris, co-head of global economics at Bank of America of Merrill Lynch, said, “It’s a pretty solid report. It’s consistent with a slow recovery in the job market.”

“It’s encouraging that with the fiscal cliff looming, the corporate sector seems willing to hire even with the worries about what’s going in Washington,” Mr. Harris said.

If the budget impasse can’t be resolved this month, however, it’s likely that jobs growth will weaken early next year, he added. “The fiscal cliff is a very dangerous game,” he said.

Indeed, other economists remained cautious about the jobs outlook.

  “It’s not something to get too excited about,” said Nigel Gault, chief United States economist for IHS Global Insight. “The number is 146,000 and the average so far this year is 151,000. We’re pretty much in line with what we’ve been doing.”

 Mr. Gault said Hurricane Sandy’s impact may have been seen in construction, where the number of jobs fell by 20,000, as well as in manufacturing.

The labor participation rate, which represents the proportion of the adult population that is either employed or actively looking for work, remains very low by historical standards.

At 63.6 percent in November, Mr. Gault said, it was just 0.1 percent above the low point for the current economic cycle, which was reached in August 2012.

“We’re not at the point in which the jobs market is strong enough to pull discouraged workers back into the labor market," he said.

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AP Interview: Jackson, cast discuss 'The Hobbit'

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Many fans are eagerly anticipating a return to the fictional world of Middle-earth with next week's general release of the first movie in "The Hobbit" trilogy. Director Peter Jackson and the film's stars speak to The Associated Press about making "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey":

— Jackson on shooting at 48 frames per second instead of the standard 24: "We've seen the arrival of iPhones and iPads and now there's a generation of kids — the worry that I have is that they seem to think it's OK to wait for the film to come out on DVD or be available for download. And I don't want kids to see 'The Hobbit' on their iPads, really. Not for the first time. So as a filmmaker, I feel the responsibility to say, 'This is the technology we have now, and it's different ... How can we raise the bar? Why do we have to stick with 24 frames? ...'"

"The world has to move on and change. And I want to get people back into the cinema. I want to play my little tiny role in encouraging that beautiful, magical, mysterious experience of going into a dark room full of strangers, and being transported into a piece of escapism."

— Martin Freeman (Bilbo Baggins) on shooting some scenes without other actors around: "I must admit I found the green screen and all that easier than I thought I would. ... I found the technical aspect of it quite doable. Some of it's difficult, but it's quite enjoyable, actually. It taps into when I used to play 'war' as a 6-year-old. And the Germans were all imaginary. Because I was playing a British person. So yeah, I was on the right side. ..."

On marrying his performance to that of Ian Holm, who played an older Bilbo Baggins in the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy: "I knew I couldn't be a slave to it. Because as truly fantastic as Ian Holm is in everything, and certainly as Bilbo, I can't just go and do an impression of Ian Holm for a year and a half. Because it's my turn. But it was very useful for me to watch and listen to stuff he did, vocal ticks or physical ticks, that I can use but not feel hamstrung by."

— Hugo Weaving (Elrond) on the differences in tone to the "Rings" trilogy: "This one feels lighter, more buoyant, but it's got quite profoundly moving sequences in it, too ... I think it's very different in many ways, and yet it's absolutely the same filmmaker, and you are inhabiting the same world."

— Elijah Wood (Frodo) on returning to Middle-earth in a cameo role: "It was a gift to come back ... what they'd constructed was such a beautiful remembrance of the characters from the original trilogy."

— Cate Blanchett (Galadriel) on the toughest part of filming: "Trying to keep my children off the set."

— Richard Armitage (Thorin Oakenshield) on being a 6-foot-2 guy playing a dwarf: "It's amazing how quickly you get used to it. And also, we spent most of the shoot much bigger than a 6-foot-2 guy. I mean, I had lifts in my shoes, I was wider, I was taller, and bigger-haired. And I actually think that was quite an interesting place to be, because I do think dwarfs have big ideas about themselves ..."

— Andy Serkis (Gollum) on taking on the additional role of second-unit director: "There were only a couple of times where there were really, really black days where I went away thinking, 'This is it. I can't do it.' But on the whole, Pete (Jackson) was so brilliant at allowing me to set stuff up and then critiquing my work ... but at least I would have my stab at it."

On the film itself: "I think it's a great story. I think it's a beautifully crafted film with great heart. A rollicking adventure, and it feels to me like this really massive feast that everyone will enjoy eating."

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DealBook: Private Equity Firm to Buy Stake in Aston Martin

LONDON – Aston Martin, the maker of luxury cars made famous by James Bond movies, said on Friday that it had secured crucial financing by selling a stake to a Milan-based investment firm.

The private equity firm Investindustrial agreed to pay £150 million, or $241 million, for a 37.5 percent stake in Aston Martin, which is privately held.

Investindustrial has experience in investing in the motor industry after it sold Ducati, the Italian motorcycle maker, to Volkswagen’s Audi for more than $1 billion earlier this year.

The investment firm beat Mahindra & Mahindra, an Indian automaker, in a competition for the stake. The rest of Aston Martin continues to be owned by a Kuwaiti company, Investment Dar, and a group of individual investors.

The cash injection is critical for the iconic car brand, whose financial struggles have forced it to defer investing in new technology and models just as competition in the luxury market heated up. Aston Martin said Friday that it planned to invest more than £500 million to upgrade its production and technology.

Andrea C. Bonomi, senior principal at Investindustrial, said in a statement that at Aston Martin the investment firm plans “a similar transformation and rejuvenation that we achieved with Ducati, by expanding the model range and strengthening the dealership network, throughout the world.”

Investindustrial has about €3.1 billion, or $4 billion, of assets under management, including investments in an Italian retail company, a perfume company and a firm offering hair loss remedies. The investment firm was founded in 1990 by the Bonomi family, one of Italy’s well-known dynasties that amassed their wealth in the construction and industrial sectors. Investindustrial employs more than 50 people and is mainly investing in companies in Southern Europe.

Aston Martin, which was founded in 1913, is the only major luxury car maker that remains independent from the world’s largest car companies. Ford Motor sold the company to Investment Dar in 2007. A decline in consumer demand because of the economic crisis and a lack of funds to keep up with brands like Fiat’s Ferrari had hurt earnings at the firm, which produces all its models at a single plant in Britain..

Despite the difficulties, Aston Martin cars continue to be a fixture in James Bond movies, including the latest film “Skyfall.” The character of James Bond started to drive Aston Martins in the 1964 film “Goldfinger,” the third movie in the series.

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Apple to Resume U.S. Manufacturing

For the first time in years, Apple will manufacture computers in the United States, the chief executive of Apple, Timothy D. Cook, said in interviews with NBC and Bloomberg Businessweek.

“Next year, we will do one of our existing Mac lines in the United States,” he said in an interview to be broadcast Thursday on “Rock Center With Brian Williams” on NBC.

Apple, the biggest company in the world by market value, moved its manufacturing to Asia in the late 1990s. As an icon of American technology success and innovation, the California-based company has been criticized in recent years for outsourcing jobs abroad.

“I don’t think we have a responsibility to create a certain kind of job,” Mr. Cook said in the Businessweek interview. “But I think we do have a responsibility to create jobs.”

The company plans to spend $100 million on the American manufacturing in 2013, according to the interviews, a small fraction of its overall factory investments and an even tinier portion of its available cash.

In the interviews, Mr. Cook suggested the company would work with partners and that the manufacturing would be more than just the final assembly of parts. He noted that parts of the company’s ubiquitous iPhone, including the “engine” and the glass screen, were already made in America. The processor is manufactured by Samsung in Texas, while Corning makes the glass screen in Kentucky.

Over the last few years, sales of the iPhone, iPod and iPad have overwhelmed Apple’s line of Macintosh computers, the basis of the company’s early business. Revenue from the iPhone alone made up 48 percent of the company’s total revenue for its fiscal fourth quarter ended Sept. 30.

But as recently as October, Apple introduced a new, thinner iMac, the product that pioneered the technique of building the computer innards inside the flat screen.

Mr. Cook did not say in the interviews where in the United States the new manufacturing would occur. But he did defend Apple’s track record in American hiring.

“When you back up and look at Apple’s effect on job creation in the United States, we estimate that we’ve created more than 600,000 jobs now,” Mr. Cook told Businessweek. Those jobs include positions at partners and suppliers.

Steve Dowling, a spokesman for Apple, declined on Thursday to provide additional details on Apple’s plans, referring to Mr. Cook’s interviews.

Apple has for years done the final assembly of some Macs in the United States, mainly systems that customers buy with custom configurations, like bigger hard drives and more memory than on standard machines.

Mr. Cook’s statements suggested Apple is planning to build more of the Mac’s ingredients domestically, although with partners. He told Businessweek that the plan “doesn’t mean that Apple will do it ourselves, but we’ll be working with people, and we’ll be investing our money.”

While Apple’s products are typically made in Asian factories owned by other companies, Apple itself often purchases the sophisticated manufacturing equipment required to make its cutting-edge designs, spending billions of dollars a year on such machines.

Foxconn Technology, which manufactures more than 40 percent of the world’s electronics, is one of Apple’s main overseas manufacturing contractors. Based in Taiwan, Foxconn is China’s largest private employer, with 1.2 million workers, and it has come under intense scrutiny over working conditions inside its factories.

In March, Foxconn pledged to sharply curtail the number of working hours and significantly increase wages. The announcement was a response to a far-ranging inspection by the Fair Labor Association, a monitoring group that found widespread problems — including numerous instances where Foxconn violated Chinese law and industry codes of conduct.

Apple, which recently joined the labor association, had asked the group to investigate plants manufacturing iPhones, iPads and other devices. A growing outcry over conditions at overseas factories prompted protests and petitions, and several labor rights organizations started scrutinizing Apple’s suppliers.

Almost all of the 70 million iPhones, 30 million iPads and 59 million other products Apple sold in 2011 were manufactured overseas. Apple employs 43,000 people in the United States and 20,000 overseas. An additional 700,000 people engineer, build and assemble iPads, iPhones and Apple’s other products, mostly abroad.

At a meeting with Silicon Valley executives in 2011, President Obama asked Steven P. Jobs, then the Apple chief executive, what it would take to make iPhones in the United States. Mr. Jobs, who died later that year, told the president, “Those jobs aren’t coming back.”

Nick Wingfield contributed reporting.

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Individuality takes center stage at Grammys

Fun. helped break up the sound of dance and electronic music on Top 40 radio with its edgy pop-rock grooves. Frank Ocean made a bold statement in R&B — with an announcement about his sexuality and with his critically revered, multi-genre album, "channel ORANGE." And Mumford & Sons continued to bring its folk-rock swag and style to the Billboard charts with its sophomore album.

They all were rewarded Wednesday when The Recording Academy announced the nominees for the 2013 Grammy Awards.

Those acts, who scored the most nominations with six each, were joined by typical Grammy contenders like Jay-Z and Kanye West, who also got six nominations. The Black Keys' drummer, Dan Auerbach, is also up for six awards, thanks to his nomination for producer of the year. His band earned five nods, along with R&B singer Miguel and jazz pianist Chick Corea.

"It feels like alternative music is back," said fun. guitarist Jack Antonoff. His band's gold-selling "Some Nights" is up for album of the year, competing with Black Keys' "El Camino," Mumford & Sons' "Babel," Jack White's "Blunderbuss" and "channel ORANGE," the major label debut from Ocean.

Fun. is nominated in all of the major categories, including best new artist, and record and song of the year for its breakthrough anthem "We Are Young."

Ocean, whose mother attended the nominations special, scored nods in three of the top four categories. His song "Thinkin Bout You" — which he originally wrote for another singer — will compete for record of the year with Black Keys' "Lonely Boy" and four No. 1 hits: Taylor Swift's "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together," ''Somebody I Used to Know" by Gotye and Kimbra, Kelly Clarkson's "Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You)" and "We Are Young" by fun.

Song of the year, too, features some No. 1 hits, including fun. and Clarkson's jams, as well as Carly Rae Jepsen's viral smash "Call Me Maybe." But then there's Ed Sheeran's "The A Team," a slow groove about a homeless prostitute, and Miguel's "Adorn," the R&B singer-songwriter's crossover hit.

"It's like one of those songs that wrote itself and I was the vessel," the 26-year-old said in an phone interview from New York City late Wednesday, where he performed with Trey Songz and Elle Varner.

While Miguel's excited to compete for song of the year, he's more thrilled about his sophomore album's nomination for best urban contemporary album, a new category that recognizes R&B albums with edge and multiple sounds.

"That's a huge complement to say that your entire body of work was the best of the year," he said of "Kaleidoscope Dream." ''That's the one that means the most to me. I'm really hoping maybe, just maybe."

Miguel, along with Gotye, Alabama Shakes and the Lumineers, is part of the pack of nominees who have showcased individuality and have marched to the beat of their own drum in today's music industry.

Though nominated albums by The Black Keys and Mumford & Sons are platinum-sellers, their songs are not regularly heard on Top 40 radio. Electronic and dance music, which has dominated radio airplay for a few years, were left out of the top awards this year. Also, One Direction — the boy band that released two top-selling albums this years and sold-out many arenas — was snubbed for best new artist.

Lionel Richie has one of the year's top-selling albums with his country collaboration collection, "Tuskegee," but he didn't earn any nominations. And Nicki Minaj, who released a gold-selling album this year and had a hit with "Starships," wasn't nominated for a single award.

Jay-Z and West dominated the rap categories, a familiar refrain at the Grammys. Nas scored four nominations, including best rap album for "Life Is Good." Jeff Bhasker, the producer behind fun.'s breakthrough album, also scored four nods.

Swift, who released her latest album, "Red," after the Grammy eligibility date, still scored three nominations, including two for "Safe & Sound" with The Civil Wars. Country acts were mainly left out of the major categories this year, though the genre usually has success at the Grammys. Aside from Swift's pop song competing for record of the year, there is 21-year-old Hunter Hayes, who is up for best new artist against fun., Ocean, Alabama Shakes and the Lumineers.

"I'm so proud to be, as you say, representing country music in the new artist category," said Hayes, who is also nominated for best country album and country solo performance. "I don't even feel worthy of saying that, but it's so cool for me to be able to say that."

Swift hosted the CBS special with LL Cool J and it featured performances by The Who and Maroon 5, who received multiple nominations.

The five-year-old nominations show spent its first year outside Los Angeles, making its debut in Nashville, Tenn., at the Bridgestone Arena. It marked the largest venue the show has been held in.

The 55th annual Grammy Awards take place Feb. 10 in Los Angeles.

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Online:

http://www.grammys.com

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AP Music Writer Chris Talbott and AP Writer Caitlin R. King in Nashville contributed to this report.

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Well: Holding on for the Wedding

As my patient looked on, his wife took the framed photograph out of a nondescript manila mailer, the type with bubble wrap on the inside, and handed it to me gingerly. It was clear they both considered it to be precious cargo.

“You can see I made it to the wedding,” he said, smiling broadly, as I studied the image of him in a suit, locking arms with his granddaughter, the bride. The two of them were bordered by the opened doors of the church, stained glass windows on either side, his face bearing that familiar look of consuming love, joy and pride — along with a little fear, that at any moment he might start sobbing in front of all of his buddies and co-workers attending the ceremony. I have the same photograph in my own wedding album, of my father-in-law with my wife-to-be.

“You should have heard the gasp from everyone in the church when he came through those doors with our granddaughter,” his wife exclaimed. “I mean, no one thought he would even be there!”

“My granddaughter and I had been planning it for months, but we didn’t tell anyone,” my patient went on, explaining that he and his wife had raised the girl for several years while their daughter, who had gotten pregnant in her teens, could get back on her feet.

When it came to his health, my patient is the type of guy about whom you might say if he didn’t have bad luck, he wouldn’t have any luck at all. Years earlier, he was treated for colon cancer. Now, possibly as a result of that treatment, he had leukemia. But he also had a completely different type of bone cancer, and the kicker — advanced lung cancer.

He wasn’t the first patient I had ever treated with multiple cancers, and in general we approach people like him by going in order of treating the most serious cancers first, and working our way down to the less serious ones. In one respect, he was lucky: he looked a heck of a lot better than his medical chart. As leukemia and lung cancer often represent the worst of the worst, we tried treating both at the same time. The leukemia went into remission. The lung cancer didn’t.

Within oncology, it is taken as almost a truism that people die only after they have said their goodbyes to their immediate family, or achieved some life milestone. Countless times I have seen comatose patients linger until a child flies in from California, only to pass hours after that child’s arrival.

A study that appeared in The Journal of the American Medical Association in 2004 looked at whether people die soon after a milestone. In it, the authors analyzed death certificates from more than 300,000 people dying with cancer in Ohio from 1989 to 2000, and whether those people were more likely to die immediately after a birthday, Christmas or Thanksgiving. It turns out that these people were no more likely to die after these events than before, and the authors concluded that cancer patients are not able to postpone their deaths to survive such significant occasions.

The study was misguided, though: the authors asked the wrong question. The last time I looked forward to a birthday was half a lifetime ago when, for the first time, I could walk proudly into a bar without having to proffer my grungy fake I.D. And while I enjoy holidays, what motivates me to brave the traffic on I-80 with a car full of children and a DVD player on the fritz is not my enduring respect for pilgrims; it is the chance to be with the family I see far too infrequently.

“The weekend before the wedding was a close call,” my patient said. “I couldn’t move my leg or my arm, and that CT scan showed the lung cancer in my brain….” he trailed off.

“But that pill you prescribed really did the trick,” his wife picked up. “He could walk again after a few days.”

“Even if it hadn’t, if I’d had to tape my arm to my body and walk with a splint, I wouldn’t have missed it,” my patient said with a fierce look in his eyes.

I wanted to hang on to the photo, it represented such determination, but reluctantly handed it back. I said my goodbyes to them in clinic, then headed to the workroom, where one of the leukemia nurses approached me.

“When do you want to see him again — in four weeks or in five?” the nurse asked. I had the hardest time answering, and she gave me a knowing smile, understanding why I was hesitating.

“I don’t think it makes a difference, now that his granddaughter is married,” I answered.

He did come to clinic, just one more time. He was wearing a sweatshirt with the wedding photo silkscreened on the front, and underneath the caption, “Mission Accomplished.”

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DealBook: Daimler Sells Half Its Stake in EADS for $2.2 Billion

LONDON – The German carmaker Daimler sold half of its stake in the aerospace giant European Aeronautic Defense and Space on Thursday in deal worth 1.7 billion euros ($2.2 billion).

The move is part of an overhaul of the ownership structure of EADS, the parent company of Airbus, which failed to complete a multibillion-dollar merger with the British aerospace company BAE Systems in October. The deal was aborted because of political divisions involving Britain, France and Germany.

Daimler said on Thursday that it had sold half of its 15 percent holding in EADS to a number of investors, including the German state-owned bank KfW. The automaker added that it had sold the stake at 27.23 euros a share, the closing price of EADS on Wednesday.

Shares in EADS rose 7.6 percent, to 29.25 euros, in morning trading in Paris on Thursday.

The share sale is an effort by the French and German governments to realign their stakes in the company, dissolving a decade-old arrangement that gave Paris and Berlin an effective veto over strategic management decisions at EADS.

Lagardère, a French conglomerate that currently owns a 7.5 percent stake in EADS, also plans to reduce its holding in the company through a share buyout program.

The ownership structure will eventually result in KfW acquiring a combined 12 percent stake in EADS, while France is expected to reduce its voting rights to 12 percent from 15 percent. A Spanish government holding company will also reduce its holding to 4 percent from about 5.5 percent.

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Obama to Ask Congress for $50 Billion in Storm Aid

President Obama plans to ask Congress for about $50 billion in emergency spending to help rebuild the states ravaged by Hurricane Sandy, according to administration and Congressional officials briefed on the discussions.

The White House is assembling a spending request to send to Capitol Hill as early as this week, and while the final sum is still in flux, it should fall between $45 billion and $55 billion. That represents an enormous sum at a time when Mr. Obama is locked in a titanic struggle with Republicans over the federal deficit, but is significantly less than the states sought.

Unless an austerity-minded Congress adds to the president’s plan, state leaders would have to figure out other ways to finance tens of billions of dollars of storm-related expenses or do without them. New York, New Jersey and Connecticut were seeking a combined $82 billion in federal help both to clean up and restore damage from Hurricane Sandy as well as to upgrade and harden infrastructure to prepare for future storms.

Administration officials would not say which specific spending items were being excluded, but other officials monitoring the issue identified several that the White House seemed cool to. New York, for instance, sought reimbursement for business owners for money lost while they were closed as well as for privately held utilities like Consolidated Edison.

Another proposal that may not make the cut was fully reimbursing homeowners for the costs they incur bringing damaged and destroyed homes to their condition prior to the storm; typically, the federal government covers the cost of bringing homes to a lower “livable” standard after natural disasters like Hurricane Sandy.

The administration request appears likely to come in even below the $60 billion that Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic majority leader, said on Tuesday that he expected it to include. Yet even a spending request in the neighborhood of $50 billion would strain the current political system in Washington coming just weeks before a series of deep spending cuts and tax increases are set to take effect automatically, unless the president and Congress agree on a plan to avert them.

Supporters of the disaster-relief request are proposing that the money not have to be offset, or paid for through spending cuts elsewhere. The administration request is unlikely to propose a way to pay for the aid and Mr. Reid said he did not believe it should require savings elsewhere, but House Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio is reserving judgment. If it is not offset, then it would be financed through additional federal debt.

The White House is trying to frame its storm-spending request so as not to conflict with its showdown with Republicans in Congress over broader budget issues, hoping to present it as a separate issue that has little to do with the long-term health of the treasury. Storm relief, once completed, would not be a recurring expenditure like Medicare or military spending. But officials privately acknowledge the timing is problematic.

“We expect to discuss the ongoing support that the federal government continues to provide for affected communities and our state and local partners,” said Jay Carney, the White House press secretary. “The administration has already obligated more than $2.1 billion to support response and recovery efforts.”

Craig Fugate, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and Shaun Donovan, the secretary of housing and urban development, are scheduled to testify before a Senate panel on Wednesday morning, although officials do not expect them to detail what may be in the forthcoming administration spending request.

Republicans eager to preserve what they see as the high ground on spending in their struggle with Mr. Obama may try to avoid approving all of the storm aid right away. Representative Hal Rogers of Kentucky, the Republican chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, has privately suggested taking up the aid request in two phases: emergency needs during the current lame-duck session and longer-term recovery requests next year.

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Habla el hombre que definió qué significa ser un hacker

“Soy un hacker.” La frase la pronuncia, sin titubeos, Pekka Himanen, un finlandés de 39 años que publicó, en 2001, La ética del hacker y el espíritu de la era de la información , un libro fundacional en su análisis de lo que significa la tecnología moderna en nuestra sociedad, y la influencia que tendrán los hackers en la sociedad futura.

La entrevista está por comenzar. El punto de encuentro es un hotel céntrico de la ciudad de Buenos Aires, pero en lugar de recibirnos en el salón exclusivo reservado con este fin, el filósofo Himanen (recibido en la universidad de Helsinki a los 20 años) prefiere reunirse en el café del hotel, rodeado de gente y atento a su entorno.

Este hombre, que hoy es profesor en la Universidad de Arte y Diseño de Helsinki, y profesor visitante de la Universidad de Oxford y el Instituto IN3 de Barcelona, y miembro del Instituto Helsinki para la Tecnología de la Información (HIIT) es autor, también, de El Estado del bienestar y la sociedad de la información: el modelo finlandés , que realizó junto con el sociólogo español Manuel Castells.

Himanen llegó a nuestro país invitado por la Universidad Nacional de San Martín, la Universidad Diego Portales y por la Fundación OSDE, pero además de esta convocatoria también lo trajo una de sus grandes pasiones: la investigación. “Estamos estudiando, junto con Manuel Castells, qué tipo de modelo de desarrollo nuevo se necesita después de la crisis mundial. Me refiero a un modelo de desarrollo económico combinado con desarrollo humano. Creo que es fundamental combinar una economía sustentable con el bienestar sustentable”, sostiene al comenzar la entrevista. Según cuenta el filósofo, Argentina es parte de un gran estudio que está llevando a cabo en distintos países de América latina, Asia, África, Estados Unidos y Europa.

¿Usted se considera un hacker?

Sí, claro que sí. Para mí un hacker es alguien creativamente apasionado por lo que hace y quiere hacerlo con otros. No necesariamente tiene que tener que ver con las computadoras, se puede ser hacker del conocimiento o de cualquier otro campo. Es importante decir que utilizo el término hacker en el sentido original del término, que no quiere decir delincuente informático.

¿Y usted es hacker en qué área o con qué especialización?

Yo diría en la filosofía, investigación y quizás en la vida.

¿Cómo es eso?

La etica del hacker es un libro que también habla sobre la filosofía de vida, es decir, uno tiene que preguntarse a sí mismo: ¿cuál es mi pasión creativa? ¿Qué es lo que le da significado a mi vida? Esas son grandes preguntas que todos deberíamos considerar.

Popularmente el término hacker tiene una mala connotación pero según usted explica, es un error. En su libro menciona otro término: cracker ¿Cuál es la diferencia entre ambos?

Hacker quiere decir que la persona es creativamente apasionada por lo que hace, y lo quiere realizar con lo que yo denomino “interacción enriquecedora”, es decir con otras personas. Cracker, en cambio, es el delincuente informático, la persona que ingresa en los sistemas informáticos y esparce virus, entre otros delitos.

¿Por qué, entonces, los hackers son considerados delincuentes?

Todo comenzó en los medios de comunicación, en los inicios del software. Por aquel entonces los medios tomaron la palabra hacker y comenzaron a utilizarla como sinónimo de delincuente informático para hacerlo más atractivo y dar impacto en sus noticias, pero la palabra hacker no tiene nada que ver con la delincuencia informática.

Según su libro los hackers informáticos ponen a disposición gratuita de los demás su creación para que la utilicen, pongan a prueba y la desarrollen. ¿Cómo un hacker se transforma en Bill Gates? En otras palabras, ¿cómo se transforma un hacker en un hombre de negocios?

La ética hacker es una ética de trabajo creativa en la era informática que reemplaza lo que Max Weber describió como “ética de trabajo industrial” pero después depende de cuán abierto es uno en el desarrollo de otras cosas. No necesita ser cerrado para ser un éxito, por ejemplo Linus Torvalds está a favor de la apertura total y también ha tenido mucho éxito. Internet corre en Linux, tres de cada cuatro smartphones en el mundo corren en Linux, porque Android está basado en Linux. Pero más allá de eso no hay contradicciones, porque uno puede tener pasión creativa como empresario. Lo importante es dar suficiente nivel de apertura.

¿Cómo ayudan a la sociedad los hackers y las redes sociales en situaciones de conflicto, injusticia social o cuando no hay libertad de expresión?

En situaciones como la guerra de Kosovo o en la Primavera Árabe -levantamientos populares de países árabes realizados entre 2010 y 2012- la difusión de lo que estaba pasando fue a través de las redes sociales. Y es muy importante tener en cuenta que las redes sociales tienen un impacto en la vida real. Si pensamos en la Primavera Árabe, por ejemplo, algunos de los peores dictadores que nosotros pensamos que nunca dejarían el poder, colapsaron. Y las redes sociales colaboraron mucho en la caída de estos dictadores porque la Primavera Árabe estuvo organizada a través de Internet. También en Europa se produjeron hechos similares. Las redes sociales tuvieron gran protagonismo en el movimiento de “Los Indignados”, que produjeron cambios políticos en España y en Grecia.

¿Le parece que lo que escribió hace más de una década sigue vigente?

Sí. El libro es más actual ahora. Si uno toma, por ejemplo, el capítulo de open source o de código abierto, su utilización ha crecido exponencialmente si tenemos en cuenta que Internet corre en software en código abierto y se diseminan en varios equipos como teléfono, grabadores digitales y televisores. Probablemente uno no se de cuenta que está utilizando código abierto, pero todos lo estamos utilizando. En cuanto al trabajo empresarial, la nueva ética de pasión creativa enriquecedora está impulsando al Silicon Valley.

¿Cómo ve a la sociedad futura?

Creo que la gran pregunta es lo que hoy estamos investigando en el proyecto que estoy realizando, donde nos damos cuenta que el viejo modelo de desarrollo ha llegado a su fin y ahora tenemos que replantear las prácticas grandes en la economía, la sustentabilidad ecológica. Creo que vamos a necesitar del potencial completo de la cultura de la creatividad y hemos de desarrollar esa nueva forma de bienestar sustentable, especialmente la sustentabilidad ecológica. Debemos tener en cuenta que el planeta no tiene problema en cuanto al cambio climático, puede continuar sin nosotros, pero nosotros no podemos continuar sin el planeta.

Por último, ¿qué trata de decirnos con su libro?

Para mí la clave es que todos debemos preguntarnos: ¿cuál es mi pasión creativa, cuál es mi propósito significativo en esta vida?

Linux/Open Source News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Capitalism and socialism wed as words of the year

NEW YORK (AP) — Thanks to the election, socialism and capitalism are forever wed as Merriam-Webster's most looked-up words of 2012.

Traffic for the unlikely pair on the company's website about doubled this year from the year before as the health care debate heated up and discussion intensified over "American capitalism" versus "European socialism," said the editor at large, Peter Sokolowski.

The choice revealed Wednesday was "kind of a no-brainer," he said. The side-by-side interest among political candidates and around kitchen tables prompted the dictionary folk to settle on two words of the year rather than one for the first time since the accolade began in 2003.

"They're words that sort of encapsulate the zeitgeist. They're words that are in the national conversation," said Sokolowski from company headquarters in Springfield, Mass. "The thing about an election year is it generates a huge amount of very specific interest."

Democracy, globalization, marriage and bigot — all touched by politics — made the Top 10, in no particular order. The latter two were driven in part by the fight for same-sex marriage acceptance.

Last year's word of the year was austerity. Before that, it was pragmatic. Other words in the leading dictionary maker's Top 10 for 2012 were also politically motivated.

Harken back to Oct. 11, when Vice President Joe Biden tangled with Mitt Romney running mate Paul Ryan in a televised debate focused on foreign policy — terror attacks, defense spending and war, to be specific.

"With all due respect, that's a bunch of MALARKEY," declared Biden during a particularly tough row with Ryan. The mention sent look-ups of malarkey soaring on Merriam-webster.com, Sokolowski said, adding: "Clearly a one-week wonder, but what a week!"

Actually, it was more like what a day. Look-ups of malarkey represented the largest spike of a single word on the website by percentage, at 3,000 percent, in a single 24-hour period this year. The company won't release the number of page views per word but said the site gets about 1.2 billion overall each year.

Malarkey, with the alternative spelling of "y'' at the end, is of unknown origin, but Merriam-Webster surmises it's more Irish-American than Irish, tracing it to newspaper references as far back as 1929.

Beyond "nonsense," malarkey can mean "insincere or pretentious talk or writing designed to impress one and usually to distract attention from ulterior motives or actual conditions," noted Sokolowski.

"That's exactly what Joe Biden was saying. Very precise," especially in conversation with another Irish-American, Sokolowski said. "He chose a word that resonated with the public, I think in part because it really resonated with him. It made perfect sense for this man to use this word in this moment."

An interesting election-related phenom, to be sure, but malarkey is no dead Big Bird or "binders full of women" — two Romneyisms from the defeated candidate's televised matchups with Obama that evoked another of Merriam-Webster's Top 10 — meme.

While malarkey's history is shaded, meme's roots are easily traced to evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, a Brit who coined the term for a unit of cultural inheritance, not unlike genes and DNA. The retired professor at the University of Oxford made up the word in 1976 for "The Selfish Gene," a book he published light years before the Internet and social media's capacity to take memes viral.

Sokolowski said traffic for meme more than doubled this year over 2011, with dramatic spikes pegged to political-related subjects that included Romney's Big Bird and binders remarks, social media shares of images pegged to Hillary Rodham Clinton texting and Obama's "horses and bayonets" debate rebuke of Romney in an exchange over the size of the Navy.

Dawkins, reached at home in Oxford, was tickled by the dictionary shoutout.

"I'm very pleased that it's one of the 10 words that got picked out," he said. "I'm delighted. I hope it may bring more people to understand something about evolution."

The book in which he used meme for the first time is mostly about the gene as the primary unit of natural selection, or the Darwinian idea that only the strongest survive. In the last chapter, he said, he wanted to describe some sort of cultural replicator.

And he wanted a word that sounded like "gene," so he took a twist on the Greek mimeme, which is the origin of "mime" and "mimesis," a scientific term meaning imitation.

"It's a very clever coinage," lauded the lexicographer Sokolowski.

Other words in Merriam-Webster's Top 10 for 2012:

— Touche, thanks in part to "Survivor" contestant Kat Edorsson misusing the word to mean "tough luck" rather than point well made, before she was voted off the island in May. Look-ups at Merriam-webster.com were up sevenfold this year over 2011.

— Schadenfreude, made up of the German words for "damage" and "joy," meaning taking pleasure in the misery of others, was used broadly in the media after the election. Look-ups increased 75 percent. The word in English dates to 1895.

— Professionalism, up 12 percent this year over last. Sokolowski suspects the bump might have been due to the bad economy and more job seekers, or a knowing "glimpse into what qualities people value."

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Online: http://www.merriam-webster.com/

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Follow Leanne Italie on Twitter at http://twitter.com/litalie

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Extended Use of Breast Cancer Drug Suggested

The widely prescribed drug tamoxifen already plays a major role in reducing the risk of death from breast cancer. But a new study suggests that women should be taking the drug for twice as long as is now customary, a finding that could upend the standard that has been in place for about 15 years.

In the study, patients who continued taking tamoxifen for 10 years were less likely to have the cancer come back or to die from the disease than women who took the drug for only five years, the current standard of care.

“Certainly, the advice to stop in five years should not stand,” said Prof. Richard Peto, a medical statistician at Oxford University and senior author of the study, which was published in The Lancet on Wednesday and presented at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.

Breast cancer specialists not involved in the study said the results could have the biggest impact on premenopausal women, who account for a fifth to a quarter of new breast cancer cases. Postmenopausal women tend to take different drugs, but some experts said the results suggest that those drugs as well might be taken for a longer duration.

“We’ve been waiting for this result,” said Dr. Robert W. Carlson, a professor of medicine at Stanford University. “I think it is especially practice-changing in premenopausal women because the results do favor a 10-year regimen.”

Dr. Eric P. Winer, chief of women’s cancers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, said that even women who completed their five years of tamoxifen months or years ago might consider starting on the drug again.

Tamoxifen blocks the effect of the hormone estrogen, which fuels tumor growth in estrogen receptor-positive cancers that account for about 65 percent of cases in premenopausal women. Some small studies in the 1990s suggested that there was no benefit to using tamoxifen longer than five years, so that has been the standard.

About 227,000 cases of breast cancer are diagnosed each year in the United States, and an estimated 30,000 of them would be in premenopausal women with ER-positive cancer and prime candidates for tamoxifen. But postmenopausal women also take tamoxifen if they cannot tolerate the alternative drugs, known as aromatase inhibitors.

The new study, known as Atlas, included nearly 7,000 women with ER-positive disease who had completed five years of tamoxifen. They came from about three dozen countries. Half were chosen at random to take the drug another five years, while the others were told to stop.

In the group assigned to take tamoxifen for 10 years, 21.4 percent had a recurrence of breast cancer in the ensuing nine years, meaning the period 5 to 14 years after their diagnoses. The recurrence rate for those who took only five years of tamoxifen was 25.1 percent.

About 12.2 percent of those in the 10-year treatment group died from breast cancer, compared with 15 percent for those in the control group.

There was virtually no difference in death and recurrence between the two groups during the five years of extra tamoxifen. The difference came in later years, suggesting that tamoxifen has a carry-over effect that lasts long after women stop taking it.

Whether these differences are big enough to cause women to take the drug for twice as long remains to be seen.

“The treatment effect is real, but it’s modest,” said Dr. Paul E. Goss, director of breast cancer research at the Massachusetts General Hospital.

Tamoxifen has side effects, including endometrial cancer, blood clots and hot flashes, which cause many women to stop taking the drug. In the Atlas trial, it appears that roughly 40 percent of the patients assigned to take tamoxifen for the additional five years stopped prematurely.

Some 3.1 percent of those taking the extra five years of tamoxifen got endometrial cancer versus 1.6 percent in the control group. However, only 0.6 percent of those in the longer treatment group died from endometrial cancer or pulmonary blood clots.

“Over all, the benefits of extended tamoxifen seemed to outweigh the risks substantially,” Trevor J. Powles of the Cancer Center London, said in a commentary published by The Lancet.

Dr. Judy E. Garber, director of the Center for Cancer Genetics and Prevention at Dana-Farber, said many women have a love-hate relationship with hormone therapies.

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ENI Announces Major Gas Find Off Mozambique

LONDON — The Italian oil company ENI said Wednesday that it had made new natural gas discoveries in the waters off Mozambique, a find that will help consolidate ENI’s position as one of the leaders in the hot new East Africa region.

Offshore Mozambique, where ENI’s discovery is located, ranked third in the world in terms of oil and gas discovered last year, after the Santos Basin in Brazil and Iraqi Kurdistan, according to Mansur Mohammed, an analyst at Wood Mackenzie in Edinburgh.

The finds — from the sixth and seventh wells that ENI has drilled — add an additional 6 trillion cubic feet of gas to what ENI has already found. That is a large amount of gas but is dwarfed by the 68 trillion cubic feet that ENI now says it has found in its exploration concession called Block 4, where ENI has a 70 percent shareholding.

Three other shareholders — Galp Energia of Portugal, Kogas of South Korea and ENH, the Mozambican national oil company — each hold 10 percent.

The total amount discovered is equivalent to about 12 billion barrels of oil. A high proportion is likely to be recoverable, ENI said.

According to industry estimates, ENI’s share of the Mozambique discoveries could be worth around $15 billion.

The ENI finds coincide with an effort by the company’s chief executive, Paolo Scaroni, to focus more on exploration and production. In an interview, Mr. Scaroni said that ENI’s exploration activities in Mozambique would come to about $700 million. When you make a business of exploration and are “successful you make a huge amount of money,” he said.

ENI first found gas in Mozambique last year, closely following a discovery by Anadarko Petroleum of the United States.

The two companies are now negotiating with the government on a development plan. The biggest money earner is likely to be exporting gas to Asia as liquefied natural gas. The Web site of the Mozambique Instituto Nacional de Petroleo, the energy ministry, has a presentation that indicates that as many as 10 LNG plants or trains could be built, which would make Mozambique a very large player in the world gas market.

Mr. Scaroni said there could also be a role for a floating LNG facility, a technology that Royal Dutch Shell is now developing for use off western Australia. Shell recently tried to buy Cove Energy, which had a small position in the Mozambique discoveries, but was outbid by Thailand’s PTT Exploration and Production.

ENI is not a major player in LNG and may need help with the huge capital costs for developing the gas, which Mr. Scaroni put in the “tens of billions” of dollars.

Anadarko is also not an LNG specialist. It is widely thought in the industry that the companies will bring in partners.

Mr. Scaroni said he had been talking to potential partners “but we are fairly reluctant to strike a deal with anybody until we finish our exploration.”

A recent report by Bernstein Research says that Mozambique will be “ENI’s most significant project, although we do not expect production until 2019 at the earliest.” Bernstein estimates that the internal rate of return for Mozambique LNG will be a substantial 27 percent.

The gas discoveries off Mozambique are contained in sandstone deposits in what were ancient river beds, similar to those off West Africa and elsewhere.

What makes the Mozambique discoveries particularly rich is that the sandstone layers containing the gas are particularly thick. One of the wells ENI drilled, called Coral 2 found gas-bearing rock 140 meters, or almost 460 feet, thick — an exceptional amount.

“Mozambique is a very positive exploration story,” Mr. Mohammed of Wood Mackenzie said. “We are talking about an unprecedented high exploration success rate that transformed the outlook for the region.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: December 5, 2012

An earlier version of this article misspelled the first name of ENI’s chief executive. He is Paolo Scaroni, not Paulo.

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High-Speed Trades Hurt Investors, a Study Says

A top government economist has concluded that the high-speed trading firms that have come to dominate the nation’s financial markets are taking significant profits from traditional investors.

Mendoza College of Business

The economist Andrei Kirilenko’s findings are still being reviewed by peers and have encountered opposition.

Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times

Bart Chilton of the C.F.T.C. says high-speed traders are taking “some of the cream off the top.”

The chief economist at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Andrei Kirilenko, reports in a coming study that high-frequency traders make an average profit of as much as $5.05 each time they go up against small traders buying and selling one of the most widely used financial contracts.

The agency has not endorsed Mr. Kirilenko’s findings, which are still being reviewed by peers, and they are already encountering some resistance from academics. But Bart Chilton, one of five C.F.T.C. commissioners, said on Monday that “what the study shows is that high-frequency traders are really the new middleman in exchange trading, and they’re taking some of the cream off the top.”

Mr. Kirilenko’s work stands in contrast to several statements from government officials who have expressed uncertainty about whether high-speed traders are earning profits at the expense of ordinary investors.

The study comes as a council of the nation’s top financial regulators is showing increasing concern that the accelerating automation and speed of the financial markets may represent a threat both to other investors and to the stability of the financial system.

The Financial Stability Oversight Council, an organization formed after the recent financial crisis to deal with systemic risks, took up the issue at a meeting in November that was closed to the public, according to minutes that were released Monday.

The gathering of top regulators, including Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner and Ben S. Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, said in its annual report this summer that recent developments “could lead to unintended errors cascading through the financial system.” The C.F.T.C. is a member of the oversight council.

The issue of high-frequency trading has generated anxiety among investors in the stock market, where computerized trading first took hold. But the minutes from the oversight council, and the council’s annual report released this year, indicate that top regulators are viewing the automation of trading as a broader concern as high-speed traders move into an array of financial markets, including bond and foreign currency trading.

Mr. Kirilenko’s study focused on one corner of the financial markets that the C.F.T.C. oversees, contracts that are settled based on the future value of the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index. He and his co-authors, professors at Princeton and the University of Washington, chose the contract because it is one of the most heavily traded financial assets in any market and is popular with a broad array of investors.

Using previously private data, Mr. Kirilenko’s team found that from August 2010 to August 2012, high-frequency trading firms were able to reliably capture profits by buying and selling futures contracts from several types of traditional investors.

The study notes that there are different types of high-frequency traders, some of which are more aggressive in initiating trades and some of which are passive, simply taking the other side of existing offers in the market.

The researchers found that more aggressive traders accounted for the largest share of trading volume and made the biggest profits. The most aggressive scored an average profit of $1.92 for every futures contract they traded with big institutional investors, and made an average $3.49 with a smaller, retail investor. Passive traders, on the other hand, saw a small loss on each contract traded with institutional investors, but they made a bigger profit against retail investors, of $5.05 a contract.

Large investors can trade thousands of contracts at once to bet on future shifts in the S.& P. 500 index. The average aggressive high-speed trader made a daily profit of $45,267 in a month in 2010 analyzed by the study.

Industry profits have been falling, however, as overall stock trading volume has dropped and the race for the latest technological advances has increased costs.

Ben Protess contributed reporting.

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US reacts with joy to royal baby news

WESTPORT, Connecticut (AP) — An heir to the British throne is on the way — and Americans may be as enthralled as the Brits.

This former colony has been riveted by the royal news that the former Kate Middleton is pregnant — perhaps as much as Britain, where such regal developments are taken in stride.

"We don't really have a princess here," said Kathy Gitlin, an elementary school teacher in Connecticut who was thrilled to hear that Kate is with child. "I'm an Anglophile, I love England, and I think it's wonderful that two people in love wanted to get married and start a family. It's great."

There are several reasons for the American public's pleasure in Kate's news, manifested not only by the good wishes sent by President Obama but also by the breathless news coverage and the general good will toward the actually not-so-young young couple, who have both now reached 30.

First, and least complicated, is the fact that Kate seems a likeable and sensible young woman who married one of the world's most eligible bachelors without letting the power, prestige and A-plus jewelry go to her head.

Then there are the long ties between the two countries, so alike and so maddeningly different.

When Americans proudly declared their independence, they swore off sovereign kings and queens forever, yet several centuries later they find themselves drawn to the royals' pomp and pageantry, embracing the more colorful aspects of a system whose substance they had eagerly overthrown.

Finally, hardest to quantify, is the fading, almost ghostly, image of Princess Diana, who died so young. Americans want Diana's sons to flourish, and Kate seems to have made William very, very happy.

"I remember when Diana died, it was such a shock," said Gitlin, 52. "No one can ever take her place, but it's nice to have another person, someone this generation can look up to, and someone who William can love."

There's no doubt that many Britons are thrilled as well, and the country's embattled tabloid press certainly views a royal pregnancy (at Christmastime no less!) as a surefire circulation booster and a welcome diversion from a series of press scandals.

But some on Monday expressed a rather blasé attitude to the prospect of a new generation of Windsors seemingly bound for the throne. In the chill of early evening in north London's Camden market, young couples strolling among the stalls received the news of Kate's pregnancy with a shrug.

"I'm happy for them, but I don't really care," said Enya Lonergan, 19, who was visiting from Canterbury, south of London, with her friend Will Nichols, 20.

They could muster little enthusiasm for the news, noting that they had little in common with the royals, particularly in these bleak economic times.

"I don't think about them," Nichols said, adding that — naturally — he'd send them a gift. Or not.

Others said they were not interested and questioned the need for a royal family in the 21st century.

"I don't think it's a good thing," said Stephen Jowitt, 63, as he ambled down Camden High Street. "It reinforces a class system."

The news did provide a boost to one of Britain's national pastimes — finding new ways to wager money. Bookmakers are now taking bets on the gender of Kate's child, what the infant will be named and the color of his/her hair.

Joe Crilly, a spokesman for the William Hill bookmaker, said a high level of betting interest is expected, with favored names including Diana, Philip, Elizabeth and Sarah.

In America, ABC News even offered a poll, asking people to rate likely baby names.

Baby thoughts have been found in some less-than-fully-credible supermarket tabloids for months. They've been trumpeting "stories" about Kate's pregnancies for months, without any apparent basis in fact.

But that didn't keep the public from gobbling them up — the British royals, with their haughty glamour and slightly tragic air, have long captivated Americans.

"I'm always looking for any news of William and Kate," said 19-year-old Stacy McFacken, a clerk at a grocery store in Mentor, Ohio, in August when a number of tabloids offered screaming headlines about Kate's purported pregnancy.

"There's nothing like this in the States," she said. "It's just like all the fairy tales we read about as kids. We all want to be Kate."

Word of Kate's condition, including her hospitalization for complications, was top news on websites throughout the world. Her condition requires specialist treatment but if diagnosed early, it is unlikely to have long-term consequences for the mother or baby, and does not raise the risk of a miscarriage.

But while the parents might be anxious, world leaders stepped in to wish her well. The news was featured prominently on front pages in Argentina, India, France, South Africa and other countries. It sent Twitter into a tizzy, with the hashtag "royalbaby" trending worldwide and used more than 28,000 times in the first few hours following the official announcement. U.S. media websites such as People, Vanity Fair and the Daily Beast provided extensive coverage, with the Huffington Post launching a live blog to track developments.

"The whole wide world is excited," said Shao Hua Huang, a surgical nurse who practices in New York and Connecticut. "We're really happy for her. It's because of England and all the tradition. We Americans followed in their footsteps."

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Associated Press writers Paisley Dodds, Danica Kirka and Cassandra Vinograd in London contributed to this report.

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Generic Drug Makers Facing Squeeze on Revenue

They call it the patent cliff.

Brand-name drug makers have feared it for years. And now the makers of generic drugs fear it, too.

This year, more than 40 brand-name drugs — valued at $35 billion in annual sales — lost their patent protection, meaning that generic companies were permitted to make their own lower-priced versions of well-known drugs like Plavix, Lexapro and Seroquel — and share in the profits that had exclusively belonged to the brands.

Next year, the value of drugs scheduled to lose their patents and be sold as generics is expected to decline by more than half, to about $17 billion, according to an analysis by Crédit Agricole Securities.“The patent cliff is over,” said Kim Vukhac, an analyst for Crédit Agricole. “That’s great for large pharma, but that also means the opportunities theoretically have dried up for generics.”

In response, many generic drug makers are scrambling to redefine themselves, whether by specializing in hard-to-make drugs, selling branded products or making large acquisitions. The large generics company Watson acquired a European competitor, Actavis, in October, vaulting it from the fifth- to the third-largest generic drug maker worldwide.

“They are certainly saying either I need to get bigger, or I need to get ‘specialer,’ ” said Michael Kleinrock, director of research development at the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics, a health industry research group. “They all want to be special.”

As one consequence of the approaching cliff, executives for generic drug companies say, they will no longer be able to rely as much on the lucrative six-month exclusivity periods that follow the patent expirations of many drugs. During those periods, companies that are the first to file an application with the Food and Drug Administration, successfully challenge a patent and show they can make the drug win the right to sell their version exclusively or with limited competition.

The exclusivity windows can give a quick jolt to companies. During the first nine months of 2012, sales of generic drugs increased by 19 percent over the same period in 2011, to $39.1 billion from $32.8 billion, according to Michael Faerm, an analyst for Credit Suisse. Sales of branded drugs, by contrast, fell 4 percent during the same period, to $174.2 billion from $181.3 billion.

But those exclusive periods also make generic drug makers vulnerable to the fickle cycle of patent expiration. “The only issue is it’s a bubble, too,” said Mr. Kleinrock. He said next year, the generic industry would enter a drought that was expected to last about two years.  Of the drugs that are becoming generic, fewer have exclusivity periods dedicated to a single drug maker.

In 2013, for example, the antidepressant Cymbalta, sold by Eli Lilly, is scheduled to be available in generic form. But more than five companies are expected to share in sales during the first six months, according to a report by Ms. Vukhac.

Heather Bresch, the chief executive of Mylan, the second-largest generics company in the United States, said Wall Street analysts were obsessed with the issue. “I can’t go anywhere without being asked about the patent cliff, the patent cliff, the patent cliff,” she said. “The patent cliff is one aspect of a complex, multilayered landscape, and I think each company is going to face it differently.”

Jeremy M. Levin, the chief executive of Teva Pharmaceuticals, the largest global maker of generic drugs, agreed. “The concept of exclusivity — where only one generic player could actually make money out of the unique moment — has diminished,” he said. “In the absence of that, many companies have had to really ask the question, ‘How do I really play in the generics world?’ ”

For Teva, Mr. Levin said, he believes the answer will be both its reach  — it sells 1,400 products, and one in six generic prescriptions in the United States is filled with a Teva product  — and what he says is a reputation for making quality products. That focus will be increasingly important, he said, given recent statements by the F.D.A. that it intends to take a closer look at the quality of generic drugs. Mr. Levin also said he planned to cut costs, announcing last week that he intended to trim from $1.5 to $2 billion in expenses over the next five years.

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Generic Drug Makers Facing Squeeze on Revenue

They call it the patent cliff.

Brand-name drug makers have feared it for years. And now the makers of generic drugs fear it, too.

This year, more than 40 brand-name drugs — valued at $35 billion in annual sales — lost their patent protection, meaning that generic companies were permitted to make their own lower-priced versions of well-known drugs like Plavix, Lexapro and Seroquel — and share in the profits that had exclusively belonged to the brands.

Next year, the value of drugs scheduled to lose their patents and be sold as generics is expected to decline by more than half, to about $17 billion, according to an analysis by Crédit Agricole Securities.“The patent cliff is over,” said Kim Vukhac, an analyst for Crédit Agricole. “That’s great for large pharma, but that also means the opportunities theoretically have dried up for generics.”

In response, many generic drug makers are scrambling to redefine themselves, whether by specializing in hard-to-make drugs, selling branded products or making large acquisitions. The large generics company Watson acquired a European competitor, Actavis, in October, vaulting it from the fifth- to the third-largest generic drug maker worldwide.

“They are certainly saying either I need to get bigger, or I need to get ‘specialer,’ ” said Michael Kleinrock, director of research development at the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics, a health industry research group. “They all want to be special.”

As one consequence of the approaching cliff, executives for generic drug companies say, they will no longer be able to rely as much on the lucrative six-month exclusivity periods that follow the patent expirations of many drugs. During those periods, companies that are the first to file an application with the Food and Drug Administration, successfully challenge a patent and show they can make the drug win the right to sell their version exclusively or with limited competition.

The exclusivity windows can give a quick jolt to companies. During the first nine months of 2012, sales of generic drugs increased by 19 percent over the same period in 2011, to $39.1 billion from $32.8 billion, according to Michael Faerm, an analyst for Credit Suisse. Sales of branded drugs, by contrast, fell 4 percent during the same period, to $174.2 billion from $181.3 billion.

But those exclusive periods also make generic drug makers vulnerable to the fickle cycle of patent expiration. “The only issue is it’s a bubble, too,” said Mr. Kleinrock. He said next year, the generic industry would enter a drought that was expected to last about two years.  Of the drugs that are becoming generic, fewer have exclusivity periods dedicated to a single drug maker.

In 2013, for example, the antidepressant Cymbalta, sold by Eli Lilly, is scheduled to be available in generic form. But more than five companies are expected to share in sales during the first six months, according to a report by Ms. Vukhac.

Heather Bresch, the chief executive of Mylan, the second-largest generics company in the United States, said Wall Street analysts were obsessed with the issue. “I can’t go anywhere without being asked about the patent cliff, the patent cliff, the patent cliff,” she said. “The patent cliff is one aspect of a complex, multilayered landscape, and I think each company is going to face it differently.”

Jeremy M. Levin, the chief executive of Teva Pharmaceuticals, the largest global maker of generic drugs, agreed. “The concept of exclusivity — where only one generic player could actually make money out of the unique moment — has diminished,” he said. “In the absence of that, many companies have had to really ask the question, ‘How do I really play in the generics world?’ ”

For Teva, Mr. Levin said, he believes the answer will be both its reach  — it sells 1,400 products, and one in six generic prescriptions in the United States is filled with a Teva product  — and what he says is a reputation for making quality products. That focus will be increasingly important, he said, given recent statements by the F.D.A. that it intends to take a closer look at the quality of generic drugs. Mr. Levin also said he planned to cut costs, announcing last week that he intended to trim from $1.5 to $2 billion in expenses over the next five years.

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News Analysis: Criticized as Weak in Past Talks, Obama Takes Harder Line

WASHINGTON — Amid demands from Republicans that President Obama propose detailed new spending cuts to avert the year-end fiscal crisis, his answer boils down to this: you first.

Pool photo by Roger L. Wollenberg

Peter R. Orszag, left, a former White House budget director, with Ben S. Bernanke, second from right, the Federal Reserve chairman, and President Obama.

Pablo Martinez Monsivais/Associated Press

Disciplined and unyielding, Mr. Obama argues for raising taxes on the wealthy while offering nothing new to rein in spending and overhaul entitlement programs beyond what was on the table last year.

Mr. Obama, scarred by failed negotiations in his first term and emboldened by a clear if close election to a second, has emerged as a different kind of negotiator in the past week or two, sticking to the liberal line and frustrating Republicans on the other side of the bargaining table.

Disciplined and unyielding, he argues for raising taxes on the wealthy while offering nothing new to rein in spending and overhaul entitlement programs beyond what was on the table last year. Until Republicans offer their own new plan, Mr. Obama will not alter his. In effect, he is trying to leverage what he claims as an election mandate to force Republicans to take ownership of the difficult choices ahead.

His approach is born of painful experience. In his first four years in office, Mr. Obama has repeatedly offered what he considered compromises on stimulus spending, health care and deficit reduction to Republicans, who either rejected them as inadequate or pocketed them and insisted on more. Republicans argued that Mr. Obama never made serious efforts at compromise and instead lectured them about what they ought to want rather than listening to what they did want.

Either way, the two sides were left at loggerheads over the weekend with less than a month until a series of painful tax increases and spending cuts automatically take effect, risking what economists say would be a new recession.

Mr. Obama refuses to propose more spending cuts until Republicans accept higher tax rates on the wealthy, and Republicans refuse to accept higher tax rates on the wealthy while asking for more spending cuts.

“I’m puzzled why Republicans are locking into a principle that’s not sustainable and why Democrats aren’t taking the moment to put forward their own vision of entitlement reform,” said Peter R. Orszag, a former White House budget director for Mr. Obama.

Mr. Orszag’s former White House colleagues said they had grown tired of making unilateral concessions only to see Republicans moving the goal posts, as they see it. “The president is not going to negotiate with himself,” said Dan Pfeiffer, the White House communications director. “He’s laid out his position, and Republicans have to come to the table.”

Republican strategists argue that in resorting to campaign-style events to take his fiscal message to voters, Mr. Obama is overplaying his hand, much as President George W. Bush did after his re-election when he barnstormed the country in favor of a Social Security restructuring plan that he never successfully sold to leaders on Capitol Hill.

“He is overreading his mandate,” said John Feehery, a former adviser to top House Republicans. “By doing the campaign thing, he is making the same mistake Bush made in 2005.” Eventually, he said, Democratic and Republican leaders “are going to cut the deal, and Obama is going to be on the outside looking in.”

The difference might be that Mr. Obama ran more explicitly on the idea of letting Mr. Bush’s tax cuts expire for incomes over $250,000, while Mr. Bush’s re-election was fought more on grounds of national security than Social Security. But both presidents emerged from relatively narrow popular-vote victories determined to impose their will on a balky Congress resisting their leadership.

Mr. Obama seemed to defy the Republican House last week when Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner delivered a plan calling for $1.6 trillion in additional taxes from the wealthy over 10 years, as well as $50 billion in short-term stimulus spending and $612 billion in recycled cuts first put on the table during last year’s failed debt talks.

Republicans erupted in outrage, though they produced no specific alternative. Instead, they noted they had expressed newfound willingness since the election to increase tax revenue by limiting deductions for the wealthy, though not by raising rates.

The administration laid out its latest plan in less formal ways a couple of weeks earlier, according to a senior official who declined to be identified discussing private deliberations. But the message was that Speaker John A. Boehner could not move yet. After waiting with no further response, the administration decided to have Mr. Geithner deliver the proposal on paper knowing it would be provocative but thinking it was needed to move the process along.

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Study shows growth in second screen users

NEW YORK (AP) — Television viewers were once called couch potatoes. Many are becoming more active while watching now, judging by the findings in a new report that illustrates the explosive growth in people who watch TV while connected to social media on smartphones and tablets.

The Nielsen company said that one in three people using Twitter in June sent messages at some point about the content of television shows, an increase of 27 percent from only five months earlier. And that was before the Olympics, which was probably the first big event to illustrate the extent of second screen usage.

"Twitter has become the second screen experience for television," said Deirdre Bannon, vice president of social media at Nielsen.

Social networking is becoming so pervasive that the study found nearly a third of people aged 18-to-24 reported using the sites while in the bathroom.

An estimated 41 percent of tablet owners and 38 percent of smartphone owners used their device while also watching television at least once a day, Nielsen said.

That percentage hasn't changed much; in fact, 40 percent of smartphone owners reported daily dual screen usage a year earlier, Nielsen said. The difference is that far more people own these devices and they are using them for a longer period of time. The company estimated that Americans spent a total of 157.5 billion minutes on mobile devices in July 2012, nearly doubling the 81.8 billion the same month a year earlier.

"There are big and interesting implications," Bannon said. "I think both television networks and advertisers are onto it."

The social media can provide networks with real-time feedback on what they are doing. The performance of moderators at presidential debates this fall was watched more closely than perhaps ever before, because people were instantly taking on Twitter to provide their own critiques.

It also makes for some conflicting information: Twitter buzzed with complaints last summer about NBC's policy of airing many Olympics events from London on tape delay, yet ratings for the prime-time Olympics telecast soared past expectations.

The increase in people watching television and commenting about it online would seem to run counter to another big trend this fall: more people recording programs and watching them at a later hour. Those contrary trends both increase the value of live event programming like awards shows or sporting events.

The Nielsen study also found that 35 percent of people who used tablets while watching TV looked up information online about the program they were watching. A quarter of tablet owners said they researched coupons or deals for products they saw advertised on television

As rapid as the use of social media while on television is growing in the United States, it already lags behind other countries. Nielsen said that 63 percent of people in the Middle East or Africa report using social media while on TV, and 52 percent of people in Latin America.

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The New Old Age Blog: Forced to Choose: Nursing Home vs. Hospice

An older person, someone who will die within six months, leaves a hospital. Where does she go?

Almost a third of the time, according to a recent study from the University of California, San Francisco, records show she takes advantage of Medicare’s skilled-nursing facility benefit and enters a nursing home. But is that the best place for end-of-life care?

In terms of monitoring her vital signs and handling IVs — the round-the-clock nursing care that the skilled-nursing facility benefit is designed to provide — maybe so. But for treating end-of-life symptoms like pain and shortness of breath, for providing spiritual support for her and her family, for palliative care that helps her through the ultimate transition – hospice is the acknowledged expert.

She could receive hospice care, also covered by Medicare, while in the nursing home. But since Medicare only rarely reimburses for both hospice and the skilled-nursing facility benefit at the same time, this hypothetical patient and her family face a financial bind. If she opts for the hospice benefit, which does not include room and board at the nursing home, then she will be on the hook for hundreds of dollars a day to remain in the facility.

She could use the hospice benefit at home, of course. But, “we know these patients are medically complex,” said Katherine Aragon, lead author of the study in The Archives of Internal Medicine, and now a palliative care specialist at Lawrence General Hospital in Massachusetts. “And we know that taking care of someone near the end of life can be very demanding, hard for families to manage at home.” And that assumes the patient has a family or a home.

For some patients, a nursing home, though possibly dreaded, is the only place that can provide 24/7 care.

But if she uses the skilled-nursing facility benefit to pay for room and board in a facility, she probably has to forgo hospice. (The exception: if she was hospitalized for something unrelated to her hospice diagnosis. If she has cancer, then trips and breaks a hip, she can have both nursing home coverage and hospice. If cancer itself caused the bone to fracture, no dice.)

Let’s acknowledge that these are lousy choices.

The study, using data from the National Health and Retirement Study from 1994 through 2007, looked at more than 5,000 people who initially lived in the community – that is, not in a facility. About 30 percent used the skilled-nursing facility benefit during the final six months of life; those people were likely to be over 85 and family members said, after their deaths, that they had expected them to die soon. (The benefit is commonly referred to as S.N.F., which people in the field pronounce as “sniff”).

The choice to use S.N.F. had ongoing repercussions. Almost 43 percent of those who used it died in a nursing home and almost 40 percent in a hospital. Just 11 percent died at home, though that is where most people prefer to die, studies repeatedly show.

Among those who didn’t use the S.N.F. benefit, more than 40 percent died at home.

In effect, nursing homes were providing end-of-life care, expensively and probably not so well, for almost a third of the elderly population.

The skilled-nursing facility benefit, Dr. Aragon pointed out in an interview, is meant to provide rehabilitation. “The hope is that someone will get stronger and go home,” she said.

Sometimes, of course, that is what happens.

“What we may be missing is that this patient is on an end-of-life trajectory,” she continued. “Maybe they can’t get stronger.”

Moreover, Dr. Aragon pointed out, nursing homes often have financial incentives to keep re-hospitalizing patients. After three days in a hospital, the skilled-nursing facility benefit starts anew, and it reimburses at a higher level than Medicaid, which pays for most nursing home care.

Because this unhappy choice between hospice care and nursing home reimbursement reflects federal policy, there may be little that individual families can do. If physicians are willing to honestly discuss their patients’ prognosis, to assess whether a nursing home stay will lead to rehabilitation or whether it is where a patient will likely die, sooner rather than later, families may have some personal options.

If they knew that death was likely within a few months, they might try to provide care at home with hospice help for that limited time, difficult as that is. Or they might be able to muster enough money to pay for a few months in a nursing home, so that their parent can be a resident and still receive hospice care.

But these are still lousy choices. “Palliative care should be part of nursing home care,” said Alexander K. Smith, the study’s senior author and a palliative care specialist at the University of California, San Francisco. “And that regulation that prevents concurrent use of the S.N.F. benefit and hospice isn’t in the interest of patients and families.”

Coming up in a future post: Experimenting with a concurrent-coverage option.

Paula Span is the author of “When the Time Comes: Families With Aging Parents Share Their Struggles and Solutions.”

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