Notre Dame: Football Star Was 'Catfished' in Hoax

Notre Dame's athletic director and the star of its near-championship football team said the widely-reported death of the star's girlfriend from leukemia during the 2012 football season was apparently a hoax, and the player said he was duped by it as well.

Manti Te'o, who led the Fighting Irish to the BCS championship game this year and finished second for the Heisman Trophy, said in a statement today that he fell in love with a girl online last year who turned out not to be real.

The university's athletic director, Jack Swarbrick, said it has been investigating the "cruel hoax" since Te'o approached officials in late December to say he believed he had been tricked.

Private investigators hired by the university subsequently monitored online chatter by the alleged perpetrators, Swarbrick said, adding that he was shocked by the "casual cruelty" it revealed.

"They enjoyed the joke," Swarbrick said, comparing the ruse to the popular film "Catfish," in which filmmakers revealed a person at the other end of an online relationship was not who they said they were.

"While we still don't know all of the dimensions of this ... there are certain things that I feel confident we do know," Swarbrick said. "The first is that this was a very elaborate, very sophisticated hoax, perpetrated for reasons we don't understand."

Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images

Notre Dame's Athletic Director Discusses Manti Te'o Girlfriend Hoax Watch Video

Notre Dame Football Star Victim of 'Girlfriend Hoax' Watch Video

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Te'o said during the season that his girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, died of leukemia in September on the same day Te'o's grandmother died, triggering an outpouring of support for Te'o at Notre Dame and in the media.

"While my grandma passed away and you take, you know, the love of my life [Kekua]. The last thing she said to me was, 'I love you,'" Te'o said at the time, noting that he had talked to Kekua on the phone and by text message until her death.

Now, responding to a story first reported by the sports website Deadspin, Te'o has acknowledged that Kekua never existed. The website reported today that there were no records of a woman named Lennay Kekua anywhere.

Te'o denied that he was in on the hoax.

"This is incredibly embarrassing to talk about, but over an extended period of time, I developed an emotional relationship with a woman I met online," Te'o said in a statement released this afternoon. "We maintained what I thought to be an authentic relationship by communicating frequently online and on the phone, and I grew to care deeply about her."

Swarbrick said he expected Te'o to give his version of events at a public event soon, perhaps Thursday, and that he believed Te'o's representatives were planning to disclose the truth next week until today's story broke.

Deadspin reported that the image attached to Kekua's social media profiles, through which the pair interacted, was of another woman who has said she did not even know Te'o or know that her picture was being used. The website reported that it traced the profiles to a California man who is an acquaintance of Te'o and of the woman whose photo was stolen.

"To realize that I was the victim of what was apparently someone's sick joke and constant lies was, and is, painful and humiliating," Te'o said.

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What's the economic value of nature?

Bob Holmes, consultant

(Image: Tim Laman/NGS/Getty)

Putting a price on the impact of nature may help us understand its true worth, argues environmentalist Tony Jupiter in What Has Nature Ever Done for Us?

HOW much is nature worth, in measurable financial value? Most economists - and politicians - would answer in terms of the price of timber, pasture for grazing or tourism in national parks. But nature delivers far, far more than that. In What has Nature ever Done for Us?, Tony Juniper aims to bring that knowledge to a broader public.

One of the UK's leading environmentalists, Juniper lays out the many ways that natural ecosystems pay dividends to human societies. Some are obvious: soils support crop growth; photosynthetic plants are the ultimate source of all the food that nourishes us; and thanks to biodiversity, we have access to a wealth of genes to breed better crop varieties and develop new antibiotics and other drugs.

Others are easier to overlook: insects pollinate two-thirds of all crop plants; natural predators keep pests in check; plants, soils and oceans store carbon; and coral reefs, mangroves and wetlands protect coastlines from storms and flooding. Add it all up, Juniper says, and nature contributes trillions to the world's economy every year.

This is important stuff that policymakers and the public need to be reminded of, and Juniper piles on example after example. Those who are new to the subject will learn plenty that will open their eyes to the importance of these "ecosystem services". That alone makes the book worthwhile for casual readers, though they may struggle at times with Juniper's convoluted syntax. I found myself having to take a second run at some of his sentences.

The real battle to protect nature, though, will be fought in boardrooms and government committees, where hard cash is the lingua franca. Putting financial value on natural services is fraught with guesswork, of course, but Juniper does the best he can. He reports, for example, that the coral reefs and mangroves of Belize yield about $15 million in fish, at least $150 million in tourism and about $150 million in storm protection every year. And he says New York City has saved about $7 billion by drawing its drinking water from a protected watershed instead of treating and filtering it.

Unfortunately, only a few of the examples in Juniper's book have been worked through in such detail. As a result, the sceptical businesspeople and politicians that he really needs to convince are likely to come away saying "show me more". But if this book encourages them to ask, it will have done its job.

Book information:
What Has Nature Ever Done for Us? by Tony Juniper
Profile
£9.99

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European auto sector hits 17-year low

PARIS: European auto sales plunged to their lowest point in 17 years in 2012, trade data revealed Wednesday after Renault announced the latest job cuts to hit the beleaguered sector.

New car registrations in the European Union fell by 8.2 percent from their 2011 level to 12.05 million units last year, the European Automobile Manufacturers' Association said.

Sales in December fell for the 15th month in a row by 16.3 percent on a 12-month basis, even slipping slightly in Germany despite the global strength of top German brands.

French automakers in particular are being hard hit with Renault announcing 7,500 job cuts late on Tuesday.

PSA Peugeot Citroen, the second-biggest carmaker in Europe after the booming German VW group, has just been rescued by the state. The group is restructuring with 8,000 job cuts and targets development abroad after a government report said its strategy had missed the bus of globalisation.

And on Wednesday French car parts maker Faurecia reported weak results causing its shares to plunge.

By contrast the VW group has reported record global sales for 2012 with a rise of 11.0 percent to 9.07 million units and aspires to being the biggest manufacturer globally, ahead of Japanese Toyota, by 2018. German Daimler said at the Detroit auto show this week that it is on track to be the world's top luxury carmaker by the end of the decade.

The second-biggest manufacturer globally is General Motors, which struck a strategic partnership with PSA this year, but GM's sales across the whole of Europe fell by 8.2 percent last year, the US group said in Detroit.

These companies, and European manufacturers in general, are looking to growth in emerging markets to compensate for what they expect to be a lasting weaker trend in Europe, but these markets are also the home base for new competitors notably in China.

The European trade association said in its report on the European market: "Demand for new cars reached the lowest level recorded since 1995, totalling 12,053,904 units" in 2012.

Last year's 8.2 percent shrinkage was the worst since a downturn of 16.9 percent in 1993, the association said.

The trend was aggravated by exceptionally bad figures for December in debt-stricken Europe.

"In December, new car registrations declined by a sharp 16.3 percent in the EU, continuing a downward trend commenced 15 months ago. The decline is the steepest recorded in a month of December since 2008," the statement said.

With the eurozone struggling to cope with the tax rises and cuts in state spending imposed to correct its debt crisis, businesses and consumers have cut down their spending on vehicles.

In some countries the market, and employment, were supported after the financial crisis hit economies in 2008 by government subsidies for the replacement of old vehicles with new ones. But these schemes have run out and many European groups have announced job cuts and plant closures similar to, albeit less dramatic, those that occurred immediately in the US auto industry.

The latest came late on Tuesday from Renault which said it would shed 7,500 French jobs, or about 17.0 percent of its workforce by 2016, but by means of not replacing normal departures.

Renault, which has diversified its manufacturing into low-cost countries close to western Europe in recent years, notably in Romania where it builds its Dacia-branded vehicles, said that an agreement with unions on the cutbacks would save it 400 million euros ($534 million) in overheads and would avert any plant closures.

"On the basis of a progressive recovery of the European market, establishing such an agreement would allow for growth in French output that is more sustained than that of the European market," Renault said.

However the European trade data for the year showed big differences between countries.

Car sales rose only in Britain, by 5.3 percent from the level in 2011.

In Germany, a fall in sales on the home market was contained to 2.9 percent but in France sales slumped by 13.9 percent, in Spain by 13.4 percent and in Italy by 19.9 percent.

In terms of brands, sales in western Europe by PSA Peugeot Citroen fell by 12.9 percent, by Renault 18.9 and by Fiat of Italy by 15.8 percent.

Sales by Opel, based in Germany but owned by US group General Motors which has recovered strongly from bankruptcy, fell by 15.6 percent.

However, other German brands did far better. Sales by Audi rose by 3.7 percent, and by BMW they fell by 0.1 percent and by Mercedes-Benz by 0.9 percent.

In terms of sales in Europe by foreign manufacturers, the South Korean group Hyundai-Kia raised sales under the Hyundai name by 9.4 percent and under the Kia brand by 14.6 percent.

- AFP/ir

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Prosecutor in Aaron Swartz 'hacking' case comes under fire

Carmen Ortiz, U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts

(Credit:
U.S. Department of Justice)

A politically ambitious Justice Department official who oversaw the criminal case against Aaron Swartz has come under fire for alleged prosecutorial abuses that led the 26-year-old online activist to take his own life.

Carmen Ortiz, 57, the U.S. attorney for Massachusetts who was selected by President Obama, compared the online activist -- accused of downloading a large number of academic papers -- to a common criminal in a 2011 press release. "Stealing is stealing whether you use a computer command or a crowbar," Ortiz said at the time. Last fall, her office slapped Swartz with 10 additional charges that carried a maximum penalty of 50 years in prison.

"He was killed by the government," Swartz's father, Robert, said at his son's funeral in Highland Park, Ill., today, according to a report in the Chicago Sun Times.

Last Wednesday, less than three months before the criminal trial was set to begin, Ortiz's office formally rejected a deal that would have kept Swartz out of prison. Two days later, Swartz killed himself.

"He was being made into a highly visible lesson," says Harvey Silverglate, a Cambridge, Mass., attorney who first met Swartz in 2001 and spoke with him after his arrest. "He was enhancing the careers of a group of career prosecutors and a very ambitious -- politically-ambitious -- U.S. attorney who loves to have her name in lights."

Ortiz' spokeswoman did not respond to questions from CNET today. The spokeswoman, Christina Sterling, had said earlier this week: "We want to respect the privacy of the family and do not feel it is appropriate to comment on the case at this time."

Replies Silverglate, the defense attorney and author of the book "Three Felonies a Day:" "It nearly made me puke. Out of deference to the family they weren't going to respond to the charges? It wasn't 'out of deference to the family.' It was out of deference to their careers."

Swartz was accused of 13 felony counts relating to connecting a computer to MIT's network without authorization and retrieving over four million academic journal articles from the JSTOR database (he was allowed to access JSTOR, but not to perform a bulk download). The advocacy group Demand Progress, which Swartz had helped to create and which helped to defeat the Stop Online Piracy Act a year ago, likened it to "trying to put someone in jail for allegedly checking too many books out of the library." (Swartz also sold a company he founded called Infogami to Reddit and was one of the co-creators of the RSS standard for syndicating content.)

If Swartz had stolen a $100 hard drive with the JSTOR articles, it would have been a misdemeanor offense that would have yielded probation or community service. But the sweeping nature of federal computer crime laws allowed Ortiz and Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Heymann, who wanted a high-profile computer crime conviction, to pursue felony charges. Heymann threatened the diminutive free culture activist with over 30 years in prison as recently as last week.

The Boston U.S. Attorney's office was looking for "some juicy looking computer crime cases and Aaron's case, sadly for Aaron, fit the bill," Elliot Peters, Swartz's attorney at the Keker & Van Nest law firm, told the Huffington Post. Heymann, Peters says, thought the Swartz case "was going to receive press and he was going to be a tough guy and read his name in the newspaper."

Heymann was also the Boston office's point person in a second investigation that spurred another young hacker to kill himself. In 2008, 24-year-old Jonathan James committed suicide after being named a suspect in a federal cybercrime investigation. His suicide note said: "I have no faith in the 'justice' system. Perhaps my actions today, and this letter, will send a stronger message to the public."

"The charges were ridiculous and trumped-up"

Aaron Swartz, who committed suicide two days after federal prosecutors rejected his attorney's proposal for no prison time.

(Credit:
Fred Benson/ Creative Commons: Flickr)

Ortiz has now found herself in an unusual -- and uncomfortable -- position: as the target of an investigation instead of the initiator of one.

An online petition asking President Obama to remove her from office has garnered 35,000 signatures. The threshold at the time for triggering an official White House response, which has not yet happened, was 25,000. (A separate petition asking for the removal of prosecutor Stephen Heymann has attracted only 4,000 signatures so far.)

House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, a California Republican, said he has launched an investigation into Ortiz's prosecution of Swartz. It's a bipartisan sentiment: Rep. Jared Polis, a Colorado Democrat and former Internet entrepreneur, told the Hill that: "The charges were ridiculous and trumped-up. It's absurd that he was made a scapegoat."

Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat whose district includes the heart of Silicon Valley, published draft legislation today (PDF) called "Aaron's Law" that would no longer make it a crime to violate terms of service agreements.

Ortiz had been a rising star in the Democratic Party: a law-and-order Hispanic prosecutor who had won high-profile convictions including Salvatore DiMasi, the former Massachusetts House speaker. The Boston Globe named her "Bostonian of the Year" in 2011 and reported last month that Ortiz was a potential gubernatorial candidate.

Swartz's friends and family have, in the days since his death, argued that Ortiz, Heymann, and assistant U.S. attorney Scott Garland employed tactics should have been reserved for serious criminals, not an activist who merely downloaded more articles than JSTOR would have preferred. A Swartz family statement posted at RememberAaronSW.com says: "The U.S. attorney's office pursued an exceptionally harsh array of charges, carrying potentially over 30 years in prison, to punish an alleged crime that had no victims."

Larry Lessig, the Harvard law professor who spoke at Swartz's funeral today along with Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee, said in a blog post that even though Swartz had no intention of profiting from any downloaded journal articles, "our government continued to push as if it had caught the 9/11 terrorists red-handed."

Alex Stamos, who the defense had planned to call as an expert witness on computer intrusion, said: "I know a criminal hack when I see it, and Aaron's downloading of journal articles from an unlocked closet is not an offense worth 35 years in jail." Law professor Tim Wu added that Ortiz's "legal authority to take down Swartz was shaky" after a federal appeals court ruling last year.

It's true that Swartz would not have faced 50 years in prison; that was, after all, the maximum sentence for his supposed felonies, not the minimum one. But Ortiz and her staff were intent on requiring that he plead guilty to multiple felonies and serve significant time behind bars.

Jennifer Granick, director of civil liberties at Stanford University's Center for Internet and Society and former criminal defense attorney, elaborated on why Swartz was so reluctant to plead guilty:

There was great practical risk to Aaron from pleading to any felony. Felons have trouble getting jobs, aren't allowed to vote (though that right may be restored) and cannot own firearms (though Aaron wasn't the type for that, anyway). More particularly, the court is not constrained to sentence as the government suggests. Rather, the probation department drafts an advisory sentencing report recommending a sentence based on the guidelines. The judge tends to rely heavily on that "neutral" report in sentencing... If he plead guilty to a felony, he could have been sentenced to as many as 5 years, despite the government's agreement not to argue for more. Each additional conviction would increase the cap by 5 years, though the guidelines calculation would remain the same. No wonder he didn't want to plead to 13 felonies. Also, Aaron would have had to swear under oath that he committed a crime, something he did not actually believe.

JSTOR has said since 2011 that it had no interest in pursuing criminal charges, and added last weekend that it "regretted" having been drawn into "this sad event." MIT, which reportedly did encourage Ortiz to pursue the case, is now conducting an internal investigation.

Last Wednesday, two days before Swartz took his life, JSTOR said it was making its archives of more than 1,200 different academic journals free for the public to read.

Computer prodigy Aaron Swartz remembered

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Mars Rover Finds Intriguing New Evidence of Water

The first drill sample ever collected on Mars will come from a rockbed shot through with unexpected veins of what appears to be the mineral gypsum.

Delighted members of the Curiosity science team announced Tuesday that the rover was now in a virtual "candy store" of scientific targets—the lowest point of Gale crater, called Yellowknife Bay, is filled with many different materials that could have been created only in the presence of water. (Related: "Mars Has 'Oceans' of Water Inside?")

Project scientist John Grotzinger, of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, said during a press conference that the drill area has turned out "to be jackpot unit. Every place we drive exposes fractures and vein fills."

Mission scientists initially decided to visit the depression, a third of a mile from Curiosity's landing site, on a brief detour before heading to the large mountain at the middle of Gale Crater. But because of the richness of their recent finds, Grotzinger said it may be some months before they begin their trek to Mount Sharp.

The drilling, expected to start this month, will dig five holes about two inches (five centimeters) into bedrock the size of a throw rug and then feed the powder created to the rover's two chemistry labs for analysis.

The drill is the most complex device on the rover and is the last instrument to be used. Project Manager Richard Cook, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said that operating it posed the biggest mechanical challenge since Curiosity's high-drama landing. (Watch video of Curiosity's "Seven Minutes of Terror.")

A Watery Past?

That now-desiccated Mars once had a significant amount of surface water is now generally accepted, but every new discovery of when and where water was present is considered highly significant. The presence of surface water in its many possible forms—as a running stream, as a still lake, as ground water soaked into the Martian soil—all add to an increased possibility that the planet was once habitable. (Watch a video about searching for life on Mars.)

And each piece of evidence supporting the presence of water brings the Curiosity mission closer to its formal goal—which is to determine whether Mars was once capable of supporting life.

Curiosity scientists have already concluded that a briskly moving river or stream once flowed near the Gale landing site.

The discovery of the mineral-filled veins within Yellowknife Bay rock fractures adds to the picture because those minerals can be deposited only in watery, underground conditions.

The Curiosity team has also examined Yellowknife Bay for sedimentary rocks with the rover's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI).  Scientists have found sandstone with grains up to about the size of a peppercorn, including one shaped like a flower bud that appears to gleam. Other nearby rocks are siltstone, with grains finer than powdered sugar. These are quite different from the pebbles and conglomerate rocks found in the landing area, but all these rocks are evidence of a watery past. (Related: "A 2020 Rover Return to Mars?")

One of the primary reasons Curiosity scientists selected Gale crater as a landing site was because satellite images indicated that water-formed minerals were present near the base of Mount Sharp. Grotzinger said that the minerals' presence so close to the landing site, and some five miles from the mountain, is both a surprise and an opportunity.

The current site in Yellowknife Bay is so promising, Grotzinger said, that he would have been "thrilled" to find similar formations at the mission's prime destination at the base of Mount Sharp.  Now the mission can look forward to the surprises to come at the mountain base while already having struck gold.

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NRA Ad Calls Obama 'Elitist Hypocrite'

Jan 16, 2013 12:04am

Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP Photo

As the White House prepares to unveil a sweeping plan aimed at curbing gun violence, the National Rifle Association has launched a preemptive, personal attack on President Obama, calling him an “elitist hypocrite” who, the group claims, is putting American children at risk.

In 35-second video posted online Tuesday night, the NRA criticizes Obama for accepting armed Secret Service protection for his daughters, Sasha and Malia, at their private Washington, D.C., school while questioning the placement of similar security at other schools.

“Are the president’s kids more important than yours? Then why is he skeptical about putting armed security in our schools, when his kids are protected by armed guards at their school?” the narrator says.

“Mr. Obama demands the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes, but he’s just another elitist hypocrite when it comes to a fair share of security,” it continues. “Protection for their kids and gun-free zones for ours.”

The immediate family members of U.S. presidents – generally considered potential targets – have long received Secret Service protection.

The ad appeared on a new website for a NRA advocacy campaign – “NRA Stand and Fight” — that the gun-rights group appears poised to launch in response to Obama’s package of gun control proposals that will be announced today.

It’s unclear whether the video will air on TV or only on the web. The NRA did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment.  The domain for the website is registered to Ackerman McQueen, the NRA’s long-standing public relations firm.

The White House had no comment on the NRA ad.

In the wake of last month’s mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the Obama administration has met with a cross-section of advocacy groups on all sides of the gun debate to formulate new policy proposals.

The NRA, which met with Vice President Joe Biden last week, has opposed any new legislative gun restrictions, including expanded background checks and limits on the sale of assault-style weapons, instead calling for armed guards at all American schools.

Obama publicly questioned that approach in an interview with “Meet the Press” earlier this month, saying, “I am skeptical that the only answer is putting more guns in schools. And I think the vast majority of the American people are skeptical that that somehow is going to solve our problem.”

Still, the White House has been considering a call for increased funding for police officers at public schools and the proposal could be part of a broader Obama gun policy package.

Fifty-five percent of Americans in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll say they support adding armed guards at schools across the country.

“The issue is, are there some sensible steps that we can take to make sure that somebody like the individual in Newtown can’t walk into a school and gun down a bunch of children in a shockingly rapid fashion.  And surely, we can do something about that,” Obama said at a news conference on Monday.

“Responsible gun owners, people who have a gun for protection, for hunting, for sportsmanship, they don’t have anything to worry about,” he said.

ABC News’ Mary Bruce and Jay Shaylor contributed reporting. 

SHOWS: Good Morning America World News

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Selling the appeal of statistics

Kevin McConway, contributor

Statistics for athletes like LeBron James are tracked in detail (Image: Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty)

In Naked Statistics economist Charles Wheelan aims to entice with dazzling data

STATISTICS lecturers have to come to terms with the fact that many students would rather not be there. Most signed up to study business or psychology, and doing strange things with numbers feels like an irksome side requirement of their primary pursuit.

Yet, as writer and public policy lecturer Charles Wheelan points out in Naked Statistics, the same students who complain that the subject is irrelevant are happy to spend their free time reading news stories that feature survey results or discussing sports statistics - basketball player LeBron James's points per game, or their favourite baseball pitcher's earned run average, for example. (As a warning, the book is deeply entrenched in US contexts. If you don't know much about baseball, Schlitz beer or even who LeBron James is - I had to look him up - you might find most of the examples alienating.)

Wheelan aims to link these two parts of his students' worlds by showing how statistics can be used to answer questions that are important and relevant to our lives. And he doesn't want to stop at the classroom door. Does he succeed? Sort of.

He has some good stories. To demonstrate randomisation in designing experiments, for example, he describes a study that investigated whether being prayed for by strangers would reduce complications after heart bypass surgery. (It didn't.) He also shows how important the wording of a question is to getting meaningful answers from polls: people in the US are considerably less likely to express support for the death penalty if also presented with the alternative of whole-life imprisonment without parole.

Yet Wheelan also experiments with made-up examples that, by his own admission, are utterly implausible. His story about a crash between two buses - one full of marathon runners and the other going to an international sausage festival - is memorable, but I wonder how relevant.

Though his style is innovative and often witty, most of the statistical topics he focuses on are pretty routine, and seem torn from the pages of a Statistics 101 syllabus: descriptive statistics, probability, sampling issues, inference, regression and the Central Limit Theorem, which explains why averages tend to follow the symmetric bell curve that makes up normal distribution. (This is, apparently, "the LeBron James of statistics".) And although he says he won't, he does get technical in a rather confusing way in the chapters on inference and regression, while some of his discussion of significance tests is problematic.

Still, there are things that you wouldn't find in an introductory statistics class. His final chapter, on "program evaluation", shows how you can use statistical ideas to make evidence-based decisions, such as whether to put more police officers on the street to deter crime. And he wraps up by applying statistics to five big questions, including how best to fight global poverty. These are interesting, engaging and useful.

In the end, Wheelan doesn't sell the marvellous world of statistics quite as well as he aims to. Yet he does make many interesting points, and often uses intriguing examples - I might even borrow a few for my own students.

Kevin McConway is a professor of applied statistics at the UK's Open University

Book information:
Naked Statistics: Stripping the dread from the data by Charles Wheelan
W. W. Norton
£18.99/$26.95

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Asian stocks end mixed

HONG KONG - Asian shares were mixed Tuesday on a lack of direction from Wall Street, but Tokyo hit a 32-month high on hopes for new central bank easing despite giving up early gains as the yen rebounded.

Some bourses advanced early in the session on reassurances from Fed chief Ben Bernanke that quantitative easing was set to continue in the United States, only to lose ground later in the day.

Tokyo put on 0.72 percent, or 77.51 points, to 10,879.08 -- its highest level since April 30, 2010 -- and Shanghai added 0.60 percent to 2,325.68, as environmental firms rose on hopes they will benefit from recent bad pollution.

But Seoul was off 1.16 percent, or 23.30 points, to 1,983.74, led by falls in technology stocks due to a stronger won, and Hong Kong shed 0.14 percent, or 31.75 points, to 23,381.15.

Sydney closed flat, edging down 3.1 points to 4,716.6.

The Japanese currency, which has fallen in recent weeks as new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe vowed to push monetary easing, rebounded after the economy minister warned the weak yen could hurt consumers by making imports more expensive.

The US dollar, which changed hands at 89.56 yen in morning trade and 89.45 yen in New York on Monday, dropped to 88.84 yen after Amari's comments.

The rise in the yen pared some of the gains in Tokyo, which had earlier been up more than 1.2 percent.

A weaker Japanese unit boosts exporters by making their products cheaper overseas and increasing the value of their repatriated foreign income.

Nevertheless the bourse ended strongly after the Bank of Japan governor earlier in the day pledged "aggressive" easing to boost the moribund economy, fuelling speculation the bank could launch new measures after a meeting next week.

The BoJ has been under heavy pressure from Abe's government to adopt an annual two percent inflation target to fight chronic deflation that has haunted the world's third largest economy for years.

There was a note of relief on markets after US Federal Reserve chief Bernanke indicated on Monday, after Asian markets had closed, that the US central bank's latest round of quantitative easing would continue, dealers said.

Asian traders were also looking ahead to fourth-quarter Chinese growth data due to be released on Friday, which analysts hope will confirm that the world's number two economy is picking up following a slowdown.

There was no clear lead from Wall Street, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average gaining 0.14 percent, but the broad-based S&P 500 falling 0.09 percent and the Nasdaq Composite shedding 0.26 percent.

On forex markets in Asian afternoon trade, the euro slipped to 118.75 yen from 119.65 yen in New York. Against the dollar, the euro dipped to US$1.3367 from US$1.3376 in US trading.

Oil prices fell. New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in February, slipped 32 cents to US$93.82 a barrel in the afternoon and Brent North Sea crude for February delivery dipped 23 cents to US$111.65.

Gold was at US$1,680.90 at 1100GMT compared with US$1,668.39 late Monday.

In other markets:

-- Singapore closed down 0.33 percent, or 10.52 points, at 3,196.07.

-- Kuala Lumpur closed flat, edging up 1.26 points to 1,685.89.

-- Bangkok fell 0.16 percent, or 2.21 points, to 1,422.86.

-- Jakarta gained 0.42 percent, or 18.33 points, to 4,400.82.

-- Taipei fell 0.75 percent, or 58.95 points, to 7,765.02.

-- Manila lost 0.10, or 6.23 points, to 6,087.67.

-- Mumbai rose 0.40 percent, or 80.41 points, to 19,986.82 on hopes of a rate cut as inflation eased.

- AFP/ir

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Why a smartphone may not be the best choice for everyone

Smartphones are hitting the mainstream market. And that means old and young want a piece of the action. But at more than $1,000 per year for service, a smartphone may not be the best choice for every consumer.

In this edition of Ask Maggie, I help a reader decide if he should get his parents smartphones or if he should spare them the hefty monthly service fees and get them new basic feature phones. I also help another reader decide if there is a less-expensive alternative to Verizon that will allow him to keep his unlimited data plan.

Feature phone vs. Smartphone

Dear Maggie,
My parents are moving to a new house and they currently have feature phones on T-Mobile. They Love the price of their plans and are happy with the features. Unfortunately, T-Mobile does not have coverage at the new house, and their coverage maps show that as well. So they asked me to research which carriers do offer service. And it looks like Verizon is the best option. I know Verizon now forces new customers onto their share anything plans. So my question to you is this: Would it be worth getting my parents iPhones? My sister, brother-in-law and myself all have iPhones (4S, 4, 5 respectively) and my dad has the
iPad 2. Would it be worth it to give them one of the three devices, or should we just go with feature phones? My dad is intrigued about the portable maps. And he's interested in a smartphone. My mom is indifferent at best. I was thinking of getting my dad an
iPhone 5 and my mom an
iPhone 4S.

Thank you,
Ted

Dear Ted,
First, I want to clarify something. Your parents do not need to get a Share Everything Plan from Verizon Wireless if they do not wish to get a smartphone. If they decide to stay with regular feature phones and they are new subscribers to Verizon, there are the traditional post-paid service options available. They could also consider pay-as-you-go service or special senior citizen services.

With this in mind, they have two options. They can continue to use basic feature phones and pay a lot less in service fees, or they can get smartphones where the functionality of the phone will be greatly increased but so will the overall cost.

Whether your parents should get iPhones or any smartphones really depends entirely on if you think they would use the features on a smartphone. Also, you should really consider the added cost, and whether adding smartphones to their lives is in their budget. After all, it's not the cost of the devices that are expensive so much as the service that comes with it.

I don't know how old your parents are or how tech-savvy they are. But if they're anything like my 70-year old aunt, who insisted on getting an Android smartphone from Verizon a couple of years ago and recently upgraded to the iPhone 5, the truth is they probably don't really need a smartphone. My aunt, whom I love dearly and who often asks my advice and then ignores it, has been a smartphone owner for more than two years now. And despite my best efforts to educate her on the functionality of her phones, the only thing she uses her smartphone for is to answer and make phone calls. She just learned how to text message, and she occasionally checks email from her phone, although she never replies to such messages.

Not only has she spent a lot of money on devices that she doesn't really know how to use and likely will never use to their full potential, but she's also stuck paying an overly expensive phone bill each month.

By contrast, my father, who is 71 years old and as cheap as I am, has a basic prepaid phone from AT&T. I bought the phone for him two years ago, and as part of his Christmas present every year, I put $100 on his prepaid account, which is good for an entire year. He uses the phone so infrequently that the $100 typically gets him through the entire year. If you do the math, that's cell service for $8.30 a month. Even if he uses $200 in a year, that's a phone bill of only $16.60 a month.

Your options

Let's get back to your parents and look at their options.

If your parents are on a tight budget and they don't use their phones very much, like my dad, then you could try a pay-as-you-go plan like the one I bought for my dad. Verizon has an offer that is similar. If you put $100 on the phone, you have a year to use all the money. But each call will cost 25 cents a minute. Text and picture messages will also be charged 20 cents and 25 cents, respectively. While the notion of a meter running while you talk may be too scary for some consumers, the reality is that it's much more cost-effective if you don't use a cell phone very much.

Again, I don't know your parents, so I don't know if they spend hours gabbing on their cell phones. But my guess is that if they are like the senior citizens in my family, they still have a regular home phone which they use for lengthy conversations. And their cell phones are often used for "emergencies," or when they are out and about for short conversations.

Verizon also offers a special discounted plan for senior citizens. If your parents are over age 65 and you buy them basic feature phones, you can get the 65 Plus plan for $59.98 a month. This price includes service for two feature phones and will give them 450 anytime minutes, 1,000 night and weekend minutes, unlimited Verizon-to-Verizon phone calls, and pay-as-you-go text messaging. If your parents are big talkers, this might be a decent option. But keep in mind those monthly charges add up, and it will still cost $720 for the year.

Unfortunately, Verizon doesn't offer a similar plan for seniors who want smartphones. So if you wanted to get your dad a smartphone and give your mom a feature phone, you'd probably subscribe to a family share plan where they'd share the unlimited voice minutes and text messaging, and your dad would get a chunk of data to use each month. This particular configuration at the lowest data tier would cost $120 a month. If both your parents have iPhones, the cost would be $130 a month if they shared 1GB of data. That's about $1,440 and $1,560, respectively, for the year.

Another option for your parents might be to go with a prepaid brand that uses Verizon's network. For example, Walmart's Straight Talk prepaid service allows you to choose phones that operate either on Verizon's network or AT&T's. It's a little tricky to know which phones will operate on AT&T and which on Verizon. On the Web site, you can type in your ZIP code, and it will display the phones available in that area. In theory, all the phones should then work where your parents live if they pop up on the page. But if you wanted to make sure you got a Verizon phone, a Straight Talk service representative told me on the phone that any phones with the letter "C" after them operate on Verizon's CDMA network. And devices with the letter "G" operate on AT&T's GSM network.

Since your parents were T-Mobile customers, there is also a chance their old phones could be used with Straight Talk, which means they don't need to buy new devices or even try to learn how to use a new device. In this case, the phones would operate on AT&T's network and if the phones are unlocked, you could just put the Straight Talk SIM in the device and it would work. But this will only work if there is AT&T coverage where they live and if the former T-Mobile devices are unlocked.

For a basic feature phone, Straight Talk offers service with 1,000 minutes of talk time and 30MB of data for $30 a month. If you want a smartphone, the Straight Talk service is a pretty good deal. It costs $45 a month and you get unlimited voice calls, texting, and data. (Note: Be careful of services that claim to offer "unlimited data." Typically, these plans do have a limit. In the case of Straight Talk, there is no limit listed in the service conditions, but the company says it doesn't allow "excessive" data usage. I've seen reports of some people getting notices when their data usage has been less than 1GB a month.) At $45 a month for two smartphones that is $1,080 for the year.

Straight Talk is offering the iPhone 5 and iPhone 4S through Walmart. But it only offers these devices in certain markets. As best I can tell from talking to representatives, it seems like most of those markets are in Florida. So if your parents are snow birds or live in Florida full time, they may be in luck.

At any rate, you will need to check to see if the Walmart Straight Talk iPhone is even available where your parents live. One other thing to keep in mind if you are considering a prepaid plan or pay-as-you-go service is that you will have to buy devices at full price. This may not be so bad if you're just buying cheap feature phones. But if you're buying smartphones, like the iPhone, it can be expensive paying for two devices at full price. But when you compare this to getting a subsidy with a higher monthly fee, buying the device at full price with a lower-cost plan usually works out to be a better deal.

The bottom line is that iPhones and really any smartphone are expensive devices to own. So unless your parents plan to use the features of these device, it's probably a waste of money. A less-expensive option for them would be to get a pay-as-you-go service on a basic feature phone and then buy a small tablet like the iPad Mini, the Nexus 7 Android tablet, or a Kindle Fire, which can be used on Wi-Fi networks for free. This way they can access the Internet and all kinds of apps, but they won't have to pay for the expensive data services associated with owning a smartphone.

I hope that advice was helpful.

Where can I get a Verizon-like data service at non-Verizon prices?

Dear Maggie,
I'm a longtime Verizon Wireless customer. I'm considering switching carriers to save money. I'm thinking that Boost Mobile, Metro PCS or T-Mobile might offer something better. I'm currently using an outdated HTC Thunderbolt. I can upgrade my device at any time with Big Red, but I don't want to lose my unlimited data. Is there any other company that can offer me a similar plan and service ($85 a month plan) as Verizon?

Thanks,
Shaboss

Dear Shaboss,
The short answer to your question is "yes." But there are a few caveats. When you give up Verizon Wireless, you are giving up a network and service you have been happy with. You can go to another carrier and get a less-expensive service, but you may have to make a few sacrifices depending on where you live and what other services are offered.

The three providers you mention in your question all offer unlimited 3G/4G wireless services at roughly the same price as what you pay now or for a bit less per month. But there are a few catches.

T-Mobile offers an unlimited everything plan for smartphones that includes unlimited data, voice, and text service for $89 a month. This is only $4 more a month than what you pay now. The service is very similar to Verizon's in terms of speed. While the service today is not 4G LTE, T-Mobile uses a technology called HSPA+ and in many areas the speeds are as fast as Verizon's network. And the data is truly unlimited. At this price point, T-Mobile does not throttle or slow down customers who hit a certain threshold of data usage. So if unlimited data at 4G speeds is what you're looking, T-Mobile offers the closest thing to Verizon.

Here's the catch. T-Mobile's nationwide network coverage is not nearly as comprehensive as Verizon's. Be sure that T-Mobile offers service where you live and work. But also be aware that when you travel outside major cities, your service may be more limited in certain areas than it was with Verizon.

Sprint Nextel also offers unlimited data service. You didn't mention it as an option in your question. But because you are considering Boost Mobile, which is owned by Sprint, I figured you should know what Sprint offers as well. Sprint's Everything Data plan comes with 450 voice minutes, plus unlimited data and texting service, and costs $80 a month. Sprint offers 3G and 4G LTE service, but its 4G LTE network is not as extensive as Verizon's. So unless you live an area with 4G LTE, you'll be stuck on Sprint's slower 3G service. In general, Sprint's coverage is also not as extensive as Verizon's service. So make sure you check regarding availability.

MetroPCS offers 4G LTE service in some cities, and it has a very attractive price tag of $60 a month for a service that offers unlimited data, voice, and text messaging. MetroPCS, which is currently in the process of being bought by T-Mobile, also claims that it doesn't slow or throttle customers who exceed a certain threshold of usage on their unlimited data plans. But the network coverage issues that plague T-Mobile when compared to Verizon are even a bigger issue for MetroPCS. MetroPCS is a small regional carrier. It operates in a lot of large cities, but its service is not everywhere. And so if you get this service, you need to be aware of this fact and make sure you have coverage where you most need it. Another thing to keep in mind is that MetroPCS doesn't own as much spectrum as Verizon does in markets where it operates 4G LTE, and so its 4G LTE network may not offer the same level of performance due to capacity constraints.

Boost Mobile is a prepaid brand owned by Sprint. It uses Sprint's 3G and 4G WiMax networks to deliver service. It does not use Sprint's LTE network. It also has a very attractive $55 a month price tag for its unlimited services. But I would warn you that the WiMax network does not have the performance or coverage that Verizon's 4G LTE network has. So that may be a concern for you as well. Virgin Mobile is another Sprint-branded prepaid service. You may want to consider this service too. It offers an unlimited data service for $35 a month. While it calls its data service "unlimited," it's really capped at 2.5GB per month. Also, this service will have many of the same coverage and speed issues that Boost has since it also uses Sprint's 3G and 4G WiMax networks.

If I were to recommend one of these three services for you, I'd probably recommend T-Mobile because it offers the widest network with the highest network speeds.

You may also want to consider some other prepaid services that use Verizon's network. For example, a company called Page Plus Cellular uses Verizon's 3G network. But it offers its prepaid service plans at a fraction of the price Verizon charges. And as I mentioned in the previous answer, prepaid brand Straight Talk, which is sold through Walmart Web sites and retail locations, also sells devices that operate on Verizon's network.

The main drawback to using a Verizon reseller is that you will only get access to Verizon's 3G network. So if you want a device that uses the 4G LTE network, you won't get those speeds on these services.

Depending on where you live, there may be other regional carriers or prepaid providers you may want to consider. For example, C Spire operates in the Southeastern U.S., and it offers many of the hottest new phones as well as service that's typically less than what Verizon or AT&T offer. But make sure it operates in the places where you live and work.

I hope this advice was helpful. Good luck!

Ask Maggie is an advice column that answers readers' wireless and broadband questions. The column now appears twice a week on CNET offering readers a double dosage of Ask Maggie's advice. If you have a question, I'd love to hear from you. Please send me an e-mail at maggie dot reardon at cbs dot com. And please put "Ask Maggie" in the subject header. You can also follow me on Facebook on my Ask Maggie page.

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"Fantastic" New Flying Frog Found—Has Flappy Forearms

Scientists have stumbled across a new species of flying frog—on the ground.

While hiking a lowland forest in 2009, not far from Ho Chi Minh City (map), Vietnam, "we came across a huge green frog, sitting on a log," said Jodi Rowley, an amphibian biologist at the Australian Museum in Sydney and lead author of a new study on the frog.

Rowley later discovered that the 3.5-inch-long (9-centimeter-long) creature is a relatively large new type of flying frog, a group known for its ability to "parachute" from tree to tree thanks to special aerodynamic adaptations, such as webbed feet, Rowley said. (Also see "'Vampire Flying Frog' Found; Tadpoles Have Black Fangs.")

Rowley dubbed the new species Helen's flying frog, in honor of her mother, Helen Rowley, "who has steadfastly supported her only child trekking through the forests of Southeast Asia in search of frogs," according to a statement.

The newfound species—there are 80 types of flying frogs—is also "one of the most flying frogs of the flying frogs," Rowley said, "in that it's got huge hands and feet that are webbed all the way to the toepad."

"Females even have flappy skin on their forearms to glide," added Rowley, who has received funding from the National Geographic Committee on Research and Exploration. (National Geographic News is part of the National Geographic Society.) "The females are larger and heavier than males, so the little extra flaps probably don't make much of a difference," she said.

As Rowley wrote on her blog, "At first it may seem strange that such a fantastic and obvious frog could escape discovery until now—less than 100 kilometers [60 miles] from an urban centre with over nine million people."

Yet these tree dwellers can easily escape notice—they spend most of their time in the canopy, she said.

Flying Frog On the Edge

Even so, Helen's flying frog won't be able to hide from development near Ho Chi Minh City, which may encroach on its existing habitats.

So far, only five individuals have been found in two patches of lowland forest hemmed in by rice paddies in southern Vietnam, Rowley said. The animals can probably tolerate a little bit of disturbance as long as they have large trees and temporary pools, she added.

But lowland forests are among the most threatened habitats in the world, mostly because they're so accessible to people, and thus chosen for logging and development. (Get the facts on deforestation.)

"While Helen's flying frog has only just been discovered by biologists," Rowley wrote, "unfortunately this species, like many others, is under great threat from ongoing habitat loss and degradation."

The new flying frog study was published in December 2012 in the Journal of Herpetology.

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