Barca ideal for Ronaldo - Scolari

The 22-year-old Portuguese star's form has attracted rave reviews this season, leading to rumours about a summer move.

Scolari, quoted in The Sun, said: "The basic education stage of his career is ending and I know Cristiano is ready for a change of atmosphere.

"Barcelona would hugely enjoy having Cristiano in their team because he would complement Ronaldinho perfectly."

Ronaldo scored his 15th goal of the season in United's 4-0 win at Tottenham on Sunday.

"Cristiano needs to move somewhere where the team is an integral part of the club "
Luiz Felipe Scolari

Reports have linked him with £40m move to Spain, with Real Madrid said to be interested.

But Scolari feels Barcelona would be an ideal destination for the star winger if he wants to improve.

He added: "For Cristiano, the Barcelona climate would be important - most days are sunny and it's hardly ever cold like England.

"That gives a player all the motivation he needs to train and play."

But he said a move to Real would not suit the former Sporting Lisbon star, who joined United for over £12m in 2003.

Scolari added: "Cristiano needs to move somewhere where the team is an integral part of the club - not somewhere where the system is based on individual 'heroes' or 'stars'.

"Moving to a club where there are four or five 'stars' who do their own thing is unworkable."

Last week, United chief executive David Gill said the club would immediately turn down a bid of £35m form Ronaldo as he is not for sale.

Craig wins acting prize for Bond

Daniel Craig has been named best actor by the London Evening Standard for his role as James Bond in Casino Royale.

It is the first prize the 38-year-old star, who was nominated for a Bafta last month, has won for his 007 role.

United 93 was named best film, while Borat creator Sacha Baron Cohen won the Peter Sellers award for best comedy.

But Oscar favourite Dame Helen Mirren missed out on another best actress prize for The Queen, the judging panel opting for Dame Judi Dench instead.

The Evening Standard British Film Awards were announced on Sunday at a celebratory dinner held at The Ivy restaurant in central London.

Outspoken

Dame Judi was honoured for her role as a vindictive schoolteacher in Notes on a Scandal, which has just been released in British cinemas.

But royal drama The Queen did not go away empty-handed, winning prizes for its director Stephen Frears and screenwriter Peter Morgan.

Frears was given the Alexander Walker Special Award - named after the outspoken Evening Standard critic who died in 2003 - for "making British film reverberate around the world".

Morgan was also honoured for his work on The Last King of Scotland, for which actor Forest Whitaker has been Oscar-nominated.

Paul Andrew Williams was named most promising newcomer for his direction of low-budget thriller London to Brighton.

BBC

S.D. billionaire donates $400 million

Around here, T. Denny Sanford is not known just for the billions he made in banking — he's also known for the millions he has donated.

When officials at Sioux Valley Hospitals & Health Systems told him of their dream to transform the facility into a major research institution for children's health, he donated $400 million, and they promised to rename the institution after him — Sanford Health.

"I have been quoted as wanting to die broke," Sanford , 71, said at Saturday's announcement before 1,800 employees and community leaders. Hospital president and CEO Kelby Krabbenhoft "is certainly doing the best job he can to make it happen."

The hospital began in 1894 and has grown to become the largest employer in the region, with 12,000 employees, 340 physicians, 115 clinics and 24 hospitals.

The $400 million will go toward several projects that will bear Sanford's name and expand the health system beyond its current patient base in South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa and Nebraska.

They include building five pediatric clinics in North America tied to the new children's hospital in Sioux Falls that will bear his name and is scheduled to open in 2009. It would also establish more than 20 separate specialized facilities around a medical center, with a goal of joining the ranks of the world's best hospitals

"One of my hopes is that we create a Mayo for kids," Sanford said later Saturday at a gala dinner to raise money for the children's hospital.

Sanford's net worth is roughly $2.5 billion. He made his fortune as the owner of First Premier Bank, and Premier Bankcard — among the nation's leading credit card providers.

Sanford was ranked 49th on a Business Week magazine list of the 50 most generous philanthropists in November. His biography states that his "primary interest is in helping sick, disadvantaged, abused and/or neglected children."

Sanford's other recent donations include $70 million to convert an abandoned mine into a science laboratory, $16 million for the children's hospital, and $20 million to the health system to expand projects involving the University of South Dakota's School of Medicine.

Yahoo

Car drivers 'risking skin cancer'

Drivers who spend a lot of time behind the wheel increase their risk of skin cancer, US work suggests.

Experts say repeated sun exposure through the car's side windows is to blame, and drivers who roll down the window are at even greater risk.

Most glass used for windows blocks UVB rays that cause sunburn but not deeper penetrating UVA rays.

The Saint Louis University School of Medicine team presented their work to the American Academy of Dermatology.

Exposure

They looked at 898 patients (559 men and 339 women) with skin cancers occurring on either side of their body.

Among the men, the rate of cancers directly correlated to the areas of the body most often exposed to UV radiation while driving - which in the US is the left-hand side of the body.

Many of these tumours were cancers that develop over time and are linked to cumulative sun exposure rather than intense, intermittent sun exposure.

They affected sun-exposed areas like the head, neck, arms and hands.

Lead author Dr Scott Fosko said: "This finding supports our theory that drivers who regularly spend more time in the car over the course of several years are more likely to develop skin cancers on the left side of the body, particularly skin cancers that develop gradually over time."

Windows open

Dr Fosko's team is now starting to gather detailed information on the driving habits of the skin cancer patients they see in their clinic.

Initial data shows that those who spend the most time per week driving a car are more likely to develop left-sided cancers.

"We're also finding that all drivers who occasionally drive with the windows open had a higher incidence of left-sided cancers," Dr Fosko said.

He added: "Since there are more cars on the road than ever before, it is likely that this trend will continue. And with more women driving...higher reports of left-sided skin cancers in women in the future."

Harmful rays

Most windscreens, unlike the side windows of a car, are made of laminated glass that can filter both UVB and UVA.

Dr Fosko suggested tinting the side window glass or using UV filters on windows might help reduce a driver's risk of harmful exposure.

Cancer Research UK advises: "Although glass greatly reduces the risk of sunburn, it does not prevent long term damage from UVA.

"So if you are driving long distances or sitting in your conservatory every day for long periods of time, with the sun beaming in on you, then you are putting yourself at risk."

But Josephine Querido, cancer information officer for the charity, stressed this did not necessarily mean that you would get skin cancer.

"In terms of the amount of UV sunlight people are exposed to during the course of a year, the amount received through car windows is likely to be a very small percentage.

"It is important to take care whenever you are exposed to the sun, to know your skin type, and, above all, never burn as this can double your risk of getting skin cancer," she said.

BBC

iPhone court battle put on hold

The legal dispute between Apple and Cisco Systems over the iPhone name has been temporarily suspended.

Cisco's lawsuit has not stopped, but the two firms have agreed to extend talks aimed at "reaching agreement on trademark rights and interoperability".

The Apple iPhone, which the company has said will hit shelves in June, was launched last month in San Francisco.

Cisco immediately sued Apple for trademark infringement; Cisco has its own line of internet-enabled iPhones.

The company, which makes much of the hardware that underpins the internet, has owned the trademark on the iPhone name since 2000 after it acquired another company Infogear.

Different uses

Infogear's original filing for the trademark dates to 20 March, 1996. Cisco's Linksys division has been producing a range of wireless VOIP phones under the name since 2006.

The phones allow users to make calls over the internet

Apple unveiled its iPhone at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco in January.

The touch screen phone allows users to download music and videos and comes in two versions - one with 4GB of storage space, the other with 8GB.

At the time. Mark Chandler, senior vice president and general counsel for Cisco said: "There is no doubt that Apple's new phone is very exciting, but they should not be using our trademark without our permission."

Apple responded by saying the lawsuit was "silly" and that Cisco's trademark registration was "tenuous at best".

"There are already several companies using the name iPhone for Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) products," said Apple spokesman Alan Hely.

"We are the first company to ever use the iPhone name for a cell phone, and if Cisco wants to challenge us on it we are very confident we will prevail."

Under US federal law, two companies are allowed to share the same name providing their uses are not similar.

Apple is no stranger to trademark battles. Last year the company was sued by Apple Corps, the Beatles' recording company, over its entry into the music business. Apple Corps lost the case.

The extended talks between Cisco and Apple are aimed at resolving the dispute before it goes to court.

A joint statement from the two companies read: "Apple and Cisco have agreed to extend the time for Apple to respond to the lawsuit to allow for discussions between the companies with the aim of reaching agreement on trademark rights and interoperability."

John Abraham works hard on his Hindi

Actor John Abraham was earlier looked at skeptically for his feeble command over Hindi and many of his earlier films were dubbed by professional artists. But all that has changed now with the Bollywood heartthrob working hard to get rid of his so-called anglicised accent.

Said John, "I admit it was one of the areas that I needed to work doubly hard on. I've been consistently working on it. But 'Baabul' truly made me confident of the way I speak my dialogues. First of all, the words were all in pure Hindi. Achala Nagar's dialogues were a bit complex for all of us, except of course Mr Bachchan.

"I had two options open in front of me. Either I asked the words to be simplified. Or I worked on the language. I opted for the latter. And believe me, if the impact of a role can be gauged by the spoken word, then 'Baabul' is the most influential film of my life. It has changed my thought process. Now I'm actually able to think in Hindi."

Nagar, who has written other socially relevant films like Raj Kapoor's "Prem Rog" and B.R. Chopra's "Nikaah", was physically present on the sets of "Baabul" to make sure the words were correctly spoken.

"The way she narrated the script was in itself a work of beauty and a joy forever. I fell for the words hook line and sinker. I wanted to absorb her words and use them as though they were mine," John remarked.

Post "Baabul", producers are actually eager to let John speak in his own voice on screen.

Some actors who had their voices dubbed initially:

Amisha Patel ("Kaho Na... Pyar Hai")

Rani Mukherjee ("Ghulam")

Sridevi (had her voice dubbed in her first dozen films)

Dino Morea ("Raaz", "Gunah")

Bipasha Basu ("Ajnabee", "Jism", "Gunah", "Phir Hera Pheri")

Kunal Kapoor ("Meenaxi")

Katrina Kaif ("Sarkar", "Humko Deewana Kar Gaye")

John Abraham ("Jism", "Aetbaar", "Paap")

Ricky Martin in concert at Jaipur wedding

Latino pop star Ricky Martin belted out his evergreen hits "Livin' La Vida Loca" and "Maria" to an enthralled audience at the wedding reception of an industrialist's son here.

"He started with his popular number 'Maria' and then sang some of his favourites hits," a source at the Le Meridien Hotel, where the show was held, said.

Martin's concert on Friday evening was in celebration of the marriage of Mumbai-based industrialist Neeraj Raja Kocchar's son. The industrialist, who deals in metal, had booked a suite for Martin at the Le Meridien.

Martin and his over 30-member troupe performed in a black coloured dome, specially erected within the hotel premises for the show that is said to have cost over Rs.30 million.

"As soon he started singing, the select gathering of guests, including some Europeans, began dancing. It was a big dance party!" the source said.

A guest at the wedding said: "Oh! I love Martin as his songs are upbeat and happy."

The singing sensation reportedly arrived by a chartered plane on Wednesday night and is scheduled to leave later on Saturday.

Sources close to the industrialist's family said that the well-known DJ Aqeel has been instrumental in getting Martin to perform at the high-profile wedding.

On Thursday, Martin had taken time out to go on a sightseeing tour of Jaipur and visited historical sites like the Hawa Mahal, City Palace and Jaigarh Fort.

"He was quite fascinated to see these places," a source said.

The city, almost a must on the itinerary of foreigners visiting this country, has recently been host to a number of international celebrities like Mick Jagger, Owen Wilson, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt and others.

AC Milan completes deal for Ronaldo

Ronaldo, the Brazilian goal scorer, has accomplished far more as a player than David Beckham ever could. History, and the record books, will confirm that unequivocally.

Yet Ronaldo's parting from Real Madrid was completed Tuesday with nothing like the trumpeting that sounded across the Atlantic when Beckham pledged his future to Hollywood last month. The reason for this might tell us more about ourselves than the two individuals involved: We have been sucked into the age of cult worship.

It would fill a page to list Ronaldo's achievements. They include scoring more goals at World Cup tournaments than any other man. They encompass trophies with every team he has played for. In athletic appeal, Ronaldo has had few equals as a performer who could finish contests through pace, power and an instinct to be in the right place at the right moment to fire shots from either foot into spaces that others might never know exist.

Alas, Beckham, for all the publicity generated by his looks, is a relatively blank page as a performer.

He did once figure in Manchester United's domination in England, but after he joined the Madrid "galacticos," his limitations were exposed.

We should end the comparison there.

This week, after Ronaldo had perhaps surprisingly satisfied Milan's doctors of his fitness, his move from Madrid to AC Milan rested on hours and hours of bartering at the Bernabeu. "Only €1 million separates us," Adriano Galliani, the AC Milan vice president, said Sunday. Referring to the club's coach, he said, "I'm expecting to be back in Milan on Tuesday morning with Ronaldo to place at Carlo Ancelotti's disposal in the afternoon."

In fact it was tea time before Ramón Calderón, Real Madrid's lawyer-president, accepted €7.5 million, or about $9.7 million, plus the loan of the Milan striker Ricardo Oliveira until the end of the season. Madrid had wanted money up front; Milan offered payments by installment.

To put it bluntly, Madrid haggled over what its coach, Fabio Capello, judged to be the remnants of Ronaldo's greatness. Ancelotti, whose team has lacked goal power since last summer's sale of Andriy Shevchenko, still thinks there is life in Ronaldo's shooting boots.

Milan's bid represents less than half what it offered six months ago after Chelsea had paid the Italian club $57 million for Shevchenko, another 30- year-old whose form is not what it was when he was younger.

Every transfer is a gamble. Capello's priority since he quit Juventus to return to Madrid, where he had coached before, is clearing out underachieving old stars and replacing them with new, younger and mostly Latin American players.

The exception is Ruud van Nistelrooy, the Dutchman who was sold by Manchester United. Where Alex Ferguson, United's manager, deemed the Dutchman past his best, Capello saw him as a straight replacement for Ronaldo. Once again, comparisons between van Nistelrooy and Ronaldo, at the highest level of the international game, heavily favor Ronaldo.

In each of his clubs — from Cruzeiro in his native Rio de Janeiro, to PSV Eindhoven, to Barcelona, then Inter Milan and Real Madrid — Ronaldo has delivered goals at a phenomenal ratio approaching one for every single performance.

Yes, age is knocking on his door. He is 30 now, and possibly a worn 30 because of the serious battering his knees and ankles have taken over the decade and a half that took him from the streets to the citadels of soccer.

I do not question Capello's judgment or his purpose. He said from the start of his second spell at the Bernabeu that Ronaldo was overweight and undercommitted — in terms of the almost demonic physical demands this coach places on players.

Ancelotti looks at it through different eyes. "Ronaldo is not fat," he said over the weekend. "He is a very robust player. I think his problem is that, in recent times, he has not had much motivation. From a physical point of view, he hasn't trained much because he has been excluded from Real Madrid's team, and has lost motivation in training. But he remains a great player. In the last five years at Real, he scored almost 100 goals. No one in the world has done that."

Everyone has their opinion. Kaká, the much younger Brazilian at AC Milan, spoke with telling insight when he said of Ronaldo to Italian reporters: "He can be decisive, even without the kind of runs he used to make."

Used to. But think back to the year 2000, to when Ronaldo was flat on his back and his career was for 20 months in the hands of surgeons, written off by Brazilian insiders and the mass media.

Platini to lead European soccer

The governance of global soccer, and not just of European, shifted significantly in Düsseldorf on Friday when Michel Platini and Franz Beckenbauer — former great players — were elected to powerful positions in the sport's hierarchy.

Platini became president of UEFA, the union of 53 European national soccer federations, and automatically a vice president of the world body FIFA. One hour later, Beckenbauer was voted onto the FIFA executive.

By the end of the day, Sepp Blatter, who as FIFA president is supreme in soccer's power game, announced that he was heading to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where he will address heads of state at the African Union Summit on Monday. Blatter had flown to Düsseldorf to intervene decisively in UEFA's presidential election. He had no vote, but he spoke for Platini, whom he had groomed in sporting administration, at the expense of Lennart Johansson, who as UEFA leader for 17 years was among the few men to question Blatter's autocratic style.

"Mr. Blatter's intervention may have won me votes," conceded Platini, "but I am sure it also made me lose votes. We have known each other long. What was he going to say — that I am the enemy?"

The secret ballot was won by the former French player against the retired Swedish businessman, 27 to 23, with two votes invalid.

(UEFA admitted Montenegro, which split from Serbia last year, as its 53rd nation on Friday.)

There were three main differences in approach:

Johansson is 77, and having failed to prepare a successor stood for a new four-year term. Platini, 51, has comparative freshness and a yearning to lead in office as once he so brilliantly led on the field.

Johansson asked the nations to approve the status quo. Platini offered smaller countries, especially East European, the promise that he would cut back the number of clubs from England, Spain, Italy and Germany to allow champions from less wealthy lands to participate in the UEFA Champions League.

Johansson lives in Stockholm and delegated the day-to-day business operation to the professional staff at Nyon, which is near the Swiss city of Geneva. Platini will move with his wife from Paris to Geneva so that he can run the administration 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, in the executive style that Blatter runs FIFA in Zurich.

The delegates in Düsseldorf, where UEFA's congress took place, were waiting late Friday for the anticipated resignation of Lars-Christer Olsson, the diligent chief executive.

The appointment of Beckenbauer as a UEFA representative on FIFA's executive committee will not have been as much to Blatter's liking. Their personalities, not to say egos, clashed during the run in to the World Cup in Germany last summer.

Platini acknowledged that "the establishment was voting for Johansson," by which he meant the senior nations of soccer.

"But I counted on many friends to help me. This is a great victory, but I am not going to do a lap of honor because now the work starts."

(During Platini's playing days, he took a victory lap when he led France to the 1984 European Championship.)

He asked the congress to elect Johansson as honorary president of UEFA and, as it did so to ringing applause, Platini said: "Lennart, this is for you. I will need you. We have to work together."

The presentation was pure Blatter. Beat the opponent, then offer him a road paved with flowers.

Blatter and Johansson, meanwhile, were anything but complimentary.

Blatter had abandoned protocol by entering the UEFA chamber to declare his debt and affection for Platini — who loaned his playing glory to Blatter's own FIFA presidential campaign, against Johansson in Paris in 1998.

Furthermore, Blatter accompanied his protégé to Moscow last week where Platini canvassed for votes and Blatter, 71 years old, reiterated that Johansson was old for a man seeking a fresh term of office.

The Swede is slow to rile, but he did sting Blatter in front of congress on Friday.

Blatter "asked me to stay on as UEFA president and then came out for the other party," Johansson said.

"I think he's wheeling and dealing, going right and then left, having one opinion on Monday and another on Tuesday. I don't follow his ways, I don't get it."

While Platini observed that this had been "an excellent intervention from Mr. Blatter," many in congress nodded and remembered that now, as in 1998, Johansson had believed the promise of votes in his favor and been counted out in the ballot.

Last-minute wrangling on global warming report

Hundreds of climate scientists and government officials from around the world have worked all week behind closed doors and frequently darkened windows in a United Nations building here to summarize the factors behind global warming in a report to be released Friday.

But the doors and drapes may as well be wide open.

The senior authors of the report, from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a UN body convened every five years or so, have been inundated with e-mails and calls from some of the 650 other authors and outside experts eager to see findings tweaked in one direction or another.

With the clock ticking down and translators juggling six official languages, and government representatives trying to insure that findings do not clash with national interests, tussles have intensified between climate experts and political appointees from participating governments.

Scientists involved in the discussions said Thursday that the U.S. delegation, led by political appointees, was pressing to play down language pointing to a link between intensification of hurricanes and warming caused by human activity.

"They have tended to highlight uncertainties on certain issues," a scientist involved in the negotiations said in an e- mail to a reporter Thursday. The scientist sent the message on the condition of anonymity because the negotiations were continuing.

On Wednesday night, the same scientist, frustrated with efforts by China and the United States to avoid language that might box them in on policy options, e-mailed that "this is becoming an impossible process."

By Thursday afternoon, the panel had concluded that recent global warming was "very likely" caused by human activity, meaning at least a 90 percent probability, according to one observer attending the talks. The observer spoke on condition of anonymity because participants have been asked not to talk to the media.

A previous report from the panel issued in 2001 took a less definitive view, finding that warming was "likely" to be due to greenhouse gases.

The panel also is expected to conclude that within decades, world temperatures are likely to surpass the warmest natural hot spells for thousands of years, triggering disruptive shifts in weather patterns and causing a largely irreversible rise in sea levels.

While there is little doubt about these broad outlines, consequential details, in particular projections of how high oceans will rise in this century in response to the erosion of ice sheets in Greenland and parts of Antarctica, are more open to dispute.

Susan Solomon, one of the two leaders of the main science section being unveiled Friday and a senior scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, criticized last- minute lobbying by experts outside the process.

In an interview several days ago, she said there had been two opportunities over the past year for anyone to review drafts of the report, and thousands of comments had been received.

"There are a range of views out there, and I think we are guaranteed an extremely rigorous process that is very carefully listening to all the expert opinion," she said. "I just don't know what further could have been done."

Several scientists, including some involved in the current wrangling, say it may be time to review whether the panel's mission and procedures need to be revised, both to account for fast evolving science and to limit potential criticisms relating to the invisible fights over its most-watched summary statements.

Some scientists are suggesting that the very search for consensus may now be distracting from the need for action.

Michael Oppenheimer, a Princeton scientist who has been an author and reviewer of IPCC reports for many years, said: "I am not proposing that the search for consensus be abandoned. It will always be valuable."

But, added Oppenheimer, who previously worked for the private group Environmental Defense, "the world moves on, so we need to learn from the great work of previous assessments and figure out how to do it better in the future."

There are also questions about whether the body is sufficiently open, responsive and free from political and industry pressure.

"Transparency should be increased and aspects of previous assessments should be dissected to examine how the assessing scientists weighed and balanced the evidence, and arrived at their judgments," Oppenheimer said.

"That way, we can learn about the process of learning and, hopefully, reduce misjudgment and misunderstanding."

Paul Dickinson, the coordinator of the Carbon Disclosure Project, a London-based group that assesses companies' readiness to handle climate change, was blunt about what he saw as a shortcoming of the IPCC, which is constrained by its charter from reaching judgments on how much warming is too much.

IHT

Google's income triples

The blockbuster growth of Google's search-driven advertising business shows no signs of tapering off, analysts say, and continues to outpace rivals like Yahoo and Microsoft, which are experiencing relatively sluggish growth in their online offerings.

Google, the dominant Internet search engine worldwide, reported an astonishing rise in fourth quarter sales and profit Wednesday, with net income nearly tripling to $1.03 billion from $372.2 million for the same period in 2005.

"Business continues to be very, very good here at Google," Eric Schmidt, chief executive of Google, said in a conference call with investors and reporters.

In an interview, Schmidt said Google's business, which earns most of its revenue when users click on ads that appear next to search results, was strong in terms of traffic and advertising growth in the United States and internationally.

Google is also showing fewer ads on each search, but those ads are more relevant to users and are clicked more frequently which generates a better return for Google and for advertisers, he said.

Derek Brown, an analyst with Cantor Fitzgerald, said, "Their performance is extraordinary even in absolute terms, but particularly in comparison with the companies they are competing with."

Google said net income for the quarter translated into $3.29 a share, up from $1.22 a share in the final quarter of 2005. Excluding charges related to stock-based compensation and other adjustments, the company earned $997 million, or $3.18 a share.

Analysts had expected Google to earn $2.92 a share, excluding one-time items, according to Thomson Financial.

Google's quarterly revenue rose 67 percent from a year ago to $3.21 billion. Google sells ads that are displayed on other sites, and passes most of the revenue from those ads to the sites owners. Excluding those payments, Google's revenue was $2.23 billion.

Some analysts said Google's growth could even accelerate further this year.

"I still see a lot of good things coming down the pike," Safa Rashtchy, an analyst with Piper Jaffray.

Shares of Google closed Wednesday at $501.50, up $7.18. After the earnings report, the stock was trading slightly below $500, apparently reflecting the unrealized hopes of some investors that the results would be even more impressive.

Google's results come at a time when the company is rapidly expanding its product offerings, developing partnerships with the likes of AOL and MySpace, integrating its acquisition of the video search service YouTube and experimenting with new forms of advertising, including video, audio, print and on cellphones. The company and analysts said they see many of these initiatives paying off financially over the next couple of years.

Schmidt said that while text ads linked to search results continued to perform extremely well, Google's diversification was essential to its future growth. And he dismissed criticism that the company has introduced too many products, including many that have not been hits with users, and risks losing focus.

"We have concluded that we are expanding our mission, if anything, not fast enough," he said.

Schmidt also said that search on cellphones and other portable devices would grow substantially in 2007, but the financial effect would not be noticed until 2008.

Google said YouTube, which it acquired for $1.65 billion during the fourth quarter, would continue to operate with a large degree of autonomy, but that Google would use its technology and expertise in online advertising to cash in on YouTube's growing popularity.

Just last week, Google announced that YouTube videos would appear among the results on Google's own video search service, and Schmidt said the company would experiment with a variety of advertising models on the video Web site. But the acquisition remains clouded by the threat of potential litigation by movie studios against Google over the proliferation of copyrighted videos on YouTube.

Schmidt said that after the YouTube acquisition, Google executives began intense rounds of talks with copyright owners, and he sounded hopeful that litigation would be averted.

"A bunch of us got on airplanes to talk to everybody," Schmidt said. "There is a relatively lengthy process of education on both sides. There is lots and lots of talking, and we have not hit any walls."

Google continued to invest heavily in its infrastructure, like big data centers, which the company said was a continuing source of competitive advantage. The company said capital expenditures were $367 million during the quarter.

"We can now handle more user queries and respond more quickly," said Larry Page, a Google co-founder and president of products.

In the fourth quarter, Google also began heavy promotion of its Checkout service, an e-commerce payment system that competes with PayPal. During the Christmas holidays, Google offered consumers $10 rebates on purchases of $30 or more, and in some cases $20 rebates on purchases of $50 or more. It also agreed to pick up processing fees typically paid by merchants for credit card or PayPal payments, which can add up to a few percentage points.

ITM

Apple, Cisco return to talks in iPhone trademark lawsuit

Apple Inc. and Cisco Systems Inc. are apparently suspending their court battle over the iPhone to return to the negotiations table.

Although Cisco's lawsuit against Apple remains pending, the two companies have agreed to extend the time Apple has to respond so the parties can discuss trademark rights and interoperability, the companies said late Wednesday. The aim is to reach an agreement on the matter, they said.

Cisco, which makes routers and switches to link networks and power the Internet, has owned the trademark on the name "iPhone" since 2000 and began shipping its own line of iPhone-branded Internet-enabled phones in the spring of 2006.

When Apple announced its cell phone-iPod-Internet communications device last month and called it "iPhone," negotiations between the tech companies ended with a thud. Cisco sued Apple the following day, claiming trademark infringement.

Cisco claims Apple's new device is "deceptively and confusingly similar" to its own line of wireless phones from Cisco's Linksys division. Apple says it is entitled to use the name "iPhone" because its device operates over a cellular network, unlike Cisco's phones, which use the Internet. Apple plans to start selling its iPhone in June.

During a recent conference call with analysts, Apple's Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook called the Cisco lawsuit "silly" and said Cisco's trademark registration was "tenuous at best."

"If Cisco wants to challenge us," Cook said, "we're confident we'll prevail."

Under federal law, two companies may share a trademark as long as their uses are not confusingly similar. Apple has battled another Apple over trademark before: Apple Corps, the Beatles' recording company, had sued the computer company over its entry into the music business.

Despite the more recent legal skirmish, Cisco is pushing ahead with its own Linksys iPhone. It took out a full-page ad in Thursday's edition of The New York Times to promote the product and included the small "R" for registered trademark next to the name.

The ad, touting "iPhone: More than talk!" featured two women sitting back-to-back on a grassy field, one using a phone and the other a laptop — an Apple laptop.

Prevention is better than cure.

14th Feb is coming......!!!
Prevention is better than cure..........................!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Kareena hitting a career high: Shahid

Shahid Kapoor, who is yet to find the right project after 'Vivah', says girlfriend Kareena Kapoor is hitting the best time of her career now and from this year on both will focus only on quality films.

Asked about his wish list for himself and Kareena in 2007, he said, "I'd like to do good work and balance out my personal life with my work. Kareena is hitting the best time of her career now.

"I think quality has become far more important today than it was earlier because one successful film, no matter how small, is in the eye of the audience. Neither Kareena nor I can get away with doing bad work."

Shahid is still searching for a good project to take up after 'Vivah'.

"I'd be happy picking any script that has mass appeal. No point in giving a good performance in a film that nobody watches. Luckily, films like 'Rang De Basanti' or even 'Vivah' have broken the mould.

"In fact, both Kareena and I have taken a deliberate decision to cut loose completely and start with a clean slate. Today she's doing a Mani Ratnam film. Every actor in the industry wants to work with Mani sir. She has been very patient, hasn't worked for eight to nine months. That's tougher on a leading lady than a hero. I'm so happy that her decision to be patient has paid off. I hope it pays off for me."

Will Shahid be in Sooraj Barjatya's next film? "I've my finger crossed. I'd do anything to work with him again. I was lucky 'Vivah' did well. It gave me the confidence to hold out. 'Vivah' has put me in a position to be patient. It was time for me to move to another level.

"I've been patient. I did get scared when I got up workless. But now I'm comfortable connecting with myself, listening to scripts and watching as many films as possible."

He also has happy memories of meeting singer Nelly Furtado backstage before a show on December 31.

"I was aware that Nelly and I wouldn't be able to do an act together. We were all so stressed-out about our acts. Nelly had her own act ready from beforehand.

"I told her how much I loved her 'Powerless' track. She surprised me by telling me she remembered meeting me and Kareena on a flight sometime back. I was quite touched and taken aback that she actually remembered that. I'd have liked to dance with Nelly. But she had landed barely 24 hours earlier."

Kareena wasn't there to cheer Shahid at the event. "She watched me on television from home. I preferred her to be with her family. It wasn't such a big event that I'd want her to be there for me."

But it was Shahid's first live performance in Mumbai. "Since I'm not doing any movies right now I had the time to rehearse. In any case I don't like going on stage until I'm fully prepared. The best part of the evening was the interaction with the live audience.

"Earlier this year I had gone on my first world tour. That's when I realised how heady the whole experience of a live performance can be. This was like 20 minutes away from my home. So it felt like 'apne ghar ki baat'. The turnout was damn good...9,000 people. The standing cheering crowd was very MTV-style.

"That's only possible for an event like New Year's Eve. To add to my excitement, this was my first performance in India and that too before a live crowd. Of course, I've performed at awards functions. But never outside."

Shahid had a good time. "Bringing in 2007 while I was at work was a good thing. I haven't been working for two months. It felt good to be working again."

MM

Sunita to break women's spacewalk record

Indian American astronaut Sunita Williams, along with her crew mate ISS commander Michael Lopez-Alegria, is out walking in space since morning and finished wrangling tough ammonia cooling lines outside the International Space Station (ISS) as they shift them from a temporary arrangement to their permanent configuration.

The first of three spacewalks in nine days began on Wednesday at 9:14 a.m. CST. The two spacewalkers are supposed to reroute the station's Loop A cooling system into its primary set up. A second cooling loop - Loop B - will be rerouted during February 4 spacewalk.

After returning to Earth in July, Expedition 14 and Expedition 15 Flight Engineer Sunita Williams will hold the NASA astronaut record for longest time in space. Sunita also will have completed the most spacewalks by a woman by the end of February.

By the end of Expedition 14 in April, Lopez-Alegria should lead all astronauts in the number of spacewalks and the amount of time spent spacewalking. Lopez-Alegria will have set that record just months earlier.

During spacewalk Wednesday, NASA astronauts were running low on time and spacesuit battery power, so had to stop any extra tasks - known as "get-aheads" - at the end of first spacewalk outside the ISS.

The astronauts are stowing a pair of fluid lines that they stripped from an unneeded reservoir of spare ammonia coolant to complete the final major task of their spacewalk.

MM