State of the Art: Imagining Ho-Hum C.E.S. as an Action Movie - State of the Art

Hi boss! I’m back from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. You assigned me to report on what’s new and exciting, but I have some bad news. The answer is: almost nothing.

I mean, think about it: Apple, Google, Microsoft and Facebook don’t even attend C.E.S.; they’d rather make their product announcements on their own schedules without being locked into this every-January thing. It’s still a big show, bigger than ever this year, with 3,200 exhibits and 150,000 attendees, but I wonder why people bother. Whose product announcement will get any press at all when it’s buried by 3,199 others?

C.E.S.’s organizers publish a daily magazine during the show that profiles new products announced there. Here are some actual examples: “Braven Expands Bluetooth Speaker Line.” “Armpocket Unveils Smartphone Cases.” “Bits Ltd. Expands Line of Surge Protectors.”

So if you want an exciting column from me, the thrills won’t come from the news of new products at C.E.S. I’ll have to spice things up another way. See what you think of this.

As he plummets toward the Nevada desert, two deafening sounds assail Daxton Blackthorne’s eardrums — the wind rushing past his ears at terminal velocity, and a deafening explosion over his head. Fumbling for his parachute cord, he’s blasted by the searing heat from the fireball that, until seconds ago, was his Cessna Citation.

For now, though, his concern isn’t the air-to-air missile that has just dispatched his jet, courtesy of the Bora Boran Mafia on his tail. It isn’t even the fact that Daxton Blackthorne is all that stands between them and the collapse of American democracy.

It’s finding a good place to land.

There! Squinting in the blinding sun, he spots an enormous chain of low-slung buildings, stretching through the bustling downtown like a sleeping cobra: the Las Vegas Convention Center.

He hits the roof of the South Hall hard — too hard. Keeping low, he scuttles across the gravel to a ventilation shaft and emerges, moments later, in a blasting cacophony of color, sound and electronics.

He hears the crash of boots behind him as his pursuers explode from the same shaft. Got to move, Daxton thinks. Detaching his ’chute, he darts among the booths, dodging clumps of buyers, reporters and electronics executives.

He weaves among the exhibits, barely noting their wares. External battery packs for phones. Car chargers for phones. Screen protectors for phones. Cases for phones.

What is this place? he thinks, pulse pounding.

Booth after booth. GPS units. Tablets. Earbuds. Bluetooth speakers. Phone cases. Row after row of Chinese manufacturers he’s never heard of. Like this one, Huwei, selling the world’s largest Android phone — the thin, shiny Ascend Mate, with a 6.1-inch screen. That’d be like talking into a cutting board, he thinks.

He bursts into the Central Hall, and the sensory overload is immediate; he pauses, gasping, to take it in. TV screens. Thousands. Screens bigger than a man. Screens stacked up to the distant ceiling. Screens brighter and louder than explosives in the morning. Sharp, Sony, Samsung, LG, Toshiba, Panasonic. The bombardment is almost as lethal as the one that took down his Cessna.

Here are OLED screens, with incredibly black blacks, vivid colors and razor-thin bodies; this LG model is only 0.16 inches thick. Panasonic and Sony each claim “the world’s largest OLED screen” — 56-inch prototypes.

Footsteps pound behind him. Too late to run. He’ll blend in. He merges into a throng of eager showgoers.

“Three-D may have been a flop,” a rep is saying. “But this year, the industry is back with an irresistible offering: 4K television. Ultra HD, we call it. You thought HDTV was sharp? Now imagine: four times as many pixels. Stunning picture quality, in stunning screen sizes.”

Daxton figures you’d have to sit pretty darned close to see any difference between HDTV and 4KTV. But never mind that — out of the corner of his eye, Daxton spots the black uniforms of his pursuers, fanning through the crowd. Play along, he thinks. “Excuse me,” he shouts in a faux French accent. “What is there to watch in 4K?”

“Unfortunately, 4K video requires too much data for today’s cable, satellite, broadcast, Blu-ray, or Internet streaming,” is the reply. “But at Sony, we’re leading the way! If you buy our 84-inch 4K television for $25,000, we’ll lend you a hard drive with 10 Sony movies on it — in gorgeous 4K.”

Daxton can think of better uses for $25,000; a jetpack would come in handy right about now. He dives into the crowd. Must. Find. Disguise.

A crowd wearing headsets is gathered before a Samsung TV. That’ll do. He grabs one; it covers both his eyes and his ears.

“You’re seeing a prototype of Samsung’s OLED dual-view technology,” the spokesman says. “This TV can display two 3-D video sources simultaneously, or four regular ones. Imagine: Your children can be playing Xbox while you watch the Super Bowl!” Daxton moves the switch on the earpiece; sure enough, the TV’s image changes accordingly, along with the audio from the tiny earpiece speakers.

But angry shouts in Tahitian are closing in. He bolts through an archipelago of audio booths, hawking celebrity headphones bearing the names of the rapper 50 Cent, the heavy-metal band Motorhead, the runner Usain Bolt, the N.F.L. quarterback Tim Tebow and the TV reality star Snooki. When did Snooki become an audiophile? he wonders.

By the time he storms into the North Hall, his lungs are screaming. He stands, panting, in a broader area populated by gleaming, polished automobiles. Here are Ford and General Motors, announcing new developer programs, open platforms for new apps that will run on their cars’ computer screens. Ford’s Sync AppLink bans games and video apps, for safety reasons. Good thinking, Daxton thinks. Wouldn’t want distracted driving.

Here are Audi and Lexus, announcing self-driving cars. Glancing at the video loop, he notes that the Audi prototype can, at this point, drive itself only through specially equipped parking garages, like the one set up at the Mandarin Oriental for a demonstration.

But on the Lexus stage, he spots something much more enticing: a car, festooned with sensors, that can actually drive itself on regular roads, much like Google’s fleet of 12 autonomous cars.

“California and Nevada have both made self-driving cars legal, with certain restrictions,” the executive on stage says. “And this Lexus LS safety-research vehicle is a pioneer. The 360-degree laser on the roof detects objects up to 230 feet away; the front camera knows if the traffic light is red or green. Side cameras, GPS and radar enhance what could someday be a safe, efficient, road-aware vehicle.”

There’s a burst of commotion from Daxton’s near right. It’s them. He vaults onto the stage. “Love the idea of self-driving cars,” Daxton tells the presenter. “But right now, I need a car I can drive myself.”

A saber blade shatters the air next to his ear. With a burst of adrenaline, he dives through the open window of the Lexus. His assailants push through the crowd and clamber after him, but he’s already powered on the car. Huddling low, he guns the engine and shifts into gear.

As a hail of bullets shatters the rear window, the Lexus arcs off the stage, plows through seven rotating shelves of phone cases, and, in a cloud of plaster and twisted beams, erupts through the wall of the convention center.

With a wry smile, Daxton adjusts his rear-view mirror just in time to see the knot of black-suited Bora Borans shaking their fists in the distance.

He brushes some safety glass off his shoulder, slips on sunglasses, and leans back into the leather seat.

“Now that’s what I call an exciting show,” he says, grinning, and he swings onto the open road for home.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: January 17, 2013

An earlier version of this article misspelled the name of a Chinese technology company. It is Huawei, not Huwei.

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Facing the French, Mali Rebels Dig In and Blend In

Joe Penney/Reuters

As France fortified its ground forces in Mali, French soldiers refueled armored personnel carriers, newly arrived from Ivory Coast, at a Bamako air base on Tuesday.

BAMAKO, Mali — In the face of fierce, all-night bombardment by the French military, Mali’s Islamist insurgents have hunkered down to fight again.

Barging into some of the mud-brick houses in the battle zone and ejecting residents, they have sought to implant themselves in the local population and add to the huge challenges facing the French military campaign to loosen their grip on Mali.

“They are in the town, almost everywhere in the town,” said Bekaye Diarra, who owns the pharmacy in Diabaly, which experienced French bombing on Tuesday but remained under the control of the insurgents. “They are installing themselves.”

Benco Ba, a parliamentary deputy there, described residents in fear of the conflict that had descended on them. “The jihadists are going right into people’s families,” he said. “They have completely occupied the town. They are dispersed. It’s fear.”

Six days into the French military campaign, it was becoming clear that airstrikes alone will probably not be enough to root out these battle-hardened fighters, who know well the harsh grassland and desert terrain of Mali.

French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, speaking as French ground forces deployed in the north, said on Wednesday that the campaign would be long, Reuters reported.

“We’re in a better position than last week, but the combat continues and it will be long, I imagine,” he said on RTL radio. “Today the ground forces are in the process of deploying,” he said. “Now the French forces are reaching the north,” Reuters said.

Adm. Edouard Guillaud, the French chief of staff, was quoted by The Associated Press as saying that ground operations began overnight. “Now we’re on the ground,” Admiral Guillaud said. “We will be in direct combat within hours.”

Containing the rebels’ southern advance toward Bamako, the capital, is proving more challenging than anticipated, French military officials have acknowledged. And with the Malian Army in disarray and no outside African force yet assembled, displacing the rebels from the country altogether appears to be an elusive, long-term challenge.

The jihadists are “dug in” at Diabaly, Mr. Le Drian said Tuesday at a news conference. From that strategic town, they “threaten the south,” he said, adding: “We face a well-armed and determined adversary.”

Mr. Le Drian also acknowledged that the Malian Army had not managed to retake the town of Konna, whose seizure by the rebels a week ago provoked the French intervention. “We will continue the strikes to diminish their potential,” the minister said.

Using advanced attack planes and sophisticated military helicopters, the French campaign has forced the Islamists from important northern towns like Gao and Douentza. But residents there say that while the insurgents suffered losses, many of them had simply gone into the nearby bush.

“Bombing will weaken them, and it will stop their advance,” said Djallil Lounnas, an expert on the region at the University of Montreal who has written widely on Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, one of the main extremist groups in northern Mali. “But as soon as the bombing stops, they’ll come back.”

Since the French started bombing, he said, “the situation has changed slightly, but not fundamentally.”

Other analysts said that while forcing the insurgents from the cities was achievable, eliminating them altogether would require considerable additional effort.

“You can’t launch a war of extermination against a very tenacious and mobile adversary,” said Col. Michel Goya of the French Military Academy’s Strategic Research Institute. “We are in a classic counterinsurrectionary situation. They are well armed, but the weapons are not sophisticated. A couple of thousand men, very mobile.”

And they have been preparing for battle for months.

One resident of Gao who accompanied Islamist fighters to a desert hide-out in recent months described a vast system of underground caves big enough to drive cars into, said Corinne Dufka, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch.

Adam Nossiter reported from Bamako, and Eric Schmitt from Washington. Steven Erlanger and Scott Sayare contributed reporting from Paris, and Elisabeth Bumiller from Madrid.

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Apple scoops PBS on “Downton Abbey” episodes, but PBS is cool with it

NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) – Apple is making the entire third season of “Downton Abbey” available on iTunes before every episode airs on PBS – and that’s just fine with PBS.

Fans who buy a season pass on iTunes beginning January 29 will get to see three episodes before they air on PBS. The Season 3 finale airs February 17.

But PBS CEO Paula Kerger isn’t worried that viewers will watch the show online, then tune out PBS. In fact, she says, Apple isn’t the only place Americans can see “Downton” before they can see it on her network.

“You can also buy the DVD sets. They’re being shipped at the end of January, and the DVD sets and Apple are going up at the same time,” Kerger told TheWrap. “I think that for people who are really passionate and want to have it, it’s a great thing.”

Kerger says she hopes more viewers will discover “Downton” on whatever format they like best – and then watch it on PBS next season.

“At the end of the day, my interest is just in seeing it get to the widest possible audience, and there are people that would pick it up on Apple that may not pick it up anywhere else,” she said.

The first episode of the third season premiered to a record 7.9 million viewers earlier this month. Many of those viewers, no doubt, caught up on the previous seasons online or through DVD viewing.

“Downton” airs in the U.K. in the fall but on PBS in January, which means PBS viewers must shield themselves from spoilers. That has led to some grumbling from American fans.

But Kerger said airing the show in January allows the show to get more attention domestically than it might otherwise receive in the crowded fall season.

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Anti-doping officials want Armstrong under oath

A televised confession by Lance Armstrong isn't enough.

Anti-doping officials want the disgraced cyclist to admit his guilt under oath before considering whether to lift a lifetime ban clouding his future as a competitive athlete. That was seconded by at least one former teammate whom Armstrong pushed aside on his way to the top of the Tour de France podium.

"Lance knows everything that happened," Frankie Andreu told The Associated Press on Tuesday. "He's the one who knows who did what because he was the ringleader. It's up to him how much he wants to expose."

Armstrong has been in conversations with U.S. Anti-Doping Agency officials, touching off speculation that he may be willing to cooperate with authorities there and name names.

Interviewer Oprah Winfrey didn't say if the subject was broached during the taping Monday at a downtown Austin hotel. In an appearance on "CBS This Morning," she declined to give details of what Armstrong told her, but said she was "mesmerized and riveted by some of his answers."

Asked whether the disgraced cyclist appeared genuinely contrite after a decade of fierce denials, Winfrey replied, "I felt that he was thoughtful, I thought that he was serious, I thought that he certainly had prepared for this moment. I would say that he met the moment."

She was promoting what has become a two-part special, Thursday and Friday, on her OWN network.

Around the same time, World Anti-Doping Agency officials issued a statement saying nothing short of "a full confession under oath" would cause them to reconsider Armstrong's lifetime ban from sanctioned events.

The International Cycling Union also urged Armstrong to tell his story to an independent commission it has set up to examine claims that the sport's governing body hid suspicious samples from the cyclist, accepted financial donations from him and helped him avoid detection in doping tests.

The ban was only one of several penalties handed to Armstrong after a scathing, 1,000-page report by USADA last year. The cyclist was also stripped of his seven Tour de France titles, lost nearly all of his endorsements and was forced to cut ties with the Livestrong cancer charity he founded in 1997.

The report portrayed Armstrong as the mastermind of a long-running scheme that employed steroids, blood boosters such as EPO, and a range of other performance-enhancers to dominate the tour. It included revealing testimony from 11 former teammates, including Andreu and his wife, Betsy.

"A lot of it was news and shocking to me," Andreu said. "I am sure it's shocking to the world. There's been signs leading up to this moment for a long time. For my wife and I, we've been attacked and ripped apart by Lance and all of his people, and all his supporters repeatedly for a long time. I just wish they wouldn't have been so blind and opened up their eyes earlier to all the signs that indicated there was deception there, so that we wouldn't have had to suffer as much.

"And it's not only us," he added, "he's ruined a lot of people lives."

Armstrong was believed to have left for Hawaii. The street outside his Spanish-style villa on Austin's west side was quiet the day after international TV crews gathered there hoping to catch a glimpse of him. Nearby, members of his legal team mapped out a strategy on how to handle at least two pending lawsuits against Armstrong, and possibly a third.

The AP reported earlier Tuesday that Justice Department officials were likely to join a whistleblower lawsuit against Armstrong by former teammate Floyd Landis, citing a source who works outside the government and requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record about the matter.

The lawsuit by Landis, who was stripped of the 2006 Tour de France title after testing positive, alleges that Armstrong defrauded the U.S. government by repeatedly denying he used performance-enhancing drugs. The deadline to join the False Claims Act lawsuit, which could require Armstrong to return substantial sponsorship fees and pay a hefty penalty, is Thursday.

Landis is hardly the only one seeking money back from Armstrong.

During his long reign as cycling champion, Armstrong scolded some critics in public, didn't hesitate to punish outspoken riders during the race, and waged legal battles against still others in court.

The London-based Sunday Times has already filed a lawsuit to recover about $500,000 it paid Armstrong to settle a libel case, and Dallas-based SCA Promotions, which tried to deny him a promised bonus for a Tour de France win, has threatened to bring another lawsuit seeking to recover more than $7.5 million awarded by an arbitration panel.

In Australia, the government of the state of South Australia said it will seek the repayment of several million dollars in appearance fees paid to Armstrong for competing in the Tour Down Under in 2009, 2010 and 2011.

"We'd be more than happy for Mr. Armstrong to make any repayment of monies to us," South Australia Premier Jay Weatherill said.

___

Litke reported from Chicago, Vertuno from Austin, Texas. Pete Yost in Washington and John L. Mone in Dearborn, Mich., also contributed to this report.

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Well: Boosting Your Flu Shot Response

Phys Ed

Gretchen Reynolds on the science of fitness.

As this year’s influenza season continues to take its toll, those procrastinators now hurrying to get a flu shot might wish to know that exercise may amplify the flu vaccine’s effect. And for maximal potency, the exercise should be undertaken at the right time and involve the right dosage of sweat, according to several recent reports.

Flu shots are one of the best ways to lessen the risk of catching the disease. But they are not foolproof. By most estimates, the yearly flu vaccine blocks infection 50 to 70 percent of the time, meaning that some of those being inoculated gain little protection. The more antibodies someone develops, the better their protection against the flu, generally speaking. But for some reason, some people’s immune systems produce fewer antibodies to the influenza virus than others’ do.

Being physically fit has been found in many studies to improve immunity in general and vaccine response in particular. In one notable 2009 experiment, sedentary, elderly adults, a group whose immune systems typically respond weakly to the flu vaccine, began programs of either brisk walking or a balance and stretching routine. After 10 months, the walkers had significantly improved their aerobic fitness and, after receiving flu shots, displayed higher average influenza antibody counts 20 weeks after a flu vaccine than the group who had stretched.

But that experiment involved almost a year of dedicated exercise training, a prospect that is daunting to some people and, in practical terms, not helpful for those who have entered this flu season unfit.

So scientists have begun to wonder whether a single, well-calibrated bout of exercise might similarly strengthen the vaccine’s potency.

To find out, researchers at Iowa State University in Ames recently had young, healthy volunteers, most of them college students, head out for a moderately paced 90-minute jog or bike ride 15 minutes after receiving their flu shot. Other volunteers sat quietly for 90 minutes after their shot. Then the researchers checked for blood levels of influenza antibodies a month later.

Those volunteers who had exercised after being inoculated, it turned out, exhibited “nearly double the antibody response” of the sedentary group, said Marian Kohut, a professor of kinesiology at Iowa State who oversaw the study, which is being prepared for publication. They also had higher blood levels of certain immune system cells that help the body fight off infection.

To test how much exercise really is required, Dr. Kohut and Justus Hallam, a graduate student in her lab, subsequently repeated the study with lab mice. Some of the mice exercised for 90 minutes on a running wheel, while others ran for either half as much time (45 minutes) or twice as much (3 hours) after receiving a flu shot.

Four weeks later, those animals that, like the students, had exercised moderately for 90 minutes displayed the most robust antibody response. The animals that had run for three hours had fewer antibodies; presumably, exercising for too long can dampen the immune response. Interestingly, those that had run for 45 minutes also had a less robust response. “The 90-minute time point appears to be optimal,” Dr. Kohut says.

Unless, that is, you work out before you are inoculated, another set of studies intimates, and use a dumbbell. In those studies, undertaken at the University of Birmingham in England, healthy, adult volunteers lifted weights for 20 minutes several hours before they were scheduled to receive a flu shot, focusing on the arm that would be injected. Specifically, they completed multiple sets of biceps curls and side arm raises, employing a weight that was 85 percent of the maximum they could lift once. Another group did not exercise before their shot.

After four weeks, the researchers checked for influenza antibodies. They found that those who had exercised before the shot generally displayed higher antibody levels, although the effect was muted among the men, who, as a group, had responded to that year’s flu vaccine more robustly than the women had.

Over all, “we think that exercise can help vaccine response by activating parts of the immune system,” said Kate Edwards, now a lecturer at the University of Sydney, and co-author of the weight-training study.

With the biceps curls, she continued, the exercises probably induced inflammation in the arm muscles, which may have primed the immune response there.

As for 90 minutes of jogging or cycling after the shot, it probably sped blood circulation and pumped the vaccine away from the injection site and to other parts of the body, Dr. Kohut said. The exercise probably also goosed the body’s overall immune system, she said, which, in turn, helped exaggerate the vaccine’s effect.

But, she cautions, data about exercise and flu vaccines is incomplete. It is not clear, for instance, whether there is any advantage to exercising before the shot instead of afterward, or vice versa; or whether doing both might provoke the greatest response – or, alternatively, be too much and weaken response.

So for now, she says, the best course of action is to get a flu shot, since any degree of protection is better than none, and, if you can, also schedule a visit to the gym that same day. If nothing else, spending 90 minutes on a stationary bike will make any small twinges in your arm from the shot itself seem pretty insignificant.

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Rights Group Reports on Abuses of Surveillance and Censorship Technology

A Canadian human rights monitoring group has documented the use of American-made Internet surveillance and censorship technology by more than a dozen governments, some with harsh human rights policies like Syria, China and Saudi Arabia.

Jakub Dalek of the Munk School of Global Affairs.

Thor Swift for The New York Times

Morgan Marquis-Boire led the research with Mr. Dalek.

The Citizen Lab Internet research group, based at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto, used computer servers to scan for the distinctive signature of gear made by Blue Coat Systems of Sunnyvale, Calif.

It determined that Egypt, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Republic employed a Blue Coat system that could be used for digital censorship. The group also determined that Bahrain, China, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Kenya, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, Nigeria, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Turkey and Venezuela used equipment that could be used for surveillance and tracking.

The authors said they wanted to alert the public that there was a growing amount of surveillance and content-filtering technology distributed throughout the Internet. The technology is not restricted from export by the State Department, except to countries that are on embargo lists, like Syria, Iran and North Korea.

“Our findings support the need for national and international scrutiny of the country Blue Coat implementations we have identified, and a closer look at the global proliferation of dual-use information and communications technology,” the group noted. “We hope Blue Coat will take this as an opportunity to explain their due diligence process to ensure that their devices are not used in ways that violate human rights.”

A spokesman for Blue Coat Systems said the firm had not seen the final report and was not prepared to comment.

In 2011, several groups, including Telecomix and Citizen Labs, raised concerns that Blue Coat products were being used to find and track opponents of the Syrian government. The company initially denied that its equipment had been sold to Syria, which is subject to United States trade sanctions.

Shortly afterward, Blue Coat reversed itself and acknowledged that the systems were indeed in Syria, but it said that the devices had been shipped to a distributor in Dubai, and said that it thought that they had been destined for the Iraqi Ministry of Communications.

The Citizen Lab research project was led by Morgan Marquis-Boire and Jakub Dalek. Mr. Marquis-Boire, a Google software engineer, has during the last year been involved in a variety of research projects aimed at exposing surveillance tools used by authoritarian regimes. He said that he carefully segregated his work at Google from his human rights research.

Last year, Mr. Marquis-Boire used computer servers to identify the use of an intelligence-oriented surveillance software program, called FinSpy, which was being used by Bahrain to track opposition activists.

On a hunch last month, the researchers used the Shodan search engine, a specialized Internet tool intended to help identify computers and software services that were connected to the Internet. They were able to identify a number of the Blue Coat systems that are used for content filtering and for “deep packet inspection,” a widely used technology for detecting and controlling digital content as it travels through the Internet.

The researchers stressed that they were aware that there were both benign and harmful uses for the Blue Coat products identified as ProxySG, which functions as a Web filter, and a second system, PacketShaper, which can detect about 600 Web applications and can be used to control undesirable Web traffic.

“I’m not trying to completely demonize this technology,” Mr. Marquis-Boire said.

The researchers also noted that the equipment does not directly fall under the dual-use distinction employed by the United States government to control the sale of equipment that has both military and civilian applications, but it can be used for both political and intelligence applications by authoritarian governments.

“Syria is subject to U.S. export sanctions,” said Sarah McKune, a senior researcher at the Citizen Lab. “When it comes to other countries that aren’t subject to U.S. sanctions it’s a more difficult situation. There could still be significant human rights impact.”

The researchers also noted that a large number of American and foreign companies supplied similar gear in what Gartner, the market research firm, described as a $1.02 billion market in a report issued in May 2012.

The researchers said that some American security technology companies, like Websense, had taken strong human rights stands, but had declined to grapple with the issue of the possible misuse of the technology.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: January 16, 2013

An earlier version of this article misspelled the surname of a senior researcher at the Citizen Lab Internet research group. She is Sarah McKune, not McCune.

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India Ink: Indian Court Issues Warrant for Porsche C.E.O.'s Arrest

An Indian court has issued a warrant of arrest for Matthias Mueller, the chief executive officer and chairman of Porsche AG, the iconic German carmaker, and eight other executives from the company.

The bailable warrants come as a result of a court case filed by Precision Cars India, a former importer of Porsche cars based in New Delhi.

Precision Cars has been an importer for Porsche vehicles in India since 2003. However, when Porsche appointed Volkswagen Group Sales India as their sole importer in April 2012, they allegedly failed to inform Precision Cars, which Precision executives said left them no choice but to file a lawsuit.

“All along we have been making bona-fide efforts to sort out the issues with Porsche, but they are acting in an illegal and unjust manner and have not been giving any support in resolving the issues so we were not left any choice but pursue the matter legally and await justice,” Precision Cars India said in a statement.

The bailable arrest warrants, issued by the Court of the Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate No.3 in Jaipur, were issued on the basis of several charges including extortion, cheating, dishonestly inducing delivery of property, criminal breach of trust and criminal conspiracy filed against Porsche AG by Precision Cars India.

Mr. Mueller, who was contacted at the auto show in the United States, said lawyers were investigating the issue and that he had no further comment.

Because accused executives are originally from Germany and the United Arab Emirates, the Central Bureau of Investigation has written to the Interpol in a letter dated November 8, 2012 asking that, “necessary action in the matter” be taken up with the concerned countries.

From January 2011 to March 2012, Precision Cars sold an average of 35 cars per month. During Porsche India’s first month of working with Volkswagen in India, in October 2012, the company sold 117 cars, followed by 51 cars in November.

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Can We Trust CNET Again After a Scandal This Shady?

CNET, one of the Internet’s first and most influential authorities on gadgets and tech news, watched its editorial integrity spiral out of control Monday, with staffers quitting and editors left to explain themselves in the wake of explosive new charges over its annual Consumer Electronics Show awards — a scandal, it would appear, that goes all the way to the top of its corporate umbrella, and could shake the entire ecosystem of online tech journalism.

RELATED: CBS Puts CNET in an Ethically Questionable Spot at CES

Contrary to an already controversial move first reported last Friday, CNET parent company CBS didn’t just asked the site to remove Dish’s Slingbox Hopper from consideration for its Best of CES Awards amidst a lawsuit between CBS and Dish; the removal came after executives learned the gadget would take the top award, and that request came down from CBS CEO Leslie Moonves himself, sources tell The Verge’s Joshua Topolsky. Now, CNET’s corporate responsibilities appear to have made the long trusted site bend at will and, despite desperate pushback from some of its writers and editors, it appears CNET may have moved to cover up the series of events that led to the removal of the award.

RELATED: Following Time and CNN, The Washington Post Suspends Zakaria

For CNET, all of this looks very bad. How can readers trust the site for its famously unbiased reviews and industry news coverage if a media-conglomerate overlord is insisting that some things just “can’t exist”? The events that have unfolded since the scandal broke wide open haven’t exactly restored anyone’s faith. Greg Sandoval, a seven-year veteran of the site, announced his resignation Monday morning on Twitter, citing a lack of “editorial independence” from CBS as his motivation. In a separate tweet, he called CNET’s dishonesty about its parent company‘s involvement with Dish “unacceptable.” Since, both CNET and CBS have released not-too-convincing statements. 

RELATED: Does The Times’ Public Editor Regret Its Adventures in Social-Media Babysitting?

Following the Verge report and Sandoval’s resignation, CNET Editor in Chief Lindsay Turrentine explained how CNET editors did everything in their power to fend off corporate insistence on its editorial decisions, but found the power of a pending deal between two bigger media companies too intimidating. So the editors gave in, and waited. “We were in an impossible situation as journalists,” Turrentine wrote, adding that she thought about resigning. “I decided that the best thing for my team was to get through the day as best we could and to fight the fight from the other side.” 

RELATED: What Kind of David Brooks Hater Are You?

Speaking for many a media and tech pundit, Reuters’s Megan McCarthy questioned the front side of the internal debate: 

CNET’s editor-in-chief’s explains why she caved to CBS. Why didn’t she just refuse to award the Best in Show? : news.cnet.com/8301-30677_3-5…

— Megan McCarthy (@Megan) January 14, 2013

For her part, Turrentine seems to have one major regret: “I wish I could have overridden the decision not to reveal that Dish had won the vote in the trailer.” That doesn’t exactly scream editorial independence, as The Verge’s Sean Hollister pointed out on Twitter.

CNET doesn’t get it either. “I wish I could have overridden the decision not to reveal” is NOT editorial independence. cnet.co/VWBv5o

— Sean Hollister (@StarFire2258) January 14, 2013

Turrentinge went on to say that if she had to face this “dilemma” again, she would not quit. Meaning, if this turns into more than a one-time incident, she wouldn’t have a problem bending to CBS again? 

RELATED: Did Cops Target Journalist’s Wife’s Spa with Prostitution Raid as Payback?

CBS’s statement to The Verge hasn’t calmed the critics, either. “In terms of covering actual news, CNET maintains 100% editorial independence, and always will. We look forward to the site building on its reputation of good journalism in the years to come,” reads the CBS reply. But when you’re dealing with angry tech readers, their nerdfest of the year, and the corporate responsibilities  therein, 100 percent of trust is tough to build back.

While CNET struggles to emerge from this mess, the situation appears to be threatening the entire ecosystem of the technology press, which has a history of reinventing its standards on bias in product reviews. A number of gadget and tech-news sites fall under larger corporate umbrellas: AOL owns Engadget; NewsCorp owns The Wall Street Journal and its influential tech coverage; BuzzFeed FWD has to answer to its investors, who put money in all sorts of tech ventures; IAC invests in companies like Aereo but owns The Daily Beast. Turns out this wasn’t just a family feud — the CNET and CBS scandal at CES could set a precedent for years to come.

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AP source: Lance Armstrong tells Winfrey he doped

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Lance Armstrong has finally come clean.

After years of bitter and forceful denials, he offered a simple "I'm sorry" to friends and colleagues and then admitted he used performance-enhancing drugs during an extraordinary cycling career that included seven Tour de France victories.

Armstrong confessed to doping during an interview with Oprah Winfrey taped Monday, just a couple of hours after an emotional apology to the staff at the Livestrong charity he founded and was later forced to surrender, a person familiar with the situation told The Associated Press. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the interview is to be broadcast Thursday on Winfrey's network.

The confession was a stunning reversal for the proud athlete and celebrity who sought lavish praise in the court of public opinion and used courtrooms to punish his critics.

For more than a decade, Armstrong dared anybody who challenged his version of events to prove it. Finally, he told the tale himself after promising over the weekend to answer Winfrey's questions "directly, honestly and candidly."

Winfrey was scheduled to appear on "CBS This Morning" on Tuesday morning to discuss the interview. She tweeted shortly after the interview: "Just wrapped with (at)lancearmstrong More than 2 1/2 hours. He came READY!"

The cyclist was stripped of his Tour de France titles, lost most of his endorsements and was forced to leave Livestrong last year after the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency issued a damning, 1,000-page report that accused him of masterminding a long-running doping scheme.

Armstrong started the day with a visit to the headquarters of the Livestrong charity he founded in 1997 and turned into a global force on the strength of his athletic dominance and personal story of surviving testicular cancer that had spread to his lungs and brain.

About 100 Livestrong staff members gathered in a conference room as Armstrong told them "I'm sorry." He choked up during a 20-minute talk, expressing regret for the long-running controversy tied to performance-enhancers had caused, but stopped short of admitting he used them.

Before he was done, several members were in tears when he urged them to continue the charity's mission, helping cancer patients and their families.

"Heartfelt and sincere," is how Livestrong spokeswoman Katherine McLane described his speech.

Armstrong later huddled with almost a dozen people before stepping into a room set up at a downtown Austin hotel for the interview with Winfrey. The group included close friends and lawyers. They exchanged handshakes and smiles, but declined comment and no further details about the interview were released because of confidentiality agreements signed by both camps.

Winfrey has promoted her interview, one of the biggest for OWN since she launched the network in 2011, as a "no-holds barred" session, and after the voluminous USADA report — which included testimony from 11 former teammates — she had plenty of material for questions. USADA chief executive Travis Tygart, a longtime critic of Armstrong's, called the drug regimen practiced while Armstrong led the U.S. Postal Service team "the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen."

USADA did not respond to requests for comment about Armstrong's confession.

For years, Armstrong went after his critics ruthlessly during his reign as cycling champion. He scolded some in public and didn't hesitate to punish outspoken riders during the race itself. He waged legal battles against still others in court.

At least one of his opponents, the London-based Sunday Times, has already filed a lawsuit to recover about $500,000 it paid him to settle a libel case, and Dallas-based SCA Promotions, which tried to deny Armstrong a promised bonus for a Tour de France win, has threatened to bring another lawsuit seeking to recover more than $7.5 million awarded by an arbitration panel.

Betsy Andreu, the wife of former Armstrong teammate Frankie Andreu, was one of the first to publicly accuse Armstrong of using performance-enhancing drugs. She called news of Armstrong's confession "very emotional and very sad," and choked up when asked to comment.

"He used to be one of my husband's best friends and because he wouldn't go along with the doping, he got kicked to the side," she said. "Lance could have a positive impact if he tells the truth on everything. He's got to be completely honest."

Betsy Andreu testified in SCA's arbitration case challenging the bonus in 2005, saying Armstrong admitted in an Indiana hospital room in 1996 that he had taken many performance-enhancing drugs, a claim Armstrong vehemently denied.

"It would be nice if he would come out and say the hospital room happened," Andreu said. "That's where it all started."

Former teammate Floyd Landis, who was stripped of the 2006 Tour de France title for doping, has filed a federal whistle-blower lawsuit that accused Armstrong of defrauding the U.S. Postal Service. An attorney familiar with Armstrong's legal problems told the AP that the Justice Department is highly likely to join the lawsuit. The False Claims Act lawsuit could result in Armstrong paying a substantial amount of money to the U.S. government. The deadline for the department to join the case is Thursday, though the department could seek an extension if necessary.

According to the attorney, who works outside the government, the lawsuit alleges that Armstrong defrauded the U.S. government based on his years of denying use of performance-enhancing drugs. The attorney spoke on condition of anonymity because the source was not authorized to speak on the record about the matter.

The lawsuit most likely to be influenced by a confession might be the Sunday Times case. Potential perjury charges stemming from Armstrong's sworn testimony in the 2005 arbitration fight would not apply because of the statute of limitations. Armstrong was not deposed during the federal investigation that was closed last year.

Armstrong is said to be worth around $100 million. But most sponsors dropped him after USADA's scathing report — at the cost of tens of millions of dollars — and soon after, he left the board of Livestrong.

After the USADA findings, he was also barred from competing in the elite triathlon or running events he participated in after his cycling career. World Anti-Doping Code rules state his lifetime ban cannot be reduced to less than eight years. WADA and U.S. Anti-Doping officials could agree to reduce the ban further depending on what information Armstrong provides and his level of cooperation.

___

Litke reported from Chicago. Pete Yost in Washington also contributed to this report.

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Well: Turning to the Web for a Medical Diagnosis

Thirty-five percent of American adults said they have used the Internet to diagnose a medical condition for themselves or someone else, according to a new Pew Research Center study. Women are more likely than men to turn to the Internet for diagnoses. Other groups more likely to do so are younger people, white adults, people with college degrees and those who live in households with income above $75,000.

The study, released by Pew’s Internet and American Life Project on Tuesday, points out that Americans have always tried to answer their health questions at home, but that the Internet has expanded the options for research. Previous surveys have asked questions about online diagnoses, but the Pew study was the first to focus on the topic with a nationally representative sample, said Susannah Fox, an associate director at Pew Internet. Surveyors interviewed 3,014 American adults by telephone, from August to September 2012.

Of the one in three Americans who used the Internet for a diagnosis, about a third said they did not go to a doctor to get a professional medical opinion, while 41 percent said a doctor confirmed their diagnosis. Eighteen percent said a doctor did not agree with their diagnosis. As far as where people start when researching health conditions online, 77 percent said they started at a search engine like Google, Bing or Yahoo, while 13 percent said they began at a site that specializes in health information.

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