AT&T Offers $100 Off HSPA+ Nexus 7 for a Limited Time

The Nexus 7, made by Asus in partnership with Google, was the first really successful Android tablet that wasn’t made by a bookseller. It brought the hundreds of thousands of games and apps on Google Play (formerly the Android Market) to a wide audience, and it did so at an unheard-of price point: Only $ 199, for a device packing a Tegra 3 processor which made it much more powerful (and better for gaming) than Amazon‘s Kindle Fire.

When the Nexus 7 launched, it was Wi-Fi only and had as little as 8 GB of storage space. Google and Asus have fixed both of those problems, and from now until Feb. 14, AT&T is offering $ 100 worth of credit towards your wireless bill with the purchase of a new Nexus 7 and the signing of a two-year wireless contract.

The tablet itself

The Nexus 7 isn’t designed as a book-reader, but is more of a competitor to the iPad Mini. It lacks exclusive Amazon services like Amazon Instant Video, and many of the best iPad games and apps either aren’t available for it or aren’t available yet. It has far more games and apps for it than the Kindle, though, and can actually read Kindle books and run games and apps that you previously bought for the Kindle.

Its Tegra 3 processor allows it to play “THD”-enhanced games, which are roughly comparable in graphics quality to modern iPad or Xbox games. Finally, the model that AT&T is offering a discount on has both HSPA+ (a slower version of 4G) wireless Internet and 32 GB of storage, a combination which costs $ 559 on a similarly palm-sized iPad Mini. The Nexus 7 is only $ 299, and that’s before the $ 100 credit.

AT&T’s plans

The cheapest plan available is the $ 10 Mobile Share plan, which allows you to add the tablet to a plan that you already have. The next cheapest is AT&T’s $ 15 plan, which offers only 250 MB per month — okay for occasional email and web surfing, but completely inadequate for streaming videos regularly. Its $ 30 plan offers 3 GB of data, which still won’t stand up to constant Netflix viewing but will hold up much better than the $ 15 one.

What else is there?

The iPad and iPad Mini are also available (and much more expensive) from AT&T, as is a new Lenovo IdeaTab. It’s available for $ 199 off-contract and $ 99 on a two-year contract, but it’s not as fast or powerful as the Nexus 7, can’t play the same games, and has much less storage space.

Finally, if you like the Nexus 7 but aren’t sure you’ll still want it in two years (especially since the hardware is half a year old already), AT&T offers month-to-month wireless plans, which can be canceled at any time without paying an early termination fee. You just won’t get the $ 100 discount unless you sign a two-year contract.

Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.

Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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'Dear Abby' advice columnist dies at age 94

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Pauline Friedman Phillips, who under the name of Abigail Van Buren, wrote the long-running "Dear Abby" advice column that was followed by millions of newspaper readers throughout the world, has died. She was 94.

Publicist Gene Willis of Universal Uclick said Phillips died Wednesday after a long battle with Alzheimer's disease.

Phillips' column competed for decades with the advice column of Ann Landers, written by her twin sister, Esther Friedman Lederer. Their relationship was stormy in their early adult years, but later they regained the close relationship they had growing up in Sioux City, Iowa.

The two columns differed in style. Ann Landers responded to questioners with homey, detailed advice. Abby's replies were often flippant one-liners.

Phillips admitted that her advice changed over the years. When she started writing the column, she was reluctant to advocate divorce:

"I always thought that marriage should be forever," she explained. "I found out through my readers that sometimes the best thing they can do is part. If a man or woman is a constant cheater, the situation can be intolerable. Especially if they have children. When kids see parents fighting, or even sniping at each other, I think it is terribly damaging."

She willingly expressed views that she realized would bring protests. In a 1998 interview she remarked: "Whenever I say a kind word about gays, I hear from people, and some of them are damn mad. People throw Leviticus, Deuteronomy and other parts of the Bible to me. It doesn't bother me. I've always been compassionate toward gay people."

If the letters sounded suicidal, she took a personal approach: "I'll call them. I say, 'This is Abby. How are you feeling? You sounded awfully low.' And they say, 'You're calling me?' After they start talking, you can suggest that they get professional help."

Asked about Viagra, she replied: "It's wonderful. Men who can't perform feel less than manly, and Viagra takes them right off the spot."

About working mothers: "I think it's good to have a woman work if she wants to and doesn't leave her children unattended — if she has a reliable person to care for them. Kids still need someone to watch them until they are mature enough to make responsible decisions."

One trend Phillips adamantly opposed: children having sex as early as 12 years old.

"Kids grow up awfully fast these days," she said. "You should try to have a good relationship with your kids, no matter what they do."

The woman known to the world as Ann Landers died in June 2002. Later that year, the family revealed that Phillips had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. By then Phillips' daughter, Jeanne Phillips, who had helped her mother with the Dear Abby column for years, was its sole author.

Pauline Esther Friedman, known as Popo, was born on Independence Day 1918 in Sioux City, Iowa, 17 minutes after her identical twin, Esther Pauline (Eppie.). Their father was a well-off owner of a movie theater chain. Their mother took care of the home. Both were immigrants from Russia who had fled their native land in 1905 because of the persecution of Jews.

"My parents came with nothing. They all came with nothing," Phillips said in a 1986 Associated Press interview. She recalled that her parents always remembered seeing the Statue of Liberty: "It's amazing the impact the lady of the harbor had on them. They always held her dear, all their lives."

The twins spent their growing-up years together. They dressed alike, they both played the violin, they wrote gossip columns for their high school and college newspapers. They attended Morningside College in Sioux Falls. Two days before their 21st birthday, they had a double wedding. Pauline married Morton Phillips, a businessman, Esther married Jules Lederer, a business executive and later founder of Budget Rent-a-Car. The twins' lives diverged as they followed their husbands to different cities.

The Phillipses lived in Minneapolis, Eau Claire, Wis., and San Francisco, and had a son and daughter, Edward Jay and Jeanne. Esther lived in Chicago, had a daughter, Margo, and in 1955 she applied for and was given the job of writing the advice column. She adopted the existing column's name, Ann Landers.

Pauline, who had been working for philanthropies and the Democratic Party, followed her sister's lead, though she insisted it wasn't the reason for her decision. She arranged for an interview with an editor of the San Francisco Chronicle and presented sample columns, arguing that the paper's lovelorn column was boring. The editors admired her breezy style, and she was hired.

Searching for a name for the column, Pauline chose Abigail from the Bible and Van Buren from the eighth American president. Within a year she signed a 10-year contract with the McNaught Syndicate, which spread her column across the country.

"I was cocky," she admitted in 1998. "My contemporaries would come to me for advice. I got that from my mother: the ability to listen and to help other people with their problems. I also got Daddy's sense of humor."

Pauline applied for the advice column without notifying her sister, and that reportedly resulted in bad feelings. For a long time they did not speak to each other, but their differences were patched up. In June 2001, the twins, 83, attended the 90th birthday party in Omaha, Neb., of their sister Helen Brodkey.

The advice business extended to the second generation of the Friedmans. Phillips had announced in 2000 that her daughter would share her byline. Her sister's daughter, Margo Howard, wrote an advice column for the online magazine Slate.

Aside from the Dear Abby column, which appeared in 1,000 newspapers as far off as Brazil and Thailand, Phillips conducted a radio version of "Dear Abby" from 1963 to 1975 and wrote best-selling books about her life and advice.

In her book "The Best of Abby," Phillips commented that her years writing the column "have been fulfilling, exciting and incredibly rewarding. ... My readers have told me that they've learned from me. But it's the other way around. I've learned from them. Has it been a lot of work? Not really. It's only work if you'd rather be doing something else."

___

Associated Press writer Bob Thomas in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

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Bits Blog: Facebook's Other Big Disruption

Facebook just made a potentially game-changing announcement. It got less fanfare than Tuesday’s announcement that it is going into the social search business, but this other announcement may have bigger long-term implications for the technology industry.

Put simply, some of the world’s biggest computing systems just got a little cheaper, and a lot easier to configure. As a consequence, the companies that supply the hardware to these systems may have to scramble to remain as profitable. The reason is a Facebook-led open source project.

In 2011 Facebook began the Open Compute Project, an effort among technology companies to use open-source computer hardware. Tech companies similarly shared intellectual property with Linux software, which lowered costs and spurred innovation. Facebook’s project has attracted many significant participants, including Goldman Sachs, Arista Networks, Rackspace, Hewlett-Packard and Dell.

At a user summit on Wednesday Intel, another key member of the Open Compute Project, announced it would release to the group a silicon-based optical system that enables the data and computing elements in a rack of computer servers to communicate at 100 gigabits a second. That is significantly faster than conventional wire-based methods, and uses about half the power.

More important, it means that elements of memory and processing that now must be fixed closely together can be separated within a rack, and used as needed for different kinds of tasks. There is a lot of waste in data centers today simply because, when there is an upgrade in servers, lots of other associated data-processing hardware has to be changed, too.

There were other announcements, like a computer motherboard called Grouphug that allows different manufacturers’ chips to be interchanged without altering other parts of the machine. Before, they were custom made. Put together, such innovations potentially lower the cost and complexity of running big and small data centers to an extent that works for a lot of companies.

“Who wouldn’t want a cheaper, more efficient server?” said Frank Frankovsky, vice president of hardware design at Facebook, and the chairman of Open Compute. “The problem we’re solving is much larger than Facebook’s own challenges. There is a massive amount of data in the world that people expect to have processed quickly.”

To be sure, it’s in Facebook’s interest to attack expensive hardware. The company makes money from a service that requires hundreds of thousands of computer servers distributed in big centers around the world. Google and Amazon.com, which are not members of the project, maintain proprietary systems which they apparently felt gave them a competitive edge.

For Facebook, the difference seems to be more in the software. To the extent hardware costs drop, that’s great for them. Mr. Frankovsky argued that, while “this puts challenges on the incumbents” in hardware, “it also helps them. They have a finite number of engineering resources, and this way they hear from a community about whether there is an interest for a product.” Intel may hope to benefit from its open-source release, since it could see an overall rise in demand for its chips with the move toward cheaper computing.

The real test is whether Facebook can increase the number of potential buyers for Open Compute equipment. “The question is, can they extend this beyond a few Web businesses like Facebook and Rackspace, or a few financial exercises at Goldman, and bring this to industries like oil or aerospace?” said Matt Eastwood, an analyst with IDC, a technology research firm. “That will take it from 20 or 30 companies to hundreds of companies.”

The issue isn’t so much a technical one, he argues, as it is one of getting corporate information technology professionals interested in radical design changes. Mr. Frankovsky is aware of the problem. Recently he and his colleagues led a seminar in Texas for BP, Shell and other oil giants on how they could use Open Compute hardware in their data centers.

This will not change things dramatically this year, and possibly even next, but over the long haul it could remake a lot of businesses. Linux, remember, was around for several years as a minor player, but eventually undid Sun Microsystems and others.

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Islamists Seize Foreign Hostages at Algeria Gas Field

PARIS — Islamist militants seized a foreign-operated gas field in Algeria early Wednesday and took at least 20 foreign hostages, including Americans, according to an Algerian government official and the country’s state-run news agency, in what the attackers called a retaliation for the French-led military intervention in neighboring Mali.

The Algerian agency said at least at least two people had been killed in the gas-field seizure, including one British national, and that the hostages included American, British, French, Norwegian and Japanese citizens.

Victoria Nuland, a State Department spokeswoman, told reporters in Washington, “The best information that we have at this time is that U.S. citizens are among the hostages.”

The exact number of people being held was still far from certain. A top Algerian government official said that security services had now “encircled the base” so that “no one can leave.” But he added that “the situation is confused for the moment. We don’t have precise figures for now. Maybe 30” hostages in all.

As for the attackers, he said, “There were 20 of them, in three vehicles, heavily armed. They came in vehicles that were unmarked, that’s how they slipped through.”

Other news agencies said as many as 41 hostages were seized.

The attack on the gas field appeared to be the first retribution by the Islamists for the French armed intervention in Mali last week, potentially broadening the conflict beyond Mali’s borders and raising the possibility of drawing an increasing number of foreign countries directly into the conflict.

The attack occurred at the In Amenas gas field, the fourth largest gas development in Algeria, and at the In Amenas gas compression plant, which is operated by BP, the Norwegian company Statoil and the Algerian national oil company Sonatrach.

Bard Glad Pedersen, a Statoil spokesman, said that of 17 Statoil employees working in the field, only four were able to safely escape to a nearby Algerian military camp. “There is a hostage situation,” he said. “We do not provide further information how we are dealing with the situation. Our main priority is the safety of our colleagues.”

All told, up to 40 workers could be held hostage, according to oil company officials. A Japanese official confirmed that Japanese nationals were involved, and the Irish Foreign Ministry said one Irish citizen had been kidnapped.

The Sahara Media Agency of Mauritania, quoting what it described as a spokesman for the militants, said they were holding five hostages in a production facility on the site and 36 others in a housing area, and that there were as many as 400 Algerian soldiers surrounding the operation. But that information could not be confirmed, and the agency’s report on the specifics of where the hostages were held raised questions about its credibility.

Fighters with links to Al Qaeda’s African affiliate, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, claimed responsibility for the attack, according to both Mauritanian and Algerian news agencies. They quoted militants claiming that the kidnappings were a response to the Algerian government’s decision to allow France to use its airspace to conduct strikes against Islamists in Mali.

Islamist groups and bandits have long operated in the deserts of western Africa, and a collection of Islamists have occupied the vast expanse of northern Mali since last year. In retaliation for the French-led effort to drive them out, those groups, including Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, have pledged to strike against France’s interests on the continent and abroad, as well as those of nations backing the French operations. In France, security has been reinforced at airports, train stations and other public spaces.

The militant groups are financed in large part through ransoms paid for the freeing of Western hostages, and regular kidnappings have occurred in the West African desert in recent years. Seven French nationals are presently being held there.

The attack on Wednesday was carried out by a “heavily armed” group of “terrorists” traveling aboard three vehicles, the Algeria Interior Ministry statement said, and targeted a bus transporting foreign workers to a nearby airport at 5 a.m.

Algeria, which shares a desert border of several hundred miles with Mali, has resisted the possibility of organizing an armed intervention into the Malian north, fearing that fighting could spill into Algeria or drive militants into the country. Indeed, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, one of the militant groups now holding northern Mali, began as an insurgent group fighting the Algerian government in the 1990s. But Algeria has authorized French jets flying missions in Mali to cross Algerian airspace.

Oil and gas are central to the Algerian economy, accounting for more than a third of the country’s gross domestic product, over 95 percent of its export earnings and 60 percent of government financial receipts. Large pipelines connect the In Amenas fields with the Skikda liquefied natural gas export terminal, one of two export port facilities that supply gas to France, Spain, Turkey, Italy and Britain. Pipelines from the field also connect with Italy and Spain. In recent years, Algeria was the third largest natural gas supplier to Europe after Russia and Norway, according to the United States Energy Department.

Algeria is also a major oil exporter to Europe and Asia, where its high quality light sweet crude fits perfectly with local refineries. The United States is traditionally a major importer of Algerian crude, although over the last few years much of those imports have been replaced by new oil production in American shale oil fields in North Dakota and Texas.

Algeria has traditionally been known as a secure place for foreign companies to work and invest. Sonatrach and the security forces put tight security around oil and gas facilities during the struggle with Islamic militants in the 1990s, a period when energy infrastructure was never a major insurgent target.

Scott Sayare reported from Paris, and Adam Nossiter from Bamako, Mali. Clifford Krauss contributed reporting from Houston.

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“GameStick” and NVIDIA “Project SHIELD” Consoles-in-a-Controller on Their Way

Both GameStick and NVIDIA’s Project Shield are upcoming game consoles the size of a game controller, which can hook up to a larger display. Both are powered by Android, Google‘s open-source operating system that’s normally used on smartphones and tablets. And both have working hardware prototypes already. But one is a $ 99 Kickstarter project by an indie group, while the other has the backing of two major companies in the PC gaming world — and will probably be a lot more expensive when it comes out.

Here’s a look at two upcoming TV game consoles that you’ll be able to fit in your pocket or handbag.

GameStick: Exactly what it sounds like

Imagine a tiny, rectangular game controller, sort of like a Wii Remote with more buttons and twin analog sticks. On one side is a plastic bump, that when you pull it off it becomes this gadget the size of a USB memory stick that plugs into a TV’s HDMI port. That’s GameStick, and with 19 days left to go in its Kickstarter fund-raiser it’s managed to raise more than three times the $ 100,000 its creators asked for.

GameStick will have 8 GB of flash memory, and a processor capable of handling modern AAA Android games like Shadowgun, plus 1080p video. If you don’t like the controller it comes with, you’ll be able to connect up to four of your own via Bluetooth, or even use your Android or iOS smartphone or tablet as a controller.

Project SHIELD: A controller that can stop bullets

Maybe it can’t literally serve as a shield. But at about the size of the original Xbox’s controller, the “portable” console NVIDIA showed off at this year’s CES sure looks like it can. It’s powered by a next-generation Tegra 4 processor, and features its own built-in 5-inch multitouch screen for gaming on the go. But it can also connect to a TV, and can even stream PC games via Steam’s Big Picture mode, which was designed for controller games.

A not-so-silver lining?

GameStick’s biggest weakness may be its developer support. Its Kickstarter page mentions the hundreds of thousands of Android games out there, but most of those are only on Google Play, which (unlike most of the rest of Android) is proprietary to Google. Time will tell whether its creators can get enough developers to write games for the platform by the time of its planned April launch, or enough gamers to buy games they might already have on their tablets.

In contrast, between full support for the Google Play store and PC game streaming from Steam, Project SHIELD will have thousands and thousands of games, and there will be no need to repurchase titles you’ve already bought from either store. There’s no word from NVIDIA yet, though, on how much its game console will cost or even when it will launch.

Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.

Linux/Open Source News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Cotillard named Hasty Pudding Woman of the Year

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) — Academy Award-winning actress Marion Cotillard (koh-tee-YAR') has been named the 2013 Harvard University Hasty Pudding Theatricals Woman of the Year.

The French actress, who won the 2007 best actress Oscar for her role in "La Vie En Rose," will be honored with a parade and roast, and given her ceremonial pudding pot, at Harvard on Jan. 31.

The 37-year-old Cotillard has appeared more recently in "Inception," ''Contagion" and "The Dark Knight Rises."

Claire Danes was the woman of the year last year.

The man of the year will be announced at a later date and honored on Feb. 8.

Hasty Pudding Theatricals is the nation's oldest undergraduate drama troupe. The awards are presented annually to performers who have made a lasting and impressive contribution to entertainment.

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The New Old Age: In Flu Season,Use a Mask. But Which One?

Face masks help prevent people from getting the flu. But how much protection do they provide?

You might think the answer to this question would be well established. It’s not.

In fact, there is considerable uncertainty over how well face masks guard against influenza when people use them outside of hospitals and other health care settings. This has been a topic of discussion and debate in infectious disease circles since the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic, also known as swine flu.

As the government noted in a document that provides guidance on the issue, “Very little information is available about the effectiveness of facemasks and respirators in controlling the spread of pandemic influenza in community settings.” This is also true of seasonal influenza — the kind that strikes every winter and that we are experiencing now, experts said.

Let’s jump to the bottom line for older people and caregivers before getting into the details. If someone is ill with the flu, coughing and sneezing and living with others, say an older spouse who is a bit frail, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends the use of a face mask “if available and tolerable” or a tissue to cover the nose and mouth.

If you are healthy and serving as a caregiver for someone who has the flu — say, an older person who is ill and at home — the C.D.C. recommends using a face mask or a respirator. (I’ll explain the difference between those items in just a bit.) But if you are a household member who is not in close contact with the sick person, keep at a distance and there is no need to use a face mask or respirator, the C.D.C. advises.

The recommendations are included in another document related to pandemic influenza — a flu caused by a new virus that circulates widely and ends up going global because people lack immunity. That is not a threat this year, but the H3N2 virus that is circulating widely is hitting many older adults especially hard. So the precautions are a good idea, even outside a pandemic situation, said Dr. Ed Septimus, a spokesman for the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

The key idea here is exposure, Dr. Septimus said. If you are a caregiver and intimately exposed to someone who is coughing, sneezing and has the flu, wearing a mask probably makes sense — as it does if you are the person with the flu doing the coughing and sneezing and a caregiver is nearby.

But the scientific evidence about how influenza is transmitted is not as strong as experts would like, said Dr. Carolyn Bridges, associate director of adult immunization at the C.D.C. It is generally accepted that the flu virus is transmitted through direct contact — when someone who is ill touches his or her nose and then a glass that he or she hands to someone else, for instance — and through large droplets that go flying through the air when a person coughs or sneezes. What is not known is the extent to which tiny aerosol particles are implicated in transmission.

Evidence suggests that these tiny particles may play a more important part than previously suspected. For example, a November 2010 study in the journal PLoS One found that 81 percent of flu patients sent viral material through air expelled by coughs, and 65 percent of the virus consisted of small particles that can be inhaled and lodge deeper in the lungs than large droplets.

That is a relevant finding when it comes to masks, which cover much of the face below the eyes but not tightly, letting air in through gaps around the nose and mouth. As the C.D.C.’s advisory noted, “Facemasks help stop droplets from being spread by the person wearing them. They also keep splashes or sprays from reaching the mouth and nose of the person wearing them. They are not designed to protect against breathing in the very small particle aerosols that may contain viruses.”

In other words, you will get some protection, but it is not clear how much. In most circumstances, “if you’re caring for a family member with influenza, I think a surgical mask is perfectly adequate,” said Dr. Carol McLay, an infection control consultant based in Lexington, Ky.

By contrast, respirators fit tightly over someone’s face and are made of materials that filter out small particles that carry the influenza virus. They are recommended for health care workers who are in intimate contact with patients and who have to perform activities like suctioning their lungs. So-called N95 respirators block at least 95 percent of small particles in tests, if properly fitted.

Training in how to use respirators is mandated in hospitals, but no such requirement applies outside, and consumers frequently put them on improperly. One study of respirator use in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, when mold was a problem, found that only 24 percent of users put them on the right way. Also, it can be hard to breathe when respirators are used, and this can affect people’s willingness to use them as recommended.

Unfortunately, research about the relative effectiveness of masks and respirators is not robust, and there is no guidance backed by scientific evidence available for consumers, Dr. Bridges said. Nor is there any clear way of assessing the relative merits of various products being sold to the public, which differ in design and materials used.

“Honestly, some of the ones I’ve seen are almost like a paper towel with straps,” Dr. McLay said. Her advice: go with name-brand items used by your local hospital.

Meanwhile, it is worth repeating: The single most important thing that older people and caregivers can do to prevent the flu is to be vaccinated, Dr. Bridges said. “It’s the best tool we have,” she said, noting that preventing flu also involves vigilant hand washing, using tissues or arms to block sneezing, and staying home when ill so people do not transmit the virus. And it is by no means too late to get a shot, whose cost Medicare will cover for older adults.

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Bits Blog: Facebook Unveils a New Search Tool

8:53 p.m. | Updated

MENLO PARK, Calif. — Facebook has spent eight years nudging its users to share everything they like and everything they do. Now, the company is betting it has enough data so that people can find whatever they want on Facebook. And on Tuesday, it unveiled a new tool to help them dig for it.

The tool, which the company calls graph search, is Facebook’s most ambitious stab at overturning the Web search business ruled by its chief rival, Google. It is also an effort to elbow aside other Web services designed to unearth specific kinds of information, like LinkedIn for jobs, Match for dates and Yelp for restaurants.

Facebook has spent over a year honing graph search, said Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s co-founder and chief executive, at an event here at Facebook’s headquarters introducing the new product. He said it would enable Facebook users to search their social network for people, places, photos and things that interest them.

That might include, Mr. Zuckerberg offered, Mexican restaurants in Palo Alto that his friends have “liked” on Facebook or checked into. It might be used to find a date, dentist or job, other Facebook executives said.

“Graph search,” Mr. Zuckerberg said, “is a completely new way to get information on Facebook.”

Graph search will be immediately available to a limited number of Facebook users — in the “thousands,” Mr. Zuckerberg said — and gradually extended to the rest.

Every Internet platform company has been interested in conquering search.

But Facebook search differs from other search services because of the mountain of social data the company has collected over the years. It knows which parks your friends like to take their children to, or which pubs they like to visit, and who among their network is single and lives nearby.

The company is betting that its users are more eager to hear their friends’ recommendations for a restaurant than advice from a professional food critic or from a stranger on Yelp.

Its search tool is based on the premise that the data within Facebook is enough and that its users will have little reason to venture outside its blue walled garden. What they cannot find inside the garden, its search partner, Bing, a Microsoft product, will help them find on the Web.

For now, the Facebook tool will mine its users’ pictures, likes and check-ins, but not their status updates. Graph search, Mr. Zuckerberg explained, is aimed at answering questions based on the data contained in your social network, not serving you a list of links to other Web sites.

Say, for example, you are searching for a grocery store in Manhattan. You would type that question into a box on your Facebook page and the results would show stores your friends liked or where they had checked in.

It remains unclear how users will react to having others mine the data they share on Facebook. Mr. Zuckerberg took pains to reassure users that what they post would be found only if they wanted it to be found. Before the new search tool is available to them, he said, users will see this message: “Please take some time to review who can see your stuff.” Facebook tweaked its privacy controls last December.

Mr. Zuckerberg said Tuesday that initially, photos posted on Instagram, which Facebook owns, would not be part of the database of photos that can be searched. Nor would he specify how soon graph search would be available to those who log in using the Facebook app on their cellphones.

The search tool is plainly designed with an eye toward profits. If done right, said Brian Blau, an analyst with Gartner, it could offer marketers a more precise signal of a Web user’s interests. “It’s going to lend itself to advertising or other revenue-generating products that better matches what people are looking for,” he said. “Advertisers are going to be able to better target what you’re interested in. It’s a much more meaningful search than keyword search.”

News of the new search tool offered a modest lift to Facebook shares, which rose 2.7 percent to a close at $30.10 Tuesday. Google remained stable, with a share price of nearly $725. Google retains two-thirds of the search market, and Facebook’s search tool by itself is not likely to affect Google’s business.

Still, introduction of graph search sharpens the divide between Facebook and Google.

“If Facebook can truly provide relevant answers based on mining data from the social graph, it has an advantage,” said Venkat N. Venkatraman, a business professor at Boston University.

Google has been scrambling for several years to collect social data and incorporate it into search results, as Web users increasingly turn to social networks to seek friends’ recommendations.

It introduced Google Plus, its Facebook rival, in 2011, and from the beginning said its main purpose was to use social information to improve and personalize all Google products, from search to maps to ads. Last year, Google began showing posts, photos, profiles and conversations from Google Plus in Google search results. A search for restaurants in Seattle, for instance, could show posts and photos shared by friends in addition to links from around the Web. Google declined to comment for this article.

The kind of personal search that Facebook is promising is rife with potential privacy hazards, which Mr. Zuckerberg acknowledged repeatedly. “The search we wanted to build is privacy aware,” he maintained. “On Facebook, most of the things people share with you isn’t public.”

The American Civil Liberties Union immediately posted a warning, reminding Facebook users to review their privacy settings. It pointed out that advertisers who, until now, could target only certain categories of people anonymously — “users under 35 who live in Texas,” for instance — could now find specific users under 35 who live in Texas, if their privacy settings allowed them to be found. It cautioned that “controlling your personal data means controlling not only who can see your information but how it can be found and what can be done with it.”

But Facebook pointed out that even though a business owner could personally search for specific personal data, a brand page could not. Detailed searching of Facebook data for the sake of sending promotional messages would violate the site’s internal policies.

The search team was led by two former Google engineers, Lars Rasmussen and Tom Stocky. As they explained in a blog post on the Facebook Engineering Department page, graph search solves a problem of Facebook’s own making: it has collected so much information.

“As people shared more and more content, we saw that we needed to give them better ways to explore and enjoy those stories and memories,” they wrote.

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DealBook: How Pursuit of Billionaire Hit One Dead End

When Jonathan Hollander left his high-flying job at SAC Capital Advisors in late 2008, he departed one of Wall Street’s premier hedge funds.

Weeks later, when two Federal Bureau of Investigation agents confronted him outside the Equinox gym in Greenwich Village, Mr. Hollander realized that investigators viewed his former employer as something else — a corrupt organization rife with insider trading.

The agents took Mr. Hollander into a nearby cafe and questioned him about his trading in the stock of a supermarket chain. They showed him a sheet of paper with headshots of several of his former colleagues. At the center was a photograph of Steven A. Cohen, the billionaire owner of SAC, according to two lawyers briefed on the meeting who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly. The agents compared Mr. Cohen to a Mafia boss who sat atop a criminal enterprise, the lawyers said.

In the end, no criminal case was filed against Mr. Hollander. And neither Mr. Cohen nor SAC has been accused of any wrongdoing. Mr. Cohen has told employees and clients that he and SAC have at all times acted appropriately.

An examination of Mr. Hollander’s case, based on a review of court documents and interviews with people involved in the investigation, provides a lens into the government’s aggressive crackdown on insider trading and fierce pursuit of Mr. Cohen over the last decade. Investigators saw Mr. Hollander as a suspect, and he also piqued their interest as someone who could open a window into SAC and Mr. Cohen.

Yet the investigation of Mr. Hollander, 37, also highlights the challenges of using lower-level employees to build a case against their boss.

Hedge Fund Inquiry

The authorities have moved on from Mr. Hollander, who is working as an entrepreneur. Today, they are focused on another former junior SAC employee, Mathew Martoma, who is fighting a recent indictment and refuses to cooperate with the government. Mr. Martoma’s case has increased the pressure on SAC and Mr. Cohen, who was involved in the trades at the center of the charges against Mr. Martoma.

While Mr. Hollander provided prosecutors with no such direct link to Mr. Cohen, some authorities thought he possessed a rich vein of information about his former employer. Others dismissed him as a junior analyst who offered uncorroborated tips at best, lawyers close to the case recalled.

With authorities at odds over his importance and the strength of the evidence against him, Mr. Hollander’s criminal case fizzled.

The Securities and Exchange Commission settled a lawsuit with Mr. Hollander related to improper trading in his personal account for less than $200,000, a manageable penalty for someone who earned a few million dollars on SAC’s trading floor. And in an embarrassment for prosecutors, they charged the investment banker who they thought provided confidential information to Mr. Hollander, and then dropped the case against the investment banker entirely.

“A low-level guy sometimes doesn’t get the government where it needs to be because there is only so much information they can give,” said Allen D. Applbaum, co-leader of global risk and investigations at FTI Consulting and a former federal prosecutor. “Frequently, you can hit a dead end or a roadblock and then have to move on.”

Through his lawyer, Aitan D. Goelman, Mr. Hollander declined to comment for this article.

A native of Annapolis, Md., Mr. Hollander pursued a career on Wall Street after graduating from Tufts University and Stanford Business School. Early in his career, in the late 1990s, Mr. Hollander worked at Credit Suisse, where he became fast friends with two other ambitious young analysts — Ramesh Chakrapani and Nicos Stephanou.

The three went their separate ways but stayed in touch. Mr. Hollander eventually landed at SAC, where he spent nearly four years in its CR Intrinsic unit, a division of the fund. In November 2008, SAC, which is based in Stamford, Conn., let Mr. Hollander go during broad cuts because of the financial crisis.

Around that time, investigators learned that Mr. Stephanou, who had moved to UBS, was sharing confidential information with friends about merger deals, according to court records. That December, the F.B.I. arrested Mr. Stephanou, who began cooperating.

He told investigators about a dinner that he claimed to attend with Mr. Hollander and Mr. Chakrapani where the three freely discussed a planned buyout of the grocery business Albertsons. Mr. Stephanou and Mr. Chakrapani, who was then working as a banker at the Blackstone Group, both advised on the transaction.

F.B.I. agents approached Mr. Hollander and Mr. Chakrapani in January 2009. It was a coordinated operation. As the agents waited for Mr. Hollander to finish his workout, law enforcement officials met Mr. Chakrapani at John F. Kennedy International Airport as he walked off a plane from London.

They arrested Mr. Chakrapani and prosecutors filed a complaint charging him with tipping an unnamed hedge fund trader about the Albertsons deal. The S.E.C. filed a parallel lawsuit. Mr. Hollander was the unnamed hedge fund trader, according to lawyers close to the case. Prosecutors said that the trader — Mr. Hollander — made $3.5 million in profits for his employer by illegally trading in Albertsons stock.

Mr. Hollander, seen as a potential cooperator who could help them penetrate SAC, was not charged. After his initial meeting with agents at the Greenwich Village cafe, where Mr. Hollander appeared calm and poised, he spent two days in April being interviewed by government officials at the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan.

Prodded for information about the hedge fund giant, Mr. Hollander offered up several examples of questionable activity at SAC that he had either witnessed or had heard about, lawyers briefed on the matter said. He told the authorities about a lucrative, uncannily timed trade in the drug maker Elan, which is now at the center of Mr. Martoma’s prosecution. While investigators were already examining the transaction, Mr. Hollander reinforced their suspicions. Mr. Hollander also shared information on a more than $150 million trade at SAC involving shares of the biotechnology firm MedImmune, the lawyers said. Authorities suspected that an SAC employee placed the trade using inside information about a British company’s 2007 acquisition of MedImmune.

Some of the insights Mr. Hollander offered aided the government’s inquiry into SAC. The broader investigation has led to three onetime SAC traders pleading guilty to trading stocks based on secret corporate information while at the fund; at least seven former employees have been tied to insider trading.

Representatives for the F.B.I., the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan and the S.E.C. declined to comment.

After a flurry of activity, the cases against Mr. Chakrapani and Mr. Hollander sputtered.

In a rare reversal, just three months after bringing criminal charges against Mr. Chakrapani, prosecutors dropped them without explanation. As investigators struggled to corroborate Mr. Stephanou’s story, the S.E.C. also withdrew its lawsuit. The government said in court papers that dismissing the case against Mr. Chakrapani had nothing to do with its “assessment of Stephanou’s veracity.” Mr. Stephanou, who was detained for 19 months in jail, while cooperating, has since returned to his native Cyprus.

After Mr. Chakrapani’s arrest, Blackstone suspended him. Without a job, he moved in with his parents in California. Mr. Chakrapani recently rejoined Blackstone, according to a spokesman for the firm.

“The dismissal of the unwarranted charges brought against Mr. Chakrapani cannot undo the damage to his professional reputation,” said Michael Sommer, the lawyer who represented Mr. Chakrapani. “And it remains one of the glaring flaws in our system that the law provides little if any legal recourse for those subjected to these types of damages.”

Mr. Hollander also remained in limbo as authorities weighed his importance and the quality of the evidence against him. Some wanted to use him as a witness in a broader SAC case, according to officials briefed on the investigation, but prosecutors questioned the accuracy and utility of his tips.

Ultimately, he was never criminally charged and did not enter into a formal cooperation agreement with the government. The S.E.C. did not bring its lawsuit until 2011. And when it did, unlike the triumphal news releases that normally accompany its insider trading victories, the agency put on its Web site a brief statement about the settlement. The complaint did not mention SAC.

The S.E.C.’s case involved claims that Mr. Hollander, along with a family member and business school classmate, illegally traded Albertsons stock in their personal accounts, earning combined profits of about $96,000. Mr. Hollander agreed to pay the government $192,000, and accepted a three-year ban from the securities industry.

At the time of the settlement, Mr. Goelman, the lawyer for Mr. Hollander, said his client resolved the matter rather than engage in costly litigation.

His brush with the government seemingly over, Mr. Hollander has tried to move on. Unable to trade stocks, he started his own consulting firm, the Chesapeake Advisory Group, and also co-founded EvoSpend, a financial services technology company.

And last year, in an attempt to improve his Internet profile and de-emphasize articles about his insider trading case in Google search results, Mr. Hollander set up a series of Web pages highlighting his philanthropic pursuits and other accomplishments.

A version of this article appeared in print on 01/15/2013, on page A1 of the NewYork edition with the headline: How Pursuit of Billionaire Hit One Dead End.

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Cuban hospital carefully guards Hugo Chavez’s privacy

HAVANA (Reuters) – You would never guess that one of the world’s most famous heads of state, Venezuelan president and self-proclaimed revolutionary Hugo Chavez, is battling cancer at Havana’s Center for Medical-Surgical Research (CIMEQ).

At the weekend there was no visible increase in security at the hospital’s main entrance, where guards in olive green uniforms checked the comings and goings of visitors and waved on dallying reporters.

The sprawling, three story complex that is run by the Cuban Interior Ministry is located in leafy Siboney, one of the country’s most exclusive neighborhoods on the western edge of the Cuban capital, and just minutes from the home of Fidel Castro.

It has been a month since the once feisty and now cancer-stricken Chavez, leader of one of the world’s biggest oil producing nations, was operated on for a fourth time at the hospital. This time around, there have been no glowing reports of recovery.

CIMEQ’s best known patient, Fidel Castro, 86, has been treated there since 2006 when he was operated on for intestinal bleeding, forcing him to cede power to his brother Raul Castro.

Ironically Chavez, who often visited the man he refers to as his mentor during Castro’s ordeal, has now become CIMEQ’s second best known patient. In a dramatic reversal of fate, it is Fidel Castro who has been repeatedly at the 58-year-old Venezuelan president’s bedside, beginning with his first operation in 2011.

Hazy Venezuelan government communiques speak of unexpected bleeding during Chavez’s most recent surgery and a lung infection that has kept the 58-year-old Chavez in a “stable” but “delicate” state since mid-December.

There has not been a word, nor even a tweet from the usually vociferous Chavez. His Twitter account, with almost 4 million followers, went silent after November 1.

Meanwhile, Chavez’s family has been holding vigil in Havana, as other Venezuelan leaders and various Latin American heads of state come and go in a show of support. The presidents of Argentina and Peru visited over the weekend.

What the operation involved, and even the type of cancer attacking Chavez and its exact location, are considered state secrets.

VIP FACILITIES OFF LIMITS

CIMEQ, according to various Cuban doctors and nurses, is the Caribbean island’s finest medical facility, boasting up to date equipment and pharmaceuticals and with the authority to call in the country’s top specialists and support staff from other hospitals, as has been done in Chavez’s case.

“CIMEQ exists in the 21st century and is the equal to some of the best facilities in the world, while the rest of the country’s hospitals remain at 20th century levels,” said one local doctor who requested her name be withheld.

“There are no shortages of supplies and medicines and the food is great,” she added.

The hospital treats mainly interior ministry personnel, their families and area residents free of charge.

In a land where complaints are common, it is hard to find anyone with a bad word to say about the place, except that it is reserved exclusively for the elite.

“Unfortunately, I lost my father to cancer at CIMEQ less than a year ago,” said 47- year-old Agustín Daniel.

“He was treated for years at CIMEQ and the care was exquisite. He died because cancer kills and sometimes there is no solution,” the self-employed interior decorator said.

CIMEQ also boasts a wing for foreigners willing to pay for their care, as well as special VIP facilities for Cuba’s top leaders and important figures from other lands.

“Distinguished personalities from the arts, sciences and politics from all over the world have received attention in its modern and efficient installations,” the hospital‘s Web Page (www.cimeq.org)states.

Little is known about the hospital’s VIP accommodations, where Chavez is being treated, except that they are equipped with the latest technology and that those who work there are often sequestered for periods of time. Like all CIMEQ staff, they are sworn to secrecy at the risk of losing their licenses and criminal prosecution.

“The VIPs are treated on the third floor which is off limits to most staff even if they work for the Interior Ministry and wear uniforms under their white coats,” a doctor who has worked at CIMEQ said.

“The elevators to the third floor have guards and if the patient goes outside part of the grounds are closed off,” he said, adding, “no one knows what goes on up there.”

(Editing by David Adams and Andrew Hay)

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