Archive for May 2013

Seen and heard in Cannes

CANNES, France (AP) Associated Press journalists open their notebooks at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival.

UNCOMFORTABLE MOMENTS FOR ACTRESS AS DAD WATCHES LOVE SCENES:

Talk about awkward.

Not only did Adele Exarchopoulos' father watch the graphic sex scenes between her and another woman in Cannes Palme d'Or-winning "Blue Is The Warmest Color (The Life of Adele)," she was with him when he took in the film at its premiere.

"During the love scenes I was ill at ease with my father being there, but at the same time I wanted him to be there. And I knew that he would probably have a very good reaction because it's all a question of intelligence and he's intelligent and therefore would understand," said Exarchopoulos.

She added:

"During the sex scene I was looking at him, like, 'Oh my god, how does he feel' because I don't want to make him uncomfortable, you know?" the 19-year-old said in an interview. "I think I was trying to take a certain distance from what was happening during the love scenes."

In the film, Exarchopoulos stars as 15-year-old Adele. She's heterosexual, but after meeting co-star Lea Seydoux's Emma, falls in love and begins to struggle with her sexuality. On Sunday, Steven Spielberg's jury awarded the festival's top honor, the Palme d'Or, to "Life of Adele" director Abdellatif Kechiche, but also to the film's two stars.

Exarchopoulos said she and Seydoux shared nervous giggles before filming the intimate scenes, but that's it.

"It really developed, there was no choreography at all. We tried to put ourselves in the situation, and it helped in a way that I was new to the situation because my character is new to the situation as well," she said. "So it was all right that I was destabilized. Lea was leading me and I was kind of following in the flow. But I must say it was a strong thing to play."

This is one of two films Seydoux is promoting at this year's festival. The other, "Grand Central," from director Rebecca Zlotowski, is showing in the Un Certain Regard category.

The actress, who cut her hair and dyed it blue for "Adele," said she liked the challenge of her role.

"I really enjoyed playing this part, this tomboy even if it was very difficult sometimes. I like to play parts that are complex, and I like ambiguity and I like contradictions as well, she's like, I like to really give something very subtle," she said.

Reetu Rupal, http://www.twitter.com/r2today

LI YU CHUN IS BREAKING THE MOLD

Li Yu Chun doesn't exactly mesh with the image of most starlets who walk on the red carpets at the Cannes Film Festival.

Instead of flowing gowns, the Chinese singer has worn dramatic capes that accompany striking pantsuits. And while many female celebrities sport cascading locks, Chun has her hair cut short, pixie style.

"A lot of people are asking me, 'Why aren't you wearing a long dress like a princess?'" said Chun, who came to the festival as a representative of the cosmetics brand L'Oreal. "I have another personality and that is why I have to show my own personality with the suits that fit me. That is why I love to work with L'Oreal because they have given me self-confidence."

Chun, who is known for her boyish, androgynous looks, said she was surprised to be chosen as a L'Oreal ambassador since she represents a different look than some of their other representatives at the festival, like Freida Pinto, Julianne Moore, Aishwarya Rai and Eva Longoria.

"Usually they choose girls with long hair and big waves in her hair and that is not exactly my image," she laughed. "That is why I was surprised but happily surprised."

Chun shot to fame when she won "Chinese Best Voices," that country's version of "American Idol. She said she was excited to be in Cannes for the festivities, but was also getting some work done as well.

"I am also participating in their meetings to discuss about how to represent and how to organize promoting events," the 29-year-old said. "They are organizing a lot of activities for me too and this is why I find it very very exciting."

Sian Watson, http://www.twitter.com/sianwatson

'JIMMY P' ROLES WERE MADE FOR DEL TORO AND AMALRIC LITERALLY

For director Arnaud Desplechin, it was either Benicio Del Toro and Mathieu Amalric for "Jimmy P" or no movie.

"I thought if I can't have them, I won't do the film," he said in an interview this week.

Luckily for him, both Del Toro and malric said yes to the project.

In "Jimmy P (Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian)," Amalric plays real-life French analyst Georges Devereux, who moved to the United States in the 1930s. He spent time living with Mojave Indians and helped develop the field of ethno-psychiatry, which studies the ways mental illness is understood in different cultural contexts.

Del Toro is his patient Jimmy Picard, who returned from World War II in France with a head injury and debilitating psychological symptoms his doctors were unable to diagnose.

Desplechin said it's the first time he's written a film with actors already in mind.

"I was so nervous when I started it because it was quite difficult to produce because the film is half French, half American, so it was quite tricky," he said. "So before writing it I was thinking who could play in that? I wrote it really for Benicio and Mathieu, they were the two guys."

Reetu Rupal, http://www.twitter.com/r2today

Amazon buys Liquavista from Samsung, launches digital currency

By Alistair Barr

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc said on Monday it had acquired Liquavista NV from Samsung Electronics Co to help the world's largest Internet retailer develop new displays for mobile devices.

Amazon also launched its own digital currency, Amazon Coins, on Monday, allowing people to buy apps and games in its app store and on its Kindle Fire tablet computers.

The purchase price for Liquavista was not disclosed. Bloomberg News reported earlier this year that Samsung was seeking less than $100 million for the business. Samsung bought the Netherlands-based company in early 2011 for an undisclosed sum. A Samsung spokeswoman did not respond to requests for comment on Monday.

Amazon is the leading e-reader company and has a range of Kindle Fire tablets that compete with Apple Inc's dominant iPad and similar gadgets from Google Inc and Samsung.

Amazon is also testing and developing other gadgets, such as smart phones and an Internet-based set-top TV box, according to recent reports in The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg Businessweek.

Liquavista focuses on a technology called electrowetting, which it says makes displays clearer in all lighting conditions and can show video without using much power.

The technology can be used in mobile gadgets such as e-readers, smart phones, GPS devices, portable media players and cameras. Over the long term, electrowetting can be used in larger display products such as laptops and TVs, Liquavista said on its website.

CURRENCY PLAY

The new Amazon currency - one Amazon Coin is worth 1 cent - can be used to buy apps and games and for in-app purchases, for instance when someone is playing a game and wants to upgrade to a new level quickly.

Amazon put 500 Amazon Coins, worth $5, into the accounts of all Kindle Fire owners on Monday.

(Reporting by Alistair Barr; editing by John Wallace)

New fitness centers cater to aging baby boomers

By Dorene Internicola

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Baby boomers, the generation that vowed to stay forever young, are getting older, designing senior-friendly gyms and becoming their own personal trainers.

In exercise havens for the over-50 set, the cardio machines are typically low impact, the resistance training is mainly air-powered and some group fitness classes are taken sitting down.

At Welcyon gyms, founded by husband-and-wife boomers Suzy and Tom Boerboom, the average age of members is 62.

"The environment is really designed for those 50 and over," said Suzy Boerboom.

The couple created Welcyon, which has locations in Minnesota and South Dakota, in 2009. It has no tread-mills and no free weights and workouts are customized to members' levels of fitness. A smart card sets resistance, counts repetitions and adjusts workouts.

An important attraction for many boomers: background music is a combination of '40s, '50s and '60s tunes played at a much lower volume than in traditional gyms.

"It was something I could manage," said 66-year-old Bill Zortman, one of an estimated 78 million baby boomers, defined as the group born between 1946 and 1964, who make up about 26 percent of the U.S. population, according to U.S. Census reports.

His thrice-weekly workouts at a Welcyon in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, consists of riding a bicycle or using air-powered resistance machines to strengthen his legs, arms and back.

"They make sure I'm not overdoing it," Zortman said of the staff, who Boerboom said are often boomers themselves.

The absence of clanging free weights also cuts down on the racket, Boerboom said, noting that many people over 50 prefer a quieter gym.

Group fitness classes for boomers are also modified.

"We're just beginning to develop a group fitness interval training program," Boerboom said. "It will be four to six people and low impact."

The American Council on Exercise says many of their fitness professionals are baby boomers who specialize in working with older adults.

"People in their early 60's are becoming personal trainers and group fitness instructors," said Todd Galati, ACE's director of credentialing.

But they are far from the majority, as the average age of ACE's 50,000 certified fitness professionals is 42, and more than 37 percent are over 40.

"Every year I talk to newly certified personal trainers, retired from their career in another field, who want to help people their age become more fit," Galati said.

A recent study published in JAMA Internal Medicine showed that a sample of baby boomers had higher rates of hypertension, diabetes, obesity and high cholesterol than their parents' generation.

"There is a big bad myth about the boomer generation being more fit," said Dr. Sheldon S. Zinberg, founder of Nifty after Fifty fitness centers for older adults. "In fact, the boomer generation is less fit than their parents were at same age."

The chain has locations in Arizona, California, Nevada, Texas, Virginia and New York. Its programs target muscle power, muscle strength, reaction time, balance and cognitive skills, he said.

"At age 40 people lose 0.8 to 1 percent muscle mass each year. By age 60 this accelerates to 1.5 percent," Zinberg said.

At Nifty after Fifty, group fitness classes range from yoga and Zumba to seated volleyball and cane fu, a self-defense class in which participants use a cane.

As with Welcyon, there are no tread-mills. "We used to use tread-mills, but we had people falling off," Zinberg said. "We use recumbent stair steppers, among other exercisers."

He advises people to get fit in their 40s and 50s, "and when you do become older, enjoy a supervised, customized program."

Boerboom said Welcyon plans to open more gyms later this year. "There are over 70 million of us boomers," she said, "and we have to take care of ourselves."

(Editing by Patricia Reaney and Dan Grebler)

Nintendo wins appeals court decision over Wii

By Jonathan Stempel

(Reuters) - Nintendo Co, one of the world's largest makers of video game players, won a U.S. appeals court decision in a patent case that will allow it to keep importing its popular Wii system into the United States.

Monday's decision by the U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. affirmed a January 2012 ruling by the U.S. International Trade Commission, which handles many technology patent disputes.

The decision against Motiva LLC, which sued Nintendo in 2008, could make it harder for U.S. companies to halt imports of products that allegedly infringe patents on grounds they want to establish a "domestic industry" for similar products.

In January, in a patent dispute between InterDigital inc and Nokia Oyj over wireless phones, the Federal Circuit said companies could seek such relief when they sought to license products incorporating their patents, even if such products were not being made.

Motiva, which is based in Dublin, Ohio, had claimed that Wii infringed two patents for a system to track a game user's position and body movement.

A three-judge Federal Circuit panel agreed with the ITC that the main impetus behind Motiva's litigation against Kyoto, Japan-based Nintendo was to win damages or a settlement, not to license or make products incorporating Motiva's patents.

This panel said Motiva's litigation did not amount to the "significant" or "substantial" investment toward commercializing patented technology that was required under a patent protection law, known as the Tariff Act, that sets limits on imports.

"Motiva's litigation was targeted at financial gains, not at encouraging adoption of Motiva's patented technology," Circuit Judge Sharon Prost wrote. "There is simply no reasonable likelihood that, after successful litigation against Nintendo, Motiva's patented technology would have been licensed by partners who would have incorporated it."

The ITC had also concluded that Nintendo did not infringe the Motiva patents.

Christopher Banys, a lawyer for Motiva, called Monday's decision "unfortunate" but said the case will continue.

"We are confident that Motiva will be vindicated when its case is tried in district court," he said.

Richard Medway, deputy general counsel of Nintendo of America, in a statement said the company is pleased with the Federal Circuit decision.

Wii's major competitors include Sony Corp's PlayStation and Microsoft Corp's Xbox.

The case is Motiva LLC v. International Trade Commission, U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 12-1252.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; editing by Andrew Hay and Nick Zieminski)

From 'Gatsby' to Gosling, a preview of Cannes

For even those most accustomed to the frenzy of celebrity, the Cannes Film Festival can be a disorienting experience.

For 12 days every year, the French Rivera resort town turns into one giant seaside swirl of glamour, high art and backroom deal-making. Like some sun-drenched phantasm, all of cinema comes alive in Cannes: its serious ambitions, bottom-line commerce and crass spectacle.

"Every time I go to Cannes, it feels like I'm entering the helicopter scene in 'La Dolce Vita,'" says Leonardo DiCaprio. "It's an insane experience. The entire town is turned into a red carpet. Every hotel is a premiere. But at the same time, it is the mecca for the world to celebrate filmmaking and bold filmmaking."

This year's Cannes, the 66th, kicks off Wednesday with Baz Luhrmann's "The Great Gatsby," a 3-D extravaganza starring DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan and Tobey Maguire. In many ways, the movie's lavish, star-powered decadence epitomizes Cannes.

But by the time Luhrmann and his cast stroll down the Croisette, "The Great Gatsby" will have already opened in North America. Such a move by the widely respected Cannes artistic director Terry Fremaux has suggested to some perhaps a modicum of atypical desperation to lure a big, flashy film with some artistic ambitions (not always an easy thing to find these days). But it also highlights Cannes' loyalty to its favorites: Luhrmann's debut, "Strictly Ballroom," premiered at Cannes, and his "Moulin Rouge" was also a fest opener.

Cannes remains the grandest platform for filmmakers who want to be considered among the world's elite. For studios, it's an opportunity to globally promote some of their most prized films. This year, there's a finely curated buffet of both varieties.

Several films expected to have a big presence come Oscar season will premiere at Cannes, including Alexander Payne's "Nebraska," a film starring Bruce Dern and Will Forte as a father-son pair on a road trip. And few can top Ryan Gosling as a star attraction: His second collaboration with Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn ("Drive"), the Bangkok noir "Only God Forgives," promises to be one of the most thrillingly violent films at the festival.

Much of the world's attention will be focused on the 20 films competing for the prestigious Palme d'Or, which last year went to Michael Hanekes "Amour," also a best-picture nominee at the Oscars.

The in-competition films are a typically international group, including films from Chad (Mahamat-Saleh Haroun's "Grigris"), China (Jia Zhangke's "A Touch of Sin") and Japan (Hirokazu Koreeda's "Like Father, Like Son").

Many Palme d'Or winners are returning, including the Coen brothers (1991's "Barton Fink"), Roman Polanski (2002's "The Pianist") and Steven Soderbergh (1989's "sex, lies and videotape"). Joel and Ethan Coen will debut "Llewyn Davis," a 1960s period film about the Greenwich Village folk scene. Polanski will premiere "Venus in Fur," a French-language adaptation of the David Ives play. Soderbergh's "Behind the Candelabra" will screen shortly before airing on HBO. It stars Michael Douglas as the flamboyant pianist Liberace and Matt Damon as his lover, Scott Thorson.

Soderbergh initially declined a spot in competition, preferring to leave a space for a young filmmaker in need of exposure. Fremaux called him a week before announcing the lineup and said that, having seen everything, "Behind the Candelabra" deserved to be in competition.

"The prism through which a movie is viewed when it's in competition is very different than when it's not in competition," says Soderbergh. "And I wanted to have fun. I didn't want to feel that pressure. But I don't really care now. I'm going to have fun no matter what, I've decided."

The "Out of Sight" and "Magic Mike" director says "Behind the Candelabra" is his last feature film, at least for a time. So Soderbergh's film career, effectively launched at Cannes in 1989, will conclude there 24 years later.

Presiding over the jury that will choose the Palme d'Or winner is Steven Spielberg, who hasn't had a film at Cannes in decades. (His "Sugarland Express" and "E.T." both premiered at Cannes.) Speculators predict that Spielberg will either gravitate to the warm-hearted tales he's best known for, or seek to prove his more hifalutin bona fides with a more unconventional choice. (Of course, there's always the chance that he'll simply try to pick the best movie.)

But the hot house atmosphere of Cannes can obscure reactions. Films in competition are greeted with hopes, even expectations, of being a masterpiece. The Brooklyn Academy of Music is running a series throughout May titled "Booed at Cannes," with films like Martin Scorsese's "Taxi Driver" (it still won the Palme) and Francois Truffaut's "The Soft Skin."

Passion for movies, whether positive or negative, runs deep at Cannes. Sofia Coppola (last at Cannes with the polarizing "Marie Antoinette") has experienced both sides. This year, she leads a particularly strong Un Certain Regard sidebar with "The Bling Ring," a film about star-worshipping California teenagers who burglarize celebrity homes.

There's also J.C. Chandor's follow-up to his acclaimed debut "Margin Call," ''All Is Lost," starring Robert Redford in a dialogue-less performance. And the industrious James Franco will premiere his Faulkner adaptation, "As I Lay Dying."

Several notable directors will present films not in their native tongues. Regarded a possible Palme d'Or favorite, the Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi (the Oscar-winning "A Separation") brings the French-language "Le Passe, starring Berenice Bejo ("The Artist"). Out of competition, French actor-director Guillaume Canet makes his English language debut with "Blood Ties," a New York crime film starring Clive Owen and Billy Crudup.

For much of Hollywood and the film world, Cannes is most importantly a marketplace the biggest in the industry where casts are assembled, financing is sought and distribution deals pursued. Last year during the festival, director James Toback documented the behind-the-scenes process as he and Alec Baldwin shuttled around hotels and yachts pitching a film.

The documentary, "Seduced and Abandoned," will premiere (where else?) at this year's festival.

"It's easily the most hyperbolical and glitzily exciting festival to be at," says Toback. "There's a perfect balance between the business of movies and the making of movies. You're surrounded by every sort of person that you're likely to come up against in your film career. And you have a beautiful backdrop visually with a great sense of history on the Riviera."

"Making this film there was almost inevitable," he says. "I don't know what other festival I could have made it at."

___

Follow AP Entertainment Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jake_coyle

Amazon Is Reportedly Building a 3D Smartphone You Can Control with Your Eyeballs

The Wall Street Journal says that Amazon is expanding its hardware offerings with a whole new line of gadgets, including a lame-sounding "audio streaming device" and a pair of next gen smartphones. We're going to be super honest. While the news is entirely unconfirmed — The Journal cites its favorite source: "people familiar with the company's plans" — the fancier of the two smartphones sounds kind of awesome. Greg Besinger reports:

One of the devices is a high-end smartphone featuring a screen that allows for three-dimensional images without glasses, these people said. Using retina-tracking technology, images on the smartphone would seem to float above the screen like a hologram and appear three-dimensional at all angles, they said. Users may be able to navigate through content using just their eyes, two of the people said.

It's as if Jeff Bezos told his research and development department to just build a phone with all of the trendiest, craziest features and then figure out how to make it cheap. Those features are trendy and crazy for a reason, by the way. Can you imagine the possibilities of a glasses-free 3D handheld device? That puts smartphones in Star Wars territory, if you can imagine objects floating in the air above the phone like a hologram. What if you could get the phone to beam a 3D representation of your friend into mid-air, like Princess Leia.

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Sure it sounds cool, but Amazon's been enabling rumors like this for years now. Nearly two years ago, the Wall Street Journal affiliate AllThingsD reported that an Amazon phone was imminent, as the company sought to compete more directly with Google and Apple. Amazon had already shown prowess in the hardware sector with the success of the Kindle and Kindle Fire and there's long been talk of an Amazon streaming TV box, so a smartphone made sense as a next step. It was a heck of a rumor at a time when iPhone 5 speculation was owning the tech blogs, and Android was systematically gobbling up market share. However well placed, though, it was just a rumor. It wasn't too crazy to assume that Amazon was just giving Apple a taste of its own rumor-mongering medicine.

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This latest rumor serves a similar purpose. Regardless of whether its true or not, reports about Amazon developing a 3D screen for mobile devices is a direct affront on Apple's strategy — that is, if Apple's patent history is at all indicative of the company's future plans. In recent years, Apple's been granted a number of patents for 3D technology, including eyeball-tracking, glasses-free displays. We wondered a couple of years ago if Apple would bring these innovations to the new iPad. It didn't, so it's anybody's guess whether or not Apple will make the leap into the third dimension.

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Whether by design or by chance, Apple's competitors have been winning the smartphone feature war lately. Samsung's Galaxy SIV brought the eyeball-tracking technology to market, enabling users to scroll through pages simply by moving their eyes. And if this Amazon 3D smartphone rumor is true, Apple will fall behind in that regard, too. Of course, what makes the Amazon rumor so curious isn't really about how it competes with Apple. It's about how Amazon isn't just a place to buy books any more. It's a technology company with unexpected ambitions, a zany CEO and seemingly limitless resources. Just like the rest of them.

Bold turkey: woman hits cop to kick smoking habit

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) Think you've heard of every way possible to quit smoking? Etta Mae Lopez came up with a new one: slap a cop and go to jail, where smoking isn't allowed.

Lopez smacked Sacramento County sheriff's Deputy Matt Campoy in the face Tuesday as he left the main jail at the end of his shift. He grabbed her and took her inside the jail, where she slapped his arm as soon as he turned her loose.

Once she was handcuffed, the 5-foot 1-inch Lopez told Campoy she picked him because he was in uniform and she wanted to make sure she struck a law enforcement officer.

"She waited all day for a deputy to come out because she knew if she assaulted a deputy she would go to jail and be inside long enough to quit her smoking habit," Campoy told The Sacramento Bee.

The deputy said he tried to sidestep Lopez as he left the jail through the usual gathering of family members who linger outside the facility a few blocks from the state Capitol.

"I stepped to the left again and she suddenly stepped into me and slapped my face," he said. "I've been telling everybody that I have a new Irish name: Nick O'Derm," a reference to the NicoDerm brand of nicotine patches smokers use to try to kick the habit.

Lopez, 31, pleaded no contest to misdemeanor battery on a peace officer and was sentenced Thursday to 63 days in jail, with credit for the three days she served this week, said Shelly Orio, a spokeswoman for the county district attorney's office. Lopez also was sentenced to five days for violating her probation from a 2010 drunken driving conviction.

Among the conditions included in her sentence: an order to have no contact with deputies.

Authorities visited house in 2004 where Ohio women found: police

By Kim Palmer

CLEVELAND (Reuters) - The three Cleveland women found alive after vanishing in their own neighborhood for about a decade were rescued from a house that authorities tried to visit several years ago, police said on Tuesday.

Three brothers, one of them a school bus driver who owns the Cleveland house where the three women and a child were rescued on Monday, are under arrest, police said at a news conference.

A relative of one of the women, teenagers when they disappeared, described their survival as "a miracle" as Cleveland authorities and residents grappled with how they went unnoticed for so long.

Police said a 6-year-old girl rescued with them is believed to be the child of Amanda Berry, now 27, whose screams for help alerted a neighbor and led to their release following her frantic 911 call on Monday evening.

"Help me! I'm Amanda Berry. ... I've been kidnapped and I've been missing for 10 years and I'm here. I'm free now," Berry can be heard telling a 911 operator in a recording of the call released by police.

Police arrived to find Berry along with Gina DeJesus, now 23, who vanished in 2004, and Michelle Knight, now 32, who went missing in 2002, police said.

They also discovered the child, who would have been conceived and born during Berry's captivity, police said.

Berry had last been seen leaving her job at a fast-food restaurant the day before her 17th birthday in April 2003, and DeJesus was last seen walking home from school.

After their rescue, the three women were taken to hospital, where they were reunited with family and friends, and released on Tuesday.

"If you don't believe in miracles, I suggest you think again," DeJesus' aunt Sandra Ruiz said to reporters on Tuesday in Cleveland. Her comments were televised by local station WJW.

"This is a miracle," Ruiz said. But she added: "Watch who your neighbor is because you never know."

Ariel Castro, 52, a school bus driver, was arrested, as were his brothers Pedro, 54, and Onil, 50, police said.

"We believe we have the people responsible," Cleveland Deputy Police Chief Ed Tomba said.

Cleveland officials said they were investigating how the young women could have gone unnoticed in the neighborhood where houses sit close together, typically separated only by a driveway.

AUTHORITIES AT HOUSE IN 2004

Children and Family Services authorities went to the house in January 2004 after Castro had left a child on a school bus, Mayor Frank Jackson said at the news conference.

They "knocked on the door but were unsuccessful in connection with making any contact with anyone inside that home," he said.

The deputy police chief Tomba said that Castro was "interviewed extensively" during that investigation and no criminal intent was found regarding the child left on the bus.

That visit to the house was more than a year after Knight disappeared and a few months after Berry went missing.

"We have no indication that any of the neighbors, bystanders, witnesses or anyone else has ever called regarding any information, regarding activity that occurred at that house on Seymour Avenue," the mayor said.

FBI and other law enforcement officials were searching the house on the west side of Cleveland, close to where each woman was last seen. Tomba said police were also investigating other properties but did not elaborate.

A mood of jubilation grew as word spread that the women had been found alive in the blue-collar, Latino neighborhood where the two-story house was cordoned off with crime-scene tape.

But residents said too that they were perplexed by the case.

A man who helped to look for DeJesus, Pastor Angel Arroyo, said he and her family members had handed out flyers years ago in the neighborhood where she was found.

"We didn't search hard enough. She was right under our nose the whole time," Arroyo said.

Before the disappearances, in March 2000, police said they responded to a call from Ariel Castro reporting a fight in the street.

During her 911 call, Berry can be heard giving the dispatcher Castro's name and urging police to come quickly. She indicated that she knew her disappearance had been widely reported in the media.

The neighbor who came to her aid told police he heard Berry trying to get out of the house and helped her kick out the bottom of a locked screen door.

"The real hero is Amanda," Tomba said. "She's the one that got this rolling."

There was no word on the fate of a fourth missing girl, Ashley Summers, who disappeared from the same vicinity in July 2007 at age 14.

City Councilwoman Dona Brady, a friend of the Berry family, told Reuters that Berry's grief-stricken mother had not survived to see her daughter rescued. "She literally died of a broken heart," Brady said, adding that the mother died aged 47.

The discovery of the three women was reminiscent of the case of Jaycee Dugard, who was snatched from her northern California home at age 11 by a convicted sex offender, Phillip Garrido, and kept in captivity for 18 years before being rescued in 2009.

During that time she was repeatedly raped by her abductor and gave birth to two girls fathered by him. Similar cases of abduction and incarceration have been reported during the past decade in Austria and Italy.

(Additional reporting by Barbara Goldberg; Writing by Ellen Wulfhorst; Editing by Grant McCool)

Gerbils strut their stuff at New England pageant

BEDFORD, Mass. (AP) Ever think your gerbil could do more in life than its cage in your living room will allow?

Dozens of gerbils are scurrying to New England this weekend in the hopes of squeaking out a victory in an annual pageant held by the American Gerbil Society.

The competition in Bedford, Mass., will feature agility demonstrations where the gerbils must overcome various obstacles and race to the end of a course. The small rodents vie for coveted ribbons based on body type and agility.

The show draws gerbil enthusiasts from around the country.

Fourteen-year-old Sarah Kaden from Bordentown, N.J., thinks gerbils have great personalities. She says, "Even though they are so little, they are very different from each other and they smell a lot less than my brother's hamsters."

How the iPhone and Samsung Galaxy S IV Got Military-Grade Security

After years of maintaining that BlackBerry was the only smartphone smart enough for the Department of Defense security blanket, the Pentagon has finally approved the Samsung Galaxy S IV, and sources tell The Wall Street Journal that Apple's iPhone is expected to follow some time later this month. The government has been ditching its BlackBerry-only policy for a while now, but winning over the Pentagon means these devices now have the sheen of security that was one of their main selling points.

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Specifically all devices running the BlackBerry 10 Enterprise System and Android Knox now meet the DoD's Security Technology Implementation Guide. And iOS 6 should get the okay in coming weeks. As of right now that includes a small roster of phones: The two new BlackBerry's—the Z and Q10s—and the Samsung Galaxy S IV. BlackBerry has maintained a high enough level of security to appease the likes of the Pentagon for some time. But, what makes Knox and iOS 6 good enough now?

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Personal and Work Data: Together, But Separate Borrowing a feature from BlackBerry, Samsung now lets IT admins to keep work and personal information separate using what it calls "partitions." Workers no longer have to lug around two gadgets. Security Enhanced (SE) Android, as its called, creates a container that separates out business from personal use. When you turn on the phone, Knox will launch with certain apps such as email, contact, calendar, and file sharing. Each of those programs are isolated and encrypted at all times, which means it meets the high security standards for sending internal emails.

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Administrators can't access any programs not in that bin, but have complete control over those ones in Knox. That also means when someone leaves the company they can remote wipe just the corporate secrets part.

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Secure Boot Keep Viruses Out With all the hacking going on all over the place, Secure Boot prevents any non-verified apps from running on the device. Which is especially important on Android phones, which aren't known for their security. This will prevent any malicious programs from compromising a business's security.

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Super Enhanced Tracking and Recovery If a device is lost or stolen, the software not only track it, but it can recover all the lost information. Even if a thief resets the device, using the security system Absolute, the administrator can pull a new copy of the lost information out of firmware. .

A Special Locked Down Version of iOS If and when the Pentagon approves Apple phones, it would block access to the App store, iMessage and Safari because they post a security risk, reports The Guardian's Charles Arthur. Employees will instead get a special Pentagon approved browser that will be routed through their servers.

Giant rubber duck makes splash in Hong Kong harbor

HONG KONG (AP) A six-story-high rubber duck is making a big splash in Hong Kong.

Crowds watched the inflatable duck being pulled by tugboat across Victoria Harbor in front of Hong Kong's signature skyscraper skyline.

Tourist Zhang Wenjin from Shanghai says it's a big surprise. "This is huge. My daughter liked it when she saw it just now. Because kids like cute stuff."

Yu Kwan Yee of Hong Kong was part of the crowd. "The duckie is swimming," the 2 -year-old said.

Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman created the bright-yellow duck, and it was built of PVC material in New Zealand by a company specializing in large sails.

Hofman was on hand as the duck arrived and said it later had to be deflated because high winds and waves created a "big challenge."

The duck has been transported around the world since 2007, bringing a message of peace and harmony. It has previously been to Osaka, Japan, Sydney, Sao Paulo, Auckland, New Zealand, and Amsterdam.

It will be anchored at a Hong Kong terminal for display until June.