U.S. tablet shipments soar during holidays, threaten to surpass PCs

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SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Apple Inc Chief Executive Tim Cook’s prediction that tablets would one day outsell personal computers appears to be coming true.


Holiday season shipments of tablet computers touched a record 52.5 million, up 75 percent from a year ago, as consumers snapped up a wide range of the touch-enabled mobile devices and lower priced offerings, according to International Data Corp (IDC), which tracks both markets.






Growth of the tablet market handily outpaced that of personal computers, with PC shipments sliding 6.4 percent to 89.8 million in the October-December period.


In another sign of the rise of tablets, Apple, the No. 1 seller of tablets, shipped 22 million of them in the fourth quarter, compared with 15 million personal computers shipped by No. 1 PC seller Hewlett-Packard Co during the same period.


But increasing competition means that Apple’s one-time stranglehold on the tablet market continues to loosen. The market share of its iPad fell to 43.1 percent in the fourth quarter from 51.7 percent the previous year, IDC said.


Samsung Electronics, the No. 2 seller of tablets with its flagship Galaxy brand, captured 15.1 percent of the market, more than double its 7.3 percent share a year earlier.


Software maker Microsoft Corp, which launched its Surface with Windows RT tablet during the holidays, shipped about 900,000 units, IDC said.


Microsoft has been banking on Surface to showcase its new Windows 8 software to compete with Google Inc‘s Android-based tablets and the iPad.


Amazon.com Inc, despite having a wider range of products for the holidays, saw its share slip to 11.5 percent from 15.9 percent. Asian manufacturer Asus, which makes the Google-branded Nexus 7 tablet, saw a its share increase to 5.8 percent from 2 percent, IDC said.


IDC’s figures underscore the sliding fortunes of PC makers such as HP and Dell Inc, which is now in the process of taking itself private.


“New product launches from the category’s top vendors, as well as new entrant Microsoft, led to a surge in consumer interest and very robust shipments totals during the holiday season,” said Tom Mainelli, research director, tablets, at IDC.


“The record-breaking quarter stands in stark contrast to the PC market, which saw shipments decline during the quarter for the first time in more than five years,” Mainelli said.


(Reporting By Poornima Gupta; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)


Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Beverley Mitchell Blogs: My Husband Talks to My Baby Through My Belly Button

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Beverley Mitchell Blog 30 Weeks Pregnant At 28 weeks along – Courtesy Beverley Mitchell


Please give a warm welcome to our newest celebrity blogger, Beverley Mitchell!


Best known for her role as Lucy Camden on the long-running drama 7th Heaven, the actress most recently played Kaitlin O’Malley on The Secret Life of the American Teenager.


Mitchell, 32, and husband Michael Cameron have announced that they’re expecting their first child — a daughter! — in April.


You can find her on Facebook, WhoSay and Twitter @beverleymitchel.


In her latest blog, Mitchell admits that the first trimester wasn’t her favorite — but that the kicks of the second trimester more than made up for it.


(Also, is her husband the only one who speaks to the baby through their wife’s belly button?)


So I have to admit — at the beginning, I was not digging this pregnancy thing. I was truly struggling with the complete and utter loss of control of my body, mind and everything else. The first trimester — and even a good portion of the second trimester — was just, “Ehh.” I was tired. I was cranky. My already weird food aversions got even weirder. All in all, it was tougher than I thought it would be.


The hard part is when people ask you how you’re doing. You smile and say, “It’s all so wonderful” when really all I wanted to say was, “It is weird, my body feels foreign and who knows what’s happening in my head because of all the hormones?” But I smile and say how excited I am (and I truly am excited, I am just not loving this portion — I actually think it kind of sucks!) and carry on.


I find it rare for a pregnant woman to just say it like it is for fear of seeming ungrateful for the gift that is about to present itself, but let’s be honest — it is not all roses and rainbows!


Then come the kicks. The most beautiful thing about pregnancy is when you first start to feel your little human move. Honestly, it wiped away all the frustration from the previous months and instead holds me absolutely captivated by the simplest of things: belly watching. I often find myself lying down and just staring at my bump in complete awe as I watch my little angel move. It truly is remarkable; it is so hard to believe that there really is a little person in there.


I know this has been happening since the beginning of time, but until you feel it first-hand, it is truly one of the most incredible things. Every morning, Michael and I find ourselves lying in bed sharing the miracle that is her morning kicks. My husband talks to her and lays his hand on my belly. Funnily enough, she responds pretty much immediately — she has certainly grown to know who Dad is and rewards him with a fist pump on a regular basis.


It’s also quite a trip when I realize that this little human has a mind of her own. She jumps when startled, moves as she pleases and she is definitely taking on some likes and dislikes. For instance, Baby Girl loves chocolate — she practically does somersaults after my chocolate-chip cookie.


Baby also is not a fan of my current pants selection. (You see, I still haven’t brought myself to buy maternity pants. I’m already seven months along and don’t see the point in spending all that money for just a few months, but I digress.) Anyway, she definitely sends a message when she is feeling cramped and doesn’t like to sit for too long. She sends me right to my room to put on my favorite Bird & Vine sweatpants — they do not apply any pressure to the belly and she seems to be a fan, as am I.


Beverley Mitchell Blog 30 Weeks Pregnant We spent NYE in Colorado – Courtesy Beverley Mitchell


Needless to say, it has taken a few months and few phone calls from worried friends, but now I get it. Pregnancy is truly a miracle and I am utterly blessed and so madly in love with this little human already.


And watching my husband, who is so attentive and loving, rub my belly and speak to the baby makes my heart melt every time. He is already an incredible father and she isn’t even here yet! Isn’t it funny how men seem to think that your belly button is the direct line of communication to the baby? It honestly makes me laugh every time. It couldn’t be cuter see the man that you love speak into your belly button to tell the baby the plans for the day! Just pure unwavering love.


Now that I’m at 30 weeks, pregnancy has taken a new turn yet again. First frustration, then pure bliss and now as I embark on my third trimester, the true realization that baby will be here soon. Time is running out and in just three more months we will have our little bundle in our arms.


At the beginning, 40 weeks feels like a long time, then all of a sudden you’re where am I now and have no idea where the time has gone. Especially when you are the clever one who decided that an entire house renovation is a good idea after finding out you’re pregnant… I tend to go big — no small projects for this girl.


Lucky for me, I have the most patient and organized husband a girl can ask for. He has taken on this ginormous project I have laid in front of him (I can’t help with most of it because I am a bit off-balance with my growing bump) and there is no doubt that we will get it done just in time for Baby Girl to arrive!


So I’ll be sure to give you an update next time with the progress of the complete home renovation and the exciting adventure of planning the nursery. I have always had an idea of what I would want, but now that April is getting closer, it’s a bit overwhelming. There are so many cute choices! Can’t wait to get started, and don’t worry — I will definitely share the finished product.


Until then, don’t mind me — I’ll just be here staring at my belly in awe watching this precious little being kick and tumble. Leave me a comment below or send me a Tweet @beverleymitchel!


Beverley Mitchell Blog 30 Weeks Pregnant Best husband ever – Courtesy Beverley Mitchell


– Beverley Mitchell


More from Beverley’s PEOPLE.com blog series:


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Hedgehog Alert! Prickly pets can carry salmonella

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NEW YORK (AP) — Add those cute little hedgehogs to the list of pets that can make you sick.


In the last year, 20 people were infected by a rare but dangerous form of salmonella bacteria, and one person died in January. The illnesses were linked to contact with hedgehogs kept as pets, according to a report released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.


Health officials on Thursday say such cases seem to be increasing.


The CDC recommends thoroughly washing your hands after handling hedgehogs and cleaning pet cages and other equipment outside.


Other pets that carry the salmonella bug are frogs, toads, turtles, snakes, lizards, chicks and ducklings.


Seven of the hedgehog illnesses were in Washington state, including the death — an elderly man from Spokane County who died in January. The other cases were in Alabama, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Oregon.


In years past, only one or two illnesses from this salmonella strain have been reported annually, but the numbers rose to 14 in 2011, 18 last year, and two so far this year.


Children younger than five and the elderly are considered at highest risk for severe illness, CDC officials said.


Hedgehogs are small, insect-eating mammals with a coat of stiff quills. In nature, they sometimes live under hedges and defend themselves by rolling up into a spiky ball.


The critters linked to recent illnesses were purchased from various breeders, many of them licensed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, CDC officials said. Hedgehogs are native to Western Europe, New Zealand and some other parts of the world, but are bred in the United States.


___


Online:


CDC report: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr


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Man fell in love with Manti Te'o, pretended to be girlfriend

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Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy


For the last two weeks, the story of Manti Te’o’s fake girlfriend has unraveled one layer at a
time.


The Notre Dame linebacker spoke, then a
Long Beach woman whose pictures were used in the ruse came forward. But the
biggest questions could be answered only by a
22-year-old man from Palmdale -- the man Te’o and the woman alleged was the
mastermind behind the hoax.


Now Ronaiah Tuiasosopo has broken his
silence publicly, saying he fell “deeply, romantically in
love” with the Heisman Trophy runner-up in an interview with Dr. Phil McGraw
set to air later this week.


“Here we have a young man that fell deeply,
romantically in love,” McGraw told the “Today” show Wednesday. “I asked him straight up,
‘Was this a romantic relationship with you?’ And he says, ‘Yes.’ I said, ‘Are
you then, therefore, gay?’ And he said, ‘Well, when you put it that way, yes.’
And then he caught himself and said, ‘I am confused.’”


The new revelations come a day after
Tuiasosopo’s attorney, Milton Grimes, told The Times his client “feels as
though he needs therapy and part of that therapy is to come out of the closet,
so to speak, and tell the truth.” Grimes said Tuiasosopo is seeing a medical
professional.


“His point is that he wants to heal,”
Grimes said. “He knows that if he doesn’t come out and tell the truth, it will
interfere with him getting out of this place that he is in.”


The comments add another twist to a story
so bizarre, reporters from across the country
bombarded Tuiasosopo’s family and friends after Deadspin.com revealed earlier
this month that Te’o’s girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, did not exist.


Tuiasosopo, the report said, was the
mastermind behind the hoax and used photos from an old high school classmate
and social media to connect Kekua with Te’o.


Te’o repeatedly spoke to the media,
including The Times, about his girlfriend, the car accident that left her
seriously injured and the leukemia that led to her September death. The tale
became one of the most well-known stories of the college football season as
Te’o led his team to an undefeated season and championship berth.


Te’o has denied any role in the ruse,
saying he spent hours on the phone with a woman he thought was Kekua.


Grimes confirmed his client pretended to be
Kekua, insisting it was possible that Tuiasosopo disguised his voice to sound
like a woman, similar to role-playing or method-acting techniques.


“I don’t think it’s so unusual that a
person could imitate that voice of a person of a different sex,” Grimes said.


Grimes offered no explanation as to why his
client hatched the plan but said he never wanted to hurt Te’o.


“He did not intend to harm him in any way,”
Grimes said. “It was just a matter of trying to have a communication with
someone.”


Those who know Tuiasosopo said they were
baffled when they learned of his involvement in the hoax. Neighbors and former
high school coaches described him as popular, faith-driven and family-oriented.


“I’ve done a lot of thinking about it,”
said Jon Fleming, Tuiasosopo’s former football coach at Antelope Valley High.
“It’s all speculation. He’s goofy just like any other kid. The question that comes
up in my mind is: ‘What could he possibly gain from doing something like this?’
It would really surprise me. What would he gain?”


Grimes said he warned his client that he
could face legal consequences for admitting that he falsified his identity on
the Internet. But Tuiasosopo insisted that going public was something he had to
do.


“This is part of my public healing,” Grimes
quoted Tuiasosopo as saying.


In a short clip of the TV
interview obtained by The Times, McGraw asks Tuiasosopo why he ended
his relationship with Te’o.


“For many reasons,” Tuiasosopo said. “There
were many times where Manti and Lennay had broken up before.... They would
break up, and then something would bring them back together, whether it was
something going on in his life or in Lennay’s life -- in this case, in my
life.”


ALSO:


Listen to Lennay Kekua’s voicemails for Manti Te’o


Lance Armstrong and Manti Te'o get trapped in a good story


Manti Te'o hoax: Diane O'Meara says she was hounded for photos


--Matt Stevens, Kate Mather and Ann Simmons




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The Lede Blog: Piecing Together Accounts of a Massacre in Syria

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As my colleagues Hania Mourtada and Alan Cowell report, the bodies of dozens of young men, shot in the head from close range with their hands bound, were found in a narrow river in a neighborhood of Aleppo, Syria, on Tuesday.

The bodies were found in the Queiq River, which skirts the front line and de facto border between government-held areas of Aleppo and territory controlled by rebel fighters in the neighborhood of Bustan al-Qasr.

Graphic video posted on YouTube showed bodies lined up along the muddy riverbank. Many had visible head wounds and lengths of cord wrapped around their wrists. Gunfire echoed in the distance, and at the end of the clip the cameraman broke into a run. “A sniper is firing at us,” he said.

Graphic video showed dozens of bodies, shot in the head and bound at the wrists, found in a river in a suburb of Aleppo.

Early video and reports from the scene on Tuesday suggested the number of dead to be around 50, a figure that rose significantly on Wednesday. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an anti-government group based in Britain that has a network of contacts inside Syria, said 65 bodies were recovered from the river. The group estimated that 15 more remained in the water but could not be retrieved because of a threat posed by government snipers.

The Daily Telegraph, a British newspaper whose correspondent, Ruth Sherlock, was on the scene of the grim discovery, reported that residents pulled 79 bodies out of the river. A rebel fighter interviewed by Ms. Sherlock estimated that as many as 30 more bodies could remain in the water, but said they were impossible to retrieve because of nearby government sniper positions.

Thomas Rassloff, a freelance photographer based in Germany, was taken to the riverbank by Free Syrian Army fighters who he said told him “there are a lot of bodies.” Mr. Rassloff described the scene in a post on Time magazine’s Lightbox blog.

As we climbed down to the river, we couldn’t believe the horror of the scene. The bodies were bloated and covered with blood; some with their hands tied behind their backs. Several were missing eyes. All were men, and a few of the victims appeared to be young boys.

Nearby residents began gathering at the banks of the river. A large number of police were gathering there, too, some of whom I recognized from an interview days before. One officer I knew gave me a type of perfume to put under my nose to combat the smell.

One by one, the victims were loaded into cars and taken to a nearby school, where relatives began to identify the deceased. I photographed the scene at the river for approximately 30 minutes before my driver felt we should leave due to the risk of snipers and mortars.

The rebels and the government have blamed each other for the mass killing, but Ms. Sherlock, of The Daily Telegraph, reported that many of the dead were residents of rebel-held areas whose families said they disappeared after traveling to government-held areas.

It was impossible to be certain who was responsible for their deaths. But those identified, at least half the total by nightfall, were from rebel-held districts, and locals blamed government checkpoints on the other side of the river.

“These are my sons,” said Abu Mohammed, 73, as he shuffled towards the corpses laid out in rows in a schoolyard. A relative held his arm, as he stared at the exposed faces of the victims.

His legs buckled as he recognised the two young men, no older than 30, as his sons. They had travelled to central Aleppo, which is still in the hands of the Syrian government, 20 days before.

“They thought they had nothing to fear from the government, so they went to renew their identity cards. But they didn’t come back. Now I have found them here.”

Video posted to YouTube from the schoolyard where the bodies were taken shows dozens of bodies lined up in rows, each one neatly wrapped in a blue plastic tarp.

Video posted on YouTube showed dozens of bodies lined up in rows in a schoolyard.

Another clip shows local families filing slowly through the rows of bodies looking for missing loved ones. A man off camera yells into the crowd, “Guys who have finished, go outside!” Among those searching, a grown man knelt next to one of the bodies, gently held its head and plaintively wailed. Through his moans, he calls the dead man his brother.

Video posted to YouTube showed families searching for lost loved ones among rows of bodies.

Combat between the government and rebel forces has raged for more than six months in Aleppo, the most populous city in Syria. The fighting continued while the residents of Bustan al-Qasr searched the bodies for lost loved ones. Fear of airstrikes and shelling repeatedly scattered the crowd, according to an update posted by Ms. Sherlock on Twitter.

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Are Weak Wii U Sales a Bellwether of Shifting Game Demographics?

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Nintendo expects to sell fewer Wii U and 3DS units than originally claimed, according to reports this morning. The company says it sold three million Wii U units through December, but slashed its forecast of 5.5 million Wii U units sold by the end of March to just four million in all. On the Wii U software side, Nintendo is now forecasting 16 million units in the same timeframe, a number that’s down by roughly a third from original expectations.


The 3DS takes a similar hit in the standings: down from 17.5 million units predicted through March to just 15 million units and a commensurate drop in 3DS software sales.






(MORE: Apple to Sell 128GB iPad Starting Next Tuesday)


You can look at this any number of ways. From a numbers standpoint, there’s no doubt that the Wii U lags behind its predecessor in raw sales when you contrast launch windows. But the Wii arrived at just the right time: It was the world’s first fully motion-control-driven game system — a system that went on to capture the imaginations of consumers who’d never really engaged with a game console before. Whatever you thought of the Wii, however much you actually played it in the years that followed, it did more to popularize gaming as a mainstream pastime than any gaming-related device in history.


The Wii U, by contrast, is an evolutionary step forward designed to appeal more to traditional gamers. Though even lacking the Wii’s novelty, the Wii U GamePad is a far more intrepid technological concoction than, say, either Microsoft or Sony’s imitative motion-control approaches. And suggestions that Nintendo’s just mining Apple territory with the Wii U’s tablet-style controller seem shortsighted: With its two-screen dynamic and hybrid haptic/deterministic controls, the Wii U GamePad couldn’t be less like an iPad. Or, put another way, the Wii U is as much a riff on the iPad as the iPad is just a riff on Nintendo’s original dual-screen DS — a handheld that predated Apple’s tablet by six years.


Another explanation for the Wii U’s slow start could be pricing. The Wii U hardly seems a bargain by Nintendo’s own standards. The GameCube sold for $ 200 at rollout in 2001 (no pack-in), while the Wii cost $ 250 at launch and included a game. The Wii U, by comparison, starts at $ 300 for the stripped down model sans game, then jumps $ 50 if you want a decent amount of storage and something to play — a pack-in (Nintendoland) that frankly lacks the distinctive “so that’s what all the hype’s about” flair of Wii Sports.


But let’s cut to the chase: Whither mobile gaming? Isn’t the Wii U’s sluggish start because, well, hello smartphones and tablets? Not so fast: The data we have on this is inconclusive and potentially misleading.


According to NPD research, of the roughly 212 million people playing games in the United States last year, mobile gamers only slightly outranked core gamers. The number of core gamers shrank slightly in 2012 (NPD attributes this in part to the extra-long life cycle of the current consoles) while the number of mobile gamers was up a tick, it’s true. But how many people bought a Wii U because they needed a phone? An Xbox 360 to sync with their computer’s day-planner? Conversely, how many people bought a smartphone or tablet because all they wanted was to play games like Angry Birds or Temple Run 2?


(MORE: Nintendo Wii U Review: A Tale of Two Screens)


How many mobile gamers are buying souped up phones or tablets just to play games, in other words? Anyone? Or is the mobile gaming angle more of a perk, like the Philips head or mini-scissors in a Swiss Army Knife?


I’m not saying mobile gaming isn’t big — because it is. But just as sales of a game like Wii Sports were deceptively high because you couldn’t not buy it when picking up a Wii, talking about the prevalence of mobile gaming in a pre-fab market gets tricky. Is playing games on phones or tablets siphoning gamers from PCs and consoles? It’s impossible to say at this point because we lack the data.


Nintendo can’t be all things to all people any more than Apple’s been to gamers with its iPhone or iPad. If I want to play a game like Ni No Kuni or Guild Wars 2 or Devil May Cry, I wouldn’t look to my smartphone or tablet. Likewise, I have no interest in playing stuff like Angry Birds or Fruit Ninja or Cut the Rope – the same old increasingly tiresome mobile top-sellers for years — on a console or PC. I don’t want to sell the mobile/tablet gaming market short, not with titles like Battle of the Bulge and Radiant Defense or others like Space Hulk, Shadowrun Returns and Warhammer Quest on the horizon, but concluding that the Wii U or 3DS’s slightly-lower-than-expected sales can be attributed to a shift in gamer tastes — from core to mobile/tablet gaming — oversimplifies things in my view.


What we may be looking at in these reduced Nintendo sales numbers — and what I’d expect to continue to see with the launch of new systems from Microsoft and Sony — is segmentation of a market that experienced a kind of cross-demographic boom in the mid-to-late 2000s. Before iPhones and iPads, casual gamers had the PC. The Wii was essentially a way to bring that sort of gamer into the living room. But we’d be torturing indulgence to claim the shift that occurred after 2006 was tantamount to a conversion. Casual gamers, if you’ll pardon that label, are by definition uncommitted gamers. And with buyers already spending considerably more for something like the iPad (and considerably less on that platform for games), would it be such a surprise to find a much pickier audience for a system like the Wii U in 2013 than existed in 2006?


I have no idea what sorts of devices the kind of more core-oriented games I like to play are going to live on a decade from now. All it’d take, for instance, is for Apple to flip a few switches and double down on gaming to shake up the market in ways that could make what happened with the Wii seem tame. But that won’t mean the demise of traditional gamers any more than the rise of touchscreens entails the downfall of deterministic interfaces like keyboards, mice and gamepads. Core gamers aren’t this tiny minority on the verge of extinction, after all.


Far from it, in fact: Revenue contributions from core gamers still outpace all others, reports NPD, which calls the core gaming demographic “vital to the future of the industry.” From a financial standpoint, in other words, whatever the reasons for the Wii U’s lower-than-expected sales, the ball remains clearly in core gaming’s court.


MORE: Murfie Converts Your CDs into a Lossless Online Library, Lets You Sell and Trade Your Music


Gaming News Headlines – Yahoo! News





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Selena Gomez Is 'Really Good' Post-Justin Bieber Split

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By Dahvi Shira





01/30/2013 at 06:30 PM EST



Girls just wanna have fun – especially single ones!

Selena Gomez, 20, isn't following in the footsteps of her ex-boyfriend Justin Bieber, who says he's "not in the happiest place" since the two parted ways.

"I've been recording, having a lot of fun with my girlfriends, having a good time," she tells E! Online.

Although she recently sang a heartfelt rendition of Justin Timberlake's "Cry Me a River," Gomez remained mum on the types of songs her upcoming album will include. She said simply, "I'm having a lot of fun expressing everything that I'm feeling."

One thing is for sure – she's definitely breaking away from her Disney image.

"I've been telling people I'm definitely a little bit more sassy now," she said. "I'm a little bit more mouthy."

Aside from edgier tunes, the starlet is excited for people to see her risqué role in Spring Breakers.

"I think people are used to seeing me in a certain way," she said. "I think it will be a little shocking for people, but in a good way. The movie as a whole is a lot to take in, and I've definitely expressed that to my younger fans."

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Sex to burn calories? Authors expose obesity myths

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Fact or fiction? Sex burns a lot of calories. Snacking or skipping breakfast is bad. School gym classes make a big difference in kids' weight.


All are myths or at least presumptions that may not be true, say researchers who reviewed the science behind some widely held obesity beliefs and found it lacking.


Their report in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine says dogma and fallacies are detracting from real solutions to the nation's weight problems.


"The evidence is what matters," and many feel-good ideas repeated by well-meaning health experts just don't have it, said the lead author, David Allison, a biostatistician at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.


Independent researchers say the authors have some valid points. But many of the report's authors also have deep financial ties to food, beverage and weight-loss product makers — the disclosures take up half a page of fine print in the journal.


"It raises questions about what the purpose of this paper is" and whether it's aimed at promoting drugs, meal replacement products and bariatric surgery as solutions, said Marion Nestle, a New York University professor of nutrition and food studies.


"The big issues in weight loss are how you change the food environment in order for people to make healthy choices," such as limits on soda sizes and marketing junk food to children, she said. Some of the myths they cite are "straw men" issues, she said.


But some are pretty interesting.


Sex, for instance. Not that people do it to try to lose weight, but claims that it burns 100 to 300 calories are common, Allison said. Yet the only study that scientifically measured the energy output found that sex lasted six minutes on average — "disappointing, isn't it?" — and burned a mere 21 calories, about as much as walking, he said.


That's for a man. The study was done in 1984 and didn't measure the women's experience.


Among the other myths or assumptions the authors cite, based on their review of the most rigorous studies on each topic:


—Small changes in diet or exercise lead to large, long-term weight changes. Fact: The body adapts to changes, so small steps to cut calories don't have the same effect over time, studies suggest. At least one outside expert agrees with the authors that the "small changes" concept is based on an "oversimplified" 3,500-calorie rule, that adding or cutting that many calories alters weight by one pound.


—School gym classes have a big impact on kids' weight. Fact: Classes typically are not long, often or intense enough to make much difference.


—Losing a lot of weight quickly is worse than losing a little slowly over the long term. Fact: Although many dieters regain weight, those who lose a lot to start with often end up at a lower weight than people who drop more modest amounts.


—Snacking leads to weight gain. Fact: No high quality studies support that, the authors say.


—Regularly eating breakfast helps prevent obesity. Fact: Two studies found no effect on weight and one suggested that the effect depended on whether people were used to skipping breakfast or not.


—Setting overly ambitious goals leads to frustration and less weight loss. Fact: Some studies suggest people do better with high goals.


Some things may not have the strongest evidence for preventing obesity but are good for other reasons, such as breastfeeding and eating plenty of fruits and vegetables, the authors write. And exercise helps prevent a host of health problems regardless of whether it helps a person shed weight.


"I agree with most of the points" except the authors' conclusions that meal replacement products and diet drugs work for battling obesity, said Dr. David Ludwig, a prominent obesity research with Boston Children's Hospital who has no industry ties. Most weight-loss drugs sold over the last century had to be recalled because of serious side effects, so "there's much more evidence of failure than success," he said.


___


Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP


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Manti Te'o hoax suspect 'in love' with football star

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The man accused of hoaxing Manti Te’o fell “deeply romantically
in love” with the Notre Dame linebacker and said he was “confused” about his
sexuality, TV’s Dr. Phil McGraw told the "Today" show in a clip that aired Wednesday.


The Antelope Valley man, Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, 22, is allegedly the person behind the Te’o fake-girlfriend affair. He is planning to
come clean and reveal the exact nature of his relationship with the football
player and his role in the hoax during an interview with McGraw to be aired Thursday, his
attorney, Milton Grimes, told The Times.


Grimes said Tuiasosopo was acting
when he portrayed "Lennay Kekua," the woman with whom Te’o said he
had fallen in love, but never met. Grimes said his client pretended to be
the woman in phone calls with the football star, disguising his voice to sound
like a woman, similar to what people do when they are role-playing or method
acting.


"I don’t think it’s so unusual
that a person could imitate the voice of a person of a different sex,"
Grimes said.


In a short clip of that interview
obtained by The Times, McGraw asks Tuiasosopo why he ended his relationship
with Te’o.


“For many reasons,” Tuiasosopo said. “There were many times where Manti and Lennay
had broken up before.... They would break up, and then something would bring
them back together, whether it was something going on in his life or something
going in Lennay’s life -- in this case, in my life. I wanted to end it, because
after everything I had gone through, I finally realized that I just had to move
on with my life. I had to get me, Ronaiah. I had to start just living and just
let this go.”


Grimes, the onetime lawyer for the
late Rodney King, said Tuiasosopo "feels as though he needs therapy and part of that therapy
is to ... tell the truth."


McGraw told "Today" that “Ronaiah
had a number of life experiences that damaged this young man in some very
serious ways,” and after speaking with Tuiasosopo, he believes that Te’o "absolutely, unequivocally" was not involved in the hoax.


Grimes insisted his client didn't
mean to hurt Te'o.


"He did not intend to harm him
in any way," Grimes said.


Te'o had spoken to reporters
repeatedly about his supposed girlfriend and her battle with cancer, a story
that captivated college football fans throughout fall 2012, when the
Heisman Trophy runner-up helped his team finish out the regular season undefeated and helped get them to
the national championship game.


A Deadspin.com report published Jan. 16 first
revealed that the girlfriend was fake, and identified Tuiasosopo as the man
behind the hoax.


Grimes said Tuiasosopo had chosen
Dr. Phil for his first public appearance because he felt that as a medical
professional, Dr. Phil "might be inclined to have better insight [than a
regular reporter] into what he’s going through ... the particular
condition," Grimes said.


Diane O'Meara, a Southern California
woman whose photos were apparently used in the fake girlfriend's social media
accounts, told The Times that Tuiasosopo repeatedly asked for photos and videos
from her in the weeks before the hoax unraveled. She called his actions
"kind of annoying," but added, "as a compassionate person, I
totally believed him."


Grimes said he had warned his
client, who is seeing a medical professional, that he could face legal
consequences for admitting that he falsified his identity on the Internet. But
Tuiasosopo insisted that going public was something he had to do in order to
move on with his healing process.


"His point is that he wants to
heal," Grimes said. "He knows that if he doesn’t come out and tell
the truth, it will interfere with him getting out of this place that he is
in."


"This is part of my public
healing," Grimes quoted Tuiasosopo as saying.


ALSO:


Listen to Lennay Kekua’s voicemails for Manti Te’o


Lance Armstrong and Manti Te'o get trapped in a good story


Manti Te'o hoax: Diane O'Meara says she was hounded for photos


--Matt Stevens, Kate Mather and Ann Simmons 



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The Lede Blog: Under Attack, Cairo Hotel Tweets an S O S

Label:

Video of unidentified men streaming into the lobby of Cairo’s Semiramis InterContinental hotel was shown live on Egypt’s ONTV early on Tuesday.

Last Updated, 5:57 p.m. As our colleagues Kareem Fahim, David Kirkpatrick and Mayy El Sheikh report, the mayhem on Cairo’s streets briefly spilled into the lobby of one of the city’s luxury hotels, the Semiramis InterContinental, during intense clashes between riot police and protesters along the Nile Corniche overnight.

Images of a mob streaming into the hotel, shown live on Egyptian television and then posted online, raised fears of further damage to the country’s already battered tourist industry. Coming at the same time as violence in cities on the Suez Canal, this week’s unrest threatened two of the main pillars of the Egyptian economy.

Judging by a series of urgent pleas for help posted on the hotel’s Twitter feed, the raid came just after 2:30 a.m. local time.

Within an hour of sounding the alarm on the social network, the staff reported on Twitter that the security forces had arrived.

Guards at the hotel told Bel Trew of the Egyptian news site Ahram Online that phone calls to the police and the army initially went unheeded as about 40 men armed with shotguns, knives and a semiautomatic weapon broke into the shuttered lobby and started looting.

An Ahram Online journalist who witnessed the attack, Karim Hafez, said that protesters had stopped fighting with the police to help secure the hotel: “When they realized these groups were trying to loot the hotel, protesters shot fire crackers at them as they attacked the building and tried to push them away from the area but these groups were armed with birdshot bullets.”

This reported cooperation of the protesters with the police officers they have been battling for days on the street outside the hotel prompted bloggers like the British-Egyptian journalist Sarah Carr to comment on the black comedy of the situation.

Another Egyptian blogger, Mohammed Maree, reported on his @mar3e Twitter feed that a police captain on the scene confirmed to him that the protesters who were fighting with the security forces when the raid took place were not responsible for the storming of the hotel.

Mr. Maree also reported that witnesses to the raid said it began after four people drove up in a car with no license plates and fired shots to scare protesters away, before storming the hotel. He later posted a photograph of some of the hotel’s guests leaving under the protection of protesters.

Nabila Samak, a spokeswoman for the hotel who posted the calls for help on Twitter, told The Times that the staff members had called Egyptian television stations for help earlier in the evening, well before the attack, after appeals to the security forces for protection went unanswered.

Ms. Samak told Ahram Online that the staff worked to secure the hotel’s guests but were not equipped to cope with the effective collapse of the police force, since, “no guards of hotels in Egypt are armed.” Later she thanked protesters for coming to the aid of the hotel’s staff and guests.

A Saudi women who identified herself as a guest at the hotel, Hilda Ismail, posted updates and photographs from a shelter the guests were taken to during the incident on her Arabic-language Twitter feed.

In one message, she wrote: “If there is no Egyptian security, and if Morsi is sleeping, where are this country’s men!! Come get these dogs, the Semiramis Hotel is being ransacked and we are there.”

Later, Ms. Ismail uploaded a brief video clip of a man attempting to reassure guests that they were safe after the arrival of special forces officers from the ministry of the interior led by a Captain Moataz.

In the clip, the man tells the guests that the police captain wants “to assure you that the hotel is secured and it is under the control of the ministry of the interior now. Within no time you will go back to your rooms and already are in safe hands.” The police, the man added, “will make sure that such thugs will not enter the hotel again. We are sorry.”

Ms. Ismail also posted an image of the ransacked lobby on Twitter.

Ms. Ismai’s claim to have been a guest at the hotel was supported by the fact that she had uploaded a brief video clip, apparently shot from a high floor of the hotel, showing the fighting on the Nile Corniche below.

An unnamed hotel manager in Cairo told Al-Masry Al-Youm, an Egyptian newspaper, that “more than 45 clients insisted on leaving despite the hotel’s offer to relocate them to higher floors, away from the clashes.”

Ignace Bauwens, an executive with the luxury hotel chain, which was created in 1946 by Pan American World Airways, said in a statement e-mailed to The Lede: “The safety of our guests and colleagues is paramount and we have a responsibility to do everything we can to look after them. With the recent escalation of the situation near Tahrir Square we have decided to temporarily close the hotel for security reasons. Our guests have been relocated to other hotels further away from the demonstrations and we’re not taking any new bookings for the coming week.”

Late Tuesday, the staff posted another urgent plea for help on Twitter.

The latest message prompted some alarm, but, as the journalist and blogger Mosa’ab Elshamy observed, the hotel’s staff, like other Egyptians, appeared to be getting used to “the daily chaos.”

Kareem Fahim contributed reporting from Cairo.

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