The maker of BlackBerry smartphones says the problems that have plagued users worldwide were caused by a core switch failure within the company’s infrastructure.
Research in Motion Ltd. says that a transition to a back-up switch did not function as tested, causing a large backlog of data.
In an update Tuesday, it said it is now working to clear the backlog and restore normal service as soon as possible.
Large numbers of BlackBerry users in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, India, Brazil, Chile and Argentina are experiencing problems for a second day, with many unable to access email and messaging services.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.
LONDON (AP) _ BlackBerry’s woes spread on Tuesday as the smartphone’s maker reported service disruptions for a second straight day in Europe, the Middle East and Africa and fresh problems in Latin America and India.
Research in Motion Ltd., which makes BlackBerry devices, acknowledged there were ongoing problems Tuesday, hours after it said services were operating normally and the cause of delays in subscriber services a day earlier had been resolved.
“Some users in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, India, Brazil, Chile, and Argentina are experiencing messaging and browsing delays,” the company said in a statement, adding that it is “working to restore normal service as quickly as possible payday loans.”
Research in Motion Ltd. also apologized for “any inconvenience,” as Twitter and the Internet lit up with condemnation over a delayed response to problems some users had reported for hours.
In Britain, Vodafone UK told customers via Twitter that service was not fully restored. Rival T-Mobile UK blamed “a European-wide outage on the BlackBerry network” which it said was affecting all mobile operators. There were also reports of problems elsewhere in Europe, such as Spain.
In addition, the disruptions were experienced in the Middle East and Africa.
Etisalat, which operates in the United Arab Emirates, apologized for “the further interruption” to Blackberry services, “once again due to RIM problems.”
And Kenya’s Safaricom Ltd. said on Twitter that its Blackberry customers were experiencing a “technical fault,” while South Africa’s Vodacom told subscribers the issues were affecting multiple networks and countries.
There were no reports of any problems in the U.S.
Angry smartphone users took to Twitter to vent frustration with the company and bemoaned the loss of their messaging capabilities, questioning why the company took so long to restore services.
Pancreatic cancer is notoriously lethal _ there are almost as many deaths from it each year as there are new cases. The deaths this week of Apple founder Steve Jobs and Nobelist Ralph Steinman bring unusual attention to this less-well-known type of cancer that has actually been declining despite no big advances in treatment or finding it early.
A decline in smoking, one of the top risk factors for the disease, may be behind the drop in cases.
Jobs lived more than seven years after being diagnosed with a neuroendocrine tumor _ a less common, slower-growing and more treatable type of pancreatic cancer than the kind that killed Steinman a week ago and actor Patrick Swayze two years ago.
The Apple chief kept details of his illness behind a firewall and declared he was cured after cancer surgery in 2004. However, five years later, gaunt and having lost a lot of weight, Jobs had a liver transplant. Experts said it was likely because his cancer had returned or spread.
A liver transplant sometimes can cure the type of cancer that Jobs had. But if it comes back, “it’s usually in one to two years,” said Dr. Michael Pishvaian of Georgetown University’s Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center.
In January, Jobs announced his third and final leave of absence. He resigned in August and died on Wednesday.
Part of what makes pancreatic cancer so deadly is that the pancreas is as vital as the heart. You can live with just part of a liver or a colon, or only one kidney or lung. But the pancreas is a fish-shaped organ that makes digestive enzymes and insulin and other hormones that enable the body to make energy from food.
In the United States, pancreatic cancer is the fourth leading cause of cancer deaths. About 44,030 people will be diagnosed with it and about 37,660 people will die of it this year in the U.S., the American Cancer Society estimates.
Possible symptoms are fatigue, back pain, abdominal pain, unexplained weight loss, loss of appetite, jaundice and nausea, according to the Lustgarten Foundation, a private group that finances research on the disease.
This cancer often is not found until it is advanced or has spread, and overall survival is dismal: 20 percent after one year and only 4 percent after five years.
However, with a neuroendocrine tumor like the one Jobs had, “people can live a longer time; median survival is five to eight years,” said Dr. Alan Venook, a pancreatic cancer specialist at the University of California, San Francisco.
The lifetime risk of developing pancreatic cancer is about 1 in 71, according to the cancer society. Men and blacks account for more cases than women and whites, possibly because of differences in smoking rates unsecured personal loans. Smokers have two to three times more risk of developing the disease. Use of smokeless tobacco also raises the risk.
Obese people, those who don’t exercise much and diabetics also have more risk for pancreatic cancer. Alcohol use might play a role: Most studies haven’t tied it to pancreatic cancer, but heavy drinking can lead to diabetes and liver and pancreas problems that pose a cancer risk, the cancer society says.
The best hope for a patient is that the tumor is operable. That was the case in February 2009, when U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had a small, early-stage pancreatic tumor removed at New York’s Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.
On the horizon are immune system treatments _ research that Steinman, the Nobel recipient from Rockefeller University in New York, was studying in the lab and trying on his own pancreatic cancer.
The immune system has a hard time recognizing and fighting cancer because the enemy is not an invading germ but our own cells gone rogue. Treatments called therapeutic cancer vaccines are ways to modify cells to help the immune system recognize the risk.
One such vaccine by NewLink Genetics, a small biotech firm in Ames, Iowa, is in late-stage testing now for pancreatic cancer. The company website says the larger study was initiated after a mid-stage test suggested improvement in survival.
Dr. Roderich Schwarz, chief of surgical oncology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, has enrolled a few patients in some immune therapy studies, which have not paid off in the past.
“Vaccines are coming along,” and last year’s approval of one for advanced prostate cancer suggests researchers may be learning to overcome some of the drawbacks of the past, he said.
“It’s quite possible that vaccines will claim their territory in the treatment of these challenging tumors,” Schwarz said. “It’s still in the development stage rather than the proven stage.”
___
Online:
Cancer Institute: http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/types/pancreatic
Cancer Society: http://www.cancer.org/Cancer/PancreaticCancer/index
Survival rates: http://bit.ly/oAxKl5
Research and support: http://www.curePC.org and http://www.lustgarten.org
Vaccine study: http://www.linkp.com/products/hyperacute-pancreas.html
A legal fight over a company’s claim that its designs for numerous SeaWorld attractions were stolen by the theme park operator and its former owner, Anheuser-Busch, has now landed in a St. Louis courtroom.
Revere Entertainment Studios, an Oviedo, Fla.-based design firm, has filed a federal lawsuit alleging SeaWorld used several concepts Revere developed for attractions at SeaWorld theme parks in Orlando, San Diego and San Antonio but did not pay for the development or use. Revere originally filed the suit in federal court in Florida in May, but the case was transferred to federal court in St. Louis on Sept. 16.
Revere names SeaWorld and A-B in the lawsuit in addition to several current and former SeaWorld and A-B executives.
The brewery’s parent company, Belgium-based Anheuser-Busch InBev, owned SeaWorld until late 2009, when it sold its theme park division, Busch Entertainment, to private equity firm Blackstone Group for more than $2.3 billion. Busch Entertainment was headquartered in Clayton until it moved to Orlando in 2008.
Revere claims in the lawsuit that it created an Australian Extremes concept for rides and attractions and pitched the idea to several Busch Entertainment and SeaWorld executives beginning in 2005. Revere also claims it created multiple concepts for rides and attractions, such as a merry-go-round with dolphins and seahorses, that SeaWorld ultimately added to its parks low rates payday advance.
Revere claims SeaWorld and the other defendants named in the suit breached an implied contract by using Revere’s ideas but not paying for the work. Revere claims that many of the ideas it presented to SeaWorld, were slightly changed, for example, Revere alleges it presented an idea for a Dynamite Pass roller coaster and SeaWorld ultimately added a similar attraction called the Dynamite Drop.
Tucker Byrd, an attorney representing Revere, said the damages he’s seeking for his client exceed $100 million. Revere ’spent a couple of years putting it together and thousands of hours creating this thing,” Byrd said. “Then the defendants misappropriated the property of my clients.”
In a motion filed to dismiss the case, SeaWorld and the other defendants argued that Revere signed a non-confidentiality agreement and that Busch Entertainment “made no commitment to keep products, ideas or materials secret or in confidence.”
In an emailed statement, Fred Jacobs, a spokesman for SeaWorld, called the allegations “baseless and meritless.”
The Dow Jones industrial average ended another turbulent week with a strong gain Friday after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said the U.S. was headed for long-term economic growth. It was the first winning week in a month.
Trading volume was light, a sign that many traders were leaving New York ahead of Hurricane Irene. The storm is expected to reach the region late Saturday night. A spokesman for the New York Stock Exchange said trading is expected to open as usual Monday.
Bernanke announced no new economic stimulus measures during his speech at a conference in Jackson Hole, Wyo., as some investors had hoped. He did leave open the possibility of more action if another recession looks likely.
Indexes fell sharply as the speech was released at 10 a.m. and it became clear that Bernanke was not promising additional support of the economy. The Dow Jones industrial average was down about 78 points shortly before the speech started and slumped as many as 220 points shortly after Bernanke started speaking. It recovered within an hour and stayed higher the rest of the day.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 134.72 points, or 1.2 percent, to close at 11,284.54. It was up 4.3 percent for the week after being down the past four.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose 17.53, or 1.5 percent, to 1,176.80. It rose 4.7 percent for the week, its biggest gain since the week ended July 1. The technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index rose 60.22, or 2.5 percent, to 2,479.85.
Boeing Co. rose 2.8 percent, the most of the 30 stocks that make up the Dow. Tiffany & Co. rose 9 percent, the most of any of the 500 stocks in the S&P index, after the luxury retailer raised its profit forecast for the year.
In his speech, Bernanke focused on the long-term strengths of the U.S. economy. He said the “do not appear to have been permanently altered by the shocks of the past four years.” That shot of optimism helped lift markets.
“In the American economy, the only thing that’s really lacking right now is confidence,” said David Kelly, chief market strategist at JPMorgan funds. “People who understand the limits of monetary policy also understand that the economy has what it takes to grow.”
Other analysts said Bernanke’s speech helped lift investor sentiment. Liz Ann Sonders, chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab, said Bernanke’s speech was an “acknowledgement that the Fed is not out of tools and that they stand ready” to act if needed.
Underscoring how fragile the U.S. economic recovery is, early Friday the government said the nation’s economy grew at an annual rate of just 1 percent in the April-June quarter, weaker than the government’s first estimate of 1.3 percent. The report renewed concerns that the U.S. might be headed for another recession.
The Fed has said it plans to keep short-term interest rates low until mid-2013. Low rates on investments like bonds make higher-risk bets such as stocks more attractive. At last year’s conference in Jackson Hole, Bernanke signaled the central bank would buy more government bonds to lower long-term interest rates.
The government lowered its estimate for economic growth in the April-June quarter because of fewer exports and weaker growth in business stockpiles. That means the economy expanded at an annual rate of only 0.7 percent in the first six months of the year, the worst pace since the recession ended in June 2009.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury note spiked in the hour after Bernanke’s speech. It was 2.13 percent just before the speech and rose to 2.22 percent in the hour after the text was released. The yield was 2.19 percent late Friday.
The last time the New York Stock Exchange was closed due to weather was Jan 8., 1996, when the opening was delayed until 11 a.m. due to a snowstorm. Hurricane Gloria caused a shutdown on Sept. 27, 1985.
Five stocks rose for every one that fell on the New York Stock Exchange. Volume was relatively light at 4.2 billion.
Corporate culture doesn’t change overnight, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak says in reflecting on the company’s post-Jobs future. But the signature Jobsian quirks might.
Google vice-president for engineering Vic Gundotra reflected Thursday on an urgent cellphone call from Jobs one Sunday to insist that the hue of yellow on one of the O’s in Google wasn’t just right.
“So Vic, we have an urgent issue, one that I need addressed right away,” Gundotra said Jobs told him.
“I’ve already assigned someone from my team to help you, and I hope you can fix this tomorrow. I’ve been looking at the Google logo on the iPhone and I’m not happy with the icon. The second O in Google doesn’t have the right yellow gradient. It’s just wrong and I’m going to have Greg fix it tomorrow. Is that okay with you?”
It was, Gundotra wrote on the Google+ site, “a lesson I’ll never forget. CEOs should care about details. Even shades of yellow. On a Sunday.”
Jobs’ legendary obsession with detail and secrecy were two ingrained Apple traits that some industry observers saw receding just a little the day after the 56-year-old founder stepped down as CEO.
The website AllAboutSteveJobs.com documented the cult of secrecy.
“Software engineers work on big boxes and hardware engineers never see the software that will run on their machines — less than a dozen people had actually seen an actual iPhone before Steve unveiled it at Macworld 2007.”
A Time magazine article described One Infinite Loop, the Apple Cupertino, Calif., headquarters, after Jobs returned as CEO in 1997:
“Executives feed deliberate misinformation into one part of the company so that any leak can be traced back to its source.” Employees “are monitored by cameras, and they must cover up devices with black cloaks and turn on red warning lights when they are uncovered.”
The other Steve – Wozniak, who with Jobs’ created Apple in Jobs’ parents garage in 1976 – said Being Steve Jobs took its toll.
“He really has had to sacrifice a lot to run Apple,” Wozniak told Byte.com shortly after Jobs announced that his role at Apple would be confined to Chairman of the Board.
“Steve needs now to just have some ‘Steve time,’ Wozniak said.
“He was surrounded by great, great people at Apple . . . and those people are still there,” Wozniak said. “I don’t think the core Apple culture will change because of (Jobs’) leaving, not for a long time.”
New CEO Tim Cook has been running Apple’s daily operations since January when Job went on his third medical leave. He’d first stepped up to the job in 2004, when Jobs was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
Cook, 51, was in charge when the iPad 2 was unveiled, when iCloud was announced, and when Apple, two weeks ago, briefly became the world’s most valuable company.
Before that, Cook restructured Apple’s manufacturing methods and its supply chain. He is, by all accounts, a logistics maestro.
“You kind of want to manage it like you’re in the dairy business,” he was quoted as saying in a CNN 2008 profile payday loans. “If it gets past its freshness date, you have a problem.”
And he has his own nascent cult of personality.
“In meetings he’s known for long, uncomfortable pauses, when all you hear is the sound of his tearing the wrapper of the energy bars he constantly eats,” CNN wrote. One executive was quoted as saying, “I’ve seen him shred people. He asks questions he knows you can’t answer and he keeps going and going.”
A tidy, often-repeated Cook story has him remarking at a meeting on Asia’s terrible distribution network, “Somebody should be in China driving this” and then, 30 minutes later, asking operations executive Sabihh Khan, “Why are you still here?” As the story goes, Khan left the meeting immediately to grab a plane to China, without even a change of clothes.
As low-key as Jobs is a showman, Cook has made clear he’s steeped in the philosophy of Apple, which he joined in 1998, when “the company was commonly thought to be on the verge of extinction,” he said in a 2010 commencement speech at his alma mater, Auburn University.
“The word ‘complete’ is not in our dictionary,” he said at the Goldman Sachs tech conference in San Francisco in 2010. “We’re innovators. Which means many times we end up ‘obsoleting’ ourselves.
“We say no to great ideas every day. And we do that in order to keep the amount of things we focus on very small so that we can put all our energy behind the ones we do choose.”
Steve Jobs’ Apple “has never been afraid to cannibalize its own business,” said MSNBC tech writer Wilson Rothman. “The iPhone eats more and more into iPod sales every quarter. The iPad is a low-prices alternative to a Mac. One of the things Jobs’s rivals will never be able to stomach is his ability to make his own products obsolete.”
Jobs helped change computers from a geeky hobbyist’s obsession to a necessity of modern life at work and home, and in the process he upended not just personal technology but the cellphone and music industries, the Associated Press reported.
The Apple II hit the market in 1977, making Jobs a multi-millionaire by age 25. The Macintosh exploded onto the scene in 1984 and then, in 1998, came the candy-coloured iMacs, which sold about 2 million its first year.
In this century, iTunes changed the way people bought music, and the iPhone changed the way they communicated. Jobs’ career, said The Mac Observer, has been “a revolution every other year.”
Indeed, the day before Jobs stepped down, a Japanese website reported Apple was working on a new Mac line that would be “completely different” from anything on the market now.
“No one can replace Steve Jobs, but (Cook) is good at what he does, which is make sure the right people have the right jobs,” said Jeff Gamet, managing editor at The Mac Observer.
“It’s not like as of today everything for Apple changes. It’s going to feel a little different, though, because Steve won’t have the CEO title.”
TD Bank (TSX: TD) is boosting its stake in Canadian consumer debt.
The bank says it has agreed to purchase the Canadian credit card business of Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC), which has about $8.5 billion in receivables.
While TD did not disclose the value of the transaction, it said the price was a “modest premium.”
The assets are part of the MBNA credit card portfolio, which was acquired by Bank of America in 2006.
U.S. stocks are tumbling amid a rout in global markets after Standard & Poor’s downgraded the U.S. credit rating for the first time.
S&P cut the long-term debt rating for the U.S. by one notch late Friday. The downgrade wasn’t unexpected, but it comes when investors are already nervous about a weak U.S. economy, European debt problems and Japan’s recovery from its March earthquake.
At the opening of trading, the Dow Jones industrial average is down 192, or 1.7 percent, to 11,252. The S&P 500 is down 23, or 2 percent to 1,176. The Nasdaq is down 64, or 2.5 percent, to 2,468.
Prices for Treasurys are rising because they’re still seen as one of the few safe investments. Gold topped $1,700 per ounce for the first time.
For more updates.
Torstar Corp., publisher of the Toronto Star, reported higher revenues in the second quarter of 2011, the company said Thursday.
With 10 beds and a waiting list 21-people long, the Emily Program had planned to open a second in-patient facility for people with serious eating disorders later this month. Minnesota’s government shutdown has thrown those plans in doubt.
The private, St. Paul-based treatment program was waiting on a July 18 inspection by the licensing division of the Department of Human Services. The division closed in the shutdown, and “without that last step in the licensing process, the program will be unable to open,” said Jillian Lampert, director of licensing for The Emily Program.
Lampert was one of several dozen people who pleaded Tuesday before a court-appointed “special master” for a continuation of state funding or services during the shutdown. In the second day of such hearings, former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Kathleen Blatz heard pleas from advocates for the homeless and indigent and sexual assault victims, as well as child care providers, police officers and prosecutors, hospital officials and more. The hearings have been a lesson in the deep and wide-reaching tentacles of state government.
The shutdown that started Friday resulted from a budget standoff between Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton and Republican legislative leaders. Dayton wants to raise income taxes on the state’s wealthiest residents to provide more money for social services and public education. Republican lawmakers oppose any tax increase. The two sides met briefly Tuesday but reported no progress.
Until a budget deal materializes, state spending decisions fall to Blatz, who stepped down as the state’s chief justice in 2006. A state district court judge has ordered programs essential to life, health and public safety to continue during the shutdown, and Blatz must make recommendations to her on which programs qualify. As she presided over the parade of need, Blatz repeatedly reminded those before her that she had limited power.
“It’s not a comment on the value of your services. It goes to the limits of the court’s power,” she said, trying to downplay the expectations of two representatives from the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center, a treatment and counseling center that holds a number state contracts to provide social services.
The center focuses on “prevention and advocacy,” which Blatz suggested wasn’t essential to the public’s health and safety. With no “disruption,” she said, “We’re limited until they figure things out across the street.”
Many requests came from people and groups worried services would shut down because they couldn’t get state licenses, background checks and inspections required by law. Ben Peltier, legal counsel for the Minnesota Hospital Association, said hiring at its 45 member hospitals has halted because state background checks required by law aren’t available.
Large hospitals can probably shuffle existing staff for a few weeks, but some 65 smaller hospitals that typically treat 25 or fewer patients could end up short-staffed, Peltier said. “The only option is to ask people to work longer hours, and they won’t always do that,” he said.
A similar dilemma faces police departments, whose new hires must obtain a state license from an office that’s closed. Chief Daniel Hatten of the Hutchinson Police Department said he’s currently down three patrol officers on his 22-officer team, and he’s had to swap several specialized investigators back into patrol shifts.
“It’s not just a fatigue factor,” Hatten said. “It’s the ability to deliver the protection at a level not only that the community expects but also from a basic safety perspective.”
Dayton’s legal team asked Blatz on Tuesday to expand the list of critical services and recommend funding be continued for special education, mental health and chemical dependency programs, child care assistance and other services to the vulnerable.
Meanwhile, prospects for a breakthrough between Dayton and Republicans were uncertain after they talked for only about an hour Tuesday following a four-day break over the holiday weekend. Republicans want to cap state spending the next two years at $34 billion, the total amount of revenue the state is projected to collect, while Dayton seeks to augment that with more than $1 billion in new revenue.
House Majority Leader Matt Dean said in an interview that the shutdown had angered Republican lawmakers and made them less likely to compromise. Members of the House GOP caucus were willing to bend last week to avoid a government closure, but now that it’s happened, they’re returning to their earlier position on a firm limit on state spending, he said.
“They’re very angry and frustrated,” said Dean, the second-ranking House Republican. “So I think it’s more difficult today than it was last week.”
Also Tuesday, two of the state’s political veterans _ former Republican Gov. Arne Carlson and former Democratic Vice President Walter Mondale _ launched an independent commission to resolve the deadlock. The panel will be chaired by two former state lawmakers and aims to float a proposal by the end of the week for breaking the deadlock.
One current Republican lawmaker said it was a bad idea. First-term Republican Sen. Dave Thompson said he expects the commission to recommend tax increases of some kind, a strategy he doesn’t think is wise for the economy.
Asked whether he would support a budget compromise to spend $35 billion over two years instead of $34 billion, the number Republicans want, Thompson said, “I don’t believe so, no.”
Roughing it just isn
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