Review: Nintendo’s TVii tops button-laden remotes

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Nintendo‘s TV-watching tool for the new Wii U game console beats my regular remote control hands down.

Called TVii, the service transforms how you watch television in three key ways. It turns the touch-screen GamePad controller for the Wii U into a remote control for your TV and set-top box. It groups your favorite shows and sports teams together, whether it’s on live TV or an Internet video service such as Hulu Plus. And it offers water-cooler moments you can chat about on social media.

It takes some getting used to, and I had a lot of re-learning to do after years of using my thumb to channel surf. But once I did, I found the service an advance from the mass of buttons on most TV remote controls.

TVii comes free with the Wii U, although it didn’t become available in the U.S. until mid-December, about a month after the game machine’s debut.

One nice touch is that TVii gives you a way to search for shows over Internet video apps and live TV all in one place. I can then choose whether to watch it on the big TV or on my controller’s touch screen, which measures 6.2 inches diagonally.

Handling these different sources of video at once is a tall order, and Nintendo Co. does it pretty well. No one else has combined live and Web TV as seamlessly before. As the lines blur between the two, I would hope some of TVii’s advances are copied and improved upon by other gadget makers and TV signal providers.

For starters, TVii asks for your TV maker, your set-top box maker, your location and your TV provider (that could be an antenna). TVii then uses infrared codes to control your TV just like the old remote, and it can offer a traditional channel guide for live TV shows. TVii also asks for your favorite shows, sports teams and movies. This helps it create an easy-to-understand grouping of shows you might want to watch.

I appreciate the way TVii walked me through the setup process. It was refreshing, given the misfortune I recently had of trying to program the remote control that came with my cable set-top box, which is about as fun as doing your tax returns. TVii takes away the need to read folded-up instruction manuals that appear to be written by and for electronics hobbyists.

After the setup, TVii presents you with a series of icons for Favorites, TV, Movies, Sports and Search. A little avatar of your identity is in one corner, and tapping on it lets you adjust your favorites or go through the setup again. Each person in a household can have a different avatar and set of favorites.

In Favorites, your shows are listed with cover art, and you can swipe through the offerings. Tapping one, say, “The Mindy Project,” will pull up an episode list with pictures and brief summaries. Choosing an episode will bring up a range of options — the channel if it’s on live TV, or buttons for Hulu Plus or Amazon, where you can pay for monthly access or just one episode through the service’s app. (The free version of Hulu is blocked on gadgets, including the Wii U and tablet computers. Apple’s iTunes, unsurprisingly, isn’t integrated.) The option of clicking through to Netflix will be added some time in 2013.

One hiccup is that if you want to watch a show on live TV now, it asks if your TV’s input source is already set to the set-top box, rather than the Wii U or another gadget such as a DVD player. If it is, you tap “yes” and the channel changes. If not, you have to tap until the source switches to the right one and then tap “yes.” Still, there’s no need to go back to your TV’s remote control.

The other menu items for TV, Movies, Sports and Search operate pretty similarly. Eventually you’ll get a range of options to watch. In the case of sports, you’ll likely see several game possibilities, with the latest score showing up on each game icon.

As an alternative, you can resort to a physical TV button on the GamePad that brings up touch controls that mimic a simplified, standard remote.

Another option is using an altogether separate interface in which favorite channels and other controls are displayed graphically on a semi-circular wheel. It looks strange, and I wouldn’t recommend it.

Anyone who is frustrated by the jumble of cables and boxes that now surround TVs will see TVii’s appeal. My wife said she liked the ease of holding and touching the controller, rather than fiddling with the button-laden remote. One downside I can see with TVii is that you have to keep looking down to figure out what to watch. And you have to plug it in frequently, as the GamePad controller will die out after three to five hours of use.

TVii also offers a standard channel guide in which you can scroll up and down for programs on different channels or right and left for different times of day. A touch will change the channel to the program, which is nice.

For certain shows and sporting events, TVii will supply a running list of key events called “TV tags.” These descriptions of events, like the precise moment when Mindy’s Christmas party descends into chaos, are displayed on the GamePad’s screen, along with a screenshot. Tapping on one opens up a comment window, and an onscreen keyboard allows you to make a comment. For sports, you get a description of each play, such as the number of yards thrown in a pass, beside a graphic that gets updated.

Not many people have Wii U consoles yet, nor is everyone tuned to TVii. As a result, I found myself with only one or two commenters to share my thoughts with.

If you’ve connected TVii to Facebook and Twitter (again, some sign-up is involved), your comments will go out to your friends and followers, but the TV tag that you are commenting on won’t show up, so they might not know what you’re talking about. TVii adds the hashtag “NintendoTVii” to help readers take a guess.

In the end, TVii isn’t perfect.

It isn’t yet able to program your digital video recorder, although it will do so for TiVo DVRs by March. Sports are limited to pro and college basketball and football, and there’s no integration with fantasy sports leagues. And the battery life of the GamePad is short.

A review unit I was sent failed to take a charge and had to be replaced, although I haven’t found others who have had the same problem.

These irritations aside, Nintendo has given us a way to control the clutter of channels, apps and devices crowding around the TV. It’s relatively easy and intuitive and some updates are on the way. Considering the garble of the TV universe, that’s pretty good.

___

About TVii:

TVii turns the GamePad controller for the Wii U into a remote control that integrates your live TV and Internet video experience. The service is free, but you’ll need a Wii U game console, which starts at $ 300. You’ll also need to pay extra to use video services such as Hulu Plus, Amazon and Netflix.

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Playboy Hugh Hefner marries his ‘runaway bride’

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Hugh Hefner is celebrating the new year as a married man once again.

The 86-year-old Playboy magazine founder exchanged vows with his “runaway bride,” Crystal Harris, at a private Playboy Mansion ceremony on New Year’s Eve. Harris, a 26-year-old “Playmate of the Month” in 2009, broke off a previous engagement to Hefner just before they were to be married in 2011.

Playboy said on Tuesday that the couple celebrated at a New Year’s Eve party at the mansion with guests that included comic Jon Lovitz, Gene Simmons of KISS and baseball star Evan Longoria.

The bride wore a strapless gown in soft pink, Hefner a black tux. Hefner’s been married twice before but lived the single life between 1959 and 1989.

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Gambian leader says to build herbal AIDS-cure hospital

BANJUL (Reuters) – AIDS patients would be offered an herbal cure at a 1,111-bed hospital in Gambia that the president said on Tuesday he plans to build despite medical concerns the treatment is dangerous.

President Yahya Jammeh said in 2007 he had found a remedy of boiled herbs to cure AIDS, stirring anger among Western medical experts who claimed he was giving false hope to the sick.

“With this project coming to fruition, we intend to treat 10,000 HIV/AIDS patients every six months through natural medicine,” Jammeh said in his New Year’s address, adding that he expected the 1,111-bed hospital to open in 2015.

The World Health Organisation and the United Nations have said Jammeh’s HIV/AIDS treatment is alarming mainly because patients are required to cease their anti-retroviral drugs, making them more prone to infection.

Jammeh said in October that 68 HIV/AIDS patients undergoing his herbal remedy had been cured and discharged, the seventh batch since the treatments began five years ago.

Other African leaders have drawn criticism for extolling the power of natural remedies to combat AIDS.

The administration of former South African President Thabo Mbeki was ridiculed for denying there was a link between HIV and AIDS while prescribing meaningless treatments such as beet root instead of internationally proven medicines.

The HIV rate in Gambia is relatively low compared to other African states, with 2 percent of the country’s roughly 1.8 million people infected, according to the United Nations.

Jammeh came to power in Gambia, a sliver of land on Africa’s west coast that is popular with sun-seeking European tourists, in a bloodless military coup in 1994.

He is accused by activists of human rights abuses during his rule, and most recently drew international criticism for executing nine death-row inmates by firing squad.

(Reporting by Pap Saine; Writing by Richard Valdmanis; Editing by Michael Roddy)

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London Market Report

31 December 2012 Last updated at 08:23 ET

Continue reading the main story
Continue reading the main story

(Close): London’s leading shares fell in Monday trading, amid fears that budget talks would not stop the US sliding over the “fiscal cliff”.

In a truncated New Year’s Eve session, the benchmark FTSE 100 index dropped by 0.47%, or 27.56 points, to 5,897.81.

However, the index still ended the year nearly 6% higher, having fallen by 5.6% during 2011.

Engineering firm Melrose Industries did worst on the day, down 3.5%. Capital Shopping Centres Group shed 2.1%.

Leading the day’s winners, B&Q owner Kingfisher bucked the downward trend with a rise of 0.8%.

The broader-based FTSE 250 index had an even better year, notching up record annual gains of 22%.

The 250-share index is seen as more representative of the British economy as a whole, since it contains a greater proportion of firms that are actually based in the UK.

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France counts 1,193 cars torched on New Year’s Eve

PARIS (AP) — A New Year’s Eve tradition for some in France of torching empty, parked cars has continued.

Interior Minister Manuel Valls said Tuesday that 1,193 vehicles were burned overnight around the country, where the stunt began in the 1990s.

There was no way to compare this figure to recent ones because the conservative government of former President Nicolas Sarkozy stopped making the numbers public while he was in office. But the rate of burned cars was apparently steady. On Dec. 31, 2009, 1,147 vehicles were burned.

For some, the decision of France’s current Socialist government to resume making public figures of New Year’s Eve’s torched cars is unwise.

Bruno Beschizza, a security chief for Sarkozy’s UMP party, said on iTele TV that publishing the numbers motivates youths to commit such crimes.

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Thieves stole more than $1 million worth of Apple products during a New Years Eve heist

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Is Tom Cruise still a go-to action hero? Hollywood, “Jack Reacher” say yes

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Given his age and the tough year he’s had in the tabloids, is Tom Cruise still a go-to guy when Hollywood is looking for an action hero?

The answer is yes, based on the performance of his current movie, Paramount‘s “Jack Reacher.” It’s taken in $ 45 million in the 10 days since opening with $ 15.6 million in a very crowded and competitive holiday market. Its second week was a solid $ 14 million, and it’s added $ 22 million from overseas.

Holiday movies tend to have legs and “Reacher” has yet to roll out in the majority of major foreign territories, so both of those numbers, particularly the international, will be growing. All signs point to it surpassing $ 200 million at the worldwide box office. That’s not a blockbuster figure, and Paramount is staying mum on a sequel, but with a $ 60 million budget, “Jack Reacher” will make money for Paramount.

There were questions coming in. With his divorce from Katie Holmes and subsequent custody battle, Cruise is carrying plenty of public relations baggage. His foray earlier this year into musicals with “Rock of Ages” was critically applauded but proved a box-office dud. That’s on top of his well-known support for Scientology.

He’s 50 now, which might be the new 40 in the real world, but is starting to get on in years in the realm of action heroes. Daniel Craig is 44. Jeremy Renner is 41. We are a long way from “Top Gun” – that was 1986 – so it probably won’t be too, too long until “The Expendables” franchise comes calling for Cruise.

But in the meantime, “Reacher” is going to be profitable for Paramount and Cruise’s portrayal of the tough, ex-military drifter has drawn critical kudos, so there’s a bit of momentum now. And it’s clear from his upcoming schedule that Hollywood is still convinced he can carry an action film.

Next for Cruise will be two sci-fi movies: Universal’s “Oblivion” is due in April and “All You Need is Kill” is set for March 2014 from Warner Bros. After that, there’s a potential “Van Helsing” remake at Universal and “Mission: Impossible 5″ is on Paramount‘s 2015 slate.

His recent track record at the box office, particularly when you look at his performance in the action genre, suggests the studios are making a pretty good bet.

“Rock of Ages” may have crumpled, but “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol” was a huge hit for Paramount, taking in nearly $ 700 million worldwide in 2011. “Knight & Day,” from Fox in 2010, and “Valkyrie,” from United Artists in 2008, both made over $ 200 million worldwide.

Supporting roles in “Tropic Thunder” and “Lions for Lambs” preceded those, but those came on the heels of two Paramount movies: “Mission Impossible 3,” which made nearly $ 400 million worldwide in 2006, and “War of the Worlds,” which did $ 592 million in the previous year.

The bottom line: Hollywood is still convinced you can still take Tom Cruise, movie action hero, to the bank.

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Clinton’s blood clot an uncommon complication

The kind of blood clot in the skull that doctors say Hillary Rodham Clinton has is relatively uncommon but can occur after an injury like the fall and concussion the secretary of state was diagnosed with earlier this month.

Doctors said Monday that an MRI scan revealed a clot in a vein in the space between the brain and the skull behind Clinton’s right ear.

The clot did not lead to a stroke or neurological damage and is being treated with blood thinners, and she will be released once the proper dose is worked out, her doctors said in a statement.

Clinton has been at New York-Presbyterian Hospital since Sunday, when the clot was diagnosed during what the doctors called a routine follow-up exam. At the time, her spokesman would not say where the clot was located, leading to speculation it was another leg clot like the one she suffered behind her right knee in 1998.

Clinton had been diagnosed with a concussion Dec. 13 after a fall in her home that was blamed on a stomach virus that left her weak and dehydrated.

The type of clot she developed, a sinus venous thrombosis, “certainly isn’t the most common thing to happen after a concussion” and is one of the few types of blood clots in the skull or head that are treated with blood thinners, said neurologist Dr. Larry Goldstein. He is director of Duke University‘s stroke center and has no role in Clinton’s care or personal knowledge of it.

The area where Clinton’s clot developed is “a drainage channel, the equivalent of a big vein inside the skull — it’s how the blood gets back to the heart,” Goldstein explained.

It should have no long-term consequences if her doctors are saying she has suffered no neurological damage from it, he said.

Dr. Joseph Broderick, chairman of neurology at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, also called Clinton’s problem “relatively uncommon” after a concussion.

He and Goldstein said the problem often is overdiagnosed. They said scans often show these large “draining pipes” on either side of the head are different sizes, which can mean blood has pooled or can be merely an anatomical difference.

“I’m sure she’s got the best doctors in the world looking at her,” and if they are saying she has no neurological damage, “I would think it would be a pretty optimistic long-term outcome,” Broderick said.

A review article in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2005 describes the condition, which more often occurs in newborns or young people but can occur after a head injury. With modern treatment, more than 80 percent have a good neurologic outcome, the report says.

In the statement, Clinton’s doctors said she “is making excellent progress and we are confident she will make a full recovery. She is in good spirits, engaging with her doctors, her family, and her staff.”

___

Online:

Medical journal: http://dura.stanford.edu/Articles/Stam_NEJM05.pdf

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The Cliff Is Not a Credit-Rating Crisis

(Updates Dow Jones industrial average’s closing figure)

To quote the 1980s Soviet-dissing comedian Yakov Smirnoff: “What a Country!” That punch line seems terribly appropriate when you consider that America is uniquely positioned to explore true fiscal profligacy.

In August 2011, you’ll recall, amid the debt-ceiling debacle, Standard & Poor’s (MHP) did the unthinkable and downgraded the U.S. credit rating. Did the dollar collapse? Treasuries plunge? Bond vigilantes with pitchforks maraud down the corridors of Wall Street? Just the opposite: By dint of the dollar being the global reserve-currency of choice—and Treasuries being the ultimate redoubt of safety and liquidity—U.S. bond prices rose and yields fell while our printing presses went full-tilt. Risk on or risk off, creditors the world over can’t seem to get enough of American debt.

Now there’s a sequel to the debt ceiling drama: the Fiscal Cliff, a budgetary tragedy entirely of lawmakers’ creation.

So how will the credit-raters and debt markets react to this surreal state of affairs?

S&P put out a Dec. 28 bulletin, “Congressional Impasse On Fiscal Cliff Does Not Affect U.S. Sovereign Rating.” The ratings giant cited its 2011 downgrade language—when it called out “the political brinkmanship of recent months [that] highlights what we see as America’s governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable”—to reiterate that it “believes that this characterization still holds.”

But this time a political impasse means the deficit would be cut. “If lawmakers reach no agreement,” says S&P, “the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the government will receive additional revenue and will forgo additional expenses of upwards of $ 500 billion (3% of 2013 GDP) a year.”

As for Moody’s (MCO), the firm remarked on Dec. 27 that its “Aaa rating of the U.S. government is based on an assessment of very high economic strength, very high institutional strength, very high government financial strength, and low susceptibility to event risk. The rating carries a negative outlook, which was assigned primarily due to the rapid increase in federal government debt during the past five years and the uncertain debt trajectory in the medium term. … The statutory debt limit will be reached soon if Congress does not act to raise it. … Our view is that the probability of a missed interest payment on bonds resulting from a failure to raise the debt limit is extremely low.”

And then there’s Fitch Ratings. We’ll spare you the riveting boilerplate.

Point is, for all the Big Three’s codified importance to investors, not many seem seem to be waiting with bated breath for their reaction to what ultimately emerges from Washington’s cliff impasse. “S&P downgrading the U.S. last year was meaningless, because people don’t rely on S&P to tell them the credit quality of the U.S. government,” says Donald Steinbrugge, managing partner of Agecroft Partners, a broker-dealer that serves hedge funds. He says if Congress does not reach an agreement on the budget and the fiscal cliff is implemented, the markets will be the primary judge of the ripple effect on the broader economy and corporate profits. “This will result in a sell-off,” he says, “where the degree of decline will depend on how long investors believe the cliff will be in place.”

On the last day of the year, with an hour of trading left, no resolution from the Beltway, and the U.S. Treasury Department hitting up against its debt ceiling, the Dow Jones Industrial average rose 166 points.

Meantime, since the U.S. downgrades of 2011, the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index has returned a total of 23 percent (it has been up for the year every day of 2012); volatility, as measured by the VIX, has plunged; and government bonds have been in clover. In fact, the 10-year Treasury yield averaged 1.79 percent this year, its lowest yield since 1941.

Makes you wonder how badly America will fare—if and when its debt ever gets upgraded.

Businessweek.com — Top News

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Pope marks end of difficult year, notes God’s good

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI marked the end of a difficult year Monday by saying that despite all the death and injustice in the world, goodness prevails.

Benedict celebrated New Year’s Eve with a vespers service in St. Peter’s Basilica to give thanks for 2012 and look ahead to 2013. He appeared tired during the service and used a cane afterward — an indication that the busy Christmas season may be taking a toll on the 85-year-old Benedict.

In his homily, Benedict said it’s tough to remember that goodness prevails when bad news — death, violence and injustice — “makes more noise than good.” He said taking time to meditate in prolonged reflection and prayer can help “find healing from the inevitable wounds of daily life.”

This past year was full of highs and lows for the pope, including a successful trip to Mexico and Cuba but also the betrayal of his butler, convicted in October of stealing Benedict’s personal papers and leaking them to a journalist.

After the service, Benedict was brought out in a covered car to pray before the Vatican’s main nativity scene in St. Peter’s Square. Walking with a cane in the chilly piazza, Benedict chatted animatedly with the artist who crafted the scene, which recreated an entire village from the poor, southern Italian region of Basilicata which donated this year’s crèche.

The Vatican gladly accepted Basilicata’s donation after the €550,000 price tag the Vatican paid for the 2009 nativity scene was revealed in the documentation leaked by Benedict’s ex-butler Paolo Gabriele.

Gabriele was convicted of aggravated theft by a Vatican tribunal and sentenced to 18 months in prison. He received a pre-Christmas papal pardon and is expected to soon leave his Vatican City apartment for a new home and job elsewhere.

On Tuesday morning, Benedict celebrates a New Year’s Day Mass, which the Catholic Church celebrates as its world day of peace.

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