Obama Unveils Sweeping Plan to Curb Gun Violence

Flanked by four children from across the country, President Obama today unveiled a sweeping plan to curb gun violence in America through an extensive package of legislation and executive actions not seen since the 1960s.

Obama is asking Congress to implement mandatory background checks for all gun purchases, including private sales; reinstate a ban on some assault-style weapons; ban high-capacity magazines holding more than 10 rounds; and crackdown on illicit weapons trafficking.

The president's proposal also includes new initiatives for school safety, including a call for more federal aid to states for hiring so-called school resource officers (police), counselors and psychologists, and improved access to mental health care.

Obama also initiated 23 executive actions on gun violence, policy directives not needing congressional approval. Among them is a directive to federal agencies to beef up the national criminal background-check system and a memorandum lifting a freeze on gun violence research at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"I intend to use whatever weight this office holds to make them a reality," Obama said at a midday news conference. "If there's even one thing that we can do to reduce this violence, if there's even one life that can be saved, then we have an obligation to try.

"And I'm going to do my part."

The announcement comes one month after a mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., left 26 dead, including 20 children. Obama called it the worst moment of his presidency and promised "meaningful action" in response.

Maqndel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

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The proposals were the work of an Obama-appointed task force, led by Vice President Joe Biden, that held 22 meetings on gun violence in the past three weeks. The group received input from more than 220 organizations and dozens of elected officials, a senior administration official said.

As part of the push, Obama nominated a new director for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, which leads enforcement of federal gun laws and has been without a confirmed director for six years. The president appointed acting director Todd Jones, the U.S. attorney for Minnesota, to the post, if the Senate confirms him.

The administration's plan calls for aid to states for the hiring of more school resource officers, counselors and psychologists. Obama also directed the Department of Education to ensure all schools have improved emergency-response plans.

He also called on Congress to make it illegal to possess or transfer armor-piercing bullets; it's now only illegal to produce them.

"To make a real and lasting difference, Congress must act," Obama said. "And Congress must act soon."

Officials said some of the legislative measures Obama outlined could be introduced on Capitol Hill next week. The pricetag for Obama's entire package is $500 million, the White House said.

"House committees of jurisdiction will review these recommendations," a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner said in response to Obama's announcement. "And if the Senate passes a bill, we will also take a look at that."

The proposals are already being met with stiff opposition from gun rights advocates, led by the National Rifle Association, which overnight released a scathing ad attacking the president as an "elitist hypocrite."

"Are the president's kids more important than yours?" the narrator of the NRA ad says. "Then why is he skeptical about putting armed security in our schools, when his kids are protected by armed guards at their school?"

Obama has questioned the value of placing more armed guards at schools around the country, although his proposal does call for placement of more police officers at public schools. The NRA opposes most of the other gun restrictions Obama has proposed.

"Keeping our children and society safe remains our top priority," the NRA said in a statement after Obama's announcement.

"Attacking firearms and ignoring children is not a solution to the crisis we face as a nation," the group said. "Only honest, law-abiding gun owners will be affected and our children will remain vulnerable to the inevitability of more tragedy."

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Dozens held after Islamists attack Algerian gas field

ALGIERS (Reuters) - Islamist militants attacked a gas field in Algeria on Wednesday, claiming to have kidnapped up to 41 foreigners including seven Americans in a dawn raid in retaliation for France's intervention in Mali, according to regional media reports.

The raiders were also reported to have killed three people, including a Briton and a French national.

An al Qaeda affiliated group said the raid had been carried out because of Algeria's decision to allow France to use its air space for attacks against Islamists in Mali, where French forces have been in action against al Qaeda-linked militants since last week.

The attack in southern Algeria also raised fears that the French action in Mali could prompt further Islamist revenge attacks on Western targets in Africa, where al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) operates across borders in the Sahara desert, and in Europe.

AQIM said it had carried out Wednesday's raid on the In Amenas gas facility in OPEC member Algeria, Mauritania's ANI news agency reported.

The Algerian interior ministry said: "A terrorist group, heavily armed and using three vehicles, launched an attack this Wednesday at 5 a.m. against a Sonatrach base in Tigantourine, near In Amenas, about 100 km (60 miles) from the Algerian and Libyan border."

"The Algerian authorities will not respond to the demands of the terrorists and will not negotiate," Interior Minister Daho Ould Kablia was quoted as saying by official news agency APS.

The gas field is operated by a joint venture including BP, Norwegian oil firm Statoil and Algerian state company Sonatrach.

ARMED MEN

BP said armed men were still occupying facilities at the gas field, which produces 9 billion cubic meters of gas a year(160,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day), more than a tenth of the country's overall gas output, and 60,000 barrels a day of condensate.

"The site was attacked and occupied by a group of unidentified armed people at about 0500 UK time. Contact with the site is extremely difficult, but we understand that armed individuals are still occupying the In Amenas operations site," it said.

A spokesman for BP said it usually had fewer than 20 people working at the site but would not be drawn on whether there were any talks with the hostage takers. He said: "Obviously we are doing everything we can to make sure our people are okay."

APS said a Briton and an Algerian security guard had been killed and seven people were injured. A French national was also killed in the attack, a local source said.

Also among those reported kidnapped by various sources were five Japanese nationals working for the Japanese engineering firm JGC Corp, a French national, an Austrian, an Irishman, and a number of Britons.

The U.S. State Department said it believed some U.S. citizens were also among the hostages, while Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said 13 employees of Statoil, a minority shareholder in the gas venture, were being held.

A member of an Islamist group styling itself the "Blood Battalion" was quoted by Mauritanian media as saying that five of the hostages were being held at the gas facility and 36 were in a housing area. APS said the Islamist raiders had freed Algerians working at the gas facility, though Regis Arnoux, head of French company CIS Catering, told JDD weekly newspaper that 150 Algerian employees of his company were being held at the site.

"The operation was in response to the blatant interference by Algeria and the opening of its air space to French aircraft to bomb northern Mali," the Islamist spokesman told Mauritania's ANI news agency.

ANI, which has regular direct contact with Islamists, said that fighters under the command of Mokhtar Belmokhtar were holding the foreigners.

Interior Minister Kablia also told APS that Belmokhtar was leading the group of about 20 individuals, whom he said were not from Mali, Libya or "any other neighboring state".

Belmokhtar, dubbed by French intelligence as "the uncatchable", for years commanded al Qaeda fighters in the Sahara before setting up his own armed Islamist group late last year after an apparent fallout with other militant leaders.

The Algerian army was in the area of the gas facility, according to French and Algerian sources.

ANI reported that the Islamists said they were surrounded by Algerian forces and warned that any attempt to free the hostages would lead to a "tragic end". One of the hostage takers told ANI that the perimeter of the site had been mined.

SECURITY IMPLICATIONS

The attack was the first time in years that Islamist militants are known to have launched an attack on an Algerian energy facility.

The attack could have implications for security across the whole of Algeria's energy sector, which supplies about a quarter of Europe's natural gas imports and exports millions of barrels of crude oil each year.

Such an attack would require a large and heavily armed insurgent force with a degree of freedom to move around, all elements that al Qaeda has not previously had.

However, the conflict in neighboring Libya in 2011 changed the balance of force. Security experts say al Qaeda was able to obtain arms, including heavy weapons, from the looted arsenals of former leader Muammar Gaddafi.

The five Japanese work for the engineering firm JGC Corporation, Jiji news agency reported, quoting company officials. JGC has a deal with Sonatrach-BP-Statoil Association for work in gas production at In Amenas.

A reporter for Japan's NHK television managed to call a JGC worker in Algeria.

The worker said he got a phone call from a colleague at the gas field. "It was around 6 a.m. this morning. He said that he had been hearing gunshots for about 20 minutes. I wasn't able to get through to him since."

French troops launched their first ground operation against Islamist rebels in Mali on Wednesday in an action to dislodge from a strategic town al Qaeda-linked fighters who have resisted six days of air strikes.

(Additional reporting by Catherine Bremer and John Irish in Paris, Laurent Prieur in Nouakchott, Andrew Osborn in London, Balazs Koranyi in Oslo, Antoni Slodkowski in Tokyo, Raissa Kasolowsky in Abu Dhabi and Christian Lowe in Warsaw; Editing by Giles Elgood and Will Waterman)

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Syria blasts kill 22 as students mourn campus dead

DAMASCUS: Twin car bombs killed at least 22 people in the Syrian city of Idlib on Wednesday as universities nationwide held a day of mourning for 87 people killed in explosions on the student campus in second city Aleppo.

The bombings had the hallmarks of operations staged by the jihadist Al-Nusra Front, a rebel group with a strong presence on the ground in northwestern Syria and blacklisted by the United States as a "terrorist" organisation.

"The first explosion took place in Al-Ziraa Square and the second explosion took place in Al-Mutlaq Square, killing 22 civilians and wounding 30," the state SANA news agency reported, blaming "terrorists" for the blasts.

Idlib city remains under the control of forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad but most of the rest of the northwestern province on the border with Turkey is in the hands of rebels fighting to oust him.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights gave a higher toll of 24 dead and said most were soldiers. The Britain-based watchdog said there were three bombs in all and that many of the wounded were in critical condition.

"After taking the airbase at Taftanaz (on January 11), the city of Idlib has become the rebels' new target," Observatory directory Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

The Observatory said the death toll from Tuesday's blasts at Aleppo University could top 100 as many of the wounded were critically hurt, which would make it one of the bloodiest attacks of the 22-month conflict.

Washington on Wednesday condemned the "despicable attack," blaming regime air attacks.

"According to eyewitnesses at the scene, regime planes launched aerial strikes on university facilities," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told journalists.

No one has claimed responsibility for the explosions, with the government and rebels blaming each other.

Opposition activists said government jets carried out an air strike, but the army said rebels fired rockets at the campus, in a government-controlled area of the battleground northern city.

"The General Command of the Army sees in the targeting of academics, colleges and universities further proof of the killers' dark methods, and of an ideology that belongs in the past," a military statement said.

Higher Education Minister Mohammed Yahia Moalla called a nationwide "day of mourning" on Wednesday, state television reported.

In a letter addressed to UN Secretary General Bank Ki-moon and the UN Security Council, the foreign ministry called on the international community to "denounce the terrorist massacre."

Alluding to Western support for France's military intervention against Islamist rebels in Mali, the ministry said "some countries in the world are practising two-faced politics, by supporting terrorism in Syria and denouncing it in others."

Ban sent his condolences on Wednesday to the families of those killed and said "deliberate targeting of civilians and civilian targets constitutes a war crime."

He stressed the "urgent need for a peaceful political solution that ends the violence and meets the democratic aspirations of the Syrian people."

Near the capital, the army sent reinforcements to the town of Daraya as warplanes and rockets bombarded the rebel enclave, the Observatory said.

"The army's assault is insanely violent. The shelling is continuous; it has been so intense in the past hours. There are many injured people," said local activist Abu Kinan.

More than 60,000 people have been killed in Syria since the uprising against Assad's rule erupted in March 2011, according to the United Nations.

The Observatory said 103 people died in violence nationwide on Wednesday, including 44 civilians.

Meanwhile, the World Food Programme said that it would quickly try to distribute aid to an additional one million Syrians after Damascus gave the green light for it to work with local aid organisations to reach more of those in need.

Previously most of the UN agency's food aid was delivered through the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, which was overstretched and only able to provide help to some 1.5 million Syrians a month.

- AFP/jc

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Get a $117 Mac app bundle for free

Eight Mac apps for zero dollars? It's true, I tell ya.

(Credit:
Screenshot by Rick Broida/CNET)

Let's be honest: Mac users don't usually get a lot of freebies.

Sure, there are software bundles from time to time, but usually they cost around $50 -- nothing free about that.

That's what makes this deal so special: it doesn't cost a dime. For the next two weeks, StackSocial is offering the Mac Freebie Bundle, a collection of eight Mac apps with a combined value of $117 -- and a total cost to you of $0.

What's included? Here's the rundown:

• Clipboard manager ClipBuddy.


• Icon organizer IconBox2.


• Image tweaker Image Smith.


• Screen-capture tool Ondesoft Screen Capture.


• Text-art generator Sweetie.


• Typing tutor Type Fu.


• Video converter VidConvert.


• Wallpaper manager Wallpaper Wizard.

Remember, there are no small apps, only small minds! Or something like that. Granted, these aren't productivity powerhouses, but they're useful tools for an unbeatable price. What's not to like?

While you're there, you might as well enter StackSocial's iPad Mini contest. I'm loathe to spend $329 (minimum) on a Mini, but I'd gladly take one for free.

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Facebook announces new site search feature

Facebook announced that it is launching a search engine for the social network called "graph search."

At a press event in Menlo Park, Calif., Tuesday CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the social network is launching a search engine that will run inside of Facebook.

"What is graph search? It's not web search," Zuckerberg told reporters.

During a comparison of graph search with a web search, Zuckerberg demonstrated that graph search will deliver answers to questions like, "Who are my friends that live in San Francisco?"

Graph search focuses on people, photos, places and interests. Users can type a question into the search bar on Facebook and ask questions. An option to refine searches is also provided.

Zuckerberg showed off other searched like: "Mexican restaurants in Palo Alto, Calif, my friends have been to" and "Photos of me and  Priscilla." The search is in still in its beta phase.

Facebook users can search for specific photos, like "photos of Berlin, German from 1989," "photos of my friends before 1990" or "photos I've liked."

Zuckerberg also touched on privacy concerns and pointed out to privacy shortcuts, which are located at the top right section of the website. The setting lets users see what photos have been uploaded, tagged and hidden from Timeline.

Facebook Graph Search is in the early stages of development. Because of a partnership with Bing, any results that cannot be found on Facebook will pull from Bing.com.

The social network was previously rumored to unveil a "Facebook phone," even though Zuckerberg has publically shot down speculation that Facebook was planning to build a smartphone.

"It is so clearly the wrong strategy for us," Zuckerberg said at a September technology conference in his first public interview after Facebook's May initial public offering. "It doesn't move the needle for us."

Facebook's graph search is in closed beta. Users who want to sign up for the test can join the waiting list on Facebook's website.

The Menlo Park, Calif.-based company reports 1 billion monthly active users, 240 billion photos and 1 trillion connections.

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Secret Revealed: Facebook Announces New Tool

How you search Facebook is about to change. In fact, just the act of searching Facebook is probably about to start.

Facebook is trying to give Google a run for its money, with a new product called "Graph Search." It turns some of the personal information people have shared on Facebook into a powerful searchable database.

For the social network's 170 million users in the U.S., it's bound to change the way people interact with their Facebook friends. It also could mean lots more time wasted at work.

Facebook allowed ABC News "Nightline" behind the scenes ahead of today's product launch, an event shrouded in secrecy and rife with speculation. Company officials had sent out a tantalizingly vague invitation: "Come and see what we're building."

IMAGES: Screenshots of Graph Search and the offices where it was built

CEO Mark Zuckerberg has long wanted to develop a social search engine, even hinting back in September that one might be in the works. The new feature gives users the ability to easily search across the network and their friends' information. Company officials say they believe it has the potential to transform the way people use Facebook.

Graph Search: What Is It?
Until now, the search bar you saw when you logged in to your Facebook page wasn't very powerful. You could only search for Timelines -- your friends' pages, other peoples' public pages and business or product pages.

But now, after close to a year and a half of development, the new "Graph Search" will allow you to search and discover more about your friends and other information that's been put on the world's largest social site.

Inside the Crucial 24 Hours Before Facebook's Graph Search Launch: Watch Tonight at 12:35 a.m. on ABC News "Nightline"

The new tool, available only to a limited set of U.S. users at first, turns key information that nearly a billion people have shared on the site -- including photos, places, and things they "like" -- into a searchable database tailored to your individual social network.

The new tool allows you to search across your friends' Timelines, without having to go to each of their Timeline pages to find out if they like a specific place or thing.

"I can just type in a short, simple phrase, like friends who like soccer and live nearby," Facebook product manager Kate O'Neill, told ABC News "Nightline" in an exclusive behind-the-scenes interview. "And now I'm getting the exact group of people that I'm looking for, so I can play soccer and ask them if they want to kick the ball around with me after work." O'Neill was able to narrow down the search in a demonstration only to show women.

MORE: Guide to Facebook's New Privacy Settings

The tool can search your friends' publicly shared interests, photos, places and connections. O'Neill showed ABC News how you can search for different musical artists and see which of your friends like them. She also showed how you can search a company and see which of your friends, or friends of your friends, work there. Additionally, you can search for photos of a specific place -- like Big Sur -- and the Graph Search will return images your friends might have taken of the location.

Right now, you can't search for things that were shared in a Timeline post or an event. However, O'Neill confirmed that this would be added to Graph Search later.

Privacy and Opting Out
The new product raises obvious privacy questions. Will personal information now pop up in the Graph Search, even if you never wanted to share it? How about those photos you never wanted to have on Facebook in the first place, or the ones you thought you were sharing only with your close friends?

"[Privacy] is something, of course, we care a lot about, and so from the very beginning we made it so that you can only search for the things that you can already see on Facebook," Tom Stocky, one of the lead Graph Search senior engineers, told "Nightline."

Stocky also pointed ABC News to Facebook's recent privacy tool changes, which allow you better to see what personal information your friends and others can see on Facebook. O'Neill showed the new Activity Log tools as well as the photo "untag" tool, which lets you contact others who might have a photo of you posted that you'd wish they'd take down.

When asked if users can opt out of the new search in general, Stocky said that they can choose to change the privacy settings on each of their pieces of content.

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France to stay in Mali until stability restored

BAMAKO/DUBAI (Reuters) - France will end its intervention in Mali only once stability has returned to the West African country, French President Francois Hollande said on Tuesday, raising the prospects of a costly, drawn-out operation against al Qaeda-linked rebels.

Paris has poured hundreds of soldiers into Mali and carried out air raids since Friday in the northern half of the country, which Western and regional states fear could become a base for attacks by Islamist militants in Africa and Europe.

Thousands of African troops are due to take over the offensive but regional armies are scrambling to accelerate the operation - initially not expected for months and brought forward by France's bombing campaign aimed at stopping a rebel advance on a strategic town last week.

"We have one goal. To ensure that when we leave, when we end our intervention, Mali is safe, has legitimate authorities, an electoral process and there are no more terrorists threatening its territory," Hollande told a news conference during a visit to the United Arab Emirates.

Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, accompanying Hollande, said the offensive against the Malian rebels could take some time, and the current French level of involvement could last weeks. Elections, however, would take months to organize.

French aircraft earlier hit rebels with fresh air strikes and a column of dozens of French armored vehicles rumbled into the dusty riverside capital of Bamako overnight, bringing to about 750 the number of French troops in Mali.

Paris has said it plans to deploy 2,500 soldiers in its former colony to bolster the Malian army and work with the intervention force provided by West African states.

West African defense chiefs met in Bamako on Tuesday to approve plans for speeding up the deployment of 3,300 regional troops, foreseen in a United Nations-backed intervention plan to be led by Africans.

Nigeria pledged to deploy soldiers within 24 hours and Belgium said it was sending transport planes and helicopters to help, but West Africa's armies need time to become operational.

Mali's north, a vast and inhospitable area of desert and rugged mountains the size of Texas, was seized last year by an Islamist alliance combining al Qaeda's north African wing AQIM with splinter group MUJWA and the home-grown Ansar Dine rebels.

Any delay in following up on the French air bombardments of Islamist bases and fuel depots with a ground offensive could allow the insurgents to slip away into the desert and mountains, regroup and counter-attack.

The rebels, who French officials say are mobile and well-armed, have shown they can hit back, dislodging government forces from Diabaly, 350 km (220 miles) from Bamako on Monday.

Residents said the town was still under Islamist control on Tuesday despite a number of air strikes that shook houses.

An eye witness near Segou, to the south, told Reuters he had seen 20 French Special Forces soldiers driving toward Diabaly.

Malians have largely welcomed the French intervention, having seen their army suffer a series of defeats by the rebels.

"With the arrival of the French, we have started to see the situation on the front evolve in our favor," said Aba Sanare, a resident of Bamako.

QUESTIONS OVER READINESS

Aboudou Toure Cheaka, a senior regional official in Bamako, said the West African troops would be on the ground in a week.

The original timetable for the 3,300-strong U.N.-sanctioned African force - to be backed by western logistics, money and intelligence services - did not initially foresee full deployment before September due to logistical constraints.

Senegal, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria and Guinea have all offered troops. Col. Mohammed Yerima, spokesman for Nigeria's defense ministry, said the first 190 soldiers would be dispatched within 24 hours.

But Nigeria, which is due to lead the mission, has already cautioned that even if some troops arrive in Mali soon, their training and equipping will take more time.

Sub-Saharan Africa's top oil producer, which already has peacekeepers in Sudan's Darfur and is fighting a bloody and difficult insurgency at home against Islamist sect Boko Haram, could struggle to deliver on its troop commitment of 900 men.

One senior government adviser in Nigeria said the Mali deployment was stretching the country's military.

"The whole thing's a mess. We don't have any troops with experience of those extreme conditions, even of how to keep all that sand from ruining your equipment. And we're facing battle-hardened guys who live in those dunes," the adviser said, asking not to be named because of the sensitivity of the subject.

FRENCH LINING UP SUPPORT

France, which has repeatedly said it has abandoned its role as the policeman of its former African colonies, said on Monday that the U.S., Canada, Denmark and Germany had also offered logistical support.

Fabius has said Gulf Arab states would help the Mali campaign while Belgium said on Tuesday it would send two C130 transport planes and two medical helicopters to Mali following a request from Paris.

A meeting of donors for the operation was expected to be held in Addis Ababa at the end of January.

Security experts have warned that the multinational intervention in Mali, couched in terms of a campaign by governments against "terrorism", could provoke a jihadist backlash against France and the West, and African allies.

U.S. officials have warned of links between AQIM, Boko Haram in Nigeria and al Shabaab Islamic militants fighting in Somalia.

Al Shabaab, which foiled a French effort at the weekend to rescue a French secret agent it was holding hostage, urged Muslims around the world to rise up against what it called "Christian" attacks against Islam.

"Our brothers in Mali, show patience and tolerance and you will win. War planes never liberate a land," Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage, al Shabaab's spokesman, said on a rebel-run website.

U.S. officials said Washington was sharing information with French forces in Mali and considering providing logistics, surveillance and airlift capability.

"We have made a commitment that al Qaeda is not going to find any place to hide," U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told reporters as he began a visit to Europe. Panetta later said the U.S. had no plans to send troops to Mali.

"I don't know what the French endgame is for this. What is their goal? It reminds me of our initial move into Afghanistan," a U.S. military source told Reuters.

"Air strikes are fine. But pretty soon you run out of easy targets. Then what do you do? What do you do when they head up into the mountains?"

(Additional reporting by Elizabeth Pineau and Raissa Kasolowsky in Abu Dhabi; Felix Onuah in Abuja and Tim Cocks in Lagos; Abdi Sheikh in Mogadishu; Michelle Nichols Louis Charbonneau at the United Nations; Richard Valdmanis in Dakar; Joe Bavier in Abidjan; Jan Vermeylen in Brussels; Writing by Pascal Fletcher and David Lewis; editing by Richard Valdmanis and Giles Elgood)

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Facebook launches search engine for friends' content

MENLO PARK: Facebook launched a search engine Tuesday for shared content as a way to find out more about friends on the huge social network in a potential challenge to Google and other Internet firms.

"We look at Facebook as a big social database," chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said in announcing the so-called "graph search" function. "Just like any database, you should be able to query it."

The search engine aims to help members better navigate the vast amount of information on Facebook, which is not available on Web search engines such as Google.

Facebook emphasised that the new effort is not Web search, but can help find certain information archived within the network and in the content of friends.

"Every piece of content on Facebook has its own audience, and most content isn't public," a Facebook statement said.

"We've built Graph Search from the start with privacy in mind, and it respects the privacy and audience of each piece of content on Facebook. It makes finding new things much easier, but you can only see what you could already view elsewhere on Facebook."

Zuckerberg said that Facebook will also use its partnership with Microsoft's Bing search engine for the new effort and to find content housed outside the social network.

"I don't necessarily think a lot of people will be coming to Facebook to do Web search because of this, but it is a very good search engine," he said.

He said Facebook had discussed working with Google but that "Microsoft was just more willing to do things that were specific to Facebook."

The social network offered examples of graph search queries including "friends who live in my city," "people from my hometown who like hiking," "friends of friends who have been to Yosemite National Park," "software engineers who live in San Francisco and like skiing," "people who like things I like," or "people who like tennis and live nearby."

Zuckerberg said the tool is aimed at "giving the people the power and tools to take any cut of the graph (of data) they want and make any query they want."

He added that "We are not indexing the Web here, we are indexing our map of the graph."

The company said the new function goes back to its original goals of helping people make connections.

"When Facebook first launched, the main way most people used the site was to browse around, learn about people and make new connections," the statement said.

"Graph Search takes us back to our roots and allows people to use the graph to make new connections."

Tech analyst Jeff Kagan said the new Facebook effort is a modest challenge to Google.

"If I were Google, I would see this as a Facebook warning shot across their bow. This is not an immediate attack, but nevertheless an attack is coming," Kagan said.

"Can Facebook transform the search engine world? If the answer is yes than this is a bigger threat to Google."

Forrester Research analyst Nate Elliott said Facebook's initiative aims to get people more engaged on the social network.

"Facebook's worst nightmare is a static social graph; if users aren't adding very many new friends or connections... their personal network becomes less and less active over time," Elliott said.

"But that may be happening: We haven't seen significant growth in the average number of friends per user recently. Graph search seems designed to encourage users to add more friends more quickly. If it means users' personal networks change more frequently, and become more active, then that keeps them coming back to the site -- which is vital to Facebook's success."

- AFP/jc

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Why Facebook doesn't need its own phone

The HTC Status was one of two original "Facebook phones."

(Credit:
Josh Miller/CNET)

commentary Facebook ended yet another press conference without mentioning a smartphone or mobile operating system bearing its branding. Should we be surprised? No. Are we? Sadly, yes.

Months of rumors fueled expectations that Facebook would move into mobile in a bigger way, including unveiling, with a handset partner, a phone of its own. Such talk heated up in recent days after reports of a Facebook phone started popping up. Truth be told, it's a sexy enough story that everyone wants to believe it will happen.

Apparently, we all need to listen to CEO Mark Zuckerberg a little bit more. Zuckerberg has time and time again denied getting into the phone business, noting that it doesn't make sense.

Zuckerberg is right. Facebook has plenty of good reasons to steer clear of involvement in the mobile phone game, whether it's from the operating system side or with actual products.

Smartphones are a rough business


Have you followed the smartphone business? Unless you work for Apple or Samsung, it has not been a good run. Virtually every other handset vendor has lost money, and the only other notably profitable company, HTC, is on a downward slide.

It's easy to see why. It's getting increasingly difficult to stand apart from the legions of low-end and midtier
Android phones flooding the market, and the products that do face stiff competition from superphones made by everyone else. The smartphone game is increasingly about brand awareness, and Apple and Samsung have cornered the market.

Carriers are a headache


If Facebook were to enter the hardware business, it would have to deal with things like a retail channel, distribution, and relationships with the carriers. The carriers are highly protective of the quality of the service, and often make the handset vendors jump through extensive hoops to get approval for sale.

Facebook's experience lies with software and the user experience -- the company isn't used to dealing with a physical product. Why start now?

The OS market is already saturated


A Facebook OS would be a profound waste of R&D dollars because mobile users don't need another smartphone OS.

In 2013, we'll see smartphones running two dominant mobile operating systems: Android and iOS, and two secondary OSes: BlackBerry 10 and Windows Phone 8. In addition, Ubuntu, Firefox, and Tizen have all promised handsets running their own niche operating systems.

After The Great Smartphone OS Consolidation of 2010, a Facebook foray into the OS world would be imprudent, with success against rival Google a long shot at best, even on a few one-off phones.

Besides, building an operating system takes years of hard work involving every software facet. It's hard to do right and many fail. If Facebook were to wade into deeper software territory, it'd be better off working with a partner, like HTC for instance, to contribute a deeper social experience as part of the manufacturer's custom OS layer that usually runs on top of Android.

Facebook needs to concentrate on apps


Facebook needs to get its act together when it comes to the apps found on other platforms. The company doesn't yet have a clear strategy on mobile and is still trying to figure out a smart way to make money in that area. So far, it's drawn a blank.

Facebook's been down this road...and it wasn't pretty
Earlier rumors that saw Facebook buddy up with HTC were plausible because such a partnership has actually happened before. At Mobile World Congress in 2011, the social network paired with the handset-maker on the HTC Status (known globally as the ChaCha) and the HTC Salsa, both smartphones with a dedicated Facebook button that fast-tracked users to a status update.

Let's just say that despite Facebook's raging popularity, the phones -- riddled with usability "quirks" -- never quite caught on.

Is a Facebook-branded phone out of the question in the future?
No. Facebook could eventually get its mobile act together and introduce a Facebook-inspired smartphone or even its own mobile operating system. The company, like Google, wants to "own" the full user experience, and there's no better way of doing that than with a personal item like a mobile device.

Still, Facebook faces the same kinds of challenges as any other smartphone player does, so don't expect the company to go wading into the mobile waters anytime soon.

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AP: Armstrong gives tearful apology to Livestrong

AUSTIN, Texas Lance Armstrong apologized to the staff at his Livestrong cancer foundation before heading to an interview with Oprah Winfrey, a person with direct knowledge of the meeting told The Associated Press.

The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the discussion was private.

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Anti-doping chief: Armstrong bullied witnesses

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Lance Armstrong

Stripped last year of his seven Tour de France titles because of doping charges, Armstrong addressed the staff Monday and said, "I'm sorry." The person said the disgraced cyclist choked up and several employees cried during the session.

The person also said Armstrong apologized for letting the staff down and putting Livestrong at risk but he did not make a direct confession to the group about using banned drugs. He said he would try to restore the foundation's reputation, and urged the group to continue fighting for the charity's mission of helping cancer patients and their families.

After the meeting, Armstrong, his legal team and close advisers gathered at a downtown Austin hotel for the interview.

The cyclist will make a limited confession to Winfrey about his role as the head of a long-running scheme to dominate the Tour with the aid of performance-enhancing drugs, a person with knowledge of the situation has told the AP.

Winfrey and her crew had earlier said they would film the interview, to be broadcast Thursday, at his home but the location apparently changed to a hotel. Local and international news crews staked out positions in front of the cyclist's Spanish-style villa before dawn, hoping to catch a glimpse of Winfrey or Armstrong.

Armstrong still managed to slip away for a run Monday morning despite the crowds gathering outside his house. He returned home by cutting through a neighbor's yard and hopping a fence.

During a jog on Sunday, Armstrong talked to the AP for a few minutes saying, "I'm calm, I'm at ease and ready to speak candidly." He declined to go into specifics.

Armstrong lost all seven Tour titles following a voluminous U.S. Anti-Doping Agency report that portrayed him as a ruthless competitor, willing to go to any lengths to win the prestigious race. USADA chief executive Travis Tygart labeled the doping regimen allegedly carried out by the U.S. Postal Service team that Armstrong once led, "The most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen."

In a recent "60 Minutes Sports" interview, Tygart described Armstrong and his team of doctors, coaches and riders as similar to a "Mafia" that kept their secret for years and intimidated riders into silently following their illegal methods.

Yet Armstrong looked like just another runner getting in his roadwork when he talked to the AP, wearing a red jersey and black shorts, sunglasses and a white baseball cap pulled down to his eyes. Leaning into a reporter's car on the shoulder of a busy Austin road, he seemed unfazed by the attention and the news crews that made stops at his home. He cracked a few jokes about all the reporters vying for his attention, then added, "but now I want to finish my run," and took off down the road.

The interview with Winfrey will be Armstrong's first public response to the USADA report. Armstrong is not expected to provide a detailed account about his involvement, nor address in depth many of the specific allegations in the more than 1,000-page USADA report.

In a text to the AP on Saturday, Armstrong said: "I told her (Winfrey) to go wherever she wants and I'll answer the questions directly, honestly and candidly. That's all I can say."

After a federal investigation of the cyclist was dropped without charges being brought last year, USADA stepped in with an investigation of its own. The agency deposed 11 former teammates and accused Armstrong of masterminding a complex and brazen drug program that included steroids, blood boosters and a range of other performance-enhancers.

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Lance Armstrong offered donation to USADA during investigation

Once all the information was out and his reputation shattered, Armstrong defiantly tweeted a picture of himself on a couch at home with all seven of the yellow leader's jerseys on display in frames behind him. But the preponderance of evidence in the USADA report and pending legal challenges on several fronts apparently forced him to change tactics after more a decade of denials.

He still faces legal problems.

Former teammate Floyd Landis, who was stripped of the 2006 Tour de France title for doping, has filed a federal whistle-blower lawsuit that accused Armstrong of defrauding the U.S. Postal Service. The Justice Department has yet to decide whether it will join the suit as a plaintiff.

The London-based Sunday Times also is suing Armstrong to recover about $500,000 it paid him to settle a libel lawsuit. On Sunday, the newspaper took out a full-page ad in the Chicago Tribune, offering Winfrey suggestions for what questions to ask Armstrong. Dallas-based SCA Promotions, which tried to deny Armstrong a promised bonus for a Tour de France win, has threatened to bring yet another lawsuit seeking to recover more than $7.5 million an arbitration panel awarded the cyclist in that dispute.

The lawsuit most likely to be influenced by a confession might be the Sunday Times case. Potential perjury charges stemming from Armstrong's sworn testimony in the 2005 arbitration fight would not apply because of the statute of limitations. Armstrong was not deposed during the federal investigation that was closed last year.

Many of his sponsors dropped Armstrong after the damning USADA report — at the cost of tens of millions of dollars — and soon after, he left the board of Livestrong, which he founded in 1997. Armstrong is still said to be worth about $100 million.

Livestrong might be one reason Armstrong has decided to come forward with an apology and limited confession. The charity supports cancer patients and still faces an image problem because of its association with Armstrong. He also may be hoping a confession would allow him to return to competition in the elite triathlon or running events he participated in after his cycling career.

World Anti-Doping Code rules state his lifetime ban cannot be reduced to less than eight years. WADA and U.S. Anti-Doping officials could agree to reduce the ban further depending on what information Armstrong provides and his level of cooperation.

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