RIM to release new BlackBerrys soon after Jan. 30

TORONTO (AP) — Research In Motion Ltd. will release its much-delayed BlackBerry 10 smartphones “not too long” after a launch event on Jan. 30, a senior executive said Tuesday.

Chief Operating Officer Kristian Tear said the company is still fine-tuning the new phones.

The new phones are seen as critical to RIM‘s survival as the smartphone pioneer struggles in North America to hold on to customers who are abandoning BlackBerrys for flashier iPhones and Android phones. The new BlackBerry 10 system is designed for the touch screen, Internet browsing and apps experience that customers now expect. RIM’s current software is still focused on email and messaging and is less user-friendly, agile and robust than iPhone or Android.

On Monday, RIM said details on the BlackBerry 10, including specific availability, will be announced at the event. A touch-screen-only device is expected to be released first followed shortly after by a version with a physical keyboard. Many people still gravitate to BlackBerrys specifically for their physical keyboards, and RIM hasn’t succeeded in the past with touch-only offerings.

Tear said RIM wants to be the No. 1 mobile computing platform, despite the dominance of Apple and Android. He said the Waterloo, Ontario-based company believes it can compete with Silicon Valley because it has access to a lot of talented people and two great universities in the area. He said he’s been involved in two turnarounds before with Sony Ericsson and Ericsson and believes in RIM’s new management.

“It’s not going to be easy,” Tear said. “But everybody is super-focused and super-commited. We’re going to show the world that we are turning this around.”

Steve Zipperstein, RIM’s new chief legal officer, said RIM invented the smartphone and has been the innovator in the mobile space for a long time.

“We’re not going away,” Zipperstein vowed. “We’re going to succeed with BB 10. We’re going to impress our customers. We’re going to fight every day.”

Tear and Zipperstein were hired this past summer by CEO Thorsten Heins, who took over RIM in January after it lost tens of billions of dollars in market value. Heins had vowed to do everything he could to release BlackBerry 10 this year but said in June that the timetable wasn’t realistic. The new BlackBerrys will be released after the holiday shopping season and well after Apple’s September launch of the iPhone 5.

Heins is counting on BlackBerry 10 for a turnaround.

RIM’s platform transition is happening under a new management team and as RIM lays off 5,000 employees as part of a bid to save $ 1 billion this year.

RIM was once Canada‘s most valuable company with a market value of more than $ 80 billion in 2008, but the stock has plummeted since, from over $ 140 per share to around $ 8. Its decline evokes memories of Nortel, another former Canadian tech giant, which declared bankruptcy in 2009.

RIM’s stock fell 41 cents, or 4.7 percent, to close at $ 8.40 Tuesday in New York after rising as high as $ 9.07 the previous day, when RIM announced its Jan. 30 launch date.

Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Man who accused Elmo puppeteer of teen sex recants

NEW YORK (AP) — A man who accused Elmo puppeteer Kevin Clash of having sex with him when he was a teenage boy has recanted his story.

In a quick turnabout, the man on Tuesday described his sexual relationship with Clash as adult and consensual.

Clash responded with a statement of his own, saying he is "relieved that this painful allegation has been put to rest." He had no further comment.

The man, who has not identified himself, released his statement through the Harrisburg, Pa., law firm Andreozzi & Associates.

Sesame Workshop, which produces "Sesame Street" in New York, soon followed by saying, "We are happy that Kevin can move on from this unfortunate episode."

The whirlwind episode began Monday morning, when Sesame Workshop startled the world by announcing that Clash had taken a leave of absence from "Sesame Street" in the wake of allegations that he had had a relationship with a 16-year-old.

Clash, a 52-year-old divorced father of a grown daughter, swiftly denied the charges of his accuser, who is in his early 20s. In that statement Clash acknowledged that he is gay but said the relationship had been between two consenting adults.

Though it remained unclear where the relationship took place, sex with a person under 17 is a felony in New York if the perpetrator is at least 21.

Sesame Workshop, which said it was first contacted by the accuser in June, had launched an investigation that included meeting with the accuser twice and meeting with Clash. Its investigation found the charge of underage conduct to be unsubstantiated.

Clash said on Monday he would take a break from Sesame Workshop "to deal with this false and defamatory allegation."

Neither Clash nor Sesame Workshop indicated on Tuesday when he might return to the show, on which he has performed as Elmo since 1984.

Elmo had previously been a marginal character, but Clash, supplying the fuzzy red puppet with a high-pitched voice and a carefree, child-like personality, launched the character into major stardom. Elmo soon rivaled Big Bird as the face of "Sesame Street."

Though usually behind the scenes, Clash meanwhile achieved his own measure of fame. In 2006, he published an autobiography, "My Life as a Furry Red Monster," and he was the subject of the 2011 documentary "Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey."

He has won 23 daytime Emmy awards and one prime-time Emmy.

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Online:

http://www.sesamestreet.org

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Report: FDA wanted to close Mass pharmacy in 2003

WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly a decade ago, federal health inspectors wanted to shut down the pharmacy linked to a recent deadly meningitis outbreak until it cleaned up its operations, according to congressional investigators.

About 440 people have been sickened by contaminated steroid shots distributed by New England Compounding Center, and more than 32 deaths have been reported since the outbreak began in September, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That has put the Framingham, Mass.-based pharmacy at the center of congressional scrutiny and calls for greater regulation of compounding pharmacies, which make individualized medications for patients and have long operated in a legal gray area between state and federal laws.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee released a detailed history of NECC's regulatory troubles on Monday, ahead of a meeting Wednesday meeting to examine how the outbreak could have been prevented. The 25-page report summarizes and quotes from FDA and state inspection memos, though the committee declined to release the original documents.

The report shows that after several problematic incidents, Food and Drug Administration officials in 2003 suggested that the compounding pharmacy be "prohibited from manufacturing" until it improved its operations. But FDA regulators deferred to their counterparts in Massachusetts, who ultimately reached an agreement with the pharmacy to settle concerns about the quality of its prescription injections.

The congressional report also shows that in 2003 the FDA considered the company a pharmacy. That's significant because in recent weeks public health officials have charged that NECC was operating more as a manufacturer than a pharmacy, shipping thousands of doses of drugs to all 50 states instead of small batches of drugs to individual patients. Manufacturers are regulated by the FDA and are subject to stricter quality standards than pharmacies.

The report offers the most detailed account yet of the numerous regulatory complaints against the pharmacy, which nearly date back to its founding in 1998. Less than a year later, the company was cited by the state pharmacy board for providing doctors with blank prescription pads with NECC's information. Such promotional items are illegal in Massachusetts and the pharmacy's owner and director, Barry Cadden, received an informal reprimand, according to documents summarized by the committee.

Cadden was subject to several other complaints involving unprofessional conduct in coming years, but first came to the FDA's attention in 2002. Here are some key events from the report highlighting the company's early troubles with state and federal authorities:

__ In March of 2002 the FDA began investigating reports that five patients had become dizzy and short of breath after receiving NECC's compounded betamethasone repository injection, a steroid used to treat joint pain and arthritis that's different from the one linked to the current meningitis outbreak.

FDA inspectors visited NECC on April 9 and said Cadden was initially cooperative in turning over records about production of the drug. But during a second day of inspections, Cadden told officials "that he was no longer willing to provide us with any additional records," according to an FDA report cited by congressional investigators. The inspectors ultimately issued a report citing NECC for poor sterility and record-keeping practices but said that "this FDA investigation could not proceed to any definitive resolution," because of "problems/barriers that were encountered throughout the inspection."

__ In October of 2002, the FDA received new reports that two patients at a Rochester, N.Y., hospital came down with symptoms of bacterial meningitis after receiving a different NECC injection. The steroid, methylprednisolone acetate, is the same injectable linked to the current outbreak and is typically is used to treat back pain. Both patients were treated with antibiotics and eventually recovered, according to FDA documents cited by the committee.

When officials from the FDA and Massachusetts Board of Pharmacy visited NECC later in the month, Cadden said vials of the steroid returned by the hospital had tested negative for bacterial contamination. But when FDA scientists tested samples of the drug collected in New York they found bacterial contamination in four out of 14 vials sampled. It is not entirely clear whether FDA tested the same lot shipped to the Rochester hospital.

__ At a February 2003 meeting between state and federal officials, FDA staff emphasized "the potential for serious public consequences if NECC's compounding practices, in particular those relating to sterile products, are not improved." The agency issued a list of problems uncovered in its inspection to NECC, including a failure to verify if sterile drugs met safety standards.

But the agency decided to let Massachusetts officials take the lead in regulating the company, since pharmacies are typically regulated at the state level. It was decided that "the state would be in a better position to gain compliance or take regulatory action against NECC as necessary," according to a summary of the meeting quoted by investigators.

The FDA recommended the state subject NECC to a consent agreement, which would require the company to pass certain quality tests to continue operating. But congressional investigators say Massachusetts Board of Pharmacy did not take any action until "well over a year later."

__ In October 2004, the board sent a proposed consent agreement to Cadden, which would have included a formal reprimand and a three-year probationary period for the company's registration. The case ended without disciplinary action in 2006, when NECC agreed to a less severe consent decree with the state.

Massachusetts officials indicated Tuesday they are still investigating why NECC escaped the more severe penalty.

"I will not be satisfied until we know the full story behind this decision," the state's interim health commissioner Lauren Smith said in a transcript of her prepared testimony released a day ahead of delivery. Smith is one of several witnesses scheduled to testify Wednesday, including FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg.

The committee will also hear from the widow of 78-year-old Eddie C. Lovelace, a longtime circuit court judge in southern Kentucky. Autopsy results confirmed Lovelace received fungus-contaminated steroid injections that led to his death Sept. 17.

Joyce Lovelace will urge lawmakers to work together on legislation to stop future outbreaks caused by compounded drugs, according to a draft of her testimony.

"We now know that New England Compounding Pharmacy, Inc. killed Eddie. I have lost my soulmate and life's partner with whom I worked side by side, day after day for more than fifty years," Lovelace states.

Barry Cadden is also scheduled to appear at the hearing, after lawmakers issued a subpoena to compel him to attend.

The NECC has been closed since early last month, and Massachusetts officials have taken steps to permanently revoke its license. The pharmacy has recalled all the products it makes, including 17,700 single-dose vials of a steroid that tested positive for the fungus tied to the outbreak.

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Who's who in the Petraeus scandal

What started out as a leisurely stroll through the Philadelphia Museum of Art on Nov. 11 with his girlfriend, quickly turned into quite a surreal experience for Max Galuppo, 20, of Bloomsbury, N.J. Galuppo, a Temple University student, found his doppelganger in a 16th century...

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Panetta: Admin deciding on post-2014 troop levels

ABOARD A U.S. MILITARY AIRCRAFT OVER THE PACIFIC (AP) — Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Monday the Obama administration is nearing a decision in the next few weeks on how many U.S. troops would remain in Afghanistan — and for what purposes — after the U.S.-led combat mission ends in 2014.

Panetta told reporters aboard his plane en route from Hawaii to Australia that Gen. John Allen, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, has developed several options on a post-2014 presence.

Panetta also was asked about his future at the Pentagon. While he declined to reveal his plans, he suggested he still had work to do on the job he took in July 2011.

"It's no secret that at some point I'd like to get back to California," he said. Panetta is from Monterey, Calif.

He added that there are a number of important defense issues awaiting resolution, including a budget impasse and the future of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan — suggesting that he would not leave immediately.

"Right now, my goal is to basically meet my responsibilities with regard to dealing with those issues," Panetta said.

Pressed to say whether he would rule out staying for all four years of a second Obama term, he replied, "Who the hell knows?"

Panetta said the Pentagon is reviewing those options with the White House. He would not reveal what troop levels are being considered, but it is believed that at least several thousand could be needed for several years beyond 2014.

"My hope is that we'll be able to complete this process in the next few weeks," Panetta said.

The decision will depend in part of the Afghan government's willingness to permit a post-2014 U.S. military presence and to provide legal guarantees for those troops that are acceptable to Washington.

Once that decision is made, U.S. officials have said they will set a timetable for reducing troop levels between now and the end of 2014. There now are about 67,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, and their mission is evolving from combat to advising, assisting and training Afghan forces.

A post-2014 U.S. military presence also would be expected to include hunting and killing extremists, including members of al-Qaida in Afghanistan.

Asked about David Petraeus's resignation as CIA director over revelations that he had an affair with his biographer, Panetta said he saw it as a "very sad situation to have him end his career like that." Panetta was CIA director before Petraeus.

"I think he took the right step" by resigning, Panetta added.

Panetta was beginning a weeklong trip to Asia to meet with his counterparts in Australia, Thailand and Cambodia. He said this was an important expression of the Obama administration's commitment to deepening ties in the region and developing more security partnerships.

For decades American administrations have fought the perception among Asians that Washington paid too little attention to their security interests. This view was reinforced during the years of U.S. focus on Iraq, and it persists even as the war in Afghanistan winds down.

The Obama administration has made much of its "pivot" to the Asia-Pacific, which has entailed more high-level diplomatic and security engagements and an attempt to expand cooperation with Australia and others in the region. But it is not fundamentally different from what the administration of President George W. Bush was pursuing even as it got mired in Iraq and saw stalemate in Afghanistan.

In June 2007, then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates argued at a security conference in Singapore that the U.S. was increasingly focused on Asia.

"Far from neglecting Asia, the U.S. is more engaged than ever before," he said. "We have been extraordinarily busy in recent years as we reshape and strengthen our security ties based on shared interests. Some are bilateral relationships that have been formed, renewed, or modernized - each with varying types and degrees of cooperation."

Among the issues dogging Panetta and the Pentagon is the controversy over the U.S. response to an attack on U.S. diplomatic facilities in Benghazi, Libya, two months ago.

Panetta said the Pentagon and the State Department are assessing what additional or improved arrangements might be necessary to secure U.S. diplomatic outposts in the Middle East. He was not specific.

As for the Benghazi attack, Panetta said it was "largely over" by the time the Pentagon was able to move forces close enough to Libya to respond.

Asked about the prospect of Congress and the administration settling for a short-term fix to the budget deficit crisis, rather than agreeing on measures to end the threat of further large defense spending cuts, Panetta said, "That's the worst thing that could happen."

He added: "That's the last damn thing I need right now," because it would perpetuate uncertainty about future defense spending and defense priorities.

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Ads are Invading Gadgets and Apps that You Already Paid For

Most of us are used to seeing ads on stuff that we get for free, like smartphone and tablet apps or online news websites. But you’re probably also used to being able to pay to remove ads, whether by getting the premium version of an app or even upgrading to a new computer that doesn’t have so much garbage on it.

As it turns out, this strategy doesn’t work so well anymore. That’s because companies are starting to put “special offers” all over things that you buy … and this time, it’s not just the usual preinstalled trashware. Here’s a look at some of the latest strikes in the war for your attention.

​Microsoft: Xbox Music and Xbox Live

Last year’s redesign of the Xbox 360 dashboard featured prominent ads, including videos that played automatically, even if you were paying for a $ 60/year Xbox Live Gold membership. This year, Microsoft introduced its new Xbox Music Pass, which allows you to stream millions of songs to your Xbox 360 or Windows 8 PC. It has an ad-supported free trial mode, which lets you listen to songs (and ads) for free for the first six months before imposing a monthly listening limit.

But according to Neowin.net editor Owen Williams, the ads stay even if you pay $ 99 per year for the subscription service. On top of that, you can’t use Xbox Music on the actual Xbox at all (beyond a 30-day trial) unless you ​also​ pay for an Xbox Live Gold Subscription. That’s almost $ 160 per year for two separate subscriptions, and in return you apparently get twice the ads.

​Microsoft: Windows 8

If the ads in the Xbox Music service aren’t enough, Microsoft has also put ads all over its Windows 8 operating system. Whether you buy a new Surface tablet or you pay for the upgrade from Windows 7 such as through buying a separate boxed copy, you still have to contend with ads in “many of the bundled [Modern] UI applications,” according to Williams.

​Amazon: The entire Kindle lineup

Amazon began selling Kindle e-readers with “special offers” a while back. These appeared on the lock screen, and replaced the normal screen saver, which was more literary.

When Amazon announced its new lineup of Kindle Fire HD tablets not too long ago, it turned out that every single one of them had advertisements. Not just on the lock screen, but now even in a corner on the home screen while you’re browsing through your books and apps.

At the time, Amazon wasn’t offering any way to get rid of these ads on the new Kindle Fire HD, but the company now gives people the option to buy Kindles sans ads for an extra $ 15. That won’t help you with in-app ads, though, if you use free apps.

Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.

Linux/Open Source News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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'Skyfall' brings record Bond debut of $88.4M

LOS ANGELES (AP) — James Bond is cashing in at the box office.

"Skyfall," the 23rd film featuring the British super-spy, pulled in a franchise-record $88.4 million in its U.S. debut, bringing its worldwide total to more than $500 million since it began rolling out overseas in late October.

The top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian theaters Friday through Sunday, followed by distribution studio, gross, number of theater locations, average receipts per location, total gross and number of weeks in release, as compiled Monday by Hollywood.com are:

1. "Skyfall," Sony, $88,364,714, 3,505 locations, $25,211 average, $90,564,714, one week.

2. "Wreck-It Ralph," Disney, $33,012,796, 3,752 locations, $8,799 average, $93,647,405, two weeks.

3. "Flight," Paramount, $14,785,097, 2,047 locations, $7,223 average, $47,455,396, two weeks.

4. "Argo," Warner Bros., $6,617,229, 2,763 locations, $2,395 average, $85,583,187, five weeks.

5. "Taken 2," Fox, $4,012,829, 2,487 locations, $1,614 average, $131,300,000, six weeks.

6. "Cloud Atlas," Warner Bros., $2,658,250, 2,023 locations, $1,314 average, $22,844,956, three weeks.

7. "The Man With the Iron Fists," Universal, $2,592,705, 1,872 locations, $1,385 average, $12,821,030, two weeks.

8. "Pitch Perfect," Universal, $2,573,350, 1,391 locations, $1,850 average, $59,099,993, seven weeks.

9. "Here Comes the Boom," Sony, $2,522,790, 2,044 locations, $1,234 average, $39,033,885, five weeks.

10. "Hotel Transylvania," Sony, $2,400,226, 2,566 locations, $935 average, $140,954,208, seven weeks.

11. "Paranormal Activity 4," Paramount, $1,980,033, 2,348 locations, $843 average, $52,600,612, four weeks.

12. "Sinister," Summit, $1,524,448, 1,554 locations, $981 average, $46,578,686, five weeks.

13. "Silent Hill: Revelation," Open Road Films, $1,300,137, 1,902 locations, $684 average, $16,383,406, three weeks.

14. "The Perks of Being a Wallflower," Summit, $1,132,924, 607 locations, $1,866 average, $14,614,770, eight weeks.

15. "Lincoln," Disney, $944,308, 11 locations, $85,846 average, $944,308, one week.

16. "Alex Cross," Summit, $911,973, 1,090 locations, $837 average, $24,603,042, four weeks.

17. "Fun Size," Paramount, $757,223, 1,301 locations, $582 average, $8,800,336, three weeks.

18. "Looper," Sony, $582,150, 491 locations, $1,186 average, $64,669,383, seven weeks.

19. "The Sessions," Fox, $545,550, 128 locations, $4,262 average, $1,655,222, four weeks.

20. "Seven Psychopaths," CBS Films, $404,812, 356 locations, $1,137 average, $14,098,469, five weeks.

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Universal and Focus are owned by NBC Universal, a unit of Comcast Corp.; Sony, Columbia, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics are units of Sony Corp.; Paramount is owned by Viacom Inc.; Disney, Pixar and Marvel are owned by The Walt Disney Co.; Miramax is owned by Filmyard Holdings LLC; 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight are owned by News Corp.; Warner Bros. and New Line are units of Time Warner Inc.; MGM is owned by a group of former creditors including Highland Capital, Anchorage Advisors and Carl Icahn; Lionsgate is owned by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.; IFC is owned by AMC Networks Inc.; Rogue is owned by Relativity Media LLC.

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Online:

http://www.hollywood.com

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British medical journal slams Roche on Tamiflu

LONDON (AP) — A leading British medical journal is asking the drug maker Roche to release all its data on Tamiflu, claiming there is no evidence the drug can actually stop the flu.

The drug has been stockpiled by dozens of governments worldwide in case of a global flu outbreak and was widely used during the 2009 swine flu pandemic.

On Monday, one of the researchers linked to the BMJ journal called for European governments to sue Roche.

"I suggest we boycott Roche's products until they publish missing Tamiflu data," wrote Peter Gotzsche, leader of the Nordic Cochrane Centre in Copenhagen. He said governments should take legal action against Roche to get the money back that was "needlessly" spent on stockpiling Tamiflu.

Last year, Tamiflu was included in a list of "essential medicines" by the World Health Organization, a list that often prompts governments or donor agencies to buy the drug.

Tamiflu is used to treat both seasonal flu and new flu viruses like bird flu or swine flu. WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl said the agency had enough proof to warrant its use for unusual influenza viruses, like bird flu.

"We do have substantive evidence it can stop or hinder progression to severe disease like pneumonia," he said.

In the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends Tamiflu as one of two medications for treating regular flu. The other is GlaxoSmithKline's Relenza. The CDC says such antivirals can shorten the duration of symptoms and reduce the risk of complications and hospitalization.

In 2009, the BMJ and researchers at the Nordic Cochrane Centre asked Roche to make all its Tamiflu data available. At the time, Cochrane Centre scientists were commissioned by Britain to evaluate flu drugs. They found no proof that Tamiflu reduced the number of complications in people with influenza.

"Despite a public promise to release (internal company reports) for each (Tamiflu) trial...Roche has stonewalled," BMJ editor Fiona Godlee wrote in an editorial last month.

In a statement, Roche said it had complied with all legal requirements on publishing data and provided Gotzsche and his colleagues with 3,200 pages of information to answer their questions.

"Roche has made full clinical study data ... available to national health authorities according to their various requirements, so they can conduct their own analyses," the company said.

Roche says it doesn't usually release patient-level data available due to legal or confidentiality constraints. It said it did not provide the requested data to the scientists because they refused to sign a confidentiality agreement.

Roche is also being investigated by the European Medicines Agency for not properly reporting side effects, including possible deaths, for 19 drugs including Tamiflu that were used in about 80,000 patients in the U.S.

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Online:

www.bmj.com.tamiflu/

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Probe shows federal power to access email

WASHINGTON (AP) — Your emails are not nearly as private as you think.

The downfall of CIA Director David Petraeus demonstrates how easy it is for federal law enforcement agents to examine emails and computer records if they believe a crime was committed. With subpoenas and warrants, the FBI and other investigating agencies routinely gain access to electronic inboxes and information about email accounts offered by Google, Yahoo and other Internet providers.

"The government can't just wander through your emails just because they'd like to know what you're thinking or doing," said Stewart Baker, a former assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security and now in private law practice. "But if the government is investigating a crime, it has a lot of authority to review people's emails."

Under the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act, federal authorities need only a subpoena approved by a federal prosecutor — not a judge — to obtain electronic messages that are six months old or older. To get more recent communications, a warrant from a judge is required. This is a higher standard that requires proof of probable cause that a crime is being committed.

Public interest groups are pressing Congress for the law to be updated because it was written a quarter-century ago when most emails were deleted after a few months because the cost of storing them indefinitely was prohibitive. Now, "cloud computing" services provide huge amounts of inexpensive storage capacity. Other technological advances, such as mobile phones, have dramatically increased the amount of communications that are kept in electronic warehouses and can be reviewed by law enforcement authorities carrying a subpoena.

"Technology has evolved in a way that makes the content of more communications available to law enforcement without judicial authorization, and at a very low level of suspicion," said Greg Nojeim, a senior counsel at the Center for Democracy & Technology.

The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Patrick Leahy, has proposed changing the law to require a warrant for all Internet communications regardless of their age. But law enforcement officials have resisted because they said it would undercut their ability to catch criminals.

A subpoena is usually sufficient to require Internet companies to reveal names and any other information that they have that would identify the owner of a particular email account. Google, which operates the widely used Gmail service, complied with more than 90 percent of the nearly 12,300 requests it received in 2011 from the U.S. government for data about its users, according to figures from the company.

Even if a Gmail account is created with a fictitious name, there are other ways to track down the user. Logs of when messages are sent reveal the Internet address the user used to log onto the account. Matching times and dates with locations allow investigators to piece together the chain.

A Gmail account figured prominently in the FBI investigation that led to Petraeus' stunning resignation last week as the nation's spy chief. Petraeus, a retired Army general, stepped down after he confessed to an extramarital affair with Paula Broadwell, an Army Reserve officer and his biographer.

The inquiry began earlier this year after Jill Kelley, a Florida woman who was friends with Petraeus and his wife, Holly, began receiving harassing emails. Kelley is a Tampa socialite. That is where the military's Central Command and Special Operations Command are located.

Petraeus served as commander at Central Command from 2008 to 2010.

FBI agents eventually determined that the email trail led to Broadwell, according to two federal law enforcement officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the sources were not authorized to speak about the matter on the record. As they looked further, the FBI agents came across a private Gmail account that used an alias name. On further investigation, the account turned out to be Petraeus's.

The contents of several of the exchanges between Petraeus and Broadwell suggested they were having an affair, according to the officials. Investigators determined that no security breach had occurred, but continued their investigation into whether Petraeus had any role in the harassing emails that Broadwell had sent to Kelley, which was a criminal investigation.

Petraeus and Broadwell apparently used a trick, known to terrorists and teen-agers alike, to conceal their email traffic.

One of the law enforcement officials said they did not transmit all of their communications as emails from one's inbox to the other's inbox. Rather, they composed some emails in a Gmail account and instead of transmitting them, left them in a draft folder or in an electronic "dropbox." Then the other person could log onto the same account and read the draft emails there. This avoids creating an email trail which is easier to trace. It's a technique that al-Qaida terrorists began using several years ago and teen-agers in many countries have since adopted.

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Associated Press writer Pete Yost contributed to this report.

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Strong quake strikes Myanmar, 12 feared dead

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — A strong earthquake collapsed a bridge and damaged ancient Buddhist pagodas in northern Myanmar, and piecemeal reports from the underdeveloped mining region said mines collapsed and as many as 12 people were feared dead.

Myanmar's Vice President Sai Mauk Hkam visited the damaged sites Monday, while authorities resumed their search for four missing workers near the collapsed bridge over the Irrawaddy River in Kyaukmyaung.

A slow release of official information left the actual extent of the damage unclear after Sunday morning's magnitude-6.8 quake. Myanmar has a poor official disaster response system and lost upward of 140,000 people to a devastating cyclone in 2008.

"We have been told by the director of Relief and Resettlement Department that there were seven dead and 45 injured as of late Sunday evening. The figure could fluctuate," said Ashok Nigam, the U.N. development program's resident representative. He told The Associated Press that U.N. agencies had offered aid but "no formal request has been made yet."

Myanmar's second-biggest city of Mandalay is the nearest population center to the main quake but reported no casualties or major damage. Mandalay lies about 117 kilometers (72 miles) south of the epicenter near the town of Shwebo, and the smaller towns in the area that is a center for mining of minerals and gemstones were worse hit.

State media's Sunday evening news said damage included 102 homes, 21 religious buildings, 48 government offices and four schools in the town of Thabeikyin. The gold-mining town is near the epicenter and had three dead and 35 injured.

The official tally overall is six killed and 64 injured, while independently compiled tallies say about a dozen people died.

An official from Myanmar's Meteorological Department said the magnitude-6.8 quake struck at 7:42 a.m. local time.

The U.S. Geological Society reported a 5.8-magnitude aftershock later Sunday, but no further damage or casualties were reported.

State television warned residents that aftershocks usually follow a major earthquake and told people to stay away from high walls, old buildings and structures with cracks in them.

The biggest single death toll was reported by a local administrative officer in Sintku township — on the Irrawaddy River near the quake's epicenter — who told The Associated Press that six people had died there and another 11 were injured.

He said some of the dead were miners who were killed when a gold mine collapsed. He spoke on condition of anonymity because local officials are normally not allowed to release information to the media.

Rumors circulated in Yangon of other mine collapses trapping workers, but none of the reports could be confirmed.

According to news reports, several people died when a bridge under construction across the Irrawaddy River collapsed east of Shwebo. The bridge linked the town of Sintku, 65 kilometers (40 miles) north of Mandalay on the east bank of the Irrawaddy, with Kyaukmyaung on the west bank.

The website of Weekly Eleven magazine said four people were killed and 25 injured when the bridge, which was 80 percent finished, fell. The local government announced a toll of two dead and 16 injured. All of the victims appeared to be workers.

However, a Shwebo police officer, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said just one person was confirmed dead from the bridge's collapse, while five were still unaccounted for.

Weekly Eleven also said two monasteries in Kyaukmyaung collapsed, killing two people.

"This is the worst earthquake I felt in my entire life," Soe Soe, a 52-year-old Shwebo resident, told The Associated Press by phone.

She said that the huge concrete gate of a local monastery collapsed and that several sculptures from another pagoda in the town were damaged.

Other damage was reported in Mogok, a major gem-mining area just east of the quake's epicenter. Temples were damaged there, as were some abandoned mines.

"Landslides occurred at some old ruby mines, but there were no casualties because these are old mines," Sein Win, a Mogok resident, said by phone.

State television reported that more than a dozen pagodas and stupas in five townships were damaged, and many of them had their so-called "umbrellas" atop the dome-shaped structures crash down.

The uppermost parts of the domes usually contain encased relics of the Buddha and small Buddha images, and sometimes jewels. Damage to them is taken as an especially bad omen.

Sein Win said police were guarding a damaged stupa in Mogok and its exposed relics.

Many people in Myanmar are superstitious, and it is likely that soothsayers will point out that the quake occurred on the 11th day of the 11th month.

State television also reported that the tremors shifted the Mingun Bell, which people in Myanmar claim is the world's largest functioning bell, off its base. The nearly 4-meter-high (12-foot-high) bell, which weighs in at 90 metric tons (200,000 pounds), was installed in 1810 and is a popular tourist attraction at a pagoda outside Mandalay.

A resident of Naypyitaw, which is 365 kilometers (225 miles) south of the quake's epicenter, said several windowpanes of the parliament building had broken.

The epicenter is in a region frequently hit by small temblors that usually cause little damage. Myanmar suffered a quake of similar size in March last year near the northeastern border town of Tachileik. Last year's 6.8 magnitude quake killed 74 people and injured 111.

Residents of Mandalay contacted by phone said they were fearful of more aftershocks because the city has modern high-rise buildings that could trap people, unlike the mostly small structures in the areas worst hit on Sunday.

"We are afraid that another earthquake might shake at night," said Thet Su, a journalist in Mandalay. "I told my parents to run out of the house if another earthquake shook."

The quake was felt in Bangkok, the capital of neighboring Thailand.

It comes just a week ahead of a scheduled visit to Myanmar by President Barack Obama. He will be the first U.S. president to visit the one-time pariah nation, which is emerging from decades of military rule.

The disaster is the second to strike Myanmar's north in three days. On Friday, a tanker train derailed about 128 kilometers (80 miles) north of Shwebo, and at least 25 people were killed when overturned carriages burst into flames as they were trying to skim fuel from them.

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