M.I.T. Lab Hatches Ideas, and Companies, by the Dozens





HOW do you take particles in a test tube, or components in a tiny chip, and turn them into a $100 million company?




Dr. Robert Langer, 64, knows how. Since the 1980s, his Langer Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has spun out companies whose products treat cancer, diabetes, heart disease and schizophrenia, among other diseases, and even thicken hair.


The Langer Lab is on the front lines of turning discoveries made in the lab into a range of drugs and drug delivery systems. Without this kind of technology transfer, the thinking goes, scientific discoveries might well sit on the shelf, stifling innovation.


A chemical engineer by training, Dr. Langer has helped start 25 companies and has 811 patents, issued or pending, to his name. That’s not too far behind Thomas Edison, who had 1,093. More than 250 companies have licensed or sublicensed Langer Lab patents.


Polaris Venture Partners, a Boston venture capital firm, has invested $220 million in 18 Langer Lab-inspired businesses. Combined, these businesses have improved the health of many millions of people, says Terry McGuire, co-founder of Polaris.


Along the way, Dr. Langer and his lab, including about 60 postdoctoral and graduate students at a time, have found a way to navigate some slippery territory: the intersection of academic research and the commercial market.


Over the last 30 years, many universities — including M.I.T. — have set up licensing offices that oversee the transfer of scientific discoveries to companies. These offices have become a major pathway for universities seeking to put their research to practical use, not to mention add to their revenue streams.


In the sciences in particular, technology transfer has become a key way to bring drugs and other treatments to market. “The model of biomedical innovation relies on research coming out of universities, often funded by public money,” says Josephine Johnston, director of research at the Hastings Center, a bioethics research organization based in Garrison, N.Y.


Just a few of the products that have emerged from the Langer Lab are a small wafer that delivers a dose of chemotherapy used to treat brain cancer; sugar-sequencing tools that can be used to create new drugs like safer and more effective blood thinners; and a miniaturized chip (a form of nanotechnology) that can test for diseases.


The chemotherapy wafer, called the Gliadel, is licensed by Eisai Inc. The company behind the sugar-sequencing tools, Momenta Pharmaceuticals, raised $28.4 million in an initial public offering in 2004. The miniaturized chip is made by T2Biosystems,  which completed a $23 million round of financing in the summer of 2011.


“It’s inconvenient to have to send things to a lab,” so the company is trying to develop more sophisticated methods, says Dr. Ralph Weissleder, a co-founder, with Dr. Langer and others, of T2Biosystems and a professor at Harvard Medical School.


FOR Dr. Langer, starting a company is not the same as it was, say, for Mark Zuckerberg with Facebook. “Bob is not consumed with any one company,” says H. Kent Bowen, an emeritus professor of business administration at Harvard Business School who wrote a case study on the Langer Lab. “His mission is to create the idea.”


Dr. Bowen observes that there are many other academic laboratories, including highly productive ones, but that the Langer Lab’s combination of people, spun-out companies and publications sets it apart. He says Dr. Langer “walks into the great unknown and then makes these discoveries.”


Dr. Langer is well known for his mentoring abilities. He is “notorious for replying to e-mail in two minutes, whether it’s a lowly graduate school student or the president of the United States,” says Paulina Hill, who worked in his lab from 2009 to 2011 and is now a senior associate at Polaris Venture Partners. (According to Dr. Langer, he has corresponded directly with President Obama about stem cell research and federal funds for the sciences.)


Dr. Langer says he looks at his students “as an extended family,” adding that “I really want them to do well.”


And they have, whether in business or in academia, or a combination of the two. One former student, Ram Sasisekharan, helped found Momenta and now runs his own lab at M.I.T. Ganesh Venkataraman Kaundinya is Momenta’s chief scientific officer and senior vice president for research.


Hongming Chen is vice president of research at Kala Pharmaceuticals. Howard Bernstein is chief scientific officer at Seventh Sense Biosystems, a blood-testing company. Still others have taken jobs in the law or in government.


Dr. Langer says he spends about eight hours a week working on companies that come out of his lab. Of the 25 that he helped start, he serves on the boards of 12 and is an informal adviser to 4. All of his entrepreneurial activity, which includes some equity stakes, has made him a millionaire. But he says he is mainly motivated by a desire to improve people’s health.


Operating from the sixth floor of the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research on the M.I.T. campus in Cambridge, Mass., Dr. Langer’s lab has a research budget of more than $10 million for 2012, coming mostly from federal sources.


The research in labs like Dr. Langer’s is eyed closely by pharmaceutical companies. While drug companies employ huge research and development teams, they may not be as freewheeling and nimble, Dr. Langer says. The basis for many long-range discoveries has “come out of academia, including gene therapy, gene sequencing and tissue engineering,” he says.


He has served as a consultant to pharmaceutical companies. Their large size, he says, can end up being an impediment.


“Very often when you are going for real innovation,” he says, “you have to go against prevailing wisdom, and it’s hard to go against prevailing wisdom when there are people who have been there for a long time and you have some vice president who says, ‘No, that doesn’t make sense.’ ”


Pharmaceutical companies are eager to tap into the talent at leading research universities. In 2008, for example, Washington University in St. Louis announced a $25 million pact with Pfizer to collaborate more closely on biomedical research.


But in some situations, the close — critics might say cozy — ties between business and academia have the potential to create conflicts of interest.


There was a controversy earlier this year when it was revealed that the president of the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center owned stock in Aveo Oncology, which had announced earlier that the university would be leading clinical trials of one of its cancer drugs.  Last month, the University of Texas announced that he would be allowed to keep his ties with three pharmaceutical companies, including Aveo Oncology; his holdings will be placed in a blind trust.


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Morsi Urged to Retract Edict to Bypass Judges in Egypt


Tara Todras-Whitehill for The New York Times


A demonstrator takes a breather during protests in downtown Cairo on Saturday. More Photos »







CAIRO — The association of judges here called Saturday for courts across Egypt to suspend all but their most vital activities to protest an edict by President Mohamed Morsi granting himself unchecked power by setting his decrees above judicial review until the ratification of a new constitution.




The judges’ strike, which drew the support of the leader of the national lawyers’ association, would be the steepest escalation yet in a political struggle between the country’s new Islamist leaders and the institutions of the authoritarian government that was overthrown last year. As it spills into the courts and the streets, the dispute also increasingly threatens to undermine the credibility of Egypt’s political transition as well.


A council that oversees the judiciary denounced Mr. Morsi’s decree, which was issued Thursday, as “an unprecedented attack on judicial independence,” and urged the president to retract parts of the decree eliminating judicial oversight.


State news media reported that judges and prosecutors had already walked out in Alexandria, and there were other news reports of walkouts in Qulubiya and Beheira, but those could not be confirmed.


Outside Egypt’s high court in Cairo, the police fired tear gas at protesters who were denouncing Mr. Morsi and trying to force their way into the building, the second day in a row that protesters took to the streets over the presidential decree, which critics have assailed as a return to autocracy.


Abdel Meguid Mahmoud, a prosecutor appointed by Mr. Morsi’s predecessor, Hosni Mubarak, declared to a crowd of cheering judges that the presidential decree was “null and void.” He denounced what he described as “the systematic campaign against the country’s institutions in general and the judiciary in particular.”


A coalition of disparate opposition leaders including the liberal former United Nations diplomat Mohamed ElBaradei, the leftist-nationalist Hamdeen Sabahy, and the former Mubarak-government foreign minister Amr Moussa formed a self-proclaimed National Salvation Front to oppose the decree. In addition to demanding the dissolution of the constitutional assembly, the group declared that it would not speak with Mr. Morsi until he withdrew his decree.


“We will not enter into a dialogue about anything while this constitutional declaration remains intact and in force,” Mr. Moussa said. “We demand that it be withdrawn and then we can talk.”


As the judges group called for a suspension of the courts, a growing number of lawyers filed claims demanding that the courts seek to overturn Mr. Morsi’s decree, joining the battle between the executive and judicial powers.


Advisers to Mr. Morsi, a former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood and Egypt’s first democratically elected president, defended his action, saying he was trying to prevent the courts from disbanding the Islamist-dominated constitutional assembly, which is writing a new constitution. The nation’s top courts had already dissolved the Islamist-led parliament and an earlier Islamist-led constituent assembly.


The advisers said a court decision on the new constitutional assembly had been expected as soon as next Sunday.


The judges’ group, as well as the newly unified secular opposition, have demanded that Mr. Morsi withdraw his decree, and that he disband and replace the current constitutional assembly. Many of the assembly’s non-Islamist members, including secularists and representatives of the Coptic Church, had already quit the body to protest the Islamists’ domination.


The increasingly vocal criticism of the assembly threatens to undermine the legitimacy of the ultimate charter, and has only increased the likelihood that the Islamist leaders may seek to pass and ratify it on their own, over the opposition of other groups, further damaging its credibility.


The opposition to the decree has also reinforced the fears of Islamists that judges appointed by Mr. Mubarak and the secular opposition were deliberately seeking to derail the process rather than accept their defeats at the polls.


Nevine Ramzy and Mai Ayyad contributed reporting.



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Russia blames technical error for brief YouTube blacklisting












MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian officials offered assurances they were not seeking to block access to YouTube on Wednesday, saying a technical error caused the popular video-sharing website to appear briefly on a register of sites containing banned content.


For about an hour, YouTube was listed on the newly-created register, which the government says is needed to fight child pornography but critics of President Vladimir Putin fear may be used to censor the Internet and stifle dissent.












YouTube was subsequently removed from the register, maintained by Russia‘s communications watchdog agency, Roskomnadzor, which said there was no plan to block access to the site.


“An unfortunate technical mistake occurred,” Roskomnadzor spokesman Vladimir Pikov said. “We work closely with them (YouTube). Basically, we see no reason now to apply towards its owners any preventive measures.”


Russia’s consumer protection rights watchdog, Rospotrebnadzor, said YouTube took down several videos earlier this week as requested by officials under the new law tightening Internet controls that took effect on November 1.


The blacklist includes websites containing pornographic images of children, instructions on how to make, use and where to get drugs, as well as others describing suicide methods.


Under the legislation, websites have three days to remove content considered harmful or illegal by Russian authorities before they can be blocked.


YouTube is owned by U.S.-based Google Inc..


A spokeswoman for Google in Russia, Alla Zabrovskaya, said all requests from the authorities are handled by the company’s global headquarters in the United States.


Anti-Putin activists, who have used the Internet to organize demonstrations, say the law is part of a crackdown on dissent orchestrated by the Kremlin since Putin, a former KGB spy, returned to presidency in May.


After a stint as prime minister, Putin was elected to a third presidential term in March after a series of opposition protests that were the biggest of his 13-year rule.


(Additional reporting by Maria Tsvetkova and Anastasia Teterevleva; Editing by Steve Gutterman and Sophie Hares)


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Undefeated: No. 4 Ohio State over No. 20 UM, 26-21

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The only thing Urban Meyer lost during his first season at Ohio State was his cool — at the end of the last game.

Carlos Hyde ran for 146 yards and the fourth-ranked Buckeyes' defense shut out No. 20 Michigan in the second half to grab a bruising 26-21 win on Saturday, completing an improbable 12-0 season for the Buckeyes.

Meyer got emotional as the final seconds ticked off, embracing his players on the sideline at a raucous Ohio Stadium. Too emotional, he said later.

"I've got to keep a little more composure, I guess," he said sheepishly. "In the coaching manual, I think it's chapter 13, it says, 'Keep cool.' I lost it there for a couple of minutes."

Well, give the guy a break.

Almost no one — up to and including Meyer — expected such a rapid turnaround for the Buckeyes, who were just 6-7 last season with a loss to their archrivals in a transitional year when they were facing heavy NCAA penalties. A month after Meyer took the job last November, they were socked with a bowl ban after this season — and still ran the table.

"You get all the wins you can, especially against the Team Up North, especially at home on top of that," said exuberant Buckeyes quarterback Braxton Miller.

Ohio State (12-0, 8-0 Big Ten) is ineligible for a BCS national title but still has an outside shot at finishing No. 1 in the final Associated Press Top 25 if other contenders lose. Michigan (8-4, 6-2) will now await a minor bowl bid.

"At this point in time, Ohio State can go and play with anybody in America," Meyer said. "I wouldn't say that five weeks ago, but you've seen the growth, what we did today and the growth of our defense."

Drew Basil matched his season output with four field goals and the defense did the rest, forcing three turnovers in the second half.

It was played before 105,899, the largest crowd ever to witness "The Game" in Columbus.

Meyer and his players were mobbed by thousands of fans who flooded the field after the Buckeyes' ninth victory in the last 11 years in the rivalry (the 2010 win was later vacated by the sanctions).

The crush of people precluded Michigan's Brady Hoke from the traditional postgame handshake with Meyer.

"No big deal. Not a big deal," Hoke said over his shoulder as he left his postgame news conference. "Not a story."

Hyde also ran for a touchdown. Miller completed 14 of 18 passes for 189 yards and a score to Corey Brown, who had eight catches for 95 yards.

The Buckeyes had already clinched the Big Ten's Leaders Division, but aren't allowed to play in next Saturday's conference title game. Michigan needed a win to capture a share of the Legends Division with Nebraska, which will meet Wisconsin for the championship.

Hoke had won his first game as a head coach in the rivalry.

"I like the W better," he said.

Now, about all Ohio State can hope for is that every other top team in the nation — including the only other unbeaten, top-ranked Notre Dame — loses and loses badly. A team banned from the postseason has never finished No. 1 in the AP Top 25 poll, and the Buckeyes are not eligible for the Bowl Championship Series rankings or coaches' poll.

Michigan's Denard Robinson had a brilliant first half, scoring on a 67-yard run, but was largely invisible in the second. He totaled 122 yards on 10 carries, but had lost 2 yards on his four carries after halftime.

"We know the reason we lost the game," Robinson said. "We had three turnovers in the second half. That's not acceptable."

Devin Gardner, the other half of Michigan's quarterback tandem, was 11 of 20 for 171 yards with an interception and a 75-yard touchdown pass to Roy Roundtree.

For the Buckeyes, the game will be remembered for the staunch defense played when most needed. Michigan had 26 plays for 219 yards in the first half, then ran 21 plays for a net of 60 yards in the second.

"It feels great," defensive back Christian Bryant said. "Taking it out for the seniors — that was our motto for the season — and that's what we did."

For the Wolverines, there will be lingering questions for Hoke, who wore short sleeves in the freezing temperatures — just like Woody Hayes used to during the 1960s and 1970s in the rivalry.

With his team ahead 21-20, Hoke called timeout on fourth and 2 near midfield on Michigan's first possession of the second half. Robinson then tried the middle, but ran into linebacker Ryan Shazier for a two-yard loss.

That cost the Wolverines the lead as Ohio State drove to the Michigan 11 before settling for Basil's 28-yard field goal, putting the Buckeyes up 23-21.

"We've got to have each other's back," Hoke said. "We didn't get it and (our own) defense went out there and did a nice job."

Gardner fumbled when hit by Johnathan Hankins with 8:19 left, with Travis Howard pouncing on the loose ball after several players had a shot at it. Taking over at the Wolverines' 10, the Buckeyes could not move the ball and were forced to settle for Basil's fourth field goal of the game, a 25-yarder with 6:26 remaining, for a 26-21 lead.

Basil came into the game just 4 for 6 on the year.

The last turnover ended the Wolverines' hopes.

Gardner tossed a floater that was intercepted by C.J. Barnett, ending the Wolverines final threat as Hyde carried the ball repeatedly and the Buckeyes played keep-away to the finish.

Between the first and second quarters, Ohio State honored its 2002 national championship team. After a highlight clip was shown to a roaring crowd, several players hoisted coach Jim Tressel to their shoulders and carried him out of the end zone.

No boos were heard, or else they were drowned out — even though it was Tressel's NCAA violations, he failed to report players exchanging team memorabilia for cash and tattoos, which will keep this year's unbeaten Buckeyes home in the postseason.

Asked if — should his team end up as the only unbeaten in the nation — it should be crowned No. 1 in the AP poll, Meyer said: "I'm not going to get into the 'what ifs.' You can't control what you can't control. ... We're 12-0 and I'm going to see to it when you walk into that Woody Hayes (practice) facility that this team will never be forgotten. Because they deserve that."

___

Follow Rusty Miller on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/rustymillerap

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Nintendo’s Wii U Takes Aim at a Changed Video Game World


REDMOND, Wash.


TUCKED in the woods here, west of State Route 520, is a little piece of the Mario Kingdom.


Behind the unassuming doors is the business built by Mario, the pudgy plumber, and Luigi, his lanky brother, as well as characters like Link, wielder of the mystical Master Sword, and Princess Zelda, of the royal family of Hyrule. All of them, and more, are the pixelated children of Shigeru Miyamoto, the Walt Disney of video games and creative genius of the Nintendo Company of Japan.


But while Mr. Miyamoto is dreaming his dreams across the Pacific, an army of marketing types is at work here in Redmond, inside the shiny new headquarters of Nintendo of America. This palace of play is quiet, but there’s trouble brewing in the world around it: three decades after the mustachioed Mario burst into arcades via Donkey Kong, plucking countless quarters from people’s pockets, the kingdom is under siege.


Nintendo’s enemies have arrived by battalions. Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja and other inexpensive, downloadable games, particularly for cellphones and tablets, have invaded its turf. Changing tastes and technology have called into question the economics of traditional game consoles, whether from Nintendo or Microsoft, maker of the Xbox. Nintendo recently posted the first loss in its era as a video games company, a prospect that would have been unimaginable only a few years ago. And while game consoles aren’t going away, analysts are skeptical that the business will regain its former stature soon.


All of which makes Nintendo’s next move, and what is happening here, so crucial. Nintendo counterattacked on Nov. 18, when a new version of its Wii game console arrived in stores nationwide.


The original Wii, the first wireless, motion-capturing console, was nothing less than revolutionary. The simplicity of its controller, which Mr. Miyamoto helped design, attracted new audiences like women and older people. Customers lined up in stores for it — and then it simply faded. Now, the new console, the Wii U, may be Nintendo’s last, best hope for regaining its former glory. Executives are hoping for a holiday hit, and perhaps even another runaway success.


Initial demand appears high. GameStop, the video game retailer, opened 3,000 stores at midnight on Thursday for Black Friday sales, and before long almost all its Wii Us were sold out, according to Tony Bartel, GameStop’s president. “I think people are starving for innovation, and Wii U is giving them that innovation," Mr. Bartel says. 


THE Wii U is a recognition that the living room is no longer the province of a single screen. More people, particularly the young, now watch TV with a smartphone or tablet in hand, the better to tweet a touchdown or update their Facebook status during a commercial. The Wii U looks like a mash-up of an iPad and a traditional console, with a touch screen embedded in the middle. It’s no mere festival of joysticks, buttons and triggers.


But will it be the blowout that Nintendo needs? Many industry veterans and game reviewers are skeptical. They question whether the Wii U can be as successful as the original, now that many gamers have moved on to more abundant, cheaper and more convenient mobile games.


“I actually am baffled by it,” Nolan K. Bushnell, the founder of Atari and the godfather of the games business, says of the Wii U. “I don’t think it’s going to be a big success.”


The bigger question is what the future holds for any of the major game systems, including new ones that Sony and Microsoft are expected to release next year. Echoing other industry veterans, Mr. Bushnell says that consoles are already delivering remarkable graphics and that few but the most hard-core players will be willing to pay hundreds of dollars for a new game box.


“These things will continue to sputter along, but I really don’t think they’ll be of major import ever again,” he says. “It feels like the end of an era to me.”


Nintendo is unbowed. Mr. Miyamoto was involved in developing the original Wii, and had a role in the Wii U as well. He rarely gives interviews, and was unavailable for comment for this article.


But one recent evening in Redmond, Corey Olcsvary, a Nintendo product marketing specialist, was slashing his fingers across the touch screen on the GamePad, as the Wii U controller is called, casting “throwing stars” at a ninja gang that sprang from the corners of a giant TV screen. In another game, a group of players chased Mario — one of the most popular video game characters ever — around a maze shown on a TV while Mr. Olcsvary stared at a bird’s-eye view of the maze on his GamePad and tried to help Mario dodge his pursuers. The players shouted when they caught sight of Mario’s red overalls and cheered when they tackled him.


Starting in December, people will also be able to use the GamePad as a remote control to set recordings and change channels on their cable and satellite TV services.


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Protests Erupt After Egypt’s Leader Seizes New Power





CAIRO — Opponents of President Mohamed Morsi were reported to have set fire to his party’s offices in several Egyptian cities on Friday in a spasm of protest and clashes after he granted himself broad powers above any court declaring himself the guardian of Egypt‘s revolution, and used his new authority to order the retrial of Hosni Mubarak.








Maya Alleruzzo/Associated Press

Egyptian protesters chanted antigovernment slogans and waved a national flag in Tahrir Square on Friday.






In the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, the opponents of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party clashed with followers of Mr. Morsi, an Islamist, who won Western and regional plaudits only days ago for brokering a cease-fire to halt eight days of lethal exchanges between Israeli forces and militants in the Gaza Strip.


Mr. Morsi, Egypt’s first democratically elected president, portrayed his decree assuming the new powers as an attempt to fulfill popular demands for justice and protect the transition to a constitutional democracy. He said it was necessary to overcome gridlock and competing interests. But the unexpected breadth of the powers he seized raised immediate fears that he might become a new strongman.


“We are, God willing, moving forward, and no one stands in our way,” Reuters quoted Mr. Morsi as saying on Friday said in a suburban mosque here after Friday prayers.


“I fulfill my duties to please God and the nation and I take decisions after consulting with everyone,” he said. “Victory does not come without a clear plan and this is what I have.”


He spoke as state television reported that his party’s offices in the Suez Canal cities of Suez, Port Said and Ismailia had been burned as his foes rampaged. Thousands of people protesting Mr. Morsi’s power grab gathered in Tahrir Square here — the focal point of protests that, last year, swept away Mr. Mubarak. Elsewhere in the capital, the president’s supporters massed in even larger numbers outside the presidential palace where Mr. Morsi said his aim was “to achieve political, social and economic stability.”


“I am for all Egyptians. I will not be biased against any son of Egypt,” he said on a stage outside the presidential palace, Reuters, reported, adding he was working for social and economic stability. “Opposition in Egypt does not worry me, but it has to be real and strong,” he said.


Sounding defensive at times and employing some of the language favored by his autocratic predecessor, Mr. Morsi justified his power grab as necessary to move Egypt’s revolution forward.


“The people wanted me to be the guardian of these steps in this phase,” he said, reminding his audience that he was freely elected after a contest “that the whole world has witnessed.”


“I don’t like, and don’t want — and there is no need — to use exceptional measures,” he said. “But those who are trying to gnaw the bones of the nation,” he added, “must be held accountable.”


News reports said clashes spread from Alexandria to the southern city of Assyut. But the severity of the clashes was not immediately clear.


Mr. Morsi’s new powers prompted one prominent adversary, Mohamed ElBaradei, to say on Twitter: “Morsi today usurped all state powers & appointed himself Egypt’s new pharaoh.”


“An absolute presidential tyranny,” Amr Hamzawy, a liberal member of the dissolved Parliament and prominent political scientist, wrote in an online commentary. “Egypt is facing a horrifying coup against legitimacy and the rule of law and a complete assassination of the democratic transition.”


Mr. Morsi issued the decree on Thursday at a high point in his five-month-old presidency, when he was basking in praise from the White House and around the world for his central role in negotiating a cease-fire that the previous night had stopped the fighting in the Gaza Strip.


But his political opponents immediately called for demonstrations on Friday to protest his new powers. “Passing a revolutionary demand within a package of autocratic decisions is a setback for the revolution,” Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, a more liberal former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood and a former presidential candidate, wrote online. And the chief of the Supreme Constitutional Court indicated that it did not accept the decree.


In Washington on Thursday, the State Department spokeswoman, Victoria Nuland, released a statement saying: “The decisions and declarations announced on November 22 raise concerns form many Egyptians and the international community,” and noting that “one of the aspirations of the revolution was to ensure that power would not be overly concentrated in that hands of any one person or institution.” The statement called for resolution “through democratic dialogue.”


David D. Kirkpatrick and Kareem Fahim reported from Cairo and Alan Cowell from Paris. Mayy El Sheikh contributed reporting.



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Sony at greater risk than Panasonic in electronics downturn: Fitch












TOKYO (Reuters) – Panasonic Corp has a better chance than rival Sony Corp of surviving Japan‘s consumer electronics slump because of its unglamorous but stable appliance business of washing machines and fridges, credit rating agency Fitch said Friday.


Fitch cut Panasonic‘s rating by two notches to BB and Sony three notches to BB minus on Thursday, the first time one of the three major ratings agencies have put the creditworthiness of either company into junk-bond territory.












Rival agencies Moody’s and S&P rate both of Japan’s consumer electronic giants at the same level, just above junk status. Moody’s last cut its rating on Panasonic on Tuesday.


Panasonic “has the advantage of a relatively stable consumer appliance business that is still generating positive margins”, Matt Jamieson, Fitch’s head of Asia-Pacific, said in a conference call on Friday to explain its ratings downgrades.


But at Sony, he added, “most of their electronic business are loss making, they appear to be overstretched.”


Japan’s TV industry has been bested by cheaper, more innovative models from Samsung Electronics and other foreign rivals, while tablets and smartphones built by Apple Inc have become the dominant consumer electronics devices.


Investors are focusing on the fate of Sony and Panasonic after another struggling Japanese consumer electronics firm, Sharp Corp, maker of the Aquos TV, secured a $ 4.6 billion bail-out by banks including Mizuho Financial Group and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group.


Sony and Panasonic have chosen divergent survival paths.


Panasonic, maker of the Viera TV, is looking to expand its businesses in appliances, solar panels, lithium batteries and automotive components. Appliances amount to around only 6 percent of the company’s sales, but they generate margins of more than 6 percent and make up a big chunk of operating profit.


Sony, creator of the Walkman, is doubling down on consumer gadgets in a bid to regain ground from Samsung and Apple in mobile devices while bolstering digital cameras and gaming.


The latest downgrades will curtail the ability of both Japanese companies to raise money in credit markets to help fund restructurings of their business portfolios.


For now, however, that impact is limited, given the support Panasonic and Sony are receiving from their banks.


In October, Panasonic, which expects to lose $ 10 billion in the year to March 31, secured $ 7.6 billion of loan commitments from banks including Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group and Mitsubishi UFJ, a financing backstop it says will help it avoid having to seek capital in credit markets.


Sony, which has forecast a full-year profit of $ 1.63 billion helped by the sale of a chemicals business to a Japanese state bank, announced plans to raise $ 1.9 billion through a convertible bond before the latest rating downgrade.


Thomson Reuters’ Starmine structural model, which evaluates market views of credit risk, debt levels and changes in asset values gives Panasonic and Sony an implied rating of BB minus. Sharp’s implied rating is three notches lower at B minus.


Standard & Poor’s rates Panasonic and Sony at BBB, the second lowest of the investment grade, while Moody’s Investors Service has them on Baa3, the lowest of its high-grade category. Moody’s has a negative outlook for both firms while S&P sees a stable outlook for Panasonic and a negative one for Sony.


Stock markets in Japan were closed on Friday for a national holiday.


(Reporting by Tim Kelly; Editing by Mark Bendeich)


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NHL cancels games through Dec. 14, All-Star game

More than a third of the NHL regular season and two of its marquee events have now been called off.

The league announced its latest round of cancellations on Friday — Day 69 of its labor lockout. All games through Dec. 14 were wiped out, and this time All-Star Weekend, scheduled for Jan. 26-27 in Columbus, Ohio, was lost, too. The New Year's Day outdoor Winter Classic already was scratched.

NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly said losing the All-Star festivities is "extremely disappointing."

"We feel badly for NHL fans and particularly those in Columbus, and we intend to work closely with the Blue Jackets organization to return the NHL All-Star events to Columbus and their fans as quickly as possible," Daly said in a statement Friday.

The Blue Jackets said fans holding tickets to the game, the skills competition, and other events during that weekend could receive refunds.

Brian Jack, a 35-year-old IT director who grew up in Pittsburgh, moved to Columbus 17 years ago and converted from a Penguins fan to a Blue Jackets supporter after the expansion team hit the ice.

"We knew the All-Star Game, the longer it went, was probably going to be one of the first special events they cancelled," a season-ticket holder for all of the Blue Jackets' 12 seasons.

"You knew it was coming, but I hoped that they would get together and fix it (labor problems) up. For season-ticket holders who have watched the Blue Jackets struggle for a number of years with the product on the ice, the All-Star game was supposed to be a bright spot. Now that's gone."

A lockout in the 1994-95 season shortened that campaign to 48 games. A similar scenario could play out this time if the sides can find some common ground. Or the whole season could be lost, as it was in 2004-05.

The new cancellations come as little surprise. Owners and players had an unproductive negotiating session on Wednesday that produced no movement to break an impasse over splitting more than $3 billion in revenue and also player contracts.

Daly said he spoke to union officials on Friday, advising them about the cancellations, but at this point no face-to-face talks are scheduled. The possibility exists that Daly will speak to union special counsel Steve Fehr by telephone this weekend, but even that isn't certain.

The sides had stayed apart for eight days before reconvening on Monday night and then again on Wednesday when the union presented a comprehensive proposal the NHL requested. Players' association executive director Donald Fehr said Wednesday that the sides were closer financially than the NHL has claimed. The further cancellations Friday will cause significantly greater losses for the league.

"On Wednesday, the players presented a comprehensive proposal, once again moving in the owners' direction in order to get the game back on the ice," Donald Fehr said in a new statement. "The gap that remains on the core economic issues is $182 million. On Wednesday, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said that the league is losing $18-20 million per day during the lockout, therefore two more weeks of cancelled games far exceeds the current economic gap.

"It makes the NHL's announcement of further game cancellations, including the 2013 All-Star Weekend, all the more unnecessary, and disappointing for all hockey fans — especially those in Columbus. The players remain ready to negotiate but we require a willing negotiating partner."

The union made its offer that was based on a framework the NHL had given, which included a 50-50 split of hockey-related revenue and a $393 million in deferred payments for the players, who earned 57 percent of revenues in the collective bargaining agreement that expired in September. The NHL offered only $211 million to the players in a proposed deal that took into account that a full 82-game schedule would be played this season.

Players previously had proposed they receive a guaranteed amount of income each year.

Management wants a seven-year deal, which the union says is too long because fewer than half the current players will be active by the last season.

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Inquiry Sought in Death in Ireland After Abortion Was Denied





DUBLIN — India’s ambassador here has agreed to ask Prime Minister Enda Kenny of Ireland for an independent inquiry into the death of an Indian-born woman last month after doctors refused to perform an abortion when she was having a miscarriage, the lawyer representing the woman’s husband said Thursday.




The lawyer, Gerard O’Donnell, also said crucial information was missing from the files he had received from the Irish Health Service Executive about the death of the woman, Savita Halappanavar, including any mention of her requests for an abortion after she learned that the fetus would not survive.


The death of Dr. Halappanavar, 31, a dentist who lived near Galway, has focused global attention on the Irish ban on abortion.


Her husband, Praveen Halappanavar, has refused to cooperate with an investigation being conducted by the Irish health agency. “I have seen the way my wife was treated in the hospital, so I have no confidence that the H.S.E. will do justice,” he said in an interview on Wednesday night on RTE, the state television broadcaster. “Basically, I don’t have any confidence in the H.S.E.”


In a tense debate in the Irish Parliament on Wednesday evening, Robert Dowds of the Labour Party said Dr. Halappanavar’s death had forced politicians “to confront an issue we have dodged for much too long,” partly because so many Irish women travel to Britain for abortions.


“The reality is that if Britain wasn’t on our doorstep, we would have had to introduce abortion legislation years ago to avoid women dying in back-street abortions,” he said.


After the debate, the Parliament voted 88 to 53 against a motion introduced by the opposition Sinn Fein party calling on the government to allow abortions when women’s lives are in danger and to protect doctors who perform such procedures.


The Irish president, Michael D. Higgins — who is restricted by the Constitution from getting involved in political matters — also made a rare foray into a political debate on Wednesday, saying any inquiry must meet the needs of the Halappanavar family as well as the government.


In 1992, the Irish Supreme Court interpreted the current law to mean that abortion should be allowed in circumstances where there was “a real and substantial risk to the life of the mother,” including the threat of suicide. But that ruling has never been codified into law.


“The current situation is like a sword of Damocles hanging over us,” Dr. Peter Boylan, of the Irish Institute of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, told RTE last week. “If we do something with a good intention, but it turns out to be illegal, the consequences are extremely serious for medical practitioners.”


Dr. Ruth Cullen, who has campaigned against abortion, said that any legislation to codify the Supreme Court ruling would be tantamount to allowing abortion on demand and that Dr. Halappanavar’s death should not be used to make that change.


Dr. Halappanavar contracted a bacterial blood infection, septicemia, and died Oct. 28, a week after she was admitted to Galway University Hospital with severe back pains. She was 17 weeks pregnant but having a miscarriage and was told that the fetus — a girl — would not survive. Her husband said she asked several times for an abortion but was informed that under Irish law it would be illegal while there was a fetal heartbeat, because “this is a Catholic country.”


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The Lede Blog: Vignettes of Black Friday

With promotions, discounts and doorbusters already well under way on Thanksgiving Day itself, many big-box retailers are making Black Friday stretch longer than ever. The Lede is checking out the mood of American consumers in occasional vignettes Thursday and Friday as the economically critical holiday shopping season kicks off.

4:41 P.M. |Life in the Slow Lane

Not far from the frantic crush of local malls, the merchants of downtown Upland, Calif., quietly rolled a few racks of merchandise out to the sidewalks under the bright sun of an 80-degree day. They stood back and waited.

At 10 a.m., a few shoppers started to stroll through town. But it was hardly a hotbed of consumer activity.

“I think we’re going to get a little bit more business tomorrow than today,” said Jake McCarty, assistant manager at Roy’s Cyclery, which has been in business since 1962. “People think most small shops are going to be closed on Black Friday.”

The downtown business district of Upland, a 14-block area that sits 35 miles east of Los Angeles, dates from the citrus boom of the 1890s. With more than a dozen restaurants and nearly 200 businesses, the area has seen both better times and worse. If anything, it’s showing a slight uptick from the recent economic crash, with city sales tax revenue up about by 2 percentage points in the 2011-2012 fiscal year, according to Jeff Zwack, the city’s development service director.

But you wouldn’t necessarily sense the comeback Friday, since the local merchants association has taken pains to avoid competing with the giant retailers on their big day. In fact, Historic Downtown Upland Inc. was planning a “shop till you drop” event for the evening of Dec. 13, with music, sidewalk sales and Santa stationed in the gazebo in the center of town.

Despite the low expectations, a few crowd-averse shoppers wandered the streets.

Brandi Koenke, 40, of Claremont, stopped in the Utility Boardshop with her family of four. It was their second stop after a quick venture into a nearby Kohl’s discount department store. The shop was offering a discount on a watch that she was looking at for her 15-year-old son, Ryan.

After the experience at Kohl’s, she said, “this was much nicer. No crowds.” It was her last stop for the day.

Down the street at the bike shop, Kendrick Stallard emerged with a small bag of supplies.

“This has nothing to do with the fact that the Friday is black,” said Mr. Stallard, a 22-year-old choreographer from Fontana. “We’re going on a bike adventure, and we couldn’t care less.”

Across the street, Mary Aneen slowly made her way through the displays in front of the antique stores. “I don’t shop on Black Friday,” she said. “Too many people, too many lines, and you never get what you want. I like antiques.”

Down the street, next to the Metrolink commuter train station, Fred Paciocco, owner of Pacific Wine Merchants, had time to give a tour of the shop, which is in a city-owned former Santa Fe train station built in 1937. He pointed out the specially ordered light fixtures, the original cabinetry and the old ticket counter that now serves as the back bar for wine tasting.

Mr. Paciocco took the slow start on Friday in stride; he had done good business in the days leading up to Thanksgiving, and he expected to do well at Christmas, too.

“We’re like most retailers,” he said. “If you don’t do it in November or December, you’re not going to make it.”

— Rebecca Fairley Raney

3:15 P.M. |Hunting TVs and Telephones in the Great North

Shoppers waiting outside Sam’s Club in Eagan, Minn., for Friday’s 7 a.m. opening clung to free Starbuck’s Holiday Blend coffee as they endured freezing temperatures and biting winds and collected brightly colored vouchers for laptops and big-screen TVs.

The biggest draw: a 96-cent Samsung Galaxy S III smartphone. Once inside, they beelined for tickets for the 63 in stock, which sold out shortly after the store opened. Customers could make an appointment for later in the day or another day to purchase the phone, choosing from three carriers, Verizon, T-Mobile or Sprint.

“O.K., this is my last blue for Sprint,” an employee called out at 7:08 a.m.

Erin Mustonen, 23, a consultant from Eagan who graduated from college last December, was the first in line outside Sam’s, arriving with her boyfriend at 5:30 a.m. and snagging a 65-inch Vizio Smart TV for $998. It was sweet redemption since she was the 21st shopper to seek a 60-inch Vizio Thursday night at nearby Walmart, which had 20 in stock.

Sam’s early-bird shoppers voiced satisfaction in having had a normal Thanksgiving celebration, bucking the Thursday-night push.

“I don’t like it,” said Denny Johnson, 66, a retired property manager from Burnsville who had come for a 51-inch Samsung TV. “They’re going to start this on Veterans Day if they keep going.”

Subbamanoz Kristam, a 27-year-old software engineer living in Eagan, stood outside with a friend while their wives huddled in the car – only to learn that the Samsung doorbuster didn’t include AT&T customers. The lines seemed longer than last year, he said.

Mr. Kristam’s friend, Praveen Elagala, 30, also a software engineer in Eagan, had embarked on his first Black Friday to buy a 55-inch Samsung LED TV for $998. “It’s pretty exciting,” he said, sipping his coffee. “My wife will be happy.”

Archie Weatherspoon IV, 29, a probation officer from St. Paul, came with his wife and two young boys, who munched on McDonald’s hash browns as they awaited a Samsung Galaxy ticket.

Mr. Weatherspoon had almost called off the plan for their first Black Friday outing after watching a YouTube video of a Thursday night cellphone fight at an out-of-state Walmart. “I don’t want to bring my kids out if it’s going to be that chaotic,” he said. But he decided to trust Sam’s for a “more organized” set-up and left with a Samsung ticket and five $9.98 Blu-ray DVDs.

Chuck Magnusson, 74, a retired highway engineer from Detroit Lakes, bought a Samsung Galaxy for Sprint’s unlimited texting plan so he could keep up with his dexterous kids.

Jeff Sengbusch, 48, a health care support clinician from South St. Paul, hazarded his first Black Friday in more than 20 years. “I’ve worked maintenance at a mall – I’ve seen arms broken, people shoved and kids trampled,” he said.

Concerned about the economy and President Obama’s re-election, Mr. Sengbusch said he planned to cut holiday buying way back, having typically spent $250 to $300 on each of his children. “I’m setting a $50 limit because I can’t afford the future taxes. I can only give so much.”

Others succumbed to Black Friday whims. “I didn’t even want it,” Meshia Flood, 36, a student from Eagan, told a worker standing near the exit, referring to the 40-inch Sanyo LED TV on her cart. She and her 13-year-old daughter had come for the Samsung Galaxy but hadn’t managed to snag one of the Verizon phones, which disappeared minutes after opening.

– Christina Capecchi

2:02 P.M. |Electronics Sell Well

At a Kmart in Memphis, hours before the sun rose on Black Friday, there was already a return. Alton Hays taped up a box and brought back a wet-dry vacuum he purchased on Thursday. It didn’t have wheels and was missing its wand.

But many other electronic items were still going out the door. Most of the sleep-deprived shoppers were there for the handful of “doorbuster” deals worth some effort, they said: televisions priced at an average $200 off regular price and discounted washers/dryers, telephones and cameras.

Kinson Fant, 37, wanted one of the larger televisions, but the store’s limited stock was already spoken for through tickets passed out earlier. Ms. Fant, who lost her job at Nike’s distribution center in Memphis six days earlier, settled for a 19-inch television for $88.

When Glenda Wallace, a long-haul truck driver, finished her wait in the electronics line — the longest one in the store — she wheeled her shopping cart carrying her 52-inch television she just bought to the opposite end of the store to begin another hour or two wait in the second-longest line – the one for layaways.

She ended up buying one television, receiving a raincheck on a second one and putting a third in layaway all for herself.

Last year, she said, she spent $7,000 on Christmas presents for her family. She’s told them all this year that things will be different. Not because of the economy — just because.

“I’m spending less this year. I sure am,” Ms. Wallace said. “Because, I ain’t buying nobody nothing! You can save a lot of money that way. They got all they needed from me last year.”

Others said they cut back spending for other reasons. “We’re spending less this year because we’ve found better deals,” said 31-year-old Regina Woods, a child care provider, who was in the Kmart electronics line with her husband, 37-year-old Daryl Woods.

– Cindy Wolff

1:47 P.M. |Bargain-Hunting on a Tight Budget

Matt and Veronica Lynagh of Columbus, Ohio, made a series of financial changes after their daughter was born last December that radically changed their approach to Christmas shopping this year.

Veronica, 29, quit her job this year as a director of sales for the Columbus Dispatch newspaper to start her own marketing consulting business so that she could spend more time at home with the baby. They used some of their savings to pay off credit card debt. They refinanced their home, saving them $200 a month. Matt, 30, who works at Jegs, an auto parts supply company, traded his Dodge Ram 1500 Crew Cab pickup for a Mazda 6 SUV, which saved them $250 a month on gas. They also started aggressively putting money into savings.

They also got serious about budgeting. They created a spreadsheet that’s color-coded for income and spending. A few months ago, Veronica used the spreadsheet to set $700 aside to prepare for holiday shopping.

“Our feeling now is to spend, but do it responsibly,” Veronica said.

Another reason for their belt-tightening was political. They both voted for Mitt Romney, largely because they worry about runaway government spending under President Obama. “We’re nervous” about Obama’s re-election, Veronica said. “Our government is spending money we don’t have. Somebody eventually will pay that off, and it will be my daughter.”

So this year, they won’t buy any presents with credit cards. They’ll use their bank cash cards instead. “We don’t put anything on credit anymore,” Matt said.

Meanwhile, they use the same shopping system that they have for years, in which Matt does the bulk of the Black Friday shopping. His strategy is to avoid popular stores like Walmart, where there are often long lines, focusing instead on smaller locations. When he arrives, he finds the nearest uniformed employee, points at a desired item in the store’s Black Friday newspaper ad, and asks, “Where’s this?” He walks briskly to the indicated spot, grabs the gift and heads straight for the cashier.

“I feel it would be really stupid to pay full price this season when all the stores have such good deals,” Matt said.

After using his system at Toys “R” Us and spending $135.02 on gifts for his daughter, he drove to Best Buy, where the line was still wrapped around the building, even though the store had opened at midnight, an hour and a half earlier.

“Forget that,” he said. “I wanted a hard drive for photos, but I’m not going to wait in line for that.”

– Christopher Maag

12:04 P.M. |Protests at Walmarts

3:55 P.M. | Updated

Walmart faced not only a throng of shoppers on Black Friday, but what a union-backed group said was the biggest wave of protests that the retailer has faced. On Thursday night, there were protests at Walmart stores in Miami, Dallas and Milwaukee, part of what the group, OUR Walmart, said would be rallies at 1,000 Walmart stores in 46 states.

In Milwaukee, more than 50 workers and their allies demonstrated outside a Walmart store, and in Kenosha, Wisc., more than 30 did, carrying signs that spelled out, “Respect the Workers.” In Quincy, Mass., two dozen workers and their supporters demonstrated during the night, with an illuminated projection on the store’s outside walls saying, “Massachusetts Supports Walmart Workers Rights,” the labor group said. On Friday morning in the Washington, D.C., area, several hundred people – a combination of Walmart workers and their supporters, many from various labor unions – demonstrated at a series of Walmart stores.

OUR Walmart – its formal name is Organization United for Respect at Walmart – clams several thousand Walmart employees as members and said that many of them would not report to work Friday in what the group says is a strike. The group, which works closely with the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, said its members were protesting what it said was retaliation by Walmart managers against employees who speak out about their wages, part-time hours and working conditions.

Walmart officials have repeatedly called the protests “a publicity stunt.” The company issued a statement Friday saying that 26 protests had occurred at its stores on Thursday night. “Many of them did not include any Walmart associates,” the company said. It estimated that fewer than 50 Walmart employees had participated in the protests on Thanksgiving evening.

“In fact, this year, roughly the same number of associates missed their scheduled shift as last year,” Bill Simon, the company’s chief executive officer, said in the statement.

Nancy Cleeland, spokeswoman for the National Labor Relations Board, said the labor board would not respond on Friday to a complaint that Walmart filed last week asking for a court injunction to bar the protests.

In a news release issued by OUR Walmart, Colby Harris, a member of the group and a Walmart employee for three years who said he walked off the job in Lancaster, Texas, said, “Our voices are being heard. And thousands of people in our cities and towns and all across the country are joining our calls for change at Walmart.”

Walmart’s 1.4 million employees in the United States are not unionized, and some of them have complained about their wages, lack of rights and the company’s hostile attitude toward any employee support for a union. Walmart has asserted that the protests are yet another union-engineered effort to harass and apply pressure to the company after the United Food and Commercial Workers has repeatedly failed in its efforts to unionize various Walmart stores.

Update:

In what organizers said was one of the biggest protests, more than 500 people — Walmart employees, community backers and some members of the clergy — rallied outside the Walmart store in Paramount, Calif., a Los Angeles suburb. Some of those protesters were arrested after engaging in civil disobedience by blocking Lakewood Boulevard.

Walmart officials said that most of the protesters were not company employees, but rather community supporters, and said some had been bussed from store to store to engage in multiple protests.

Dan Schlademan, one of the protests’ main organizers and the director of Making Change at Wal-Mart, an arm of the food and commercial workers union, said that hundreds of Walmart workers had gone on strike on Friday and engaged in protests across the country. But he acknowledged that most of the demonstrators were community allies, saying they shared the goal of pressing Wal-Mart to improve wages and to stop what they say is widespread retaliation.

– Steven Greenhouse

10:16 A.M. |As Black Friday Goes, So Goes the Economy?

Analysts and investors pay a lot of attention to Black Friday figures and anecdotes, hoping that they will provide some insight into the consumer psyche and by extension the overall economy. Consumer spending, after all, represents about 70 percent of total economic output, and Black Friday is the most hyped shopping day of the year.

But it’s not clear how much Black Friday activity actually tells us about the underlying health of the economy, or even about how much consumers are going to spend in the subsequent few weeks.

“History suggests that strong sales on Black Friday tend to be followed by weak sales over the rest of the holidays and that weak sales on Black Friday tend to be followed by strong sales later on,” Paul Dales, senior United States economist for Capital Economics, wrote in a note to clients, adding that the overall relationship between sales during Thanksgiving week and sales over the entire holiday season is weak.

“This would make sense if people have a fixed amount of cash that they allocate to either Black Friday or the rest of the holidays,” he said. “Good Black Friday sales may then just mean that households have brought forward some of their holiday spending.”

Consumer confidence has been quite strong in the last few months, in any case, suggesting that people may be willing to spend more money over the whole holiday period than they had in the last few years, regardless of how that spending is staggered over the next few weeks.

“We are in a very peculiar situation where corporations, politicians and financial markets all worry a lot about the ‘fiscal cliff,’ whereas households don’t seem to care,” said Torsten Slok, chief international economist at Deutsche Bank Securities, referring to the government budget negotiations.

Consumers may be more optimistic because they believe the value of their homes have bottomed out and so they’re starting to feel wealthier. The job market is firming up, too.

“Obviously, the unemployment rate is not dropping tons, but it’s dropping enough that it’s noteworthy and is making people feel more confident about their jobs and their own situation,” said Alison Paul, vice chairman and United States retail and distribution leader for Deloitte.

The other good news is there are five weekends between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year, which is one more than there has been the last couple of years. “Those are the big shopping days, regardless of how much business the stores are doing during the week,” said Ms. Paul.

– Stephanie Clifford and Catherine Rampell

9:37 A.M. |A Deal’s Not Always a Deal

People come out for Black Friday sales for, among other reasons, the once-a-year deeply discounted bargains. At least, that’s what stores want consumers to expect they’re getting. But smartphones have enabled consumers to get savvier about fact-checking those “bargains.”

Brick-and-mortar stores have responded this year by promising to honor major online competitors’ prices. They want to avoid the encroachment of so-called showrooming — shoppers using the physical locations to see what they may buy on the Internet — onto one of their biggest (and most profitable) shopping days of the year.

“This is one of the more profound changes this year because it really puts the power back into the hands of the folks in the stores,” said Alison Paul, vice chairman and United States retail and distribution leader at Deloitte. “These are the new rules of the road. For years, the store clerks had no authority to do this.”

Best Buy, Target, Fry’s Electronics and Staples have all agreed to price-match with at least some online competitors. Target has even installed free Wi-Fi in every store, according to Bryan Everett, the company’s senior vice president of stores, even though it makes it easier for customers to check competitors’ prices.

“That speaks to our level of confidence in our pricing,” he said. “We’ve worked very hard on our pricing this year to make sure it’s sharp and people can shop with confidence.”

Consumer analysts and advocates recommend putting your smartphone to good use and price-checking, since Black Friday “deals” aren’t always just that.

“About a third of the time it’s not a good deal,” said Mike Fridgen, chief executive of Decide, a price-prediction Web site. “Some are egregious,” he said, citing some offers he has seen for headphones. “That price has risen over the last few weeks as we’ve been getting closer to the holidays, and now they’re discounting it back to a level similar to what it was weeks ago, but not the lowest we’ve seen.”

Another reason brick-and-mortar stores may be slowing the loss of customers to online competitors is that more states have started forcing online retailers to pay sales taxes. That’s chipping away at the pricing edge of some major companies like Amazon.com, according to Nelson Granados, professor at the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University.

– Catherine Rampell

9:14 a.m. |Searching for Significance

On Twitter, some people are wondering what Black Friday sales will mean for the economy and the markets, minutes before they open in New York:

8:21 A.M. |Was Black Thursday Good for Retailers?

Early Friday, retail executives were already starting to assess how their decision to start Black Friday well before midnight on Thursday had affected consumer behavior.

Bryan Everett, Target’s senior vice president of stores, said that Target’s decision to open at 9 p.m. on Thursday rather than midnight this year resulted in more families in the store and in customers staying longer.

“Usually it’s just a parent with a child, or mom and dad, or just a single guest in the store,” he said, drawing on his previous 10 years of observing Black Fridays at Target. “This year we were seeing four- to five-person families.”

He said as a consequence, there was more “cross-shopping” this year: in addition to the surge in big-screen LCD TVs, iPads, iPods, DVDs and Xboxes, “we saw a nice pattern of shopping in the apparel and home departments.” Kids’ pajamas, blankets, sheets sets, pillows and scarves all did particularly well.

Mr. Everett did not yet have any specific sales numbers to report, but based on anecdotal reports he said he believed the volume of customers was about the same as last year, while shopping carts were fuller.

– Catherine Rampell

8:09 A.M. |A Civic Duty to Shop After Sandy

It was cold and dark, with the end of Thanksgiving only four hours old, when Ines Wishart awoke, donned a hat and winter’s coat and stood in line under the pale glow of parking lot lights at the Lord & Taylor in Westfield, N.J., for Black Friday.

“We really want to support the downtown and the businesses here after what happened,” said Ms. Wishart, 49, a teacher who lives in Westfield and was without power for a week after Hurricane Sandy.

Around the region, shopping centers and downtowns that had been frozen by the late October hurricane bustled with shoppers during paperboy hours on Friday. Some, like Ms. Wishart, said they came out of a sense of civic duty to help hometown businesses recover revenue. And others, like Genevieve Cece, 33, a homemaker who lives in neighboring Clark, N.J., and lost power for four days, said shopping was a way to put behind them the storm’s bad memories.

“You come out to shop and get back to normal. You’ve got to move forward with your life,” she said, carting a Lord & Taylor bag from the store.

For the majority of Friday’s insomniac consumers, the motivation to stimulate the local economy was far more personal than public. When asked for whom they had gotten up at 4:15 a.m. to shop, Westfield residents Susie Katz, 51, and her daughter Maddie Katz, 17, answered in unison.

“Ourselves,” they said.

A line of perhaps 150 shoppers snaked from the front door of the Westfield Lord & Taylor deep into the parking lot, and when a church bell tolled five times, dozens more ran up to the line from their idling cars. A woman just inside the door handed out coupons worth $20. By 5:15 a.m., the lot was full, save for the parking spots furthest away. Some shoppers sprinted the length of the lot, trailing huffs of vapor that hung like clouds.

“I wanted that extra $20 off,” said Jodi Marvosa, 45, a caterer who lives in Westfield, who bought pajamas, boots and a sweater.

Linda Coleman, who works in education and lives in Westfield, came to the store with her daughter Danielle Coleman, 26, just for the experience.

“It seemed like an adventure. I mean, who gets up at 5 o’clock to shop?” she said. “I’m shocked by how many people are inside.”

Elsewhere, the early Black Friday scene was less manic. At the Hudson Mall in Jersey City, which was closed for weeks because of storm damage, Devlyn Courtier, 21, who works at Hudson County Community College, was the only one in line outside the Game Stop at 4 a.m. He said he woke at 3 a.m. and walked to the mall in order to buy a PlayStation system for his girlfriend.

“I wanted to make sure I was one of the first people here,” he said.

He added that he knew that the mall had been affected by Sandy, but was surprised by its condition.

“You wouldn’t notice it now,” he said. “It looks like nothing happened.”

For some early morning shoppers, the party started Thanksgiving night and just didn’t stop. Brittany Dannunzio and Lindsay Laguna, both 19 of Scotch Plains, drove to Tinton Falls in Monmouth County to shop from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. Then they spent a couple of hours in a chrome-covered diner and counted down until the Lord & Taylor’s in Westfield opened at 5 a.m.

“I plan on sleeping sometime — I just don’t know when,” Ms. Dannunzio said later, outside the Victoria’s Secret in downtown Westfield.

When the store’s doors unlocked at 6 a.m., the two young women squealed, “It’s open!” and charged inside. Ms. Laguna said that they would soon go to “whatever opens up next.”

For other sleepless shoppers, the morning was more frustrating. Cagla Yavuz, 19, and Yasemin Karamete, 20, of Westfield, spent an anxious night sipping tea and pinching each other to keep from falling asleep only to leave Lord & Taylor empty-handed at 5:15 a.m., grumbling about the crowds.

“Never again,” Ms. Yavuz said. “We didn’t even try anything on. People were pushing and shoving — the lines were ridiculous.”

Ms. Karamete, who had hoped to buy some Ugg boots, said she was now looking forward to shopping on the day after Christmas.

– Nate Schweber

7:50 A.M. |Macy’s Mayhem

Who exactly are all those crazy people who go to Macy’s at midnight for Black Friday?

Turns out a lot of them have been pondering that very question themselves, and finally decided to show up to see what the big deal was.

“We’ve been hearing about this for years in Canada, where we don’t have Black Friday,” said Donna Ward, 48, from just outside Toronto, who was waiting outside the flagship Macy’s at Herald Square around 11:20 p.m. on Thursday. “We came just to see what’s there to see. We want to see the stampedes!”

When the doors opened at precisely midnight, huddled masses of about 11,000 streamed in, according to Jim Sluzewski, a spokesman for Macy’s. They burst in like water at the seams of a leaky ship, gushing in from all nine entrances, running and cheering, with their arms pumping above their heads like marathoners crossing the finishing line.

“Let’s get in front of the cameras!” called Andre Hejazi, 19, from Salt Lake City, as he charged in with his friend Latoya Boender, 23, from Holland, both mugging for the dozens of journalists squatting inside the entrance to capture the mayhem.

The crowd was mostly young again this year, Mr. Sluzewski said. He noted that this was the second year the store opened its doors around midnight instead of a few hours before dawn on Friday. The younger Black Friday clientele may not be unique to Macy’s; a Gallup poll found that more than a third of Americans aged 18-29 planned on shopping on Black Friday this year, compared to just 18 percent of American adults over all.

The Macy’s crowd after midnight was full of foreign tourists – many of those interviewed said they were from Brazil, Canada and Japan – and plenty of college students looking for deals or at least some good stories for their friends.

“We can go all night — we’re in college and we’re used to not sleeping,” said Maricel Zamoras, 22, a senior at Southern Adventist University in Collegedale, Tenn., which brought students to the city on an eight-day field trip to study the sociology and business of New York. Ms. Zamoras and her friend Jessica Anzai, 20, agreed that shopping on Black Friday provided a hearty taste of both subjects.

“I’m looking to see what I can get that’s really good that’s also really, really cheap,” Ms. Zamoras said. “But if I go home empty-handed that’s O.K. too.”

– Catherine Rampell

11:07 p.m. |The Hard Core and the Merely Curious

At 8 p.m. Thursday, as the Times Square Toys “R” Us opened its doors, the line of circular-clutching deal-seekers curled halfway around a city block. The lucky first couple of hundred people in line had been given Santa hats and goodie bags by the store to honor their punctuality and warm their noggins, although the evening temperature was mild.

“We got here early for the iPod and tablets deals,” said Shequel Pearce, 39, holding up tickets she was given by Toys “R” Us staff that guaranteed her these items in case stock ran low. Visiting from Nassau in the Bahamas, she and her family arrived at 4:30 p.m. and were near the very front of the line. “We didn’t come to New York just to shop, but we’re here, so we’re gonna shop,” she said.

Parents farther back grumbled about how long the line was this year compared with last year, when the store opened at 10 p.m., and others peeled crying children away with a promise that they could visit “tomorrow.” Some tourists braved the line just to see what the fuss was about.

“I guess I don’t really have any particular goals for tonight’s shopping, but it seems less nerve-racking to stand in line here than walking through all of that,” said Patrick Tucker, a 24-year-old from Kansas City, motioning to the clogged pedestrian traffic on the sidewalks of Times Square.

Some had been anticipating this sale for months and were in for the long haul.

“We’ll probably spend the whole night at Macy’s after this,” said Iona Rashmi of Manhattan, who said she did the same last year. “I do my shopping for the whole year this night – holidays, birthdays, everything I need to buy for friends and family. The deals are better.”

As when Moses parted the Red Sea, once the doors to the building opened, those in line streamed in swiftly. By about 8:30 p.m. or so, there was no line.

Parents reading lists off of scraps of paper or their smartphones clustered around the Avengers gear, Monster High dolls, Barbies, Legos and scooters. There was a separate line within the store to get into the video game section.

Tina Lee of Manhattan lugged around eight gigantic blue mesh Toys “R” Us bags full of toys and gifts, saying she had been tasked by her coworkers to do all their purchasing since they were stuck working Thursday night and Friday.

“It’s sad I have to be the one to do it, but at least I have the night off,” said Ms. Lee.

Brazilian tourists in particular said they had purposely timed their visit to New York for this long weekend because they had been hearing about this magical American holiday called Black Friday for a couple of years now.

“Tonight I’m going to Old Navy, H&M, Sephora and maybe Apple, but maybe that’s tomorrow,” said Maria Augusta, 33, of São Paulo, Brazil. She bought a package deal for a flight and hotel for around $3,000 just so she could make her purchases at New York prices. “Everything is so expensive in Brazil. They think we’re all millionaires. It is worth it, very worth it, to fly here to shop.”

Catherine Rampell

8:29 p.m. |Hungry for Deals on Thursday

While some stores made the controversial decision to open on Thanksgiving, consumers were not necessarily buying into the “Black Thursday” rush just yet.

In Midtown Manhattan, a handful of the major chain stores, like Lord & Taylor, Old Navy and Foot Locker, staffed up on Thursday for people who wanted to get an early start. After all, a recent report from the International Council of Shopping Centers and Goldman Sachs estimated that some 41 million people were expected to take advantage of the increased Thanksgiving hours to shop before or after stuffing their faces with turkey and pie.

As of mid- to late afternoon, though, some of the stores were not especially busy.

On the third floor of Old Navy on West 34th Street around 4 p.m., racks of neatly hung children’s fleeces, pants and shirts remained still unmussed by shoppers. In some areas of the store, in fact, the shoppers were nearly outnumbered by polite and cheerful salespeople, who were handing out fliers about Friday’s deals beginning at midnight, 4 a.m., and 8 a.m.

Many of the people who were shopping said they did not come in seeking particular deals. Like Luiz and Sayonara Nascimento of Florianopolis, Brazil, or Maxine and Bill Sauber of Carlisle, Penn., they just happened to wander by and decided to browse.

“The door was open and the music was blasting, so we figured why not?” said Ms. Sauber. She said she was looking around for potential gifts for grandchildren but hadn’t decided whether to buy anything yet.

Likewise, several people interviewed at Lord & Taylor said they had not planned on doing any major shopping. They decided to come in after spotting people toting Lord & Taylor shopping bags in Bryant Park and around the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade route.

“So far the deals aren’t that great,” said Rachel Feldman, 20, of Brooklyn, who was browsing the shoe collection because she said she had some time before going to a friend’s dinner feast. She bought some chocolates at a shop at Bryant Park, but nothing at Lord & Taylor.

Many shoppers congregated around the boots and pumps on display, but other floors of designer clothes and sportswear had very few people milling around at 5:30, an hour and a half before closing time.

There were at least some customers who came on Thursday because they were not able to shop on Friday.

“You know those other stores are losing money by being closed right now,” said Latasha Jones, 46, at Old Navy. She said she finished cooking the night before to give herself time to shop on Thanksgiving since she had work on Friday. “It’s an off-day for a lot of people, and it’s the only time we can shop.”

Once her Thanksgiving dinner in Manhattanville was over, she said, she expected to be back in Midtown for Macy’s midnight opening.

“I’m not going to make it out all night,” she said. “But I need to get some bargains. With this economy, I need to save money just like everybody else.”

Catherine Rampell

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