Estonian pleads guilty in U.S. court to Internet advertising scam

NEW YORK (Reuters) – An Estonian man pleaded guilty on Friday in U.S. federal court for his role in a massive Internet scam that targeted well-known websites such as iTunes, Netflix and The Wall Street Journal.

The scheme infected at least four million computers in more than 100 countries, including 500,000 in the United States, with malicious software, or malware, according to the indictment. It included a large number of computers at data centers located in New York, federal prosecutors said.

Valeri Aleksejev, 32, was the first of six Estonians and one Russian indicted in 2011 to enter a plea. They were indicted on five charges each of wire and computer intrusion. One of the defendants, Vladimir Tsastsin, was also charged with 22 counts of money laundering.

In U.S. District Court in Manhattan on Friday, Aleksejev pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit computer intrusion. He faces up to 25 years in prison, deportation and the forfeiture of $ 7 million.

The scam had several components, including a “click-hijacking fraud” in which the malware re-routed searches by users on infected computers to sites designated by the defendants, prosecutors said in the indictment. Users of infected computers trying to access Apple Inc’s iTunes website or Netflix Inc‘s movie website, for example, instead ended up at websites of unaffiliated businesses, according to the indictment.

Another component of the scam replaced legitimate advertisements on websites operated by News Corp’s The Wall Street Journal, Amazon.com Inc and others with advertisements that triggered payments for the defendants, prosecutors said.

The defendants reaped at least $ 14 million from the fraud, prosecutors said. However, Aleksejev’s lawyer, William Stampur, said in court on Friday that Aleksejev has no assets.

Estonian police arrested Aleksejev and the other Estonians in November 2011. One other Estonian, Anton Ivanov, has been extradited, and the extradition of the other four is pending, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office in Manhattan. The Russian, Andrey Taame, remains at large, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.

Aleksejev told Magistrate Judge James Francis he assisted in blocking anti-virus software updates on infected computers. Francis asked Aleksejev if he knew what he was doing was illegal.

“I thought it was wrong,” Aleksejev said in broken English after a long pause. “But of course I didn’t know all the laws in the U.S.”

Francis set a tentative sentencing date of May 31 for Aleksejev.

The case is USA v. Tsastsin et al, U.S. District Court in Manhattan, No. 11-00878.

(Reporting by Bernard Vaughan; Editing by Dan Grebler)

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Ex-Israeli security chiefs speak out in Oscar documentary nominee

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The Oscar-nominated documentary “The Gatekeepers” focuses on Israel, but its director says that all countries can gain insight about the risks that arise if secretive security agencies operate without adequate restraints.

In “The Gatekeepers,” six former heads of Israeli internal security and intelligence agency Shin Bet reflect on their failures and successes in gathering information on state enemies, orchestrating secret operations and tracking militants. They also offer some unexpected perspectives on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“I found myself more attracted to those who doubt, those who ask themselves questions,” director Dror Moreh told Reuters. “I am always afraid of people who don’t have questions, who don’t doubt.”

The English- and Hebrew-language film opened in New York and Los Angeles on Friday, and premieres in the UK in April, following a brief run at the end of 2012 that qualified it for its Oscar nomination for best documentary feature.

The film will compete at the February 24 Oscar ceremony with “5 Broken Cameras,” a view of the Middle East conflict seen through Palestinian eyes, AIDS documentary “How to Survive a Plague,” military rape film “The Invisible War,” and “Searching for Sugar Man” about a U.S. folk singer who becomes a South African pop icon.

Beginning with Avraham Shalom, who oversaw the Shin Bet from 1980 to 1986, “The Gatekeepers” covers the period through Yuval Diskin, whose tenure ended in 2011.

The former security chiefs discuss events such as the agency-ordered killing of two Palestinian bus hijackers, a plot by Jewish extremists to blow up the Dome of the Rock shrine in Jerusalem, the 1995 assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and the role the agency plays in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

DEFINING TORTURE

Always present is a struggle to balance security with ethics and politics, and several of the men discuss the scandals the agency faced over the use of what Shin Bet terms “exceptional practices” in interrogations.

Moreh draws parallels between Israel’s debates about ethical security practices and the United States’ struggle to define torture and regulate its own practices in its war on terrorism.

“I think at the end of the day any organization that has so much power like those clandestine organizations – Shin Bet, CIA, FBI, Mossad – has to have the law above it giving guidelines,” he said.

“When there was no oversight of the judicial system on those organizations, they acted as if there was no law, in terms of interrogating people, torturing, killing.”

He blames what he calls murky or non-existent regulations for practices that have sparked public anger worldwide, from the use of waterboarding to the abuse of prisoners by American soldiers at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison.

“They were stupid Americans who the system gave absolute power over other human beings,” Moreh said. “They weren’t trained to deal with that, they weren’t trained in interrogating, and this is what led to what happened in Abu Ghraib.”

The former security chiefs’ reflections are a mixture of affirmation and regret, but all six agree that the only way for their country to achieve peace is to work with Palestinians instead of against them.

They criticize Israeli politicians for turning a blind eye to settlements in occupied Palestinian territory, and for sometimes dealing lightly with Jewish extremists.

Ami Ayalon, who headed Shin Bet from 1996 to 2000, summed up their collective thoughts, saying, “We win every battle, but lose the war.”

Moreh believes that solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the most important issue facing Israel and hopes U.S. President Barack Obama will take a more active role in diplomatic efforts in his second term.

“I think this is like two kindergarten children – the Palestinians and the Israelis – who need the kindergarten caretaker to help them,” he said. “They need a grown-up to tell them, ‘Enough! Israel, Palestine, this is what you need to do, do it.’”

(Editing by Jill Serjeant and Peter Cooney)

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Medicines Co. Licenses Rights to Cholesterol Drug

The drug, known as ALN-PCS, inhibits a protein in the body known as PCSK9. Such drugs might one day be used to treat millions of people who do not achieve sufficient cholesterol-lowering from commonly used statins, such as Lipitor.

The Medicines Company will pay $25 million initially and as much as $180 million later if certain development and sales goals are met, under the deal expected to be formally announced Monday. It will also pay Alnylam, which is based in Cambridge, Mass., double-digit royalties on global sales.

That is small payment for a drug with presumably a huge potential market, probably reflecting that Alnylam is still in the first of three phases of clinical trials, well behind some far bigger competitors.

The team of Sanofi and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals is already entering the third and final stage of trials with their PCSK9 inhibitor, as is Amgen. Pfizer and Roche are in midstage trials.

ALN-PCS is different from the other drugs. It uses a gene-silencing mechanism called RNA interference, aimed at shutting off production of the PCSK9 protein. The other drugs are proteins called monoclonal antibodies that inhibit the action of PCSK9 after it has been formed.

Alnylam and the Medicines Company hope that turning off the faucet, as it were, will be more efficient than mopping the floor, allowing their drug to be given less frequently and in smaller amounts.

But that has yet to be proved. No drug using RNA interference has reached the market.

The Medicines Company, based in Parsippany, N.J., generates almost all of its revenue from one product — Angiomax, an anticlotting drug used when patients receive stents to open clogged arteries.

Dr. Clive A. Meanwell, chief executive of the company, said that PCSK9 inhibitors are likely to be used at first mainly by patients with severe lipid problems under the care of interventional cardiologists, the same doctors who use Angiomax. “It really is quite adjacent to what we do,” he said.

The Medicines Company licensed Angiomax from Biogen Idec, where the drug was invented and initially developed under a team led by Dr. John M. Maraganore, who is now the chief executive of Alnylam.

“It’s a bit like getting the band back together,” Dr. Maraganore said.

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Battle between Cubs, rooftop owners is best viewed from sidelines

From the Super Bowl to the sandlot, just as surely as players give 110 percent, the math of sports is always suspect.

Sports isn't like other businesses. What other investment becomes more attractive because of its unpredictability? Revenue can always be accounted for, but what of ego, pride, loyalty, stubbornness or even the microns that separate a catch from a muff?

In no other industry does a perennial also-ran continue to see its value increase.

That's why it's a mistake to get too wrapped up in the dispute between the wealthy Ricketts family that owns the Chicago Cubs and the owners of buildings adjacent to Wrigley Field who have turned their rooftops into garish, outsize extensions of the bleachers?

If it's just money, there's a price — and if there's a price, there's a solution to be worked out. If it's a game, the drama is best enjoyed with healthy detachment because logic may or may not dictate the outcome.

Like a hockey fight, one or both combatants will eventually run out of gas, then will be penalized with the loss of time and opportunity.

"What we are trying to do is resolve this right now," Jim Lourgos, one of the rooftop club owners, said recently during a visit to Tribune Tower. "If you're in court on something like this, my feeling has always been that by the time you're in court, you've already lost."

Unless, say, you're trying to run out the clock. But enough with the sports metaphors.

At the center of this dispute, for those late arrivals to this fight, is a nearly 99-year-old ballpark long overdue for a rehab. Wrigley must be brought into the 21st century, in the interest of the team but also all those who benefit from its standing as a tourist magnet, including those peddling rooftop seats.

The Ricketts family is said to finally have abandoned its quest for taxpayer help in funding the project.

It is true other sports franchises in town have received taxpayer help to build facilities that enrich their owners, but every bad idea has to end somewhere. This would at last be consistent with the philosophy of patriarch Joe Ricketts, who has said he considers it "a crime for our elected officials to borrow money today to spend money today and push the repayment of that loan out into the future on people who aren't even born yet."

Rather than hitting up the cash-strapped city and state, the Ricketts clan instead wants help in the form of concessions such as a relaxation of landmark restrictions and city ordinances that limit such matters as the number of night games and ads in the ballpark. They also want to turn one of the streets into a pedestrian mall.

The rooftop interests, which kick 17 percent of their revenue back to the Cubs as part of a nine-year-old settlement with the team, are terrified the loosened restrictions will result in their views of the ballpark being blocked by advertising signs.

Never mind that Wrigley Field itself has many seats with obstructed views, thanks to support posts.

The rooftoppers have offered to put advertising on their building facades with the money going to the team and city. And they think they have leverage via the 2004 contract they signed with then-Cubs owner Tribune Co. (Yes, that's the same Tribune Co. that owns the Chicago Tribune and still has a small piece of the ballclub.) They think they can parlay this into an extension of their current agreement with the team to 2023.

But the contract allows that "any expansion of Wrigley Field approved by governmental authorities shall not be a violation" of the deal, which means if Mayor Rahm Emanuel gets behind the Ricketts, look out.

Rooftop owners talk about the taxes they pay, the people they employ, the money they've invested to make their businesses safe and viable, the character they add to the neighborhood.

The basic argument, however, still seems a little like when your neighbor with the big-screen TV decides to start watching with the drapes closed on what's become movie night at your house. It's bad form to complain that they not only shouldn't shut the drapes but should open the window and turn up the volume so you and the people in your living room you've charged $1 a head can make out the dialogue better.

At the same time it's hard to sympathize with the Ricketts family, which invested $850 million to acquire the team and ballpark, effectively creating a family trust that's a tax-efficient structure for protecting and eventually distributing wealth across generations. It's not as though these people didn't know Wrigley Field was in need of work or the deals in place with the rooftop clubs. They ought to be able to come up with the cash to make this happen, with or without advertising.

That deal is really something, though. For example, the contract calls for the Cubs to help hype them in a variety of ways, advancing the argument that the rooftop clubs are part of the appeal of Wrigley.

There's a requirement that "WGN-TV will show and comment upon the Rooftops' facilities during the broadcasts of Cubs games and the Cubs will request other Cubs television broadcasting partners to do the same." There's also a mandate for the team to "include a discussion about the Rooftops on their tour of Wrigley Field" and to include stories positive about the Rooftops in The Vine Line," the team's publication.

What you won't read in The Vine Line is that this fight, like the ballpark itself, is a fight over something that may increasingly be quaint in the coming decades. The Los Angeles Dodgers last week announced a $7 billion, 25-year deal for their own cable channel, following the example of the New York Yankees, which already have their own.

With that kind of money coming in via television, the pressure to make money from ticket sales may be relieved somewhat, turning the stadiums into glorified studios. But that may be too logical for sports. For one thing, it assumes that player salaries won't escalate in response as owners ditch their budgets in order to get an edge that may or may not materialize.

That's the thing about sports. You never know how the numbers will add up.

philrosenthal@tribune.com

Twitter @phil_rosenthal

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China May (or May Not) Be Behind the Twitter Hack

You may not have heard, but roughly 250,000 Twitter accounts may have been compromised by hackers. There’s a theory that — if you read between the lines — Twitter is implying the Chinese are to blame for compromising their security. 

RELATED: The Chinese Want to Know Why Their News Is on Twitter and They Aren’t

Twitter revealed that roughly a quarter million accounts may have been compromised by hackers in a blog post Friday evening. (A classic Friday evening news dump if there ever was one; they got a $ 10 billion valuation the same day.) 

RELATED: A Punk Prince, Women in the Military, a New Tennis Controversy

Bandits might have made away with “usernames, email addresses, session tokens and encrypted/salted versions of passwords – for approximately 250,000 users.” They think. A Twitter representative stressed to the Verge that they’re still investigating; there’s a chance we’re all safe. 

RELATED: World Languages Mapped by Twitter

But was China behind it all?! That’s an emerging theory. We don’t know who was behind it. Twitter doesn’t say directly. None of the usual suspects have claimed ownership of the attack. (Yet.)

RELATED: The Good, the Bad, and the Fuzzy of Twitter’s New Censorship Rules

But Twitter mentions the New York Times and Wall Street Journal hacks in their opening paragraph, apropos of nothing, really. It could mean the company was just trying to show they’re not alone in being targeted — look at these bullies picking on these other kids, too. Or it could mean they’re subtly implying China is behind it all. 

RELATED: Did the Berlin Wall’s Fall Save China?

The last paragraph in Twitter’s statement is where the theory really gets its legs. Emphasis ours: 

This attack was not the work of amateurs, and we do not believe it was an isolated incident. The attackers were extremely sophisticated, and we believe other companies and organizations have also been recently similarly attacked. For that reason we felt that it was important to publicize this attack while we still gather information, and we are helping government and federal law enforcement in their effort to find and prosecute these attackers to make the Internet safer for all users. 

So, did they do it? These sophisticated hackers who targeted other companies and organizations sure sounds like they’re implying it was China.

Was it China in the basement with the Cheetos and Red Bull and impressive coding skill? We don’t know for sure, but we’re definitely looking for any and every clue we can find. 

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Affleck wins directors award as ‘Argo’ hurtles to Oscars

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Actor-turned-filmmaker Ben Affleck won the top honor from his peers at the Directors Guild of America on Saturday for the movie “Argo“, cementing the Iran hostage drama’s frontrunner status for the Oscars.

The Hollywood directors‘ recognition for Affleck, however, is an awkward result for the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, which failed to nominate him for Best Director in what is considered one of the biggest snubs of this year’s Oscars.

Since 1948, there have been only six occasions when the Directors Guild of America (DGA) winner has not gone on to win the Oscar for Best Director.

“I have nothing but respect for the Academy,” Affleck said after collecting his first DGA award. The Hollywood star, a producer of “Argo”, said he was thrilled the film was nominated for the Oscars’ Best Picture award.

“You are not entitled to win anything,” he said.

“Argo” has picked up the three top awards from the industry’s guilds, whose members are also often members of the Academy.

Last weekend, the film was the victor at both the Producers Guild and the Screen Actors Guild awards, leaving Steven Spielberg‘s Civil War-era epic “Lincoln” in its wake.

Affleck also won Best Director at the Golden Globes while “Argo” won Best Drama. The Oscars will be held on February 24.

On Saturday, Affleck bested four directors who had all previously won the top DGA honor and gone on to win the Best Director Oscar.

It has been a particularly tough awards season for Spielberg, nominated by the DGA for the 11th time with “Lincoln” and a two-time winner for “Schindler’s List” in 1994 and “Saving Private Ryan” in 1999.

“What an incredible year for movies,” said Spielberg. “Maybe I’ve had moments when I wished it wasn’t such an incredible year.”

Affleck also beat out Kathryn Bigelow, nominated for Osama bin Laden-manhunt thriller “Zero Dark Thirty,” Ang Lee for his 3D adaptation of the bestselling novel “Life of Pi”, and Tom Hooper, for his screen adaptation of the hit musical “Les Miserables”.

In “Argo”, which is based on a real account, Affleck also plays the lead role of a CIA agent entrusted with extracting six Americans from revolutionary Iran after the U.S. embassy is stormed. The agent, with help from Hollywood, creates a fake film and makes the Americans part of the crew.

“There was a point in my life where I was really down and really confused … didn’t know what was going to happen and I thought ‘I could be a director’,” Affleck told the high-powered Hollywood crowd on Saturday.

“I don’t believe this makes me a real director, but I think I am on my way,” he said.

Another young director also collected a top award on Saturday – Lena Dunham for Best Comedy Series for “Girls”, the HBO show about four girls in Brooklyn and their travails over sex, work and making it in the big city.

“This is surreal, which I know is an over-used Los Angeles word,” said Dunham, who often appears in the show she created wearing little or no clothes.

(Editing by Pravin Char)

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Concerns About A.D.H.D. Practices and Amphetamine Addiction

Before his addiction, Richard Fee was a popular college class president and aspiring medical student. "You keep giving Adderall to my son, you're going to kill him," said Rick Fee, Richard's father, to one of his son's doctors.

VIRGINIA BEACH — Every morning on her way to work, Kathy Fee holds her breath as she drives past the squat brick building that houses Dominion Psychiatric Associates.

Andrea Mohin/The New York Times

MENTAL HEALTH CLINIC Dominion Psychiatric Associates in Virginia Beach, where Richard Fee was treated by Dr. Waldo M. Ellison. After observing Richard and hearing his complaints about concentration, Dr. Ellison diagnosed attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and prescribed the stimulant Adderall.

It was there that her son, Richard, visited a doctor and received prescriptions for Adderall, an amphetamine-based medication for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. It was in the parking lot that she insisted to Richard that he did not have A.D.H.D., not as a child and not now as a 24-year-old college graduate, and that he was getting dangerously addicted to the medication. It was inside the building that her husband, Rick, implored Richard’s doctor to stop prescribing him Adderall, warning, “You’re going to kill him.”

It was where, after becoming violently delusional and spending a week in a psychiatric hospital in 2011, Richard met with his doctor and received prescriptions for 90 more days of Adderall. He hanged himself in his bedroom closet two weeks after they expired.

The story of Richard Fee, an athletic, personable college class president and aspiring medical student, highlights widespread failings in the system through which five million Americans take medication for A.D.H.D., doctors and other experts said.

Medications like Adderall can markedly improve the lives of children and others with the disorder. But the tunnel-like focus the medicines provide has led growing numbers of teenagers and young adults to fake symptoms to obtain steady prescriptions for highly addictive medications that carry serious psychological dangers. These efforts are facilitated by a segment of doctors who skip established diagnostic procedures, renew prescriptions reflexively and spend too little time with patients to accurately monitor side effects.

Richard Fee’s experience included it all. Conversations with friends and family members and a review of detailed medical records depict an intelligent and articulate young man lying to doctor after doctor, physicians issuing hasty diagnoses, and psychiatrists continuing to prescribe medication — even increasing dosages — despite evidence of his growing addiction and psychiatric breakdown.

Very few people who misuse stimulants devolve into psychotic or suicidal addicts. But even one of Richard’s own physicians, Dr. Charles Parker, characterized his case as a virtual textbook for ways that A.D.H.D. practices can fail patients, particularly young adults. “We have a significant travesty being done in this country with how the diagnosis is being made and the meds are being administered,” said Dr. Parker, a psychiatrist in Virginia Beach. “I think it’s an abnegation of trust. The public needs to say this is totally unacceptable and walk out.”

Young adults are by far the fastest-growing segment of people taking A.D.H.D medications. Nearly 14 million monthly prescriptions for the condition were written for Americans ages 20 to 39 in 2011, two and a half times the 5.6 million just four years before, according to the data company I.M.S. Health. While this rise is generally attributed to the maturing of adolescents who have A.D.H.D. into young adults — combined with a greater recognition of adult A.D.H.D. in general — many experts caution that savvy college graduates, freed of parental oversight, can legally and easily obtain stimulant prescriptions from obliging doctors.

“Any step along the way, someone could have helped him — they were just handing out drugs,” said Richard’s father. Emphasizing that he had no intention of bringing legal action against any of the doctors involved, Mr. Fee said: “People have to know that kids are out there getting these drugs and getting addicted to them. And doctors are helping them do it.”

“...when he was in elementary school he fidgeted, daydreamed and got A’s. he has been an A-B student until mid college when he became scattered and he wandered while reading He never had to study. Presently without medication, his mind thinks most of the time, he procrastinated, he multitasks not finishing in a timely manner.”

Dr. Waldo M. Ellison

Richard Fee initial evaluation

Feb. 5, 2010

Richard began acting strangely soon after moving back home in late 2009, his parents said. He stayed up for days at a time, went from gregarious to grumpy and back, and scrawled compulsively in notebooks. His father, while trying to add Richard to his health insurance policy, learned that he was taking Vyvanse for A.D.H.D.

Richard explained to him that he had been having trouble concentrating while studying for medical school entrance exams the previous year and that he had seen a doctor and received a diagnosis. His father reacted with surprise. Richard had never shown any A.D.H.D. symptoms his entire life, from nursery school through high school, when he was awarded a full academic scholarship to Greensboro College in North Carolina. Mr. Fee also expressed concerns about the safety of his son’s taking daily amphetamines for a condition he might not have.

“The doctor wouldn’t give me anything that’s bad for me,” Mr. Fee recalled his son saying that day. “I’m not buying it on the street corner.”

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Shootings leave 1 dead, 2 hurt

Three shootings since Friday night have left a 21-year-old man dead and three people hurt, Chicago police said.

The fatal shooting happened about 8:30 p.m., Chicago Police Department News Affairs Officer Ron Gaines said.

Officers found the man in a hallway of a three-story apartment building in the 3900 block of North Central Avenue, in the Northwest Side's Portage Park neighborhood.

Paramedics rushed the man to Our Lady of the Resurrection Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.

Later, as snow coated Central Avenue and several squad cars parked near the scene, police searched for evidence and photographed a bike lying by an entrance on the building's north side.

It appeared the man had collapsed shortly after being shot near where the bike was found, police said.

Police have launched a homicide investigation in the shooting.

In a separate shooting, a 19-year-old and a 20-year-old were wounded about 11:30 p.m. near the intersection of South California Avenue and West 52nd Street.

Someone opened fire from an alley as the two walked home from a party, striking the 19-year-old in the back and the 20-year-old in the side, Gaines said.

Both people were taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where they were listed in good condition Gaines said.

The shooting happened in the Gage Park neighborhood on the Southwest Side.

A female was also shot in the foot just before 5 a.m. near the intersection of West 16th Street and South Kedvale Avenue, police said.

Check back for more information.

chicagobreaking@tribune.com

Twitter: @ChicagoBreaking

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GS: Ignore the chatter, BlackBerry rebound is coming

BlackBerry’s (RIMM) next-generation BlackBerry 10 platform has received mixed reviews out of the gate, but most seem to agree that the new OS and first two BlackBerry 10 smartphones will do little to attract interest from users of rival platforms. But as analysts continue to back off BlackBerry and investors lose confidence, Goldman Sachs sees a big opportunity for clients.

[More from BGR: Here comes the PlayStation 4: Sony announces February 20th PlayStation event [video]]

In a recent research note to clients picked up by Barron’s, Goldman Sachs analyst Simona Jankowski urged investors to take advantage of BlackBerry’s recent slide and buy shares at a discount.

[More from BGR: BlackBerry 10 browser smokes iOS 6 and Windows Phone 8 in comparison test [video]]

“We continue to see significant upside to estimates over the next three quarters, as BB10 devices drive upside to the Street’s ASP and margin forecasts,” Jankowski wrote. ”With 110 carriers completing lab testing by February, 50 carriers offering integrated billing, and Verizon getting an exclusive for the white Z10, we continue to see strong carrier support for BB10. Consumer adoption will decide the ultimate outcome, but estimate revisions should be a positive catalyst in the meantime.”

Jankowski also noted that BlackBerry Z10 sales could reach roughly 1 million units in the UK and Canada alone. The analyst believes BlackBerry World is off to a solid start with more than 70,000 available BlackBerry 10 apps, and the new platform includes a number of novel features that will attract attention.

“Consistent with BB10s browser superior performance on industry benchmarks – the Ringmark and HTML 5 tests – our preliminary tests show it to be much faster than leading competitive offerings. Additionally, while the company provided a full demo of the BB10 OS, we believe the details around Hub, Flow, Peek, and Balance were largely known. BlackBerry believes its Keyboard functionality will be a key differentiator, with the capability to ‘flick’ entire words to the screen with a single thumb. It can also recognize multiple languages within a single text or email.”

She continued, adding that the new BBM, BlackBerry Remember, Story Maker and enhanced camera functionality are all compelling features that will draw attention to the new platform.

Jankowski reiterated a Buy rating on BlackBerry shares with a $ 19 price target.

This article was originally published on BGR.com

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Why is Beckham sitting on the bench for nothing?

PARIS (AP) — David Beckham has won league championships in three countries on two continents, earns millions of dollars in endorsements and his name is practically synonymous with celebrity itself. He has his own cologne, for goodness sake. So why is he even bothering to sit on the bench for the Paris Saint-Germain football club?

His royal highness of football doesn’t need the money — and he’s said he’ll donate his PSG salary to charity — but he does need to start thinking about life after the game. At 37, Beckham is practically a dinosaur for the sport, and he acknowledged in his welcoming press conference on Thursday that he probably won’t be in the team’s starting lineup.

Instead, Beckham may be beginning to put in place a plan for life after the final whistle. Ellis Cashmore, a sociologist who writes about sports and media culture at Staffordshire University, said that prolonged exposure is always useful to celebrities building empires. In that way, the deal with PSG does double work: It keeps his name in lights for longer and also garners extra attention for the charitable contribution.

“When he does stop playing, which is going to be quite soon, his overall brand appeal will inevitably decline because we will inevitably forget about this guy,” he said. “I think he’s probably thinking, I want to stay in the shop window for a bit longer.”

But Cashmore also cautioned against being too cynical in assessing Beckham’s motives: “The guy is an athlete. He wants to do what he loves to do.”

Bruno Satin, an independent players’ agent who was with IMG for a decade, also said that the move to PSG — even if it’s to sit on the bench — is a step up for Beckham.

“For him, to be on the PSG team, it’s a higher level than being on the Los Angeles Galaxy,” he said. “For the world of football, for real football, the Los Angeles Galaxy is nothing on the map of football.”

Some wondered if Beckham was trying to avoid the notoriously sticky fingers of the French state with his plans to donate his salary.

But Sandra Hodzic, a tax lawyer with Salans, said the deduction an individual can take on such contributions is limited. Instead, it would be smarter for PSG to directly donate the salary — and take a big tax break in the process.

Doing so would have an added benefit for the club: UEFA, the governing body for European football, mandate that clubs break even. The donation could allow PSG to essentially write off Beckham’s entire salary — a huge help for a team notorious for mega-contracts.

Beckham, meanwhile, would be better off trying to avoid becoming a French tax resident at all. So far, Hodzic said, he is making all the right moves: His family is staying in London, he plans to live only part-time in the country for less than six months, and his primary source of income —whether or not he donates his salary — isn’t being earned in France.

Beckham’s agent did not return calls for comment on specifics of the contract.

Still, the charitable contribution has raised the question about what Beckham is getting out of the deal. For one, he likely is still getting a cut of rights to his image. Jerseys with his name on them were already selling out at the PSG store on the Champs-Elysees on Friday.

Cashmore, who wrote a book called “Beckham,” calls him a “marketing phenomenon” and estimates that about 70 percent of Beckham’s income comes from endorsement deals — with Adidas, for instance. That makes salary almost irrelevant — especially for a man estimated by the Sunday Times Rich List to be worth 160 million pounds ($ 253 million).

But the football feeds the endorsements, Cashmore says.

“It makes an awful lot of business sense to perpetuate, to prolong his active competitive football career,” he said, especially with a team that’s doing fairly well this year. “It makes an awful lot of sense for him to showcase himself because it will generate more income from his various other sponsorship and licensing activities.”

But certainly this move, as any at this late-stage in his playing career, is being made with an eye on what will come next. Cashmore said that when Beckham signed with the L.A. Galaxy, there was an understanding that he would eventually become an ambassador for American soccer. That plan clearly fell by the wayside — perhaps because Major League Soccer decided it was just too expensive to keep on the star after his presence on American soil failed to generate more interest in the game.

It’s possible, Cashmore said, that Beckham is looking for a similar deal after his stint at PSG, which is Qatari owned. The tiny, wealthy nation is hosting the World Cup in 2022, and Beckham’s contract with PSG will establish a relationship with it; from there, a role as, say, an ambassador for the tournament would seem more natural.

“For his after-career conversion, it’s important to have links with major actors in the world of sports,” said Satin. And Qatar is certainly one. It has poured money into PSG, drawing major names like striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic. It also funds the satellite network Al Jazeera, which could provide Beckham with a platform. And then there’s the World Cup.

In the end, though, Satin said the clue to Beckham’s thinking may be as simple as the eternal draw of Paris.

“PSG has become a glamorous club, a pretty nice club in a beautiful city,” said Bruno Satin, an agent. “It’s just two hours on the Eurostar (train) from London.”

____

AP Sports Writer Rob Harris contributed to this report from London.

____

Follow Sarah DiLorenzo at http://www.twitter.com/sdilorenzo

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