Instagram furor triggers first class action lawsuit

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Facebook's Instagram photo sharing service has been hit with what appears to be the first civil lawsuit to result from changed service terms that prompted howls of protest last week.

In a proposed class action lawsuit filed in San Francisco federal court on Friday, a California Instagram user leveled breach of contract and other claims against the company.

"We believe this complaint is without merit and we will fight it vigorously," Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes said in an e-mail.

Instagram, which allows people to add filters and effects to photos and share them easily on the Internet, was acquired by Facebook earlier this year for $715 million.

In announcing revised terms of service last week, Instagram spurred suspicions that it would sell user photos without compensation. It also announced a mandatory arbitration clause, forcing users to waive their rights to participate in a class action lawsuit except under very limited circumstances.

The current terms of service, in effect through mid-January, contain no such liability shield.

The backlash prompted Instagram founder and CEO Kevin Systrom to retreat partially a few days later, deleting language about displaying photos without compensation.

However, Instagram kept language that gave it the ability to place ads in conjunction with user content, and saying "that we may not always identify paid services, sponsored content, or commercial communications as such." It also kept the mandatory arbitration clause.

The lawsuit, filed by San Diego-based law firm Finkelstein & Krinsk, says customers who do not agree with Instagram's terms can cancel their profile but then forfeit rights to photos they had previously shared on the service.

"In short, Instagram declares that 'possession is nine-tenths of the law and if you don't like it, you can't stop us,'" the lawsuit says.

Kurt Opsahl, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation who had criticized Instagram, said he was pleased that the company rolled back some of the advertising terms and agreed to better explain their plans in the future.

However, he said the new terms no longer contain language which had explicitly promised that private photos would remain private. Facebook had engendered criticism in the past, Opsahl said, for changing settings so that the ability to keep some information private was no longer available.

"Hopefully, Instagram will learn from that experience and refrain from removing privacy settings," Opsahl said.

The civil lawsuit in U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, is Lucy Funes, individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated vs. Instagram Inc., 12-cv-6482.

(Reporting by Dan Levine; Editing by Dan Grebler)

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Reaction to the death of actor Jack Klugman

Celebrities on Monday reacted to the death of "Odd Couple" star Jack Klugman, who died Monday at age 90. Here are samples of sentiments expressed on Twitter:

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"R.I.P. Jack Klugman, Oscar, Quincy a man whose career spanned almost 50 years. I first saw him on the Twilight Zone. Cool guy wonderful actor." — Whoopi Goldberg.

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"You made my whole family laugh together." — Actor Jon Favreau, of "Swingers," ''Iron Man" and other films.

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"I worked with Jack Klugman several years ago. He was a wonderful man and supremely talented actor. He will be missed" — Actor Max Greenfield, of the "New Girl" on Fox.

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"So sorry to hear that Jack Klugman passed away. I learned a lot, watching him on television" — Dan Schneider, creator of Nickelodeon TV shows "iCarly," ''Drake and Josh" ''Good Burger," ''Drake & Josh."

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2 Firefighters Killed in Western New York

Reuters

House fires burned in Webster, N.Y., near Rochester Monday morning after two firefighters were shot dead when they responded to a fire. Two more firefighters were wounded.

Four firefighters were shot — two fatally — after responding to an early morning blaze on Monday in Webster, N.Y., about 12 miles northeast of Rochester, officials said.

The suspected assailant also died at the scene, the Webster police chief, Gerald L. Pickering said, though it was unclear if he was killed by a self-inflicted gunshot or by the authorities.

“It does appear that it was a trap that was set,” Chief Pickering said of the blaze that drew the firefighters. “Causative reasons, we don’t have at this time.”

One of the firefighters was “able to flee the scene on his own,'’ he added. “The other three were pinned down at the location.”

Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester said two firefighters were in “guarded condition.” The two others died at the scene, Chief Pickering said.

The firefighters were from the West Webster Fire Department, about four miles from the blaze, and were believed to be volunteers.

As he recited the names of the four firefighters at a news conference on Monday morning, Chief Pickering repeatedly choked up. One of the deceased, Michael J. Chiapperini, was a police lieutenant in the Webster Police Department.

“These people get up in the middle of the night to go put out fires,” he said. “They don’t expect to be shot and killed.”

An off-duty police officer from Greece, N.Y., who happened to be driving by and stopped to help suffered shrapnel wounds from the shooting, Chief Pickering added.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said that the State Police and the Office of Emergency Management were working with local officials. He said that Webster firefighters and the police had initially responded to a car fire.

“New York’s first responders are true heroes as they time and again selflessly rush toward danger in order to keep our families and communities safe,” Mr. Cuomo said. “Volunteer firefighters and police officers were injured and two were taken from us as they once again answered the call of duty. We as the community of New York mourn their loss as now two more families must spend the holidays without their loved ones.”

The fire continued to burn through the morning, having spread to several homes. Four homes were fully engulfed and destroyed, and 33 area residents were evacuated, Chief Pickering said.

He added that, with authorities establishing and investigating the crime scene, “it took a while to make it safe” for firefighters to move in and combat the flames.

The site of the fire, Lake Road, runs along a narrow spit of land that divides Lake Ontario from Irondequoit Bay. The houses in the affected area are detached wood frame homes with yards, across the street from the lake.

Chief Pickering likened the area to “a little vacation nest.”

“We have very few calls for service in that location,” he said.

Michael D’Amico, a contractor who has lived on Lake Road for 20 years, said that residents were evacuated to a school. “We still can’t go back,” he said.

The area is home to many summer houses, he said, but some people lived there year-round.

“A lot of times I get woken up by gunfire, but I don’t think too much of it,” Mr. D’Amico said, noting that the area often attracted duck hunters.

“Usually the gunfire comes from the lake or the bay,” he added. “This was from further down the road.”

Vince DiPrima, an assistant manager at Bill Gray’s, a diner across the bridge from the fires, said some firefighters had visited his restaurant on Monday morning. He gave them some coffee.

“The stuff that happened in Connecticut the other day, and then this,” Mr. DiPrima said.

By noon, State Police helicopters swarmed overhead. Emergency vehicles zipped past.

“It’s a weird feeling,” Mr. DiPrima said. “It’s Christmas Eve.”

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Apps to help achieve New Year's resolutions

(Reuters) - Whether it is improving health or managing finances better, about 87 percent of Americans will make resolutions for 2013 and there are plenty of apps to help them achieve their goals.

Nearly half of New Year's resolutions are about setting health-related goals, which is the most popular category, according to a recent survey by online broker TD Ameritrade.

Rather than jumping into a rigorous fitness routine, a new app called 5K Runner suggests it might be better to ease into things slowly and focus on building sustainable habits. The iPhone app helps couch potatoes ramp up their running distance to 5 km over the course of eight weeks.

"You're slowly building this routine into your daily life with a lot of success and after eight weeks you're literally running 5K, which is pretty big if (initially) you're not running at all," said David-Michel Davies, the executive director of The Webby Awards, an annual ceremony honoring Internet companies.

The app guides runners through each run, alternating periods of running and walking for 35 minutes.

Davies also recommends Nike+ Running and RunKeeper, two popular and free fitness apps, which use GPS to track distance traveled, speed and calories burned. Both apps are available for iOS and Android devices.

Diet is another component of good health and a focus of many apps. Fooducate is an iPhone and Android app that helps shoppers make healthier purchases at the supermarket by allowing them to scan the barcodes of products and get insight into how healthy the product is.

Their database, which contains over 200,000 products, displays a grade for the product and information on its contents. It can show whether there are hidden additives or the probability of containing genetically modified ingredients.

"There are a lot of healthy people out there who unknowingly buy products that have an inordinate amount of salt in them," Davies said.

DietBet is an app for people with a competitive streak. Available for iPhone and on the Web, it allows its users to join in a four-week weight loss challenge to lose 4 percent of weight. Everyone bets money, which goes into a fund, and submits proof of weight lost. People who meet the challenge split the money.

"It comes back again to how people get motivated," Davies said. "Gamification is something that technology has really enabled and for some people it really works."

To stay on top of finances, Davies recommends Mint, which provides a visual view of all financial accounts and is available for iOS, Android and on the Web.

(Reporting by Natasha Baker in Toronto; Editing by Patricia Reaney and Eric Beech)

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Thousands sign US petition to deport Piers Morgan

LONDON (AP) — Tens of thousands of people have signed a petition calling for British CNN host Piers Morgan to be deported from the U.S. over his gun control views.

Morgan has taken an aggressive stand for tighter U.S. gun laws in the wake of the Newtown, Connecticut, school shooting. Last week, he called a gun advocate appearing on his "Piers Morgan Tonight" show an "unbelievably stupid man."

Now, gun rights activists are fighting back. A petition created Dec. 21 on the White House e-petition website by a user in Texas accuses Morgan of engaging in a "hostile attack against the U.S. Constitution" by targeting the Second Amendment. It demands he be deported immediately for "exploiting his position as a national network television host to stage attacks against the rights of American citizens."

The petition has already hit the 25,000 signature threshold to get a White House response. By Monday, it had 31,813 signatures.

Morgan seemed unfazed — and even amused — by the movement.

In a series of Twitter messages, he alternately urged his followers to sign the petition and in response to one article about the petition said "bring it on" as he appeared to track the petition's progress.

"If I do get deported from America for wanting fewer gun murders, are there any other countries that will have me?" he wrote.

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Risks: Pedestrian Accidents More Deadly in Men

More than twice as many men as women die in pedestrian-vehicle accidents. Now researchers have partly determined why.

Writing online last month in the journal Injury Prevention, investigators considered the contribution of three factors: distance walked, number of accidents and fatalities per collision.

Researchers using data from a variety of sources found that men and women walk similar distances and that men are involved in slightly more accidents per mile. Only 1 percent of the difference in death rates is attributable to distance walked, they found, and 20 percent to an increased number of accidents among men.

The rest — 79 percent of the variation — owes to the fact that when there is a collision, men die at roughly twice the rate of women. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 4,280 pedestrians died in traffic accidents in 2010, and 2,946 — 69 percent — were men.

Why? No one knows, but the lead author, Dr. Motao Zhu, an assistant professor of epidemiology at West Virginia University, suggested two possibilities: “Maybe males are more likely to cross roads with speed limits higher than 50 miles per hour,” he said. “Also, males may be more likely to be impaired by alcohol and drugs. Most people know it’s not safe to drive drunk, but it’s not safe to walk drunk either.”

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E-Book Price War Has Yet to Arrive

Thor Swift for The New York Times

A Google e-reader is displayed at a bookstore. Sales of e-books for the devices have slowed this year.

Right about now, just as millions of e-readers and tablets are being slipped under Christmas trees, there was supposed to be a ferocious price war over e-books.

Last spring, the Justice Department sued five major publishers and Apple on e-book price-fixing charges. The case was a major victory for Amazon, and afterward there were widespread expectations — fueled by Amazon — that the price of e-books would plunge.

The most extreme outcome went like this: Digital versions of big books selling for $9.99 or less would give Amazon complete domination over the e-book market. As sales zoomed upward, even greater numbers of consumers would abandon physical books. The major publishers and traditional bookstores were contemplating a future that would pass them by.

But doomsday has not arrived, at least not yet. As four of the publishers have entered into settlements with regulators and revised the way they sell e-books, prices have selectively fallen but not as broadly or drastically as anticipated.

The $10 floor that publishers fought so hard to maintain for popular new novels is largely intact. Amazon, for instance, is selling Michael Connelly’s new mystery, “The Black Box,” for $12.74. New best sellers by David Baldacci and James Patterson cost just over $11.

One big reason for the lack of fireworks is that the triumph of e-books over their physical brethren is not happening quite as fast as forecast.

“The e-book market isn’t growing at the caffeinated level it was,” said Michael Norris, a Simba Information analyst who follows the publishing industry. “Even retailers like Amazon have to be wondering, how far can we go — or should we go — to make our prices lower than the other guys if it’s not helping us with market share?”

Adult e-book sales through August were up 34 percent from 2011, an impressive rate of growth if you forget that sales have doubled every year for the last four years. And there have been more recent signs of a market pausing for breath.

Macmillan, the only publisher that has not settled with the Justice Department, said last week as part of a statement from John Sargent, its chief executive, that “our e-book business has been softer of late, particularly for the last few weeks, even as the number of reading devices continues to grow.” His laconic conclusion: “Interesting.”

Mr. Norris said Simba, which regularly surveys e-book buyers, has been noticing what it calls “commitment to content” issues.

“A lot of these e-book consumers aren’t behaving like lab rats at a feeder bar,” the analyst said. “We have found that at any given time about a third of e-book users haven’t bought a single title in the last 12 months. I have a feeling it is the digital equivalent of the ‘overloaded night stand’ effect; someone isn’t going to buy any more books until they make a dent in reading the ones they have already acquired.”

Another, more counterintuitive possibility is that the 2011 demise of Borders, the second-biggest chain, dealt a surprising blow to the e-book industry. Readers could no longer see what they wanted to go home and order. “The print industry has been aiding and assisting the e-book industry since the beginning,” Mr. Norris said.

It is possible that Amazon, which controls about 60 percent of the e-book market, is merely holding back with price cuts for the right moment.

The next few weeks are when e-book sales traditionally take a big jump, as all those newly received devices are loaded up with content.

Amazon declined to comment beyond saying, “We have lowered prices for customers from the prices publishers set on a broad assortment of Kindle books.” Barnes & Noble declined to comment on its pricing strategy.

The question of the proper price for e-books has shadowed the industry ever since Amazon introduced the Kindle in late 2007 and created the first truly popular portable reading device. Amazon had a natural impulse to build a market and was an aggressive retailer in any case, so it took best sellers that cost $25 in independent bookstores and sold them for $9.99 as e-books. Consumers liked that. E-book adoption soared.

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Syrian Airstrikes Reportedly Kill Dozens at Bakery

BEIRUT — A Syrian warplane was reported to have conducted airstrikes that killed dozens of people lined up for bread at a bakery in the central town of Hilfaya, according to anti-government activists in the area.

The attack, and its toll, could not immediately be confirmed. A local activist in the town named Samer said he ran to the bakery soon after heard a warplane, then bombs and finally the sound of ambulances. “There were bodies everywhere,” he said, adding that he saw tens of bodies taken away in cars.

Photographs he said he took at the bakery showed bodies in a heap on a bloody sidewalk, outside a low-slung building blackened with soot and stained with patches of blood, high on the walls. Amateur video showing what activists said was the aftermath of the attack showed roughly a dozen people lying on the ground, some wounded and several apparently dead.

In one of Samer’s photograph, a man stared in shock at the scene, with his hands resting on his head, while another carried body parts. Bystanders searched for survivors under rubble from the building. Another man picked up a piece of bread, lying next to someone’s slippers.

The reason for the attack was unclear, but activists said that rebel fighters occupied Hilfaya last week as part of a broader offensive to seize territory around the city of Hama, where the government has kept tight control after suppressing protests in the city last year.

Civilians have been caught between the two sides. On Friday, rebel fighters posted a video threatening to attack Christian villages with artillery while asserting that the residents were shielding government loyalists. In the last few days, Hilfaya had come under repeated shelling from loyalist positions in a neighboring village, activists said.

The bakery was one of three in the city. When word that a flour shipment from Turkey had come in spread on Sunday, Sunday, people began lining up around noon, waiting their turn at its windows for bread after a stretch of days when the bakeries had been idled. At least three bombs fell near the bakery, Samer and other activists said.

The attack came as the international envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, arrived in the capital, Damascus, where he was expected to meet with President Bashar al-Assad. His visit was rumored but not previously announced, signaling concerns about security as the fighting between opposition fighters and the government intensifies in the capital.

Mr. Brahimi made no public comment on Sunday, and the Syrian information minister said during a news conference that he had no knowledge of the envoy’s visit. Mr. Brahimi traveled by land from Beirut because of ongoing fighting between opposition fighters and the government near Damascus Airport, Lebanese airport officials told The Associated Press.

His visit was also likely to add fuel to the growing speculation about a deal to remove Mr. Assad from power, as rebel forces have claimed gains near government strongholds and as international aid agencies warn of a growing humanitarian crisis in the winter months.

Russia, one of Syria’s most reliable allies, has recently given signals that it is distancing itself from the Syrian president. On Saturday, the Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, said several countries in the region had offered Mr. Assad asylum, while adding that Moscow was not willing to mediate on their behalf.

Ellen Barry contributed reporting from Moscow, Hala Droubi from Jidda, Saudi Arabia, and Hwaida Saad from Beirut.

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Google working on "X Phone", "X" tablet to take on rivals - WSJ

(Reuters) - Google Inc is working with recently acquired Motorola on a handset codenamed "X-phone", aimed at grabbing market share from Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, the Wall Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter.

Google acquired Motorola in May for $12.5 billion to bolster its patent portfolio as its Android mobile operating system competes with rivals such as Apple and Samsung.

The Journal quoted the people saying that Motorola is working on two fronts: devices that will be sold by carrier partner Verizon Wireless, and on the X phone.

Motorola plans to enhance the X Phone with its recent acquisition of Viewdle, an imaging and gesture-recognition software developer. The new handset is due out sometime next year, the business daily said, citing a person familiar with the plans.

Motorola is also expected to work on an "X" tablet after the phone. Google Chief Executive Larry Page is said to have promised a significant marketing budget for the unit, the newspaper said quoting the persons.

Google was not immediately reachable for comments outside regular U.S. business hours.

(Reporting by Balaji Sridharan in Bangalore; Editing by Richard Chang)

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'Hobbit' extends No. 1 journey with $36.7 million

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Tiny hobbit Bilbo Baggins is running circles around some of the biggest names in Hollywood.

Peter Jackson's "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" took in $36.7 million to remain No. 1 at the box office for the second-straight weekend, easily beating a rush of top-name holiday newcomers. Part one of Jackson's prelude to his "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, the Warner Bros. release raised its domestic total to $149.9 million after 10 days.

Studio estimates Sunday put Tom Cruise's action thriller "Jack Reacher" in second place with a modest $15.6 million debut. Based on the Lee Child best-seller "One Shot," the Paramount Pictures release stars Cruise as a lone-wolf ex-military investigator tracking a sniper conspiracy.

Opening at No. 3 with $12 million was Judd Apatow's marital comedy "This Is 40," a Universal Pictures film featuring Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann reprising their roles from the director's 2007 hit "Knocked Up."

Paramount's road-trip romp "The Guilt Trip," featuring "Knocked Up" star Seth Rogen and Barbra Streisand, debuted weakly at No. 6 with $5.4 million over the weekend and $7.4 million since it opened Wednesday. Playing in narrower release, Paramount's acrobatic fantasy "Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away" also drew light crowds, debuting at No. 11 with $2.1 million.

A 3-D version of Disney's 2001 animated blockbuster "Monsters, Inc." also had a modest start at No. 7 with $5 million over the weekend and $6.5 million since opening Wednesday.

In limited release, Kathryn Bigelow's Osama bin Laden manhunt saga "Zero Dark Thirty" played to packed houses with $410,000 in just five theaters, averaging a huge $82,000 a cinema.

That compares with a $4,654 average in 3,352 theaters for "Jack Reacher" and a $4,130 average in 2,913 cinemas for "This Is 40." ''The Guilt Trip" averaged $2,217 in 2,431 locations, "Monsters, Inc." averaged $1,925 in 2,618 cinemas and "Cirque du Soleil" did $2,542 in 840 theaters.

Since opening Wednesday, "Zero Dark Thirty" has taken in $639,000. Distributor Sony plans to expand the acclaimed film to nationwide release in January, amid film honors and nominations leading up to the Feb. 24 Academy Awards.

Opening in 15 theaters from Lionsgate banner Summit Entertainment, Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor's tsunami-survival drama "The Impossible" took in $138,750 for an average of $9,250.

A fourth new release from Paramount, "The Sopranos" creator David Chase's 1960s rock 'n' roll tale "Not Fade Away," debuted with $19,000 in three theaters, averaging $6,333.

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