Sony set to make pre-emptive strike on Microsoft with PS4

TOKYO (Reuters) - Sony Corp is expected to showcase a new PlayStation console on Wednesday in a pre-emptive strike against Microsoft Corp's bid to make its Xbox the world's leading hub for household entertainment.

The rare PlayStation event in New York comes amid industry speculation that Microsoft is set to unveil the successor to its Xbox 360, which beats the seven-year-old PlayStation 3's online network with features such as voice commands on interactive gaming and superior connectivity to smartphones and tablets.

"Their focus is on establishing a beachhead for the next generation of consoles, and that's what February 20 is all about," said P.J. McNealy, CEO and founder of Digital World Research. "The reality is they have been playing catch-up."

Pushing ahead of Microsoft's Xbox and Nintendo Co Ltd's new Wii U could help Sony revive an electronics business hurt by a dearth of hit gadgets, a collapse in TV sales and the convergence of consumer interest around tablets and smartphones built by rivals Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd.

Tablets and smartphones already account for around 10 percent of the $80 billion gaming market. Those mobile devices, analysts predict, will within a few years be as powerful as the current slew of game-only consoles.

After six years, Sony PlayStation sales are just shy of Xbox's 67 million installed base and well behind the 100-million selling Wii, analysts said.

A lackluster launch in November of the Wii successor, the Wii U, gives Sony a chance to focus on toppling Microsoft as all three battle the encroachment of casual gaming on tablets and smartphones. Nintendo cut its sales target to 4 million machines from 5.5 million for the year ending March 31.

STREAMING

Microsoft's answer to the casual gaming threat has been software that gives users extra content and allows them to surf the Internet from their mobile devices. The Xbox already streams Netflix and ESPN and links to tablets and smartphones using Windows or Apple's iOS and Google Inc's Android. Sony's PS3 online network has lagged.

"For Sony, they have to come out and make this PlayStation event the definitive statement of why gamers need to adopt the PlayStation 4 or PlayStation Orbis or whatever they end up calling it," said Greg Miller, PlayStation executive editor at video game site IGN.com.

Sony's purchase in July of U.S. cloud-based gaming company Gaikai for $380 million hints that the Japanese company will pursue a similar streaming strategy to Microsoft. Sony, industry watchers say, may also offer an expanded range of free games to counter the threat from casual gaming.

Sony, which under its CEO Kazuo Hirai is focusing on gaming, mobile devices and cameras, needs a hit product. But by betting on a PS3 successor, Hirai, whose most profitable business is life insurance, risks deepening consumer electronic losses as he will have to sell consoles at below the manufacturing cost to gain market traction.

That choice is made harder because the other two pillars of Hirai's new Sony - cameras and mobile - are losing money.

Sony expects to post a $1.4 billion operating profit in the current fiscal year. Yet, much of that rebound is gains from offloading real estate, including $1.1 billion for its New York headquarters.

The PlayStation event in New York starts at 2300 GMT (1800 EST).

($1 = 93.5200 Japanese yen)

(Additional reporting by Reiji Murai; Editing by Ryan Woo)

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Autopsy confirms Mindy McCready's death as suicide

HEBER SPRINGS, Ark. (AP) — Authorities in Arkansas say preliminary autopsy results confirm country music singer Mindy McCready's death was a suicide.

The Cleburne County sheriff said in a statement Wednesday that preliminary autopsy results from Arkansas' state crime lab show McCready's death was a suicide from a single gunshot wound to the head.

Investigators have said McCready apparently shot and killed her late boyfriend's dog before she turned the gun on herself Sunday at her home in Heber Springs, Ark. Authorities found McCready's body and the dog on the front porch where her longtime boyfriend, musician David Wilson, died last month of a gunshot wound to the head.

Authorities are investigating Wilson's death as a suicide but haven't determined an official cause of death yet.

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Well: Caffeine Linked to Low Birth Weight Babies

New research suggests that drinking caffeinated drinks during pregnancy raises the risk of having a low birth weight baby.

Caffeine has long been linked to adverse effects in pregnant women, prompting many expectant mothers to give up coffee and tea. But for those who cannot do without their morning coffee, health officials over the years have offered conflicting guidelines on safe amounts during pregnancy.

The World Health Organization recommends a limit of 300 milligrams of caffeine a day, equivalent to about three eight-ounce cups of regular brewed coffee. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists stated in 2010 that pregnant women could consume up to 200 milligrams a day without increasing their risk of miscarriage or preterm birth.

In the latest study, published in the journal BMC Medicine, researchers collected data on almost 60,000 pregnancies over a 10-year period. After excluding women with potentially problematic medical conditions, they found no link between caffeine consumption – from food or drinks – and the risk of preterm birth. But there was an association with low birth weight.

For a child expected to weigh about eight pounds at birth, each day that the mother consumed 100 milligrams of caffeine from any source equated to a loss of between three-quarters of an ounce to an ounce in birth weight. Even after the researchers excluded from their analysis smokers, a group that is at higher risk for complications and also includes many coffee drinkers, the link remained.

One study author, Dr. Verena Sengpiel of the Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Sweden, said the findings were not definitive because the study was observational, and correlation does not equal causation. But they do suggest that women might put their caffeine consumption “on pause” while pregnant, she said, or at least stay below two cups of coffee per day.

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State of the Art: Sony’s RX1 Camera: Compact, Full-Framed and Expensive, Too

When you’re shopping for a camera, you have a million specs and features to consider. Size, weight, battery life, megapixels, zoom power. ... Can you guess which aspect consumers consider most important?

The color of the body. (“Ooh, I like the shiny red one!”)

The camera buyer for a national electronics chain told me that. We both slapped our foreheads.

Please. If you’re buying a camera, shouldn’t picture quality be the most important detail?

If so, what you should care most about is the flat, rectangular light sensor inside the “film.” In general, the bigger the sensor, the happier you’ll be with the results and the more you’ll pay.

At the low end, snapshot cameras with tiny sensors (0.4 inches diagonal) cost $150 but give you blurry, grainy low-light shots. At the high end, those professional, big, black S.L.R. cameras cost $2,000 to $6,000 but come with full-frame sensors. That is, these sensors are as big as an old piece of 35-millimeter film (1.7 inches). They deliver unparalleled low-light quality, richness of color, detail and soft-focused backgrounds.

(You can buy cameras with even bigger sensors — medium-format cameras that cost $20,000 and military cameras that cost millions — but let’s say you live in the real world.)

All of this explains why Sony’s 2013 camera/camcorder lineup is so startling. The company has put full-frame sensors into three new cameras, at prices and body sizes that nobody has ever attained.

For example, there’s the A99, which Sony says is the world’s smallest and lightest full-frame S.L.R. It’s meant to compete with professional cameras like the Canon 5D Mark III ($3,200) and Nikon D800 ($3,000) — for $2,800. (These prices are for the bodies only.)

The A99 is sort of homely, but it has a long list of distinguishing features: fast, continuous focusing, even while filming or shooting something running at you; two memory-card slots; built-in GPS function that stamps every photo with your location; 1080p, 60-frames-a-second high-definition video; microphone and headphone jacks; and an electronic viewfinder whose video shows you the results of your adjustments in real time.

Sony says the A99 is also the only full-frame camera with a screen that flips out and tilts.

Then there’s the VG900, Sony’s first full-frame camcorder. It costs $3,300 — about $10,000 less than any other full-frame camcorder, Sony says. And its sensor is about 45 times as big as a standard camcorder’s sensor.

Now, a huge sensor may not seem to make sense in a camcorder. One frame of hi-def video has only about two megapixels of resolution; what’s the point of stuffing a 24-megapixel sensor into the camcorder?

Answer: It’s about picture quality. A big sensor gives you amazing low-light video, gorgeous blurry backgrounds, greater dynamic range and better color.

Thousands of filmmakers use full-frame S.L.R. still cameras to shoot video, because of the superior quality and because they can use different lenses for different video effects. S.L.R-based camcorders like Sony’s VG900 offer the same features in a camcorder shape. They’re much more comfortable to hold, and their buttons are better placed for video operation.

The VG900 accepts Sony’s E-mount camera lenses, of which there are 13; they don’t quite exploit the full area of that jumbo sensor. But the camera comes with an adapter for the older, more plentiful A-mount lenses. Alas, those lenses don’t autofocus with that adapter.

The most astonishing new full-frame Sony, though, is the RX1. It’s the world’s first compact full-frame camera.

Now, you’re forgiven if you just spewed your coffee. “Compact” and “full-frame” have never gone together before. Everyone knows why: a big sensor requires a big lens, meaning a big camera. You can’t change the laws of physics, no matter how much photographers would love it.

E-mail: pogue @nytimes.com

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Syrian Army Rocket Kills 19 and Levels Buildings in Aleppo, Rebels Say

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Syrian antigovernment activists said Tuesday that an army rocket had leveled several buildings in a rebel-held neighborhood of Aleppo, killing at least 19 people and possibly leaving dozens more buried under rubble. The attack appeared to cause one of the worst civilian tolls in the embattled city since its university was hit in a multiple bombing a month ago.

News of the Aleppo rocket attack came as activists also reported that at least two mortar rounds had exploded near President Bashar al-Assad’s Tishreen Palace in Damascus. There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage, and it was not known if Mr. Assad had been there at the time. The palace, surrounded by a park, is in an upscale area that has largely been insulated from the insurgency and is situated less than a mile from the main presidential palace, on a plateau overlooking the city.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based anti-Assad group with a network of sources inside Syria, described the Aleppo rocket as a “surface-to-surface missile” that slammed into the Jabal Badro neighborhood late on Monday, and said at least six children and three women were among the victims. A witness in Aleppo was quoted by Reuters as saying that the attack felled three buildings and that survivors were digging up bodies.

Syria’s state-run news media did not immediately report the rocket attack, and it was impossible to independently corroborate the details provided by the anti-Assad activists. But the attack appeared to be one of the deadliest in the city since more than 80 people were killed and hundreds were wounded on Jan. 15 in a multiple bombing of Aleppo University as students were taking exams. Although rebels and the government accused each other of responsibility for the university attack, video footage of the immediate aftermath suggested that it had involved a missile or missiles fired by the Syrian military.

The United Nations has estimated that nearly 70,000 people have died in the Syrian conflict, which began as a peaceful uprising against Mr. Assad in March 2011. The alliance of rebel groups fighting to oust Mr. Assad has claimed a series of strategic advances in recent weeks, but Mr. Assad contends that his side is winning.

On Monday, United Nations human rights investigators reported that violence in the country had worsened in the six-month period ending in mid-January. Carla del Ponte, a former war crimes prosecutor and a member of the panel responsible for chronicling rights violations in Syria, called on the Security Council to refer Syria to the International Criminal Court so that those responsible for atrocities in the conflict, from the government and from the insurgent side, could be held to account.

Anne Barnard reported from Beirut, and Rick Gladstone from New York. Hwaida Saad and Hania Mourtada contributed reporting from Beirut.

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Google risks huge fine under new EU data rules: top official

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Google's latest privacy policy could land it with a fine of upto $1 billion under a new law allowing Europe-wide challenges to U.S.-based Internet giants, Europe's top justice official said on Tuesday.

Viviane Reding, the European Union's commissioner for justice, said rules being finalized by the European parliament and EU countries would allow a single EU data regulator to fine companies on behalf of all national watchdogs.

"The one-stop-shop regulator could threaten a company which does not obey the rules with a fine of up to two percent of global turnover," Reding told journalists.

Asked what kind of offence would receive the full two percent fine Reding pointed to Google. "The test case (Google) is a clear one."

The overhaul of the existing EU data protection regime could come into effect next year and would allow for bigger single fines.

It would also require all countries to have fines. Some states do not now levy penalties.

Google's total revenue in 2012 amounted to $50 billion which would make a two percent fine $1 billion.

Under current European rules, only individual countries can levy fines against companies that violate data privacy laws. Fines range from 300,000 euros to 600,000 euros.

Reding said that the ongoing dispute between EU data protection regulators and search engine Google showed the weaknesses of the current system, which relies on each country identifying and punishing privacy breaches.

She added that Google's decision to ignore a warning by regulators in October to change its privacy policy was a clear-cut case for a fine.

Google said it had not ignored warnings and had since amended its privacy policy.

European data watchdogs have said they plan to take "repressive" action against Google by this summer for its privacy policy, which took effect last March and allows the search engine to pool user data from across all its services ranging from YouTube to Gmail.

While regulators say Google's policy infringes users' privacy, the company said it is not breaking any laws.

The new law now would place greater responsibility on companies such as Facebook to protect users' information and threaten those who breach the code with fines.

U.S. companies have been lobbying heavily against the regulation which forces them to seek water-tight permission from users for collecting their data and also gives users more rights to obtain and delete their own data from services like Facebook.

The European Parliament is currently reviewing the rules drafted by the European Commission. They will then need the consent of EU member nations before becoming law, a process that could take up to a year.

(Editing by David Cowell)

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Clive Davis reveals in memoir that he's bisexual

NEW YORK (AP) — Record executive Clive Davis says he's bisexual.

In his new memoir, out Tuesday, the 80-year-old, who is twice divorced, reveals that he had sex with a man in the 1970s. Davis writes in "The Soundtrack of My Life" that he hadn't been repressed or confused during his marriages and that sex with a man "provided welcome relief."

He also writes that he started dating a man from 1990 to 2004, which he says was a "tough adjustment" for his son Mitchell. He says after "one trying year," he and his son worked things out. Davis is the father of three children.

Davis is the chief creative officer of Sony Music Entertainment. He writes that he's been in a "strong monogamous relationship" with a man for the last seven years.

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Ask Well: Coaxing Parents to Take Better Care of Themselves

Dear Reader,

Your dilemma of wanting to get your parents to change their ways to eat better and exercise reminds me of an old joke:

How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb? Answer: Only one, but the light bulb has to really want to change.

Sounds like your parents may be about as motivated as the light bulb right now. Still, there are things you can do to encourage them to move in a healthier direction. But the first step should not be to hand them a book. Unless you lay some prior groundwork, that gesture may seem almost as patronizing as an impatient tone of voice – and probably as likely to backfire.

Instead, start a conversation in a caring, nonjudgmental way. Ask, don’t tell. “Say, ‘You know, I might not know what I am talking about, but I am really concerned about you,” suggested Kevin Leman, a psychologist in Tucson, Ariz., and author of 42 books on changing behavior in families and relationships. Ask simply if there is anything you can do to help.

Leading by example is also more effective than lecturing. “The son can role-model health by inviting his parents to dinner and serving healthful items that he is fairly certain they will find acceptable, or ask them if they are interested in going out dancing with him and his wife,” suggested Ann Constance, director of the Upper Peninsula Diabetes Outreach Network in Michigan.

Pleasure is a better motivator for change than pain or threats. Use the grandchildren as bait. Ask if they want to take the grandchildren to the zoo or a park that would require a good bit of walking around for everyone. Or the grandchildren could ask them to come along on one of those 2K fund-raiser-walks that many schools hold. After all, a day with the grandchildren is always a pleasure in itself. (O.K., usually a pleasure.)

Tempted to give them the gift of a health club membership? “Save your money,” Dr. Leman said. Try a more indirect (and cheaper) approach. Create a mixed-tape of up-tempo music from their era. (“Songs they listened to from the ages of 12-to-17, which is what we all listen to for the rest of our lives,” said Dr. Leman) They will enjoy it any time — maybe even while walking.

If you really want someone you love to make a change, the key is to ask them to do something small and easy first because that increases the chances they will do something larger later. Psychologists call that “the foot in the door technique,” said Adam Davey, associate professor of public health at Temple University in Philadelphia, referring to a classic 1966 experiment called “Compliance Without Pressure.” In the study, which has been duplicated by others in many forms, researchers asked people to sign a petition or place a small card in a window in their home or car about keeping California beautiful or supporting safe driving. About two weeks later, the same people were asked to put a huge sign that practically covered their entire front lawn advocating the same cause.

“A surprisingly large number of those who agreed to the small sign agreed to the billboard,” because agreeing to the first small task built a bond between asker and askee “that increases the likelihood of complying with a subsequent larger request,” Dr. Davey explained.

Any plan for behavioral change is most likely to succeed if it is very specific, measurable and achievable, according to Ms.Constance.

And the new behavior should also be integrated into daily life — and repeated until it becomes a habit. For example, if you want to walk more, start with a 10-minute walk after dinner on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, Ms. Constance suggested. The next week, bump it up to 12 minutes.

Don’t give up, even if you meet initial resistance — it is never too late for your parents or you or any of us to change. “Taking up an exercise program into one’s 80s and 90s to build strength and flexibility can result in very tangible and enduring benefits in a surprisingly short time,” insisted Dr Davey.

As for instructive reading, Dr. Leman is partial to one of his own books, “Have a New You by Friday,” and Dr. Davey recommends “Biomarkers: The 10 Keys to Prolonging Vitality,” by William Evans. Ms. Constance recommends the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Web site on physical activity and exercise tips for the elderly, as well as the National Institute of Health’s site on the DASH diet.

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Obama to Turn Up Pressure for Deal on Budget Cuts

Doug Mills/The New York Times

President Obama spoke at a White House auditorium surrounded by emergency responders.

WASHINGTON — President Obama, back from his three-day golf getaway, on Monday made use of his bully pulpit, while Congress remains out all week, to turn up the pressure for a bipartisan agreement to avoid indiscriminate across-the-board budget cuts that will otherwise hit March 1.

Speaking in a White House auditorium surrounded by blue-uniformed emergency responders to illustrate some of the jobs threatened if the cuts were to take effect, Mr. Obama warned that military readiness and vital domestic services would be hurt “if Congress allows this meat-cleaver approach to take place.”

“Changes like this affect our responsibility to respond to threats in unstable parts of the world,” the president said. “These cuts are not smart, they are not fair, they will hurt our economy, they will add hundreds of thousands of Americans to the unemployment rolls. This is not an abstraction — people will lose their jobs.”

Some Republicans in Congress have proposed alternative savings that would spare any cuts in military spending but not in domestic accounts. Mr. Obama and Congressional Democrats are calling for a mix of spending cuts and additional tax revenues by closing some tax breaks for wealthy investors and corporations.

Mr. Obama’s comments were among his harshest toward Republicans, and reflected the political frame that he has devised to try to force Republicans into compromising with him by supporting some higher revenues — something they so far refuse to do.

“The ideas that the Republicans have proposed ask nothing of the wealthiest Americans or biggest corporations, so the burden is all on first responders or seniors or middle-class families,” Mr. Obama said, adding that those proposals would “slash Medicare and investments that create good middle-class jobs.”

“So now Republicans in Congress face a simple choice,” he added. “Are they willing to compromise to protect vital investments in education and health care and national security and all the jobs that depend on them, or would they rather put hundreds of thousands of jobs and our entire economy at risk just to protect a few special-interest tax loopholes that benefit only the wealthiest Americans and biggest corporations?”

Republicans, seeking to put blame on Mr. Obama if the cuts occur, have repeatedly noted that the White House proposed the sequester idea during debt talks in mid-2011. But both parties overwhelmingly supported the proposal as part of their deal. And as Mr. Obama said on Tuesday, the purpose of the sequester was to threaten something so unthinkable that the two parties would come together to agree on an alternative.

The president’s latest deficit reduction push comes as the heads of his 2010 deficit reduction commission — former Senator Alan K. Simpson and Erskine B. Bowles, a former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton — unveil a new plan that would reduce the deficit by $2.4 trillion through a series of spending cuts and an overhaul of the tax system.

When Congress returns from a winter recess next week, just days remain before the deadline for the so-called sequester of spending cuts, a deadline that already was moved once — at the start of the year — to allow more time for the two parties to negotiate.

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Drug Makers Increasingly Join Fight Against Doping

Now, a growing number of pharmaceutical companies are trying to prevent their drugs from the same fate by joining with antidoping officials to develop tests to detect the illegal use of their drugs among athletes.

Two major drug makers, Roche and GlaxoSmithKline, have begun evaluating every new drug candidate for its potential to be abused by athletes and have agreed to share information about those products with the World Anti-Doping Agency, known as WADA, which polices drug use in international sports. Several other smaller companies have provided proprietary information about specific drugs. A conference in Paris in November dedicated to the topic drew 250 participants.

The development reflects a significant shift from the days when drug makers paid little attention to how their products could be abused by athletes, said David Howman, the director general of the antidoping agency. In the past, drug makers “felt that any publicity in relation to antidoping control would be negative,” he said. “But what they discovered is the opposite happened.”

Instead of shying away from such stories, Roche and Glaxo have promoted their involvement as an example of good corporate citizenship. Last year, Glaxo went so far as to sponsor the testing laboratories for the London Games, the first time in Olympic history that an antidoping laboratory had a named corporate sponsor.

Pauline Williams, who leads the team at Glaxo that runs the antidoping initiative, said the cooperation with WADA grew out of that sponsorship. “What the London 2012 involvement led to was a real pride and willingness, and a positive attitude toward this continued engagement,” she said. Since the start of the program, the company said it has shared information about four of its projects, and development of a test for one drug is under way.

Antidoping officials have long sought information from drug companies. For instance, Amgen, which developed EPO, helped develop a test for Aranesp, another of its drugs that has been used in doping, in advance of the 2002 Salt Lake Olympics. But such arrangements were ad hoc and fairly simple, said Olivier Rabin, the antidoping agency’s science director. “It was almost more by chance when it was happening,” he said.

Relationships between antidoping officials and pharmaceutical companies have sometimes been tense. In 2006, Amgen was criticized for sponsoring the Tour of California at a time when EPO abuse was rampant among cyclists. Although the company said it had sponsored the race to raise awareness about doping, it was later revealed that the organizers had failed to test for EPO, short for erythropoietin, a synthetic hormone that, like Aranesp, stimulates the production of red blood cells.

“They were associated with some things in the past which we felt were probably inappropriate,” Mr. Howman said. “What we had to do was start the conversation from scratch, and say let’s see how we can work together.”

Steven Elliott, the Amgen scientist who invented Aranesp, said the misperceptions went both ways. He said some believed, wrongly, that biotechnology companies were developing drugs that could be misused by athletes as a way to increase sales. “There was this uneasiness about that,” said Mr. Elliott, who recently retired but continues to work as a liaison between biotechnology companies and the antidoping agency. “There had to be this realization that it was a win-win for both sides.”

Antidoping officials began to work more closely with drug makers after 2004, when Dr. Rabin heard that athletes were talking about a new version of EPO, called CERA, that was being developed by Roche, and asked the company for help.

“We were shocked when they first contacted us,” recalled Barbara Leishman, who oversees the antidoping program there. She said company scientists had not realized that athletes were following the drug’s development so closely. “This is not the sort of thing we like to hear about our compounds.”

Roche then worked with the antidoping agency to develop a blood test for the new drug, turning over proprietary compounds, called reagents, that would help officials test for their drug. Because of the complex nature of the drug, which mimics the body’s own hormones, and the development of the test, the project took years.

In 2009, blood samples from six athletes taken during the Beijing Olympics tested positive for CERA. Other drug makers took note of the media attention Roche received for the collaboration, Mr. Howman said. “Once there’s a foot in the water, then you can follow and walk right in,” he said.

Roche broadened its agreement with WADA, expanding the project to screen all of its drugs in development. Glaxo followed suit and around the same time, two major industry groups representing biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies adopted policies encouraging their members to cooperate.

Halting the abuse of new prescription drugs is only part of the antidoping picture. Athletes today are believed to use a variety of methods to gain an advantage, from transfusing their own blood to taking tiny quantities of tried-and-true doping agents. And some performance-enhancing drugs gain life in illicit laboratories, as was the case with “the clear,” the designer steroid developed in the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative that toppled star athletes like Marion Jones.

Still, pharmaceutical companies have an important role to play given how complex new drugs have become, and how athletes are increasingly using substances that closely mimic the body’s natural processes, officials said.

“Developing detection methods to show that the substance taken in a synthetic form is different than your natural substance is more challenging,” said Matthew Fedoruk, the science director for the United States Anti-Doping Agency.

Many pharmaceutical companies already have the tools to create a doping test for their products because the Food and Drug Administration and other regulatory bodies require them to show how the drug passes through the body. During the development process, the companies design reagents to help identify the drug. Amgen and other companies, like the biotechnology company Affymax — which makes a competing anemia drug called Omontys — have given WADA some of these reagents for use in developing tests.

Still, Dr. Rabin and others said some companies needed persuading and did not return his calls. In those cases, he said, he uses peer pressure, reminding them that other companies are also participating.

“We know the progress of their drugs, and we know that at some point collaboration will naturally come,” he said. “We are a bit stubborn.”

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