Yagami Website

San Francisco, California -- Apple CEO Steve Jobs on Wednesday unveiled the iPad, the widely and wildly anticipated tablet-style computer that he called "a truly magical and revolutionary product."

"What this device does is extraordinary," Jobs said. "It is the best browsing experience you've ever had. ... It's unbelievably great ... way better than a laptop. Way better than a smartphone."

The computer will act as a sort of missing link between the two. The model Jobs demonstrated at an invitation-only event in San Francisco operated without a hardware keyboard, with Jobs typing on what he described as a nearly full-size touchscreen keyboard.

"It's a dream to type on," he said.

It has a nearly 10-inch screen, runs existing apps from the Apple apps store and is available in 16-gigabyte, 32-gigabyte and 64-gigabyte versions, according to Jobs.

It will be about a half-inch thick and weigh about 1½ pounds.

Jobs said the iPad will be lightning fast: "It screams," he told a crowd that included former Vice President Al Gore.

The device will have a 1 GHz processor, an announcement that coaxed "oohs" and "ahs" from the audience.

Pricing will start at $499 for the 16-gigabyte version, $599 for the 32-gig version and $699 for the 64, Jobs said.

Having 3G mobile access will cost an extra $130 on each, he said.

Two mobile plans will be available through AT&T, and there will be no contracts, allowing customers to opt out at any time, according to Jobs.

They are scheduled to begin shipping in 60 days.

Jobs and executives from other companies announced several new apps designed for the iPad, including the New York Times and Major League Baseball. The slate also will be able to run all iPhone applications unmodified.

Some members of the struggling print media have expressed hope in recent weeks that a popular Apple tablet could renew interest in their content while bringing new revenue through subscription plans or iTunes purchases.

Also creating buzz at the event was the unveiling of the iBook interface, an aspect of the iPad that's expected to take a big bite out of the e-reader market currently dominated by Amazon's Kindle.

The iBook display looks like a real wooden bookshelf and will let users touch a book on that shelf to read it. It lets readers change fonts, tap the screen to turn pages or drag pages with their finger, according to Jobs' demonstration.

Jobs demonstrated several functions on the iPad, including Google Street View and used the reader function to pull up the New York Times and Time magazine.

Apple disciples -- and, yes, some await each new product announcement from the company with near cult-like devotion -- have been anticipating a tablet computer for several years.

The company has been considering designs for such a device since as early as 1983, and some smaller consumer-electronics companies already have rolled tablet computers onto the market.

Attendees at the Apple event cheered on several occasions, hollering particularly loudly when a skinny Jobs took the stage, when the iPad's price was announced, when Jobs debuted the iBookstore and when it was announced that the iPad will be sold unlocked, without a mobile carrier contract.

Some tech writers in the audience said they came into the event unsure of the concept but left as near-converts to the idea.

"I went into it prepared to be very skeptical, but I was impressed," said Jacqui Cheng, a senior writer at the tech site Ars Technica. "As a person who uses an iPhone, a laptop and a Kindle, it's kind of a natural way to combine all three things."

Stephen Hutcheon, an editor at the Sydney Morning Herald, said the iPad has sex appeal.

"It certainly has that Apple panache to it, so I'm sure it will be a top seller," he said.

Dylan Tweney, an editor at Wired.com, said the product did little to impress him.

Some tech writers said they were shocked that the iPad's price is so low, when they had predicted it to cost about $1,000. And Cheng said she found it amazing that the iPad doesn't lock consumers into a mobile contract.

But the iPad doesn't have a camera, as some had hoped. There was some groaning across the Internet at the news that AT&T -- which some users have accused of spotty coverage on the iPhone -- would be carrying the iPad's 3G signal too.

And the machine's apparent inability to run multiple applications at the same time was getting some negative comments.

And then there's the name. Lots of folks watching the announcement -- some of them, no doubt, dedicated Apple haters -- were quick to make the lowbrow connection between the name and a personal hygiene product.

While the Apple event was still going on, the term "iTampon" became a trending topic on Twitter.

Financial analysts debate how big the tablet market will be.

Bob O'Donnell, vice president of the firm IDG, said he expects the new tablet or slate computer category to result in 3 million to 4 million device sales this year, an amount he said was on par with e-reader sales for 2009. So, the category is notable but not enormous, he said.

Washington -- President Obama said Wednesday night he will work with Congress and the military to repeal the "don't ask, don't tell" policy that bars gays and lesbians from openly serving in the armed forces.

Obama made the remark in his first State of the Union speech during a short litany of civil rights issues, which included his successful hate crimes bill, a move to "crack down on equal-pay laws" and improvement of the immigration system.

"We find unity in our incredible diversity, drawing on the promise enshrined in our Constitution: the notion that we are all created equal, that no matter who you are or what you look like, if you abide by the law you should be protected by it," he said.

"We must continually renew this promise. My administration has a Civil Rights Division that is once again prosecuting civil rights violations and employment discrimination. We finally strengthened our laws to protect against crimes driven by hate," he said.

Weigh in on the president's address

Former Navy pilot Sen. John McCain said "it would be a mistake" to repeal the 1993 law that bars gay men and lesbians from revealing their sexual orientation, and prevents the military from asking about it.

"This successful policy has been in effect for over 15 years, and it is well understood and predominantly supported by our military at all levels," McCain said. "We have the best-trained, best-equipped, and most professional force in the history of our country, and the men and women in uniform are performing heroically in two wars. At a time when our Armed Forces are fighting and sacrificing on the battlefield, now is not the time to abandon the policy."

But in a message to Pentagon leadership, Gen. John Shalikashvili, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said it's time to repeal the law.

"As a nation built on the principal of equality, we should recognize and welcome change that will build a stronger more cohesive military," said Shalikashvili. His letter was sent to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-New York, who supports repealing the policy.

The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, an organization that works with those affected by the "don't ask, don't tell" law, praised Obama's call for repeal.

"We very much need a sense of urgency to get this done in 2010," the group said. "We call on the president to repeal the archaic 1993 law in his defense budget currently being drafted, that is probably the only and best moving bill where DADT can be killed this year. ... The American public, including conservatives, is overwhelmingly with the commander in chief on this one."

House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, flatly disagreed with the idea of ending it.

"When it comes to 'don't ask don't tell,' frankly, I think it's worked very well. And we just ought to leave it alone," he said to reporters Wednesday morning.

The policy prohibits openly gay men and women from serving in the U.S. armed forces.

The policy bans military recruiters or authorities from asking about an individual's sexual orientation but also prohibits a service member from revealing that he or she is gay.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Michigan, supports ending the practice but wants to go about it carefully.

Levin said he did not have any details about what the president would say.

"If we do this in a way which isn't sensitive ... we could have exactly the opposite effect of what I hope will be the case -- which is to change the policy," he said Monday.

Levin said the committee plans to hold hearings on the issue in early February, although the hearing may be with outside experts -- delaying a hearing with Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen, that had originally been promised, CNN was told by a congressional source.

Obama campaigned on the promise that he would repeal the law in his first year of office.

Speaking to the gay rights group Human Rights Campaign, in October, Obama admitted that "our progress may be taking longer than we like," but he insisted his administration was still on track to overturn the policy.

"Do not doubt the direction we are heading and the destination we will reach," he said.

Pentagon Spokesman Geoff Morrell deflected repeated questions about the policy at Wednesday's Pentagon briefing, directing reporters to take their questions to the White House.

"We continue to work on this problem," said Morrell. "But I'm not going to get into it with more specificity than that."

A British couple held hostage by pirates for more than three months have told of brutal treatment at the hand of their captors who they say are perilously close to killing them.

In separate telephone interviews with CNN affiliate ITN, Paul and Rachel Chandler pleaded for help and spoke of their fears that they were just days away from death.

An emotional Rachel Chandler also spoke of how she thought "dying would actually be an easy way out" and how she wanted to see her husband "at least once before we die."

The Chandlers were taken by pirates from their 38-foot yacht, the Lynn Rival, just days after setting sail from the Seychelles islands for Tanzania.

Their captors initially demanded a ransom of $7 million, but the British government -- in line with longstanding policy -- has refused to pay.

"Please, please find a way of helping us because it really is a very desperate situation here," Rachel Chandler said in the latest interview, in which she said she had not seen her husband for two weeks since they were violently separated.

"I've broken a tooth because I was hit on the head with something, probably the butt of a gun... I don't know... and yes, so we have been physically attacked."

Rachel Chandler, 55, who along with her husband has been held for nearly 100 days, said the pirates had issued a new deadline.

"They've just told me that if they don't get the money within four or five days they'll kill one of us."

Audibly close to tears, she also asked for a message to be passed on to her husband.

"The message to him is hang on for me because I hope -- my biggest hope -- is that I shall see him at least once before we die."

She added: "It's hard not to feel, well, dying would actually be an easy way out. It's hard to explain but it is when you're all on your own in this country and you've no idea where you are and no idea when something might happen and whether I'll see Paul again. It's just very, very despairing"

In a separate telephone interview 24 hours earlier, Paul Chandler, 59, described how they were separated and savagely beaten.

"We tried to stay together and they threw us to the ground and whipped us and beat Rachel with a rifle butt and I was dragged off, taken to a different location.

"I was allowed to telephone her about 12 days ago. Se said she was being tormented all the time and then she said she was giving up. They've lost patience. They set a deadline of three or four days, if they don't hear, then they say they will let us die.

"We're held in solitary confinement effectively. You know it's just [like being] treated as a captive animal."

It was not clear under what conditions the captives, who have been in sporadic telephone and video contact with journalists, had been allowed telephone access. ITN said both conversations had been shared with the British Home Office and his family.

Britain's Foreign and Commonwealth Office's official line on hostages says "the government will not make substantive concession for hostage takers, including the payments of ransom."

Pirates have been very active off the east coast of Africa in the past several years, operating out of lawless Somalia.

Last week, pirates attempted to hijack an Indian crude oil vessel 105 nautical miles from Somalia, the EU's anti-piracy naval force said. The pirates opened fire on the ship and were later arrested.

Piracy on the high-seas reached a six-year high in 2009, according to the International Maritime Bureau, which monitors shipping crimes.

This week, 100 charities are battling for votes on Facebook to win $1 million.

The competition is a new approach to philanthropic giving and is led by JPMorgan Chase, which throughout the competition will donate a total of $5 million to 100 charities chosen by Facebook users.

Traditionally, organizations would go through a grant process, and Chase would choose who would get its money and how much. However, late last year, Chase decided to take a different approach and put the power of choosing charities into the hands of Americans.

Chase took a database filled with 500,000 nonprofit organizations and uploaded the information on to Facebook. The bank then allowed "crowdsourcing" to choose which charities should be recognized in the Chase Community Giving competition.

The top 100 charities won $25,000 and advanced to the second round, where another vote will determine which organization will win $1 million. The five runners-up in the second round will receive $100,000 each.

Another $1 million will be given to a single charity chosen from the original group by a Chase board of directors set up to oversee this competition.

The concept of crowdsourcing corporate giving via online communities and voting was first used by American Express in 2007. In the Members Project, American Express would donate $5 million to charities submitted and selected by card members.

But Chase has taken a huge leap by moving the entire competition to Facebook.

"We wanted to find a way where we could hear from the communities we were operating in and hear what was important to them," said Kim Davis, president of the JPMorgan Chase Foundation, who oversees their philanthropic work worldwide.

The philanthropic arm of the large bank donates annually $100 million to organizations around the world, Davis said. "This, for us, is very much about testing out a new way of doing corporate philanthropy for the firm."

More than a million fans have participated in the Facebook program.

Along the way, obscure charities have joined better-known ones near the top of the rankings.

Because the winners of the first round worked hard to organize their online communities, smaller charities with get-out-the-vote passion were able to compete with larger organizations.

Thus, the final 100 charities range from the large Susan G. Komen for the Cure (which claims on its Web site to be the "world's largest grassroots network of breast cancer survivors and activists") to the Feel Your Boobies foundation, started by a woman in her garage, who wants to increase awareness of breast cancer screenings in young women.

As of midday Thursday, the top vote-getting charity on the contest's Facebook page was Invisible Children Inc., a nonprofit that seeks to combat child-related violence in Africa through documentary storytelling.

Other companies are starting to pick up on crowdsourcing corporate philanthropy.

Pepsi is donating $20 million in grants this year to applicants who submit "good ideas that move communities forward," said Bonin Bough, the global director of digital and social media for Pepsico.

If someone wants to build a park in their neighborhood, that is an idea that can be submitted. "Big or small, this is about the power of ideas and the individual," Bough said.

The voting will take place on a separate site that Pepsi created. But the beverage company is providing tools -- widgets to post on Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, Tumblr blogs and other social networks -- to make it easy for applicants to campaign for votes.

David Levy is the co-founder of Social Vibe, a 2-year-old company based in Los Angeles, California, that designs marketing campaigns around social good for companies such as Kraft Foods and Coffee-Mate.

"The new role of the [advertising] agency is to figure out for the brand what users want to share," he said.

Although Levy's work may be philanthropic, he is in the marketing business. Levy does not doubt that what Chase and Pepsi are doing is partly for public relations purposes. He said, "We all have to own up to the fact that brands are in the business of making money."

Pepsi's Bough is quick to point out the unprecedented amount of money being donated to support people's ideas.

"It is not just about headlines," he said. "It is about delivering impact."

Chase points to its long history in corporate philanthropy, which started in 1804.

The company said that if it was a public-relations effort, the competition would be done differently, with advertisements in newspapers and corporate PR representatives pitching reporters.

Publicity stunt or not, representatives for the charities said they have positive feelings towards Chase.

"I think it is an amazing contest," said Jared Paul, whose A Good Idea charity is now competing for the million-dollar final prize. He believes that the contest "is going to be a great example of how organizations can spend their money and serve communities in need."

A Good Idea is a volunteer organization that provides services to the homeless and underserved youth in San Francisco, California. Paul is hosting a voting party this week with drinks, food and computers so people can log onto Facebook and vote.

One returned to her Haitian roots, to give voice to women, honor their stories and shape their futures.

Another urged women to pack a courtroom in Haiti, where she succeeded in getting a guilty verdict against a man who battered his wife.

A third joined the others and helped change the law to make rape, long a political weapon in Haiti, a punishable crime.

Myriam Merlet, Magalie Marcelin and Anne Marie Coriolan, founders of three of the country's most important advocacy organizations working on behalf of women and girls, are confirmed dead -- victims of last week's 7.0 earthquake.

Remembering the victims of the Haiti earthquake

And their deaths have left members of the women's movement, Haitian and otherwise, reeling.

"Words are missing for me. I lost a large chunk of my personal, political and social life," Carolle Charles wrote in an e-mail to colleagues. The Haitian-born sociology professor at Baruch College in New York is chair of Dwa Fanm (meaning "Women's Rights" in Creole), a Brooklyn-based advocacy group. These women "were my friends, my colleagues and my associates. I cannot envision going to Haiti without seeing them."

Myriam Merlet was until recently the chief of staff of Haiti's Ministry for Gender and the Rights of Women, established in 1995, and still served as a top adviser. She died after being trapped beneath her collapsed Port-au-Prince home, Charles said. She was 53.

iReport: A tribute to Merlet

Merlet, an author as well as an activist, fled Haiti in the 1970s. She studied in Canada, steeping herself in economics, women's issues, feminist theory and political sociology.

In the mid-1980s, she returned to her homeland. In "Walking on Fire: Haitian Women's Stories of Survival and Resistance," published in 2001, she contributed an essay, "The More People Dream," in which she described what brought her back.

"While I was abroad I felt the need to find out who I was and where my soul was. I chose to be a Haitian woman," she wrote. "We're a country in which three-fourths of the people can't read and don't eat properly. I'm an integral part of the situation. I am not in Canada in a black ghetto, or an extraterrestrial from outer space. I am a Haitian woman. I don't mean to say that I am responsible for the problems. But still, as a Haitian woman, I must make an effort so that all together we can extricate ourselves from them."

She was a founder of Enfofamn, an organization that raises awareness about women through media, collects stories and works to honor their names. Among her efforts, she set out to get streets named after Haitian women who came before her, Charles said.

Dubbed a "Vagina Warrior," she was remembered Tuesday by her friend Eve Ensler, the award-winning playwright and force behind V-Day, a global movement to end violence against women and girls.

"She was very bold," said Ensler, who at Merlet's insistence brought her play "The Vagina Monologues" to Haiti and helped establish safe houses for women in Port-au-Prince and Cap Haitien. "She had an incredible vision of what was possible for Haitian women, and she lifted their spirits. ... And we had such a wonderful time. I remember her dancing in the streets of New Orleans and just being so alive."

Magalie Marcelin, a lawyer and actress who appeared in films and on stage, established Kay Fanm, a women's rights organization that deals with domestic violence, offers services and shelter to women and makes microcredits, or loans, available to women working in markets, said Charles, the chair of Dwa Fanm.

Charles remembered a visit to Haiti about two years ago when Marcelin, believed to be in her mid-50s, called seeking help. Hoping to deflect the political clout of a defendant in court, she asked for women to come out in droves and pack the courtroom. Charles watched as the man on trial was convicted for battering his wife.

Her death has been reported through various media outlets, and was confirmed to CNN by Carribbean Radio Television based in Port-au-Prince. Her own daughter helped dig her body out from rubble in the aftermath of the quake, Charles said she learned when she got the call from Marcelin's cousin.

In an interview last year with the Haitian Times, Marcelin spoke of the image of a drum that adorned public awareness stickers.

"It's very symbolic in the Haitian cultural imagination," Marcelin said, according to the Haitian Times report. "The sound of the drum is the sound of freedom, it's the sound of slaves breaking with slavery."

With Merlet, Anne Marie Coriolan, 53, served as a top adviser to the women's rights ministry.

Coriolan, who died when her boyfriend's home collapsed, was the founder of Solidarite Fanm Ayisyen (Solidarity with Haitian Women, or SOFA), which Charles described as an advocacy and services organization.

Her daughter, Wani Thelusmon Coriolan, said in Haiti children bear only their father's surname, but her mother insisted on keeping her maiden name and making sure her two children shared it, too.

"She said my dad was not the only one who created me. She was involved, too," her 24-year-old daughter, who lives and is studying in Montreal, Quebec, said with a laugh.

Even though Wani and her brother no longer live in Haiti (he is in Paris, France), she said her mother was determined to make sure they were proud of their homeland.

"She loved her country. She never stopped believing in Haiti. She said that when you have a dream you have to fight for it," Wani said. "She wanted women to have equal rights. She wanted women to hold their heads high."

Coriolan was a political organizer who helped bring rape -- "an instrument of terror and war," Charles said -- to the forefront of Haitian courts.

Before 2005, rapes in Haiti were treated as nothing more than "crimes of passion," Charles explained. That changed because of the collective efforts of these women activists -- and others they inspired.

With the three leaders gone, there is concern about the future of Haiti's women and girls. Even with all that's been achieved, the struggle for equality and against violence remains enormous.

The chaos that's taken over the devastated nation heightens those worries, said Taina Bien-Aimé, the executive director of Equality Now, a human rights organization dedicated to women.

Before the disaster struck last week, a survey of Haitian women and girls showed an estimated 72 percent had been raped, according to study done by Kay Fanm. And at least 40 percent of the women surveyed were victims of domestic violence, Bien-Aimé said.

And humanitarian emergencies have been linked to increased violence and exploitation in the past, she said.

"From where we stand," Bien-Aimé wrote in an e-mail, "the most critical and urgent issue is what, if any, contingencies the relief/humanitarian agencies are putting in place not only to ensure that women have easy access to food, water and medical care, but to guarantee their protection."

Concerned women in the New York area plan to gather Wednesday to strategize their next steps, Ensler said.

And while they will certainly keep mourning, she and the others are hopeful that Haitian women, inspired by these fallen heros and leaders, will forge ahead -- keeping their fight and legacies alive.

Port-au-Prince, Haiti -- Haiti's capital seemed to spring back to life Wednesday, more than a week after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake flattened many parts of the city and killed tens of thousands.

Electrical power was still out most places, but traffic lights were functioning and chaotic traffic clogged many streets. Aid trucks, some guarded by blue-helmeted United Nations peacekeepers, were seen leaving the airport. Water trucks also were spotted in parts of Port-au-Prince.

"There's energy in the air," said Haitian-born J.B. Diederich, who lives in Miami but returned to Haiti for a few days after the earthquake.

More U.N. convoys were seen moving through the city than in previous days, and so could vehicles for large nongovernmental organizations.

Latest updates | Twitter | Full coverage

Haitian police seemed to take a more active role, directing traffic and getting out of their vehicles to deal with some problem or other. For several days after the earthquake, heavily armed police officers were often seen speeding by in their trucks but did not seem to stop or do much.

There also seemed to be more street vendors Wednesday.

Some banks and wire-transfer companies plan to open Thursday, as do some stores, Diederich said.

To be certain, Port-au-Prince still has a ways to go. But on Wednesday, the city seemed ready to leave the tragedy behind.

A way out for U.S. citizens

Any U.S. citizen who wants to leave Haiti on a U.S. military transport aircraft can do so simply by going to the airport and applying for voluntary departure at a State Department office placed on the tarmac.

About 5,000 people have left in the past week, an official said.

iReport: Search list for missing and found

The service is available to U.S. citizens or anyone escorting a U.S. citizen who is a minor. Although the flights are initially free, the U.S. will try to recoup costs from individual passengers.

The cargo planes would return to the United States empty if they weren't transporting citizens.

Cubans wait with no way out

A handful of Cuban citizens stood in a line next to the U.S. State Department tent at the airport while about 100 U.S. citizens were processed for a flight Wednesday afternoon.

The Cubans wanted out, too, but there were no waiting planes. There weren't even any indications that a Cuban plane would arrive at all.

Impact Your World

"Here everyone resolves their problems, and we don't even have a way to get home," said a woman who did not want to give her name.

None of the three people interviewed by a CNN reporter would give their names. They laughed nervously when first asked and then said it would be too dangerous for them to comment openly.

With a "Hello World," Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has joined the ranks of the Twitterati, quickly becoming one of the microblogging site's most popular attractions.

In the minute it took to write the sentence above, 230 more Twitter users added Gates to their feeds, bringing his total to 165,800 by early Wednesday.

Twitter has put a "Verified Account" seal on the feed -- indicating it has checked and determined that @BillGates indeed belongs to Gates.

Several fake accounts have, until now, claimed to be Gates'.

Is Twitter a force for good in the world?

While more and more users add Gates, he seems to remain selective whose feeds he subscribes to.

Among the 40 users he follows are charities, celebrities and Microsoft employees.

His Twitter biography says he intends to use the service to share "cool things I'm learning through my foundation work and other interests."

Since stepping down as chief executive officer of Microsoft in mid-2008, Gates has devoted most of his time to his and his wife's philanthropic organization, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

He remains part-time chairman of the software giant.

In the 15 hours the account has been active since Tuesday, Gates has tweeted five times -- focusing on his foundation's work and on news of earthquake-ravaged Haiti.

"'Hello World.' Hard at work on my foundation letter -- publishing on 1/25," read his first tweet.

Later, he thanked actor and Twitter uber-celebrity Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk) and others who have welcomed him to the service.

"I've got a lot to learn about Twitter but look forward to sharing more," the tweet read.

Incidentally, Gates has rejoined Facebook. He quit last summer, after saying he was inundated with thousands of friend requests.

Washington -- Former U.S. Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina has admitted that he fathered a girl with his mistress.

"I will do everything in my power to provide her with the love and support she deserves," Edwards said in a statement.

The former 2008 Democratic presidential candidate previously denied that he was the girl's father.

"It was wrong for me ever to deny she was my daughter and hopefully one day, when she understands, she will forgive me," Edwards said.

"To all those I have disappointed and hurt, these words will never be enough, but I am truly sorry."

MANILA, Philippines (1st UPDATE) - Police on Thursday morning seized nearly 50 firearms and several ammunition from the house of Energy Undersecretary Zamsamin Ampatuan's brother-in-law in Davao City.

Operatives from the Davao City police and the Police Regional Office 11 raided the house of Mozulini Lidasan on Eagle Street, GSIS Heights in Matina district around 6 a.m.

Firearms seized from Lidasan's house include 24 pieces of .38 revolvers, 17 shotguns, 2 M-16 rifles, several ammunition and military camouflage uniforms.

An ABS-CBN Davao regional news bureau report said Lidasan, whose wife is a sister of Undersecretary Ampatuan, has a security agency.

Police, however, found out that the security agency's license to operate expired last August. Investigators were checking if the firearms have proper documentations.

Lidasan and an Army sergeant named Alberto Antisoda, who was "securing" the area, were arrested.

The report added that police were also preparing to enter another compound in Davao City where more firearms are believed stashed

"America's Sexiest Man" Scott Brown in his 1982 photo shoot for Cosmopolitan magazine. Photo from Cosmopolitan.com.

MANILA, Philippines - Newly-elected Senator Scott Brown became the butt of jokes on the internet recently after a photo of him posing nude for a magazine was posted on the web.

In September last year, Cosmopolitan magazine's official website posted a copy of the centerfold picture, taken 28 years ago, showing then 22-year-old Brown reclining on a floor with his arm strategically covering his private parts.

According to Cosmo, Brown won their "America's Sexiest Man" contest and appeared in its June 1982 issue.

In an accompanying interview, Brown revealed his political ambitions.

Brown was a law student at Boston College at the time of his photo shoot.

The nude photo garnered more interest from online users after Brown, now 50 years old, won as Senator of Massachussetts on Tuesday, becoming the first Republican elected for the post since 1972.

Brown defeated his opponent, Democrat state attorney-general Martha Coakley, by more than 100,000 votes on Tuesday.

He replaced Sen. Ted Kennedy.

Stimulus package

Newly elected Massachussetts Sen. Scott Brown at present. Photo from his official campaign website.

Kate White, Cosmo's current editor-in-chief, said in a statement on their website that the magazine is "thrilled that one [of their bachelors] has gone on to become a politician."

The magazine's 2009 post even went on to suggest campaign slogans for the senator-elect: "Vote for Brown. He Has One Hell Of A Stimulus Package" and "Scott Brown: A Name You Can Trust, Abs You Can Believe In."

Brown has represented a district in Boston's southwest suburbs since 2004 as one of just 5 Republicans in the 40-member Senate.

He previously served 3 terms in the state House of Representatives.

An attorney who specializes in family law, he lives in Wrentham, Massachusetts, with his wife of 23 years, Gail Huff, a general assignment reporter with the local ABC affiliate.

The oldest of their two daughters, Ayla, was a semi-finalist in season 5 of the reality television show "American Idol."

Brown also modeled and appeared in television commercials prior to entering politics. He also competes in triathlons.

WASHINGTON – There's a new application for Apple's iPhone and it comes from the White House of President Barack Obama.

"The White House App delivers dynamic content from WhiteHouse.gov to the palm of your hand," White House blogger Dave Cole said.

The free application, which is available through Apple's App Store, features live video streaming, Cole said in a blog post on WhiteHouse.gov late Tuesday.

"Now anyone with this app can watch the president?s public events at the White House, frequent Web chats with administration officials, and other events like key speeches and press briefings in real time," he said.

For example, Cole said Obama's January 27 "State of the Union" speech will be available to iPhone users.

"The White House App also lets users stay up to date with the White House Blog," Cole said, and will provide on-demand video of White House events.

"In the coming weeks, we'll also launch mobile.WhiteHouse.gov, a mobile-ready version of WhiteHouse.gov that is optimized for any Internet-enabled mobile device, including many other phones," he added.

Obama relied heavily on the Internet during his presidential campaign for organizing, fundraising and communicating and has created MySpace and Facebook pages and a Twitter feed since entering the White House.

Obama's "New Media" team has also launched a channel on YouTube and the White House is present on photo-sharing site Flickr.

Earlier this year, the White House launched several websites, Data.gov and Recovery.gov, in a bid to provide more information to the public and to provide unfiltered access to government data.

MANILA, Philippines - Nearly two-thirds of people who use social networking websites such as Facebook and Friendster are less likely to share information in their public profiles due to security concerns, according to a global survey sponsored by RSA, the security division of EMC Corp.

The survey, conducted last October 2009 by market research firm InfoSurv, Inc., interviewed 4,539 active Internet users between the ages of 18 and 65 in 22 countries across North America, South America, Europe and Asia Pacific.

The survey showed that 81 percent of online users are concerned about the safety of their personal information online. It noted that social networking websites have become a hotbed for online criminals because of their global reach and the participation by hundreds of millions of active users from all walks of life.

“Fraudsters continue to fine-tune their array of tactics that result in millions of computers becoming infected with Trojans and other malware,” said RSA senior vice-president Christopher Young.

"These online criminals are adept at social engineering with at-the-ready phishing attacks that are launched within moments of breaking news about popular celebrities, professional athletes or serious global events. In these cases, people are lured to legitimate websites infected with malware as well as complete fakes designed to look like well-known news sources."

Young said trojans can easily be masked as "required" updates to a media player which can result in countless computers becoming infected with malware.

The survey also showed growth in the number of victims of phishing attacks despite increasing awareness of the online threat.

In 2007, only 38 percent of Internet users said they were aware of phishing threats. This number doubled to 76 percent, according to the 2009 survey.

On the other hand, 29% of consumers said they became victims of phishing scams in 2009, compared to only 5% in 2007.

The sheer volume of phishing attacks launched in recent months is also contributing to these trends. The RSA Anti-Fraud Command Center recently reported3 their highest-yet detected rates of phishing attacks between August and October 2009 and a 17 percent increase in the total number of attacks between 2008 and 2009.

An increase in consumer knowledge of online threats is further evident from the growth in the number of respondents that expressed awareness of Trojans. In 2007, 63 percent of consumers stated that they were aware of Trojans and in 2009 that figure climbed to 81 percent.

Marlene Aguilar says son has no regrets

---

MANILA, Philippines - Jason Aguilar Ivler's mother has sought the help of the US embassy and the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) in probing possible human rights violations committed by authorities in her son's arrest last Monday.

Marlene Aguilar-Pollard, who is facing obstruction of justice charges for hiding her son, said the US embassy in Manila is set to step in on the case after sending some papers to her for Jason to sign.

"We will draft a petition urging the US embassy to do everything in its power [to help us]," she told reporters on Thursday.

She also sought the help of the CHR in investigating possible human rights violations during Ivler's arrest last Monday.

She claimed that NBI agents kicked his son in his abdomen even if Ivler was already immobile after suffering a gunshot wound in his stomach.

Ivler, a former US Infantryman allegedly involved in the killing of the son of Presidential Chief of Staff Undersecretary Renato Ebarle Sr., has no regrets about his life and will not apologize to any of his alleged victims.

Aguilar said Ivler is recuperating slowly after he was shot twice by National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) operatives last Monday.

Doctors said Ivler can now drink liquids and will be transferred to a regular hospital room before the week ends.

Aguilar also said that Ivler's popularity has slightly grown and even boasted that a Facebook fan club for Jason now has 1,000 members.

Justice Secretary Agnes Devanadera, meanwhile, said Ivler cannot escape prosecution under the country’s legal system even though he is an American citizen.

Devanadera told reporters that Ivler’s citizenship and the criminal charges filed against him are two different things, and that US embassy officials usually do not meddle in criminal proceedings involving their nationals.

“We do not discount the fact that the usual thing that happens is that the Embassy always make representation on behalf of those incarcerated but only insofar as their security is concern,” she said.

Ballistic tests match

The 27-year-old Ivler, who was on board a car with diplomatic license plates, allegedly shot dead Renato Victor Ebarle Jr. on November 18 during a traffic altercation. He faces murder raps before the Quezon City Prosecutor’s Office.

Prior to the incident, he was already wanted for the killing of Presidential Assistant Undersecretary Nestor Ponce in a traffic accident in 2004. Ivler’s car sideswiped Ponce’s car at the Ortigas Flyover in Mandaluyong City, which resulted in Ponce's death.

Ivler was arrested after a bloody shootout at his mother's house in Quezon City last Monday. The National Bureau of Investigation said it will file charges against Ivler for wounding two arresting officers during the shootout.

The NBI also released Thursday results of the ballistic tests on Ivler's handgun, which he used during Monday's shootout.

The tests showed that the bullet taken from the body of Ebarle Jr., the bullets found and taken by police from the vehicle of Ebarle Jr. last November 18 , and the bullets found in the residence of Ivler's mother in Blue Ridge, Quezon City matched with the test bullets from the Kimber .45 caliber pistol recovered from Ivler during the encounter.

'God wanted him to survive'

Ivler's mother, meanwhile, continued to protest her son's innocence, including the 2004 accident that killed Ponce.

She said that in 2004, the police ganged up on her son despite failing to prove that he was indeed driving the Toyota Prado Land Cruiser that rammed Ponce's car.

"Jason doesn't regret anything about his life. Jason is not like any human being. He did not cause it. He was hit from behind, that's why. He was coming in this direction and the other car was coming in the other direction and he was hit from behind. To the best of my knowledge, there was a truck trying to avoid him that rammed into this Isuzu Trooper," she told reporters.

"The police did not investigate properly. There are lawsuits stll going on," she said.

Aguilar said that after Ivler's arrest in 2004, he told her: "Mom, there is nothing they can do to me to touch who I am within. Nothing touches who I am within. The only way that people out there can hurt me is when I see you in pain."

It was this statement that Aguilar took to heart when she saw the NBI agents shooting at her son at her home last Monday. She said that after the incident, she talked to her son who told her that he wanted the NBI agents to kill him.

"People are asking why I didn't cry that morning, why I was quiet. I know Jason...The only thing that can ever harm him is when he sees me hurt so I kept myself together despite bullets flying everywhere because my weakness might be his weakness," she said.

She also noted that Ivler's continued survival was proof that God still wanted him alive.

"Jason has gone to Iraq. He has taken the most dangerous positions while in Iraq. So many times he could have died and so many times I have accepted his death and he is still alive. At the end of the day, it is God who decides who lives or dies. I mean I saw Jason walking toward the guns. I saw him charging forward. He accepted his death and he is still alive. That is the will of God," she said.

Aguilar's conspiracy theories

Aguilar also said that Ivler is one of the best soldiers in America, which could account for why he was able to hide in her house for the past 2 months without her knowledge. She added that policemen had gone to her house twice but didn't find Ivler there.

"Jason is one of the best soldiers of America. The only soldiers better than Jason would be members of Delta Force...He is a member of the Special Ops, he can go in and out of the house," she said.

She also revealed that the launch of her two novels, Tales of the Black Widow and Warriors of Heaven, might have had something to do with Ivler's alleged shooting and the massacre of 57 civilians in Ampatuan, Maguindanao last November 23.

"I have written two novels writing about espionage and the ugliness of America's killing machine. Three days before my book launching, my son is supposed to be involved in a shooting incident and then two days later, there's massacre in Mindanao. I think it's connected," she claimed.

She added that she was able to speak to Datu Unsay Mayor Andal Ampatuan Jr. while she was incarcerated at the NBI.

"I met the mayor from Ampatuan who was very, very kind to me. He's a very kind man. I hope that the media doesn't condemn him before trial. He's innocent until proven guilty. He's a very kind man," she said.

PARIS, France - Rescuers kept up the search on Wednesday for survivors who defied the deadly odds after the January 12 earthquake which devastated Haiti, as the UN said 121 people had so far been saved.

More survivors were pulled out of the wreckage on Tuesday, a week after the quake which left at least 75,000 dead and 250,000 injured.

Cases of survival and rescue several days after earthquakes are not uncommon. Here are several cases where people were rescued from the wreckage more than five days after an earthquake took place.

- September 28, 1985, MEXICO: two infants are found alive in the rubble in their cots, nine days after an earthquake which killed 5,000.

- July 30, 1990, PHILIPPINES: three people are found alive in the ruins of a hotel destroyed two weeks earlier in an earthquake, in which more than 2,600 died at Baguio, 400 kilometres (249 miles) to the north of the capital. They were able to survive thanks to the seepage of water.

- August 23, 1999, TURKEY: a team of rescue workers pulls a three-year-old child from the ruins, six days after a quake which hit the north-west of the country, killing at least 20,000.

- September 26, 1999, TAIWAN: after a quake which killed almost 2,500 people, two brothers are plucked from the ruins in which they had spent more than five days, surviving by eating rotten apples and drinking their urine.

- February 5, 2001, INDIA: two victims of a quake in the western state of Gujarat are found alive in the ruins of their house, ten days after the catastrophe which killed 25.000. Rescue workers also found several survivors five or six days after the quake, including a 102-year old woman and a 12-month-old baby.

- January 7, 2004, IRAN, a 56-year-old man is pulled alive from the ruins, 13 days after a quake which killed 31,000 at Bam in the south-east of the country. He dies several days later. Four days earlier a 97-year-old woman had also been rescued.

- January 6, 2005, INDONESIA: a 70-year-old man survives for 11 days on the island of Sumatra having been stuck in the ruins of his house, which had been destroyed by the tsunami which killed more than 220,000 in south-east Asia.

- December 12, 2005, PAKISTAN: A 40-year-old woman is pulled alive from the wreckage of her house in Kashmir, two months after a quake which ravaged the region killing 75,000. She survived by eating rotten food and drinking drops of rain water.

- May 21, 2008, CHINA: a woman is found, trapped in a tunnel under a water power plant, nine days after a quake which ravaged in south-western region of Sichuan killing almost 87,000.

MANILA, Philippines - Social network Multiply, one of the world's leading media sharing services with over 2 petabytes of photos and videos, ramped up its e-commerce initiatives in the Philippines recently with the launch of its e-commerce marketplace and its partnership with photo processor Digiprint.

Multiply vice-president for business development David Hersh said the e-commerce marketplace offers a single, centralized place to browse the approximately 15,000 registered online stores in Multiply. Inclusion in the Multiply marketplace (http://multiply.com/marketplace) is free although sellers could upgrade their status to a premium account (P799 annually), which will allow them to appear at the top of the listings.

Hersh said the launch of the online marketplace allows the company to tap into its growing number of online sellers, particularly in the Philippines. He said that initially, selling on Multiply was actually a violation of the social network's terms and conditions until the company saw that it was filling a very specific niche in the online market.

"We may be the first truly social shopping experience out there. Multiply started as a site where you could share your personal content with people you care about; more so than other social networks. Your network on Multiply is a more accurate reflection of the people you know in the real world, the people who influence your buying decisions. That is what is happening in Multiply - people telling their friends that they bought shoes from this store and then they'll post a review on that site," he said in a press conference at the ABS-CBN compound in Quezon City.

Hersh said there are about 13,000 registered Filipino sellers on Multiply, followed by 2,000 online sellers in Indonesia. He said Multiply allows users to implement a filter to only show sellers in their own country.

Hersh said Multiply's online stores have contributed to the the growth of e-commerce and mobile payment schemes in the Philippines such as G-Cash. "Based on the feedback, there's quite a lot of money being transacted on Multiply shops. I wouldn't be surprised if we are one of the biggest sources of activity for G-Cash," he said.

He also noted that while e-commerce is growing among the more than 5 million Multiply users in the Philippines, the vast majority still prefer to use the site to share meaningful content such as photos and videos to friends and family.

Multiply partners with Digiprint

Hersh also announced its partnership with Digiprint, which allows Multiply users to order photo prints online. Digiprint, which is owned and operated by LBC Imaging Network, is the only photo processor in the Philippines to offer in-store pick up and delivery from more than 38 retail branches.

Hersh said Multiply users can now order photos online and have it delivered for free for a minimum order of P300. He said users can order prints in various sizes including 3R (P6), 4R (P7), 5R (P15) and 8R (P60). Delivery time usually takes about 2 days, he added.

The Multiply vice-president said the photo-printing service leverages the social network's strength as an online repository of high-res photos. "We want to be seen as a long term home for digital media," he said.

Another Multiply initiative in the pipeline is the launch of its Multiply Panorama, which allows users to see a three-pane view of their inbox including filters and messages. "When you click on a message, instead of launching you off to that person's site, it renders the content right there on the third pane," Hersh said.

He said the company will also launch Multiply in other languages including Tagalog, Spanish and Portuguese.

VIENNA – Iran has formally rejected key parts of a deal to send abroad for processing most of its material that could be used to make nuclear arms, diplomats said, a response the United States rejected as inadequate.

Diplomats said Iran's position, given in writing to the International Atomic Energy Agency, echoed two months of verbal calls for amendments to the deal. Western powers had dismissed the amendments as non-starters but said they did not amount to a final response.

Under the deal, Iran would transfer stocks of low-enriched uranium abroad and in return receive fuel for a medical research reactor. The deal aimed to minimize the risk of Iran refining the material to a grade suitable for a weapon.

In Washington, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Iran's response was inadequate.

"I am not sure that they have delivered a formal response but it is clearly an inadequate response," he told reporters. "I am not sure that whatever they have done, perhaps today, is any different than what they have done previously."

Iran's failure to meet an effective US deadline of December 31 to accept the plan devised in October by then-IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei has prompted six world powers to start considering possible tougher sanctions against Tehran.

Washington and its Western allies accuse Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of its civilian atomic program. Iran says its atomic program is designed to generate electricity so it can export more of its valuable oil and gas.

"This written position is a non-event because it's nothing new, it just makes official what the Iranians have been saying (through the media)," said a Western diplomat, who like others asked for anonymity due to political sensitivities.

Defiance of UN resolutions

Another Vienna-based diplomat said Iran had conveyed a written answer to the IAEA and the United States, France and Russia, the other parties to the draft deal, earlier this month after three months of delay.

Officials at the UN nuclear watchdog agency in Vienna had no immediate comment. Iran's IAEA envoy could not be reached.

The fuel plan was meant to allay suspicions Tehran wants to develop atomic bombs, rather than generate electricity, from uranium enrichment by having Iran ship around 70% of its low-enriched uranium stockpile abroad for further refinement and conversion into fuel to keep a medical reactor running.

Western diplomats said Tehran accepted such a deal, in which it would get reactor fuel back around a year after parting with much of its low-enriched uranium, in principle at Geneva talks with the six powers in October.

But Iranian officials later insisted Tehran would only agree to swap low-enriched uranium simultaneously for reactor fuel in small, staggered amounts on its own soil.

This would mean no reduction of its low-enriched uranium reserve to below the quantity needed for conversion into fissile material for a nuclear weapon if it were to be enriched to a high state of purity.

Iran continues to enrich uranium, in defiance of UN resolutions that have imposed modest sanctions since 2006, at its Natanz centrifuge complex, albeit at a slowed pace dogged by technical glitches, diplomats and security sources say.

Port-au-Prince, Haiti (1st Update) -- In the week since a 7.0-magnitude earthquake shattered this capital and jolted observers around the world, authorities have buried 70,000 bodies, about a third of the estimated final toll, officials said Tuesday.

Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive told CNN's Christiane Amanpour that at least 72,000 bodies had been recovered, a figure that did not include the unknown number of bodies buried by families or collected by the UN peacekeeping mission here.

It was unclear how many of the dead had been identified prior to burial and how many of those burials occurred in mass graves. "We know that bodies have been buried, we feel inappropriately," said Dr. Jon Andrus, deputy director of the Pan American Health Organization. He cited lack of refrigeration as a complicating factor.

"Despite all our efforts, situations, circumstances are such that we are disappointed in many cases on how this has been managed, beyond everybody's control," he said.

PAHO, which is coordinating the health-sector response, offered a preliminary estimate of 200,000 dead.

At least 28 of them are Americans, the US State Department announced Tuesday.

Despite the growing death toll, aid workers focused Tuesday on the living. The United Nations estimated that 3 million people were in need of food, water, shelter and medical assistance.

Some needed more than that -- they needed rescue. In all, 43 international rescue teams composed of 1,700 people have carried out some 90 rescues, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told reporters.

On Tuesday night, a team of New York City Fire Department and Police Department rescuers pulled two children alive from the rubble of a two-story building in the capital. The 8-year-old boy and 10-year-old girl were taken to an Israeli tent hospital.

On Tuesday afternoon, Ena Zizi was rescued from rubble near the national cathedral, CNN's Anderson Cooper reported.

Her son, Maxime Janvier, told CNN that he never gave up hope that she'd be found.

"We were praying a lot for that to happen," he told CNN on Tuesday afternoon, about 15 minutes after he learned she'd been rescued.

Rescue crews said earlier two other survivors may be under the same pile.

PAHO's Andrus said the need for blood donors was urgent, with the lack of refrigeration complicating medical workers' ability to store it safely.

The world's generosity continued to overwhelm the ability of the airport in Port-au-Prince to process it. The result: some badly needed aid was left sitting on the tarmac.

US Army Maj. Daniel Allyn, the deputy commander of the Joint Task Force Unified Response, said flights would be diverted to two alternate ports of entry within the next day or two to relieve the pressure. On an average day before the earthquake, the airport was handling 13 commercial aircraft; in the days since, it was handling more than 200, he said.

Some flights were diverting to Santo Domingo, causing congestion issues there, too, Andrus said.

Nevertheless, advances were being made. Many roads that were impassable in the initial aftermath of the quake had been cleared so that supplies could be trucked to those in need, he said.

And some hospitals appeared in better shape -- surgeries resumed Tuesday at University Hospital, the country's largest, Andrus said.

In Washington, US Agency for International Development Administrator Dr. Rajiv Shah told reporters Tuesday night that the US response has been "swift, aggressive and coordinated."

He cited the US donations of 18 water production units providing nearly 2 million liters of drinking water per day and nearly 17 million meals as examples.

The goal of the efforts, he said, "is to make sure that the things we do collectively as an international community to support the relief effort are as sustainable as possible."

At the capital's general hospital, doctors were working under stressful conditions in buildings located away from the main building, which has been deemed unsafe.

"We have run out of IVs and IV needles and IV fluids," said Dr. Mark Hyman of Partners in Health. "We've run out of surgical supplies. We have to wash with vodka and we have to operate with hacksaws because we don't have enough operating tools."

The military is going to help with organization and with supplies, Hyman said. "They're going to help us get electricity, they're going to help us get food, they're going to help us get tents, they're going to help us get all the operating supplies in," he said.

The United Nations Security Council approved sending an additional 2,000 soldiers and 1,500 police officers to the country and the port is expected to reopen next week, UN Secretary Ban said.

Fixing the port is a priority, since it is where fuel enters the country. Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez announced Sunday he will send 225,000 barrels of gasoline and diesel with arrival Thursday at a refinery in the Dominican Republic for use in Haiti.

That represents nearly three weeks worth of fuel if Haiti were to continue the 11,000 barrel-per-day consumption that was typical before the earthquake.

About 2,000 US troops were in Haiti, and more than 5,000 were off-shore on ships, said Maj. Gen. Daniel Allyn, the deputy commander of Joint Task Force Unified Response.

He said the US military anticipated eventually having 10,000 troops in Haiti.

"Our primary purpose is in getting to the population, whether it be the distribution of water, food, or, in this case, where they've got medical treatment going on and they're overwhelmed," Lt. Gen. P.K. Keen, head of US Southern Command, told CNN.

In an interview with CNN's Amanpour, President Rene Preval applauded the progress aid workers made over the past week in restoring electricity and communication, clearing roads, erecting shelters, distributing food and re-establishing hospitals.

He credited the international community for the aid.

"Without their help, it would be impossible for us to cope with the situation," he said.

Some Haitians welcomed the arrival of US forces. But one man said Haitians needed more relief supplies, not troops or guns.

The United States was conducting medical operations on board a vessel off the coast, the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson. And the USS Comfort, a hospital ship, was due to arrive Wednesday, Allyn said.

Outside Haiti, people have contributed more than $220 million to major US relief groups, according to The Chronicle of Philanthropy, a newspaper covering nonprofit organizations.

Dozens of Haitian children rescued from an orphanage arrived Tuesday in Pennsylvania to be placed with foster families until adoptions are finalized. Most of the children's adoption cases were at the end of the bureaucratic process before the earthquake struck.

Occasionally, frustration in Haiti has erupted into violence, as occurred Monday when hundreds of Haitians broke into a damaged store in downtown Port-au-Prince, stripping it clean.

But such incidents have so far been isolated, said Alain Le Roy, the United Nations peacekeeping director.

But such incidents were isolated, Defense Secretary Robert Gates told reporters aboard a plane to India.

"I saw one reference to that for the last 24 or 48 hours or so. There has been a lot less violence in Port-au-Prince than there was before the earthquake," he said.

In the brutal aftermath of Haiti's earthquake, Jean-Robert Gaillard turned to his low-tech radio for solace and for a lifeline.

When the earthquake hit, the 57-year-old from Petionville, Haiti, found most of his normal lines of communication -- his cell phone, the Internet, even his ability to walk down the street and talk to someone -- severed by the disaster.

But Gaillard used a neighbor's generator to power up his radio and connect to a handful of amateur radio enthusiasts in the United States -- many of whom were eagerly listening to radio static for calls like his.

Unlike many other people in Haiti, Gaillard was able to contact family members in the United States soon after the January 12 earthquake hit to tell them he had survived.

In those first hellish moments, that connection seemed like a miracle.

"It relieved the tension of my family members," he said, speaking by Skype from Haiti on Tuesday, which he says wasn't possible until more recently. "They could hear my voice. They knew that I was OK."

Much has been made about the role flashier technologies like Twitter, Skype and text messaging have played in helping disaster victims find loved ones and communicate with international aid workers. But it is worth noting that, when all else fails, the low-tech hum of a radio frequency is sometimes the only line of communication that's open.

iReport: Search list of the missing and the found

Enthusiasts of amateur radio -- or ham radio -- are quick to use this as evidence that international aid groups and governments should rely more heavily on radio in disaster situations. Ham radio signals bounce off of a layer of charged particles in Earth's atmosphere, called the ionosphere, and, depending on the conditions, can work at times when other modes of communication fail.

But amateur radio is best viewed as one of many communications options in the wake of a disaster, said Keith Robertory, manager of disaster services technology at the American Red Cross, who has been helping in Haiti relief efforts from Washington.

The best communication technology in a disaster, he said, is whatever happens to work at the time.

"Amateur radio is a very powerful tool if the amateur radio operators are in the area where the disaster occurs," he said. "There's a window of opportunity for amateur radio operators right at the beginning [of a disaster]. ... That's where they are extremely valuable."

Because that window has now passed, cell phone connections, text messages, Twitter posts and Skype calls are becoming more significant, he said.

A 23-year-old woman, for example, was rescued in Haiti after text messages were sent from beneath the rubble of a school building.

Full coverage | Twitter updates

Radio stations in Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital, have been broadcasting almost since the earthquake, providing the only means of communication for some people, Agence France-Presse reports.

Some mobile phone towers in Haiti fell during the earthquake, and cell phone service was not returned to much of the country until at least two days after the tremors first shook the poor Caribbean nation, according to a mobile phone company operating in Haiti.

About a third of people in Haiti have access to mobile phones, compared to nearly 90 percent of people in the United States.

Reports suggest Internet connections also were spotty in the earthquake's aftermath; and only about 11 percent of Haitians have access to the Web in non-disaster situations, according to the CIA World Factbook.

Aid groups and journalists have relied on satellite phones, which work independently from local Internet and mobile phone infrastructure as long as the sky isn't too cloudy.

Such technology isn't commonly available for disaster victims, however.

Carol Wilson, compliance director for Trilogy International Partners, which provides mobile phone service to about 1 million people in Haiti, said 80 percent of the company's cell towers in Haiti were working as of Tuesday.

The company is donating out $5 worth of free phone calls to its customers and is giving people double the amount of minutes they would normally get so they can catch up with loved ones and communicate with aid groups, she said.

The main problem with mobile phone connections now, she said, may be fuel, since generators are used to power most cellular towers in Haiti.

In the immediate wake of the disaster, before cell phone coverage was restored, William F. Sturridge, a ham radio operator in Flagler Beach, Florida, said he was able to connect a priest living on the remote Haitian village of Ile-a-Vache with his family members in the United States.

On Wednesday morning, the day after the earthquake hit, he said he heard a faint call of "hotel, hotel," which signifies the "HH" letters at the beginning of radio call signs in Haiti. He responded immediately.

"When other systems don't work, [radio] always works," he said. "It doesn't matter -- no matter where you are in the world ... you can get a [high-frequency] signal out and somebody will hear."

After connecting with the priest in Haiti, Sturridge said he called the man's brother to tell him his sibling had survived the earthquake.

"He was super worried," he said. "They hadn't heard from him, and it was wonderful to be able to pass the information and hear the relief in the voice."

Sturridge said he's been listening for radio calls from Haiti almost non-stop, with no sleep, since the earthquake hit a week ago. The 51-year-old is disabled, and he said the radio gives him a lifeline to the outside world as well.

"It's very difficult for someone who is bed-bound to be able to work and be able to enjoy the benefits of helping other people, so this is one way I can do this very easily," he said.

"Certainly, I can't think of anything more rewarding than saving a life."

While the ability for even one person to communicate with the outside world immediately after a disaster has potentially huge impact, the number of people making calls from Haiti by amateur radio appears to be very small.

Brian Crow, who has been communicating with people in Haiti by radio from outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, said only three people in Haiti have made contact with the United States by ham radio since the earthquake.

Crow said his primary role has been taking calls, finding out what aid is needed, and relaying the information to Web sites collecting news about missing people.

A number of sites -- including CNN's iReport and Google -- are creating databases with information about missing people in Haiti.

Other groups have put together population estimates based on satellite maps as a way for aid groups to target their relief efforts. And a site called Ushahidi is mapping text messages and calls for help in Haiti to give aid groups a better picture of dire needs for food, water and medical help.

Gaillard, the Haitian man who used ham radio to contact loved ones, said the week following Haiti's earthquake has been absolute hell.

But the fact that he could get on the radio and talk to people outside the situation made him feel connected to the world and has given him the strength to keep going.

"We are in God's hands now," he said.

Google is looking into whether employees in its China office were involved in the attacks on its network that led to theft of intellectual property, according to CNET sources.

Sources familiar with the investigation told CNET last week that Google was looking into whether insiders at the company were involved in the attacks, but additional details were not known at the time.

Insiders could have played a part in what is believed to have been a multi-prong attack on the company, according to the sources.

Employees in the Google China office were put on leave and others were transferred, Reuters reported on Monday, citing local media reports and unnamed sources. Employees in the office were temporarily cut off from the network so Google could run tests and scans to ensure that the network was secure, sources familiar with the investigation told CNET.

A Google spokesperson declined to comment on specifics of the attack.

Meanwhile, France has joined Germany in urging people to avoid using Internet Explorer until a patch is released to fix a hole that was used in the attack on Google and for which exploit code targeting that vulnerability has been published on the Web. The French security organization CERTA issued a statement warning IE users about the threat, following a similar advisory from Germany's federal security agency last week.

Google discovered a sophisticated and targeted attack on its network in mid-December that originated in China and also targeted what is believed to be at least 30 other companies--including Yahoo, Symantec, Juniper Networks, Dow Chemical, Northrop Grumman, according to sources and reports.

In the attack on Google, Gmail accounts of two people were targeted, but only limited information was exposed, Google said. Separately, accounts of Gmail users who were human rights activists were compromised somehow and had been breached, Google said.

Foreign journalists living in Beijing, including a TV reporter for the Associated Press, were among those who had their Google e-mail accounts hijacked, The New York Times reported on Monday. The settings on the accounts were changed so that e-mail sent to the journalists was forwarded to other addresses, the report said.

As a result of the attacks, Google says it will stop censoring its Web search results in China and may stop doing business there.

To get access to computers on Google's network, attackers used software that exploits a new hole in Internet Explorer, Microsoft said late last week. Exploit code for that zero-day hole is now available on the Web for IE 6, which was specifically targeted in the attack. Customers using IE 6 or 7 should upgrade immediately to IE 8, Microsoft says.

Sources familiar with the investigation speculate that attackers sent e-mails that included a link to a Web site hosting malware to administrators or people with authorization to access certain parts of the Google network. If the e-mail appeared to come from someone familiar, the targets would be more likely to click on the link and get their computer infected. In at least some of the attacks on the companies, a version of the Hadraq Trojan, which installs a back door on computers, was used, sources said.

McAfee says analysis of the code in the attacks targeting Google indicates that the attackers were calling the operation "Aurora."

The U.S. government plans to ask China for a formal explanation regarding the cyberattacks against Google and the other U.S. companies, according to a State Department spokesman. Meanwhile, Secretary Clinton is expected to deliver "a major policy address on Internet freedom" in Washington, D.C., on Thursday.

At the end of each season of “The Amazing Race,” the host always says something like: “Five continents, 14 countries, 21 days, 25,000 miles. You are the official winners of ‘The Amazing Race!’

At the end of each year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, he really ought to be there at the airport to greet you: “Five days, 2,500 exhibitors, 2 million feet of floor space, 110,000 journalists and industry reps. You are an official survivor of C.E.S.!”

And instead of a million dollars, he should offer you a full night of sleep, which, at that point, is much more valuable.

Every year, the electronics company lemmings all schedule their big product announcements at C.E.S., and every year, all those simultaneous announcements cancel one another out. Instead of making a big splash, they get drowned in the roar.

And no wonder; in many respects, other than the emergence of 3-D television, the themes of this year’s show were identical to last year’s. Big, bright, thin, flat TV screens. Eco-conscious design. Reduced power consumption. Download services (Vudu, Netflix, Amazon) built into more TV sets and Blu-ray players. Incrementally improved cameras, camcorders, printers, laptops, Blu-ray players, accessories, audio gear, home theater stuff, phones, car electronics.

There were some all-new items. A bunch of small companies introduced e-book readers, in hopes of snagging some of that Kindle/Nook/Sony Reader action. A bunch of computer companies announced plans to make touch-screen Windows slab computers, so that they’ll be ready when Apple releases its own much-rumored touch-screen slate. Nobody seems to remember that Microsoft tried to push this concept, then called the Tablet PC, a few years ago, and it pretty much flopped.

The biggest news of all, though, was the explosion of interest in 3-D television. Interest by the companies making them, that is. Whether normal people have any interest is a big question.

At C.E.S., if you stood in line long enough, you could watch prototype 3-D TV screens at the Sony, Samsung, Toshiba, LG and Panasonic booths. (“Booth” may not be quite the word for the enormous, million-dollar, half-a-football-field miniworlds built by corporate giants within the Las Vegas Convention Center.)

If you’ve ever seen a movie in 3-D — “Avatar,” “Up,” “Polar Express” and so on — then you’ve already seen the effect. You wear plastic glasses, and you get a sensation of depth in the movie image. Sometimes the filmmaker pulls cheesy stunts like having a character shove a pole “out of the screen,” nearly into your face; at other times, as in “Avatar,” the 3-D effect lends a subtler depth and realism to a scene.

At C.E.S., the screens were big, the images were high-def, the sound systems were state of the art, and the video samples were vivid and punchy. They made 3-D TV seem fantastic. You almost couldn’t wait to buy one when they come out this summer.

But once the retractable leash pulled your C.E.S. demo glasses back onto their pedestal for the next customer, you’d be forgiven for having a few doubts.

First of all, those glasses. E-w-w-w. Do we really want to have to put on glasses every time we sit down for some TV? Don’t we lose something when we look around the room to exchange glances, and we can’t see anyone’s eyes? Do we really want to nuzzle up to our fiancées and spouses with those things on?

You’ll get one or two pairs of glasses with each set. Additional glasses will cost $75 or more. So if you invite 12 buddies over for a Super Bowl party to inaugurate your expensive new 3-D set, you’ll have to lay out $750 just so everyone can watch the game. Better hope nobody fails to show.

(And no, you can’t ask your friends to bring their own glasses. The TV manufacturers haven’t agreed on a standard, so one company’s glasses may not work with another company’s TV. Argh.)

The glasses included with these modern sets are a far cry from the old cardboard movie glasses. Today’s glasses use something called active-shutter technology, in which the lenses turn black and then clear again, really fast, in sync with the TV picture’s alternating left eye/right eye images.

But active-shutter glasses are battery powered. Can’t you just see it? You settle down to watch the big season finale, and you hear, from the kitchen: “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry — I forgot to recharge the TV glasses last night!”

Nor is 3-D a blessing to everything you would watch on TV. It primarily benefits sports, concerts, video games, and, of course, all those animated 3-D movies that, until now, required a trip to the movie theater.

(It’s sort of amazing that Hollywood is just standing by, watching the TV industry plot to suck their moviegoing public right back out of the theaters. Wasn’t the whole idea behind the recent 3-D movie craze to get people away from their home theaters and back into the multiplex?)

On the other hand, it would be hard to imagine your wanting to put on those glasses for news, talk shows, game shows, sitcoms, cooking shows, interior design shows and PBS pledge drives.

Which brings up another concern: What are you going to watch?

If your answer is movies, then you’ll have to buy not just a new TV, but also a new 3-D Blu-ray player. And, of course, you’ll have to buy your movies all over again, or at least the 3-D ones.

If your answer is, “I’ll watch 3-D TV broadcasts,” well, you’ll do a lot of waiting. Several 3-D channels have been announced (by ESPN, DirecTV and a joint venture of Sony, Imax and Discovery). But count on a lot of repeats, at least at the outset; 3-D shows don’t really exist yet, and filming them requires expensive, heavy, dual-lens TV cameras.

None of these broadcasts will be in high definition, by the way. A 3-D broadcast requires a lot more data than a regular HDTV channel; it won’t fit in the same bandwidth unless you sacrifice some picture information. As a result, 3-D cable, satellite and Web broadcasts will offer only half the resolution (clarity) of HDTV. Only Blu-ray players will produce full, hi-def 3-D images.

Finally — and this is the big one — didn’t we just go through this? Didn’t the TV makers and broadcasters just finish dragging the populace through a confusing, expensive transition from our old TV system into the new, flat-panel, high-definition age? Didn’t we just buy flat-panel digital TV sets and Blu-ray players and Blu-ray movies, believing that we’d be set for the next decade at least?

And now we find out we’ve got to start all over again — buy a new TV, a new Blu-ray player, new movie discs — to accommodate this new format?

I think there’s something called Upgrade Fatigue, my friends, and I think the TV industry is about to face-plant right into it.

Now, 3-D boosters point out that these screens also work beautifully as regular sets for everything we already watch on TV. So it’s not that you’ll be left with nothing to watch if 3-D turns out to be a bust. They encourage us to think of 3-D TVs as regular hi-def sets with a little extra option. Indeed, some sets will be sold as “3-D ready,” meaning that you can add the glasses and transmitter later.

Just keep in mind that the next generation of TV technology was also on display at C.E.S.: 3-D sets that don’t require any glasses at all. Right now, they offer low resolution, limited viewing positions and headache-inducing images. But they’ll get better. And in a few more years, they’ll be ready.

That, no doubt, will be just after we’ve all junked our five-year-old HDTV sets, and bought the active-shutter 3-D screens that were on display at this year’s C.E.S.