Review: Nintendo’s TVii tops button-laden remotes

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Nintendo‘s TV-watching tool for the new Wii U game console beats my regular remote control hands down.

Called TVii, the service transforms how you watch television in three key ways. It turns the touch-screen GamePad controller for the Wii U into a remote control for your TV and set-top box. It groups your favorite shows and sports teams together, whether it’s on live TV or an Internet video service such as Hulu Plus. And it offers water-cooler moments you can chat about on social media.

It takes some getting used to, and I had a lot of re-learning to do after years of using my thumb to channel surf. But once I did, I found the service an advance from the mass of buttons on most TV remote controls.

TVii comes free with the Wii U, although it didn’t become available in the U.S. until mid-December, about a month after the game machine’s debut.

One nice touch is that TVii gives you a way to search for shows over Internet video apps and live TV all in one place. I can then choose whether to watch it on the big TV or on my controller’s touch screen, which measures 6.2 inches diagonally.

Handling these different sources of video at once is a tall order, and Nintendo Co. does it pretty well. No one else has combined live and Web TV as seamlessly before. As the lines blur between the two, I would hope some of TVii’s advances are copied and improved upon by other gadget makers and TV signal providers.

For starters, TVii asks for your TV maker, your set-top box maker, your location and your TV provider (that could be an antenna). TVii then uses infrared codes to control your TV just like the old remote, and it can offer a traditional channel guide for live TV shows. TVii also asks for your favorite shows, sports teams and movies. This helps it create an easy-to-understand grouping of shows you might want to watch.

I appreciate the way TVii walked me through the setup process. It was refreshing, given the misfortune I recently had of trying to program the remote control that came with my cable set-top box, which is about as fun as doing your tax returns. TVii takes away the need to read folded-up instruction manuals that appear to be written by and for electronics hobbyists.

After the setup, TVii presents you with a series of icons for Favorites, TV, Movies, Sports and Search. A little avatar of your identity is in one corner, and tapping on it lets you adjust your favorites or go through the setup again. Each person in a household can have a different avatar and set of favorites.

In Favorites, your shows are listed with cover art, and you can swipe through the offerings. Tapping one, say, “The Mindy Project,” will pull up an episode list with pictures and brief summaries. Choosing an episode will bring up a range of options — the channel if it’s on live TV, or buttons for Hulu Plus or Amazon, where you can pay for monthly access or just one episode through the service’s app. (The free version of Hulu is blocked on gadgets, including the Wii U and tablet computers. Apple’s iTunes, unsurprisingly, isn’t integrated.) The option of clicking through to Netflix will be added some time in 2013.

One hiccup is that if you want to watch a show on live TV now, it asks if your TV’s input source is already set to the set-top box, rather than the Wii U or another gadget such as a DVD player. If it is, you tap “yes” and the channel changes. If not, you have to tap until the source switches to the right one and then tap “yes.” Still, there’s no need to go back to your TV’s remote control.

The other menu items for TV, Movies, Sports and Search operate pretty similarly. Eventually you’ll get a range of options to watch. In the case of sports, you’ll likely see several game possibilities, with the latest score showing up on each game icon.

As an alternative, you can resort to a physical TV button on the GamePad that brings up touch controls that mimic a simplified, standard remote.

Another option is using an altogether separate interface in which favorite channels and other controls are displayed graphically on a semi-circular wheel. It looks strange, and I wouldn’t recommend it.

Anyone who is frustrated by the jumble of cables and boxes that now surround TVs will see TVii’s appeal. My wife said she liked the ease of holding and touching the controller, rather than fiddling with the button-laden remote. One downside I can see with TVii is that you have to keep looking down to figure out what to watch. And you have to plug it in frequently, as the GamePad controller will die out after three to five hours of use.

TVii also offers a standard channel guide in which you can scroll up and down for programs on different channels or right and left for different times of day. A touch will change the channel to the program, which is nice.

For certain shows and sporting events, TVii will supply a running list of key events called “TV tags.” These descriptions of events, like the precise moment when Mindy’s Christmas party descends into chaos, are displayed on the GamePad’s screen, along with a screenshot. Tapping on one opens up a comment window, and an onscreen keyboard allows you to make a comment. For sports, you get a description of each play, such as the number of yards thrown in a pass, beside a graphic that gets updated.

Not many people have Wii U consoles yet, nor is everyone tuned to TVii. As a result, I found myself with only one or two commenters to share my thoughts with.

If you’ve connected TVii to Facebook and Twitter (again, some sign-up is involved), your comments will go out to your friends and followers, but the TV tag that you are commenting on won’t show up, so they might not know what you’re talking about. TVii adds the hashtag “NintendoTVii” to help readers take a guess.

In the end, TVii isn’t perfect.

It isn’t yet able to program your digital video recorder, although it will do so for TiVo DVRs by March. Sports are limited to pro and college basketball and football, and there’s no integration with fantasy sports leagues. And the battery life of the GamePad is short.

A review unit I was sent failed to take a charge and had to be replaced, although I haven’t found others who have had the same problem.

These irritations aside, Nintendo has given us a way to control the clutter of channels, apps and devices crowding around the TV. It’s relatively easy and intuitive and some updates are on the way. Considering the garble of the TV universe, that’s pretty good.

___

About TVii:

TVii turns the GamePad controller for the Wii U into a remote control that integrates your live TV and Internet video experience. The service is free, but you’ll need a Wii U game console, which starts at $ 300. You’ll also need to pay extra to use video services such as Hulu Plus, Amazon and Netflix.

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Child support claim rankles sperm donor to lesbian couple

KANSAS CITY, Kansas (Reuters) – A Kansas man who donated sperm to a lesbian couple so they could have a child said on Wednesday he is shocked the state is now trying to make him pay child support.

William Marotta, 46, donated sperm to Jennifer Schreiner and Angela Bauer under a written agreement that he would not be considered the father of the child nor liable for child support. A daughter, now 3, was born to Schreiner.

But in October, the state of Kansas filed a petition seeking to have Marotta declared the father of the child and financially responsible for her after the couple encountered money difficulties.

Marotta will ask the court in a hearing January 8 to dismiss the claim, which centers on a state law that the sperm must be donated through a licensed physician in order for the father to be free of any later financial obligations. Marotta gave a container of semen to the couple, who found him on Craigslist, instead of donating through a doctor or clinic.

The case is seen as having repercussions for other sperm donors. Sperm banks routinely provide sperm to people who want to conceive a child on the understanding that the donors are not responsible for the children.

Kansas is seeking child support from Marotta, including about $ 6,000 in medical expenses related to the child’s birth, according to its petition.

“This was totally unexpected,” Marotta said in a phone interview. “The very first thing that went through my mind was that no good deed goes unpunished.”

The case has attracted national attention. Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said Wednesday “it is unfortunate and unfair” that Kansas is seeking money from a sperm donor.

“It certainly might have a negative effect on other men’s willingness to help couples who need a donor, which would be harmful to everyone,” Minter said.

“I also think it undermines everyone’s respect for the law when you see it operate so arbitrarily.”

Kansas officials are required under the law to determine the father of a child when someone seeks state benefits, said Angela de Rocha, spokeswoman for the Department for Children and Families. The couple was compelled to provide that information, which led to investigation of the sperm donation.

Marotta should be declared the father and subject to financial claims because he donated the sperm directly to the women and not through a physician, as required by Kansas law, the state’s petition states.

Marotta said he’s had virtually no contact with the child, but that he and Schreiner have remained cordial. He said she was pressured by the state to provide his name as the sperm donor.

“To me, ethics need to override rules,” he said.

Lawyers for Marotta argue that he had no parental rights because of his agreement with the couple and cannot be held financially responsible.

They cite a 2007 case in which the Kansas Supreme Court ruled against a sperm donor seeking parental rights because he did not have any such agreement with the mother, lawyers for Marotta said.

“So now, we are flipping the argument around,” Marotta attorney Ben Swinnen said Wednesday.

If the father had no legal parental rights in the 2007 case, Marotta should be declared to have no parental obligations in the current case, Swinnen said.

Marotta, a race car mechanic, responded to an ad on Craigslist from someone offering to pay $ 50 for sperm donations, but he made the donation for free. Marotta said he and his wife have no children of their own but have fostered a daughter. Marotta said he was simply trying to help a couple wanting a child.

(Editing by James B. Kelleher and Lisa Shumaker)

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A Relief Rally, a Dead-Cat Bounce, or an Ephemeral Rise

Though Maryland born and bred, Josh Scheinker affects a SoCal zen, complete with what seems like a surfer-dude tan and coif. But the senior vice president of Janney Montgomery Scott’s Baltimore-based Scheinker Investment Partners admits that fear and loathing toward the fiscal cliff had shattered his calm. “My wife and kids,” Scheinker says, “were all wondering why my New Year’s was so stressful, why I was watching C-SPAN, and whether I needed to be in a white padded room.”

Scheinker, along with rest of Wall Street and global markets, celebrated Wednesday after Washington churned out a 13^th-hour deal to stave off $ 600 billion in tax increases and spending cuts. All manner of risk assets, including stocks and commodities, surged to start 2013, after the House’s 257-167 vote on the hastily cobbled-together deal. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, Standard & Poor’s 500, and Nasdaq rallied an average of 2.65 percent. Europe and emerging markets rejoiced. Catastrophe avoided. At least mostly, for now.

Uncle Sam will permanently tax dividends and long-term capital gains at a 10 percent, 15 percent, or 20 percent rate, depending on a person’s or household’s overall income. Without this new certainty, the levy on dividends would have automatically jacked up to taxpayers’ ordinary income-tax rate. The bad news: Taxpayers with modified adjusted gross incomes of more than $ 200,000 for individuals and $ 250,000 for married joint filers will have to pay an additional 3.8 percent Affordable Care Act tax on their net investment income.

It’s a tricky grab for lawmakers on both sides of the partisan divide: How much and where, specifically, do you tax investors, who have been privy to a multiyear bull market in equities and fixed-income—an unavoidably attractive target for badly needed government revenue? How do you tap that source without choking off the undeniable wealth effect of a rising market? Love them or hate them, the top 20 percent of American income earners own about 90 percent of shares, a relationship that correlates disproportionately with retail sales, the health of which courses through the broader economy.

“Today the stock market has increasingly become the disciplining force in spurring action in Washington,” wrote Merrill Lynch economist Ethan Harris on Monday. “‘Stock market vigilantes’ have replaced ‘bond market vigilantes.’”

That’s a curious observation in light of how big a year markets had in the face of what was widely bandied as looming budgetary catastrophe. How urgently will lawmakers finish the substantial unfinished business of raising the country’s $ 16.4 trillion debt limit or deal with sequestration’s huge budget cuts if the market goes into panic mode?

For his part, Blackstone’s Byron Wien said the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index will fall below 1,300 this year (from its current 1,456). He correctly called the S&P’s ascent last year above 1,400. Not once last year did the market have a single day when it was down for the year.

“The hard work,” says Janney Montgomery chief fixed-income strategist Guy LeBas, “is far from done. The cliff represented the confluence of opposing needs to reduce the long-term budget deficit and support short-term economic growth. Congress, in this instance, opted for the immediate benefits of the latter rather than the stability of the former. That decision delays what will inevitably be tougher decisions in the long run.”

“So, is this a relief rally, a dead-cat bounce, or just an ephemeral rise?” asks Scheinker, who says he plans to glue himself to C-SPAN again next month. “Do I feel comfortable here? No, not really. Does the market truly understand what deal was just signed off on? I am not too sure. I can tell you that my clients are very worried about the future of America.”

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GM recalls 145,628 mid-sized pickups for hood latch issue

(Reuters) – General Motors Co said on Thursday it is recalling 145,628 mid-sized pickup trucks globally as the hood could open unexpectedly due to a possible missing latch.

Of the Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon pickups affected by the recall, 118,800 are in the United States, 15,264 are in Canada, 7,492 are in Mexico and the rest are exports, GM said.

GM is recalling the model year 2010 to 2012 trucks because the hood may be missing a secondary hood latch, so if the primary latch is not engaged the hood could open and block the driver’s view and increase the risk of a crash, according to documents filed with the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

There are no reports of crashes or injuries related to the issue, and there are four known cases of the secondary hood latch being missing, GM said.

GM said it will notify owners and instruct them to inspect their trucks for the presence of a secondary hood latch or take the truck to a dealer for inspection. If the secondary latch is missing, a new hood will be installed, the company said.

Dealers were notified of the issue on December 18 and GM expects to begin mailing letters to owners on January 17, according to NHTSA.

(Reporting By Ben Klayman in Detroit; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick)

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Thieves stole more than $1 million worth of Apple products during a New Years Eve heist

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Playboy Hugh Hefner marries his ‘runaway bride’

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Hugh Hefner is celebrating the new year as a married man once again.

The 86-year-old Playboy magazine founder exchanged vows with his “runaway bride,” Crystal Harris, at a private Playboy Mansion ceremony on New Year’s Eve. Harris, a 26-year-old “Playmate of the Month” in 2009, broke off a previous engagement to Hefner just before they were to be married in 2011.

Playboy said on Tuesday that the couple celebrated at a New Year’s Eve party at the mansion with guests that included comic Jon Lovitz, Gene Simmons of KISS and baseball star Evan Longoria.

The bride wore a strapless gown in soft pink, Hefner a black tux. Hefner’s been married twice before but lived the single life between 1959 and 1989.

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Senate’s “fiscal cliff” bill packed with sweeteners

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Senate packed an eclectic mix of handouts and takebacks into its last-minute deal to avoid the “fiscal cliff,” including a measure to repeal part of President Barack Obama‘s signature healthcare overhaul and a string of special interest tax breaks.

At the center of the 157-page bill adopted early Tuesday are provisions to raise taxes on the wealthiest households and to make permanent Bush-era tax cuts for the middle class. The bill now goes to the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.

But senators also extended higher rum excise taxes to Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands and provided tax breaks to a wide range of other groups and interests, including motorsports entertainment complexes and mine rescue teams.

Among the other sweeteners:

* special expensing rules for certain film and TV productions

* tax-exempt financing for New York Liberty Zone, an area around the site of the World Trade Center.

* extension of American Samoa economic development credit

Congressional lawmakers often insert pet projects and other unrelated provisions into major “must do” bills in the last days of a legislative session, when it is more likely that quick passage will occur.

Green energy was another big winner in the bill. Roughly a dozen provisions would extend credits and incentives for plug-in electric vehicles, energy-efficient appliances, biodiesel and renewable diesel, and other alternative energy initiatives.

The legislation also would kill the part of Obama’s 2010 Affordable Care Act designed to let millions of elderly and disabled people get help at home rather than be placed in institutional care, which tends to be more expensive.

Democrats acknowledge that the insurance initiative known as the Community Living Assistance Services and Support program, or CLASS, is financially flawed but they had argued it should be fixed rather than ended.

The House voted to repeal that provision 11 months ago.

Also tucked in the bill, known as the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, are measures to avert the so-called “dairy cliff” – a steep increase in milk prices that would otherwise take place this year.

The measures would extend farm subsidy programs and prevent dairy subsidies from reverting to 1949 levels, which would have meant retail milk prices could have doubled to about $ 7 per gallon.

One thing lawmakers did not slide into the legislation: a raise for themselves. The Senate bill says members of Congress will get no cost-of-living adjustment in their pay for fiscal year 2013.

(Reporting by Jim Wolf; Editing by Karey Wutkowski and Paul Simao)

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London Market Report

31 December 2012 Last updated at 08:23 ET

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(Close): London’s leading shares fell in Monday trading, amid fears that budget talks would not stop the US sliding over the “fiscal cliff”.

In a truncated New Year’s Eve session, the benchmark FTSE 100 index dropped by 0.47%, or 27.56 points, to 5,897.81.

However, the index still ended the year nearly 6% higher, having fallen by 5.6% during 2011.

Engineering firm Melrose Industries did worst on the day, down 3.5%. Capital Shopping Centres Group shed 2.1%.

Leading the day’s winners, B&Q owner Kingfisher bucked the downward trend with a rise of 0.8%.

The broader-based FTSE 250 index had an even better year, notching up record annual gains of 22%.

The 250-share index is seen as more representative of the British economy as a whole, since it contains a greater proportion of firms that are actually based in the UK.

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France counts 1,193 cars torched on New Year’s Eve

PARIS (AP) — A New Year’s Eve tradition for some in France of torching empty, parked cars has continued.

Interior Minister Manuel Valls said Tuesday that 1,193 vehicles were burned overnight around the country, where the stunt began in the 1990s.

There was no way to compare this figure to recent ones because the conservative government of former President Nicolas Sarkozy stopped making the numbers public while he was in office. But the rate of burned cars was apparently steady. On Dec. 31, 2009, 1,147 vehicles were burned.

For some, the decision of France’s current Socialist government to resume making public figures of New Year’s Eve’s torched cars is unwise.

Bruno Beschizza, a security chief for Sarkozy’s UMP party, said on iTele TV that publishing the numbers motivates youths to commit such crimes.

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Zynga carries out planned games shutdown, including “Petville”

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Social games publisher Zynga Inc confirmed on Monday that it has carried out 11 of the planned shutdowns of 13 game titles, with “Petville” being the latest game on which it pulled the plug.

Zynga in October said it would shut down 13 underperforming titles after warning that its revenues were slowing as gamers fled from its once-popular titles published on the Facebook platform in large numbers and sharply revised its full-year outlook.

The San Francisco-based company announced the “Petville” shutdown two weeks ago on its Facebook page. All the 11 shutdowns occurred in December.

The 11 titles shut down or closed to new players include role-playing game “Mafia Wars 2,” “Vampire Wars,” “ForestVille” and “FishVille.”

“In place of ‘PetVille,’ we encourage you to play other Zynga games like ‘Castleville,’ ‘Chefville,’ ‘Farmville 2,’ ‘Mafia Wars’ and ‘Yoville,’” the company told players on its ‘PetVille’ Facebook page. “PetVille” players were offered a one-time, complimentary bonus package for virtual goods in those games.

“Petville,” which lets users adopt virtual pets, has 7.5 million likes on Facebook but only 60,000 daily active users, according to AppData. About 1,260 users commented on the game’s Facebook page, some lamenting the game’s shutdown.

Zynga has said it is shifting focus to capture growth in mobile games. It also applied this month for a preliminary application to run real-money gambling games in Nevada.

Zynga is hoping that a lucrative real-money market could make up for declining revenue from games like “FarmVille” and other fading titles that still generate the bulk of its sales.

Zynga shares were up 1 percent at $ 2.36 in afternoon trade on Monday on the Nasdaq.

(Reporting By Malathi Nayak; Editing by Leslie Adler)

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