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Google takes on Apple, Amazon with new hardware push

By Julia Love | SAN FRANCISCO
Alphabet Inc's Google on Tuesday announced a new "Pixel" smartphone and a suite of new consumer electronics products for the home, planting itself firmly in the hardware business and challenging Apple Inc's iPhone at the high end of the $400 billion global smartphone market.
The string of announcements - including the $649 Pixel, a smart speaker for the living room dubbed "Home," a virtual reality headset, and a new Wi-Fi router - is the clearest sign yet that Google intends to compete head-to-head with Apple, Amazon.com Inc and even manufacturers of phones using its own Android mobile operating system.
Company executives, echoing Apple's longstanding philosophy, said they were striving for tighter integration of hardware and software.
"The thinking is that if we can work on hardware and software together, we can innovate much better," Google hardware chief Rick Osterloh said in an interview with Reuters, citing a recent reorganization that united once-disparate hardware teams.
Under the new structure, the company has begun to take a much more integrated approach to things like supply chain management and design, added Mario Queiroz, a vice president of product management.
"The learnings from one product are benefiting another product," he said.
Unlike earlier Google phone efforts under the Nexus brand, the Pixel devices are designed and developed by Google from the start, although Taiwan's HTC Corp will serve as the contract manufacturer.
SWIPE AT APPLE
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(L to R) Google Wifi, Google Chromecast Ultra, Google Home, Google Pixel XL, Google Pixel and Google Dreamview VR are displayed during the presentation of new Google hardware in San Francisco, California, U.S. October 4, 2016.REUTERS/Beck Diefenbach
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Taking another page from the Apple playbook, Google said it would work exclusively with a single carrier in the United States, Verizon Communications Inc, on the Pixel, emulating Apple's agreement to launch the original iPhone with AT&T Inc. That deal gave Apple unprecedented control over the look of the phone and how it worked.
Shares of Alphabet closed up 0.3 percent, while Verizon fell 1.2 percent.
The phone comes in two sizes, and its high-end camera is one of few distinguishing features, analysts said. The phones come in black, blue and silver and will be able to get up to a seven-hour charge in 15 minutes. Pre-orders begin on Tuesday.
"Aside from the camera, the new Google Pixels are pretty undifferentiated compared to Samsung and iPhone seventh generation phones," industry analyst Patrick Moorhead said.
While the new phones are clearly aimed at competing with the iPhone - Google executives took several swipes at Apple in their on-stage remarks - analysts said Android rivals like Samsung Electronics could be the biggest victim if the Pixel takes off.
Google's strategy of licensing Android for free and profiting from embedded services such as search and maps made Android the dominant mobile operating system with some 89 percent of the global market, according to IDC.
But Apple still rules the high end of the market, and Google has long been frustrated by the emergence of many variations of Android and the inconsistent experience that has produced. Pushing its own hardware will likely complicate its relationship with Android licensees, analysts said.
ALL-PURPOSE ASSISTANT
Google kicked off the event Tuesday by touting the Google Assistant, the company's voice-activated artificial intelligence system and its answer to Apple's Siri and Amazon's Alexa. The presenter showed how a customers could make a restaurant reservation with a few phrases spoken into the phone.

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The assistant will be embedded into the Pixel and Home products and is being positioned as the central feature in a family of integrated hardware and software products.
It is one of a handful of similar assistants that are vying for supremacy as more people search the web and make purchases online using voice commands, which may eventually supplant keyboards and touchscreens as the primary means of controlling digital devices.
While Google is often cited as the leader in artificial intelligence, Amazon stole a march on the company with its Alexa-powered Echo home speaker system, a surprise hit. The Home device and the Echo have many of the same features.
Google's "Daydream View" virtual reality headset, meanwhile, puts the company in competition with Facebook Inc, owner of Oculus. The device, which works with an Android phone, is far cheaper and simpler. It will be available in November for $79, in time for the end-of-year shopping season.
Home will also be available in November for $129, including a six-month trial of ad-free YouTube.
Google also unveiled a new version of its Chromecast digital media player and a router dubbed Google Wifi, both boasting the same sleek, minimalist design as the Home product.
"These look like products from a single company," said Queiroz, the Google executive.

(Reporting by Julia Love, additional writing by Peter Henderson; Editing by Bill Rigby and Alan Crosby)
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Baghdad warns of 'regional war' over Turkish military presence


Baghdad warns of 'regional war' over Turkish military presence


By Maher Chmaytelli and Tuvan Gumrukcu | BAGHDAD/ANKARA
Iraq's prime minister warned Turkey on Wednesday it risked triggering a regional war by keeping troops in his territory, as the neighboring states summoned each other's ambassadors in a mounting diplomatic stand-off.
Turkey's parliament voted last week to extend its military operation in Iraq and take on "terrorist organizations" - a likely reference to Kurdish militants and Islamic State.
Iraq's parliament responded on Tuesday night by condemning the Turkish vote and calling for Turkey and its 2,000 troops to leave.
"We have asked the Turkish side more than once not to intervene in Iraqi matters and I fear the Turkish adventure could turn into a regional war," Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi warned in comments broadcast on state TV on Wednesday.
"The Turkish leadership's behavior is not acceptable and we don't want to get into a military confrontation with Turkey."
The parliamentary votes have added more heat to an already highly-charged and complex confrontation between regional powers, triggered by the Syrian civil war and the rise of Islamic State.
MOSUL TENSIONS
The tensions between Iraq and Turkey have risen to the surface ahead of a long-expected offensive by Iraqi and U.S.-backed forces to retake the northern city of Mosul from Islamic State.
Turkey has warned the attack would send a wave of refugees over its border and, potentially, on to Europe.
Ankara also worries Baghdad's Shi'ite Muslim-led forces will destabilize the largely Sunni city close to its territory.
It is uncomfortable with the arrangement of Kurdish forces expected to take part in the Mosul offensive, with the blessing of Baghdad and Washington.
Turkey announced late on Tuesday it was calling in Iraq's ambassador to complain about the parliamentary vote, and the foreign ministry issued a statement expressing disappointment.
"We believe this decision does not reflect the views of the majority of Iraqi people, whom Turkey has stood by for years and attempted to support with all its resources," it said.

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"We find it noteworthy that the Iraqi parliament, which has not said anything about the accepted mandate for years, puts this on the agenda as though it were a new development in times when terror is taking so many lives in Turkey and Iraq."
On Wednesday, Iraq summoned the Turkish ambassador to Baghdad to protest what it said were "provocative" comments made in Ankara about keeping Turkish troops in northern Iraq.
Turkey says it deployed troops to a base in northern Iraq late last year as part of an international mission to train and equip Iraqi forces to fight Islamic State.
The Iraqi government says it never invited such a force and considers the Turkish troops occupiers.
(Additional reporting by Humeyra Pamuk; Writing by Luke Baker; Editing by Daren Butler and Andrew Heavens)
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Aleppo will eventually fall, but Syrian war will go on



By Samia Nakhoul | BEIRUT
It may take weeks or months, but Aleppo is likely to fall to Syrian government forces backed by Russian air power and the most lethal bombardment in nearly six years of war.
Capturing the strategically important city, an economic and trading center which is key to controlling Syria's northwest, would be an important military triumph for President Bashar al-Assad and his Russian and Iranian allies.
It would be a crippling setback for the Western-backed Syrian rebels who, without quick reinforcements from their foreign backers, look set to be bombed out of their stronghold.
But the fall of Aleppo will not mean an end to the war, military and political analysts say.
Instead it is likely to give way to a long-term Sunni guerrilla insurgency in which the remaining moderate rebel groups, backed by the West and the West's regional allies, are driven into the arms of militant jihadis.
In a war with so many global and regional actors backing local clients, Assad will survive as leader of a shrunken, broken and fragmented country enduring the world's worst refugee crisis since World War Two.
"The Russians are doing in Aleppo and Syria what they did in Grozny -- it is the same", said Robert Ford, the U.S. ambassador to Syria in 2011-14, referring to the fierce bombardment that all but destroyed the capital of Russia's Chechnya region during Moscow's 1999-2000 war against Islamist separatists there.  
The opposition to Assad, he told Reuters, will "go from holding territory ... to being an insurgency, a guerrilla war, and that will continue a long time."
Syria's war began in 2011 after a popular uprising, against the Assad family's more than four-decade rule, that was inspired by the Arab Spring revolts across the Arab world.
The war, pitting rebels mostly from Syria's Sunni majority against a minority rule rooted in Assad's Alawite community, has killed more than 300,000 people. Half the population has been displaced and much of urban Syria has become a wasteland.
There have been moments during the conflict when it looked like Assad might be toppled. Russia sent its air force to bolster Iran-backed militias a year ago when Moscow and Tehran feared Assad was on the point of succumbing to rebel offensives.
The bombing of eastern Aleppo, with a pro-Assad force on the ground spearheaded by seasoned Iran-backed fighters such as Lebanon's Hezbollah and Iran's Revolutionary Guards, is meant to deal a decisive blow against the rebels.
ASSAD LUCKY WITH FRIENDS AND ENEMIES
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iran's clerical leaders have not wavered in their support for Assad.
But the backers of the rebellion -- ranging from the United States to Turkey and the Gulf -- have been wary of being sucked into a Levantine quagmire and unnerved by concerns that Islamic State will fill the vacuum if Assad's rule implodes.
  Yet, despite the ferocity of the bombardment of eastern Aleppo, it may be too soon to count the rebels out.
Assad loyalist forces encircled the opposition enclave in July. But with manpower shortages, the Syrian army could not keep step on the ground with the Russian aerial assault. In August, rebels broke through government lines southwest of Aleppo, opening a corridor and briefly lifting the siege.
  As a harbinger of the future, the rebel counter-offensive was led by Nusra Front, the jihadi force that had just split from Al Qaeda and rebranded itself as the Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, or Front for the (Islamic) Conquest of the Levant.
Even while negotiating the terms of a short-lived ceasefire with Washington, Russia kept bombing the corridor south of Aleppo. When the brief break in hostilities ended, the intensity of the bombing increased.
The Russian and Syrian forces have been using much more powerful "bunker-buster" bombs, which residents of opposition-held areas say have the force to bring down entire buildings.
Western countries say Syria's government and its Russian allies are guilty of war crimes for targeting civilians, aid deliveries and hospitals. Moscow and Damascus say they target only militants and deny they have hit hospitals.
Despite the intensity of the bombing, the opposition are unlikely to stop fighting, not least because the Syrian establishment has left it nowhere else to go.
"Aleppo is not a turning point, not yet," said Ford, who is now a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington who has criticised U.S. President Barack Obama for failing to arm the mainstream rebels.
"It shows that the (Assad) regime is winning the war now but there will be no end to the war because the opposition will continue to fight," he said. "Aleppo will fall but it may not be quick, it may take one year but it will fall."
Rolf Holmboe, a former Danish ambassador to Lebanon, Syria and Jordan who is now a research fellow at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, says Aleppo's fall would be devastating for the rebels, who have used it as a major hub throughout the war.
"The rebels will be isolated in enclaves. The regime will continue attacking one after another without difficulty," he said. "If Aleppo falls, it will be a strategic loss for the rebels ... Now there is no getting around the fact you have to make peace with Assad –- basically he would have won the war."
Holmboe considers it would be very difficult for the West or Turkey to resupply rebels in Aleppo -- even supposing they wanted to -- and that Russia and Assad have unleashed a two-pronged attack on eastern Aleppo.
  Like Ford, he drew comparisons with Russia's bombardment of Grozny.
CHANGING DYNAMICS
Crucial to the outcome of the war in Syria is the stance of external powers: how much they support their Syrian proxies and how they interpret their interests in a conflict with regional and global ramifications.
Russia and Iran not only want to salvage Assad but also hope to establish themselves as regional or global powers, though such goals leave Moscow with little way out of a conflict that could be a huge financial burden.

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Under Obama, whose presidency ends in January, the United States seems to have more limited goals -- the main one being to drive Islamic State out of its strongholds in Iraq and Syria.
Washington's attention is divided, with the U.S. presidential election campaign nearing a climax and U.S. forces also focusing on driving IS out of Mosul and Raqqa in Iraq.
Gulf Arab countries, which supply weapons and funds to the Syrian opposition, have also been distracted -- by a war in Yemen against Houthi rebels aligned to Iran, their regional foe.
Ford said some regional powers could have more influence in Syria but no longer had the stomach for the war.
Jordan, he said, has all but shut down a supply route it ran for the so-called southern front of the rebel Free Syrian Army.
Turkey, which backs the Syrian rebels, is now preoccupied with halting Syrian Kurdish advances near its border. It has diverted its proxies away from Aleppo to fight Kurdish militia crossing west of the Euphrates river at the Syrian city of Jarablus, a move seen by some Syrian rebels as ruinous.
But it remains important for Ankara that the rebels are not defeated, not least because this could increase the flow of refugees to Turkey, which is already sheltering 3 million people who have fled the conflict.
Holmboe foresees the rebels becoming "isolated in various enclaves", with Assad in control of all big cities and "able to dictate a peace solution on his own terms".
"Maybe it's going to take five years, maybe it will take 10 years ... (but) he (Assad) will be the leader of a broken country," Ford said.
Sarkis Naoum, a leading Arab commentator, predicted a protracted conflict and the de facto partitioning of the country. But he suggested countries in the region would opt to increase their arming of rebel groups.
"The Gulf states are not pleased with the way things are going. They're willing to repeat the experience of Afghanistan," he said in reference to the 1980s when they supplied arms for the Mujahideen to fight the Soviet Union.
"For them this is the war of the century."
(Removes extraneous reference to Iraq in 31st paragraph.)
(Additional reporting by Maria Tsvetkova and Christian Lowe, Writing by Samia Nakhoul, Editing by Tom Perry and Timothy Heritage)
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New Zealand drug smuggling ring linked to Asian crime gang: police



WELLINGTON, Oct. 5 (Xinhua) -- New Zealand law enforcement agencies have seized methamphetamine valued at 17 million NZ dollars (12.13 million U.S. dollars) after smashing an alleged drug smuggling ring linked to an Asian criminal gang.
Police and Customs said in statement Wednesday they had seized 17 kilograms of the drug along with jewelry worth 150,000 NZ dollars (107,910 U.S. dollars) and 200,000 NZ dollars (143,880 U.S. dollars) in cash after a seven-month joint investigation.
Three people had been arrested and charged with importing methamphetamine, supplying the drug and money laundering.
The importation was allegedly conducted by a member of the Thailand Chapter of the U.S.-based Bandido motorcycle gang.
Three men aged 54, 31 and 28 had appeared in Auckland's Manukau District Court and would next appear in October.
Police said they could not rule out the possibility of further charges as the investigation continued.
The drugs recovered were destined for the New Zealand market, Detective Senior Sergeant Albie Alexander, of the Police Organised Crime Unit, said in the statement.
"The seizure of such a substantial amount sends a clear picture that police will continue to work with our partner agencies to disrupt the supply chain and reduce the harm caused by this drug," said Alexander.
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Hundreds evacuated as Colorado wildfire destroys parts of town

PUEBLO, Colo., Oct. 4 (UPI) -- Nearly 2,000 people have been evacuated in the past two days as a wildfire has surrounded the town of Beulah. Colo.
The Pueblo County Sheriff issued a stern warning to people in and near the town Monday night to evacuate while the fire died down overnight, based on concerns it could grow worse.
The grass fire has scorched 3,000 acres of the Beulah Valley and destroyed seven structures, though officials report there have been no injuries as a result of the blaze.
The fire was first reported just after noon on Monday, with evacuations slowly starting around 6 p.m. and increasing over the course of the following two hours to include the evacuation of more than 500 homes.
"I feel it is necessary to move people to safety while the routes are clear and the manpower is available," Pueblo County Sheriff Kirk Taylor said in a statement. "Waiting any longer means we may miss the best window we have, people may sleep through the critical evacuation message if we wait. Acting now is important to protect people. This fire is on both sides of the valley and if either flank moves toward the valley, we may lose lives."
The Pueblo County Health Department issued an air quality warning for residents remaining in the area to stay indoors if smoke decreases visibility, which is a primary indication of smoke becoming a threat to health.
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PSYCHOLOGY PLAYS VITAL ROLE IN TACKLING DIABETES

Newswise — WASHINGTON - Individuals and families affected by diabetes must navigate a complex mix of medical, behavioral and social changes in which psychology plays an integral role, according to the flagship journal of the American Psychological Association.
In a special issue of American Psychologist® entitled “Diabetes and Psychology,” researchers review the current and potential contributions of psychological science to the well-being of people with or at risk of developing diabetes, including the role of family and social connections, changing technology, behavioral intervention programs and identification and treatment of mental disorders associated with diabetes itself.
“Diabetes is a common, chronic and costly condition that currently affects millions of people in the United States and worldwide, with even greater numbers at high risk for developing the disease,” said Christine Hunter, PhD, of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health. “Behavioral, psychological and social factors play an important role in the delay or prevention of type 2 diabetes as well as the self-management and coping skills required to prevent or delay complications in both type 1 and type 2 diabetes. Psychologists and psychological research have an important role to play in improving the prevention and care of diabetes.”
Hunter was a scholarly lead for the issue along with Deborah Wiebe, PhD, of the University of California, Merced, and Vicki Helgeson, PhD, of Carnegie Mellon University.
Among the 10 articles in the special issue:
This article provides an overview of the scope of diabetes and the importance of psychologists for improving disease management and quality of life. It reviews the contributions of the behavioral and social sciences toward improved diabetes prevention and treatment and identifies opportunities for psychologists to close the gap in research and training to meet the challenges of diabetes today and into the future.
Contact: Christine Hunter hunterchristine@niddk.nih.gov
“The Social Context of Managing Diabetes Across the Lifespan,” by Wiebe, Helgeson, and Cynthia Berg, PhD, University of Utah.
People with diabetes must expend effort every day to manage their disease in order to maintain their health and well-being. Relationships with family, friends, romantic partners and health care providers provide an important context for managing diabetes. This article examines how these social resources change across the lifespan and how diabetes both affects and is affected by these key relationships at different points in life. The authors use two established psychological theories—interpersonal theory and self-determination theory—to identify aspects of family, partner, peer and provider relationships central to managing diabetes across the lifespan.
Contact: Deborah Wiebe dwiebe@ucmerced.edu
“Psychosocial Factors in Medication Adherence and Diabetes Self-Management: Implications for Research and Practice,”by Jeffrey Gonzalez, PhD, Yeshiva University and Albert Einstein College of Medicine; Molly Tanenbaum, PhD, Stanford University; and Persis Commissariat, PhD, Joslin Diabetes Center, Boston.
Managing diabetes requires a demanding treatment regimen involving multiple health behaviors, such as taking oral and/or self-injected medications, eating well, staying physically active and monitoring one’s blood glucose. This article examines the evidence for how select psychosocial factors, including knowledge and beliefs, emotional distress and well-being, and behavior skills and coping, can affect people’s ability to manage their diabetes.

Contact: Jeffrey Gonzalez jeffrey.gonzalez@einstein.yu.edu

“Psychological Conditions in Adults with Diabetes,” by Mary de Groot, PhD, Indiana University School of Medicine; Sherita Hill Golden, MD, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; and Julie Wagner, PhD, University of Connecticut Health Sciences Center.
The emotional and behavioral demands of managing diabetes, in conjunction with other life stressors, predispose adults with diabetes to develop multiple psychological conditions. This article summarizes the prevalence, impact and treatment of the primary co-occurring psychological conditions: depressive syndromes, anxiety disorders, disordered eating and serious mental illness.
Contact: Mary de Groot mdegroot@iu.edu
“Psychology, Technology and Diabetes Management,” by Linda Gonder-Frederick, PhD, Jaclyn Shepard, PsyD, Jesse Grabman, BA, and Lee Ritterband, PhD, University of Virginia.
Technological advances have fine-tuned patients’ ability to monitor blood glucose and administer insulin to themselves. For example, the artificial pancreas illustrates the potential of technology to simulate a tightly controlled, closed system. This article summarizes new developments in telemedicine, internet interventions and mobile applications, and explores theoretical models underlying human factors that influence individuals’ use of these new technologies.
Contact: Linda Gonder-Frederick lag3g@virginia.edu
“Evidence-Based Behavioral Interventions to Promote Diabetes Management in Children, Adolescents and Families,” by Marisa Hilliard, PhD; Priscilla Powell, PhD; and Barbara Anderson, PhD, Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital.
As members of multidisciplinary diabetes care teams, psychologists are well suited to support youth with diabetes and their families. Psychological and behavioral interventions can help young people adhere to a complex and demanding diabetes care regimen. This article reviews contemporary behavioral interventions to promote more optimal diabetes family- and self-management, summarizes the evidence for established diabetes skills training programs and family interventions and introduces emerging evidence for technology and mobile health interventions and health care delivery system interventions.
Contact: Barbara Anderson bja@bcm.edu
The content is the sole responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views or imply endorsement of the National Institutes of Health.
The American Psychological Association, in Washington, D.C., is the largest scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States. APA's membership includes more than 117,500 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. Through its divisions in 54 subfields of psychology and affiliations with 60 state, territorial and Canadian provincial associations, APA works to advance the creation, communication and application of psychological knowledge to benefit society and improve people's lives.
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