Golf-Players in paradise for PGA Tour season opener

 If winning breeds winning, then the picturesque Hawaiian island of Maui is a paradise in more ways than one for the select group of players competing at this week's $5.7 million Hyundai Tournament of Champions.
The only way to qualify for the elite field of 30 in the PGA Tour's season-opening event was through victory on the U.S. circuit last year and, with no cut and a guaranteed check after Monday's final round, the pickings are certainly favorable.
"It's always great to be here," American Hunter Mahan, a twice champion on the 2012 PGA Tour, told reporters at the Kapalua Resort while preparing for Friday's opening round.
"Obviously you won on the PGA Tour the year before so it's a great start and every player enjoys coming here and wants to start here.
"It's exciting but it's also crazy ... I feel like the year never really ended last year, it just kind of keeps on going. But it's certainly fun to be here."
Masters champion Bubba Watson agreed.
"Who would not want to come to Maui and play golf?" the American left-hander smiled.
"Ride in a golf cart in the pro-ams and practice rounds wearing shorts and then the tournament starts and you have to walk. But other than that it's great.
"A great time for the family, hanging out with friends and seeing the scenery. Playing the golf course is a challenge," Watson said of the par-73, 7,411-yard Plantation layout, "but it's a fun time to start off the year here in Maui."
DOWN TIME
Many of the players competing at Kapalua make the most of what time they have away from the golf course by surfing, swimming and taking the ever popular whale-watching cruises but Mahan said he was unlikely to follow suit.
"I don't particularly like the water that much," Mahan said. "I get seasick pretty easily, so I won't be out in the water too much.
"There's a hundred different things you can do here. At the same time, this is great weather and I'm trying to work on my game a little bit and make sure I get enough time for that."
While the Maui attractions are certainly plentiful for the competitors and their families, seven leading players who had qualified for the PGA Tour's season-opener have opted not to travel to Hawaii, mainly for tournament scheduling reasons.
Those notable absentees are world number one Rory McIlroy, second-ranked Luke Donald and Justin Rose (fourth), along with former Kapalua winners Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els and Sergio Garcia.
American veteran Steve Stricker, who clinched his 12th PGA Tour victory by three shots at Kapalua last year, is back to defend his title.

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McIlroy may turn down chance to play in 2016 Olympics

LONDON (Reuters) - World number one Rory McIlroy may reject the opportunity to compete at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro to avoid any controversy over which country to represent.
Twice major winner McIlroy, 23, said he was mulling whether to play for Britain or Ireland and he told the BBC that he might opt out of playing altogether.
"I just think being from where we're from, we're placed in a very difficult position. I feel Northern Irish and obviously being from Northern Ireland you have a connection to Ireland and a connection to the UK," McIlroy said.
"If I could and there was a Northern Irish team I'd play for Northern Ireland.
"Play for one side or the other - or not play at all because I may upset too many people… Those are my three options I'm considering very carefully."
Golf will return to the Olympics for the first time since 1904 and McIlroy said in 2009 he would "probably play for Great Britain".
He echoed those feelings in an interview with the Daily Mail newspaper last year but regrets saying so.
"It was a moment, I don't want to say of weakness, but a moment of frustration with it all," he said.
"People tune in to watch me play on TV and feel like they are connected to me in some way. I don't want to repay them for their support with something they don't want me to do."
Last year McIlroy became the second player after Luke Donald in 2011 to win both order of merit titles either side of the Atlantic and he has a sizeable advantage in the world rankings over second-placed Donald going into the 2013 season.

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Golf-Clarke, Cabrera to tee off in T20-style Indian league

NEW DELHI, Jan 4 (Reuters) - Darren Clarke and Angel Cabrera will be among four major winners teeing off in a city-based golf league in India next month in a format modelled on the country's Twenty20 cricket league.
Masterminded by Indian golfer Shiv Kapur, the league would also feature former US Open champion Michael Campbell, 2002 PGA Championships winner Rich Beem, multiple European Tour winner David Howell and Asian Tour stalwart Thaworn Wiratchant, organisers said on Friday.
"When I saw the Indian Premier League (Twenty20 tournament), I thought it made cricket look cool. I wanted to do the same in golf, without taking away the seriousness of course," Kapur, whose lone Asian Tour win came in 2005, told a news conference.
"It would be a great opportunity for the local players to team up with some of the big names. It would be an experience they would cherish for the rest of their life," the 30-year-old golfer said.
Scheduled on Feb 8-10 at a course near Mumbai, the inaugural league will feature two day-night rounds of strokeplay, followed by the third and final round of best-ball format.
Each round will be played over 14 holes, instead of the regular 18, by the teams comprising four golfers, both local and international.
"We decided three-hour round would be ideal from TV viewership point of view," explained Kapur.
Sri Lanka cricket captain Mahela Jayawardene is promoter of the $400,000 league's Colombo-based franchise.
"We are starting with one team from Sri Lanka and the idea is to add more international franchises going forward," Kapur said.
The organisers were yet to finalise the remaining three franchises and said a golfers' auction would take place in the next couple of weeks, he added.

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HTC says licensing agreement with Apple will lead to better devices in 2013

Apple (AAPL) and HTC (2498) signed a 10-year licensing agreement in November that covered all current, pending and future patents and ended the ongoing litigation between the two companies. It has been estimated that the company will pay Apple between $6 and $8 for every Android device shipped, however HTC CEO Peter Chao refuted the claim. Regardless of how much is being spent, HTC China president Ray Yam believes the deal will begin to benefit the company in 2013.
[More from BGR: ‘iPhone 5S’ to reportedly launch by June with multiple color options and two different display sizes]
“The settlement with Apple will start to pay off next year, and the fourth quarter of this year is still going at a set pace,” the executive said in an interview with the Economic Observer of China, according to Focus Taiwan. “The biggest benefit to us is that we can put more energy into innovation, which is more important than anything else for a technology company.”
[More from BGR: Nokia predicted to abandon mobile business, sell assets to Microsoft and Huawei in 2013]
Yam notes that HTC has wasted too many resources on lawsuits with Apple in the past and that the company is now encouraging employees to “take broader steps” when creating new and better products. The executive revealed that HTC has adjusted its product, sales and marketing strategies for 2013 in the wake of the settlement. He said that many of the company’s projects are now proceeding at a faster rate and it has also changed the way it negotiates with its telecom partners.
While the settlement will ensure that HTC’s devices will remain on sale in the U.S. and other markets, the company must still find a way to increase its dwindling market share as its struggles continue.

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Nokia’s Lumia 920 remains as expensive as Apple’s iPhone 5

One thing handset industry analysts are watching like hawks is the price graph of the most important Windows Phone 8 model in the European handset market. Nokia (NOK) priced the Lumia 920 very, very ambitiously for its November debut. How long can the model maintain a stiff premium? Was the early pricing just designed to skim high margins from the pool of eager Nokia/Windows Phone early adopters?
[More from BGR: ‘iPhone 5S’ to reportedly launch by June with multiple color options and two different display sizes]
Christmas is now over and the year 2013 has rolled in. But in the most important handset market in Europe, the Lumia 920 still costs as much as the 16 GB iPhone 5. At Phonehouse Germany, the price is 640 euros. At Handy Attacke, Ebay Germany, Amazon.de and other leading German phone retail sites, the price remains rock solid and notably uniform 650 euros. Most of these sites offer shipment within two to three days, so the price is no longer jacked up by lack of supply.
[More from BGR: Nokia predicted to abandon mobile business, sell assets to Microsoft and Huawei in 2013]
In comparison, the 16 GB iPhone 5 costs 630 euros at Ebay Germany, 650 euros at Notebooksbilliger and Handyschotte; and 670 euros at Telbay, Modeo and other sites.
Even as the unsubsidized price of Samsung’s (005930) Galaxy Note II is slipping below 510 euros in Germany, the Lumia 920 keeps levitating at the same price as the most expensive mass-market smartphone on the planet. Germany remains the biggest smartphone market in Europe, so this is going to be one key issue to keep an eye on as January price-cutting starts in earnest.

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Patent trolls’ latest gambit: Sue businesses if they dare to use office scanners

We’ve seen a lot of ridiculous claims asserted by patent trolls over the past few years, but this one truly takes the cake: Ars Technica reports that an entity called “Project Paperless LLC” has been sending out letters to small and medium-sized businesses demanding licensing fees for using office scanners capable of sending PDFs via email. Steven Vicinanza, founder of Atlanta-based IT services provider BlueWave Computing, told Ars that both his company and several of its customers had received letters telling them that they needed to buy licenses for “distributed computer architecture” patents that cover basic networked scanning technology. At a cost of $1,000 per employee, Vicinanza said that the licenses would have cost his company a grand total of $130,000 just for the right to scan documents.
[More from BGR: ‘iPhone 5S’ to reportedly launch by June with multiple color options and two different display sizes]
Vicinanza couldn’t believe that he was actually being threatened with a lawsuit for using office scanners, so he decided to contact the attorney for Project Paperless to get some clarification.
[More from BGR: Nokia predicted to abandon mobile business, sell assets to Microsoft and Huawei in 2013]
“[The attorney] said, if you hook up a scanner and e-mail a PDF document — we have a patent that covers that as a process,” Vicinanza told Ars. “So you’re claiming anyone on a network with a scanner owes you a license? He said, ‘Yes, that’s correct.’ And at that point, I just lost it.”
Vicinanza isn’t the only one “losing it” over patent suits, of course. Cisco (CSCO) late last year decided to go on the offense against patent trolls by flat-out accusing them of breaking the law. What’s more, we’ve heard rumblings that the United States Department of Justice’s antitrust division may be ready to do something to limit patent trolls’ ability to extract licensing fees, so there could be some relief for patent suit-stricken firms on the horizon.

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Typical American without a landline: A 27-year old Latino living in Columbus, Ohio

The statistical study compiled by NHIS about landline and mobile phone usage in American households is a pretty fascinating read. The number of U.S. adults with a mobile phone but no landline rose to 34% in the first half of 2012. That percentage is ticking up roughly two points every six months — a fairly rapid clip. The number of adults with a landline but no mobile phone plunged below 8% according to the study, which was picked up by GigaOm. These numbers may explain why some of the pollsters using landline-only calls in the last election ran off the rails so spectacularly. So many Americans can no longer be reached via a landline phone that polling methods simply must be adjusted.
[More from BGR: ‘iPhone 5S’ to reportedly launch by June with multiple color options and two different display sizes]
Latinos are far more likely to have a mobile-only household (46%) than non-hispanic whites (30%) according to the study; this gap is surprisingly large. The number of 25- to 29-year-old adults living in a mobile-only household hit a remarkable 60% in the beginning of 2012. There is a sharp generational divide here: Fewer than 25% of 45- to 64-year-old Americans have dared to drop the landline.
[More from BGR: Nokia predicted to abandon mobile business, sell assets to Microsoft and Huawei in 2013]
Somewhat surprisingly, the Midwest is the region with the highest level of mobile-only households. Naturally, metropolitan households are more likely to depend solely on mobile phones than suburban or rural households. For the first time ever, women edged out men as the larger group of mobile-only adults.
Back in 2006, only 10% of adults lived in a mobile-only household. Americans are kicking their landline habit with remarkable alacrity considering that many homes with small children still feel that depending solely on a mobile phone is too risky.

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Microsoft lashes out at Google’s decision to spurn Windows Phone

Dave Heiner, vice president and deputy general counsel for Microsoft (MSFT), took aim at Google (GOOG) and the company’s unwillingness to develop for Windows Phone 8 in a blog post on Wednesday. Heiner claims that, “Google continues to prevent Microsoft from offering consumers a fully featured YouTube app [among other] for the Windows Phone.” Microsoft has been apparently been trying to get a full-feature YouTube app for its Windows Phone operating system for more than two years, however it has been unsuccessful.
[More from BGR: ‘iPhone 5S’ to reportedly launch by June with multiple color options and two different display sizes]
Despite the fact that the Windows Phone Marketplace has doubled in the past year, Google has not yet produced any quality apps for the platform. The company previously said that it will not be launching a native Gmail or Google Drive app for Windows 8 or Windows Phone until people start using the operating systems.
[More from BGR: Nokia predicted to abandon mobile business, sell assets to Microsoft and Huawei in 2013]
Windows Phone is estimated to account for a mere 2.6% of the mobile market and adoption of Windows 8 is said to be weak as well.

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D.H. Clark/I.B. Long Pen New Book, ‘A Grasp for Life”

Tilton, NH (PRWEB) January 04, 2013
The new book “A Grasp for Life: The continuing story of Howard Walker” (published by iUniverse) by D.H. Clark/I.B. Long tells the tale of Howard Walker, a man looking to find what many take for granted: the love of a family.
Howard’s story tells of his ups and downs in life as he struggles to grasp the life that had been taken from him as a young boy. The authors tells of his life in the military, later marrying and continuing through the normalcy of life, finally finding a place in a loving family, something that had allured him since the state removed him and his siblings from his home.
An excerpt from the opening of “A Grasp for Life”:
“Howard D. Walker has grown into a handsome young man who has been drafted in the U.S. Army and he finds love and romance. It is during their marriage that they find there are many bumps in the road. Howard finds himself reflecting back on his childhood life while his wife Sueanne takes her loneliness into the arms of a friend. Howard is tossed back and forth from army to navy to army again as he searches for a grasp of life.”
“I believe that there have been many families torn apart in their youth who have tried to find their way in searching for the safety and comfort of a loving family,” Clark explains.
“A Grasp for Life”

By D.H. Clark/I.B. Long

Softcover | 5 x 8 in | 312 pages | ISBN 9781475954913 |

E-Book | 312 pages | ISBN 9781475954920 |

Available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble
About the Author

Born in Concord, N.H., on September 28th, 1945, D.H. Clark/I.B. Long is a disabled veteran. He has three brothers and one sister. His interests are in the space program, and he has written books on each mission. He is also author of "Behind the Chain linked Fence." He is married and lives at the New Hampshire veteran’s home in Tilton, N.H.
iUniverse, an Author Solutions, Inc. self-publishing imprint, is the leading book marketing, editorial services, and supported self-publishing provider. iUniverse has a strategic alliance with Indigo Books & Music, Inc. in Canada, and titles accepted into the iUniverse Rising Star program are featured in a special collection on BarnesandNoble.com. iUniverse recognizes excellence in book publishing through the Star, Reader’s Choice, Rising Star and Editor’s Choice designations—self-publishing’s only such awards program. Headquartered in Bloomington, Indiana, iUniverse also operates offices in Indianapolis. For more information or to publish a book, please visit iuniverse.com or call 1-800-AUTHORS. For the latest, follow @iuniversebooks on Twitter.

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Reverse Cell Phone Lookup Annual Plans Now Offered at Cell Phone Registry

Reverse cell phone lookup annual plans are now offered online at the CellPhoneRegistry.com website. This company has enabled this new and unlimited search feature to provide an alternative to Caller ID or single number searches for mobile numbers online.

San Francisco, California (PRWEB) January 04, 2013
Reverse cell phone lookup services are not new online although one company has improved the cost of these services. The Cell Phone Registry is one of the largest databases online for cell and landline phone numbers. This company has enabled a new annual search plan that provides 365 days of unlimited usage. Adults that use this system can pay a small annual fee for this service instead of single number searches.
Millions of landline and cell phone numbers now exist in the United States according to telecom data. Many people use both phone types for communication purposes. Some individuals operate businesses or use phones for texting or other purposes.
Since some cell phone data is private, traditional Caller ID services could be lacking in the amount of details provided. The new unlimited search plan online is helping to deliver more phone data.
A person that uses this updated database search plan now has the option to print a report that could include information not readily found online. Many of the records include first and last name, former mailing address, telephone carrier information and the age of a phone user. This data can be useful to adults that perform searches for verification or discovery purposes.
The Cell Phone Registry company now has one of the largest online-only databases that can be used for a reverse phone search. Over 218 million landline numbers are included as well as 200 million cell phone numbers. These records included published and unpublished numbers that can be accessed through this search system online. This secure system an be accessed 365 days a year.
About Cell Phone Registry
The Cell Phone Registry company launched its online search tool in 2009 and has updated its records on a regular basis for the past 4 years. Millions of public records can now be searched by adult users in hopes of finding information about the owner of a phone number. The cell, unpublished and landline records that are offered can be reviewed privately online. The Cell Phone Registry company provides one of the only annual plans found for reverse phone number lookup services currently online. The data that is generated by this company complies with all FCC legislation.

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