Yahoo! might trim stake in Alibaba

SAN FRANCISCO —U.S. Internet pioneer Yahoo! is considering trimming its stake in Chinese e-commerce powerhouse Alibaba and letting go of its share of Yahoo! Japan, the New York Times and Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

The publications cited unnamed sources as indicating Yahoo! might raise billions of dollars by cutting its ownership in Alibaba to 15% from 40% and by letting go of its 35% share of Yahoo! Japan.

Proceeds could help the faded Internet star’s plan to transform from an online search engine to a “premier digital media” company and potentially be doled out to sate shareholders irked by its performance in recent years.

Alibaba’s value was estimated in September to be about $13 billion.

The California company’s share of Yahoo! Japan, a publicly traded company in which Japanese Internet firm Softbank owns a major stake, was estimated at $6 billion.

Alibaba has expressed interest in getting back its shares from Yahoo!, which has openly indicated it wants to release its interest in Yahoo! Japan.

The complex transaction would be tax free because it would be done in a way not considered a sale.

Tokyo stocks close 0.77% lower

TOKYO — Japanese stocks fell 0.77% Thursday ahead of a three-day weekend as investors remained wary over the eurozone debt crisis despite action by the European Central Bank to provide cheap loans to banks.

The Nikkei index at the Tokyo Stock Exchange lost 64.82 points to close at 8,395.16. The Topix index of all first section shares fell 0.35% or 2.56 points to 723.12.

A total of 523 banks took a record 489.2 billion euros ($641 billion) on which the ECB will charge annual interest of just one percent over three years.

Until now, the ECB has lent for a maximum of one year and the new arrangement is part of a series of unprecedented measures to keep credit flowing in Europe at a time when banks are increasingly wary of lending to each other due to the debt crisis.

But Naoteru Teraoka, general manager in the investment management department at Chuo Mitsui Asset Management, said Japanese stocks will lack overt outside catalysts until at least Tuesday, as U.S. stocks will be on break through Monday.

Japanese markets will be closed on Friday for a national holiday.

“In the absence of specific sector data or news, shippers are still benefiting from being so deeply oversold earlier this year,” Teraoka told Dow Jones Newswires.

The euro stood at $1.3053, down from $1.3188 in New York Wednesday, and at 101.98 yen, compared with 101.88 yen in New York.

The dollar was at 78.04 yen, almost unchanged from 78.05.

N Korea leader's death fuels 'condolences' debate among allies

WASHINGTON —North Korean strongman Kim Jong-Il’s death is raising tough questions not only of policy but of protocol, with major world powers divided on whether and how to offer condolences.

The United States and other Western nations have studiously avoided the word “condolences” and instead addressed statements to “the North Korean people” after the demise of a man blamed for thousands if not millions of deaths.

U.S. allies South Korea and Japan have tense relations with the North and are directly in the crosshairs of the nuclear-armed state.

In Tokyo, Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura said Wednesday that the government would not be offering condolences to North Korea since the abduction issue remains unresolved.

South Korea, which remains technically at war with the North, said it would allow private groups to offer condolences in the latest effort to try to encourage stability despite deep worries over young successor Kim Jong-Un.

China, North Korea’s main ally, quickly showed its grief and President Hu Jintao paid respects at Pyongyang’s embassy in Beijing. Other nations that said they were sending formal condolence messages included Russia, Iran and India.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in a statement issued after a day of fine-tuning, urged North Korea’s new leadership to embrace “the path of peace” but kept the focus on the country’s people rather than its leadership.

“We are deeply concerned with the well-being of the North Korean people and our thoughts and prayers are with them during these difficult times,” Clinton wrote.

Explaining the statement, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said that it was “intended to be a signal of our expectations and hopes for the new regime.”

“With regard to ‘the c word,’ I think we didn’t considerate it appropriate in this case,” Nuland said.

There is historical precedent. When Kim Il-Sung—Kim Jong-Il’s father and the nation’s founder—died in 1994, then President Bill Clinton offered “sincere condolences to the people of North Korea on behalf of the people of the United States.”

Clinton, who was speaking to reporters on a visit to Italy, also voiced “deep appreciation” to Kim Il-Sung for supporting talks with the United States, but the American leader came under attack from the rival Republican Party.

Senator Bob Dole, who would unsuccessfully challenge Clinton for the White House two years later, accused the White House incumbent of forgetting the more than 35,000 Americans killed in the Korean War.

Democratic lawmakers at the time hit back by noting that Republican presidents sent condolences over the deaths of communist strongmen Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong.

Jack Pritchard, a former U.S. negotiator with North Korea who now heads the Korea Economic Institute, said that Hillary Clinton’s statement was “very well crafted” as it was open to interpretation, with North Korean leaders able to see it as a condolence message if they so choose.

But Scott Snyder, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said there was a risk that North Korea’s leadership would compare the 2011 and 1994 statements.

“The circumstances are completely different. I think it’s justified” not to offer condolences over Kim Jong-Il, Snyder said.

“But at the same time, I think it’s possible that the North Koreans could actually see what they’ve gotten so far as a step short of where they were previously,” he added.

Formal statements are of high importance for the leadership of North Korea, which has developed an elaborate personality cult around the Kim dynasty.

But foreign governments have been spared an additional dilemma as North Korea has indicated that international leaders will not take part in Kim’s December 28 funeral.

Peter Beck, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said Pyongyang’s preemptive non-invitation showed that the regime will likely be focused on itself and the country instead of scrutinizing messages from overseas.

“They really don’t care about the world right now. They care a lot more about their internal situation,” Beck said.

© 2011 AFP

Japan using quake disaster budget for whaling aid

TOKYO —Japan on Wednesday confirmed it planned to use some of the public funds earmarked for quake and tsunami reconstruction to boost security for its controversial annual whaling hunt.

Greenpeace charged that Tokyo was siphoning money from disaster victims by spending an extra 2.28 billion yen ($30 million) on beefed up security amid looming battles between the whaling fleet and environmental groups.

Japan's whaling fleet left port Tuesday for this season's annual hunt in Antarctica, with the coast guard saying earlier that it would deploy an unspecified number of guards to protect it from anti-whaling activists.

Fisheries Agency official Tatsuya Nakaoku said the extra security was designed to ensure safer hunts, and ultimately help coastal towns that largely depend on whaling to recover from the March 11 disasters.

“The government will support the reconstruction effort of a whaling town and nearby areas,” he told AFP Wednesday.

“This program can help it reconstruct food processing plants there… Many people in the area eat whale meat, too. They are waiting for Japan's commercial whaling to resume,” he added.

In February, Japan cut short its hunt for the 2010-2011 season by one month after bagging only one fifth of its planned catch, blaming interference from the US-based environmental group Sea Shepherd.

Last month, Japan passed a 12.1 trillion yen extra budget, the third this year, to finance post-quake reconstruction and revive the economy reeling from the impact of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

About 498.9 billion yen was earmarked for fisheries-related spending, including 2.28 billion yen for “stabilizing whaling research.”

“We will bolster measures against acts of sabotage by anti-whaling groups so as to stably carry out the Antarctic whaling research,” the fisheries department said after the budget was passed.

Commercial whaling is banned under an international treaty but Japan has since 1987 used a loophole to carry out “lethal research” on the creatures in the name of science.

Japan says it is necessary to substantiate its view that there is a robust whale population in the world, but makes no secret of the fact that whale meat from this research ends up on dinner tables and in restaurants.

Anti-whaling nations and environmentalist groups routinely condemn the activity as a cover for commercial whaling.

Chinese banks to get liquidity boost

BEIJING-- China's cash-strapped banks may soon get an injection of capital, thanks to fiscal funding, not a loosening of government policy.
More than 1 trillion yuan (about $158.2 billion) of treasury deposits are expected to be allocated by the Ministry of Finance (MOF) to government departments in November and December, according to a report by China International Capital Co Ltd (CICC), the country's top investment bank.
China allocated 700 billion yuan of deficit in the 2011 Budget adopted in March this year.
MOF data showed fiscal revenues amounted to about 1.2 trillion yuan between January and September. That implies fiscal expenditure will top 1.9 trillion yuan in the fourth quarter of this year.
As the massive fiscal funding was made near the year-end in the past years, CICC predicts the country's banks will boost their capital strength by 1.2 trillion yuan.
Liquidity conditions for Chinese banks started to improve since the beginning of November, after People's Bank of China (PBOC), the country's central bank, stopped draining liquidity from banking sector through its open market operations this week.

Last week, PBOC released 96 billion yuan of cash into the money market in its first liquidity injection through open-market operations in four weeks.
Expectations of a partial easing of the country's credit-tightening measures have heightened in recent weeks after Premier Wen Jiabao said on October 25 in the northern municipality of Tianjin that the government will fine-tune its macro control policies "when the time is right."
In China's money market, the Shanghai Interbank Offered Rate (Shibor), which measures the cost for banks to borrow from one another, of different terms headed for different directions on Monday.
Overnight the Shibor edged up 0.33 basis points to 3.0933 percent, while the Shibor for one-week and two-week rose 7 basis points and 2.04 basis points to 3.5683 percent and 3.6296 percent, respectively.
The one-month Shibor weakened 15.33 basis points to 4.9242 percent, indicating banks' liquidity outlook in the coming month.

Tokyo starts radiation checks on city's food

The Tokyo metropolitan government on Tuesday began a large-scale investigation into the extent of radioactive material in the city’s food stores.

The city began monitoring the radioactivity of edible goods on sale in shops of various sizes throughout the capital and will continue the checks until the end of March 2012, TBS reported. Officials say the data will be available online at the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Public Health website from Wednesday.

The institute says it intends to randomly purchase and test around 20-30 items, such as vegetables, fruit, fish, eggs, tofu and dairy products, each week from stores throughout the capital. The center says it will prioritize foodstuffs grown and processed in Japan, products eaten regularly by the average family, and food that is often given to children, TBS reported.

Authorities said that any items found to contain more than 50 becquerels of radioactive cesium per kilogram will be subjected to more thorough testing, while products with a cesium level of more than the government-set safety limit of 500 becquerels per kilogram will be withdrawn from sale.

An official at the Bureau of Social Welfare and Public Health told TBS that the measure is being carried out to reassure the people of Tokyo that their food is safe.

Strong quake hits southern Japan

TOKYO – A fairly strong earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.8 has hit off the shores of Japan's southern Okinawa Island.

Officials said the quake Tuesday about 135 miles (220 kilometers) away from the island was not expected to cause a tsunami. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

Northeastern Japan was devastated by a massive earthquake and tsunami on March 11 that left nearly 20,000 people dead or missing. Japan, which lies along the Pacific "Ring of Fire," is one of the world's most seismically active countries

Transparent steel church has an open wall policy

When the subject of church architecture comes up, what’s the first thing that you picture? Gothic cathedrals, stained glass windows, and high ceilings? Well now you can add see-through steel walls to that list. This unique church pulls off the seemingly contradictory feat, and makes for a visually stunning work of art.

The secret to its “transparency” is that it takes on a style that’s similar to window shutters, leaving at least several inches of open space in between each layer of alloy. It makes for quite the unique sight to behold, both from the outside and the inside. However, if you’re envisioning a congregation of worshippers getting drenched by rain and pelted with snow, you need not worry, for this isn’t really a church at all.

The building is actually an artistic structure called Reading Between the Lines. It was created by duo of Belgian architects Pieterjan Gijs and Arnout Van Vaerenbergh (known collectively as Gijs Van Vaerenbergh). Residing in the rural Belgian countryside, they describe it as a “visual experience,” with no practical purpose beyond that. The artists characterize it with the metaphor of a line drawing in space, and say it was inspired by the large volume of vacant churches in the area.

World to be hit by more weather disasters, scientists say

WASHINGTON — Freakish weather disasters — from the sudden October snowstorm in the Northeast U.S. to the record floods in Thailand — are striking more often. And global warming is likely to spawn more similar weather extremes at a huge cost, says a draft summary of an international climate report obtained by The Associated Press.
The final draft of the report from a panel of the world's top climate scientists paints a wild future for a world already weary of weather catastrophes costing billions of dollars.
The report says costs will rise and perhaps some locations will become "increasingly marginal as places to live."

The report from the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will be issued in a few weeks, after a meeting in Uganda.
It says there is at least a 2-in-3 probability that climate extremes have already worsened because of man-made greenhouse gases.
This marks a change in climate science from focusing on subtle changes in daily average temperatures to concentrating on the harder-to-analyze freak events that grab headlines, cause economic damage and kill people.

The most recent bizarre weather extreme, the pre-Halloween snowstorm, is typical of the damage climate scientists warn will occur — but it's not typical of the events they tie to global warming.
"The extremes are a really noticeable aspect of climate change," said Jerry Meehl, senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. "I think people realize that the extremes are where we are going to see a lot of the impacts of climate change."

The snow-bearing Nor'easter cannot be blamed on climate change and probably isn't the type of storm that will increase with global warming, four meteorologists and climate scientists said.
They agree more study is needed. But experts on extreme storms have focused more closely on the increasing numbers of super-heavy rainstorms, not snow, NASA climate scientist Gavin Schmidt said.
The opposite kind of disaster — the drought in Texas and the Southwest U.S. — is also the type of event scientists are saying will happen more often as the world warms, said Schmidt and Meehl, who reviewed part of the climate panel report.

No studies have specifically tied global warming to the drought, but it is consistent with computer models that indicate current climate trends will worsen existing droughts, Meehl said.
Studies also have predicted more intense monsoons with climate change. Warmer air can hold more water and puts more energy into weather systems, changing the dynamics of storms and where and how they hit.
Thailand is now coping with massive flooding from monsoonal rains that illustrate how climate is also interconnected with other manmade issues such as population and urban development, river management and sinking lands, Schmidt said.
In fact, the report says that "for some climate extremes in many regions, the main driver for future increases in losses will be socioeconomic in nature" rather than greenhouse gases.

There's an 80 percent chance that the killer Russian heat wave of 2010 wouldn't have happened without the added push of global warming, according to a study published last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
So while in the past the climate change panel, formed by the United Nations and World Meteorological Organization, has discussed extreme events in snippets in its report, this time the scientists are putting them all together.
The report, which needs approval by diplomats at the mid-November meeting, tries to measure the confidence scientists have in their assessment of climate extremes both future and past.
Chris Field, one of the leaders of the climate change panel, said he and other authors won't comment because the report still is subject to change. The summary chapter of the report didn't detail which regions of the world might suffer extremes so severe as to leave them marginally habitable.
The report does say scientists are "virtually certain" — 99 percent — that the world will have more extreme spells of heat and fewer of cold. Heat waves could peak as much as 5 degrees hotter by mid-century and even 9 degrees hotter by the end of the century.
Weather Underground meteorology director Jeff Masters, who wasn't involved in the study, said in the United States from June to August this year, blistering heat set 2,703 daily high temperature records, compared with only 300 cold records during that period, making it the hottest summer in the U.S. since the Dust Bowl of 1936.

By the end of the century, the intense, single-day, heavy rainstorms that now typically happen only once every 20 years are likely to happen about twice a decade, the report says.
The report said hurricanes and other tropical cyclones — like 2005's Katrina — are likely to get stronger in wind speed, but won't increase in number and may actually decrease. Massachusetts Institute of Technology meteorology professor Kerry Emanuel, who studies climate's effects on hurricanes, disagrees and believes more of these intense storms will occur.
And global warming isn't the sole villain in future climate disasters, the climate report says. An even bigger problem will be the number of people — especially the poor — who live in harm's way.
University of Victoria climate scientist Andrew Weaver, who wasn't among the authors, said the report was written to be "so bland" that it may not matter to world leaders.
But Masters said the basics of the report seem to be proven true by what's happening every day. "In the U.S., this has been the weirdest weather year we've had for my 30 years, hands down. Certainly this October snowstorm fits in with it."
by msnbc"

Justice Department Sues South Carolina Over State's Strict Immigration Law

COLUMBIA, S.C. – The federal government filed a lawsuit Monday seeking to stop implementation of South Carolina's tough new immigration law, arguing that the legislation that requires law officers to check suspects' immigration status is unconstitutional.
Federal officials and state officials had met to discuss the issue a week ago.
The government wants a judge to stop enforcement of the legislation, which requires that officers call federal immigration officials if they suspect someone is in the country illegally following a stop for something else, U.S. Attorney Bill Nettles told The Associated Press.

"The Department of Justice has many important tasks," Nettles said. "Two of those important tasks are the defense of the constitution and ensuring equality is afforded to all."
The lawsuit filed in federal court names Gov. Nikki Haley as a defendant. A spokesman for the Republican, the daughter of immigrants from India, said the state was forced to pass its own law because there is no strong federal immigration law.
"If the feds were doing their job, we wouldn't have had to address illegal immigration reform at the state level," Rob Godfrey said. "But, until they do, we're going to keep fighting in South Carolina to be able to enforce our laws."
A spokesman for state Attorney General Alan Wilson, who will act as Haley's attorney, said he had not seen the complaint.
South Carolina's law, which takes effect Jan. 1, also mandates that all businesses check their new hires' legal status through a federal online system. Businesses that knowingly violate the law could have their operating licenses revoked.
The law says all law enforcement officers are required to call federal immigration officials if they suspect someone is in the country illegally. The question must follow an arrest or traffic stop for something else. The measure bars officers from holding someone solely on that suspicion. Opponents railed against the measure as encouraging racial profiling.
The law also makes it a felony for someone to make fake photo IDs for illegal residents and creates a new law enforcement unit within the Department of Public Safety to enforce state immigration laws. It also makes it a felony for illegal immigrants to allow themselves to be transported.
Nettles said the law is unconstitutional and violates people's right to due process.
The U.S. Justice Department has been reviewing immigration-related laws passed by several states and is challenging similar laws in Arizona and Alabama. Last week, Nettles met with Wilson on the issue, but no details of that meeting were released.
Assistant attorney general Tony West said Monday the agency continues to review similar laws in Utah, Indiana and Georgia. He quoted Haley saying South Carolina's law would cause illegal immigrants to move elsewhere.
"Pushing undocumented individuals out of one state and into another is simply not a solution to our immigration challenges," West said. "It ultimately creates more problems than it solves."
Justice department officials said South Carolina's law, like Alabama's and Arizona's, diverts federal resources from high-priority targets, such as terrorism, drug smuggling and gang activity. They contend the laws will result in the harassment and detention of foreign visitors and legal immigrants, as well as U.S. citizens, who can't immediately prove their legal status.
A deputy assistant attorney general said the agency sent a letter to Alabama schools reminding them that children can't be denied enrollment. Unlike the laws in other states, Alabama's required schools to check students' immigration status. That provision, which has been temporarily blocked, would allow the Supreme Court to reconsider a decision that said a kindergarten to high school education must be provided to illegal immigrants.
The Justice Department has set up a hotline and email address for complaints regarding Alabama's law, and officials said they're coordinating with colleagues in other federal agencies -- including the labor, agriculture, education, and health agencies -- to ensure federal money's not being used to discriminate.
In a news release, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said South Carolina's law "diverts critical law enforcement resources from the most serious threats to public safety and undermines the vital trust between local jurisdictions and the communities they serve, while failing to address the underlying problem: the need for comprehensive immigration reform at the federal level."
The American Civil Liberties Union, which has challenged the similar laws in other states, several weeks ago sued to block the South Carolina law from taking effect in January.
"It definitely puts a spotlight on the issue and heightens our arguments," Andre Segura, an attorney with the ACLU's immigrants' rights project, said Monday.

Chinese banks' forex surplus hits $26b in Sept

BEIJING-- China's foreign exchange regulator said Monday that the total surplus of Chinese banks' foreign exchange from bank-to-client transactions reached $26 billion in September.
In September, institutional and individual clients sold $142.6 billion in foreign currencies to banks while purchasing $116.6 billion, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) said in an online statement.
From January to September, more foreign currencies were sold than purchased through Chinese banks, resulting in $380.7 billion of foreign exchange surplus during the period, the statement said.
Foreign exchange surplus, which makes up part of China's foreign exchange reserves along with current account surplus and foreign direct investment inflow, does not include banks' own foreign exchange transactions or interbank transactions, according to the SAFE.
Last year, foreign exchange surplus made through Chinese banks' transactions with domestic clients increased 51 percent year-on-year to reach $397.7 billion, SAFE data showed.

Tribunal orders Qantas & unions to end strike

Qantas Airways and its unions have been ordered to immediately end all industrial action and return to the negotiating table in an effort to resolve a prolonged industrial dispute.

An Australian industrial tribunal has ordered Qantas Airways and its unions to immediately end all industrial action and return to the negotiating table in an effort to resolve a prolonged industrial dispute.
Fair Work Australia was appointed by the government after Qantas grounded its entire global fleet, affecting almost 500 flights and more than 68,000 passengers.
Qantas and the three unions now have 21 days to reach an agreement or face binding arbitration, the tribunal said.

Earlier, Qantas Chief Executive Alan Joyce said there were no guarantees the airline would resume flying unless the three-person tribunal ordered all industrial action terminated, rather than suspended, to ensure the company and passengers had sufficient certainty.
Unions had been pushing for industrial action to be suspended for between 90 and 120 days.
Staff have been locked-out by management until three unions involved in the dispute reached a deal over pay, conditions and plans to outsource some operations to Asia.
Mr Joyce said the striking unions were destabalising the company and he was left with no other option.

The carrier said: "The financial impact of action taken to date has reached A$68m and the action is costing Qantas approximately A$15m per week in lost revenue".

Japan central bank expands monetary easing

TOKYO – Japan's central bank on Thursday kept its key interest rate at nearly zero and will expand the size of an asset buying program to lend stronger support to the economy.
The Bank of Japan's policy board decided unanimously at a one-day meeting to leave the overnight call rate target at zero to 0.1 percent.
It voted 8-1 to increase its asset purchase program by 5 trillion yen to 55 trillion yen ($723 billion). It will use the extra funds to buy Japanese government bonds, hoping that further monetary easing will offset the export-sapping strength of the yen.
Uncertainty about the U.S. and European economies helped push the dollar to a record low against the yen for a second straight day Wednesday.

Both the dollar and the yen typically serve as safe, stable investments during periods of uncertainty. The yen has gained favor against the dollar in part because traders fear that the Federal Reserve will take more action to bring down long-term interest rates.
The central bank still expects the world's No. 3 economy to eventually return to moderate growth.
"However, some more time will be needed to confirm that price stability is in sight and due attention is needed for the risk that the economic and price outlook will further deteriorate depending on developments in global financial markets and overseas economies," it said in a statement.
The central bank pledged to maintain powerful monetary easing, ensure stability in financial markets and foster economic growth. However, it added that it can't go at it alone.
"It is important for concerned parties in both the private and government sectors to continue making efforts in their respective roles while making use of accommodative financial conditions," it said.
"by newsonjapan"

iPhone 4S’ Siri VS Microsoft and Google

In a recent interview, Andy Rubin, Senior Vice President of Mobile at Google raised eyebrows when he referred to Apple’s new handset and the vocal Siri on a slightly patronizing tone. “ I don’t believe your phone should be an assistant…Your phone is a tool for communicating,” he said, “You shouldn’t be communicating with the phone; you should be communicating with somebody on the other side of the phone.” Andy Lees, president of Microsoft’s Windows Phone Division didn’t show more fair-play to the rival’s success and commented that Siri “isn’t super useful.” He didn’t miss the opportunity to point out that Windows Phone 7 with its voice interactivity can connect to Bing and make the best of Internet power.
Both reactions seemed to reveal more of a frustration than a genuine disapproval of Siri’s importance. Apple’s new feature is obviously a new way of interaction between users and their devices and many believe that this is just the beginning.

iPhone 4S is most likely to have a powerful impact on users’ expectations from now on. Even though the technology isn’t entirely new, Apple managed to give it its own magic by fully integrating it in the operating system and making it a star. Rumors say that Apple is interested in voice recognition for almost two decades. Tim Bajarin, writes for TechPinions, that in the early 1990’s Kaifu Li, then an important Apple employee, was trying to develop voice recognition and speech technology, at the time called Plain Talk.
Siri’s know-it-all attitude relies on powerful databases, such as Yelp and Wolfram Alpha. When searching for businesses Siri connects through these databases to Google Maps and even if at a first glance, this could be a good thing for Google it is also vulnerability on the long run. Analysts believe that Google already fears that Apple could develop its own mapping system and with the help of an already highly praised technology Apple can cash in a big chunk of revenue from adds and business location.
In other words, for the competitors, Siri is not just a useless tool but a gateway for future wayw of interacting with devices. And Apple got here first.

Bangkok facing 'Perfect Storm'

(CNN) -- Thailand is facing its worst flooding since 1942, with 373 people dead, more than nine million affected and 28 -- or more than a third -- of the nation's provinces at least partially flooded after a series of strong seasonal storms that brought exceptional rainfall.
More than a billion cubic meters of runoff are expected to pass through some of the northern parts of Bangkok on its way toward the Gulf of Thailand, some 30 kilometers (20 miles) away, as high tides are set to peak on Saturday.
CNN takes a look at what the low-lying Thai capital, which straddles the Chao Phraya River, is experiencing, with insights from Craig Steffensen, Asian Development Bank's country director for Thailand.
Q. What do high tides mean for the city?
"Picture the equivalent of 480,000 Olympic-sized pools of water trying to make their way through Bangkok at the moment," Steffensen said Friday. "Combined with the floodwaters trying to get out and the tides coming in...we could see a perfect storm in Bangkok. "
The capital lies barely above sea level and is already sinking within the Chao Phraya delta, as sea levels in the Gulf of Thailand rise.
The city is protected by dikes, but they may not be high enough to cope with the current flooding. "Barriers on the north side of Bangkok are 3 to 3.5 meters (10 to 11.5 feet) high, and water is penetrating these barriers," Steffensen pointed out.
Photos: Heavy flooding in Thailand
Especially hard-hit are the industrial areas to the north, Ayutthaya and Pathum Thani.
Bangkok near peak flooding
Authorities have been diverting waters to the east and west of Bangkok to get them out to the Gulf. But dam levels are already at 100 percent capacity, if not more, said Steffensen.
Floodwaters shut down airport in Bangkok
"It's anybody's guess what Bangkok will look like in next 24-48 hours," he added.
Bangkok road becomes river
Q. How protected is the historic heart of the city?
Floodwaters have already reached roads around Bangkok's historic Grand Palace and Emerald Buddha Temple. According to MCOT, the Thai media company, the level of the Chao Phraya River had reached 2.46 meters (8 feet), or sea level, and was expected to rise further by evening.
Flooding had already affected more than 200 of 500 temples in Ayutthaya province, home to the World Heritage Site, its governor has said.
Further assessment cannot be made until the water recedes, however.
Q. Has the transportation network been able to weather the floods, given the elevated roads and rail network?
Bangkok's main international and domestic Suvarnabhumi airport is operating normally and is protected with a 22.5 km (14-mile), 3-meter (10-foot ) dike system. Also running are the elevated Skytrain and the underground metro system.
Nearly 80 highways in 15 provinces are impassable, and northbound rail services have been suspended, according to the government. However, trade and commerce have picked up, as people find ways to bypass the floods by going east or west in order to reach the north, Steffensen noted.
Don Muang Airport, which primarily services domestic flights, has been closed since Tuesday night after floodwaters inundated runways and affected the lighting. Nok Air and Orient Thai, which both usually operate from there, have since moved operations to Suvarnabhumi.
The flood relief operation will nonetheless continue to operate from Don Muang, which had housed flood victims but was forced to evacuate them to other locations.
Q. How is Bangkok holding up, as far as water supplies, sanitation and power supplies?
Floods in areas to the northeast of Bangkok have forced people to upper floors of dwellings and led to the loss of electricity, water supply and sanitation. Access to drinking water in remote areas is a concern.
Steffensen said that despite being in a location that isn't near floods, "the tap water in our residences has taken a funny smell." People are choosing bottled water over boiled water, but finding bottled water in stores is difficult because the shelves are empty.
Power supply, internet and telephone service are functioning normally in the center of Bangkok, he said.

Q. What is the economic toll?
The World Bank has estimated a 2 percent decline in GDP because of the floods.
"The urban poor is mostly likely to be the hardest hit," said Steffensen. Most of the flooding has occurred in flood-prone areas with condensed housing
Floods have caused $5 billion in damage to industries and half a dozen industrial estates, said Steffensen, with Japanese industries alone facing losses of at least half that amount, he said.
Read more about Thai floods stalling automakers
Although he expressed reluctance to talk about the overall economic impact at this point, Steffensen said certain things were clear: "Rice production will decrease in Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, and rice prices will be affected. That billions of dollars of investment in the industrial sector are underwater are bound to affect Thailand's exports, employment situation, economic growth and development."
Industrial estates could take weeks if not months to drain and get production lines back running again, creating bumps in supply chains and possibly affecting manufacturers' abilities to get good on shelves by Christmas, he added.
Rice exports were expected to drop 50 percent in October from the monthly average of 1 million tonnes, according to the Thai Rice Exporters Association.
Q. What are the positives for Bangkok right now?
The floods have proven to be a political test for the new prime minister, Yingluck Shinawatra, who was elected in July. "The government has gone all out, everything they could possibly do to mitigate the impact of these floods," said Steffensen. But more striking is the resilience of the Thai people, he said.
"In relief centers and more generally across the country, no one's talking about red shirts or yellow shirts. All people are talking about the floods, helping one another. These floods have healed the country in a way that many people don't appreciate today because the floods are about to come through Bangkok."
Q. What vulnerabilities will Bangkok need to address?
Authorities will need to raise dikes and invest in pump station capacity, coastal zone protection and land use planning, Steffensen said. The increasing number of floods in Thailand and the region are consistent with what's expected as a result of climate change.
Bangkok and other Asian coastal megacities -- like Ho Chi Minh City and Manila -- will flood more often and on a larger scale, if current climate change trends continue, he added, citing a joint report by the ADB, World Bank and Japan International Cooperation Agency last year.