Amazon Kindle Fire HD 8.9 is Good, But No iPad Killer [REVIEW]

Unboxing the Kindle Fire HD 8.9

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Amazon expands its tablet sights with the bigger, more powerful Kindle Fire HD 8.9. Can it compete against Apple‘s iPad?

If there’s one company that deserves credit for reigniting the iPad competitor market, it’s Amazon. Despite some bugs and an overall blah design, its 7-inch Kindle Fire was the first Android tablet that made sense to consumers who gobbled it up to help the Fire grab 50% of the Android tablet market in just 6 months.

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That tablet essentially opened the flood gates for a new set of ever-more-powerful 7-inchers from, notably, Barnes & Noble and Google. All three companies have already updated their 7-inch offerings to more powerful components and higher-resolutions screens. They’re all still running Android, though Amazon and Barnes & Noble choose to hide the Google OS behind smarter and much more consumer-friendly interfaces.

All this led Apple to finally enter the mid-sized tablet space with the iPad Mini. It’s easily the best-looking tablet of the bunch, but also $ 120 more expensive than its nearest competitor.

The more interesting development, though, is Amazon‘s (and Barnes & Noble‘s) decision to go toe-to-toe with Apple’s full-size iPad and launch the Amazon Kindle Fire HD 8.9 (in 4G LTE and WiFi-only). The move is akin to a middle weight boxer putting on the pounds to take on the Heavyweight world champion. Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD is slightly smaller (the iPad is 9.7-inches), lighter (567g vs. 625g), cheaper ($ 369 for 32 GB model vs. $ 599 for the iPad 4th Gen — Amazon subsidizes with sleep-state ads, that I do not mind) and overall somewhat less powerful. In order to win the battle, the 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD better be pretty nimble on its feet, while able to throw that all important knockout punch.

Short version of this story: the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 does some serious damage, but the iPad 4th Gen gets the decision and retains the tablet leader title.

The Kindle Fire HD 8.9 is by no means a failure. In many ways, it’s as good as the smaller Kindle Fire HD, but throughout my tests I noticed odd bugs and glitches (which should all be fixable by software) and a somewhat disturbing lack of power that’s especially obvious when you put the Fire HD 8.9 next to the iPad 4th Gen

What It Is

If you’ve never seen an iPad and someone handed you the Kindle Fire HD .9, you’d likely say its jet-black, soft-to-the-touch plastic body felt good in your hands and was more than effective at all the core tasks (reading, game playing, e-mail, web browsing).

Design-wise, the 8.9 device looks exactly like the 7-inch model, complete with the too-hard to find volume and power buttons. There are no other physical buttons on this device, but Amazon chooses to hide the few it has by making them the exact same color as the chassis and flush with the body. Every time I use the tablet I do the “where’s the damn button” dance, rotating the Kindle Fire HD round and round until I feel the buttons (since I can barely see them).

I have applauded Barnes & Noble for putting the physical “N” home button right on the face of their Nook HD. Bravo for having the guts to do this. Amazon apparently looks at Apple’s iPad home button and thinks to have anything similar would be seen as “copying” the Cupertino hardware giant, when instead they should realize that it works, consumers like it and tablets without it are at a distinct disadvantage.

Amazon’s interface has you make do with a virtual, slide-out home button that is always available. Problem is, I found times when it wasn’t available. When I played Spider-Man and Asphalt 7, the tiny little left-had bar would disappear and I couldn’t exit the game unless I hit the sleep/power button.

The rest of the Kindle Fire HD 8.9′s body is solid and unremarkable (if you read my Kindle fire HD 7 review, then you know exactly what to expect.). Like the iPad 4th Gen, the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 has a front-facing 720p-capable camera. It’s useful for capturing video, snapping 1 Megapixel images and, probably most important, Skype video chats. Skype has built a fairly sharp-looing Kindle Fire app, though the design doesn’t fully fit the larger 8.9-inch screen. Skype just updated its Android app for better tablet viewing and hopefully, we’ll see this update hit the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 as well.

The iPad also has an HD rear-facing camera. The Kindle fire HD 8.9 does not (Barnes & Noble leave out cameras altogether)

Not Packing a Punch

As a large-screen high-resolution tablet (though iPad’s 2048×1536 retina display beats it), the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 offers plenty of attractive screen real estate for web browsing, book and magazine reading and games. But the results can be mixed. Silk, Amazon‘s custom web browser, was occasionally less than responsive and games, though, they ran well, never looked half as good as they do on the considerably more expensive iPad 4.

Granted, you can’t always find the same high-quality immersive action games on both Android and iOS, but Asphalt 7 Heat is a notable exception and it throws the performance differences between the two tablets into stark contrast. Game play is equally responsive on both platforms: the Kindle Fire HD 8.9’s accelerometer reads my moves just as well as the iPad.

The graphics on the Kindle Fire HD, however, are reduced to blobs and blocks (palm trees without distinct leaves, buildings without discernible windows) . The iPad’s quad-core graphics simply overmatch the Kindle Fire. I have never, for example, seen an iPad draw the game as I was playing, as I did when I tried out The Amazing Spider-Man.

Additionally, I experienced more than my share of crashes with games and even magazine apps like Vanity Fair.

The Good

Not everyone, however, will compare the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 to the iPad. Some will see the $ 299 entry-level price point (for the 16 GB model) and appreciate the power, flexibility and utility of this device. Like all Fire’s before it, the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 makes it easy to consume mass quantities of content. Nearly every menu option: Games, Apps, Books, Music, Videos, Newsstand, puts you just one click away from shopping for fresh content. If you have an Amazon account (and who doesn’t) your desired book, music or movie is just a click away. Plus, you can still easily store any of it locally, and worry about running out of storage space, or in the cloud, and never worry about space or accessibility—you can get to that purchased Kindle content from any Kindle app or registered Amazon device.

Watching movies on the tablet is a pleasure. I streamed a couple through Amazon Prime; they looked good on the 1920 x 1200 screen and the Dolby Stereo speakers produced sharp, loud, almost room-filling sound—an impressive feat not even the iPad can match.

The Kindle Fire HD 8.9 also includes a mini-HDMI-out port, which prompted me to connect the tablet to my 47-inch LED HDTV so we could watch Disney’s Brave. Yes, I had to get up and tap on the Kindle screen each time I wanted to pause and restart the move, but otherwise, I was pretty impressed with how the Kindle handled the task.

Obviously I yearn for an Apple Airplay-like feature on Android tablets (rumor has it one is coming), but this is the next, best thing.

There isn’t a lot to say about the Kindle Fire HD 8.9-inch interface that I did not say in the Kindle Fire HD 7 review. I will note, however, that the increased real estate makes the trademark task carousel seem almost too big. Icons for everything from your recently played Spider-Man game to magazine apps, books and Web sites all sit side-by-side-by side. Some, like book covers, look gorgeous.

Others like a broken web-page link look stupid. Worse yet, none of them have labels, which can occasionally make it hard to identify which app or task you’re looking at. I’m just not sure this interface metaphor is sustainable.

Personally I prefer either the clean consistent look of iOS, or the uber-user friendly, family-oriented Nook HD profile-based one. Amazon may want to take a hard look at those and start over.

Staying Connected

The Kindle Fire HD 8.9 is also Amazon’s first cellular-based tablet. That fact puts it even more squarely in competition with the iPad (which obviously has always had 3G models and now offers blazing fast 4G LTE ones as well on all major carriers).

Amazon’s mobile broadband plans are a little more conservative, with just the AT&T 4G LTE option (the 32 GB 4G model that I tested lists for $ 499, which is still $ 224 less than a comparable iPad 4th Gen).

In my experience, the connectivity is superfast and fairly ubiquitous. Amazon‘s $ 49 (a year) flat fee plan is attractive, but with a cap of 250MB per month of data, it’s unlikely it will satisfy the most data-hungry users. If you do need more data, users can also get 3GB and 5GB data plans directly from AT&T on the device.

At press time, Amazon had not enabled streaming video over LTE. Having it sounds nice, but even with the most generous data plans, streaming video would eat it up faster than you can say, “I’m streaming Back to the Future in HD over 4G LTE on my Kindle fire HD!”

The reality for most users is that WiFi is plentiful and you’ll be hard pressed to find a spot where you can’t connect for free or a small one-off fee. It’s the reason Barnes & Noble’s line of HD Nooks do not include a cellular option.

Review continues after FreeTime Gallery

FreeTime

Kindle HD FreeTime Start

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Perhaps the best new addition to the Kindle Fire family is not a piece of hardware or new component, but the new FreeTime app. Amazon put a lot of loving care into this parental control interface, but almost mucks the whole thing up by hiding the tool under an app that you have to scroll down to (or search) to find. By contrast profiles and age and content controls are baked into the Barnes & Noble Nook HD in a way that makes them impossible to ignore.

Even so, once you do access FreeTime, I think you’ll be pleased with the level of control it gives you. I added test profiles for my two children and then hand-picked every app and piece of content they could access. I was also able to block broadband mobile and even set time limits for access to content and overall screen viewing time (on a per profile basis). The set-up is a bit wonky and it bizarrely switches between landscape and profile screens, but I still applaud the effort. It would make sense for Amazon to move FreeTime into a device set-up screen. If the user has no additional family members or kids using the device, they can easily skip it.

To Buy or Not to Buy

Amazon’s expansive content and shopping ecosystem has always been a strong draw and it’s just as good in this large screen tablet as it was in the very first Kindle Fire. Still, you have to compare it with the equally strong iOS ecosystem, which is no slouch in the content shopping department. Apple doesn’t connect you as seamlessly to physical products, but there’s nothing difficult about shopping on Amazon.com via your iPad. It’s also notable that tablet competitor Barnes & Noble has added movie and TV viewing, rental and purchase.

Ultimately, all of these tablets are offering more and more of the same content options, apps, and features. The decision will likely come down to price, app selection, interface and overall ease of use. The Amazon Kindle fire HD 8.9 scores well on all of these, but does not always lead.

For the price, it’s a great value, but I want Amazon to focus on hardware and interface design for the next big update. Then, they may get my full endorsement.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

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Ex-’Price is Right’ model gets $8.5M in damages

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The producers of “The Price is Right” owe a former model on the show more than $ 7.7 million in punitive damages for discriminating against her after a pregnancy, a jury determined Wednesday.

The judgment came one day after the panel determined the game show’s producers discriminated against Brandi Cochran. They awarded her nearly $ 777,000 in actual damages.

Cochran, 41, said she was rejected when she tried to return to work in early 2010 after taking maternity leave. The jury agreed and determined that FremantleMedia North America and The Price is Right Productions owed her more than $ 8.5 million in all.

“I’m humbled. I’m shocked,” Cochran said after the jury announced its verdict. “I’m happy that justice was served today not only for women in the entertainment industry, but women in the workplace.”

FremantleMedia said it was standing by its previous statement, which said it expected to be “fully vindicated” after an appeal.

“We believe the verdict in this case was the result of a flawed process in which the court, among other things, refused to allow the jury to hear and consider that 40 percent of our models have been pregnant,” and further “important” evidence, FremantleMedia said.

In their defense, producers said they were satisfied with the five models working on the show at the time Cochran sought to return.

Several other former models have sued the series and its longtime host, Bob Barker, who retired in 2007.

Most of the cases involving “Barker’s Beauties” — the nickname given the gown-wearing women who presented prizes to contestants — ended with out-of-court settlements.

Comedian-actor Drew Carey followed Barker as the show’s host.

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Anthony McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP .

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Thanksgiving Day parade offers respite for storm victims

GENEVA (Reuters) - Kris Kristofferson -- Oxford scholar, athlete, U.S. Army helicopter pilot, country music composer, one-time roustabout, film actor, singer, lover of women, three times a husband and father of eight -- seems ready to meet his maker. At least, that was the clear impression he left with an audience of middle-aged-and-upwards fans at a concert in Geneva this week, a message underscored by his 28th and latest album, "Feeling Mortal" and its coffin-dark cover. ...

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Ivory Coast: New prime minister named

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) — President Alassane Ouattara has tapped Foreign Minister Daniel Kablan Duncan to serve as prime minister in a new government one week after the surprise dissolution of cabinet.

The appointment of Duncan, a member of the PDCI party of former President Henri Konan Bedie, was announced at a press conference Wednesday by Amadou Gon Coulibaly, general secretary of the presidency.

Ouattara dissolved the cabinet last week over a feud between his political party and the PDCI over proposed changes to the country’s marriage law.

The PDCI supported Ouattara in the November 2010 runoff election in exchange for the prime minister’s post, helping him defeat incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo. Gbagbo’s refusal to cede office led to five months of violence that claimed at least 3,000 lives before Ouattara’s forces won.

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Exclusive: TV networks start seven-day ratings push with advertisers

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – U.S. television broadcast networks are taking the first steps to persuade advertisers to pay for commercial viewership that occurs up to seven days after a program airs, a shift that would provide a new revenue stream to help combat ratings erosion.

The networks argue that the rising popularity of digital video recorders is pushing a sizeable number of viewers to delay watching their favorite programs beyond the first three days, the time period most often used for calculating ad payments.

Some advertisers are ready to make the move to a seven-day metric. One of the big four networks, Walt Disney Co’s ABC, earlier this year reached deals with some sponsors that bring in payments for eyeballs counted between days four and seven.

The other broadcasters have begun talks with advertisers and hope to convince them to switch to the longer window in time for the “upfront” selling season that starts early next year, when billions of dollars in ad commitments will be made, according to people familiar with the discussions.

Since 2007, most TV ad time has been bought and sold based on “C3,” a ratings measurement based of the average number of commercial minutes watched during a program either live or within three days of its airing.

TV networks want advertisers to shift to “C7,” which captures commercials watched within seven days.

Advertisers hesitate to pay for the added days, particularly for time-sensitive ads pitching a department store’s one-day sale or the opening of a summer movie blockbuster. Media buyers are pushing for precise measurements of each commercial viewed, rather than an average for an entire program, as well as a tabulation of how many people are watching on mobile devices.

The debate intensified after Nielsen data showed a sharp decline in three-day viewing at the start of the fall TV season compared with last year.

The drop is partly due to “the greater penetration of DVRs and the greater usage of DVRs, which clearly have shifted the rating in the direction of C3, and ultimately, hopefully, C7,” Disney CEO Bob Iger told analysts on a November 8 conference call.

Most viewing of network prime time shows still takes place within three days. But the post-three day viewers are growing and can be significant. Ratings for ABC comedy hit “Modern Family” increased by 5 percent, to 6.5 million viewers age 18 to 49 viewers, when counted by the C7 measurement instead of C3.

The later viewers also are among the most-coveted by advertisers, according to ABC research, which showed people who watched a show after three days were more highly educated and had higher incomes. For days four through seven, “the people who are doing the viewing are some of the most desirable available from an advertiser’s perspective,” said Charles Kennedy, senior vice president of research for ABC and the ABC Family cable network.

Earlier this year, ABC made deals with some sponsors to pay for ad time based on C7 numbers, ABC spokesman Kevin Brockman said. “We expect to do more of them if they make sense for us and our clients,” Brockman said.

At CBS, the flagship network of CBS Corp, CEO Leslie Moonves has been outspoken in pressing for a C7 metric and said it “represents a significant opportunity for us that is still in the very early stages.”

“As we move forward, we will make it a priority to get paid for all of the viewing that is going on across our shows, including DVR viewing beyond C3,” Moonves told analysts on a November 7 conference call.

Advertisers are not ready to commit to the switch and will be looking for something in return if they agree to a longer window. Timing is a big concern for many brands that want to get a message out to large numbers of consumers during a specific time period. Some commercials lose their value for sponsors over a few days.

“In moving to C7, you’ve got to be careful because you are taking away some of the advantage of why clients buy television,” said Sam Armando, director of strategic intelligence for SMGx, a division of media buying agency Starcom MediaVest Group.

Advertisers believe simply adding more days to the current metric fails to adequately capture viewership. Brands are lobbying for a more precise measurement that tracks viewership of each commercial, rather than an average for a program over a time period, they say. They also want information on how many people see their ads on programs watched on computers or Internet-connected mobile devices like phones and tablets.

“If the industry is going to make a move, we need to consider it all before we just make a little baby step to C7,” Armando said.

(Reporting By Lisa Richwine; Edited by Ronald Grover and Andrew Hay)

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“Man of Steel” Trailer to Play Before “The Hobbit”

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Director Zack Snyder has told MTV News that a trailer for “Man of Steel” will play before “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” when it opens on December 14.

“It’s fun. I can’t wait for ‘The Hobbit,’ so it will be fun to see our crazy ‘Man of Steel’ trailer and then enjoy ‘The Hobbit’ because tat’s going to be great,” Snyder told the network.

A teaser trailer for the feature was released earlier this year. “Man of Steel” opens on June 14, 2013.

Both films are distributed by Warner Bros., which declined to comment.

Earlier this month, it was announced that nine minutes of the “Star Trek” sequel “Star Trek Into Darkness” would be shown in 500 select theaters before the IMAX version of “The Hobbit.”

Russell Crowe stars in “Man of Steel.”

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Study: ADHD medicines help curb criminal behavior

Older teens and adults with attention deficit disorder are much less likely to commit a crime while on ADHD medication, a provocative study from Sweden found.

It also showed in dramatic fashion how much more prone people with ADHD are to break the law — four to seven times more likely than others.

The findings suggest that Ritalin, Adderall and other drugs that curb hyperactivity and boost attention remain important beyond the school-age years and that wider use of these medications in older patients might help curb crime.

“There definitely is a perception that it’s a disease of childhood and you outgrow your need for medicines,” said Dr. William Cooper, a pediatrics and preventive medicine professor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. “We’re beginning to understand that ADHD is a condition for many people that really lasts throughout their life.”

He has researched ADHD but had no role in the new study, which was led by Paul Lichtenstein of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. The findings were published in Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine.

About 5 percent of children in the U.S. and other Western countries have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, which can cause impulsive behavior and difficulty paying attention. Many youngsters are given medication to help them sit still and focus in school. Some people have symptoms into adulthood.

“It’s well known that individuals with ADHD have much higher rates of criminality and drug abuse than people without ADHD,” but the effect of treatment on this is not well known, Lichtenstein said.

Using Swedish national registers, researchers studied about 16,000 men and 10,000 women ages 15 and older who had been diagnosed with ADHD. The country has national health care, so information was available on all drugs prescribed.

Court and prison records were used to track convictions from 2006 through 2009 and see whether patients were taking ADHD drugs when their crimes were committed. A patient was considered to have gone off medication after six months or more with no new prescription.

For comparison purposes, researchers matched each ADHD patient with 10 similar people without the disorder from the general population.

They found:

— About 37 percent of men with ADHD were convicted of at least one crime during that four-year period, compared with just 9 percent of men without ADHD. For women, the crime rates were 15 percent with ADHD and 2 percent without it.

— Use of ADHD medicines reduced the likelihood of committing a crime by 32 percent in men and 41 percent in women.

The crimes were mostly burglaries or thefts. About 4,000 of more than 23,000 crimes committed were violent. ADHD medication use reduced all types of crime, Lichtenstein said.

Cooper called the results striking. “I was surprised by the magnitude of the effect of the medications and the fact that it was so consistent across all the analyses they did,” such as the type of drug being used and the types of crimes committed, he said.

The Swedish Research Council, the U.S. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the Wellcome Trust and other agencies paid for the research.

ADHD medicines may help people organize their lives better and reduce impulsive behavior. They also bring a patient into counseling and health care, said Philip Asherson, a professor at the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College London.

“It’s not necessarily just the medication” that is reducing the likelihood of crime, he said.

Still, Asherson said the study should lead to wider use of the drugs: “It firmly establishes the link between ADHD and criminality and establishes that medication has an impact on that criminality.”

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AP Medical Writer Maria Cheng in London contributed to this report.

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Online:

Study: www.nejm.org

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Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

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Mistrust runs deep despite cease-fire

CAIRO/GAZA (Reuters) - A ceasefire between Israel and Gaza's Hamas rulers took hold on Thursday after eight days of conflict, although deep mistrust on both sides cast doubt on how long the Egyptian-sponsored deal can last.

Even after the ceasefire came into force late on Wednesday, a dozen rockets from the Gaza Strip landed in Israel, all in open areas, a police spokesman said. In Gaza, witnesses reported an explosion shortly after the truce took effect at 9 p.m (14:00 EDT), but there were no casualties and the cause was unclear.

The deal prevented, at least for the moment, an Israeli ground invasion of the Palestinian enclave following bombing and rocket fire which killed five Israelis and 162 Gazans, including 37 children.

But trust was in short supply. The exiled leader of Hamas, Khaled Meshaal, said his Islamist movement would respect the truce if Israel did, but would respond to any violations. "If Israel complies, we are compliant. If it does not comply, our hands are on the trigger," he told a news conference in Cairo.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had agreed to "exhaust this opportunity for an extended truce", but told his people a tougher approach might be required in the future.

Both sides quickly began offering differing interpretations of the ceasefire, brokered by Egypt's new Islamist government and backed by the United States, highlighting the many actual or potential areas of discord.

If it holds, the truce will give 1.7 million Gazans respite from days of ferocious air strikes and halt rocket salvoes from militants that unnerved a million people in southern Israel and reached Tel Aviv and Jerusalem for the first time.

"Allahu akbar, (God is greatest), dear people of Gaza you won," blared mosque loudspeakers in Gaza as the truce took effect. "You have broken the arrogance of the Jews."

Fifteen minutes later, wild celebratory gunfire echoed across the darkened streets, which gradually filled with crowds waving Palestinian flags. Ululating women leaned out of windows and fireworks lit up the sky.

Meshaal thanked Egypt for mediating and praised Iran for providing Gazans with financing and arms. "We have come out of this battle with our heads up high," he said, adding that Israel had been defeated and failed in its "adventure".

Some Israelis staged protests against the deal, notably in the southern town of Kiryat Malachi, where three people were killed by a Gaza rocket during the conflict, army radio said.

Netanyahu said he was willing to give the truce a chance but held open the possibility of reopening the conflict. "I know there are citizens expecting a more severe military action, and perhaps we shall need to do so," he said.

The Israeli leader, who faces a parliamentary election in January, delivered a similar message earlier in a telephone call with U.S. President Barack Obama, his office said.

"AN OPEN PRISON"

According to a text of the agreement seen by Reuters, both sides should halt all hostilities, with Israel desisting from incursions and targeting of individuals, while all Palestinian factions should cease rocket fire and cross-border attacks.

The deal also provides for easing Israeli restrictions on Gaza's residents, who live in what British Prime Minister David Cameron has called an "open prison".

The text said procedures for implementing this would be "dealt with after 24 hours from the start of the ceasefire".

Israeli sources said Israel would not lift a blockade of the enclave it enforced after Hamas, which rejects the Jewish state's right to exist, won a Palestinian election in 2006.

However, Meshaal said the deal covered the opening of all of the territory's border crossings. "The document stipulates the opening of the crossings, all the crossings, and not just Rafah," he said. Israel controls all of Gaza's crossings apart from the Rafah post with Egypt.

Hamas lost its top military commander to an Israeli strike in the conflict and suffered serious hits to its infrastructure and weaponry, but has emerged with its reputation both in the Arab world and at home stronger.

Israel can take comfort from the fact it dealt painful blows to its enemy, which will take many months to recover, and showed that it can defend itself from a barrage of missiles.

"No one is under the illusion that this is going to be an everlasting ceasefire. It is clear to everyone it will only be temporary," said Michael Herzog, a former chief of staff at the Israeli ministry of defence.

"But there is a chance that it could hold for a significant period of time, if all goes well," he told Reuters.

Egypt, an important U.S. ally now under Islamist leadership, took centre stage in diplomacy to halt the bloodshed. Cairo has walked a fine line between its sympathies for Hamas, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood to which President Mohamed Mursi belongs, and its need to preserve its 1979 peace treaty with Israel and its ties with Washington, its main aid donor.

Announcing the agreement in Cairo, Egyptian Foreign Minister Mohamed Kamel Amr said mediation had "resulted in understandings to cease fire, restore calm and halt the bloodshed".

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, standing beside Amr, thanked Mursi for peace efforts that showed "responsibility, leadership" in the region.

The Gaza conflict erupted in a Middle East already shaken by last year's Arab uprisings that toppled several veteran U.S.-backed leaders, including Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, and by a civil war in Syria, where President Bashar al-Assad is fighting for survival.

In his call with Netanyahu, Obama in turn repeated U.S. commitment to Israel's security and promised to seek funds for a joint missile defence program, the White House said.

BUS BOMBING

The ceasefire was forged despite a bus bomb explosion that wounded 15 Israelis in Tel Aviv earlier in the day and despite more Israeli air strikes that killed 10 Gazans. It was the first serious bombing in Israel's commercial capital since 2006.

Israel, the United States and the European Union all classify Hamas as a terrorist organization. It seized the Gaza Strip from the Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in 2007 in a brief but bloody war with his Fatah movement.

"This is a critical moment for the region," Clinton said. "Egypt's new government is assuming the responsibility and leadership that has long made this country a cornerstone for regional stability and peace."

In Amman, U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon urged both sides to stick to their ceasefire pledges. "There may be challenges implementing this agreement," he said, urging "maximum restraint".

(Additional reporting by Noah Browning in Gaza, Ori Lewis, Allyn Fisher-Ilan and Crispian Balmer in Jerusalem, Yasmine Saleh, Shaimaa Fayed and Tom Perry in Cairo, Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman and Margaret Chadbourn in Washington; Writing by Alistair Lyon and David Stamp; Editing by Louise Ireland)

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AP Exclusive: Syrian rebels seize base, arms trove

BASE OF THE 46TH REGIMENT, Syria (AP) — After a nearly two-month siege, Syrian rebels overwhelmed a large military base in the north of the country and made off with tanks, armored vehicles and truckloads of munitions that rebel leaders say will give them a boost in the fight against President Bashar Assad‘s army.

The rebel capture of the base of the Syrian army’s 46th Regiment is a sharp blow to the government’s efforts to roll back rebels gains and shows a rising level of organization among opposition forces.

More important than the base’s fall, however, are the weapons the rebels found inside.

At a rebel base where the much of the haul was taken after the weekend victory, rebel fighters unloaded half a dozen large trucks piled high with green boxes full of mortars, artillery shells, rockets and rifles taken from the base. Parked nearby were five tanks, two armored vehicles, two rocket launchers and two heavy-caliber artillery cannons.

Around 20 Syrian soldiers captured in the battle were put to work carrying munitions boxes, barefoot and stripped to the waist. Rebels refused to let reporters talk to them or see where they were being held.

“There has never been a battle before with this much booty,” said Gen. Ahmad al-Faj of the rebels Joint Command, a grouping of rebel brigades that was involved in the siege. Speaking on Monday at the rebel base, set up in a former customs office at Syria’s Bab al-Hawa border crossing with Turkey, he said the haul would be distributed among the brigades.

For months, Syria’s rebels have gradually been destroying government checkpoints and taking over towns in the northern provinces of Idlib and Aleppo along the Turkish border.

Rebel fighters say that weapons seized in such battles have been essential to their transformation from ragtag brigades into forces capable of challenging Assad’s professional army. Cross-border arms smuggling from Turkey and Iraq has also played a role, although the most common complaint among rebel fighters is that they lack ammunition and heavy weapons, munitions and anti-aircraft weapons to fight Assad’s air force.

It is unclear how many government bases the rebels have overrun during the 20-month conflict, mostly because they rarely try to hold captured facilities. Staying in the captured bases would make them sitting ducks for regime airstrikes.

“Their strategy is to hit and run,” said Elias Hanna, a retired Lebanese army general and Beirut-based strategic analyst. “They’re trying to hurt the regime where it hurts by bisecting and compartmentalizing Syria in order to dilute the regime’s power.”

The 46th Regiment was a major pillar of the government’s force near the northern city of Aleppo, Syria’s economic hub, and its fall cuts a major supply line to the regime’s army, Hanna said. Government forces have been battling rebels for months over control of Aleppo.

“It’s a tactical turning point that may lead to a strategic shift,” he said.

At the 46th Regiment’s base, about 25 kilometers (15 miles) west of Aleppo, the main three-story command building showed signs of the battle — its walls punctured apparently from rebel rocket attacks. The smaller barracks buildings scattered around the compound, about 2.6 square kilometers (1 square mile) in size, had been looted, with mattresses overturned. A number of buildings had been torched.

Reporters from The Associated Press who visited the base late Monday saw no trace of the government troops who had been defending it — other than the dead bodies of seven soldiers.

Two of them, in camouflage uniforms, lay outside the command building. One of them was missing his head, apparently blown off in an explosion.

The rest were in a nearby clinic. Four dead soldiers were on stretchers set on the floor, one with a large gash in his arm, another with what appeared to be a large shrapnel hole in the back of his head. The last lay on a gurney in another room, his arms and legs bandaged, a bullet hole in his cheek and a splatter of blood on the wall and ceiling behind him as if he had been shot where he lay.

It could not be determined how or when the soldiers had been killed.

The final assault that took the base came after more than 50 days of siege that left the soldiers inside demoralized, according to fighters who took part.

Working together and communicating by radio, a number of different rebels groups divided up the area surrounding the base and each cut the regime’s supply lines, said Abdullah Qadi, a rebel field commander. Over the course of the siege, dozens of soldiers defected, some telling the rebels that those inside were short of food, Qadi said.

The rebels decided to attack Saturday afternoon when they felt the soldiers inside were weak and the rebels had enough ammunition to finish the battle, Qadi said. The battle was over by nightfall on Sunday. Seven rebel fighters were killed in the battle, said al-Faj of the rebels’ Joint Command. Other rebel leaders gave similar numbers.

It remains unclear how many soldiers remained in the base when the rebels launched their attack and what happened to them.

Al-Faj said all soldiers inside were either killed or captured. He said he didn’t know how many were killed, but that the rebels had taken about 50 prisoners, all of whom would be tried in a rebel court. Aside from the 20 prisoners seen at the rebel’s Bab al-Hawa base, the AP was unable to see any other captured soldiers.

The Syrian government does not respond to requests for comment on military affairs and said nothing about the base’s capture. It says the rebels are terrorists backed by foreign powers that seek to destroy the country.

Disorganization has plagued the Syrian opposition since the start of the anti-Assad uprising in March 2011, with exile groups pleading for international help even when they have no control over those fighting inside of Syria.

A newly formed Syrian opposition coalition received a boost Tuesday, when Britain officially recognized it as the sole representative of the Syrian people.

The National Coalition of the Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces was formed in the Gulf nation of Qatar on Oct. 11 under pressure from the United States for a stronger, more united opposition body to serve as a counterweight to more extremist forces.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Tuesday the body’s members gave assurances to be a “moderate political force committed to democracy” and that the West must “support them and deny space to extremist groups.”

The United States and the European Union have both spoken well of the body but stopped short of offering it full recognition.

Key to the body’s success will be its ability to build ties with the disparate rebel groups fighting inside Syria. Many rebel leaders say they don’t recognize the new body, and a group of extremist Islamist factions on Monday rejected it, announcing that they had formed an “Islamic state” in Aleppo.

Anti-regime activists say nearly 40,000 people have been killed since Syria’s crisis started 20 months ago.

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Associated Press write Elizabeth Kennedy contributed reporting from Beirut, Lebanon.

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“Life of Pi” and “Rise of Guardians” Debut, but It’s Still “Twilight” Time at Box Office

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Ang Lee‘s lyrical epic “Life of Pi,” the computer-animated 3D holiday tale “Rise of the Guardians” and the “Red Dawn” reboot all debut in theaters Wednesday, as the holiday movie season kicks into high gear.

But the current No. 1, “Twilight: Breaking Dawn 2,” will almost surely out-earn the newcomers and dominate the Thanksgiving weekend box office, with a second week that analysts are projecting will hit $ 65 million over the five days. DreamWorks Animation‘s “Rise of the Guardians” will wind up with around $ 55 million and run second, they say.

Add in sturdy holdovers like Sony’s record-breaking James Bond movie “Skyfall” and Disney’s animated “Wreck-It Ralph,” along with expanding awards hopefuls “Lincoln” and “Silver Linings Playbook,” and it shapes up as a very busy weekend at the cineplexes.

Summit Entertainment’s “Breaking Dawn 2″ remains in 4,070 theaters after rolling up $ 141 million in its U.S. debut last weekend.

That was the year’s fourth best opening – behind “The Avengers,” “Dark Knight Rises” and “The Hunger Games” – but fell short of the franchise-best $ 142.8 million set by “New Moon” in 2009. “Breaking Dawn” is expected to play more strongly abroad than domestically, and the first-week numbers reflect that: It took in nearly $ 200 million in its first week of release overseas.

“In the U.S., it didn’t get that finale bump that the last Harry Potter movie did, which was surprising,” Exhibitor Relations senior analyst Jeff Bock told TheWrap, “Its fan base was committed, but Summit couldn’t expand it beyond that.”

“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2″ opened to $ 169 million in 2011, well ahead of “Deathly Hallows 2,” which opened to $ 125 million the previous year.

“Skyfall,” which took in $ 41 million in its second week as it became the top-grossing Bond film of all time, is looking at a five-day total of around $ 39 million, the analysts say. Its worldwide gross now stands at $ 672 million, $ 507 million of which has come from overseas.

Buoyed by surprisingly strong results, Disney is expanding “Lincoln” into roughly 2,000 theaters, up from 1,775, on Friday. The DreamWorks Oscar contender was a surprise No. 3 finisher with $ 21 million last weekend, well above analysts’ and the studio’s projections. It’s projected to finish with $ 24 million over the long weekend.

Among the newcomers, Oscar contender “The Life of Pi” is the most difficult to peg in terms of box-office potential.

It’s hard to imagine a tale tougher to bring to the screen than Yann Martel’s 2001 saga of an Indian youth lost at sea with a ravenous Bengal tiger aboard his small lifeboat and their ensuing adventures. But Lee brought martial arts (“Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”) and gay cowboys (“Brokeback Mountain”) into the movie mainstream, and he’s employed the highest-tech digital tools to bring David Magee’s adaptation to life in 3D.

Indian Suraj Sharma, who was 17 and had no acting experience when he shot “Pi,” plays the lead and spends a good bit of the film alone in a boat with the tiger.

The critics love it (92 percent positive on Rotten Tomatoes), calling it gorgeous, innovative and a provocative and soulful examination of faith. Those are admirable qualities in a film, but hardly requisites for – or a guarantee of – box office success.

Fox has the PG-rated “Pi” in 2,700 theaters and it will have the advantage of premium pricing going for it. Analysts see it opening with about $ 25 million over the five days, and feel its long-term playability will hinge on word-of-mouth and awards buzz.

In terms of the box office, the most comparable film could be last year’s Martin Scorsese-directed 3D family adventure “Hugo.” Paramount opened that film around the same time last year to $ 11 million, and it went on to make $ 73 million, $ 185 million worldwide.

With its international cast and exotic settings, “Pi” is another example of a film expected to perform far better internationally than in the U.S. Fox is rolling it out in Taiwan Tuesday, China Wednesday and Hong Kong, India and Puerto Rico this weekend. With Lee’s following in China and young star Sharma expected to draw crowds in India, those two markets should give it fast start overseas.

“Pi” was produced for $ 120 million by Lee, Fox 2000 and special effects firm Rhythm and Hues.

Distributor Paramount is rolling out DreamWorks Animation‘s computer animated family film “Rise of the Guardians” on 3,500 3D screens.

The holiday rollout is a natural for the PG-rated “Rise of the Guardians,” which has a star-studded voice cast, and is executive produced by Guillermo Del Toro and produced by Gary Goetzman.

Based on the William Joyce’s “Guardians of Childhood” series, it tells the tale of Jack Frost (Chris Pine), who gets help from Santa Claus (Alec Baldwin), the Tooth Fairy (Isla Fisher) and the Easter Bunny (Hugh Jackman) after the evil Pitch (Jude Law) threatens the children of the world.

Awareness of the film is strong, and the critics think it’s pretty good. Seventy percent of the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes are positive, 67 percent at Movie Review Intelligence. DreamWorks Animation has been on a hot streak, and this its first release since “Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted,” which has made over $ 735 million worldwide this year.

“Red Dawn” is a remake of the 1984 John Millius war film that helped launch the careers of young stars Patrick Swayze, Lea Thompson, Jennifer Grey and Charlie Sheen. Released at the peak of the Cold War, its populist and patriotic themes resonated strongly. In that film, Swayze’s character leads a group of teens who turn guerrilla fighters to resist Soviet and Cuban invaders who are occupying their state.

Shot in 2009, the “Red Dawn” reboot was to have been released in 2010, but was delayed by the financial troubles of the studio behind it, MGM.

Since then, the careers of several of the film’s stars have taken off. Since shooting “Red Dawn,” Chris Hemsworth has starred in “Thor,” “The Avengers” and “Snow White and the Huntsman,” while Josh Peck was featured in “The Hunger Games.” Josh Hutcherson, Adrianne Palicki, Isabel Lucas and Jeffrey Dean Morgan co-star.

This “Red Dawn” plays more like an action film and is less jingoistic than the original, and FilmDistrict has marketed that way. In addition to targeting fan boys at the Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas, and college campuses, “Red Dawn” has been show at more than 100 military bases. The cast did a special screening at Port Hueneme Naval Base in Oxnard, Calif.

Speaking of militaries, while the film was on the shelf: the filmmakers digitally turned the invaders from Chinese into North Koreans after angry denunciations of the portrayals from the Beijing press. The switch shouldn’t hurt at the Chinese box office, either.

FilmDistrict is opening the PG-13-rated “Red Dawn” in 2,600 theaters. The original made the equivalent of $ 90 million when adjusted to today’s ticket prices, while this reboot will be fortunate to make half that amount. A five-day total of around $ 15 million is what the analysts are projecting for the opening.

Fox Searchlight is rolling out “Hitchcock,” starring Anthony Hopkins as the late director Alfred Hitchcock, in 17 theaters on Friday.

Directed by Sacha Gervasi, with a screenplay from John G. McLaughlin, the film explores the relationship between Hitchcock and his wife and partner Alma Reville (Helen Mirren) while they were working on “Psycho,” one of his most successful films.

Scarlett Johansson, Danny Huston, Jessica Biel, Toni Collette, Michael Wincott, and James D’Arcy co-star in the Montecito Picture Company production.

“Hitchcock” premiered at the AFI Film Festival and has been well-received by the critics. It has a 76 percent positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Fox Searchlight plans to expand the film gradually over the next three weeks, ahead of its national release on December 14, when it will be on between 500 and 600 theaters.

The Weinstein Company is expanding its Oscar hopeful “Silver Linings Playbook” into 420 theaters. The dark romantic comedy is directed by David O. Russell and stars Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro.

“Silver Linings Playbook” averaged $ 28,652 on 16 screens in its debut and was to have expanded into 2,000 theaters on Wednesday. But the Weinstein Co. shifted gears last week and decided on a more gradual platform release in hopes of building awards buzz. The Weinstein Co. knows Oscar campaigns; they were behind the last two Best Picture winners, “The King’s Speech” and “The Artist.”

Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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