Football: Ronaldo hat-trick fires Madrid into quarter-finals

MADRID: Cristiano Ronaldo responded to missing out on the Ballon d'Or by hitting a stunning hat-trick as Real Madrid beat Celta Vigo 4-0 to reach the Spanish Cup quarter-finals on Wednesday.

Trailing 2-1 from the first leg of their last-16 tie, Portuguese star Ronaldo hit two early openers before settling the tie with three minutes remaining to calm his team's nerves after Sergio Ramos had been sent off with 17 minutes to go.

Sami Khedira added the fourth in the final minute and Jose Mourinho's men will now meet Valencia in the next round before a potential semi-final tie with eternal rivals Barcelona who knocked Madrid out last season at the quarter-final stage.

"Cristiano's performance was incredible -- the goals speak for themselves," said Real assistant manager Aitor Karanka.

Mourinho recalled goalkeeper Iker Casillas for the clash after he had controversially dropped the club captain to the bench for the last two La Liga games.

It was Casillas's 650th appearance for the club.

Ronaldo, beaten to the Ballon d'Or by Lionel Messi on Monday, hit a sensational opener after only two minutes.

Receiving the ball from a short throw-in the Portuguese hit an unstoppable shot from wide on the left that fizzed and then bent before beating Sergio in the Celta goal at his far post to give Madrid the lead on the night and level the tie.

It was the same man who hit a shot over the bar from long range 10 minutes later, before he doubled his side's lead with one delicate touch on 23 minutes to finish off a Luka Modric through ball.

Mesut Ozil went close from a tight angle before Sergio Ramos hit a free-kick just over the bar as the Galician side struggled to contain the Spanish champions.

Celta had to wait until the 53rd minute for their first advance on the home goal when Park Chu-Young came close to connecting to a Quique de Lucas cross.

Celta coach Paco Herrera then replaced Park with his top-scorer Iago Aspas sensing his side were still in the tie.

The substitute immediately gave the away team more urgency and Casillas saved an Aspas shot on 63 minutes, before De Lucas gave him more of a test four minutes later.

The pressure increased for Madrid when Ramos was dismissed for his second yellow card and Casillas had to make important saves from Michael Krohn-Dehli and Augusto Fernandez before Ronaldo got his third with a crisp shot from the left to settle nerves on 87 minutes before Khedira made it four.

Also on Wednesday, Sevilla went through to the quarter-finals despite losing 2-1 at home to Mallorca, after they had won the first-leg 5-0.

They will now face Real Zaragoza who beat Levante 2-0 on the night, to make it 3-0 on aggregate.

- AFP/jc

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Startup to bring touchless gesture control tech to iOS

PointGrab's touchless gesture control technology is coming to iOS next month.

(Credit:
PointGrab)

LAS VEGAS--Touchless gesture control may soon be possible on Apple's iOS devices, thanks to a startup that will be releasing a software development kit enabling the technology.

For some time, the Israeli company PointGrab has been making its technology -- which allows users to control activity on screen with little more than a wave of their hand -- available on a series of platforms -- Windows 8,
Android, and Linux. And next month, Apple's mobile devices will join the party.

In a demo at CES here today, PointGrab vice president of marketing and product Assaf Gad showed CNET how the technology can work on an
iPad. And while the demo -- in which he was able to get the
tablet to snap a photo of him without touching it -- is a very minimal implementation, it is just the beginning.

PointGrab is just one company in the touchless gesture control space. Others include Leap Motion, which has developed a camera-based system that measures users' movements to an accuracy of a hundredth of a millimeter, Elliptic Labs, which uses ultrasound to measure users' gestures, and of course, Microsoft's Kinect, which utilizes a 3D camera system to detect body movement.

Each technology is a bit different, and solves a slightly different problem. Leap Motion is meant to allow extremely accurate touchless control at a range of up to four feet, while Kinect is meant more for stand-up gaming and other applications. And Elliptic Labs is good at detecting motion even to the side of the screen.

By comparison, PointGrab's technology works on any device -- including TVs -- with a simple 2D camera, and can work at any distance between three inches and 17 feet. With a library of nearly two dozen gestures, users can do things like mute sound, raise or lower audio volume, select icons, change channels, and so on.

PointGrab's model is to license its software to device makers, and to let developers use an SDK to build applications around the technology. So while it's too early to know how iOS developers will integrate PointGrab's system into their apps, one can imagine quite a few possible uses, such as controlling games, taking photos, playing music, and so on.

Gad also said that the future of the technology may well include being integrated with a number of home appliances. For example, air conditioners, lights, heaters, or other appliances could be controlled from across a room simply by making appropriate gestures. Of course, this would require appliance makers to build cameras into their products, and no one knows if that's something consumers want.

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Obama to nominate Jack Lew to Treasury Secretary

Office of Management and Budget Director Jack Lew, seen here walking with President Obama on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington Monday, Feb. 14, 2011, is a leading candidate to succeed Tim Geithner as U.S. Treasury Secretary. / AP Photo/Charles Dharapak

President Obama is set to nominate Jack Lew to be the next Treasury Secretary, CBS News has confirmed. The announcement could come as early as Thursday.

If confirmed by the Senate, Lew would replace current Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who has served in the post for the entirety of the president's tenure.

Lew is Mr. Obama's current chief of staff but has served in numerous government roles. Prior to his current post, which has given him direct access to the president, the 57-year-old was the director of the Office of Management and Budget. In that position he worked closely with Congress and federal agencies to oversee the budget of the entire federal government. That is a position he also held during the Clinton administration from 1998 to 2001.

Lew would come into the position amid a sluggish economic recovery and as Washington politicians are facing more budget battles. By mid-February, Congress is likely to be embroiled in debate over spending and increasing the debt ceiling. Geithner notified Congress on December 31 that the debt limit had been reached and that he was taking "extraordinary measures" that involved rearranging the books so that immediate bills could be paid while putting others off.

A source told CBS News White House correspondent Major Garrett that the White House doesn't expect a difficult confirmation process.

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Holmes Took Disturbing Photos Before Massacre

Hours before James Holmes allegedly carried out a massacre at a Colorado movie theater he took a series of menacing self-portraits with his dyed orange hair curling out of from under a black skull cap and his eyes covered with black contacts.

A prosecutor told the court after the photographs were shown that Holmes had a "depravity of human heart."

Those haunting photographs, found on his iPhone, were shown in court today on the last day of a preliminary testimony that will lead to a decision on whether the case will go to trial. The hearing concluded without Holmes' defense calling any witnesses.

The judge's decision on whether the case will proceed to trial is expected on Friday.

Holmes, 25, is accused of opening fire on a crowded movie theater in Aurora, Colo., on July 20, 2012, killing 12 people and wounding 58 others during a showing of "Dark Knight Rises."

The photos presented in court showed Holmes mugging for his iPhone camera just hours before the shooting.

Click here for full coverage of the Aurora movie theater shooting.

Half-a-dozen photos showed Holmes with his clownish red-orange hair curled out from underneath a black skull cap. He wore black contact lenses in some of the pictures.

In one particularly disturbing image, he was making a scowling face with his tongue out. He was whistling in another photo. Holmes is smiling in his black contacts and flaming hair in yet another with the muzzle of one of his Glock pistols in the forefront.

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Yet another showed him dressed in black tactical gear, posing with an AR-15 rifle.

Victims' families in the courtroom stared straight ahead, showing little emotion while the photos were shown. Tom Teves, whose son Alex was killed in the theater, kept an intense stare on the pictures.

Other photos seized from the iPhone show pictures that a detective testified were taken of the interior of the Aurora movie theater in the days leading up to the attack, on June 29, July 5 and July 11.

Before the prosecution called for the photos, public defender Tammy Brady objected. Prosecutor Karen Pearson said that the photos showed deliberation and extreme indifference. Judge William Sylvester overruled the objection and the photos were released.

In Pearson's closing statement, she said there is an abundance of direct evidence that Holmes "wanted to kill call of them. He knew what he was doing."

She said that Holmes had a "depravity of human heart" and that he "went into the theater without knowing or caring who they are." The prosecutor said he "picked the perfect venue for the perfect crime."

Pearson said prosecutors made a decision not to include all of the people who were in theaters eight and nine that night. If they had, they could have had 1,500 counts against Holmes. Instead, they included anyone who had physical injuries, including those with gunshot wounds and those who were hurt running out of the theater. There are 166 counts in all.

The judge has taken the case under advisement and there will be a status hearing or arraignment on Friday when the judge will decide whether the case will proceed to a full trial. Holmes' attorneys have not yet said whether they plan on using a insanity defense, in which case Holmes could possibly be deemed unfit to stand trial. Another possibility is that the hearing could set the stage for a plea deal.

This week's testimony has included emotional testimony from first responders, details about Holmes' elaborately booby trapped apartment, a rundown of his arsenal of legally purchased weapons and descriptions of his bizarre behavior following the shooting.

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Venezuela court endorses Chavez inauguration delay

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela's top court endorsed the postponement of Hugo Chavez's inauguration this week and ruled on Wednesday that the cancer-stricken president remained the South American OPEC nation's leader.

The 58-year-old socialist has not been seen in public nor heard from in almost a month following surgery in Cuba. The government says he is in a delicate condition and cannot attend Thursday's scheduled swearing-in for a new six-year term.

"Right now we cannot say when, how or where the president will be sworn in," Supreme Court Chief Judge Luisa Morales told a news conference.

"As president re-elect there is no interruption of performance of duties ... The inauguration can be carried out at a later date before the Supreme Court."

Both Chavez and his heir apparent, Vice President Nicolas Maduro, would remain in the roles after January 10, she added in a judgment quashing opposition appeals for a caretaker president to be named.

Government leaders insist Chavez is fulfilling his duties as head of state, even though official medical bulletins said he suffered multiple complications after the surgery, including a severe pulmonary infection, and has had trouble breathing.

It was his fourth operation since being diagnosed with an undisclosed type of cancer in June 2011.

The government has called for a massive rally outside the presidential palace on Thursday, and allied presidents including Uruguay's Jose Mujica and Bolivia's Evo Morales have confirmed they will visit Venezuela that day despite Chavez's absence.

The president's resignation or death would upend politics in the oil-rich nation, where he is revered by poor supporters thankful for his social largesse.

His critics denounce him as an autocrat who has squandered billions of dollars from crude sales while dashing the independence of state institutions.

(Reporting by Eyanir Chinea, Marianna Parraga and Diego Ore, Writing by Daniel Wallis, Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Doina Chiacu)

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Judge reduces possible sentence for WikiLeaks suspect

FORT MEADE: A US judge on Tuesday reduced the potential sentence for WikiLeaks suspect Bradley Manning by 112 days because of his harsh treatment at a military jail, where he was held in isolation despite advice from psychiatrists.

Judge Denise Lind said the US Army private's detention conditions were "excessive" and at times illegal, going beyond what was needed to ensure his safety and prevent the risk of suicide.

But the judge rejected a request by defence lawyers to dismiss all charges against Manning because of his nine-month detention at the US Marine Corps prison in Quantico, Virginia.

The ruling paves the way for a trial in March in which the army private is accused of "aiding the enemy" by passing a trove of secret government files to the WikiLeaks website.

Defence attorney David Coombs had argued the court should drop all charges against Manning on the grounds that he suffered illegal punishment at the Quantico jail, where he was held in a solitary cell 23 hours a day, kept under a strict suicide watch and often ordered to strip naked.

Prosecutors had said strict measures were necessary because Manning posed a suicide risk.

The judge concluded that the government had to ensure Manning did not take his life given his mental health history, as he had reported suicidal thoughts while detained in Kuwait.

"Preventing a detainee suicide is in the legitimate interest of the government," she said.

But she ruled prison authorities at Quantico should not have kept Manning under a "rigorous" super-strict suicide watch regime after military psychiatrists advised he was not suicidal.

Prison officers had no reason to take away Manning's underwear at one point as "no new threat" had emerged and it was "no longer reasonable to withhold the underwear," she said.

She cited a seven-day period in which Manning was assessed by psychiatrists as "no longer at risk" of suicide but was kept under strict isolation, saying it constituted "unlawful pre-trial punishment."

If convicted on 22 charges, Manning would receive credit for his time behind bars in Quantico, with his potential sentence reduced by 112 days, Lind said.

But the judge was not ready to call off the trial over Manning's treatment at the Quantico jail as "the charges are serious in this case," she said.

The 25-year-old private faces a slew of charges, including "aiding the enemy," for allegedly leaking hundreds of thousands of sensitive US military and diplomatic documents to Julian Assange's anti-secrecy site WikiLeaks.

He was arrested in May 2010 while serving as an intelligence analyst near Baghdad and subsequently charged over the largest leak of restricted documents in American history.

Manning was sent briefly to a US jail in neighbouring Kuwait, before being transferred to the Marine Corps jail in Quantico, Virginia in July 2010.

After nine months in the brig, he was moved in April 2011 to a US Army prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where he was allowed to interact with other detainees as detention conditions were eased.

If convicted, Manning could spend the rest of his life behind bars.

Before the ruling, the defence and prosecution clashed over whether the court should permit evidence in the trial on Manning's motive in leaking the classified files.

In leaking secret documents, Manning "selected information that could not be used to the harm of the United States or any foreign country," Coombs, the defence lawyer, told the court.

Coombs portrayed his client as a whistle-blower who was trying to inform the public instead of "aiding the enemy" as he is charged.

But prosecutors told the judge Manning's motives for the leak, the largest in US history, were irrelevant.

"The accused knew that he was dealing directly or indirectly with an enemy of the United States," prosecutor Captain Angel Overgaard said.

"He knew that the information would be published on the Internet and was accessible to the enemy," Overgaard said.

Coombs has argued that the case against Manning is virtually unprecedented as usually US authorities prosecute soldiers or government employees who pass secrets directly to an adversary -- and not those who leak information to a media outlet or website.

- AFP/jc

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Seagate embraces SSHDs, phasing out 7,200rpm laptop HDDs

Seagate's SSHD showcased at CES 2013.

(Credit:
Dong Ngo)

LAS VEGAS--You might want to stockpile Seagate 7,200rpm laptop hard drives now. Soon they will be no more.

Or maybe you shouldn't. From what I've witnessed at
CES 2013, what Seagate plans to replace them with is going to be much better. That's the company's third generation of hybrid drive, a type of drive that's now being referred to across the industry as a solid-state hybrid drive, or SSHD.

For many years a hard drive's spinning speed was the factor that determined how fast an internal drive is. That's not necessarily true anymore with the proliferation of solid-state drives (SSDs).

But SSDs have their shortcomings, including the very high cost, the low storage space, and the limited P/E cycles. For that reason, going hybrid seems like the right approach for the industry.

Just two years ago, Seagate's first hybrid drive, the Momentus XT, was the only hybrid drive on the market. Now there are many ultrabooks that use an mSATA SSD and a hard drive in combination, powered by Intel's Smart Response Technology. WD now also has its own SSHDs, and even Apple has jumped in the pool with its recently announced Fusion Drive.

Fusion Drive may be a misleading name since it combines two separate drives, one SSD and one regular hard drive, which work in tandem under
Mac OS 10.8. This provides an SSD-like experience while still offering large amounts of storage space. Fusion Drive works entirely at the OS level, however, and, like Intel's, is a hybrid approach. This generally is much more expensive than SSHD.

A demo showing a PlayStation 3 that's using an SSHD (left) to load the game Dragon Age: Origins more than twice as fast as the other, which is using a stock hard drive.

(Credit:
Dong Ngo)

That said, an SSHD is a true hybrid drive in which solid-state and spinning platter-based drives are combined in one drive of a standard design. Seagate's SSDH comes with 8GB of solid-state memory and offers, for now, up to 1TB of storage space for the 2.5-inch design.

While there were no final products to announce this year at CES, Seagate showcased its prototype drives: one 5mm-thick drive, one 7mm-thick SSHD, and the first SSHD to come in the shape of a 3.5-inch (desktop) drive, which offers up to 4TB. The company also did demoes to show off how much faster its SSDH is than other hybrid drives and SSDs on the market.

The demos showed that Seagate's new SSHDs are almost as fast as SSDs in many cases and are much faster than a 7,200rpm hard drive.

The interesting thing about Seagate SSHDs is that the hard drive part of them only spins at 5,400rpm. However, thanks to the algorithm that automatically puts frequently accessed data on the solid-state part, the drive can offer much faster real speed than drives spinning at 7,200rpm.

In a demo with two
PlayStation 3 game consoles, the one powered by an SSHD loaded the game Dragon Age: Origins, which takes a notoriously long time to load, more than twice as fast as the one using a stock hard drive.

According to Seagate Product Marketing Director David Burks, phasing out the 7,200rpm laptop hard drive helps Seagate focus more on its SSHD as the new high-speed drive. Also using 5,400rpm in SSHDs means lower prices, and in fact when they become available, later this year, SSHDs will cost just about $10 to $20 more than hard drives of the same capacity.

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Father of slain Tulsa twins: "My life's gone"

TULSA, Okla. Four women were found shot dead inside an apartment in south Tulsa on Monday afternoon, with a three-year-old boy as the only survivor, CBS affiliate KOTV Tulsa reported.

Now a father is coming to grips with losing his twin daughters, whom police identified as Rebeika Powell, 23, and Kayetie Melchor, 23, as among the four victims.

"My life's gone. My kids are gone," said Larry Powell.

Tulsa police said the four women were discovered around noon, within an hour of being shot. Aside from Powell and Melchor, the other two victims identified by police were Misty Nunley, 33, and Julie Jackson, 55. The three-year-old boy may have witnessed his mother's death.

"The little baby, you know, he had to sit there all day and look at what they did. How could you do something like that?" asked Larry Powell.

Powell's son died from the flu in 2003 and now his remaining children are gone. "You've got nothing left," said Powell. "All I've got are my two little grand kids and what am I going to do? Their parents are gone. My granddaughter is going crazy over there right now."

Neighbor Gail Barton knew some of the women who were killed. "They were all so lively and fun and beautiful, really were beautiful girls," she said and added: "To take such beauty and life away from so many people and to harm so many family members in the process and for what? Money?"

Police are still seeking a suspect and a motive for the crime.

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James Holmes' Elaborate Booby Trap Plan Revealed

A gasoline-soaked carpet, loud music and a remote control car were part of an elaborate plan by accused Aurora gunman James Holmes' to trick someone into triggering a blast that would destroy his apartment and lure police to the explosion while he shot up a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., according to court testimony today.

FBI agent Garrett Gumbinner told a Colorado court about Holmes' complex plans to booby trap his apartment. Gumbinner said he interviewed Holmes on July 20, hours after he killed 12 and wounded 58 during the midnight showing of "The Dark Knight Rises."

"He said he rigged the apartment to explode to get law enforcement to send resources to his apartment instead of the theater," Gumbinner said.

Click here for full coverage of the Aurora movie theater shooting.

His plan failed to prompt someone into triggering the bombs.

Gumbinner said Holmes had created two traps that would have set off the blast.

The apartment was rigged with a tripwire at the front door connected to a mixture of chemicals that would create heat, sparks and flame. Holmes had soaked the carpet with a gasoline mixture that was designed to be ignited by the tripwire, Gumbinner said.

"It would have caused fire and sparks," the agent said, and "would have made the entire apartment explode or catch fire."

Holmes had set his computer to play 25 minutes of silence followed by loud music that he hoped would cause a disturbance loud enough that someone would call police, who would then respond and set off the explosion by entering the apartment.

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Gumbinner said Holmes also told him he rigged a fuse between three glass jars that would explode. He filled the jars with a deadly homemade chemical mixture that would burn so hot it could not be extinguished with water.

Holmes set a second detonation system outside the building, the agent said.

Holmes, Gumbinner said, rigged one of the triggering devices, called a "pyro trip box" with a remote control. He then took the remote control outside and placed it on top of a white trash bag near the apartment building.

Next to the remote, Holmes placed a remote control car. Inside the trash bag, he put a portable stereo set to play 40 minutes of silence, followed by loud music, the agent said.

The plan, Gumbinner explained, was for someone to hear the music and be drawn to the remote control car with what appeared to be the remote control lying next to it. When that person picked up the remote to activate the car, he or she would have unknowingly triggered the explosion in the apartment.

Holmes also left rows of white powder on the floor, which Gumbinner said was ammonium chloride. The powder, Gumbinner believes, was meant "to scare us" and would have created a large amount of smoke if it had ignited.

Prosecutors showed several photographs of the devices in court.

Earlier in the day, prosecutors played two 911 calls in court, including the very first call from movie goer Kevin Quinonez as the shooting was still underway.

At least 30 rapid-fire gunshots could be heard in the background of the 27-second call, along with screaming.

"Gunshots?" Quinonez can be heard saying.

The dispatcher pleads with Quinonez to give the theater address, but the sound of gunshots and chaos drowns him out.

"Say it loud," the dispatcher pleads before the call goes dead.

In a second call, Kaylan Bailey calls to say her two cousins, Ashley Moser and Veronica Moser Sullivan, have been shot. One is breathing and the other is not, she says.

"Are there officers near you?" the dispatcher asks.

Amid the noise and confusion, the dispatcher pleads with the Bailey to start CPR on 6-year-old Veronica Moser Sullivan, who has stopped breathing. Veronica later died.

Victims and families listening to the calls in the courtroom were weeping openly and holding hands. One woman buried her face in her hands. Holmes showed no emotion.

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Tunisia frees man held over attack on U.S. consulate in Libya

Tunis (Reuters) - Tunisia has freed, for lack of evidence, a Tunisian man who had been suspected of involvement in an Islamist militant attack in Libya last year in which the U.S. ambassador was killed, his lawyer said on Tuesday.

Ali Harzi was one of two Tunisians named in October by the Daily Beast website as having been detained in Turkey over the violence in which Christopher Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya, and three other American officials were killed.

"The judge decided to free Harzi and he is free now," lawyer Anouar Awled Ali told Reuters. "The release came in response to our request to free him for lack of evidence and after he underwent the hearing with American investigators as a witness in the case."

A Tunisian justice ministry spokesman confirmed the release of Harzi but declined to elaborate.

A month ago, Harzi refused to be interviewed by visiting U.S. FBI investigators over the September 11 assault on the U.S. consulate in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi.

The Daily Beast reported that shortly after the attacks began, Harzi posted an update on an unspecified social media site about the fighting.

It said Harzi was on his way to Syria when he was detained in Turkey at the behest of U.S. authorities, and that he was affiliated with a militant group in North Africa.

(Reporting by Tarek Amara; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

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