Egypt’s Mursi calls referendum as Islamists march

CAIRO (Reuters) – Egypt‘s President Mohamed Mursi called a December 15 referendum on a draft constitution on Saturday as at least 200,000 Islamists demonstrated in Cairo to back him after opposition fury over his newly expanded powers.

Speaking after receiving the final draft of the constitution from the Islamist-dominated assembly, Mursi urged a national dialogue as the country nears the end of the transition from Hosni Mubarak‘s rule.

“I renew my call for opening a serious national dialogue over the concerns of the nation, with all honesty and impartiality, to end the transitional period as soon as possible, in a way that guarantees the newly-born democracy,” Mursi said.

Mursi plunged Egypt into a new crisis last week when he gave himself extensive powers and put his decisions beyond judicial challenge, saying this was a temporary measure to speed Egypt’s democratic transition until the new constitution is in place.

His assertion of authority in a decree issued on November 22, a day after he won world praise for brokering a Gaza truce between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement, dismayed his opponents and widened divisions among Egypt’s 83 million people.

Two people have been killed and hundreds wounded in protests by disparate opposition forces drawn together and re-energized by a decree they see as a dictatorial power grab.

A demonstration in Cairo to back the president swelled through the afternoon, peaking in the early evening at least 200,000, said Reuters witnesses, basing their estimates on previous rallies in the capital. The authorities declined to give an estimate for the crowd size.

“The people want the implementation of God’s law,” chanted flag-waving demonstrators, many of them bussed in from the countryside, who choked streets leading to Cairo University, where Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood had called the protest.

Tens of thousands of Egyptians had protested against Mursi on Friday. “The people want to bring down the regime,” they chanted in Cairo‘s Tahrir Square, echoing the trademark slogan of the revolts against Hosni Mubarak and Arab leaders elsewhere.

Rival demonstrators threw stones after dark in the northern city of Alexandria and a town in the Nile Delta. Similar clashes erupted again briefly in Alexandria on Saturday, state TV said.

“COMPLETE DEFEAT”

Mohamed Noshi, 23, a pharmacist from Mansoura, north of Cairo, said he had joined the rally in Cairo to support Mursi and his decree. “Those in Tahrir don’t represent everyone. Most people support Mursi and aren’t against the decree,” he said.

Mohamed Ibrahim, a hardline Salafi Islamist scholar and a member of the constituent assembly, said secular-minded Egyptians had been in a losing battle from the start.

“They will be sure of complete popular defeat today in a mass Egyptian protest that says ‘no to the conspiratorial minority, no to destructive directions and yes for stability and sharia (Islamic law)’,” he told Reuters.

Mursi has alienated many of the judges who must supervise the referendum. His decree nullified the ability of the courts, many of them staffed by Mubarak-era appointees, to strike down his measures, although says he respects judicial independence.

A source at the presidency said Mursi might rely on the minority of judges who support him to supervise the vote.

“Oh Mursi, go ahead and cleanse the judiciary, we are behind you,” shouted Islamist demonstrators in Cairo.

Mursi, once a senior Muslim Brotherhood figure, has put his liberal, leftist, Christian and other opponents in a bind. If they boycott the referendum, the constitution would pass anyway.

If they secured a “no” vote to defeat the draft, the president could retain the powers he has unilaterally assumed.

And Egypt’s quest to replace the basic law that underpinned Mubarak’s 30 years of army-backed one-man rule would also return to square one, creating more uncertainty in a nation in dire economic straits and seeking a $ 4.8 billion loan from the IMF.

“NO PLACE FOR DICTATORSHIP”

Mursi’s well-organized Muslim Brotherhood and its ultra-orthodox Salafi allies, however, are convinced they can win the referendum by mobilizing their own supporters and the millions of Egyptians weary of political turmoil and disruption.

“There is no place for dictatorship,” the president said on Thursday while the constituent assembly was still voting on a draft constitution which Islamists say enshrines Egypt’s new freedoms.

Human rights groups have voiced misgivings, especially about articles related to women’s rights and freedom of speech.

The text limits the president to two four-year terms, requires him to secure parliamentary approval for his choice of prime minister, and introduces a degree of civilian oversight over the military – though not enough for critics.

The draft constitution also contains vague, Islamist-flavored language that its opponents say could be used to whittle away human rights and stifle criticism.

For example, it forbids blasphemy and “insults to any person”, does not explicitly uphold women’s rights and demands respect for “religion, traditions and family values”.

The draft injects new Islamic references into Egypt’s system of government but retains the previous constitution’s reference to “the principles of sharia” as the main source of legislation.

“We fundamentally reject the referendum and constituent assembly because the assembly does not represent all sections of society,” said Sayed el-Erian, 43, a protester in Tahrir and member of a party set up by opposition figure Mohamed ElBaradei.

Several independent newspapers said they would not publish on Tuesday in protest. One of the papers also said three private satellite channels would halt broadcasts on Wednesday.

Egypt cannot hold a new parliamentary election until a new constitution is passed. The country has been without an elected legislature since the Supreme Constitutional Court ordered the dissolution of the Islamist-dominated lower house in June.

The court is due to meet on Sunday to discuss the legality of parliament’s upper house.

“We want stability. Every time, the constitutional court tears down institutions we elect,” said Yasser Taha, a 30-year-old demonstrator at the Islamist rally in Cairo.

(Additional reporting by Marwa Awad, Yasmine Saleh and Tom Perry; Editing by Myra MacDonald and Jason Webb)

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“Guardians of the Galaxy” director sorry for blog post seen as sexist, homophobic

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – James Gunn, the man entrusted with steering Marvel‘s “Guardians of the Galaxy” to the big screen, apologized publicly for a 2011 blog post that was criticized as sexist and homophobic.

Gunn, who is best known for directing the 2006 horror-comedy “Slither,” found himself under fire this week after reports about a blog post titled “The 50 Superheroes You Most Want to Have Sex With.” In it, he called the superhero Gambit a “Cajun fruit” and suggested that Iron Man could “turn” the lesbian Batwoman into a straight woman. He went on to joke that Batgirl, a masked avenger who happens to be a teen mother, was “easy.” The list was voted on by Twitter and Facebook users, but has since been removed from his site.

In a statement to the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), Gunn said his attempt at irreverence was misguided and stressed that he is a proponent of gay rights and women’s rights.

“A couple of years ago I wrote a blog that was meant to be satirical and funny,” Gunn said. “In rereading it over the past day I don’t think it’s funny. The attempted humor in the blog does not represent my actual feelings. However, I can see where statements were poorly worded and offensive to many. I’m sorry and regret making them at all.”

The post is an unwanted distraction from his efforts to give Marvel and its corporate owner the Walt Disney Company another hit. He plans to co-write the script for “Guardians of the Galaxy” in addition to directing. The film will be released in 2014.

“It kills me that some other outsider like myself, despite his or her gender or sexuality, might feel hurt or attacked by something I said,” he added in his apology. “We’re all in the same camp, and I want to do my best to make this world a better place for all of us. I’m learning all the time. I promise to be more careful with my words in the future. And I will do my best to be funnier as well. Much love to all.”

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Gay “conversion therapy” proponents seek to halt California ban

SACRAMENTO (Reuters) – A Christian legal group urged a federal judge on Friday to halt a landmark California law that bars a controversial therapy aimed at reversing homosexuality from being used on children and teenagers, calling the law a violation of privacy and free speech.

California‘s Democratic Governor Jerry Brown signed the ban into law in September, making the nation’s most populous state the first to ban so-called conversion therapy among youths. Gay rights advocates say the therapy can psychologically harm gay and lesbian youths.

“What we have here is the state coming into the doctor-patient, client-counselor relationship and saying that you can only present one viewpoint,” attorney Mathew Staver, the dean of the evangelical Liberty University law school, told the court in seeking an injunction to halt the law pending legal challenges.

He was arguing on behalf of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality and the American Association of Christian Counselors, as well as unnamed individuals who sued shortly after the law was signed.

The law, due to go into effect on January 1, bars therapists from performing sexual-orientation change counseling with children and teenagers under 18 and was supported by the California Psychological Association among other groups.

Passage of the law marked a major victory for gay rights advocates who say the treatment, also called reparative therapy, has no medical basis because homosexuality is not a disorder.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs in the case argue that the law violates constitutionally protected rights to free speech and freedom of religion, and denies the rights of parents to choose how to raise their children.

Attorneys for the state were joined by lawyers from Equality California, which was a sponsor of the bill, in arguing that there is substantial evidence that the practice causes harm to those who undergo it.

The judge in the case, Kimberly Mueller, expressed concern during the hearing that banning licensed practitioners from offering the therapy would only drive parents to seek out the treatment from “unlicensed quacks” or out-of-state providers.

She said she was likely to rule next week in the case, filed against Brown and other state officials. Another similar suit seeking a separate injunction against the law will be argued in federal court on Monday.

(Reporting by Mary Slosson; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Mohammad Zargham)

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Boeing, engineers tentatively agree to resume talks

(Reuters) – Boeing Co and the union that represents its 23,000 engineers tentatively agreed to resume labor talks on Tuesday, after their negotiations on a new contract ended abruptly on Thursday.

But tension rose as the two sides sparred over efforts to engage a federal mediator to help them reach a new labor contract.

Boeing said late on Friday that the union had declined its offer to attend meetings with the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service in Washington, D.C., on Monday.

The Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA) said it had contacted the mediator before Boeing did, and was waiting for Boeing to confirm dates for meetings next week that it had arranged.

“We told SPEEA we’d like to start meeting with a federal mediator Tuesday in Seattle,” Boeing spokesman Doug Alder said. “We are still working out the details with SPEEA and the mediator.”

SPEEA’s chief said the union was willing to meet, too, and with a different mediator if necessary.

“I’ve responded that we have a mediator assigned to us … but if Boeing is dissatisfied with that mediator, they need to take that up with FMCS not us,” Ray Goforth, SPEEA executive director, said.

“We also don’t see the need to meet in a hotel. I offered to meet on Boeing property if that would make them comfortable.”

The two sides have been negotiating since April to replace a labor contract that expired November 25.

The union has balked at a Boeing contract that it says would cut the growth rate of compensation of professional and technical employees. Boeing says its latest offer is much improved over its initial proposal and reflects a tough competitive environment.

Talks broke down Thursday after Boeing said it wanted a mediator.

The dispute comes as Boeing looks to speed up jet production from 52 a month to about 60 a month by the end of next year. A walkout by the union could stop production.

Peter Arment, an analyst with Sterne, Agee & Leach, expressed hope that the dispute would be resolved with mediation. He noted strikes by SPEEA were rare, with the last one occurring in 2000.

“There’s still time for this to be resolved long before it would affect Boeing’s commercial aircraft production,” Arment said.

Shares of Boeing edged down 3 cents to $ 74.09 in Friday trading.

(Reporting by Alwyn Scott in New York and Karen Jacobs in Atlanta; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Eric Walsh)

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Oliver Stone, Benicio del Toro visit Puerto Rico

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Benicio Del Toro didn’t wait long to collect on a favor that Oliver Stone owed him for working extra hours on the set of his most recent movie, “Savages”, released this year.

The favor? A trip to Del Toro‘s native Puerto Rico, which Stone hadn’t visited since the early 1960s.

“I told him, you owe me one,” Del Toro said with a smile as he recalled the conversation during a press conference Friday in the U.S. territory, where he and Stone are helping raise money for one of the island’s largest art museums.

Del Toro, wearing jeans, a black jacket and a black T-shirt emblazoned with the name of local reggaeton singer Tego Calderon, waved to the press as he was introduced.

“Hello, greetings. Is this a press conference?” he quipped as he and Stone awaited questions.

Both men praised each other’s work, saying they would like to work with each other again.

“I deeply admire him as an actor, the way he thinks, the way he expresses himself,” Stone said. “Of all the actors I’ve worked with, he’s the most interesting.”

Stone said Del Toro always delivers surprises while acting, even when it’s as something as subtle as certain gestures between dialogue.

“I think Benicio is the master of keeping you watching,” he said.

Stone said he enjoys meeting up with Del Toro off-set because he’s one of the few actors in Hollywood who can talk about something other than movies.

“He is very interested in the world around him,” Stone said, adding that the conversations sometimes center around politics and other topics.

Del Toro declined to answer when asked what he thought about Puerto Rico’s referendum earlier this month, which aimed to determine the future of the island’s political status. He said the results did not seem to point to a clear-cut outcome.

Del Toro then said he would like the island’s movie business to grow, especially in a way that would encourage learning.

“I’m talking about movies in an educational sense, as a way to discover other parts of the world,” he said. “Create a film class. You’ll see, kids won’t skip it.”

Del Toro also shared his thoughts on being a father after having a daughter with Kimberly Stewart in August 2011.

He said the girl is learning how to swim and is discovering the world around her.

“She has her own personality,” Del Toro said. “She’s not her mother. She’s not me.”

Both Del Toro and Stone are expected to remain in Puerto Rico through the weekend to raise money for the Art Museum of Puerto Rico, which is hosting its annual movie festival and will honor Stone’s movies.

Museum curator Juan Carlos Lopez Quintero said the money raised will be used to enhance the museum’s permanent collection, especially with Puerto Rican paintings from the 19th century and early 20th century.

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Microsoft Surface Pro battery will last roughly four hours

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Widower of woman denied abortion to sue Ireland

DUBLIN (AP) — The widower of an Indian woman who died in an Irish hospital after being refused an abortion plans to sue Ireland‘s government in the European Court of Human Rights.

Praveen Halappanavar confirmed his decision Thursday through his lawyer, Gerard O’Donnell.

His wife Savita died Oct. 28 in a hospital in Galway, western Ireland, one week after being admitted for severe pain amid a miscarriage.

Doctors refused to perform an abortion for three days while the 17-week-old fetus still had a heartbeat. Savita fell gravely ill after the dead fetus was removed and then suffered gradual organ failure. A coroner ruled she died from blood poisoning.

The case has forced Ireland to re-examine its two-decade failure to pass any laws governing when women can receive abortions to save their own lives.

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The Curious Case of Samsung’s Missing TVs

In August, workers at Samsung Electronics (005930) in the South Korean city of Suwon swathed 60 next-generation televisions in bubble wrap and nailed them into wooden crates. Two weeks later, when the boxes were opened at a Berlin trade show, two TVs were missing. The 55-inch prototypes—each costing $ 10,000 and weighing about 43 pounds—featured breakthrough technology known as organic light-emitting diode displays, which make TVs thinner and help project brighter and sharper images. The suspects: corporate spies.

Thefts of TV sets, diagrams, and circuitry are on the rise, and that’s bad news for Samsung and LG Electronics—the only companies that can commercially produce OLED displays, which the $ 110 billion flat-screen TV industry expects to wow consumers and revive slumping sales. South Korea’s National Industrial Security Center, part of the country’s intelligence agency, last year reported 46 cases involving attempts to steal local companies’ secrets overseas, up from 32 in 2007.

While estimates of industrial espionage are hard to come by, South Korea says foreign theft of its corporate secrets resulted in about $ 82 billion in damages in 2008, the most recent data available, up from $ 26 billion in 2004. The Koreans say 60 percent of victims are small and midsize businesses, and half of all economic espionage originates in China, according to a 2011 U.S. congressional report. “Any company that has a competitive advantage or new technology will be targeted by industrial espionage,” says Frank Schurgers, managing director of security agency Integris International in Berlin.

German companies lose an estimated $ 28 billion to $ 71 billion annually—and as many as 70,000 jobs—due to foreign economic espionage, regulators say. A 2007 survey by the Japanese government found that 35 percent of that country’s businesses reported some form of technology loss. And the FBI says its pending caseload of espionage cases represents losses to the American economy of more than $ 13 billion this fiscal year.

The practice will be tough to stop. In a survey released in June, the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India found that 35 percent of companies there engaged in some form of corporate espionage to gain advantages over rivals or keep tabs on present and former employees. “Stealing technology basically helps cut down the time to market,” says Jyotirmoy Dutta, a manager at consultant ITC Infotech. “A lot of companies are going to do anything that makes their new product introduction faster.”

As secret-stealing picks up, companies as diverse as Samsung, Apple (AAPL), and Toyota Motor (TM) are boosting security, sometimes at immense cost. Security expert Schurgers says his firm charged a tech company about $ 325,000 to protect one product and that a comprehensive program would easily run into the millions. For businesses that spend heavily on research and development, such security is worth it. Samsung says it spent seven years and “trillions of won” on OLEDs.

Orbotech (ORBK), an Israeli maker of equipment used to test screens for TVs, smartphones, and tablets, says its Korean subsidiary and six local employees have been indicted on suspicion they stole display technology from Samsung. LG says Orbotech workers are suspected of illegally gaining access to its confidential OLED data, too. A probe by Korean police into actions by Orbotech staffers is ongoing, and the company says its Korean subsidiary is cooperating with authorities there.

While it would be difficult to reverse-engineer the fundamentals of OLED technology from the missing televisions, simply understanding how Samsung packed the parts inside the superthin sets would be valuable information for thieves, says Kim Hyung Sik, an analyst at Taurus Investment & Securities in Seoul. “They will be able to get their hands on how components are aligned to make the TVs slimmer,” Kim says. “It saves competitors a lot of time.”

Korean authorities are operating on the assumption that Samsung’s missing TVs were stolen, not lost, says Lee Seung Yong, a senior inspector at Gyeonggi Provincial Police Agency in Suwon, where the company is headquartered. A freight forwarder packed the TVs in wooden boxes that were nailed on five sides and then sealed with a nut and bolt on the sixth. When the boxes arrived at the airport, they weighed the same as at the forwarder’s warehouse, and security cameras en route yielded no clues, according to a police report.

The 14 people involved in transporting the boxes from Samsung to a Korean Air plane were questioned, the report said. Police say they found fingerprints from 14 individuals on the box that the missing TVs were packed in. Although they didn’t say whether the prints matched those of the people who were questioned, police have concluded the theft likely didn’t occur in Korea. They’re now coordinating with German authorities.

Since the TVs went missing, Samsung says it’s tightened controls on shipments of equipment to trade shows. The company says it already uses special paper that trips an alarm when someone tries to sneak documents out of its offices. Other companies are also becoming more vigilant. Businesses testing Apple’s iPad before its 2010 release had to promise to secure the tablet in a room with blacked-out windows and key-card locks and keep it tethered to a stationary object, according to persons at the time who were not authorized to speak before plans for the device were released. And visitors to many Toyota facilities are required to seal USB ports on laptops and place blue stickers over mobile-phone cameras.

Even affiliates of LG and Samsung have accused each other of purloining secrets. In July, Samsung asked its rival to apologize after Korean prosecutors investigated employees of LG Display, the company’s panel-making unit, about the theft—so far unsolved—of information on Samsung’s OLED program. LG Display refused to apologize and two months later sued Samsung for allegedly infringing its own OLED patents. A Samsung unit in November asked a Korean intellectual property tribunal to invalidate seven OLED patents held by LG. “The more advanced a technology is, the more attractive it is for companies or countries that don’t have it,” says Shin Hyun Goo, head of external relations at the Korean Association for Industrial Technology Security in Seoul. Samsung and LG “are like mice being eyed by eagles hovering around them.”

The bottom line: As thefts of secrets in the $ 110 billion TV industry increase, Samsung and other tech companies are beefing up security.

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Noisy city: Cacophony in Caracas sparks complaints

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — This metropolis of 6 million people may be one of the world’s most intense, overwhelming cities, with tremendous levels of crime, traffic and social strife. The sounds of Caracas‘ streets live up to its reputation.

Stand on any downtown corner, and the cacophony can be overpowering: Deafening horns blast from oncoming buses, traffic police shrilly blow their whistles and sirens shriek atop ambulances stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

Air horns routinely used by bus drivers are so powerful they make pedestrians on crosswalks recoil, and can even leave their ears ringing. Loud salsa music blares from the windows of buses, trucks with old mufflers rumble past belching exhaust, and “moto-taxis” weave through traffic beeping high-pitched horns.

Growing numbers of Venezuelans are saying they’re fed up with the noise that they say is getting worse, and the numbers of complaints to the authorities have risen in recent years.

One affluent district, Chacao, put up signs along a main avenue reading: “A honk won’t make the traffic light change.”

“The noise is terrible. Sometimes it seems like it’s never going to end,” said Jose Santander, a street vendor who stands in the middle of a highway selling fried pork rinds and potato chips to commuters in traffic.

Prosecutor General Luisa Ortega recently told a news conference that officials have started “putting an increased emphasis on promoting peaceful coexistence” by punishing misdemeanors such as violations of anti-noise regulations and other minor crimes. That effort has translated into hundreds of noise-related cases in recent years.

Some violators are ordered to perform community service. For instance, two young musicians who were recently caught playing loud music near a subway station were sentenced to 120 hours of community service giving music lessons to students in public schools.

Others caught playing loud music on the street have been charged with disturbing the peace after complaints from neighbors. Fines can run as high as 9,000 bolivars, or $ 2,093.

On the streets of their capital, however, Venezuelans have grown used to living loudly. The noisescape adds to a general sense of anarchy, with many drivers ignoring red lights and blocking intersections along potholed streets strewn with trash.

“This is something that everybody does. Nobody should be complaining,” said Gregorio Hernandez, a 23-year-old college student, as he listened to Latin rock songs booming from his car stereo on a Saturday night in downtown Caracas. “We’re just having fun. We’re not hurting anybody.”

Adding to the mess is the country’s notoriously divisive politics, which regularly fill the streets with marches and demonstrations.

On many days, the shouts of protesters streaming through downtown can be heard from blocks away, demanding pay hikes or unpaid benefits.

And the sporadic crackling of gunfire in the slums can be confused for firecrackers tossed by boisterous partygoers.

It’s difficult to rank the world’s noisiest cities because many, including Venezuela’s capital, don’t take measurements of sound pollution, said Victor Rastelli, a mechanical engineering professor and sound pollution expert at Simon Bolivar University in Caracas. But Rastelli said he suspects Caracas is right up there among the noisiest, along with Sao Paulo, Mexico City and Mumbai.

Excessive noise can be more than simply an annoyance, Rastelli said. “This is a public health problem.”

Dr. Carmen Mijares, an audiologist at a private Caracas hospital, said she treats at least a dozen patients every month for hearing damage caused by prolonged exposure to loud noises.

“Many of them work in bars or night clubs, and their maladies usually include temporary hearing loss and headaches,” Mijares said. For others, she said, the day-to-day noise of traffic, car horns and loud music can exacerbate stress and sleeping disorders.

Several cities have successfully reduced noise pollution, said Stephen Stansfeld, a London psychiatry professor and coordinator of the European Network on Noise and Health.

One of the most noteworthy initiatives, Stansfeld said, was in Copenhagen, Denmark, where officials used sound walls, noise-reducing asphalt and other infrastructure as well as public awareness campaigns to fight noise pollution.

But such high-tech solutions seem like a remote possibility in Caracas, where streets are literally falling apart and aging overpasses regularly lack portions of their guard rails. Prosecutors, angry neighbors and others hoping to fight the noise will have to persuade Venezuelans to do nothing less than change their loud behavior.

For Carlos Pinto, however, making noise is practically a political right.

The 26-year-old law student and his friends danced at a recent street party to house music booming from woofers in his car’s open trunk, with neon lights on the speakers that pulsed to the beat.

When asked about the noise, he answered: “We will be heard.”

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AP freelance video journalist Ricardo Nunes contributed to this report.

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Christopher Toothaker on Twitter: http://twitter.com/ctoothaker

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Samsung takes aim at Japanese rivals with Android camera

SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korean consumer electronics giant Samsung Electronics Co is taking aim at its Japanese rivals with an Android-powered digital camera that allows users to swiftly and wirelessly upload pictures to social networking sites.

The Galaxy camera lets users connect to a mobile network or Wi-Fi to share photographs and video without having to hook up the camera to a computer.

While it’s not the first to the market, Samsung‘s financial and marketing clout suggest it could be the biggest threat to Japanese domination of a digital camera industry which research firm Lucintel sees growing to $ 46 billion by 2017 and where big brands include Canon Inc, Sony Corp, Panasonic Corp, Nikon Corp and Olympus Corp.

“Samsung has a tough row to hoe against the likes of Canon and Nikon in the camera brand equity landscape,” said Liz Cutting, senior imaging analyst at research firm NPD Group. “Yet as a brand known more in the connected electronic device arena, Samsung has a unique opportunity to transfer strength from adjacent categories into the dedicated camera world.”

The Korean group, battling for mobile gadget supremacy against Apple Inc, is already a global market leader in televisions, smartphones and memory chips.

Samsung last year brought its camera and digital imaging business – one of its smallest – under the supervision of JK Shin, who heads a mobile business that generated 70 percent of Samsung’s $ 7.4 billion third-quarter profit.

“Our camera business is quickly evolving … and I think it will be able to set a new landmark for Samsung,” Shin said on Thursday at a launch event in Seoul. “The product will open a new chapter in communications – visual communications,” he said, noting good reviews for the Samsung Galaxy camera which went on sale in Europe and the United States earlier this month.

AIMING AT ‘PRO-SUMERS’

The Galaxy camera, which sells in the United States for $ 499.99 through AT&T with various monthly data plans, features a 4.8-inch LCD touchscreen and a 21x optical zoom lens. Users can send photos instantly to other mobile devices via a 4G network, access the Internet, email and social network sites, edit photos and play games.

The easy-to-use camera, and the quality of the pictures, is aimed at mid-market ‘pro-sumers’ – not quite professional photographers but those who don’t mind paying a premium for user options not yet available on a smartphone – such as an optical, rather than digital, zoom, better flash, and image stabilization.

The appeal of high picture quality cameras with wireless connection has grown as social media services such as Facebook Inc drive a boom in rapid shoot-and-share photos.

“At a price point higher than some entry-level interchangeable-lens cameras, the Galaxy camera should appeal to a consumer willing to pay an initial and ongoing premium for 24/7 creative interactivity,” said Cutting.

Traditional digital camera makers are responding.

Canon, considered a leader in profitability in corporate Japan with its aggressive cost cutting, saw its compact camera sales eroded in the most recent quarter by smartphones, and has just introduced its first mirrorless camera to tap into a growing market for small, interchangeable-lens cameras that rival Nikon entered last year.

Nikon has also recently introduced an Android-embedded Wi-Fi only camera.

($ 1 = 1086.4000 Korean won)

(This story fixes typing error in paragraph 9)

(Additional reporting by Dhanya Skariachan in NEW YORK; Editing by Ian Geoghegan)

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