Paper Links Nerve Agents in ’91 Gulf War and Ailments

Reviving a 20-year debate over illnesses of veterans of the 1991 Persian Gulf war, a new scientific paper presents evidence that nerve agents released by the bombing of Iraqi chemical weapons depots just before the ground war began could have carried downwind and fallen on American troops staged in Saudi Arabia.

The paper, published in the journal Neuroepidemiology, tries to rebut the longstanding Pentagon position, supported by many scientists, that neurotoxins, particularly sarin gas, could not have carried far enough to sicken American forces.

The authors are James J. Tuite and Dr. Robert Haley, who has written several papers asserting links between chemical exposures and gulf war illnesses. They assembled data from meteorological and intelligence reports to support their thesis that American bombs were powerful enough to propel sarin from depots in Muthanna and Falluja high into the atmosphere, where winds whisked it hundreds of miles south to the Saudi border.

Once over the American encampments, the toxic plume could have stalled and fallen back to the surface because of weather conditions, the paper says. Though troops would have been exposed to low levels of the agent, the authors assert that the exposures may have continued for several days, increasing their impact.

Though chemical weapons detectors sounded alarms in those encampments in the days after the January 1991 bombing raids, they were viewed as false by many troops, the authors report.

But a significant number of medical experts have cast doubts on the sarin gas theory over the years, and several said Thursday that the new paper did little to change their minds.

Dr. John Bailar, an emeritus professor at the University of Chicago who led a group that studied gulf war illnesses in 1996, said there was still no clear evidence that troops might have been exposed to levels of sarin significant enough to have a biological effect.

Dr. Bailar said that the stress of war rather than chemical agents might be a more likely cause of the veterans’ problems. “Gulf war syndrome is real,” he said, using the term for a constellation of symptoms. “And the veterans who have it deserve appropriate medical care. But we should not kid ourselves about its causes or about the most effective means of treatment.”

Nearly half of the 700,000 service members who were deployed in 1990 and 1991 for the gulf war have filed disability claims with the Department of Veterans Affairs, and more than 85 percent of those have been granted benefits, the department has reported.

Many of those veterans have reported long-lasting problems, including chronic pain, memory loss, persistent fatigue and diarrhea, some of which had no clear causes. Many veterans insist that their problems are not the result of stress but have a biological basis.

Paul Sullivan, a gulf war veteran who has advocated for more research into the illnesses, said the new paper provided “overwhelming scientific evidence” that exposure to chemical agents sickened those troops and that the Department of Veterans Affairs should ensure that all receive health care and benefits.

Panels of medical experts have come down on both sides of the issue, with one group in 2000 questioning whether low levels of sarin could cause long-term health problems and another in 2004 concluding that toxic chemicals had caused neurological damage in many troops.

The Pentagon has acknowledged that the postwar demolition of a chemical weapons depot at Kamisiya, in southern Iraq, may have exposed 100,000 troops to nerve gas. But the military has said it was unlikely that nerve gas caused long-term illnesses in troops, a position it reiterated on Thursday.

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European Leaders Back Banking Regulation but Delay Further Measures

BRUSSELS — E.U. leaders pledged Friday to take further steps to set up common banking rules for the bloc. But they delayed plans for a shared budget for the euro zone nations, amid signs of easing pressure on the single currency.

At the end of a two-day summit meeting, the leaders fully endorsed a deal, hashed out early Thursday by E.U. finance ministers, to place the region’s biggest banks under the supervision of the European Central Bank.

The leaders also agreed on the need to put in place by 2014 a central means for shutting down failing euro zone banks. That policy is aimed at stopping banks from accumulating so much debt that they put the finances of states like Ireland and Spain at risk, in turn threatening the future of the single currency.

But the leaders also appeared to take advantage of the relative calm in financial markets to avoid rushing toward any further central integration of banking in the region.

At a news conference Friday at the end of the meeting, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany brushed off suggestions that leaders were complacent. She acknowledged, however, the ongoing difficulties of pushing 27 different nations to adopt similar fiscal and economic systems in the middle of a period of low growth and high unemployment.

“On the one hand, we have accomplished a lot,” she said. “But we also have tough times ahead of us that can’t be solved with one big step.”

Analysts were mostly unimpressed by the results.

“The E.U. summit failed to deliver any big decisions,” Gizem Kara, an analyst with BNP Paribas, wrote in a research note Friday. “Certainly, some countries — Germany, in particular, with its election in September — may want to postpone major decisions as much as possible.”

Pursuing a more integrated banking framework could entail even more difficult negotiations than in the case of the banking supervisor because it implies that nations share some liability for failing lenders in other countries and that they give up some sovereign rights over how those decisions would be made.

As part of efforts to make it acceptable, the E.U. leaders said the resolution system should receive significant funding by banks, in advance. A financial “backstop” to ensure failing banks do not endanger national finances should be “fiscally neutral over the medium term” and ensure that “public assistance is recouped by means of ex post levies on the financial industry,” the leaders said in their formal conclusions.

But other plans, such as for a grander budget for the euro area, would have to wait amid continuing disagreement on what it should be used for.

France has continued to emphasize the need for a budget to counter economic shocks and better manage unemployment. But Germany wants the money mainly available for countries that carry out painful structural reforms.

Leaders agreed to establish a so-called solidarity fund for euro area countries, which would be limited to between €10 billion and €20 billion, or $13 billion and $26 billion. The fund would be linked to countries signing contracts in exchange for carrying out reforms.

“To me it seems rather intelligent to start with a specific fund dedicated to these contracts for employment, growth and competitiveness, more than waiting for an eventual budget for the euro zone that perhaps will never come,” the French president, François Hollande, said during a news conference Friday.

The current atmosphere of calm still could be broken by events in Italy, where the economy is contracting, debt levels are rising and Silvio Berlusconi, the scandal-tainted former prime minister, has threatened to try to reclaim his old office in an election next year.

It remained unclear Friday whether Mr. Berlusconi would run and, if that were to happen, whether he would campaign on promises to reverse reforms put in place by Mario Monti, the current prime minister.

But leaders are aware that the re-emergence of Mr. Berlusconi — who attended a meeting of center-right parties in Brussels on Thursday — could destabilize markets and even rekindle the financial crisis.

Ms. Merkel praised Mr. Monti during a press conference on Friday, but she said it was not her role to endorse him as a potential candidate. “What Mario Monti and his government have done in recent months has greatly contributed to a growing confidence in Italy,” she said.

Ms. Merkel said she would “not interfere as the head of the German government in the question of who is a candidate in Italy and how the elections are structured there.”

Mr. Hollande also said he did not wish to interfere in internal Italian matters, though he did take a swipe at the former prime minister. “I don’t think Berlusconi is all that serious,” Mr. Hollande told journalists in Brussels. “With him, what’s true one day is not necessarily true the next.”

David Jolly contributed reporting from Paris.

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Angels reportedly agree to deal with outfielder Josh Hamilton

One day after General Manager Jerry Dipoto said he didn’t feel like a major move was "imminent, pressing or required," the Angels reportedly made a major move on Thursday.

ESPN Dallas is reporting that highly sought free-agent outfielder Josh Hamilton has informed the Texas Rangers that he's signing with the Angels.

Multiple reports, the first by Joe McDonnell of Fox Sports West, said the Angels have been in “serious” negotiations with Hamilton on a five-year, $125-million deal, a move that would free up the team to use a young outfielder such as Mark Trumbo or Peter Bourjos in a trade for a pitcher.

Among the possible trade targets under such a scenario would be New York Mets knuckleballer R.A. Dickey, who won the 2012 National League Cy Young Award but has been unable to reach an agreement on a contract extension with the club.

Dipoto has said throughout the winter that he was pleased with his position-playing club, which features slugging first base baseman Albert Pujols and star outfielder Mike Trout, but the addition of the left-handed-hitting Hamilton would provide more balance to a predominantly right-handed-hitting lineup.

Hamilton, 31, was the first overall pick in the 1999 draft by the Tampa Bay Rays, but injuries and an addiction to drugs and alcohol derailed his career for several years beginning in 2001, and he was on baseball’s restricted list from 2003 through 2005.

When he finally reached the big leagues in 2007, Hamilton quickly emerged as a star, batting .304 with 32 home runs and 130 runs batted in for the Rangers in 2008 and winning American League most valuable player honors in 2010, when he hit .359 with 32 homers and 100 RBIs.

Hamilton, who was also being pursued by Texas, Seattle and Philadelphia, hit .285 with 43 homers and 128 RBIs this past season, which included a torrid April in which he hit .395 with nine homers and 25 RBIs and a memorable May 8 game in Baltimore, when he became the 16thplayer in major-league history to hit four home runs in a game.

But after hitting .308 with 27 homers and 75 RBIs in the first half, Hamilton cooled considerably in the second half, hitting .259 with 16 homers and 53 RBIs. He also had a career-high 162 strikeouts on the season, and for much of July, August and September, left-handed pitchers often retired him with ease.

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Companies Inch Closer to NASA Contracts for Manned Spaceflight

Three American companies continue their relentless slog forward to develop a spacecraft designed to carry astronauts to the International Space Station. And this week, NASA awarded contracts focused on working toward certification as part of its goal to once again have the capability to launch astronauts from the U.S. into low earth orbit.

The latest contracts for Boeing, Sierra Nevada Corporation, and SpaceX aim to certify the spacecraft to meet the agency’s safety requirements. All three companies have received previous funding under the Commercial Crew Program (CCP), and according to Phil McAlister, the director of NASA’s Commercial Spaceflight Development Division, the contracts are another step in ending NASA’s reliance on the Russian space program for transporting crews to the ISS.

“NASA and its industry partners are committed to the goal of safely and cost-effectively launching astronauts from home within the next five years,” McAlister said in a statement.

A few of the main safety challenges the companies are facing include launch abort capabilities and creating a spacecraft that can serve as a “safe haven” for the astronauts on board for at least 24 hours. The spacecraft will also have to be able to stay docked to the ISS for at least 210 days.

Both Boeing and SpaceX are developing a more traditional capsule spacecraft design, while Sierra Nevada is developing a lifting body vehicle more comparable to traditional shuttle orbiters.

This latest phase of the CCP will begin in January and continue through mid-2014. All aspects of the space flight are included in the process, ranging from the minutiae of craft itself to mission operations. The open competition will begin in mid-2014 and will include the testing and verifications needed for crewed demonstration flights to the ISS.

Earlier this summer NASA awarded more than $1 billion in funding for the development of the three space-launch systems.

With the demise of the space shuttle and the beginning of the NASA’s invitation for commercially operated services to develop new spacecrafts, the U.S. program has become, well, a bit confusing. And NASA’s love of acronyms has made the programs about as clear as alphabet soup. Both the manned and cargo missions are managed by NASA’s Commercial Crew and Cargo Program Office. And yes, they call it C3PO.

The manned commercial program had seven participants as of last year and has used acronyms including CCP, CCDev2 and CCiCap. That number has now been narrowed down to the three partners participating in these final phases. Though a few companies, including Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, continue to work on their orbital spacecraft designs.

NASA has also awarded commercial contracts for hauling cargo to the ISS. These contracts are separate from the manned program being developed, and use the acronyms COTS and CRS. SpaceX, with its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon spacecrafts, is the only company participating in both the manned and cargo contracts. SpaceX made its first official cargo delivery to the ISS in October, though it was the second time the company had been to the station after a demonstration flight in the spring. Orbital Sciences is the other company awarded a cargo contract and is expected to begin its demonstration flights early next year.

In addition to the two commercial programs NASA will be using to fly people and cargo the ISS, it’s also developing a new manned space program for trips beyond low earth orbit. The Space Launch System will boost the Orion spacecraft for exploration trips to deeper space, and NASA claims the moon and an asteroid are both on the list of destinations for an Orion crew.

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“Lincoln” leads Golden Globe movie nominations

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – “Lincoln,” the tale of U.S. President Abraham Lincoln‘s battle to end slavery, ruled at the Golden Globe nominations on Thursday, while a very different movie take on slavery – “Django Unchained” – got a big boost in Hollywood’s crowded awards season.

Steven Spielberg’s portrayal of one of America’s most revered presidents won a leading seven nominations, including best drama, best director, best screenplay and best actor for Daniel Day-Lewis in the title role.

But “Lincoln” faces stiff competition at the Golden Globes from Ben Affleck’s Iran hostage drama “Argo” and Quentin Tarantino‘s dark and quirky slavery-era Western, “Django Unchained.”

The best drama nominees were rounded out by thriller “Zero Dark Thirty” about the hunt for Osama bin Laden, with four mentions, and the shipwreck tale, “Life of Pi,” with three.

The Golden Globe Awards, which will be given out by about 80 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) on January 13, are among the most widely watched honors programs leading up to the Oscars in February, although their ultimate choices for best movie rarely coincide.

‘LINCOLN’ SEEN AS OSCAR FRONTRUNNER

“Lincoln” is already regarded as an Oscar frontrunner after picking up multiple accolades from U.S. critics’ groups and the Screen Actors Guild (SAG).

Producer Kathleen Kennedy said the film’s portrayal of Lincoln’s battles in Congress to get slavery abolished had struck a chord with Americans at a time of political gridlock in Washington.

“People have become frustrated with the political process, and the movie takes you on a journey that shows the democratic process is difficult but the end result is a very satisfying process…I think that’s what people are excited about after watching ‘Lincoln,’” Kennedy told Reuters on Thursday.

Tarantino’s violent and sometimes comic “Django Unchained,” starring Jamie Foxx, has fared less well – until now.

“This was a huge boost. ‘Django Unchained‘ was very much SAG snubbed. But now they are really back in the game,” Thelma Adams, contributing editor at Yahoo! Movies, told Reuters.

“It’s very gratifying to get this many nominations from the HFPA for a film I worked so hard on and am so passionate about,” Tarantino said in a statement.

Unlike the Academy Awards, the HFPA has separate categories for film dramas and comedies.

“Les Miserables,” the movie version of the worldwide hit stage musical, earned four Golden Globe nominations in the comedy/musical category, as did “Silver Linings Playbook,” about an unlikely romance between a man suffering from bipolar disorder and a young widow.

The stars of both films – Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway for “Les Miserables,” and Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper for “Silver Linings Playbook,” – will be among those competing for acting awards.

FROM STAGE TO SCREEN

“Les Mis” director, Tom Hooper, who failed to get a nomination for his work on the movie, acknowledged the challenge of translating the beloved musical to the big screen.

“Millions of people hold this musical so close to their heart. I had to make a film that honors that experience…and I needed to find a way to work, which is why I chose to do all live singing,” Hooper told Reuters.

The HFPA also opened the door to smaller, sometimes overlooked movies and performances, while largely snubbing high profile contenders such as the James Bond film “Skyfall,” which got just one mention, for Adele’s best original song.

Wes Anderson’s “Moonrise Kingdom” and admired British senior ensemble film, “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel,” were both nominated in the best musical or comedy category.

“They are precious little films that now have to be taken seriously,” said Tom O’Neil of awards website Goldderby.com.

In the acting race, Jessica Chastain’s CIA agent in “Zero Dark Thirty” will square off against Helen Mirren in “Hitchcock,” British actress Rachel Weisz in period drama, “The Deep Blue Sea,” France’s Marion Cotillard for “Rust and Bone,” and Naomi Watts in tsunami survival tale “The Impossible.”

Chastain said that aside from being a true-life thriller, “Zero Dark Thirty” also aimed at asking questions about society.

“To be involved in a movie that does that – the 9/11 hunt for Osama bin Laden pretty much defined this decade for us – and to be playing the woman who sacrificed so much to find him is such an honor,” the actress told Reuters.

Day-Lewis’s performance as Lincoln will compete against Denzel Washington’s alcoholic airline pilot in “Flight,” Richard Gere’s role as a corrupt financial executive in “Arbitrage,” John Hawkes as a severely disabled man in “The Sessions,” and Joaquin Phoenix’s drifter in the cult tale, “The Master.”

The Golden Globes also honor the year’s best TV shows. “Game Change,” the HBO film about Sarah Palin’s 2008 bid to become U.S. vice-president, led the nominations with five, followed by post-9/11 psychological thriller, “Homeland,” with four.

(Additional reporting by Piya Sinha-Roy and Eric Kelsey; Editing by Paul Simao and David Brunnstrom)

Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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World’s Population Living Longer, New Report Suggests

A sharp decline in deaths from malnutrition and diseases like measles and tuberculosis has caused a shift in global mortality patterns over the past 20 years, according to a new report, with far more of the world’s population now living into old age and dying from diseases more associated with rich countries, like cancer and heart disease.

The shift reflects improvements in sanitation, medical services and access to food throughout the developing world, as well as the success of broad public health efforts like vaccine programs. The results are dramatic: infant mortality has declined by more than half between 1990 and 2010, and malnutrition, the No. 1 risk factor for death and years of life lost in 1990, has fallen to No. 8.

At the same time, chronic diseases like cancer now account for about two out of every three deaths worldwide, up from just over half in 1990. Eight million people died of cancer in 2010, 38 percent more than in 1990. Diabetes claimed 1.3 million lives in 2010, double the number in 1990.

But while developing countries made big strides – the average age of death in Brazil and Paraguay, for example, jumped to 63 in 2010, up from 28 in 1970 – the United States stagnated. American women registered the smallest gains in life expectancy of all high-income countries between 1990 and 2010. The two years of life they gained was less than in Cyprus, where women gained 2.3 years of life and Canada, where women gained 2.4 years. The slow increase caused American women to fall to 36th place in the report’s global ranking of life expectancy, down from 22nd in 1990.

“It’s alarming just how little progress there has been for women in the United States,” said Christopher Murray, director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, a health research organizationfinanced by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation at the University of Washington that coordinated the report. Rising rates of obesity among American women and the legacy of smoking, a habit women in this country formed later than men, are among the factors contributing to the stagnation, he said.

The World Health Organization issued a statement Thursday saying that some of the estimates in the report differ substantially from those done by United Nations agencies, though others are similar. All comprehensive estimates of global mortality rely heavily on statistical modeling because only 34 countries – representing about 15 percent of the world’s population – produce quality cause-of-death data.

Health experts from more than 300 institutions contributed to the report, which measured disease and mortality for populations in more than 180 countries. It was published Thursday in the Lancet, a British health publication.

The one exception to the trend was sub-Saharan Africa, where infectious diseases, childhood illnesses and maternal causes of death still account for about 70 percent of all illness. In contrast, they account for just one-third in South Asia, and less than a fifth in all other regions. Sub-Saharan Africa also lagged in mortality gains, with the average age of death there rising by fewer than 10 years from 1970 to 2010, compared to a more than 25-year increase in Latin America, Asia and North Africa.

The change means that people are living longer, an outcome that public health experts praised. But it also raises troubling questions. Behavior affects people’s risks of developing noncommunicable diseases like cancer, heart disease and diabetes, and public health experts say it is far harder to get people to change their ways than to administer a vaccine that protects children from an infectious disease like measles.

“Adult mortality is a much harder task for the public health systems in the world,” said Colin Mathers, a senior scientist at the World Health Organization in Geneva. “It’s not something that medical services can address as easily.”

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Oregon shooter ID'd; he wielded AR-15, sparking chaos -- but why?

The gunman who killed two people and himself in a shooting rampage at an Oregon mall was 22 years old and used a stolen rifle

By Michael Muskal and Andrew Khouri

December 12, 2012, 11:07 a.m.

A young masked man, bent on a mission of destruction and death, entered an Oregon mall and opened fire, turning the holiday shopping season into a chaotic horror that could have been much worse, police officials said Wednesday.

Police identified the shooter as Jacob Tyler Roberts, 22, who killed two people and seriously wounded a third before turning a weapon on himself and ending his life Tuesday afternoon, officials said.

The man entered the Clackamas Town Center, a popular suburban mall several miles from downtown Portland, on Tuesday afternoon. He was wearing a hockey-style mask and a protective vest and began firing with an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle, stolen from someone the suspect knew, police said. There were also several magazines of ammunition.

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PHOTOS: Deadly shooting at Oregon mall

Police said it was unclear how many shots were fired, but there were estimates of between 10 to 20 shots before Roberts turned the weapon on himself.

Police were still searching for a motive but have ruled out the idea that the shooter was specifically targeting anyone.

“We do not understand the motive of this attack,” Clackamas County Sheriff Craig Roberts said at a televised news conference. “There is no apparent relationship between suspect and victims.”

People at the mall helped push shoppers out of the building, according to a variety of videos shot on cellphones by some of the shoppers fleeing. Shoppers, including two emergency room nurses and one physician who happened to be at the mall, provided medical assistance to victims who had been shot, Roberts said.

He praised the 10,000 shoppers “who kept a level head, got themselves out of the mall, got others out. There are a number of heroes,” Roberts told reporters. “There is a whole group of people coming together to make a difference.”

While saying that the deaths and injuries were tragedies, Roberts noted: “We all need to be very thankful that this incident was not much worse.”

It was a typical shopping day some two weeks before Christmas as more than 10,000 people crowded through the stores at the mall with more than 1.4 million square feet of commercial space. It was 3:29 p.m. when the first call went to 911, police said.

TIMELINE: Deadliest U.S. mass shootings

“For all of us, the mall is supposed to be a place where we can take our families, especially during the holiday season,” Roberts said earlier on televised interviews. “Things like this are not supposed to happen.”

Witnesses told reporters of seeing a masked man carrying a long gun through the Macy’s toward the mall’s food court. Austin Patty, 20, who works at Macy's, told the Associated Press. There was a series of rapid-fire shots in short succession as Christmas music played, he said. Patty said he dove for the floor and then later fled.

The mall’s Santa, Brance Wilson, told reporters he was waiting for the next child to ask for Christmas presents when he heard shots ring out and the mall erupted into chaos.

“I heard two shots and got out of the chair. I thought a red suit was a pretty good target,” said Wilson, 68.

Families waiting for Santa scattered. More shots followed, and Wilson said he sought better cover.

Witnesses said they heard the gunman yell, “I am the shooter.”

More than 100 law enforcement officers responded to the scene, and at least four local agencies were working on the investigation, including the FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which is working to trace the shooter's weapon.

At his news conference, the sheriff said the rapid and large turnout helped keep the body count low by limiting the shooter’s ability to move around.

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Eric Schmidt Says Google Fiber Won't Stop With Kansas City

Kansas City is just the first stop for Google’s ultra-fast Google Fiber broadband network, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt said today.

Speaking at The New York Times‘ Dealbook Conference on Wednesday, Schmidt corrected himself after initially referring to the first, and thus far only, Google Fiber network as an experiment.

“It’s actually not an experiment; we’re actually running it as a business,” Schmidt said. He described the influx of bandwidth hungry startups to the parts of Kansas City where the fiber has been laid and hinted at expansion of the service to “hopefully more cities.”

Sadly, Schmidt dodged the all-important question of where. “We’re trying to decide now,” he said.

There will be no lack of places dying to get the service, especially after Netflix just designated Google Fiber the “most consistently fast ISP in America.” The average speed in November of Netflix streaming over Google Fiber was 2.55 megabits per second. Second place was Verizon’s own fiber network at 2.19 megabits per second.

Still, just calling Google Fiber a business doesn’t mean it will be a viable one.

A recent report from Goldman Sachs highlighted by Business Insiderestimated that bringing the service to 50 million homes, or less than half of all U.S. homes, could cost as much as $70 billion. In its most recent quarter, Google had about $45 billion in cash on hand. In other words, Google would need to borrow money to embark on a massive fiber build out.

Is that really the business Google wants to be in? Not likely, at least not at that expense and scale. Google’s bread-and-butter is still its online advertising business, and its nascent content business. But if it turns out Google Fiber helps Google sell more (and more valuable) ads and content, that gives Schmidt’s comments a bit more weight. Google can justify funding a modest expansion of Google Fiber. Will it blanket the nation? Probably not. But just ask those happy Kansas City web heads; there’s always the chance your neighborhood could get lucky.

Michael V. Copeland is a senior editor at WIRED, where he focuses on all things related to the business of technology, but especially making sense of data analytics, where social is going next, and the collision between computer science and biological science. Prior to WIRED he was a senior writer at Fortune Magazine covering everything from electric cars to genomics and the latest in jet-powered surfboards.

Read more by Michael V. Copeland

Follow @MVC on Twitter.

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Why Netflix’s future is in “House of Cards,” “Arrested Development” – not Disney

LOS ANGELES/NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) – Netflix hailed as a “game-changer” its landmark deal last week to bring Disney movies to the streaming service. But while that deal may be significant, it pales in importance next to another looming development – the February debut of its original series “House of Cards.”

The economic benefits of the Disney deal, which gives the company streaming rights to much of Disney‘s catalog and straight-to-DVD movies as well as the exclusive rights to the studio’s new movies from 2016 to 2018, won’t be felt for years.

But the rollout of new, made-for-Netflix shows, which moves the company into a game owned by broadcast and cable – and follows a model set by everyone from HBO to AMC – will be a near-term bellwether of the company’s future success, analysts and observers say.

“You don’t identify a movie you watch on TV with a channel, but you definitely identify an original series with a channel,” Michael Pachter, an analyst with Wedbush Securities, told TheWrap. “What Netflix is doing with its original series is getting something exclusive that makes you have to go to Netflix if you want to see it. It’s branding.”

They include the long-awaited rebirth of cult favorite “Arrested Development” and original pieces like Eli Roth’s “Hemlock Grove,” Jenji Kohan’s “Orange Is the New Black” and “House of Cards,” from director David Fincher and starring Kevin Spacey.

Like “Lilyhammer,” all episodes of the shows’ first seasons will be released at once, allowing for binge viewing by Netflix subscribers.

The Disney deal is momentous in that it marks the first time a digital pay-TV distributor has earned exclusive rights to a major studio’s new releases. Both analysts and studio executives say Netflix will pay more than $ 300 million a year for those rights, a startling sum for a company that has minimized the importance of films. Netflix has declined to discuss any figures.

Some analysts argue the Disney deal is a positive development, but one that will not move the needle when it comes to attracting new members.

“Netflix customers will like it when Disney movies show up, but not many people will want to sign up for Netflix because they have 15 new movies a year I want to see,” Pachter said.

That’s why Netflix bankrolled “Arrested Development,” a show canceled by Fox in 2006 that still has a small but loyal audience, one that will assuredly watch the new season on Netflix. That’s also why it has invested in so many new shows from established artists like Kohan, who created “Weeds,” and Roth, a successful horror filmmaker.

While the company’s first foray into original programming – Steven Van Zandt’s “Lilyhammer” – didn’t make much of a splash, the new shows debuting next year look far more promising.

It also has committed a reported $ 100 million for two seasons of “House of Cards,” as well as offering complete creative freedom to Fincher and his team.

The money the streaming service spends on its own shows is a pittance compared to what it shells out in licensing deals, but that original content will distinguish Netflix from competitors in broadcast, like HBO, and in digital, like Amazon.

“Everybody is trying to get their brand to the top of people’s minds, and sometimes that requires a substantial expenditure and doing something different, like original production,” Bill Carroll, vice president and director of programming at Katz Television Group, told TheWrap.

More than any of its competitors in the streaming-video market, Netflix is attempting to transform itself into a digitized form of HBO, which began by airing studio movies.

HBO later added lower-cost programming, such as stand-up comedy shows, and eventually original series and films. Showtime, Starz and others soon followed.

Because it is not locked into a schedule, Netflix can host an unlimited amount of programming and owns a wealth of information about its subscribers to tailor its offerings to specific viewers and track their success.

Figuring out just what constitutes a “hit,” however, will be difficult. As it has with previous original shows like “Lilyhammer,” Netflix will not release viewing numbers for its upcoming shows. The company stresses that immediate viewing is less important than developing a loyal following over time.

As for the Disney deal, Netflix already had rights to films from that studio and Sony under an agreement with Starz, which in September 2011 opted not to renew its deal.

“They got something they used to have and had to pay a lot more money for it,” Seth Willenson, a library-valuation expert, producer and former studio executive told TheWrap.

So what changed? Exclusivity.

Disney’s new releases will appear on Netflix during the same window when they would have been showing on an HBO or another pay channel. It also means that new rivals, such as Amazon and Hulu Plus, won’t be getting the latest “Avengers” sequel at the same time – or the upcoming series of new “Star Wars” films.

“The argument is that what they are getting now from Disney will only be on Netflix,” Vasily Karasyov, an analyst with Susquehanna told TheWrap. “What they were getting before was only on Starz. It’s more exclusive. They are trying to do what Starz did in the ’90s and buy up rights and put it on the map.”

At the UBS conference last week in New York, Chief Creative Officer Ted Sarandos teased the possibility of pursuing exclusive deals with more studios as well.

This new attraction to movies represents a change of tune for the Los Altos, Calif.-based company. After all, Netflix has been publicly dismissive in recent months of film’s importance to its service, stressing its viewers’ penchant for binge-watching television shows, like AMC’s “Breaking Bad” and “Mad Men.”

About 60 percent of Netflix viewing time is spent on TV, a number that has only grown in recent years. Exclusivity increasingly motivates its decision-making on the TV side as well, which is one reason it allowed its deal with A&E Networks to expire in September, taking shows like “Storage Wars” and “Hoarders” off Netflix.

And nothing is more exclusive than content you fund yourself.

“It wants content unique to its platform,” Karasyov said. “No one says, ‘Come to my website because we have the same stuff everyone else does.’”

TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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The New Old Age: The Gift of Reading

This is the year of the tablet, David Pogue of The Times has told us, and that may be good news for seniors who open holiday wrappings to find one tucked inside. They see better with tablets’ adjustable type size, new research shows. Reading becomes easier again.

This may seem obvious — find me someone over 40 who doesn’t see better when fonts are larger — but it’s the business of science to test our assumptions.

Dr. Daniel Roth, an eye specialist and clinical associate professor at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick, N.J., offered new evidence of tablets’ potential benefits last month at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Ophthalmology.

His findings, based on tests conducted with 66 adults age 50 and over: older people read faster (a mean reading speed of 128 words per minute) when using an iPad, compared to a newspaper with the same 10-point font size (114 words per minute).

When the font was increased to 18 points — easy to do on an iPad — reading speed increased to 137 words per minute.

“If you read more slowly, it’s tedious,” Dr. Roth said, explaining why reading speed is important. “If you can read more fluidly, it’s more comfortable.”

What makes the real difference, Dr. Roth theorizes, is tablets’ illuminated screen, which heightens contrast between words and the background on which they sit.

Contrast sensitivity — the visual ability to differentiate between foreground and background information — becomes poorer as we age, as does the ability to discriminate fine visual detail, notes Dr. Kevin Paterson, a psychologist at the University of Leicester, who recently published a separate study on why older people struggle to read fine print.

“There are several explanations for the loss of sensitivity to fine detail that occurs with older age,” Dr. Paterson explained in an e-mail. “This may be due to greater opacity of the fluid in the eye, which will scatter incoming light and reduce the quality of the projection of light onto the retina. It’s also hypothesized that changes in neural transmission affect the processing of fine visual detail.”

Combine these changes with a greater prevalence of eye conditions like macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy in older adults, and you get millions of people who cannot easily do what they have done all their lives — read and stay connected to the world of ideas, imagination and human experience.

“The No. 1 complaint I get from older patients is that they love to read but can’t, and this really bothers them,” Dr. Roth said. The main option has been magnifying glasses, which many people find cumbersome and inconvenient.

Some words of caution are in order. First, Dr. Roth’s study has not been published yet; it was presented as a poster at the scientific meeting and publicized by the academy, but it has not yet gone through comprehensive, rigorous peer review.

Second, Dr. Roth’s study was completed before the newest wave of tablets from Microsoft, Google, Samsung and others became available. The doctor made no attempt to compare different products, with one exception. In the second part of his study, he compared results for the iPad with those for a Kindle. But it was not an apples to apples comparison, because the Kindle did not have a back-lit screen.

This section of his study involved 100 adults age 50 and older who read materials in a book, on an iPad and on the Kindle. Book readers recorded a mean reading speed of 187 words per minute when the font size was set at 12; Kindle readers clocked in at 196 words per minute and iPad readers at 224 words per minute at the same type size. Reading speed improved even more drastically for a subset of adults with the poorest vision.

Again, Apple’s product came out on top, but that should not be taken as evidence that it is superior to other tablets with back-lit screens and adjustable font sizes. Both the eye academy and Dr. Roth assert that they have no financial relationship with Apple. My attempts to get in touch with the company were not successful.

A final cautionary note should be sounded. Some older adults find digital technology baffling and simply do not feel comfortable using it. For them, a tablet may sit on a shelf and get little if any use.

Others, however, find the technology fascinating. If you want to see an example that went viral on YouTube, watch this video from 2010 of Virginia Campbell, then 99 years old, and today still going strong at the Mary’s Woods Retirement Community in Lake Oswego, Ore.

Ms. Campbell’s glaucoma made it difficult for her to read, and for her the iPad was a blessing, as she wrote in this tribute quoted in an article in The Oregonian newspaper:

To this technology-ninny it’s clear
In my compromised 100th year,
That to read and to write
Are again within sight
Of this Apple iPad pioneer

Caregivers might be delighted — as Ms. Campbell’s daughter was — by older relatives’ response to this new technology, a potential source of entertainment and engagement for those who can negotiate its demands. Or, they might find that old habits die hard and that their relatives continue to prefer a book or newspaper they can hold in their hands to one that appears on a screen.

Which reading enhancement products have you used, and what experiences have you had?

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