Undefeated: No. 4 Ohio State over No. 20 UM, 26-21

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Ohio State doesn't get to play in a bowl game.

But the Buckeyes have a sweet victory to carry them through a cold winter.

Carlos Hyde ran for 146 yards and No. 4 Ohio State's defense shut out 20th-ranked Michigan in the second half to grab a bruising 26-21 win on Saturday, completing an improbable 12-0 season for the Buckeyes.

Almost no one — up to and including first-year head coach Urban Meyer — expected such a rapid turnaround for the Buckeyes, who were just 6-7 last season with a loss to their archrivals in a transitional year when they were facing heavy NCAA penalties. A month after Meyer took the job last November, they were socked with a bowl ban after this season — and still ran the table.

Ohio State (12-0, 8-0 Big Ten) is ineligible for a BCS national title but still has an outside shot at finishing No. 1 in the final Associated Press Top 25 if other contenders lose. Michigan (8-4, 6-2) will now await a minor bowl bid.

Drew Basil matched his season output with four field goals and the defense did the rest, forcing three turnovers in the second half.

It was played before 105,899, the largest crowd ever to witness "The Game" in Columbus.

Meyer and his players were mobbed by thousands of fans who flooded the field after the Buckeyes' ninth victory in the last 11 years in the rivalry (the 2010 win was later vacated by the sanctions).

"It'll go down as one of the great teams in Ohio State history," Meyer exulted after the game.

Hyde also ran for a touchdown. Braxton Miller completed 14 of 18 passes for 189 yards and a score to Corey Brown, who had eight catches for 95 yards.

The Buckeyes had already clinched the Big Ten's Leaders Division, but aren't allowed to play in next Saturday's conference title game. Michigan needed a win to capture a share of the Legends Division with Nebraska, which will meet Wisconsin for the championship.

Now, about Ohio State can hope for is every other top team in the nation — including the only other unbeaten, top-ranked Notre Dame — to lose and lose badly in the coming weeks. A team banned from the postseason has never finished No. 1 in the AP Top 25 poll, and the Buckeyes are not eligible for the Bowl Championship Series rankings or coaches' poll.

Michigan's Denard Robinson had a brilliant first half but was largely invisible in the second. He totaled 122 yards on 10 carries, but had lost 2 yards on his four carries after halftime.

Devin Gardner, the other half of Michigan's quarterback tandem, was 11 of 20 for 171 yards with an interception and a touchdown pass.

For the Buckeyes, the game will be remembered for the staunch defense played when most needed. Michigan had 26 plays for 219 yards in first half, then ran 21 plays for a net of 60 yards in the second.

For the Wolverines, there will be lingering questions for coach Brady Hoke, who wore short sleeves in the freezing temperatures — just like Woody Hayes used to during the 1960s and 1970s in the rivalry.

With his team ahead 21-20, Hoke called timeout on fourth and 2 near midfield on Michigan's first possession of the second half. Robinson then ran up the middle, but ran into linebacker Ryan Shazier for a two-yard loss.

That cost the Wolverines the lead as Ohio State drove to the Michigan 11 before settling for Basil's 28-yard field goal, putting the Buckeyes up 23-21.

The teams traded possessions and turnovers for the next 12 minutes. Robinson fumbled after Bradley Roby's helmet hit the ball on a tackle, with Nathan Williams recovering for the Buckeyes.

Early in the fourth quarter, Miller was sacked on third and 9 at the Michigan 28 and coughed up the ball to Frank Clark.

But in each case the other team didn't take advantage.

The Buckeyes drove to a second and 1 at the Michigan 4 but a sack and a high snap preceded Basil missing a 39-yard field goal attempt.

The Wolverines lost 2 yards on third and 1 and were forced to punt after Miller's fumble.

Ohio State did pick up points on its next chance after a turnover.

Gardner fumbled when hit by Johnathan Hankins with 8:19 left, with Travis Howard pouncing on the loose ball after several players had a shot at it. Taking over at the Wolverines' 10, the Buckeyes could not move the ball and were forced to settle for Basil's fourth field goal of the game, a 25-yarder with 6:26 remaining, for a 26-21 lead.

That matched Basil's production the entire season. He came into the game 4 for 6 on the year.

Gardner then tossed a floater that was intercepted by C.J. Barnett, ending the Wolverines final threat as Hyde carried the ball repeatedly and the Buckeyes played keep-away to the finish.

The Buckeyes, who were without captain and top quarterback-sacker John Simon, appeared to grab control early. They scored on the opening possession, with Miller's 52-yard, play-action pass to Devin Smith setting up Hyde's 3-yard plunge.

Michigan came right back and drove to the Ohio State 22 but on third and 8 Adolphus Washington — playing because Simon was out — stripped the ball as Gardner was passing, with Zach Boren recovering.

But the Wolverines forced a punt and then needed just three plays to cover 83 yards with Gardner tossing a short pass in front of the Michigan bench to Roy Roundtree, who straight-armed Barnett and sped down the sideline accompanied by teammate Drew Dileo. The 75-yard pass play was Michigan's longest of the season.

With Miller hitting all five of his passes, the Buckeyes were stymied by three penalties in four plays and had to settle for Basil's 41-yard field goal.

Brown muffed a punt catch that was recovered by Marvin Robinson for Michigan and the Wolverines were right back in business at the Ohio State 25. On the sixth play, Gardner kept for the short TD and a 14-10 lead.

Michigan took over at its own 25 with 90 seconds left. Robinson followed two fullbacks around left end for an eight-yard gain and it appeared Hoke might just be content with running out the clock. But on second down, Robinson followed a convoy around the right side. Ohio State defensive backs Christian Bryant and Travis Howard arrived at the exact same instant, colliding while Robinson popped free. He raced untouched the rest of the way on the 67-yard TD, the 91st touchdown he has accounted for in his glittering career to pass Chad Henne for the school record.

Between the first and second quarters, Ohio State honored its 2002 national championship team. After a highlight clip was shown to a roaring crowd, several players hoisted coach Jim Tressel to their shoulders and carried him out of the end zone.

No boos were heard, or else they were drowned out — even though it was Tressel's NCAA violations which will keep this year's unbeaten Buckeyes home in the postseason.

___

Follow Rusty Miller on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/rustymillerap

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Nintendo’s Wii U Takes Aim at a Changed Video Game World

REDMOND, Wash.

TUCKED in the woods here, west of State Route 520, is a little piece of the Mario Kingdom.

Behind the unassuming doors is the business built by Mario, the pudgy plumber, and Luigi, his lanky brother, as well as characters like Link, wielder of the mystical Master Sword, and Princess Zelda, of the royal family of Hyrule. All of them, and more, are the pixelated children of Shigeru Miyamoto, the Walt Disney of video games and creative genius of the Nintendo Company of Japan.

But while Mr. Miyamoto is dreaming his dreams across the Pacific, an army of marketing types is at work here in Redmond, inside the shiny new headquarters of Nintendo of America. This palace of play is quiet, but there’s trouble brewing in the world around it: three decades after the mustachioed Mario burst into arcades via Donkey Kong, plucking countless quarters from people’s pockets, the kingdom is under siege.

Nintendo’s enemies have arrived by battalions. Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja and other inexpensive, downloadable games, particularly for cellphones and tablets, have invaded its turf. Changing tastes and technology have called into question the economics of traditional game consoles, whether from Nintendo or Microsoft, maker of the Xbox. Nintendo recently posted the first loss in its era as a video games company, a prospect that would have been unimaginable only a few years ago. And while game consoles aren’t going away, analysts are skeptical that the business will regain its former stature soon.

All of which makes Nintendo’s next move, and what is happening here, so crucial. Nintendo counterattacked on Nov. 18, when a new version of its Wii game console arrived in stores nationwide.

The original Wii, the first wireless, motion-capturing console, was nothing less than revolutionary. The simplicity of its controller, which Mr. Miyamoto helped design, attracted new audiences like women and older people. Customers lined up in stores for it — and then it simply faded. Now, the new console, the Wii U, may be Nintendo’s last, best hope for regaining its former glory. Executives are hoping for a holiday hit, and perhaps even another runaway success.

Initial demand appears high. GameStop, the video game retailer, opened 3,000 stores at midnight on Thursday for Black Friday sales, and before long almost all its Wii Us were sold out, according to Tony Bartel, GameStop’s president. “I think people are starving for innovation, and Wii U is giving them that innovation," Mr. Bartel says. 

THE Wii U is a recognition that the living room is no longer the province of a single screen. More people, particularly the young, now watch TV with a smartphone or tablet in hand, the better to tweet a touchdown or update their Facebook status during a commercial. The Wii U looks like a mash-up of an iPad and a traditional console, with a touch screen embedded in the middle. It’s no mere festival of joysticks, buttons and triggers.

But will it be the blowout that Nintendo needs? Many industry veterans and game reviewers are skeptical. They question whether the Wii U can be as successful as the original, now that many gamers have moved on to more abundant, cheaper and more convenient mobile games.

“I actually am baffled by it,” Nolan K. Bushnell, the founder of Atari and the godfather of the games business, says of the Wii U. “I don’t think it’s going to be a big success.”

The bigger question is what the future holds for any of the major game systems, including new ones that Sony and Microsoft are expected to release next year. Echoing other industry veterans, Mr. Bushnell says that consoles are already delivering remarkable graphics and that few but the most hard-core players will be willing to pay hundreds of dollars for a new game box.

“These things will continue to sputter along, but I really don’t think they’ll be of major import ever again,” he says. “It feels like the end of an era to me.”

Nintendo is unbowed. Mr. Miyamoto was involved in developing the original Wii, and had a role in the Wii U as well. He rarely gives interviews, and was unavailable for comment for this article.

But one recent evening in Redmond, Corey Olcsvary, a Nintendo product marketing specialist, was slashing his fingers across the touch screen on the GamePad, as the Wii U controller is called, casting “throwing stars” at a ninja gang that sprang from the corners of a giant TV screen. In another game, a group of players chased Mario — one of the most popular video game characters ever — around a maze shown on a TV while Mr. Olcsvary stared at a bird’s-eye view of the maze on his GamePad and tried to help Mario dodge his pursuers. The players shouted when they caught sight of Mario’s red overalls and cheered when they tackled him.

Starting in December, people will also be able to use the GamePad as a remote control to set recordings and change channels on their cable and satellite TV services.

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Protests Erupt After Egypt’s Leader Seizes New Power

CAIRO — Opponents of President Mohamed Morsi were reported to have set fire to his party’s offices in several Egyptian cities on Friday in a spasm of protest and clashes after he granted himself broad powers above any court declaring himself the guardian of Egypt‘s revolution, and used his new authority to order the retrial of Hosni Mubarak.

Maya Alleruzzo/Associated Press

Egyptian protesters chanted antigovernment slogans and waved a national flag in Tahrir Square on Friday.

In the Mediterranean city of Alexandria, the opponents of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party clashed with followers of Mr. Morsi, an Islamist, who won Western and regional plaudits only days ago for brokering a cease-fire to halt eight days of lethal exchanges between Israeli forces and militants in the Gaza Strip.

Mr. Morsi, Egypt’s first democratically elected president, portrayed his decree assuming the new powers as an attempt to fulfill popular demands for justice and protect the transition to a constitutional democracy. He said it was necessary to overcome gridlock and competing interests. But the unexpected breadth of the powers he seized raised immediate fears that he might become a new strongman.

“We are, God willing, moving forward, and no one stands in our way,” Reuters quoted Mr. Morsi as saying on Friday said in a suburban mosque here after Friday prayers.

“I fulfill my duties to please God and the nation and I take decisions after consulting with everyone,” he said. “Victory does not come without a clear plan and this is what I have.”

He spoke as state television reported that his party’s offices in the Suez Canal cities of Suez, Port Said and Ismailia had been burned as his foes rampaged. Thousands of people protesting Mr. Morsi’s power grab gathered in Tahrir Square here — the focal point of protests that, last year, swept away Mr. Mubarak. Elsewhere in the capital, the president’s supporters massed in even larger numbers outside the presidential palace where Mr. Morsi said his aim was “to achieve political, social and economic stability.”

“I am for all Egyptians. I will not be biased against any son of Egypt,” he said on a stage outside the presidential palace, Reuters, reported, adding he was working for social and economic stability. “Opposition in Egypt does not worry me, but it has to be real and strong,” he said.

Sounding defensive at times and employing some of the language favored by his autocratic predecessor, Mr. Morsi justified his power grab as necessary to move Egypt’s revolution forward.

“The people wanted me to be the guardian of these steps in this phase,” he said, reminding his audience that he was freely elected after a contest “that the whole world has witnessed.”

“I don’t like, and don’t want — and there is no need — to use exceptional measures,” he said. “But those who are trying to gnaw the bones of the nation,” he added, “must be held accountable.”

News reports said clashes spread from Alexandria to the southern city of Assyut. But the severity of the clashes was not immediately clear.

Mr. Morsi’s new powers prompted one prominent adversary, Mohamed ElBaradei, to say on Twitter: “Morsi today usurped all state powers & appointed himself Egypt’s new pharaoh.”

“An absolute presidential tyranny,” Amr Hamzawy, a liberal member of the dissolved Parliament and prominent political scientist, wrote in an online commentary. “Egypt is facing a horrifying coup against legitimacy and the rule of law and a complete assassination of the democratic transition.”

Mr. Morsi issued the decree on Thursday at a high point in his five-month-old presidency, when he was basking in praise from the White House and around the world for his central role in negotiating a cease-fire that the previous night had stopped the fighting in the Gaza Strip.

But his political opponents immediately called for demonstrations on Friday to protest his new powers. “Passing a revolutionary demand within a package of autocratic decisions is a setback for the revolution,” Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, a more liberal former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood and a former presidential candidate, wrote online. And the chief of the Supreme Constitutional Court indicated that it did not accept the decree.

In Washington on Thursday, the State Department spokeswoman, Victoria Nuland, released a statement saying: “The decisions and declarations announced on November 22 raise concerns form many Egyptians and the international community,” and noting that “one of the aspirations of the revolution was to ensure that power would not be overly concentrated in that hands of any one person or institution.” The statement called for resolution “through democratic dialogue.”

David D. Kirkpatrick and Kareem Fahim reported from Cairo and Alan Cowell from Paris. Mayy El Sheikh contributed reporting.

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Fired colleague of UBS rogue trader Adoboli opens betting site

LONDON (Reuters) – A former senior trader at UBS, sacked for failing to prevent colleague Kweku Adoboli from perpetrating the biggest fraud in British history, has set up a gambling website.

In a decision likely to be seized upon by critics who say traders have often made casino-style bets, John Hughes started his gambling firm even though his website said his old job had “removed all sense of optimism from his character”.

Adoboli, his former subordinate now serving seven years in jail for running up losses of $ 2.3 billion, argued during his trial that his own behavior was the result of a risky trading culture encouraged by senior colleagues, and his lawyers alleged that Hughes had played a major role in “off-book” trading.

Hughes admitted he had known of Adoboli’s scheme to hide his giant losses and that he had booked several fictitious trades himself, but denied knowledge of some of Adoboli’s biggest multi-billion dollar trades.

Hughes said he had chosen to call his new gambling website ‘BetsofMates’, a play on the expression “Best of Mates”.

That may grate with Adoboli who complained that his colleagues, including Hughes, had “sold me down the river” after a meeting at which he said it was decided he alone would carry the can for the huge losses.

Hughes and the others said they had no memory of such a meeting.

“We’re not a standard bookie,” Hughes said of his new website, which enables users to play against each other in leagues, with each player placing bets of between two and 200 pounds.

“We facilitate competition. The emphasis is a lot more on competition than yield enhancement,” he told Reuters on Thursday.

The former senior trader on the Exchange Traded Funds desk at UBS in London said Adoboli’s conviction was “just incredibly sad”. He declined to comment further.

Despite a large salary and bonus, Adoboli was himself an avid gambler and lost 123,000 pounds ($ 200,000) on spread-betting in the year before his arrest.

One prosecutor accused him of being addicted to gambling to which Adoboli countered that spread-betting was common among City traders “like a taxi driver driving his own taxi home”.

Hughes’ profile on his new firm’s website says that “seven years in the City (had) removed all sense of optimism from his character, and made him absurdly superstitious.”

He told Reuters such feelings had arisen “sitting there watching the markets for seven years and watching different news hit the tapes and obviously the last seven years haven’t been the easiest in the financial markets.”

Britain’s Gambling Commission granted a license to his pool betting company ‘Bets of Mates Limited’, which is registered to an East London address, in September 2012, two months before Adoboli was convicted.

(Editing by Andrew Osborn)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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NHL cancels games through Dec. 14, All-Star game

NEW YORK (AP) — The NHL has called off all games through Dec. 14, plus the 2013 NHL All-Star Weekend scheduled for Jan. 26-27 in Columbus, Ohio.

The league made the announcement Friday, the 69th day of the NHL's lockout of its players.

The new cancellations come as little surprise. The two sides had an unproductive negotiating session on Wednesday that produced no movement to break an impasse over splitting more than $3 billion in revenue and also player contracts.

"We've identified what's important to players, but they seem to be so far at least unwilling to treat those concerns in a serious way," union head Donald Fehr said after the last round of talks, at which the union presented a new proposal to the league.

A total of 422 regular-season games, more than 34 percent of the season, have now been lost.

NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly said losing the 2013 NHL All-Star Weekend in Columbus is "extremely disappointing."

"We feel badly for NHL fans and particularly those in Columbus, and we intend to work closely with the Blue Jackets organization to return the NHL All-Star events to Columbus and their fans as quickly as possible," Daly said in a statement Friday.

The Columbus Blue jackets, the club hosting the All-Star game and the skills competition, said fans with tickets to events on that weekend could receive refunds.

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Inquiry Sought in Death in Ireland After Abortion Was Denied

DUBLIN — India’s ambassador here has agreed to ask Prime Minister Enda Kenny of Ireland for an independent inquiry into the death of an Indian-born woman last month after doctors refused to perform an abortion when she was having a miscarriage, the lawyer representing the woman’s husband said Thursday.

The lawyer, Gerard O’Donnell, also said crucial information was missing from the files he had received from the Irish Health Service Executive about the death of the woman, Savita Halappanavar, including any mention of her requests for an abortion after she learned that the fetus would not survive.

The death of Dr. Halappanavar, 31, a dentist who lived near Galway, has focused global attention on the Irish ban on abortion.

Her husband, Praveen Halappanavar, has refused to cooperate with an investigation being conducted by the Irish health agency. “I have seen the way my wife was treated in the hospital, so I have no confidence that the H.S.E. will do justice,” he said in an interview on Wednesday night on RTE, the state television broadcaster. “Basically, I don’t have any confidence in the H.S.E.”

In a tense debate in the Irish Parliament on Wednesday evening, Robert Dowds of the Labour Party said Dr. Halappanavar’s death had forced politicians “to confront an issue we have dodged for much too long,” partly because so many Irish women travel to Britain for abortions.

“The reality is that if Britain wasn’t on our doorstep, we would have had to introduce abortion legislation years ago to avoid women dying in back-street abortions,” he said.

After the debate, the Parliament voted 88 to 53 against a motion introduced by the opposition Sinn Fein party calling on the government to allow abortions when women’s lives are in danger and to protect doctors who perform such procedures.

The Irish president, Michael D. Higgins — who is restricted by the Constitution from getting involved in political matters — also made a rare foray into a political debate on Wednesday, saying any inquiry must meet the needs of the Halappanavar family as well as the government.

In 1992, the Irish Supreme Court interpreted the current law to mean that abortion should be allowed in circumstances where there was “a real and substantial risk to the life of the mother,” including the threat of suicide. But that ruling has never been codified into law.

“The current situation is like a sword of Damocles hanging over us,” Dr. Peter Boylan, of the Irish Institute of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, told RTE last week. “If we do something with a good intention, but it turns out to be illegal, the consequences are extremely serious for medical practitioners.”

Dr. Ruth Cullen, who has campaigned against abortion, said that any legislation to codify the Supreme Court ruling would be tantamount to allowing abortion on demand and that Dr. Halappanavar’s death should not be used to make that change.

Dr. Halappanavar contracted a bacterial blood infection, septicemia, and died Oct. 28, a week after she was admitted to Galway University Hospital with severe back pains. She was 17 weeks pregnant but having a miscarriage and was told that the fetus — a girl — would not survive. Her husband said she asked several times for an abortion but was informed that under Irish law it would be illegal while there was a fetal heartbeat, because “this is a Catholic country.”

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The Lede Blog: Vignettes of Black Friday

With promotions, discounts and doorbusters already well under way on Thanksgiving Day itself, many big-box retailers are making Black Friday stretch longer than ever. The Lede is checking out the mood of American consumers in occasional vignettes Thursday and Friday as the economically critical holiday shopping season kicks off.

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With Cease-Fire Joy in Gaza, Palestinian Factions Revive Unity Pledges

GAZA — A cease-fire that halted eight days of lethal conflict between Israel and Hamas brought jubilation to Gaza on Thursday as thousands of flag-waving residents poured into the streets and competing Palestinian factions sought to use the moment to revive their efforts to unify. In Israel, where the mood was more cynical and subdued, troops deployed to the border began pulling back.

The cease-fire agreement, which took effect on Wednesday night and seemed to be holding through Thursday, averted a full-scale Israeli ground invasion of Gaza. It did not resolve the underlying issues between the antagonists but said they would be addressed later, in a vague process that would not begin until at least 24 hours of calm had elapsed.

The wording of the agreement, reached under strong Egyptian and American diplomatic pressure, allowed both sides to claim some measure of victory in the battle of aerial weaponry that had killed at least 150 Palestinians and five Israelis over the past week. A sixth Israeli, a soldier, died on Thursday from wounds received before the cease-fire.

Whether the agreement succeeds could provide an early test of how Egypt’s new Islamist government might influence the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the most intractable in the Middle East.

Gaza City roared back to life after more than a week of nonstop Israeli aerial assaults had left the streets vacant. Gazans carried flags not just in the signature green of Hamas, the militant group that governs Gaza, but also the yellow of its rival Fatah faction, the black of Islamic Jihad and the red of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

“It’s the first time in 70 years I feel proud and my head held high,” said Mohamed Rajah, 71, a refugee from Haifa, Israel, who rushed to kiss four masked militants of the Islamic Jihad faction as they prepared for a news conference. “It’s a great victory for the people of Palestine. Nobody says it’s Hamas, nobody says it’s Islamic Jihad or Fatah — Palestine only.”

Ismail Haniya, the Hamas prime minister of Gaza who had largely remained in hiding after the initial Israeli assault on Nov. 14 that killed Ahmed al-Jabari, the head of the Hamas military wing, appeared at a unity rally alongside Mustafa Barghouti of the Palestinian National Initiative, a member of the Palestinian leadership that governs the Israeli-occupied West Bank and who has spent the past several days in Gaza. Mr. Barghouti said the leaders of all Palestinian factions would meet in Cairo in coming days to discuss reconciling their differences.

“The Palestinian people have won today,” Mr. Barghouti told hundreds outside the parliament building. “We must continue this victory by making our national unity.” Mr. Haniya, in a televised speech later, said “The blood of Jabari united the people of the nation on the choice of jihad and resistance.”

With Israeli forces still massed on the Gaza border, a tentative calm in the fighting descended after the agreement was announced. But the tens of thousands of Israeli reservists called up during the crisis began to withdraw from staging areas along the Gaza border, where the Israeli military had prepared for a possible invasion of Gaza for the second time in four years.

In southern Israel, the target of more than 1,500 rockets fired from Gaza over the past week, wary residents began to return to routine. But schools within a 25-mile radius of the Palestinian enclave remained closed.

A rocket alert sounded at the small village of Nativ Haasara near the border with Gaza on Thursday morning, sending residents running for shelter. The military said the alert had been a false alarm.

Israel Radio said a dozen rockets were fired from Gaza in the first few hours of the cease-fire, but Israeli forces did not respond. In the rival Twitter feeds that offered a cyberspace counterpoint to the exchanges of airstrikes and rockets, the Israel Defense Forces said they had achieved their objectives of severely damaging Hamas’s military capabilities.

At the same time, Israeli security forces said on Thursday that they had detained 55 Palestinian militants in the West Bank after confrontations. The army said the detentions were designed to “continue to maintain order” and to “prevent the infiltration of terrorists into Israeli communities.”

Jodi Rudoren reported from Gaza, and David D. Kirkpatrick from Cairo. Reporting was contributed by Fares Akram from Gaza, Isabel Kershner from Jerusalem, Mayy El Sheikh from Cairo, Rick Gladstone from New York, and Alan Cowell from Paris.

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

Unboxing the Kindle Fire HD 8.9

Click here to view this gallery.

[More from Mashable: Apple Now Owns the iMessage Name]

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

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

[More from Mashable: 9 Black Friday Deals For iPhone Owners]

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

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

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

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

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

What It Is

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

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

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

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

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

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

Not Packing a Punch

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

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

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

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

The Good

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Staying Connected

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

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

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

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

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

Review continues after FreeTime Gallery

FreeTime

Kindle HD FreeTime Start

Click here to view this gallery.

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

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

To Buy or Not to Buy

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

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

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

This story originally published on Mashable here.

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Texans score disputed TD against Lions

DETROIT (AP) — Houston's Justin Forsett scored on an 81-yard run in the third quarter Thursday against the Detroit Lions, even though replays clearly showed his knee touching the ground around his own 25-yard-line.

Detroit coach Jim Schwartz probably helped the touchdown stand by throwing his challenge flag.

The TD counted and Detroit was called for unsportsmanlike conduct. A Lions spokesman said a coach is not allowed to challenge scoring plays, which are automatically reviewed. If a coach does throw a challenge flag, the automatic review is negated.

Schwartz was seen tapping his chest on the sideline, saying "it's on me."

The irate crowd at Detroit's Ford Field kept booing the call for several minutes, even as the game continued.

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