Manning puts winning streaks on line against Ravens

(Reuters) - Peyton Manning, who has mounted a remarkable comeback with the Broncos, will be aiming to extend two big winning streaks when Denver hosts the Baltimore Ravens in the National Football League playoffs on Saturday.
Manning and the Broncos are gunning for their 12th win in a row this season in the divisional round against the Ravens, a team he has beaten nine consecutive times, with eight of those coming with the Indianapolis Colts dating back to 2002.
The 36-year-old quarterback added to his winning streak against the Ravens with a 34-17 victory last month with a Denver team he joined after missing the entire 2011 season with the Colts after a series of neck surgeries.
Manning picked up where he left off as one of the NFL's preeminent quarterbacks after joining the Broncos, producing a vintage season with his second most touchdown passes (37), second most yards (4,659), second best completion percentage (68.6) and just 11 interceptions.
"Peyton Manning is one of the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history," Baltimore defensive lineman Haloti Ngata told reporters.
"He has bounced back from injury. He has done a lot of great things for Denver. Hopefully, we can have a good week of practice and stop him."
Denver (13-3), as the top-seeded team in the AFC, is coming off a bye, while the Ravens (11-6) defeated the Colts 24-9 last week in their wild-card playoff game.
Quarterback Joe Flacco threw for 282 yards and two touchdowns against the Colts and is the only quarterback in NFL history to win a playoff game in his first five seasons but he is still striving to get all the way to the Super Bowl.
Flacco made many of his biggest throws to veteran wide receiver Anquan Boldin, who had 145 receiving yards in the second half against Indianapolis.
"We're looking forward to this," said Boldin. "I was hoping we'd get Denver again. This time we'll make it different."
The Broncos have speedy pass rushers on one of the fastest defenses in the league, featuring linebacker Von Miller (18.5 sacks) and Elvis Dumervil (11 sacks), on a team that tied for the NFL lead in sacks.
Baltimore has developed a strong one-two punch of runners in all-round back Ray Rice and rookie Bernard Pierce, who emerged late in the season and powered his way to 103 yards last week against the Colts, though in their last game against Denver, they combined for less than 60 yards.
While the Ravens are rallying around soon-to-be retiring linebacker Ray Lewis, Denver can see Manning, who does not take his comeback for granted, hit new heights.
"I remember opening day against Pittsburgh — I remember one year ago I was in a hospital bed watching opening day so ... there's a little reminder of how far I've come," Manning told reporters.
"And then certainly in the month of December, that's when I first got cleared to start throwing. So certainly I have had those checkpoints along the way and...reminders of where I was a year ago.

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Jaguars no longer want hometown hero Tim Tebow

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — Tim Tebow won't be playing for his hometown team.
The Jacksonville Jaguars made it clear Thursday that they have no plans to pursue the popular and polarizing New York Jets backup quarterback.
The Jets are likely to release the 2007 Heisman Trophy winner and Jacksonville native during the offseason, and many believed Tebow would land with the Jaguars.
But new general manager David Caldwell nixed that idea at his introductory news conference.
"I can't imagine a scenario in which he'll be a Jacksonville Jaguar — even if he's released," Caldwell said.
And Caldwell won't get any pushback from his new owner.
Shad Khan, who made a run at Tebow last year, said it was Caldwell's call.
"It's not my decision," Khan said. "I want to do whatever to help this team win. Who the players are is really the general manager's and coaches' — it's a football-side operation decision. It's really not my decision."
What has changed for Khan in the 10 months since he wanted Tebow?
"I'm telling them to take a look at Tebow and they're saying, 'We're going to go in a different direction,'" Khan said. "That's the difference."
Tebow starred at nearby Florida, helping the team win two national championship, and created buzz that he would be a huge hit with the Jaguars. He would sell tickets and merchandise, many said, and bring the small-market franchise national recognition and Super Bowl rings.
Despite all the hype, the Jaguars passed on drafting Tebow in 2010 because former general manager Gene Smith didn't view him as a franchise quarterback.
But after Khan took over last year and the Denver Broncos started quietly shopping Tebow, Khan told Smith to look into acquiring the left-hander.
The Jaguars increased their offer several times. By the end of negotiations, Jacksonville had offered a fourth-round pick and agreed to pay $3 million of the $5 million in advance salary the Broncos had already paid Tebow. The money the Jaguars offered was better than the little more than $2.5 million the Jets agreed to pay, and the draft pick was nine spots higher than New York's fourth-round selection.
But it never really got down to the details.
The Broncos told the Jaguars they were allowing Tebow to choose between the teams, and the Jaguars believe Tebow picked the Jets because he felt he would have a better chance to compete for the quarterback job with Mark Sanchez than Blaine Gabbert and Chad Henne.
Still, the Jets failed to find a way to effectively use Tebow this season.
Apparently, the Jaguars don't want to try now, either.
"We plan to address the quarterback situation, obviously," Caldwell said. "Blaine is the second-youngest quarterback in the NFL, but we're going to have open competition. Whether it's through draft or through free agency, we'll bring in some more people to compete at the quarterback position. We're going to let the best player win that position."

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Steelers cut Rainey after domestic violence arrest

(Reuters) - The Pittsburgh Steelers have cut rookie running back Chris Rainey following his arrest for a domestic battery, the National Football League team said on Thursday.
"Chris Rainey's actions this morning were extremely disappointing," said Steelers general manager Kevin Colbert in a statement on the team's website. "Under the circumstances and due to this conduct, Chris will no longer be a member of the Pittsburgh Steelers."
Rainey was charged by Gainesville, Florida police with a single count of misdemeanor simple battery following an incident with his girlfriend, according to media reports.
A fifth round selection of the Steelers in last season's draft, Rainey was used primarily on specialty teams during his rookie campaign, returning 39 kickoffs for 1,035 yards while filling in at running back.

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Sony uses movie studio to press ultra-HD advantage

LAS VEGAS (AP) -- Sony Corp. is finally pressing its advantage as a conglomerate that owns both high-tech gadgets and the content that plays on them by being the only electronics maker to offer ultra-HD TVs — and a way to get movies to the new super clear screens.
Ultra-high definition TVs, which quadruple the number of pixels of current high definition technology, have been the talk of the International CES gadget show so far. But only Sony has offered a content solution to go with them.
With 84-inch ultra-HD set it launched in November, Sony threw in a tablet and computer server that has 10 movies preloaded on the device — for $25,000. The movies came from the library of Sony Pictures or its subsidiary Columbia Pictures, like "The Amazing Spider-Man" and "The Karate Kid."
On Monday, Sony unveiled 55-inch and 65-inch ultra-HD sets that will sell this spring for an undisclosed price believed to be below $10,000. The Japanese electronics maker said it would launch a download service this summer in the U.S. so buyers of the smaller sets would have access to movies in the clearer format.
For now, it will offer the same 10 movies from its library for download.
After unveiling the service, Sony CEO Kazuo Hirai told reporters that the ultra-HD movies could be made available to other makers like Samsung or LG later. The company is eyeing coordination with other movie studios, but not immediately.
"That's a key differentiator from a Sony perspective that really speaks to the advantage of what we have in terms of both the electronics business and the content business," he said. "For the time being, that's something we bring exclusively to our customers."
Sony is betting big on ultra-HD, and is a leading supplier of a high-end cameras that shoot in the format, which renders moving images at a resolution of 3,840 pixels wide and 2,160 pixels tall. That is twice the length and width of high definition, resulting in four times as many pixels, or more than 8 million.
The company also makes projectors that show movies in so-called 4K, and Hirai said that anyone who has been to the movies lately has probably experienced it firsthand without realizing it.
Getting these higher resolution files to home televisions is no small matter. A Blu-ray disc format has not been created yet and broadcasters are years away from offering TV signals at the higher resolution.
Sony representatives said that buyers of its 55-inch and 65-inch TVs may be asked to buy an ultra-HD server separately, although a final decision hadn't been made. It is also unclear how much downloadable movies will cost.
The company said it would offer Blu-ray discs that are mastered in 4K but compressed to fit on a current Blu-ray disc. The TV's embedded technology presents the compressed movie at close to 4K resolution, but not quite as good as when they are played from the 4K media player.
But with all new technologies, there were glitches.
Hirai had an embarrassing moment Monday when he introduced the world's first ultra-HD TV using organic light-emitting diodes (OLED), only to see the screen go blank as the computer running it had an error.
"This revolutionary TV combines the world's largest OLED display with dazzling 4K resolution, including this beautiful ... interface screen," he said, then turned to see a blank screen as chuckles rippled through the crowd.
Later, Hirai looked back at the 56-inch display only to see the error continue.
"Excellent," he said.
A Sony staffer rolled the TV further away and Hirai carried on his presentation. He later appeared to be good-natured with journalists.
Hirai said the ultra-HD OLED set is a prototype and didn't announce price or availability.
In the Sony booth after the presentation, other ultra-HD OLED screens played without a problem.

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Spending on consumer electronics will climb to $1.1 trillion in 2013

According to the Consumer Electronics Association, worldwide spending on consumer gadgets will reach $1.1 trillion in 2013. The CEA, which organizes the Consumer Electronics Show set to kick off on Tuesday, said global consumer spending on electronics will grow 4% over 2012 after having dipped roughly 1% last year. The estimate comes from Steve Koenig, director of industry analysis for the CEA, and he believes mobile computers, smartphones and tablets will be responsible for more than half of global spending on consumer electronics this year. Koenig warned that the uncertain European economy could have a negative impact on his forecast, however, and tax changes in the U.S. could hurt consumer spending as well.

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With BlackBerry 10, there’s no place like home

Research In Motion (RIMM) has a steep hill to climb as it prepares to unveil its next-generation BlackBerry 10 operating system later this month. Launching sleek new BlackBerry 10 handsets that prompt a healthy portion of its current user base to upgrade is of the utmost importance, of course. Just as important, however, is creating a user experience that showcases compelling differentiation and might draw users away from leading smartphone platforms.
[More from BGR: Apple’s next iPhone to reportedly feature larger screen and ‘brand new exterior design’]
Early glimpses at BlackBerry 10 revealed software that attempts to take a fresh look at the smartphone experience in some ways, but after our first look, we wondered if RIM was going far enough with its new OS. Now that we’re just weeks away from the BlackBerry 10 launch event, RIM appears to have started slowly showing users that BlackBerry 10 will, in fact, provide a unique user experience.
[More from BGR: Smooth sailing is over for Apple]
To highlight one example, RIM’s Donny Halliwell recently took to the company’s BlackBerry blog to discuss BlackBerry 10′s take on smartphone navigation. Unlike iOS and Android, RIM’s new platform does not support a home button, which on other platforms would bring the user back to the home screen from anywhere in the OS.
Why exclude the home button? Halliwell says that BlackBerry 10 is all about “moving forward,” not backward.
“In much the same way you multitask with frames on your BlackBerry PlayBook tablet – keeping one frame in front of you while other frames are minimized – you can keep your most-used apps readily available,” Halliwel wrote while explaining RIM’s new “Flow” interface. He says that like all BlackBerry device owners, he was a “long-time user of the U-turn arrow” and upon first picking up a BlackBerry 10 developer device, he had concerns about navigating the device with no home button.
The Flow interface negates the need for a home button in many respects. Like webOS did before it, Flow presents users with a series of minimized windows representing each open application. The result is a UI that lets users easily jump between apps without the need to return to a home screen between steps. Combined with gesture support, RIM may have indeed simplified the smartphone user experience in several key ways.
“If you think about it, the real world pretty much works the same way,” Halliwell wrote. ”Picture yourself preparing to take a walk: You put on your shoes and coat, grab your keys, and go out the door. The point is that you’re always moving forward in a general ritualistic ‘flow’ toward the goal of taking a walk. You don’t put on your shoes then take them off to put your socks on.”
RIM’s first two next-generation smartphones, the BlackBerry Z10 and BlackBerry X10, are expected to be unveiled alongside the BlackBerry 10 OS on January 30th.

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AIG decides not to join Greenberg suit against government: WSJ

(Reuters) - American International Group Inc will not join a lawsuit against the U.S. government challenging the terms of the insurer's 2008 bailout, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, citing unnamed sources.
AIG had said its board was meeting Wednesday to consider the possibility of joining the suit filed by former CEO Hank Greenberg.

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Morgan Stanley cuts 1,600 jobs as business languishes

 Morgan Stanley plans to cut 1,600 employees starting this week, two people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday, in the latest sign of a pullback on Wall Street as revenue from trading and deal-making remains in the doldrums.
The staff reduction pertains to Morgan Stanley's institutional securities unit - which includes sales, trading and investment banking, and whose staff will be reduced 6 percent - as well as related support staff who work in areas like technology, said the sources, who were not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.
Morgan Stanley Chief Executive James Gorman has pledged to reduce costs, and said in July that he planned to reduce overall staff 7 percent in 2012. The new job cuts are in addition to that plan, the sources said.
The cuts represent roughly 6 percent of the securities unit's staff, the sources said. They represent less than 3 percent of Morgan Stanley's entire estimated workforce at year-end, following other staff reductions in 2012.
"This continues the steady drumbeat of negative news from banks," said Greg Cresci, a Wall Street recruiter with New York-based Odyssey Search Partners. "It's hard to tell where the bottom is, given how many banks have made similar announcements."
The staff cuts are notable because, unlike its chief rival Goldman Sachs Group Inc , which culls the bottom 5 percent of its workforce each year to improve performance, Morgan Stanley does not have such a staff reduction program. But the staff cuts are a symptom of the current ailing business environment in which Wall Street banks are operating, with few areas of revenue growth to improve profits.
For the last two years, trading and investment banking volumes have been on a broad decline, particularly in once-lucrative trading areas. New regulations that ban certain kinds of activity, like proprietary trading, or force banks to hold burdensome amounts of capital, are also prodding banks to exit businesses and reduce staff.
JPMorgan analyst Kian Abouhossein said on Wednesday that he expects Wall Street banks to report a 10 percent decline in revenue for the fourth quarter, compared with the previous period, with double-digit declines in fixed-income and equity trading revenue and a 1 percent uptick in investment banking revenue.
Morgan Stanley's latest job cuts come just a week after Colm Kelleher took full control of the unit on January 1, and add to layoffs across the entire industry that have recently affected tens of thousands of employees.
Morgan Stanley's main rival, Goldman Sachs Group Inc , cut 700 jobs during the first nine months of 2012 as part of a plan to reduce annual expenses by $1.9 billion. Analysts expect the firm's compensation pool to be much lower in the fourth quarter.
Citigroup Inc announced plans last month to cut 11,000 jobs, including some in investment banking and trading, to save $1.1 billion in annual expenses. Credit Suisse Group AG is also cutting securities jobs to reach an annual cost-savings target of 1 billion Swiss francs, while UBS AG said it would cut 10,000 jobs and exit the fixed-income trading business amid losses and new regulations.
Bank of America Corp is also in the process of cutting 30,000 jobs across the firm in a plan unveiled in 2011 aimed at saving $5 billion in annual expenses.
Banks have largely been cutting staff since the subprime housing crisis began to seize markets in late-2007. There was a brief uptick in hiring in 2009 and 2010, when conditions improved temporarily, but since then there has been an almost steady stream of layoff announcements.
On a net basis, U.S. financial companies including lenders, investment banks, insurers and real-estate firms, have cut 5 percent of their staff, or 50,900 employees since the end of 2007, according to U.S. Department of Labor data. The most recent data available run though November.
"We are seeing a redrawing and restructuring of the industry," said John Challenger, chief executive officer of the employment consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. "The map continues to be redrawn in terms of regulation, who the competitors are, and the resources banks are willing to commit to the investment banking business."
Although Morgan Stanley's layoffs will affect all staff levels, the likely targets will be more senior employees who take in the biggest paychecks, said one of the sources.
About half of the job cuts will occur in the United States, with the rest affecting international units, said the source.
Morgan Stanley does not regularly disclose the number of employees in its institutional securities business, but it had 57,726 employees worldwide as of September 30. The company is expected to report year-end figures in the coming weeks when it discloses fourth-quarter earnings.

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Wall Street gains as earnings flow in; Boeing up

NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks rose on Wall Street Wednesday after U.S. corporate earnings reports got off to a good start.
The Dow Jones industrial average climbed 61.66 points to 13,390.51, its first gain of the week. The Standard & Poor's 500 index gained 3.87 points to 1,461.02, and the Nasdaq composite rose 14 to 3,105.81.
Having rallied after a last-minute resolution stopped the U.S. from going over the "fiscal cliff," stocks are facing their first big challenge of the year as companies start to report earnings for the fourth quarter of 2012. Throughout last year, analysts cut their outlook for earnings growth in the period and now expect them to rise by 3.21 percent, according to data from S&P Capital IQ.
"Maybe earnings expectations were a little too low," said Ryan Detrick, a strategist at Schaeffer's Investment Research. "You don't need to have great earnings, you just need to beat those expectations" for stocks to rally, Detrick said.
Early indications were decent. Aluminum maker Alcoa reported late Tuesday that it swung to a profit for the fourth quarter, with earnings that met Wall Street's expectations. The company brought in more revenue than analysts had expected, and the company also predicted rising demand for aluminum this year as the aerospace industry gains strength. Alcoa is usually the first Dow component to report earnings every quarter.
Despite the better revenue number, Alcoa's stock performance Wednesday was lackluster. It traded higher for part of the day then ended down 2 cents at $9.08.
Other companies fared better after reporting earnings. Helen of Troy, which sells personal care products under brands including Dr. Scholl's and Vidal Sassoon, rose 2.7 percent, up 90 cents to $34.43 after reporting a 15 percent increase in quarterly net income.
Boeing was the biggest gainer of the 30 stocks in the Dow. It jumped 3.5 percent, up $2.63 to $76.76, following two days of sharp declines triggered by new problems for its 787 Dreamliner. Boeing said it has "extreme confidence" in the plane even as federal investigators try to determine the cause of a fire Monday aboard an empty Japan Airlines plane in Boston and a fuel leak at another JAL 787 on Tuesday.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury note edged down to 1.86 percent from 1.87 percent.
Among other stocks making big moves:
— Wireless network operator Clearwire jumped 7.2 percent, or 21 cents, to $3.13, after Dish network made an unsolicited offer to buy the company, which has already agreed to sell itself to Sprint. Dish rose 88 cents to $36.85, and Sprint fell 9 cents to $5.88.
— Online education company Apollo Group plunged 7.8 percent after reporting a sharp decline in fall-term student sign-ups at the University of Phoenix. The stock fell $1.63 to $19.32.
— Seagate Technology, a maker of hard-disk drives, jumped 6.6 percent, up $2.09 to $33.48, after predicting revenue for its fiscal second quarter that topped Wall Street expectations late Tuesday.
— Bank of America fell 4.6 percent, down 55 cents to $11.43, after Credit Suisse analysts lowered their outlook on the bank to "neutral" for "outperform," saying the current stock price overestimates the improvement in cost reduction that the bank can achieve this year.

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American Football-Alabama crush Notre Dame to win championship

MIAMI (Reuters) - Alabama's 'Crimson Tide' swept aside Notre Dame in the BCS Championship game on Monday, dominating the 'Fighting Irish' 42-14 to win their third college football title in four years.
Notre Dame, 12-0 in the regular season, had been looking for their first national title since 1988 but were all at sea against irresistible Alabama, who set the tone of the game with an utterly one-sided 28-0 first half.
Alabama quarterback AJ McCarron threw four touchdown passes and finished with 264 yards through the air, while running back Eddie Lacy and receiver Amari Cooper had two scores each as the Crimson Tide claimed back-to-back titles.
The victory confirmed Nick Saban as the most successful active coach in college football with four national titles, taking him within two of Alabama great Bear Bryant.
The one-sided nature of a game featuring the top ranked Notre Dame will inevitably lead to further criticism of the ranking system, though a new system is to be introduced in 2014 that will see four teams battle it out for the crown at the end of the regular season.
Regardless of the system, few would argue that Alabama, beaten only by Texas A&M in the regular season, are worthy national champions - a status acknowledged before the game by Las Vegas bookmakers if not the rankings.
The matchup had been described as a return to the pinnacle of college football for Notre Dame but it ended in embarrassment for the team in shiny golden helmets, who have won 11 ‘consensus' national titles but endured some lean years of late.
The chance of a first title since the introduction of the BCS championship game in 1998 drew a huge Notre Dame following to Miami where they made up the bulk of the record 80,120 crowd at the Dolphins' Sun Life stadium.
PULSATING ATMOSPHERE
After marching bands had whipped up the atmosphere, it was quickly apparent that the smaller but wildly enthusiastic Alabama support would be heading home happy.
Alabama's first drive ended in a 20 yard touchdown run from the powerful Lacy, ably assisted by an imposing offensive line that swiftly establish supremacy.
McCarron then found tight-end Michael Williams with a three yard pass as Alabama took a 14-0 first quarter lead.
The second quarter saw a one yard rushing score from T.J. Yeldon and then Lacy collected a pass from McCarron and ran into the end-zone for an 11 yard score.
Alabama's power in the running game was evident in the yards put up by their two main backs - Lacy rushed for 140 yards and Yeldon 108.
Receiver Amari Cooper was left wide-open to score on a 34 yard McCarron pass in the third before Notre Dame gave their fans something to cheer with quarterback Everett Golson running the ball in from two yards out.
McCarron and Cooper combined again for a fourth quarter score before Notre Dame's Golson found Theo Riddick with a six yard pass to make the final score 42-14.
With the game already won and three minutes left on the clock, Saban sent out back-up quarterback Blake Sims and other reserves to get a taste of the glory.

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