Experts: No link between Asperger's, violence

NEW YORK (AP) — While an official has said that the 20-year-old gunman in the Connecticut school shooting had Asperger's syndrome, experts say there is no connection between the disorder and violence.

Asperger's is a mild form of autism often characterized by social awkwardness.

"There really is no clear association between Asperger's and violent behavior," said psychologist Elizabeth Laugeson, an assistant clinical professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Little is known about Adam Lanza, identified by police as the shooter in the Friday massacre at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school. He fatally shot his mother before going to the school and killing 20 young children, six adults and himself, authorities said.

A law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to discuss the unfolding investigation, said Lanza had been diagnosed with Asperger's.

High school classmates and others have described him as bright but painfully shy, anxious and a loner. Those kinds of symptoms are consistent with Asperger's, said psychologist Eric Butter of Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, who treats autism, including Asperger's, but has no knowledge of Lanza's case.

Research suggests people with autism do have a higher rate of aggressive behavior — outbursts, shoving or pushing or angry shouting — than the general population, he said.

"But we are not talking about the kind of planned and intentional type of violence we have seen at Newtown," he said in an email.

"These types of tragedies have occurred at the hands of individuals with many different types of personalities and psychological profiles," he added.

Autism is a developmental disorder that can range from mild to severe. Asperger's generally is thought of as a mild form. Both autism and Asperger's can be characterized by poor social skills, repetitive behavior or interests and problems communicating. Unlike classic autism, Asperger's does not typically involve delays in mental development or speech.

Experts say those with autism and related disorders are sometimes diagnosed with other mental health problems, such as depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder or obsessive-compulsive disorder.

"I think it's far more likely that what happened may have more to do with some other kind of mental health condition like depression or anxiety rather than Asperger's," Laugeson said.

She said those with Asperger's tend to focus on rules and be very law-abiding.

"There's something more to this," she said. "We just don't know what that is yet."

After much debate, the term Asperger's is being dropped from the diagnostic manual used by the nation's psychiatrists. In changes approved earlier this month, Asperger's will be incorporated under the umbrella term "autism spectrum disorder" for all the ranges of autism.

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AP Writer Matt Apuzzo contributed to this report.

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Online:

Asperger's information: http://1.usa.gov/3tGSp5

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Video shows gunman fired at crowded shopping mall

A gunman fired at least 50 rounds in the crowded parking lot of the Fashion Island shopping mall, but Newport Beach police are unclear about a motive.

The gunfire sent shoppers scrambling for cover. A shopper in the parking lot recorded a video capturing the gunfire and posted it on YouTube.

Marcos Gurrola, 42, of Garden Grove was arrested in the parking lot
near the Macy’s department store shortly after firing the
shots about 4:30 p.m., said Kathy Lowe, a spokeswoman for the Newport
Beach Police Department. Officers on bike patrol apprehended the man.

Police searched the mall but did not find anyone who had been struck
by the gunfire. The shots were apparently fired either in the air or at
the ground.

More than 50 rounds were recovered at the scene, Deputy Chief
David McGill said. A handgun was recovered at the scene, but police did not
reveal any more details about the weapon.

The mall was crowded with holiday shoppers at the time of the shooting.

Shopper Dena Nassef said she and another person were walking toward Macy’s when people started yelling and running.

“With what happened in Connecticut, we were freaking out,” she said. “It was like crazy, people leaving stores.”

Ann Butcher, an employee at Macy’s, said she was on the patio at
Whole Foods when people started running and screaming. She said some
women left their purses and fled.

“That was very scary,” she said.

Shopper Eric Widmer said he was at the Barnes & Noble bookstore
when he saw a mother and daughter rush in crying. He said he heard
someone scream, “Shooter!”

He said he managed to exit the bookstore and head to Macy’s. Once there, he was not allowed to leave.

“I thought, ‘Great, I get to be scared twice,’” he said. “Lightning strikes twice.”

ALSO:

Full coverage: Connecticut school shooting

Cold, rainy weather to continue through the weekend

LAPD must pay record $24 million to boy paralyzed in shooting

-- Lauren Williams in Newport Beach and Rosanna Xia  in Los Angeles

Photo: A police car blocks an entrance to Fashion Island at San Miguel Drive and Newport Center Drive. Credit: Kevin Chang / Times Community News

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With E.C.B. in Spotlight, Bundesbank Finds Itself in the Shadows

Mustafah Abdulaziz for The New York Times

The Bundesbank, Germany’s central bank, built in 1967 in Frankfurt.

FRANKFURT — The exposed-concrete slab of the Bundesbank headquarters stands like a bulwark outside the downtown financial district here, a stolid, Brutalist structure that in its sheer mass evokes not just the German central bank’s stubborn resistance to change but, above all, its obsessive commitment to crushing inflation.

Built 45 years ago, the modernist building is hardly old by European standards, yet it is a temple to tradition, embodying the ethos of this most conservative of institutions. “We are trying to keep it just the way it is,” said Reiner Bruckhaus, head of the bank’s centralized construction management division.

That starts with the granite floors, the Barcelona chairs in the lobby (designed by the Bauhaus great Ludwig Mies van der Rohe), and the grand, white Carrara marble by the elevators, and goes all the way up to the wood grid ceilings on the top floor. “You will find not even the slightest changes,” Mr. Bruckhaus said.

When the building was erected in 1967, the Bundesbank’s dominance in European monetary policy went unchallenged. But in the hazy distance of the Frankfurt skyline, significant change is evident in the outline of two towers and three cranes, the new headquarters of the European Central Bank — a visible reminder of the institution that has supplanted the Bundesbank, just as the euro replaced the German mark.

European leaders established the European Central Bank’s headquarters in Frankfurt as a symbol of its status as heir to the Bundesbank. But the danger posed by Europe’s continuing debt crisis demanded improvisations at odds with the Bundesbank’s conservative teachings.

Over the summer the E.C.B.’s president, Mario Draghi, pursued an expansive policy that was anathema to the old guard, whose cause was championed by the Bundesbank’s youthful president, Jens Weidmann. He and his supporters base their views not, they say, on rigid orthodoxy but on experience gleaned from the disaster of hyperinflation and the success of adhering to a hard-money path.

In an increasingly uncomfortable pairing, the Bundesbank functions as the largest piece of the E.C.B. puzzle. With more than 9,500 full-time workers, the Bundesbank dwarfs the 1,600-strong central bank. Because of that limited staff, the E.C.B. depends on the Bundesbank to handle many of the back-office functions of the common currency.

But the European Central Bank’s influence continues to grow. Euro-zone finance ministers agreed to a deal Thursday to put 100 to 200 of their largest banks under its direct supervision.

The arranged marriage between the two banks will take enormous effort and flexibility. As its massive headquarters suggests, the Bundesbank is capable of enormous and sustained effort, but flexibility may be inimical to its nature.

Founded in 1957, the Bundesbank quickly grew into one of Germany’s most respected institutions. The rank-and-file behind Mr. Weidmann, 44, represent an unusually tight-knit group, almost like a monastic order, and they are steeped in the bank’s secular religion — often at the bank’s own school, a kind of Hogwarts for its future financial wizards, in a hilltop 12th-century castle in the town of Hachenburg.

“You hear it in the first lecture,” said Silke Frühklug, 32, a graduate and Bundesbank employee. “You hear it in the last lecture and every day in between: price stability.”

Ms. Frühklug married a classmate and in her free time plays on the central bank’s badminton team, which on a recent evening practiced in a gymnasium on the Bundesbank campus right after the handball team. The bank also has a theater society and “hobby artists” club, which exhibits in the lobby of the headquarters. It owns apartments for workers in tight real-estate markets like Munich and here in Frankfurt. Retired employees still lunch at the cafeteria, helping to nurture the all-important continuity.

“People feel connected with the goals of the bank,” said Matthias Endres, 43, editor of the Bundesbank’s internal magazine. Like Ms. Frühklug, he married a fellow graduate from the school in Hachenburg. He has vacationed with his wife and their three children at all three of the Bundesbank getaways, on the North Sea, in the Black Forest and on a lake in Bavaria.

Mr. Endres’s wife, Simone, works part-time in the headquarters’ Money Museum, which houses some 350,000 objects, of which roughly 1,300 are on display, including the worthless bills in denominations of millions and billions from the hyperinflation of the Weimar-era and examples of commodity money, like a gold bar, a tea brick and even a preserved cow standing near the entrance, a silent bovine greeter.

Jack Ewing contributed reporting.

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Jeff Probst Shares His Thoughts on Who Could Win Survivor

TV Watch

Survivor

By Steve Helling

12/15/2012 at 04:10 PM EST

Jeff Probst ;Malcolm Freberg
Lisa Whelchel
Denise Stapley
Mike Skupin

Monty Brinton/CBS(5)

In the 25 seasons that Jeff Probst has hosted Survivor, he has presided over 399 tribal councils.

Since the show's debut 12 years ago, 384 contestants have played the game, with 43 of them competing more than once. Seven contestants have quit; ten have been medically evacuated and 23 people have walked away with $1 million and the title of Sole Survivor. (Sandra Diaz-Twine is the only contestant to win the game twice.)

Why all the statistics? Because it just goes to show that Probst knows a thing or two about how to win this game. Here, he evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of the final four contestants of Survivor: Philippines for PEOPLE. Who will walk away with the million-dollar prize on Sunday night? Probst won't find out until the live finale with the rest of us, but here's his expert take on everyone's chances.

MALCOLM FREBERG
"If he can win his way to the final tribal council, I think he wins against anybody," says Probst. "He's played a beautiful game combining physical skills with great social skills. People like him, he's an underdog and he hasn't lied. If he doesn't win the final immunity challenge, he has no chance. Nobody is going to take him to the end."

LISA WHELCHEL
Unless something goes terribly wrong, Lisa will be in the final tribal council. The question is: Who will be there with her? Lisa has a good story – she has overcome a lot. Her biggest challenge will be getting sympathy from the jury. It's much easier for the audience who sees all of her interviews. The other players may see her as a whiner. She will need an amazing speech at the final tribal if she is to beat Malcolm or Denise.

DENISE STAPLEY
If she gets to the end with anyone other than Malcolm, she will most likely win. She has the biggest underdog story having survived the worst tribe and going to every tribal council. She has also played a brilliant social game. Her best bet is to go to the final with Lisa and/or Skupin.

MIKE SKUPIN
He's the longshot only because of his competition. Skupin is seen as a bit of goofball. He has a "go for broke" attitude and, as a result, he is as likely to fumble the ball as he is to score the touchdown. It's a great way to play Survivor and it got him this far, but in a game in which the jury is looking for any reason to criticize, Skupin may have given them too much.

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Fewer health care options for illegal immigrants

ALAMO, Texas (AP) — For years, Sonia Limas would drag her daughters to the emergency room whenever they fell sick. As an illegal immigrant, she had no health insurance, and the only place she knew to seek treatment was the hospital — the most expensive setting for those covering the cost.

The family's options improved somewhat a decade ago with the expansion of community health clinics, which offered free or low-cost care with help from the federal government. But President Barack Obama's health care overhaul threatens to roll back some of those services if clinics and hospitals are overwhelmed with newly insured patients and can't afford to care for as many poor families.

To be clear, Obama's law was never intended to help Limas and an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants like her. Instead, it envisions that 32 million uninsured Americans will get access to coverage by 2019. Because that should mean fewer uninsured patients showing up at hospitals, the Obama program slashed the federal reimbursement for uncompensated care.

But in states with large illegal immigrant populations, the math may not work, especially if lawmakers don't expand Medicaid, the joint state-federal health program for the poor and disabled.

When the reform has been fully implemented, illegal immigrants will make up the nation's second-largest population of uninsured, or about 25 percent. The only larger group will be people who qualify for insurance but fail to enroll, according to a 2012 study by the Washington-based Urban Institute.

And since about two-thirds of illegal immigrants live in just eight states, those areas will have a disproportionate share of the uninsured to care for.

In communities "where the number of undocumented immigrants is greatest, the strain has reached the breaking point," Rich Umbdenstock, president of the American Hospital Association, wrote last year in a letter to Obama, asking him to keep in mind the uncompensated care hospitals gave to that group. "In response, many hospitals have had to curtail services, delay implementing services, or close beds."

The federal government has offered to expand Medicaid, but states must decide whether to take the deal. And in some of those eight states — including Texas, Florida and New Jersey — hospitals are scrambling to determine whether they will still have enough money to treat the remaining uninsured.

Without a Medicaid expansion, the influx of new patients and the looming cuts in federal funding could inflict "a double whammy" in Texas, said David Lopez, CEO of the Harris Health System in Houston, which spends 10 to 15 percent of its $1.2 billion annual budget to care for illegal immigrants.

Realistically, taxpayers are already paying for some of the treatment provided to illegal immigrants because hospitals are required by law to stabilize and treat any patients that arrive in an emergency room, regardless of their ability to pay. The money to cover the costs typically comes from federal, state and local taxes.

A solid accounting of money spent treating illegal immigrants is elusive because most hospitals do not ask for immigration status. But some states have tried.

California, which is home to the nation's largest population of illegal immigrants, spent an estimated $1.2 billion last year through Medicaid to care for 822,500 illegal immigrants.

The New Jersey Hospital Association in 2010 estimated that it cost between $600 million and $650 million annually to treat 550,000 illegal immigrants.

And in Texas, a 2010 analysis by the Health and Human Services Commission found that the agency had provided $96 million in benefits to illegal immigrants, up from $81 million two years earlier. The state's public hospital districts spent an additional $717 million in uncompensated care to treat that population.

If large states such as Florida and Texas make good on their intention to forgo federal money to expand Medicaid, the decision "basically eviscerates" the effects of the health care overhaul in those areas because of "who lives there and what they're eligible for," said Lisa Clemans-Cope, a senior researcher at the Urban Institute.

Seeking to curb expenses, hospitals might change what qualifies as an emergency or cap the number of uninsured patients they treat. And although it's believed states with the most illegal immigrants will face a smaller cut, they will still lose money.

The potential impacts of reform are a hot topic at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. In addition to offering its own charity care, some MD Anderson oncologists volunteer at a county-funded clinic at Lyndon B. Johnson General Hospital that largely treats the uninsured.

"In a sense we've been in the worst-case scenario in Texas for a long time," said Lewis Foxhall, MD Anderson's vice president of health policy in Houston. "The large number of uninsured and the large low-income population creates a very difficult problem for us."

Community clinics are a key part of the reform plan and were supposed to take up some of the slack for hospitals. Clinics received $11 billion in new funding over five years so they could expand to help care for a swell of newly insured who might otherwise overwhelm doctors' offices. But in the first year, $600 million was cut from the centers' usual allocation, leaving many to use the money to fill gaps rather than expand.

There is concern that clinics could themselves be inundated with newly insured patients, forcing many illegal immigrants back to emergency rooms.

Limas, 44, moved to the border town of Alamo 13 years ago with her husband and three daughters. Now single, she supports the family by teaching a citizenship class in Spanish at the local community center and selling cookies and cakes she whips up in her trailer. Soon, she hopes to seek a work permit of her own.

For now, the clinic helps with basic health care needs. If necessary, Limas will return to the emergency room, where the attendants help her fill out paperwork to ensure the government covers the bills she cannot afford.

"They always attended to me," she said, "even though it's slow."

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Sherman can be followed on Twitter at https://twitter.com/chrisshermanAP .

Plushnick-Masti can be followed on Twitter at https://twitter.com/RamitMastiAP .

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Actor decapitated student, killed girlfriend, DA alleges

Clinging to keepsakes and memories more than two years after their
children were killed, the parents of two slain Orange Coast College
students say the pain of reliving the details of their deaths in court
can't match their desire for justice.

On Thursday, the families of Juri "Julie" Kibuishi, 23, and Samuel Herr, 26, sat in Orange County Superior Court
for a preliminary hearing to determine whether prosecutors could move
forward with charges of accessory after the fact against Rachel Buffett,
25, the then-fiancee of alleged killer Daniel Patrick Wozniak. Buffett is accused of helping Wozniak by lying to police after the crime.

The victims' families said that in spite of media attention garnered by the prosecution of Buffett,  who has claimed innocence of murder charges, they trust the legal system to do its job.

"We're not detectives," said Kibuishi's mother, June Kibuishi, expressing her faith in Deputy Dist. Atty. Matt Murphy. "We just want the truth."

"We're here to support Matt Murphy, the Costa Mesa Police Department
and the Orange County D.A.," said Samuel's father, Steve Herr.

Asked how he felt, Herr replied with a tired sigh. "How do you feel every day in court?"

Kibuishi said it never gets easier.

During a recess in the lengthy and at times gruesome hearing, Kibuishi tugged at a silver ring that had belonged to her daughter hanging on a chain around her neck.

"This is the only thing that we got back after it happened," she
said. "And a necklace in a little envelope. I wasn't able to see her
until the day before the service. And then we found out what happened to
Sam. Just .... " She shook her head.

"It doesn't make any sense to me," Kibuishi said. "My daughter was
not at the wrong place at the wrong time. She was used. She thought she
was helping out a friend."

Julie Kibuishi, police say, was Costa Mesa actor Wozniak's second victim.

On the afternoon of May 21, 2010, Wozniak shot and killed Herr, his upstairs neighbor, and then dismembered his body, prosecutors say. Wozniak, 28, a community theater actor, then allegedly lured Kibuishi, Herr's friend and tutor, to Herr's apartment.

When she arrived, prosecutors say Wozniak shot her and then staged her body to look as though Herr had sexually assaulted her.

To lure Kibuishi to her death, prosecutors say, Wozniak posed as Herr, using Herr's cellphone to send text messages telling her that
he was having family problems and wanted to talk to someone he could
trust.

Buffett is accused of making misleading statements to detectives investigating the slayings, including an allegedly fictitious third man who was involved in the crime. The judge Friday ultimately found there was enough evidence to move forward with the case against Buffett, but said it would be a tough case for prosecutors.

ALSO:

Helping children cope with Connecticut shooting

Maligned UC logo shelved; 'time to move on,' official says

Jenni Rivera vigil keeps growing as family plans memorial

-- Jill Cowan, Times Community News

Photo: Samuel Herr. Credit: Family photo

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Panetta Orders Deployment of U.S. Antimissile Units in Turkey

Manu Brabo/Associated Press

An injured woman was taken to a hospital in a rebel-controlled area of Aleppo on Friday.

INCIRLIK AIR BASE, Turkey — Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta signed an official deployment order on Friday to send 400 American military personnel and two Patriot air defense batteries to Turkey as its tensions intensify with neighboring Syria, where government forces have increasingly resorted to aerial attacks, including the use of ballistic missiles, to fight a spreading insurgency.

The American batteries will be part of a broader push to strengthen Turkey’s defenses that will include the deployment of four other Patriot batteries — two from Germany and two from the Netherlands. Each battery contains multiple rounds of guided missiles that can intercept and destroy other missiles and hostile aircraft flying at high speeds.

Mr. Panetta’s deployment order, the result of NATO discussions last week, represents the most direct American military action so far to help contain the Syrian conflict and minimize its risk of spilling across the 550-mile border with Turkey, a NATO member that is housing more than 100,000 Syrian refugees and providing aid to the Syrian rebels trying to oust President Bashar al-Assad.

Tensions between Turkey and Syria have escalated in recent months as Syrian forces have bombed rebel positions along the border and occasionally lobbed artillery rounds into Turkish territory. The Turks have also grown increasingly alarmed that Mr. Assad’s forces could fire missiles into Turkey.

News of the Patriot deployment order came as antigovernment activists inside Syria reported fresh mayhem, including an unconfirmed rebel claim to have downed a government warplane attacking insurgent positions near the international airport in Damascus, the capital.

In Moscow, meanwhile, the Russian Foreign Ministry sought to distance itself from comments a day earlier by its Middle East envoy that the Syrian rebels might defeat Mr. Assad, a longstanding Kremlin ally and arms client. A ministry spokesman, Aleksandr K. Lukashevich, said Russia remained committed to a political solution in Syria.

“We have never changed our position and will not change it,” Mr. Lukashevich said. He rejected a comment made by a State Department spokesman on Thursday that Moscow had “woken up” and changed its position as dynamics shifted on the battlefield, saying, “We have never been asleep.”

All six Patriot units deployed in Turkey will be under NATO’s command and are scheduled to be operational by the end of January, according to officials in Washington.

George Little, the Pentagon spokesman, said Mr. Panetta signed the order as he flew from Afghanistan to this air base in southern Turkey, close to the Syrian border.

“The United States has been supporting Turkey in its efforts to defend itself,” Mr. Little said.

The order “will deploy some 400 U.S. personnel to Turkey to support two Patriot missile batteries,” Mr. Little added, and the personnel and Patriot batteries will arrive in Turkey in the coming weeks. He did not specify their deployment locations.

After landing at Incirlik on Friday, Mr. Panetta told a gathering of American Air Force personnel of his decision to deploy the Patriots.

He said the United States was working with Turkey, Jordan and Israel to monitor Syria’s stockpiles of chemical weapons, and warned of “serious consequences” if Syria used them, but he did not offer any specifics.

“We have drawn up plans for presenting to the president,” Mr. Panetta said. “We have to be ready.”

Turkey’s worries about vulnerability to Syrian missiles, including Scuds that might be tipped with chemical weapons, were heightened recently by intelligence reports that Syrian troops had mixed small amounts of precursor chemicals for sarin, a deadly nerve gas, at one or two storage sites, and loaded them into artillery shells and airplane bombs.  “Their arsenal of chemical weapons has been configured for use at a moment’s notice,” Representative Mike Rogers, a Michigan Republican who heads the House Intelligence Committee, said in an interview on Friday.  Mr. Panetta, however, said this week that intelligence about chemical weapons activity in Syria had “leveled off.”

Recent Scud missile attacks by Mr. Assad’s forces against rebels in northern Syria have only added to Turkey’s concerns. The Scud missiles were armed with conventional warheads, but the attacks showed that the Assad government was prepared to use missiles as it struggled to slow rebel gains.

With the nearly two-year-old Syrian conflict entering its second winter and many thousands of people struggling for food and warmth in cities ruined by protracted fighting, the humanitarian costs seemed to be mounting.

An activist in Syria’s central province of Homs, who identified himself as Abu Ourouba, said the town of Houla — where the United Nations confirmed in May that Syrian troops had killed more than 100 people, including at least 32 children — was facing a catastrophe.

“Houla has been besieged from all directions for the past 10 days,” he said. “Until now, not even one loaf of bread has entered Houla. The food that was available is beginning to run out very quickly. Most children don’t have milk anymore. The kids are at risk of dying from hunger,” Shelling along access routes means that no one can walk “unless they crawl” to avoid hundreds of strikes from tanks, warplanes and rocket launchers, the activist said.

Thom Shanker reported from Incirlik Air Base, Turkey, and Michael R. Gordon from Washington. Reporting was contributed by Eric Schmitt from Washington; Anne Barnard, Hania Mourtada and Hwaida Saad from Beirut, Lebanon; Alan Cowell from London; and Ellen Barry from Moscow.

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Sony’s PlayStation 4 could lose to the next Xbox before it’s even released

I love all game consoles equally. My Xbox 360 is used equally as much as my PlayStation 3. The Wii — oh, I’ll just leave it at that. The current generation of consoles is all but over — 10-year life cycle be damned — and new consoles are rumored to be coming next fall. If not next fall, then in 2014. Whatever is the case, Sony (SNE) can’t afford to lag in third place again. Sure, the Xbox 360 and PS3 are neck-in-neck in global lifetime sales, and the Xbox 360 did have a one year head start, but coming off the disappointing PS Vita, “confidence is less high” that Sony will deliver a console next year in time to compete with Microsoft (MSFT), according to Kotaku.

[More from BGR: Has the iPhone peaked? Apple’s iPhone 4S seen outselling iPhone 5]

I want a new console just as much as any other gamer. There’s a reason people are still pouncing on those Wii U consoles and flipping them on eBay. Six years is unusually long for a console to still be kicking around.

[More from BGR: Apple execs said to be ‘seething’ over Google Maps praise]

According to the well-informed Stephen Totilo, Editor-in-Chief of Kotaku, the game blog that first broke news on the next-gen Xbox, Microsoft’s “Durango” is ”on the mark” and “Sony appears to inspire less confidence…due to the on-and-off troubles of the PlayStation 3 and the struggles of the Vita vs. how much lost confidence is due to any problems looming for PS4.“

Totilo says “confidence is high that the next Xbox will be out in time for next Christmas” and confidence is low that the PS4 will be right there on store shelves next to it.

The “on-and-off troubles of the PlayStation 3″ Totilo is referring to is the anchor that’s weighed the console down since launch: tougher development due to the Cell processor and less available RAM – 256MB vs. 512MB in the Xbox 360.

In the months before the PS3′s launch in 2006, Sony said the console would be the most powerful console ever created, and here we are six years later and multi-platform games on the console consistently end up being buggier and uglier than on the Xbox 360 in many cases. Cases in point: Skyrim, Mass Effect 3 and Call of Duty: Black Ops II.

Sony’s in a rut right now. It has the chops to build beautiful and powerful hardware that’s a developer’s dream (ex: PS Vita), but at the same time, it’s always launching after the competition nowadays.

If Sony’s learned any lessons in the last half a decade, it better apply them to the PS4. The console needs to offer next-level processing and graphics. It needs to be backward-compatible with PS3 games and play Blu-ray discs. It should be small and quiet. It should have a strong online platform, support a greater array of apps and most importantly be easy for developers to program for.

Game exclusives will always be important, but now that games are million-dollar productions, multi-platform will be where developers hope to reap back their costs.

With Microsoft said to be preparing an “Xbox 720″ and an “Xbox Lite,” Sony can’t make the mistake of launching late or pricing the console too high. A launch in spring of 2014 would mean Sony will miss Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the two biggest shopping days of the year that bring in massive sales.  Ceding sales and market share to Microsoft and Nintendo by launching late would be disastrous.

The PS3 screwed up too many times. At this point, the PS4 needs to be perfect out of the door.

This article was originally published by BGR

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Let's Talk About Kristen Stewart's Sheer Dress, Shall We?

Stylewatch
Style News Now

12/14/2012 at 02:00 PM ET

Michael N. Todaro/FilmMagic (3); FameFlynet

So kudos to Kristen Stewart for having an amazing body and a stylist who helps her take risks. She’s gone a little out of the box on her recent On the Road press tour, and it’s been fun to watch.

But Stewart’s most recent look — a bra top and boy shorts combo covered with a sheer, floral-print overlay, worn to a premiere in New York Thursday night — has us a little stumped. The Erdem spring 2013 creation — seen on the runway this fall — was for spring, when it’s not 40 degrees in New York. And that’s not the only issue we have with the dress:

1. The midriff. Stewart has one of the hottest bodies in Hollywood, yet her toned tummy is looking a little scrunched in this bra top, thanks to the low bra band, high boy short waistline and satin material, all of which are very unforgiving.

2. The side. The back of the dress is solid, made in the same ice blue as the bra top and shorts. That means an unsightly side seam that makes the dress even busier, and cuts her profile in a strange way.

3. The length. On the runway, this dress was knee-length, making it more appropriate and much more feminine. Though we’d give anything to have Stewart’s killer legs, cutting the dress right at the middle of her thighs isn’t particularly flattering — or ladylike.

On the plus side? Her hair and makeup are flawless, and we’re lusting after those hot heels. But sorry, Stewart: We’re going to have to call this one a major miss. Tell us: How do you feel about this confusing dress? 

PHOTOS: SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON MORE STAR LOOKS IN ‘LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT?’

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