Manti Teo ESPN Interview on Lennay Kekua

Given the worldwide attention given to Manti Te'o and his fake girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, since it was inevitable the football star would break his silence sooner rather than later. Last night, Te'o sat down for an off-camera interview with ESPN's Jeremy Schaap, where he admitted to lyng about actually meeting Kekua because he believed his friends, family and coaches would think he was "crazy" for engaging in an intense relationship with someone he'd never met. But, throughout the interview, Te'o maintains he was not complicit in perpetuating the story for personal gain.

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"I wasn't faking it. I wasn't part of this," Te'o tells ESPN's Jeremy Schapp, insisting he was duped by the online hoax, now commonly referred to as "Catifshing," thanks to the documentary and MTV show of the same name.

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"She friend requested me on Facebook the winter of my freshman year at Notre Dame," Te'o explains. "We spoke on the phone. We spoke on the phone and talked on the phone, texted. But it's always as acquaintances, as friends. And then she contacted me that Purdue game and she just said 'Hey, how are you doing? I'm going through some hard times with my boyfriend' -- at the time she had a boyfriend at the time. And just want you to be there for me, just be my friend. I said sure, I'll be here for you."

Te'o clarifies that the duration of the relationship has been widely misreported, saying that their were large chunks of time they went without speaking throughout the four year period in question.

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Then, during Te'o's junior year at Notre Dame, Kekua (who is now believed to be a man named Ronaiah Tuiasosopo and at least one female accomplice) reconnected with him. "We spoke on the phone. We spoke on the phone and talked on the phone, texted. But it's always as acquaintances, as friends ... And eventually we just kept talking and kept talking and kept talking. Everything kind of changed a little when her dad passed away. She told me her dad passed away, and I was there. I was just being that shoulder to cry on ... And so our relationship kind of took another level. But not the kind of exclusive level yet. I was trying to get to know her and get to know a whole bunch of other people. And for that period of time we talked and talked and got to know each other better and better and better. And everything changed April 28th. I got a phone call from her brother that she had got in the car accident."

Te'o says that Kekua's brother acted as an intermediary between them throughout her hospitalization. "I would ask to talk to her, and the only communication I had was through her brother and he used her phone," Te'o says. "He would put me supposedly right next to her mouth and I could hear the ventilator going. And she would be breathing ... They were telling me, 'Bro, she recognized your voice. We know she's there. We know she can hear you.' She would quicken her voice. And I heard it on the phone. They would do it to me. And so that was my communication while she was in a coma."

When asked by Schaap why Te'o didn't think to visit her, he says, "It never really crossed my mind. I don't know. I was in school. I was finishing up my year and I was going home. It was towards the end of my junior year. End of my junior year, and I was about to go home. When I decided to go home, the day that I decided to -- the day I left to go home -- they called me and said that that was the same day that they were going to pull the plug. And so it intensifies the whole thing. I'm on the plane. I figured they're about to pull the plug on someone ... All my focus went just to her, in caring for her. Making sure she was OK. Whenever you feel that you're about to lose somebody, you know, reality kicks in, and it's like, okay, I'm going to be here for her, take care of her. And so my focus turned straight to Lennay."

Te'o not only recounts pieces of the elaborate backstory he was fed, but also explains there was a seemingly endless array of photos; all of which convinced him Kekua was real.

Then, in early July, Te'o is told that Keuka has leukemia, which only intensifies his feelings for her. Throughout her treatment, Te'o constantly spoke to Keuka via phonecalls and online chats. Then, on September 12, Te'o's parents called to say his grandmother had passed away, hours later, Keuka called. "I had already found out that grandma is dead. I was angry. I didn't want to be bothered. So Lennay was just trying to be there for me. I just -- I just wanted my own space. We got in an argument. She was saying, you know, I'm trying to be here for you. I didn't want to be bothered. I wanted to be left alone. I just wanted to be by myself."

"Later that day I get a text message from her brother, just saying 'Bro. That was it.' I wondered why her brother was contacting me. Couple minutes later, I get the call from her brother. He's telling me, he's crying, screaming, and he's just telling me, 'She's gone! She's gone!' He's mumbling, 'She's gone, she's gone, bro', she's gone.' And I'm sitting there wondering who is gone? Why is he telling me that somebody's gone. Lennay's supposed to get home on September 11th, the day before. She was fine, you know? She was going home, she was fine. People were saying that she's getting better. I get a phone call that she's gone. They tell me Lennay's gone."

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"I dropped the phone. I walk around the corner to get to the hall way where nobody is... I started crying and crying, punching the wall." Te'o adds, "Looking back on it now? I don't know. I really don't know. One, to lie about it, and two, to coordinate this death on the same day that I lost my grandmother, I don't know."

For those who believed Te'o created this entire scenario to garner sympathy in a big to win The Heisman Trophy, their biggest piece of evidence is that Te'o didn't attend Keuka's funeral. He tells ESPN the reason he didn't go was because her funeral fell on the same day as a big game. "Before Lennay passed away, we had a conversation where she asked me if she passed away, if I could go to her funeral? I told her no, I'm not going to talk like that. I'm not going to talk like that. She said tell me this, if anything happens, promise me that you'll send me white roses and say you'll play. She said all I want is white roses. And leading up to the funeral, her siblings kept telling me that their mom told them she didn't want me to come. They didn't want -- and I didn't want myself -- I didn't want that to be the first time that I saw her was lying in a coffin. That's why I didn't go."

Months pass, and Te'o begins dating a girl named Alex del Pilar. Then, on December 6, he gets a phonecall from Lennay's sister U'i. "She said, 'Hey, I've got to tell you something that's very important.' So she goes through this whole spiel how my family's involved with drugs and like bad people. And we have to hide and make sure that everybody's -- she's giving me this background about their life. She just basically said I think you know. And I said what do you mean? I don't know anything. She said, well, Manti, it's me. That's all she said."

"I eventually just gave up and said, who is me? And she said, it's Lennay. So we carried on that conversation, and I just got mad. I just went on a rampage. How could you do this to me? I ended that conversation by saying, simply this: You know what, Lennay, my Lennay died on September 12. I don't know who you are, but Lennay died on September 12th and that conversation ended."

Another fact detractors point to as evidence Te'o was complicit in the lie is that he continued to talk about Lennay in subsequent interviews as if she were real. Te'o cites his initial confusion as the reason behind those incidents. 

Since then, Te'o has continued to speak with U'i and Ronaiah in a quest to find out the truth. However, once the story broke, Te'o says his been contacted by several people who were similarly duped by the duo. "Multiple people that he's done it to me contacted me ... and said hey, he's done the same thing to me with the same girl, with the same story. And if you need any help, I'm here."

Te'o, for one, is hoping this saga comes to a close much faster than I believe it will. As for what he'd like to see happen to his hoaxers, Te'o says, "To be honest with you, it doesn't seem real. I hope he learns. I hope he understands what he's done. I don't wish an ill thing to somebody. I just hope he learns. I think embarrassment is big enough."

To read Manti Te'o's entire and all-encompassing interview with ESPN, click here.

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He's at it again: 'Internet pirate' behind Megaupload to launch new file-sharing site

Reuters

Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom says new site 'is not some kind of finger to the U.S. government or to Hollywood.'

Kim Dotcom, founder of outlawed file-sharing website Megaupload, said his new "cyberlocker" was not revenge on U.S. authorities who planned a raid on his home, closed Megaupload and charged him with online piracy for which he faces jail if found guilty.

Dotcom said his new offering, Mega.co.nz, which will launch on Sunday even as he and three colleagues await extradition from New Zealand to the United States, complied with the law and warned that attempts to take it down would be futile.

"This is not some kind of finger to the U.S. government or to Hollywood," Dotcom told Reuters at his sprawling estate in the bucolic hills of Coatesville, just outside Auckland, New Zealand, a country known more for sheep, rugby and the Hobbit than flamboyant tech tycoons.

"Legally, there's just nothing there that could be used to shut us down. This site is just as legitimate and has the right to exist as Dropbox, Boxnet and other competitors," he said, referring to other popular cloud storage services.

His lawyer, Ira Rothken, added that launching the site was compliant with the terms of Dotcom's bail conditions. U.S. prosecutors argue that Dotcom in a statement said he had no intention of starting a new internet business until his extradition was resolved.

CODES AND KEYS

Dotcom said Mega was a different beast to Megaupload, as the new site enables users to control exactly which users can access uploaded files, in contrast to its predecessor, which allowed users to search files, some of which contained copyrighted content allegedly without permission.

A sophisticated encryption system will allow users to encode their files before they upload them on to the site's servers, which Dotcom said were located in New Zealand and overseas.

Each file will then be issued a unique, sophisticated decryption key which only the file holder will control, allowing them to share the file as they choose.

As a result, the site's operators would have no access to the files, which they say would strip them from any possible liability for knowingly enabling users to distribute copyright-infringing content, which Washington says is illegal.

"Even if we wanted to, we can't go into your file and snoop and see what you have in there," the burly Dotcom said.

Dotcom said Mega would comply with orders from copyright holders to remove infringing material, which will afford it the "safe harbor" legal provision, which minimizes liability on the condition that a party acted in good faith to comply.

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Miami-Dade considering support for Dolphins’ tax plan

The issue of tax-funded sports stadiums will soon be back on the Miami-Dade County Commission’s agenda.

Commissioner Barbara Jordan is slated to introduce a resolution Wednesday backing the Miami Dolphins’ plan to use a state subsidy and local hotel taxes to fund about half of a $400 million renovation of Sun Life Stadium. The resolution urges Florida lawmakers to pass a bill allowing the funding, and cites the upgrades’ ability to attract Super Bowl and other major events to the stadium.

The discussion comes roughly three years after a divided Miami-Dade commission backed borrowing about $360 million to build the Marlins a new $640 million baseball park in Little Havana. (The Marlins contributed $155 million, and Miami paid $120 million toward the complex, including a garage.)

The vote is widely credited with helping fuel the 2011 recall of then-mayor Carlos Alvarez. Dolphins insiders cite Marlins backlash as a major obstacle to winning tax dollars for the Sun Life renovation.

“If you give everything a little time, hopefully it heals a little bit,’’ said Rep. Erik Fresen, the original sponsor of the Dolphins’ stadium bill during the 2011 bid for a tax-funded renovation. “Last time, it was literally on the heels of the recall and everything that was so specific to the Marlins’ stadium.”

Dolphins owner Stephen Ross has pledged private dollars would fund the majority of the $400 million upgrade of the privately owned stadium. The bill would qualify Sun Life for $90 million in state tax dollars over 30 years, and allow Miami-Dade to increase mainland hotel taxes to 7 percent from 6 percent for the renovations. The tax increase would generate about $10 million a year under the current market conditions.

In recent days, the Dolphins have released endorsements from large hotels in the area, including the Fontainebleau, Intercontinental, Trump Doral and, most recently, a string of Marriotts owned by the MDM development firm.

The baseball debate continues to hover over local politics. Last fall, Jordan was targeted by an anti-Marlins group for defeat in a reelection campaign supported by the Dolphins. She was not immediately available for comment Friday evening.

Norman Braman, the auto magnate who tried to block the Marlins plan and targeted Jordan and other baseball supporters for defeat, said he expected the commission to back public dollars for the Dolphins, too.

“I think they’ve got all the chutzpah you can imagine,’’ he said of incumbent commissioners. “I would be shocked if the commission didn’t do this.”

Fresen, a Miami Republican and co-sponsor in the House of the new Dolphins bill, said he needs the commission to endorse the legislation before he pushes it will fellow lawmakers. Rep. Eddy Gonzalez, a Republican from Hialeah and co-sponsor of the bill, said he gives the Dolphins plan a 50 percent chance of passing the House.

“The entire delegation is not on board. We need a product everyone can live with,’’ he said.

The bill would create a special $3 million yearly stadium subsidy designed for Sun Life. The Dolphins currently receive $2 million a year from Florida under the current stadium subsidy program, tied to retrofitting the Miami Gardens facility to house the Marlins in the 1990s. The team moved out in 2011, and the Dolphins $2 million payments end in 2023.

While the bill opens up the subsidy to any renovation project where public dollars make up a minority of the funding, the language also restricts Florida from paying it to more than one stadium. Ron Book, the Dolphins’ lobbyist, said limiting the bill to one $3 million payout a year should make the proposal more palatable amid Florida’s continuing budget squeeze.

“You have to manage the economic impact to the state,’’ he said.

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5000 Role Models is 20 years old, still stepping

As Congresswoman Frederica Wilson sat down Friday morning at the annual Martin Luther King Day breakfast fundraiser for her 5000 Role Models of Excellence, she smiled and reflected on the program’s two decades of success.

After the 131 scholarships recipients – in their signature red ties – had filed into a ballroom at Jungle Island, heads high, medals of achievement around their necks, shaking hands with the dozens of mentors who had showed up for the day’s event,

Wilson, 70, had a special request: She asked the mentors to hug the students.

“Now,” she said, “tell them you love them.”

Earlier, Wilson had said: “I didn’t know it would last this long.”

In 1993, when Wilson was principal at Skyway Elementary, near the

Miami-Dade/Broward county line, she noticed more disciplinary issues

with certain male African American children. They were so disruptive, she recalls, that teachers had trouble getting through the day’s lesson.

"It was always this group of little black boys," says the Congresswoman. “I kept asking them, ‘why do you misbehave?’ ”

What she heard was not satisfactory.

She made a point of having lunch with the boys – fourth and fifth graders – every Wednesday. It wasn’t long before she made the link between their lack of discipline and the fact that they had no positive African American male role models.

Wilson called on her vast network of male friends and acquaintances -- every black dentist, doctor, firefighter, or police officer she could find, husbands of her Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority sisters, former classmates and alumni of her alma mater, Miami Northwestern Senior High – to visit her school.

At the first assembly, she said, close to 100 men showed up.

The mentors joined hands and prayed, Wilson said. “They were chanting, ‘God, please don’t let us fail.’”

In a matter of weeks, Wilson was so startled by the change that she took her budding idea to the Dade County School Board: Let’s create a mentor group. School officials, under the leadership of then superintendent Octavio Visiedo, bought into it. This year, the organization gets about $560,000 from the board. The rest comes from corporations and private donors.

What started as a small program for a handful of African American boys at Skyway has now expanded to a dropout prevention program for boys of all races and ethnicities in schools in Miami Dade and Pinellas Counties. There has been talk of expanding the program statewide.

These days, Wilson doesn’t have to spend a lot of time talking about her baby. Events like Friday morning’s breakfast do the talking for her:

Here are some of her success stories:

GEORGE RAY: THE MENTOR

George Ray thought he’d be dead by age 16, and there was a time he would have said he was “OK with that.” He grew up in some of Miami

Gardens’ hardest streets in the 90s,’ the son of a long distance truck driver who was often on the road and a mother who put in long hours as a nurse.

When she was home, she spent tireless hours trying to steer her son away from the often tragic activities that teenaged black boys participated in on their block.

The scenes Ray most remembers were filled with “drugs and gold rims.” He wanted some of that action and started selling crack in middle school.

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RIM offers Android developers up to $2,000 to port apps to BlackBerry 10 this weekend

RIM (RIMM) really wants Android developers to bring their apps over to BlackBerry 10, and it’s got the cash to prove it. Via AndroidGuys, it seems that RIM will hold a “BlackBerry 10 Last Chance Port-A-Thon” that will pay Android developers $ 100 for every approved app they port over to BlackBerry 10, with a limite of 20 different paid apps per developer. RIM says that the “port-a-thon” will start at noon Friday and run for the following 36 hours. App developers have shown some strong interest in BlackBerry 10 so far as RIM announced this week that it had received 15,000 app submission over just two days during the last port-a-thon, although the company didn’t mention how much influence its “really cool” SDK had in convincing companies to develop for its new platform.

[More from BGR: Samsung’s latest monster smartphone will reportedly have a 5.8-inch screen]

This article was originally published on BGR.com

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Newspaper ends controversial database of gun owners' names, addresses

After withering criticism, the suburban Journal News has shut down a controversial gun permit database that allowed readers to access the names and addresses of gun owners, published shortly after the Newtown school massacre.

Publisher Janet Hasson said in a statement today that the paper wasn't admitting it made a mistake when it made public the personal information of gun permit owners in Westchester and Rockland counties, and that it wasn't caving to critics or death threats it received in the aftermath.

"The database has been public for 27 days and we believe those who wanted to view it have done so already," Hasson said.

The information published by the newspaper is public record — although some critics have said the decision to reveal names and addresses of permit holders amounted to little more than a "data dump."

Hasson said New York's recently-passed gun-control legislation, which allows permit holders to request their personal information be kept confidential, also weighed in the decision.

A snapshot of the map showing the general location of gun permit holders in the two counties remains on the newspaper's website.

The paper tried to get the same information from Putnam County, but officials refused.

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Norwegian Cruise Line launches strong IPO

Miami-based Norwegian Cruise Line joined its larger local competitors on Wall Street Friday in a strong debut.

Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd. raised nearly $447 million in an initial public offering of about 23.5 million shares and saw stocks sail 30 percent in trading.

Shares closed Friday afternoon at $24.79, up $5.79 from the $19 offering price set late Thursday night. That was above the range of $16-$18 that the company had expected.

“I think this was a classically beautiful IPO, albeit relatively small in terms of total dollars,” said Roderick McLeod, partner in the management consulting practice McLeod.Applebaum & Partners and a former cruise executive.

In regulatory filings, the company has said it plans to use proceeds from the IPO to reduce debt and pay expenses related to the offering. Norwegian is giving the underwriters a 30-day option to buy up to an additional 3.5 million shares.

Previously, the company was privately held in a partnership of Genting Hong Kong, with 50 percent of the cruise line, and private equity firms Apollo Management and TPG. Genting Hong Kong is a subsidiary of gambling and resort conglomerate Genting Group, which purchased the land currently occupied by The Miami Herald in 2011 for $236 million.

After the IPO, the three groups own a total of about 88 percent of the company’s ordinary shares.

Norwegian, with a fleet of 11 ships and three more on the way by the fall of 2015, has made its name by emphasizing a “freestyle” type of cruising that allows guests to choose from a variety of dining, entertainment and rooming options.

In an interview Friday morning, Norwegian Cruise Line President and CEO Kevin Sheehan said that the timing was right for the offering.

“It just seemed like a very logical time: We’re into 2013, we’ve got these beautiful new ships coming out soon and the marketplace is very excited about them,” he said. “The locomotive is moving and we’re at the tipping point with the brand.”

As the industry grows by just about 2.5 percent over the next five years, Sheehan said, Norwegian will grow capacity by more than 10 percent.

“It’s the double whammy,” he said. “Lower growth in the future with a phenomenal set of assets.”

He said the benefits of going public include raising capital, allowing the company to strengthen its balance sheet and putting it in the same playing field as its competitors. Carnival Corp., the world’s largest cruise ship company, and rival Royal Caribbean Cruises are both publicly traded. Carnival closed up about a percent at $38.58 Friday, while Royal Caribbean dropped just over a percent to $36.90.

“Now we’re out there and people can look at our results and the analysts can talk about us freely,” he said.

The launch capped years of attempts by Norwegian to go public, all abandoned for economic reasons.

Miami cruise expert Stewart Chiron, CEO of CruiseGuy.com, said the timing was good, with an industry performing well and a vastly improved company.

“I’m glad they finally got it done,” he said. “This was by far one of the important milestones that they wanted to cross.”

McLeod remembers an effort when he was president and chief operating officer at Norwegian that coincided with the stock market crash in October of 1987. He has also worked in senior positions at Royal Caribbean Cruises and Carnival Corp.

“I think we’ve all kind of known this was coming eventually and some of us have known it’s coming for 25 years,” McLeod said. “It’s never too late to do the right thing; this is the right thing for them to do.”

The move is smart, McLeod said, for several reasons.

“In addition to improving their leverage, reducing their debt, this expands their strategic options,” he said. “This is a currency, and that can work for them in lots of different ways.”

This report was supplemented with information from the Associated Press.

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Sen. Bill Nelson doesn’t get his python, but he bags plenty of media attention

Bill Nelson didn’t kill any pythons in the Everglades.

But Florida’s senior senator bagged something bigger Thursday: the rapt attention of the news media.

With a Florida Wildlife commissioner who goes by "Alligator Ron" Bergeron and snake hunters — including one wrangler called "Python Dave" — Nelson and a team of biologists and naturalists roamed the River of Grass to raise awareness about the invasive snakes that are gobbling up the creatures of the Everglades.

The wildlife commission has launched a “Python Challenge” cash-prize contest, which began last Saturday, to get more people to kill more of the snakes.

"These pythons eat everything in the Everglades: bobcats, deer, even alligator and maybe endangered Florida panther," Nelson said.

"These snakes are dangerous. There was a child killed in Central Florida by one of these kept as pets," he said. "The pythons don’t belong here."

But Nelson does.

The Everglades is a piece of Florida history and a place for threatened and endangered species. And Nelson, the only statewide elected Florida Democrat, has been a threatened political species since he first won his Senate seat in 2000.

Nelson, 70, has endured and thrived in a state dominated by elected Republicans. And Thursday’s excursion showed why. Nelson champions and raises awareness of popular causes and knows how to attract press on issues of the day — from the Gulf oil spill to high gas prices to the threat of Chinese drywall to the proliferation of Burmese pythons.

"He has a gift. He knows the value of media exposure and he can earn it," said Rick Wilson, a veteran Republican strategist in Florida who briefly helped run a campaign against Nelson last year.

"Where else but in Florida do you have a U.S. Senator going out to hunt an invasive exotic species that eats alligators and strangles children in their cribs?" Wilson laughed.

Wilson said that, in some ways, Nelson is like the old-time politicians of Florida, a “character” like former Democratic Gov. “Walkin Lawton” Chiles. During his Thursday excursion, some wondered what Nelson’s nickname should be.

Papa Gator? The He-Snake? The King Snake? Python Bill?

“The Last Panther,” said Dan McLaughlin, Nelson’s longtime aide.

“Senator Python,” said Bergeron.

Nelson’s day began as he and Bergeron, a developer and Davie-born Florida cracker, disembarked from the commissioner’s black-and-gold H2 emblazoned with “Alligator Ron” logos.

As cameras clicked and whirred at a dock off Alligator Alley, Nelson held a brief press conference with Bergeron, who held the head of a live 13-foot python while three others kept it from constricting him. The snake had been captured in a Palmetto Bay swimming pool and was brought to the boat-launch as an example of what they hoped to catch and kill.

“These snakes can actually eat an alligator up to about eight feet,” Bergeron said, tightly gripping the python as its tongue occasionally slithered out to taste the air

A TV reporter soon did a stand-up with the snake, warning of the spread of the menace.

But though pythons appear to be spreading at an alarming rate, finding them on a warm day like Thursday is a needle-in-the-haystack exercise.

There could be more than 150,000 pythons in the Everglades and Big Cypress ecosystems that originally covered 4 million acres. So, if the weather isn’t cold and the pythons aren’t sunning themselves on land, they’re almost impossible to find in the shallow, flat expanse of the Everglades, where the snakes blend into the sawgrass and murky water.

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The aggressively priced Lumia 620 is Nokia’s make or break model

Nokia (NOK) has started pricing the Lumia 620 in Asia nearly 20% below the rival Windows mid-market model, the HTC (2498) 8S. This is remarkably aggressive considering the 620 has a higher pixel density and twice as much internal memory. The 620 is the keystone phone for Nokia. It is launching before RIM (RIMM) gets its new budget BlackBerry phones out and before Samsung (005930) or LG (066570) enter the mid-priced Windows phone market. This is the phone that will make or break Nokia’s summer.

[More from BGR: BlackBerry 10 browser smokes iOS 6 and Windows Phone 8 in comparison test [video]]

Nokia has started rolling out the Lumia 620 in several key Asian markets by the third week of January. It now looks like its European debut could happen a few weeks earlier than expected, perhaps by the end of January. In one of the earliest launch markets, Thailand, the launch price of the Lumia 620 is set at 8,250 baht, or $ 275. The only direct Windows mid-range model, HTC’s 8S, is priced at 9,990 baht. The Lumia 620 is priced at 800 RM ($ 266) in Malaysia, one of Asia’s key mobile markets. HTC’s 8S launched in Malaysia at 999 RM.

[More from BGR: Clash of the bantams: The bloody smartphone battle that will take shape in 2013]

Nokia is the stronger brand in South-East Asia and HTC’s budget Windows model was expected to be at rough price parity during the 620 launch, not 20% above. Nokia’s Lumia 620 features display pixel density of 246 pixels per inch, a touch above the 233 pixels per inch that HTC’s 8S offers. The 620 also packs 8 GB of internal memory, twice as much as the 8S. Camera and video quality are roughly similar.

This is the golden opportunity for Nokia. It will probably take at least until June before RIM rolls out new BlackBerries priced under $ 300 in Asia; possibly late summer or autumn. Samsung and LG are a step behind Nokia in rolling out their Windows Phone 8 ranges. HTC’s first mid-range model doesn’t quite measure up to the 620 in value for money comparison. Apple’s (AAPL) rumored cheap iPhone is unlikely to arrive before September.

Nokia now has a shot at recapturing some of the power it used to have in the mid-range smartphone market. Back in 2006 through 2008 Nokia dominated the smartphone markets of Asia and Europe with absolute sovereignty, capturing market shares as high as 70% from India to Germany. Those days won’t return, but if the 620 clicks, Nokia just might have a shot at pumping the Lumia volume to 10 million units per quarter by autumn.

The relative market softness in the sub-$ 300 category due to the current weakness of RIM, LG, Sony (SNE) and HTC has opened the door. This February is going to be an absolutely crucial month for Nokia as it ramps up its most important Lumia phone during the traditionally dead period in Asia and Europe. If consumers don’t connect with this model at this price, the entire Windows Phone camp will face some very tough decisions.

This article was originally published on BGR.com

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LeAnn Rimes Talks Rehab

Nancy O'Dell's exclusive, news-making interview with LeAnn Rimes continues as the controversial country superstar talks about her heated sex life with hubby Eddie Cibrian and the real reason she went to rehab.

Pics: LeAnn Rimes Defends Teeny Weeny Bikini Photos

"I feel like there's only a handful of people that could understand where I've been through as a childhood star, and now actually having a career after that," says the 30-year-old LeAnn in an interview conducted at the Sheraton Universal Hotel, the Hotel of the Stars.

"It's hard to explain, and I'm not asking for anyone's sympathy," she explains. "It's just as simple and as complicated as I need to go learn how to deal with myself, with the world, because everyone's always looking in, and I needed to figure out how to deal with it."

LeAnn voluntarily checked in to a rehab facility for a month back in August after she experienced what she called stress and anxiety, with online bullying being a contributing factor.

Watch the video for those candid details about LeAnn's sex life with hubby Eddie Cibrian and the future of their relationship; if they want children; and if she thinks she's addicted to social media.

Video: Exclusive -- LeAnn Rimes Reveals Regrets

Then, stay tuned to ET tomorrow, when Nancy asks point blank about LeAnn's controversial live TV appearance in which she was accused of being drunk.

LeAnn's new album Spitfire, featuring the new single Borrowed, drops April 9.

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