TOP NEWS Apple's new iPads sport modest upgrades but short on 'wow'

By Christina Farr

CUPERTINO Calif. (Reuters) - Apple Inc's (AAPL.O) faster, slimmer iPads come with modest improvements, such as a fingerprint sensor, but some analysts say it offers few other features to wow consumers ahead of a holiday shopping season expected to be swamped by mobile devices.

At a launch event on Thursday, Chief Executive Tim Cook called Apple's new line-up, which includes a new iMac computer with a "5K retina" or high-end display, the company's best ever. But analysts say Apple may struggle to arouse the same passion for its tablets as in past years among consumers faced with an abundance of hand-held, touch-screen devices.

"I've got to be honest and say, the only impressive thing was the 5K retina display on the iMac," said Gartner analyst Van Baker, who attended the show at Apple's headquarters in Cupertino, California. "The other things we saw (included) just iterative improvements on the iPad."

Marketing chief Phil Schiller called the larger tablet the world's slimmest and described several new features such as an anti-reflective screen. He also confirmed the inclusion of the "Touch ID" sensor, already available on the latest iPhones.

Pre-orders start Friday for the larger iPad Air 2, priced at $499 and up, with shipping beginning next week. The smaller iPad mini 3 will be about $100 cheaper.

The new iMac, which sports the new "Yosemite" operating system, will go for $2,499.

Tablet sales are set to rise only 11 percent this year, according to tech research firm Gartner, compared to 55 percent last year, even as smartphone sales continue to soar and personal computer sales are waning.

DEFINING MOMENT

Tablet sales for Apple, which defined the category with the iPad just four years ago, have fallen for two straight quarters. Investors remain focused on the iPhone, Apple's main revenue generator, but a prolonged downturn in iPad sales would threaten about 15 percent of the company's revenue.

The new iPads will go up against recently introduced tablets from Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) and Google Inc (GOOG.O) in coming months. Shares of Apple slid 1 percent to $96.57 shortly before the close.

Apple also said it will launch its new electronic payments service on Monday, after the iPhone maker signed up another 500 banks to support a feature that competes with eBay Inc's (EBAY.O) PayPal and other online systems.

Cook said developers were beginning to design apps for its upcoming Watch.

Apple last month introduced the Watch, its first new device since the iPad in 2010. The company's entry into the rapidly expanding wearable computing arena will be available only from 2015, but Cook said software development kits for the device will be available from November.

Missing on Thursday was a larger, 12-inch-plus iPad, the subject of industry speculation ahead of Apple's event.

"It is disappointing, particularly to enterprise buyers, that there wasn't a 12.9 inch iPad model," said Forrester Research analyst J.P. Gownder. "To return iPad to high growth, form factor innovation will be required. We'll have to wait until 2015 to see if Apple addresses this issue."

(Reporting by Christina Farr; Writing by Edwin Chan; Editing by James Dalgleish and Richard Chang)

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TOP NEWS Japan to roll out aerospace hope with first commercial jet in half a century

By Tim Kelly and Siva Govindasamy

TOKYO/SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Mitsubishi Aircraft will roll out Japan's first commercial jet in more than 50 years on Saturday, amid doubts its ambition to sell more than 2,000 of the planes can match reality in the market segment.

Developed for $1.9 billion by a subsidiary of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries that includes Toyota Corp as a shareholder, the $42 million regional jet, with just under 100 seats, is Japan's second bid at breaking into the commercial aircraft market.

The last attempt in the 1960s, which failed, was a 64-seat turboprop dubbed the YS-11. Only 182 planes were ever built.

Mitsubishi has so far won 191 firm orders from customers including U.S. regional groups Trans States Holdings and SkyWest Inc, and Japan Airlines Co Ltd.

That, say analysts, is below the several hundred planes it will need to sell to break even and far behind the number of orders it will need to overtake market leader, Brazil's Embraer SA.

That goal presents a "significant challenge," said Rob Morris, head of consultancy at aviation market specialist Ascend.

The MRJ's biggest selling point, Mitsubishi says, is the ability to burn 20 percent less fuel than aircraft of similar size thanks to new-generation engines from Pratt & Whitney, a subsidiary of United Technologies Corp.

The plane, however, is already three years late because of design and development problems allowing Embraer to catch up. For Mitsubishi, it means a sprint to complete flight tests before the first delivery in June 2017 to ANA Holdings Inc.

CHALLENGING NUMBERS

Mitsubishi, which is also challenging Canada's Bombardier Inc, estimates demand for 5,000 regional jets over the next 20 years of which it aims to capture a half. Ascend puts its prospects closer to a fifth and forecasts a market for 4,071 jets worth $128.3 billion by 2033.

Embraer will supply 2,489 of those and Mitsubishi 913, with Bombardier and newcomers from Russia and China making up the rest, according to the Ascend Flightglobal Fleet Forecast.

Mitsubishi's problem is Embraer's headstart of over 1,000 aircraft orders, along with an established reputation for financing, reliability and after-sales service, said Richard Aboulafia, vice president of analysis at consultancy Teal Group.

After the MRJ came into the picture, Embraer said it would upgrade its E-Jets with the same fuel efficient Pratt & Whitney engines under the name E2. These will be delivered from 2018 only a year after the delayed MRJ.

"The E-Jet E2 will produce economics every bit as competitive as the MRJ, despite the lack of clean-sheet design," said Morris.

Mitsubishi has a better chance of displacing Bombardier, which has bet big on developing its CSeries to break into the market for 150-seat aircraft at the expense of its CRJ regional jets, said Aboulafia.

INDUSTRY AID

The MRJ's biggest success could be helping Japanese industry win component supply deals because it will prove to Boeing Co and other manufacturers like Airbus Group NV that Japan is capable of taking on more work. Doing so could help make up for less work building military aircraft.

Skills acquired on the YS-11 program helped Mitsubishi Heavy and other companies forge ties with Boeing.

They have a major work-share on the U.S. plane maker's 777 and 767 aircraft and build 35 percent of the carbon composite 787 Dreamliner. That work employs 22,000 people or two-fifths of Japan's aerospace engineers.

A government official overseeing Japan's aerospace business who spoke to Reuters likened the MRJ project to a 1,000-year-old Shinto renewal rite at the Ise Grand Shrine in central Japan near to Mitsubishi's MRJ plant. Shrine buildings are toppled and rebuilt every twenty years to pass on traditional building skills young carpenters.

"A regional jet won't be nearly as important, in terms of profits and technology development, as Japan's hugely important role as an aerostructures provider, particularly to Boeing, " said Aboulafia.

(Editing by Christopher Cushing)

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ENTERTAINMENT NEWS: Novelist Dubus now looks homeward after gritty memoir

By Randall Mikkelsen

NEWBURY Mass. (Reuters) - Andre Dubus III put his faded hometown of Haverhill, Massachusetts, on the map of modern literature with his gritty memoir, "Townie."

But Dubus' native New England did not find a setting in his fiction until he published a collection of novellas, "Dirty Love," which depicts small-city and shore-town residents in messy quests for human relationships.

Dubus' novels include "House of Sand and Fog," which was made into an Oscar-nominated movie. He is also the son of writer Andre Dubus II, whose troubled family life was a major element of "Townie."

He spoke to Reuters in a house he built by hand about the role of landscape in his writing, his aversion to the wired life, and the characters that define his work.

Q: How has setting stories closer to home influenced your work?

A: It felt good to try to capture people from this region. I grew up along the Merrimack River in these abandoned mill towns. It was only when writing "Townie" that I wrote directly about this place for the first time, and that kind of freed me up to fictionalize it.

A place has rhythms, a flow like a river. There is a depth of authority a writer has when writing about a place they know well. The same is true when your write about the kinds of people that you know well. But when it comes to place, I think you can write your way to the bottom of your knowledge. Exploring never ends when it comes to character.

I think about my father's work. (John) Updike called him "the bard of Merrimack Valley," and I remember thinking, no, he's not. He sets his stories here, but he doesn't write about people here. My old man's voice was (his native) Louisiana.

Q: Are any real people from "Townie" depicted fictionally in "Dirty Love"?

A: No. In many ways 'Dirty Love' is a departure in tone. All of my fiction before 'Dirty Love' has some physical violence in it. Then I write directly about the physical violence in my youth (in "Townie"), and the first book I write afterwards has no physical violence in it.

Q: How has the Internet affected the writer's role?

A: I have such mixed feelings. I think it's improved the quality of my writing to be able to deepen it so quickly with research.

I really like the populist nature of the Internet. But I find it really depressing how many of us stare at screens in our hands. It's like you walk into a room and everybody's stoned.

Q: You don't have a smart phone?

A: I'm never going to have one. The only computer I have is in my basement where I write. I think we need to reclaim our solitude and the voices in our heads.

Q: A protagonist, Robert, in "Dirty Love" vividly recalled his farm upbringing. Does that come from your experience?

A: I didn't know jack about dairy farms and I don't even drink milk. I had to do research.

I went into Robert and he delivered that piece of news. I believe that these characters are real and they have one history. What you're penetrating is deeply mysterious, which is the writer's imagination.

Q: How do you avoid media character stereotypes.

A: I do protect myself from a lot of this. I'm really kind of tuned out. I want to be disconnected from the noise so I can be connected to something deeper.

But as a novelist who writes fiction set in contemporary America, I can't put my head in the ground. (In) "Dirty Love," I had to ask my daughter, "Show me Facebook." And then I asked her to show me how to text.

Q: In "Dirty Love's" opening piece, where did that line come from, "his heart kicking like a hanged man's feet"?

A: I did not want to have a shopworn phrase. I tried to just be deeply him, looking at the video of his wife cheating on him, and then the image came to me from his emotional moment.

Q: The characters in "Dirty Love" come to terms with the messiness of their relationships. Is that a universal human condition?

A: I don't care for stories that have neat endings. I like 'em to end more musically, where whatever note has been played in that symphony has an echo in the end.

(Editing by Patricia Reaney and Andre Grenon)

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ENTERTAINMENT NEWS: Stars mourn U.S. actress Elizabeth Pena, dead at 55

By Reuters Staff



(Reuters) - Television stars and other celebrities mourned U.S. actress Elizabeth Pena, whose career was marked by roles in the films "La Bamba," "Jacob's Ladder" and "Lone Star," and who died earlier this week at age 55.



Pena, who more recently appeared on the hit TV show "Modern Family," died on Tuesday at a Los Angeles hospital of natural causes after a short illness, her manager Gina Rugolo said.



"Rest in Peace Elizabeth Pena," wrote "Desperate Housewives" star Eva Longoria on Twitter late on Wednesday. "You paved the way for so many of us!!"



Zoe Saldana, the actress and dancer, offered prayers to Pena's family.



"My heart is broken!!!" she wrote on Twitter.



Born in Elizabeth, New Jersey and graduating from New York's High School of Performing Arts in 1977, Pena went on to appear in films including "Down and Out in Beverly Hills," "*batteries not included" and "Rush Hour."



She also acted on television, including her role on "Modern Family." She most recently appeared in several episodes of "Matador," a TV drama.



Pena also tried her hand at directing, including an episode of Resurrection Boulevard, a TV drama in which she also acted, and became only the fourth Latina to join the Director's Guild of America.



Pena is survived by her husband, Hans Rolla, and two children, along with her mother and sister, Rugolo said.





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ENTERTAINMENT NEWS: Joan Rivers died of complication during medical procedure

By Patricia Reaney

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Comedian Joan Rivers, who passed away last month at the age of 81, died of a complication during a medical procedure, the New York Chief Medical Examiner's Office said on Thursday.

Rivers was having an examination of the back of the throat and vocal cords at a New York clinic when she stopped breathing and was rushed to Mount Sinai Hospital, where she was put on life support.

"The manner of death is therapeutic complication," the medical examiner said in a statement, "the death resulted from a predictable complication of medical therapy."

It listed the cause of death as anoxic encephalopathy, a condition caused when brain tissue is deprived of oxygen and there is brain damage.

Rivers, the brash, pioneering comedian who paved the way for women in stand-up comedy, died in hospital on Sept. 4, a week after the outpatient procedure.

"We continue to be saddened by our tragic loss and grateful for the enormous outpouring of love and support from around the world," the comedian's daughter, Melissa Rivers, said in a statement after the release of the autopsy report.

She had no further comment to make at this time.

Following her death, the State Health Department launched an investigation into Yorkville Endoscopy where Rivers was treated. It reviewed records and documents and questioned doctors at the clinic which opened in 2013.

The clinic denied media reports that it had administered a general anesthesia or conducted a vocal cord biopsy on Rivers. Last month the clinic said the doctor who performed the procedure was not currently working there or serving as its medical director.

When asked for comment on the medical examiner's report, the clinic said it was prevented by law from disclosing any information regarding patients.

The Brooklyn-born comedian, who once described herself as "the plastic surgery poster girl" and often joked about her numerous cosmetic enhancements, was known for the catchphrase, "Can we talk?"

Her career as a stand-up comedian, author, talk show host and reality TV star spanned five decades. She starred with her daughter in the reality TV show "Joan & Melissa: Joan Knows Best?", with Rivers living with her grown child.

Most recently, Rivers was the host of cable television channel E!'s "Fashion Police," commenting on the unfortunate red carpet choices of Hollywood celebrities.

(Reporting by Patricia Reaney; editing by Andrew Hay)

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ENTERTAINMENT NEWS: Body of Misty Upham believed found in Washington state

By Eric M. Johnson



SEATTLE (Reuters) - A body believed to be that of missing actress Misty Upham, who played a housekeeper in the movie adaption of "August: Osage County," has been found in the Seattle area, police said on Thursday.



The 32-year-old Native American actress was reported missing by her father on Oct. 6, after she was last seen walking by herself from an apartment the day before near Auburn, some 20 miles south of Seattle, Auburn Police Commander Steve Stocker said.



Auburn police were alerted that a body had been found in a wooded area at the bottom of a 150-foot (46-metre) embankment near the White River in Auburn, south of Seattle, Stocker said in a statement on Thursday.



A purse with Upham's identification was at the scene, but a medical examiner had not made a positive identification or a determination of cause of death, Stocker said.



A family member was in the area searching for her and discovered the body and called the police, Stocker said.



Police responded to numerous suicide calls in the past year at the same apartment, Stocker said, and Upham's parents told police their daughter was on medication for mental health issues.



Upham was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for her supporting role in the 2008 crime drama, "Frozen River."



(Reporting by Eric M. Johnson; Editing by Cynthia Johnston, Sandra Maler and Peter Cooney)

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ENTERTAINMENT NEWS: Al Pacino to return to Broadway in Mamet's 'China Doll'

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oscar- and Tony-winning actor Al Pacino will return to Broadway next year in the world premiere of "China Doll," a new play by David Mamet, its producers said on Thursday.



The play, which Mamet wrote for Pacino, will begin performances in October 2015, according to producers Jeffrey Richards, Jerry Frankel and Steve Traxler.



"For me over the years the relationship and the collaboration with David Mamet has been one of the richest and most rewarding," Pacino said in a statement.



Pacino, 74, won an Academy Award for "Scent of a Woman" and picked up Tonys for "The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel" and "Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie?"



He last appeared on Broadway in another Mamet play, the Pulitzer-Prize-winning drama "Glengarry Glen Ross," which ended its limited run in 2013.



Mamet, 66, gave a cryptic description of "China Doll," saying it is a play about a billionaire named Mickey Ross, who is thinking of semi-retirement and buys a new plane for his young fiance as a wedding present.



"He's in the process of leaving his office, and is giving last minute instructions to his young assistant," Mamet said. "He takes one last call ..."



(Reporting by Patricia Reaney, editing by Piya Sinha-Roy and Cynthia Osterman)





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