CES 2013 kicks off this week

The nation’s largest trade show, the International CES, kicks off in Las Vegas this week, drawing thousands of attendees and exhibitors peddling everything from smartphones to kitchen appliances to electric cars.

The gadget pageant has expanded its focus significantly in recent years. It’s now divided into more than two dozen “TechZones” with products geared toward moms, kids, homeowners, gamers, environmentalists, educators, fitness nuts and medical professionals.

The competition is meant to give entrepreneurs a boost and a potential shot at pitching to business maven Ted Leonsis.

The Arlington-based Consumer Electronics Association, which orchestrates the annual event, even swapped its long-held moniker, the Consumer Electronics Show, for the more amorphous International CES.

“We’ve successfully positioned ourselves as the innovation event for the year, so we have a diverse set of industries represented,” said Gary Shapiro, the association’s president. “Consumer electronics does not begin to describe what’s at the show, frankly.”

Shapiro said exhibitors have leased a record 1.9 million net square feet of floor space. That’s full capacity until the association can take over another convention center in 2015, he said.

CEA has put greater emphasis on entrepreneurs in the past two years, part of an effort to give the show longevity and relevance in an industry that’s increasingly shaped by small players who punch above their weight.

McLean-based TroopID will display the service it started in November that helps retailers verify military personnel and veterans for discounts at a booth in the show’s exhibit for start-up ventures called Eureka Park.

TroopID’s founder and chief executive Blake Hall won the slot at a business pitch competition in November, but had not heard of CES before that.

“I talked to a few of our investors, especially folks who had been out there before, and I realized this is a good opportunity to network in one week with folks and showcase our technology,” Hall said.

Executives at Hillcrest Labs in Rockville will travel to CES this week as they’ve done for at least the past 10 years. The company reserves a hotel suite where they host 50 to 70 meetings with potential partners.

“It’s just a nice, concentrated event where we can be in front of a lot of people and let them know what we’re going to be doing in the coming year,” said Chad Lucien, senior vice president for sales and marketing.

Hillcrest Labs makes a motion control technology called “Freespace” for television remotes and smartphones that detects a person’s hand movement. The company met their first major partner, LG, at CES several years ago and Lucien said the show’s ever-expanding focus creates even more opportunities.

“It makes for a more interesting venue, and when you’re a company like us with enabling technology, you can expand into other market places,” Lucien said.

Other local companies in attendance will include language software creator Rosetta Stone, radio technology firm iBiquity Digital, automaker Audi of America and electronic deadbolt company SimpliciKey, among others.

But as the association and its flagship program continue to encompass new industries, some say it diverts focus in too many directions.

“As they have grown, they have divided into so many subsections that you get less attention,” said Richard Taylor, chief marketing officer at Echo360, a classroom technology company in Dulles.

Echo360 made the trek to Las Vegas last year for the higher education technology portion of CES, one of 150 events the company attended. Taylor said the firm is paring that number back to 60 this year, and CES didn’t make the cut.

“CES is huge obviously, but when you get down to the education portion, you get people that dribble in and out, but there wasn’t a lot of foot traffic,” Taylor said. “We didn’t meet a lot of new clients and we didn’t see a lot of our existing clients.”

Though Shapiro said the number of total exhibitors is up compared with last year, the number of registered local exhibitors is down. Fifty-one companies from Maryland, Virginia and the District are listed in the show’s online directory this year, down from 59 last year, the trade association said.

“Companies are always coming in and going out, depending on their various needs and products,” Shapiro said. “We’ve had companies drop out at the last minute ... but there’s always people on the waiting list to take their place.”

Indian women hope that debate sparked by brutal gang rape will lead to changing attitudes

Preeti Singh worries each time her 20-year-old daughter has a late night at the hospital where she's a medical student. If her daughter has to stay late, Singh tells her to wait for daylight to come home.

"I was brought up with the fear that once it's dark you should be at home," says Singh, a 43-year-old kindergarten teacher in Bangalore, India's technology hub. "I can't shake that fear."

Across India, women tell similar stories. Now there is hope for change.

For decades, women have had little choice but to walk away when groped in a crowded bus or train, or to simply cringe as someone tosses an obscene comment their way. Even if they haven't experienced explicit sexual abuse themselves, they live with the fear that it could happen to them or a loved one.

The gang rape and beating of a 23-year-old university student on a moving bus in India's capital has taken sexual violence — a subject long hidden in the shadows of Indian society — and thrust it into the light.

Following the Dec. 16 attack in New Delhi, which resulted in the woman's death, hundreds of thousands of Indians — both men and women — poured onto the streets of cities across the country, holding candlelight vigils and rallies demanding that authorities take tougher action to create a safe environment for women.

"At least now people are talking," says Rashmi Gogia, a 35-year-old receptionist in a New Delhi law office.

Associated Press journalists interviewed women across India, from the northern cities of Lucknow and Allahabad, to Bangalore in the south, and from the eastern cities of Patna and Gauhati to Ahmadabad in the west.

The outrage sparked by the heinous attack has given women at least a measure of hope that the country of 1.2 billion people will see meaningful improvement in how women are treated, though most realize any change is likely to come slowly.

"These protests have at least given women the confidence to talk about sexual violence," says Singh, the kindergarten teacher in Bangalore. "For too long, women have been made to feel guilty for these things."

Like every woman in India, Singh has her own rules for her daughter's safety. "We make sure she messages us when she reaches (the hospital) and when she leaves for home," she says.

Women who were willing to talk about an unwelcome touch or a crude remark they'd experienced said they had learned to ignore it. Most said they convinced themselves to shrug off these routine assaults and humiliations to avoid angering their attackers, or for fear of bringing shame upon themselves and their families.

"What can you do? You have to work, you have to commute," says Yasmin Talat, a 20-year-old graduate student and career counselor in Allahabad whose parents do not allow her to go out alone after 7 p.m.

"Sometimes I do get angry and say something," she says, "but I'm also scared. You never know what could anger these men."

Aparna Dasa, a 35-year-old saleswoman at a Gauhati department store, said whenever she gets into a crowded bus men try to hold her hand as she grasps the overhead support bar. "They try and touch at every opportunity."

"When I'm on a crowded bus and someone says something bad to me, in my heart I want to give him a tight slap, but I've learned to ignore it," says Gogia, the New Delhi receptionist. "What's the use? All the blame always comes back to the woman.

"We stay silent from a sense of shame," she adds, "or are made to stay silent."

The harassment and violence faced daily by millions of Indian women is a deeply entrenched part of a culture that values men over women.

The mistreatment starts early — with sex-selective abortions and even female infanticides that have wildly skewed India's gender ratio. India's 2011 census showed that the country had 914 girls under age 6 for every 1,000 boys.

Indian movies and television shows routinely trivialize women. In the often suggestive songs and dances of Bollywood films, it's not unusual for the leading man and a gang of his buddies to chase a coyly reluctant actress, touching, pulling and throwing themselves on top of her.

On television, the most popular soap operas show the ideal Indian woman as meek, submissive and accepting of her traditional role inside the home.

Any discussion of sexual violence has so far been taboo. In the past, politicians have said that women should dress modestly and not stay out late to avoid rape and molestations.

But following the New Delhi gang rape, a usually lethargic government machinery has responded more quickly, and with more empathy than before. Perhaps sensing the intensity of public anger — some activists and protesters have demanded that all rapists be chemically castrated, given the death penalty or even lynched in public — the government has vowed to enlist more women police officers and toughen sexual assault laws.

The public outpouring of anger and support has made many women across India feel like their fears and concerns are finally being heard.

Ranjana Kumari, director of the Center for Social Research and a longtime women's rights activist, said the fact that boys and men had joined the protests "gives us hope."

"Then it becomes everyone's issue, and not just a women's issue," she said.

But no one imagines that change will be quick.

"The process is gradual," Kumari said. "Extremely patriarchal societies don't change in short bursts. But this movement will certainly not go to waste."

Defiant Assad Rules Out Talks With Rebels

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad issued a defiant call to war to defend the country against what he called a foreign-inspired rebellion, ruling out talks with rebels and rejecting international peace efforts for a political plan of his own that keeps him in power.

The proposal, made Sunday in Mr. Assad's first national address in six months, dims any chance of a quick resolution to the longest, deadliest and most complicated of the Middle East's Arab Spring revolts.

After the speech to a cheering audience of supporters in Damascus, international critics repeated calls for Mr. Assad, whose family's four-decade rule of Syria sparked an uprising in 2011, to step down. A U.S. State Department spokeswoman called his proposal for political reforms "another attempt by the regime to cling to power."

Bashar al-Assad waved to supporters after his Sunday speech.

The latest sign of defiance from Damascus is expected to fuel debate among the opposition's international backers. The U.S., its European allies and Arab countries opposed to Mr. Assad are split on whether to move more aggressively to help rebels defeat his regime militarily or force both a scale-back in the fighting and then political negotiations, analysts and diplomats say.

It is also likely to intensify talks between the U.S. and Russia, which acknowledged last week Mr. Assad was unlikely to willingly concede power, on how to navigate the crisis, analysts said.

Mr. Assad appeared to suggest he won't cooperate either way. He said he was determined to fight, and ruled out a political settlement except on his own, specific terms. Critics viewed his comments as the harshest declaration of war against the opposition yet.

"Fighting will now increase substantially, which will wear down both sides but I doubt produce the conditions for a viable solution," said Andrew Tabler, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

He added: "Assad is now repeating an old, ruthless pattern: escalating defiantly to test exactly where the red line is, and forcing the international community to give concessions in its desire for a political settlement."

The political plan Mr. Assad laid out fell far short of the opposition's demand for him to step down. It also appeared to undercut the latest round of international diplomacy, spearheaded by Algerian diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi, to bring the regime and opposition toward a political settlement.

"We don't want anyone to come to Syria to tell us what should be done for a political operation," Mr. Assad said, less than two weeks after meeting with Mr. Brahimi in Damascus. "Everyone who comes to Syria knows [that] Syria accepts advice, but doesn't take dictation."

Many Syrians said any hope they had for a resolution of the conflict through a political deal faded after his comments. The Syrian Opposition Coalition, a group that has gained political recognition from more than 100 countries, called the speech "a pre-emptive strike against both Arab and international diplomatic solutions equally."

In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said: "His initiative is detached from reality, undermines the efforts of Joint Special Representative Lakhdar Brahimi, and would only allow the regime to further perpetuate its bloody oppression of the Syrian people."

The foreign ministers of Turkey, the U.K. and the European Union dismissed Mr. Assad's speech as a repeat of old promises and reiterated calls for him to resign. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said of Mr. Assad: "It seems he's locked himself up in a room and only reads the intelligence reports presented to him."

Rebels in a ruined part of Aleppo.

Mr. Assad spoke at the Damascus Opera House, at the capital's central Oumayad Square, an unusual location for presidential speeches, which are usually held at the university auditorium or the parliament building. Syrians said roads in the area were shut off on Sunday in apparent preparation for the speech. Many Syrians described Mr. Assad's choice of forum as ironic, saying the president staged political theater while war raged in the suburbs around Damascus.

Syria's conflict has seen at least 60,000 people killed, according to United Nations data. Millions of Syrians were displaced as a political rebellion demanding change in March 2011 widened into a civil war, pitting Syrian army units against armed civilians and defectors, an insurgency that whittled at the military and took over large parts of northern and eastern Syria.

Neighboring countries, hosting the bulk of the half a million Syrians made refugees by the war, were drawn in as states took sides along sectarian lines, either with Mr. Assad's Shiite-linked Alawite regime or the Sunni-majority rebel movement.

The rebels haven't secured any significant territory since the summer, and Mr. Assad's regime has remained strong.

The military is intact, no full army unit having joined the rebels, despite thousands of individual defections.

The rebels' last military offensive, on Aleppo in July, is one many rebels consider a failure even though regime forces have been expelled from much of the city.

Like other cities where rebels have taken their fight, much of Aleppo, including its historic souks and citadels, has been crushed by aerial bombardment. Residents question why the rebels started a fight they can't seem to finish.

Rebel supporters are hostile at Arab and Western states for not sanctioning the delivery of heavier weapons.

As the fighting grinds on, Islamist factions within the rebel insurgency are gaining power, influence and ground, despite a U.S.-led effort to blacklist them, sanction their leaders and warn regional actors against helping fund them.

Some officials in the region believe Jabhat al-Nusra, a Syrian rebel group the U.S. has designated an offshoot of al Qaeda in Iraq, is too powerful to sideline. That has raised fears in the region of what the future of Syria looks like, if and when the Assad regime is replaced.

The Obama administration opposes helping arm a chaotic insurgency that has repeatedly failed to bring order to its ranks and is cooperating with al Qaeda-linked fighters.

The Syrian regime, in the meantime, has escalated its use of weapons from artillery to aircraft to Scud missiles. People briefed on Mr. Assad's latest meeting with Mr. Brahimi, the special envoy, said the Syrian president insisted that only he could steer Syria out of the crisis, and would work to do so until his term ends in 2014. He would like to run again.

The plan Mr. Assad outlined Sunday proposes a two-phase political process that would result in an elected parliament, a new government and a national conference that would exclude much of the current opposition leading the battle against the government. He said regional and international countries should cut off funds and weapons supplies to the rebels, who would have to put down arms before a cease-fire could take effect and a political process begin.

In principle, the plan sounds broadly similar to the one Mr. Brahimi was pursuing to form a coalition government and move toward free parliamentary elections. The Geneva Agreement, named after a meeting of world powers last summer, makes no reference to what would happen to the president, a point Mr. Assad appeared to manipulate and mock.

Syria's President Bashar al-Assad spoke at the Opera House in Damascus in this still image taken from video on Sunday.

The agreement, backed by the U.N. Security Council, calls on the formation of a transitional government with full executive powers. That government, Mr. Brahimi envisioned, would slowly strip political, military and legal power away from the president, according to people briefed on the plan, which appeared like a distant possibility on Sunday. The process would sideline the president, meeting a rebel demand, without cajoling him into stepping down or giving up power until fair elections are held, a position Russia has insisted on.

"Transition from where to where, or from what to what?" Mr. Assad asked in the speech, in a new tone of defiance against mediation.

"Are we going to go from a free, independent country, to one under occupation? One with a state to one in chaos?"

The president appeared calm and confident, though looking slimmer, as he spoke dressed in a black suit and gray tie. These were his first lengthy public comments on the war since a television interview in November and his first public appearance in many months.

"We are now in a state of war in every sense of the word," he said, accusing rebels and terrorists of cutting off electricity, communications, fuel lines and bread supplies across Syria. Dozens of supporters swarmed the stage after the speech. The president, as he tried to exit, shook hands with some, who shouted, "God, Bashar and Syria, are enough."

Obama keen on Chuck Hagel nomination despite opposition

President Barack Obama could announce former Republican senator Chuck Hagel as his pick for defense secretary as early as Monday, despite senior GOP figures raising questions over the seemingly imminent nomination.

Numerous media outlets cited unnamed White House and congressional aides as confirming that the former Nebraska senator would be named as the replacement for Leon Panetta, with a White House statement expected in the coming days. This would set up a confrontation with Hagel's detractors in the Senate, many from his own party, who believe that he has only been lukewarm towards the US's traditional ally in the Middle East, Israel. One senior Republican said on Sunday that it would be an "in-your-face" nomination by the president.

Hagel has also been criticised for comments he has made over the effectiveness of sanctions in dissuading Iran from pursuing its nuclear programme.

The appointment of Hagel would give Obama credibility regarding his expressed desire for a bipartisan cabinet. Many Republicans, however, are bracing for battle. On Sunday's round of political talk shows, senior GOP figures went on the offensive.

"It is an incredibly controversial choice," the South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham told CNN's State of the Union. "This is an in-your-face nomination by the president to all of us who are supportive of Israel." Hagel has been critical of the influence of pro-Israeli lobbyists in Washington on US foreign policy.

The Senate's top Republican, the minority leader Mitch McConnell, was more reserved in his comments. Speaking on ABC's This Week, McConnell said Hagel "has certainly been outspoken" on foreign policy matters in the past. He added that if the nomination was made, he would want to see if the former Nebraska senator's views "make sense for that particular job".

The likely confirmation battle in the Senate comes after the Obama administration backed down from a similar fight over Susan Rice, the ambassador to the United Nations who had been Obama's first pick to replace Hillary Clinton as secretary of state. Rice withdrew under a barrage of criticism from Republicans, regarding remarks she made in the aftermath of the assault on the US consulate in Benghazi in September that killed the ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens. The White House could face an equally tough battle over Hagel.

"The administration has a lot of work to do on Hagel. He is in a weaker position now than Rice ever was because Rice would have rallied Democrats behind her," a Senate Democratic aide told Reuters. But Obama has already pressed the case.

"I've served with Chuck Hagel. I know him. He is a patriot. He is somebody who has done extraordinary work both in the United States Senate, somebody who served this country with valour in Vietnam," the president told NBC's Meet the Press last week.