Developer Tools You Don't Use – And Why You Don't Use Them

by Esther Schindler

http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=2468710321177149966

August 11, 2009 —

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Just about every developer uses a debugger, at least occasionally. The reasons are obvious: Code inevitably has defects, and a tool can help find them.

However, other categories of software tools are used far less often. According to several years-worth of data collected by analyst firm Evans Data, a steady 20-30% of software developers stay away from some developer tools categories entirely. For example, a quarter of North American developers never use a load and stress test tool; 22% never use data modeling tools.

[ See also: Fathers of Technology: 10 Unsung Heroes and The end of bloatware: The return of programming's golden age? ]

Sometimes this makes perfect sense, based on the application or where it runs. Intranet apps rarely need a load and stress tool to determine if they can handle a Slashdot load. If you think your application might endure the occasional heavy load, you might consider hosting with a cloud-based server rather than tune for a situation that never arrives. When some developers say, "These tools aren't necessary," they have good reason for that opinion. According to the latest Evans North American Development Survey, performance tools aren't used by 29% of the developers who primarily write departmental in-house software (as compared to those who write apps the whole enterprise uses), and 44% of those departmental developers never use load and stress test tools. In contrast, 90% of independent software vendors (ISVs) use performance tools at least occasionally, and three quarters use load testing tools.

Most unused development tools

Performance tools	18%
Load and stress test tools	25%
Refactoring tools	26%
Application modeling tools	27%
Data modeling tools	28%
Source: Evans Data

But other categories of developer tools, such as security testing and performance tuning, presumably could benefit everyone. Why don't developers adopt them? To learn the answer, I asked dozens of developers why they don't use data modeling tools, application modeling tools, load and stress test tools, security testing tools, refactoring tools, or performance tools. I also invited a few vendors to chime in, to share the most common sales objections they encounter.

The Tools Are Unnecessary or Irrelevant

A common answer to, "Why don't you…?" is "Because I don't need it."

These tools are out of scope for many projects, points out developer Quentin Neill. Recently, he built an ad-hoc tool to mine a database, merge data into a document infrastructure, and publish it to the web. That application didn't use any of those tools, he says; there was simply no need for them.

Often, tools are perceived as overkill. Developer Leonid Lastovkin explains, "I do not need a bulldozer to build a sand castle. If I am building a big sand castle – then maybe." Developers like Lastovkin must see a tangible, practical need before adopting a toolset. "Performance [tools] can be quite useful, but not until you hit a realistic bottleneck," he says. "It all depends on scalability requirements."

That sentiment is echoed by Charles Wilde, CTO at Aton International, who decides on tool relevance based on project size and type. For instance, an Agile development project with three people might skip data and application modeling tools; a short lifetime project may not justify refactoring or performance tools. "As a project manager, I must make decisions on tools based on cost/benefit. These decisions can vary widely on the specific details," says Wilde.

"I do not need a bulldozer to build a sand castle. If I am building a big sand castle – then maybe."

Leonid Lastovkin

This assumes that developers know when the out-of-scope application status changes. Explains Brian Vosicky, consultant at Corporate Technology Solutions, most projects start small and do not take into account possible growth; customers want a quick turnaround that meets today's requirements. "But the problem is: Requirements constantly change and expand, which then exacerbates the shortsightedness in design and testing and skews the calculation of the benefit," says Vosicky.

Of about 40 teams supported by Capgemini's Paul Oldfield, a methodologist with 25 years experience, few if any of the Legacy Enhancement teams use application modeling tools, because they already know the application back to front and inside out. Other teams have different reasons. "The better [teams] manage fine with whiteboards and paper; a few individuals 'just wing it' despite evidence that they are less productive overall if they go that way."

Sure. That makes sense. If you believe that any individual developer knows what he's talking about.

I Don't Need Their Functionality. Uh, Whatever It Is.

The question raised by the common "I don't need it" argument, however, is, "How do you know?"

One thing I learned from my developer conversations is that vendors don't always make it obvious how the software improves the development process. And developers have their own way of doing things or are confident that their code is adequate (whether or not the attitude is justified), so they see no driving reason to change.

The more experienced you are, the less you need these tools, in the opinion of many. For Mark Hunter, founder of FlipScript.com, the tool cost-to-value ratio is way too small, especially when factoring in the cost in his time. "For instance, why use data modeling tools when an experienced developer like myself can knock out the entire SQL script to create the database in a couple of hours, and later modify it in seconds?"

"Half of the developers in the world are below average, and you and I are depending on their code as well as on software written by the smartest programmers."

Richard Kirkcaldy is a developer at Computer Gentle, serving small businesses and non-profits. Even with larger scale deployments, he'd rather rely on his own knowledge than theoretical measurements. "It's much more helpful to know from experience that a certain database type will handle a certain number of users," he says. "If you don't know how many users a system will handle, you can ask people who have used similar setups." In other words: I can do this job better than the software.

Developer David Stevenson certainly agrees with that premise. "I just completed an XML over HTTP application, and I built my own performance measurement/load test tools from scratch," he says. "I would have to see a tool that wouldn't take an inordinate amount of time to learn, and that could do an equal job to the custom tool that I built."

Maybe Hunter, Kirkcaldy, and Stevenson are justified in their viewpoint (I assume they are), and maybe it's true for you (because as my reader you have demonstrated good taste and brilliance). But statistically, half of the developers in the world are below average, and you and I are depending on their code as well as on software written by the smartest programmers. Remember that guy on your team three years ago who was a legend in his own mind? Do you think his apps could stand to be scrutinized by a fine-tune finishing tool? Do you think he'd have admitted it?

As Larry Warnock, CEO of IT vendor Phurnace Software explains, "Most of the [sales] objections we hear are actually rooted in pride. And it's completely understandable. Developers have spent hundreds of hours creating their baby: home-grown deployment scripts. But ultimately it's tough to argue with the power of automation tools."

It's one thing to reject developer tools because they don't bring enough value to justify the time and money to acquire and install them. However, developers are not always aware of what the tools can do, at least according to vendors. Rob Cheyne, CEO of Safelight Security Advisors, says it depends on the team's skill set. A team with a performance engineering expert may already have a suite of stress test tools. But, he cautions, other teams may not know what's possible. Cheyne says, "Some of the really good security tools have only been available for a few years, and new tools come out all the time."

Vendor Mandeep Khera, CMO for security-tools company Cenzic, believes that too many developers don't recognize that they might have a Web security problem; after all, they haven't been hacked. "They think having SSL is enough. Usually it takes a lot of education and showing them actual hacks to convince them," Khera says.

The Tools Don't Deliver on Their Promises

The vendors, naturally, believe that their tools improve the software development process. (You expected otherwise?) But for some developers, it's not a matter of willingness to adopt a tool; the problem is that the tools don't deliver what they promise.

A decade ago, one developer (I'll call him Dennis) was part of an evaluation team asked to recommend one web stress testing package from the Management-deemed three finalists (all costing over $100,000). None really tested load, he says. They were far too underpowered, and what seemed like exact, discrete, measurable performance specs were mushy. "We held our nose and endorsed the best of the three," Dennis says. "The company bought one of the two losers instead, based on a sales to executive end-run."

Frank Koehl, founder and lead developer at Fwd:Vault, just doesn't believe that security testing tools, for instance, are worth the effort. "I code to eliminate the security holes, but a test is supposed to uncover ones I may have missed," Koehl says. "Because these attacks are so specific, and the tools can only be built for general purpose use, they are often useless. The ones that can get situation-specific are typically far more trouble than they're worth, because they still don't get you inside an attacker's head."

But not every developer rejects the tools. Many would be happy to use them – if only they could.

It's Not Part of the Development Process

In the eyes of Stevi Deter, a lead software engineer at Mantis Technology Group, a primary barrier to adoption is that these tools aren't part of the ordinary software development lifecycle (SDLC). Says Deter, "Unlike, say, Test Driven Development, there is no 'Security Driven Development' concept that teaches processes to include security concerns as an integral part of the development process. Instead, it seems to be viewed as a later step in the SDLC, one that can be skipped."

Safelight's Cheyne acknowledges that adding a new tool can cause concern about breaking an existing process. "It can be risky to change it until you fully understand the benefits and have the time and resources to work it into the existing process," he says.

"It is hard to quantify what benefits the tools will deliver, but the cost is up-front and highly visible."

Dave Poole

The tools also require that the practitioner know what to do with what the tool tells her. For example, explains Alice Kærast, code administrator at Qvox.org, security testing tools aren't very useful unless the developer understands and can deal with the results. "They only ever give obscure vulnerabilities which nobody will exploit and they miss real vulnerabilities that can be exploited," she says. Kærast is comfortable with her (open source) code and believes it's written securely.

Developer and database guy Dave Poole is also dubious about results. "It is hard to quantify what benefits the tools will deliver, but the cost is up-front and highly visible," he says. "I started looking at database stress test tools but was hampered by cost, poor documentation, obscure user interfaces, and ultimately time."

Or, as Denis Sinegubko, founder and developer of Unmask Parasites admits directly, "I don't know how to use them effectively and don't have time to learn."

It's not just a matter of asking software to do a better job than you're doing yourself. If you don't see a need for, say, refactoring, you surely won't buy software to assist with it. Keith Barrows, lead architect at RivWorks, uses refactoring tools personally, but he knows a lot of developers who don't know how to refactor. That makes for messy apps, he says. Similarly, few of Oldfield's teams use refactoring tools. "Many seem just to let the code ossify despite attempts to introduce them to better ways of thinking," he says.

They Might Be Useful, But They're Too Expensive

Another perception is that the tools cost too much for the developer's budget, or (going back to tool quality) they don't offer enough bang for the buck.

Stevi Deter summarized this attitude succinctly: "[Security testing tools] are expensive, so even as a developer focused on continually improving my skills, I find it hard to learn about them on my own. Contract prices don't include these tools, so it's hard to justify the outlay to my employer."

Because specialist tools cost a lot of money, says database guy Dave Poole, few small companies have the budget or time to invest in them. "I had to deliver an e-commerce site written in PHP with Notepad.exe!" he exclaims. "Once you step into the big league, decent tools start to give the ROI but they do require an outlay both in financial terms and in staff training terms."

The "high prices" may be a matter of perception more than actuality, even though the economy has reduced IT budgets. Cenzic's Khera says his company can overcome many myths by showing them how to use a SaaS solution at a very low price.

It's Hard to Convince Management They're Necessary

In some cases, the barrier is not developer reluctance, but finding employers who'll cough up the money to pay for software quality improvement tools. That can be a Catch 22, since a developer may not know what the software can do until she uses it herself, making it hard to ask for the budget allocation.

David Stevenson's company uses only free tools, other than the Microsoft development suite. Buying tools requires the costs to be justified, he says. "Unless you are familiar with the tool (and have a free version to train yourself on) you will not know what benefits and cost justifications the tool will provide, so that you can (attempt to) justify spending on a tool."

For some, tool adoption reflects overall corporate attitudes and, alas, company politics. According to Geoffrey Feldman, a consultant with 30 years of experience, companies exist on a continuum with "Document and analyze everything before writing any code" at one end and "Get 'er done" on the other – and the "Get 'er done" school doesn't use tools unless contractually required. "At the extreme end, if their customer pays for it, it's done," Feldman says. These companies also have "people lovers:" managers who gain importance based on the number of people under their command. "Many of these tools are labor saving devices," Feldman points out, "And thus they eat into the justification for [managing] lots of people."

So, why aren't you using these tools? The bottom line is that they are perceived (rightly or wrongly) as expensive, unnecessary, mystifying or inaccessible, and hard to learn. That's quite a challenge for those of us who care desperately about code quality, and for those who want to create tools to improve it.

All may not be lost, though. For some tool categories, adoption may just be a matter of time.

Safelight's Cheyenne points to debuggers as a good example. For a period of time after modern debuggers first became available, developers continued to debug code manually, such as adding break points and printing to the screen. "Not everybody was immediately aware that debuggers existed, they were comfortable with the way they had been doing things, and the debugger wasn't always bundled in with the compiler and used to cost extra money," Cheyenne remembers. But adoption followed quickly after developers got a taste of the new tools. "Today, no enterprise developer would dream of debugging the old-fashioned way," Cheyenne adds. "It's extremely inefficient and costs far more in developer hours than the cost of the tools. The tools that truly improve ROI will always be adopted in the long run."

facing Interview

I don't how to start..
well tell u the truth i really also do not have much experience in interview, specially when comes to negotiating. But from the experience i got my life , what i think is

1. u must answer questions solidly and firmly -- this is a kind of a tough situation, where i it is easy said than done.
2. salary - tell an amount u think u need, interviews i have faced i have never got a offer from any of my employers
3. ask about the break down of the salary
make sure u increase the basic
ask about other benefits u get - insurance , traveling

G8 sees continued perils for world economy

L'AQUILA, Italy (Reuters) – G8 leaders believe the world economy still faces "significant risks" and may need further help, according to summit draft documents that also reflect failure to agree climate change goals for 2050.

Discord over environmental measures was underlined by withdrawal from the meeting of Chinese President Hu Jintao, who returned to Beijing because of unrest in northwestern China in which 156 people have been killed.

Documents seen by Reuters ahead of a G8 summit cautioned that "significant risks remain to economic and financial stability", while "exit strategies" from pro-growth packages should be unwound only "once recovery is assured".

"Before there is talk of additional stimulus, I would urge all leaders to focus first on making sure the stimulus that has been announced actually gets delivered," Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said before the summit began.

Leaders met in L'Aquila, a mountain town wrecked by April's earthquake and a fitting backdrop to talks on a global economy struggling to overcome the worst recession in living memory.

The Group of Eight -- United States, Germany, Japan, France, Britain, Italy, Canada and Russia -- will kick off with debate on the economic crisis, after what one analyst called a "reality check" in recent weeks on the prospects for rapid recovery.

G8 leaders badly underestimated the economic problems facing them when they met in Japan last year and will now focus on what must be done to prevent another meltdown.

"Although there have been signs of stability in the economy and the sentiment has improved, the real economy has not recovered yet with job and wage conditions still stagnant," said Takao Hattori, senior strategist at Mitsubishi UFJ Securities.

But few big initiatives are expected as the G20, a broader forum that also includes the main emerging economies, is tasked with formulating a regulatory response to the crisis and meets in September in Pittsburgh after an April summit in London.

DOLLAR DEBATE PLAYED DOWN

Not mentioning China's push for a sensitive debate about a long-term alternative to the dollar as global reserve currency, the draft talked only of global "imbalances". G8 diplomats had said this might be the only oblique reference to currency.

"Stable and sustainable long-term growth will require a smooth unwinding of the existing imbalances in current accounts," read the draft prepared for the G8 talks.

China complains that dollar domination has exacerbated the global crisis and worries that the bill for U.S. recovery poses an inflation risk for China's dollar assets, an estimated 70 percent of its official currency reserves.

Analysts said the decision not to refer to this directly could remove a destabilizing factor on currency markets.

U.S. President Barack Obama was expected to make his mark on his first G8 summit by chairing Thursday's meeting in L'Aquila of the 17-nation Major Economies Forum, whose members account for about 80 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

But MEF ministers, summoned at the last minute on Tuesday to prepare for the summit, failed to close the gap between U.S. and Europe on the one hand and emerging powers like China and India on the other hand.

Berlusconi spoke of meeting Chinese "resistance" and the G8 appeared to have failed to persuade China and India to agree to a goal of halving world greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

A draft MEF document dropped any reference to this and aimed instead for agreement on the need to limit the average increase in global temperature to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times.

Cindy Baxter from Greenpeace said G8 leaders were "watering down climate ambitions" as deep emission cuts are a prerequisite for limiting temperature rises, but appeared to get no mention.

Developing nations, present in large numbers at the expanded G8 summit with more than 30 world leaders invited including nine African nations, argue that they need to be able to consume more energy in order to end poverty among their populations.

A packed first day is due to wrap up with talks on an array of international issues, including Iran's post-election violence and nuclear programme. However, these are unlikely to lead to any immediate action, such as a tightening of sanctions.

One area where a breakthrough is possible is trade. A draft communique suggested the G8 and "G5" developing nations would agree to conclude the stalled Doha round of trade talks in 2010.

Launched in 2001 to help poor nations prosper through trade, the talks have stumbled on proposed tariff and subsidy cuts.

Leaders will also discuss a U.S. proposal that rich nations commit $15 billion over several years for agricultural development in poor countries to ensure food supplies.

Toxic asset program may be too late to help banks

Treasury set to unveil managers for toxic asset plan, but many wonder if its moment has passed

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A government plan designed to rid banks' books of the troubled assets that exacerbated the financial crisis will do little to address a fundamental weakness of the industry or the broader economy, analysts say.

The Treasury Department this week will announce the names of between five and 10 fund investment firms participating in the multibillion-dollar plan, according to two industry officials who requested anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the matter.

The plan, known as the Public-Private Investment Program, or PPIP, will leverage private capital with government subsidies so that these investment firms can buy up the soured mortgage-related assets that have clogged banks' balance sheets and made them reluctant to lend freely to businesses and consumers.

But since announcing the plan five months ago, the government has shelved part of it that would help these firms buy individual mortgages and other loans held by the banks. As a result, some analysts say its impact will be muted.

"The real hit lies in the trillions of dollars in residential home loans and commercial loans banks hold in whole-loan form on their balance sheets," said Daniel Alpert, managing director of the investment bank Westwood Capital LLC.

Fears of a deeper recession, including rising unemployment and falling home values, raise the specter of massive defaults on consumer and commercial real estate loans, analysts said.

But the securities backed by mortgages and other complex assets to be targeted by PPIP are no longer as big a threat to the banking industry's stability, Alpert and other analysts said. Ten of the nation's biggest financial companies -- including JPMorgan Chase & Co., American Express Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. -- last month got the go-ahead to return $68 billion in federal bailout money, a development viewed as evidence that the financial sector was beginning to stabilize after benefiting from the government's $700 billion financial rescue fund.

Some of the PPIP managers are expected to include Blackrock Inc., Pacific Investment Management Co. and TCW Group Inc., according to the two industry officials. Billionaire investor Wilbur Ross said Tuesday on CNBC that he would use up to $1 billion to participate.

Ross said banks will never break even on many of their troubled assets, but that the government plan will get them five-to-10 percentage points closer.

The PPIP was initially expected to remove up to $1 trillion in bad assets off the banks' books. But Ross said the program likely will max out at $125 billion.

Treasury spokesman Andrew Williams declined Tuesday to confirm or comment on the $125 billion estimate. "We're committed to making this program work and we expect to announce the managers soon," he said.

Treasury is going forward with the program largely to improve confidence, said Douglas Elliott, a former investment banker now with the Brookings Institution. He expects that two-thirds of bank losses will be in categories like commercial real estate loans, commercial investment loans and credit cards.

Elliott also said there are problems in the program's design that will limit its usefulness. He said banks still want far more money for the assets than investors are willing to pay, and that the government subsidy is not enough to make up that difference.

In mid-April, Treasury announced that it was making it easier for hedge funds and other private investors to participate in the program, a move seen by analysts as an acknowledgment that investor interest had been lackluster.

A week later, JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon said the bank did not intend to participate because it did not need to.

The Treasury Department played down the concerns, saying at the time that there would be significant interest from other banks.

Jackson memorial performers announced as LA braces

LOS ANGELES – The stage was set Monday for Michael Jackson's final act as the world capital of make-believe braced for what could be the biggest, most spectacular celebrity send-off of all time.

Ecstatic fans who won the lottery for seats at Tuesday's memorial received the tickets and spangly wristbands that will get them into the 20,000-seat Staples Center downtown. The family announced the participants will include Stevie Wonder, Mariah Carey, Usher, Lionel Richie, Kobe Bryant, Jennifer Hudson, John Mayer and Martin Luther King III.

As night fell, a local TV station reported activity at the Forest Lawn Cemetery that appeared to involve Jackson's family. That is the location where the family was expected to hold a private funeral at some point.

KCAL-TV showed helicopter footage taken at sunset Monday of a hearse backing up to a building inside the grounds. It also showed footage of a woman in sunglasses and a hat who appeared to be LaToya Jackson entering the cemetery. Representatives for the Jackson family reached Monday night did not comment.

A small handful of cars was shown coming and going from the Hall of Liberty, a circular building at the cemetery that contains a 1,200 seat auditorium.

The legal maneuvering that marked Jackson's extraordinary and troubled life also continued on Monday, with his mother losing a bid to control his enormous but tangled estate. And in one of the few reminders of Jackson's darkest hours, a New York congressman branded Jackson a "pervert" undeserving of so much attention.

More than 1.6 million people registered for free tickets to the 10 a.m. memorial, which will be broadcast live worldwide. A total of 8,750 people were chosen to receive two tickets each. The lucky ones picked up their passes Monday at Dodger Stadium amid heavy police presence.

"I got the golden ticket!" one fan screamed out of his car window in a Willy Wonka moment as he drove out of the parking lot.

"My mother loves Elvis. This is my Elvis," said ticket winner Mynor Garcia, 29.

Downtown hotels were quickly filling. Police, trying to avoid a mob scene, warned those without tickets to stay away because they would not be able to get close to the Staples Center.

British Airways reported a surge of bookings as soon as the memorial arrangements were announced. Virgin's trans-Atlantic flights to San Francisco, Las Vegas and Los Angeles were all packed with fans and VIPs, spokesman Paul Charles said.

"I think this is America's version of Princess Diana. People want to be in the vicinity. People from the UK and elsewhere want to share their emotions together," Charles said.

About 50 theaters across the country, from Los Angeles to Topeka, Kan., to Washington, D.C., were planning to broadcast the memorial live, said Cinedigm Digital Cinema Corp. spokeswoman Suzanne Moore. Admission will be free — first-come, first-served.

Jackson's friend Elizabeth Taylor will be mourning in private. She said on her Twitter feed Monday that she would not attend the memorial.

"I just don't believe that Michael would want me to share my grief with millions of others," she tweeted. "How I feel is between us. Not a public event."

In Los Angeles Superior Court, meanwhile, a judge appointed Jackson's longtime attorney and a family friend as administrators of his estate over the objections of his mother, Katherine. Attorney John Branca and music executive John McClain had been designated in Jackson's 2002 will as the people he wanted to oversee his empire.

Mrs. Jackson's attorneys expressed concerns about McClain and Branca's financial leadership.

"Frankly, Mrs. Jackson has concerns about handing over the keys to the kingdom," said one of her attorneys, John E. Schreiber.

Another one of her attorneys, Burt Levitch, told Judge Mitchell Beckloff that Branca had previously been removed from financial positions of authority by Jackson. Branca's attorney said he was rehired by Jackson on June 17, days before Jackson's death.

Branca and McClain will have to post a $1 million bond on the estate, and their authority will expire Aug. 3, when another hearing will be held.

"Mr. Branca and Mr. McClain for the next month are at the helm of the ship," the judge said.

Jackson died at age 50 with hundreds of millions in debts. But a court filing estimates his estate is worth more than $500 million. His assets are destined for a trust, with his three children, his mother and charities as beneficiaries.

On eBay, bids for memorial tickets were reaching as high as $3,000, and prices on Craigslist were in the thousands, although both sites were removing postings attempting to sell memorial tickets.

Debbie Rowe, Jackson's ex-wife and the mother of Jackson's two oldest children, had planned to attend the memorial but backed out Monday.

"The onslaught of media attention has made it clear her attendance would be an unnecessary distraction to an event that should focus exclusively on Michael's legacy," her attorney Marta Almli said in a statement. "Debbie will continue to celebrate Michael's memory privately."

In New York, Republican Rep. Peter King released a YouTube video calling Jackson, who was acquitted of child molestation charges, a "pervert" and a "low-life."

But the memories of Jackson's problems were far from the minds of fans preparing to say goodbye.

"It's the passing of a great soul," said Matt Tyson, 31, of Ojai, Calif. "He brought people together, helped express something that's in us all."

In a symbolic convergence of events, however, the circus will be there.

Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey starts a run at Staples Center on Wednesday. In the predawn hours before Jackson's memorial, the elephants will walk from the train station to the arena.

Michael Jackson dies, 1958-2009: The Talent and the Tragedy

The tragedy of Michael Jackson's death at age 50, reportedly from cardiac arrest, pales in comparison to the tragedy of his life. To understand all that Jackson had and lost requires wiping away three decades of plastic surgeries that deformed him, erratic behavior that made his name synonymous with the warping powers of fame, and a 2005 trial for sexually abusing a child that, even though he was spared of any finding of wrongdoing, made him a pariah to all but the most brainwashed of fans. (See pictures and listen to: "(Sort of) Celebrating Michael Jackson's 50th Birthday")

But if you can forgive or forget all that, underneath was one of the most talented entertainers of the 20th century. Quincy Jones who produced Jackson's quintessential solo albums was devastated by the news of his passing. "I've lost my little brother today," Jones said in a statement, "part of my soul has gone with him." Said Jones: "Divinity brought our souls together... and allowed us to do what we were able to throughout the 80's. To this day, the music we created together on Off The Wall, Thriller and Bad is played in every corner of the world and the reason for that is because he had it all...." (TIME reports: Mourning Michael on Twitter)

Jackson was born in 1958, the seventh of nine Jackson children, and before he reached age six he had joined his brothers in the Jackson Five. By the age of eight he had taken over lead singing duties with brother Jermaine, but there was no question who was the star of the group. Little Michael was the best dancer and singer of the bunch, but he also had the mysterious thing that record bosses and studio chiefs crave: star power. Michael appeared to be his best and most interesting self when everyone in the world was watching. (See the All-TIME 100 Albums.)

As Michael aged into adolescence the Jackson Five, renamed The Jacksons after their departure from Motown Records, inevitably lost some of its charm. A solo career followed, and after a steady stream of middling hits that attempted to milk the last bit of innocence from Jackson's voice, Jackson had the good fortune to hook up with Quincy Jones while filming The Wiz. The two shared a vision for what Jackson's career as an adult might be and on 1979's Off The Wall they executed it beyond even Jackson's dreams. With songwriting help from Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder, Off the Wall spun off four Top 10 hits and two number-ones - "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" and "Rock with You." (Read TIME's 1984 cover story on Michael Jackson)

At 22, Jackson not only became one of the most admired pop musicians in the world, but one of the globe's most famous people. And his fame only increased with the 1981 release of Thriller, which was to become the best-selling album of all-time (until it was eclipsed in the late '90s by The Eagles Greatest Hits, 1971-1975.) Seven of the record's nine tracks made the Top 10, and the Quincy Jones-produced hooks remain awe-inspiring. In a cover story about Jackson and Thriller, TIME described him as "a one-man rescue team for the music business. A songwriter who sets the beat for a decade. A dancer with the fanciest feet on the street. A singer who cuts across all boundaries of taste and style and color too."

While Jackson had few ambitions at the time beyond global domination, it's worth noting that "The Girl is Mine" established interracial love as a pop music theme and "Beat It" (with Eddie Van Halen's guitar solo) bridged arena rock and soul four years before Run DMC met Aerosmith. On March 25, 1983, Jackson may have reached the very peak of his fame when he unveiled his signature dance move, the moonwalk, live on the "Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever" television special.

The years after Thriller, however, were marked by a slow descent into what was first dismissible as eccentricity. Jackson attended the Grammys on a triple date with Emmanuel Lewis and Madonna, purchased a chimpanzee named Bubbles and was diagnosed with vitiligo, a condition that he said was responsible for the steady lightening of his skin. But his songwriting genius remained undeniable. With Lionel Richie Jackson, he co-wrote "We Are the World," a 1985 charity single that raised an estimated $50 million for famine relief in Africa and ushered in the era of celebrity philanthropy.

After the release of 1987's Bad, a disappointing follow-up to Thriller, Jackson purchased the 2,800-acre Neverland Ranch in California, and his public weirdness became almost aggressive. In his biography, Moonwalk, Jackson wrote of childhood abuse at the hands of his father and multiple plastic surgeries, subjects he returned to in a 1993 interview with Oprah Winfrey that was one of the most watched non-sports programs in American history.

Shortly after, Jackson was accused of child sexual abuse in a suit brought by Evan Chandler on behalf of his then 13-year-old son Jordan. Chandler told a psychiatrist and police that he and Jackson had engaged in sexual acts that included oral sex; the boy gave a detailed description of Jackson's genitals. The case was settled out of court for a reported $22 million, but the strain led Jackson to begin taking painkillers. Eventually he became addicted.

To counteract the stigma that came with the allegations of pedophilia, Jackson married Lisa Marie Presley in a relationship Elvis' only daughter later dismissed as a sham. Two years later they divorced.

Given the tumult in his personal life, it's no surprise that the 1990s were a barren period for Jackson creatively. In 2001 he managed to pull himself together enough to release Invincible and stage two concerts celebrating his 30th anniversary as a performer at New York's Madison Square Garden. The shows, held a few days before Sept. 11, were a capsule of all Jackson had become. There were bizarre cameos from friends Marlon Brando, Liza Minnelli and Eliabeth Taylor. Macaulay Culkin sat next to Jackson in a royal box. But several hours after the proceedings began, when Jackson finally took the stage, all the years of Wacko Jacko melted away. Then in his early 40s, he could still dance and sing better than almost anyone in the world, and he still had star power. The Jackson on display in those concerts was one the world admired and the one that will be missed.

Prototype Nokia phone recharges without wires

Pardon the cliche, but it's one of the holiest of Holy Grails of technology: Wireless power. And while early lab experiments have been able to "beam" electricity a few feet to power a light bulb, the day when our laptops and cell phones can charge without having to plug them in to a wall socket still seems decades in the future.

Nokia, however, has taken another baby step in that direction with the invention of a cell phone that recharges itself using a unique system: It harvests ambient radio waves from the air, and turns that energy into usable power. Enough, at least, to keep a cell phone from running out of juice.

While "traditional" (if there is such a thing) wireless power systems are specifically designed with a transmitter and receiver in mind, Nokia's system isn't finicky about where it gets its wireless waves. TV, radio, other mobile phone systems -- all of this stuff just bounces around the air and most of it is wasted, absorbed into the environment or scattered into the ether. Nokia picks up all the bits and pieces of these waves and uses the collected electromagnetic energy to create electrical current, then uses that to recharge the phone's battery. A huge range of frequencies can be utilized by the system (there's no other way, really, as the energy in any given wave is infinitesimal). It's the same idea that Tesla was exploring 100 years ago, just on a tiny scale.

Mind you, harvesting ambient electromagnetic energy is never going to offer enough electricity to power your whole house or office, but it just might be enough to keep a cell phone alive and kicking. Currently Nokia is able to harvest all of 5 milliwatts from the air; the goal is to increase that to 20 milliwatts in the short term and 50 milliwatts down the line. That wouldn't be enough to keep the phone alive during an active call, but would be enough to slowly recharge the cell phone battery while it's in standby mode, theoretically offering infinite power -- provided you're not stuck deep underground where radio waves can't penetrate.

Nokia says it hopes to commercialize the technology in three to five years.

Witnesses to testify in trial of former AIG CEO

NEW YORK – Witnesses begin testifying Tuesday in the civil trial of American International Group Inc.'s former top executive, accused of plundering an AIG retirement program of billions of dollars.

Attorney Theodore Wells told jurors Monday in Manhattan that former Chief Executive Officer Maurice "Hank" Greenberg improperly took $4.3 billion in stock from the company in 2005, after he was ousted by the company amid investigations of accounting irregularities.

"Hank Greenberg was mad. He was angry," Wells said in U.S. District Court of the emotional state of the man who, over a 35-year-career, built AIG from a small company into the world's largest insurance provider. He said the saga is a story of "anger, betrayal and cover-up."

Wells said that Greenberg, within weeks of being forced out in mid-2005, gave the go-ahead for tens of millions of shares to be sold from a trust fund. The fund was set up decades ago to provide incentive bonuses to a select group of AIG management and highly compensated employees that they would receive upon their retirement.

Wells showed the jury several clips of Greenberg speaking on videotape about the responsibilities of the trust fund. He called it Greenberg's "videotaped confession."

Wells asked the jury to award AIG $4.276 billion and 185 million AIG shares.

Greenberg, 84, has contended through his lawyers that he had the right to sell the shares because they were owned by Starr International, a privately held company he controlled.

Greenberg's lawyer, David Boies, told the jury in his opening statement that the shares sold by his client did not belong to AIG.

"I disagree with a great many things that Mr. Wells said," Boies told the jury. He said a study of the documents in the case would prove that the shares sold by Greenberg did not belong to AIG.

"Look in this case not to what people said after this lawsuit started," Boies said. "Look to what they said and did and wrote before the lawsuit started."

Starr International was named after Cornelius Vander Starr, who created a worldwide network of insurance companies in the early 1900s.

AIG maintains that Starr and Greenberg, his protege and successor, decided in the late 1960s to organize the various companies under one holding company, AIG.

Starr International remained a private company and its shareholders decided in 1970 that the amount that its shares of AIG were worth above book value of about $110 million should be used to compensate AIG employees, AIG has said.

The embattled insurer is trying to reclaim the money from Starr it says was wrongly pocketed through stock sales by Greenberg.

The trial relates to events that occurred long before AIG found itself under attack earlier this year over its bonus program.

The company was roundly criticized after it accepted $182 billion in federal aid and then paid out $165 million in bonuses to employees, including traders in the financial products unit that nearly caused the company to collapse.

Before the jury was chosen Monday, U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff said evidence in the trial could not include information about the government bailout. He also said the entire trial will last no longer than a month. Greenberg is among one of several witnesses expected to take the stand this week.

The trial features two legal heavyweights.

Boies argued on behalf of Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore before the U.S. Supreme Court during the disputed presidential vote in 2000. Wells was on the team of defense lawyers in 2007 for former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who was convicted of perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI about his role in leaking the name of a CIA operative to a reporter.

Boeing shut out of orders race at Paris Air Show

LE BOURGET, France – Worries about passenger traffic, credit markets, the global economy and the unexplained crash of Air France Flight 447 have marred the atmosphere at the world's first and largest air show.

While defiant Boeing Co. executives said the overall prospects were robust, the Chicago-based aviation giant reported no new orders at the Paris Air Show on Monday. Airbus announced just one, from Qatar Airways, for 24 jets from the A320 family worth $1.9 billion.

At the opening day of the industry's last major show, in Farnborough, England, a year ago, airlines from oil-rich Middle Eastern countries booked orders for about 150 planes worth more than $25 billion.

Gulf-based carriers were among the few pulling out their checkbooks this year.

Qatar Airways' head, Akbar al-Baker, announced firm orders for 20 single-aisle A320s and confirmed a commitment for four A321 jets announced last year at the Farnborough Air Show.

He said the deal announced Monday is worth $1.9 billion, which is about the same as the list price. Airlines, however, usually negotiate steep discounts to catalog prices, particularly during grim economic times.

Meanwhile, Rolls-Royce PLC signed a $1.5 billion order with Gulf Air to supply engines for the Bahrain-based airline's new Airbus A330 long-haul aircraft. The British aircraft engine manufacturer will supply Trent 700EP engines to power 20 Airbus A330 aircraft, with deliveries beginning in 2012.

Russian planemaker Sukhoi, peddling its SuperJet 100 at the air show, netted promised orders from Hungary's Malev for 30 jets worth up to $1 billion. But it was a commercial sleight of hand, since Malev was bought by Russian state-owned bank Vnesheconombank in a high-profile deal earlier this year.

The SuperJet 100, seen as key to Russia's attempts to revitalize its civilian aircraft industry, is designed to fly both regional and medium-haul routes. SuperJet International is a joint venture between Italy's Alenia Aeronautica and Russia's Sukhoi Civil Aircraft.

Canada's Bombardier announced it had won, confirmed or converted a total of 35 firm orders for its CRJ1000 NextGen jets by Spanish regional carrier Air Nostrum, in deals worth a total of $1.75 billion.

Boeing warned last week not to expect a flurry of orders. Its defense business is hoping to make up for lagging commercial sales — and weakening U.S. military sales — through rising international exports.

Boeing Integrated Defense Systems (IDS) announced on Monday the launch of a new Unmanned Airborne Systems division, which will group all the company's drone projects to better compete for military contracts.

The formation of the new division reflects the growing interest by various air forces in unmanned aerial vehicles for everything from high-altitude surveillance and coastal patrols to tracking natural disasters.

Boeing's commercial aircraft chief sought Monday to strike a positive tone.

"At this point it appears to us that the economic conditions have bottomed," Scott Carson, president and chief executive of Boeing's commercial aircraft division, said Monday. "If they have bottomed and a recovery comes next year, I think we have a shot at getting through."

Boeing recently cut its outlook for the commercial aircraft market for the first time in at least a decade, which Carson said was mainly driven by the drop in freight traffic due to the global recession.

Carson said long-term prospects for the industry "are as robust as they have ever been."

However, he disappointed hopeful attendees who thought Boeing might spring a surprise first flight of the delayed 787 jetliner during the show. "The airplane will fly when it is completely ready," he said.

So far this year, Boeing — which is cutting 10,000 jobs — has taken orders for 73 planes, but with cancellations of 66, the net order intake is only 7 jets.

Airbus' order tally advanced to 56 on Monday after the Qatar Airways order. After cancellations, net orders to date total 35.

Both planemakers are cushioned by order backlogs of around 3,500 planes.

Already reeling from the global recession, the industry gathering near where Air France Flight 447 should have landed only two weeks ago has been shaken by the still-unexplained crash. Investigators have only two more weeks to find the flight data and cockpit voice recorders from the Airbus A330 jet before the signals emitted by small beacons on the so-called black boxes start to fade. Without them, the cause of the May 31 accident may never be fully known.

"We are supporting the investigation as much as we can and we very much hope that the recorders will be found soon, so that we find out what really happened," Airbus CEO Tom Enders said Monday.

He defended the A330's record as "very, very impressive." He said they have "more than 16 million flight hours, more than 3 million flights and this is so far one of the safest commercial aircraft built."

The Paris Air Show is marking its 100th anniversary. It opened to industry on Monday, and then to the public Friday to Sunday.

Asian markets tumble on knock to recovery hopes

BANGKOK – Asian stock markets tumbled Tuesday, with Japan and Hong Kong benchmarks down about 3 percent, after weak U.S. manufacturing figures knocked confidence in a quick recovery from global recession.

Oil retreating from eight-month highs dragged commodity stocks lower in Asia while top manufacturers like Japanese automaker Toyota fell on the weak data. The dollar weakened after Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told a regional summit that the world needs new reserve currencies.

Indexes in big Asian markets such as Japan and Hong Kong have gained 40 percent or more since early March, powered by ample liquidity and signs the economic slump has leveled out.

But as the rally gathered pace, it became increasingly vulnerable to any evidence that a recovery wasn't unfolding as quickly as investors hoped.

Wall Street faltered overnight on one such sign, with the Dow Jones industrials posting its biggest drop in nearly a month.

A monthly index of manufacturing conditions around the New York region fell to minus 9.4 in June from minus 4.6 the previous month, underscoring that any recovery in the world's largest economy — a critical market for Asian exporters — will be tepid and slow.

"All the global stock markets have been overbought so the manufacturing data was a trigger, an excuse to sell and take some profit," said Peter Lai, investment manager at DBS Vickers in Hong Kong.

"I don't believe the economy will recover so fast," he said. "China and Asia will be the pioneers of the recovery but I don't see it happening until the first or second quarter of 2010."

Japan's Nikkei 225 stock average shed 286.79 points, or 2.9 percent, to 9,752.88 even as the central bank said the country's economic conditions "have begun to stop worsening" — an improvement from its previous assessment that the economy had been "deteriorating." The Bank of Japan also left its key lending rate unchanged at 0.1 percent as expected.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng, meanwhile, slid 545.62, or 3 percent, to 17,953.34 and South Korea's Kospi dropped 0.9 percent to 1,399.15. Elsewhere, Australia's index lost 1.7 percent, Singapore retreated 1.9 percent and the Philippine market dived 3.8 percent.

Oil's decline hit commodity stocks with Chinese offshore oil producer CNOOC plunging 5.5 percent in Hong Kong and BHP Billiton, the world's biggest mining company, off 1.5 percent in Sydney trade.

Benchmark crude for July delivery fell 11 cents to $70.51 a barrel in Asia trade, taking a breather from a three-month rally that has doubled the price of oil. Last week, it rose above $73.

Automakers were hit by the U.S. evidence that manufacturing continues to wilt amid anemic consumer demand. Toyota Motor Corp., the world's biggest automaker, fell 3.4 percent, and Honda Motor Co. retreated 4.1 percent.

In the U.S. on Monday, the Dow Jones industrial average tumbled 187.13, or 2.1 percent, to 8,612.13, returning to a loss for the year. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 index dropped 2.4 percent to 923.72, and the Nasdaq composite index sank 2.3 percent, to 1,816.38.

U.S. stock index futures pointed to modest declines Tuesday on Wall Street. Dow futures were down 13 points, or 0.2 percent, to 8,606, while S&P 500 futures slipped 2.4, or 0.3 percent, at 917.

In currencies, the dollar's recent strength faded, falling to 96.27 yen from 97.63 yen. The euro rose to $1.3835 from 1.3776.

Sri Lanka won't beg for aid: central bank chief

COLOMBO (AFP) – War ravaged Sri Lanka will not beg for foreign aid even as a 1.9 billion dollar bailout from the IMF has been delayed, the island's central bank chief said on Friday.

"We will never go after donors or lending agencies with a begging bowl. We are capable of standing on our own and raise funds through capital markets," Central Bank of Sri Lanka Governor, Nivard Cabraal, told AFP.

Sri Lanka tapped the International Monetary Fund in March in a bid to stave off its first balance of payment deficit in four years after the island's foreign currency reserves fell to around six weeks worth of imports.

The loan has been put off due to political pressure from the US, Britain and other Western nations over Colombo's handling of the final stages of the battle against Tamil separatists and charges that thousands of civilians were killed.

The United States is the main shareholder in the IMF and its approval is key to the release of the money. But the US has supported calls for a probe into alleged war crimes committed by Sri Lankan government troops.

Despite pressure from the West, Cabraal said he was confident the rescue package would be approved.

The island's 37-billion-dollar economy was caught up in the global economic crisis last year, with exports of garments and tea affected and foreign remittances slowed.

"We have dignity and our own identity in the international community. Sri Lanka does not want to go after anyone for aid with bended knees," Cabraal said.

He added that foreign reserves have picked up in the past several weeks, with money coming from aid flows -- to meet the humanitarian needs of nearly 300,000 displaced people in the north -- remittances and foreign investments.

The central bank was also negotiating a 500 million dollar loan from Libya and another 500 million dollars from an unnamed "friendly country" to help with post-war reconstruction, he said.

"Little by little, the urgency of the IMF loan is easing. I am not saying that we don't need it. The threat of a downturn is receding and Sri Lanka is getting some inflows after the end of the war," Cabraal said.

"The future scenario is very comforting to our foreign exchange situation," he said.

The central bank plans to revise upwards the island's economic forecast for 2009 to between four to five percent, from 2.5 percent to 3.0 percent announced earlier this year.

Sri Lanka's economy posted 6.0 percent growth in 2008, down from 6.8 percent in 2007.

"For a very long time, every time someone spoke about Sri Lanka's economy, they responded saying if not for this war things would be better. Now the war is over and we have a tremendous scope for economic development," Cabraal said.

BlackRock to buy BGI, becomes top asset manager

BOSTON (Reuters) – BlackRock Inc. (BLK.N) said on Thursday it will buy British bank Barclays Plc's (BARC.L) investment arm BGI for $13.5 billion in a blockbuster deal that will create the world's biggest asset manager.

For BlackRock, a 21-year old company which relied heavily on acquisitions to grow from a one-room bond investment firm into the largest publicly traded U.S. money manager, the deal will more than double assets to roughly $2.7 trillion.

It will also give New York-based BlackRock, well-known for working with governments and institutional clients, access to retail investors and the hugely popular exchange traded funds San Francisco-based Barclays Global Investors offers.

BGI, which has operations in 15 countries and ranks as Europe's largest hedge fund manager, will help expand BlackRock's reach around the world and into new products spanning actively and passively managed portfolios.

"This gives BlackRock a global footprint which is a substantial thing to have in these markets," said Geoff Bobroff, who advises mutual fund companies as president of Bobroff Consulting Inc.

For Barclays the deal will strengthen its balance sheet after the bank refused aid from the British government that some of its rivals accepted as the global financial crisis engulfed the industry.

BlackRock will pay $6.6 billion in cash and the rest in stock to acquire BGI and Barclays' iShares unit, which had been promised to private equity firm CVC Capital Partners for $4.4 billion in April.

Barclays was allowed to keep shopping for a better deal until the middle of June and will owe CVC a $175 million break-up fee if it sells iShares to another bidder. CVC has until next week to come up with a counter offer.

TRANSFORMATIONAL DEAL

"This is a transformational transaction" for the investment management industry Laurence Fink, BlackRock's chief executive officer, said on a hastily arranged conference call late on Thursday.

Fink said BlackRock has received commitments from a global network of institutional investors and clients to purchase 19.9 million shares at the closing of the transaction for a total of $2.8 billion. He would not disclose the investors.

The combined companies' market capitalization will be roughly $34 billion, Fink said.

BlackRock's share price, which has climbed 36 percent since January, shot up 11.5 percent this week to close at $182.60 on Thursday as speculation about a possible deal heated up. Bank of New York Mellon (BK.N) was also said to have been interested in buying BGI, but several people briefed on the deal said the company's more tepid stock price rise hurt its chances.

Together BlackRock and BGI -- or BlackRock Global Investors as the new company will be called -- will be the industry's single biggest player, zooming past rivals State Street Corp (STT.N), which manages $1.4 trillion, and Fidelity Investments, which oversees $1.25 trillion. The company will also outpace PIMCO, its chief fixed-income rival, which is building up a presence in exchange traded funds.

The deal also further shakes up an already battered money management industry where firms lost billions in assets and thousands of jobs during the financial crisis by eliminating a possible bidder for other firms that are up for sale.

BlackRock had expressed interest in Columbia Management, the investment management arm at Bank of America (BAC.N), which holds a stake in BlackRock, analysts have said.

Barclays will own a roughly 20 percent stake in BlackRock and expects a net gain on sale of $8.8 billion, which it will use to shore up its capital.

FINK SIGNATURE

To outsiders, this mega-deal carries the signature of Fink, who co-founded BlackRock and has grown the company through a series of acquisitions including an $8.6 billion deal to buy Merrill Lynch's asset management operations in 2006.

Known for sticking to routines like arriving at the office by 6 a.m. and having lunch at a local Italian restaurant, Fink had interviewed to head Merrill Lynch in 2007. Instead he stayed put and his company survived the financial crisis largely unscathed while others suffered.

Now he will have to marry the two distinctly different cultures of BlackRock and BGI. "You'll have bookends on the east and the west coasts," Bobroff said, adding "It has been Fink's style to put everything under one roof but that won't make sense anymore."

Barclays president Robert Diamond will receive a about $36 million for his shares and options in BGI and will sit on the new company's board of directors.

Barclays Capital and Lazard were the British lender's financial advisers, while JPMorgan Cazenove acted as broker and sponsor. Clifford Chance LLP and Sullivan & Cromwell LLP provided legal advise.

BlackRock was advised by Citigroup and Credit Suisse, while Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and Perella Weinberg Partners provided additional financial advisory support. Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom served as legal counsel.

Asian shares advance; momentum seen waning

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Asian shares marched toward new highs for the year on Friday as stronger-than-expected Chinese industrial output data and a rise in U.S. retail sales fueled hopes that the worst was over for the global economy.

The safe-haven dollar was largely unchanged after Thursday's falls, but oil prices slipped below $73 following a three-day rally that brought levels to their highest since mid-October.

The strong shift toward riskier assets over the past few months has been anchored by the improving global economic prospects, especially in the United States and China.

The momentum of that shift is slowing though, and wary investors will need more evidence of an actual recovery in the global economy, analysts said.

"The market probably ran a bit too hard over the past two weeks. Consumer sentiment has improved but some of the economic challenges still remain," said Lucinda Chan, division director with Macquarie Equities in Australia.

The MSCI index of Asia-Pacific stocks outside Japan (.MIAPJ0000PUS) rose 0.6 percent as of 0240 GMT, just under a 2009 high hit last week that was its best level since late September.

The index has surged some 66 percent from its March bear market low, but struggled over the last two weeks as investors worried demand was still too weak and feared higher borrowing costs for consumers and businesses may hold back a U.S. recovery.

Japan's Nikkei average (.N225) rose 1 percent after powering to its highest level since Oct 7, taking its gains to more than 40 percent since early March.

The levels indicate in part a return to normalcy nine months after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in mid-September sent global financial markets into a nosedive.

Data on Friday showed China's annual industrial output growth rebounded by a stronger-than-expected 8.9 percent in May, in line with Chinese media articles on Wednesday that had reported the data ahead of the official release.

The improving prospects for China comes as reports on Thursday showed U.S. retail sales rose in May for the first time in three months, while the number of workers filing new claims for jobless benefits last week fell to the lowest level since January.

A fall in benchmark U.S. Treasury yields following a well-received auction of 30-year notes also helped support broader sentiment, easing concerns about rising borrowing costs. Interest rates on many loans and mortgages are benchmarked to government bond yields.

Hong Kong's main index (.HSI) advanced more than 1 percent, but gains were smaller in Shanghai (.SSEC), as well as in South Korea (.KS11) and Australia (.AXJO).

Among individual gainers, OZ Minerals (OZL.AX) surged 13.5 percent in its resumption of trade after shareholders of the debt-laden miner on Thursday approved a sale of most of the company's assets to China's state-owned MinMetals for about $1.4 billion.

But some of the gains in resources shares over the past couple of sessions that had fueled gains in Asian shares faltered along with the decline in oil prices.

RECOVERY PROSPECTS KEY

With investors increasingly confident that the global economy is at or near a bottom, the debate has shifted toward how any recovery would take shape amid contradictory signals and conflicting forecasts.

The International Monetary Fund has raised its global growth estimates for 2010 to 2.4 percent from a forecast of 1.9 percent made in April, a G8 source who has seen the latest figures told Reuters.

The organization also confirmed its forecast for a 1.3 percent contraction this year, making it more optimistic than World Bank President Robert Zoellick, who on Thursday said the world economy would shrink by nearly 3 percent this year, worse than its previous estimate.

In yet another view, the International Energy Agency said on Thursday, world oil demand will contract by less than previously expected in 2009.

The oil forecast helped send U.S. crude to an intraday high of $73.23 on Thursday that marked the highest since October 21, though oil prices had fallen 28 cents to $72.41 by Asian trade on Friday as some investors locked in profits.

Markets are divided over what to make of the recent spurt in oil prices. Some traders believe it reflects stronger business activity, reinforcing the recovery theme, while others worry that a spike in fuel prices could slow or derail a rebound from the worst global economic crisis since the Great Depression.

The dollar remained largely flat after its falls on Thursday with the dollar index (.DXY), a gauge of the greenback's performance against six other major currencies, unchanged at 79.531.

World airlines seen losing $9 billion this year

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – The world's airlines will collectively lose $9 billion this year — nearly double the previous projections — and face a slow recovery as the economic crisis saps air travel and cargo demand, an industry body warned Monday.

The International Air Transport Association, which represents 230 airlines worldwide, increased its loss estimate from the $4.7 billion it forecast in March, reflecting a "rapidly deteriorating revenue environment."

Although there has been growing signs of a bottoming out of the recession, IATA said the industry was severely hit in the first quarter with 50 major airlines reporting losses of more than $3 billion. Weak consumer confidence, high business inventories and rising oil prices pose headwinds for future recovery, the association said during a two-day global aviation conference in Kuala Lumpur.

Revenues are expected to decline by $80 billion — an unprecedented 15 percent from a year ago — to $448 billion this year, and the weakness will persist into 2010, it said.

"There is no modern precedent for today's economic meltdown. The ground has shifted. Our industry has been shaken. This is the most difficult situation that the industry has faced," said IATA Chief Executive Giovanni Bisignani. The Geneva-based association also revised its estimated loss for last year to $10.4 billion from $8.5 billion previously.

It said passenger traffic for 2009 is expected to contract by 8 percent from a year ago to 2.06 billion travelers. Cargo demand will decline by 17 percent and some 100,000 jobs worldwide are at risk, it said.

The association expects the industry fuel bill to shrink by $59 billion, or 36 percent, to $106 billion this year, accounting for 23 percent of operating costs with an average oil price of $56 a barrel. But crude oil prices have rallied in recent weeks, breaching the $70 a barrel level on Friday on hopes of economic recovery.

Bisignani urged governments to avoid protectionist policies and reiterated his call for more liberalization such as the lifting of restrictions on routes and cooperation between airlines to bolster the global airline industry.

"It would be a cheap and effective stimulus...liberalizing key routes today would create 24 million jobs and $490 billion in economic activity," he said.

Over the next three years, he said about 4,000 aircraft are scheduled to be delivered. This year alone, airlines are expected to spend about $25 billion to take delivery of more than 800 Western-built jets, draining cash for a second straight year.

"Aircraft ordered in good times are being delivered in recession," Bisignani said. "Finding customers to fill them profitably will be a challenge."

IATA said carriers in all regions were expected to report losses, with Asia-Pacific to be the hardest hit amid a sharp slowdown in its three key markets — Japan, China and India. The region's carriers are expected to post losses of $3.3 billion, worse than the previous forecast of $1.7 billion but better than the $3.9 billion losses last year.

North American carriers are expected to lose $1 billion, far better than its $5.1 billion losses in 2008, thanks to early capacity cuts and limited hedging by U.S. airlines.

Despite strong traffic, Middle East carriers will see losses deepen to $1.5 billion as the region's intercontinental hubs are vulnerable to recessionary impacts in Europe and Asia.

A collapse for demand in premium services in all major markets will see European airlines lose $1.8 billion. Latin American carriers are expected to lose $900 million and African airlines $500 million.

World Bank sees 3.0% global contraction

WASHINGTON (AFP) - – The World Bank said Thursday the global economy is set to contract some 3.0 percent this year, sharper than previously estimated, urging more aid for developing countries amid the spreading crisis.

The latest growth estimate marked a significant revision to the bank's prior estimate of a 1.75 percent contraction in late March and came ahead of a two-day meeting of Group of Eight (G8) finance chiefs that opens Friday in Lecce, Italy.

"Financial markets seem to have broken the fall over past months but there are clear fragilities, and risks remain," World Bank president Robert Zoellick said in a conference call with reporters.

"The developed economies seem to be contracting at a slower pace but the effects of the global economic downturn are rippling through the world and still very much hurting developing countries," he said.

The World Bank will be revising its gross domestic product (GDP) growth estimates in the next few weeks, he added.

Zoellick said the Washington-based development lender expected to see continuing "wave effects" from the steep downturn that will pound the most vulnerable countries and populations the hardest.

"Unemployment is still rising in both the developed and developing world," he noted, adding that the rise signals "there's the danger of destablization and even the return of risk of conflict."

The global financial crisis that began in the United States home mortgage market in August 2007 and accelerated with the collapse of Wall Street investment bank Lehman Brothers in September has now infiltrated the developing world, he said.

"We're starting to see factors like the increase of the nonperforming loans in the African economy as the downturn in financial markets in the developed world hit the real economy and then it moves to the real economy in the developing world and now it's hitting the financial sector in the developing world," Zoellick said.

"What I hope to do in this coming G8 meeting is give an update on where we see the challenges for the developing countries over the next 12 months or so," he said.

He said funding was "particularly critical" for the bank's International Development Association (IDA), the arm that focuses on the 78 poorest countries.

Demand for IDA grants and interest-free loans is on track to total more than 13 billion dollars, a record high, for fiscal year 2009 that ends on June 30, compared with 11.2 billion last year.

In response to a question whether he would lobby for IDA funds at the G8 meeting, Zoellick said the United States and Italy "have to take some additional steps."

Countries need to continue to provide financial support for developing countries, "even" Mexico and Indonesia, and "for a longer period than people had expected, he said.

Zoellick warned that the downturn was severely straining post-conflict countries, citing Haiti, Liberia and Afghanistan.

"These are the countries that are often very dependent on commodity exports, remittances, development assistance to deal with emergency or security issues -- and all of these are under stress," he said.

The 185-nation bank estimates it will provide between 50 to 60 billion dollars in lending over fiscal 2009.

Zoellick in a statement urged G8 meetings this month and in July to "follow up on the promises made at the Group of 20 meeting in London in April to restore domestic lending and the international flow of capital."