NEW YORK (Reuters) - SoftBank Corp is playing it rough in its attempt to keep Dish Network Corp from breaking up its $20.1 billion deal to take control of Sprint Nextel Corp.

The Japanese telecom company, which owns 33 percent of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, has told banks that their financing of Dish's $25.5 billion rival offer for Sprint could hurt their chances of landing a role in a highly anticipated public offering of the Chinese e-commerce giant, two sources familiar with the situation said.

SoftBank, Dish and Sprint declined to comment. A source close to Alibaba said on Friday that while SoftBank is a major investor, it does not make decisions for Alibaba's management. Alibaba has no timetable for an IPO yet and has not hired underwriters.

Softbank's unusual move is the latest sign that the battle for the control of Sprint, the No. 3 U.S. wireless carrier, is fast turning into a no-holds-barred brawl between Softbank founder Masayoshi Son and Dish's Charlie Ergen.

SoftBank agreed in October last year to buy 70 percent of Sprint for $20.1 billion. In December, Sprint also made an offer to buy out the stake in Clearwire Corp it didn't already own. But Softbank's plans have run into trouble, thanks in large part to Dish. In January, Dish made a counterbid for Clearwire, and followed up in April with the bid for Sprint.

Softbank's latest move could make it more difficult for Dish to firm up financing for its Sprint bid. At least one major bank has withdrawn from financing the Dish bid after Softbank's move, the sources said.

Dish has said it would need to raise $9 billion in debt to finance the offer, and Softbank has criticized its rival for not having committed financing in place.

In an interview last month, Son described the U.S. media veteran as an "amateur" in mobile. "Charlie has no expertise in the mobile industry," the executive told Reuters.

For his part, Ergen has fought back against the criticism. Earlier this month, he said acquiring Sprint was so important to Dish that he could consider selling the company altogether if he loses a bidding war.

Softbank's move, though unusual, is legal, the sources said.

So-called anti-tying rules prohibit banks from offering a product to a company on the condition that it gets a role in another transaction. For example, a bank cannot say it will only give a loan to a company if the bank is chosen as an adviser on the company's next M&A transaction.

But banks' corporate clients are not subject to these restrictions. A company, for example, may select underwriters for an IPO on the condition that these banks not participate in a competitor's future public offering.

Alibaba's IPO, which could come as early as this year, is one of the most highly anticipated technology deals after Facebook Inc's $16 billion offering last year and would generate lofty fees for Wall Street banks. In Facebook's case, underwriters split about $176 million in fees.

BANKS TIED UP

Dish is in the process of lining up financing, but is encountering challenges in part because of Softbank's move, the sources said.

Barclays Plc, which is advising Dish, and Jefferies Group LLC, are lined up to provide financing, with Dish speaking to more banks to join the financing, one of the sources said. Jefferies and Barclays declined to comment.

Many Wall Street banks including Bank of America Corp, Citigroup Inc, UBS AG and Deutsche Bank are already conflicted and cannot provide financing to Dish because of their roles in other aspects of the bidding war.

Bank of America is advising Sprint's special committee, while Citigroup, UBS and Rothschild are advising Sprint. Deutsche Bank is financing SoftBank's proposal.

Meanwhile, Softbank has already removed Barclays from a role in financing its bid for Sprint after the British bank was revealed to be advising Dish on a rival offer, sources have said previously.

FINANCING ISSUES

Dish's lack of committed financing is a concern for the special committee of Sprint's board that is reviewing Dish's offer to determine whether it could lead to a better deal than Softbank's, the sources said.

Ergen said on Thursday that Sprint's special committee has not yet given Dish access to its data room to gain a closer look at Sprint's books. The committee is taking its time in part because Dish does not have committed financing, the sources said.

In a letter to Sprint's board of directors on April 15, Dish said it intended to fund the $17.3 billion cash portion of the deal using $8.2 billion in balance sheet cash and raising $9 billion in additional debt financing.

"We have a proven track record in raising capital to fund strategic initiatives and have received a Highly Confident Letter from our financial advisor, Barclays, confirming our ability to raise the required financing," the letter said.

(Reporting by Soyoung Kim, Olivia Oran and Sinead Carew in New York; Editing by Paritosh Bansal, Matthew Lewis and Paul Simao)

TOKYO (Reuters) - From a phoenix-themed collection by a Japanese designer who has clothed Lady Gaga to touches of traditional Mongolian decorations, designers showing at Japan Fashion Week set their sights firmly on Asia and its huge market.

Chinese consumers have become the world's leading buyers of luxury goods and account for one quarter of this market globally with demand growing, according to a report by consulting firm Bain & Co.

The fashion extravaganza showcasing the autumn and winter collections of 2013/14 kicked off at the weekend but Japanese brands took to the stage on Monday with Masanori Morikawa and his self-directed label, "Christian Dada".

Morikawa has created several pieces for American pop star Lady Gaga including a pink dress reminiscent of an origami crane for her 2012 "Born This Way Ball" tour.

This time he turned to Asia for inspiration with an edgy, androgynous collection titled "Fenghuang," which is Chinese for the mythical bird phoenix, pairing long, loose pants with richly embroidered lace on shirt sleeves for men and women.

Leather pants and jackets mingled with down-paneled trousers and shirts in plain, solid colors of black, white, red, blue and gold, which Morikawa said represented the nature of the phoenix.

"There's also the idea that the phoenix contains within itself both the male and the female, so we took this concept of fusion for the collection," Morikawa told reporters.

Asian influences came to the fore on Sunday as well as Mongolian designer Ariunaa Surenjav mixed modern designs with traditional raised forms on the shoulders and bunched sleeves.

"That part of the clothing design where the material goes up on the shoulder ... comes from the tradition in old Mongolia, where the local people who were noble and respected had that design," said Surenjav.

A NOD TO CHINA?

Although Morikawa said taking a Chinese title for the collection was just a reference to Chinese mythology and not a nod to the huge potential Chinese market, other designers were more open about their goals.

Conny Groenewegen, a Dutch designer who led off the runway on Sunday with clothing heavily influenced by Japanese designers, said her ambitions in Asia do not end with Japan.

"I would be very much interested to visit Shanghai and present my work over there, because I think that it is moving very fast," she told Reuters. "It's like a big youth culture over there and it has also a big, very rich history."

Although growth in China slowed last year, Bain is still forecasting growth of 4-6 percent a year for the global luxury market through 2015, after growth of 10 percent in 2012 to about $280 billion, largely driven by Chinese consumers.

With 1.3 billion consumers, many with a strong inclination for expensive brands that scream status, China remains a driving force in the luxury market.

Japan Fashion Week continues until March 24 with names such as Vivienne Tam and Hiroko Koshino also taking part.

(Additional reporting by Mariko Lochridge, Editing by Belinda Goldsmith)

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Both Facebook and Instagram have a heavy emphasis on photos. Afound that 70 percent of the activity on Facebook is related to pictures. Mark Zuckerberg said at the introduction of the social network'sthat Facebook would be emphasizing bigger images because half of existing News Feeds were eaten up by photo posts. He even had a chart:

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Facebook users post hundreds of millions of photos every day — on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day , and you can bet as many of them were of drunken reveling humans as inanimate fireworks. Instagram . But the images are of a different sort: Some of it beautiful, most of it  and adorable dogs. 

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That's the thing about Instagram: It still attracts , and amateurs trying to make their photos look professional. The New York Times runs Instagram photos . The New Yorker features them . Surely not everything on Instagram is exactly highbrow, but most of it is at least trying to be, and even the selfies are a kind of genre unto themselves, more platform specific than disposable-camera relic.

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Facebook, on the other hand, attracts the type of photography that could get you fired from your job. A search for "" pulls up no fewer than 1.5 million such nightmares. Facebook is a photo dump of reckless abandon, a haven for cellphone camera rolls without filter — literally or figuratively. There's no artistic bar like on Instagram, where at the very least you're sort of trying to impress people with your photography, not just trying to show off who you're hanging out with. The existing @ tags on Instagram are almost a happy sidebar: How many of your friends' Instagram handles do you know by heart, and how much do you care?

That's where the psychology of Facebook tagging comes in to play: "People love tagging their friends and family," . And it's true: People love to waste time browsing Facebook photos because of the friends, frenemies, exes, or crushes tagged therein. Rather than win us over with filters and Saturday evening sunsets, Facebook won us over with people. That's what makes the pictures interesting. It has also made picture-stalking a relatively accepted form of silent social interaction. The "Photos" tab on a Facebook profile is a known hub for learning all about a person these days. Tagging has given Facebook and its photos a specific purpose for existing, for getting to know someone — for better or worse.

But Instagram evolved into something without all that. It was never about the who. Right now my Instagram stream is pictures of stuff — scenery, landmarks, fashion — with just a few shots featuring actual human faces; the only photos in Instagram's Popular tab as of this writing were of Ellen DeGeneres and Mila Kunis. With Instagram tagging, of course, all that will change. People will start thinking about other people. And soon Instagram will become Facebook with filters. Bet you can't wait, right?

The new test, which goes on sale Wednesday, joins another one that recently came on the market. Both analyze multiple genes in a biopsy sample and give a score for aggressiveness, similar to tests used now for certain breast and colon cancers.

Doctors say tests like these have the potential to curb a major problem in cancer care overtreatment. Prostate tumors usually grow so slowly they will never threaten a man's life, but some prove fatal and there is no reliable way now to tell which ones will. Treatment with surgery, radiation or hormone blockers isn't needed in most cases and can cause impotence or incontinence, yet most men are afraid to skip it.

"We're not giving patients enough information to make their decision," said Dr. Peter Carroll, chairman of urology at the University of California, San Francisco. "You can shop for a toaster" better than for prostate treatment, he said.

A study he led of the newest test the Oncotype DX Genomic Prostate Score is set for discussion Wednesday at an American Urological Association meeting in San Diego.

The results suggest the test could triple the number of men thought to be at such low risk for aggressive disease that monitoring is a clearly safe option. Conversely, the test also suggested some tumors were more aggressive than doctors had believed.

Independent experts say such a test is desperately needed but that it's unclear how much information this one adds or whether it will be enough to persuade men with low-risk tumors to forgo treatment, and treat it only if it gets worse. Only 10 percent who are candidates for monitoring choose it now.

"The question is, what's the magnitude of difference that would change the patient's mind?" said Dr. Bruce Roth, a cancer specialist at Washington University in St. Louis.

One man may view a 15 percent chance that his tumor is aggressive as low risk "but someone else might say, 'Oh my God, let's set the surgery up tomorrow,'" he said. "I don't think it's a slam dunk."

Also unknown: Will insurers pay for the expensive test without evidence it leads to better care or saves lives?

The newest test was developed by Genomic Health Inc., which has sold a similar one for breast cancer since 2004. Doctors at first were leery of it until studies in more groups of women proved its value, and the same may happen with the prostate test, said Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, the American Cancer Society's deputy chief medical officer.

The company will charge $3,820 for the prostate test and says it can save money by avoiding costlier, unnecessary treatment. Another test for assessing prostate cancer risk that came out last summer Prolaris by Myriad Genetics Inc. sells for $3,400.

Both companies can sell the tests without Food and Drug Administration approval under separate rules that govern lab diagnostics. Myriad Genetics has published nine studies on Prolaris involving more than 3,000 patients. Genomic Health has not published any results on the prostate test, another thing that makes doctors wary. Yet it has a track record from its breast cancer test.

About 240,000 men in the U.S. are diagnosed with prostate cancer each year, and about half are classified as low risk using current methods. Doctors now base risk estimates on factors such as a man's age and how aggressive cells look from biopsies that give 12 to 14 tissue samples. But tumors often are spread out and vary from one spot to the other.

"Unless you can be sure your biopsy has hit the most aggressive part that's in the prostate, you can't be sure" how accurate your risk estimate is, explained Dr. Eric Klein, chief of urology at the Cleveland Clinic,who led early development of the Oncotype prostate cancer test.

For one study, researchers used prostates removed from 440 men. They measured the activity of hundreds of genes thought to be involved in whether the cancer spread beyond the prostate or proved fatal. A second study of biopsies from 167 patients narrowed it down to 81 genes, and researchers picked 17 that seemed to predict aggressiveness no matter the location in the tumor.

A third study used single needle-biopsy samples from 395 UCSF patients scheduled to have their prostates removed. The gene test accurately predicted the aggressiveness of their cancer once doctors were able to see the whole prostate after surgery.

Using one current method, 37 of the 395 men would have been called very low risk and good candidates for monitoring. Adding the gene test put 100 men into that category, said another study leader, Dr. Matthew Cooperberg of UCSF.The gene test shifted about half of the men into either a lower or a higher risk category.

"It went both ways that was the remarkable thing. In any category of risk it added independent information compared to the standard criteria we use today," Carroll said. "More work needs to be done, but, in my opinion, this is a very good start."

However, Dr. Kevin McVary, chairman of urology at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine and a spokesman for the Urological Association, said the test must be validated in more men before it can be widely used.

"It's not there yet," he said.

UCSF just got a federal grant to see how men choose treatments and whether this test might sway them.

"We throw all these numbers at them. Are they really going to make a better decision?" Cooperberg said.

Dean Smith, 60, a retired marketing executive from Mill Valley, Calif., is following his doctor's advice to monitor the cancer he was diagnosed with in March. He said a gene test may have made him more comfortable with that decision.

At least six of his friends suffered side effects ranging from urinary leakage to inability to have sex after having their prostates removed.

"I would suspect that having cancer and having to live with it would be very difficult for them," but it doesn't bother him, Smith said. "I will die from something other than prostate cancer, I guarantee you."

___

Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

Seventy-seven years ago, the Richard Rodgers-Lorenz Hart musical "On Your Toes" broke new ground by adding huge dollops of ballet performed by classically trained dancers. No less a figure than George Balanchine was coaxed to choreograph and he insisted that his credit should reflect that in the Broadway program, the first time "choreography by" would appear.

The show, with a slapdash book by Rodgers, Hart and George Abbott, opened in 1936 and was revived twice more, as well as being turned into a botched film. It now has been thrillingly revisited in the final Encores! concert series presentation of the season, opening Wednesday and running until Sunday.

Starring the always funny Christine Baranski and a great, steady Walter Bobbie, a director getting back to his acting roots, the show is terrifically performed by both Broadway hoofers and hard-core ballet pros, though the seams between the two worlds can sometimes be seen.

It is wittily and ingeniously directed and choreographed by Warren Carlyle, who has lovely touches throughout, as when someone falling in love sings about the ceiling "spinning" and is actually spinning in a chair.

The story is thin: A former vaudeville star who now teaches music (a fine Shonn Wiley) is falling for a student (Kelli Barrett, utterly winsome) when a classical Russian ballet troupe comes to town. The teacher soon falls for the troupe's narcissistic prima ballerina (Irina Dvorovenko, an American Ballet Theatre principal gamely making her musical theater debut). Her jealous boyfriend then tries to have him killed, leading to hijinks. (Don't think too hard about it).

The musical introduced two lovely songs "Glad to be Unhappy" and "There's a Small Hotel" and each act ends with two extended dance numbers "La Princesse Zenobia" comic ballet and the famous "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue," in which our hero must dance or die. (Balanchine's original choreography for "Slaughter" has been staged by Susan Pilarre, who served as a ballet mistress of the show's 1983 Broadway revival.)

As good as those ballets are, the highlight is when the musical theater dancers and the muscular ballet dancers face off in the title tune. As each group ratchets up the tricks the tapping hoofers smack boards for percussive effect, while the ballerinas do their steps while being held upside down one of the most thrilling dance numbers of the season is unveiled.

Though the musical continues it ends with a crazed, forced collision of elements, almost as if the book writers just gave up the visual of swanlike ballet dancers in white tutus and the musical theater veterans in colorful costumes each battling for the audience's respect lingers. Everyone wins.

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SERRA SAN BRUNO, Italy, May 7 (Reuters) - Tour de France champion Bradley Wiggins has yet to show the form of last season that would make him top favourite for the Giro d'Italia, according to Juan Jose Cobo, the last non-Team Sky rider to beat the Briton on a Grand Tour.

"He's not necessarily the strongest rider," Spaniard Cobo told Reuters before Tuesday's fourth stage where Wiggins lost 17 seconds as the peloton split in the final kilometres.

"Personally I think (Italian) Vincenzo Nibali is equally likely to win."

Wiggins dropped from second to sixth overall on Tuesday, 34 seconds adrift of Italian Luca Paolini. Nibali is in fourth and last year's winner Ryder Hesjedal of Canada fifth, 31 and 34 seconds off the pace respectively.

Cobo, who toppled Wiggins and his Sky team mate Chris Froome to win the 2011 Tour of Spain, believes Wiggins may not be at his best, while others have shown they are in great shape.

"If Bradley had the same level as in last year's Tour then he's probably unbeatable but that's not at all clear yet this season," he said.

"Nibali has been very strong in all the races he's done this year and Wiggins hasn't yet had a chance to show his hand.

"Hesjedal has been very active in a lot of races too, and yesterday (Monday) when he attacked on that last climb, he showed he's got really good form," he added.

"That was very impressive, and he's the most recent winner of the Giro. He's somebody who has to count."

Wiggins has not won a race this season, while Nibali has taken the Tirreno-Adriatico stage race ahead of Froome and the Giro del Trentino, Italy's key warm-up race for the Giro d'Italia, ahead of Wiggins.

"Bradley is a favourite, but one of several, not the top candidate," Cobo said. "He's not been up there yet, but we'll see what happens."

STRONGEST TEAM

Cobo, who raced against Wiggins in last year's Tour de France but as part of his build-up for the Tour of Spain, his big target of the year, said Sky were the strongest team collectively in the Giro.

"When it comes to the third week, they'll be the ones who really matter, they'll make the running," he said.

Cobo said although he beat Wiggins in the 2011 Tour of Spain, wrenching the lead from him on the Angliru, Spain's toughest single climb, the Briton had not been in his top condition then.

"He was coming back from a lot of injuries and a bad crash in the Tour de France. It's nice to have done it, I won't forget that I beat him but you have to keep it in perspective," he said.

Racing injured after he crashed and hit his knee in the reconnaissance of Sunday's team time trial, Cobo was dropped on Tuesday's final climb of the Croce Ferrata early on.

"I was hoping to do well, perhaps even a top-10 result but with this injury, that's not going to happen," he said.

"My best option now is a stage win and to work for (Spanish Movistar overall contender) Benat Intxausti (who lies third behind Rigoberto Uran and Paolini). I'm not going to be beating Wiggins in this year's race, that's for sure."(Editing by Sonia Oxley)

The Hockey Hall of Fame goalie, author and former federal cabinet minister is attempting to clear away the fog surrounding concussions by getting athletes, medical professionals, researchers, coaches and sports administrators in one room in front of the public.

"I think it's the biggest issue of sports and not just hockey, but football, lacrosse and rugby and even soccer," Dryden said Monday night at a sport concussions panel at the University of Calgary.

"I love the phase 'Where there's a will, there's a way.' But in an awful lot of very difficult, tricky questions, and this is one of them, it's the reverse that's more true. 'I need to see some way before I'm ready to commit more will.'

"I think that's where we are. This is a question that needs a lot more way, a lot more answers."

Dryden hosted the event with what he jokingly called a "Johnny Carson" style. He interviewed his guests seated on couches in front of a live audience in a university theatre after moderating similar panels in Dryden, Ont., Guelph, Ont., and Regina.

The 65-year-old won six Stanley Cups and the Vezina Trophy the award for the NHL's top goaltender five times while playing for the Montreal Canadiens in the 1970s. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1983.

Post-hockey, Dryden authored several books, including "The Game", and was a Liberal Member of Parliament from 2004 to 2011. He served as Minister of Social Development in Paul Martin's government.

Dryden believes there will be catastrophic repercussions if the sports community doesn't get to the bottom of concussions.

"I think that this is one of those big questions like cigarette smoking was 40 or 50 years ago that we look back on now and we wonder how we could have been so stupid," he said. "I think this is the one, in sports, that 40 or 50 years from now, people will look back at us and wonder 'What was wrong with them? How didn't they get it? Why were they so stupid?'

"Even those who know quite a bit know that they don't know a lot. None of us knows what we really need to know. And we need to get at it. That means scientists and coaches and players and parents and administrators, not separately so we can all point our fingers elsewhere."

Dryden opened the forum by questioning athletes on their concussion experiences. Alpine ski racer Carey Mullen, hockey player Jeremy Colliton and long-track speed skater Kristina Groves were among those relating their personal stories with an injury that is so mysterious.

Colliton, who won silver and gold with Canada's junior team in 2004 and 2005 respectively, has suffered five concussions during his hockey career. Two during the 2011-12 season while playing for the AHL's Bridgeport Sound Tigers kept him off the ice for 11 months.

"I think we have to make it OK to finish a check and not hit a guy in the head," Colliton said. "You can make a devastating hit and not put a guy out for months.

"That's part of why I'm going to Europe, is because I don't think I can play in North America and survive for a couple of years. I need to be concussion free for a bit before I go back."

A concussion Groves suffered in her final season of racing didn't force her to retire, but the four-time Olympic medallist has spoken with other winter-sport athletes whose lives have been forever altered by head injuries.

"We're fundamentally changing who we are when we smack our heads that hard," Groves said. "You're not the same person as you were. That's something we don't talk about when we talk about the risks of concussions."

While the medical professionals said there's still much to learn about concussions, they added that recognizing and reporting symptoms and seeking immediate treatment has become standard knowledge.

The discussion turned quickly towards bodychecking in minor hockey when sports administrators and coaches joined Dryden on the podium.

Former Calgary Flames captain Jim Peplinski turned up the heat on Hockey Canada and Hockey Alberta representatives, pointing to a University of Calgary study that concluded bodychecking among peewee players (aged 11-12) more than triples the risk of concussion and injury.

"I'm with Jim," Calgary Dinos coach Mark Howell said. "We need to be leaders in this. Hockey Canada, Hockey Alberta, we need to trust medical experts and stop waiting for opinions.

"A lot of people that run minor hockey, they care so much about the game of hockey, they care about the kids, they do, but they're also clouded in their opinions. They don't want to trust the medical knowledge that's out there."

Dryden concluded the panel by pointing to a worst-case scenarios, which is the recent lawsuit launched by hundreds of former NFL players against the league over brain injuries.

But it's not the professional athletes that concerns Dryden the most.

"I got out of sport, and our kids got out of sports, everything that one could ever hope to get out of sports," he said. "I hope for their kids and other kids that they will have that same kind of experience.

"Part of it is being able to play without extreme risks."

Target said its new program relies on shoppers using their Facebook accounts. However, shoppers can only redeem the offers they choose in Target's U.S. stores, not online.

With Cartwheel, shoppers select the deals they want online and then bring a barcode - either on paper or on a mobile phone - to a Target store to get the discounts. Shoppers can see what offers their Facebook friends have chosen, and earn more offers by having their Facebook friends sign up.

This service comes as traditional retailers try to keep shoppers buying from them rather than from Amazon.com Inc and other online-only retailers, especially as shoppers use their smartphones to compare prices.

Twenty percent of cellphone owners research products using their phones before they buy, and 18 percent of them compare prices on their phones before making a purchase, according to Bill Tancer, general manager of global research for Experian Marketing Services.

Cartwheel follows efforts such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc letting shoppers in some of its U.S. stores scan their goods with their iPhones while they shop and then more quickly proceed through a self-checkout lane. Sears Holdings Corp's "Member Assist" program gives its loyal shoppers the ability to get personalized shopping advice from in-store personnel without even stepping foot in a Sears or Kmart store.

"It is very fascinating to see the very different approaches that retailers are taking to achieve the same goals," said Carol Spieckerman, president of newmarketbuilders, a retail strategy firm.

Retailers are using digital tools to better cater to shoppers who love to comparison shop while in their stores. Target and other retailers offer free WiFi, and at one of its Minnesota stores Best Buy Co Inc has tested its "Page a Blue Shirt" service that lets customers summon a store associate with a click on a store iPad.

For chains such as Kmart, Target and Walmart, such issues are increasingly important as their businesses have evolved since each opened its doors in 1962. Their stores used to be one-stop shops for everything from books and movies to photo developing. As such services have waned in popularity with the rise of digital books, movies and photo sharing sites, the chains are doing what they can to figure out new ways to make their stores more attractive to shoppers and, ultimately, more profitable.

CARTWHEEL'S BETA ROLLOUT

Starting on May 8, Target is opening Cartwheel to the public in a beta test, and asking for feedback as it makes changes. The service will initially be advertised on Target's website, through Facebook and in emails to Target's best shoppers and card holders.

Target did not rule out the possibility of allowing Cartwheel offers to be redeemed on its website someday.

Target said it worked in a close partnership with Facebook Inc for about a year. While Facebook has worked on the project, Cartwheel is owned by Target. For now, Target has no plans to extend it to other social sites such as Pinterest.

Linking offers through Facebook will let the retailer know exactly what Facebook can or cannot accomplish for it. While Twitter can be useful to promote timely, limited offers, Facebook is "the dominant platform" for connecting with shoppers and, in turn, with their connections, Spieckerman said.

Target sees the program as a way to extend the trips shoppers take into parts of the store they might normally skip, in order to pick up a promoted item. An app coming in June will let shoppers scan a photo of an item's barcode to quickly see if an offer is available on that item.

Shoppers using Cartwheel can choose from hundreds of deals on items such as Target's own Threshold home goods and name brand goods such as M&Ms candy and Coca-Cola soft drinks. The weekly, monthly and quarterly deals include discounts from 5 percent off to as much as 40 percent off of certain goods, and differ from other Target offers in circulars or coupon booklets.

Shoppers can share the deals they are picking with their Facebook friends, but offers on more discreet items - from bras to Tums - will not be visible to others.

(Reporting by Jessica Wohl in Chicago, additional reporting by Dhanya Skariachan in New York; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)

Humans are increasingly exposed toin their daily lives, but little is known about how these lifelike machines influence human emotions.

Feeling bad for bots

In two new studies, researchers sought to measure how people responded to robots on an emotional and neurological level. In the first study, volunteers were shownbeing treated affectionately or violently. In the affectionate video, humans hugged and tickled the robot, and in the violent video, they hit or dropped him. []

Scientists assessed people's levels of physiological excitation after watching the videos by recording their skin conductance, a measure of how well the skin conducts electricity. When a person is experiencing strong emotions, they sweat more, increasing skin conductance.

The volunteers reported feeling more negative emotions while watching the robot being abused. Meanwhile, the volunteers' skin conductance levels increased, showing they were more distressed.

In the second study, researchers use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to visualize brain activity in the participants as they watched videos of humans and robots interacting. Again, participants were shown videos of a human, a robot, and, this time, an inanimate object being treated with affection or abuse.

In one video, for example, a man appears to beat up a woman, strangle her with a string and attempt to suffocate her with a plastic bag. In another, a person does the same things to the robot dinosaur.

Affectionate treatment of the robot and the human led to similar patterns of neural activity in regions in the brain's , where emotions are processed, fMRI scans showed. But the watchers' brains lit up more while seeing abusive treatment of the human than abuse of the robot, suggesting greater empathy for the human.

"We think that, in general, the robot stimuli elicit the same emotional processing as the human stimuli," said lead study author Astrid Rosenthal-von der Ptten of the University of Duisburg Essen, in Germany. Rosenthal-von der Ptten suspects that people still have greater empathy for humans than robots, as evidenced by the stronger effect of watching violence toward the human than the robot.

Still, the study only assessed people's immediate reactions to the emotional cues, Rosenthal-von der Ptten said. "We don't know what happens after the short term," she said.

Human-robot interactions

That humans would show empathy for the robot is not surprising, because the bot looked and behaved like an animal, roboticist Alexander Reben, founder of the company BlabDroid, LLC and a research affiliate at MIT, told LiveScience. Reben, who was not involved in the recent study, himself builds small cardboard robots that tap into the human affinity for cute creatures.

Some people find the idea of humans empathizing with robots concerning. But Reben compared trends in robot development with breeding dogs for companionship. "We have been doing this for millennia," he said. "I think we're doing the same thing with robots."

Humans have been known to show empathy for robots in a variety of contexts. For instance,on the battlefield. Other research suggests that humans feel more empathy for , but not if they're too humanlike.

As robots become more and more ubiquitous, understandingwill take on increasing importance, Rosenthal-von der Ptten said.

The new research will be presented in June at the International Communication Association Conference in London.

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Armstrong's best chance at protecting his personal fortune may rest in convincing a jury the government has already earned plenty from him, regardless of whether he cheated to win the Tour de France and lied to cover it up.

Armstrong is being sued by the Justice Department to recover at least the $40 million the U.S. Postal Service paid to sponsor his team, claiming Armstrong was ''unjustly enriched'' by using steroids and other drugs to win the Tour de France seven times.

Armstrong's legal team says the benefits the Postal Service reaped from putting its name on Armstrong's jersey was worth far more than that. The Postal Service commissioned four studies that said the contract was worth more than $100 million in worldwide exposure for the agency at a time it was trying to boost its brand.

Armstrong could still settle the case before going to trial, which likely would not start until 2014. Previous settlement talks broke down earlier this year.

If it goes to trial, experts say the government will likely have an easy time proving Armstrong committed fraud by violating his contract. But proving financial damages could be far more difficult and the stakes are huge because the False Claims Act allows the government to seek triple damages.

''They are going to have to get creative,'' said Dallas attorney Matthew Orwig, a former federal prosecutor who has handled lawsuits filed under the same statute the government is using to pursue Armstrong. ''They've got to know they've got a squishy case on damages.''

Paul Scott, an attorney for Floyd Landis, the former Armstrong teammate who brought the whistle-blower lawsuit and would get a cut of any damages awarded, dismissed the argument that the Postal Service wasn't damaged.

''It was all a fraud,'' Scott said. ''U.S. Postal would not have paid a dime if they had known the truth.''

The False Claims Act dates to the Civil War, when the government went after unscrupulous contractors who were providing substandard items to Union troops. Since then, the government has used the law to recover billions of dollars in health care and defense contractor fraud, natural disaster recovery and reconstruction efforts in Iraq.

Armstrong was sued first by Landis, who admits participating with Armstrong in the team doping program. The Justice Department announced in February it would join the case and filed its formal complaint April 23.

Landis and the government allege Armstrong, Postal Service cycling team director Johan Bruyneel and the team ownership company, Tailwind Sports Inc., committed fraud by engaging in a doping program that was against the rules in the sport of cycling.

The team contract with the Postal Service required riders to follow cycling rules. The government claims that by using steroids, blood boosters and other illegal performance-enhancing drugs and measures to win, Armstrong and team officials committed fraud while simultaneously assuring Postal Service officials they weren't cheating.

Armstrong has publicly admitted doping. Bruyneel has challenged the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency's report on the team doping program and is awaiting an arbitration hearing separate from the lawsuit.

Ben Vernia, a Washington attorney who specializes in federal whistle-blower lawsuits, said Armstrong's case is unusual because it deals with a government agency that paid for publicity instead of something more tangible like an airplane part or specific service that wasn't delivered.

''Engine parts are easy to quantify,'' Vernia said. ''In this case, did (Postal Service) get the benefit of the bargain?''

Armstrong's lawyers insist the Postal Service cashed in at a rate far greater than it paid out.

The agency was the lead sponsor for Armstrong's team from 1998-2004, a span that included six of Armstrong's seven Tour de France victories that have now been stripped away. About $18 million of that went to Armstrong, who at one point had an estimated personal fortune of about $100 million but has seen his endorsement deals vanish since a 2012 USADA report exposed the team doping program.

From 2001 to 2004, the USPS paid for annual reviews of its investment. According to the studies by the FCB and Campbell Eward marketing firms, the Postal Service's contract with Armstrong's team was worth close to $140 million in exposure in the U.S. and overseas from 2001-2004.

The studies evaluated Postal Service market penetration in newspaper, broadcast, internet and magazine stories about Armstrong and his team. It also measured advertising by other sponsors such as Nike and Suburu that included Armstrong and the Postal Service team name, and even gossip-page coverage of his romance with rocker Sheryl Crow.

The 2004 report by Campbell Ewald also included notations about the potentially negative publicity of television coverage in New York City markets that noted drug allegations by Armstrong's critics.

''The U.S. Postal Service benefited tremendously from its sponsorship of the cycling team,'' Armstrong attorney Elliot Peters said when the government filed its complaint. ''Its own studies repeatedly and conclusively prove this.The USPS was never the victim of fraud.Lance Armstrong rode his heart out for the USPS team, and gave the brand tremendous exposure during the sponsorship years.''

A 2003 government audit criticized the sponsorship deal and said the government could only show less than $1 million in revenue over a four-year period as a result of the sponsorship.That report said tracking media exposure can be distracting compared with studying actual sales results.Postal Service officials disagreed at the time with that conclusion and argued that media exposure, not just direct sales, was considered an important part of the sponsorship.

Landis' attorney argues the benefit of exposure is implied in any sponsorship deal. That's why companies enter sponsorship deals with teams or athletes, Scott said.

Scott also suggested the Postal Service's reputation has been damaged since the revelations of Armstrong's cheating.

The agency will ''forever be tied to the largest doping scandal in the history of sports,'' Scott said.

Orwig, the former prosecutor, questioned whether Landis or the Postal Service will be able to prove future damages based on an association with an athlete that expired almost a decade ago.

''That's speculative at best,'' Orwig said. ''It will be appealing in a lot of ways, but it won't be legally solid.''