SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc said on Monday it had acquired Liquavista NV from Samsung Electronics Co to help the world's largest Internet retailer develop new displays for mobile devices.

Amazon also launched its own digital currency, Amazon Coins, on Monday, allowing people to buy apps and games in its app store and on its Kindle Fire tablet computers.

The purchase price for Liquavista was not disclosed. Bloomberg News reported earlier this year that Samsung was seeking less than $100 million for the business. Samsung bought the Netherlands-based company in early 2011 for an undisclosed sum. A Samsung spokeswoman did not respond to requests for comment on Monday.

Amazon is the leading e-reader company and has a range of Kindle Fire tablets that compete with Apple Inc's dominant iPad and similar gadgets from Google Inc and Samsung.

Amazon is also testing and developing other gadgets, such as smart phones and an Internet-based set-top TV box, according to recent reports in The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg Businessweek.

Liquavista focuses on a technology called electrowetting, which it says makes displays clearer in all lighting conditions and can show video without using much power.

The technology can be used in mobile gadgets such as e-readers, smart phones, GPS devices, portable media players and cameras. Over the long term, electrowetting can be used in larger display products such as laptops and TVs, Liquavista said on its website.

CURRENCY PLAY

The new Amazon currency - one Amazon Coin is worth 1 cent - can be used to buy apps and games and for in-app purchases, for instance when someone is playing a game and wants to upgrade to a new level quickly.

Amazon put 500 Amazon Coins, worth $5, into the accounts of all Kindle Fire owners on Monday.

(Reporting by Alistair Barr; editing by John Wallace)

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Florida (Reuters) - Sergio Garcia has history with Tiger Woods, but the Spaniard said on Friday he will not be fazed by a third-round pairing with the world number one at the Players Championship.

Garcia, the 2008 champion, vaulted to the top of the leaderboard on Friday with a seven-under 65 that included five consecutive birdies and gave him an 11-under total of 133.

One stroke back was Woods, who fired his second successive 67 in his quest for a second Players Championship title and fourth win of the 2013 season.

"I don't have to measure myself against anybody," said Garcia. "I know what I want to try to do and any given day, I can shoot a round like this and any other day he can shoot a good round and beat me."

The two players first locked horns at the 1999 PGA Championship, when a then 19-year-old Garcia challenged 23-year-old Woods down the stretch at Medinah in what seemed to promise the first great golf rivalry of the 21st Century.

Garcia, who had won over fans at the Chicago suburb with his bubbly personality, burst back into contention that week from five strokes down with seven to play on a three-shot turnaround on the 13th, where Garcia birdied and Woods took a double-bogey.

The Spanish teenager gave Woods a challenging glare when their eyes met after Garcia's long birdie putt at the par-three.

"I was kind of telling him - if you want to win, you have to play well," Garcia said afterward.

Then on 16, Garcia thrilled the fans with an eyes-closed swipe at his ball lodged between roots of an oak on the right side of the fairway and an exuberant sprint up the fairway to see it stop, incredibly, on the green.

Woods stepped up and made a treacherous, eight-foot downhill putt at the 17th to preserve his one-shot lead and parred the last to hold on for the victory, his second major title following his record-setting, runaway win at the 1997 Masters.

Since then, wins on the biggest stages of golf have mainly gone to Woods, who has collected 14 majors as the greatest player of his generation, while Garcia is still looking for his first after some heart-breaking losses.

Garcia, who has garnered eight career U.S. tour wins and 15 international victories, has mellowed over time but does not want for confidence.

"Like we always say, it's not a sprint, it's a marathon," Garcia said about his chances to add his name to the list of multiple winners of this championship, which is often referred to as the fifth major.

"So just got to enjoy the good ones as much as possible."

(Editing by Frank Pingue)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon is expected to clear Apple, Samsung and BlackBerry mobile devices for use on Defense Department networks in the next few weeks, part of an effort to ensure the military has access to the latest communications technology, a spokesman said on Wednesday.

The decision will set the stage for an intensified struggle for Pentagon customers among BlackBerry devices, Apple's iPhones or iPads and units using Google's Android platform such as Samsung Electronics' phones. The Pentagon currently has some 600,000 users of smart phones, computer tablets and other mobile devices.

The Pentagon unveiled a plan in February aimed at giving the military services a much broader range of choices among mobile devices. The department currently has 470,000 BlackBerry users, 41,000 Apple users and 8,700 people with Android devices. Most Apple and Android systems are in pilot or test programs.

"We are working towards establishing a multi-vendor environment that supports a variety of devices and operating systems, to include Samsung, Apple and BlackBerry," said Lieutenant Colonel Damien Pickart, a Pentagon spokesman.

"A key objective of the plan is to establish a department-wide mobile enterprise solution that permits the use of the latest commercial technology such, as smart phones and tablets," he added.

Several mobile devices and operating systems are currently going through a security review and approval process with the Defense Information Systems Agency, Pickart said.

Once the devices have cleared the process for creating a STIG - for Security Technical Implementation Guide - Pentagon organizations will be able to order them knowing that they have the necessary security configuration to be used on the Defense Department's internal networks, he said.

Pickart said Samsung's Knox version of Android currently is going through the security review process, with a decision expected in the next two weeks.

A full security review for Apple's iOS 6 system is expected in early May, and BlackBerry has submitted security plans for its BlackBerry 10, BlackBerry PlayBook and BlackBerry Device Service, with a decision expected in two weeks.

The security reviews are part of the Commercial Mobile Device Implementation Plan unveiled by the Pentagon in February.

Major General Robert Wheeler, deputy chief information officer, told reporters at the time that the effort aimed to ensure the Pentagon's mobile devices, wireless infrastructure and mobile applications remain "reliable, secure and flexible enough to keep up with the fast-changing technologies of today."

(Reporting By David Alexander; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)

The Bay Psalm Book was printed in 1640 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It is being sold from the collection of Boston's Old South Church to fund building repairs and sustain its ministry.

The church owns one other copy, and others are owned by Harvard and Yale universities and other institutions.

It is the first copy of the book to be offered for sale since 1947, when it achieved a record auction price for a book of $151,000. Sotheby's estimated it will sell for $15 million to $30 million at its New York auction on November 26.

The current auction record for a printed book was set in December 2010 when Sotheby's sold John James Audubon's "Birds of America" for $11,542,683 including commission.

"This little book of 1640 was precursor to Lexington and Concord, and, ultimately, to American political independence," said David Redden, chairman of Sotheby's books department.

Calling the book a "mythical rarity," Redden added that "it has become too rare to collect. Yet here it is today, this modest little book printed in the American wilderness but embodying the values that created our nation: political freedom and religious liberty."

Members of the church, a nonprofit organization dating back to 1669 that is a member of the Protestant denomination United Church of Christ, voted overwhelmingly in December to sell the rare tome.

Nancy Taylor, senior minister and chief executive of Old South Church, said in a statement: "We hope to increase our grants and outreach programs, as well as maintain our National Historic Landmark building" with the substantial proceeds.

The book will go on display in New York at Sotheby's from Friday through Sunday ahead of a traveling exhibition that will visit Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angeles and Dallas in the coming months.

(Reporting by Chris Michaud; Editing by Eric Walsh)

April 10 (Reuters) - Voters in south Florida's Miami-Dade County will soon decide if billionaire real estate developer Stephen Ross can tap local hotel taxes to help pay for a $350 million upgrade to the stadium used by his Miami Dolphins.

County legislators on Wednesday approved a May 14 referendum asking Miami-Dade to increase a lodging tax to 7 percent from 6 percent. The added hotel taxes would back a municipal bond offering by the county to overhaul Sun Life Stadium.

After the vote, Florida's legislators must also approve any increase of the tax voters may approve.

Battling a May 22 deadline for Miami to be considered as a host for the 50th Super Bowl in 2016, the Dolphins and Miami-Dade County officials struck a deal Tuesday that calls for the National Football League team to receive $7.5 million in county hotel taxes annually for 26 years.

Ross has said the Dolphins, in which he holds a 95 percent stake, would pay $191 million of the $350 million project andargued an improved stadium was key to attracting high-profile events. Miami has hosted 10 Super Bowl championships.

To fund the project, the team could also ask for as much as a $200 million loan from the NFL. Dolphins spokesman Eric Jotkoff wasn't immediately available Wednesday to discuss whether the team is pursuing league funds.

An NFL loan would need to be approved by 24 of the league's 32 teams, according to NFL spokesman Greg Aiello.

As part of the agreement with Miami-Dade officials, Ross and the Dolphins pledged to pay the $5 million cost of a special election and to keep the team in Miami for the next 30 years should the deal and tax come to fruition.

Ross also agreed to pay a $20 million fine if he sold the team in the next five years. Any new owner would have to have a net worth greater than $1 billion and would assume all of the team's existing obligations.

The agreement also requires the team to repay the county $112 million to $120 million after 30 years.

In hopes of securing Super Bowl 50, the Dolphins have pushed for the deal to be done before a May 22 meeting that will decide whether the 2016 game will be in Miami or San Francisco.

The Plano, Texas, retailer began selling the goods last week under the brand "JCP Everyday."

On Tuesday, the New York State Supreme Court's Appellate Division, First Department, denied Macy's request for a preliminary injunction blocking sale of the goods while a court battle continues over rights to the products.

(Reporting by Karen Freifeld; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick)

LONDON (Reuters) - Chinese scientists have confirmed for the first time that a new strain of bird flu that has killed 23 people in China has been transmitted to humans from chickens.

In a study published online in the Lancet medical journal, the scientists echoed previous statements from the World Health Organization (WHO) and Chinese officials that there is as yet no evidence of human-to-human transmission of this virus.

The H7N9 strain has infected 109 people in China since it was first detected in March. The WHO warned on Wednesday that this strain is "one of the most lethal" flu viruses and is transmitted more easily than the H5N1 strain of bird flu, which has killed hundreds around the world since 2003.

Kwok-Yung Yuen of the University of Hong Kong, who led the study, said its findings that chickens in poultry markets were a source of human infections meant that controlling the disease in these places and in these birds should be a priority.

"Aggressive intervention to block further animal-to-person transmission in live poultry markets, as has previously been done in Hong Kong, should be considered," he told the Lancet.

He added that temporary closure of live bird markets and comprehensive programmes of surveillance, culling, biosecurity and segregation of different poultry species may also be needed "to halt evolution of the virus into a pandemic agent".

"The evidence ... suggests it is a pure poultry-to-human transmission and that controlling (infections in people) will therefore depend on controlling the epidemic in poultry," he said.

Yuen's findings do not mean all cases of human H7N9 infection come from chickens, or from poultry, but they do confirm chickens as one source.

The WHO has said 40 percent of people infected with H7N9 appear to have had no contact with poultry.

Other so called "reservoirs" of the flu virus may be circulating in other types of birds or mammals, and investigators in China are working hard to try find out.

CASE STUDIES

Yuen's team conducted detailed cases studies on four H7N9 flu patients from Zhejiang, an eastern coastal province south of the commercial hub Shanghai.

All four patients had been exposed to poultry, either through their work or through visiting poultry markets.

To find out whether there was transmission of the virus from poultry to humans, the researchers took swabs from 20 chickens, four quails, five pigeons and 57 ducks, all from six markets likely to have been visited by the patients.

Two of the five pigeons and four of the 20 chickens tested positive for H7N9, but none of the ducks or quails.

After analysing the genetic makeup of H7N9 virus in a sample isolated from one patient and comparing it to a sample from one of the chickens, the researchers said similarities suggest the virus is being transmitted directly to humans from poultry.

The team also checked more than 300 people who had had close contact with the four patients and found that none showed any symptoms of H7N9 infection within 14 days from the beginning of surveillance. This suggests the virus is not currently able to transmit between people, they said.

But they noted that previous genetic analysis shows H7N9 has already acquired some gene mutations that adapt it specifically to being more able to infect mammals - raising the risk that it could one day cause a human pandemic.

"Further adaptation of the virus could lead to infections with less severe symptoms and more efficient person-to-person transmission," the scientists wrote. (Editing by Kevin Liffey)

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The fanfare accompanying Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto's first months in office is increasingly being drowned out by discord in Congress that could undo his plans to raise more tax revenue and open up state oil giant Pemex to outside investment.

A pact that Pena Nieto painstakingly built with opposition leaders to strengthen his hand in Congress risks falling apart over accusations his ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, has been using dirty tricks to buy votes in the first major round of state elections since July's presidential vote.

Taking office in December after fighting off claims that his own campaign team bought votes, Pena Nieto has won much praise for his efforts to re-energize Mexico's economy.

A telecommunications bill passed by Congress on Tuesday aims to bring more competition to industries dominated by phone tycoon Carlos Slim and the No. 1 broadcaster, Televisa.

Pena Nieto's government has also pushed through a law aimed at improving the education system and arrested teachers' union boss Elba Esther Gordillo on corruption charges. A former PRI stalwart, Gordillo was seen as a persistent obstacle to change.

Lacking an outright majority in Congress, Pena Nieto mapped out an informal legislative program with the opposition under the "Pact for Mexico," an agreement that has served as a workshop for the parties' proposals to modernize the economy.

If his reforms succeed, Pena Nieto insists Mexico's growth can reach 6 percent per annum. Investors have been encouraged by the pact's achievements, piling into Mexican stocks and bonds and recently pushing the peso currency to a 19-month high.

But last week, months of political goodwill evaporated amid angry recriminations when opposition leaders accused the government of trying to use public money to help the PRI in local elections in the Gulf state of Veracruz this July.

When videos were leaked showing PRI officials advocating the use of Social Development Ministry funds to corral votes in Veracruz, the conservative National Action Party, or PAN, and the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) were livid.

"The one that's been irresponsible, that hasn't kept its word, that has put the Pact for Mexico at risk and shown it's still the same old party it always was, is the PRI," said the PAN's lower house leader, Luis Alberto Villarreal.

For Pena Nieto, the row is an unwelcome backdrop for the visit of U.S. President Barack Obama to Mexico on Thursday, when the leaders will discuss security issues and how to step up cooperation between their closely intertwined economies.

FRUSTRATED OPPOSITION

Ruling for 71 uninterrupted years, the PRI had become a byword for corruption by the time it was finally voted out of power in 2000. When Pena Nieto recaptured the presidency for the party last year, he swore things would be different this time.

But as the parties jockey for position before the local elections in Veracruz and 13 other states on July 7, finger-pointing about PRI corruption is again widespread.

Until the PRI has punished those behind the Veracruz scandal and ensured the elections are protected against abuses, all discussions within the pact over energy and fiscal reform are off, PRD chairman Jesus Zambrano told Reuters.

Though he was confident the pact could overcome the current furor, Zambrano foresaw trouble ahead if it did not. "It would make building consensus enormously difficult," he said.

Defusing tensions between the PRI and its rivals is a big enough challenge for Pena Nieto. But he must do so at a time when there are major splits inside the opposition parties - in particular the PAN - his natural allies on economic reform.

Without support from at least the PAN, Pena Nieto's ruling coalition of PRI and the Green Party is unlikely to muster the two-thirds majority in Congress needed to enact a constitutional change he wants to make Pemex more attractive to investors.

The PRD is opposed to changing the constitution to open up the oil industry and is highly skeptical about imposing a value-added tax on food and medicine, a measure the PRI is considering to improve Mexico's weak tax revenues.

Meanwhile, both the PAN and the PRD are pressuring Pena Nieto's Social Development Minister Rosario Robles to step down over the Veracruz revelations. To date, they have not made her departure a condition of their support for the pact.

The parties were incensed when Pena Nieto last month backed Robles publicly, withdrawing their support for a banking bill negotiated under the pact, and putting that reform on ice.

"It's up to all the political players to carry on working for the reforms our country needs," Pena Nieto said at the time.

The opposition says, however, that the PRI has yet to atone for Veracruz. Robles quickly dismissed seven officials over the affair and has denied any wrongdoing, but the PAN and the PRD have said 57 people were involved and want more heads to roll.

The government has repeatedly stressed that the pact is intact, but opposition lawmakers chafing under the fetters of the agreement have jumped at the chance to attack the president.

Senator Luis Fernando Salazar of the PAN said Pena Nieto's response to the Veracruz affair showed that he saw the pact "as nothing more than an instrument for keeping the opposition quiet."

Even among the ranks of the ruling coalition, doubts have grown about how much longer the government can defend the pact.

"It was very close to breaking," said PRI congressman Brasil Acosta, noting the media attention the pact has generated had turned it into a very public forum for lawmakers to air grievances, making it harder and harder to defuse spats.

Another lawmaker in the ruling coalition, who declined to be named, said the pact would last till the end of 2013 "at best."

Pena Nieto used the accord to push through the education and telecommunications reforms with overwhelming support from the PRI, PAN and PRD. But that spirit of cooperation has given way to warnings that the pact risks neutering the opposition.

BAJA CALIFORNIA

There is no suggestion Pena Nieto was personally involved in the PRI's election planning for Veracruz, but preserving the pact is exacting a mounting price in Congress, which must still agree on laws to implement the telecoms and education bills.

Mindful of the risks, Pena Nieto front-loaded his major reforms, pledging to sign off the reorganization of Pemex and his plan to broaden the tax base by the end of the first year.

Ulises Beltran, head of polling firm BGC, said in the end Pena Nieto's hopes of passing far-reaching energy and tax reforms were almost certain to depend on the PAN.

How helpful the PAN is may hinge on who wins the only state governorship up for grabs in July: Baja California. In 1989, it was the first state the PAN ever captured and it still holds it.

Losing Baja California would be a crushing blow to the PAN, which is still licking its wounds after giving up the presidency to Pena Nieto and finishing a distant third in last year's vote.

Anxious to avoid defeat, the PAN is running on a joint gubernatorial ticket with the PRD in Baja California and has already said the PRI will try to buy the election.

The only problem, said pollster Beltran, is that after 24 years under the PAN, the state is ready for a change.

"And if (the PAN) ends up losing in Baja California, they're going to claim there was fraud without a doubt," he said.

(Additional reporting by Miguel Angel Gutierrez.; Editing by Kieran Murray and Christopher Wilson)

The major college football conference commissioners named the new postseason system that starts in 2014 on Tuesday, the first of three days of meetings at a resort hotel in the Rose Bowl's backyard.

Out with the Bowl Championship Series and in with the College Football Playoff.

"I don't think you can ever go too wrong calling something what it is," Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott said. "Things that make sense tend to stand the test of time."

Next on the agenda is to pick three more bowls for the six-bowl semifinal rotation the Rose, Orange and Sugar are already in and where the first championship game will be held on Jan. 12, 2015. That comes Wednesday.

Four bowls have bid to be part of the rotation. The clear front-runners are the Cotton, Chick-fil-A and Fiesta. The Holiday Bowl in San Diego also put in a bid, but even its organizers acknowledged they are a long shot at best.

The finalists to host the first championship game are Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, the billion dollar home of the NFL team and the Cotton Bowl, and Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Fla., home of the NFL's Buccaneers and the Outback Bowl.

Arlington is the favorite, but the competition has been serious.

"I'm glad it has," Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby said Tuesday. "I think it will give us a better outcome."

Even before an official announcement about the name was made on Tuesday, the website www.collegefootballplayoff.com was up and running and allowing fans to vote on a new logo. And there also was a Twitter handle: (at)cfbplayoff.

"It's really simple. It gets right to the point," BCS executive director Bill Hancock, who will hold the same position in the playoff system, said at a short news conference.

"Nothing cute. Nothing fancy. We decided it would be best to call it what it is."

Premiere Sports Management in Overland Park, Kan., was hired to help come up with a name and brand the new system. A committee of commissioners handled the naming of the new system, and Hancock said they ran through "in the neighborhood of three dozen" names.

Scott said: "We're clearly trying to make a clear break from the BCS."

The new postseason format will create two national semifinals to be played New Year's Eve or New Year's Day, with the winners advancing. The six bowls in the playoff rotation will host marquee, BCS-type games on New Year's Eve or New Year's Day during the seasons they do not host a semifinal.

The first semifinals will be played at the Rose and Sugar bowls on Jan. 1, 2015.

Also on the agenda this week for the commissioners will be the composition of the selection committee that will set the field for the playoff. They have said they would like the committee to be similar to the one that picks the teams for the NCAA basketball tournament, made up of conference commissioners and athletic directors.

Bowlsby said he expected both current and former administrators to have a spot on the committee.

"The hardest thing is making sure we're arming whoever is on the committee with the tools that it takes to differentiate among closely proximal teams," Bowlsby said. "You have to have some metrics available to differentiate between three, four, five, six and seven.

"You can't just say we like blue uniforms and not gold uniforms. You've got to arm the committee with the tools that it takes to do their job."

The bomber was riding a motorcycle and detonated his explosives as the police patrol drove by in Peshawar, said city police chief Liaqat Ali Khan.

The two Afghans who were killed, Qazi Mohammad Hilal Waqad and Mohammad Idrees, were working at their country's consulate in Peshawar, said Afghan Consul General Syed Mohammad Ibrahim Khel in Islamabad.

However, it did not appear they were the target of the attack, Khel said.

Waqad's father, Qazi Amin Waqad, is a member of the Afghan High Peace Council, appointed by the Afghan government to hold peace negotiations with the Taliban, said an official at the consulate in Peshawar, Shakir Qarar.

The peace council member was in Afghanistan when the attack occurred, and Waqad and Idrees were driving to work at the time, Qarar added.

There were conflicting reports about the number of dead and wounded from the blast.

Khan, the Peshawar police chief, said the suicide bombing killed eight people and wounded 42.

A rescue worker, Mujahid Khan, said 10 people died and 50 were wounded.

Three policemen were among the wounded, Khan said. Many of the dead and wounded were on a nearby passenger bus, which bore much of the force of the explosion.

Local TV footage showed the wreckage of the bus and the motorcycle, as rescue workers rushed wounded people to hospitals in the city.

No one immediately claimed responsibility, but suspicion will likely to fall on the Pakistani Taliban. The group has been waging a bloody insurgency against the government for years and has stepped up attacks ahead of next month's parliamentary election.

Also Monday, two gunmen riding a motorcycle attacked a campaign office of an anti-Taliban political party in northwestern Pakistan, killing a worker there, police chief Khan said. The Awami National Party office is in the city of Nowshera.

On Sunday, the Taliban killed 11 people in bomb attacks on a political rally and two campaign offices in the northwest, part of their quest to disrupt the election. The group has killed at least 60 people in attacks on politicians and party workers since the beginning of April.

The Taliban have specifically targeted secular political parties that have supported military offensives against the militants in the northwest. The Taliban have largely spared Islamic parties and others who believe the government should strike a peace deal with the militants, rather than fight them.

There is a concern that the violence could benefit the parties that take a softer line toward the militants, because they are able to campaign more freely ahead of the May 11 election.

"Unless the government, the country's independent election commission and security forces ensure that all parties can campaign freely without fear, the election may be severely compromised," Ali Dayan Hasan, the head of Human Rights Watch in Pakistan, said in a statement issued Monday.

Bashir Jan, a senior member of the Awami National Party who survived a recent bomb attack in the southern city of Karachi, also criticized the government for not doing enough to protect candidates, but he said they were determined to carry on.

"These attacks will not deter us," Jan said at a press conference in Karachi. "We are determined to contest elections."

____

Associated Press writer Zarar Khan contributed to this report from Islamabad.