The HTC handset runs Facebook's enhanced Home software, designed to be more integrated into the smartphone than a normal app.

UK mobile operator EE confirmed that "following customer feedback" the Europe launch had been stalled.

It follows a raft of high-profile employee departures from HTC.

In recent months, chief product officer Kouji Koudera, Asian chief executive Lennard Hoornik and the firm's director of global communications Jason Gordon have all departed.

Five other senior figures have also left the company.

Signs of discontent were played out in public when Eric Lin, an ex-HTC product strategy manager, tweeted: "To all my friends still at @HTC - just quit. Leave now.

"It's tough to do, but you'll be so much happier, I swear."

Mr Lin had left HTC in February to join Microsoft-owned Skype.

Despite being one of the industry's top players several years ago, the smartphone maker's market share has fallen sharply and its income fell to the lowest level in eight years towards the end of 2012.

'Lot of sense'

Mark Zuckerberg launched Home on the promise it would "change the relationship" people have with their phones.

The free-to-download software effectively replaces the phone's home screen with a Facebook feed and chat options.

It was initially exclusively available on HTC's First smartphone, before being rolled out to a selection of other Android-powered handsets.

HTC had hoped the Facebook deal would boost sales of the First device, but the handset has since been heavily discounted - and dropped by AT&T, the biggest US mobile network. In a statement, Facebook said it had been listening to users' "experiences" of the software.

"While many people love it, we've heard a lot of great feedback about how to make Home substantially better.

"As a result we're focusing the next few months on adding customisation features that address the feedback we received.

"While we focus on making Home better, we are going to limit supporting new devices and think it makes a lot of sense for EE and Orange to hold off deploying the HTC First in Europe."

UK mobile network EE said it would contact customers who had shown an interest in the device.

"[Facebook] have recommended holding off launching the HTC First in the UK," the company said.

But the things that will determine standards of living a generation from now have almost nothing to do with this month’s jobs report or the Federal Reserve’s latest policy meeting.

Those determinants, Instead, depend on companies’ innovations — in particular, whether those innovations turn out to have major economic consequences.

Researchers at the McKinsey Global Institute, the in-house think tank of the giant consulting firm, have a new study in which they have taken their best shot at predicting exactly that.

They have scoured the range of potential disruptive technologies and done their best to estimate how transformative each might be for the U.S. economy.

Their results are hardly definitive — we can’t know what the future holds — but represent a serious effort by some smart people to quantify what appear to be some major forces shaping our technological future. And the results have some important implications for how we think about innovation.

First, the researchers, led by James Manyika, narrowed their focus to technologies that are already advancing rapidly (no pure pie-in-the-sky stuff), have broad potential impact (not something that would just affect one or two industries) and could have significant economic impact (the total numbers are large).

Not making the cut were technologies that are unlikely to be available between now and 2025 (fusion power, for example) and those that are coming to fruition but are niche products (like private space flight).

Here’s the list the McKinsey researchers came up with, along with their (very rough) estimates of how much economic potential they hold.

Etisalat's bid needs further work, however, and has more legal conditions than Ooredoo's offer, so Vivendi has not yet made a final choice, the people said.

"If Etisalat cleans up its offer, then it wins," said one of the sources, who is close to the process. "If not, it will go to Qatar, who also made an offer that Vivendi can accept."

While the exact prices of the offers were not clear, sources earlier told Reuters that they had come in lower than the 5 billion euros ($6.5 billion) Vivendi had initially hoped for and closer to the market value of the stake.

Vivendi's 53 percent shareholding in Maroc Telecom is now worth 4.34 billion euros.

Maroc Telecom offers fixed-line, mobile and Internet services in the kingdom and is one of Africa's top telecom firms, with units in Burkina Faso, Gabon, Mali and Mauritania.

The buyer will inherit a firm that has been a reliable cash machine for Vivendi but has seen slower growth in recent years, analysts say, although there is growth potential in sub-Saharan Africa, where sales and profits rose last year.

Vivendi has been in talks in recent weeks with Etisalat to remove some of the legal clauses in its bid, the sources said. The UAE-backed group has scheduled an extraordinary shareholder meeting on May 28 to approve the financing package for the bid.

Ooredoo, meanwhile, crafted its offer with minimal conditions to make it simple and less risky for Vivendi, the group's strategy chief told Reuters earlier.

Vivendi has not asked Ooredoo to improve its offer so far, the first source said. Ooredoo is frustrated with the slowness of the process and what it sees as a lack of communication from Vivendi, said two other sources familiar with the situation.

Vivendi may choose a preferred bidder with whom to continue exclusive negotiations next week after the Etisalat vote, but it could also take longer, the first source said.

Spokesmen for Vivendi, Etisalat and Ooredoo declined to comment on Friday.

GROWTH SPRINGBOARD

Both bidders are eager to sign a deal with Vivendi before the Muslim holiday of Ramadan, which begins in early July.

For Vivendi, the sale of Maroc Telecom is crucial to its ambition to lessen exposure to capital-intensive telecoms and focus on its media activities in video games, pay TV and music.

Dish has been trying to diversify beyond its core pay-TV business that has matured and faces tough competition from cable, telecom and Internet video providers.

The new service will give nTelos and Dish customers, especially those in underserved rural communities, access to high-speed Internet, the companies said in a statement.

"We are pleased to team with nTelos on this exciting opportunity to leverage their mobile capabilities along with our technical service infrastructure to develop broadband services," Charlie Ergen, chairman and co-founder of Dish said.

Dish is mired in two takeover battles, for Sprint Nextel Corp and Clearwire Corp, as it looks to expand its businesses.

Sprint offered to buy Clearwire in December for $2.2 billion but Dish announced a counterbid of $2.3 billion in January. Dish followed up in April by making a $25.5 billion cash and stock bid for Sprint.

In a major policy speech on Thursday, Obama narrowed the scope of the targeted-killing drone campaign against al Qaeda and its allies and took steps toward closing the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba.

He acknowledged the past use of "torture" in U.S. interrogations; expressed remorse over civilian casualties from drone strikes; and said that the Guantanamo detention facility "has become a symbol around the world for an America that flouts the rule of law."

After launching costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States is tiring of conflict. While combating terrorism is still a high priority for the White House, polls show by large margins that Americans' main concerns are the economy and domestic concerns such as healthcare.

"We have now been at war for well over a decade," Obama said near the start of his address. Toward the end, he added: "But this war, like all wars, must end."

Though aimed first at a domestic audience, Obama's speech at Washington's National Defense University was also the latest milestone in his campaign to reshape the global image of the United States - particularly in the Islamic world.

But he faces obstacles from opponents in Congress who will try to block the closure of Guantanamo prison and reject his call to repeal the Authorization for Use of Military Force passed right after the September 11, 2001, attacks. The law is the legal basis for much of the "war on terror."

Faced with criticism about civilian casualties in attacks by unmanned aerial vehicles, Obama said the United States would only use those drone strikes when a threat was "continuing and imminent," a nuanced change from the previous policy of launching strikes against a significant threat.

Under new presidential guidance signed by Obama this week, the Defense Department will also take over some lethal drone operations from the CIA.

That would subject drone attacks to more scrutiny from Congress and might lead to the Pentagon taking over drone operations in Yemen, but not in Pakistan, where the CIA is likely to continue to run the program. With al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden killed in a U.S. raid in 2011, a number of the group's top members taken out in drone strikes, and the U.S. military role in Afghanistan winding down, Obama made clear it was time for a policy shift.

The request, and Paul's appearance here last Monday in a room packed with 500 Republicans, spoke volumes about the party as its followers - some energized by the scandals surrounding Democratic President Barack Obama's administration - are already looking to the 2016 elections.

With no clear presidential front-runner in their party, Republicans are in shopping mode.

They are looking for signs of a candidate who could unite the party's religious right, its more moderate establishment and its libertarian, anti-tax Tea Partiers in a way that Mitt Romney, the 2012 presidential nominee, could not do.

And they are looking for someone who could appeal to - or at least not offend - Hispanics, non-white women and other parts of the electorate that went big for Obama and Democrats last year.

That's why, just four months into Obama's second term, Paul is part of a stampede of Republican would-be contenders who are criss-crossing the country meeting voters, recruiting potential donors and currying favor with local politicians who could help determine their fate in a run for the White House.

The lessons of Romney's bitter loss in November are never far away. On Monday, Paul made jokes about neighboring (and more liberal) Massachusetts and chided leading Democrat Hillary Clinton. But the Kentucky senator also made a point of calling for a more diverse Republican Party, one that, in his words, should have room for tattooed, bearded and pony-tailed voters.

"If you want to be party of white people, we're winning all the white vote," Paul said. "But we're a diverse nation. We're going to win when we look like America."

Paul, the son of libertarian upstart Ron Paul, a Republican presidential contender last year, is on a tour of states such as New Hampshire and Iowa that will hold crucial contests at the start of the 2016 presidential primary season.

Other potential contenders are on the road as well.

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker ventured this week to Iowa, where the first votes traditionally are cast in the presidential campaign, for a pair of fundraisers.

In early June, Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie will mingle with supporters of Romney's campaign at a gathering in Park City, Utah.

Passengers were leaving the plane and no one was hurt in the incident, a spokesman for the airport said.

Flight PK709 from Lahore in Pakistan had been due to land at Manchester in northern England with 297 passengers on board, but was diverted shortly before arrival.

Britain is on high alert after a soldier was hacked to death on a London street on Wednesday in what the government are treating as a terrorist incident.

A security source said early indications were that the plane was not the target of a terrorist attack.

A passenger who had just got off the plane told the BBC the pilot had informed passengers after landing that he had diverted to Stansted because of threats. The passenger, named by the BBC as Mr Munsif, said two men had been handcuffed on board and removed.

"We landed safely and then he announced that they had some kind of threat from someone and that's why he landed the plane," the passenger said, speaking by telephone.

"Essex Police have boarded a passenger plane diverted to Stansted Airport and two men have been arrested on suspicion of endangerment of an aircraft. They have been removed from the plane," the police said in a statement. The force is responsible for the area where Stansted is located.

"The two men arrested on suspicion of endangerment of an aircraft are aged 30 and 41. They are being taken to a police station for interview by detectives," the police added.

Stansted is one of London's less busy airports, preferred as a location for handling airplane security incidents. A spokesman for the airport said the plane was being held in an isolated area and that the rest of the airport was operating as normal.

Essex County Fire and Rescue Service said 10 fire engines had been sent to the airport.

The Pakistani plane was a Boeing 777, according to the flight tracking website www.flightradar.com.

According to two tracking websites, the aircraft broke off from its descent about 60 miles east of Manchester.

It turned and followed a wide arc over northeast England and out to the North Sea before heading towards London.

The two suspects, Michael Adebolajo, 28 and Michael Adebowale, 22, are under guard in hospitals after being shot and arrested by police after the murder of 25-year-old Afghan war veteran Lee Rigby on Wednesday in broad daylight. They have not yet been charged.

Adebolajo, filmed justifying the killing as he stood near the body holding a knife and meat cleaver in bloodied hands, was born in Britain to a Nigerian immigrant family. Adebowale is a naturalized British citizen born in Nigeria.

Another man and a woman have also been arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder, an early indication that police are investigating whether the attack was part of a wider plot.

Prime Minister David Cameron said a parliamentary committee would carry out an investigation into the role of the security services. Britain's MI5 domestic spy agency had been aware of the men, but neither was considered a threat, a government source told Reuters.

Dramatic video footage showing the moment when police shot the two men was published on a British newspaper's website on Friday. The shaky, 10-second clip shows one of the men sprinting towards a police car with a knife in his hand before he is shot and tumbles to the ground.

"It is important for the public to know that the security services and the police are operating properly," former London police chief Ian Blair told BBC radio.

Communities Secretary Eric Pickles said there would be a thorough investigation into the role of the police and intelligence agencies. However, he said the incident underlined how "difficult it is in a free society to be able to control everyone".

The attack was the first Islamist killing since July 2005, when four suicide bombers struck London transport. At that time, questions were also raised about the security services after it was revealed two of the bombers had been identified in a surveillance operation but were not followed up.

Within 30 minutes, Kaiba was admitted to a local hospital. Doctors concluded that he had probably breathed food or liquid into his lungs and eventually released him.

But two days later, it happened again. It was the beginning of an ordeal for the Youngstown, Ohio, family that continued day after agonizing day.

"They had to do CPR on him every day," said April Gionfriddo, Kaiba's mother, who later found out her son had a rare obstruction in his lungs called bronchial malacia. "I didn't think he was going to leave the hospital alive."

With hopes dimming that Kaiba would survive, doctors tried the medical equivalent of a "Hail Mary" pass. Using an experimental technique never before tried on a human, they created a splint made out of biological material that effectively carved a path through Kaiba's blocked airway.

What makes this a medical feat straight out of science fiction: The splint was created on a three-dimensional printer.

"It's magical to me," said Dr. Glenn Green, an associate professor of pediatric otolaryngology at the University of Michigan who implanted the splint in Kaiba. "We're talking about taking dust and using it to build body parts."

Kaiba's procedure was described in a letter published in the most recent issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

"It was pretty nifty that (doctors) were able to make something for Kaiba on a printer like that," April Gionfriddo said. "But we really weren't so worried about that. We were more worried about our son."

Green, who has been practicing for two decades, and a UM colleague, biomedical engineer Scott Hollister, had been working for years toward a clinical trial to test the splint in children with pulmonary issues when they got a phone call from a physician in Ohio who was aware of their research.

"He said, 'I've got a child who needs (a splint) now,' " referring to Kaiba, said Green. "He said that this child is not going to live unless something is done."

Green and Hollister got emergency clearance from their hospital and the Food and Drug Administration to try the experimental treatment -- which had been used only on animals -- on Kaiba. The child was airlifted from Akron Children's Hospital to C.S. Mott Children's Hospital at UM.

Fortunately, a treasure trove of rarities, oddities and tech "firsts" has been brought together -- including an experimental 17th century mechanical calculator, a hundred-year-old telephone and an incredibly rare, headline-grabbing Apple 1 computer -- to be sold at auction Saturday in Cologne, Germany.

While they may look dated today, the objects gathered by Auction Team Breker trace an evolution of technological thinking that stretches from the dawn of the industrial revolution through to the present day. It is a story of cutting edge tinkering; an inventors' hall of fame.

Basking in the limelight at the auction will be one of just six surviving functional Apple 1 computers -- a tech superstar which is likely to sell for a small fortune -- an estimated $400,000 -- propelled by bids from collectors, museums and Macolytes.

The Apple 1 was the first computer built by the California technology company. The computer was hand-assembled by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, who, according to legend, financed the device's construction by selling his HP-65 calculator (co-founder Steve Jobs also sold his VW campervan).

Approximately 200 of the devices were made, of which fewer than 50 are thought to remain -- and only six in working order.

Company founder Uwe Breker said the sale is "unique in presenting masterpieces from the spectrum of antique technology, from the 17th century to the 21st." Long before the current era of computers, the inventor Blaise Pascal designed a mechanical calculator in 1642 -- regarded by many as the first decisive step toward modern microprocessors.

The "Pascaline" was operated with a stylus to turn digit-wheels. These wheels connected to a "display" on the top of the device which showed the result after each equation. A sliding rule could be shifted to change the function of the device from addition to subtraction. Multiplication and division were also possible (though very difficult to execute).

The Pascaline was a significant breakthrough at the time of its invention, demonstrating, as it did, how complex arithmetic could be carried out by a machine. Its introduction led to the development of mechanical calculators across Europe.

The videogame industry, which has struggled with declining sales as gamers migrate to mobile and social media platforms, is hoping for a strong finish to 2013 with the release of new titles like Take-Two Interactive Software's "Grand Theft Auto V" and Electronic Arts Inc's "Battlefield 4."

New gaming consoles like Microsoft's Xbox One and Sony Corp's Playstation4 are expected to launch in coming months. Investors hope the advent of new gaming hardware will give the video game industry a shot in the arm.

GameStop raised the lower end of its full-year earnings forecast to $2.90 to $3.15 per share, from $2.75 to $3.15 per share previously.

"The expectations are that we're going to have a tough first half until we see titles like Grand Theft Auto and new consoles," Chief Financial Officer Robert Lloyd told Reuters.

Sony Corp said in February it would release its next-generation PlayStation this year, its first videogame console in seven years. And on Tuesday, Microsoft unveiled the Xbox One, its first new gaming console in eight years, making its strongest push so far to dominate consumers' living rooms with an array of exclusive media and video game content.

GameStop shares, which have risen about 46 percent in the last three months, were trading flat at $36.20 in the afternoon.

Analysts say there remained confusion over whether Microsoft planned to take a cut on revenue for used games played on the Xbox One, following news reports that suggested the software company may charge used-game users a fee.

"It appears that Microsoft will assign a unique ID to each game disk loaded onto the Xbox, which could require a second user to pay Microsoft a fee to access Xbox services," R. w. Baird analyst Colin Sebastian said in a note on Tuesday.

GameStop executives said they would wait for the software company to communicate that.

"The majority of how the stock is going to trade is going to be the market interpretation of how "Xbox One" is going to handle used-game sales," National Alliance Securities analyst Mike Hickey told Reuters.

Total U.S. sales of videogame hardware and software in April saw a 25 percent drop, following a downward trend that has continued month over month since last year, according to a report by market research firm NPD.

A group of students from the Royal College of Art (RCA) in London has made that possible by creating electrically conductive paint.

The paint acts as a form of liquid wiring. Unlike conventional wires, it can be applied to almost any surface, including paper, plastic, metal and even fabric.

The product has the appearance and consistency of runny marmite, but dries quickly when exposed to the air. Its inventors, RCA graduates Isabel Lizardi, Matt Johnson, Bibi Nelson and Becky Pilditch, call their creation "Bare Paint." While they don't claim to be the first group to have invented a conductive ink, they are pioneering new ways it can be used.

"We started this project in earnest in 2009," says Matt Johnson. "We were originally interested in trying to apply electronics to the skin ... so we arrived at this idea of applying them as a coating and eventually we got this idea of a conductive paint."

The team began by investigating how electronics were being used in the body. "In 2008 -- and probably still today -- there was a lot of work around electronic textiles," says Johnson. "And though we really liked the idea of having a jumper (a piece of clothing) that has some intelligence in it, we didn't like that it was so bulky and that once you took it off the functionality disappeared."

Around the same time there was a lot of "extreme work" being done by people who were injecting electronics beneath the skin. For their final project, the RCA students began work on making something less intrusive, looking for a substance that could be painted onto the body.

Eventually, says Johnson, "that idea transformed into the material we have now, which is very safe though it's not specifically intended for the body anymore."

After graduating from college, the team collaborated on a video for DJ and producer Calvin Harris. The resulting project was the "Humanthesizer," a performance which literally brought the paint to life, with dancers whose movements triggered audio loops from Harris's song "Ready for the Weekend."