The group also posted the contact information of Steve Ballmer, Microsoft Corp's retiring chief executive, on its Twitter account along with the message, "You can thank Microsoft for monitoring your accounts/emails using this details. #SEA"

That message was an apparent reference to revelations last year by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden that Skype, which is owned by Microsoft, was part of the NSA's program to monitor communications through some of the biggest U.S. Internet companies.

A message posted on Skype's official Twitter feed on Wednesday, apparently by the hacking group, read: "Don't use Microsoft emails (hotmail, outlook), They are monitoring your accounts and selling the data to the governments. More details soon. #SEA"

Similar messages were posted on Skype's official Facebook pages and on a blog on its website before being taken down in late afternoon. The SEA later tweeted out copies of the message "for those who missed it."

Representatives for Microsoft could not be reached for comment.

The NSA's practices essentially made Microsoft and other technology companies partners in government surveillance efforts against private citizens in the United States and elsewhere.

Last month Microsoft joined seven other top technology companies in pressing President Barack Obama to rein in the U.S. government's electronic spying in a meeting at the White House.

Media companies, including the New York Times and the BBC, have repeatedly been targeted by the Syrian Electronic Army and other hacker activist groups that deface websites and take over Twitter accounts.

Obama and his national security team are trying to decide what recommendations to adopt from an outside panel's review of the NSA's activities.

A U.S. District judge in December ruled that the U.S. government's gathering of Americans' phone records is likely unlawful and raised what he called "serious doubts" about the value of the so-called metadata counter-terrorism program.

A second federal judge ruled later in the month that the program was constitutional, raising the likelihood that the issue will be settled by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Ford C-Max Solar Energi Concept has a solar panel system on the roof which tracks the position of the sun. The company said it can draw power equal to a four-hour battery charge.

Fully charged the car could travel for up to 21 miles powered just on electricity.

The concept car will be on display at CES in Las Vegas before testing begins to see if production is feasible. The solar panel roof will have a special solar concentrator lens similar to a magnifying glass. The Fresnal lens will follow the movement of the sun from east to west and direct sunlight to the solar cells which project researchers say boosts the impact of sunlight by a factor of eight.

'Charging socket'

Ford claim that a day's worth of sunlight will produce the same performance from the Solar Energi Concept as is given by their conventional plug-in hybrid car. Both vehicles would have the same range of 620 miles.

The concept car - which was developed from a collaboration between Ford, the Georgia Institute of Technology and SunPower Corp, a solar power company - will still have a conventional electrical charging socket so its charge can be topped up from the power grid.

But Ford claim that by using the solar power system drivers will not be dependent on the grid to use the car. Research from the company suggests that in future the sun could power up to 75% of all trips made by an average user in a solar hybrid vehicle.

However, it may be a while before solar panel cars are a common sight on the road, said Damion Smy from Car Magazine.

"What Ford has done here is clever use of solar technology, as it assists battery charging.

"Solar power could be used to run ancillaries, such as air-conditioning, but the limited capability for solar panels means that we won't see them used as the main power source anytime soon," he said.

A website called SnapchatDB.info made the information available for download, according to tech news site TechCrunch. (link.reuters.com/wyg75v)

As on Wednesday night, the site SnapchatDB.info has been suspended.

In a statement to TecCrunch, SnapchatDB said that it got the information through a recently identified and patched Snapchat exploit and that it was making the data available in an effort to convince the messaging app to beef up its security.

With Snapchat, users can send photos and videos that disappear shortly after they are viewed and have been lately gaining popularity especially among young users.

Snapchat drew attention in November when reports emerged that it had turned down a $3 billion acquisition offer from Facebook. The two-year old company has so far raised more than $123 million in funding.

Both official and private measures of manufacturing activity in China fell in December, reinforcing views the world's second-largest economy lost some steam in the final quarter of 2013.

The HSBC/Markit Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) for China slipped to a three-month low of 50.5 in December, consistent with a dip in the government's PMI to a four-month low of 51.0. Still, both held above the 50 point level that separates expansion from contraction.

"The economy is still growing, no doubt, but the growth momentum has weakened," said Yao Wei, economist at Societe Generale in Hong Kong.

That could temper some of the optimism about export-dependent countries such as Japan, where the last week the Markit/JMMA Manufacturing PMI rose to a 7-1/2 year high in December.

The manufacturing data weighed on Asian shares on Thursday, with the MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan down 0.6 percent.

The PMI report from the euro zone is due at 0858 GMT, while the report for the United States is due at 1358 GMT.

EXPORT UNCERTAINTY

Many Asian economies are expecting a pick-up in exports given signs that the U.S. economy, a major market for the region, is on the mend. However, there were mixed signals in the HSBC/Markit PMIs.

Taiwanese manufacturers last month posted the sharpest expansion of output since April 2011, and new export orders rose. But in South Korea, new export orders dipped even as overall activity picked up to a seven-month high.

In China, both the official and private PMIs showed export orders contracted in December.

Data on Wednesday showed South Korea's exports to China, its biggest market, grew 8.4 percent from a year earlier compared with 13.2 percent for exports to the United States.

"The stronger increase in manufacturing output suggests that growth will be sustained over the final quarter of the year, keeping the economy on track for a gradual recovery," HSBC economist Ronald Man said about South Korea.

"But given demand from China has still not shown signs of picking up meaningfully, we believe the overall upswing in economic activity will be limited."

Other PMI surveys showed the more consumer-driven economies of India and Indonesia continued to struggle after a difficult 2013, although there were some glimmers of hope.

India's factories lost momentum as softness in new domestic orders offset a pick-up in demand from abroad.

As a result, the HSBC Manufacturing PMI fell to 50.7 in December from 51.3 in the previous month.

Investors welcomed the deal struck by Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne under which Fiat will buy the 41.46 percent of the No. 3 U.S. automaker it does not already own, without raising funds from the stock market.

Marchionne, who has run both companies since Chrysler's 2009 U.S. government-funded bankruptcy restructuring, aims to merge the two into the world's seventh-largest auto group.

However, analysts worried about how the deal will increase Fiat's already heavy debt burden, despite a relatively low price negotiated by Marchionne after more than a year of talks.

Fiat shares rose as much as 16 percent to levels last seen in August 2011 after the agreement, announced late on Wednesday, which aims to combine the two automakers' resources and rejuvenate Fiat's product lineup.

"They paid less than the market had expected and there will be no capital increase to fund this, so no wonder the stock is flying," a Milan-based trader said.

"While it's still to be seen how this will bode for Fiat's future, this is a good start to the year for a company that has had quite a tough ride recently, especially in Europe."

Fiat will buy the stake in the profitable U.S. group from a retiree healthcare trust affiliated to the United Auto Workers union. The trust will receive $3.65 billion in cash for the stake, $1.9 billion of which will come from Chrysler and $1.75 billion from Fiat.

After the deal closes, Chrysler has committed to giving the UAW trust another $700 million over three years.

However, Citigroup analysts said Fiat's debt would become the highest for any European motor manufacturer.

"Group net debt will rise to around 10 billion euros ($13.8 billion) upon completion of this transaction ... leaving it the most indebted OEM (original equipment manufacturer) in Europe," they said in a note. "We continue to have concerns about the sustainability of this heavy debt burden."

INVESTMENTS

A lot of stores had to discount heavily to eke out a modest increase in sales, likely squeezing profit margins in the process.

Some improvement in the U.S. economy and declines in the jobless rate, plus gains in stock and home prices, are failing to resonate with many Americans whose incomes are struggling to catch up to where they were before the financial crisis.

But to many retail experts and economists there are other less cyclical factors at play. Consumers are spending more. Government figures show monthly personal consumption has risen for seven straight months, with November's outlay marking the fastest increase in five months. But they just are not spending in the shopping malls like they used to.

And that means that, even if the economy picks up significantly, retailers of many products could still struggle.

"We are in a something of an evolutionary process, said Bill Martin, founder of data firm ShopperTrak, which monitors foot traffic in about 60,000 retail stores. Americans are spending more online and becoming more careful about what they buy, he said.

Some of this has been unfolding over a long period, although the changes might be picking up pace.

For example, department stores have found themselves on the wrong end of trends for some time. According to data compiled by Reuters, they now capture just $3.37 of every $100 of U.S. retail spending, the lowest since records began in 1992, when the number was nearly $9.

Some of that is explained by the rise of Wal-Mart Stores Inc and other big box discount retailers. But the pace of decline has picked up, with department stores losing about 0.28 percentage points of market share at an annualized rate between 2002 and 2011, compared with 0.22 in the prior 10 years.

The problem is two-fold. The middle class consumers to whom the likes of JC Penney Co Inc and Kohl's Corp cater have struggled with stagnant wages and a payroll tax rise, prompting them to reduce spending on apparel, said Scott Tuhy, a retail analyst at Moody's Investors Service in New York.

People have also gravitated toward spending on services such as travel - airline ticket prices and hotel room rates are up - as well as movie downloads and other content for their TVs, smart phones and tablets. Prices to attend live sports events, theme parks, movies and rock concerts have also been rising.

But first, he will have to manage a snowstorm.

A winter storm that is due to hit on Thursday, de Blasio's second day in office, could pose the first challenge to the new mayor, as he tries to enact a progressive agenda while ensuring the city of more than 8 million people is well managed.

De Blasio succeeds Michael Bloomberg, who had no political experience when he took office in 2001 but had founded and run the successful company that takes his name. De Blasio, a Democrat, most recently was the city's public advocate and, before that, served two terms in the city council.

"This will be first test, and he's got to pull it off as close to flawlessly as he can," said Douglas Muzzio, a professor at Baruch College at the City University of New York. "He's got to send the message, 'I can run this joint.'"

Storms have famously complicated the political lives of New York mayors. In the winter of 1969, a storm that dropped 15 inches of snow created a political crisis for Mayor John Lindsay, who was faulted for the city's slow response.

In 2010, Bloomberg came under fire for his handling of a blizzard that shut down some subway lines for days.

"If we see a situation worsening we're going to take very aggressive action. So it's very much on our screens," de Blasio told reporters this week.

De Blasio, who is moving into the mayoral residence of Gracie Mansion in Manhattan, asserted his outer-borough credentials by mentioning that he remains a homeowner in the borough of Brooklyn.

New York City consists of five counties known as boroughs: Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island.

UNPLOWED

Bloomberg, who was first elected as a Republican but dropped his party affiliation, was criticized for letting snow pile up in Queens and allowing large parts of Brooklyn go unplowed for days in 2010.

Regardless of what Mother Nature sends the city's way, de Blasio has his work cut out for him as he kicks off his first week in office.

De Blasio has said one of his first acts will be to dismantle the horse-and-buggy industry in Central Park, which has long been a tourist draw but has been the target of animal-rights groups.

The Australian rescue operators said the scientists and tourists were now all aboard the ship Aurora Australis.

They were flown there in groups by a helicopter from a Chinese ice-breaker.

The Shokalskiy has been trapped since 24 December. Its 22 crew are expected to remain on board to wait until the vessel becomes free.

The Shokalskiy was trapped by thick sheets of ice driven by strong winds, about 1,500 nautical miles south of Hobart - the capital of the Australian state of Tasmania.

The vessel was being used by the Australasian Antarctic Expedition to follow the route explorer Douglas Mawson travelled a century ago.

'White-knuckle ride' "We've made it to the Aurora australis safe & sound. A huge thanks to the Chinese & @AusAntarctic for all their hard work!," expedition leader Chris Turney tweeted.

The helicopter belongs to the Chinese icebreaker, Xue Long, and each flight took about 45 minutes, round-trip.

The BBC's Andrew Luck-Baker, who was on board the Akademik Shokalskiy, says the 15-minute one-way flight was a "white-knuckle ride".

The passengers were taken to an ice floe next to the Aurora Australis and then ferried on to the ice-breaker by a small boat.

Our correspondent says the Russian crew staying behind could be on the Akademik Shokalskiy for weeks before the pack ice clears.

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority's (Amsa) Rescue Co-ordination Centre, which was overseeing the operation, had earlier said it was unlikely the rescue would go ahead on Thursday as hoped because of the sea-ice conditions.

But it later reported: "Aurora Australis has advised Amsa that the 52 passengers from the Akademik Shokalskiy are now on board."

The passengers are not expected back in Tasmania until mid-January.

Several attempts to break through to the ship by sea - by the Xue Long, Aurora Australis and French-flagged L'Astrolabe - failed because of the thickness of the ice.

Andrew Luck-Baker says the Aurora Australis, although big, was simply not up to the task and there is speculation two larger vessels may be coming to the area in the weeks to come.

Despite being trapped, the scientists continued their experiments, measuring temperature and salinity through cracks in the surrounding ice.

One of the aims was to track how quickly the Antarctic's sea ice was disappearing.

Germany's Der Spiegel reported this week that a secretive unit of the NSA, which is under fire for the extent and depth of its spying programs around the world, makes specialized gear and software to infiltrate and monitor a plethora of computing devices, including mobile phones.

(here)

The report included an NSA graphic dated 2008 that outlined a system in development called DROPOUTJEEP, described as a "software implant" that allows infiltrators to push and pull and retrieve data from iPhones such as contact lists. Der Spiegel referred to it as a "trojan," or malware that helps hackers get into protected systems.

The report, which surfaced on Sunday, did not suggest that Apple had cooperated with the U.S. spying agency on so-called backdoors.

In a statement issued Tuesday, the NSA did not comment on any specific allegations but said that its interest "in any given technology is driven by the use of that technology by foreign intelligence targets."

"The United States pursues its intelligence mission with care to ensure that innocent users of those same technologies are not affected," the agency added.

The iPhone was a relatively innovative gadget in 2008. It hit the market in 2007 and proceeded to help revolutionize the mobile phone industry.

"Apple has never worked with the NSA to create a backdoor in any of our products, including iPhone. Additionally, we have been unaware of this alleged NSA program targeting our products," the company said in a statement.

In an appearance on Bloomberg TV, Schmidt laid out his thoughts about general technological change, Google's biggest mistake, and how Google sees the economy going in 2014.

"The biggest change for consumers is going to be that everyone's going to have a smartphone," Schmidt says. "And the fact that so many people are connected to what is essentially a supercomputer means a whole new generation of applications around entertainment, education, social life, those kinds of things. The trend has been that mobile is winning; it's now won. There are more tablets and phones being sold than personal computers - people are moving to this new architecture very fast."

It's certainly true that tablets and smartphones are outselling PCs - in fact smartphones alone have been doing that since the end of 2010. This year, it's forecast that tablets will have passed "traditional" PCs (desktops, fixed-keyboard laptops) too.

Disrupting business

Next, Schmidt says there's a big change - a disruption - coming for business through the arrival of "big data": "The biggest disruptor that we're sure about is the arrival of big data and machine intelligence everywhere - so the ability [for businesses] to find people, to talk specifically to them, to judge them, to rank what they're doing, to decide what to do with your products, changes every business globally."

But he also sees potential in the field of genomics - the parsing of all the data being collected from DNA and gene sequencing. That might not be surprising, given that Google is an investor in 23andme, a gene sequencing company which aims to collect the genomes of a million people so that it can do data-matching analysis on their DNA. (Unfortunately, that plan has hit a snag: 23andme has been told to cease operating by the US Food and Drug Administration because it has failed to respond to inquiries about its testing methods and publication of results.)

As many as 30 stores around the state are expected to start selling the drug for recreational purposes from 1 January, dubbed Green Wednesday.

Colorado, along with Washington state, voted to legalise the use and possession of cannabis for people over the age of 21 in November 2012.

Washington is not expected to allow the sale of it until later in 2014.

Colorado and Washington are among 20 states to have approved marijuana use for medical purposes. The drug is still illegal under federal law.

'Who knows?' Store owners had stocked up, prepared celebrations and hired extra security in preparation for their opening on Green Wednesday. Under the new law, cannabis will be sold like alcohol. Residents will be able to buy up to one ounce, while those from out of the state can purchase up to a quarter of an ounce.

Cannabis can only be smoked on private premises, with the permission of the owners.

The sale of the drug will be taxed in the same way as alcohol, and state officials have said they expected it to raise millions - the first $40m of which will be used for school construction, The Denver Post reports.

It was not clear exactly how many shops were expected to open on New Year's Day, though around 30 were listed by The Denver Post.

A total of 136 stores have been given licenses to sell marijuana. Most of the shops are based in Denver. Some communities elsewhere in Colorado have exercised their right not to have the stores.

Supporters of legalising cannabis have praised Colorado's move.

Rachel Gillette, of the Colorado branch of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said the state "has found an exit strategy for the failed drug war and I hope other states will follow our lead".

But critics say it sends the wrong message to the nation's youth and fear it will lead to serious public health and social problems.

Sabine Kehm said he was being carefully looked after, and that she would not comment on rumours about his condition.

Schumacher is in a medically induced coma in hospital in Grenoble, after he suffered head injuries in a skiing accident in the French Alps on Sunday.

Doctors said on Tuesday that he had shown signs of improvement.

But they added that he was still "not out of danger".

They will not give any update on Schumacher's condition on Wednesday unless it changes significantly, Ms Kehm said.

'Not too fast' "The good news for today is... there's no significant changes,' Ms Kehm told reporters and well-wishers outside the hospital.

But she added that the situation remained critical.

Doctors say they cannot give a prognosis for his condition in the coming days and months. But it is medically possible for someone to spend several weeks in an induced coma and fully recover from it.

Schumacher had been skiing off-piste when he fell and hit his head. His helmet cracked on impact after hitting a rock.

"That does not mean that Michael was travelling at high speed. He was not too fast," Ms Kehm told reporters on Tuesday.

She said that the former champion was not skiing with just his teenage son, as had been reported, but also with a group of friends.

Messages of support have come from around the world.

Schumacher is held in a great deal of affection, correspondents say.

The former champion, who turns 45 on 3 January, retired from F1 for a second time in 2012.

He won seven world championships and secured 91 race victories during his 19-year career.

The driver won two titles with Benetton, in 1994 and 1995, before switching to Ferrari in 1996 and going on to win five straight titles from 2000.

He retired in 2006 but managed to recover and made a comeback in F1 with Mercedes in 2010.