IHT Rendezvous: IHT Quick Read: Dec. 11

NEWS Besieged by economic woes and insistent questions about its future, the European Union accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on Monday with calls for further integration and a plea to remember the words of Abraham Lincoln as he addressed a divided nation at Gettysburg. Andrew Higgins reports from Oslo.

North Korea said on Monday that a technical issue had been found in the rocket it had planned to launch as early as this week to put a satellite in orbit, but that it still planned to try the launching by the end of the month. Choe Sang-Hun reports from Seoul.

Some Moroccans wonder whether the Arab Spring brought only cosmetic changes, questioning whether the king and his entourage gave up any of their power. Suzanne Daley reports from Tangier, Morocco.

Italian stock and bond prices fell on Monday after a weekend of political turmoil in Italy gave rise to fears that the country was headed for renewed instability. Shares of Italian banks, which are big holders of the government’s bonds, were among the hardest hit. Elisabetta Povoledo and David Jolly report.

Returns from Romania’s parliamentary elections on Monday gave an overwhelming victory to the center-left alliance of Prime Minister Victor Ponta, leaving the country poised for Round 2 of a political standoff that has destabilized one of the European Union’s newest and poorest members. Dan Bilefsky reports.

Huawei Technologies, a Chinese maker of telecommunications equipment, said on Monday that it planned to open a research and development center in Helsinki next year, accelerating its investments in Europe, where its business is expanding rapidly. Eric Pfanner reports from Paris.

FASHION The Chanel show that Karl Lagerfeld put on last week at Linlithgow Palace, near Edinburgh, was spectacular in every sense of the word. The burning braziers, sending quivering light over old stone, and the dinner held in a tented space, arising like magic on the hillside, were outshone only by an exceptional collection. Suzy Menkes reviews from Edinburgh.

ARTS “Tarzan” is only one of the shows that proves that even out-and-out flops on Broadway can go on to lucrative afterlives in Hamburg, as long as the shows have the spectacle and pageantry that theater producers here say enthrall a German audience. Patrick Healy reports from Hamburg.

SPORTS The essence of Lionel Messi is not in the bare statistic that now makes him the most prolific scorer of goals in a single year in the history of the game. It is in the way that he does it. Rob Hughes reports from London.

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Amanda Seyfried: 'Everyone Wants to Have Sex' with Channing Tatum

By Maggie Coughlan

12/11/2012 at 08:00 AM EST

Amanda Seyfried has worked with a lot of good-looking men, but there's one in particular who rises to the top of her list.

"Channing [Tatum] was amazing. He's a superstar," the actress, 27, tells the January issue of InStyle about PEOPLE's 2012 Sexiest Man Alive.

Seyfried, who starred opposite Tatum in 2010's Dear John, is well-aware of her former costar's appeal.

"Everybody wants to have sex with him. And the only person he wants to have sex with is his wife, Jenna [Dewan-Tatum]. He's the most loyal husband," she says.

But while Tatum and Dewan-Tatum have managed to find marital bliss in spite of being in the spotlight, Seyfried admits she's not as lucky.

"The thing is, I can't date anybody without it being portrayed as a serious relationship in the tabloids. It sucks! Like Josh Hartnett and I were friends; we hung out, we dated. I don't actually have sex with every male I come into contact with," she says.

Another of Seyfried's costars getting a lot of attention is Anne Hathaway, who chopped off her locks and went on a drastic diet for her role in the upcoming Les Misérables, opening Dec. 25 (Seyfried plays Cosette, and Hathaway is Fantine).

"I would have done that for sure," Seyfried says of the haircut, but she draws the line there. "I probably wouldn't lose or gain weight for a role, though. I'm too health-conscious. And I don't think I could actually lose weight because I couldn't be on that kind of a diet. I would lose my mind."

Stripping for Lovelace

But playing the late porn-star-turned-feminist Linda Lovelace for the upcoming biopic Lovelace did have Seyfried focusing on her physique, which she doesn't mind.

"It's not about my body. It's not about me," she says of doing nude scenes. "You're playing somebody else. You're not going to believe a love scene if the people are dressed. You're not going to believe a stripper who has on a bra and underwear the whole time. At the same time, it has to do with how comfortable you are with letting people see your skin. For me, I'm okay with it."

Seyfried also says that being diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder – which she manages with Lexapro – has positively contributed to her acting.

"I don't feel like I'm struggling with it. I think OCD is a part of me that protects me. It's also the part of me that I use in my job, in a positive way," she tells the magazine. "The only thing I'd like to get beyond is my fear of driving over bridges and through tunnels. I can't overcome it."

• See Amanda Seyfried's best red carpet looks at Instyle.com

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Stock futures rise after German data; Fed eyed

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stock futures were higher on Tuesday after unexpectedly cheery data out of Europe and as the Federal Reserve was set to kick off its two-day policy meeting.

Though the pace of talks in Washington to avert impending U.S. tax hikes and spending cuts quickened, senior politicians on both sides cautioned that an agreement on all the outstanding issues remained uncertain.

The lack of progress in negotiations about the "fiscal cliff" has kept investors from making aggressive bests in recent weeks, though most expect a deal will eventually be reached.

In Germany, analyst and investor sentiment rose sharply in December, entering positive territory for the first time since May, a leading survey showed. The data helped drive European shares higher.

"We've been getting a lot of the beginning of our day from seeing what Europe has been doing and I think that's going to hold true today," said Kim Forrest, senior equity research analyst at Fort Pitt Capital Group in Pittsburgh.

The Fed will begin its policy-setting meeting on Tuesday. The central bank is expected to announce a new round of Treasury securities purchases when the meeting ends on Wednesday, according to a Reuters poll. The program would replace its "Operation Twist" stimulus which expires at the end of the year.

S&P 500 futures rose 3.2 points and were above fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract. Dow Jones industrial average futures gained 34 points, and Nasdaq 100 futures added 7 points.

The U.S. Treasury is selling its remaining stake in insurer American International Group Inc , bringing an end to government ownership of the company about four years after a $182 billion bailout. AIG's shares were up 1.2 percent at $33.75 in premarket trade.

Texas Instruments Inc slightly improved its profit target late on Monday, excluding a massive restructuring charge, as the company cuts costs.

Also in the tech sector, Intel Corp said it is on track to launch a new generation of chips for smartphones and tablets as it rushes to catch up with the competition.

Morgan Stanley might seek approval from the Federal Reserve to repurchase shares for the first time in four years, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the firm's thinking.

On the macro front, U.S. international trade data for October is due at 8:30 am ET (1330 GMT) and wholesale inventories is due at 10:00 am ET (1500 GMT).

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Romania Faces Upheaval as Ponta Coalition Wins Vote

PARIS — Romania’s center-left government overwhelmingly won parliamentary elections, according to partial results released Monday, an outcome that threatened to push the country into further political upheaval because of bitter rivalry between the prime minister and the president.

The central electoral office said the center-left alliance led by Prime Minister Victor Ponta won about 59 percent of the seats in the 452-seat legislature, followed by about 17 percent for a center-right group linked to President Traian Basescu. Around 81.45 percent of the votes have been counted.

The clear victory in Sunday’s election made Mr. Ponta the front-runner for prime minister. But Mr. Basescu, who has the power to appoint a prime minister, has indicated that he would not select Mr. Ponta, in part because Mr. Ponta tried to have him impeached over the summer.

During the campaign, Mr. Basescu called Mr. Ponta a “compulsive liar” and an “ogre” and said that appointing the man who tried to oust him would be like swallowing a pig. Mr. Ponta’s coalition, in turn, threatened a new impeachment effort if it won a majority and Mr. Ponta was not named prime minister.

Analysts said Mr. Basescu could be forced to back down due to the large margin of the center-left’s victory, which made Mr. Ponta’s reappointment seem inevitable. As of Monday morning, the president had not announced his intentions.

If he refused to appoint Mr. Ponta, the standoff threatened to produce a protracted political fight that could destabilize the country, undermine its struggling economy and delay a loan deal from the International Monetary Fund that Romania is hoping to negotiate when its current arrangement expires early next year.

In Bucharest, the Romanian capital, political commentators called the election “Basescu’s revenge.”

“The most we can hope for is that it is not a long war, and the parties find a compromise,” said Cosmin Stan, a leading Romanian broadcaster with Realitatea Television.

Romania, a poor Balkan country that has struggled to shed the legacy of decades of dictatorship under Nicolae Ceausescu, has undergone some of its worst political turbulence in recent memory. The country has weathered a series of unstable governments and come under criticism from the European Union and the United States. In October, the European Commission, the union’s executive body, said that concerns about corruption and fraud had prompted it to block development aid potentially worth billions of euros. All the while, the public remains deeply disillusioned amid a simmering dissatisfaction with austerity — including a 25 percent cut in public sector wages — for which many voters blame Mr. Basescu.

Mr. Ponta, at 40 the youngest prime minister in the European Union, has been locked in a bitter power struggle with Mr. Basescu, a 61-year-old former sea captain. The acrimony was made worse by the July impeachment vote, which Mr. Basescu called a “coup d’état” and which drew sharp criticism from the European Union and the United States. Mr. Ponta had accused Mr. Basescu of overreaching his mandate by, among other things, refusing to appoint ministers chosen by the prime minister.

Many Romanians say they are tired of the dueling leaders, and in a sign of that discontent, the populist People’s Party of Dan Diaconescu, a flamboyant television station owner who campaigned in a white Rolls-Royce and is being investigated for fraud, won about 14 percent of the vote, according to the partial results. As part of his campaign, Mr. Diaconescu has promised around $26,000 to every Romanian who starts a business.

But the feud between Mr. Ponta and Mr. Basescu dominated the election.

Under the Constitution, the president must name a prime minister from the party that receives a majority, in consultation with the party. Mr. Ponta is the coalition’s choice. The candidate for prime minister then needs to be approved by the Parliament, where Mr. Ponta’s center-left coalition has won a strong majority. While the Constitution gives the president the prerogative to name the prime minister, he cannot ignore the popular vote.

George Calin contributed reporting from Bucharest, Romania.

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#OccupyCheerios: A Facebook Revolt

It wasn’t an obvious forum for an anti-GMO protest.

A YouTube video posted on Cheerio’s Facebook page depicts an elderly woman leaning over the highchair of her infant grandchild, cooing about family and the holidays, drawing a map with pieces of cereal representing relative’s far-flung houses. “But don’t you worry,” the grandmother says, pushing two Cheerios together, “we’ll always be together for Christmas.”

More than 1,200 users have commented on the vintage Cheerios commercial since it was posted last week, expressing outrage over the General Mills-owned brand’s use of genetically modified ingredients. Commenters have also been critical—like heavy-exclamation-points-use critical—of General Mills’ significant financial support of Prop. 37, California’s defeated GMO-labeling ballot initiative

Comments like “Can you please inform the public exactly why it is that General Mills spent $ 1.2 million to keep consumers in the dark about GMOs????” and “Nostalgic old commercials are no substitute for healthy ingredients. I won’t buy Cheerios until they are GMO-free” are a far cry from the stories of spending holidays with family—and perhaps a bit of Cheerios nostalgia—the post was surely intended to elicit.

The protest campaign was stoked by GMO Inside, an organization born of the failed Yes on 37 campaign. The group also called on people to comment-bomb a Cheerios app, which has since been removed from the company’s Facebook page. But beyond that, Cheerios’ response to the criticism has been . . . nothing. Anti-GMO comments are still piling up on the post, and no new material has been added to page in order to bury the video in the timeline.

Do 1,256 comments (and counting) cancel out $ 1.2 million of anti-Prop. 37 funding? Of course not. But just as the Occupy-style tactics being employed by protesters at Cooper Union and the Michigan State Capitol exhibit, showing up and voicing an opinion can be a powerful gesture, even if it’s not overpowering. 

Similar stories on TakePart

• Will GMOs Spell the End of Mexican Maize?

• Kellogg Recalls 2.8 Million Boxes of Cereal Due to Hazardous Metallic ‘Surprise’

• Anna Breslaw’s 600-Word Sprint: Nude Protests, Stripped Down

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Willy Blackmore is the food editor at TakePart. He has also written about food, art, and agriculture for such publications as Los Angeles Magazine, The Awl, GOOD, LA Weekly, The New Inquiry, and BlackBook. Email Willy | TakePart.com

Social Media News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Kyra Sedgwick: Kevin Bacon Makes Me Feel Like I'm the 'Only Girl in the Room'

By Maggie Coughlan

12/10/2012 at 08:00 AM EST

Kyra Sedgwick

Courtesy Good Housekeeping

Ever wonder what Kyra Sedgwick finds sexy?

Her husband of 24 years, Kevin Bacon, has it all figured out.

"He is so honorable. He is so ethically true. He has high moral standards, and he doesn't lie and he doesn't cheat – and I find that sexy!" the actress, 47, says in the January issue of Good Housekeeping.

"I don't know how he does it, but he always makes me feel like I'm the most beautiful woman in the room – the only girl in the room," she says of her relationship with Bacon, 54, whom she married in 1988.

"He says 'Honey, you look beautiful. You are sexy!' Always, always, always!"

While their love has lasted over decades – an eternity in Hollywood – the couple is experiencing a kind of "second-honeymoon" now that their children Travis, 23, and Sosie, 20, have left the nest.

Kyra Sedgwick

Courtesy Good Housekeeping

"There's a lot more walking around the house naked," Sedgwick says.

But it's clearly more than occasional nudity that keeps their love alive.

"I am constantly in awe of Kevin's levelheadedness and his lack of 'crazy,' " she says.

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Smokers celebrate as Wash. legalizes marijuana

SEATTLE (AP) — The crowds of happy people lighting joints under Seattle's Space Needle early Thursday morning with nary a police officer in sight bespoke the new reality: Marijuana is legal under Washington state law.

Hundreds gathered at Seattle Center for a New Year's Eve-style countdown to 12 a.m., when the legalization measure passed by voters last month took effect. When the clock struck, they cheered and sparked up in unison.

A few dozen people gathered on a sidewalk outside the north Seattle headquarters of the annual Hempfest celebration and did the same, offering joints to reporters and blowing smoke into television news cameras.

"I feel like a kid in a candy store!" shouted Hempfest volunteer Darby Hageman. "It's all becoming real now!"

Washington and Colorado became the first states to vote to decriminalize and regulate the possession of an ounce or less of marijuana by adults over 21. Both measures call for setting up state licensing schemes for pot growers, processors and retail stores. Colorado's law is set to take effect by Jan. 5.

Technically, Washington's new marijuana law still forbids smoking pot in public, which remains punishable by a fine, like drinking in public. But pot fans wanted a party, and Seattle police weren't about to write them any tickets.

In another sweeping change for Washington, Gov. Chris Gregoire on Wednesday signed into law a measure that legalizes same-sex marriage. The state joins several others that allow gay and lesbian couples to wed.

The mood was festive in Seattle as dozens of gay and lesbian couples got in line to pick up marriage licenses at the King County auditor's office early Thursday.

King County and Thurston County announced they would open their auditors' offices shortly after midnight Wednesday to accommodate those who wanted to be among the first to get their licenses.

Kelly Middleton and her partner Amanda Dollente got in line at 4 p.m. Wednesday.

Hours later, as the line grew, volunteers distributed roses and a group of men and women serenaded the waiting line to the tune of "Chapel of Love."

Because the state has a three-day waiting period, the earliest that weddings can take place is Sunday.

In dealing with marijuana, the Seattle Police Department told its 1,300 officers on Wednesday, just before legalization took hold, that until further notice they shall not issue citations for public marijuana use.

Officers will be advising people not to smoke in public, police spokesman Jonah Spangenthal-Lee wrote on the SPD Blotter. "The police department believes that, under state law, you may responsibly get baked, order some pizzas and enjoy a 'Lord of the Rings' marathon in the privacy of your own home, if you want to."

He offered a catchy new directive referring to the film "The Big Lebowski," popular with many marijuana fans: "The Dude abides, and says 'take it inside!'"

"This is a big day because all our lives we've been living under the iron curtain of prohibition," said Hempfest director Vivian McPeak. "The whole world sees that prohibition just took a body blow."

Washington's new law decriminalizes possession of up to an ounce for those over 21, but for now selling marijuana remains illegal. I-502 gives the state a year to come up with a system of state-licensed growers, processors and retail stores, with the marijuana taxed 25 percent at each stage. Analysts have estimated that a legal pot market could bring Washington hundreds of millions of dollars a year in new tax revenue for schools, health care and basic government functions.

But marijuana remains illegal under federal law. That means federal agents can still arrest people for it, and it's banned from federal properties, including military bases and national parks.

The Justice Department has not said whether it will sue to try to block the regulatory schemes in Washington and Colorado from taking effect.

"The department's responsibility to enforce the Controlled Substances Act remains unchanged," said a statement issued Wednesday by the Seattle U.S. attorney's office. "Neither states nor the executive branch can nullify a statute passed by Congress."

The legal question is whether the establishment of a regulated marijuana market would "frustrate the purpose" of the federal pot prohibition, and many constitutional law scholars say it very likely would.

That leaves the political question of whether the administration wants to try to block the regulatory system, even though it would remain legal to possess up to an ounce of marijuana.

Alison Holcomb is the drug policy director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington and served as the campaign manager for New Approach Washington, which led the legalization drive. She said the voters clearly showed they're done with marijuana prohibition.

"New Approach Washington sponsors and the ACLU look forward to working with state and federal officials and to ensure the law is fully and fairly implemented," she said.

___

Johnson can be reached at https://twitter.com/GeneAPseattle

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Stock futures lower on "fiscal cliff" apprehension

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stock futures edged lower on Monday as investors awaited any sign of progress in talks to avert the United States' so-called fiscal cliff of tax hikes and spending cuts.

Developments in Europe also weighed before the opening bell after Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti announced over the weekend that he would resign once the 2013 budget is approved. The move added to uncertainty about handling the euro zone debt crisis and drove Italy's borrowing costs higher.

U.S. President Barack Obama met with Republican House Speaker John Boehner on Sunday to negotiate a deal for avoiding the fiscal cliff that is set to go into effect in the new year.

The two sides declined to provide details about the unannounced meeting.

The "fiscal cliff" talks have kept markets on edge in the last month as investors worry the scheduled measures could send the economy into recession if politicians do not reach a deal.

"It is taking its toll on consumers, no question about that, but at the very end there will be a deal," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Rockwell Global Capital in New York.

Cardillo said he expected a choppy trading day that could end near Friday's close as investors start to turn their attention to the Federal Reserve's policy-setting meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The Fed is expected to announce a new round of Treasury securities purchases at the end of the meeting, according to a Reuters poll. The bond buying would replace the "Operation Twist" stimulus, which expires at the end of December.

S&P 500 futures fell 1 point and were below fair value, a formula that evaluates pricing by taking into account interest rates, dividends and time to expiration on the contract. Dow Jones industrial average futures fell 5 points, and Nasdaq 100 futures dropped 4.25 points.

Ingersoll-Rand Plc said it will spin off its commercial and residential security business to form a new stand-alone company. The stock was up 2.5 percent at $49.80 in premarket trading.

Honeywell International said it will buy Intermec for $600 million. Shares of Intermec jumped 24.1 percent to $9.90.

China's export growth slowed sharply in November, highlighting the global headwinds dragging on the world's second-largest economy. But other data over the weekend showed both industrial output and retail sales rose in November at their fastest annual pace in eight months, suggesting China's economy is picking up.

(Editing by Kenneth Barry)

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Changes to Agriculture Highlight Cuba’s Problems

HAVANA — Cuba’s liveliest experiment with capitalism unfolds every night in a dirt lot on the edge of the capital, where Truman-era trucks lugging fresh produce meet up with hundreds of buyers on creaking bicycle carts clutching wads of cash.

“This place, it feeds all of Havana,” said Misael Toledo, 37, who owns three small food stores in the city. “Before, you could only buy or sell in the markets of Fidel.”

The agriculture exchange, which sprang up last year after the Cuban government legalized a broader range of small businesses, is a vivid sign of both how much the country has changed, and of all the political and practical limitations that continue to hold it back.

President Raúl Castro has made agriculture priority No. 1 in his attempt to remake the country. He used his first major presidential address in 2007 to zero in on farming, describing weeds conquering fallow fields and the need to ensure that “anyone who wants can drink a glass of milk.”

No other industry has seen as much liberalization, with a steady rollout of incentives for farmers. And Mr. Castro has been explicit about his reasoning: increasing efficiency and food production to replace imports that cost Cuba hundreds of millions of dollars a year is a matter “of national security.”

Yet at this point, by most measures, the project has failed. Because of waste, poor management, policy constraints, transportation limits, theft and other problems, overall efficiency has dropped: many Cubans are actually seeing less food at private markets. That is the case despite an increase in the number of farmers and production gains for certain items. A recent study from the University of Havana showed that market prices jumped by nearly 20 percent in 2011 alone. And food imports increased to an estimated $1.7 billion last year, up from $1.4 billion in 2006.

“It’s the first instance of Cuba’s leader not being able to get done what he said he would,” said Jorge I. Domínguez, vice provost for international affairs at Harvard, who left Cuba as a boy. “The published statistical results are really very discouraging.”

A major cause: poor transportation, as trucks are in short supply, and the aging ones that exist often break down.

In 2009, hundreds of tons of tomatoes, part of a bumper crop that year, rotted because of a lack of transportation by the government agency charged with bringing food to processing centers.

“It’s worse when it rains,” said Javier González, 27, a farmer in Artemisa Province who described often seeing crops wilt and rot because they were not picked up.

Behind him were the 33 fertile, rent-free acres he had been granted as part of a program Mr. Castro introduced in 2008 to encourage rural residents to work the land. After clearing it himself and planting a variety of crops, Mr. Gonzalez said, he was doing relatively well and earned more last year than his father, who is a doctor, did.

But Cuba’s inefficiencies gnawed at him. Smart, strong, and ambitious, he had expansion plans in mind, even as in his hand he held a wrench. He was repairing a tractor part meant to be grading land. It was broken. Again.

The 1980s Soviet model tractor he bought from another farmer was as about good as it gets in Cuba. The Cuban government maintains a monopoly on selling anything new, and there simply is not enough of anything — fertilizer, or sometimes even machetes — to go around.

Government economists are aware of the problem. “If you give people land and no resources, it doesn’t matter what happens on the land,” said Joaquin Infante of the Havana-based Cuban National Association of Economists.

But Mr. Castro has refused to allow what many farmers and experts see as an obvious solution to the shortages of transportation and equipment: Let people import supplies on their own. “It’s about control,” said Philip Peters, a Cuba analyst with the Lexington Institute, a Virginia-based research group.

Other analysts agree, noting that though the agricultural reforms have gone farther than other changes — like those that allow for self-employment — they remain constrained by politics.

“The government is not ready to let go,” said Ted Henken, a Latin American studies professor at Baruch College. “They are sending the message that they want to let go, or are trying to let go, but what they have is still a mechanism of control.”

For many farmers, that explains why land leases last for 10 years with a chance to renew, not indefinitely or the 99 years offered to foreign developers. It is also why many farmers say they will not build homes on the land they lease, despite a concession this year to allow doing so.

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Barnes and Noble Nook HD+ is a Big Screen, Good Value Tablet

Barnes and Noble Nook-HD+

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[More from Mashable: 7 Stylish iPad Cases With Notepads]

The other night I handed the new Barnes and Noble HD+ to my son to see his reaction to one of the latest 9-inch tablets. He held it, played with the screen and said, “Which one is this?” I told him and he answered, “I can’t tell the difference anymore.” It’s true, with the sudden explosion of 7-, near-8-, 9- and 10-inch-plus tablets, it’s getting a little hard to tell which one is which — especially when many larger tablets look like their tinier siblings.

Barnes and Noble’s large-format (9-inch) HD-screen entry, the HD+, is a quite similar to the 7-inch Nook HD. However, with its somewhat sharper corners and far-reduced black-screen border, it’s also more similar in appearance to larger tablets such as the Amazon Kindle Fire HD 8.9. What sets the Nook apart visually is the trademark nook hole in the lower left-hand corner. It appears to serve no visible purpose, though you could hold the roughly 18-ounce tablet by that corner without too much stress on your hand. It is one of the lightest tablets on the market, although it’s thicker than the Google Nexus 10, Kindle Fire 8.9 and fourth-generation Apple iPad.

[More from Mashable: The 7 Best Tablets for Kids]

Nook HD+’s other distinctive feature is the physical “N” home button on the face of the device. It’s an attribute the Nook HD+ (and 7-inch Nook HD) share with the iPad. As I’ve said before, having that obvious “take me home” button on the front of the device is something I wish every tablet manufacturer would replicate.

Interface

Speaking of replicate, much of what is important and what you need to know about Barnes and Noble’s biggest tablet can be found in my review of the 7-inch Nook HD. The interfaces are exactly the same, so I won’t waste too much space recounting every bit of the Nook HD+ interface, which obscures any trace of Android 4.0, and is exquisitely usable.

The biggest difference between the Nook HD and the HD+ is screen resolution. The HD gets you 1440×900 pixels, while the HD+ offers 1920×1280, which is slightly more than the Kindle Fire HD 8.9’s 1920×1200. The latter two devices are almost the exact same size. By contrast, the competitors’ 7-inch devices are quite different because Amazon includes a front-facing camera, while Barnes and Noble does not include cameras on any of its tablets (if you plan on taking photos or video with your tablet, you can stop reading now). In the case of the Nook HD+, Barnes and Noble uses the space it saves on a camera for, it appears, 80 extra pixels of space. For the record, neither device beats the iPad’s 2048×1536 resolution.

Connectvity

Barnes and Noble also chose to leave out a cellular option from all of its tablets. Amazon, on the other hand, adds it in for the Kindle Fire HD 8.9 LTE. This is not as big of a deal as it seems since the world is filled with high-speed Wi-Fi. Still, if you plan to surf the web on your tablet while sitting on a train without another device to which to tether your HD+, look for products with the mobile broadband option, instead.

When it comes to connectivity, Amazon adds dual-band Wi-Fi to its HD Kindle Fires, while Barnes and Noble’s tablet remains single band. I’ve tested both devices in the most stressful situation -– streaming HD video -– and the difference is negligible.

Using It

Barnes and Noble Nook HD+’s profile-centric interface remains one of the best on the market. There is no learning curve; you simply drag your profile image to the unlock icon, and you have access to the large and uncluttered interface that features a carousel (which like the Kindle is a hodge-podge of disparate icons), your library and some recently used apps. Persistent menu items include the Library, Apps, Web, email and Shop. The screen also includes “your Nook Today,” which, along with the weather, is a place for Barnes and Noble to push shopping options based on your interests.

As you would expect, reading books and magazines is a pleasurable experience, especially on this larger screen. Magazines such as Esquire look great and, yes, Barnes and Noble still employs the animated page turn (though I don’t know for how much longer). Email and Web browsing are solid, and I prefer Barnes and Noble’s web solution to Amazon’s home-grown Silk browser, which crashed too often for my taste.

Social integration is fairly good on the Nook HD+. When I installed the Twitter client, it became one of my options for social sharing. That said, the app looks like it would be more at home on a small-screen smartphone than on the HD+’s 9-inch display. For Facebook, I opted for the web interface, which looks too tiny in portrait mode, but just right in landscape.

Movies and Music

I had no trouble buying, renting and streaming HD-quality movies such Arthur Christmas, and Netflix worked smoothly. Barnes and Noble, however, lacks its own streaming option. If you pay $ 75 a year for Amazon Prime, you get access to a vast library of streaming content. Both devices will let you play HD content on your big-screen TV, though they do it in slightly different ways.

Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD 8.9 comes complete with a mini-HDI-out port, and can accommodate a mini-to-standard HDMI cable (not included), so I could watch the HD content on my big-screen TV. The Nook HD+ lacks an HDMI port, but you can buy a $ 39 adapter (with an HDMI cable), which plugs into the tablet’s 30-pin port, to do the same thing.

I still prefer the Kindle HD platform for music since Amazon’s music services are more deeply integrated into the device and its cloud-based storage offering. On the Nook HD+ you have to start by finding the music service under Apps. If Barnes and Noble is serious about music, it should be on the main menu. Worse yet, if you open the Music app, it offers no instruction on how to fill your music library. You have to add tunes via your computer, by connecting to your PC with the proprietary cable or through the Micro SD slot where you can add more storage or place, say, an entire library of songs.

If you have a Rhapsody Account, you can use it to manage your music needs on the Nook HD+.

I almost never use my large tablet for music (that’s a job for my iPhone or iPod), so I don’t miss the rich music capabilities as much as some others likely would.

Apps and Performance

Like Amazon, Barnes and Noble curates its app library, which generally makes it safe and usable. The key apps, such as Netflix, Twitter, Dropbox, MobiSystems’ OfficeSuite, FlipBoard and Evernote, are all there.

I found some games on there, too, such as the Angry Birds Series and Cut the Rope. On the other hand, Barnes and Noble has very few action games. This may be because, while it’s running the same Texas Instruments Dual core 4470 CPU as the Kindle Fire HD 8.9, it doesn’t offer the same quadcore graphics processing power as Apple’s fourth-generation iPad.

Amazon actually includes the GPU-hungry Asphalt 7 in its app library, but the game does not look particularly good on the Kindle Fire HD 8.9. Obviously, Barnes and Noble chose not to take that risk.

Price

At $ 269 for the 16 GB model (I tested the $ 299 32 GB option), Barnes and Noble’s Nook HD+ is one of the most affordable large-screen tablets on the market — that price even includes the AC adapter. Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD 8.9 costs $ 299, but does not include the charger, and adds subsidizing sleep-screen ads. A 16 GB Wi-Fi-only fourth-generation iPad starts at $ 499.

Obviously, the iPad is more powerful, has a higher resolution and two cameras, while the Kindle, which also includes a camera, offers powerful Dolby stereo speakers (Nook HD+ has ones with decent volume) and unlimited cloud-based storage for your Amazon content. But if those features don’t matter to you, and you’re looking for an attractive, large-screen, light-weight, fun, effective and very affordable tablet from a company that knows a thing or two about good content, you can’t do better than the Nook HD+.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

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