How we test: Monitors

CNET's monitor testing encompasses both the taking scientific measurements as well as making subjective judgements on quality.

(Credit:
Eric Franklin/CNET)

To evaluate a display's performance, CNET uses a variety of DisplayMate test screens in conjunction with diagnostic equipment, and our most important tool, the human eye. Each test screen we use is specifically designed to emphasize a particular area of performance, such as text readability, color accuracy, or screen uniformity.

Test bed
CNET Labs' monitor test bed consists of a 3.2GHz Core i7 960 CPU, 4GB of DDR3 RAM running at 533MHz, an ATI Radeon HD 6850-based graphics card, centered around the 32-bit version of
Windows 7. We test all monitors with Windows' Display Properties set to 32-bit color and use the display's native pixel resolution as specified by the manufacturer.

We are currently evaluating the possibility of upgrading our testbed, including a move to
Windows 8.

Calibration
Variables such as the light source, the viewing angle, and the system's graphics card can have a dramatic effect on a display's performance. To maintain consistent and ideal viewing conditions, all testing is performed in a controlled lighting environment using CinemaQuest Ideal-Lume lights, which help to preserve accurate color perception. Additionally, each display is adjusted to perform optimally, based on contrast setting recommendations from DisplayMate.

Brightness tests
CNET Labs tests luminance levels using the Minolta CA-210 LCD color analyzer. Because displays typically vary in brightness across the entire screen, we take brightness readings from different sections of the display as laid out in the VESA Brightness Uniformity Test screen found in the DisplayMate test suite. The brightness number that CNET publishes represents an average of the luminance readings taken at nine specific points on the screen.

Contrast ratio
To test a monitor's contrast ratio, we use the display's factory default contrast and brightness settings, under its default preset. Using the Minolta CA-210 LCD color analyzer, we measure the brightness of both the light and dark squares found on the DisplayMate ANSI Checkerboard Contrast screen. We divide the average luminance of the white squares by the average luminance of the dark squares to yield the display's contrast ratio.

DisplayMate tests
With guidance from DisplayMate Technologies, we created our own scripted selection of test screens in DisplayMate. These screens are designed to isolate common phenomena such as digital noise, streaking and ghosting, ringing and overshoot, and color-tracking errors.

We evaluate each display in four categories: sharpness, grayscale range, color quality, and image uniformity. We compile the product's performance scores from each category and distill them into a single performance rating: the CNET Labs DisplayMate test score.

Most of the screens in this test suite can be configured in a number of different ways, such as altering the background and foreground colors. Depending on the characteristics of an individual display, we might use several variations of these screens as well as additional DisplayMate screens not found in our custom script to conduct further testing. Check below for details on the actual tests we run.

Real-world testing
In addition to our suite of DisplayMate test screens, we also use a number of tests designed to mirror real-world use, such as Blu-ray movie playback and games. For our Blu-ray test, we use Panasonic DMP-BDT220 Blu-ray player with an "Avatar" Blu-ray disc. We use this movie to evaluate a monitor's ability to display dark detail in dark scenes as well as color quality. For color quality we look at the display's ability to reproduce bright, vivid, accurate colors, including bright whites and solid, deep blacks.

We use several games for games testing, including, but not limited to Dragon Age II, Starcraft 2, and Crysis 2. With games we evaluate vibrancy and color quality. To test streaking, we use DisplayMate's motion graphics tests where we closely watch a number of colored blocks as they move around the screen at various speeds. Each block leaves an impression of its image behind as it moves around. The longer the impression, the worse the streaking.
Page of text
These screens illustrate a display's ability to render text under a variety of conditions. We cycle through various text and background colors, view split screens with inverse text and background colors, and adjust the type and the size of a font.
Intensity and grayscale
Monitors often have trouble reproducing all of the levels of the grayscale (the range of grays between true black and true white). This screen helps to identify a display's ability to deliver seamless gradation across the full spectrum of grays, both horizontally and vertically across the screen.

Low saturation colors
When producing a bright white image, many monitors oversaturate the grayscale: the lightest grays of the scale are lost in the white background. Oversaturation can also lead to loss of color range; this screen is used to evaluate color reproduction at the brightest end of the scale, closest to white.

Extreme grayscale bars
As the title suggests, this screen has the dual function of evaluating the darkest and brightest areas of the grayscale. These outermost edges are the most difficult part of the scale for monitors to produce. We use this screen primarily for the dark end of the scale to check a monitor's ability to deliver a true black and still produce the darkest grays of the grayscale.

64-256 intensity color ramp
Similar to the grayscale tests, the color ramp illustrates a monitor's capacity to render gradations of primary colors smoothly, uniformly, and consistently. This screen is also used to check that the colors don't shift hue as the color levels increase or decrease.

Color tracking
A color-tracking error occurs when the intensity of red, green, and blue (RGB) do not adjust identically with signal-level changes. This lack of balance among the RGB channels affects color as well as grayscale, but it is most easily identified as a shift in color within shades of gray. We use this screen to look for grays that appear to be tinted with color.

256 intensity color ramp
Similar to the grayscale tests, the color ramp illustrates a monitor's capacity to render gradations of primary colors smoothly, uniformly, and consistently. This screen is also used to check that the colors don't shift hue as the color levels increase or decrease. This is a good screen to test for evidence of color banding.

Dark screen
Because this test screen is designed to appear uniformly black, it is useful for evaluating a monitor's black-level capabilities. Additionally, a dark screen is the easiest way to spot glare and reflection problems, both of which can have distracting effects when you're viewing an LCD.

Color scales
Similar to the intensity color ramp, the color-scales screen helps us evaluate the smooth gradation of colors, expanding the palette to 10 principal colors.

Streaking and ghosting
This screen helps us detect streaking and ghosting -- light or dark shadows that trail an image in areas where large changes in contrast are present. This should not be confused with the streaking that is often found in moving images. This test deals only with problems that arise when a display renders large, chunky graphic elements, such as bar graphs or tiled arrangements of open windows.

Screen uniformity
Perfectly uniform backlighting across a monitor's entire display surface is difficult to achieve. It is not uncommon for a monitor to have bright or dim patches or subtler variations in color intensity, which give the appearance of shading across the screen, or variable color intensity on the display. We use this screen to check for irregularities caused by backlighting issues or other screen-uniformity factors, such as variations or reflections inside the glass panel.

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Army Sgt. shares story behind Medal of Honor

(CBS News) PENTAGON - President Barack Obama awarded the Medal of Honor to former Army Staff Sgt. Clinton Romesha on Monday.

In 2009, with U.S. forces in eastern Afghanistan under Taliban attack, a wounded Romesha ducked enemy fire to rescue other wounded soldiers and recover bodies of the fallen.

Army staff sergeant receives Medal of Honor for actions during Afghanistan war battle

You have to see Combat Outpost Keating to realize just how indefensible it was to an attack from Taliban fighters. Just 52 American soldiers were down there, as well as Staff Sgt. Romesha.

"We were taking everything from, you know, very precise sniper fire, automatic weapon fire from machine gun positions. We were taking mortar and indirect fire, RPG fire," Romesha said.

The soldier said fire was coming 360 degrees all around, from every high point.

"We had taken casualties from the first barrage of fire that came in and continued to take them throughout the remainder of the fire fight," he said.

A photo of Clinton Romesha

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506infantry.org

A re-creation of the battle shows Romesha was everywhere that day, running across open ground to reinforce one weak point after another.

"At one point I witnessed three enemy fighters walk straight through our front gate like they owned the place," he said. "To see that, you know, it's just unreal for a second, but that's ours. We're not going to let them do that."

Although hit in the side by shrapnel from a rocket propelled grenade, Romesha was determined to do more than just survive.

"We weren't going to be beat that day and we were going to take it back," he said.

But they were up against 300 enemy fighters. Air strikes finally broke the enemy assault.

Afterwards, bullet-riddled Humvees and burned out buildings showed the kind of fire he and his men had braved.

Left: Raw video of the award ceremony

"We ended up losing eight, eight brave soldiers that day," Romesha said.

Three days later the Americans left Keating for good. Romesha said getting the medal was an emotional experience.

"It's hard to say. You win or lose, but to know, to know we had so many great soldiers there that stood proud and did their job. That's just an amazing thing to witness," he said.

What was gained that day? Nothing. What did Clint Romesha and his men achieve? Everything.

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Benedict's Legacy Marred by Sex Abuse Scandal

When Pope Benedict XVI resigns at the end of this month, he leaves behind a Church grappling with a global fallout from sex abuse and a personal legacy marred by allegations that he was instrumental in covering up that abuse.

As the sex abuse scandal spread from North America to Europe, Benedict became the first pope to meet personally with victims, and offered repeated public apologies for the Vatican's decades of inaction against priests who abused their congregants.

"No words of mine could describe the pain and harm inflicted by such abuse," the pope said in a 2008 homily in Washington, D.C., before meeting with victims of abuse for the first time. "It is important that those who have suffered be given loving pastoral attention." During the same trip to the U.S., he met with victims for the first time.

For some of the victims, however, Benedict's actions were "lip service and a public relations campaign," said Jeff Anderson, a Minnesota lawyer who represents victims of sex abuse. For 25 years, Benedict, then known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, headed the Vatican office responsible for investigating claims of sex abuse, but he did not act until he received an explicit order from Pope John Paul II.

In 1980, as Archbishop of Munich, Ratzinger approved plans for a priest to move to a different German parish and return to pastoral work only days after the priest began therapy for pedophilia. The priest was later convicted of sexually abusing boys.

Vincenzo Pinto/AFP/Getty Images

PHOTOS: Church Sex Scandals

In 1981, Cardinal Ratzinger became head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith – the office once known as the Inquisition -- making him responsible for upholding church doctrine, and for investigating claims of sexual abuse against clergy. Thousands of letters detailing allegations of abuse were forwarded to Ratzinger's office.

A lawsuit filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights on behalf of the Survivors' Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP), a victims' rights group, charges that as head of the church body Ratzinger participated in a cover-up of abuse. In an 84-page complaint, the suit alleges that investigators of sex abuse cases in several countries found "intentional cover-ups and affirmative steps taken that serve to perpetuate the violence and exacerbate the harm."

"Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, either knew and/or some cases consciously disregarded information that showed subordinates were committing or about to commit such crimes," the complaint says.

Jeffrey Lena, the Vatican's lawyer in the U.S., told the AP the complaint was a "ludicrous publicity stunt and a misuse of international judicial processes."

In the 1990s, former members of the Legion of Christ sent a letter to Ratzinger alleging that the founder and head of the Catholic order, Father Marcial Maciel, had molested them while they were teen seminarians. Maciel was allowed to continue as head of the order.

In 1996, Ratzinger didn't respond to letters from Milwaukee's archbishop about a priest accused of abusing students at a Wisconsin school for the deaf. An assistant to Ratzinger began a secret trial of the priest, Father Lawrence Murphy, but halted the process after Murphy wrote a personal appeal to Ratzinger complaining of ill health.

In 2001, Pope John Paul II issued a letter urging the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith to pursue allegations of child abuse in response to calls from bishops around the world.

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Pope's sudden resignation sends shockwaves through Church

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict stunned the Roman Catholic Church on Monday when he announced he would stand down, the first pope to do so in 700 years, saying he no longer had the mental and physical strength to carry on.

Church officials tried to relay a climate of calm confidence in the running of a 2,000-year-old institution, but the decision could lead to uncertainty in a Church already besieged by scandal for covering up sexual abuse of children by priests.

The soft-spoken German, who always maintained that he never wanted to be pope, was an uncompromising conservative on social and theological issues, fighting what he regarded as the increasing secularization of society.

It remains to be seen whether his successor will continue such battles or do more to bend with the times.

Despite his firm opposition to tolerance of homosexual acts, his eight year reign saw gay marriage accepted in many countries. He has staunchly resisted allowing women to be ordained as priests, and opposed embryonic stem cell research, although he retreated slightly from the position that condoms could never be used to fight AIDS.

He repeatedly apologized for the Church's failure to root out child abuse by priests, but critics said he did too little and the efforts failed to stop a rapid decline in Church attendance in the West, especially in his native Europe.

In addition to child sexual abuse crises, his papacy saw the Church rocked by Muslim anger after he compared Islam to violence. Jews were upset over rehabilitation of a Holocaust denier. During a scandal over the Church's business dealings, his butler was accused of leaking his private papers.

In an announcement read to cardinals in Latin, the universal language of the Church, the 85-year-old said: "Well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome, Successor of St Peter ...

"As from 28 February 2013, at 20:00 hours (1900 GMT) the See of Rome, the See of St. Peter will be vacant and a conclave to elect the new Supreme Pontiff will have to be convoked by those whose competence it is."

POPE DOESN'T FEAR SCHISM

Benedict is expected to go into isolation for at least a while after his resignation. Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said Benedict did not intend to influence the decision of the cardinals in a secret conclave to elect a successor.

A new leader of the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics could be elected as soon as Palm Sunday, on March 24, and be ready to take over by Easter a week later, Lombardi said.

Several popes in the past, including Benedict's predecessor John Paul, have refrained from stepping down over their health, because of the division that could be caused by having an "ex-pope" and a reigning pope alive at the same time.

Lombardi said the pope did not fear a possible "schism", with Catholics owing allegiances to a past and present pope in case of differences on Church teachings.

He indicated the complex machinery of the process to elect a new pope would move quickly because the Vatican would not have to wait until after the elaborate funeral services for a pope.

It is not clear if Benedict will have a public life after he resigns. Lombardi said Benedict would first go to the papal summer residence south of Rome and then move into a cloistered convent inside the Vatican walls.

The resignation means that cardinals from around the world will begin arriving in Rome in March and after preliminary meetings, lock themselves in a secret conclave and elect the new pope from among themselves in votes in the Sistine Chapel.

There has been growing pressure on the Church for it to choose a pope from the developing world to better reflect where most Catholics live and where the Church is growing.

"It could be time for a black pope, or a yellow one, or a red one, or a Latin American," said Guatemala's Archbishop Oscar Julio Vian Morales.

The cardinals may also want a younger man. John Paul was 58 when he was elected in 1978. Benedict was 20 years older.

"We have had two intellectuals in a row, two academics, perhaps it is time for a diplomat," said Father Tom Reese, senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University. "Rather than electing the smartest man in the room, they should elect the man who will listen to all the other smart people in the Church."

Liberals have already begun calling for a pope that would be more open to reform.

"The current system remains an 'old boy's club' and does not allow for women's voices to participate in the decision of the next leader of our Church," said the Women's Ordination Conference, a group that wants women to be able to be priests.

"GREAT COURAGE"

The last pope to resign willingly was Celestine V in 1294 after reigning for only five months, his resignation was known as "the great refusal" and was condemned by the poet Dante in the "Divine Comedy". Gregory XII reluctantly abdicated in 1415 to end a dispute with a rival claimant to the papacy.

Lombardi said Benedict's stepping aside showed "great courage". He ruled out any specific illness or depression and said the decision was made in the last few months "without outside pressure". But the decision was not without controversy.

"This is disconcerting, he is leaving his flock," said Alessandra Mussolini, a parliamentarian who is granddaughter of Italy's wartime dictator. "The pope is not any man. He is the vicar of Christ. He should stay on to the end, go ahead and bear his cross to the end. This is a huge sign of world destabilization that will weaken the Church."

Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz, secretary to the late Pope John Paul, said the former pope had stayed on despite failing health for the last decade of his life as he believed "you cannot come down from the cross."

While the pope had slowed down recently - he started using a cane and a wheeled platform to take him up the long aisle in St Peter's Square - he had given no hint recently that he was considering such a dramatic decision.

Elected in 2005 to succeed the enormously popular John Paul, Benedict never appeared to feel comfortable in the job.

"MIND AND BODY"

In his announcement, the pope told the cardinals that in order to govern "... both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me."

Before he was elected pope, the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was known as "God's rottweiler" for his stern stand on theological issues. After a few months, he showed a milder side but he never drew the kind of adulation that had marked the 27-year papacy of his predecessor John Paul.

U.S. President Barack Obama extended prayers to Benedict and best wishes to those who would choose his successor.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the pope's decision must be respected if he feels he is too weak to carry out his duties. British Prime Minister David Cameron said: "He will be missed as a spiritual leader to millions."

The Archbishop of Canterbury, leader of the worldwide Anglican communion, said he had learned of the pope's decision with a heavy heart but complete understanding.

CHEERS AND SCANDAL

Elected to the papacy on April 19, 2005, Benedict ruled over a slower-paced, more cerebral and less impulsive Vatican.

But while conservatives cheered him for trying to reaffirm traditional Catholic identity, his critics accused him of turning back the clock on reforms by nearly half a century and hurting dialogue with Muslims, Jews and other Christians.

After appearing uncomfortable in the limelight at the start, he began feeling at home with his new job and showed that he intended to be pope in his way.

Despite great reverence for his charismatic, globe-trotting predecessor -- whom he put on the fast track to sainthood and whom he beatified in 2011 -- aides said he was determined not to change his quiet manner to imitate John Paul's style.

A quiet, professorial type who relaxed by playing the piano, he showed the gentle side of a man who was the Vatican's chief doctrinal enforcer for nearly a quarter of a century.

The first German pope for some 1,000 years and the second non-Italian in a row, he traveled regularly, making about four foreign trips a year, but never managed to draw the oceanic crowds of his predecessor.

The child abuse scandals hounded most of his papacy. He ordered an official inquiry into abuse in Ireland, which led to the resignation of several bishops.

Scandal from a source much closer to home hit in 2012 when the pontiff's butler, responsible for dressing him and bringing him meals, was found to be the source of leaked documents alleging corruption in the Vatican's business dealings.

Benedict confronted his own country's past when he visited the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz. Calling himself "a son of Germany", he prayed and asked why God was silent when 1.5 million victims, most of them Jews, were killed there.

Ratzinger served in the Hitler Youth during World War Two when membership was compulsory. He was never a member of the Nazi party and his family opposed Adolf Hitler's regime.

(Additional reporting by James Mackenzie, Barry Moody, Cristiano Corvino, Alexandra Hudson in Berlin, and Dagamara Leszkowixa in Poland; Editing by Peter Graff)

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Anti-whaling group takes battle to top US court

WASHINGTON: The Sea Shepherd conservation group asked the US Supreme Court on Monday to lift an order forcing it to steer clear of Japan's whalers, who are seeking legal reprisals over harassment at sea.

Since 2002, Sea Shepherd has annually disrupted Japan's contested hunt in the Southern Ocean but a US court issued an injunction on December 17 for the activists to stay at least 500 yards away from the whaling vessels.

Environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the son and namesake of the slain political icon, urged the United States to show support for the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and its fugitive founder Paul Watson.

"It's a mission that only they are capable of accomplishing and that is absolutely vital to the enforcement of international agreements on the high seas which otherwise go unenforced," Kennedy told reporters.

The International Whaling Commission has designated a whale sanctuary in the Southern Ocean. Japan kills whales in the area through a loophole in a 1986 moratorium on commercial whaling that allows lethal research.

Kennedy called Japan's government-supported Institute of Cetacean Research, which runs the whaling program and sued Sea Shepherd, "a pirate organisation masquerading as a scientific research group."

In a filing to the Supreme Court on Friday, Sea Shepherd and Watson said that the lower court "acted rashly" and voiced concern over the order's "extraordinarily long reach" to areas outside US jurisdiction.

The document said that the injunction marked "a potentially existential threat" to Sea Shepherd as more than 80 per cent of its funding comes from donations, which "may slow to a trickle" without the anti-whaling campaign.

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit cited safety concerns when it issued the injunction, effective until a decision on the case.

The Institute of Cetacean Research hit back and was believed to have asked the judge to find Sea Shepherd in contempt of court -- which would potentially lead to punishment.

Sea Shepherd released a letter from a lawyer representing the institute, which complained that MV Brigitte Bardot, a former ocean racer named after the French actress and animal rights activist, violated the 500-yard injunction on January 29.

The letter warned of legal action unless Sea Shepherd ordered the Brigitte Bardot to comply with the injunction or returned it to port.

The Oregon-based group contended that it was observing the injunction, saying that the Brigitte Bardot sails under an Australian flag and is operated by Sea Shepherd's Australian sister organisation.

Japan's institute is "just like a bully who is finally challenged and runs to his mommy," said Scott West, the director of intelligence and investigation for US Sea Shepherd.

Sea Shepherd boasted that it has prevented Japan from killing whales this season. Japan, which makes no secret that meat from whaling ends up on dinner plates, accuses Western nations of disrespecting its cultural traditions.

Gavin Carter, a US-based spokesman for the Institute of Cetacean Research, called Sea Shepherd's Supreme Court filing an "unusual approach."

Watson, a dual US and Canadian citizen, has kept his whereabouts unknown since July, when he jumped bail in Germany, where he was arrested on charges from Costa Rica related to a confrontation over shark finning.

- AFP/jc

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Did Google Earth error send murderer to wrong address?

Dennis and Merna Koula.

(Credit:
CBS News.com Screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)

Sometimes, even after a murder conviction, some see reasonable doubt that the conviction was a righteous one.

Such is the case in the murder of Dennis and Merna Koula in La Cross, Wisc, a quiet community.

Their son Eric was found guilty and is currently serving two consecutive life-sentences for the murder of the wealthy couple.

It was Eric Koula who found the body. It was Eric Koula whose alibi didn't stand up. Eric Koula was broke.

Yet as CBS News' "48 Hours" reported, there are some inconsistencies that some can't quite put aside. They include John Christophersen, a special agent at the time with the Wisconsin Department of Justice.

It was said at the trial that Eric Koula treated his father as an ATM. There was a $50,000 check that he cashed right after his parents died.

It was a check from his father. Eric Koula had forged the signature -- something he claimed to have done many times.

But, as his attorney said at the trial: "What sort of an idiot would put a check in the bank the morning after they killed their parents, knowing that bank records are easy to get?"

To some eyes, the murder seemed like a professional hit. No valuables were taken. And there was no DNA evidence to implicate Eric Koula.

Moreover, there was another idea that investigators began to pursue at the time. A neighbor of the Koula's, Steve Burgess, freely admitted that he had received death threats. He was the president of a local bank.

More Technically Incorrect

And, as the CBS News investigation indicated (embedded, but there are some gaps in the audio), if you use Google Earth to locate Burgess' house, you get a surprise.

"48 Hours" correspondent Peter Van Sant said: "In fact, when you Google Earth Steve Burgess' address...the zoom into the house goes to the Koula's house, not to Steve Burgess' house."

Police say they discounted the threatening caller, as they located him and he had an alibi. But then could that individual have hired someone to do any allegedly required dirty work, a person who used Google Earth to go to the wrong house?

This story brings to mind the even more recent case of the alleged murder of Rodrigo Diaz. His friends claim that his GPS had led him to the wrong house.

The owner of that house allegedly became annoyed or threatened by the presence of Diaz and his friends. This resulted in Diaz being shot in what lawyers for the accused, Phillip Sailors, say was a case of self-defense.

The jury in the trial of Eric Koula believed there was enough evidence to convict him.

Others look at the evidence they see on Google Earth and still have their doubts.

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Clive Davis Gala goes on year after Houston's death

A year after Whitney Houston's death, music executive Clive Davis remembered her in words -- and video.

Houston died last year at the age of 48 just hours before the annual Clive Davis Gala was set to start. On Saturday, Davis said his world continues "to be so shattered by her passing" and that Houston's death still feels "unreal."

At the gala, Davis played what he called a rare performance of Houston belting "All The Man That I Need" at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.

Houston's brother and sister-in-law, Gary and Pat Houston, attended the gala, where Davis thanked them "for being here tonight." He also called Houston the "greatest, greatest singer of our lifetime."

58 Photos

Grammy Awards 2013: Pre-parties

Dutch electronic artist Afrojack kicked off the performances with a DJ set, but it was Gladys Knight who got the crowd up out of their seats with a closing number featuring renditions of "Neither One of Us" and "Midnight Train to Georgia."

Usher, too, brought R&B flavor to the stage when he performed some of "Burn" and "Climax," which featured the acoustic guitar.

The pre-Grammy event also featured performances by Patti Smith, Scottish singer Emeli Sande, best new artist nominees the Lumineers, song of the year nominee Miguel, and Jennifer Hudson, who paid tribute to Knight and performed with the singing veteran.

The event was full of A-listers there to enjoy the live music: Johnny Depp, Quincy Jones, Sting, Joni Mitchell, Diddy, Miley Cyrus, Frank Ocean, Dave Grohl, Magic Johnson and San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick were in attendance as well as Ne-Yo, Carly Rae Jepsen, Brandy, David Guetta, Babyface, Wiz Khalifa, Jordin Sparks, Tyra Banks and dozens of others.

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$1M Reward for Capture of Fugitive Ex-Cop Dorner

A $1 million reward was offered today for information leading to the arrest of Christopher Dorner, as authorities in Big Bear, Calif., scaled back their search for the disgruntled ex-cop, who is suspected in three revenge killings.

"This is the largest local reward ever offered, to our knowledge," Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said at a news conference today. "This is an act of domestic terrorism. This is a man who has targeted those that we entrust to protect the public. His actions cannot go unanswered."

The money for the reward was pooled by businesses, government, local law enforcement leaders and individual donors, Beck said.

PHOTOS: Former LAPD Officer Suspected in Shootings

The reward comes on the fourth day of a manhunt for Dorner, who has left Southern California on edge after he allegedly went on a killing spree last week to avenge his firing from the police force. Dorner outlined his grievances in a 6,000 word so-called "manifesto" and said he will keep killing until the truth is known about his case.

Dorner's threats have prompted the LAPD to provide more than 50 law enforcement families with security and surveillance detail, Beck said.

Authorities are chasing leads, however they declined to say where in order to not impede the investigation.

Dorner's burned-out truck was found Thursday near Big Bear Lake, a popular skiing destination located 80 miles northeast of Los Angeles.

Irvine Police Department/AP Photo

Manhunt for Alleged Cop Killer Heads to California Mountains Watch Video

Christopher Dorner Search: Officials Search for Ex-officer in the Mountains Watch Video

Investigators found two AR-15 assault rifles in the burned-out truck Dorner abandoned, sources told ABC News.

The truck had a broken axle, which may be the reason he decided to set fire to it, the police sources said.

Full Coverage: Christopher Jordan Dorner

Officers have spent the past couple of days going door-to-door and searching vacant cabins. The manhunt was scaled back to 25 officers and one helicopter in the resort town today, according to the San Bernadino Sheriff's Office.

On Saturday, Beck announced he would reopen the investigation into Dorner's firing but said the decision was not made to "appease" the fugitive ex-cop.

"I feel we need to also publicly address Dorner's allegations regarding his termination of employment, and to do so I have directed our Professionals Standards Bureau and my Special Assistant for Constitutional Policing to completely review the Dorner complaint of 2007; To include a re-examination of all evidence and a re-interview of witnesses," Beck said. "We will also investigate any allegations made in his manifesto which were not included in his original complaint."

Dorner is suspected of killing Monica Quan and her fiancé Keith Lawrence last Sunday in their car in the parking lot of their Irvine, Calif., condominium complex. Both were struck with multiple gunshot wounds.

Quan's father, Randall Quan, was a retired captain with the LAPD and attorney who represented Dorner before a police review board that led to Dorner's dismissal from the force in 2008.

On Wednesday, after Dorner was identified as a suspect in the double murder, police believe he ambushed two Riverside police officers, killing one and wounding the other.

The next day, Randall Quan reported he received a taunting call from a man claiming to be Dorner who told him that he "should have done a better job of protecting his daughter," according to court documents documents.

Anyone with information leading to the arrest of Christopher Dorner is asked to call the LAPD task force at 213-486-6860.

ABC News' Dean Schabner, Jack Date, Pierre Thomas, Jason Ryan and Clayton Sandell contributed to this report.

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Gunbattle rocks Gao after rebels surprise French, Malians

GAO, Mali (Reuters) - Islamist insurgents launched a surprise raid in the heart of the Malian town of Gao on Sunday, battling French and local troops in a blow to efforts to secure Mali's recaptured north.

Local residents hid in their homes or crouched behind walls as the crackle of gunfire from running street battles resounded through the sandy streets and mud-brick houses of the ancient Niger River town, retaken from Islamist rebels last month by a French-led offensive.

French helicopters clattered overhead and fired on al Qaeda-allied rebels armed with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades who had infiltrated the central market area and holed up in a police station, Malian and French officers said.

The fighting inside Gao was certain to raise fears that pockets of determined Islamists who have escaped the lightning four-week-old French intervention in Mali will strike back with guerrilla attacks and suicide bombings.

After driving the bulk of the insurgents from major northern towns such as Timbuktu and Gao, French forces are trying to search out their bases in the remote and rugged Adrar des Ifoghas mountains, far up in the northeast.

But with Mali's weak army unable to secure recaptured zones, and the deployment of a larger African security force slowed by delays and kit shortages, vast areas to the rear of the French forward lines now look vulnerable to guerrilla activity.

"They infiltrated the town via the river. We think there were about 10 of them. They were identified by the population and they went into the police station," said General Bernard Barrera, commander of French ground operations in Mali.

He told reporters in Gao that French helicopters had intervened to help Malian troops pinned down by the rebels, who threw grenades from rooftops.

Malian gendarme Colonel Saliou Maiga told Reuters the insurgents intended to carry out suicide attacks in the town.

SUICIDE BOMBERS

No casualty toll was immediately available. But a Reuters reporter in Gao saw one body crumpled over a motorcycle. Malian soldiers said some of the raiders may have come on motorbikes.

The gunfire in Gao erupted hours after French and Malian forces reinforced a checkpoint on the northern outskirts that had been attacked for the second time in two days by a suicide bomber.

Abdoul Abdoulaye Sidibe, a Malian parliamentarian from Gao, said the rebel infiltrators were from the MUJWA group that had held the town until French forces liberated it late last month.

MUJWA is a splinter faction of al Qaeda's North African wing AQIM which, in loose alliance with the home-grown Malian Islamist group Ansar Dine, held Mali's main northern urban areas for 10 months until the French offensive drove them out.

Late on Saturday, an army checkpoint in Gao's northern outskirts came under attack by a group of Islamist rebels who fired from a road and bridge that lead north through the desert scrub by the Niger River to Bourem, 80 km (50 miles) away.

"Our soldiers came under heavy gunfire from jihadists from the bridge ... At the same time, another one flanked round and jumped over the wall. He was able to set off his suicide belt," Malian Captain Sidiki Diarra told reporters.

The bomber died and one Malian soldier was lightly wounded, he added. In Friday's motorbike suicide bomber attack, a Malian soldier was also injured.

Diarra described Saturday's bomber as a bearded Arab.

Since Gao and the UNESCO World Heritage city of Timbuktu were retaken last month, several Malian soldiers have been killed in landmine explosions on a main road leading north.

French and Malian officers say pockets of rebels are still in the bush and desert between major towns and pose a threat of hit-and-run guerrilla raids and bombings.

"We are in a dangerous zone... we can't be everywhere," a French officer told reporters, asking not to be named.

One local resident reported seeing a group of 10 armed Islamist fighters at Batel, just 10 km (6 miles) from Gao.

OPERATIONS IN NORTHEAST

The French, who have around 4,000 troops in Mali, are now focusing their offensive operations several hundred kilometers (miles) north of Gao in a hunt for the Islamist insurgents.

On Friday, French special forces paratroopers seized the airstrip and town of Tessalit, near the Algerian border.

From here, the French, aided by around 1,000 Chadian troops in the northeast Kidal region, are expected to conduct combat patrols into the Adrar des Ifoghas mountains.

The remaining Islamists are believed to have hideouts and supply depots in a rugged, sun-blasted range of rocky gullies and caves, and are also thought to be holding at least seven French hostages previously seized in the Sahel.

The U.S. and European governments back the French-led operation as a defense against Islamist jihadists threatening wider attacks, but rule out sending their own combat troops.

To accompany the military offensive, France and its allies are urging Mali authorities to open a national reconciliation dialogue that addresses the pro-autonomy grievances of northern communities like the Tuaregs, and to hold democratic elections.

Interim President Dioncounda Traore, appointed after a military coup last year that plunged the West African state into chaos and led to the Islamist occupation of the north, has said he intends to hold elections by July 31.

But he faces splits within the divided Malian army, where rival units are still at loggerheads.

(Additional reporting by Tiemoko Diallo and Adama Diarra in Bamako; Writing by Joe Bavier and Pascal Fletcher; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

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Basketball: Balanced attack propels Clippers past Knicks

NEW YORK: The Los Angeles Clippers defeated the New York Knicks 102-88 with the help of a strong bench attack and Chris Paul's 25 points, seven assists and a half dozen rebounds.

Jamal Crawford had a team high 27 points and Blake Griffin finished with 17 points and 12 rebounds for the Clippers, who won despite 42 points from New York forward Carmelo Anthony at Madison Square Garden.

Los Angeles won for the second time in three National Basketball Association games as their reserves easily outscored New York's bench 48-15.

Anthony also had eight rebounds and Raymond Felton was the only other member of the Knicks to score in double figures, finishing with 20 points. The Knicks have lost two of their last three games.

The Clippers held a 71-70 edge heading into the fourth quarter.

Crawford and Eric Bledsoe combined for 13 points during a 19-5 run in the fourth to put the Clippers ahead 90-78 with five minutes to play.

The Knicks rebounded with an 8-2 push to get back within 92-86 but Los Angeles scored the next seven points to regain a 13-point lead with 1:11 left and cruised to the win.

It was Paul's second game back after missing nine straight with a bruised right kneecap.

The Pacific Division-leading Clippers are now 16-12 on the road and will close out their current road swing on Monday at Philadelphia.

- AFP/jc

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