Mitt Romney’s march to the Republican presidential nomination was jolted on Friday, two days ahead of the crucial South Carolina primary as Rick Perry dropped out and endorsed a gaining Newt Gingrich, and official results showed Romney didn’t win the Iowa caucuses after all.

Romney has led the contest to select a challenger to President Barack Obama in November, benefiting from a fractured Republican field and the failure of conservatives to rally behind a candidate. Now there’s one less candidate to consider.

“I know when it’s time to make a strategic retreat,” Perry announced on Friday.

The Texas governor called Gingrich “a conservative visionary who can transform our country” and added, “Newt is not perfect, but who among us is?” The remaining candidates will debate tonight.

Gingrich, a former speaker of the House of Representatives, is emerging as the main rival to Romney. Polls show him in second place in South Carolina, gaining ground but still trailing the former Massachusetts governor by about 10 percentage points.

Saturday’s South Carolina primary has been seen as the pivotal contest in the race, following what had initially been declared a narrow victory for Romney in Iowa, the first nominating contest, and a solid Romney win in last week’s New Hampshire primary.

Since 1980, no Republican has won the presidential nomination without a victory in the state. But Republican officials said today that Rick Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator, edged Romney in Iowa by 34 votes, though no winner was declared because some votes remain missing. That means that even if Romney holds onto his lead and wins in South Carolina, he won’t be able to claim victory in the first three contests, an achievement that would have made him appear to be the all-but-inevitable nominee.

Gingrich’s candidacy has been boosted by strong debate performances. He had previously soared in polls, only to wither under scrutiny of his post-Congress work and his personal life, which included three marriages and acknowledged infidelities.

He is likely to receive more unflattering attention later today when ABC News airs an interview with his second wife, Marianne Gingrich.

In the interview, Marianne Gingrich said she refused to go along with her husband’s proposal that she share him with Callista Bisek, who would later become his third wife. In excerpts of the interview released by ABC, Marianne Gingrich said the affair with Callista was conducted “in my bedroom in our apartment in Washington.”

y]�e<
� � >

Thanks to the improved digital technologies that deliver premium media quality, high-definition applications continue to explore different types of multimedia presentations to enable more inspirations in people’s daily life. When people enjoy media contents for personal entertainment orsharing with their friends and family, a media server powered by the advanced streaming technology and built-in interfaces for guaranteed interoperability is required to help managing the archived data and files for effective delivery. The new ZyXEL NSA300 Series, available in NSA310/320/325 models, offers not only high-performance HD multimedia streaming but also sufficient storage capacity to meet different needs.

With the core processor power ofup to 1.6GHz and a rich feature set, the new NSA300 Series ensuresexcellent performance providing high-definition multimedia streaming for individual playback or multiple simultaneousstreaming to several individual displays. The HD media quality remains uncompromised even many streaming sessions are active at the same time.

In addition to the impressive streaming capability, the zMediafeature, exclusive to NSA325, is a “Mobile Cloud” designed specifically for users on the move. With the mobile app, tasks such as configuration, playback and download can beperformed easily and remotely with just a few swipes on the screens of mobile devices anywhere at home. The NSA325 also works with the Dropboxservice to backup files,or send torrent files from mobile devices such as smart phones and tablet PCs anywhere on the road to the NSA325 – your proprietary mobile cloud.

The ZyXEL NSA300 Series Media Server boasts an all-in-one backup solution to ensure that valuable files are flawlessly stored with full protection. The zPilot™, an auto-classification software developed by ZyXEL, helps users tomanage files easy and effortlessly; once the zPilot™ is installed on personal computing devices, incoming files are identified and stored to the designated folders according totheir formats.

With environmentcare and energy efficiency in mind, the ZyXEL NSA300 Series features many“green” designs. For instance, the “Wake-on-LAN”function allows users to turn on the NSA and access files remotely anytime, anywhere eventhe device was powered off; the “hibernation” support allows the hard disk to spin down automatically when no data transmission is active after a period of time. The “power scheduling” function can turnthe NSA300 on or off in accordance with usage patterns and needs to ensure power consumption is effectively regulated.

For home users who would like to enjoy high-quality digital lifestyle with richhigh-definition multimedia contents, the ZyXEL NSA300 Series Media Server is the best-in-class choice forthe home entertainment centre. For complete information about the NSA models and the respective requirements, please visit NSA325 or contact your local ZyXEL sales representatives. In addition, you may also refer to the video at http://youtu.be/fCcRARDaO8o to learn how the media server can bring enjoyable contents to your home.