Liberty Newspost Apr-20-10 by Liberty Newspost

E-reader News Edition

19/04/10 - 20/04/10

http://www.LibertyNewspost.com

U.S. Ash Quest: Help 40,000 Americans cross the pond Tabassum Zakaria (Front Row Washington) Submitted at 4/19/2010 4:28:45 PM

Stranded in England… (We could think of worse places to be stuck than the land of fishand-chips and Shakespeare). That’s what happened to 40,000 Americans when their travel was disrupted due to the volcanic ash wafting over Europe from Iceland. But have no fear, the U.S. government is here. (Not that it’s in any way a relevant comparison, but the number of Americans stranded in Britain is smaller than the Twitter followers of White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs who has 55,643 following@PressSec). “We are working closely with the State Department to examine all the opportunities that we have to speed this process along,” Gibbs said, noting that some people may have gone on vacation, are running out of

United States had “some big ships,” he had not heard of any discussion of using them to ferry Americans. We’re wondering is the Queen Mary 2 available? Did the volcanic ash travel disruption have any impact on you? Disasters inevitably give rise to s o m e humor.@TonyFratto“Iceland: We kick ash!” and former colleague@Adampasick retweeted @D3MS77 “ Put 30 billion euros in unmarked bills medicine, and don’t have a w h e n M S N B C in a bag by the gate of the place to stay. tweeted@BreakingNews that a Icelandic embassy in London, The travel disruptions have also large plume indicated a second and we’ll turn off the volcano.” Photo credit: Reuters/Jon affected the U.S. government at volcano on Iceland may have the highest levels. President erupted too (YIKES!), only to Gustafsson/Helicopter.is/handou Barack Obama canceled his trip tweet later: “Iceland weather t (steam and ash rise out of to Poland this weekend (some s e r v i c e l o o k i n g a t w r o n g erupting volcano on Iceland), newspapers noted that he ended camera; Hekla is not erupting” Reuters/Daniel Munoz (Queen Mary 2 ocean liner), up on the golf course instead), (PHEW!) and Secretary of State Hillary Gibbs provided no details about Reuters/British Geological Clinton canceled a trip to what kind of help the U.S. Survey/NERC/handout (ash Finland. government had in mind for the plume from Iceland volcano) There was a mini news flareup stranded and he said while the

Fear Not: iPad 3G Coming April 30 John Biggs (TechCrunch) Submitted at 4/20/2010 8:30:16 AM

Just when you thought you iPad 3G was going to arrive on May 7, Apple turns around and says they will be available at retail stores at 5pm on Friday, April 30, and pre-orders should arrive the same day. Not a lot more to say other than Apple sure got behind the negative spin quickly, especially considering they're forcing Europe to wait for their sweet, sweet iPads.

Headline/ News Wire/ Policy/ Politics/

E-reader News Edition

Hecklers halt Obama remarks JoAnne Allen (Front Row Washington)

Pirates take 3 Thai ships with 77 crew

Submitted at 4/20/2010 12:40:01 AM

(Reuters: Top News)

A persistent band of hecklers knocked President Barack Obama off message Monday night as he spoke at a fundraiser for the Democratic party and California Senator Barbara Boxer in Los Angeles. Obama was interrupted just after he launched into remarks praising Boxer as a senator who cares about the environment and is passionate about fighting for Californians. Some folks in the audience apparently wanted to talk about something else as a group of protesters demanding the immediate repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” kept heckling him. ” What about don’t ask, don’t tell?” one protester shouted. “We are going to do that,” Obama said at one point in response to the heckling, an apparent reference to his intention to repeal the policy restricting gays from serving in the military. Obama tried to talk over the protesters. Then he invited them on stage. Supporters chanting

Submitted at 4/20/2010 8:41:52 AM

“yes we can” tried to drown them out. Heckled again, a visibly irritated Obama said: “Can I just say, once again, Barbara and I are supportive of repealing don’t ask don’t tell so I don’t know why you’re hollering.” But the heckling continued, bringing Obama’s remarks to a halt. Supporters responded, shouting “yes we can!” over the protesters and Obama was soon back on message talking about Boxer and U.S. economic challenges. About 1,400 people paid

The Equal Pay Day Reality Check (AEI.Org: Articles) Submitted at 4/19/2010 6:00:00 PM

Sorry, readability was unable to parse this page for content.

between $100 and $2,500 to attend the event at the California Science Center. The protesters were from GetEQUAL, a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender group that also orchestrated protests outside the fundraiser. The group was also behind a protest last month at the White House. Photo credit: Reuters/Jason Reed (Obama on stage at fundraiser for U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer in Los Angeles)

belonged to a Thai-based company, PT Interfishery Ltd, and were named Prantalay 11, NAIROBI(Reuters) - Somali 12 and 14. The Thai crew pirates hijacked three Thai members were safe and well and fishing vessels with 77 crew the vessels were headed toward members over the weekend in the Somali coast. one of their most daring raids so "These latest hijackings are the far, a maritime official said furthest east of any pirate Tuesday. attacks in the area since the start World| Thailand of EU NAVFOR's Operation Patrols by European Union Atalanta in December 2008, warships since December 2008 almost 600 miles outside the to deter hijackings have done normal EU NAVFOR operating little to dent the enthusiasm for area," it said on its website. piracy among Somalis. According to the International "This was in the Indian Ocean Maritime Bureau, Somali pirates but far away from the east coast accounted for more than half the of Africa," said Andrew reported piracy incidents Mwangura, coordinator of the worldwide in 2009 and nearly E a s t A f r i c a n S e a f a r e r s ' all of the hijackings, with 47 Assistance Program. "This is the successful captures. farthest hijacking to date. They (Reporting by Helen Nyamburaare now operating near the Mwaura; Editing by Giles Maldives and India." Elgood) Somali pirate attacks have Five Filters featured article: continued apace and have Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: spread south to the Seychelles PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, and farther out toward India. Term Extraction. The European Union Naval Force said the three ships

Between the potency and the existence

Volume 1 (1898–1922) Volume 2 (1923–25) Five Filters featured article: Helen Vendler (The New Edited by Valerie Eliot and Edited by Valerie Eliot and Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: Republic - All Feed) Hugh Haughton Hugh Haughton PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Submitted at 4/19/2010 11:00:00 PM (Faber and Faber, 871 pp., £35) (Faber and Faber, 878 pp., £35) Term Extraction. The Letters of T.S. Eliot: The Letters of T.S. Eliot:

World News/

E-reader News Edition

Live: new ash cloud spreads to UK (World News from Times Online)

and place of accommodation (hotel or other). 2. In addition, passengers shall Submitted at 4/20/2010 1:30:13 AM be offered free of charge two 3pm telephone calls, telex or fax Nats latest update. messages, or e-mails." A b e r d e e n , I n v e r n e s s , But sadly some airlines are Edinburgh and Newcastle will saying that it doesn't apply to stay open past 7pm until 1am them because the cancellations tomorrow morning. are beyond their control. A f t e r 7 p m G l a s g o w a n d 1.41pm Teeside will open again. Charles Bremner our man in Restrictions will remain in France sends this dispatch from place over the rest of UK Calais. airspace below 20,000ft. Plans to send warships to 2.56 pm evacuate stranded Britons from Lots of readers have had Calais were put aside as the two problems getting information or ferry companies proved more help from British Airways than able to cope with the flow including Chris Kimpton, who of several thousand foot has a friend stuck in Jamaica, passengers a day converging on Mayank Shama who is in Lagos the city's passenger terminal. and Philip Sorsky in Los Over 40 crossings were being Angeles with his wife and kids. made every 24 hours, with Times reporter Laura Dixon has sailings day and night. dug up this European French officials and some Commission document which Britons involved in operation sets out passenger rights in the were bemused by Gordon case of flight cancellations. It Brown's initial plan to send in states: warships. "It's nuts," said a "Where reference is made to this senior Calais port official, who Article, passengers shall be pointed out that the terminal was offered free of charge: (a) not equipped for naval vessels. meals and refreshments in a "It's a push but the ferries are reasonable relation to the managing fine" he said. London w a i t i n g t i m e ; ( b ) h o t e l was, however, considering accommodation in cases — dispatching HMS Ocean, the where a stay of one or more transport and assault ship, to nights becomes necessary, or — Cherbourg to ferry passengers where a stay additional to that later in the week, British intended by the passenger sources said. becomes necessary; The queue for tickets rose from (c) transport between the airport 10 minutes in the morning to

two hours at the peak midafternoon, before subsiding. At one stage, the ticket windows at Sea France, the smaller of the two companies, were deserted and ships were leaving only part full. 1.58pm Tony Barrett, Times Sports reporter, is on the train with the Liverpool squad as they make their way from Merseyside to Madrid for their Europa league match tomorrow. You can follow their journey here. 1.51pm David Charter, our man covering the European Commission, says that the daily briefing has just been told by a journalist that Ryanair was refunding only the ticket price and not the tax. The Commission spokeswoman said she was unaware of the situation but that the requirement was for the entire cost of the ticket including tax to be refunded. Ryanair are refunding 100 per cent of people's tickets, a spokesman for the airline said. 1.44pm Weather forecast looking good for some let up in the cloud this weekend. A low pressure weather system moving into Iceland should help clear the volcanic ash cloud, an expert from the World Meteorological Organisation said today. “From a meteorological point of

view, (for) the second part of the week towards the weekend, all indications are very, very positive,” the WMO’s Herbert Puempel told a news briefing in Geneva. “The current situation has a lot of positive signs for the coming weekend.” Mr Puempel said that while the ash cloud was set to drift towards Canada and the United States for the next day and a half, it should be low enough over the ocean not to disrupt trans-Atlantic flights. 1.38pm Travel advice The Foreign Office has a website with advice for Brits abroad. You can also follow their latest advice on Twitter. 1.18pm Dr Joseph Alexander and his wife, who is also a medical consultant are grounded in Kerala India. "Right now I am in Trivandrum, Kerala in India along with my wife and 12 year old son [all of us are British nationals]. Our return flight to Manchester on the 17th April Sat by Emirates was cancelled. When I went to the local Emirates office, they gave me 2 options: 1) Wait and watch- they have booked me in for 5th May [but that will cause huge disruptions at work, with both of us being NHS Consultants] 2) choose alternate route in Europe. I have opted to fly via Dubai to Athens on 25th Saturday by Emirates. Will reach Athens at 1400.

How can I reach the UK from Athens on 25th or 26th? Or should I hold on to my 5th of May booking? Is there any point in contacting our High Commission office in Delhi? Dr Alexander This is what the Foreign Office is advising for British nationals stuck outside Europe. The next update from Nats is a 3pm and the Association of European Airlines tells us that the skies are looking like they might be open by Friday so you could take your flight to Athens and get a flight from there to London. If they remain closed you might be better trying to change your flight to go to Madrid or elsewhere in Spain rather than Athens. It would be easier for you to get to Calais from there and then on to England via the ferry or Eurostar. You may want to go on Roadsharing and see if anyone else is travelling between Athens and London or Madrid and London. Lowcostholidays have put on extra coaches from Madrid to Gatwick but they are £399 per seat. If you can wait until May 5 (which I know will be difficult because of your work ) then you may have a less arduous journey but we have no solid guarantees it will be clear by LIVE: page 4

E-reader News Edition

LIVE: continued from page 3

then either. 12.35 Rhiannon writes My 7 year old son and his grandparents went for a two week package holiday to Fuerteventura for Easter, they were due back on Saturday, obviously the flight was cancelled. They are with Thomas Cook, but have been given no information as to how or when they are going to get home, Thomas Cooks reps have no idea, only that it could be May before they can get a flight. We have so far been unable to contact any official, here or abroad, to find out if help is being sent to the Canary Islands as it is impossible for them to get to Calais to be picked up by navy ships. Do you know where we would be able to find some information as to any plans for people not in central Europe? Rhiannon Ryanair have a limited number of extra seats available from the Canary Islands to Madrid for £100. You would then need to catch a bus from Madrid. An emergency coach service from Madrid to Gatwick is probably your best bet. Passengers trying to return to the UK can book their seat on the coach service by contacting lowcostholidays.com special booking line on 0844 372 2282. But it will cost £399. 12.18 Mrs Turanli is in Antalya trying

to get back to the UK on a scheduled flight for tonight. I have a return ticket to London Gatwick today at 23.05. I have been desperately trying to contact a rep for the airline here in Antalya, I have rung so many numbers given to me, my hotel reception has been trying, but you can imagine because of the chaos here they are all busy. I sent Thomson several mails and their response is to copy the website info page to my mail address. I have confirmed with them that i have been told on the telephone when I rang London that there are no flights to Gatwick by Thomson airways until after Wednesday. I am staying put, I have been very unwell in the last couple of days anyway. I have also contacted my travel insurance and they have referred me to the airline. What are my rights? Mrs Turanli, Lauren Thompson from Times Money has this advice Check your airline’s website before you travel to the airport. If the flight is cancelled this evening, stay where you are and contact your airline to ask to be put on the next available flight. Your airline should offer you either a full refund or an alternative flight. In this situation, most travel insurers will extend your policy to cover your new travel arrangements and dates,

typically up to three months after the original dates. Contact your insurer to arrange this and ask if extra accommodation is covered under your policy. Some insurance policies will cover for delay at your destination. This is typically a set amount per day up to a maximum of 36 hours. While this payment could help pay towards the cost of hotel accommodation, there is no cover specially to pay for the full cost. 12.09 Your dilemma, our advice A couple of readers are trying to get to Milan from the UK Natalie writes: I am stuck in Glasgow, I live in Milan and was due to fly to Linate last Friday, then Sunday and now tomorrow. My dilemma is I have two major interviews there and no idea how to get there. Anyone trying to get to Milan? Riccardo writes: I'm trying to go back in to Italy Do you know if there is any other way to reach Milan from London? Natalie and Riccardo our online travel editor Ginny Light advises: Look at seat61.com for rail options. If they can get to Paris by train or ferry/domestic French rail, I believe there is an overnight train to Milan - but this site will have all the details. 12.01noon Update on Stanley Johnson,

father of the Mayor of London. He made it on to HMS Albion. Alright for some. 11.40am Your dilemma, our advice Tom Hudson writes: I’m meant to be flying back to the UK on Friday from Dubai. If the skies are open then, who gets priorities on tickets/flights? Will my plane fly on schedule? Will I be bumped off for someone who’s been stranded for a week? Tom we've spoken to the Association of European Airlines who represent 36 major airlines including BA and Virgin. Athar Husain Khan, a general manager at AEA, said: "I advise you to contact your airline as each will operate their own policy. There is no European law or rule which would indicate any kind of priority when repatriating passengers. He should contact his airline and state very clearly that he has a ticket for Friday when he expects skies to be open which is a good bet - and then ask if he will get priority and what arrangements will be made if he is moved to a different flight." 11.15am David Charter our man in Brussels sends this: Eurocontrol forecasts 14,500 flights in European airspace today, up on 9,000 yesterday. A normal day would be 28,000.

A European Commission spokeswoman said: "This morning we have more flights wth limited operations coming out of Paris, Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Italian airspace. This is partly due to weather conditions, partly due to the new restrictions and the more pragmatic approach which has been agreed since 8am." 10.54am Your dilemma, our advice Dimitra Kosmidou asks: I would like to know whether my flight will be cancelled on Thursday. I fly from London Gatwick to Edinburgh. What are the chances that it will be cancelled? Shall I look for alternative transport? Dimitra The latest forecasts from the Met Office only predict the situation up until 1am Wednesday morning. That forecast shows ash remaining above southern England. It would probably be safest to book a train ticket as extra services have been laid on between England and Scotland. Check with your airline but some are offering refunds for alternative methods of transport if you provide proof of purchase. 10.44am Your tales Roger Dangerfield sends this LIVE: page 5

E-reader News Edition

LIVE: continued from page 4

from the midst of an eventful journey from Tenerife. I am with my wife Sally and two young children Mac, 4 and Charlie, 2 on the way back from our holiday in Tenerife. We were meant to leave last Friday but out flights were cancelled. Yesterday on the way to the airport our hire car broke down in the fast lane of the autopista, we managed to "glide" across two lanes where we were stuck with traffic coming at us from behind like bullets. We then had to be rescued by the police and a breakdown truck and recovered to the airport. We escaped Tenerife on an aircraft bound for Bilbao. We then picked up our hire car in Bilbao and drove to Biarritz airport where we were meant to change hire cars (to avoid the massive €700 surcharge). This morning I walked into Biarritz airport to try and change the car - 7 car hire car companies all displaying "Pas des Voitures" signs. Have accepted the €700 surcharge and we are now at Bordeaux. Two hours down - 6 hours to go - boys behaving well, but for how long, who knows? Heading for Caen to catch the 2300hrs "crusie" to Portsmouth - all being well we arrive in Portsmouth at 0630hrs tomorrow morning to get a taxi home to Dorchester. After that just the small matter

of getting my car back from Bristol Airport and a fight with the airline and insurance companies. "Volcano eruption not included in your insurance policy, but bad weather is". Well all the experts are saying its not the Volcano that's the problem but its the position of the "Jetsream" - that's for the lawyers and the Government to decide. 10.31am Your tales, our advice Alex Chaplin writes: My mother is stranded in the Canary Islands – the internet access there is poor and no one knows how or where to find information on rescue efforts. She has cancer so the stress caused by uncertainty of how she can return is not good for her. She has booked a flight to Madrid for tomorrow but where should she go from there? Where are the coaches going from and how do you get a place on them? Similarly where do the ships go from and how could she secure a space? Alex, An emergency coach service from Madrid to Gatwick is probably your mother's best bet. Passengers trying to return to the UK can book their seat on the coach service by contacting lowcostholidays.com special booking line on 0844 372 2282. But it will cost £399. 10.22am Graham Keeley sends the latest from Santander where even

Boris Johnson's Dad Stanley couldn't get a place on the navy ship As a lucky 250 Britons were boarding HMS Albion in Santander others watched from behind locked gates at the dock. Among those unable to get on board was Stanley Johnson, father of Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, who was returning from South America with his wife Jenny. Mr Johnson,69, an environmentalist had travelled to the Galapagos Islands and the Amazon for a series of press assignments. He flew back to Madrid and travelled to Santander hoping to get a place on HMS Albion, an assault ship. "I suppose the Government is trying to do its best and keep the Dunkirk spirit alive," he said. Mr Johnson was due to join the Tory election campaign trail in Thurso, Scotland tonight. "I don't think I will make it," he said. Lt Giles Bradford of the Royal Navy said there was no more space for more civilians on board the ship. "As it is we will have to find space for these people to sleep on the car deck in cot beds. We do not have more life belt capacity," he said. 10.14am The clearing of the airspace has meant playtime for light aircraft pilots. David Stubbs, who flies a

CTSW, tells us what it has been like for the "little guys" allowed to roam the skies. (See the picture from his flight above) "It really is an interesting opportunity to explore areas of sky not normally open to light aircraft pilots flying under what are called 'visual flight rules'. "I fly a small two seater, normally we are forbidden to go even near the big airports like Heathrow and Stansted, and flying over them would lead to a very long time enjoying prison food. It's a safety issue. Now though the air traffic controllers are, if not relaxed, at least open to the idea that if the sky is empty of 'real' planes that they can give us little guys a break. "So on Sunday given that the flight that I should have been on to Kenya had been cancelled, I set off in my CTSW aircraft from Sywell airport in Northants to fly to Essex, once in the air I tuned to the correct air traffic control frequency and listened as four or five other pilots requested a 'special clearance' for either the Stansted or Luton airport zones and then when there was a pause made the same call myself. "The controller was very efficient, he set us up with courses and set heights for safety's sake, and vectored us over the airports. It was amusing to listen to my fellow pilots trying to hide the excitement in their voices and failing badly.

"I was instructed to cross Stansted at between 2000 and 2400 feet, quite straightforward really in the sunshine but it would have been a very different story without the controller as the combination of the normal summer haze and the volcanic dust made visibility so poor that it was occasionally like flying in milk. "At times some of us felt that we could actually taste it and upon landing there was a layer of light brown dust on some of the aircraft. I sent the pictures that I took to friends and relatives, so far I have three replies asking if I can rescue their partners from the 'refugee camps' in Northern France. We will have to see." 10.11am Our business team tell us that Nissan has stopped some production in Japan because of a shortage of parts which usually come from Ireland. Rio Tinto has cancelled its annual general meeting in Melbourne because some of its top people are stuck in London. 9.50am David Charter, Times Brussels correspondent, says that Schipol Airport in Amsterdam had nine departures and six cancellations by 8.38am this morning. Brussels airport website seems to have crashed, he adds. 9.35am LIVE: page 6

E-reader News Edition

LIVE: continued from page 5

Charles Bremner, our Paris correspondent, flew in his own plane to Calais yesterday and talked to sceptical Brits. Waiting passengers reserved mockery for Gordon Brown's announcement that the Royal Navy was sailing to the rescue. "You can tell there’s an election," said Bruce Truewell, a teacher from near Birmingham who had taken trains from Toulouse. Some suggested that government help with the fares would be more useful. The companies are charging 65 euros for the foot-passenger crossing, rather than the usual fare of about 22. You can read more on his blog. Today he says it is relatively quiet in the port. "The flow of passengers is diminishing and the wait for a ticket for a ferry is about 10mins. Officials say that they see no need for naval intervention, the ferry companies are sailing twice an hour around the hour." There is no sign of HMS Ocean, he adds. 9.32am Glasgow airport will close at 1pm after the volcanic ash spread. This is a blow after the first flights took off from Glasgow this morning. In a delicious if somewhat painful twist, the only international flight to leave the airport is heading to....ICELAND. 9.18am Hannah Devlin, our science

reporter, explains more about the fresh surge of ash. In its latest update, the Met Office report that the plume is now reaching about 15,000ft, which is probably too low to feed into Europe's weather system. However, during the night the plume rose even higher, injecting fresh ash into the high atmosphere from where it continues to blow south eastwards towards the UK and northern Europe. Read more at Eureka Zone. 9.10am Latest from Nats Nats says that the situation remains "dynamic" and will "continue to be variable" today. "Aberdeen, Inverness and Edinburgh airports will continue to be available from 1300-1900 today, and also south to Newcastle Airport. Restrictions will remain in place over the rest of UK airspace below 20,000ft. "Overnight the CAA, in line with new guidance from the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) decided flights above the ash cloud will be permitted in the UK; between 1300-1900 this will enable aircraft movements above 20,000ft in UK airspace." So London airports will remain closed until further notice. Next update 3pm 8.56am Our man in Santander, Graham Keeley, sends this from the port

where HMS Albion is due to pick up British troops and stranded Brits. The 100-or-so Britons waiting in the rain in the hope of a place on HMS Albion have been told by British embassy officials that there may be no space. Barend Janse van Rensburg, 31, a South African who works in London, responded to the news by telling his fellow would-be passengers: "Let's make ourselves more visible so they do just forget us." Fiona Ward, 25, a research biologist from Edinburgh, had been attending a conference in Majorca. Yesterday she took a ferry to Valencia and then drove through the night to Santander in the hope of securing a place on HMS Albion. "We got here at 5am and were left hanging around wondering what is happening. I appreciate there is a crisis going on but it doesn't hurt to tell us what is going on," she said. 8.43am Are you trying to make your way back to the UK? Let us know where you've got to and how you've done it by emailing here. We will endeavour to answer any questions and tales of derring-do will be reproduced here. 8.33am Nats next update is at 9am when we'll find out the outlook for the next six hours. 8.29am

David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, has just said that passengers stuck in mainland Europe should head for Calais. “This is an unprecedented situation, it is affecting the whole of northern Europe, so our priority is first, to make the most of the hole in the clouds that is going to emerge because of the temporary stalling yesterday of the volcano, secondly, to continue to offer as much consular assistance as we can to Brits who are stranded around the world. “I think the first message to British people who are in Europe though is to go to Calais because it is from Calais that they can cross the Channel. “I have just heard reports of people being able to arrive at Calais, either in cars or on foot and pretty much go straight on to ferries, the extra ferries that we have laid on.” "There is a simple message here - we want to do everything we can to use all means possible, whether train, coach, Eurotunnel or ferries, or the Royal Navy to get people home." What if I'm grounded further afeild than Europe? “For those people who are stranded further afield, who are not on mainland Europe and can’t get to Calais, we are working very hard to see if we can find a route back to Britain via southern Spain," Mr Miliband told GMTV.

“That is something that obviously involves a lot of discussion with the airlines because they want to fly people back to the UK, understandably. “We have also got to think that this volcanic cloud has not disappeared quickly and we have to make alternative arrangements, or at least provision for them.” 08.09am: From Graham Keeley in Santander It was raining as HMS Albion docked in Santander today and for those Britons who had gathered to see its arrival the mood was anguished. “If I don’t get on that ship I think I will lie across the road we are so desperate,” said Christine Blanshard. Mrs Blanshard, 56, a teacher from Chichester, West Sussex, was among a growing group of British nationals hoping to get home on the Royal Navy ship. The vessel is due to take home 220 troops from the Third Rifles regiment and places have been found for 200 civilians — all elderly people and children stranded during school trips. However many more Britons were taking refuge in the ferry terminal nursing hopes of getting a berth on the ship. The first of the group had begun queuing from 2.30am local time and, as the morning wore on, they moved from the terminal LIVE: page 7

E-reader News Edition

LIVE: continued from page 6

to the dockside — their desperation outweighing the fear of a drenching. Mrs Blanshard and her husband Andrew Kerr had spent four days in Madrid celebrating their 15th wedding anniversary when they heard from easyJet they could not get home last Thursday. “We took a train from Madrid to Bilbao last night then a bus to Santander when we heard about this ship, said Mrs Blanshard. ”We got here at 1.30am with nowhere to stay. A man in a hotel gave us something to eat and a place to stay. It was the first act of kindness we have had.” John and Amanda Paradine, from Caversham in Berkshire, were on a ten day holiday in Lanzarote when they heard last Thursday they could not return. The couple and their two daughters took a ferry to Gran Canaria then another on to Madeira and finally arrived in the Algarve in Portugal yesterday. The family took buses across Spain and arrived in Santander early today. “We are so tired. We want to get the children back to school and normality,” said Mrs Paradine. It was not clear when HMS Albion would leave. 07.53am: In Europe limited

flights are resuming. The two main airports in Paris — Roissy and Orly — will progressively open this morning to allow around three-quarters of scheduled international flights to operate. Separately, Air France said that its long distance flights from the two Paris airports would return to "normal service". The German carrier Lufthansa said it is planning to operate around 200 flights today, around 15 per cent of its normal schedule. Lufthansa would make use of special permission to fly visually rather than relying on instruments, a spokesman said. Otherwise, German airspace is closed until 2:00pm (1200 GMT). Switzerland has reopened its airspace, however the Polish national aviation authority has decided to keep airspace closed above all Poland's airports. 07.30am: A trickle of passengers arrived at airports in Scotland this morning for the first flights. Scottish airspace reopened at 7am after the air traffic control company Nats lifted restrictions in that region. But there were only a handful of domestic flights, mainly to the islands, despite the lifting of the ban. Glasgow Airport was once

again one of the few open after the volcanic eruption in Iceland pumped ash into the UK's airspace. The departure board listed departures to Islay, Campbeltown and Benbecula. 07.05am: EasyJet has joined BA in cancelling flights today due to the new volcanic ash threat. It has cancelled flights to and from northern Europe, including the UK, until 5pm. But the budget airline says it will continue to operate routes in southern Europe. In a statement, the airline said it "had hoped to resume some services earlier, however, unfortunately based on the latest meteorological forecasts and continuing emission of volcanic ash into the atmosphere this is not possible". 06.50am: Newcastle International Airport confirmed it planned to reopen for flights to and from Aberdeen and the Isle of Man at 7am. It also said easyJet was hoping to operate a "very limited service" from late this afternoon. A spokeswoman for Newcastle International Airport said the first flight was expected to arrive at 9.20am from Aberdeen. However, Manchester Airport said, due to the latest advice from Nats, it was not planning

to open before 1pm. A spokesman said: "Unfortunately, the latest forecasts indicate that a further deterioration in conditions is likely. "It is absolutely essential that people contact their airline before travelling to the airport because even if Manchester Airport is able to reopen today, schedules will take several days to return to normal." Passengers were advised to check flight information before leaving for any airport. 06.30am: The ash cloud from the volcano eruption in Iceland is set to cause further travel confusion today as BA cancelled all short-haul flights due to a new ash threat spreading towards Britain. Airports in Scotland were due to open at 7am, the first in Britain to operate since volcanic ash engulfed Northern Europe last week. But air traffic controllers said that the situation was worsening in some areas owing to the new ash cloud. “The volcano eruption in Iceland has strengthened and a new ash cloud is spreading south and east towards the UK,” said a statement on the Nats website. “This demonstrates the dynamic and rapidly changing conditions

in which we are working. Latest information from the Met Office shows that the situation is variable.” More airspace over England may become available from 1pm, they said, but not as far south as the main London airports, where airlines had hoped to resume a limited service from 7pm. As a result, British Airways announced it had cancelled all short-haul flights today based on the latest information about the volcanic ash cloud. The airline said it hoped to run long-haul flights scheduled to depart after 4pm, depending on a “full and permanent” opening of airspace. It urged passengers to check flight details on ba.com before leaving for the airport. BA said customers booked to travel on a cancelled flight would be able to claim a full refund or rebook their trip for a later date. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

World News/ Technology/ Culture/

E-reader News Edition

US summons Syrian diplomat over missile transfers to Hezbollah (World News from Times Online) Submitted at 4/20/2010 12:35:40 AM

The United States has summoned Syria’s most senior diplomat in Washington over its “provocative behaviour” regarding the potential transfer of Scud missiles to Hezbollah. The State Department said it condemned arming the militant Lebanese-based Islamist group, which would threaten the security of Israel and Lebanon. “The transfer of [arms including Scud missiles] can only have a destabilising effect on the region,” State department spokesman Gordon Duguid said in a statement after meeting Syria’s deputy chief of mission in Washington, Zouheir Jabbour. It is the fourth time recently that Washington has raised the issue with the Syrian Embassy. US officials said last week they believed Syria intended to transfer the weaponry, but had doubts about whether the missiles were delivered fully

assembled or had actually been transferred to Lebanon. It follows a warning last week from Israel to Syrian President Bashar Assad that Israel would respond to missile attacks from Hezbollah, by launching immediate retaliation against Syria itself In the secret message, sent earlier this month, Israel made it clear that it now regards Hezbollah as a division of the Syrian army and that reprisals against Syria would be rapid and devastating. Last week Shimon Peres, the Israeli President, also accused Damascus of supplying ballistic missiles to Hezbollah’s military wing Damascus has denied the transfer and said Israel might be using the accusation as a pretext for a military strike against Syrian targets. The US statement was a strong warning to Damascus, saying that weapons transfers were an obstacle to the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians and noting that

Syria’s designation as a “state sponsor of terrorism” was tied to its support for groups such as Hezbollah. “The risk of miscalculation that could result from this type of escalation should make Syria reverse the ill-conceived policy it has pursued in providing arms to Hezbollah,” Mr Duguid’s statement said. “We call for an immediate cessation of any arms transfers to Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations in the region.” A senior U.S. official said the statement was a sign that the allegations were being taken seriously. “We wouldn’t have called them in if we didn’t think something was going on,” the official said. The alleged deal to transfer the Scud missiles to Hezbollah has fuelled cross-border tensions with Israel, which remains wary of the Iranian and Syrianbacked Islamist group that it went to war with in 2006 after Hezbollah abducted two Israeli soldiers. The 34-day conflict resulted in the deaths of over

1,200 Lebanese, mainly civilians, and 160 Israeli people, most of whom were soldiers. With Iranian support, Hezbollah has replenished its arsenal beyond levels it had in 2006, according to a Pentagon report on Iran’s military sent to Congress and made public on Monday. Scud missiles in Hezbollah hands could strike deep inside Israel, while a partial transfer could involve weapons parts, documents or funding, according to U.S. officials. If the transfer is confirmed, it could create fresh obstacles to U.S. Senate confirmation of a new ambassador being returned to Damascus after a five-year absence. The Obama Administration has said that improved US diplomatic ties with Syria are an important part of the Mideast peace process. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Street Chic: New York ELLE.com (ELLE Fashion Blogs) Submitted at 4/20/2010 6:00:00 AM

A graphic tank adds attitude to

dark denim and a lightweight jacket. Photo: Kelly Stuart Think you are Street Chic? Email us your photo and you

Street Chic Daily. Follow ELLE on Twitter. Become our Facebook fan! could appear in ELLE.com's

Second-hand copiers can spill secrets (CNET News.com) Submitted at 4/20/2010 8:48:27 AM

At a warehouse in New Jersey, 6,000 used copy machines sit ready to be sold. CBS News chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian reports that almost every one of them holds a secret. Nearly every digital copier built since 2002 contains a hard drive --like the one on your personal computer--storing an image of every document copied, scanned, or e-mailed by the machine. In the process, it's turned an office staple into a digital timebomb packed with highly personal or sensitive data. Read more of " Digital Photocopiers Loaded With Secrets" at CBSNews.com, or watch the video below. Watch CBS News Videos Online Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

World News/ Technology/ Culture/

E-reader News Edition

Australian Goldfields rocked by largest earthquake in 50 years (World News from Times Online) Submitted at 4/20/2010 12:24:21 AM

Hundreds of schoolchildren and miners were evacuated when the biggest earthquake in 50 years hit Australia’s Goldfields earlier today, causing damage to buildings in two towns. So far, only two people have been reported as being treated for minor injuries. The shallow, 5.0 magnitude quake struck about 8.20am local time (23.20GMT), 10km (six miles) north-east of the gold mining city of Kalgoorlie and the neighbouring town of Boulder in Western Australia. Tremors were felt up to 200km (124 miles) away from the epicentre of the quake, which struck at a depth of 10km and caused structural damage to many buildings, including local pubs. Locals in Kalgoorlie, including some who initially thought the quake was one of the regular blasts from the nearby mines, said it lasted about 20 seconds.

One woman said her family had sheltered beneath door frames for fear their house would collapse around them, while other residents said holes had appeared in some roads. The worst-hit buildings were historic structures in the centre of nearby Boulder, a remote town about 600km (370 miles) east of Perth which sprang up in the wake of Australia’s 1800s Gold Rush. In Boulder, rubble littered some streets in the aftermath of the quake which damaged at least six of the town’s hotels, including the historic Golden Eagle Hotel. The hotel was left with cracks in the walls, holes in the ceiling and the balcony was left hanging off the building’s facade. Hundreds of children from three local schools were evacuated after a ceiling collapsed in one building, while others were declared unusable after the quake. Miners were also evacuated from the Kalgoorlie Consolidated Gold Mines Super

Pit – the largest open pit gold mine in Australia – as well as several of the area’s underground mines as several aftershocks shook the region. John Wulf, a cleaner at the Kalgoorlie Hotel, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation he had felt an aftershock but it “was nothing like the major one”. “I was inside and I took off outside very quickly,” Mr Wulf told the ABC of his reaction to the earthquake. “I’ve been through earthquakes before but I haven’t felt one like that before.” Annie Fowler, owner of the Criterion Hotel in Kalgoorlie said it was “pandemonium” in town. “We’re living in this big mining area. There’s a big hole here and there’s underground tunnels everywhere,” Ms Fowler told Sky News. “It certainly ruined my cup of coffee this morning.” Geoscience Australia spokesman Chris Thompson said it was largest shallow area earthquake to rock Australia in

decades. “It’s certainly the largest event in 50 years for the area, and possibly the biggest since we have begun recording in the early 1900s,” Mr Thompson told The Times. Mr Thompson said there had previously been a magnitude 4.5 earthquake in the Boulder area in 1987. He said Australia experiences earthquakes of a magnitude 5.0 or larger on average once a year, however they rarely occur in populated areas. The largest known on-shore earthquake to hit Australia occurred in Meeberrie, WA, in 1941 and was estimated to be of a magnitude of 7.2. Damage from that earthquake was relatively small because of the low population in the epicentral region. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Boxoh Maps and Tracks Your Packages [Maps] Kevin Purdy (Lifehacker) Submitted at 4/20/2010 5:30:00 AM

The web doesn't lack for

package tracking apps, and some of them are very clever with their data. Boxoh, on the other hand, is simple, and shows

care about most: where your package is. More » you, on a map, what you usually

Apple names April 30th, 5PM as date and time for 3G iPad retail launch Vladislav Savov (Engadget) Submitted at 4/20/2010 8:50:00 AM

There was a bit of confusion with Apple's online store update yesterday as to when the 3G version of its iPad will actually make its retail debut. Let that fog of ignorance be no more, as Cupertino has today named April 30th, a Friday, as the day the WiFi + 3G slate will arrive in stores. In American stores, that is, don't get all excited if you live outside the 50 states. That's also the date when early (read: before yesterday) preorders will be fulfilled. Deliveries for those were promised for "late April," though clearly this date has more of the late and less of the April to it. Apple names April 30th, 5PM as date and time for 3G iPad retail launch originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 20 Apr 2010 08:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Apple| Email this| Comments

World News/ Technology/

E-reader News Edition

UK investigates Goldman as bankers Google Escalates The net $5.5bn$ Location War With Google Places (World News from Times Online)

this quarter is still considerably below the $226,000 allocated to each worker in the first quarter Submitted at 4/20/2010 8:01:00 AM of bank’s record year of 2007. Goldman Sachs announced it The amount Goldman put aside has set aside $5.5 billion (£3.5 for pay this quarter is equivalent billion) to pay its bankers for to 43 per cent of its $12.8 three months' work just hours billion net revenue, the lowest after the Financial Services first-quarter compensation ratio Authority launched a formal in the bank’s history. investigation into the US bank. In a statement today, Staff could receive average Goldman’s chairman and chief compensation of $166,000 each executive Lloyd Blankfein for the first quarter of 2010 a l l u d e d t o t h e s c a n d a l after the bank beat expectations surrounding the bank. Even with a $3.5 billion net profit. before Friday’s shock charges, Goldman Sachs has seen $10 Goldman had already been billion wiped from its market criticised for accepting a $10 value since the Securities and billion state bailout then paying Exchange Commission launched out billions of dollars in bonuses a $1 billion lawsuit against the to its employees. bank, alleging the bank and one Mr Blankfein said: “In light of of its vice presidents Fabrice recent events involving the firm, Tourre committed securities we appreciate the support of fraud. our clients and shareholders and Today, Britain’s FSA said that the dedication and commitment it has decided to start a “formal of our people”. enforcement investigation” into First quarter profit was up 91 Goldman Sachs International, its per cent, while revenue rose 36 London-based business, after an per cent, which Mr Blankfein initial review of the US case. said was a reflection of “signs of The bankers’ pay pool beats the growth across the economy” as start of last year, when average well as the strength of the remuneration for the first bank’s relationship with its quarter was $149,000. However, clients.

The bank was accused last Friday by the SEC of allowing Mr Tourre, 31, to mislead investors into buying toxic mortgage assets, in order to curry favour with a favoured hedge fund client, Paulson & Co. The allegations feed longrunning suspicions that the bank bet against its own clients on the collapse of the housing market. Goldman announced its figures as President Barack Obama prepared to come to New York on Thursday to press for reform of the financial sector. Goldman has vehemently denied the allegations. The bank today reported a 43 per cent year-on-year jump in net revenue from trading and principal investments to almost $10.2 billion, including a $510 million from investing with the bank’s own money. Revenue from investment banking was 44 per cent higher at almost $1.2 billion. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Erick Schonfeld (TechCrunch) Submitted at 4/20/2010 9:19:59 AM

The Location War going on right now has many fronts (Foursquare, Twitter, search, mobile), but it is being funded by one thing: convincing local businesses to spend money on online advertising. Google is escalating that war today by making a big push to become the de facto directory for local businesses on the Web. Its Local Business Center is being renamed Google Places and it is introducing a whole bunch of new features including local search and map listings, realtime updates, custom QR codes and coupons, and even photo shoots for businesses. While Geo startups like Foursquare, Gowalla, and even Twitter (and soon, Facebook?) are taking a social approach to local business listings, coupons, and offers, Google is approaching from the search side. One out of every five searches is location related, but local search still represents a relatively small portion of Google’s revenues. Google wants local businesses to claim ther Places pages (4 million have already done so), update

them and buy local search advertising. For $25 a month, local businesses can buy “tags” which will turn up their listings in local searches, including on Google maps. They can print out custom QR codes (2D barcodes) which are readable by cell phones with cameras and QR readers and will pop up a mobile version of their Google Place page or a mobile coupon. Businesses can also add realtime updates to their Places page (a feature that was switched on earlier this year), define the areas they serve, and even schedule a photo shoot for better pictures for their page. Google Places is designed for one-off searches, and is powerful as a search tool a far as it goes. What is missing, however, is the social aspect. Why can’t businesses add their Twitter streams or Facebook pages? How do they establish an ongoing online relationship with customers? The location war is far from over. CrunchBase Information Google Information provided by CrunchBase

Top News/ Technology/ Culture/

E-reader News Edition

Found 'iPhone 4G' a rare breach of Apple secrecy (The Christian Science Monitor) (Yahoo! News: Most Viewed)

Product announcements, too, occur within a controlled environment, away from the A next-generation Apple trade shows, at media events "iPhone 4G" prototype? Left on choreographed by CEO Steve the floor of northern California Jobs and designed to drum up bar? Traded, photographed, and maximum media hype. disassembled by tech gossip Even more firm: the iron grip sites for all the Web to see? It Apple keeps on unannounced sounds more Erin Brockovich products. than Apple. The iPad, out last month, was But that very storyline has reportedly kept under glass and played out over the last two bolted to a table so it wouldn't days, with the emergence of walk away while developers pictures and video of what is worked on it before its release. thought to be a preproduction When Gawker Media in January version of the world's most offered a $100,000 bounty for popular smart phone. What's e v i d e n c e o f t h e a s - y e t most surprising: that it's Apple unreleased Apple tablet(later at the center of this storm. revealed as the iPad), Apple was The company is famous for the quick to defend its intellectual control it exhibits. Its products, property, sending a cease-andthe iPod, iPad, and iPhone, are desist letter. walled gardens, relying on In perhaps the most extreme p r o p r i e t a r y s o f t w a r e a n d case of the company's culture of guarded by guidelines that at secrecy, last summer saw the times are accused of being apparent suicide of a worker for overreaching. Chinese iPhone manufacturer Submitted at 4/19/2010 6:13:54 PM

Foxconn after one of the iPhone prototypes he was tasked with sending to the US never arrived. So it was with shock and skepticism that tech watchers digested news of the discovery of what could be the next iPhone model. Spotting an Apple product in the wild before its release is so uncommon – and the market of spoofed photos so saturated – that initial reaction leaned toward the device pictured Saturday night on Engadget being a Chinese iPhone knock-off. But when rival site Gizmodo Monday morning posted more photos, video, and details of the device's innards, the clamor turned to how such a leak could happen – and whether the "lost" iPhone being passed around could be considered stolen. John Gruber, a seasoned Apple watcher who writes at Daringfireball.net, responded to reports that Gizmodo's parent

company, Gawker, paid for access to the iPhone prototype: "Consider that if the device was truly lost by mistake, [Gizmodo has] cost at least one person their career. And if the device was not lost but stolen… well, the story behind this unit is almost certainly more interesting than the device itself. And the device is fascinating." Gawker Editor Nick Denton, along with confirming that his company will engage in what he calls "checkbook journalism" – paying for exclusives – has promised a story on how Gizmodo came to acquire the device. youtube Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

PyDropboxPath Changes the Name of Your Dropbox Folder [Downloads] Kevin Purdy (Lifehacker) Submitted at 4/20/2010 5:00:00 AM

Windows/Mac/Linux: Dropbox lets you change the location of your automatic syncing folder, but doesn't let you change the name. For those hoping for a harmonious dual-boot system, or just fine-grained control, that's problematic. A tiny little app saves the day. More »

The greatest Apple product leaks of all time Sang Tang (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)) Submitted at 4/19/2010 10:30:00 PM

Filed under: Rumors, Cult of Mac There's been much buzz these past couple of days around the leaked images and videos of the

4th generation iPhone. Despite the current hubbub, secrecy is at the heart of the Apple ethos, and it serves two primary purposes: to protect trade secrets, and to create a buzz. When products leak, it's like finding out about your own surprise party. Most Hell hath no fury like Steve Jobs finding out about leaked of the fun is gone.

Apple products. Over the past decade, Steve has had many reasons to unleash his anger about leaked products; let's take a look at the rogue's gallery. TUAW The greatest Apple product leaks of all time originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog

(TUAW) on Mon, 19 Apr 2010 22:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

Technology/ Culture/

E-reader News Edition

SOME continued from page 11

flights from Asia to Frankfurt and London, as well as return flights to Asia, saying the situation was too uncertain to resume flights into Europe. Not everyone who wanted to could get on a flight Tuesday. Phil Livingstone, a university student from St. Helens, England spent three nights sleeping on chairs at Seoul's Incheon International Airport and living off noodles and the one meal a day authorities provided. "Hope is high at the minute just because it's the only thing we've got," he said. Some stranded passengers stuck stickers reading "Lost in Transit" to their chests. Europe's aviation industry— facing losses of more than $1 billion — has sharply criticized government handling of the disruption that grounded thousands of flights to and from the continent.

But the international pilots' federation said Tuesday that a return to flight operations in Europe will be possible only if the final decisions are left to the pilots themselves, and are based on safety concerns rather than economics. Gideon Ewers, spokesman of the London-based pilots group, says historical evidence of the effects of volcanic ash demonstrates that it presents a very real threat to flight safety. Ash and grit from volcanic eruptions can sabotage a plane in many ways, stalling engines, blocking fuel nozzles, and plugging the tubes that sense airspeed. Truck driver Mike Kelly, 62, and his wife Wendy, 60, of Somerset, England, decided to wait out the ash in Sydney, where their son lives, after being stuck at Singapore's Changi International Airport for five nights.

"We're heading back to Sydney today. We heard there might be another volcano explosion so we'd prefer to wait it out on a beach in Sydney," he said. ___ Kirka reported from London. Associated Press writers Slobodan Lekic in Brussels, Alex Kennedy in Singapore, Megan Scott in New York, Jay Alabaster and Malcolm Foster in Tokyo, Tanalee Smith in Adelaide, Australia, Bradley Klapper and Frank Jordans in Geneva and other AP reporters around the world contributed to this report. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Make Compound Butter for Easy Sauces and Appetizers [Food Hacks] Kevin Purdy (Lifehacker) Submitted at 4/20/2010 6:00:00 AM

When you've bought really good fish, meat, or bread, butter. Make it a compound sometimes all it needs is a little butter, flavored with herbs,

acids, or other seasonings, and dinner's all but done. It's more than just mashing in garlic, though. More »

Microsoft's New Platform: Politics Curt Hopkins (ReadWriteWeb) Submitted at 4/19/2010 11:00:00 PM

Today at the Politics Online Conference, Microsoft unveiled a new crowdsourcing system hosted on Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Town Hall. TownHall is advertised as "software that allows you to easily create a destination for folks to voice opinions, identify problems, offer solutions and come together around common interests and concerns." Sponsor TownHall focuses on "rich engagement" in the political sphere, aimed at candidates and politicians as well as political interest groups. It allows for the creation of a social media-rich site that runs across platforms and provides methods for gathering information as well as expressing opinions, by furnishing architecture where visitors can make queries, vote on issues, posit and respond, and create community conversation. TownHall is currently available only for the PC. In the coming months, Microsoft intends to

provide TownHall clients for the iPhone, the iPad, Google Android and Windows Phone 7. The software for TownHall can be downloaded free of charge. Users pay to host their site on Windows Azure, Microsoft's cloud computing program. TownHall is just a part of a new Microsoft Initiative called Campaign Ready. The power of social media - the electronic version of listening to what the voters say - started with Howard Dean's abortive bid for the White House in 2004 and came to full fruition with Barack Obama's successful one. Subsequent to his election, Obama has shepherded through a series of open government initiatives, which require federal government agencies to seek transparent avenues toward public engagement. Microsoft has posted more Town Hall screenshots on Flickr. Discuss

News Wire/

E-reader News Edition

Few flights resume in Europe, new ash cloud reported (Reuters: Top News)

Commission Helen Kearns told a briefing. "We are faced with an LONDON(Reuters) - European unprecedented crisis. The airports slowly started to return disruption will continue over the to life on Tuesday after five week." days cut off from the world due Germany said it would maintain to a huge ash cloud, but some its no-fly zone until 1800 GMT, airspace stayed closed after with exceptions. Finland and reports a new plume from parts of Sweden and Norway Iceland may be on its way. Italy, were also closed. S w i t z e r l a n d a n d F r a n c e But some airlines were taking reopened their airports early on advantage of the exceptions to Tuesday though many flights fly. Flag carrier Lufthansa, for remained canceled, and in Italy example, was flying on sight, only a handful took off in the which does not require air traffic morning, mainly domestic control approval, to destinations flights. Hungary, Slovenia and like Seoul, New York and Moldova also resumed flights. Lagos. World "We are operating about 200 But Britain's National Air flights today. That is the bulk of Traffic Service, which controls our long-haul flights, and UK airspace, said much of domestic and European routes Britain's airspace would remain are significantly expanded closed to flights below 20,000 today," said spokeswoman feet until 1800 GMT at the Claudia Lange. earliest after air traffic Under Monday's EU controllers warned a new ash agreement, which followed cloud was headed for major air enormous pressure from airlines routes. losing an estimated $250 million It said it would make another a day, flights may be permitted statement around 1400 GMT. i n a r e a s w i t h a l o w e r The European Union, which concentration of ash, subject to announced on Monday that its local assessments and scientific members had reached a deal to advice. reduce the size of the no-fly But exactly how national z o n e f r o m 0 6 0 0 G M T o n authorities would split European Tuesday, acknowledged that airspace into areas where progress was slow. aircraft could fly or not was not "We know there are still a lot of clear, and many countries were problems for passengers on the adopting a cautious approach. ground," spokeswoman for the Poland, which had reopened e x e c u t i v e E u r o p e a n four airports on Monday, closed Submitted at 4/20/2010 8:37:47 AM

them again on Tuesday, as well as shutting the northern part of its airspace to transit flights. A handful of flights took off from Scottish airports after the restrictions were eased. However, a Glasgow airport spokesman said it would close from 1200 GMT until further notice because of the spreading ash cloud. "It's really just Scottish domestic flights, maybe a couple of international ones, there's one going to Iceland -- yes, it's ironic, isn't it?" said Glasgow airport information officer Steven Boyle. MAKING THE BEST OF IT The unprecedented disaster has stranded millions of people at the end of the busy Easter holiday season and one analyst estimated it could end up costing global passenger airlines and cargo companies as much as $3 billion. Many travellers have spent the past five days desperately trying to get home for school or work by road, rail and sea. British businessman Chris Thomas, trying to get home from Los Angeles since Thursday, flew to Mexico City and then aimed to fly to Madrid and spend $2,000 to rent a car for the 14-hour drive to Paris. He was booked on the Eurostar Channel tunnel train to London, and then planned to drive four hours to Wales. "It's all a bit crazy but you have

to err on the side of caution," Thomas said. "Nobody wants to be on the first plane to go down in a volcanic cloud." Gillian and Craig Robertson from Kilmarnoch in Scotland were stranded in southern Turkey with their four-year-old son Jack and would likely miss a family wedding. Robertson said he feared for his family-run business. "We're in construction -housebuilding," he told Reuters. "So we've already been hit hard by the recession. With this on top, it's dreadful. This is sink or swim for us." Others were making the best of a bad business. "There are much worse places than that to be stuck so we had a pretty good time," said a visitor to Paris who only gave his name as Gabriel. He arrived last Tuesday and was supposed to fly back to New York on Friday. "Not knowing when you would get back, that was a problem," he said at Orly airport. "Otherwise we made the best of it, had great food and great wine." Britain was deploying three navy ships, including an aircraft carrier, to bring its citizens home from continental Europe. The British travel agents' association ABTA estimated 150,000 Britons were stranded abroad. Washington said it was trying to help 40,000 Americans stuck in Britain.

A British embassy official said on Tuesday the HMS Albion was in the northern Spanish port of Santander where it would collect 450 British soldiers and around 250 British nationals. MORE ASH ON ITS WAY? Britain's NATS said in an overnight statement that the volcano eruption was strengthening and a new ash cloud was spreading south and east toward Britain. "This demonstrates the dynamic and rapidly changing conditions in which we are working," it said. The meteorological office in Iceland said although the volcano was still erupting steadily under the Eyjafjallajokull glacier about 120 km (75 miles) southeast of the capital Reykjavik, it was actually emitting less ash and more lava than previously, creating a lower cloud. The office's Gudrun Nina Peterson said the ash heading toward Britain had probably been spewed out before conditions changed. "If there has been ash detected over England today or during the night that is going to be from about 24 hours earlier. This is not an instant thing," she said. Experts disagree over how to measure the ash and who should decide it is safe to fly. A British Airways jet lost power in all FEW page 19

News Wire/ Culture/

E-reader News Edition

Obama predicts tough fight for Dems in November poll (Reuters: Top News)

However, he predicted a "big battle" in getting the bill passed. Republicans in the Senate LOS ANGELES(Reuters) - unanimously oppose it, saying it U.S. President Barack Obama will lead to more taxpayeracknowledged on Monday that funded bailouts of financial Democrats face a hard fight in f i r m s , a c h a r g e O b a m a holding on to their majorities in d i s m i s s e d a s f a l s e . Congress in the November Obama heads to New York on election because of uncertainty T h u r s d a y t o r e i t e r a t e t h e over the economy. importance of financial Barack Obama regulatory reform and will call "November is going to be tough. for swift passage of the bill in It is always a tough race if the Senate, the White House you're the incumbent in this said in a statement. kind of economic environment. The California fund-raising trip Even though it is picking up, was part of a stepped-up effort people are still hurting," Obama b y O b a m a t o s w e l l t h e said on a campaign jaunt to raise Democratic Party's war chest money for California Senator b e f o r e t h e c o n g r e s s i o n a l Barbara Boxer, an ally who is in election, in which a newly a tight race for re-election. energized Republican Party Obama renewed his attack on hopes to loosen the Democrats' Wall Street practices that grip on the Senate and House of triggered the financial crisis that Representatives. p u s h e d t h e c o u n t r y i n t o As the election approaches, recession and again vowed to Obama will have to balance an push financial regulatory reform already full domestic and through Congress within weeks. foreign agenda with his role as "The notion that we would stick fundraiser-in-chief to help with the status quo that created a v u l n e r a b l e D e m o c r a t i c situation in which Wall Street lawmakers who fear being could gamble with somebody punished by voters still skeptical e l s e ' s m o n e y " a n d m a k e about his healthcare overhaul taxpayers pick up the cost a n d w o r r i e d a b o u t h i g h "makes absolutely no sense," he u n e m p l o y m e n t . said. With polls showing the Submitted at 4/20/2010 12:23:30 AM

economy as the No. 1 concern for voters, Democrats will likely emphasize the steps Obama has taken to restore growth, while Republicans will focus on the country's huge budget deficit and the lack of jobs. OBAMA HECKLED Boxer, a three-term senator and chairman of the Senate's environmental committee, faces several wealthy Republican challengers, including former Hewlett-Packard chief Carly Fiorina and former congressman Tom Campbell. Political analyst Jennifer Duffy of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report said Boxer was "not in solid shape" and was facing the same sort of antiincumbent fervor that candidates in other parts of the country are encountering. All 435 House seats and onethird of the 100-seat Senate are up for election in November, with Democrats holding a wide majority in each chamber. The nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks money in U.S. politics, says its conservative estimate is that the November elections may cost more than $3.7 billion. It says Democrats received about 57 percent of all campaign

donations in the current election cycle as of December 31. The Democratic National Committee expected to raise up to $3.5 million at the three fundraising events attended by Obama in Los Angeles. The money is to be shared between Boxer and the party, a DNC official said. During a speech at one of the events, Obama was repeatedly heckled by a group of protesters calling on him to repeal "don't ask, don't tell." "We are going do that" he said in an apparent reference to his intention to repeal a policy that allows gays to serve in the military only if they keep their sexual identity secret. He looked visibly agitated when the heckling continued. Angry supporters chanted his 2008 campaign slogan "Yes we can" to drown out the protesters. (Additional reporting by Steve Holland and Joanne Allen in Washington, editing by Chris Wilson and Vicki Allen) Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Turn Remember The Milk into a Getting Things Done Platform [Remember The Milk] Jason Fitzpatrick (Lifehacker) Submitted at 4/20/2010 6:30:00 AM

If you're a big fan of Remember the Milk for basic to-do lists and location-aware reminders, you'll be pleased to see how easily you can tweak it to contain your entire GTD workflow. More Âť

Strong Goldman Sachs earnings overshadow UK probe (Reuters: Top News) Submitted at 4/20/2010 8:46:35 AM

N E W YORK/LONDON(Reuters) Goldman Sachs Group Inc reported stunningly strong quarterly earnings on Tuesday, overshadowing British financial regulators' move to follow their U.S. counterparts in pursuing civil fraud allegations against the dominant Wall Street bank. Deals Goldman's results came four STRONG page 18

TV/ Featured/

E-reader News Edition

STRONG continued from page 17

days after the firm was accused of fraud by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in the structuring and marketing of a debt product tied to subprime mortgages. "On the face of it, Goldman's numbers are pretty good, which they do time and time again," said David Morrison, market strategist for GFT Global Markets in London. "Investors will want to focus on the blowout numbers, but the news the FSA is also probing the firm takes some of the shine off." Goldman said net income nearly doubled to $3.29 billion, bolstered by big gains in trading and debt and equity underwriting. The earnings of $5.59 a share beat analysts' average forecast $4.01 per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. The bank reported its lowestever first-quarter compensation ratio, but it still set aside $5.5 billion for compensation and benefits in the period. Goldman shares rose 1.8 percent to $166.21 in early

trading. The cost of insuring against potential default on the bank's bonds fell. Goldman emerged as Wall Street's most influential bank after the financial crisis but has faced a backlash over its pay and business practices. The bank's co-general counsel, Greg Palm, launched a rebuttal of the SEC charges during the bank's earnings conference call. Palm said the firm was "very disappointed" that the SEC had brought charges and insisted that Goldman "would never mislead anyone." He also said investors who lost money on the subprime mortgage product that is the focus of the SEC suit had a wealth of experience and background in such deals. Amid speculation that the controversy could cost Goldman some customers, Chief Financial Officer David Viniar insisted that most remain loyal. "We are out talking to our clients," he told analysts on the conference call. "You can see from our results last quarter that

our clients still support us." 'RECKLESSNESS AND GREED' Goldman's forecast-beating earnings came as Britain's Financial Services Authority (FSA) said it had started a formal investigation into Goldman Sachs International in relation to the SEC allegations. FSA said it would work closely with its U.S. counterpart. UK Business Secretary Peter Mandelson said on BBC Radio, "We have got to look at the whole system of constituting and regulating banks. We need a system of regulation, a system of levying banks, which is internationally applied." Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrats, the UK's third-largest party, said the allegations against Goldman "are a reminder, if we needed one, of the recklessness and greed that disfigured the banking industry as a whole." In the United States, political tensions were heightened by reports that the five SEC commissioners split along

political lines last week in a vote on whether to file suit against Goldman. The three Democrats voted in favor of the legal action, while the two Republicans opposed it, according to press reports. "I have my doubts about this attack on Goldman Sachs, for the simple reason that with two members of the SEC clearly against the indictment, it doesn't make (SEC Chairman) Mary Schapiro's job any easier," said David Buik, senior partner with BGC Partners in London. (Writing by Christian Plumb; Additional reporting by Douwe Miedema and Jon Hopkins in London; editing by John Wallace) Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

What comes after location? (Scripting News) Submitted at 4/20/2010 8:44:24 AM

This kept happening on my road trip. I would ask about nearby Starbucks so I could get online and my Droid would tell me about locations that were either off my path or where I had come from. So it's not just a matter of where I am, it's where I'm going. Location-awareness leads to vector-awareness. I know where you are and I know where you're going. Don't tell me about Starbucks that are west of here if I'm headed east.

'House' - 'Knight Fall' Recap Danny Gallagher (TV Squad) Submitted at 4/20/2010 7:50:00 AM

(S06E17) "If you force him to choose, you might not like the answer." - Cuddy's advice to House on how to handle Wilson reconnecting with his first wife

One of the hardest things for a long running show to do is keeping the audience guessing. That's not normally a problem for'House,' a show that throws around more 15-letter medical words and scientific terms than a'NOVA' marathon.

Unpredictability is harder to

pull off than it sounds. One wrong twist and an entire promising plot is sent off to into a ridiculous death spiral more ludicrous than a "the whole thing was just a dream" plotline. 'House' had two good plotlines and both of them stayed within

the boundaries of believability. Continue reading'House' 'Knight Fall' Recap Filed under: House, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free Permalink| Email this| | Comments

Technology/ Politics/

E-reader News Edition

FEW continued from page 16

four engines after flying through an ash cloud above the Indian Ocean in 1982. Several airlines were conducting test flights on Tuesday to gather details and data. European planemaker Airbus said it took advantage of scheduled test flights to check for the impact of ash on Monday and found nothing abnormal. IATA officials said the economic impact on aviation of the disaster, which cut flights on Monday to an estimated third of normal volume on Monday, was greater than after the September 11 attacks on the United States. Firms dependent on fast air

freight have been feeling the strain. South Korea's Incheon International Airport, the world's fourth-busiest cargo handler in 2008, suffered 3,216 tonnes of lost shipments to Europe from April 16-19, the country's customs agency said. Twenty inbound and 25 outbound cargo flights had been canceled. Among those suffering were computer chip and electronics suppliers such as Samsung Electronics and Hynix Semiconductor. Kenya's flower exporters, which account for a third of EU imports, said they were losing

up to $2 million a day. Businesses have had to find alternative ways of operating. Communications provider Cisco Systems said companies were turning to videoconferencing to connect executives. (Additional reporting by European and Asian bureaux; Writing by Sonya Hepinstall; Editing by Dominic Evans) Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Rahm Emanuel Wants To Be Chicago's Mayor (Newsmax - Inside Cover)

of mine, even when I was in the House of Representatives." Emanuel said he missed the White House chief of staff regular contact he had with Rahm Emanuel wants to be the constituents as a representative mayor of Chicago, according to of Illinois 5th District. "You a report in the Chicago Tribune. learned a lot," he told Rose. "I hope Mayor [Richard] Daley To read the full Chicago seeks re-election. I will work Tribune report Go Here Now. and support him if he seeks re- ÂŠ All Rights Reserved. election," Emanuel told Charlie Five Filters featured article: Rose on his PBS talk show. Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: "But if Mayor Daley doesn't, PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, one day I would like to run for Term Extraction. mayor of the city of Chicago. That's always been an aspiration Submitted at 4/20/2010 4:42:33 AM

Peppermint: A New Linux OS for the Cloud Sarah Perez (ReadWriteWeb)

numbers of software packages and reading wikis all Saturday afternoon," reads the product Peppermint, a new Linux-based homepage. Instead, users will operating system with a focus run web apps in their own on cloud computing and web windows via Mozilla's Prism applications, is launching into a technology. private beta this week to a Sponsor limited number of participants, The idea for a Linux-based and will open up later next cloud operating system isn't month to even more. The OS is anything new. Numerous builds, a fork of Lubuntu and uses some including popular consumerof Linux Mint's configuration targeted brands like Jolicloud, f i l e s , h e n c e t h e n a m e gOS and even Google's Chrome "Peppermint." Unlike desktop- OS, are based on Linux kernels. focused Linux distributions, What's fun, though, is seeing r u n n i n g a p p l i c a t i o n s o n how each flavor interprets what Peppermint w o n ' t Linux cloud computing should require"installing countless look like. Submitted at 4/20/2010 10:02:20 AM

In Peppermint's case, the vision is more of a mashup of cloud computing and desktop computing than the others mentioned above. Its desktop environment is LXDE, an environment designed for cloud computing and lightweight

computers like netbooks and MIDs (mobile Internet devices). Also included in Peppermint's plans is the use of Mozilla Prism, a technology which runs web apps as if they were native desktop software applications. A project from Mozilla Labs, Prism blurs the line between desktop and cloud as apps can run from a system taskbar or dock and they can even be configured to display alerts and status messages. The Peppermint distro is being developed by Kendall Weaver, the maintainer for the Linux Mint Fluxbox and LXDE Editions, and Shane Remington,

who works alongside Weaver as a developer at their day job at Astral IX Media in Asheville, N.C. There isn't much additional information about Peppermint at this time, and since it's in a closed beta right now, we can't get our hands on it yet. But those who are interested can follow the official Peppermint Twitter account or Facebook page to stay tuned for more details as to its public availability. (Hat tip: ResearchBuzz) Discuss

Technology/

E-reader News Edition

Friends vs. Strangers: What’s Next for Foursquare? And ChatRoulette? Arden Pennell (TechCrunch)

minute, right here. Early-bird discount runs to April 30.) Also on hand at Disrupt will be The recent chatter about a Gowalla CEO Josh Williams, possible FourHoo / YaSquare whose service fits the trend deal notwithstanding, there’s i g n i t e d b y t h a t H a r v a r d another nagging question these undergrad in 2004: to see the days: is foursquare a fun Web not as a formless mass of diversion, or could it deeply strangers but rather as a comfy impact users? How will being room of people with things in Mayor of TechCrunch impact common. To connect people deals local merchants offer me? b a s e d o n i n t e r e s t s ( a n d Or how I talk to friends? Will location), to build loyalty and the marriage of mobile and relationships. social Web truly affect where I Fair enough. But one could also go, what I buy, who I know, be a contrarian and argue that and, uh, everything? Or are we the random Web is making a actually moving towards c o m e b a c k . E x h i b i t # 1 : s e r v i c e s t h a t e m b r a c e ChatRoulette’s absurdityrandomness, strangers, and the p o w e r e d p o p u l a r i t y , t h e g e n e r a l w e i r d n e s s o f t h e responsibility-free voyeurism Internet, after a sunny stay in users just can’t turn away from. Facebook-powered friendland? T e e n a g e f o u n d e r A n d r e y Is the future a walk through a Ternovskiy says he has plans to socialized world of augmented add social features. Oh, really? reality, or a stranger-fest a-la Isn’t the point that I’m not ChatRoulette? And who’s going friends with any of these to make money off of all this? p e o p l e ? T e r n o v s k i y – y o u We will explore these questions guessed it! –will be speaking at at Disrupt, our media and Disrupt. technology conference May 24- We’ve invited Ternovskiy not 26 in NYC. only to discuss ChatRoulette’s Disrupt’s speakers include anonymous thrills, however. f o u r s q u a r e C E O D e n n i s We’re more interested in the Crowley and other innovators future of online audiences, and disrupting behaviors and getting what technologists will do with venture investors excited. (And the huge traffic they’ve created. I’d be lying if I said the purpose That’s why we’re also happy to of this post weren’t to convince announce angel funder and you to buy tickets, this very DailyBooth CEO Brian Pokorny Submitted at 4/20/2010 8:58:15 AM

is speaking at Disrupt. DailyBooth, along with Twitter, was a platform and catalyst for the U.N.’s recent anti-malaria campaign. Users wrote “end malaria” on hands and arms and friends picked it up and did the same. DailyBooth represents a middle ground between the two poles discussed above: the friend-Web and weirdo-Web. You may “follow” the photo streams of plenty of “friends,” but they may be friends about whom you know little. As with Twitter, the relationship is as low-commitment as one would like. So, how will Pokorny and investors make money off these anti-malarial warriors–and can they work with premiumcontent folks and brands that call Madison Avenue home? Find out at Disrupt. Frank Quattrone is also speaking at Disrupt. It seems there isn’t an influential tech company whom Quattrone hasn’t advised, taken public, or both, including Apple, Google, Amazon.com, Cisco, and others. We’re looking forward to hearing his thoughts on what’s

Previously, he co-founded Dodgeball, a network of the same nature which sold to Google in 2005. He has been named one of the “Top 35 Innovators Under 35” by MIT’s Technology Review magazine going on now. See downpage (2005) and has won the “Fast Money” bonus round on the TV for more details on him. We are grateful to Disrupt’s game show Family Feud (2009). sponsors, who enable us to His work has appeared in The make it happen. Yahoo is a New York Times, The Wall partner. Zoosk is hosting a Street Journal, Wired, Time party, a live match-making Magazine, Newsweek, MTV, event for VCs and attending Slashdot and NBC. He is startups, during Disrupt on currently an Adjunct Professor Tuesday night. SecondMarket a t N Y U ’ s I n t e r a c t i v e will be providing secondary- Telecommunications Program. Brian Pokorny, CEO, market info and hosting a voting D ailyBooth app for our audience using In March 2010 Brian Pokorny virtual company stock. We’re happy to count Inuit, became the CEO of Dailybooth. SCVNGR, and theladders.com Brian Pokorny was previously a as product sponsors. SCVNGR general partner at SV Angel, is making Disrupt more fun with where he focused on consumera check-in app for our Startup Internet investments including Alley that will help tabulate within social media, mobile, and p o p u l a r i t y a m o n g t h o s e real-time data companies. Brian exhibitors. (Are you a young is an angel investor in Twitter, startup looking for visibility? OMGPOP, Square, Tweetdeck, More info on exhibiting in Dailybooth, Bump, Blippy, Startup Alley is here.) Mojiva, Milo, Posterous, Chomp and has DeHood, Fuze Box and Zong advisory positions with Ooyala, are exhibit sponsors. And Spotzer, Stitcher, and Rupture. Prior to SV Angel, he was a there’s more TBD. Dennis Crowley, Co-founder, founding team member and partner at Baseline Ventures, a foursquare Dennis Crowley is a co-founder leading seed-stage investment of Foursquare, a location-based FRIENDS page 27 social networking service.

Technology/

E-reader News Edition

Swinging for a home run in green tech (Q&A) (CNET News.com) Submitted at 4/20/2010 6:00:00 AM

Green tech is growing up. Billions of dollars have been poured into green-tech start-ups over the past eight years, but now promising young companies--and their investors-are looking to transform into durable, profitable enterprises. A number of companies in green tech plan to go public this year, which would allow them to raise money and to scale up their commercial operations. How well they do this year could go a long way in determining how investors view the entire sector. Stephan Dolezalek, VantagePoint Venture Partners One company that's deeply invested in the success of green tech is venture-capital company VantagePoint Venture Partners. Its portfolio has a number of advanced and well known green businesses, including electric carmaker Tesla Motors, electric car services company Better Place, solar power plant producer BrightSource Energy, thin-film solar company Miasole, and LED lighting chip maker Bridgelux. If the companies seeking to go public, such as Tesla Motors, deliver solid financial returns, funding will flow to others. For consumers, their success in scaling up will help bring green technologies home to

consumers, whether it's lesspolluting cars, solar power, or efficient appliances. Stephan Dolezalek, who heads up VantagePoint's Clean Tech Practice, doesn't know which one of his company's picks will deliver a home run. But he has a good grip on the factors at play, and how the technology, the financing, and the policy picture is different from IT. At the ARPA-E Summit in March, I sat down with him to take the pulse of venture-backed clean-energy businesses. Q: There's a lot of attention on the first clean-tech companies seeking to go public because they could set the mood toward companies in the sector. You were on a panel where people worried out loud about a bubble forming. Are they jumping the gun? Dolezalek: A lot of these companies have more meaningful products and technologies that what we saw in the (Internet bubble) of the 1990s. Tesla has real revenues, a real product. Now, it's going to work on a new product--a fourdoor sedan--so yes, there's some technology risk in this model. But that's no different than the risks of any car manufacturer. So I think as a category, in a lot of ways, the risks are lower because companies have more meaningful products and technologies than lot of what we saw in the 1990s.

done some amazing thing, Tesla by itself--you couldn't have made it believable in 2004 and 2005. Change is actually happening way faster than anyone on the incumbent side said. There are ongoing questions whether tech-oriented venture capitalists are a good fit for energy businesses given that they require more money than Internet or software. Do you think the venture model has to change to fit clean tech? Dolezalek: I think it does need to change. We look at the venture model for life sciences and it never worked all that well...Then people have said the venture model (overall) is dead. If you want to graft the model used for software and the Internet, well, yeah, that's The question is what should the broken. Is the concept of valuations be. Having any of financing innovation dead? these worth more than a billion Absolutely not. So it's all about dollars, seems bubble-like. fitting the needs for the kinds of Well, what are you comparing companies we are funding. to? Companies in IT? A billion So what has to change? dollars seems high. But as Dolezalek: If you talked to a (energy companies), they are venture capitalist in 1980, they'd addressing a market that's 10 say they were a technology times as large. investor and a single guy would The jury is still out. I think do life sciences, we're overly bubble conscious. semiconductors, and software When we first started doing this deals. In 2000 or 2005, a person in 2000 and 2001, everyone would say clean tech. Within the said, "You techies, don't even next five years, people will say think about changing energy as I'm a solar guy, or lighting, or fast as you did IT. It's a 100electric transport. We're going year (technology) change to get the same specialization. cycle." Eight years later, we've Some early energy companies

have gone public and many more are lining up to go public. Are the returns attractive? Dolezalek: We're still too early to know what these companies will be worth in the long run. If you take a look at First Solar, where it was trading a year and a half go, that's a good ratio. If you look at (battery maker) A123 Systems, that's OK, not great. The other question is how many can you build. We built a ton of solar companies. If you put $5 million into Internet companies and 90 percent of them fail, I can live with that. But if solar companies have $200 million in and fail at that same rate, that doesn't work. So you can't do "spray and pray." We spent much more time and picked one company in every sector (of clean tech). It seems as if you're almost counting on government funding as part of how you grow these companies. BrightSource and Tesla both got big loan guarantees. Dolezalek: Yeah, but that's not fair because we certainly weren't counting on that when we got started. In every one of those cases, it was founded under the notion that could stand on own two feet. There is a backdrop of infrastructure that needs to be put in place. The government has always SWINGING page 25

Technology/

E-reader News Edition

Thoughts From the Man Who Would Sell The World, Nicely Marshall Kirkpatrick (ReadWriteWeb) Submitted at 4/20/2010 12:05:30 AM

"My background is in Artificial Intelligence and my last business was building predictive data. Most of our customers were oil companies, and you can hold that against me if you like. But my pitch back then was 'just give me enough data, I'll figure out something.' And often enough I did figure out something." That's how Houston-based 80Legs CEO Shion Deysarkar describes his background. Tonight his web-crawling-as-aservice company will put up for sale tens of millions of data points extracted from public social networks and other websites. He says it's only a matter of time until everyone's doing it and he wants to be one of the good guys. "You can figure something out from just about anything," he says. That's the kind of geek Shion Deysarkar is. Sponsor Starting at $350 per month, 80Legs customers can now purchase 10 to 20 million monthly user profiles from LinkedIn, MySpace and some other social networks. Facebook and Twitter are not included, but there are a variety of other data sets from places like retail websites available as well.

I've bet Deysarkar a beer that LinkedIn isn't going to put up with this, but he says 80Legs has been crawling them extensively for quite a while and would have stopped them if they wanted to. We'll see. 80Legs launched at DEMO last fall and has been on our radar since last Spring. Its core product is crawling the web for a small fee - to index whatever its customers want. As Sarah Perez wrote in September: What 80Legs does is no easy feat. It provides its users a service which offers up 50,000 computers which can crawl up to 2 billion web pages per day. Yes, it's like having your own little search engine that you can rent for a small fee. How small? 80Legs is about 50% less expensive than any other competitive service out there. Tonight it's putting up for sale some pre-configured crawls, in hopes to reach a new market of people for whom the core service is too complicated. Either way, Shion Deysarkar may be a man from the future. We're watching closely the slow opening of aggregate social network user data for bulk analaysis and innovation. It's a hotly contested area. Here's what Deysarkar thinks about four of the biggest questions in this area today. On The SlapDown of Nice Facebook Data Harvesters Academic and innovation-

out - presuming it's a screaming privacy violation. Might that ever change? Deysarkar thinks so, perhaps too optimistically."Going forward, the end user will hopefully understand that people are creating services that will benefit them. If I take a couple of actions and I see it benefits me that's hopeful. The challenge is that people have to understand that it came from aggregation. The more people that are making a case and building things around it, the better. minded researchers are "If you look at social harvesting large quantities of n e t w o r k i n g , q u i t e o f t e n public Facebook user profile c o n n e c t i o n s a r e m a d e i n data, only to be threatened by unintuitive ways. Obviously Facebook's legal department. market researchers can take Pete Warden is the best known advantage of that, but it can also example and one that Deysarkar help people connect with that called "a shame." The people we couldn't otherwise. using that data are not doing "At the end of the day, it's going anything that's shady or wrong. to happen. Sites are going to They are trying to make new fight it, but that data is going to value on top of that data. In become available. Wherever ways that Facebook or whoever there is value to be had, people is not doing. Facebook is in the are going to go for that value." business of bringing people to On the Black Market for Social their site, they aren't leveraging Networking Data that data for other things, and One of our arguements has there is many things they'll been that Facebook and other never use data for. No harm is networks should open up access being done to Facebook. What to their public user data for would help them would be to aggregate analysis because the become a data standard. As bad guys who want to do bad long as people are adding value things with it already are, t h e n i t ' s g o o d . O n U s e r s through the black market. Approving of Data Aggregation Meanwhile, positive uses of data Say "aggregate user data a n a l y s i s a r e p r o h i b i t e d . analysis" and most people freak Deysarkar confirms again that

the black market is real."Companies should want to work with us because we're above board. The black market definitely exists. We have heard about it from some of our potential customers, who have asked about things we wouldn't do. They just say, 'we can get it through other ways.' Things like wanting a crawler to log-in and get private data. It's too bad that exists." On the Still Infant Market for Good User Data 80Legs is cool. It's a crawler-as -a-service. Pete Warden, one of our Big Data favorites, uses and endorses it. But it's also a little complicated, especially because it's like selling potential. It sells data that you then have to derive value from, it doesn't deliver value directly in ways people are familiar with. The Economist's Special Report on Big Data last month argued that data was a key new form of economic input, on par with land, labor and capital. Deysarkar says he agrees with that, "it is definitely a unit of value," but also admits that too few people get it yet."We do have customers who are using 80legs the way we intended, we have a decent set of customers. But we know that there is a whole other set of customers who are intimidated because it is a bit technical now. These preconfigured crawls we're now THOUGHTS page 23

Technology/

E-reader News Edition

If Location Apps are Games, How's the Gameplay? Curt Hopkins (ReadWriteWeb)

Community Manager for The Great Game Experiment. "They hit the part of the brain dealing One of the motifs you keep with achievement and reward to coming across when reading get more desirable results. I about Foursquare and Gowalla, think Foursquare is more a game the mobile location apps, is that in this sense. If you want to they are games, and the games i n c e n t i v i z e c u s t o m e r s , are fun. videogame or not, give them The most important thing when something to shoot for." it comes to gaming is the most "The game mechanics are subjective, whether the players designed to lead people through are having fun. But it's not the the experience of using the whole story. Were these apps product," said Dennis Crowley, structured to have gameplay, a co-founder of Foursquare. In through-line with obstacles and other words, gameplay is not in rewards? Are Foursquare and service to the game, but in Gowalla, and apps like them, service to the product. games by design? And if so, is "The 'game' for me is to see if I the gameplay good? can get a response or, even Sponsor better, a perk out if it," Klavars, If you're unfamiliar with the a Foursquare user, Tweeted. applications, users visit various Although there is currently no real-world locations and check reward, other than regard among in via mobile device. On the Foursquare community, Foursquare, they score "badges" presumably, some venues offer for visits and, if they've visited a specials to Foursquare users. given location more than any Gowalla differs in some other place, they become the i m p o r t a n t r e s p e c t s f r o m "Mayor" of that locale. Foursquare. Gowalla uses a "Parents often make chores a series of icon-based rewards game to get their kids to do called stamps. Given that them," said Dylan Romero, Gowalla was born from a design Submitted at 4/19/2010 10:45:00 PM

THOUGHTS continued from page 22

selling still fit into the big picture, but the whole data market is not well defined. There isn't a rich enough ecosystem of companies using the data, that's the market we'd like to serve, but it's still being

formed right now." What do you think? Is 80Legs just a little ahead of its time? A lot? Totally crazy and wrong? We would love for you to share your thoughts on these matters in comments below. Discuss

Gowalla," he told us, "we view it first and foremost as a social networking service." "The iconic items are a bit of an experiment for us. Can we lay a company, it's no surprise that transient piece of data across the the symbols are very attractive. service and allow people to Likewise its "items." Locations interact with it by moving it are sometimes tied to items that from place to place, attaching show up when you've checked meta-data to it (like a digital in. You can hold the items or message in a bottle), or even drop them off elsewhere, which attaching real world value to it, means a given place may have as in the case of the NBA tickets m o r e i t e m s t h a n i t h a d given away to a Nets basketball originally. The scoring of these game last week. They're simply items seems more traditionally another way to interact with the game-oriented than Foursquare's world around you." simple badges. Gowalla also has Gowalla requires GPS and the equivalent of badges in its that's how a user checks in. pins which can be strung Foursquare only requires you together into itineraries for enter the address, which has led to cheating. However, gaming is trips.gowallaferry.png Gowalla also has the equivalent not just in the rules but in the of badges in its pins which can expectations. With Foursquare, b e s t r u n g t o g e t h e r i n t o the unwritten expectation is that if you check in at a place, you itineraries for trips. H o w e v e r , a c c o r d i n g t o will be there for some time. Gowalla's Josh Williams, the Here the location app aspect of company doesn't see it as a F o u r s q u a r e c r e a t e s a n expectation in its gameplay. On game at all. "While there is certainly an G o w a l l a i t i s p e r f e c t l y element of entertainment and acceptable to check in to a place fun to be had while using you can't really stay, like a

landmark. It seems, then, that neither company has consciously designed their services to be games. But much in the same way that a kid finds a baseball diamond in a clearing in the woods, perhaps the users are the ones who've identified and acted upon, the latent gameplay. Because although Foursquare and Gowalla may not be games, there is a game that is being played with them. Gowalla, in requiring GPS and requiring no any real relationship to the place, might be less appealing on the location side of things. Playing Foursquare is also arguably simpler, and therefor more appealing to more people. I think it's fair to say that people with higher gameplay expectations will probably find Gowalla more appealing, regardless of creator intent. People who want quick fun with more of a social aspect may favor Foursquare. Discuss

Technology/ Business/

E-reader News Edition

Measuring The Value Of Social Media Advertising Robin Wauters (TechCrunch) Submitted at 4/20/2010 8:35:16 AM

Nielsen and Facebook recently joined forces to develop ad effectiveness solutions to determine consumer attitudes, brand perception and purchase intent from social media advertising. Perhaps unsurprisingly, immediately after the two companies announced their strategic love affair, Nielsen started publishing glowing reports about Facebook and how much time people are spending on social networks in general. Today, the companies are releasing the first insights from their alliance on the effectiveness of brand advertising on social networks, and lo and behold: the takeaway conclusion is that apparently, Facebook ads work well in terms of campaign effectiveness. Note that we’re not saying the report is bogus, but it’s something to keep in mind if you decide to download it for yourself. (On a sidenote: are you a fan of TechCrunch on Facebook

already?) According to Nielsen, the report leverages six months of research consisting of surveys of more than 800,000 Facebook users and more than 125 individual Facebook ad campaigns from some 70 brand advertisers. Nielsen looks at advertising from a “paid” and “earned” media perspective, whereby the second is considered advertising that is passed along to or shared among friends. The company took a look at 14 Facebook ad campaigns that incorporated the “Become A Fan” engagement unit and sliced the effectiveness results three different ways, by each of the types of ads available on Facebook: 1) Lift from a standard “Homepage Ad”

homepage ads vs. non-viewers but went up 8% either from social ads or when ads appeared alongside organic mentions of the brand in the news feed. Brand awareness went up 2% from just a homepage ad, 8% with a social ad and 13% when a homepage ad appeared along with a mention of friends who 2) Lift from an ad that featured were brand fans in the users’ social context or “Homepage newsfeeds. ads with Social Context” In an interview with AdAge, 3) Lift from “Organic Ads,” Jon Gibbs, VP Media Analytics newsfeed stories that are sent to at Nielsen, reiterated that the friends of users who engage company did not incorporate with advertising on a brand. actual purchases because the Nielsen found that the first type research is still young. Gibbs of ads on average generated a added that, in next generations, 10% increase in ad recall, a 4% he would “assume we will start increase in brand awareness and incorporating offline purchase a 2% increase in purchase intent and other transactional data as among users who saw them part of the analysis.” compared with a control group Now that would be slightly with similar demographics or more interesting in my opinion, characteristics who didn’t. although I wish other According to Nielsen, that measurement companies would increase in advertising recall get the same access to data as jumped to 16% when ads Nielsen does so we can compare included mentions of friends different angles and research who were ‘fans’, and 30% when methods with one another. the ads coincided with a similar C r u n c h B a s e I n f o r m a t i o n mention in users’ newsfeeds. Facebook Nielsen Information Intent for purchase climbed 2% provided by CrunchBase higher among viewers of

Options Update: Exxon Mobil Volatility Flat into EPS; Oil above $82 Paul Foster (BloggingStocks) Submitted at 4/20/2010 8:30:00 AM

Filed under: Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A), Exxon Mobil (XOM), Options Exxon Mobil( XOM) closed at $68.23. XOM is expected to report Q1 EPS on April 29. Crude oil futures are recently up 1.34% to $82.54 according to Bloomberg. Overall option implied volatility is at 21; versus its 26-week average of 22, according to Track Data, suggesting non-directional price movement. Berkshire Hathaway( BRK.B) closed at $78.72. BRK.B annual shareholder meeting is on May 1st. BRK.B overall option implied volatility of 27 is above its 26-week average of 23 according to Track Data, suggesting larger price movement. Update is by Stock Specialist P a u l F o s t e r o f theflyonthewall.com Options Update: Exxon Mobil Volatility Flat into EPS; Oil above $82 originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 20 Apr 2010 08:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Comments

Technology/

E-reader News Edition

Analysts predict another solid quarter for Apple (CNET News.com)

revenue for the quarter is between $11.2 billion and $13.25 billion, with earnings per The biggest story this week is share targeted between $1.93 the "lost"/"stolen" iPhone that and $2.72. That implies a Gizmodo posted photos of on growth in sales between 38 Monday. Apple requested the percent and 62 percent from the return of the device, but we will same quarter a year ago. have to wait to see if it turns out The three main components of to be the new iPhone. Apple will Apple's business all appear to be be talking on Tuesday, but it business as usual: Macs up, will be more EPS and unit iPods down, iPhones way up. volume sales than gossip about Toni Sacconaghi at Bernstein gadget blog exclusives. Apple is Research is anticipating a due to report its second quarter growth in Mac sales of about 40 2010 earnings on Tuesday after percent, a decrease in iPods by the bell. 10 percent, and 92 percent rise Not that the quarter ending in iPhone sales. March 27 was boring. It's been a Gene Munster at Piper Jaffray big quarter in terms of news: is slightly more conservative. introduction of the much- He estimates Mac sales will be ballyhooed iPad, a high-profile up 25 percent to 31 percent for lawsuit initiated against HTC, the second quarter, and iPods and the purchase of Quattro down between 9 percent and 17 Wireless, a mobile ad company percent. For iPhones, he's that became the basis for the anticipating 6.9 million sold iAd platform. But the thing that during the quarter, which is 82 keeps stockholders happy is percent higher than a year ago. rising sales and higher earnings The iPad of course, is not a per share. Apple's put together factor yet because the quarter a n i m p r e s s i v e s t r i n g o f ended March 27 and the first successful quarters, and analysts sales did not start until April 3. that follow the company don't But as far as the three main appear to be expecting anything branches of Apple's business (as different Tuesday. of the end of March) go, it's The estimate for Apple's expected to be business as usual. Submitted at 4/20/2010 6:00:00 AM

Really good business. And Apple's not alone. Intel just reported a fantastic quarter, saying that laptop chips were in very high demand. The PC industry in general also appears poised for a comeback, with units growing 24 percent during January, February, and March. Jobs announced two weeks ago that the company had sold 50 million iPhones. Next quarter will be more insightful since new MacBook sales will be represented, as well as tablets. Other things to watch out for: if Apple gives any forwardlooking expectations for the iPad, maybe an update on sales-we already know it sold 450,000 in the first week; perhaps an update on the App Store; as well as Apple's beef with Adobe Systems over Flash. And you can bet analysts on the earnings call will push for Apple comment on the leaked iPhone 4G. Whether Apple will discuss it is another matter. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

SWINGING continued from page 21

funded certain kinds of infrastructure. We would not have the car industry without funding the national highway system. We wouldn't have the Internet without infrastructure investment. You then have to indicate that you are serious about this. One thing that's missing is what I refer to as the Y2K (forcing function). We had a mandate that we had to deal with this issue. Because there was no way around, IT departments at virtually every major corporation had to upgrade. If we actually put a tax on carbon and said we are going to get serious about carbon, you'd have a similar effect. You'd have people say, "Oh, now that you told me I need to do something about this, I might as well go ahead and invest in the best technologies"--solar on the roof or whatever it is. In this country, we're living without forcing function, but we're living in world where there are forcing functions, whether it's feed-in tariffs in Europe (for renewable energy) or the stimulus program in China. One of the dangers is most of the inventions get made here in the United States, but most of

the money is the rest of the world. The real question is are we going to export the jobs, the industries, and the economic benefit of clean tech to the rest of the world. Companies will naturally migrate to where they have the best economic conditions. Are there specific technology areas that have emerged in the last couple years that are more attractive? Lighting. It's so straight forward. We've optimized these LEDs in flat-panel displays, so it's relatively mature technology. And if run the numbers, it's far cheaper than to hand out light bulbs than to build new power plants. At the heart of it, we have the Pentium chip for lighting with Bridgelux. Now what we need is the computer around it... You have a bunch of companies saying they can take advantage of this new form factor. There's a whole industry coming to take advantage of what LEDs do in lighting. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Technology/

E-reader News Edition

Ford Sync Will Soon Let You Apple countersues Control Your Mobile Apps by Voice Kodak in patent case Frederic Lardinois (ReadWriteWeb)

platforms and developers only have to make relatively minor updates to make their apps Submitted at 4/20/2010 12:00:00 AM compatible with Sync. Thanks to voice-controlled It's important to stress that these systems like Ford's Sync, applications are running on the operating system. drivers don't have to take their Drivers will be able to control user's phone and not on the car's eyes off the road if they want to AppLink-enabled mobile apps built-in Sync hardware. Sync place a call or switch to the next through voice commands that only passes the voice commands track on their playlists. Today, will be routed through the Sync on to the application but doesn't Ford announced the next step in system, as well as from buttons interact with the app beyond the company's roadmap to on the steering wheel. The first this. In Ford's parlance, these connect mobile phones and cars. car to feature this new service a r e " b r o u g h t - i n " a p p s , a s With Sync AppLink, Ford is will be the 2011 Ford Fiesta. opposed to "built-in" apps (like introducing a new platform that Ford plans to offer AppLink on Ford's Vehicle Health Report allows developers to offer voice all Sync-equipped cars next and 911 Assist) or "beamed-in" controls for their mobile apps on year. Existing Sync users will be cloud-based apps that send Sync-enabled cars. At first, able to update their car's traffic information and turn-byAppLink will only work with software at a later point as well. turn directions to the car. Sync Android and BlackBerry Same Apps - Just Controlled by AppLink for Developers devices, but the company plans Ford is currently working with SYNC to offer support for Apple's a small group of trusted partners From the user's perspective, iPhone OS and other and plans to open up the Sync installing a Sync-enabled app is smartphone platforms next year. API and software development no different from installing a Sponsor kit to a broader selection of regular app on their mobile The first Sync-enabled developers later this year. Ford phones. The only difference is applications, which will be also announced the launch of a that the car will notice when you available later this year, are Sync developer community that start a Sync-enabled app and Pandora, Stitcher, and allow you to control the app's will give developers a pathway Orangatame's OpenBreak function with your voice. This to partner with Ford on SyncTwitter app. Even though Sync allows Ford to plug right into enabled applications. is based on the Microsoft Auto t h e e x i s t i n g d e v e l o p e r Image credit: Flickr user Jim platform, Ford did not announce ecosystems and distribution Trottier Discuss that it plans to support the channels for all of these upcoming Windows Phone

(CNET News.com)

They were the latest in a series of patent infringement suits Kodak has brought against Three months after Eastman technology companies. Kodak sued Apple for patent Update 4:37 a.m. PST: Kodak infringement, Apple has filed a d i d n ' t c o m m e n t o n t h e countersuit that accuses the film particulars of the Apple case, a n d i m a g i n g c o m p a n y o f but said: "As regards our violating two of its own digital intellectual property, Kodak has photography patents. a long history of digital imaging Apple accused Kodak of innovation and we have invested infringing patent 6,031,964, a hundreds of millions of dollars "system and method for using a creating our industry-leading unified memory architecture to patent portfolio. We have an implement a digital camera obligation to our shareholders device," and patent RE38,911, a and the other licensees to protect " m o d u l a r d i g i t a l i m a g e their interests. When others use p r o c e s s i n g v i a a n i m a g e our technology, we merely seek p r o c e s s i n g c h a i n w i t h fair compensation for that use, modifiable parameter controls," in the same way that many other according to details from the leading technology companies suit posted at Patently Apple. p a y u s t o l i c e n s e K o d a k Apple filed its suit in the t e c h n o l o g y . " federal court for the northern (Via Mashable) d i s t r i c t o f C a l i f o r n i a o n Five Filters featured article: Thursday. Kodak had filed two Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: suits in January accusing Apple PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, of violating three Kodak patents. Term Extraction. Submitted at 4/20/2010 6:11:20 AM

Technology/ TV/

E-reader News Edition

FRIENDS continued from page 20

firm, and earlier spent 3.5 years at Google within various positions. ( Extended bio on CrunchBase.) Frank Quattrone, Founder, Qatalyst Frank is a founding member and CEO of Qatalyst. Frank has advised technology companies since 1981, and successfully built and led global technology banking franchises for Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse. Over the past three decades, Frank and the teams he has led have advised on more than 400 mergers and acquisitions with an aggregate transaction value over $500 billion and on more than 350 financings that raised over $65 billion for technology companies worldwide. Frank led the IPOs of Amazon.com, Cisco, Intuit, Linear, Netscape, ST Microelectronics, Synopsys, SynOptics and Xilinx, among many others. He advised Apple on its $400 million acquisition

of Next (which resulted in Steve Jobsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; return to Apple); Ascend on its $3.7B acquisition of Cascade and its $24 B sale to Lucent; Brocade on restructuring and completing its $2.6B acquisition of Foundry; Data Domain on its $2.4B acquisition by EMC; Google on creating an alternative to Microsoftâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s $45B hostile takeover of Yahoo!, among many other transactions. Andrey Ternovskiy, Founder, ChatRoulette Andrey Ternovskiy is a Russian teen and student who founded and built Chatroulette!, a video chat with random (site-chosen) users, originally for him and his friends to meet new chat buddies. The micro-social site has attracted a range of attention, notably from musician Ben Folds, who improvised a musical line-up based on the ChatRoulette users that appeared on his screen during a concert in March 2010.

Josh Williams, CEO, Gowalla A visual designer by trade, Josh Williams is co-founder and CEO of Gowalla, a popular location-based mobile application that aims to inspire people globally to express themselves and communicate about the everyday places and the extraordinary settings they enjoy. Prior to Gowalla, he was Principal at Firewheel Design, a boutique user-interface consultancy, where his clients included Microsoft, Samsung, Hewlett Packard, Thompson Reuters and Causes. Josh lives in Austin, Texas with his wife and two daughters. Josh is also the CEO and Co-founder of Alamofire, the creators of Gowalla. Prior to Alamofire, Josh was the founder and CEO of Blinksale, which has since been acquired by Doublewide Labs.

C64 creators also bringing Amiga, Atari 2600 emulators to iPhone Mike Schramm (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW))

that it's Apple-approved, and it's already worked with C64 license owners to make sure the Submitted at 4/20/2010 8:00:00 AM games can be legally released on Filed under: iPhone the iPhone, some free and some I just posted at the end of last as in-app purchases. Of course, week about Manomio's decision chasing down the Atari licenses to go free with its licensed C64 might be a little tougher than the emulator for the iPhone, but more obscure C64 titles, but if today it let us know that there it's possible to get these old are even more plans in the gaming gems on the iPhone, works. Given the success in Manumio will probably pull it porting C64 games (with official off. Stay tuned -- when you can licenses) over to the iPhone, play the original Frogger on Manomio is working on two your iPhone, we'll let you know. more emulators right now, TUAW C64 creators also i n c l u d i n g t h e A t a r i 2 6 0 0 bringing Amiga, Atari 2600 emulator seen above (Frogger! emulators to iPhone originally Space Invaders!) and an Amiga appeared on The Unofficial 500 emulator as well. Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, Both apps are simply tech 20 Apr 2010 08:00:00 EST. demos at the moment, and while Please see our terms for use of Apple generally hasn't been very feeds. friendly to emulators on the Read| Permalink| Email this| iPhone, Manomio has put in its Comments dues -- the company sorted out the emulator code in such a way

'Castle' - 'Den of Thieves' Recap Jane Boursaw (TV Squad) Submitted at 4/20/2010 9:00:00 AM

(S02E21) "She and Captain America are in there with Fred Cana." - Castle, noting that Beckett and the new cop are interrogating someone

You could just hear the voices in Castle's head during this episode of'Castle.' Did I miss my chance? Should I have put the moves on Beckett by now? What is wrong with me?! Heck, even Lanie told Beckett, Castle for a year, and not a "You've been working with

damn thing has happened. We had a pool going. I've lost a lot of money on you two." No one else can believe they're not together yet either. And just why aren't they together? Opposites attract, and it's clear they'd be perfect together.

Continue reading'Castle' - 'Den of Thieves' Recap Filed under: Episode Reviews, Reality-Free, Castle Permalink| Email this| | Comments

Technology/ Business/

E-reader News Edition

Apple's patent for Concert Ticket+ could change your concert experience

What's an Income Investor to Do? Buy Utilities

David Winograd (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW))

Steven Halpern (BloggingStocks) Submitted at 4/20/2010 9:30:00 AM

Submitted at 4/20/2010 9:00:00 AM

Filed under: iPhone We know that Apple has a propensity for patenting anything that moves, and most of them don't see the light of day. But Patently Apple has written, in copious detail, about a very interesting one called Concert Ticket+. I would bet money on the likelihood of this one becoming a reality. It all starts with buying concert tickets through iTunes and syncing it with your iPhone. Then, when you get to the concert, the electronic ticket will be received either by a manned or unmanned turnstile using N e a r F i e l d Communication(NFC). This is the same technology that starts a Prius without a key, or is embedded in my Lexus car key. When turning on the car, an NFC connection must be wirelessly transmitted or the car won't start. It also takes into account other methods of authentication such as bar code

scanning. It doesn't stop there. Lots of other information can be provided once the ticket is registered as being collected. ETickets for food and merchandise discounts can also be stored on the iPhone and when presented to get a cheaper T-Shirt or soda, the amount spent can be deducted from your iTunes account. Impulse purchasing of apps has been tremendously successful and that concept can be easily

transferred from the app store to the concert hall. An electronic coupon for $5.00 off a T-shirt is going to sell a lot of T-shirts. The patent also provides for value added services either free or at a price. You'd probably be able to obtain a concert schedule, lyrics to what is being played or a set-list for free, but if you want a recording of the show you've attended, that can be made available for a price. TUAW Apple's patent for

Concert Ticket+ could change your concert experience originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 20 Apr 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

Filed under: Newsletters, Stocks to Buy"High payouts from high-quality securities are relatively scarce today; yields are so low on short-term bond funds that holders will actually lose money on most of them after inflation; and real yields aren't much better on longerterm bond funds," says fund specialist Mark Salzinger. The editor of The No-Load Fund Investor asks, "So, what's an income-oriented investor to do? One types of investments that offers attractive yields and reasonable risk in the current environment is utility stocks; indeed, utilities are today's most unloved sector of the U.S. equity market." Continue reading What's an Income Investor to Do? Buy Utilities What's an Income Investor to Do? Buy Utilities originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 20 Apr 2010 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Comments

Technology/

E-reader News Edition

VIA's ARTiGO A1100 TUAW's Daily App: Homerun Battle is the nettop for DIYers (video) 3D for iPad Tim Stevens (Engadget)

Mike Schramm (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW))

the producer of Street Fighter for iPhone), but the iPad version just got released about a week Submitted at 4/20/2010 9:30:00 AM ago and it's excellent as well. Filed under: iPad One great You control bat placement in the app, every day -- that's TUAW's strike zone and swing by Daily App, every morning on t a p p i n g t h e s c r e e n ; t h a t ' s TUAW. We're still seeking an basically it. The simplicity of official name for the daily app. the game really makes the fun If you suggest a killer name for shine, and extras like gold balls this feature in the comments, and multiplier pitches (every we'll send you a t-shirt! once in a while) make you feel There are quite a few baseball like a real home run hero. games on the store these days The free version lets you hit a (including one from the MLB few balls around, but the full itself), but Homerun Battle 3D version allows for character focuses on the best part of the customization, some online g a m e : h i t t i n g h o m e r u n s . challenges, and even head-toCom2uS released the iPhone h e a d m u l t i p l a y e r . I n - a p p version last year (and it's great -- purchases kind of spread a it was recommended to me by shadow over the whole thing --

some of the customized gear and uniforms can run very expensive. That stuff is easy enough to avoid, though. The core gameplay is a lot of fun, and whenever you want a quick round of batting practice, it's there for you. Homerun Battle 3D is $4.99 on both the iPad and iPhone, with a trial available on the iPhone. TUAW TUAW's Daily App: Homerun Battle 3D for iPad originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 20 Apr 2010 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

the "smallest full featured PC kit available today" and we're inclined to agree. At $243 ($199 If you like the idea of a nettop if you're one of the first 10 to or some other microscopic little order) it's a solid bargain too, PC, but would rather have and while that price includes something that you can open up neither RAM nor storage, we're and tinker with -- maybe even inclined to think that's a good upgrade at some point -- you're thing -- you stuff this thing with not alone. And, we think you're as many gigabytes as you like. going to love the VIA ARTiGO Gallery: Via's ARTiGO A1100 A1100. It's a DIY little desktop Continue reading VIA's that's powered by the 1.2GHz ARTiGO A1100 is the nettop VIA Nano processor and paired for DIYers (video) u p w i t h V X 8 5 5 m e d i a VIA's ARTiGO A1100 is the processor, which we know can nettop for DIYers (video) handle 1080p video playback originally appeared on Engadget without breaking a sweat. on Tue, 20 Apr 2010 09:21:00 There's also VGA and HDMI EST. Please see our terms for video outputs, gigabit Ethernet, use of feeds. Permalink| Via| five USB ports, and optional Email this| Comments 802.11b/g. VIA is calling this Submitted at 4/20/2010 9:21:00 AM

Technology/

E-reader News Edition

Wibiya Raises $2 Million For Customizable WebBased Toolbars Leena Rao (TechCrunch) Submitted at 4/20/2010 8:46:16 AM

Report from the iPadDevCamp Mike Schramm (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW))

Rana Sobhany (one of the panelists at 360iDev) mixing the turntables with two iPads. Submitted at 4/20/2010 10:00:00 AM You can read through all of Filed under: iPad I was just at Klein's impressions on the apps the eBay/Paypal campus in San that he saw, but I'll pick out a Jose last week for 360iDev, but few that seem interesting to me. I wasn't able to stay for the Audiotorium is a note-taking iPadDevCamp that went down app that picks up audio while there last weekend; it featured you write along (and it's on the one of the first big gatherings of App Store right now), Relay iPad developers. Fortunately, connects your iPad and your GigaOm's David Klein did stay, computer almost like magic, and and he brings us a nice report of there were a few apps that used the goings-on there. He touches the iPhone as a controller, on a wide range of topics, from including a three-iPad-and-oneall of the fascinating apps being iPhone slot machine (pull the developed to fun live events like iPhone and the three iPads

"spin" symbols) and a game called Tank or Die that used the iPhone to control tanks on the iPad. It's good to hear that there's a lot of creativity coming out of the iPad dev community already. Hopefully we'll see some of these prototype apps in the store soon. TUAW Report from the iPadDevCamp originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 20 Apr 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

Wibiya, a Israeli startup that develops customized web toolbars for websites, has raised $2 million in additional funding from Primera Capital. Previous investors in the company’s last two rounds include Yossi Vardi, Oded Vardi and Jeff Pulver. Wibiya opened up its platform for creating customized web toolbars earlier this year. Wibiya’s toolbar for blogs and publishers integrates services, social media sites, applications and widgets, including Facebook, Twitter, Cooliris, and Tinychat. Everything is customizable, giving publishers the ability to add Facebook Connect, enabling Twitter alerts, and more fairly

easily. The toolbar has a fairly in-depth integration with Twitter, Search, latest tweets, Tweets about each page and more. Publishers can also bring their Facebook Fan Page stream to the toolbar. Interestingly, Wibiya has an “app store” of sorts, where publishers can customize their bars with a variety of apps, including Google Translate, YouTube, games and more. Wibiya faces competition from Conduit, Meebo, MySpace, Yahoo, Digg and others. CrunchBase Information Wibiya Information provided by CrunchBase

E-reader News Edition

Technology/ Featured/

Vonnegut's memoir (Scripting News) Submitted at 4/20/2010 4:03:20 AM

On my cross-country drive I listened to several audio books. The best was also the shortest -Kurt Vonnegut's Man Without a Country. He writes with such economy and so much about himself and it's such simple stuff. Made me think Vonnegut would have been an excellent blogger. He was 82 when he wrote it. When a young person blames him for the horrible shape of the world he says "But I just got Vladislav Savov (Engadget) price. The rest of that here!" He has a way of and with a newly released SDK expressing complex ideas so justification will have to come Richard Lawler (Engadget) Submitted at 4/20/2010 10:09:00 AM (more info after the break) simply and he touches exactly from the "oohs" and "aahs" you Submitted at 4/20/2010 8:23:00 AM promising compatibility across the spot that needs touching. Forget the fact that this thing is incite in stupefied onlookers. Go Despite a delay from an existing C-200 and A-200 What a nice way of saying life is bulletproof or that its internal past the break to see the promo battery is recharged wirelessly, video, it achieves rare heights of originally intended launch in hardware we'll see if it induces too short. just look at it. Built around an machismo that are not to be M a r c h t h e P o p b o x m e d i a others to join in. At birth, he'd offer: "Hello, streamer and its streamlined-for- [Thanks, Mike] array of four microstep motors - missed. babies. Welcome to Earth. It's Continue reading Popbox hot in the summer and cold in - e a c h d r i v i n g o n e o f a n Continue reading Devon Works mass appeal spin on the Popcorn interwoven quartet of time belts Tread 1 is the bulletproof Droid Hour series is almost upon us. p r e p a r e s f o r l a u n c h w i t h the winter. It's round and wet Now the focus is on courting p r e o r d e r s , S D K -- the Devon Works Tread 1 of wristwatches (video) and crowded. At the outside, c r e a t e s a v e r i t a b l e v i s u a l Devon Works Tread 1 is the content partners by promising Popbox prepares for launch babies, you've got about a symphony of precise motion to b u l l e t p r o o f D r o i d o f easy porting of current Adobe with preorders, SDK originally hundred years here. There's only a c c o m p a n y t h e t y p i c a l l y wristwatches (video) originally Flash applications to its new all- appeared on Engadget on Tue, one rule that I know of, babies -mundane task of checking the appeared on Engadget on Tue, Flash platform and display 20 Apr 2010 08:23:00 EST. God damn it, you've got to be time. The watch was designed 20 Apr 2010 10:09:00 EST. "virtually any multimedia file" Please see our terms for use of kind." with the help of a Californian Please see our terms for use of on the TV. That strategy has feeds. Permalink Crunchgear| His book was short enough to aerospace engineering company, feeds. Permalink| Hodinkee| already brought some internet Amazon, Syabas| Email this| be listened to in a couple of content to the family of devices, Comments which should go some way to Email this| Comments hours driving from Buffalo to justifying its $15,000 asking Binghamton.

Devon Works Tread 1 is Popbox prepares for the bulletproof Droid of launch with preorders, wristwatches (video) SDK

Technology/ TV/ Policy/

E-reader News Edition

Matt Smith to Appear on 'The Sarah Jane Adventures' Brad Trechak (TV Squad)

could be argued that it's his first time writing for Smith's Doctor). Matt Smith has only just taken Mind you, Davies writing was the reigns of the title role never particularly impressive on in'Doctor Who' and he is already the series in terms of science slated to make a guestfiction. Davies' strength tends to appearance on the spin-off be writing about relationships, series'The Sarah Jane and having the Doctor in a room Adventures,' according to the with two of his ex-companions BBC Press Office. For those first time since 1973. (which for the Doctor would be unaware, the spin-off follows And to round out the news the equivalent of ex-girlfriends) the adventures of former 'Doctor trifecta, the episode will be is enough reason to tune in. Who' companion Sarah Jane written by the creator of 'The Filed under: Programming, Smith as played by Elisabeth Sarah Jane Adventures' and the OpEd, Doctor Who, Celebrities, man responsible for bringing Casting, Reality-Free Sladen. Also joining them in the same 'Doctor Who' back to television, Permalink| Email this| | episode is former 'Doctor Who' Russell T. Davies. This would C o m m e n t s companion Jo Grant. She'll be mark Davies' first time writing played by Katy Manning, who is for the character of the Doctor Richard Lawler (Engadget) o n l y o n e s ) w a i t i n g f o r a stepping into the role for the since he left the series (and it Chatroulette couch surfing Submitted at 4/20/2010 9:44:00 AM client, but if you prefer your Panasonic is back with more internet face-to-face meetings information on its four-mic without the PC then 짜18,000 (AEI.Org: Articles) the unprecedented deflation in Washington fashion, everyone p a c k i n g H D T V c a m e r a ($193) on June 11 will make it housing values that resulted, the has amnesia about how this accessory, the TY-CC10W. yours in Japan, no word on U.S. Submitted at 4/19/2010 6:00:00 PM government's cost to bail out disaster occurred. Skype friends who would like availability. Now that nearly all the TARP F a n n i e a n d F r e d d i e w i l l This full article is available by to see your living room without Panasonic's TY-CC10W funds used to bail out Wall eventually reach $381 billion. subscription from the Wall actually visiting can take a peek webcam joins Skype, HDTVs i n e i t h e r 3 0 f p s V G A o r mostly because it can originally Street banks have been repaid, That estimate may be too Street Journal. Peter J. Wallison is the Arthur 720p/22fps h.264 encoded appeared on Engadget on Tue, the government sponsored optimistic. enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae Last Christmas Eve, Treasury F. Burns Fellow in Financial streams, courtesy of any nearby 20 Apr 2010 09:44:00 EST. v i d e o p h o n e c o m p a t i b l e Please see our terms for use of and Freddie Mac stand out as removed the $400 billion cap on Policy Studies at AEI. VIERA Cast TV s this can feeds. Permalink AV Watch| the source of the greatest what the government might be Five Filters featured article: required to invest in these two Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: mount on top of and plug into Panasonic Japan| Email this| taxpayer losses. The Congressional Budget GSEs in the future, and this may PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, via USB. We're (probably the Comments Office has estimated that, in the tell the real story about the cost Term Extraction. wake of the housing bubble and t o t a x p a y e r s . I n t y p i c a l Submitted at 4/20/2010 9:21:00 AM

Panasonic's TY-CC10W webcam joins Skype, HDTVs mostly because it can

Fannie and Freddie Amnesia

TV/ Business/ Policy/

E-reader News Edition

'Damages' - 'The Next One's AMC Denies Season 6 Gonna Go In Your Throat' End for 'Mad Men' Rich Keller (TV Squad) Recap (Season Finale)

Stroll to the Top

Jane Boursaw (TV Squad)

Submitted at 4/19/2010 6:00:00 PM

Submitted at 4/20/2010 10:20:00 AM

Have you ever had one of those moments, in which you find out (S03E13) "When I die, I don't that someone you know had said want to be buried and put in the or done something without ground. I want to be cremated ... telling you first? If so, welcome I want my ashes scattered here." to AMC's world. - Patty to Ellen, as the two of As we reported yesterday, them stand on the dock at Patty's Weiner told an audience at last cottage weekend's NAB convention If this is indeed the end that'Mad Men' would wrap its for'Damages,' it seems like a run up after season 6. AMC's each other has in the world. pretty nice way to go out. Sony More about that, the mysterious response? Uh, not exactly. is still in talks with DirectTV to horse, the bloody purse, and the Apparently, Weiner never told work out a deal to save the body plummeting into the East the network of his intentions, so, show, and I can visualize it in an attempt to ease the surprise River after the jump. moving forward. But it would Continue reading'Damages' - and anger of fans, AMC issued a definitely be a re-boot, now that 'The Next One's Gonna Go In response saying that no date had Tom Shayes is out of the Your Throat' Recap (Season been set for the show to end. picture. The statement went on to say Finale) I'll hypothesize that the next Filed under: Episode Reviews, that it trusts Weiner's vision for season -- should it happen -the show and its future Damages, Reality-Free would be about the relationship Permalink| Email this| | direction. between Ellen and Patty. Comments They're really on equal footing now, and, frankly, they're all Submitted at 4/20/2010 8:30:00 AM

(AEI.Org: Articles)

On March 29, the Department of Education announced the first -round winners in its Race to the Top (RTTT) competition. The $4.35 billion grant program has been hailed by liberals and conservatives alike for its Needless to say, this may drag potential to encourage states to on for a bit. In the meantime, improve their K-12 schooling. fans can at least take comfort in Yet while the incentive-fueled some more positive news from program shows promise, its the 'Mad Men' front: According sputtering engine has not to the Hollywood Reporter, the matched its sleek exterior. RTTT, a pet project of show's highly anticipated fourth E ducation Secretary Arne season will officially kick off on Duncan, dispenses grants to Sun., Jul. 25 at 10PM ET. states based on their submitted Filed under: Industry, Programming, Reality-Free, plans in four areas: adopting standards and assessments for Mad Men P e r m a l i n k | E m a i l t h i s | | measuring student performance; building better data systems and Comments using them to improve STROLL page 34

IBM: Should This Stock Be in Your Portfolio? Steven Mallas (BloggingStocks)

Machines ( IBM), whose colleagues include HewlettPackard ( HPQ) and Microsoft ( Submitted at 4/20/2010 9:00:00 AM MSFT), did not disappoint with Filed under: Earnings Reports, its first-quarter report, posted Microsoft (MSFT), Hewlett- yesterday after the market close. Packard (HPQ), International However, Wall Street seemed Business Machines (IBM) disappointed. I'm not sure why; taking. I n t e r n a t i o n a l B u s i n e s s perhaps it's just a case of profit-

In any case, the after-hours selling I saw on Monday wasn't too bad. At one point, shares were off by 2.8% -- not the worst post-earnings reaction I've ever seen. And I can tell you this: it doesn't dissuade me from feeling bullish on Big Blue. Continue reading IBM: Should

This Stock Be in Your Portfolio? IBM: Should This Stock Be in Your Portfolio? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 20 Apr 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

E-reader News Edition

STROLL continued from page 33

educational outcomes; raising the quality of teachers and principals through recruitment and training and by rewarding excellence; and fixing bad schools. The suggested methods are sure to infuriate and inspire just about every interest group, including as they do merit pay, charter schools, and an extensive reliance on test scores. Money-hungry states struggling with budget shortfalls, savvy marketing, and the administration's embrace of some controversial reforms, such as charter schools and expanded use of statistical measures, lent this race an outsized glamour--even though $4.35 billion is less than 1 percent of the $600 billion the U.S. spends annually on K-12 schooling (of which, in a normal year, about one-tenth is federal money). The two first-round winners, Delaware and Tennessee, collected $600 million between them, leaving Duncan with $3.75 billion to parcel out to second-round winners this September. Delaware's and Tennessee's plans were serious, and notable for their commitment to using student test scores in evaluating and paying teachers. But, as the Washington Post observed in a story headlined "In Race to the Top, It Helps to Wear the Union Label," their applications were most noteworthy for obtaining nonbinding pledges of support

from 100 percent of superintendents, school boards, and teachers'-union locals (well, 93 percent of union locals in Tennessee). By contrast, early favorites like Florida and Louisiana suffered when unions and school boards denounced their bold proposals. The National Education Association expressed its delight at the outcome, crowing, "Department of Education Sends Clear Message That Collaboration of All Stakeholders Is Key." The president of the Florida Education Association pounced, saying that if Florida reformers were serious about winning round-two RTTT dollars, they had better scrap an ambitious teacher-quality bill then before the legislature that would, among other reforms, institute merit pay for teachers and phase out tenure. Unsurprisingly, if unions are given an effective veto over reform plans, not much true reform will take place. Duncan's March announcement followed months of insistent praise for RTTT from many corners, including the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. Times columnist David Brooks giddily enthused last fall, "President Obama understood from the start that [RTTT] would only work if the awards remain fiercely competitive. He has not

wavered." While the rapturous reception is being taken as a sign that Obama has gotten education right by marshaling the centrist coalition he promised in 2008, the prosaic truth is that while RTTT is a good idea, its broad appeal is due largely to its looking more reform-minded than it actually is. The funds for RTTT were included in the February 2009 "stimulus" at the request of the White House. The unprecedented $4.35 billion kitty dwarfed all previous federal educational-grant programs. To spearhead the effort, Duncan recruited the respected Joanne Weiss, COO of the influential and reformist NewSchools Venture Fund. Weiss expanded RTTT's four areas of focus into 19 priorities, with each state's plan to be rated based on how thoroughly it addressed each priority. The secret of the program's appeal is that many conservative observers are so taken with its support for charter schooling and merit pay that they fail to note that it embodies two very different flavors of reform. The first one cracks open systems that have been hampered by restrictive policies, such as caps on the number of charter schools; many of these reforms will find favor on the right. Yet the second one, overlooked but more prevalent, is the familiar

reform by-prescription, with the feds urging states to adopt current modish approaches to school improvement or professional development such as "school turnarounds" or "cultural competency professional development" (which, as Ohio explained, equips teachers to negotiate "the cultural and gender context of students affected by poverty, gendered expectations, race, and class"). A few of the 19 priorities rewarded states for moving on measures such as charter schooling and merit pay, with states earning 40 points (out of a maximum total of 500) for supporting high-performing charters and 58 points for using student-achievement results to improve teacher and principal effectiveness. But the vast majority of the points are awarded for compliance with often woolly federal criteria: 65 points for articulating an agenda and securing local buy-in, 10 points for prioritizing education funding, 20 points for providing effective support to educators, and so on. If you're not entirely sure what these categories entail, welcome to the club; they reward states for procuring signatures of union support, for spending more on schools, and for adopting impressivesounding professional schemes. Andy Smarick, a Bush Education Department veteran

who has painstakingly reported on RTTT, recently observed, "All this talk about revolutionary state change has really been overstated." While RTTT enthusiasts talk of states' lifting caps on charter schooling or removing "firewalls" that prevent student-achievement data from being linked to teachers, he noted that "the full story of states' legislative changes is more complex and less exhilarating." No state that previously prohibited charter schooling has enacted a new charter law to attract RTTT funds, and while Wisconsin technically relaxed its data firewall, it still prohibits student achievement from being used in teacher evaluations. Smarick explained this resistance to major changes as a consequence of union influence: "The problem is how much states had to give up to get that union support and buy-in." Forty states and the District of Columbia ultimately applied for funds. Texas famously passed, with Gov. Rick Perry noting that the award for a winning application would cover two days of school operations and would entail significant costs to set up and run the various required schemes. In particular, Perry recoiled at Duncan's insistence that RTTT applicants promise to replace their math STROLL page 35

E-reader News Edition

STROLL continued from page 34

and reading standards with new "voluntary" common standards. (Puts a new twist on "voluntary," no?) Since the bulk of RTTT is about promising to comply with voguish nostrums, it should not be surprising that applicants demonstrated their commitment with voguish jargon. New York's finalist-worthy 908-page application promised to create "clear, content-rich, sequenced, spiraled, detailed curriculum frameworks" for new assessments. (A "spiral curriculum" is one that, instead of covering the various elements of a subject--e.g. fractions, decimals, geometry, and so forth in mathematics, or different parts of the world in geography-in depth, one after the other, repeatedly gives them a onceover-lightly treatment, going a little deeper each time.) Massachusetts's finalist-worthy application touted its focus on "developing and retaining an effective, academically capable, diverse and culturally competent educator workforce." Delaware's winning application used the phrase "professional development" 149 times in 235 pages. There were plenty more grounds for concern. Every state exceeded the recommended

page length or budget guidelines, leaving reviewers to compare massive and massively dissimilar compendia. Applications averaged well over 500 pages, ignoring guidelines that narrative should be less than 100 pages and appendices no more than 250. States were wildly inconsistent about budgets. The proposals were littered with all manner of things, including excerpts from Aesop's fables and Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Duncan's decision to name just two first-round winners and demand more from the others alleviated some concerns that standards would be too low. Some observers wondered, though, whether it was also meant as a signal that wangling lots of signatures from reluctant unions and school boards would be critical to how states would fare in round two. The competition may also have caused the postponement of necessary large-scale structural reforms. In the midst of a sustained fiscal crunch, RTTT encouraged state officials to dream up new spending plans. It gave them a welcome excuse to avoid the less pleasant tasks of identifying inefficiencies, and it has distracted attention from the

pruning of K-12 budgets and rethinking of unaffordable pension and health obligations. After round-one winners were named, observers finally looked more closely at the applications. Points of concern quickly surfaced. New York's application called for racing to the top by purchasing dozens of desks at $1,800 to $3,000 a pop, along with "executive chairs" at $550 each. Wisconsin was found to have lied on its application when it declared that nothing in state law restricts "the number of children who can be served" by charter schools; in fact, Wisconsin law caps online charter enrollment at 5,250 students a year. Many more such examples will be surfacing. So with round two looming and the president pushing to make RTTT permanent, there are several lessons worth keeping in mind. First, on the whole, RTTT is a good idea. The unsatisfactory Bush-era experience with No Child Left Behind--a grandiose bit of federal legislation studded with rigid and often incoherent rules and directives that led to a disheartening mix of mindless compliance, game-playing, and evasion--made clear that Uncle Sam is better off using carrots

than sticks when it comes to school reform. Offering federal dollars to encourage state leaders to clear room for reformers makes sense-assuming that their reforms make sense. Second, the reason carrots are better than sticks is that the feds can make states and school systems comply with the letter of the law, but not with its spirit. Given that it matters how, and not just whether, states embrace reforms like merit pay and school choice, it makes good sense to encourage the willing rather than compel the reluctant. If the government requires a school to, for example, make its buildings fire-safe, it doesn't matter whether the school wants to or not; complying with the mandate means the goal is achieved. But if policymakers resistant to charter schooling or merit pay are required to support such policies, the result will be half-hearted and half-baked measures that will both disappoint and lend ammunition to defenders of the status quo. Third, the administration's RTTT priorities, especially the push for "stakeholder buy-in" (meaning, essentially, union approval), threaten to reward talkers rather than doers. The administration placed too much

emphasis on modish solutions and too little on freeing up calcified systems. Finally, RTTT needs to be buffered from Education Department politicos if it is to be a credible, sustainable program. As it stands now, the process gives political appointees almost unfettered ability to set the rules, select reviewers, name winners, and allocate dollars. Given that state-level reformers are routinely stymied by bureaucratic rules hard-wired into state statutes and policies, smart federal policy can play a critical role in providing cover and support for innovation. With a serious overhaul, RTTT just might be the rare program that delivers on its promise. Frederick M. Hess is a resident scholar and the director of education policy studies at AEI. P h o t o C r e d i t : iStockphoto/Carolina K. Smith, M.D. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Economy/

E-reader News Edition

Synthetic, derivative (The Economist: Daily news and views) Submitted at 4/20/2010 2:20:10 AM

Fixing finance Democrats and Republicans in America's Senate are playing chicken over reforming finance Apr 20th 2010 | NEW YORK AND WASHINGTON,DC | From The Economist online THE Democrats’ first big domestic reform, of health care, was criticised as unnecessary, distracting and partisan. Not so the latest big piece of reform, the Senate’s bill on financial services. No one, Republican or Democrat, thinks the financial system should be left alone. In an era of general grumpiness with a hyperactive federal government, a Pew poll shows that 61% of Americans nonetheless want stricter restrictions on financial firms. A lawsuit brought against Goldman Sachs by the Securities and Exchange Commission has boosted expectations that a reform bill will pass. A slew of big financial firms have just announced stellar results, including Citigroup (which announced a $4.4 billion firstquarter profit this week) and

Goldman (which announced a $3.46 billion profit), turning the heat up further. President Barack Obama will make a speech in New York on Thursday outlining his case for reform. But as Democrats bring their bill, crafted by Chris Dodd of Connecticut, to the Senate floor, their hopes for bipartisan support are dim. Mr Dodd’s bill passed the banking committee last month without a single Republican vote. Since then, the Republican leadership in the Senate has persuaded all of its 41 members to sign a letter criticising what they regard as the Democrats’ partisan approach to the bill thus far. If they hold fast, the Democrats are one vote shy of breaking a filibuster Several aspects of the bill invite debate. Perhaps most notable is the proposal for a $50 billion fund, paid for by the banks, to keep banks in trouble from becoming a systemic risk to the financial system. The Republicans, echoing the anger of conservative populist “Tea Party” activists, have said that this will only encourage future bail-outs. The Democrats respond that it is to assist

orderly liquidation of failing banks, not to rescue them. In practice, $50 billion might not be enough to cover the failure of even a single big bank. Both parties keep quiet about having supported past bail-outs for systemically important banks in 2008 and 2009. They would rather compete to show which is the most unwilling to do so in future. The other big point for debate is a new consumer financialservices authority. Congress has already passed a bill reforming credit-card practices, and now wants a new body that will regulate things like mortgages and payday loans. Republicans worry about the cost of compliance that a new, standalone authority (with an aggressively pro-consumer slant) will impose on banks, especially small ones. The third sticking-point is over derivatives. Both the banks and Republicans are opposed to the bill's requirement that most derivatives trading be moved from dealer markets to regulated exchanges. Meanwhile a separate bill is moving through the Senate agriculture committee which is significantly tougher on banks than Mr

Dodd’s proposal: it would force them to give up their swaps desks. For his part, Mr Obama says he will veto a bill that does not reform derivatives. There is room for compromise on all these issues. But so far both sides prefer to play chicken: the Republicans to filibuster, the Democrats to paint the Republicans as protecting their fat-cat friends. The conventional wisdom is that the SEC's case against Goldman now makes some kind of reform virtually inevitable; but it is not yet a foregone conclusion. Republicans do not want to be on the wrong side of this issue, but neither do they want to be rolled over as they were over health care: told to support a Democrat-only bill or get out of the way. Nor do American voters want the Democrats to do this alone. On such large, complicated issues they prefer reforms to come with a bipartisan stamp of approval. The Democrats have the option of trying to peel off just one or a tiny number of Republicans. Susan Collins of Maine, along with Richard Shelby of Alabama and Bob Corker of Tennessee are the names mentioned most often. But the

Republican leadership has been extraordinarily successful in keeping usually independentminded senators on side. One Republican defector will not be enough to brand a bill bipartisan, and so any potential 60th vote from the Republican side will face enormous pressure from the leadership not to hand the Democrats a victory they will claim as theirs alone. So the Democrats face a risk too. By not compromising with Republicans, they may be held in as much scorn as Republicans if a bill falls just short. Americans are still frustrated about the way health care was handled. Financial reform may be much more popular, but Democratic strategists will nonetheless have to remember that the way they have used their big majorities in both houses of Congress has made them extraordinarily unpopular, with just seven months to go before mid-term elections. Readers' comments The Economist welcomes your views. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Economy/ Culture/

E-reader News Edition

Thirty years on (The Economist: Daily news and views)

declaration of independence by Ian Smith, who led a regime of white settlers. Turmoil has Submitted at 4/20/2010 4:42:11 AM continued under Smith's Zimbabwe's independence successor, Robert Mugabe, the Zimbabwe's 30th birthday is not only president Zimbabwe has much of a celebration known. The 1980s and 1990s Apr 20th 2010 | From The saw relative success for the Economist online economy, as commercial FEW Zimbabweans are excited farmers boosted exports of by the 30th anniversary of tobacco, maize and other crops independence from Britain. The a n d s m a l l m a n u f a c t u r e r s southern African country was prospered. But as Mr Mugabe born in turmoil: a civil war, came under pressure to quit, his international sanctions and an seizure of farms, reckless economic slump in the 1970s printing of money and the h a d f o l l o w e d a n e a r l i e r emigration of the most educated

and productive workers led to economic collapse. Hyperinflation and the destruction of the Zimbabwean dollar as a viable currency culminated in 2009 with the dollarisation of the economy. Readers' comments The Economist welcomes your views. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Geek Power: How Hacker Culture Conquered the World Steven Levy (Wired Top Stories)

his office. “When I was young, I didn’t know any old people. When we did the Submitted at 4/19/2010 7:00:00 PM microprocessor revolution, there Like Bill Gates, some of author was nobody old, nobody. It’s Steven Levy’s original subjects weird how old this industry has of Hackers are now rich, become.” The Microsoft famous, and powerful. cofounder and I, a couple of Photo: Carlos Serrao fiftysomething codgers, are “It’s funny in a way”, says Bill Gates, relaxing in an armchair in GEEK page 38

Joint Chiefs Chair Tours Military's Extreme Medicine Wing Noah Shacthman (Wired Top Stories) Submitted at 4/20/2010 8:17:00 AM

PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania — First stop: the spray gun that shoots out skin cells. Next, the blind man who “sees” by using his tongue. Finally, a shake of a marine’s transplanted hand. The nation’s top military officer today took a look at some of the Pentagon’s wildest medical research projects. But once the seemingly-sci-fi demonstrations at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center were over, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen voiced some concerns. The technologies and techniques seemed promising. But when

would they be available, really, to help wounded veterans? And why did the corporal with the replacement hand have to rely on his girlfriend’s mom to find out about his revolutionary treatment? In 2008, the Department of Defense and academia set aside $250 million to set up a consortium to fund bleedingedge research into the science of rebuilding human muscle, tissue, and minds. Today, that Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine (AFIRM) project is beginning to show results. Whether those results will come in time for the tens of thousands of wounded veterans returning from Afghanistan and Iraq remains an

open question. “That’s the challenge you always have with research: How do you get research to full production levels,” Mullen said. “I’m satisfied we can. I’m not satisfied we’re doing it rapidly

enough. And one of the things I take away from this trip is to go back and see if I can push from where I am to roll this out more rapidly.” One of the researchers here, Dr. Douglas Kondziolka, mentioned

it might be another decade before his treatment of transplanted brain cells might be wildly available to troops who have suffered in war. The research was proceeding methodically. And approval for large-scale tests on human brains takes forever to obtain. Mullen seemed less than enthused. ‘”10 years doesn’t satisfy any of us,” he later said. Pages: 1 2 3 View All Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

E-reader News Edition

GEEK continued from page 37

following up on an interview I had with a tousle-headed Gates more than a quarter century ago. I was trying to capture what I thought was the red-hot core of the then-burgeoning computer revolution — the scarily obsessive, absurdly brainy, and endlessly inventive people known as hackers. Back then, Gates had just pulled off a deal to supply his DOS operating system to IBM. His name was not yet a household word; even Word was not yet a household word. I would interview Gates many times over the years, but that first conversation was special. I saw his passion for computers as a matter of historic import. Gates himself saw my reverence as an intriguing novelty. But by then I was convinced that I was documenting a movement that would affect everybody. The book I was writing, Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution, came out just over 25 years ago, in the waning days of 1984. My editor had urged me to be ambitious, and so I shot high, crafting a 450-page narrative in three parts, making the case that hackers — brilliant programmers who discovered worlds of possibility within the coded confines of a computer — were the key players in a sweeping digital transformation.

I hadn’t expected to reach that conclusion. When I embarked on my project, I thought of hackers as little more than an interesting subculture. But as I researched them, I found that their playfulness, as well as their blithe disregard for what others said was impossible, led to the breakthroughs that would define the computing experience for millions of people. Early MIT hackers realized it was possible to use computers for what we now call word processing. (Their initial program was called Expensive Typewriter, appropriate since the one machine it ran on cost $120,000.) They also invented the digital videogame. The rebel engineers of the Homebrew Computer Club in Silicon Valley were the first to take advantage of new low-cost chips to build personal computers. They may have begun as a fringe cohort, but hackers alchemized the hard math of Moore’s law into a relentless series of technological advances that changed the world and touched all of our lives. And most of them did it simply for the joy of pulling off an awesome trick. But behind the inventiveness was something even more marvelous — all real hackers shared a set of values that has turned out to be a credo for the

information age. I attempted to codify this unspoken ethos into a series of principles called the hacker ethic. Some of the notions now seem foreheadsmackingly obvious but at the time were far from accepted (”You can create art and beauty on a computer”). Others spoke to the meritocratic possibilities of a digital age (”Hackers should be judged by their hacking, not bogus criteria such as degrees, age, race, or position”). Another axiom identified computers as instruments of insurrection, granting power to any individual with a keyboard and sufficient brainpower (”Mistrust authority — promote decentralization”). But the precept I perceived as most central to hacker culture turned out to be the most controversial: “All information should be free.” Stewart Brand, hacker godfather and Whole Earth Catalog founder, hacked even that statement. It happened at the first Hackers’ Conference, the week my book was published, during a session I moderated on the future of the hacker ethic. “On the one hand, information wants to be expensive, because it’s so valuable,” he said. “On the other hand, information wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower

all the time. So you have these two fighting against each other.” His words neatly encapsulate the tension that has since defined the hacker movement — a sometimes pitched battle between geeky idealism and icyhearted commerce. Though Hackers initially landed with a bit of a thud ( The New York Times called it “a monstrously overblown magazine article”), it eventually found an audience greater than even my overheated expectations. Through chance encounters, email, and tweets, people are constantly telling me that reading the book inspired them in their careers. Thumbing through David Kushner’s Masters of Doom, I learned that reading Hackers as a geeky teenager reassured Doom creator John Carmack that he was not alone in the world. When I recently interviewed Ben Fried, Google’s chief information officer, he showed up with a dog-eared copy of the book for me to sign. “I wouldn’t be here today if I hadn’t read this,” he told me. Video: hackersvideo.com But it was the hackers themselves who inspired a generation of programmers, thinkers, and entrepreneurs — and not just fellow techies. Everyone who has ever used a computer has benefited. The

Internet itself exists thanks to hacker ideals — its expansion was lubricated by a design that enabled free access. The word hacker entered the popular lexicon, although its meaning has changed: In the mid-’80s, following a rash of computer break-ins by teenagers with personal computers, true hackers stood by in horror as the general public began to equate the word — their word — with people who used computers not as instruments of innovation and creation but as tools of thievery and surveillance. The kind of hacker I wrote about was motivated by the desire to learn and build, not steal and destroy. On the positive side of the ledger, this friendly hacker type has also become a cultural icon — the fuzzy, genial whiz kid who wields a keyboard to get Jack Bauer out of a jam, or the brainy billionaire in a T-shirt — even if today he’s more likely to be called a geek. Pages: Previous 1 2 3 4 5| Full Page | Next Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Culture/

E-reader News Edition

April 20, 1841: 'Rue Morgue' Paves Way for Detective Genre Scott Thill (Wired Top Stories) Submitted at 4/19/2010 11:00:00 PM

1841: Mad literary genius and theorist Edgar Allan Poe publishes “ The Murders in the Rue Morgue” in Graham’s Magazine, launching the detective story into popular culture and acclaim. The prolific Poe was born in Boston in 1809, and eventually died under mysterious circumstances in Baltimore in 1849. But, in the United States, he was known better during his life as a literary critic than a craftsman, though more famous in Europe for his fiction. But after his death, Poe’s immeasurable impact, not just on popular detective fiction but also sci-fi and horror, began to be calculated in his native America. And “ The Murders in the Rue Morgue” sat atop the peak of his towering influence, alongside memorably mournful works such as “The Raven” and others. “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” is a tale of a grisly double homicide investigated by Poe’s recurring recluse C. Auguste Dupin. The detective shows up in later stories like “The Mystery of Marie Roget” and, most notably, “The Purloined Letter,” which the immortal writer considered perhaps the best of his tales of “ rationcination,” or logical reasoning and argumentation.

Like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes and his sidekick Dr. John Watson, Dupin and his unnamed sidekick, who narrates “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” employ logic and literacy to divine the identity of the murderer — who, in patented Poe fashion, turns out to be more of a surprise than the crime itself. “Its theme was the exercise of ingenuity in detecting a murderer,” Poe wrote to his friend Dr. Joseph Snodgrass, casting aside the more sensational elements of the crimes themselves in favor of the process of their solution. To solve the crime, Dupin and his unnamed associate unlock the power of language, in the form of research of published accounts and face-to-face interviews with sources, and by employing brains over brawn. This self-referential circularity extended to the story’s composition, in which readers were slowly clued in to the details of the murders through their literary ciphers. It was a mechanism that evoked Poe’s extensive interest in crytopgraphy, notably outlined in “A Few Words on Secret Writing,” published in Graham’s Magazine three months after “Rue Morgue.” Poe’s fascination and skill with ingenious detection took serious hold after his death, especially

in the work of Doyle, whose Sherlock Holmes first appeared in 1887. Holmes has since come to embody Dupin’s gift for inferential logic and deduction. “Each [of Poe's detective stories] is a root from which a whole literature has developed,” Doyle once said. “Where was the detective story until Poe breathed the breath of life into

it?” Through Holmes, Dupin indirectly inspired the creation of famous detectives like Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, as well as forhire gumshoes including Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe, Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer and Robert Towne’s Jake Gittes in

Chinatown. The line of Poe’s influence even extends further to supeheroic figures like Batman, more colloquially known as the “ World’s Greatest Detective” who first appeared in Detective Comics No. 27 in May 1939. Batman remains the postmodern equivalent of Sherlock Holmes, who was a turn-of-the-20thcentury iteration of Poe’s Dupin. Of course, lofty designations like “World’s Greatest Detective” are, ironically enough, impossible to prove. The same applies to Poe, who through his various Dupin stories has often been credited with creating detective fiction altogether. This is not entirely true, as early examples reside in Arabic and Chinese folk tales, as well as French philosopher Voltaire’s 1748 novel Zadig and uncanny German author E.T.A. Hoffmann’ s 1819 novella Das Fraulein von Scuderi, among others. But Poe’s Dupin stories, beginning with the canonical “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” propelled the genre into the popular mainstream as never before. Or should that be, nevermore? Source: Poe Museum, Wikipedia Early photographic image of Edgar Allan Poe, courtesy Library of Congress APRIL page 41

Culture/

E-reader News Edition

Rough Riding Cellphone Is a Glutton for Punishment Terrence Russell (Wired Top Stories) Submitted at 4/19/2010 7:00:00 PM

Rough Riding Cellphone Is a Glutton for Punishment We've covered travel-friendly, all-weather flip phones before. A lot. This kind of handset is great for bragging to co-workers that you're surfing the Gulf Coast ... when you're actually surfing it. But using a rugged phone to do more than just make calls from the beach? Another matter entirely. Casio's ultra-rugged Brigade balances form and function better than most tough phones: It's waterproof, shockproof and dustproof with a full QWERTY keyboard and productivity chops. At a chunky 5.5 ounces (and with one of the beefiest hinges we've ever seen on a phone), the Brigade is hardly inconspicuous. While closed, it resembles a bulky candy-bar phone, replete with an exposed dial pad and a tiny, no-nonsense monochrome OLED screen. Flipping it open reveals a bright 400x200-pixel screen and a QWERTY keypad. The ideal usage scenarios are clear: Keep it closed for making calls, open it up for messaging

messaging phones. Document viewer covers all the standard bases: Word, Excel, Powerpoint and PDF. Charges via dock or resealable, water-resistant port. Bright 3.2-MP camera flash doubles as a flashlight. Verizon EV-DO Rev A keeps the data flowing quickly. Stores and plays back up to 16-GB of music via MicroSD card. TIRED Looks like an ice cream sandwich (with a fraction of the flavor). External 1.2-inch screen is practically useless. Unlocking battery door is as complex as a Pythagorean puzzle. Battery lasts about a day with heavy use of web, navigation and messaging features. • Style: Flip • Service Provider: Verizon a n d m u l t i m e d i a . I n t h e s e at, though. We e-mailed, sent frills. In fact, cubicle dwellers Wireless contexts, it works well, for the t e x t s a n d e v e n p e e k e d a t will probably want to stick to • Camera Resolution: 3.1 to 5 most part. Microsoft Word files with the their comprehensively capable, megapixels For calls, the Brigade is a blunt document viewer, all while push-notifying smartleashes. • Manufacturer: Casio if effective instrument. The strolling along five city blocks However, if the goal to traverse • Price:$250 (with two-year interface is simple, the call in the middle of a downpour. the great unknown (or play contract) quality is merely passable, and Though the Brigade doesn't hold h o o k y w h i l e r e m a i n i n g the speaker is nothing special a candle to smartphones for conscientiously in contact), it's Five Filters featured article: (except for being waterproof). It productivity, little additions like worth bringing a Brigade for Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, gets the job done, but for warm, the full HTML browser were backup. long-winded, telephonic heart-to good enough to get us dabbling WIRED Built to text reliably Term Extraction. -hearts you're probably better in webmail. through damage, dunks and off hooking in a headset. The militaristic and pragmatic dust. Spacious, raised keyboard Messaging acumen is where it's Brigade is absolutely not about b e s t s e v e n n o n - r u g g e d

Culture/ Politics/

E-reader News Edition

Green Label Alexx Jae & Milk Celebrates Earth Day ELLE.com (ELLE Fashion Blogs)

Association), hosted a party for the fall collection of their ecofriendly label, alexx jae & milk. Submitted at 4/19/2010 3:33:04 PM Constructed entirely from local As an early celebration of Earth vendors’ overstock fabric, the Day, Bari Milken, owner of the '80s-inspired cut-out dresses venerable LA boutique Milk, were worn at the soirée by and Alexx Monkarsh, designer environmental activists such as of the sustainable clothing line Emmanuelle Chriqui, JamieA l e x x J a e f o r E M A ( a Lynn Sigler, and Amy Smart. collaboration with her mother, With separates starting at $60, can’t wait for fall, snap up their Debbie Levin, president of the supporting the global effort T-shirt dresses and reversible E n v i r o n m e n t a l M e d i a never looked so good. If you v e s t s f r o m s p r i n g a t

APRIL continued from page 39

See Also: • BBC7 Goes Spooky as Edgar Allan Poe Turns 200 • May 22, 1859: It’s Elementary, My Dear Reader • Review: Sherlock Holmes Gives Brainy Detective Plenty of Brawn • April 20, 1926: Silent Film Takes Another Step Toward Oblivion • April 20, 1940: Electron

Microscope Crosses the Atlantic; Zworykin Crosses the Delaware

shopatmilk.com. —Erin Boyle From left: Emmanuelle Chriqui, Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Alexx Monkarsh, Bari Milken, Perry Reeves, and Amy Smart at Milk’s party for alexx jae & milk A party dress from alexx jae & milk’s Fall 2010 collection

Senators: 3,000 More Troops Needed on Border

(Newsmax - Inside Cover) Five Filters featured article: Submitted at 4/20/2010 3:46:55 AM Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Two Republican senators Term Extraction. proposed Monday sending 3,000 more U.S. National Guard soldiers to quell violence spilling over the border between their home state of Arizona and Mexico. In a 10-point plan for beefing up security in the area, Senators John McCain and John Kyl also called for permanently adding 3,000 US Custom and Border Protection Agents to the Arizona/Mexico border by 2015. They also called for completing construction of 700 miles of fencing along the border and

beefing up unmanned aerial vehicle patrols so that they could be run 24 hours a day. "Violence has dramatically increased over the last two years," McCain said at a joint press conference with Kyl and two sheriffs from Arizona border areas. Of the roughly one million people detained after illegally crossing into the United States from Mexico, 600,000 were nabbed in Arizona, and 17 percent of them had existing criminal records in the southwestern state, said McCain. Moreover, "those crossing the border are increasingly armed," he warned.

"You can't live in Arizona and not have this problem everyday in the newspapers. People are fed up," said Kyl. McCain, once an ardent supporter of overhauling US immigration laws, faces an unusually vigorous challenge for the Republican Senate nomination this year from conservative former representative JD Hayworth. Copyright © 2010 AFP. All rights reserved Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Politics/

E-reader News Edition

Head Lock Noam Scheiber (The New Republic - All Feed)

between two Wall Street firms on the future price of oil. Which suggests another Submitted at 4/19/2010 11:00:00 PM explanation for today’s fly-in: Some two dozen executives B i g f i n a n c i a l f i r m s l i k e from large corporations will be Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan descending on Capitol Hill generate billions of dollars each today to make the case against year as derivatives dealers. But, over-regulating derivatives. The over the past several weeks, as “fly-in” is being organized in Democrats’ have escalated their part by the U.S. Chamber of rhetoric and explicitly targeted Commerce through a group Wall Street, the big banks have called the Coalition for had trouble getting their D e r i v a t i v e s E n d - U s e r s , message out on Capitol Hill. All according to the Chamber’s the more so thanks to Friday’s R y a n M c K e e . M a n y SEC complaint accusing corporations use derivatives to Goldman of fraud. “The banks’ hedge against fluctuations in the credibility, their ability to price of their inputs—for influence this, is limited,” says example, an airline might sign a one derivatives industry lawyer. contract to lock in future fuel And so, instead of mostly prices, thereby passing the risk m a k i n g t h e p i t c h a g a i n s t along to someone else. And so, regulation themselves, the big on one level, it makes perfect derivatives dealers are counting sense that the executives and the on their corporate clients to do a Chamber would take an interest lot of heavy lifting for them. in derivatives legislation. “The end user ability to do that But, on another level, the is going to be pretty critical,” pilgrimage by the so-called the lawyer says. “I think it corporate "end-users" is a little w o u l d b e n a ï v e t o t h i n k mystifying. That’s because the companies have not been talking legislation that’s piqued the to their bankers about how the e x e c u t i v e s ’ i n t e r e s t — a business is going to be affected derivatives bill that Senate going forward.” That this A g r i c u l t u r e C o m m i t t e e conversation has yielded a wellChairman Blanche Lincoln coordinated trip so close to the unveiled last week—explicitly endgame on financial reform is exempts derivatives used in a sign of how much ground the commercial activity, as in the jet banks have lost in such a short -fuel example. What the Lincoln period of time. bill would regulate is the use of The reason the recent derivatives for more speculative developments are so remarkable purposes, like a straight-up bet is that all reforms tend to

weaken as they get closer to passage, as legislators hash out compromises with powerful interests in order to secure a deal. Bizarrely, financial reform appears to be headed in the opposite direction. When it comes to derivatives, at least, the bill Senator Chris Dodd moved through his Banking Committee in March was significantly tougher than the bill the House passed in December. Then, last week, Lincoln shocked Wall Street by producing an even tougher bill than that. “This thing is not a battle they’d anticipated,” says one administration official. The industry had widely expected Lincoln to soften Dodd’s derivatives measure as part of a compromise with her Republican counterpart, Saxby Chambliss. (The Senate Banking and Agriculture Committees share jurisdiction over derivatives.) What happened? For weeks, Wall Street had viewed the Dodd language as a placeholder while Lincoln and Chambliss hashed out the real details. Instead, the practical effect of the Dodd language was to create a minimum standard of toughness from which Democrats would be unwilling to retreat. As Lincoln and Chambliss bargained in March, the administration began to focus on the issue and discovered its popular

resonance. “I have a clear memory of the time the House passed [its financial reform bill] in December. I directly tried to engage the White house … It was pretty much a non-event, primarily because of health care,” recalls Rep. Chris Van Hollen, who heads the House Democrats’ campaign arm. “It’s been a total transformation … a quantum leap in engagement.” By the time Lincoln finally sent the administration the contours of a possible deal with Chambliss the week of March 29th, there was no way the deal could pass muster. Several days later, Michael Barr, the assistant Treasury secretary with the derivatives portfolio, told Lincoln's staff the administration would be unable to support it because it weakened the Dodd bill. That left Lincoln with a dilemma: She’d been planning on moving the compromise through the Agriculture Committee with bipartisan support, meaning she could afford to lose a few liberal Democrats. Now that she’d be losing Republican votes to win the administration’s imprimatur, she’d have to construct a political coalition that would bring the liberals aboard. The result was the apparent lurch from what was widely expected to be the weakest derivatives bill on the Hill to what’s far and away the strongest.

That was last Tuesday. As of Thursday night, it still wasn’t entirely clear whether Lincoln had calibrated correctly. The bill was so much more hawkish than anything that had come before it—one provision could effectively ban big banks from trading derivatives outright—that it risked repelling not just Republicans but moderate Democrats. (Ben Nelson and Max Baucus both sit on Lincoln’s Agriculture committee.) Then came Friday’s Goldman revelations and suddenly Lincoln had the upper hand. “I’ve heard there’s been some folks on her committee pushing back a little bit,” says a former Democratic Senate aide who now consults for the financial services industry. But, “if you’re a Democrat, it’s harder to vote against something after the Goldman stuff. It puts pressure on Republicans and pressure on Democrats.” This same person sees an analogy to Sarbanes-Oxley, the tough regulation of corporate accounting statements that Congress enacted after Enron. The bill had begun to stall in the Senate while its sponsor, Paul Sarbanes of Maryland, spent months methodically holding hearings. Then WorldCom imploded, and the bill became a juggernaut. “It was like a freight train. It was on the floor and no HEAD page 44

Politics/

E-reader News Edition

Barca Lounging Aleksandar Hemon (The New Republic - All Feed)

drills and referee-intimidation exercises) could learn a lot from the useful lessons offered by Submitted at 4/19/2010 4:24:13 PM Professor Messi and Dr. Xavi. In the run-up to the first goal in They would be wise, for the recent game between Real instance, to study the perfect Madrid and Barcelona—known understanding between the two a r o u n d t h e w o r l d a s E l men evident in the sublime chip C l a s s i c o — L i o n e l M e s s i , to Messi—it was clear that Xavi currently the best player in the could have made that pass with world by a long shot, was fouled his eyes closed. A similar and knocked down, only to get mental connection was visible in up quickly, receive the ball, and Xavi’s pass to Pedro, taking out pass it on to Xavi, who returned the entire Real defense in one it with a sublime chip over the fell swoop, on the way to hapless heads of Real’s Barcelona’s second goal. d e f e n s e — a n d w h i l e R a u l Indeed, an entire school year Albiol* thrashed around as (which is what this season is t h o u g h a b o u t t o s p e a k i n amounting to for Real), ought to tongues trying to stop him, be dedicated to Xavi. The man Messi scored with a shot that simply does not lose the ball. simultaneously looked clumsy O u t n u m b e r i n g t h e n e x t and exactly perfect. (There's contender by a few hundred video of the goal at the end of completed passes, he is far and the piece.) Much has been made away the best passer in this in the European soccer press of year’s La Liga. And in the Messi’s quickly getting up after world, for that matter. the pretty rough foul: unA galactico-muddled mind Ronaldo-like, he wasted no time w o u l d a s s i g n X a v i ’ s w r i t h i n g i n f a k e p a i n o r unassuming brilliance (when not demanding from the ref to destroying Real, he likes to pick smack the fouler with a yellow mushrooms) to some sort of card. Messi’s eager resilience, market-evaluated greatness, a the absolute focus on playing purchasable set of skills, nothing the game, and his burning desire that money can’t buy. But the to win rather than to be seen as secret of Xavi’s dominance and great (which is what makes Barcelona’s enduring power is Ronaldo ultimately a second- rather simple and obvious and rate player) was manifest in the not exactly purchasable. Xavi narrative of that first goal in this has been part of the Catalan club year’s El Classico. Real’s since the age of eleven, when, g a l a c t i c o s ( w h o s e t r a i n i n g 19 years ago, he entered its sessions surely include whining youth academy. Barca’s core

players, Xavi included, have between them nearly a century of playing for the club: Iniesta (another perfect passer, whom Wayne Rooney declared the best player in the world after the humbling in last year’s Champions League finals) has been with Barca for 14 years, since the age of twelve; Puyol, the captain of the team, and Valdes, the goalie, have been around for 15 years; Messi joined in 2000, at the age of 13; the up-and-coming Pedro was 16 when he arrived six years ago; and Bojan Krkic, the youngest first-team player, has been part of Barca since the age of nine and scored more than 500 goals for its youth teams. To top it all off, Pep Guardiola, the coach, played for Barcelona for 17 years in his prime. Unlike Real, Barcelona raises its players, developing them within the system. (Krkic and Messi are the two youngest Barca players to have scored in a league game—both were 17 at the time.) Their skills thus include not only a perfect understanding of Barca’s soccer philosophy—in one word: passing—but also an absolute devotion to the team ethic as well. And when Barcelona splashes some cash to get a big name (Ronaldihno, Henry, Ibrahimovic), the new arrivals are fully expected to fit into and contribute to the system and unconditionally accept the team

ethic. At the beginning of the 2008/09 season, Guardiola’s first as the head coach, he offloaded to Milan the great Ronaldihno, who had become prone to all-night partying and skipping training sessions--by the end of the season, Guardiola added both La Liga and Champions League trophies to Barca’s collection. Though Messi, Xavi, and co., have salaries entirely comparable to those of galacticos, their humility and loyalty to the team is glaringly opposite to the locker-room shenanigans that every unfortunate coach of Real Madrid has to confront before he’s inevitably fired. This column was supposed to be about Messi, as he seems to be having a perfect season. He has scored 40 goals for Barca in his 45 appearances, 27 in La Liga alone. He has had a number of classic performances—say, all four goals in Barcelona’s demolition of Arsenal, or the week in March when he scored eight goals in three games. But as great as he is, as memorable as his season has been, he owes so much to his team—which he knows and shows—that it is impossible to talk about him without talking about Xavi and Barcelona’s philosophy of soccer. Even if Messi’s ability to run at defenders and change direction at fantastic speed is unearthly—after jetting from the

halfway line past the entire Zaragoza defense to score a goal, he said: “I don’t know if that … was the nicest goal I ever scored, it happened so fast”)—his prolific scoring is entirely dependent on the acres of running space that Barca habitually carves out on the pitch with their passing. Xavi is a perfect passer because at any given time he has at least two players in a good position to receive the ball, which allows them to patiently wait for an opportunity to cut through the defense, all the while controlling the rhythm; Barcelona is the only team that can rest while in possession. Man-to-man marking does not work on Messi, because he can hold ball away from his marker and pass it on before he immediately moves to a new position. Messi’s constant movement creates passing space for Xavi and Barca’s midfield, and from this space they feed immaculately his scoring appetite. Messi is, in other words, made for Barcelona, and Barcelona was made for him. So when Maradona said, after Messi’s four goals against Arsenal, that he “plays kickabout with Jesus” he was, as often has been the case in recent years, entirely wrong. Who needs Jesus when you have Xavi on your team? Jesus is but a BARCA page 45

E-reader News Edition

HEAD continued from page 42

one was getting in front of it,” recalls the former aide. “Goldman to me is a little analogous… Except that [financial reform] was already on the track. It had some momentum. This helps give it a considerable amount more.” At this point, the industry is banking on three things to save it: One is the efforts of the corporate executives visiting Capitol Hill today. It’s one thing to stiff-arm Wall Street not long after a financial crisis; it’s another to reject the pleas of companies who employ hundreds of thousands of people across the country (even if they may be talking Wall Street’s book). The second is that the mere passage of time may ratchet down tensions. “The current strategy that I’m hearing is basically to keep the Republicans together till cooler heads prevail,” says the derivatives industry lawyer. “Not to overreact to current events, not go too crazy.” Finally, there’s the argument, which top Wall Street executives have conveyed

directly to senior White House officials in recent days, that the administration faces almost as much peril as Wall Street does if it brings a partisan bill to the Senate floor. Should that happen, the argument goes, Senate liberals like Maria Cantwell and Byron Dorgan could triumph on amendments that would move the bill well to the left of where even the administration wants it. (In a telephone interview Monday afternoon, Dorgan allowed that he was “thinking through how to approach the too-big-to-fail piece” and that he might offer an amendment, though he was amused by the idea that it would represent a radical leftward thrust.) Alas, it doesn’t look like the White House is biting just yet. “I think right now, everyone sort of sees it as win-win-win,” says a senior administration official. “Frankly, Rahm’s hearing from friends in the financial industry that he should cut a deal before it goes to the floor--that probably makes him less likely to do that, work this out. Rahm's

like, ‘let's not work it out.’” To be sure, Dodd continues to negotiate with Dick Shelby, his Republican counterpart on the Banking Committee, in the belief that he can strike a deal in exchange for only a handful of cosmetic, face-saving concessions. And, given the palpable anxiety on the Republican side, some Senate aides I spoke with think he’ll get it before the bill goes before the full chamber, possibly late this week. But, for the moment, the White House seems happier to make the banks and the GOP squirm. “Probably the way it's playing out … [we’d] make them vote a bunch of times against [a tough bill], then compromise. You’d still have a strong enough bill, but peel off five to ten votes to get it done.” The idea is to force Republicans to pay a price for their reflexive opposition--“make them actually block it, not just say they're going to block it”-before you finally throw them a lifeline. The one tactical question Democrats do agree on is that

the GOP is ready to crumple. Last week much was made of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s success at getting all 41 Republicans to sign a letter of opposition to the current Dodd bill. But Democratic Senate aides have been privately mocking the letter’s mealy-mouthed language, which is carefully parsed to afford its signees maximum wiggle room. “There’s no explicit threat to vote against [opening debate],” scoffs one senior Democratic aide. “It pledges to continue negotiating.” If Wall Street has a few more sympathetic MainStreet execs up its sleeve, now would be the time to play them. Noam Scheiber is a senior editor of The New Republic. For more TNR, become a fan on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

Politics/

E-reader News Edition

Gay Rights Protesters Heckle Obama 'Beer Guy' Sends Suds to Obama (Newsmax - Inside Cover)

protesters as the crowd took up a chant of "Yes, we can," to drown them out. A group of gay rights activists Another protester later disrupted President Obama's interrupted the president again, speech at a fundraiser here for shouting, "It's time for equality Sen. Barbara Boxer Monday for all Americans." night, decrying what they The protest was organized by d e s c r i b e a s M r . O b a m a ' s GetEQUAL, a new lesbian, gay, inaction on overturning the bisexual and transgender group military's ban on gay service that also orchestrated protests members and calling on him to outside the fundraiser being held submit repeal language to for Ms. Boxer, a three-term Congress. incumbent who is facing a tough The activists interrupted Mr. re-election fight. GetEQUAL Obama in the middle of his was also behind a protest last r e m a r k s t o h i g h - v a l u e month at the White House, Democratic donors during a where activist Lt. Dan Choi and reception at the California C a p t . J a m e s P i e t r a n g e l o S c i e n c e C e n t e r , w i t h o n e handcuffed themselves to a gate protester shouting from the to highlight the administration's audience, "What about 'Don't failure to reverse the military's ask, don't tell?'" longtime policy of "don't ask, Mr. Obama yelled back, "We don't tell." are going to do that." "While the president firmly He kept talking, increasing his committed to repeal DADT in volume to be heard over the his State of the Union this past Submitted at 4/20/2010 4:12:08 AM

BARCA continued from page 43

galactico. It will thus be interesting to see what Jose Mourihno and his Inter Milan will do to stop Messi, Xavi, and their teammates this evening. One would expect Inter to clog the midfield and narrow the space for Xavi, while preventing Messi with a man-to-man marker from making runs or turning inward, restricting him to a flank position. It has been

January, since that time he has gone silent on whether he wants to see the anti-gay law repealed this year," the group said in a press release Monday announcing its outdoor protest activities. Like many immigrant-rights activists, gay rights groups have been losing patience with Mr. Obama, who promised during the presidential campaign to be a "fierce advocate" of equal rights. Though the president has pledged to get rid of the Don't ask, don't tell policy, and top members of the military brass have gone on the record in agreement, the Pentagon has yet to repeal it. © Copyright 2010 The Washington Times, LLC Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

(Newsmax - Inside Cover) Submitted at 4/20/2010 4:19:26 AM

President Obama's lighthearted request for free beer in exchange for a shout-out to a smallbusiness owner is yielding suds for the White House refrigerator. Bill Milliken, now known as "Bill the Beer Guy," arranged for Maine breweries to fill a giant basket with 14 varieties of beer for the president. Gov. John Baldacci, Democratic Rep. Chellie Pingree and beer company representatives joined him for Monday's official sendoff in downtown Portland. Mr. Milliken, 44, was singled out this month by Mr. Obama at a health care rally as a smallbusiness owner who would benefit from the federal health care reform law. The president jokingly said, "In exchange for this publicity, I hope I'm going said that the only man who course, Real Madrid will want to get some samples of beer, OK?" stopped Messi this season was him to be their next coach. Maradona—Messi’s continuous It is hard to see, however, how "How could I say no?" said Mr. u n d e r p e r f o r m i n g o n t h e M e s s i , X a v i , a n d t h e i r Milliken, who owns a specialty Argentine national team makes teammates can be stopped. They beverage shop. "Of course, B a r c e l o n a ’ s t a c t i c a l are ineffably good at what they being a good American, I had to accomplishment even more do, simply because it is what answer the call." Mr. Milliken and Andrew impressive—but if Mourihno they have been doing for manages to find the formula for Barcelona for a very long time. Braceras own Market House victory against the Catalan club, Transcendence is all about Coffee and the Maine Beer and Beverage Co., which together his reputation as the genius practice. tactician (“the special one”) will BARCA page 46 be well preserved. And, of

have three full-time employees and six part-time workers. The health care overhaul will provide a tax credit for up to 35 percent of what's paid for health insurance for workers. In Mr. Milliken's case, health care reform means he will be able to reach his goal of providing health insurance to all three of his full-time workers. But on Monday, the focus was on beer as well as health care. The Maine Brewers Guild said it was happy to send some craftbrewed beer to the White House. Maine's 20 breweries produce more than 100 brands of beer and a wide variety of styles. They also provide about 200 jobs, Mr. Baldacci noted. As for Mr. Milliken, he is enjoying his brush with fame. He created a Facebook page for Bill the Beer Guy and has a blog as well. He said he is happy to lend his voice to the debate. "We're having fun with it," he said. © Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Business/

E-reader News Edition

BARCA continued from page 45

Aleksandar Hemon is the author of The Lazarus Project and Love and Obstacles. He will be writing many more soccer columns for The New Republic and will participate in our upcoming World Cup blog. *Correction: This piece originally stated that Van der

Vaart was defending Messi at the time of the goal, when the defeder was Raul Albiol. We regret the error.

Submitted at 4/20/2010 8:15:00 AM

Filed under: Before the Bell, Earnings Reports, Scandals, International Business Machines (IBM), Novartis AG ADS (NVS), Goldman Sachs Group (GS) U.S. stock futures advanced Tuesday morning after generally strong earning results, especially from the big blue chip companies. Without much in the way of economic news Tuesday, it's all about earnings, and there is no shortage of those. From IBM late Monday to Goldman Sachs this morning, quarterly

Joseph Lazzaro (BloggingStocks) Submitted at 4/20/2010 10:00:00 AM

Filed under: Stocks to Buy When a stock meanders for a year, it's asking investors to exit the position. And that would have been the case with Sunoco Inc. ( SUN), which I first discussed here on April 20, 2009 at a price of $26.58, had it choppy trading day. While Wall not been for Sunoco's refinery Street was still reeling from the operation designation. f r a u d a l l e g a t i o n s a g a i n s t Like other refiners of crude oil, Goldman Sachs (GS), Citigroup Sunoco has been hurt by the (C), one of the hardest hit banks high-oil-price and low-gasolineduring the financial crisis, demand condition pervasive in r e p o r t e d s t r o n g r e s u l t s , the giant U.S. market: Sluggish offsetting some of the concerns. d e m a n d h a s h u r t r e f i n i n g Continue reading Before the m a r g i n s . financial results demonstrated a Bell: Futures Advance on recovery in process. Coca-Cola, Strong Earnings UnitedHealth and Johnson & Before the Bell: Futures Johnson all improved. Strong Advance on Strong Earnings results from Apple are also o r i g i n a l l y a p p e a r e d o n expected later this afternoon. BloggingStocks on Tue, 20 Apr With the exception of the 2010 08:15:00 EST. Please see Nasdaq composite, which ended our terms for use of feeds. relatively flat, stocks ended P e r m a l i n k | E m a i l t h i s | mostly higher Monday after a C o m m e n t s

Before the Bell: Futures Advance on Strong Earnings Melly Alazraki (BloggingStocks)

Sunoco: Refinery Play for Patient Investors

Continue reading Sunoco: Refinery Play for Patient Investors Sunoco: Refinery Play for Patient Investors originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 20 Apr 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Comments

Products/

E-reader News Edition

Preview: Garmin Nuvi 3700 GPS - Sleek PND with iPhone aspirations Consumer Reports Shopping Blog (Consumer Reports)

liberally from the iPhone, with a similar physical design, the ability to display in portrait or Submitted at 4/20/2010 4:29:59 AM landscape modes, and touchPreview: Garmin Nuvi 3700 screen shortcuts. The device GPS - Sleek PND with iPhone itself is slender at just 9 aspirations Garmin is the millimeters thick. Like the undisputed portable navigation a v a i l a b l e M a g e l l a n a n d device leader in the United TomTom mounts for the iPhone, S t a t e s , c o m m a n d i n g t h e the Nuvi 3700 mount includes a majority of sales and routinely second speaker to improve t o p p i n g o u r G P S r a t i n g s . sound. However, Garmin has resisted The Nuvi 3700 line has a 4.3the transition to making their inch screen that allows for multi navigation available through -touch controls, with commands smart-phone applications, as such as a double tap to zoom competitors like Navigon and and a two-finger twist to rotate T o m T o m h a v e d o n e . T h e the map. We have seen similar, exception to this policy is with touch-pattern controls on some their own navigation-equipped Sony devices, as well as iPhone Nuvifone, but that has failed to apps. These can make it easy to make a dent in the rapidly perform common functions, but expanding market. With its all- do come with a learning curve. new Nuvi 3700 line, it is clear The core features build on that Garmin has been watching established Garmin offerings, the Apple iPhone app offerings, with reality view, lane assist, though the company continues "Where am I?", speed limit to focus on PNDs. (See our indicator, pedestrian mode, and iPhone navigation app buying ecoRoute to provide the most advice and reviews.) fuel-efficient route. The Nuvi 3700 borrows The Nuvi 3700 also adds

several new features, such as historic traffic data to provide guidance appropriate to the day and time, reflecting the impact of rush hour and other trafficflow factors. In recent years, TomTom has distinguished its offerings with historic traffic information, effectively adding intelligence to route planning with this helpful feature. The Nuvi 3760T and 3790T both provide free, lifetime traffic alerts to reflect the current conditions, as well as historic information. Both include Bluetooth connectivity for hands -free phone use. The new Nuvi 3700 line shows that PNDs continue to evolve, reflecting the changing market.

As more consumers transition to smart phones, expect future PNDs to be further positioned to compete with other dashtop devices, as well as phones. Soon as we get a Nuvi 3700 into our GPS lab, we'll put it through our tests and report on how this model performs. — Jeff Bartlett Next Steps • GPS Buying Advice: • Types of GPS| • GPS Features| • GPS Brands All GPS Ratings Subscribers can view and compare all GPS Ratings. Recommended GPS Look at the ones that we chose as the best of the best. Subscribe now! S u b s c r i b e t o ConsumerReports.org for expert Ratings, buying advice and reliability on hundreds of products. Update your feed preferences

Products/

E-reader News Edition

Daily electronics deals Paul Eng (Consumer Reports)

Shipping • Vanns: Vanns Jamo Speaker Sale (Jamo C400SUR Cherry Daily electronics deals Concert Series Bookshelf Today's electronics deals, Speakers PAIR $79, MORE) courtesy of The Consumerist: • HP.com: 15.6-inch HP G62t • Walmart: Hitachi 42" LCD Core i3 $559.99 + $19 shipping 1080p HDTV for $549 w/ Free • Buy.com: Toshiba Satellite Shipping T115D-S1120 11.6-inch Laptop • Walmart: Philips Blu-Ray $399.99 + free shipping Disc Player for $97 w/ Free Shipping Entertainment • JR.com: Panasonic SD Card • Dell: Xbox 360 Final Fantasy Digital Camcorder for $199.99 XIII Special Edition Bundle for w/ Free Shipping $369.99 w/ Free Shipping • TigerDirect: SimpleTech 1TB • Dell: Playstation PSPgo Re-Drive Wood Accented System for $189 w/ Free External Hard Drive for $79.99 S h i p p i n g + Shipping • Amazon: Nintendo DS Stereo • SuperBiiz.com (eWiz.com): Headphones + Boom Mic for Intel X25-M 80GB SATA $7.98 + Shipping Internal Solid State Disk (2nd G e n , T R I M ) $ 1 9 9 . 9 9 F r e e Neither Consumer Reports nor Shipping The Consumerist receive • SuperBiiz.com (eWiz.com): a n y t h i n g i n e x c h a n g e f o r Sennheiser HD280 PRO Closed- featuring these deals; the posts B a c k N o i s e I s o l a t i n g are intended to be purely H e a d p h o n e s $ 6 9 . 9 9 F r e e informational. These deals are Submitted at 4/20/2010 6:08:05 AM

often fleeting, with prices changing or products becoming unavailable as the day progresses. These posts are not an endorsement of the featured products or the Web sites that sell them—though some of the sites may be included, and recommended, in our Ratings of retailers for computers and other major electronics(both available to subscribers). Price shouldn't be your only criterion. Be wary of lower-priced deals that seem too good to be true, and check return policies for restocking fees and other gotchas. For general buying advice for many of the products on sale above, check out our free Buying Guides. Subscribe now! S u b s c r i b e t o ConsumerReports.org for expert Ratings, buying advice and reliability on hundreds of products. Update your feed preferences

Q&A: Do acidic diets cause disease? rss@consumerreports.org (Consumer Reports) Submitted at 4/20/2010 5:39:07 AM

Q&A: Do acidic diets cause disease? I’ve heard that acidic diets can cause a wide range of serious disorders, from cancer and arthritis to Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. Is that true? — R.N., Aurora, Ill.

No—though they might possibly contribute to two specific problems. "Acidic"

actually refers to the diet’s effect on acid levels in the bloodstream, not to the original acidity of the foods themselves. Inherently acidic foods like tomatoes and grapefruit do not affect the blood’s acid level. In contrast, acidic diets typically contain lots of high-protein foods, such as meat, fish, and Q&A: page 49

Tips from our crib safety experts Artemis Dibenedetto (Consumer Reports) Submitted at 4/20/2010 1:59:59 AM

Tips from our crib safety experts About 7 million cribs, most with drop sides, have been recalled since 2007, many because of hardware failures that have injured or even killed children. In fact, ASTM International, a voluntary industry standards group, will no longer recognize cribs with drop sides as meeting its safety standard. To find out whether your crib has been recalled, go to the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s recall database, at www.cpsc.gov. If your crib is on the list, contact the manufacturer as soon as possible for a repair kit. Don’t fix it yourself! Here are some other shopping tips for cribs: • Look for cribs with stationary sides and strong thick wood or metal slats. Avoid used cribs, particularly those made before 1999; they might not meet the current safety standards, which we think are still too lax. (See CPSC takes hard line on defective cribs.)• Buy a

mattress that fits snugly, with no gaps around the edges. Don’t buy soft bedding such as comforters, pillows, or bumper pads; they can cause suffocation. (See crib bedding: what not to buy.) For more crib tips, go to our cribs buying advice and crib ratings. And stay tuned for our updated crib ratings, coming later this year. Subscribe now! S u b s c r i b e t o ConsumerReports.org for expert Ratings, buying advice and reliability on hundreds of products. Update your feed preferences

Sports/

E-reader News Edition

Q&A: continued from page 48

foods, such as meat, fish, and hard cheese, as well as grains, sugar, and salt. Digestion and metabolism of those foods create acidic compounds that the body immediately neutralizes. That can lead to loss of bone calcium, which ends up in the urine. As a result, some research suggests that habitually consuming an acidic diet might increase the risk of osteoporosis and perhaps calcium-containing kidney stones. Theoretically, those possible bone-and-stone effects may add yet another reason to

limit your intake of meat, processed foods, and other sweet or salty items, and to eat plenty of fruits and vegetables, which can reduce your dietâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s acidity. Subscribe now! S u b s c r i b e t o ConsumerReports.org for expert Ratings, buying advice and reliability on hundreds of products. Update your feed preferences

Defense Is Offense In Phoenix Adam Gretz (FanHouse Main) Submitted at 4/20/2010 4:30:00 AM

Filed under: Coyotes, NHL Coaching, NHL Playoffs With just 211 goals during the regular season -- 24th in the NHL -- the Phoenix Coyotes don't always play the most exciting brand of hockey. The closest thing they have to a star player is probably Shane Doan(one of of only five players in the NHL who actually played for the Winnipeg Jets) while the remainder of the roster was pieced together, sometimes in patchwork fashion, through a series of under-the-radar trades, bargain basement free agent signings and even waivers ( like

their Vezina Trophy finalist goaltender). They're very structured, they're very disciplined and as the No. 4 seed in the Western Conference -- and entering Tuesday night DEFENSE page 50

Baseball Has Moments but Still Dozing Into Oblivion Jay Mariotti (FanHouse Main) Submitted at 4/19/2010 8:00:00 PM

Filed under: MLB There are times, such as just the other night, when an old man's game known as baseball sneaks up and reminds us that it still can be relevant. In the space of mere hours, Colorado's Ubaldo Jimenez became the first pitcher whose name begins with a "U'' to throw a no-hitter, a walkencrusted treat followed by 18 scoreless innings -- did you spazz, too, when the screen flashed NY 0, STL 0 17th? -that left Cardinals manager Tony La Russa again looking like a wacky professor who thinks himself into conundrums ... and 20-inning losses. It's OK, Tony -- really -- to disrupt your rotation in midApril and use a starting pitcher in the seventh hour of a game. Certainly, it's a smarter option than trotting out utilitymen Felipe Lopez and Joe Mather to pitch the final three innings. And how about using a pinchhitter to bat for a reliever amid

Capitals Cruise Despite Power Outage A.J. Perez (FanHouse Main) Submitted at 4/19/2010 5:33:00 PM

rallies in the 12th and 14th innings, both of which ended with the bases loaded on a night when St. Louis stranded 22 runners? "The outcome was disappointing, but the heart the club showed was amazing," La Russa said. "I give them a standing ovation." If so, the manager should be booed to the Illinois side of the Mississippi River. And thanked, in a perverse way, for giving us something to argue about.

Filed under: Canadiens, Capitals, NHL Playoffs Boyd Gordon took a couple whacks on the backhand and gave the Washington Capitals their first goal in special teams in the series. It just came shorthanded instead of on the team's struggling power play, not that it mattered much as the Capitals eased to a 5-1 victory over the host Montreal Canadiens in Game 3 of the first-round series Monday night. The Capitals, which lead the best-of-seven series 2-1, had seven more power play opportunities for a total of 11 minutes, 29 seconds in Game 3. CAPITALS page 50

Sports/ Gaming/

E-reader News Edition

Ike Davis Rare Ray of James' Jumpers Quiet Hope in Flushing's Endless Bulls' Bench Circus Pat McManamon (FanHouse Main)

Ed Price (FanHouse Main)

Submitted at 4/19/2010 8:00:00 PM

Submitted at 4/19/2010 7:01:00 PM

Filed under: Mets NEW YORK -- The Mets did the only thing they could do Monday to assure themselves of cheers their first day back at Citi Field. They called up Ike Davis. When Davis got off his plane from Buffalo on Monday, one of the baggage handlers at LaGuardia Airport had seen Davis' name on the flight manifest and approached him for an autograph. With the team 4-8 -- having lost two of three in each of its first four series -- after 2 1/2 years of agony, Mets fans have been searching for a someone, something, which they could grab onto for a positive vibe.

Filed under: Bulls, Cavaliers, Playoffs CLEVELAND -- He made them from 17 feet, 22 feet, 25 feet. He made them all game, but he especially made them in the fourth quarter when he scored 15 points -- including 11 in a row when the outcome was in doubt. First came a 25-foot three over Joakim Noah that still had Noah shaking his head in wonder well after the game had ended. Then came a driving layup when he went by Luol Deng and up and under Noah. Next came a 19-footer. Then a 20-footer. There was no doubt on any of the shots.

Review: 3D Dot Game Heroes JC Fletcher (Joystiq) Submitted at 4/20/2010 9:00:00 AM

Silicon Studio set out to make a game primarily as a means of Ike Davis is the designated life showing off its graphical effect preserver. LeBron James was feeling it -- middleware-- and then chose a Which, of course, is unfair to and because he felt it the retro-style action RPG as that him. He's 23 years old with 65 Cleveland Cavaliers head to showcase. That shouldn't work games of experience above Chicago with a 2-0 series lead. a t a l l . B u t s o m e h o w , t h e Single-A and just 10 in TripleBecause of James' shooting -- a developer managed to pull it off; A. facet of the game he has worked 3D Dot Game Heroes is a "He's not here to stay," general hard to improve -- the Cavs won f a i t h f u l , e x p e r t l y c r a f t e d manager Omar Minaya a game the Bulls easily could r e p r o d u c t i o n o f N E S - e r a cautioned. have stolen, 112-102. gameplay that happens to highlight spectacular visual DEFENSE CAPITALS effects in a logical way. continued from page 49 continued from page 49 The studio pulled this w i t h a 2 - 1 l e a d i n t h e i r play. And no team has been "We suck right now," Capitals in." impressive feat off by designing conference quarterfinal series -- better at it, or relied it on more, coach Bruce Boudreau smirked. Capitals lead series, 2-1 a world composed of giant they've been very good. this season than the Coyotes. "It's the worst stretch that we've Capitals 5, Canadiens 1: Recap| cubes, essentially 3D versions of When your roster isn't loaded Coyotes vs. Red Wings: Series gone through. It happens like Box Score| Series Page 8-bit sprites. This style is with All-Star snipers and true P a g e | F u l l N H L P l a y o f f s that once you start getting overlaid with insane visual goal-scoring threats, you have to C o v e r a g e [more] frustrated. I thought we effects, like an exaggerated find different ways to create had some good looks and some depth of field that makes chances and put points on the good chances, but nothing went everything look miniature, and board. One such way: surreal, sparkling water. Even aggressive defensemen that the spells are winkingly based aren't afraid to jump into the REVIEW: page 51

Gaming/

E-reader News Edition

REVIEW: continued from page 50

Square Enix releases Chaos Prince of Persia movie Rings on iPhone, discounts LEGO toys get a blockbuster commercial other iPhone games JC Fletcher (Joystiq)

this expensive-for-iPhone game also brings savings. To promote Submitted at 4/20/2010 10:00:00 AM the launch of Chaos Rings, Square Enix's impressive- Square Enix put its other iPhone looking iPhone RPG, Chaos games on sale. Among others, Rings, is now available from the Final Fantasy and Final Fantasy App Store. If you'd like to try it, II are now $6.99 each, Crystal you'll have to pay the iPhone Defenders is now $5.99, and equivalent of the Square Enix Sliding Heroes has temporarily Tax, as the publisher has priced reached the magic $.99 price the Media Vision-developed point. Even the Final Fantasy RPG at $12.99. Chaos Rings is XIII gallery is on sale, priced at the story of four couples (each Still Too Much. in its own storyline) summoned Square Enix releases Chaos to fight to the death in a Rings on iPhone, discounts tournament for some mysterious other iPhone games originally reason. The "couple" theme appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 20 forms the strategic element of Apr 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please battles: you have to decide when see our terms for use of feeds. to use combined attacks that Read| Permalink| Email this| also open both party members to Comments damage. Paradoxically, the release of

on graphical effects like shaders and parallax maps. It's essentially the lost NES Zelda game. Or, rather, it's a parody of the Zelda series executed so perfectly that it is itself an excellent Zelda game. Gallery: 3D Dot Game Heroes (PS3) Continue reading Review: 3D Dot Game Heroes Review: 3D Dot Game Heroes originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 20 Apr 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Comments

Griffin McElroy (Joystiq)

possibility of a LEGO video game based on Jordan Mechner's action-platforming We've seen so many instances franchise, we'd like to remind where the LEGO toy brand has you that LEGO bricks are, in infiltrated the world of video and of themselves, completely games over the past few years -- rad. LEGO bricks based on one that's why it's so downright of our favorite game series are refreshing to see the tables get doubly so. turned. Just past the jump is a [Via Kotaku] commercial for that new line of Continue reading Prince of wonderbricks based on the Persia movie LEGO toys get a upcoming film adaptation of block-buster commercial Prince of Persia: The Sands of Prince of Persia movie LEGO Time. It's full of assassins, traps t o y s g e t a b l o c k - b u s t e r that are ready to spring on a commercial originally appeared teeny little Jake Gyllenhaal on Joystiq on Tue, 20 Apr 2010 Gyllenblock, but, strangely, 00:30:00 EST. Please see our nary a trace of the slow-motion - terms for use of feeds. - which is so prevalent in the Read| Permalink| Email this| film and games. Comments Though your mind may immediately wander to the Submitted at 4/20/2010 12:30:00 AM

EA launches free-toplay 'Lord of Ultima' browser-based game Alexander Sliwinski (Joystiq) Submitted at 4/20/2010 10:30:00 AM

Electronic Arts is again setting its sights on conquering the lucrative lands of free-to-play gaming with Lord of Ultima, launching today on a browser near you. The online strategy LAUNCHES page 52

Gaming/

E-reader News Edition

LAUNCHES continued from page 51

Concept art from canned Vectorman update emerges Justin McElroy (Joystiq)

idea of what the game would have played like with the alpha Submitted at 4/20/2010 9:37:00 AM footage after the break. As you'll Of all the canned games that we see, it kind of looks like a blend wish could see the light of day, of Blasto and Red Faction, the 3D update of Vectorman for which probably sounds a lot PS2 is at the top of the list. ... better in theory than practice. Okay, maybe he's not at the top Continue reading Concept art of the list, but he could probably from canned Vectorman update walk there. ... Not walk, but it emerges would be a short drive. So, as Concept art from canned you've likely gathered, it's with Vectorman update emerges a m o u n t a i n o f m e a s u r e d originally appeared on Joystiq enthusiasm we present these on Tue, 20 Apr 2010 09:37:00 recently unearthed pieces of EST. Please see our terms for concept art from the game, use of feeds. discovered by Siliconera. Read| Permalink| Email this| You can get a slightly better Comments

game certainly has more of a "core" audience in mind -- as if the Ultima license didn't already give that away -- with players constructing kingdoms through war, trade and diplomacy. We haven't had a chance to play yet, so we're not exactly s u r e w h e r e t h e microtransactions in this game fit in. The press release and main Lord of Ultima site are very sketchy on the details. A quick scan of the site mentioned that the game is free to play, but "there is the option to purchase additional features etc." If

you've taken LoU for a spin, feel free to drop the microtransaction details in the comments below. Gallery: Lord of Ultima EA launches free-to-play 'Lord of Ultima' browser-based game originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 20 Apr 2010 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments