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Qat joins al Qaeda as Yemen threat By Andrew Quinn (Front Row Washington)

it has become a failed state.” Assistant Secretary of State Jeffrey Feltman, who spent most Submitted at 2/3/2010 9:56:13 AM of the morning outlining U.S. U.S. lawmakers, convening a plans to help Yemen improve meeting on Wednesday to both security and governance to discuss the threat posed by al fight off the al Qaeda threat, Qaeda in Yemen, found conceded that there were no themselves focused on another quick fixes in the offing for the problem stalking the qat problem. impoverished Arab country: the “Qat is depriving income from mild drug qat, which permeates families. It is preventing people Yemeni society. from effective employment. It is Rep. Howard Berman, the using up precious water chairman of the House Foreign resources,” Feltman said, noting Affairs Committee, launched the that the U.S. Agency for discussion of Yemen’s drug International Development problem in his opening remarks, supplies. widespread use of qat, which he (USAID) was working with the noting that qat was “a narcotic The focus on qat continued with called “grotesquely disfiguring” World Bank and others to plant that produces feelings of Rep. Gary Ackerman, who as Yemenis plugged big wads of develop agricultural business euphoria and stimulation, but mused that Yemen’s drug habit the plant into their cheeks to initiatives in Yemen in hopes of ultimately undermines individual m i g h t b e u n d e r c u t t i n g i t s chew. spurring farmers to start growing initiative — sort of like being in readiness to sign on to a more “These weren’t just young kids. more productive crops. Congress.” forceful campaign against al They were police officers, they But he said qat use in Yemen Berman noted that many people Qaeda militants within its were businessmen,” Scott said, was a “severe problem” that still chew qat regularly in Yemen — borders. adding that the water demands of needed to be addressed. pushed close to the top of the “ T h e s e p e o p l e s p e n d t h e Yemen’s qat industry were “I don’t think there’s any shortU.S. security watchlist after the afternoon getting away from helping push the country to term fix to the long-term qat Christmas Day bombing attempt reality, getting high…it’s like, economic ruin. problem,” he said. on a U.S. airliner by a Nigerian wow,” Ackerman said. “It is the driving characteristic of Photo credit: REUTERS/Ahmed with Yemeni links – and that Rep. David Scott told the panel that economy, of that culture,” Jadallah (Yemeni farmer sells cultivation of the drug consumes that on a recent trip to Yemen he Scott said. “That is not only qat from truck in Sanaa) about 40 percent of Yemen’s fast h a d b e e n a p p a l l e d b y t h e making Yemen a failed state — diminishing agricultural water

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Murdoch's Daughter Recognizes That 'Piracy' Can Be Good By Mike Masnick (Techdirt) Submitted at 2/3/2010 10:52:00 PM

Even as Rupert Murdoch is calling aggregators and other sites "pirates" and claiming that fair use can be blocked, it seems his daughter has a more enlightened view. Copycense points us to a recent talk by Elisabeth Murdoch, who owns a TV production house, where she basically admits that blocking what people want to do is a bad idea:"Fans remain the best salesmen of our content, even if that behavior is on the borderline of piracy. Danger of the new world is that we must concede that we'll lose some control." Nice to hear. Now, if only her Dad would listen to her before he pisses off a bunch of his best content salesmen. Permalink| Comments| Email This Story

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Getting things done at the Pentagon… By David Alexander (Front Row Washington) Submitted at 2/3/2010 10:23:29 PM

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has his eye on a specialized piece of equipment for breaking down communications barriers over at the Pentagon. He told the House Armed Services Committee about it Wednesday while making his budget pitch. It’s a blowtorch. Asked whether the task force

charged with defeating improvised explosive devices in Afghanistan was doing its job, Gates told lawmakers it was performing well. Improvised explosives, used for roadside bombings and other attacks, have killed more than 600 coalition troops since 2001, according to icasualties.org, which tracks combat deaths in Afghanistan. While IEDs accounted for only 16 percent of fatalities in 2002, their proportion has grown

substantially. They represented 61 percent of deaths last year and 71 percent so far this year. The task force dealing with improvised explosives has received some $17.2 billion since its inception and has a staff of 4,800. Gates said production for some equipment to deal with the devices was “maxed out.” He said efforts were under way to acquire other items as quickly as possible and send them to Afghanistan.

One idea is to warehouse equipment at the battalion level so troops going into the field can pick what is appropriate for any given day. The problem, Gates said, has been with integrating the different approaches toward dealing with improvised explosives. That’s where the blowtorch comes in. He said when the task force completes its work, the Pentagon will need a senior official

“applying a blowtorch to this issue” to ensure the different parts are talking to each other and equipment flows to Afghanistan as quickly as possible. For more Reuters political news, click here. Photo credit: Reuters/Jim Young (Gates and Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testify before a House panel Wednesday)

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Healthcare's about the economy, stupid | Ashley Sayeau By Ashley Sayeau (World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk)

healthcare is not really a high priority for people. Instead of fixing healthcare, David Brooks argued on the New York Times Submitted at 2/4/2010 8:30:19 AM website: Republicans claim Obama's "We could use that money to healthcare focus ignores our build infrastructure, jobs, a new fiscal worries – but if it's not an energy economy and pay down economic issue, I don't know some of the deficit, which may what is actually do more social good." Like many Americans, I've been Peggy Noonan made the same lucky enough not to have to point on CNN: w o r r y t o o m u c h a b o u t "One of Obama's biggest healthcare. When I was living in problems in his first year was the States, I got it through my that his preoccupations were in employer, and now that I'm t h i s d i r e c t i o n , a n d t h e living in London, my family and preoccupations of the American I are covered under the NHS. people were in this direction. But with the Republican victory They were not on the same page. in Massachusetts, healthcare T h e A m e r i c a n p e o p l e a r e reform is looking ever more thinking economy, foreign unlikely, even in its pared-down affairs, national security. He's form. So the other day I decided doing healthcare, cap-and-trade – to see what it would cost my stuff that these people thought family of four to buy the same w a s a l i t t l e d a f f y t o b e insurance – from probably the c o n c e n t r a t i n g o n . " best known insurance company Yes, jobs are important; the in the country – that we had economy is important – but why when we left New York two this would mean we should give years ago. up healthcare reform is beyond The total came to $4469.13 per me. Given what I have found, if m o n t h – a y e a r l y s u m o f healthcare is not an economic $53,629.56 – for two healthy issue, I don't know what is. adults in their early 30s and their On a large scale, good money is two equally healthy daughters, being wasted in our current aged four years old and eight system. According to the Centre months. And no, that doesn't for American Progress, America include co-pays. spends far more of its GDP on This is a crazy amount of healthcare than other OECD money, and yet, with help from countries, 16% of its total the media, Republicans claim expenditures. And it racks up

$480bn in excess spending when compared to those countries, billions that could be spent on job creation, energy programmes, and schools. But when it costs a family of four $53,629.56 a year to insure their health, there is a problem, particularly when the average salary for someone living in the New York area is $50,820. There is no wonder 23% of uninsured families report that their medical bills require them to skimp on basic necessities like food and heat. Or that healthcare costs are the number one reason Americans file for bankruptcy. To argue that healthcare is not an economic issue simply doesn't add up. President Obama seems to understand this. In an interview with ABC News, he said, "We know that we need insurance reform, that the health insurance companies are taking advantage of people … We know that we have to have some form of cost containment because if we don't, then our budgets are going to blow up, and we know that small businesses are going to need help so that they can provide health insurance to their families." Whether he will actually fight for these things, however, remains to be seen. Instead of using his normal conciliatory tone towards Republicans (who

have in the past zillion decades done Democrats no such favours), he needs to adopt their message and use it for his own. If Americans don't like the words "public" or "socialism" – and I think I'm ready to concede that they just don't – then he should steal back words like "privacy" and "choice". He should argue that the current system offers neither. Because it really doesn't. Another surprise I encountered was that there were so few options out there. In my search, I found only two other companies I'd even heard of, while the few others I found looked about as reputable and real as the guys you see on commercials for used car lots. I was able to get a lower quote at one of the other heard-of companies, although it was still in the four digits for monthly care. When I called the third company, I couldn't get an actual person to discuss my specific needs. Their website boasted countless plans which were pared down (no maternity coverage, for instance) and confusing (if you lose your left leg, you pay 20% of your deductible; if it's your right, 30%, but of course it all depends who's standing where …). And that's not to mention the restrictions. Apparently, at this company even though I am an American citizen, I wouldn't

even be able to apply until I lived in the country again for six months. No exceptions for the eight-month-old either. These aren't private choices; these are scams. Insurance companies are making the calls, not doctors. Or people. Indeed for many people, this system precludes them from making very real decisions about their own lives. This goes for people without insurance, but also for those with it. How does one go back to school, better themselves, if doing so means their kids might go uncovered? How does a stay-at-home-mum leave an abusive marriage when it means losing her husband's employer's benefits? Abandoning healthcare reform now is not only cowardly, it's simply unethical. • Barack Obama • US healthcare • US economy • Republicans • Democrats • US politics • United States Ashley Sayeau guardian.co.uk© Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions| More Feeds

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Pakistan denounces scientist conviction By Declan Walsh (World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk) Submitted at 2/4/2010 8:02:17 AM

Dr Aafia Siddiqui found guilty in New York of attempting to shoot a team of US soldiers in Afghanistan in July 2008 Pakistanis were united in anger today after an American court convicted Dr Aafia Siddiqui, a US-educated neuroscientist previously accused of al-Qaida links, on charges of assault and attempted murder. A New York court found Siddiqui guilty of attempting to shoot a team of American soldiers and FBI agents in an Afghan police station in July 2008. She faces up to 60 years in prison. A foreign office spokesman said he was "dismayed" by the verdict, adding that Pakistan's president, prime minister and foreign minister had appealed to the US authorities for Siddiqui's release. The government spent $2m on top flight lawyers to defend her. Television reports carried furious comments from ordinary Pakistanis reflecting a widelyheld view that the 37-year-old

mother of three, who graduated from MIT and Brandeis University, was the victim of a grave miscarriage of justice. In Siddiqui's hometown, Karachi, her sister Fowzia struck a defiant note. "Maybe they thought there would be crying and condolences. This is not so; we are rejuvenated," she said at the family home, surrounded by cheering supporters. Shireen Mazari, editor of the rightwing Nation newspaper, wrote that the verdict "did not really surprise anyone familiar with the vindictive mindset of the US public post-9/11". Mushahid Hussain, a prominent opposition politician, called for Siddiqui to be sent home. One of the few dissenting opinions came from Siddiqui's ex -husband, Amjad Khan, who said his ex-wife was "reaping the fruit of her own decision. "Her family has been portraying Aafia as a victim. We would like the truth to come out," he said. Hard facts have been elusive in one of the most intriguing and murky cases to emerge from the Bush administration-era "war on terror". It started in March 2003 when Siddiqui and her three children mysteriously

disappeared from Karachi, probably picked up by Pakistani intelligence. What happened next is hotly contested. Siddiqui's supporters, led by the British campaigner Yvonne Ridley, insist she was sent to Bagram airfield north of Kabul, where she was detained and tortured by US forces. Sceptics say she was probably on the run in Pakistan, associating with Islamist extremists. In 2004 the FBI named Siddiqui as one of seven senior al-Qaida figures plotting to attack America, which earned her the nickname "Lady alQaida" in the US media. But few of those events were examined in the trial, which concentrated on a narrow sequence of events in an Afghan police station in July 2008, when Siddiqui dramatically resurfaced. The prosecution claimed that Siddiqui seized a US soldier's M4 rifle and opened fire, before being shot in the stomach and arrested. Notably, she was not charged with terrorism-related crimes or al-Qaida links, and after yesterday's guilty verdict was announced, defence lawyer Charles Swift said the case had

been decided on "fear not facts". The prosecution could produce little forensic evidence to support its case; with experts unable to produce incriminating bullet cases or fingerprints on the weapon Siddiqui allegedly fired. Instead the jury appeared to have been swayed by statements from at least seven witnesses, including an Afghan translator and several US soldiers. Jurors may also have been swayed by Siddiqui's erratic behaviour. The diminutive defendant, who appeared in court with her face mostly veiled, frequently made shouted outbursts that caused guards to hustle her back to her cell. She said her case was been orchestrated by unspecified "Jews" and demanded that no person of Jewish descent be allowed to sit on the panel of jurors. After the guilty verdict was announced she cried out: "This is a verdict coming from Israel and not from America." She is due to be sentenced in May. The hearing left many contentious questions about the enigmatic neuroscientist unanswered – particularly the fate of her missing children.

East to west, 'Street Sounds' maps U.S. in audio By Leslie Katz (Webware.com) Submitted at 2/3/2010 4:42:00 PM

New online project aims to create an audio map of the country. It's a great way to relive the drama of a tropical Florida

thunderstorm, amble through San Francisco's Chinatown, or visit that Connecticut Radio Shack you've always wanted to see.

Originally posted at News Digital Media

Siddiqui's oldest son, Ahmed, resurfaced alongside his mother in Afghanistan in 2008. He now lives in Karachi with Fowzia Siddiqui, who has not allowed him to speak publicly of his experience. But the whereabouts of the other two children – Mariam, 11, and Suleman, 7 – remains a mystery. Their father, Amjad Khan, has called for an inquiry into their whereabouts. "We would like the three governments to come up with a joint report to lay down the truth," he said. "Most of all we are concerned about the two kids – where they are, who is holding them, and why." • Pakistan • United States • Global terrorism • al-Qaida Declan Walsh guardian.co.uk© Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions| More Feeds

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Cutty Sark to be restored in time for 2012 Olympics

Faster downloads, skins, and caps in uTorrent 2.0

By Maev Kennedy (World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk)

By Seth Rosenblatt (Webware.com)

was among the doubters, he revealed today. "Everyone was shocked and saddened as we watched those terrible images of Submitted at 2/4/2010 7:55:52 AM fire on the news. People • Gordon Brown confirms Cutty wondered then whether Cutty S a r k w i l l b e ' i n p r i s t i n e Sark could ever be brought back condition' to its former glory." • Restoration will allow visitors a But he added: "Today's new view below the hull announcement means that the The three masts of the beautiful historic clipper – that much Cutty Sark, an icon on the loved part of our maritime London skyline, will rise again heritage since it was installed at over a fully restored ship in time Greenwich more than 50 years for the 2012 Olympics, with the ago – will once again be open to last gap in the funding completed the public and in pristine by a £3m grant announced today c o n d i t i o n i n t i m e f o r t h e by the government. Olympics." Planned restoration work was Ships were not designed to last already well underway in May for 150 years, nor to spend half a 2007 when images went round century out of the water: the the world of the hull reduced to a Cutty Sark, built in 1869, the last smoking heap of charcoal in a survivor of the greyhounds of the disastrous fire. The column of sea, the tea clippers to race to the black smoke was seen for miles, east for the precious harvest of and many who viewed its still tea, is reckoned to have sustained smouldering aftermath wondered as much damage in dry dock at if the ship was beyond salvation. Greenwich as in the previous Prime minster Gordon Brown century. The ship was still

regarded as one of the most beautiful tourist attractions anywhere, but was invisibly decaying as salts locked inside the hull corroded the iron ribs. The decision was taken to close for the most major work since the Cutty Sark left the shipyard in Dumbarton where it was built. In 2005 the project, involving lifting the entire hull off the bottom of the dry dock so that visitors will be able for the first time to walk underneath and admire the curvaceous line which gave it speed at sea, was costed at £25m. The damage, the long delay in getting work started again, and the extra work needed which the fire revealed, meant the bill has almost doubled to over £46m: the Heritage Lottery grant alone, originally £13m, has gone up to over £25m. The fire was a devastating shock to the trust which owns the ship, but the damage proved less disastrous than first appeared.

Much of the fabric destroyed actually dated from work in the 1950s, and many original features had already been removed and were safely in store – including the figurehead of the witch in her short nightshirt, the Cutty Sark of the ship's name. As well as greeting Olympics visitors, the ship should be open again when her adopted home berth becomes the Royal Borough of Greenwich, a title being bestowed to mark the Queen's diamond jubilee, also in 2012. • Heritage • Museums • Water transport • Olympic games 2012

Submitted at 2/3/2010 1:12:00 PM

uTorrent 2.0 went gold a few days ago, and the latest stable version of the incredibly popular torrent client introduces several useful new features for those who haven't been playing around with the beta. Originally posted at The Download Blog

Video: Jon Stewart on Hamas Cartoons (Little Green Footballs) Submitted at 2/3/2010 2:18:38 PM

Maev Kennedy guardian.co.uk© Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions| More Feeds

[Video]

Fear over Sovereign Debt Rattles European Markets By Connie Madon (BloggingStocks) Submitted at 2/4/2010 12:00:00 PM

Filed under: International Markets, Indices, Market Matters, Recession It started with Dubai. Then it spread to Greece, Now its

moving to Spain and Portugal. What is it? It's fear that some European countries will default on their sovereign debt. The Europe Markit Sovx index, which measures the cost of insuring against default, jumped 100 basis points for the first credit default swaps (CDS). CDS time, along with heavy buying of spreads on Portugal hit record

highs, up 17 basis points to 212. Greek swaps rose 7 basis points to 398. Continue reading Fear over Sovereign Debt Rattles European Markets Fear over Sovereign Debt Rattles European Markets originally appeared on

BloggingStocks on Thu, 04 Feb 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

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Ancient tribal language becomes extinct as last speaker dies By Jonathan Watts (World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk)

the last few years of her life unable to converse with anyone in her mother tongue. Even members of inter-related Submitted at 2/4/2010 8:28:34 AM tribes were unable to Death of Boa Sr, last person comprehend the repertoire of Bo fluent in the Bo language of the songs and stories uttered by the Andaman Islands, breaks link woman in her 80s, who also with 65,000-year-old culture spoke Hindi and another local The last speaker of an ancient language. tribal language has died in the "Her loss is not just the loss of Andaman Islands, breaking a t h e G r e a t A n d a m a n e s e 65,000-year link to one of the community, it is a loss of several world's oldest cultures. disciplines of studies put Boa Sr, who lived through the together, including anthropology, 2004 tsunami, the Japanese linguistics, history, psychology, occupation and diseases brought a n d b i o l o g y , " N a r a y a n by British settlers, was the last C h o u d h a r y , a l i n g u i s t o f native of the island chain who Jawaharlal Nehru University was fluent in Bo. who was part of an Andaman Taking its name from a now- research team, wrote on his extinct tribe, Bo is one of the 10 webpage. "To me, Boa Sr Great Andamanese languages, epitomised a totality of humanity which are thought to date back to in all its hues and with a richness pre-Neolithic human settlement that is not to be found anywhere of south-east Asia. else." Though the language has been The Andaman Islands, in the closely studied by researchers of Bay of Bengal, are governed by linguistic history, Boa Sr spent India. The indigenous population

has steadily collapsed since the island chain was colonised by British settlers in 1858 and used for most of the following 100 years as a colonial penal colony. Tribes on some islands retained their distinct culture by dwelling deep in the forests and rebuffing would-be colonisers, missionaries and documentary makers with volleys of arrows. But the last vestiges of remoteness ended with the construction of trunk roads from the 1970s. According to the NGO Survival International, the number of Great Andamanese has declined in the past 150 years from about 5,000 to 52. Alcoholism is rife among the survivors. "The Great Andamanese were first massacred, then all but wiped out by paternalistic policies which left them ravaged by epidemics of disease, and robbed of their land and independence," said Survival International's director, Stephen

Corry. "With the death of Boa Sr and the extinction of the Bo language, a unique part of human society is now just a memory. Boa's loss is a bleak reminder that we must not allow this to happen to the other tribes of the Andaman Islands." Boa Sr appears to have been in good health until recently. During the Indian Ocean tsunami, she reportedly climbed a tree to escape the waves. She told linguists afterwards that she had been forewarned. "We were all there when the earthquake came. The eldest told us the Earth would part, don't run away or move." • India

Web video gets H.264 royalty reprieve By Stephen Shankland (Webware.com) Submitted at 2/4/2010 12:08:00 AM

The group that licenses the widely used H.264 video compression technology decides against adding a Web-streaming royalty charge that could have helped rival formats such as Ogg Theora. Originally posted at Deep Tech

Altitude Causes Weight Loss Without Exercise (Wired Top Stories) Submitted at 2/4/2010 6:36:00 AM

Jonathan Watts guardian.co.uk© Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions| More Feeds

A new study showed that overweight men lost an average of three pounds after a week at high altitude with minimal activity and no dietary restrictions.

Ear wax cleaner sucks more than Q-tips By Doug Aamoth (CrunchGear)

Take this Cordless ear wax cleaner, for instance. It’s only ten bucks and it runs on AA Submitted at 2/4/2010 8:30:52 AM batteries. You know what you need to According to the product clean out your ears? Tools. And description: not tools like Q-tips. “Cordless ear wax cleaner safely R e a l t o o l s . M o t o r i z e d , and easily suctions out wax. removes embedded wax without mechanized, battery-using tools. Powerful, yet gentle suction injury. Compact, includes stand.

Requires two AA batteries, not included.” I like that it includes a stand. “What’s that weird apparatus prominently displayed on your bathroom sink? Water pik? Electric tooth brush?” Nope. It’s a cordless ear wax remover. You didn’t stick it in

your mouth did you? You wouldn’t tell me even if you did, would you? You stuck it in your mouth, didn’t you? EAR WAX CLEANER[Taylor Gifts via Red Ferret]

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Father tells how gas leak killed children in Corfu holiday bungalow (World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk) Submitted at 2/4/2010 9:04:06 AM

Thomas Cook employees go in trial over deaths of Christianne Shepherd, 7, and her brother Robert, 6 A father told a Corfu court today how his children died from carbon monoxide poisoning after a faulty boiler leaked gas into their hoilday bungalow. Christianne Shepherd, seven, and her brother Robert, six, were on holiday with their father, Neil, and his partner, Ruth Beatson, of Wakefield, West Yorkshire, who were both left in a coma. Two Thomas Cook employees, Nicola Gibson and Richard Carson, went on trial charged with manslaughter by negligence and bodily harm by negligence. Shepherd said: "About 10 minutes after we had gone to bed Christi sat up and started being sick. I went over to her to help. When I sat up I felt dizzy but my concern was for my daughter." Shepherd struggled to tell the court how he went to get a carrier bag for her to vomit into. He also began to suffer the

effects of the poisoning. "I was immediately sick. While I was tending to Christi, Ruth got up and went to sit with Bobby because we thought he would be upset. "Ruth said she felt dizzy too, but she had been feeling dizzy for maybe one or two weeks earlier so she just thought it was part of that." When Shepherd was asked what happened next, he replied: "I can't remember anything after me being sick because I just passed out within a few seconds." Shepherd and Beatson, who are now married, were both taken to a hospital in Athens and regained consciousness after a few days. It was there that his brother told them of the deaths of Shepherd's children. Shepherd said: "I can't really remember anything about that time because we were still very poorly." Struggling to compose himself, he told the court he relied on the Greek authorities for information. "I relied on the police to find out the cause of the accident," he said. "We were in no position to do anything, we

The 10 Most Useful Gadgets From Sc-Fi and Comics By Matt Blum (Wired Top Stories)

were both extremely poorly and traumatised." Shepherd went on to say that their bungalow was not ready when the family arrived at the Louis Corcyra Beach hotel in October 2006. He thought the complex looked "very tired". The family was given no safety advice regarding gas appliances and did not think to ask for any as they had previously checked in the holiday brochures that all accommodation was Corgiregistered. Shepherd said: "You're going on holiday, the last thing going through your mind is not being safe. "You just presume that you're safe, you presume that the tour operator has just done the checks so that you can just go away and enjoy your holiday and not have your children die." â&#x20AC;˘ Greece guardian.co.ukÂŠ Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions| More Feeds

It's a Bird! It's a Plane! It's...an Infographic? By William Bostwick (Fast Company)

amidst South African Airways plain-Jane fleet: white, serifed type, and the most predictable Submitted at 2/4/2010 10:40:43 AM logo possible, the South African South African airline Kulula flag. l a u n c h e s a n e w f l e e t o f It's a huge step up from Kulula's c o n v e n i e n t l y l a b e l e d j e t s . past designs (right, top), which Ah, the power of branding. made it look more like a late-90s While Boeing plays around with b u i l d - y o u r - o w n - W e b s i t e carbon fiber, South African company. They had a cool color, airline Kulula--unknown to me but that was it. In their efforts to before this--slaps a new decal on get hip, Kulula has done some its fleet and becomes the talk of wacky things, like this creepy the blogosphere. (but funny? I'm not sure)"news" With the help of local branding show. Their new look is tame in agency Atmosphere, Kulula comparison, but I'd say just as launched this new look, called effective. Did anyone else Flying 101. It's more proof of the always think the black box was ubiquitous cool of infographics, I in the front? guess--everyone loves a good [Via SwissMiss] labeled diagram. And what a way to stand out on the tarmac,

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Jeffrey Hollender: Seventh Generation, Triple Bottom Line Entrepreneur By Danielle Sacks (Fast Company)

what Ben & Jerry's did for ice cream and The Body Shop did for cosmetics. As Seventh Submitted at 2/4/2010 11:40:53 AM Generation's CEO for the past Jeffrey Hollender is practically two decades, Hollender has been boiling. "Twenty-five percent of crucial in helping to transform the trading on the New York the notoriously dirty cleaningStock Exchange are people who products industry. In recent are buying and selling stocks in a years, virtually every consumer matter of seconds!" booms the g i a n t f r o m C l o r o x t o S C compact 54-year-old, pacing in Johnson, to newer players like front of a room of fleeced and M e t h o d , h a v e e n t e r e d t h e flannelled University of Vermont booming $700 million natural business students, his turquoise cleaning space. specs perched on his nest of However, last June, Hollender brown hair. "I think we have to decided to step down as Seventh totally disincentivize people to G e n e r a t i o n ' s C E O . T h e make short term investments and r e l e n t l e s s l y s e l f - c r i t i c a l charge no taxes on someone who entrepreneur had come to the invests for 25 years. I would tax stark conclusion that he and short term capital gains at 99%." o t h e r s o c i a l l y c o n s c i o u s Despite his passionate riff on businesses were still only overhauling the financial system, making a miniscule dent in the Hollender is not some rogue e n v i r o n m e n t a l c r i s i s . " A s economist or politician running corporate America rushed head for office. In fact, he's the long into what they think of as a unlikely mogul of toilet paper-- s u s t a i n a b i l i t y r e v o l u t i o n , " 100% recycled, toxin-free toilet confessed Hollender in a recently paper, to be precise-- and a bevy published 18-page blueprint on of other natural household "Creating a Game Plan for cleaners. The son of an ad exec Business's Transition to a who grew up on Park Avenue Sustainable U.S. Economy," has come a long way: from "We are concerned that despite a selling seminars on "How to clear and compelling business Lose your Brooklyn Accent" to case, business will fall far short cofounding Seventh Generation, of its potential as a result of an a Burlington, Vermont company i n a d e q u a t e l y s u p p o r t i v e that set out to do for cleaning regulatory environment and the

buy food. We allow someone to manipulate commodities prices, make billions of dollars, and people end up starving." With Seventh Generation, Hollender's activism has always come in the form of the macro and the micro, from sending his chemist to testify against the $20 billion soap and detergent association in favor of a bill that would prohibit phosphates in cleaning products to enforcing a salary ratio among his staff. Now, to get to scale, the indefatigable Hollender is trying absence of clear principles to be everywhere at once: in needed to ensure success." D.C. with senators to combat the Now, with Pepsi alum Chuck C h a m b e r o f C o m m e r c e ' s Maniscalco taking over his CEO aggressive lobby against global duties at the $150 million warning legislation, meeting company, Hollender is free to w i t h t h e U n i t e d N a t i o n s channel the scrutiny he once Environmental Minister and a applied to his own industry to head of the SEUI about the what he believes are the systemic climate crisis and social inequity, problems of free market helping to propagate the capitalism. "Last year we [the Business Alliance for Local world] produced more grain than Living Economies (BALLY). we have ever created in the "This is a moment in time that history of mankind, yet grain we may not have again," says prices doubled," says Hollender, H o l l e n d e r , w h o r e c e n t l y a G r e e n p e a c e F u n d partnered with Kaplan to launch boardmember. "How is that the Sustainability Institute, an possible? Commodity price online education partnership with manipulation. But what's the real Seventh Generation. "How do effect if that? People starving we actually all rise above our because they couldn't afford to i n d i v i d u a l i n t e r e s t s , l i k e agriculture or water, to find out

what unites us so we can work together to try to accomplish some of those larger objectives." One of the many challenges Hollender, who is still the company's chairman, is taking on is the inherent paradox of a socially conscious corporation. "We were a nonprofit," admits Hollender of the 13 years that Seventh Generation didn't turn a profit, often because he prioritized the company's mission over its bottom line. ("You have to make them [compromises] every day, it never goes away," he says.) To reverse that equation, Hollender is helping to spread the word of movements like B Labs, a nonprofit that has created a new type of corporate status called a B Corporation that legally requires for-profit company boards to consider social and environmental factors every time it makes a decision. "It's heretical to talk about this kind of stuff," says Hollender, who certified Seventh Generation as a B Corporation. "But I come from a unique place. I run a company and we're making money, so they can't brand me a socialist or a communist. I'm a capitalist."

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Futures Thinking: Mapping the Possibilities (Part 1) By Jamais Cascio (Fast Company) Submitted at 2/4/2010 10:35:46 AM

Turning what you see around you into stories about what's to come. In Futures Thinking: The Basics, I offered up an overview of how to engage in a foresight exercise. In Futures Thinking: Asking the Question, I explored in more detail the process of setting up a futures exercise, and how to figure out what you're trying to figure out. In Futures Thinking: Scanning the World, I took a look at gathering useful data. This time, we dive into the heart of the process: creating alternative scenarios. Note the plural. Foresight exercises that result in a single future story are rarely as useful as they appear, because we can't predict the future. The goal of futures thinking isn't to make predictions; the goal is to look for surprising implications. By crafting multiple futures (each focused on your core dilemma), you can look at your issues from differing perspectives, and try to dig out what happens when critical drivers collide in various ways. Whatever you come up with, you'll be wrong. The future that does eventually emerge will almost certainly not look like the scenarios you construct. However, it's possible to be wrong in useful ways--good scenarios will trigger minor

epiphanies (what more traditional consultants usually call "aha!" moments), giving you clues about what to keep an eye out for that you otherwise would have missed. As a clarifying example, I once worked with a business services company to craft different scenarios of its future competitive environment. All of the scenarios included some level of economic upheaval and technological disruption, with one suggesting that a technology company offering business

services could be a real threat--a story arising from tentative signs that some of their clients were starting to use more open source software. A few of the strategists realized that a company they had thought of as a minor nuisance at worst could actually be their most serious rival, and pushed their CEO to pay more attention to that threat. (He didn't, and the business services company eventually went under, with the tech company gaining many of its former clients--and employees.)

So how do you actually do this? In the aftermath of your "scanning the world" work, you will have come up with at least dozens and probably hundreds of interesting and potentially relevant data points and potential drivers. It's hard to work with hundreds, though; more useful would be about five or six. Time to call in some friends. You're going to want to spend an afternoon with a group of no more than a dozen colleagues talking about the "distant early warnings" you've dug up. You'll

probably find it easiest to put each one on a separate index card or sticky note (in this, lowtech still beats high-tech). What you'll then do is look for patterns and bigger picture categories that would encompass multiple topics. Try to focus the categories on subjects that are clearly important and hold a great deal of uncertainty. Pile up the clusters of related subjects; you might find that a single topic might belong in multiple clusters, but resist the urge to duplicate it--you want to put it with the group where it seems most important. Feel free to brainstorm along the way--you might find that your colleagues are inspired by the scanning results, and offer more than a few additional suggestions. This is fine. You will eventually have a smallish group of categories with lots of members, and a largish group of categories with just a few. The big categories will be your key scenario drivers, and should appear in all of your scenarios in some form. The smaller piles will be minor drivers, and should be included in at least one. For example, a scenario project about whether and how to expand a business might end up with major drivers such as "the economy," "China," "aging baby boom market," "oil prices," and FUTURES page 14

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Bernanke Begins Second Term as Fed Chairman U.K. vs. U.S. Government Data Web Sites: The Old World Wins

By Joseph Lazzaro (BloggingStocks) Submitted at 2/4/2010 11:00:00 AM

Filed under: International Markets, Federal Reserve, By Kit Eaton (Fast Company) spending, and locations and lists Scanning through the list, it's Financial Crisis The late, great of government services. The a l m o s t l i k e a c o m p a r i s o n writer David Halberstam, who Submitted at 2/4/2010 10:28:12 AM whole idea is that the mechanics b e t w e e n t y p i c a l c o r p o r a t e left this world far too soon, once Governments are getting the of government are demystified Powerpoint presentation styles said that a writer's life was the hang of Web 2.0 a few years and the population trusts its on either side of the Atlantic, loneliest job in the world. after the rest of us, and both the authorities slightly more. which echo differences in Perhaps the Chairman of the U.S. and U.K. authorities have The upshot of Flowing Data's management styles in the two U.S. Federal Reserve is the just launched their own Data.gov investigation is that while the nations. So what does this teach second loneliest job in the world. Web sites in an effort to increase U.S. effort is a little older, and us about the direction Data.gov Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke transparency. But in a studied thus should've had time to evolve should go in? Mainly that the was sworn in for his second fourcomparison of the two efforts, more, the British Web site is designers should beef up the ease year term Wednesday, the Fed the U.K.'s wins. more polished, honest and user- of use of the service, and actually announced. And with it Bernanke ventured Over at Flowing Data they've accessible. It delivers more data, attempt to engage with the users. taken a deep look at the two and its design was influenced by But the bigger thing to note is into his second term -- his initial different efforts from the Old the great Sir Tim Berners-Lee that both sites could definitely term having taken place as first World and the New: Data.gov and an academic expert in improve what they're offering. the United States, then the world, and Data.gov.uk. Both sites artificial intelligence. And while And then we may be able to truly became ensnarled in the financial p e r f o r m r o u g h l y t h e s a m e the U.S. site doesn't do much to believe the things governments purpose, which is to share show you who's using its data for say they're doing, as well as several hundred datasets that whatever interesting reasons, the build a better understanding of were formerly not accessible to U.K.'s site highlights this, and where all our tax dollars go. the public, thus giving an insight even encourages active dialog [Via FlowingData] into matters like financial with its users.

crisis that deepened the global recession -- the world's first contraction since the end of World War II. Continue reading Bernanke Begins Second Term as Fed Chairman Bernanke Begins Second Term as Fed Chairman originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 04 Feb 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Comments

The Gesture Cube may not be real but it should be By John Biggs (CrunchGear) Submitted at 2/4/2010 9:00:30 AM

IDENT’s GestIC technology is a gesture-based interface system and they’re showing off by

describing a cube of some sort that allows you to turn, twist, and pinch your data in 3D. Each side will have different functions and you can access messages and the web just by slipping and sliding

on the surface. This is obviously as real right now as the Yeti but you could imaging something like the iPad in 3D with touchscreens on each surface. It also looks quite

striking and the interface is great if you’re into high-tech Minority Report stuff. Why you’d want this instead of something that fits in your pocket is beyond me, but there’s no accounting for taste.

GestIC is described as a new HCI method and has already shown up in some devices. You can read more about the cube here.

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RecycleBank and eBay Use Carrot Instead of Stick to Encourage Recycling

Monster buys Yahoo's HotJobs for $225 million

By Ariel Schwartz (Fast Company)

By Tom Krazit (Webware.com)

Submitted at 2/4/2010 10:12:43 AM

In most cases, we use threats to force people to recycle--witness San Francisco's controversial new mandatory composting law that slaps a fine on anyone who fails to comply. But what if it was possible to get people to recycle by offering incentives instead? It is--and RecycleBank has been doing it for 18 months by offering residents of participating cities points that can be redeemed at stores--all for recycling regular trash. Up until now, only residents of cities

partnered with RecycleBank could join in, but a new partnership with eBay means that anyone can get involved. As part of the deal, RecycleBank is opening its membership to anyone with a

FUTURES continued from page 12

"computer tech." All of your scenarios will at least touch on each of these subjects. Minor drivers might include "labor relations," "advertising markets," "new manufacturing technologies," and so forth. These don't necessarily need to appear in every scenario, but should appear in at least one. Yes, these are all very high-level categories, but remember that they're clusters of individual data points and issues; these individual bits are what you'll eventually weave into the scenarios you construct. So you now have your key

drivers, and have been thinking about the ways in which they're both important and uncertain. It's time to start building your scenario worlds. Next time: Building Your Scenario Worlds. Images Futurama, 1939 World's Fair, photo by Norman Bel Geddes, Public Domain Crystal Ball by M.Gifford on Flickr, Creative Commons licensed

few minutes to sign up. And points can now be earned and redeemed on eBay. "Right now we're in the initial stages," explained Amy Szoczlas Cole, the Director of eBay's Green Team. "Each person could earn

50 RecycleBank points for simply committing to join the eBay Green Team." Those points can then be used towards the purchase of, say, a used leather handbag on eBay--or for an item at one of the other 1,500 businesses affiliated with RecycleBank. The partnership makes sense, since both RecycleBank and eBay specialize in preventing used items from facing the trash bin. Perhaps a partnership with Etsy is next? [ RecycleBank]

Submitted at 2/3/2010 2:51:00 PM

Another divestiture for Yahoo will result in an upfront cash payment and three-year exclusive deal with Monster to supply job search listings on Yahoo's home page. Originally posted at Relevant Results

CrunchDeals: 25-inch 1080p TV for $230 By Doug Aamoth (CrunchGear) Submitted at 2/4/2010 8:00:15 AM

Costco has a pretty good deal on this Hannspree 25-inch 1080p TV at $230, down from its regular price of $280. You get a 1920Ă&#x2014;1080 resolution, 800:1 contrast ratio (10,000:1 dynamic), 300cd/m2

input. Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s even an HDMI cable included in the box. How do you like that? The deal is good until the end of February. $229.99 after $50 OFF Hannspree 25-inch 1080P LCD brightness, two 10-watt speakers, HDTV[Costco] two HDMI inputs, VGA input, composite input, and component

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Commenting on Engadget: a human's guide By Joshua Topolsky (Engadget) Submitted at 2/4/2010 11:25:00 AM

As you may have noticed, the other day we shut down comments on the site. Things had gotten a little out of hand and the complaint emails we were getting from readers were stacking up, so we decided to take some Engadget time to do a little cleaning up while reflecting on how we can do a better job moving forward. In case you're wondering: yes, we've flipped the switch back into the "on" position -- but there are some noteworthy items we'd like to point out. To start with, Justin and Dan (our devs) made a minor improvement to the frontend of our comment system, and we now provide an option to switch off the comments entirely if you don't want to deal with them. This is cookie based, so it should last for all your sessions on the site. Additionally, we've enabled a few backend tools which will help us moderate a little more effectively and efficiently, thus helping to keep comments clean and comfortable for everyone who wants to join in the discussion -- not just the loudest of the bunch. Furthermore, we recognize that our comment system isn't perfect, and we're working with our developers right now to dramatically change things. We can promise you guys that we spend (and will spend) a lot of

time thinking about how to make this a better community, and make the commenting experience more enjoyable and useful to everyone. You have our word that we're listening to you, and there will be noticeable changes for the better in the near future. And guys (and girls):

definitely provide feedback on this post or via our contact email addresses. We want to hear what you have to say! Since we've gotten the ball rolling again, we want to make sure everyone is aware of just what we expect of our community here, so we're going

to lay down our ground rules (most of which have been culled from our FAQ). Here we go: In general: The Engadget comments section is a place for our readers to engage in discussion about the posts -- it's really that simple. We encourage that discussion, and we'll be the

first to admit that lots of times our readers offer insights that lead us to update our posts, or direct us to entirely new angles and stories. We love that, and we love our readers. We seriously do. COMMENTING page 16

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COMMENTING continued from page 15

Some basic ideas on commenting here. We think that comments should always be on topic. We encourage and welcome debate, even if it's fervent, because we know how much you care about this stuff -we care about it, too! However, your comments should be reasonably polite and wherever possible, lighthearted. Making personal attacks against other commenters, publications, or our own editors seriously degrades the community and quality of the discussion, and it won't be tolerated. While we're fine with disagreements, we're not that crazy about being the battleground for epic fanboy wars. We want you to debate, but when that debate devolves into name calling and / or cyclical fanaticism (especially when you've moved way off topic), it's not a good use of anyone's brainpower. Also, if you've come to Engadget for the express purpose of whipping people into a frenzy (or whipping yourself into a frenzy), don't expect to stick around very long. It's easy to spot the folks who want to have a healthy debate and the folks who just want to troll. On that note, we encourage our readers and commenters to reach out to us personally and report other commenters who seem to be acting inhuman... or

inhumane. Together, we believe we can improve the quality of comments on the site. We are aware of the fact that any system like ours can be gamed -- and we're aware of the fact that people actually do things like make multiple profiles and argue with themselves simply to cause problems. Just be aware we'll delete and ban you for that, too! Comment deletion: There are many reasons your comment might be deleted, but here are some of the most common ones. Spamming of any type, be it human or robot-generated, is always deleted. If you're trying to sell something in comments, you're a spammer. Trolling is also unacceptable -- we recognize that a lot of you trolls don't even realize that you're trolls, but believe us -- you are. We'll delete your comments if we feel they're disruptive or annoying. We also delete comments that are racist, sexist, overly obscene, or offensive in any way. We delete comments which are personal attacks -whether directed at an editor or another commenter. Finally, we reserve the right to delete any comment at our discretion (please see below). If you create a history of trolling or other offensive behavior, we'll just ban your account. That means that your username, email, and potentially IP address

will be barred from our system, and you'll no longer be able to comment. You deleted my comment. Isn't that censorship? No. Engadget, along with its partner Weblogs, Inc. and parent company AOL allow comments in order to further the discussion, engage our readers, and to let interested parties have a good time (and maybe learn something)! Engadget's commenting sections are NOT open forums where you can say whatever you please, and commenting on Engadget is not a right of law passed down to you in the Constitution. Engadget is a news site and a business. The editorial staff does not delete comments without good reason, but deletions are always at the discretion of the editors. There are thousands of active commenters on Engadget, and we try to keep the comment sections a fun, engaging experience for all of its readers. Why can't I up / downrank an editor? Well first off, because he / she is an editor. That doesn't make them better than a regular commenter, but it does mean that when they have something to say, we feel it's important that all readers can see it, whether they like it or not! There's a comment that's offensive to me. What can I do about it? Well, as already mentioned, you can downrank it.

Furthermore, there's a "report" button above the ranking icons on all comments which will alert our staff that the comment has been flagged. We do look at reported comments, and delete where we deem appropriate. Keep in mind, however, that we know who is reporting what comments, so think before you report -- you don't want to be on our watchlist for reporting a comment for no reason at all, because that doesn't help anybody, does it? Finally, we realize that we're ultimately responsible for the tone of comments here, and moving forward, we're going to be more vigilant about watching out for problems. We love Engadget, and we take full responsibility for its quality. We also love our readers, and want to make it a safe, enjoyable place for all who wish to participate. Now say something hilarious! Commenting on Engadget: a human's guide originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Feb 2010 11:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| | Email this| Comments

Ikonoskop teases Acam3D to shoot 1080p RAW video in stereo By Paul Miller (Engadget) Submitted at 2/4/2010 10:34:00 AM

We don't know much about this thing, Ikonoskop is only teasing the bare minimum of specs, but while we don't expect to be able to afford it, the upcoming Acam3D is certainly an object of lust. The company has cut its teeth on a $10k 1080p RAW camera, the A-cam dII, and now it's taking that same tech into the realm of 3D. The new 6 pound unit (including battery and memory) will be able record to 25 or 30 fps in individual RAW sequences, has a TBD pricetag, and will be built on order. [Thanks, Mark] Ikonoskop teases A-cam3D to shoot 1080p RAW video in stereo originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Feb 2010 10:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Ikonoskop| Email this| Comments

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Delta Touch-Sensitive Faucet Review [Review] By Jason Chen (Gizmodo) Submitted at 2/4/2010 12:00:00 PM

Delta's Touch Sensitive Faucet does one thing and one thing well: It dispenses water when touched with any part of your body, then shuts off when touched again. Not only that, it's also a pretty fantastic faucet. The Price: $547 on Delta's site, but $300ish if you shop around The Verdict: This is a high quality faucet, even without the touch features, and most likely beats whatever faucet you have installed in your house when you built/bought it. Add the touch features to that, and you get the first true revolution in sink faucets that I've seen in a while. This actually isn't Delta's first touch-sensitive faucet. They had one model before that had this feature plus a motion-sensitivity, and discovered that most people only used the touch-sensitivity and decided to focus there instead. The Installation: It's a little bit of a hassle to install, because you actually have to follow a series of instructions that has you removing your old faucet and installing this one (with the electronics that controls the touch-sensitivity). You actually need two people at one point, when you want to make sure you align the faucet correctly above the sink while the person below tightens.

It's not completely undoable if you have a spare hand and you're somewhat knowledgeable with tools, but I had a Delta professional install it to ensure optimum performance, and it didn't take too much longer than an hour. Performance: The touch sensitivity, if installed correctly, is good, but not overly sensitive. The faucet and water handle, on the right, are both smart enough to detect the difference between a graspâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;when you're moving the

thing aroundâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and a tapâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;when you're turning it on and off. You turn on the faucet like any other faucet, by using the handle and switching it left for hot and right for cold. Once it's "on", you can tap anywhere on the body or the handle to turn it off. Tap it again to turn it back on. When you're completely done with washing, pull the handle down to the off position to ensure that a cat or a jumping baby brushing past it doesn't activate the water flow. It's also got a 4-minute timeout, so even if you do forget

to turn the thing off, an accidental activation won't flood your house. It's pretty great as an actual faucet too. The head has a pulldown for spray flexibility, and you can adjust the type of spray (like a shower) in one of two modes. Warnings and Usage: If you install it yourself, make sure you install the base plate insulation unit, because if you don't, you're going to get finicky performance from the touchsensitivity part. I had to have the installer revisit a couple times

because it's not so clear in the instructions that many sinks need it, so even if you think you don't, put it in. Not doing so will make the touch only work 1 out of 3 or 4 times, which is a painful grey zone between not working at all, which is fine, and working all the time. If something like this happens to you, you can luckily disable the touch portion and just use it as a regular faucet until you get around to repairing it. Also, be aware that you're going to get false positives occasionally when you're reaching over and grabbing something off your sink and you brush against the faucet. This is much less frustrating than the alternative of the thing NOT working when you want it to. Is this practical? Perhaps. You use your sink every day, but it's not that often that your hands are salmonellatained enough to not be able to touch the handle and turn on the water manually. This is for those times. It's definitely a fantastic faucet, don't get me wrong, but it's a luxury. If you install this yourself without hiring a person to do so, $300 isn't too much to pay for the ability to turn something on with a touch. At my house, every guest that's seen it has been impressed. [ Delta]

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How Innovation Died at Microsoft [Microsoft] By matt buchanan (Gizmodo) Submitted at 2/4/2010 11:43:39 AM

"Unlike other companies, Microsoft never developed a true system for innovation." Dick Brass, a former VP at Microsoft, lays out in a scathing NYT op/ed how the company has destroyed its ability to "bring us the future." It's insanely fascinating. His anecdotes, from this time running tablets at Microsoft—a type of computer the company believed was the future—are chilling, revealing the destructive level of competition between some divisions. For instance, someone in his group developed ClearType, Microsoft's font smoothing tech that was developed to sell ebooks, but other groups at Microsoft freaked out and actively

tablets from Microsoft. Lastly, Brass blames a dated corporate culture that's afraid to take the risk of building integrated hardware and software products, a thought relic from the '70s, when hardware was risky. And if you look, Microsoft's best products lately are from the Entertainment & Devices division, where they've designed and built the hardware themselves: Xbox 360 and Zune HD. In fact, E&D is the one consumer division—not simply the labs—where you can safely sabotaged project, or tried to mouse, he refused to develop a say that innovation keeps on steal it from the tablet division, version optimized for tablets. rolling, largely because J. Allard which is why it took 10 years to Which is the exact opposite of was allowed to insulate it from actually make it out into the what Apple showed last week, the rest of Microsoft for so long. world. o b v i o u s l y , w i t h a f u l l y But here's a question: How do His other example is ridiculous redesigned, multitouch version you turn around a ship that big? [ too: The head of Office believed of iWork for the iPad. And it's NYT via Gartenberg] so strongly in the keyboard and the lack of software that doomed

'Assemble' app helps you meet up with buddies By Josh Lowensohn (Webware.com) Submitted at 2/3/2010 12:16:00 PM

New app lets you shout out your location to friends, but unlike some social networks that do the same, the app is designed to let your friends navigate to you. Originally posted at Web Crawler

E-reader statisfaction study shows 93 percent of users are happy, just not you By Richard Lai (Engadget) Submitted at 2/4/2010 10:56:00 AM

The wind sure changes very quickly, eh? Just a week ago the University of Georgia revealed that many of its study participants -- Athens residents who were given a Kindle to play with -- weren't happy with their e -reader experience, but yesterday a new study reported something fairly contrasting. Rather than doling out touchscreen-less e-

readers to a group of people, the NPD Group surveyed more than 1,000 e-reader owners in late November last year, and found out that 93 percent of them were "very satisfied" or "somewhat satisfied" with their devices, while only 2 percent "expressed any level of dissatisfaction." The report also reveals that wireless access is the favorite feature for 60 percent of the users, while only 23 percent chose the touchscreen. Compared to last

week's report, this probably shows that consumers who actually buy e-readers don't really care about the touch

feature, whereas those on the outer circle are mainly waiting for more -- and no doubt cheaper -- touchscreen e-readers.

Seriously though, only 34 percent wanted color screens? Those guys sure are easy to please. E-reader statisfaction study shows 93 percent of users are happy, just not you originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Feb 2010 10:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink PC World| NPD| Email this| Comments

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Pew Report: Kids who pay for their own phone are 4 times more likely to sext By John Biggs (CrunchGear) Submitted at 2/4/2010 7:30:09 AM

The Pew Internet Project says that kids who buy their own phones are four times as likely to sext – that is send inappropriate images or texts to other kids. The sad thing is that some of these images make it into some of the 3,000 reports received by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children every week. While I still think sexting, like rainbow parties, is an overblown

phenomenon, the report, found here and embedded after the jump, polled 2,553 Millennials (18-29) and 800 adolescents between 12 and 17. pew– They found that 75% of teens have a cellphone while 15% of those teens received sexual images via cellphone of someone they knew. 4% of that group have sent images. 59% of teens in households earning less than $30,000 have cellphones while 75% in “wealthier” families own

them. There’s a bit more buried in the report such as the news that 9%

of teens use Twitter (compared to 19% of adults) while 14% of them blog (down from 28% in 2006). They are also commenting less. Adults, on the other hand, are blogging more often than they did in 2006. Take a gander at the full report online but it’s quite interesting – and quite jarring – to hear the stats on sexting. [ Thanks to Larry Magid for the news]

Submitted at 2/4/2010 8:22:27 AM

Sony hasn’t been able to report good news on the financial front for quite some time, but now things it looks like things changed to the better. The company today said["Sony Global Earnings Releases" in English] in Tokyo it returned to the black in the OctoberDecember quarter (Sony’s fiscal year ends March 31) with a

handsome $1.6 billion operating profit. This is Sony’s first operating profit in five quarters, after CEO Howard Stringer (pictured) reduced the global workforce by 20,000 heads, freezed wages, closed 18% of all plants and cut fixed costs along all business lines. For the same quarter the previous year, Sony logged a this fiscal but only 4.5 million $197 million operating loss. The PS3 played a good role, too. PS3 in the same time frame last Sony sold 6.5 million PS3s in 3Q year. For the “Network Products

Aboard the Military's Floating Relief Hub, Headed for Haiti By Nathan Hodge (Wired Top Stories) Submitted at 2/4/2010 7:36:00 AM

ABOARD THE USS BATAAN, NEAR HAITI — The immediate disaster response is over in Haiti. Now, the U.S.

military is looking to begin the slow process of rebuilding Haitian society. The troops are forging some unlikely alliances

By Brian Barrett (Gizmodo) Submitted at 2/4/2010 11:54:45 AM

Jonathan Schwartz manned the CEO helm at Sun Microsystems for almost four years. But now that the company's been sold to Oracle, he's tweeting off into the sunset. Hey, at least he counted his haiku syllables right. I think it's only fair, since Jonathan left us with a poem, that we return the courtesy. I'll and Services” segment (which start! includes video game sales) as a Jonathan Schwartz: Don't whole, Sony logged a profit of care for the ponytail, but $213 million after losing $66 Java's pretty sweet. Okay, now you go. Dirty million a year earlier. a l s o The company still expects a l i m e r i c k s accepted/encouraged. And bonus $770 million group net loss for the year through March, which is points for something with much more positive than the MySQL. [ Twitter via Boing previous forecast of $1 billion. Boing] Last year, Sony reported a $1.1 billion loss.

Sony returns to black in last quarter, sees signs of hope for the future By Serkan Toto (CrunchGear)

Sun CEO Tweets Resignation in Haiku [Blockquote]

to get it done.

Gadgets/ Politics/

E-reader News Edition

A Short History of American Populism (AEI.Org: Articles) Submitted at 2/3/2010 3:00:00 PM

Message from fivefilters.org: If you can, please donate to the full -text RSS service so we can continue developing it. It was a "populist night," Yale Law School professor and longtime New York Times reporter Linda Greenhouse wrote of Barack Obama's State of the Union address. The president denounced "bad behavior on Wall Street" and called for "a fee on the biggest banks." He said he wanted to take "$30 billion of the money Wall Street banks have repaid" and give it to community banks. accessories in the box for games He denounced CEOs who reward and even interaction with other themselves for failure and fellow Roboni-is. Read on to bankers who put the rest of us at find out if this bot's a keeper. risk for their own selfish gain. Gallery: Robonica Roboni-i H e d e n o u n c e d " i n s u r a n c e robot toy review company abuses." He called for Continue reading Robonica higher taxes on "oil companies, Roboni-i programmable robot investment fund managers, and toy review those making over $250,000 a R o b o n i c a R o b o n i - i year." programmable robot toy review This article is available by originally appeared on Engadget subscription from the Wall Street on Thu, 04 Feb 2010 11:47:00 Journal. EST. Please see our terms for Michael Barone is a senior use of feeds. Permalink| | fellow at AEI. Email this| Comments Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Augmented reality mirror picks makeup for Robonica Roboni-i the ladies (video) programmable robot toy review By Richard Lai (Engadget)

mugshots to make you spend more money feel good about Submitted at 2/4/2010 10:13:00 AM your selections. Good luck with Ladies and rockers alike enjoy matching the picture though -spending time testing different the cosmetics aren't going to makeup, but their tag-along a p p l y t h e m s e l v e s . V i d e o b o y f r i e n d s ? N o t s o m u c h . demonstration after the break. Luckily for Japanese couples, Continue reading Augmented cosmetic giant Shiseido has reality mirror picks makeup for finally rolled out its Digital the ladies (video) Cosmetic Mirrors in Tokyo malls Augmented reality mirror picks to help speed things up. The makeup for the ladies (video) machine is able to recommend originally appeared on Engadget products for the user's skin type, on Thu, 04 Feb 2010 10:13:00 while allowing them to view it EST. Please see our terms for applied via an augmented reality use of feeds. Permalink| CScout effect. When all is done, the Japan| Email this| Comments machine prints out a shopping list along with before and after

By Richard Lai (Engadget) Submitted at 2/4/2010 11:47:00 AM

Life became duller ever since FedEx took away our last annoying little robot, so we got our hands on a new but less chatty plastic companion -- say hi to Robonica's Roboni-i programmable robot. Since its last Engadget appearance we've seen a drastic price drop from the original $299.95 to $159.95 at Hammacher Schlemmer, but the robot is no less awesome -- those unique wheels alone deliver plenty of coolness already, not to mention the bunch of peculiar

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Reid: Senate Will Take up Jobs Bill Next Week (Newsmax - Politics) Submitted at 2/4/2010 2:56:27 AM

Hmph! Sony Making an iPad of Their Own! [Sony] By Mark Wilson (Gizmodo)

the first major eReader in the world, and it was a pretty Submitted at 2/4/2010 11:54:17 AM remarkable product for its time. How do you counter Apple's The Vaio P, while a bit unusable iPad? With another iPad. That's by normal-sized humans, is also w h a t S o n y ' s g o i n g t o d o , a small engineering marvel. a c c o r d i n g t o S o n y ' s C F O But...oh Sony. I just can't take Nobuyuki Oneda."[Slates are] a anything you say or do seriously m a r k e t w e a r e a l s o v e r y anymore. I'm trying here. Make interested in. We are confident you a deal—say that whole piece we have the skills to create a about the iPad again. This time, product...Time-wise we are a I'll do my best not to crack a little behind the iPad but it's a smile. space we would like to be an Nope, not working. I tried. I active player in." tried so hard. [ Computerworld] To be fair, Sony's Reader was

Message from fivefilters.org: If you can, please donate to the full -text RSS service so we can continue developing it. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says the Senate will take up a jobs bill Monday and he hopes it will have Republican support. Key Democrats and Republicans in the Senate have been working on a bipartisan plan to give businesses a tax break for hiring unemployed workers. The bill under discussion Thursday would also extend unemployment payments for those whose benefits have run out, and would renew a program that offers the jobless a subsidy pistol-grip models, with the GH2 for health insurance premiums coming in a minute barrel shape. under the COBRA program. Specs-wise, the GH2 and CG102 Reid said Thursday morning he t a k e p h o t o s w i t h a 1 4 . 4 - hopes senators will be ready to megapixel sensor, with the CG20 unveil all the details of a a 10.7-megapixel one. bipartisan proposal later in the A "double-range zoom" on the day or on Friday. first two models means you can © C o p y r i g h t 2 0 1 0 T h e switch between 5x and 12x Associated Press. All rights zoom. reserved. This material may not Expect all three to go on sale in b e p u b l i s h e d , b r o a d c a s t , March, with the GH2 and CG102 r e w r i t t e n o r r e d i s t r i b u t e d . pricier at $229 and the CG20 just Five Filters featured article: $199. [ Electronista] Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Sanyo Gifts New Double-Range Zoom On GH2 and CG102 Xacti Camcorders [Camcorders] By Kat Hannaford (Gizmodo) Submitted at 2/4/2010 11:45:01 AM

Joining the SH1 and CS1 from a mere month ago are three new Xacti models from Sanyo—the GH2, CG102 and CG20. All three film in 1080i widescreen resolution, and will cost under $230 each. Score! Of course, I'd rather have a camcorder shooting 1080p like the SH1 and CS1, but what's a few less lines between friends? The CG20 and CG102 are both

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10 reasons to pass on the iPad? TUAW fact check By Chris Rawson (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW))

In landscape orientation, the iPad's virtual keyboard is nearly the size of a conventional keyboard, too, so while touch Submitted at 2/4/2010 10:00:00 AM typing is going to be a challenge, Filed under: iPod Family, it's a fair bet that typing on the Portables, Odds and ends Over at iPad will be much faster and TechRepublic's 10 Things blog, easier than the high end of 30 Debra Littlejohn Shinder has 35 WPM thumb typing many posted an article called " 10 people (myself included) achieve reasons why I'll be passing on on the iPhone's far smaller the iPad." Some of her reasoning keyboard. The lack of a physical is sound, but quite a few of her keyboard on the iPhone hasn't points are easy to refute. It's measurably affected its sales; the worth looking at her post and the iPad isn't likely to suffer many points it tries to make, because lost sales from this, either. it's indicative of a widespread Check out the other nine points misunderstanding of not only the by clicking the Read More link iPad's capabilities, but also its below. intended consumer base. 2. One size doesn't fit all 1. There's no physical keyboard Debra claims that if the iPad is Debra's correct that the iPad has supposed to be a niche device no physical keyboard. But what positioned between a phone and she fails to account for is that not a netbook, it should have a only will Apple sell a keyboard screen size midway between the dock for the iPad, the device can two -- in other words, smaller also be paired with any existing than a 9.7" screen. However, Bluetooth keyboard. Apple's that's not how Steve Jobs reasoning for not including a positioned the iPad at all during physical keyboard on the iPad is the keynote; Jobs's Keynote slide even more compelling than for clearly showed the iPad filling a the iPhone, because unlike the gap between the iPhone/iPod iPhone, you at least have the touch and a 13" MacBook. It's option of pairing the iPad with a puzzling that in one sentence physical keyboard. In order to Debra complains about the iPad put a physical keyboard on the being too large to fit in your device itself, there'd be two p o c k e t , w h i l e i n t h e n e x t options: keep the iPad the same sentence she extols the virtues of size and sacrifice a third of the Sony's VAIO X netbooks, which screen's real estate, or increase are almost exactly the same size the iPad's size beyond what some - i n t e r m s o f w e i g h t a n d ( i n c l u d i n g D e b r a ) a l r e a d y thickness anyway. The VAIO X consider unwieldy in order to has an 11.1" 16:9 display, which include a keyboard. actually makes it quite a bit

when people complain the iPad doesn't run OS X, they're really pining for OS X features like the ones I already mentioned -- the Finder, Dock, menu bar, etc. However, none of those OS X features are particularly suited to a touchscreen device, especially one with a 9.7" screen. Tablet PCs running the full version of Windows have already demonstrated the pitfalls of running an OS meant for a larger device with a traditional pointand-click interface, and as a result, almost all of those devices larger than the iPad. One other have failed to gain traction in the thing about the VAIO X is quite market. a bit larger than the iPad: the Debra and others also cite the price, which starts at $1299 -- far iPad's lack of multitasking as a more expensive than even the strike against it. On this point, at least, I agree with them. While priciest iPad. While it's true the iPad won't fit iPhone OS already allows for in your pocket, it's still far more limited multitasking among portable than even a MacBook Apple's own apps -- Phone, Air. Stephen Colbert even Messages, Mail, Safari, and iPod managed to pull one out of his can all run simultaneously in the jacket at the Grammys, so while background -- third-party apps the iPad is larger than an iPhone, a r e s t i l l r e s t r i c t e d t o it's far from the unwieldy w o r k a r o u n d s l i k e p u s h monster many people are trying notifications. While restricting multitasking makes a kind of to claim it is. sense on devices like the iPhone 3. It runs a phone OS One thing many pundits fail to 3G, with limited processing account for is that the iPhone OS power and RAM available, on is actually a version of OS X the iPad those technological adapted for a touchscreen device. limitations don't fly as an excuse. No, there's no Finder, Dock, or You can argue that not having menu bar. No, there's no ExposĂŠ, multitasking on the iPad makes it Spaces, or Time Machine. But easier to use for Grandma and the underpinnings of the iPhone other non-techies, but it also OS are exactly the same as those limits the device's potential of the Mac version of OS X. So utility. Granted, the iPad isn't positioned as a replacement for a

MacBook, but the ability to run even one or two third-party apps in the background would make the device far more versatile. Personally, I would be very surprised if Apple doesn't introduce at least a limited form of multitasking in iPhone OS 4.0. Of course, I also said the same thing last year about iPhone OS 3.0, so who knows. One point bears mentioning, though: despite the introduction of iWork for the iPad, Apple is still pushing the device as a platform for consuming media, not as a productivity platform. To get any serious work done, Apple still expects you'll use your main computer, whether it's a MacBook, iMac, or PC. 4. There's not enough storage The most important question to ask on this point is, "For whom?" Debra says the 64 GB model might have enough capacity for her purposes, but she also grouses about the price of that model, comparing it to cheaper netbooks with "four times the storage." I will say that I'm puzzled at Apple's decision to top out the iPad's capacity at 64 GB, especially considering that's where the iPod touch currently tops out. A 128 GB iPad would have been very tempting indeed; unfortunately, given the price of flash memory, it also would have probably cost more than $1000. But what does 64 GB allow you REASONS page 23

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REASONS continued from page 22

to store? In my case, a 64 GB iPad would hold my entire 39 GB music library -- 19 days worth of music -- plus my entire iPhoto library of over 7000 photos, which, when optimized for the iPad's screen, would probably take up somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 GB, plus or minus a GB or two. At my most app-crazy I had about 2 GB of apps on my iPhone 3G, and "Other" space, presumably including the OS itself, takes up just over 1 GB. Added up, that equates to 47 out of 64 GB. In my case, that leaves over 15 GB of space for document storage, videos, and so forth. Let's say I store my entire Documents folder on the iPad (I wouldn't -- I use iDisk and Dropbox for that) - 4300 documents taking up just over 2 GB of space. Now we have 13 GB left over for videos and whatever else. Even if I left myself a 3 GB buffer for whatever reason (including accounting for the GB versus GiB difference), that's still 10 GB of space for videos -- enough to store 10 two-hour films at a decent bitrate, or almost an entire season of an hour-long TV series. Let me break that down again -a 64 GB iPad would store: -- 19 days of music -- 7000 photos -- Well over 100 apps -- A 2 GB Documents folder with 4300 items -- 20 hours of video -- Around 3 GB of space left

over for whatever else (temporary photo storage, ebooks, accounting for the difference between binary gigabytes versus decimal gigabytes, etc.) Granted, there are people out there with music and photo libraries larger than mine, but most of my Mac-using friends only have, on average, 1500 items in their iTunes libraries, a thousand or so photos, and maybe three pages of apps on their iPhones. 64 GB may not sound like much on paper, but practically speaking, it lets you pack around a lot of media. Unless you're going to spend weeks at a time away from your main computer, the iPad should be able to carry around enough media to keep almost anyone entertained for days on end. 5. There's no HDMI output or camera Debra claims you can't output the iPad's video to an HDTV without an HDMI connector. That simply isn't true; with a VGA adapter, you can output the iPad's full 1024 x 768 video signal to an HDTV. With a component connector, you can output a 576p PAL signal or a 480p NTSC signal to your TV. Okay, fine, it's not 1080p ultrahigh-def video, but where exactly are you going to find video of that resolution anyway (besides Blu-Ray and Bittorrent)? I'll admit that it would have been nice to have at least 1366 x 768 video (1080i, in

other words), but I'm betting that the vast majority of consumers aren't going to even bother hooking the iPad up to their TV at all when it's far easier to just put the screen on their laps and watch a movie on the iPad itself instead. Another point Debra brings up is the iPad's 3:4 aspect ratio, which is less than ideal for video. This has been argued all over the internet, including here at TUAW, but as many people have pointed out, the 3:4 aspect ratio is ideally suited to pretty much every other function on the iPad except video: books, documents, web pages, and photos are all laid out far closer to a 3:4 or 4:3 ratio than 16:9. Using a 16:9 ratio on the iPad would not only make the device larger than it already is, it would also leave all other forms of media on the device at a disadvantage compared to video. The iPad's lack of camera is another point Debra and others have brought out against the device, but like multitasking, this is one point on which I agree. A back-facing camera like the iPhone's doesn't make a lot of sense on the iPad -- it would be a bit unwieldy trying to take pictures or video with a device this size, rather like trying to hold up a MacBook Air to take photos with its iSight. Most people probably have a standalone point-and-shoot camera that would take better stills and/or video than the iPad's

hypothetical back-facing camera anyway, and you can load those pictures directly onto the device with either the iPad-specific camera connector or SD card reader. But a front-facing camera for video conferencing definitely would have been a killer feature. Apple apparently thought so, too, because it actually included a space in the iPad for exactly such a camera, only to withdraw it for reasons known only to Apple. Whether the company is waiting for the next-gen iPad to introduce a camera or pulling a big switcheroo like it did with the original iPhone-- which was originally supposed to ship with the scratch-prone plastic face of previous iPods, but was replaced with nearly scratch-proof glass in the six months between its announcement and release -- no one can say. 6. There are no USB ports Debra's main complaints against the lack of USB ports are that you can't hook up a flash drive or a USB keyboard. As far as the keyboard goes, I've already mentioned the fact that you can purchase a keyboard dock or use a Bluetooth keyboard. As for not being able to hook up a flash drive? I can see why some people might want to do this -expanding the iPad's storage, transferring files, etc. But I'm willing to bet that for most people this isn't going to be an issue. While I run the risk of sounding like Bill Gates's infamous "640K should be

enough for anyone" by saying so (although Gates never actually said that), 64 GB of space on a device like the iPad really should suit most users' needs -- at least for the next couple of years, anyway. As for transferring files? I can think of a number of existing, cloud-based solutions, the most simplistic of which is email. No, you can't transfer several gigabytes of files at a time through e-mail or "the cloud," but most people don't transfer that much data all at one go even a handful of times with a portable device, much less on a regular basis. I'm not going to go full fanboy and say it's a good thing the iPad doesn't come with USB ports. In fact, I'm kind of with Debra and the others on this one in wishing that Apple included at least one USB port. While I probably wouldn't use the port very often (if at all), it definitely falls into the category of "nice to have." I've been an iPod user for almost five years and an iPhone user for a year, and I can count the number of times I've needed/wanted a USB port on one of those devices on exactly no fingers... but I'll admit that I might sing a different tune with a bigger device like an iPad. But for most of the people who are likely to buy the iPad, i.e., the non-geek, non-techie, "I just want internet and music and movies" folks, they're probably REASONS page 24

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REASONS continued from page 23

not going to miss USB ports at all. 7. There's no flash memory slot No, the iPad doesn't have a flash memory slot. You can buy an SD card reader attachment, though, although Debra and others rail against the added cost of the connector, claiming that in order to reach "the functional equivalent of a netbook, you may end up spending a bundle." A lot of the same arguments for or against USB apply here as well; most non-geeks aren't going to miss an SD slot at all. Transferring documents via SD cards in 2010 reeks of the "sneakernet" we thought we were abolishing along with dotmatrix printers and 2800 baud modems; let's just say that most users are going to have photos and/or videos on their SD cards, most users are going to wait until they get home to their main computer to upload those files, and most users aren't going to care that the iPad's missing a dedicated SD slot any more than they cared about the iPod missing one. If anything, the argument for an SD slot is far weaker than the argument for USB. 8. The price is not right Debra claims the iPad "costs twice as much as the Kindle and other ebook readers." That's flatout false. The $499 iPad does cost almost twice as much as the standard Kindle, but compared to every other e-reader out there, the iPad's pricing is extremely

competitive once you consider all the things the iPad does that the other readers iDon't. A $489 Kindle DX, for example, while $10 cheaper than the cheapest iPad, doesn't have a color screen, has only 4 GB of storage, doesn't have a touchscreen, doesn't run apps, doesn't have e-mail, music, and so on, and so forth. The iPad's price is the one aspect of the device that few pundits have complained about; in fact, the pricing has Wall Street and other financial analysts doing cartwheels. You don't even have to compare the iPad to other companies' similar products to see how good a deal it is. The 16 GB iPad costs $300 more than an 8 GB iPod touch. That $300 gets you twice the capacity, a much larger and higher-quality screen, a more powerful CPU, better Wi-Fi including 802.11n, vastly improved battery performance, a built-in speaker and microphone, and, eventually, access to a host of apps designed to take advantage of the iPad's larger screen and higher performance. A 32 GB iPad has the same $300 price difference compared to a 32 GB iPod touch, as does the 64 GB model. Once you tack on an additional $130 for 3G wireless the price difference widens, but so does the device's utility -access to wireless broadband anywhere there's an available 3G network, which, as iPhone users already know, is invaluable. Debra compares the fully kitted-

out $829 3G-enabled iPad to "a powerful compact laptop that runs a full-fledged operating system and multi-tasks and that has USB and SD and Ethernet connectors, 4 GB of RAM, and 250 GB of storage." The "fullfledged operating system" she's talking about isn't OS X, however, and the laptop she's talking about definitely isn't manufactured by Apple. That might not make a difference to a lot of people, but if you're already in the "Macs cost too much" camp, it's no wonder the iPad doesn't hold much appeal compared to that Windows Home Edition running, plastic, bargain-bin quality laptop from Dell or HP that's almost certain to stop working in two years or less. Yes, I recognize the extremely fanboyish sound of that sentence. No, I don't apologize for it. Cheap laptops are exactly that: cheap. Call it elitism, fanboyism, Kool-Aid drinking, whatever: I'd much rather put up with the iPad's shortcomings than those of the "powerful" but oh-so-cheapo laptops of other manufacturers. 9. It's locked in "You have to buy your apps from the App Store," Debra notes. Yes, you do: from a store that has over 140,000 apps available, most of them for free, and capable of doing almost anything. Hate the App Store for some reason? Fine. Jailbreak the thing and use Cydia instead. Apple may not want you to do

this, and they may go out of their way to prevent it, but if you're of the jailbreaking mindset already, that's not going to stop you, is it? A very vocal minority of people love to complain about "vendor lock-in" when it comes to the iPhone/iPod touch/iPad, even though those same people have likely been playing around with video game systems from Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft for decades -- all platforms with "vendor lock-in" even more pervasive and insidious than that of Apple's platform. What these people don't seem to realize is that same vendor lock-in is precisely what keeps Apple's portable platforms from being riddled with viruses, malware, and apps made of more crap than code. "Security through obscurity" may be a valid(ish) argument to fall back upon with the Mac, but with 75 million plus people using the iPhone OS, it's a very high-profile target for virus writers. That same "walled garden" that Linux proponents and "open internet" evangelists whine about is what keeps the iPhone platform from being an unusable nightmare. Yes, the App Store approval process has in many cases been a pain in the nether regions, but things are improving -- apps that might have once taken days or weeks to get approved are now getting through the approval process in a matter of hours. Has the App Store's "lock-in" affected sales of the iPhone one iota? No. In fact,

sales of the iPhone took way off after the App Store's arrival. Yes, "Apple as gatekeeper" gets the George Orwell fans riled. But someone has to keep the gate, because the instant the iPhone OS becomes a truly "open" platform like some people are espousing, that's the same instant the Russian mafia remote-hijacks your iPhone from a basement in Vladivostok because you just had to download that "Siberian Honeys" app from the dark alleys of the internet. Other aspects of dreaded "lockin" that Debra's concerned about are riddled with falsehoods. "You can't run Skype to make phone calls," with the iPad, she claims. "We wouldn't want to cut into the iPhone market, after all." Say what? That must be news to the Skype team, who's already investigating an iPad-specific Skype app. It must be news to Apple, too, who no longer restricts the use of VoIP over 3G. "Nor can you download Flash to install on the browser, which means you won't be watching those YouTube videos." Say what again? Since when is the iPhone/iPod touch/iPad incapable of watching YouTube videos? Oh right: since never. No, you can't put Flash on the iPad, but according to our informal poll, 75% of people planning on buying one either don't care or are outright glad Flash isn't making an REASONS page 26

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Ask TUAW: Power adapters, Windows 7, iWork refresh, and more By Mat Lu (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW))

power device, but it may not work so well in the other direction. Submitted at 2/4/2010 9:00:00 AM Matt asks F i l e d u n d e r : F e a t u r e s , I've installed Windows 7 on my Troubleshooting, Ask TUAW (late) 2006 24" iMac. The best Welcome back to Ask TUAW, thing about Windows 7 is our weekly troubleshooting Windows Media Center, which Q&A column. This week we've I'd like to be able to use while got questions about MacBook still being logged into the OS X power adapters, Windows 7 in side of things. First question, can Boot Camp and virtualization in I now buy Parallels or some general, resetting the Mac Setup o t h e r s o f t w a r e t o r u n m y A s s i s t a n t , t h e n e x t i W o r k Windows 7 from the Bootcamp refresh, and more. partition? I don't want to have to As always, your suggestions and reinstall Windows 7 again if I questions are welcome. Leave can help it. Second, can you your questions for next week in recommend a USB Tuner that the comments section at the end will work with Windows Media of this post. When asking a Center to capture over the air question, please include which broadcasts? machine you're using and what Both Parallels and VMware version of Mac OS X is installed Fusion allow you to use a Boot on it (we'll assume you're C a m p i n s t a l l a t i o n i n running Snow Leopard on an virtualization. That is, you can Intel Mac if you don't specify), run your Boot Camp partition as or if it's an iPhone-related if it were a virtual machine. As question, which iPhone version far as tuners go, I'd probably try and OS version you have. for something cross-platform so Tofa asks you could use it straight from OS I have a 15" MBP (unibody 2nd X as well. Check out this gen) and a 13" MB. I noticed that site(scroll down) for some t h e i r p o w e r s u p p l i e s a r e suggestions from Equinux and different. There is a 60W(13") Hauppauge. and an 85W(15"). Is it bad for CozartDono asks the battery if i use one on the I have a late 2007 Macbook Pro other? running the latest Snow Leopard Check out this Apple Support and a Boot Camp partition Doc. Basically it comes down to running Windows 7 32 bit. I this: it's fine to use the higher have the retail upgrade version wattage adapter with the lower that includes 64-bit and 32-

bit.The last time I checked, there wasn't a way to install 64-bit Windows 7 with Boot Camp. But I noticed the Boot camp update has a download for 64-bit Windows 7. Whenever I've tried to install 64-bit, I can't get the disc to boot up and start the installation. Is there a way to install 64-bit Windows 7 with Boot camp that I was never aware of? Is there a guide I can look at? And most importantly, can I do an upgrade from my existing installation of Widows 7 ?I'm thinking most likely this is case. According to this Microsoft FAQ the only way to upgrade from 32-bit to 64-bit Windows 7 is to backup and reinstall. The most recent version of Boot Camp 3.1 supports 64-bit Windows 7. John.B asks After doing a fresh install (assuming Leopard for my Blackbook, but interested in the Snow Leopard answer as well), can't I log in once with an administrative account to get the Mac fully updated with the latest updates and patches, then blow away that user's home directory to get the Welcome screen to run for the new owner. It is possible to do this, but it's not completely straightforward as you'd need to do it from the terminal in Single User Mode. Check out this hint from Mac OS

X Hints for the low-down. There also this Clean Install.app that's a bit easier to use, but you'll need to be booted onto a different volume. James asks Hi, I recently got a 27 inch iMac core i7. In general I'm thrilled with it but the dvd player software that comes with it isn't that great. I'm not keen on using front row because I want to be able to do other thing's while the dvd's playing. Is there a decent dvd playback programme for the mac ? I've tried myself to find one but mostly they seem to be about ripping and burning dvds rather than watching them ! You don't say what you dislike so much about the built-in DVD player application, so I'm not sure what you would think is decent. That said, I can suggest you have a look a VLC for a free alternative. Jo asks Since the January event is over, and we still have no iLife X, will we see it anytime later this year? I'm considering getting iWork and iLife now.... trevor asks Will there be an iLife 10? I've looked everywhere and found no sign of it. Am I better off just buying 09 now as I am still running 07's version. As with all Apple hardware and software releases, there's simply no way to tell for sure regarding

unannounced products. As it happens, there was about a year between iWork '05 and '06, but 19 months between '06 and '08 and 16 months between '08 and '09 ( source). It's been a little more than a year since iWork '09 so I would expect to see something this year, but I have absolutely no hard information. Personally, I think it's likely that an update would come on the heels of the release of iWork for the iPad in the late Spring or Summer, but that a pure guess. behindthecurtain asks I LOVE using Remote on my iTouch to control iTunes on another computer, but hate being limited to that device. Is there a widget or app that does the same thing on my Macbook Pro? There are several applications out there designed to do this, but it seems like none of them have been updated recently. You might want to check out TuneConnect 2 iTunesRemote and iTunes Remote Control. TUAW Ask TUAW: Power adapters, Windows 7, iWork refresh, and more originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 04 Feb 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

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REASONS continued from page 24

appearance. What about hardware "lock-in?" Debra says that "you can't even remove and replace the battery yourself," which has been true of every single iPod since 2001 and hasn't stopped people from buying them by the millions. She goes on and says, "if you were flying to Australia and wanted to bring along an extra battery for the extra-long flight, forget about it." Um. A two-second Google search for "iPhone external battery" might have been a good idea. Plus, speaking from personal experience, if you stay awake for a full flight across the Pacific Ocean, you're going to have a lot more pressing issues to worry about than your iPad's battery, like the fact that you're going to feel like you got run over by a truck after the plane lands. Take it from one who knows: Trans-Pacific flights are best spent in blissful unconsciousness. 10. The network Yep, the iPad's 3G connection is only available on AT&T's network... if you live in the United States. If, like me, you live in what's known informally as "the rest of the world," this argument against buying a 3Genabled iPad holds no water for

you. But let's stick to the States for a moment and analyze Debra's argument against AT&T's network. No, AT&T isn't everyone (or possibly even anyone)'s favorite US network, but the pay-as-you-go, completely contract-free plans available for the iPad are very compellingly priced. You can get 250 MB of data for $14.99 (not the $20 Debra claims in her article), which is more than enough for casual data usage. 250 MB doesn't sound like a lot on paper, but that's what my iPhone plan started out at here in New Zealand. I never once went over 100 MB or so of monthly data usage until I started using iPhone tethering, and I'd consider my data usage fairly robust. The "unlimited" AT&T plan at $30 a month is an even better deal, and even if "unlimited" only means 5 GB, you're not going to burn through that much data unless you're using the connection every waking hour of the month. Debra's argument against these plans is that it's another bill to pay on top of your cell phone bill, but that's the beauty of the iPad plans: without a contract to commit to, you can cancel the plan whenever you want. If you

start out with the $30/month "unlimited" plan on the iPad, only to find out your usage isn't topping 250 MB, rather than being locked in to that plan for another 23 months, you can downgrade to the $15 plan. If you find that you don't need the 3G coverage at all, you can always buy the Wi-Fi only iPad. "Here's wishing you good luck on finding those Wi-Fi hot spots," Debra says in response to that idea, which sounds about right for us in New Zealand, where free Wi-Fi is about as rare as gold, but makes much less sense in the US, where free WiFi is usually only a library or cafĂŠ away. If you absolutely must have 3G on the iPad, absolutely must not use AT&T, and are prepared to spend twice as much for the privilege of going with Verizon, you always have the option of hooking the iPad up to a MiFi(possibly -- we'll have to wait until the iPad's actually released before we know if this will work or not). Additionally, just because the iPad isn't available on Verizon right now(now now NOW) doesn't mean it never will be; Apple and Verizon are reportedly "still talking" about bringing the iPad

and/or iPhone over to the network. We've come to the end of Debra's ten points, but not to the end of mine. My final point, the one that sums up all of this: like the Mac, like the iPod, and like the iPhone, the iPad is not for everyone. It's not even for me -despite all the words I've just spent defending it, I'm not buying an iPad until next year at the earliest, and only if I decide against replacing my current, aging MacBook Pro with the same computer rather than an iMac/iPad combo. The bottom line is that the iPad can't be all things to all people. It's not meant to replace a fullfledged Mac or PC -- it's meant as an ultraportable extension of a larger device, and one with a far simpler and more intuitive interface, a "computer for the rest of us," if you will. And make no mistake: for every Debra Littlejohn Shinder, for every "open internet" geek who screams "vendor lock-in" every time Apple's name is mentioned, for every "no multitasking, no Flash, no sale" techie, for every dismissive pundit who shrugs and says, "It's just a big iPod touch," there's at least one person who has been waiting for a

AT&T Will Allow 'Optimized' 3G Sling App for iPhone By Eliot Van Buskirk (Wired Top Stories)

AT&T has reversed an earlier decision to bar Sling Media's television-streaming mobile app

from its 3G network, but there's a catch: AT&T worked with Sling to limit the app's

bandwidth, which will affect its audio and video quality.

device just like the iPad, and those people are the ones who will make it a success. Whether you like it or hate it, the iPad is indicative of the future direction of computing. But, just for the sake of argument, let's say we can cook up a portable computer far "better" than an iPad, a dream device that has USB, 1080p output, a removable battery, runs the full version of OS X, has a front-facing camera, isn't dependent on AT&T, isn't "locked in" to the App Store, has a physical keyboard, widescreenformatted display, and has more than 64 GB of storage. What might such a device look like? Oh. Right. TUAW 10 reasons to pass on the iPad? TUAW fact check originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 04 Feb 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

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Robonaut 2: The offspring of GM and NASA (CNET News.com)

focus more on commercial spaceflight and on collaboration with private industry. Plus, Message from fivefilters.org: If NASA and GM go way back, you can, please donate to the full having collaborated during the -text RSS service so we can Apollo years on navigation continue developing it. systems and the lunar rover. Robonaut2 built with dexterous Does Robonaut2 pose yet humanlike hands is able to work another challenge to skilled U.S. tools typically used by factory workers in need of jobs? humans.(Credit: NASA) GM's Taub suggested a less dire This is not your average interpretation of R2's debut. assembly line worker. "The partnership's vision is to But Robonaut 2 is expected to explore advanced robots working be an exemplary co-worker. together in harmony with people, General Motors and NASA on building better, higher quality Thursday introduced Robonaut2, vehicles in a safer, more a humanoid robot being jointly competitive manufacturing developed at the Johnson Space environment," he said. Center in Houston for use in both NASA, of course, focused on the automotive and aerospace how the robot might enable the industries. organization to further explore Robonaut2 is stronger, more space with less danger to d e x t e r o u s , a n d m o r e pounds with each arm, about GM's vice president for global humanoid torsos--to assemble a s t r o n a u t s . technologically advanced than f o u r t i m e s t h a t o f o t h e r research and development, said sedans, SUVs, and such. But "Working side by side with the original Robonaut, according humanoid robots, according to in a statement. "When it comes those machines are evolving. humans, or going where the risks to NASA. Robonaut, which was NASA. Its nimble hands, fingers, t o f u t u r e v e h i c l e s , t h e Ford's RUTH, for instance, uses a r e t o o g r e a t f o r p e o p l e , developed 10 years ago by and opposable thumbs also a d v a n c e m e n t s i n c o n t r o l s , a "soft" touch to test out the machines like Robonaut will N A S A a n d t h e D e f e n s e enable it to use the same tools sensors and vision technology interior surfaces and controls of e x p a n d o u r c a p a b i l i t y f o r Advanced Research Project normally used by human hands. can be used to develop advanced vehicles. construction and discovery," Agency, was intended--as its GM engineers were sent to the vehicle safety systems." While a partnership with GM Mike Coats, Johnson's center name implies--for use as a robot Johnson Space Center laboratory Detroit and the rest of the auto may seem a rather earthbound director, said in a statement. astronaut. i n H o u s t o n t o w o r k o n industry are no strangers to endeavor for NASA, it is of a Five Filters featured article: Robonaut 2, nicknamed R2, Robonaut2 with NASA scientists robots, of course. Automakers piece with the space agency's Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: seems more destined for a car and engineers.(Credit: NASA) have long employed nameless, new road map. On Monday, the PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, assembly plant than the far "For GM, this is about safer cars faceless robotic devices--think Obama administration made it Term Extraction. reaches of space. It can lift 20 and safer plants," Alan Taub, a r m s , r a t h e r t h a n w h o l e clear that it wanted NASA to Submitted at 2/4/2010 8:43:44 AM

Screenshots From a Full-Screen iPad Game By Charlie Sorrel (Wired Top Stories) Submitted at 2/4/2010 7:01:00 AM

Just how good is the iPadâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s pixel upscaling, the trick that makes it possible to run iPhone apps full-screen on the new

magical wonder-pad? Not very, it seems.

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Sony sales, earnings bounce back (CNET News.com) Submitted at 2/4/2010 7:16:25 AM

Message from fivefilters.org: If you can, please donate to the full -text RSS service so we can continue developing it. Thanks to intensive cost cuts, and buoyed by sales of Vaio PCs and PlayStation 3 game consoles, Sony's quarterly results are back in the black. After four straight quarterly losses, the company rebounded in the third quarter of its fiscal 2009. Net income jumped 660 percent to 79.2 billion yen ($871 million), compared with 10.4 billion yen in 2008's third quarter, Sony reported Thursday. Sales for the quarter ended December 31 rose 3.9 percent to 2.24 trillion yen ($24.6 billion) versus 2.15 trillion yen in the year-ago quarter. Sony bounces back in the third quarter.(Credit: Sony) Stung by weak consumer demand and strong competition, Sony had been forced to slash expenses over the past year. The company has closed down factories and laid off a huge number of workers in an attempt

to return to profitability, a strategy that is now starting to pay off. But stronger operating results in virtually all of Sony's businesses also boosted third-quarter results. Though sales fell 10 percent in the consumer electronics division, operating income reached 49 billion yen, versus a loss of 19 billion yen in 2008's third quarter. Sales were down for Sony's Bravia LCD TVs due to continued price competition. But costs cuts in this division

helped it return to profitability. The Networked Products and Services business, which includes computers and the PlayStation game consoles, saw a 1.9 percent gain in sales to 606 billion yen and an operating profit of 19.4 billion yen, versus a loss of 5.9 billion yen in the year-ago quarter. Sales for Sony's Vaio PCs were up. Sales for the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable were down, but profits rose thanks to lower manufacturing costs for the PS3

consoles. In the December quarter, Sony sold approximately 6.5 million PS3 units, compared with 4.5 million in the year-earlier quarter. Sony's entertainment segments also enjoyed growth, with healthy sales and operating profits for the music, movie, and TV business. Overall, third-quarter sales and earnings surpassed expectations, prompting Sony to up its forecast for the full year. The company

now expects to lose 70 billion yen for fiscal 2009 compared with its prior estimate of a 95 billion yen deficit. Sales are still likely to reach 7.3 trillion yen for the year, about 6 percent lower than in 2008. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

HuffPo compiles the best banned Super Bowl ads By Danny Gallagher (TV Squad) Submitted at 2/4/2010 10:13:00 AM

Even though CBS has hacked and slashed an abnormally large

number of Super Bowl ads, they aren't the first and they sure as hell won't be the last. The Huffington Post has compiled a list of some of the more outrageous banned Super

Bowl ads including the steamy PETA "veggie sex" ad and this ad for Smartbeep that has been floating around the Internet for years but didn't know until now that it was supposed to air during

the Super Bowl. Thank you, Permalink| Email this| | Internet. You're the teacher that C o m m e n t s none of my teachers could ever be. Filed under: Sports, Video, Commercials, Reality-Free

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Happy Birthday, The Sims (CNET News.com) Submitted at 2/4/2010 9:07:47 AM

Message from fivefilters.org: If you can, please donate to the full -text RSS service so we can continue developing it. For a 10-year-old, The Sims has had quite a lifetime. Launched on February 4, 2000, The Sims has proven one of the industry's most enduring and popular game franchises. Offering players the ability to live a virtual life, the game has launched a slew of sequels, traveled to different countries, and rewarded Electronic Arts with $2.5 billion in sales. The Sims, Sims 2, Sims 3, and its various other spin-offs are available on a variety of

platforms, including PCs, Macs, game consoles, portable devices, and smartphones. The original game can now be found in 60 different countries and 22 languages. The Sims has also proven popular among socialnetworking sites, says EA, with its own pages on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and YouTube, adding up to a following of around 1 million people. Party with The Sims(Credit: Electronic Arts) "The success of The Sims is something gamers and the gaming business as a whole can be proud of, said Rod Humble, who heads the EA Play label, in a statement. "The future of The

new virtual world. The franchise has also kept up with the times, as The Sims 3 offers a green-friendly environment in which players can grow their own food and use a Toyota Prius hybrid to travel around town. To celebrate the Sims' anniversary, EA is offering a few free gifts and special promotions for all Sims fans at its Sims Web site. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: Sims is going to be a lot of fun; The Sims has caught on, PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, it is rare for an entertainment believes EA, not just because it's Term Extraction. f r a n c h i s e t o b e g a i n i n g fun and quirky, but because it m o m e n t u m a d e c a d e a f t e r gives people the ability to create release, so this is a particularly and control another life for pleasant moment for everyone themselves, complete with who has worked on the games." families, friends, and a whole

iPhone Apps Get Web Previews By Christina Warren (Mashable!)

iPhone App Store Previews on the web, too. In the past, when visiting a Submitted at 2/4/2010 7:44:57 AM direct link for an iPhone Back in November, Apple application, like this link for q u i e t l y r o l l e d o u t i T u n e s Draw, users had to endure a page Preview, which created a web- that is little more than a redirect based page for iTunes albums to the link embedded in the and song tracks. Earlier this year, iTunes desktop application. the company added song samples Now, that’s generally fine — to iTunes Preview, further most home computers do have fueling speculation of a web- iTunes installed (and certainly all based iTunes client. Today, the Macs do), but if you’re on a company is completing the computer that doesn’t have circuit, so to speak, and putting iTunes, you’re out of luck.

That’s why we always indicate iTunes links in our posts, so that readers know — hey, this will try to open iTunes, be aware. Now, when you hit those direct links, iTunes will still want to

load the page (assuming it is installed), but you’re also going to get to see all of the app information, screenshots and review information on a regular web page. Take a look: You can still choose to view an app in iTunes, and you’ll need to use iTunes, either on your phone or your Mac or PC, to make a purchase. Still, it’s yet another indicator that an iTunes.com or similar solution is in the works. We

wouldn’t be surprised if this had an iPad component to it as well. Regardless of the reasons, we’re just glad that Apple is making it easier to access iTunes content outside of iTunes. What do you think Apple is planning on doing with iTunes? Would you like to see a webbased version of the popular music player? Let us know! [via Lifehacker and TechCrunch] Tags: app store, itunes, itunes preview, music, software

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Artist Sues Photographer For Transformative Photo Of Public Artwork, Even Though Photographer Took Down The Photo By Mike Masnick (Techdirt)

does no damage whatsoever to Mackie's work -- and should only call more attention to it. No A whole bunch of you sent over matter, Mackie sent a legal yet another story of copyright nastygram. But here's the thing: law gone wrong. An artist Hipple complied. He took down named Jack Mackie, who created the photo and erased it. He no a piece of artwork made up of longer has a copy of it. So he bronze shoeprints buried in a complied with the nastygram. sidewalk in Seattle (I'd post a And Mackie sued anyway. He picture, but we'd probably get actually waited a year, and then sued) apparently got upset that a sued, even though the photo had photographer took some photos been gone since just a few days of it. Remember, it's on a after the nastygram was sent. It sidewalk. In a public place. And seems like this should be a clear it's a piece of artwork, so people transformative use. It wasn't just are going to take photos. In this a photo of the artwork, but added case, the photographer, Mike a different element that acted as By Mike Masnick (Techdirt) inches." The station came up of the original broadcast used is Hipple, took a photo that was a a bit of commentary on the work with an explanation for the very small, the purpose of the clear transformative work, rather itself. It's hard to see how this Submitted at 2/4/2010 4:41:00 AM statement, saying that he had a clip is to spur public discussion, than a straight copy. The photo, would have even the slightest It's been well documented how problem with his monitor and and there is arguably no effect on which you can see here, featured negative impact on the actual many people/organizations abuse was displayed funny -- and WHDH's news market. It's likely someone's feet standing on the work or the artist. This is just the DMCA takedown process to t h o u g h t t h a t t h e v i e w i n g WHDH either didn't consider fair art installation -- something you the sort of ridiculous situation try (and usually fail) to make audience could see him that way use before ordering the clip's would imagine makes a lot of that arises when people are told content they don't like disappear, too. Perhaps. takedown, or it simply didn't sense as a commentary on the that they "own" something that even if there's a legitimate reason Still, though, the station, care. And that's an issue. The artwork (since the work itself is cannot be owned. for it being up. In the latest such WHDH, has been aggressively DMCA allows copyright holders of of shoeprints). Cool, right? Permalink| Comments| Email example, a weatherman in issuing DMCA takedowns over to shoot first and not care later. N o t a c c o r d i n g t o M a c k i e . This Story Boston made a comment that the video (who knows how long And that's a problem, because it Hipple posted the photo to a many considered to be... a bit off the video above will stay up), can put a serious crimp on public stock photo website -- which -color for the local evening even though it's almost certainly discussion (which raises some news. In discussing the snowfall fair use, and courts have found s e r i o u s F i r s t A m e n d m e n t in certain areas, he noted: that those sending takedowns questions). Yes, in this case, it's By FanHouse Newswire s=uiConfig,feedConfig,localizati "Picking up some snow are we? need to take fair use into just an off-color joke, but in (FanHouse Main) onConfig,entry&id=827876&pid Yes we are. In Princeton we account. Justin Silverman, over many other cases it could be =827875&uts=1265255119 Submitted at 2/3/2010 1:58:00 PM picked up 9 inches of snow and at the Citizen Media Law much more important speech. http://www.aolcdn.com/ke/media in Billerica we had 7." Then Project, explains succinctly why Permalink| Comments| Email F i l e d u n d e r : @ g a l l e r y _gallery/v1/ke_media_gallery_w there's a brief pause before he this is almost certainly fair use: This Story http://xml.channel.aol.com/xmlp rapper.swf UFC 109 Photos steps forward and says: "The In this case there's a fairly strong ublisher/fetch.v2.xml?option=ex biggest amount I could find-- argument that the 27-second clip pand_relative_urls&dataUrlNode almost as big as me--about 9 of Bouchard is fair. The amount Submitted at 2/4/2010 6:43:17 AM

TV Station Issuing DMCA Takedowns To Try To Hide Weatherman Making A Bad Joke

UFC 109 Photos

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Rumor: AT&T outbid Verizon for the iPad data plan By Mike Schramm (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW))

Of course, Verizon is really the only source saying they're still in the game at the moment -- most analysts believe Verizon won't Submitted at 2/4/2010 12:00:00 PM see Apple hardware until they Filed under: Portables, bring out their next-generation Software, Apple Fox News LTE service, and even then writer Clayton Morris was also having a bunch of different plans wondering just why Apple went to choose from doesn't really with AT&T yet again for the sound like Apple's kind of thing. iPad data plan, but it turns out But it is interesting to hear that things between the two AT&T is willing to take a dive in companies weren't quite so cut price to keep Apple's business. and dry as Jobs made us believe Wonder what might happen if on stage. He says that inside becoming the official iPad data their network dives as well. sources at Verizon still insist that service, and that makes sense: [via Apple Insider] they've been talking with Apple that $29.99 unlimited plan is a TUAW Rumor: AT&T outbid about handling some of the data heck of a deal for consumers, but Verizon for the iPad data plan service, and he even says that then again, it'll bring in a heck of originally appeared on The they've mentioned not only an a lot of business for AT&T (who U n o f f i c i a l A p p l e W e b l o g iPhone set up to work with should have already been in hot (TUAW) on Thu, 04 Feb 2010 Verizon later this year, but an water for their service outages, 12:00:00 EST. Please see our and will probably end up in terms for use of feeds. iPad as well. Rumor also has it that AT&T more, despite their promises that Read| Permalink| Email this| s i m p l y o u t b i d t h e o t h e r their network can handle the Comments c e l l p h o n e p r o v i d e r s f o r data).

Attorney Says They're Negotiating Surrender of Dr. Conrad Murray (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 2/4/2010 8:24:00 AM

The attorney to Michael Jackson's former personal physician tells ET that they are planning to have Dr. Conrad Murray turn himself in. Attorney Ed Chernoff says they

are negotiating a surrender with the District Attorney's office but they have not agreed upon any specifics. "Until then we will not be sharing agreement terms or conducting interviews with the media,â&#x20AC;? he says of the arrangement. The Associated Press reported

on Tuesday, February 4, that prosecutors reportedly plan to charge Dr. Murray with manslaughter rather than going through a grand jury. Dr. Murray has denied any wrongdoing related to Jackson's death.

Report: Apple signs new iPhone manufacturer, rumored to work on CDMA iPhone By Mike Schramm (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW))

good 2010 for Pegatron -- the company is also working on parts for Microsoft's Natal controller, rumored to be Submitted at 2/4/2010 11:30:00 AM releasing this coming holiday Filed under: Hardware, Apple, season. As for what they'll be iPhone Apple has reportedly making for Apple, we'll have to signed up with a new wait and see what gets manufacturer in China to help announced. It's almost a certainty produce the next generation of that we'll see a new iPhone the iPhone -- Pegatron will be model sometime this year, but as joining Foxconn in putting to what that model will do (and together parts for Apple's next whether it'll be CDMA enabled handheld unit, we hear courtesy or otherwise), it's all just rumors of the always talkative "industry so far. sources." The company has been [via Apple Insider] rumored to be working with TUAW Report: Apple signs Apple before, when it was n e w i P h o n e m a n u f a c t u r e r , suggested that they'd be working rumored to work on CDMA on a smaller version of the iPhone originally appeared on iPhone designed to work on The Unofficial Apple Weblog Verizon's CDMA network. (TUAW) on Thu, 04 Feb 2010 Officially, Pegatron hasn't 11:30:00 EST. Please see our confirmed any agreement with terms for use of feeds. Apple, but they have said that Read| Permalink| Email this| t h e y p l a n t o s u b s t a n t i a l l y Comments increase their output in 2010. And this might just be part of a

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AT&T Finally Lets You Use SlingPlayer with Your iPhone Over 3G

Slingplayer Mobile will finally be working on the AT&T 3G network

By Stan Schroeder (Mashable!)

By Mel Martin (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW))

Submitted at 2/4/2010 6:28:07 AM

Submitted at 2/4/2010 11:00:00 AM

Recently, we wrote that AT&T is planning to spend an additional 2 billion dollars in 2010 on improving its wireless network. Now, it’s showing that it wasn’t kidding, at least about its intentions, as it’s finally let SlingPlayer, a mobile app that lets you watch TV on the iPhone, deliver data over its 3G connection. Until now, SlingPlayer was only available over Wi-Fi, which means it was pretty much unusable in most situations where you actually needed it. Now, owners of Slingbox who purchase SlingPlayer ($29.99 in the App Store) can watch TV shows on their iPhones, provided they’re in 3G range. Although it has approved SlingPlayer over 3G, AT&T points out that optimization is still a big deal when it comes to mobile apps such as SlingPlayer. “Collaboration with developers like Sling Media ensures that all apps are optimized for our 3G

Filed under: Multimedia, Video, iPhone Well, that took a while. AppleInsider is reporting that AT&T has now agreed to let SlingPlayer for iPhone [US$30, iTunes link] stream over the 3G network. When the app was released last May, there was great moaning that the SlingPlayer Mobile app only worked on a Wi-Fi connection. That was in contrast to other versions of the Sling app running on other phones like the BlackBerry, Windows Mobile and some Palm devices -- all of which were allowed on the AT&T network. AT&T now says they have worked with the Sling Media developers, and found ways to reduce the bandwidth footprint. Getting it all up and running will require a new version of the Sling App, which should appear

network to conserve wireless spectrum and reduce the risk that an app will cause such extreme levels of congestion that they disrupt the experience of other wireless customers. Our focus continues to be on delivering the nation’s most advanced mobile broadband experience and giving our customers the widest possible array of mobile applications,” said Ralph de la Vega, president and CEO of

AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets. To make sure app developers are following guidelines, AT&T will provide them with wireless network optimization requirements for video and other apps by the end of the first quarter at its Developers Program website. Tags: iphone, Mobile 2.0, SlingPlayer, tv

shortly. The app will be a free upgrade for current owners. The posted version was released in August of last year. A source at Sling Media told me this morning they were glad AT&T "finally saw the light." We'll keep you posted on developments, and we'll test the new app when it's online. TUAW Slingplayer Mobile will finally be working on the AT&T 3G network originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 04 Feb 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

Roundtable, Day 3: Need to Know By FanHouse TV (FanHouse Main)

Filed under: Super Bowl, Super Bowl XLIV Video Which Reggie Bush will show up in the

Super Bowl? Can Joseph Addai run on the Saints defense? Will Dwight Freeney play? It's Day 3

of Super Bowl Week and FanHouse columnists Thomas George, Terence Moore and Jay

Mariotti are back to break it all down.

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Symbian OS Goes Open Source By Stan Schroeder (Mashable!) Submitted at 2/4/2010 1:26:44 AM

As of today, the source code of Symbian 3 mobile OS (the successor of previous Symbian versions, S60, S40 and others) is open and free to use. Nokia had acquired Symbian back in 2008, turned the consortium that makes the software into the Symbian foundation, and has now decided to make it available to all phone manufacturers. The source code is published under the Eclipse Public License(EPL). Although it’s the most popular mobile OS, powering some 330 million phones, Symbian has been in limbo lately. On one side, it competed against the increasingly popular (and completely closed) iPhone, while many manufacturers, such as Motorola, opted to use the open source Android, which offers a much more similar experience to iPhone than most Symbian phones. Lee Williams, executive director of the Symbian Foundation, claims that the new, open

Awkward Stock Photo Blog Hit With DMCA Claim By Mike Masnick (Techdirt)

being used. That makes me sad, but it's the way things are in the world of harsh ownership." Brad Hubbard writes"One of my The blog, if you didn't know, f a v o r i t e s i t e s , basically found awkward stock A w k w a r d S t o c k P h o t o s . c o m photo images, but did so in a received a legal nastygram very promotional way, linking claiming that by showing the back to the original, and always stock photos f r o m including the original watermark. iStockPhoto.com (and linking In other words, it was helping to back, with watermark in place), advertise some rather unique they were violating copyright. iStockPhoto images -- and as the What they were actually doing site notes, lots of other sites have was driving tens of thousands of done the same -- and even Symbian has an advantage over Symbian in favor of Android, hits directly to the iStockPhoto received book deals for it. It Android. Symbian is fully open, and some of them (like Motorola s i t e , a n d t h e r e i s a t l e a s t seems like iStock's parent he says, while “about a third of with their Droid) have been quite anecdotal evidence that they company, Getty Images, totally the Android code base is open successful with Android-based i n c r e a s e d t h e n u m b e r o f overreacted to a site that was and nothing more. And what is d e v i c e s . W h e t h e r t h e n e w purchases of these otherwise only helping them, and not harming the company at all. o p e n i s a c o l l e c t i o n o f version of Symbian, together humorously bad photos. middleware. Everything else is with the move to open source, Sounds to me like these are all Permalink| Comments| Email closed or proprietary.” will be enough to make Symbian perfect Fair Use examples, being This Story Still, one can’t help but wonder interesting to manufacturers, stomped by a company that didn't like how its product was whether Symbian is a bit late to remains to be seen. t h e g a m e h e r e . M a n y Tags: Mobile 2.0, Nokia, open manufacturers have already all source, Symbian but ditched Windows Mobile and Submitted at 2/4/2010 2:45:43 AM

'Dexter' Actress vs. 'Zombieland' Star: Actresses Kate Gosselin Returns to 'The View' Face Off in Same Style (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 2/4/2010 7:00:00 AM

Reality star Kate Gosselin is scheduled to join the ladies of the "The View," along with a certain 'Twilight' heartthrob.

The former "Jon and Kate Plus 8" mom will be co-hosting the talk show on Thursday, March 11. Gosselin is no stranger to the round table, appearing as a guest co-host for three days in September, 2009.

Also set to appear on "The (ETonline - Breaking News) View" is none other than 'Twilight' hunk Robert Pattinson. Submitted at 2/4/2010 6:58:00 AM The sexy vampire will make his It's a fashion face-off for style"View" debut on Tuesday, savvy celebs! From "Dexter" star March 2. Jennifer Carpenter and 'Zombieland' actress Amber

Heard's white-out styles, to entertainer Jennifer Lopez and supermodel Heidi Klum's teeny minis, see which stars are stepping out in a similar fashion.

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Australian Court Says Men At Work's 'Down Under' Infringes On Folk Song; Only Took Decades To Notice By Mike Masnick (Techdirt)

Larrikan Music didn't notice any similarities at all. It seems like Submitted at 2/4/2010 8:01:00 AM this should be an open-and-shut W e l l , a p p a r e n t l y n o t a l l case. The "use" was minor, at Australian courts are sensible best, and didn't do any damage to when it comes to copyright the market for the original song, rulings. While we recently wrote "Kookaburra," which is popular about the wonderful iiNet among schoolkids, apparently. decision, in the comments, There's simply no harm done and someone pointed to a bad a n y o n e w i t h a n o u n c e o f decision made on the same day. common sense should see that. It's a case we wrote about last But... that's not what the court year involving the famous song found. It's ruled that Men at Down Under by the band Men at Work infringed on Kookaburra, Work -- a big hit back in the and now the band members and 1980s. But in 2007, after seeing their record label need to pay upa joke on a TV trivia program - potentially huge sums. It's about that song's similarities to difficult to see how this makes an old Australian folk song, the sense under any sort of copyright publisher who held the copyright regime. on the folk song sued. Yes, this Permalink| Comments| Email was decades after the song was This Story popular, and the publisher,

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Sirius XM Radio Now Broadcasts to Your BlackBerry

Antonio Sabato Jr. Passes Calvin Klein Torch to Kellan Lutz (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 2/4/2010 3:25:00 AM

Former Calvin Klein model Antonio Sabato Jr. swaps stories Submitted at 2/4/2010 8:46:21 AM with Calvin Klein newbie, 'Twilight''s Kellan Lutz! The online streaming version of The two underwear models Sirius XM satellite radio is now explain their first Calvin Klein available on many of the newer experiences. BlackBerry smartphones. Sirius "I flew to New York to meet XM just announced that a free Calvin and I didn't know exactly app is up for download at its website, though the service isn’t BlackBerry owners its star talk what I was gonna do," Antonio describes. "I went in his office show host — Howard Stern. free. Sirius XM is trying to win Sirius XM is offering a seven- a n d w e s a t d o w n a n d h e g r o u n d b y s t r e a m i n g i t s day free trial to BlackBerry mentioned that maybe there's a programming online both via the owners, but once that trial is over possibility of doing a campaign web and mobile devices. An they’ll have to spend $13 per but I had to try the underwear iPhone app launched last year. m o n t h t o k e e p l i s t e n i n g . first. So he said, 'Do you mind Now BlackBerry users get to try Supported handsets include the trying them on for me?'" out the 120 channels of exclusive Storm 9530, Storm2 9550, Bold programming, which includes 9000, Bold 9700, Tour 9630, talk shows from CNN, Fox Curve 9800, Curve 8520 and News, Playboy and Oprah. Curve 8530. There’s also an abundance of Tags: blackberry, Hardware, sports coverage and commercial- music, research in motion, Sirius, sirius xm, xm free music. Unfortunately, licensing issues prevent Sirius XM from giving

By Samuel Axon (Mashable!)

Happy 6th Birthday, Facebook! By Stan Schroeder (Mashable!)

and it was originally located at thefacebook.com, but it’s definitely the same project. Submitted at 2/4/2010 3:08:45 AM Founded by Mark Zuckerberg, According to Wikipedia and its together with his college roomies Info page, Facebook was Eduardo Saverin, Dustin launched exactly six years ago, Moskovitz and Chris Hughes, on February 4, 2004. Back then F a c e b o o k w a s o r i g i n a l l y Harvard students, but was later it was called “ Thefacebook,” intended to be a network only for expanded to other universities

and finally to everyone. Intelligent design, a lot of smart business decisions and gradual expansion made Facebook what it is today: by far, the biggest social network on the Internet. For a lot more on Facebook, we recommend reading our Facebook Guide Book, a

collection of some of our best resources, how-tos and guides on Facebook. Tags: facebook, social media, social networking, trending

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Before Sunset By Noam Scheiber (The New Republic - All Feed) Submitted at 2/3/2010 8:50:00 PM

Message from fivefilters.org: If you can, please donate to the full -text RSS service so we can continue developing it. One way to judge the health of our political system is to divide the president’s agenda into three categories. First are the items that seem like they’d be hard to accomplish and actually are hard—health care reform and cap-and-trade come to mind. Then come the items that sound easy to the uninitiated but turn out to be pretty hard—like eliminating wasteful farm subsidies or obsolete weapons systems. Lots of presidents have taken on these programs only to find that they have powerful, well-organized defenders. Finally, there are some legislative goals that sound easy to accomplish, and normally are easy, until some unique brand of dysfunction intervenes—say, some senator takes a special interest in an obscure appointment. A healthy political system will have a fair amount of the first type of issue, whose difficulty arises from its fundamental complexity and genuine ideological disagreement. A healthy system could even have a decent amount of the second issue—it’s tough to have a democracy if interest groups can’t weigh in. But if you start

noticing too many entries in the third category, then it’s time to fear for the republic, because it means the country is becoming ungovernable. Unfortunately, this year’s budget fight includes a whopper of an example here—the effort to phase out tax cuts for the wealthy. These are the tax cuts George W. Bush passed in 2001 and 2003, of course. The first round reduced income taxes for people at all levels. But it dumped gobs of money on the very affluent. This group saw the rate it pays on every dollar above about 300,000 drop from nearly 40 percent to 35. If, for example, you happened to be a banker who makes $10 million per year, this rate cut saved you nearly $450,000 last year—far more than most people’s entire salaries. (Insanely, a hedge fund manager making the same salary owes even less in taxes—far less, actually—but that’s another story.) Then in 2003 Bush was at it again, sheering back taxes on capital gains and dividend income. Once again, the benefits were overwhelmingly skewed toward the very wealthy, who own vastly more financial assets than the average worker. As Warren Buffett warned at the time, the practical effect of such cuts would be to lower the tax rate paid by his income demographic to a tiny fraction of the rate most Americans face. Which was the way it shook out

in practice. According to calculations by Citizens for Tax Justice, the two rounds of Bush tax cuts showered 38 percent of their benefits on the top 1 percent of income earners, and over 52 percent of their benefits on the top 5 percent. Most congressional Democrats understood this at the time and were deeply skeptical of the tax cuts. That forced the GOP to enact them through reconciliation—the Senate rule allowing passage of budgetrelated measures with a simple majority rather than a filibusterproof 60 votes. Bush did manage to win over several moderate and conservative Democrats—people like Ben Nelson, Blanche Lincoln, and Mary Landrieu. But many signed on once it became clear the bill would pass anyway. It’s unlikely Bush would have found enough Democratic takers to break a filibuster had it come to that. In any case, Democrats only became more united in their opposition to the tax cuts as time went by. Every major candidate in the 2004 Democratic presidential primaries vowed to repeal the portion benefiting the very affluent. (Two of them—Howard Dean and Dick Gephardt—proposed repealing all the Bush tax cuts.) Ditto for 2008. Support for this idea was so uncontroversial that it produced almost no back-andforth across several dozen primary debates and candidate

forums. Of course, there’s a big difference between promising to repeal a tax cut and having the courage to follow through. No one wants to be labeled a taxraiser. And rich people tend to get a lot of face time with senators and congressmen, with whom they can wax philosophical about the vast economic benefits of their additional Bentley purchases. But the beauty of the Bush tax cuts is that reversing them doesn’t require anyone to lift a finger. The strictures of the reconciliation process forced Bush to phase them out in 2011. That means the tax cuts just disappear—poof!—unless someone intervenes to save them. And yet, in the run-up to Obama’s 2011 budget, a handful of Democrats had begun to lose their nerve. The New York Times reported Sunday that “some centrist Democrats are urging Mr. Obama to spare wealthy taxpayers as well, to avoid raising their taxes before the economy is fully recovered.” Congressional Quarterl y had a similar report the following day (not online). But this argument makes no sense. The rich save the overwhelming majority of their income in both good economic times and bad. Preserving their tax cuts would do almost nothing to boost the economy by eliciting more spending—not even on those

Bentleys (which the rich can afford with or without tax cuts). For the most part, it would simply pad their bank accounts. But don’t take my word for it. Last month, the Congressional Budget Office—Washington’s most scrupulously neutral arbiter of tax and spending initiatives— ranked eleven ideas in circulation for stimulating economic growth. Extending the Bush tax cuts finished at the very bottom in potential effectiveness. Worse, extending the upperincome portions would cost about $700 billion dollars over the next 10 years (and that’s before you factor in the effect of higher interest payments on U.S. debt). As Robert Greenstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities puts it, even if we had an extra $700 billion to spend on more stimulus, there are massively more cost-effective ways to spend it. In fairness, eliminating the upper-income portion of the Bush tax cuts isn’t quite as straight-forward in practice as simply allowing them to expire. Because most Democrats (including Obama) want to preserve the middle-class portion of the cuts, they’ll have to pass new legislation authorizing that extension for people making $250,000 or less (about 98 percent of workers). And since Republicans would filibuster the BEFORE page 42

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The Tea Party Glossary By Lydia DePillis (The New Republic - All Feed) Submitted at 2/3/2010 8:50:00 PM

Message from fivefilters.org: If you can, please donate to the full -text RSS service so we can continue developing it. Here's one thing about the Tea Party movement everyone can agree on: It's confusing. With decentralization as a core value, the Tea Party phenomenon can seem like a baffling collection of individuals and organizations, often divided against each other. But with its first national convention now underway in Nashville, and as Tea Party groups gear up for campaigns around the country, it's time we met the movement's main players. Herewith, a handy guide. KEY DATES IN THE MOVEMENT February 19, 2009– Rick Santelli of CNBC goes on a rant against homeowner mortgage bailouts, calling for a “Chicago Tea Party” to protest big government intervention in the economy. February 27– Dozens of “Tea Party” protests occur across the country. In Washington D.C. the event coincides with the mainstream Conservative Political Action Conference. April 15– Announced by Top Conservatives on Twitter, fanned by conservative blogs, and coordinated by the new website TaxDayTeaParty.com, protests

occur in 300 cities—to great fanfare on FOX. July 4– Another day of protest garners less coverage than the tax day events, but keeps momentum moving. September 12– Coordinated by FreedomWorks and heavily promoted by Glenn Beck’s 9/12 Project, tens of thousands of protesters converge on Washington D.C. January 7, 2010– RNC chairman Michael Steele tells a St. Louis radio station, “I’m a tea partier, I’m a town haller, I’m a grassrootser.” January 19– Scott Brown defeats Martha Coakley in the Massachusetts senate special election, with help from an influx of tea party volunteers and donations. February 4-6– National Tea Party Convention takes place in Nashville, headlined by Sarah Palin. KEY FIGURES IN THE M O V E M E N T (ALPHABETICAL) Dick Armey– The former House Republican conference leader heads up FreedomWorks, a platform that he uses to school Republican party brass in how to appeal to the tea party base. In August, he was asked to resign his lobbying position at DLA Piper, which had been pushing health care reform while Armey’s group battled against it. Glenn Beck- The FOX talker is perhaps the tea party movement’s most prominent and

beloved media figure, having orchestrated the September 12 protest in Washington D.C. He has been skeptical of the Nashville convention, however, and will be headlining this year’s CPAC instead. Keli Carender(a.k.a. Liberty Belle) – The Seattle-area hipster teacher with a theatrical streak organized the first anti-stimulus protest on February 16, 2009. Carender gained a large following with her energetic blogging and leads the Washington state tea party group, which organizes around issues from highways to health care. She was scheduled to speak at the Nashville convention, but the controversy prompted her to cancel yesterday. Erick Erickson– As the editor-in -chief of RedState.com, an influential right-wing blog, Erickson has decried what he sees as the insufficient conservatism of Republican lawmakers and has championed tea party candidates like Doug Hoffman in NY-23. In early January, Erickson called out Judson Phillips’s National Tea Party Convention for seeming “scammy.” Amy Kremer– Kremer, who blogs at Southern Belle Politics, was a leader in Tea Party Patriots until the group’s board filed suit against her in November 2009 for seizing control of parts of their website and email database. The episode, which the press played as a bitter internecine

battle, brought the movement to one of its most fragile points. Kremer still leads the Atlanta Tea Party. Michael Patrick Leahy– After a career in management consulting and media strategy, Leahy founded Top Conservatives on Twitter, a community of rightwing early adopters who tweet with the hashtag #TCOT. He was active in organizing the first tea parties, and self-published Rules for Conservative Radicals, an adaptation of Saul Alinsky’s seminal text. Leahy, based in Nashville, is now affiliated with the National Tea Party Coalition. Michelle Malkin– The prolific blogger, author, and Fox News commentator has been on board with the tea party movement from the beginning. Jenny Beth Martin – A computer programmer by training, Martin became a fulltime blogger and Republican activist in the early 2000s. After her family went bankrupt in the midst of the recession—a tale chronicled through her role in Tea Party: The Documentary Film—she helped found Tea Party Patriots and became director of political operations at Smart Girl Politics. John O’Hara and J.P. Freire– In February 2009, John O’Hara, a twenty-something staffer at the Chicago-based Heartland Foundation, and J. P. Freire, a writer with the American Spectator, organized an antibailout protest in front of the

White House and several simultaneous ones around the country. Though both still comment frequently in the media, the two young activists have since stepped back from the vanguard of the movement—O’Hara recently released a book on the tea parties, and Freire holds forth from the Washington Examiner. Eric Odom– The Chicago-based libertarian online activist, through his firm Strategic Activism LLC, is the man behind TaxDayTeaParty.com, the American Liberty Alliance, and the anti-incumbent Liberty First PAC, which is in the process of endorsing and funneling money towards tea party-minded candidates around the country. Along with Patrick Ruffini, Odom also organized the DontGO movement, which urged Republican legislators to keep the House in session through the 2008 summer recess, and was the most prominent tea party figure to make The Telegraph’s list of America’s top 100 conservatives. Judson and Sherry Phillips– Nashville personal injury attorney Judson Phillips and his wife Sherry are the masterminds behind this weekend’s National Tea Party Convention. Judson, a former district attorney and 2002 GOP candidate for his county’s board of commissioners, has a troubled financial past. TEA page 38

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He’s a Yuppie By John B. Judis (The New Republic - All Feed)

stamps. He married a woman from a working-class family on the South Side of Chicago, and Submitted at 2/3/2010 8:50:00 PM they rented a walk-up Message from fivefilters.org: If condominium in Hyde Park.” you can, please donate to the full The first thing to note about this -text RSS service so we can description is that, like many continue developing it. accounts I have read of Obama’s Here is a fact: Barack Obama life, it gets its facts wrong. He h a s t r o u b l e g e n e r a t i n g didn’t become a community e n t h u s i a s m a m o n g w h i t e organizer after graduating from working class voters. That’s not Harvard Law School, but after because they are white. He graduating from Columbia. He would have had trouble winning left community organizing to support among black working attend Harvard Law School. class voters if they had been After graduating from law unable to identify with him school, he joined a prestigious because he was black. He has Chicago law firm with offices trouble with working class voters just off Michigan Avenue. In because he appears to them as 1 9 9 1 , h e b e g a n t e a c h i n g coming from a different world, a c o n s t i t u t i o n a l l a w a t t h e different realm of experience, a University of Chicago. He was different class, if you like. And chair of a Chicago branch of the that’s because he does. Annenberg Foundation. Obama’s I have recently read several wife, who admittedly did grow stories about Obama that treat up working-class, nevertheless these difficulties as if they were graduated from Princeton and paradoxical. The latest is from Harvard Law School. And Hyde The Washington Post. “Despite Park is a pricey upper-middleh i s r o o t s , ” t h e a r t i c l e i s class section of Chicago. headlined, “Obama struggles to The second thing to note is show he’s connected to middle s o m e t h i n g a b o u t c l a s s i n class.” And the story—which America. By Marx’s definition, seems to use middle class, what we have in America, and in working class, and blue collar o t h e r d e v e l o p e d c a p i t a l i s t interchangeably—describes his countries, is a large, diversified supposedly non-elitist roots as working class that ranges from follows: “He turned down high- low-paid laborers and clerks to paying jobs after graduating engineers and teachers, all of from Harvard Law School and whom work for someone else, became a community organizer, and cannot claim to own or compelled by the experience of control the means of production. growing up with a single mother But even if one accepts this who sometimes lived on food account of the working class,

there can be enormous social divisions between parts of it. Race and income are important, of course, but so is function, which separates people who perform routine or menial or manual tasks from people who produce ideas and complex services. College professors do not always make more money than electricians; but they live in a different world. In census terms, it is the world of professionals compared to that of operatives, laborers, clerical workers, and technicians. Obama’s parents were professionals—his mother was an anthropology PhD and his father was a Harvard-trained economist. How much money they made was immaterial. His grandmother, who raised him in Hawaii, was a bank vicepresident. He went to a fancy private school and to prestigious colleges (Occidental and Columbia) that turn out professionals and managers. He clearly was not obsessed with making money, but with performing a public service—yet that doesn’t distinguish him from other professionals or other Columbia graduates. It does distinguish him from a workingor middle-class American for whom being a civil rights lawyer or professor or politician is at best a passing fantasy. It is admirable that Obama spent three years after graduating as a community organizer on Chicago’s South Side, but many

graduates of elite colleges spend several years after college doing something unusual, before returning to graduate school or settling into a profession. Some travel around the world; some join the Peace Corps; some try to write novels. In the days of Theodore Roosevelt or George H.W. Bush, some became cowboys or oil wildcatters. It’s a tradition that goes back over a century. It’s called “sowing your wild oats.” Afterwards, they usually return to more sober and sedate occupations appropriate to their social background and education. That’s what Obama did. As I wrote of his community organizing period, he became weary of the life of the community organizer. He doubted he was accomplishing much, and decided to go to law school. He didn’t choose to go to Kent College of Law or John Marshall Law School—schools where he could have retained his ties with working class Chicago—but to Harvard Law School. Once out of law school, Obama lived and worked over the next decade in a grey area between the very upper reaches of professional America and the country’s managers, owners, and rulers. He didn’t just have access to more money and live differently from ordinary Americans; he possessed power and authority that they didn’t have. He was of a different world, even if as a politician he

would occasionally visit theirs. There is no paradox, therefore, in Obama’s distance from white working class voters. What would be unusual is if he were able to echo their concerns in a deeply moving rather than in a somewhat mechanical way. Yes, there have been some gifted politicians of an upper class or professional background who have been able to do so. Some, like Bill Clinton, Lyndon Johnson, or Ronald Reagan, could draw upon their working class childhoods; others, like Franklin Roosevelt or Edward Kennedy, could evince a kind of upper-class paternalism. This made them great politicians. It didn’t necessarily make them great men or great Americans. Barack Obama is, by any fair measure, a great American, and he could turn out to be a great president. But he is not yet a great politician. He has not been able to transcend the political limits of his own social background. And that has been one of his problems as he attempts to extricate America from the mess he inherited. John B. Judis is a senior editor of The New Republic and a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. For more TNR, become a fan on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. HE’S page 39

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TEA

The Right Way to Reform (AEI.Org: Articles)

most recent survey data show that the average state imposes Submitted at 2/3/2010 3:00:00 PM about 35 such mandates, and the Message from fivefilters.org: If extensive existing literature you can, please donate to the full suggests that a conservative -text RSS service so we can estimate of the marginal cost of continue developing it. each mandate is about 0.3% of The collectivist, comprehensive, premiums. Therefore, these top-down, one-size-fits-all mandates are likely to increase version of health care reform premiums for a group (employerfavored in much of the Beltway based) family policy by about was defeated in Massachusetts $1,294 per year in the average o n J a n . 1 9 . I n s t e a d o f state, ranging from $260 per year centralizing the health insurance in Idaho, the state with the system, smaller reforms that fewest mandates (eight), to address the actual sources of $2486 per year in Rhode Island, resource waste can now be the state with the most (62). considered. The specifics of such insurance A simple reform that could be policies would be determined by adopted quickly and with few competition in the market for c o m p l i c a t i o n s i s t h e health coverage, but they still i m p l e m e n t a t i o n o f a n would be regulated, as current "entrepreneurs" health coverage p o l i c i e s a r e , f o r s a f e t y , policy freed from the many soundness, good faith and other benefit mandates imposed upon matters. insurers and their customers. A new study from the Pacific A l t h o u g h a i m e d a t s m a l l Research Institute shows that businesses, such coverage would such policies freed from benefit be available nationally to any mandates would enroll about group or individual, offered 13.6 million individuals now competitively by a number of covered by private insurance insurers. and, very conservatively, about F o r m a n y y e a r s s t a t e 3.2 million of those now governments, responsible for uninsured. This represents about regulating health insurers, have 8% of those insured privately or r e q u i r e d h e a l t h i n s u r a n c e uninsured for the U.S. as a policies to cover particular whole, ranging from about 1.6% services and categories of for Idaho to about 11.9% for providers. This means that Rhode Island. individuals must pay for such By eliminating the numerous coverage even if they otherwise benefit and provider mandates would not have purchased it. The now imposed by state laws,

entrepreneurs' coverage would reduce the degree to which consumers can shift costs onto others by choosing policies with specific coverage that they know they will use. Insurance instead is supposed to be a way to pool the risks of future adverse health events unknown in advance. This would represent an important step toward restoring health insurance as protection against catastrophic events rather than prepayment for anticipated medical services. More generally, such a reform would be driven by market forces--the preferences of consumers and the costs faced by insurers--and so would decentralize and depoliticize the system. This is the opposite of the dynamic attendant upon the kind of "reform" that nearly passed Congress, in that government has interest groups rather than patients. Because of that reality, a centralized system of health coverage inexorably would be transformed into a massive tug-of-war among groups seeking both increased allocations for the treatments in which they are particularly interested, and a shift of costs onto others. The tempest over breast mammograms that we observed late last year is only one example; there exist important constituencies for many such services, a fact that would lead to an increasing

continued from page 36

politicization of the health care sector. Some reforms include eliminating the tax preference that now favors coverage purchased in the group (employer) market over the nongroup market; rolling back the rules and tax preferences that induce groups and individuals to purchase expensive coverage with low deductibles, copayments, and out-of-pocket maximums; and ending the regulatory restrictions that prevent interstate competition in health insurance. In greater and lesser degrees, such sensible reforms would decentralize decision-making and unleash the competitive processes that offer consumers expanded choice among myriad alternative insurance contracts. This would improve the efficiency of resource use in the health care sector, and would restore the doctor-patient relationship as the final authority with respect to medical decisions. Benjamin Zycher is a National Research Initiative visiting fellow at AEI. Photo credit: Tom Grill/Corbis. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

According to disaffected former volunteers, the Phillipses always hoped to make a profit from the pricey convention, and eventually drove all dissenting voices out of the planning effort. Ned Ryun– The son of former Kansas congressman Jim Ryun and a one-time“presidential writer” for George W. Bush—which is one way to describe having worked in the Office of Correspondence—Ned Ryun is the founder of American Majority. Ryun also records podcasts on the history of the Constitutional Convention, and directs the Madison Project, a PAC that raises money for conservative candidates. Howard Kaloogian– This former member of the California House of Representatives is now the chairman of Our Country Deserves Better, the PAC behind Tea Party Express. After leading the recall of Gray Davis, he launched unsuccessful runs for the U.S. Senate in 2004 and the House in 2006. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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House Faces Tough Vote On $1.9 Trillion More Debt (Newsmax - Politics)

Passage of the bill would send it to President Barack Obama, who will sign it to avoid a first-ever, Message from fivefilters.org: If market-rattling default on U.S. you can, please donate to the full obligations. Democrats barely -text RSS service so we can passed it through the Senate last continue developing it. week over a unanimous "no" Facing a politically excruciating v o t e f r o m G O P m e m b e r s vote, House Democratic leaders p r e s e n t . are counting on new budget To ease its passage, Democrats deficit curbs to help smooth the attached tougher budget rules way for a bill allowing the designed to curb a spiraling government to go $1.9 trillion u p w a r d a n n u a l d e f i c i t — deeper into debt over the next projected by Obama to hit a year — or about $6,000 more for record $1.56 trillion for the every U.S. resident. budget year ending Sept. 30. The The debt measure set for a new rules would require future House vote Thursday would spending increases or tax cuts to r a i s e t h e c a p o n f e d e r a l be paid for with either cuts to borrowing to $14.3 trillion. other programs or equivalent tax That's enough to keep Congress increases. from having to vote again before If the rules are broken, the the November elections on an White House budget office issue that is feeding a sense would force automatic cuts to a m o n g v o t e r s t h a t t h e programs like Medicare, farm government is spending too subsidies and veterans' pensions. m u c h a n d p u t t i n g f u t u r e Current rules lack such teeth and generations under a mountain of have commonly been waived debt to do it. over the past few years at a cost Already, the accumulated debt of almost $1 trillion. amounts to $40,000 per person. Skeptics say lawmakers also And the debt is increasingly held will find ways around the new by foreign nations such as China. rules fairly easily. Congress, for Submitted at 2/3/2010 11:16:44 PM

example, can declare some spending an "emergency" — a likely scenario for votes later this month to extend jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed. And, indeed, there already are exceptions to the new rules, such as for extending former President George W. Bush's middle-class tax cuts past their expiration a year from now. That would add $1.4 trillion to the federal debt over the next decade. In agreement with Obama's budget earlier this week, there is no exception for taxpayers in the two highest tax brackets whose marginal rates are due to rise by 3 percent or 4.6 percent to a preBush maximum 39.6 percent next January. But some new White House initiatives, such as doubling the child care tax credit for families earning less than $85,000, also would have to live within the rules, as would continuing subsidies for laid-off workers to buy health insurance — unless lawmakers make another exception. The so-called pay-as-you-go rules have been a mantra with

conservative "Blue Dog" Democrats in the House, who insisted they wouldn't vote to raise the debt ceiling without them. "We don't have a choice," said Rep. John Tanner, D-Tenn. "We are on an unsustainable march toward a fiscal Armageddon." Obama's budget projects the government's debt doubling to $26 trillion over the next decade. It offers few solutions for seriously closing the gap other than promising to appoint a bipartisan commission to come up with a plan to address the problem. —— The bill is H.J. Res. 45. —— On the Net: Congress: http://thomas.loc.gov © 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.

Plastic Bauble Deviously Pulverizes Nation-State [Death To Israel] By Hamilton Nolan (Gawker)

Target stores are basically run by Hamas. Andrea Peyser

explains.

HE’S continued from page 37

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HTV: La Toya Jackson Sounds Off on MJ Manslaughter Charge (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 2/4/2010 7:54:00 AM

HTV snaps La Toya Jackson outside Mr. Chow in Beverly Hills. Asked about the manslaughter charges leveled against her late brother's doctor, she tries to stay tight-lipped but quickly reveals her true thoughts. "I think he should have been charged with pre-meditated [murder]," she finally blurts out, seemingly upset. "This is terribly wrong, what happened to my brother." Watch the video for more.

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American Decline By E.J. Dionne Jr. (The New Republic - All Feed) Submitted at 2/3/2010 8:50:00 PM

Message from fivefilters.org: If you can, please donate to the full -text RSS service so we can continue developing it. WASHINGTON--Vice President Joe Biden is tired of seeing the Obama administration's economic stimulus plan demeaned, derided and dismissed, and he wanted to talk about it. But a funny thing happened in the course of an interview at Biden's White House office on Tuesday afternoon. The vice president's passions poured forth not when he was offering his point-by-point defense of the economic recovery plan but on the question of whether the United States is in decline. Late in the conversation, I asked Biden about the surprise applause line in President Obama's State of the Union speech--"I do not accept second place for the United States of America." Will we hear more on the America-as-No.-1 theme?

What followed was a torrent, in red, white and blue. "From me you're going to hear more," he replied emphatically. "I want to tell you something, because if we cede the ground to those who suggest that--I don't mean foreigners, I mean domestic critics--that somehow, we are destined to fulfill (historian Paul) Kennedy's prophecy that we are going to be a great nation that has failed because we lost control of our economy and overextended, then we might as well throw it in now, for God's sake. I mean it's ridiculous." On he went. "Give me a break. So many people have bet on our demise that it absolutely drives me crazy. ... There's sort of an attitude that is both politically directed by our Republican friends but also believed by a fair number of people that we just can't make this transition in the 21st century. "We will continue to be the most significant and dominant influence in the world as long as our economy is strong, growing and responsive to 21st-century

needs. And they relate to education, they relate to energy and they relate to health care." Biden, more self-aware than people give him credit for, realized what he had just done. "I've sort of gotten off the Recovery Act," he said with a rueful smile. Yet by the end of the interview, I realized he had bumped into the hidden political issue of the 2010 elections. Beneath the predictable back-and-forth between Obama and his Republican adversaries over government spending lies a substantively important difference over how the United States can maintain its global leadership. For Republicans, American power is rooted largely in military might and showing a tough and resolute face to the world. They would rely on tax cuts as the one and only spur to economic growth. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Submitted at 2/4/2010 5:45:15 AM

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-text RSS service so we can continue developing it. Top Performers Charlotte: S. Jackson 30 Pts, 7 Reb, 4 Ast, 2 Stl Los Angeles: L. Odom 19 Pts, 7

(Little Green Footballs) Submitted at 2/3/2010 6:42:30 PM

A barn-burner performance of “Philosophy” from the first eponymous Ben Folds Five album. This song helped me through some hard times, and it packs a powerful message.[Video] Won’t you look up at the skyline At the mortar, block, and glass And check out the reflections in my eyes See they always used to be there Even when this was all was grass And I sang and danced about a high-rise And you were laughing at my helmet hat Laughing at my torch Go ahead you laugh all you want Cause I got my philosophy (It keeps my feet on the ground) And I trust it like the ground That’s why my philosophy Keeps me walking when I’m falling down Reb, 3 Ast, 1 Stl I see that there is evil Five Filters featured article: And I know that there is good Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: And the in-betweens I never PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, understood Term Extraction. So won’t you look at me I’m crazy But I get the job done

Jackson reaches milestone in Lakers' victory By Associated Press (ESPN.com)

Wednesday Night Music: Ben Folds Five, 'Philosophy' Yeah I’m crazy but I get the job done So go ahead and laugh all you want Cause I got my philosophy (It keeps my feet on the ground) And I trust it like the ground And that’s why my philosophy Keeps me walking when I’m falling down I pushed you cause I loved you guys I didn’t realize That you weren’t having fun And I dragged you up the stairs And I told you to fly You were flapping your arms Then you started to cry, you were too high Now you take this all for granted You take the mortar, block, and glass And you forget the speech that moved the stone But it’s really not that you can’t see The forest for the trees You’ve never been out in the woods alone So you can laugh all you want to But I’ve got my philosophy (It keeps my feet on the ground) And I love you you’re my friend But you got no philosophy Now it’s time for this song to end

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Climategate Scientist Vindicated By James O'Keefe's Race Penn State Investigation Problem (Little Green Footballs) Submitted at 2/3/2010 12:59:33 PM

Today’s news about the absurdly exaggerated “Climategate” nontroversy: an internal inquiry by Penn State University into allegations that climate scientist Michael Mann suppressed or “cooked” data has found no evidence of any misconduct by Mann. The internal enquiry has found that Mann did not “participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions with an intent to suppress or to falsify data”. For the full report, click here(pdf). Nor did he “delete, conceal or otherwise destroy emails, information and/or data” relating to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2007 report. One email that has received much media attention was sent to Mann by Phil Jones, then director of the UEA’s Climatic Research Centre, on 29

May 2008. It asked Mann to delete some emails regarding the 2007 IPCC report. In the months since the email leak, Mann has repeatedly said that he did not heed to Jones’ request. Penn State’s enquiry confirmed this. When a scientist is accused of falsifying or suppressing data it’s taken very seriously, and the investigation will go into a second phase in order to resolve other issues around the nontroversy. The report is not clear about whether Mann’s behaviour has harmed the public trust in science. It cites Penn State’s official ethical standards, which says faculty have an obligation to boost maintain high ethical standards in order to foster public trust in science. It then goes on to discuss the fall-out from the email leak which, it says, may have polarised the public into two camps: one

which believes the leak undermines climate science and another which does not. “After careful consideration of all the evidence and relevant materials, the inquiry committee could not make a definitive finding whether there exists any evidence to substantiate that Dr. Mann did engage in, or participate in, directly or indirectly, any actions that deviated from accepted practices within the academic community,” reads the report. This final point will now be at the centre of a further investigation. “This is very much the vindication I expected since I am confident I have done nothing wrong,” Mann told New Scientist. “I fully support the additional inquiry which may be the best way to remove any lingering doubts.”

Real Live Even More Horrific Than a Dalton Trumbo Novel [Science] By Hamilton Nolan (Gawker)

body. So, anyone could be living out the plot of Johnny Got His Gun. Thanks, god.

Submitted at 2/4/2010 12:14:46 PM

A new study shows that rare patients in a "vegetative state" may still be conscious and

thinking, although trapped in a totally immobile, unresponsive

(Little Green Footballs)

Project founder Daryle Jenkins, O’Keefe was manning the literature table at the gathering Uh oh. According to a group that brought together anticalled “One People’s Project,” Semites, professional racists and ACORN sting filmmaker James proponents of Aryanism. OPP O’Keefe was photographed covered the event at the time, a t t e n d i n g a 2 0 0 6 w h i t e sending a freelance photographer nationalist conference titled to document the gathering. “Race and Conservatism.” James Jenkins told me the table was O’Keefe’s race problem. filled with tracts from the white An activist organization that supremacist right, including two m o n i t o r s h a t e g r o u p s h a s pseudo-academic publications produced a photo of O’Keefe at a that have called blacks and 2006 conference on “Race and Latinos genetically inferior to Conservatism” that featured whites: American Renaissance leading white nationalists. The and the Occidental Quarterly. photo, first published Jan. 30 on The leading speaker was Jared the Web site of the anti-racism Taylor, founder of the white group One People’s Project, nationalist group American shows O’Keefe at the gathering, Renaissance. “We can say for which was so controversial even certain that James O’Keefe was t h e u l t r a - r i g h t L e a d e r s h i p at the 2006 meeting with Jared I n s t i t u t e , w h i c h e m p l o y e d Taylor. He has absolutely no O’Keefe at the time, withdrew its way of denying that,” Jenkins backing. But O’Keefe and fellow said. O’Keefe’s attorney did not young conservative provocateur r e s p o n d t o a r e q u e s t f o r Marcus Epstein soldiered on to comment on his client’s role in give anti-Semites, professional the conference. r a c i s t s a n d p r o p o n e n t s o f UPDATE at 2/3/10 5:00:33 pm: Aryanism an opportunity to Dave Weigel confirms the report share their grievances and plans by One People&##x2019;s to make inroads in the GOP. Project. According to One People’s Submitted at 2/3/2010 3:42:22 PM

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BEFORE continued from page 35

new bill if didn’t include the upper-income tax cuts, Democrats will have to use r e c o n c i l i a t i o n themselves—something that makes moderates queasy. On the other hand, as budget expert Stan Collender notes, Republicans are unlikely to be satisfied with merely extending the old Bush tax cuts. They’ll surely demand even more goodies, which will force Democrats to use reconciliation anyway. So there’s really no practical way around it. (In any case, it would be bizarre for these moderates to insist that tax cuts which only required a simple majority to pass under Bush now require a 60-vote majority to phase out.) For what it’s worth, I don’t

think many centrist Dems are pining to lavish another $700 billion on the rich. Nor do I think most of them buy the idea that these tax cuts are critical for sustaining the recovery. Or that this is a particularly good use of $700 billion at a time of unprecedented deficits. Their real concern is getting hammered for raising taxes while running for re-election in a Republican state. But that’s really the point. If we can’t retire a giveaway that makes no economic or budgetary sense, for which there’s no organized interest-group to speak of (at least none that has influence over Democrats), and which only affects the top 2 percent of income earners at a time when the bottom 98 percent

believes the system is rigged for the wealthy, what on earth is the system capable of accomplishing? Unless conservative Democrats can pull it together, I’m afraid the answer is very little. Noam Scheiber is a senior editor of The New Republic. For more TNR, become a fan on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

USF shocks No. 8 Hoyas for 2nd straight upset By Associated Press (ESPN.com) Submitted at 2/3/2010 8:46:06 PM

Message from fivefilters.org: If you can, please donate to the full -text RSS service so we can continue developing it. Fast Facts • Dominique Jones scored 22 of his 29 points in the second half as South Florida overcame a nine -point halftime deficit. • South Florida beat its second ranked opponent this week. It defeated Pittsburgh on Sunday.

Democrats Hoping for News in Ill. Governor's Race (Newsmax - Politics) Submitted at 2/3/2010 11:23:01 PM

Message from fivefilters.org: If you can, please donate to the full -text RSS service so we can continue developing it. Illinois voters who braved the cold during the nation's first 2010 primary elections don't know who they sent to the governor's race.

The election was expected to launch heated campaigns in President Barack Obama's home state, but it left Democrats and Republicans squabbling over virtually tied races. Democrat Dan Hynes could provide some clarity Thursday when he makes an announcement about his bid against Gov. Pat Quinn, who is leading Hynes by only a few

thousand votes. Hynes wouldn't provide details ahead of the announcement. The state comptroller refused to concede after Tuesday's election, though Quinn's lead grew Wednesday as more ballots were counted. Quinn has already declared victory. The top two Republicans are separated by just a few hundred votes.

© 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.

• The Bulls have won four straight Big East games after having never won back-to-back conference games. Jones is averaging 35 PPG over the fourgame win streak. • Georgetown's 11-game win streak at the Verizon Center ended. -- ESPN Stats & Information Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Sovereign debt fears rattle investors (Financial Times - US homepage) Submitted at 2/4/2010 8:53:06 AM

Message from fivefilters.org: If you can, please donate to the full -text RSS service so we can continue developing it. By Robert Budden Published: February 4 2010 08:55 | Last updated: February 4 2010 16:53 Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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The CDC wants your hospital to come clean on infections

Daily electronics deals By Nicholas Kolman-Mandle (Consumer Reports)

and video: "Choosing a video game system"; Printer Ratings and buying tips. Submitted at 2/4/2010 7:13:24 AM By rss@consumerreports.org lives,” said Denise Cardo, M.D., Neither Consumer Reports nor (Consumer Reports) the director of CDC’s Division Daily electronics deals The Consumerist receive of Healthcare Quality Promotion, Today's electronics deals, a n y t h i n g i n e x c h a n g e f o r Submitted at 2/4/2010 8:17:32 AM in a statement. courtesy of The Consumerist: featuring these deals; the posts The CDC wants your hospital to “It’s a significant change for the • Newegg: Lenovo G550 15.6- a r e i n t e n d e d t o b e p u r e l y come clean on infections When CDC to come out so strongly in inch 4GB Ram Laptop $449.99 + informational. These deals are you go to the hospital you expect favor of public reporting of free shipping often fleeting, with prices to be treated for the condition hospital acquired infections,” • Amazon: ASUS Eee PC changing or products becoming you already have. The last thing says Lisa McGiffert, manager of Seashell 1005HA-MU17 10-inch u n a v a i l a b l e a s t h e d a y Consumers Union, has long Consumers Union’s Safe Patient you want is to get even sicker. Netbook (Blue, White, or Black) p r o g r e s s e s . Unfortunately, patients acquire supported public reporting of P r o j e c t . “ T h e y h a v e $299.99 + free shipping These posts are not an about 1.7 million infections hospital-acquired infections so acknowledged public reporting • Amazon: Samsung PN50B450 endorsement of the featured patients can know whether their every year in U.S. hospitals, in the past, and have issued 50-inch 720p Plasma HDTV products or the Web sites that most of them preventable. The hospital makes safety a priority. guidance for hospitals, but $699.99 + free shipping sell them—though some of the latest issue of Consumer Reports Moreover, research shows that they’ve never signaled such • Dell: Dell All-in-One Printer sites may be included, and when hospitals are aware of their investigates a serious and strong support for this as an for $59 w/ Free Shipping recommended, in our Ratings of c o m m o n p r o b l e m t h a t i s i n f e c t i o n r a t e s , t h e y c a n important prevention measure.” • N e w e g g : R e f u r b i s h e d retailers for computers and other responsible for at least 30 implement prevention strategies This is a welcome development Visioneer Flatbed Scanner only major electronics(both available percent of the nation’s 99,000 to reduce infections. That’s why for hospital patients everywhere. $20 Shipped to subscribers). Price shouldn't deaths from hospital-acquired we’ve just added infection And there is potentially more to • Meritline: EasyStore 4GB be your only criterion. Be wary information to our hospital spur public reporting on the way. infections. SDHC Card $9 Shipped of lower-priced deals that seem The problem is bloodstream Ratings. The health-care reform proposals • A m a z o n : C u r b Y o u r too good to be true, and check infections introduced through Today, the Centers for Disease currently stalled in Congress Enthusiasm: Complete Seasons 1 return policies for restocking central lines. A central line is a Control and Prevention took the would both call for greater public -6 [DVD] $89.99 + free shipping fees and other gotchas. long flexible catheter threaded u n u s u a l s t e p o f p u b l i c l y reporting of hospital infections. • Amazon: The Beatles: Rock For general buying advice for through a vein leading to a blood supporting CU’s efforts. “The —Kevin McCarthy, associate Band Premium Bundles w/ many of the products on sale vessel near the heart and used to t r a c k i n g a n d r e p o r t i n g o f editor Beatles guitar & drums $139 + above, check out our free Buying deliver medications, fluids and healthcare-associated infections For more, check out the Safe free shipping Guides. Subscribe now! nutrition to critically ill patients. is an important step toward Patient Project blog. • Amazon: Halo Wars Xbox 360 S u b s c r i b e t o Studies have shown the risk of h e a l t h c a r e t r a n s p a r e n c y . Subscribe now! Game for $19.99 + Shipping ConsumerReports.org for expert these serious, sometimes deadly I n f e c t i o n d a t a c a n g i v e S u b s c r i b e t o Ratings, buying advice and i n f e c t i o n s c a n b e n e a r l y healthcare facilities, patients and ConsumerReports.org for expert Related: TV Ratings and buying reliability on hundreds of eliminated when hospital staffs public health agencies the Ratings, buying advice and tips; Computer Ratings and products. Update your feed follow a simple prevention knowledge needed to design and r e l i a b i l i t y o n h u n d r e d s o f buying tips; DVD & Blu-ray preferences implement prevention strategies checklist. products. Update your feed player Ratings and buying tips; Our non-profit publisher, that protect patients and save preferences Video game console buying tips

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Loopholes to new credit-card protections that start Feb. 22

Q&A: Is ghee saturated fat-free?

By Consumer Reports Shopping Blog (Consumer Reports)

By rss@consumerreports.org (Consumer Reports)

the Credit CARD Act does and doesn't do. In addition, on the Defend Your Dollars Web site, Consumers Union's advocates Submitted at 2/4/2010 3:59:59 AM have outlined the law's Loopholes to new credit-card exceptions and gotchas. protections that start Feb. 22 If you'd like to do more to The second phase of the Credit protect yourself and others from CARD Act of 2009 becomes obnoxious banking practices, effective in three weeks. The join Consumers Union's change means more certainty for will have to tell you 45 days c a m p a i g n t o p r o m o t e folks currently holding balances. before it makes the change, but it establishment of the Consumer For instance, banks no longer can start charging the new rate Financial Protection Agency. will be able to suddenly raise on any charge made 14 days Subscribe now! i n t e r e s t r a t e s o n e x i s t i n g after it sends out that notice. S u b s c r i b e t o So if you get such a notice and ConsumerReports.org for expert balances. But that doesn't mean they can't don't agree with the new rate, it's Ratings, buying advice and make mischief with you account. best suspend charges from that r e l i a b i l i t y o n h u n d r e d s o f Your bank still will be able to card right away. After all, you products. Update your feed raise rates at any time for any might not get that notice until preferences reason on future purchases after several days after it was sent out. the first year a card is opened. It Consumer Reports outlines what

Submitted at 2/4/2010 2:59:59 AM

Q&A: Is ghee saturated fat-free? Is it true that the process used to make ghee, the clarified butter in Indian food, strains out the saturated fat? — M.V., Camp Hill, Pa. No. Ghee actually contains about 20 percent more fat per ounce, including artery-clogging saturated fat, than regular butter. Only the water, milk solids, and impurities are removed; the end result is nearly 100 percent fat. Read about healthy fats, take a look at our guide to different types of fats—and what foods you can find them in, and find

out how switching to healthier fats can help lower your cholesterol(subscribers only). 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

Toyota Prius: Owners complain of inconsistent brake feel By Consumer Reports Shopping Blog (Consumer Reports)

“Toyota has received reports that some customers have experienced inconsistent brake feel or little deceleration when Submitted at 2/4/2010 8:35:26 AM the vehicle is driven over Toyota Prius: Owners complain potholes, bumps, or slippery road of inconsistent brake feel surfaces.” Adding to Toyota’s troubles are The glitch is a momentary lack mounting customer complaints of braking when the pedal is about the brakes on the new pushed, less than a second, but Prius. The company has stated, braking is still maintained after

the delay. The Japanese Ministry of Transport is investigating complaints on the thirdgeneration Prius. In the United States, where the 2010 Prius went on sale last May, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has also received 124 complaints about the 2010 Prius, not all

involving braking issues. Investigators have spoken with consumers and conducted preinvestigatory field work. Toyota has addressed a software “glitch” in Prius cars built since January, according to a NY Times report. The company is said to be considering options to update cars sold previously. NHTSA has opened an

investigation into the 2010 Prius brake complaints, citing four related crashes. 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

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Become a Gmail Master Redux [Hack Attack] By Adam Pash (Lifehacker) Submitted at 2/4/2010 9:00:00 AM

Gmail is easily the most popular email application among power users, and with good reason: It's an excellent app. But if you haven't gotten to know its best shortcuts, tricks, Labs features, and add-ons, it's time you made Gmail sing. Photo remixed from Google's own Become a Gmail ninja page. Way back in 2006, I showed you my favorite tips, tricks, and tools for making the most of Gmail. A lot has changed in the Gmail world since then, so much so that it seemed like a good time to revisit our favorite tips, tricks, and tools for getting the most from Gmail. Most, if not all, of these tips and features will also apply to the Google Apps accounts set up by businesses and organizations, but your administrator may not have enabled everything you see here. No one really needs to be sold on Gmail anymore. Either you like the threaded conversations, powerful search, built-in filters, and awesome Gmail Labs functionality or you don't. I love these things, and below I've attempted to put together my comprehensive guide for turning Gmail into the ultimate communication and productivity hub. (I'm focusing on covering territory that I didn't cover in my previous guide, so if you're looking for a more beginner guide, read that first. Much of it

closer look.) That's all well and good, but it's also a little overwhelming, so let's break it down a bit. Navigating Messages: j and k go up and down: When you turn on Gmail shortcuts, you'll notice a small black triangle appears to the left of your messages. You can move this cursor up and down by hitting the 'j' or 'k' keys, respectively. Want to move down a message? Hit 'j'. Want to move back up? Hit 'k'. Simple, right? o and Enter open messages: Now let's say you want to read the message next to the cursor. You've got two choices: either hit 'o' or Enter. (I prefer 'o' because it's less of a stretch.) Not bad, huh? When you're viewing remains true.) t h e c o m f o r t o f o u r setting. an email, pressing 'j' or 'k' will I've broken things down into keyboards—without requiring us Next, click over to Gmail Labs. move you to the next or previous sections, starting with keyboard to drop everything we're doing, Labs is full of experimental email without going back to the shortcuts, then moving down move over to the mouse, hunt for features capable of adding list. into the best Labs add-ons, third- a l i n k o r b u t t o n , a n d functionality to Gmail (which n and p move to next and party add-ons, search techniques, click—ranks high on our list of we'll get to in more detail previous messages: Once you're etc. Ready to power up your productivity boosters. If you below), but for now we're going viewing an email thread, you'll Gmail? Let's get started with share even a tenth of our to focus on just one, called Go to notice the black triangle is still how to set up and use Gmail's e n t h u s i a s m f o r k e y b o a r d label. Find it, enable it, and save there, only now it's next to robust keyboard shortcuts—my shortcuts, I've got good news: your changes. messages within a thread. You favorite Gmail productivity Y o u c a n d o a b s o l u t e l y Now you can do nearly anything can navigate between different booster. Beat Your Inbox into everything in Gmail from the you could possibly want in messages in an open thread with Submission from Your Keyboard keyboard. Here's how: Gmail without once pulling your the 'n' and 'p' keys (think n ext If there's one thing we love First, go to your Gmail settings hands away from your keyboard. and p revious). Again, to expand around Lifehacker, it's the and make sure you've got You can see a full list of collapsed messages, you just productivity boost we get from Keyboard Shortcuts turned on. shortcuts here, or view the press 'o' or Enter. keeping our hands glued to the (That link should work if you're shortcut help in Gmail at any Labeling and Moving Messages: home row. (Seriously, our love logged into Gmail—it won't time by typing '?' (a question You use Gmail to do more than of keyboard shortcuts is almost work with a Google Apps mail mark), which will give you this pathological.) Anything that account.) Be sure to save your shortcut pop-up: BECOME page 46 allows us to perform tasks from changes after you've changed the (Click the image above for a

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just read emails, right? Hopefully you're already taking advantage of Gmail labels (if not, this post describes Gmail labels in detail), and now it's time to learn to label to your heart's content from the keyboard. And—surprise—it's very easy. l + label name adds a label: If you've already opened a thread, you can label it by pressing 'l' (for l abel) and then typing the name of the label you want to add. You don't have to type the whole label name—just enough so that one of your current labels is highlighted. Once it is, hit Enter to apply the label to the message. If you're looking at an inbox pane rather than an open message, you can apply labels to one or multiple threads at a time. To do so, you need to first mark the threads you want to label by ticking the checkbox next to those messages. Again, this is normally mouse territory, but you're a keyboard junkie now. x ticks a message checkbox: Instead of moving to the mouse, again, press 'j' or 'k' to move between messages, then press 'x' to tick or untick the checkbox next to a message. You can mark as many as you want, and when you're ready to label, it's the same drill as above: 'l' + the name of the label. You can also create an entirely new label using this shortcut. Just hit 'l' and type the name of the new label you want to create. To remove a label that's already been applied to a message,

you've got two options. You can use the same method as above, except rather than typing the name of the label you want to apply, you type the name of the label you want to remove; doing so when a label has already been applied will remove it. y removes a label: Alternately, if you want to remove the label you're currently looking at (for example, if you searched for label:followup or clicked on your followup label in the sidebar), pressing 'y' will do the trick. From the inbox, 'y' will archive the message. ('e' will archive from any view.) From other labels, pressing 'y' will remove that label. v moves messages: Last, if you prefer to think of your labels more like folders, you can move messages using the 'v' keyboard shortcut—which works the same way as the 'l' shortcut, except in addition to applying a new label, it removes the label you're currently viewing. star, spam, and trash: When you're either viewing a message or have messages selected, you can press '!' to make a message as spam, '#' to send it to the Trash, or 's' to star it. Composing, Replying, and Forwarding: You've got reading, labeling, and moving your messages down pat, but you do occasionally write email, too. These shortcuts are a breeze to remember. You can c ompose a new message at any time by pressing 'c', r eply to

an open email by pressing 'r' (or reply a ll with 'a'), and f orward an email by pressing 'f'. Easy enough, right? Search and Navigate Your Inbox: The only major thing left to do is navigate your inbox and labels, which is part of why we installed the Go to labels feature above. Navigating anywhere in Gmail starts with pressing 'g', for G o. From there, it's a matter of knowing where you want to go. • g then i goes to your inbox • g then s goes to starred messages • g then t goes to sent messages • g then d goes to drafts • g then a goes to all mail • g then c goes to contacts • g then k goes to tasks • g then l then label name goes to that label. This also works to navigate to any of the other 'g' shortcuts that have quicker shortcuts; for example, you could press 'g' then 'l' then 'inbox' to navigate to your inbox rather than 'g' then 'i'. This may have all sounded overly complicated at times, but trust me, all it takes a is a little bit of effort before it's all ingrained in your muscle memory—a task for which you'll thank yourself! Note: Surprisingly, I wasn't exhaustive above, but I did highlight the shortcuts I use the most. For a more exhaustive rundown (minus the Go to label shortcut), see Gmail's shortcut

help page. Add More Functionality with Gmail Labs You were briefly introduced to the the shortcuts feature above, but that's only the tip of the Gmail Labs iceberg. Gmail releases experimental features regularly in Gmail Labs, and some of them are must-haves for the true Gmail junkie. We rounded up ten of our favorites last year, so I won't go in depth beyond pointing out a few of my current favorites. (Remember, to install any of these Labs features, just point your browser to Gmail Labs and enable any you like.) Multiple Inboxes: Turn your inbox into a dashboard capable of displaying up to five different searches (like, for example, your trusted trio of email labels)—in addition to your regular old inbox—by enabling Multiple Inboxes. YouTube, Flickr, Picasa, Docs, and Voice Previews: How many times in a week do you get an email pointing to a YouTube video or Flickr set? How about a new message notification from Google Voice or a shared Google Doc? Enable these features to view (or preview) the video, pictures, document, or listen to your Voice message directly inside your email without popping up a new window. Forgotten Attachment Detector: Avoid sending yet another email missing an attachment with the Forgotten Attachment Detector, which will poke you with an

alert message before you can send an email that appears to be promising an attachment. Undo send: We've all accidentally hit Tab+Enter to send off an email the moment we also noticed a huge typo or other embarrassing problem. Undo send gives you a five seconds after you hit the send button to retrieve your email. Above I listed a few of my favorite Labs features, but if you take a few minutes looking over what Gmail Labs has to offer, you'll probably find others you like, too. Beef Up Gmail with Extensions If the functionality you're looking for still isn't available even after you've enabled your favorite Labs features, then browser extensions might be more your speed. You've got plenty of Gmail extensions to choose from, but I'm particularly partial to Better Gmail 2, a compilation of Gmail features put together by our very own Gina Trapani. Features include: • Add Row Highlights: Highlights the letter rows in the new Gmail when you hover over them with the mouse cursor. • Attachment Icons: See what kind of attachment an email has in list view. • Attachment Icons (Native): Same as attachment icons, but uses icon images native to your system. BECOME page 48

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Kids Don't Blog Anymore? Maybe They Never Did By Sarah Perez (ReadWriteWeb) Submitted at 2/4/2010 7:44:06 AM

Is blogging for old people? Apparently so. Well, at least according to a new study from Pew Internet Project, that is. Today's youngest generation of online users are no longer interested in consuming longform content like blogs, says the research. Instead, communication among teens tends to involve brief bursts of information, like a Facebook status update or a text message. Pew's findings state that only 14% of tweens and teens ages 12 to 17 now report that they blog, down from 25% only four years ago. They're also less interested in commenting on their friends' blogs, too, with only 52% reporting doing so, down from over three-quarters back in 2006. Sponsor Social Networks Preferred to Blogging In the new report, findings show that 73% of wired teens now use social networking sites like Facebook or MySpace, a big jump from the 55% who did so back in 2006. Young adults (1829), too, choose social networking sites as a preferred method of communication.

Among this group, 72% report using these sites. Meanwhile, only 40% of those 30 and older do the same. But blogging? PassĂŠ, says the report. The medium once used for sharing either news and/or personal thoughts and feelings is no longer popular among teens. The why is simple: Facebook. With the ability to update your status on social networking sites, the need to communicate using long-form mechanisms like sentences and - ugh!- paragraphs is no longer necessary. Instead of summarizing a day's events via blog post for example, a teen may simply update Facebook multiple times throughout the day with the details as to what's happening in their life at the moment. These shorter bursts of content, much like the ever-popular text messages sent between friends on cell phones, are easier-toconsume mini bits of information. They take only seconds to read, not minutes. And commenting on them takes only moments as well. Considering the hundreds of online friends people tend to accumulate on these social networking sites, those time savings really add up. Why the Decline in Blogging?

this one, The Huffington Post, Perez Hilton, Dooce, etc. However, Facebook and many other social networking sites don't really have a blogging feature, but MySpace does. Coincidentally, MySpace's popularity has been on the Although it's obvious that the decline for years now. As popularity of Facebook and its MySpace visits dropped off, so ilk have taken away from the did the usage of its "blogs." In teens' desire to blog, Pew doesn't other words, if Pew counted go so far as to speculate why that MySpace blogs when asking is. One theory worth considering teens if they commented on or i s t h a t t o d a y ' s t e e n s a r e wrote blogs themselves, there's overloaded with information and going to be a drop-off. simply don't have the time to Blogging, in and of itself, may read long blog posts. They're or may not appeal to teens. It's already too busy keeping up with hard to know considering how texts, multiple social networking the survey questions were sites, email, instant messages, worded. If Facebook had a and phone calls - practically s i m i l a r " b l o g s " f e a t u r e a s drowning in communication MySpace, the study may have tools, it seems. And when there's read quite differently: " teen too much to consume, the easiest blogging soars!" To really things to drop out of the mix determine how popular blogging would be those that take the most is as an online activity, it may time: blogging, reading blogs, have been better to differentiate between the standalone sites and and commenting on blogs. Another idea we haven't seen the long-form updates found mentioned anywhere yet is that within a social network. Failure it's possible teens weren't ever to do so confuses the issue and really into blogging to begin leaves us without the answers a with. In Pew's study, they count detailed study like this aims to the blogs found within social deliver. Discuss networking sites along with what we would typically consider a blog - standalone websites like

SlingPlayer iPhone App Gets Go-Ahead to Stream Over 3G [Streaming Television] By Kevin Purdy (Lifehacker) Submitted at 2/4/2010 7:30:00 AM

If you've got a SlingBox and an iPhone, you could previously fork over another $30 to get the SlingPlayer app and watch your home TV and recordings ... over Wi-Fi, which kind of defeated the whole purpose of mobile watching (aren't you usually home already when you're on Wi -Fi?). But Sling and AT&T have reached an agreement on 3G streaming, so the SlingPlayer will get an upgrade to truly mobile TV streaming as soon as Apple approves the upgrade. Existing SlingPlayer owners will get the upgraded version free. Would watching your Sling content over 3G make sense for you, or is this a whole lot of money to spend when there's already lots of streaming TV on the web? [ NYTimes via Gizmodo]

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BECOME continued from page 46

• Bottom Post in Reply (Plain Text only): Inserts cursor after the quoted message in plain text replies automatically. • Folders4Gmail: Lists labels in a folder-like hierarchy. • Hide Chat: Hides Gmail's Chat box in the sidebar. • Hide Invites Box: Hides the Gmail invites box on the sidebar. • Hide Labels in Message Row: Hides the labels that appear in a message row unless the user hovers over the message. • Hide Spam Count: Hides Gmail's Spam message count. • Inbox Count First: See unread message count first on Gmail tab title. • Show Unread Message Count on Favicon: Shows the number of unread Gmail messages in the favicon in your Firefox tab. If your partial to David Allen's Getting Things Done productivity methods, then you might be especially interested in GTDInbox for Gmail, a seriously

cool Firefox extension that helps you turn your email into GTDfriendly action items. Last, the rest of the crew at Lifehacker would have my head if I didn't mention Remember the Milk for Gmail—available as either a Firefox/Chrome extension or gadget—that connects the popular to-do webapp Remember the Milk with your Gmail account. Disect Your Inbox with LaserPrecise Searches and Filters Gmail's philosophy from the get -go was "Search, don't sort," which is why they replaced traditional folders with labels despite the occasional complaint from new users. It should come as no surprise, then, that Gmail's search is excellent, and in combination with Gmail's filters (which allow you to execute actions on incoming messages that match a specific search criteria), the sky's the limit for how you can slice and dice your inbox.

I won't go in depth on Gmail's search operators or how to put together filters here because I've done so in pretty good detail here, and not much has changed since then. For the full rundown of Gmail's advanced search operators, hit up Gmail Help's search page. Manage All Your Email Accounts from Gmail Last, the great part about Gmail is that—apart from being a killer service—it's also a great email client, and whether or not you want to use your@gmail.com address, you can still use Gmail to manage all of your other email with aplomb. Gmail can fetch email from other accounts, filter that email into separate labels by the account they arrived from or just leave them all in one inbox, and send email from any one of them from inside Gmail. In fact, despite all of the great dedicated desktop email clients out there, Gmail is still the favorite Gmail client among Lifehacker readers.

Rather than detail everything here, I'll just point you to Gina's previous guide on how to consolidate all your email using Gmail. A person could write a book on all the ins and outs involved in getting more from Gmail (this post somehow turned into a novella), so rather than do that I've tried to focus on some of the best and newest stuff above. If you've got your own favorite features or functionality that I didn't mention, or you just want to drop a "hell yeah" about a feature I mentioned, sound off in the comments. Adam Pash is the editor of Lifehacker. His special feature Hack Attack appears regularly on Lifehacker. Subscribe to the Hack Attack RSS feed to get new installments in your n e w s r e a d e r , o r follow@adampash on Twitter.

Balmain Buckle Boots By ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog) Submitted at 2/4/2010 9:00:00 AM

Kate Davidson Hudson, Executive Fashion Editor, in Balmain boots “These are my everyday shoes this winter. The heel is high, but not too brutal.” Photo: Kelly Stuart Follow ELLE on Twitter. Become our Facebook fan!

AT&T Brings Sling Back to 3G By Mike Melanson (ReadWriteWeb) Submitted at 2/4/2010 8:25:00 AM

Good things are happening for 3G users this week. While the ban on Skype over 3G ended months ago, AT&T just lifted the floodgates for streaming television content for Sling users. According to the New

York Times' Bits Blog, AT&T announced this morning that it will once again allow the SlingPlayer iPhone app to stream content over its 3G network. This means that all you Slingbox users can now carry your TV with you wherever you go, not just where you can find a WiFi hotspot. Sponsor

with iPhone opening up the gates last week, AT&T said it had to run some tests before opening up to Sling again. "Since mid-December 2009, AT&T first restricted Sling's AT&T has been testing the app iPhone app last May, shortly and has recently notified Sling after putting similar restrictions Media -- as well as Apple -- that on Skype. While it removed the the optimized app can run on its Skype restrictions months ago, 3G network," quotes the Times from an AT&T press release.

While the upgraded app will not be immediately available, Apple is expected to approve the app soon. It will be available as a free upgrade for users who have already bought a previous version. Discuss

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3 Social Networks For Connecting With Entrepreneurs By Chris Cameron (ReadWriteWeb) Submitted at 2/4/2010 9:10:00 AM

As more of the business world flattens with the expansion of online services, social networking is increasingly becoming a critical factor to success in many industries. Whether you're for a small businesses selling art at a craft fair or a Fortune 500 company trading on the stock exchange, social networking has the power to expand your brand among both your audience and fellow business owners. For the latter, entrepreneurs can take advantage of specialized social networks to meet, communicate share and partner with others. Florida-based entrepreneur, business consultant and blogger Matthew Ringer recently posted an extensive list of the his top 40 Social Networking Sites Specifically for Small Business, Entrepreneurs, and Startups on his site Small Biz Bee. The list is an excellent resource for anyone looking to expand their professional network, but for those looking for a quick dose of business social networking, here are profiles of three great sites from Ringer's list for connecting with entrepreneurs. Sponsor

finding your A team. MeettheBoss For the experienced entrepreneur, MeettheBoss narrows the business social network focus to the management level, providing a portal for executives and higherups to meet and communicate. LinkedIn LinkedIn, an obvious choice, is With their unique tools for the de facto business social tracking your interests and network cementing its position activty and slick professional as the top social network for user interface, MeettheBoss is a entrepreneurs, startups and small great place for co-founders and businesses with over 50 million CEOs to meet fellow senior users as of October 2009. The managers to network and share w i d e s p r e a d p o p u l a r i t y o f information. The site also goes LinkedIn has turned the site into beyond social networking by an excellent business directory providing an impressive set of and job board while making features including exclusive membership in the site as much articles and videos. of a professional necessity as a Some other great networks for resume or portfolio. It wouldn't connecting with entrepreneurs be surprising to see a site include StartupNation, BizNik LinkedIn become a complete and Entrepreneur Connect. Some replacement for resumes in the interesting inclusions on Ringer's list included Qapacity, a network near future. PartnerUp Ringer's number 3 spot goes to accompanying a website creating PartnerUp, which aims to do for tool, and Ning, a site for creating small businesses and budding and joining personalized social entrepreneurs what MeettheBoss networks. Have some under-thedoes for executives by providing radar selections for great places the opportunity for networking, for entrepreneurs to get together? collaboration and sharing. We Let us know in the comments. recently told How to Avoid Photo by Flickr user star5112. Mediocre Co-Founders and Discuss PartnerUp seems to be a excellent additional resource for

Twitter Launches Hovercraft...I Mean Hovercards By Mike Melanson (ReadWriteWeb) Submitted at 2/4/2010 7:30:00 AM

If you've ever spent any time trying to parse through your list of Twitter followers, than you know how time consuming it can be. "Who's this guy?" you ask yourself, as you open up their profile in a new tab, just so you can read their little blurb about who they are and what they do and why you care. Twitter's latest feature, Hovercards, will offer that contextual information without making you ever open up another tab. Sponsor Twitter announced the feature last night, though for many unfortunate souls, such as myself, it has yet to go live. As with most Twitter features, this one will be rolled out over time. As you can see above, the hovercard is like a business card that will appear whenever you mouseover another user's name or avatar. The Twitter announcement says that this will

happen in "any timeline" so we can only hope that this means it will work when you're trying to organize who you follow into lists. We asked Twitter but didn't receive a response by press. The Twitter blog also notes that the hovercards will work for its new retweet format, showing you information about the person who is being retweeted. They will also let you direct message the person from within the hovercard. It seems like there could be other basic functionality too, from the looks of it, but its too early to tell. Of course, this feature only affects those of you that actually still visit Twitter.com instead of using an third-party app, but it surely seems like a great tool for looking through your followers and trying to create lists. Discuss

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Ironic? New Google Apps Security Features For All Devices Except the Nexus One By Alex Williams (ReadWriteWeb) Submitted at 2/4/2010 12:50:16 AM

The Google Enterprise blog has a post tonight about some new features being unveiled that should assuage some of the critics who discount the security of using Google Apps on a mobile device. The new features permit corporate IT policies to be enforced from the customer's Google Apps console across different mobile devices with the exception of Android smartphones, which will eventually have similar features. Sponsor It seems ironic not to include the Nexus One and other Android devices. But we have our own speculation why the Nexus One and other Android devices are not a part of this feature upgrade. Google has made it clear that the next version of the Nexus One will be an enterprise smartphone. We expect these features and more to be a part of this upcoming Nexus One device.

lost or stolen mobile devices. • Lock idle devices after a period of inactivity. • Require a device password on each phone. • Set minimum lengths for more secure passwords. • Require passwords to include letters, numbers and punctuation. These are all security features that are cited as necessary for acceptance in the enterprise. The new features follow enhancements made last year, including the Google Apps Connector for Blackberry Enterprise Server. On Android We sought clarification on the devices, Google announced new matter this evening but have not Web versions of GMail and yet heard back from a Google Google Calendar. Google Docs spokesperson. was also updated. According to the post, Google Last year, the company also Apps Premier and Education released Google Sync for Edition administrators may iPhone, Nokia E Series and manage iPhones, Nokia E series Windows Mobile devices. and Windows Mobile devices enabling Google Apps users to from the Google Apps access and sync mail, calendar, administrative control panel. and contacts from their mobile The service allows device to the Google cloud. administrators to: Discuss • Remotely wipe all data from

Google Map Buddy Generates High Resolution, Full Size Area Maps [Downloads] By Kevin Purdy (Lifehacker)

resolution PNG of your area, and provides the individual map tiles Submitted at 2/4/2010 7:00:00 AM to keep and arrange yourself into Want a wall-sized satellite view a larger grid, if you'd like. of your neighborhood? A fullThe software itself can be page street map of the town described as "picky"—you have you're visiting? Google Map t o " X " o u t a n y p a r t i c u l a r Buddy, a free, portable map business or destination that pops maker, grabs data from Google up in a dialog box on the map, Maps and arranges it exactly and after zooming in on the how you want it. Google Map browser to your When you un-zip and run destination, Map Buddy asks you Google Map Buddy, it asks you for a deeper zoom level than to choose your Google Map what you've already set. So it's nationality, then opens a browser not an elegant tool, exactly, but it to let you search out the location does deliver the very printable, you're looking at. Once you get f u l l - p i c t u r e m a p o f y o u r there, hit "Select area," then d e s t i n a t i o n . draw a rectangle around the area Map Buddy is a free download you want to capture. After fine- for Windows systems only, and tuning the zoom level and hitting doesn't require installation. The "Create Map Image," Map Google Map Buddy[Augmented Buddy goes to work grabbing, Reality Software via The Red tile by tile, your area's map. It Ferret Journal] generates a generally high-

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Hack Your Kindle to Support Bluetooth [DIY] By Jason Fitzpatrick (Lifehacker) Submitted at 2/4/2010 8:30:00 AM

If you want to mess around with modding your Kindle but you don't want to deal the wires and extensive case modding that comes with most hacks, this clever mod puts a Bluetooth receiver in your Kindle. Over at Griffin.net they were scandalized by the lack of support for PDF table of contents pages in the Kindle which started their quest to mod a kindle and install third-party applications that would remedy the glaring

oversight. Unfortunately a lot of the hardware mods for the Kindle make it particularly ugly and add bulk onto it. Since they didn't want to make it less portable or look like a franken-

build they opted to access the Kindle via Bluetooth so that all their tinkering and modding could be done wirelessly. The process requires that you open the Kindle case and do a

tiny bit of case modding (removing a little of the internal plastic shell to make room for the Bluetooth unit) and solder a few points. Once that's done you can effectively telnet right into your into your Kindle and start tinkering and installing some of the 3rd-party tools intrepid Kindle hackers have cooked up. Check out the article below for more information on both the hardware hack and the software they installed. Hacking the Amazon Kindle DX Part 1: By Ryan Wilson (FanHouse Bluetooth Shell[via Make] Main)

HausCast 48.2: Darren Rovell Talks SI Swimsuit Issue Submitted at 2/3/2010 1:00:00 PM

Get the Nexus One Multitouch Update Without Waiting [Updates] By Kevin Purdy (Lifehacker)

the basic procedure for flashing an Android update package on your phone. The package comes Nexus One owners should straight from Google, and this receive an over-the-air update m e t h o d d o e s n ' t " r o o t " o r soon that brings multi-touch otherwise modify your phone gestures, a better Maps app, and firmware, except to drop the improved 3G connectivity. good stuff into it. "Soon" is relative, though. If You'll need a USB cable to you're tired of waiting, a five- transfer the downloaded (and minute, legitimate procedure can renamed) ZIP package to your update your phone right now. phone, and simply reboot your The folks at Phandroid lay out phone while holding down the Submitted at 2/4/2010 8:05:00 AM

trackball. At the bootloader screen that pops up, select "Recovery," and then hold down

Filed under: Sports Media, Podcast The FanHouse Podcast: Because bloggers are much sexier on the phone. Friend of the podcast Darren the power button and hit the Rovell joins FanHouse's Will volume button upâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;in that order, Brinson in Miami to talk about not together. Your phone will his latest project: " Business load the update package, ask you M o d e l : I n s i d e t h e S p o r t s to reboot, and you're on your Illustrated Swimsuit Issue." The way. Thanks for the link and documentary premieres on button-push tip, Joe! Haven't Got CNBC on February 9 at 9 PM Your Nexus One OTA? Don't ET. Really can't think of a better Wait, Get It Now![Phandroid] place to talk about beautiful women in bikinis than South Beach. You can read Darren daily at Sports Biz, and you can following him on Twitter@DarrenRovell1 Talking starts below. More HausCast: Pregame.com's R.J. Bell talks Super Bowl

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Textbook Publishers Prepare for iPad, Murdoch Favors High Prices By Liam Cassidy (TheAppleBlog) Submitted at 2/3/2010 3:00:39 PM

The Wall Street Journal has reported that major textbook publishers have made deals with ScrollMotion Inc, in an effort to bring their textbooks to digital devices — including Apple’s upcoming iPad. McGraw-Hill, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt K-12, Pearson Education and Kaplan Inc are all named as ScrollMotions’s latest partners (customers?). According to WSJ, ScrollMotion; …has already developed applications for Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch. ScrollMotion takes digital files provided by publishers for the iPad, adapts them to fit on the device, and then adds enhancements such as a search function, dictionaries, glossaries, interactive quizzes and page numbers. Pretty much all the things you’d expect from a a digital edu-book. Other cool features said to be included in the iPad deal include; …applications to let students play video, highlight text, record lectures, take printed notes, search the text, and participate in interactive quizzes to test how much they’ve learned and where they may need more work. Only in recent years have tablet devices begun to offer a glimpse at a practical digital realization

of many educators long-harbored dreams. It helps enormously that they’re book-shaped (almost removing the physical and psychological barriers laptops and desktop computers put between people), and, sometimes, they’re almost affordable. Sadly, their adoption has been hampered by lackluster design. Until the iPad appeared, the Kindle offered the best digital textbook platform for students and teachers, although that’s not saying much; the Kindle is slow, features a greyscale-only screen and offers a cumbersome input method. Most importantly, the Kindle does only one thing. It does it competently, to be sure, but it doesn’t dazzle. It’s no wonder then, that textbook publishers are paying close attention to the iPad; it not only improves on the Kindle in almost every way (perhaps with the exception of battery life) but introduces an input paradigm already very well established and understood by millions of iPhone or iPod Touch owners. Some critics decry a lack of multitasking and expansion; but consider the far more powerful reality that the iPad just happens to be the easiest-to-use computer ever made. For a teaching/learning aid, on the trajectory of “intuitively easy” it lies closer to the humble

Apple’s pricing model for titles in the iBookstore. In a News Corp. earnings call yesterday, Murdoch said, We don’t like the Amazon model of selling everything at $9.99… We think it really devalues books and it hurts all the retailers of the hard cover books. We are not against [electronic] books. On the contrary we like them very much indeed. It is low cost to us… Apple in its agreement with us […] does allow for a variety of pen and paper than to a TFT Of course, the issue of Price slightly higher prices. screen with a bunch of plastic remains prickly. Amazon sold its It’s interesting to note that a lot keys and a pointing device. e-books at $9.99, despite the o f c r i t i c i s m a n d d e b a t e Publishers were already dipping wishes of publishers who wanted surrounding Apple’s foray into e their toes into the digital book to charge a bit more. Now, -book sales has been negative. market, but only tentatively. following a bit of a public spat Many bloggers have grumbled Now the iPad is just around the with publisher Macmillans, bitterly about Apple “doing to corner, it looks like they’re prices of some e-book titles on the publishing industry what they losing those prior inhibitions and Amazon.com (and, presumably, did to the music industry” and preparing to dive right in, though international Amazon sites) are even yesterday All Things they’re trying not to sound too beginning to change. Amazon Digital was making reference to enamoured. Rik Kranenburg, maintains they set book prices at the “scarring” experienced by the president of McGraw-Hill’s $ 9 . 9 9 t o m a k e i t f a i r f o r music industry. higher education unit, said; consumers. Cynicism, on the But what exactly did Apple do People have been talking about other hand, offers an alternative to the music industry that was so the impact of technology on reason, that includes the phrases terrible? Last time I checked, education for 25 years. It feels “loss leader” and “market Apple pretty much saved it, like it is really going to happen dominance.” I’ll leave you to bringing sanity to a media in 2010. Nobody knows what decide which is most likely. landscape that, before the iTunes device will take off, or which Meanwhile, one man who never store arrived, was a fragmented ‘killer app’ will drive student seems to give two hoots about sales and accessibility nightmare, adaptations. Today they aren’t what’s fair, right or even logical w h e r e p r i c e s a n d c o n t e n t reading e-textbooks on their – Rupert “Mad Dog” Murdoch – distribution were so appallingly laptops. But ahead we see all took a break from hating on inconsistent across competing k i n d s o f n e w i n s t r u c t i o n Google to declare that he TEXTBOOK page 54 materials.” Prickly Issue supported (and preferred)

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Will the iPad Kill the Laptop Star? By Charles Moore (TheAppleBlog)

what Jobs and Apple imagine to be the harbinger of the laptop’s future. PowerBook Duo Submitted at 2/4/2010 6:30:03 AM Redivivus? Steve Jobs says the iPad is For me, the deal breaker better than a laptop, tacitly would’ve been lack of support implying that the notebook’s for a real, electromechanical days are numbered. keyboard — I detest and revile W e l l , m a y b e . N o L a p t o p touchscreen keyboards — but Substitute for Serious Users happily Apple covered that base Or not. I really like the iPad. I nicely with Bluetooth support want one, but it doesn’t come and an optional iPad Dock for within a country mile of being the Apple Bluetooth keyboard. e v e n a h a l f w a y - a d e q u a t e I’m a longtime fan of the old substitute for a real laptop, at PowerBook Duo concept from least for folks who use their t h e 9 0 ’ s w i t h i t s v a r i o u s computers as serious work tools. dockable expansion options, and Laptops are going to be around the iPad with dock seems to be a f o r a l o n g t i m e t o c o m e . contemporary update of that However, with the iPad’s price motif. Reportedly, any Bluetooth of entry at $500, the netbook keyboard will work — not just folks may have plenty to worry Apple’s — so those of us who about. don’t like living without a Then again, Jobs probably has a n u m e r i c a l k e y p a d w i l l b e point, at least in that while web covered as well. Pointing Device workers and other power or semi Driver Still a Question Mark -power users who require A remaining caveat is that multitasking capability, flexible unfortunately, as of yet there’s input options, graphics and video been no confirmation one way or editing power, and so forth will the other as to whether there will be buying laptops (and desktops) be mouse driver support for for many years to come, for the Bluetooth external pointing average consumer shopping at devices. I’m inclined to think Best Buy or Wal-Mart, their that the absence of mention in laptop or netbook money may Apple’s tech specs means there now be spent on an iPad. And if likely isn’t, at least so far, which these folks discover that the iPad means there is no precision is all they needed in the first pointing device, and even when p l a c e ( p l a u s i b l e i n m a n y using an external keyboard with instances) they may never buy a the iPad mounted on its dock, it laptop again, which is probably will still be necessary to navigate

and click using the touchscreen interface — really inconvenient for folks like myself who like to sit well back from the screen when working at a desktop with external keyboards and pointing devices. Still Some Deficiencies The lack of multitasking support is another major shortcoming, but scuttlebutt has it that iPhone OS 4.0 may add multitasking to its repertoire of features, so that

may be addressed by the time the iPad ships. Another deficiency of the iPad as a laptop replacement is its lack of provision for memory upgrades. Of course we’ve already gone through that with the MacBook Air, but at least it comes with 2GB of soldered-in RAM compared to the iPad’s 1GB. The iPad a Work in Progress

Accentuating the positive, however, I prefer to look at the iPad as a work in progress, and hopefully some or all of these objections, plus the absence of Flash support, and tabbed browsing in the iPad version of Safari, HDMI or MiniDisplay Port output, an SD Card reader, and any sort of non-wireless data transfer connectivity, will be remedied in subsequent versions. In the meantime, that surprisingly friendly $500 price of entry to the iPad club should make it a formidable force to be reckoned with in the marketplace right out of the blocks, although I’m personally inclined to keep my powder dry until the Revision B models hit the Apple Certified Refurbished channels in eight or 10 months time and any teething problems get ironed out. How about you? Eager early adopter or content to wait? And can you envision the iPad ever replacing your laptop? Related GigaOM Pro Research: • Web Tablet Survey: Apple’s iPad Hits Right Notes • 5 Tips for Developers Targeting the iPad • How AT&T Will Deal with iPad Data Traffic

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Multitasking is Overrated By Patrick Hunt (TheAppleBlog) Submitted at 2/3/2010 11:00:51 AM

Perhaps the strongest criticism of the iPhone has been that it doesn’t support multitasking, aside from a few of Apple’s own system level applications that are included on the device and can’t be deleted. Yet the iPhone sells like hotcakes, and Apple has a technical solution that essentially accomplishes the same thing, called background notifications. If multitasking is so important, as the critics, pundits and technology bloggers will tell you, why have the iPhone and its sibling the iPod touch become two of the most successful electronics devices of all time? Because the technology press and hardcore technology users have an unprecedented platform from which to speak and be heard. Period. End of story. Last week’s iPad announcement made this abundantly clear. The technosphere has labeled the iPad an unqualified failure, in large part due to lack of multitasking. News flash: multitasking is overrated. Its not nearly as important to average, everyday users as it is to the

people who cover technology for a living. Despite the fact that Palm’s WebOS and Google’s Android both support multitasking, neither has come anywhere close to the success of the iPhone. With the iPhone and now the iPad, Apple is clearly targeting a mass consumer audience. Many of these users aren’t comfortable with computers. They use them almost because they have, for email and a few other core tasks. Obviously this is changing, as the number of computer and Internet users continues to grow. Its not because computers and the Internet are incredibly easy to use, because they aren’t. In fact, the difficulty in using computers has probably slowed adoption of computing and Internet services into consumers’ daily lives, and part of that complexity comes from multitasking. Here are three observations that also lead me to believe that multitasking just isn’t that important to most people. • I have facilitated or observed literally thousands of web usability test sessions over the last several years. In watching people use computers and the web, I’ve noticed three very

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like multitasking on our computers and might not feel specific behaviors: 1) most nearly as productive without it (I people instantly maximize s a y f e e l b e c a u s e t h e r e i s windows to fill their screens and evidence to suggest that we minimize distractions; 2) only aren’t really multitasking but fast the most tech savvy users use alt- switching, and performance tab (Windows) or command-tab suffers when we do). But the (Mac) to switch between apps; majority of people in the world and 3) people are far more likely a r e n ’ t l i k e u s . T h e y w a n t to be confused when multiple something that is really easy to use and understand, and that windows and apps are open. • There has been a surge in p r o v i d e s s o m e l e v e l o f interest in the last few years for enjoyment or helps make their desktop applications that take lives easier. Apple’s iP products over the screen. This is true of (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad) are Firefox, for example, which has designed for these people. a full-screen “kiosk” mode, and What Apple is really doing is s e v e r a l w o r d p r o c e s s o r s making technology disappear, designed to let users write surfacing content in a very human way. Even if processing without distraction. • Despite pretty regular usage, power and battery life are my wife still struggles with some currently capable of delivering basic Mac operations related to multitasking, I’m not sure Apple multitasking, such as closing will implement it in the way we windows as an attempt to quit an think of multitasking today. app, switching between apps, not Perhaps it will allow background realizing which window is processing and easier switching active, etc. While she still uses among apps, which get at core the Mac, she has moved more user needs, but I expect it and more of her computing will maintain a solotasking activity to her iPhone because approach well into the future of she doesn’t have these same its product designs. issues. Sure, many of us heavy users

Street Chic: Amsterdam By ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog) Submitted at 2/4/2010 4:00:00 AM

A studded belt adds style in a cinch. Photo: Stylesight Think you are Street Chic? E-

mail us your photo and you

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

services/platforms that scores of customers resorted to illegal file sharing as the de facto method for getting music. If Apple can bring to the publishing industry the same format homogeny, pricing stability and content distribution/management methods that it brought to the music industry, that’s good for everyone. Everyone except Amazon.

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The iPad May Be Perfect for Web Browsing, But Nick Leckey’s Awful, Awful It’d Really Rather You Didn’t Decision By Darrell Etherington (TheAppleBlog)

Submitted at 2/3/2010 12:00:33 PM

Apple’s competitors are likely circling the wagons and preparing for quite the fight when the iPad drops late next month. Amazon has been highlighted as the company with the most to worry about in many of the articles written about the subject thus far, but Microsoft is probably also sufficiently nervous about the effect the device will have on things like netbook sales. Google is the one with the most to worry about, though, according to a new report(subscription required) posted at GigaOM Pro. Google does have a significant interest in the netbook market, like Microsoft, thanks to its upcoming Google Chrome OS, but that isn’t the reason they need to be scared. The real reason is the demise of the web. Paul Sweeting, in the GigaOM Pro piece, contends that the reason the iPad poses such a threat to Google is that it rewrites the rules of content delivery, eliminating the avenues through which Google makes money via search and

advertising. As I’ve written about elsewhere, Apple’s aim is clearly to control not only the content that appears on its devices, but also the conduits by which that content arrives. Apple promotes a tunnel vision version of the Internet, with content funneled, separated and kept specific to the app you happen to be using. It’s a cellular model of consuming Internetbased content, and it is attractive

consumer of media? Do we want to “settle” the web, so to speak, by allowing Apple to pacify it, distill it, and then sell it back to us through tightly controlled channels? It may seem alarmist, but it isn’t. It’s what Apple has to do to grow its consumer base as a mobile device maker. In an ideal world, from Apple’s perspective, Cupertino would have exclusive control over all major media distribution. The company desires that, or as close as is possible in the real world, because by controlling the distribution of content they can also control which devices consumers have to use to consume it. That, in turn, means hardware sales. It sounds bleak, but it might not be all bad. Apple seems committed to providing quality to the consumer in the same way content in innovative ways, so a walled Japanese garden is maybe handing them more attractive to the appreciator of control is the right move. What nature. The garden is safe, do you think? Is convenience, predictable, contained and ease of use and quality of finish aesthetically pleasing. Raw worth the trade-off required in nature can be all of these things, terms of autonomy? too, but it isn’t necessarily so all Read the full report over at GigaOM Pro of the time. My only question, and the one which Sweeting poses without asking directly is, is that something I want to happen as a

(WSJ.com: The Daily Fix) Submitted at 2/3/2010 3:32:25 PM

Centers are usually the smartest players on the football field. Nick Leckey, the Saints back-up at that position, is no dummy. Figuring he wouldnt be reading the paper too much during the NFL playoffs, he put his Wall Street Journal subscription on hold. Mr. Leckey, an avid Journal subscriber, says he prefers hard business news to the sometimes grim stories on politics and war. While most players are trying to resist the urge to go out and party before the big game, Mr. Leckey says even stocks and bonds take his mind too far away from the gridiron. I cant have any distractions or things like that, he said.

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How-To: Remotely Wipe an iPhone Using Exchange By Andrew Flocchini (TheAppleBlog)

Wipe All Data from Device… • You will get a confirmation dialog to confirm you really want to do this. After you confirm, the Status will change to Pending Wipe. • The next time your iPhone/iPod touch has an internet connection and checks in with Exchange, a secure wipe is initiated. This is what the screen looks like to the user. • After the wipe has been started, the status for the device in OWA will change to Wipe Successful and you can remove the device from the list.

Submitted at 2/4/2010 8:00:53 AM

The thought of your iPhone or iPod touch falling into the wrong hands is enough to scare anyone. The iPhone does have the passcode function to keep prying eyes out, but what if that’s not enough? In a corporate environment, the loss of a device like this is a major ordeal. Apple has touted the MobileMe remote wiping capabilities, but what if you don’t use MobileMe? If you are in a corporate environment, you probably connect to an exchange server for mail. Using OWA (Outlook Web Access) you can remotely wipe your lost or stolen iPhone/iPod touch and breath easy knowing your data is safe. As I stated, this relies on using the Exchange email push functionality in the iPhone OS. I have only tested this with Exchange 2007 so I can’t verify how or if this works in older versions of Exchange. OWA is Microsoft’s fancy name for web mail so the first thing you need

Google's two-way search is good for the web (Scripting News) Submitted at 2/3/2010 10:46:05 AM

WIthout any fanfare as far as I can tell, Google has unveiled one of the most signficant, farreaching and basically good features in its core search product. Now, in addition to presenting the pages ranked in order of algorithmic importance, it also shows you what people you know have to say about the subject. You can give this a try on your How does it know who you own device if you want to see the know? Based on some very magic. Be advised that it will simple information you may to do is access your company’s take about an hour to wipe the have entered into your Google web mail. device so you can’t use it during profile. (I called this two-way • After you successfully login, that time. After the wipe, you search in July 2009.) click on the Options button in the can restore from a backup in For example, in my profile, I top right. iTunes. Since this is done in told it that I have a blog, am on • Now click on the Mobile OWA, you don’t even have to Twitter, run opml.org, have a Devices option in the left-hand bother your Network Admin. Picasa and YouTube account and menu. M a y b e y o u a r e a l i t t l e an OpenID. From there, it • You should now see your embarrassed that you lost your presumably either crawls or iPhone or iPod touch device iPhone. This way no one has to makes API calls to find out who listed. Click the radio button next know. Your secret will be safe I'm connected to and what I care to your device and the click with me.

about. There's a wealth of information about me just in the links on scripting.com. So, when I search for "Michael Clayton" it includes results from my social circle. It's good for the web because it puts all the social services on the same open playing field. If I want to add another service, I can put it in the list, and I can tell them how important it is to me by moving it up or down the list. It also makes sense for Google to throw its lot in with the web because they aren't Twitter or Facebook, and they got their start by indexing the open web. No matter what their motivations, that's for God to judge. Good is good. And good is not evil. If you have an account on Google, you can edit your profile here. At first the results aren't blowing me away, but I expect over time they will get better.

US jobless claims unexpectedly rise (Financial Times - US homepage) Submitted at 2/4/2010 6:55:41 AM

Message from fivefilters.org: If

you can, please donate to the full -text RSS service so we can continue developing it. The number of US workers claiming jobless benefits rose

unexpectedly last week, casting doubt over the economy’s ability to create jobs. Initial jobless claims climbed by 8,000 to 480,000, labour

department figures showed. PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Economists were expecting a Term Extraction. decline. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools:

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Letterman Show Hires a Gary Cole to Star in Female Writer Pilot by 'Monk' Creator By Brad Trechak (TV Squad)

By Bob Sassone (TV Squad)

Submitted at 2/4/2010 12:02:00 PM

Submitted at 2/4/2010 11:40:00 AM

When it comes to television comedy, female writers are like diamonds. That is to say they are hard to find and tough enough to crack pavement when properly used. That being said, girl power has given late night television a kick in the crotch with the hiring of Jill Goodwin, who will now be on the writing staff of the'Late Show with David Letterman.' Goodwin has been involved with the show since 2001. She got the job the old fashioned way, by rising through the ranks. More power to her. It makes a person wonder when one of the networks will take a chance a have a female-hosted late night talk show. Females seem to dominate the daytime shows (see Oprah), but not at night. The last

Uh, yeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaah, from this TBS report it looks like Gary Cole is going to be starring in a new hour-long comedy from Andy Breckman, the creator of that I can recall was Joan Rivers 'Monk.' It's about a veteran way back when. Philadelphia cop who has to train Given the recent allegations his goofy nephew partner. against Dave with regards to his Maybe it will be a modern 'Andy recently admitted affair, it does Griffith Show' (only Barney and raise eyebrows with regards to Andy were cousins). It's called the timing. On the other hand, it's 'Uncle Nigel,' and Cole will be not like she was hired the next playing Nigel. day and a lot has happened on Cole is a really underrated actor. late night television since then. He just seems to bop along over F i l e d u n d e r : I n d u s t r y , the decades in role after role, but Programming, OpEd, Reality- if you look at what he's done it's Free been pretty fantastic, from his P e r m a l i n k | E m a i l t h i s | | role in the NBC drama'Midnight Comments Caller'(which I think was a little ahead of its time and would fit in nicely today) to a terrific Robert Reed impression in the 'Brady Bunch' movies to his classic role in 'Office Space' and 'The West Wing' (above). Yeeeeeeeeaaaaah, if you could

Fallout: New Vegas coming this fall, teaser coming ... right now By Justin McElroy (Joystiq) Submitted at 2/4/2010 10:36:00 AM

Bethesda sent word today that the Obsidian-developed Fallout: New Vegas will start irradiating store shelves this fall. It's a little less nebulous than the previous " sometime in 2010," but it's still not specific enough for our tastes. No, the real draw today is the second half of Bethesda's release, the debut teaser trailer that we've put just above. No gameplay, but it's got style and Sinatra to spare. Also ... is that a Helghast? It's not, right? Fallout: New Vegas coming this get this TBS show on the air as fall, teaser coming ... right now soon as possible, that'd be great. originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 04 Feb 2010 10:36:00 EST. Thanks. Filed under: Other Comedy Please see our terms for use of S h o w s , P r o g r a m m i n g , feeds. Permalink| Email this| Celebrities, Pickups and Comments Renewals, Reality-Free Permalink| Email this| | Comments

Report: Verlander Agrees to $80M Extension With Tigers By Pat Lackey (FanHouse Main) Submitted at 2/3/2010 12:57:00 PM

Filed under: Tigers, AL Central The Tigers and Justin Verlander have agreed to a five-year, $80

million extension, a source told the Associated Press. Though not officially announced, the deal is expected to be completed before the end of the week. The deal both avoids arbitration and keeps Verlander in Detroit three years

into his free agency. While the extension was being

negotiated, it was expected that Verlander would use Felix Hernandez's five-year, $78 million contract as a template for what he wanted from Detroit. In the end, the Tigers went beyond the deal Seattle gave to

Hernandez by $2 million to lock their ace up long-term.

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Sarah Silverman Talks Review: 'Cougar Town' US opens Toyota Prius Season Three and More - 'All the Wrong brake probe Reasons' By Nick Zaino (TV Squad)

By Joel Keller (TV Squad)

(Financial Times - US homepage)

Submitted at 2/4/2010 11:21:00 AM

Submitted at 2/4/2010 7:09:37 AM

Submitted at 2/4/2010 11:04:00 AM

It may not have seemed that Sarah Silverman was busy in 2009, especially since the last time we saw'The Sarah Silverman Program' on Comedy Central was December of 2008. But she was busy behind the scenes. Silverman filmed 'Saint John of Las Vegas' with Steve Buscemi, which played the festival circuit last year and gets a wider release this year, 'Peep World' with Michael C. Hall and Rainn Wilson, and wrote her memoir, 'The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee,' which is due in April. Silverman was also negotiating with Comedy Central for 'The Sarah Silverman Program.' Comedy Central wanted to cut

(S01E14) Ever watch an episode and think the writers wrote it just to address the gripes of its fans? That's the way I felt while watching this one. It was an her budget from $1.1 million per episode that had more chuckles episode to $850,000, which was than laughs, but it addressed the a non-starter for Silverman and stories of two characters who her partners. have probably gotten the shortest C o n t i n u e r e a d i n g S a r a h end of the character development Silverman Talks Season Three stick so far: Ellie and Laurie. So, and More for that, the episode stood out. Filed under: Other Comedy Let's start with Laurie. For most S h o w s , P r o g r a m m i n g , of this first season, we've seen I n t e r v i e w s , R e a l i t y - F r e e her as nothing more than a WestP e r m a l i n k | E m a i l t h i s | | Central Florida wannabe version Comments of Lindsay Lohan. So it was refreshing to see that she's actually grown a conscience, and is willing to admit to it. It's a good thing, because a caricatureheavy Laurie would be tough to take in the show's already-

Message from fivefilters.org: If you can, please donate to the full -text RSS service so we can continue developing it. US safety regulators opened a formal investigation on Thursday into consumer complaints about braking on 2010 Toyota Prius hybrid car. The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration disclosed it had opened a formal investigation into the Priusâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s braking system, saying that it had received 124 complaints secured second season. Continue reading Review: about braking problems on 'Cougar Town' - 'All the Wrong b u m p y o r p o t h o l e d r o a d s , including four crashes. Reasons' Filed under: Episode Reviews, Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: Reality-Free, Cougar Town P e r m a l i n k | E m a i l t h i s | | PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. Comments

Skate Reel servers totally bailing in March By Richard Mitchell (Joystiq)

which allows users to upload and share videos of their in-game exploits. The update reads, quite A quick note for anyone out s i m p l y , " S e r v e r s f o r t h e there still clinging to the first skate.Reel feature will be shut iteration of EA's Skate: It's time down on March 1st, 2010." It to move on. EA has updated the also notes that the game itself page for Skate's Reel service, will still function properly, but Submitted at 2/4/2010 11:30:00 AM

users will no longer be able to

upload videos to share either ingame or via the Skate website. As tipster Cal points out, there are some Achievements related to uploading videos, so you'd better start capturing those sweet runs and massive bails before it's too late.

Skate Reel servers totally bailing in March originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 04 Feb 2010 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

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American Idol: Hollywood Ho [Recaps] By Richard Lawson (Gawker) Submitted at 2/4/2010 11:45:00 AM

Well gang, we did it. We got through a month of auditions episodes. Many of us died, even more of us are injured or dying, but we've struggled across the finish line and next week will taste glorious Hollywood. Last night's episode wasn't about anything, so there's not much to say. Basically it was the haggis of auditions episodes. It was the tripe or hot dog of American Idol. It was just leftover bits sort of all mashed together into something that was vaguely good if you didn't think too hard about what was in it. It was nice to see flashes of all my favorite celebrity judges again. There was Katy Perry getting rock tats in the rockin' corner man, because she is such a hard rocker. She parties ev-aree day. There was Victoria Beckham, perched up there on her toothpick sticks, speaking in her strange mournful bird language, flapping her weak little wings in a vain attempt to fly away. There was Avril Stinkbean, looking like an albino ferret, like Nagini the snake, like some other sort of beady-eyed pointy-toothed creature. Nibble nibble nibble she went on a scrap of food, nibble nibble nibble. Eyes darting forth and back,

wormy little tail wriggling under the table. And there was Joe Jonas, wearing one of Ryan's dress shirts casually like a little dress, stretching in a square of sunlight, Ryan watching and feeling the whole known world dissolve away. There was Joe, there was only Joe. So yes! What celebrity friends we've made this past month. It's nice to know that we can always count on them to snicker to our faces while we pursue our dreams. It's an important service that celebrities do, and we should never ever stop thanking them for it. THANK YOU, guest judges. Thank you forever. For being so much beautifuler and better than us lonely old shitpots down here in the guttery muck of obscurity. SPEAKING OF! People sang last night. Oh how they sang! From all different cities — places as diverse in their tedium as Orlando and Denvry — they showed up and just belted their sad little weirdo hearts out. Some literally saw their hearts shoot out of their mouths and land with a gushy smack right on Kara DiBoboli's face. They'd crumple in a dead heap as Kara said "Iiiiiick, security!" and two local bar bouncers would shuffle in to drag away the corpse. After they were done taking Kara to the

bathroom, they'd deal with the dead body. Bada-zingo! Who sang last night: "Fee fie fo fum! I smell the blood of a frost-tipped homosexual!" This is the bellowing call that rang out in the halls of the Idol Palace last night. Ryan had long ago stolen a giant's golden housewares after giving Paula to an old crone in exchange for some magic beans. Well the angry giant came back and sure was angry. It also wanted to audition. Yeah, mostly it was there for the audition. I feel bad for the giant, who was doing its best Chaz Bono impression, but its delusion was also so great. Just because a gay Frankenstein monster came in second last year it doesn't mean that America is ready to embrace a giant. It just doesn't mean that at all. A pretty blonde girl in one of those flowy maxi dresses showed up talking about her dead friend and, with trembling voice and watery eyes, sang a pleasant version of "Hey D Jude." She is pretty and Brooke White-ish, but with a better voice, and I think she might be going places in this fart-filled microcosm called Idol. There was a girl who was paiiinnfuullllyyyy a musical theater actress. God, if I hadn't spent four wonderful years with those idiots in college, I would

be inclined to say that musical theater people just might be the worst people in the world. There's just so much of them! They're just enormous people. It can wear on the nerves. That said, she was a good singer so onto the next round, you ha-chacha'ing horrorshow! There was a big black fellow with a guitar who did a good little audition. A girl came back for the second time. Actually, two did! One annoying pixiedhaired creature who made it to the top 50 and one nerdy girl who had been an audition favorite and then disappeared. Pixie-hair was still pixie-haired but the nerdy girl was all made over and looking like a fool with her pants on the ground. No, she wasn't wearing pants and her not -pants weren't on the ground. That song is just a bit infectious. I mean, it's about pants. Not many songs these days about pants. Used to be you'd hear a slacks sonata or see a trouser troubadour come by all the time. These days, no one's singing about pants. Except for General Chickenfork, or whatever his name is. Good for him. There was also a sixteen-yearold young fellow name'a Aaron Kelly who had terrible Floridastyle gelled hair and one of those confirmation chains that just... ugh. But whatever, he's 16 and

from Florida, so it ain't his fault. Poor little fool sang Milly Stylus' bigtime international pop sensation hit "The Climb," which is about all the adversity that a 16-year-old millionaire from a wealthy family who gets her own TV show and movie has had to endure. It's such a climb. She's such an inspiration. The little Kelly boy sang it earnestly with a slight country twang and Kristen Chenoweth unhinged that jaw of hers and swallowed him whole. He's ruuuumored to be in the top 24, so. Keep your eye on him. And, if you know him, tell him to fix his hair. Lookin' like a fool with his hair on the ground. (It's not on the ground. But, again with that song.) There is really nothing left to say. Goodbye, auditions! May we never meet again. Until season ten! Hey that rhymed. I'm a poet and I didn't know it. But my feet did. They're long fellows. Hah! My eighth grade Latin teacher taught me that. Longfellows. Good gracious. Jokes just never get old. Pants on the ground, pants on the ground. Lookin' like a fo— Oh. That one just got old, didn't it? THEY'RE OVER.

Entertainment/ Sports/

We Refuse to Admit Lady Gaga Has a Vagina [Going Gaga] By Brian Moylan (Gawker)

Jonathan Safran Foer Was Right About the Meat Thing [Eating] By Hamilton Nolan (Gawker) Submitted at 2/4/2010 11:29:51 AM

A new USDA survey finds that less than 1% of US farms are organicâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;meaning that the carnivore locavore yuppie fantasy that it's okay to eat meat as long as it comes from one of the few "good" farms is an unsustainable argument, in the Kantian sense. There will never be enough "good" farms to fulfill

Submitted at 2/4/2010 11:10:40 AM

Animal New York says this photo of Lady Gaga from the Grammys definitely proves she does not have man parts. As Gawker's resident vagina expert, I know this is a real vagina. The problem is, it's not the real Gaga. That's right, L.G. McStuffin Stuff used a stand in vagina! Gaga being Gaga, she would never actually deny that she was some kind of intersexed, dualgenitaled freak. Instead she just let everyone speculate and continue searching for it. Sick of her ruse, she decided to put it to rest once and for all by hiring this body double to perform the first part of her act at the Grammys in a revealing leotard (see photo). We know this because during the performance Gaga is put into this crazy contraption all clean like this and two seconds later emerges on a piano with Elton John all dirty and gross. There is no way she could have soiled herself that

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the demand for meat, so only forsaking meat altogether is a viable, ethical, environmental

stance, in accord with the c a t e g o r i c a l imperative(universalization formulation). Which, not for nothing, is exactly what Jonathan Safran Foer says in his new book, so, we know he's a precious twee Brooklyn writer and all, but give up some props, along with that ham sandwich. Everyone knows you got to stay off that pork.

Time for Mr. Kardashian to Prove Worth By Jay Mariotti (FanHouse Main) much in two seconds. That's because it was a fake Gaga that went into the glam sausage grinder and the real Gaga who emerged with Elton John to sit on her penis at a piano bench. Don't stop believing, people. One day, we will eventually see this pop culture Lock Ness Monster in the flesh.

Submitted at 2/3/2010 2:00:00 PM

Filed under: Super Bowl MIAMI -- So there was Mr. Kim Kardashian, in a white T-shirt and sneakers, captured by a TMZ camera leaving a South Beach nightclub around 3:30 a.m. Tuesday. Um, wouldn't that be the last image Reggie Bush wants to carve out at the Super Bowl? Already, we have a great argumentative divide here in sporting America on whether he's an exasperating NFL bust or a delayed firecracker ready to explode. Now, this quickly, Reality Show Reggie has us wondering again if he's more interested in

embracing nightlife, Hollywood and All-Things-Kim celebrity than tapping his potential as a magnificent football gamebreaker. For all the chatter about Peyton Manning's legacy, Sunday also stands as a referendum on Bush's career. We've seen him struggle

with ineffectiveness and injuries the last three years, becoming so irrelevant that his infamous girlfriend -- and her famous butt -- turned into a much bigger conversation piece. Hey, wasn't Reggie Bush the guy who won the Heisman Trophy several years back, the guy who continues to be investigated by the NCAA for alleged favors that he and his family received at USC? You know, the dreaded answer to a trivia question? Once, he and Matt Leinart ruled L.A. and college football. Now, they're competing for the booby prize of most disappointing Trojan Man in the pros.

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University of Florida signs up top-ranked recruiting class By ESPN.com news services (ESPN.com)

five seasons with the Gators. "The first one is having a great product and we obviously have Submitted at 2/3/2010 11:48:49 PM that here at the University of Message from fivefilters.org: If Florida." you can, please donate to the full Matt Elam, No. 9 in the ESPNU -text RSS service so we can rankings, has also signed with continue developing it. ESPNU Florida. He was a running back Signing Day Wrap-Up ESPNU and linebacker in high school, Signing Day Wrap-Up VIDEO but appears headed for defense in PLAYLIST college. • ESPNU Signing Day Wrap-Up Residing in maybe the most ESPNU Signing Day Wrap-Up fertile football state in the • Urban Meyer On UF's Record- country, the Gators always load Setting Class Urban Meyer On up on homegrown talent. Fifteen UF's Record-Setting Class of Florida's 27 signees are from • Signing Day Winners Signing the Sunshine State. But Meyer Day Winners and his staff showed they can • ESPNU No. 1 Prospect Ronald reach outside far and wide to pull Powell ESPNU No. 1 Prospect in top talent. Ronald Powell Powell is from Moreno Valley in southern central California Florida may have lost in the and Joshua Shaw, the No. 3 SEC title game and coach Urban cornerback in the class, is from Meyer may be taking a leave of Palmdale, Calif., about 70 miles absence, but nothing has slowed northwest of Los Angeles. the Gators on national letter-of- The Gators ventured into the intent signing day. Northeast and came away with Defensive end Ronald Powell of t w o d e f e n s i v e l i n e m e n Moreno Valley, Calif, the considered among the very best nation's top-ranked recruit in the players in the country in the No. ESPNU 150, signed his letter of 3 defensive tackle in the class, intent on Wednesday. The Gators Sharrif Floyd of Philadelphia, a l s o h a v e s i g n e d t h e t o p and Easley. defensive tackle in the class, ESPNU, Scout.com, SuperPrep Dominique Easley of Staten Magazine and MaxPreps all Island, N.Y. (No. 3 in the ranked Florida No. 1. rankings), and the top safety, National runner-up Texas has Jonathan Dowling of Bradenton, the No. 2 class in the ESPNU Fla. (No. 10 in the rankings). rankings, led by Jackson "The key to recruiting is a lot Jeffcoat, a defensive end from like the keys to making a great Plano, Texas, and the son of sale," said Meyer, who has won former Dallas Cowboy Jim two national championships in Jeffcoat. The Longhorns also

have signed Jordan Hicks, the top outside linebacker in the class from West Chester, Ohio. Mike Davis, the No. 2 wide receiver in the class, and Taylor Bible, the No. 2 defensive tackle, have also signed with Texas. Longhorns coach Mack Brown deflected some claims that the 2010 group is the best in his 13 seasons in Austin. "It definitely has the potential to be. A lot of recruiting is determined on how they finish," Brown said. "In four or five years we hope all of these guys will graduate. We have some great players on campus. We feel like this group will continue in that tradition." Texas also signed quarterback Case McCoy, younger brother of former Longhorn Colt McCoy, who led Texas to last season's BCS Championship Game. Case McCoy passed for 10,711 yards and 111 touchdowns at Graham High School. "The fact Colt was here ... has absolutely nothing to do with signing Case," Brown said. "We would have signed Case if his brother was not here or not a factor." Texas also signed quarterback Connor Wood, who passed for 8,417 yards and rushed for 1,482 in his career at Houston Second Baptist. It is the first time Texas has signed two quarterbacks in the same year since 2007, when Texas signed John Chiles and G.J. Kinne Jr. Chiles now plays wide receiver and Kinne

transferred to Tulsa. Of the Longhorns' 25 signees, 22 were from in state. Hicks was Texas' only signee from outside the Southwest. "He can do it all," Brown said of Hicks. "He can hit." Alabama, the defending national champ, has the No. 3 class, which includes the nation's top quarterback, Phillip Sims of Chesapeake, Va. Not that it matters to coach Nick Saban. "I'm not really much into the ratings and really don't even know how we are rated, and really don't much care," he said. Alabama also grabbed the state's top prospect, cornerback DeMarcus Milliner. Milliner is a Parade All-American who was rated as the No. 2 cornerback and 16th-best prospect nationally by ESPNU. Alabama must replace three starting defensive backs -including All-American cornerback Javier Arenas -- and four reserves in the secondary. Incoming cornerback DeQuan Menzie, a highly rated junior college player, won't be on campus until the summer. The players who were able to enroll early include South Carolina cornerback John Fulton and Sims. ESPNU rated Fulton as the No. 4 cornerback though he missed half his senior season with an injury. Sims, Milliner and highly ranked linebacker C.J. Mosley were all Parade All-Americans. Auburn, the Crimson Tide's

biggest rival, picked up the nation's top running back, Michael Dyer of Little Rock, Ark. But Auburn's best get might have come from junior college. Former Florida quarterback Cameron Newton, who left the Gators after getting into legal trouble off the field, could start for the Tigers this fall. Florida State has signed the top cornerback in the class, Lamarcus Joyner from Miami. Jeff Luc, the top outside linebacker in the class from Port St. Lucie, Fla., has also signed with the Seminoles. New USC coach Lane Kiffin has one top-10 recruit in his class. Robert Woods, the No. 1 wide receiver from Gardena, Calif., has committed to the Trojans. With just three weeks to keep together outgoing coach Pete Carroll's class, Kiffin and recruiting guru Ed Orgeron say they retained every Carroll recruit they wanted. "We did have a background with a number of these kids and some knowledge about them," Kiffin said. "They had the sense that things were the same on a lot of fronts here. They weren't going to come in with brand-new offense and defense systems, and it's why I think this class really stayed together. The stars that were in this class are still here today that were here three weeks UNIVERSITY page 63

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Meet the Indianapolis Colts: Testing Manning’s Legacy (WSJ.com: The Daily Fix) Submitted at 2/4/2010 8:06:39 AM

Today the Fix continues its annual tradition of devoting most of a column to one Super Bowl team. Yesterday we gave the rundown on the Saints. Today we follow with the Colts, then go Super Bowl-free on Friday. We’ll also have bonus Fixes on Saturday and Sunday and running dispatches from Florida all week long. There’s no debate Peyton Manning is headed for Canton when his playing days are over. He’s all but owned the NFL since the Indianapolis Colts drafted him first overall out of Tennessee in 1998: 50,128 yards passing on 4,232 completions, 366 touchdowns (and just 181 interceptions), four MVP awards, 10 Pro Bowl selections, more wins than any other quarterback in the past decade, and on and on. Associated Press Right now, Peyton Manning has as many Super Bowl victories as Trent Dilfer, Brad Johnson and Jeff Hostetler. But only after beating Chicago in Super Bowl XLI three years ago with an MVP performance did Manning elevate himself above other great NFL quarterbacks without a ring, including Dan Marino, Jim Kelly, Fran Tarkenton and Warren Moon. Manning is undoubtedly one of the best ever. But is he the best? We’ll have more evidence to answer that

question Sunday. “First, Manning has to lead his Indianapolis Colts past Drew Brees’ New Orleans Saints on Sunday in Super Bowl XLIV. That will take everything Manning’s got,” Edwin Pope writes in the Miami Herald. “Then he has to keep measuring up to — and maybe pass, literally speaking — the exploits of Terry Bradshaw, Fran Tarkenton, Joe Montana, Steve Young, Johnny Unitas, Jim Kelly, Dan Marino, Bart Starr, Joe Namath, Roger Staubach, John Elway, Troy Aikman, Kurt Warner, and yes, Y.A. Tittle.” In looking back only over the past 30 years, Sports Illustrated’s Ross Tucker can see why Manning’s a better quarterback than Montana or Tom Brady, and thinks there’s plenty of time for Manning to scorch the record books and snare a few more Lombardi trophies, too. ESPN’s Adam Schefter says another Super Bowl puts Manning in Michael Jordan territory. One reason why Manning’s so efficient and effective — and can perform at that level Sunday — is that the Colts protect him very well, allowing a career-low 10 sacks all season, the Globe and Mail’s David Naylor writes. Manning is such a competitor that he hates to leave games. In the Los Angeles Times, Sam Farmer recounts the time Manning was knocked out of a game for one play in 2001 and it

who remembers Garcon as “ a really quiet guy, but the exact opposite on the field, really fiery, going 100% every play.” Collie isn’t the only rookie playing a big role in the Colts’ success. In the Sporting News, Dennis Dillon measures the impact Collie and four others cost the Colts a victory. Of course, the Colts are more have had, including running back than a one-man band. Younger Donald Brown. So the Colts have offense players have made a huge d i f f e r e n c e f o r t h e C o l t s ’ galore, but they’ll need strong revamped offense. Age and cost defense to contain Drew Brees forced Indianapolis to let Marvin and the high-flying Saints Harrison go, but replacement offense. In the Journal, Reed receivers Pierre Garcon and Albergotti notes that Indy’s A u s t i n C o l l i e h a v e h a d defense, the second-smallest in wonderful seasons, ESPN’s John t h e N F L , h a s d o m i n a t e d C l a y t o n w r i t e s . T h e i r opponents recently. “The Colts s i g n i f i c a n c e t o M a n n i n g ’ s have been getting smaller ever offense grew as the season wore since before the 2002 season, on, especially because one key when Tony Dungy became C o l t s r e c e i v e r , A n t h o n y coach. Mr. Dungy, who coached Gonzalez, missed the season the Colts through the 2008 with a knee injury. “The ability s e a s o n , u s e d a ‘ T a m p a 2 of Garcon and Collie to break defensive scheme that divides tackles and get extra yards the field into zones of coverage helped in the final two minutes to blanket receivers,” Albergotti of first halves — a span in which writes. “While this system the Colts scored 79 points required the team to have strong, (including the playoffs) — and physical safeties who could step allowed Indianapolis to engineer up and make big hits on running s e v e n f o u r t h - q u a r t e r backs, it relied on players who comebacks,” Clayton writes. were — in general — better at Yahoo’s Dan Wetzel chronicles getting themselves into proper Garcon’s unusual route to the position quickly and efficiently NFL, one that included playing than having supreme physical Division III football at Mount ability.” One such player is safety Union in Ohio. USA Today’s Mike Lopresti Melvin Bullitt, Tom Osborn catches up with former Mount writes in the San Antonio Union quarterback Greg Micheli, E x p r e s s - N e w s . A n o t h e r i s Antoine Bethea, a free safety

who for years has proved doubters wrong, the Washington Post’s Les Carpenter writes. Dwight Freeney is still listed as day-to-day for Sunday’s game. The defensive end, who had 13.5 sacks this season, is still suffering from a right-ankle injury that’s been slow to heal, meaning the versatile Raheem Brock could have an expanded role, the Philadelphia Daily News’s Paul Domowitch writes. One player no one expected to see at the Super Bowl is kicker Matt Stover, whom the Colts signed after Adam Vinatieri needed arthroscopic knee surgery in October. Stover never could have hoped for so much after the Ravens declined to re-sign him and he contemplated retirement, the Baltimore Sun’s Ken Murray writes. It’s a different story for Vinatieri, the clutch kicker who’s been forced to watch from the sidelines, the Boston Herald’s Karen Guregian reports. In his first year, coach Jim Caldwell led the Colts to a 14-2 record. The St. Louis PostDispatch’s Bernie Miklasz says Caldwell shares many traits of his predecessor, Tony Dungy. “The Caldwell personality is similar to the Dungy personality: cerebral, genuine, thoughtful, dignified,” Miklasz writes. “Caldwell had been on Dungy’s staff for seven seasons as MEET page 65

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UNIVERSITY continued from page 61

ago." Offensive tackle Seantrel Henderson of St. Paul, Minn., the No. 9-ranked player in the class, committed to USC late in the day. He had been one of two highly ranked uncommitted players. "Despite the coaching, I always liked USC, period," Henderson said. "It's a great school and great education. "As far as football goes, Lane Kiffin recruited me when he was still at Tennessee." Henderson, however, did not make his decision official Wednesday. He was not included on USC's official list of players who had submitted signed letters of intent with the school. Henderson's father, Sean, told the New York Times his son will wait until USC appears before an NCAA Committee on Infractions from Feb. 19-21 to hear about possible sanctions for the program before deciding whether to sign the letter. According to the Times, even though USC is not likely to hear about any possible sanctions at that time, Sean Henderson said the hearing would give the family a sense of where the process was headed. NCAA is investigating if former Trojans running back and

Heisman Trophy winner Reggie Bush received extra benefits during his sophomore and junior seasons (2004 and 2005). Kiffin couldn't talk about Henderson when he met with the media, but he acknowledged he hadn't felt much disappointment in losing a few prospective recruits "because I kept thinking about that left tackle that might be coming here a little later in the day." One particular USC signee will no doubt have Tennessee fans cussing Kiffin again after his departure caused a few Volunteers recruits to reconsider their commitments. Wide receiver Markeith Ambles from McDonough, Ga., the No. 4 wide receiver in the ESPNU list and No. 23 overall, had committed to the Vols, pulled back on that commitment after Kiffin bolted after one season for USC, and ultimately signed with the Trojans. Kiffin attributed his success in keeping together Carroll's class and landing a few extra talents to his familiarity with most of the top recruits from his year at Tennessee. He also credited the tradition at USC, with Kiffin telling recruits he plans to run much the same systems that

Carroll put together during Kiffin's six seasons as an assistant coach. Derek Dooley appeared to have a daunting task when he was hired at Tennessee 19 days ago. Turns out, selling the Volunteers' program to recruits wasn't that difficult for him. "I'm still trying to find out if there's anything wrong with this place," Dooley joked on Wednesday. "What's not to sell?" Seventeen prospects signed with Tennessee on Wednesday to join eight others who enrolled in January to form Dooley's 2010 recruiting class. The class included ESPNU's No. 6 wide receiver, Da'Rick Rogers, and offensive lineman James Stone, one of the top prospects from the state of Tennessee. "The university has so much to sell, so it wasn't as hard as people think to go out there and convince some of these young men to come to Tennessee," Dooley said. "It was just a matter of getting out there in front of them." Demar Dorsey, a safety from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and No. 12 in the rankings, signed Wednesday with Michigan. Dorsey is the highest-ranked player in the ESPNU 150 to sign

with a Big Ten team. Safety Ahmad Dixon from Waco, Texas, is headed for Baylor. He's the No. 3 safety and No. 13 player overall. USC didn't claim every recruit it hoped to sign in the area. Fontana linebacker Josh Shirley and La Canada defensive back Dietrich Riley(No. 10 safety in the ESPNU list) both chose UCLA over the Trojans, leaving Bruins coach Rick Neuheisel overjoyed by his class. Owamagbe Odighizuwa, the No. 2 defensive end in the ESPNU list and No. 16 overall, also picked UCLA. Kiffin betrayed no disappointment in any losses to UCLA. "I've been gone three years but much hasn't changed," Kiffin said of the recruiting tussles between Los Angeles' two programs. "As you meet the kids there is a sense ... of the kids that go to UCLA and the kids that come to USC. I watched it over the weekend just to see if it's the same, and it's really still the same. I guess we waste time continuing to recruit them, [but] we know within the first 10 minutes whether they're the type of guys that want to play here or there."

Brian Kelly's first recruiting class at Notre Dame didn't draw big raves, but it got a late lift Wednesday when highly rated offensive lineman Matt James from Cincinnati chose the Fighting Irish over Ohio State. Kelly described the 23 signees as a good class, especially after he spent his first few days on the job working to make sure the five early enrollees would stay committed and then working to hold together the rest of the class recruited by Charlie Weis. "It's a good start for us," Kelly said. "I think you'll see a growth in the recruiting process for us next year. But I think it's a good start for us." Information from ESPN The Magazine's Bruce Feldman and The Associated Press was used in this report. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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The Count: Why Recruiting Matters (WSJ.com: The Daily Fix)

more than half of the total — were rated three stars or lower. However, Hinton points out that Florida’s college-recruiting class far more prospects are rated three is ranked No. 1 by several stars or lower than the number leading scouting services. Does it who receive five stars. Taking matter? that into account, one in 15 fiveSomewhat surprisingly, the star recruits from the last five answer appears to be yes. Sure, years were named an Allmany top-rated high-school American, compared to one in 54 prospects don’t pan out in four-star recruits and one in 147 college. But top prospects are three-star recruits. (This also more likely to excel, as are translates into a much higher schools that top recruiting probability of being drafted into rankings. Associated Press Top the NFL for five-star recruits prospect Ronald Powell signed than for lower-rated ones.) with Florida. How much does That reflects well on the chances that matter to the Gators’ future of such Florida prospects Ronald prospects? Powell and Dominique Easley. “Of the 93 different players But how does it affect the chance (excluding kickers and punters) that Florida, as a team, will who were voted in some capacity prosper? Several studies suggest to one of the five NCAA- that teams that recruit well reap recognized All-America teams big benefits. At Bleacher Report, last year, only 13 came into Tim Croley showed that several college as five-star, can’t-miss schools with top-rated recruiting blue chips, the cream of the classes in recent years have won crop,” Matt Hinton wrote at national titles when those classes Yahoo. “By contrast, more than reached their senior year. And at four times as many of those All- the Daily Gopher, Buck Bravo Americans — 50, to be exact, wrote that this past season’s Big Submitted at 2/3/2010 2:48:12 PM

causes the other. Surely the talent of incoming players is important, but so are facilities, other attributes of a university that are attractive — such as climate and convenience — and coaching. Those factors likely help top programs recruit, and Ten standings reflect closely also get the most out of their what we’d expect based on the recruits. Connelly agrees that past variation in strength of Big Ten teams’ recent recruiting classes. success breeds future success, F o o t b a l l O u t s i d e r s ’ B i l l just like recruiting does, but Connelly produced a more wrote in an email that it’s hard to rigorous study, published at study the two factors separately. ESPN. In it he shows a very high “It’s hard to isolate the two, correlation between the strength however, because there aren’t of the last five years of recruiting really any good examples of a c l a s s e s a n d a t e a m ’ s team succeeding on the field performance. “This suggests a while seeing their recruiting direct, strong link between plummet,” Connelly wrote. One r e c r u i t i n g s u c c e s s a n d current example: Florida, Texas performance,” Connelly wrote. and Alabama are the three There’s certainly a link, but I’m schools to rank in the top five of not yet convinced that all of the ESPN, Rivals and Scout.com; correlation he finds is the result they’re also the three schools to of recruiting breeding success. finish atop the rankings last Good college-football teams tend season. to stay good, and also to recruit well. But that doesn’t mean one

Bank puts quantitative easing on hold (Financial Times - US homepage) Submitted at 2/4/2010 4:00:39 AM

Message from fivefilters.org: If you can, please donate to the full -text RSS service so we can continue developing it. The Bank of England’s monetary policy committee voted to hold interest rates at current record lows but said it would not extend its quantitative easing programme, under which it has purchased just over £200bn, mostly in government gilts. It left open the possibility that purchases could resume should circumstances warrant it, however. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Ancient Indian language dies out (Holy Kaw!) Submitted at 2/4/2010 9:12:37 AM

The UN estimates that 90 percent of the world’s languages will disappear by 2110. The ancient Indian language of Bo can now be added to that list as the last remaining speaker of the

70,000 year old language has died. Boa Sr of India’s Andaman Islands spent the past 30 to 40 years as the last remaining speaker of the language, but passed away at the age of 85. Andamanese languages expert P r o f e s s o r A n v i t a A b b i often very lonely and had to commented on Boa: “She was learn an Adamanese version of

Hindi in order to communicate with people. But throughout her life she had a very good sense of humor and her smile and fullthroated laughter were infectious.” Abbi developed a friendship with Boa Sr and worries her death will be a major blow to

intellectuals hoping to learn expand their knowledge on the origins of ancient languages. (Via BBC) All the top news from India. Permalink| Leave a comment »

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Sources: New Orleans Saints plan to extend Brees' contract By Adam Schefter (ESPN.com)

game's top quarterbacks. This season Brees was the 17thhighest paid quarterback in the Submitted at 2/4/2010 7:41:58 AM league, yet he finished second in Message from fivefilters.org: If the league in MVP voting and you can, please donate to the full led New Orleans to the first -text RSS service so we can Super Bowl in franchise history. continue developing it. New Orleans considered E x t e n s i o n s E x p e c t e d F o r extending Brees' contract last Manning, Brees Extensions offseason, but opted to wait Expected For Manning, Brees another year. Now that it has, the Just as the Indianapolis Colts price only has risen with Brees say they will extend quarterback performing the way he has. Peyton Manning's contract this Should the Saints win Super offseason, the New Orleans Bowl XLIV, Brees practically Saints will do the same for their would be able to name his price. q u a r t e r b a c k , D r e w B r e e s , Discussions on a new deal have according to sources close to the yet to begin, but they will this situation. offseason. A contract is expected NFC South blog to be wrapped up by the time the ESPN.com's Pat Yasinskas Saints report to training camp if writes about all things NFC not during it, but nobody around South in his division blog. the league expects Brees to play • Blog network: NFL Nation the 2010 season under the sixThe Saints intend to redo Brees' year, $60 million contract that he deal later this year to bring his signed in March 2006. salary more in line with the Interestingly, agent Tom

Condon represents both Super Bowl quarterbacks, Brees and Manning. Condon will have a large influence in an offseason that will re-establish top quarterback salaries. Last offseason, the Giants signed quarterback Eli Manning to the richest contract in NFL history, and San Diego signed quarterback Philip Rivers to a slightly smaller deal. Now, Brees and Manning are expected to get new contracts, and New England also plans to discuss a new deal with quarterback Tom Brady, who has one year remaining on his contract. Adam Schefter is ESPN's NFL Insider. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Periodic Table of Smellements (Holy Kaw!) Submitted at 2/3/2010 10:27:00 PM

Beach? Natural. Books? Pleasant. Basement? Kinda bad. Burning hair? Totally freaking gross. Have you ever wondered how you would categorize the whipped up the Periodic Table of things that you smell each day? Smellements. From toast to Axe Yeah, me neither, but a creative body spray, the chart will make chick named Natalie Dee did and

your sniffer smile. Since we only gave you a little whiff, click through to check out the full stinky table. (Via Natalie Dee) A slew of sensational science stuff. Permalink| Leave a comment »

MEET continued from page 62

quarterbacks coach, so the transition was comfortable for the players. With so many veteran leaders, the Colts don’t need a screamer to coach ‘em up.” NBC Sports’s Mike Celizic says Caldwell’s in a no-win situation coaching the Colts. “The feeling is that he was handed the best team with the best quarterback. He’d darned well better win the Super Bowl,” Celizic writes. “And if he doesn’t, he’s going to spend the time between now and the start of next season explaining how he blew it. If the Colts lose, it won’t matter how it happens. Even if Peyton Manning throws four interceptions and fumbles twice, we’ll figure out a way to blame Caldwell for it.” Quarterbacks and coaches get the accolades when a team wins, but the Colts have been a consistently great team for years because of team president Bill Polian, Gregg Doyel writes at CBS Sports, calling Polian “ the best team-builder in NFL history.” And as much as fans might not like to admit it in Baltimore, owner Jim Irsay has spiffed up the family name after it was

cursed for years after the beloved Colts Mayflowered their way out of Baltimore to Indianapolis in 1984 thanks to his father, Robert. Jim Irsay is a model NFL owner, Gary Shelton writes in the St. Petersburg Times.* * * It wasn’t long ago that coach Urban Meyer decided — briefly — to retire from college football. His decision to stay at Florida resulted in what some analysts call the greatest haul ever on National Signing Day, one that includes Rivals.com’s No. 1 prospect, Ronald Powell. Sports Illustrated’s Andy Staples chronicles how Meyer managed to nab so many studs. The Miami Herald’s Linda Robertson wonders about Meyer’s commitment to Florida. – Tip of the Fix cap to reader Don Hartline and fellow Fixer David Roth. Found a good column from the world of sports? Don’t keep it to yourself — write to us at dailyfix@wsj.com and we’ll consider your find for inclusion in the Daily Fix. You can email Garey at ris84rap@gmail.com.

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Lime Lamborghinis, and It’s Just Wednesday

A Great Moment in Sports Journalism

(WSJ.com: The Daily Fix)

Submitted at 2/3/2010 12:12:49 PM

We were in South Beach Miami a lot last winter — besides writing a sports column, we own a thriving business that installs blue neon disco lights on the undercarriages of Cadillac Escalades — and this fabulous party town was often Elmer Fudd quiet. Jason Gay for The Wall Street Journal The Cuban sandwich - now with passengerside airbag. Not this week. Thanks to the Super Bowl and the economy’s slow re-percolation, South Beach appears to be hopping again in a way that would make even Will Smith approve. It’s just Wednesday and the clubs are popping, the hotels are filling and the barf green Lamborghinis are getting rented. If you’re interested, we did find a 2001

canary-yellow Ferrari for you — asking price $3,000 for the weekend. (But it comes with GPS and satellite radio.) There are also two-bedroom suites available at the super-luxe Setai hotel for $3,600 a night with a five-night minimum. For the more budget-conscious Super Bowl consumer, we recommend, as always, the Cuban sandwiches at the Las Olas Cafe, which can be enjoyed for a mere $5, and also come with GPS and satellite radio. The beach itself is not exactly ready for prime time. The rain has stopped and it’s gloriously

sunny, but they’re still throwing up staging and lighting for the Super Bowl weekend push. ESPN has a studio on the beach, as does the NFL Network. There’s a giant football field set up in the sand that’s being used for all kinds of overstimulated TV promotions. But best sign we saw on the beach? NFL PLAYERS LIVE. Because, really, live is the only way to enjoy NFL players. The deceased ones are dull company or else playing for the Lions. By tomorrow night South Beach should be a circus maximus, with wild parties and exuberant Saints and Colts fans running amok. It’s surely happy news for Miami, and that guy renting the canaryyellow Ferrari.

Submitted at 2/3/2010 2:35:07 PM

Getty Images No one’s comparing Ochocinco to Murrow or Cronkite quite yet. This may come as a shock, but not all members of the Ochocinco News Network are the objective journalists they might appear to be at first glance. The potential scandal centers around Redskins tight end Chris Cooley, one of the army of OCNN correspondents trolling the Super Bowl at the behest of Bengals receiver and joking media mogul Chad Ochocinco. Cooley fed Brittany Brees, wife of Saints quarterback Drew Brees some softball questions at a press conference following the Fed Ex Air & Ground awards Wednesday. What do you say to your husband before a big game?

Mr. Cooley asked her. Ms. Brees was stumped. Thats a tough one, she responded. Turns out, Mr. Cooley and the Breeses go way back to offseason charity events. Did Mr. Cooley cross the line of journalistic integrity? Or was he able to distance himself from the Breeses and retain his objectivity? Ochocinco might have his first controversy on his hands — and perhaps his tamest. The Ochocinco News Network could not be reached for comment.

Treat Yourself to Something Chic By ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog)

—Violet Moon Gayn or Top row (left to right): Elle Macpherson Intimates Submitted at 2/3/2010 2:31:07 PM bustier and pant y (go to Fall in love with these playfully Ellemacphersonintimates.com s e x y V a l e n t i n e ’ s D a y for more information) treats—from jewelry with a Smythson leather key ring heartfelt backstory to a hot D&G crinkled chiffon blouse lingerie set that begs to be seen. Middle row (left to right): Here, the gifts I’d like to give Moschino Cheap & Chic lurex myself this year (why wait for knit dres s someone else to?). One Meaning lacy 14k gold

plated filigree earrings. There's meaning behind the design: at

the center of the earrings is a butterfly which represents the eight letters in "I love you" (8 letters, 3 words, 1 meaning). During the month of February, 8.13% of all sales will go to the Valentino Achak Deng Foundation, a nonprofit which builds schools, libraries and sports facilities in the Sudan Lanvin notebook (go to Brownsfashion.com for more

information) Bottom Row (left to right): 3.1 Phillip Lim bow-adorned bag (at 3.1 Phillip Lim stores in New York and Los Angeles) Diego Dolcini Swarovski and studs sandal Follow ELLE on Twitter. Become our Facebook fan!

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Sony Q3: PS3 software and hardware up, PSP and PS2 notsomuch By Christopher Grant (Joystiq)

slim new form factor and, more importantly, slim new price tag. Now the bad: "Approximately Here's some data from Sony's 4.2 million PSP units were sold fiscal Q3 earnings and, as in the current quarter, compared predicted, the electronics giant to approximately 5.1 million had some positives things to units in the prior year's third report out of its gaming division. q u a r t e r . " A n d t h e u g l y : However, like always, with the "Approximately 2.1 million PS2 g o o d c o m e s t h e b a d ( a n d units were sold in the current sometimes the ugly). The good: q u a r t e r , c o m p a r e d t o "Due to the launch of a new approximately 2.5 million units model, approximately 6.5 million in the prior year's third quarter." u n i t s o f P l a y S t a t i o n 3 . . . It's when you get to the PS2 hardware were sold in the current software sales that things really q u a r t e r , c o m p a r e d t o get ugly. Sony sold 11.2 million approximately 4.5 million units PS2 software units, a 62% drop in the prior year's third quarter," from the same period last year. reports Sony's Q3 earnings The bad: The PSP sold 15 report. The PS3 Slim continues million units, a tiny 3% drop to drive hardware sales, with its from the same period last year. Submitted at 2/4/2010 12:00:00 PM

Just like the hardware numbers, the PS3 software numbers are the good: Sony sold over 47.6 million pieces of PS3 software, a lovely 17% jump from the same period last year.

But things aren't so bad for the beleaguered division. "Despite a decrease in PS2 hardware and software unit sales, as well as PSP hardware unit sales, profitability was relatively

unchanged mainly due to an improvement in the cost of PS3 hardware," Sony reported. Sony's Q4 forecast predicts more of the same: a "decrease in PS2 hardware and software sales" and "an improvement in PS3 hardware and software profitability." And that's how console generations work, boys and girls! Sony Q3: PS3 software and hardware up, PSP and PS2 notsomuch originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 04 Feb 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing demo might be forthcoming By JC Fletcher (Joystiq)

racing is worthwhile. And according to a Digital Spy interview with producer Steve The prospect of racing against Lycett, we may get to do that. the Bonanza Bros. as a forklift- "We're currently looking at driving Ryo Hazuki likely has downloadable demos for 360 and many Sega fans on the precipice PS3, and a DS demo via the of purchasing Sonic and Sega Nintendo Channel to boot," All-Stars Racing. However, Lycett said. those of us whose common sense He also responded positively to has yet to be short-circuited by t h e i d e a o f S u m o D i g i t a l fan service would prefer to try developing a Shenmue sequel -o u t t h e g a m e i n o r d e r t o you know, because having a determine whether the actual g a m e w i t h a R y o H a z u k i Submitted at 2/4/2010 10:10:00 AM

character model in it is basically halfway there."I'm sure if Sega asked, we'd love to take it on," Lycett said. "It'd scare me to

death to take on something so epic, but well, I'd like to think we could do it justice. I think if you cut us in half at this point,

you'd find Sega written through the middle of us!" Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing demo might be forthcoming originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 04 Feb 2010 10:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

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Fall 2010 Fashion Week Preview: One Hour With Gary Graham By ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog)

Natal prototype model revealed (it's either adorable or terrifying) By Griffin McElroy (Joystiq)

prototype, as nabbed by the Seattle Times. According to the report which includes the The image above could serve as photograph, Natal units and kind of robotic Rorschach test. iPhones are being produced in What do you see? A cute little the same factory. We're terrified tripod help-o-bot, whose head is of the thought of these two cocked curiously to the side, as consumer electronics crossthough it's studying its new pollinating -- we're pretty sure master to better serve his or her that's how SkyNet got started. robotic needs? Or is it a three- [Via Siliconera] legged killing machine, who's Natal prototype model revealed observing his new master's (it's either adorable or terrifying) weaknesses, which it plans to originally appeared on Joystiq on exploit with its now-charging Thu, 04 Feb 2010 11:05:00 EST. eye lasers? Please see our terms for use of Sadly, the answer's not as feeds. provocative as either of those Read| Permalink| Email this| two choices -- its actually a Comments photo of a Project Natal Submitted at 2/4/2010 11:05:00 AM

—Violet Moon Gayn or Submitted at 2/3/2010 3:01:18 PM All photos: Kelly Stuart “For fall, I had a vision of David Hot on the heels of his CFDA Bowie, circa 1970, picking up n o m i n a t i o n , F a s h i o n F u n d and moving to upstate New finalist Gary Graham gives us an York, and how his look would intimate glimpse into his old- evolve over time." meets-new world—from the The fall 2010 mood board, with D a v i d B o w i e – a n d – v i n t a g e Native American imagery, David French handkerchief–adorned Bowie’s mug-shot from the ’70s, mood board to the piece of and a photo of an alien-like artwork found by a friend on a woman by Bruce Davidson. Brooklyn sidewalk that inspired “Diane Von Furstenberg recently his fall 2010 collection. Graham, came into the studio and went with his encyclopedic knowledge crazy for the knits, especially the of film, theater, literature, and boiled wool leggings.” art, mixes textures (think washed “ T h e i d e a o f t r a v e l a n d leather, boiled wool, second-skin transience plays a big part for silk, and lace-covered taffeta) to fall. I like the idea of an evening create the “rustic alien” look of gown being worn through the his new season. mud. There’s romance in (Click here to watch the behind- wearability—running around, the-scenes video)

working, traveling, and being glamorous in these pieces.” “I had originally intended for this dress to have horizontal stripes throughout. I like the way it turned out.” “My customer will wear her crinoline paired with a T-shirt.” “The print on this bodysuit was inspired by an old French handkerchief.” “As a kid, I loved anything glam and poufy. Dynasty and Bob Mackie were influences.” “Growing up, the films I watched over and over involved makeovers—Dorothy going from black and white to color in The Wizard of Oz, Scarlett O’Hara’s shift from wealthy to bottomedout.” “There’s always an element of nature in my inspiration.”

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1,000-Plus Martin Hynes concedes Dem. governor Margiela Pieces on Sale primary race in Ill. (AP) at 1stdibs (Yahoo! News: U.S. News) Submitted at 2/4/2010 8:31:44 AM

By ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog) Submitted at 2/3/2010 1:56:36 PM

Paging all Martin Margiela fans! Starting February 13, the online luxury store 1stdibs will be selling more than 1,000 pieces by the conceptual Belgian designer. The offerings, which span Margiela looks from 1989 to 2008, include military-stock sweaters, vintage belt-assembled jackets, and his signature Tabi split-toe shoes. There are also accessories made from hair, soda tabs, and resin. And for die-hard Margiela followers, you can now own one of his rare artisanal objects, such as an acid white washed cassette player and a white washed bottle of Veuve Clicquot champagne.” (The entire collection is thanks to Los Angeles based collector Marcia Berger, who not only kept things in their original condition, but never took anything out of shopping bags. She passed away

in 2008). In addition to the online sale, which runs through March 31, vintage boutique Resurrection will also offer select styles in their New York and Los Angeles stores. —Laura Stoloff Vintage Kid Glove Assembled Top (2001) Vintage Belt Assembled Jacket (2007) Signature Tabi Split-Toe Shoes

Message from fivefilters.org: If you can, please donate to the full -text RSS service so we can continue developing it. CHICAGO – Comptroller Dan Hynes conceded defeat Thursday in the Illinois Democratic primary for governor, often choking with emotion as he thanked his supporters and promised to help Gov. Pat Quinn win in November. Hynes dismissed the strife of the primary campaign as "a spirited discussion about our future" and said he had called to congratulate Quinn. "I'm supporting him because I believe that our shared values and his basic decency is what Illinois needs, especially compared to what's being suggested or offered by the Republican Party at this time," Hynes said. But Hynes made statements and highlighted Quinn weaknesses during the campaign that Republicans are likely to seize upon in the general election. He ran an ad featuring old footage of Chicago Mayor Harold Washington saying that hiring Quinn as city budget director had been his biggest political mistake. He attacked Quinn's income tax proposal as

an assault on working families who can't afford to pay more. And he questioned Quinn's basic competence over a prison early release program that Hynes said had endangered public safety. Hynes trailed Quinn by a few thousand votes Tuesday night and initially refused to bow out. As more ballots were counted, Quinn's lead grew until it became clear Hynes had no chance of closing the gap. With the Democratic race decided, the spotlight remained on the Republicans, who also have been waiting for a primary winner to emerge in the governor's race. State Sen. Bill Brady led by just a few hundred votes over Sen. Kirk Dillard, and the race could wind up going to a recount. Republicans hope to capture the governor's office, as well as President Barack Obama's former U.S. Senate seat, by exploiting Democratic turmoil. Illinois faces the largest budget deficit in its history, and Quinn became governor only because his predecessor, Rod Blagojevich, was impeached after being arrested on federal corruption charges, including the allegation that he tried to sell an appointment to Obama's seat. Now Quinn is trying to win a full term in office on his own merits.

Hynes' effort to deny the nomination to an incumbent governor was a longshot. Polls initially showed him trailing badly. He managed to pull even through relentless criticism of Quinn's policies and management, including The Associated Press's disclosure that the Quinn administration was quietly granting early release to some violent prisoners. The race became a dead heat, and Quinn responded by accusing Hynes of intentionally ignoring the desecration of human remains at a historic cemetery. Quinn and his allies said Hynes was callous and lacked human decency, even suggesting his actions were racist. Hynes sighed and took a long moment to compose himself before beginning his concession statement. He had to stop in the middle while talking about his wife and children. The 42-year-old gave up the chance to seek a fourth term as state comptroller when he decided to run for governor. He said he does not see another political campaign in his future. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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US looks at Prius brake problems (BBC News | Americas | World Edition)

because my wife and I thought we were the only ones. We bought one of the first Prius Submitted at 2/4/2010 8:26:49 AM cars [of the third generation Message from fivefilters.org: If model] in Northern Ireland in you can, please donate to the full July and within about two weeks -text RSS service so we can we noticed its brakes weren't continue developing it. performing consistently. T h e U S T r a n s p o r t a t i o n Basically if you are slowing Department has opened an down with the brake pedal investigation into brake problems pressed coming up to a junction in the 2010 Toyota Prius. or traffic lights, if you hit a pot The move follows an admission hole with one of the wheels the from Toyota that it had had a brakes completely release for a problem with the brake system in couple of seconds. It is enough the hybrid, which it said was to send you freely rolling fixed in January. forward about four to six feet The National Highway Traffic before they re-apply. Safety Administration has The whole thing is very received 124 reports from drivers unnerving but now others are about the issue, including four of reporting problems it is good to crashes. know we're not alone." There have been no reports of Toyota UK told the BBC it was any such accidents in the UK. aware some users had reported The investigation will look into problems but investigations had allegations of momentary loss of revealed no faults. Concerns b r a k i n g c a p a b i l i t y w h i l e have been put down to drivers travelling over uneven road not being used to the particular surfaces, potholes or bumps. way the brakes feel in the Prius. This latest alarm for the The Japanese government has beleaguered carmaker - the a l s o o r d e r e d T o y o t a t o world's number one - follows investigate brake problems but worldwide recalls of almost eight t h e c o m p a n y s a y s i t w a s million cars due to separate floor "alleviated" at the end of last mat and pedal problems. month by making changes to the No Prius recall software in the braking system. "I was frankly relieved when I Toyota's managing officer, heard that problems with the H i r o y u k i Y o k o y a m a , s a i d Prius brakes were being reported although the company had found

a clash between the anti-lock brake system (ABS) and regenerative braking, more investigation needed to be done before deciding on whether to issue a recall on the Prius. Earlier, he told a press conference in Japan: "As for whether this will mean a recall, we are currently looking into what we can do as soon as possible for our customers to buy our vehicles. However, we hope for a bit more time before deciding on specific measures." As depressing the brakes further activated normal braking, Toyota said the glitch was not legally a safety hazard and said it had received no reports of any accidents related to it. Mr Yokoyama said Toyota was listening and responding to its customers' concerns: "When we've been told something by our customers, our goal is to respond as soon as possible, and we have already changed the design for the Prius from January." Toyota's admission follows 200 reports of complaints from drivers in the US and Japan. There have been no braking problems reported in Europe, the carmaker said. In the UK, it confirmed that it would be nearly a week before it could start repairs on cars with

defective accelerator pedals. Profits surge Earlier, Toyota reported a huge swing back into profit in the last quarter of 2009. Its net income was 153 billion yen ($1.68bn; ÂŁ1.06bn) after a loss of 164 billion yen a year earlier. Toyota confirmed its estimate that it would lose about $2bn (ÂŁ1.23bn) in costs and lost sales from its worldwide recall of potentially faulty vehicles. It added it had not yet worked out the cost of the latest reports of brake problems with the new Prius. Still growing However, the firm said it still expected higher sales and to make a profit this year, despite the heavy blow to the company's reputation. Shares in Toyota hit their lowest level for 10 months on the Tokyo Stock Exchange on Thursday, with continuing concern about the safety of the company's vehicles. Its eight million recall total includes 1.8 million cars across Europe - 180,865 of those in the UK. The seven models being recalled in Europe are the Aygo, iQ, Yaris, Auris, Corolla, Verso, and Avensis, and cover manufacturing dates going back

to February 2005. In the US, they are the RAV4, Corollas, Matrix, Avalons, Camrys, Highlander, Tundra, and Sequoia, and cover dates going back to October 2005. The parts needed to repair the cars will not arrive in the UK until next week, with the first repairs scheduled for Wednesday. Toyota says the process, which should only be carried out by its dealers, takes about half an hour. The carmaker said it was not aware of any accidents resulting from the issue and that only 26 incidents involving accelerator pedals had been reported in Europe. Have you experienced similar problems with the accelerator of your Toyota? You can get in touch with us using the form below: The BBC may edit your comments and not all emails will be published. Your comments may be published on any BBC media worldwide. Print Sponsor Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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Families of Cleveland Murder Victims Outraged Over Suspect's (FOXNews.com) Submitted at 2/4/2010 8:33:30 AM

Message from fivefilters.org: If you can, please donate to the full -text RSS service so we can continue developing it. A controversial Web site that markets the paraphernalia of some of America's most horrific criminals is selling letters written by the accused killer of 11 women in Ohio that seek companionship and money — and the victims' families want it to stop. The site, Serialkillersink.net, has posted letters, envelopes and a Christmas card sent by accused serial killer Anthony Sowell, who's awaiting trial in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, on charges of murder, rape, assault and corpse abuse relating to the discovery of the remains of 11 women buried in and around his home, Fox8.com in Cleveland reported. The letters and card, priced at $200, and the envelopes, priced at $100, were sent by Sowell to employees at the Web site. Dorothy Pollard, the aunt of murder victim Diane Turner, told Fox8.com: "I think it was a damn shame that he was even permitted to do it and whoever was supplying him with paper, they have no damn conscience

and they can't care about nobody because he shouldn't be supplied with anything down there." One of the letters, selling for $200, reads in part: "I can only get money orders at this time and yes, I can receive pictures. P.S. the 25 dollars is fine. Thank you." Perhaps just as troubling is a look at Sowell's page on the site, which shows four out of the five of his items "out of stock." Pollard is adamant about making sure Sowell doesn't receive compensation for his letter. "No way should he be allowed to receive anything and profit off of anything for all the pain that he has caused," Pollard told Fox8.com. In one letter, Sowell tells a California woman that he is available to correspond with her. "So if you need someone to talk to I am here for you," Sowell wrote. "So tell me what do you want to know about me? I know what I want to know about you, what type of woman are you? Do you have a man in your life?" Sowell has pleaded not guilty to charges of murder, rape, assault and corpse abuse and is being held in the Cuyahoga County jail. Sowell writes that he is being treated well in the jail. He

mentions his ex-wife who died in 1998. He writes that he can receive money orders, but that cash should not be sent. "I am in need of just about anything. So anything you can do to help me out is a blessing," he writes. A couple weeks ago, the site had one Sowell letter for sale, and a Christmas card posted for viewing. The card, with the preprinted message "May every road you travel this season remind you that God's gift of Jesus is with you wherever you go," is signed "Tony Sowell." The families of the victims are now urging authorities at the Cuyahoga County Jail to prevent Anthony Sowell or the Web site from profiting any further from their misery, Fox8.com. The Ohio attorney general's office says inmates are not allowed to make money from crimes by selling their stories to book publishers or filmmakers. Eric Gein, who owns the Los Angeles-based Internet company, says inmates do not get paid for the letters. He says his biggest customers are criminology professors who use the letters and artwork to teach. The site also sells personal items from inmates.

Eight states have banned inmates from sending items to companies for sale, said Andy Kahan, director of Crime Victims Assistance for the mayor's office in Houston. Kahan, who has led a national movement to end the practice of selling inmates' items, says Ohio is not among those states. "This is the beginning of the merchandising and marketing of Anthony Sowell," he said. Gein said he has been corresponding with inmates for 15 years and started his business four years ago. Cuyahoga County Jail warden Kevin McDonough said Sowell has received more mail than most inmates and has received small amounts of money and several small deposits to his jail commissary account. "A lot want to see his soul," McDonough said. "Many people want to be his friend or pen pal." Click here to watch video at Fox8.com. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

New York Public Library’s Flickr photostream (Holy Kaw!) Submitted at 2/3/2010 8:50:57 PM

Looking for a little adventure without abandoning the comfort of your ergonomic desk chair? Put on your explorer cap and hop in the time machine known as the New York Public Library photo archive on Flickr. Comprising of more than 2,500 items, the collection includes touching snapshots of Ellis Island immigrants and a beautiful set of New York under construction pics snapped by photographer Berenice Abbott. Continue your visual journey through history with the library’s full catalog of 700,000+ images. (Via SwissMiss) Say cheese! Tons of photography resources. Permalink| Leave a comment »

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70-year-old jailed after crashing into Nev. casino (AP) (Yahoo! News: U.S. News)

"A lot of things can't be ruled out," Las Vegas police Officer Jacinto Rivera said. "They're Message from fivefilters.org: If g o i n g t o l o o k a t w h e t h e r you can, please donate to the full mechanical was a factor. He's -text RSS service so we can claiming he fainted." continue developing it. The 2007 model involved in the LAS VEGAS – A 70-year-old crash was not part of two Toyota Washington state man was in jail recalls that recently affected Thursday after his speeding millions of cars in the United vehicle crashed into a Nevada States because of a risk of casino, killing two people and unintended acceleration. injuring at least seven others. McGie is being held in the resort Walter McGie of Kelso, Wash., town of Laughlin, about 100 told police he fainted before his miles south of Las Vegas. 2007 Pontiac Vibe crashed into A rescuer who arrived about 10 the Edgewater Hotel & Casino minutes after the wreck said the on Wednesday morning. He 2,700-pound car crashed through suffered minor injuries, and glass doors and came to rest police said he would be charged perhaps 35 feet inside the with felony reckless driving. building — between the hotel B u t i n v e s t i g a t o r s d i d n ' t registration desk and a casino immediately dismiss the chance cashier cage. that a mechanical malfunction " S l o t m a c h i n e s w e r e j u s t sent the car — a joint venture everywhere, just wiped out, between Toyota and General tumbled and tossed," said Bill Motors Co. — hurtling at 60 Kinsey, fire division chief in mph through a red light, across Bullhead City, Ariz., across the Casino Drive and down a 150- river from Laughlin. foot horseshoe-shaped driveway One of the people killed was into the front doors of the 26- wedged beneath the vehicle and story hotel about 9:30 a.m. slot machines, Kinsey said. Submitted at 2/4/2010 7:27:30 AM

Another was near the rear of the vehicle. Kinsey said he believed casino security cameras captured the entire episode. Rivera said police would impound casino security videotapes as evidence. "It's going to be instrumental in determining what happened out here," the police spokesman said. Kinsey said vehicle air bags deployed, and the driver received only minor injuries. Police identified the driver as Walter McGie of Kelso, Wash. None of the victims were identified. Authorities said McGie was jailed on two counts of felony reckless driving causing death. There was no evidence the driver applied the brakes before the crash, Rivera said. Officer Barbara Morgan said police at the scene reported that alcohol or drugs did not appear to be factors in the crash. Investigators will have to check whether the 2007 Vibe accelerated out of control. Last month, 2009 and 2010 Vibe models were recalled because of

a risk of a floor mat trapping the gas pedal, causing unintended acceleration. General Motors spokesman Tom Wilkinson said Wednesday the Vibe underwent significant design differences between the 2008 and 2009 model years. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration did not have any defects or recalls for the 2007 Vibe listed in its database. One injured person was admitted to Western Arizona Regional Medical Center in Bullhead City, where three were treated and released. Two were flown to University Medical Center in Las Vegas. Police and firefighters said at least two other people were treated at the scene for minor injuries. __ Associated Press Writer Oskar Garcia in Las Vegas contributed to this report. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Top 6 weirdest things women do to vaginas—all in the USA (Holy Kaw!) Submitted at 2/3/2010 10:26:00 PM

In faraway countries with loose human rights laws, female circumcision is a scary reality. But that’s not what we’re talking about here. Nor are we discussing strange sexual techniques. We’re talking about what some women in good old America do to their own southern sanctuary. And for good reason, too… sort of. So zip up, buckle in, maybe even cover your eyes, this isn’t going to be pretty: 1. Problem: Your Vagina Smells Bad. Solution: Vaginal Deodorant In the seventies, feminism and TOP page 74

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Attorney: Michael Jackson's doctor is talking surrender (AP) (Yahoo! News: U.S. News) Submitted at 2/4/2010 8:57:32 AM

Message from fivefilters.org: If you can, please donate to the full -text RSS service so we can continue developing it. LOS ANGELES – Michael Jackson's doctor, who is expected to be charged with involuntary manslaughter in the pop singer's death, is negotiating his surrender to authorities, his attorney said Thursday. A statement from attorney Ed Chernoff said he was negotiating with the district attorney's office for Dr. Conrad Murray's surrender but there has been no agreement on the specifics. "When the agreement is complete we will report further," Chernoff said. Miranda Sevcik, a spokeswoman for Murray and Chernoff, declined further comment. Murray is set to be arraigned Friday at a Los Angeles courthouse, a person familiar with the planning told The Associated Press. The person

declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the situation. The possible charge was not disclosed. However, two law enforcement officials have told the AP that prosecutors plan to charge Murray with involuntary manslaughter, alleging he gave Jackson a powerful anesthetic that led to his June 25 overdose death at a rented mansion on the west side of Los Angeles. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the case. Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney, would not confirm nor deny that Murray would appear Friday afternoon at the courthouse. Murray, who has a practice in Houston, came to Los Angeles last weekend and has been strategizing with his team of defense attorneys. Police have been investigating Murray since Jackson's death at age 50. The doctor told detectives he'd given the singer a powerful anesthetic and other

sedatives to get the chronic insomniac star to sleep. Jackson died soon thereafter, and investigators have been gathering evidence to try to show Murray was negligent in administering the drugs. Murray maintains that nothing he gave Jackson should have killed him. On Wednesday, a judge in Las Vegas found Murray in default on a nearly $132,000 debt related to office medical equipment and services. Murray had no lawyer in the case. He has long-standing personal and professional debts, and faced near foreclosure last summer on his Las Vegas country club home. ___ Associated Press Special Correspondent Linda Deutsch in Los Angeles and Associated Press Writer Ken Ritter in Las Vegas contributed to this report. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

TOP continued from page 73

vaginal deodorant were married in the product “The Freedom Spray”, the “better way to be free to enjoy being a woman”. It was chock-full of hexachlorophene, a disinfectant that can be lethal when absorbed through the skin, responsible for thirty-six deaths in France in 1972. You’d think that would stop vaginal deodorant from being popular, but your local Walgreens is wellsupplied with all the latest scented vaginal suppositories called Norforms in Island Escape and Summer’s Eve Deodorant Spray in Island Splash. Did I mention that Norforms has Benzethonium chloride in it, another disinfectant which is classified as a poison in Switzerland? Delicious! 2. Problem: Your Vagina is Too Loose. Solution: Vaginal Rejuvenation Plastic surgeons are more than happy to put an end to womankind’s collective suffering from the lack of vicetight vaginas. Laser Vagina Rejuvenation is a trademarked phrase referring to Dr. David Matlock’s $4,000-$20,000 procedure that claims to increase sexual pleasure by tightening a woman’s vagina. In 2007, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists warned that women seeking “designer vaginas” should be “informed about the lack of data supporting the efficacy of these procedures and their potential complications, including

infection, altered sensation, dyspareunia, adhesions, and scarring. Sexy! 3. Problem: Your Vagina is the Wrong Color. Solution: Vaginal Bleaching and Dying Many women are under the impression that it’s OK to have a vagina-colored vagina. They’re wrong, of course. They should be pink, and exceptionally so. There are multiple bleaching products on the market from Bleach Babe (from the makers of the anal-bleaching “Pink Wink”), with the same ingredient that keeps salmon meat pink to South Beach Solutions’ lightening product using drain declogger ingredients. If bleaching isn’t your cup of tea, you can always try My New Pink Button, which basically is the equivalent of a 48 -to-72-hour version of pink model airplane paint. After which, one supposes, users must reapply in order to maintain the youthful status of their genitals. In all seriousness, if something seems funky, just see a doctor. You’ll thank me in the long run. Click through for the entire article. (Via AlterNet) Save your money for a new TV, and have fun in the bedroom without a creepy Barbie vagina. Photo credit: Fotolia Permalink| Leave a comment »

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Baby Doc awarded Swiss funds (BBC News | Americas | World Edition)

common feature of Swiss courts, the Associated Press (AP) reported. Submitted at 2/4/2010 2:39:26 AM The Federal Supreme Court Message from fivefilters.org: If reversed the lower court's ruling you can, please donate to the full that the money should go to aid -text RSS service so we can groups in Haiti because the continue developing it. statute of limitations on any At least $4.6m (ÂŁ2.9m) in Swiss c r i m e s c o m m i t t e d b y t h e bank accounts must be returned Duvalier clan expired in 2001. to the family of Haiti's former The court decision cannot be dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier, a appealed. Swiss court has ruled. But the Swiss Foreign Ministry A lower court had previously said it would continue to block awarded charities the money - the release of the money while it but that decision was overturned formulated a better law dealing on 12 January and the ruling with assets of "criminal origin". released on 3 February. The government was keen "to However, the Swiss government avoid the Swiss financial centre has blocked the release of the serving as a haven for illegally money until a law is passed to acquired assets," it said in a return it to Haiti. statement. The exile, known as Baby Doc, "We assume that this money allegedly looted millions. He doesn't belong to the Duvalier denies wrong-doing. family," said Swiss Justice The court decision was made M i n i s t e r E v e l i n e W i d m e r hours before the Haiti earthquake Schlumpf, according to AP. killed at least 150,000 people "We've blocked the money and left 1.5 million homeless. again... to prevent that it goes The three-week delay before the somewhere that it shouldn't for ruling had been released was a political reasons.

"We really hope that this money finally goes back to the country." The Duvaliers ruled Haiti from 1957, when Papa Doc came to power, helped by his brutal private militia, the Tontons Macoutes. Fled unrest On his father's death in 1971, 19 -year-old Baby Doc was named president for life. Haiti first asked for the money to be returned in 1986 shortly after Baby Doc fled unrest and settled in France. But Switzerland refused to return it because the Haitian government was not pursuing Mr Duvalier under its own justice system. And as an alternative, the Swiss government had proposed giving the money to aid groups working in Haiti. Print Sponsor Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Romania 'to host missile shield' (BBC News | Americas | World Edition) Submitted at 2/4/2010 6:59:20 AM

Message from fivefilters.org: If you can, please donate to the full -text RSS service so we can continue developing it. Romania has agreed to host missile interceptors as part of a new US defence shield, its president says. President Traian Basescu said the plan was approved by the supreme defence council. It still needs parliamentary approval. US President Barack Obama last year scrapped a previous version of the shield, based in Poland and the Czech Republic, which had infuriated Russia. He said the US would now concentrate on a smaller-scale version. Mr Basescu said the system would "protect the whole of Romania's territory", but stressed that it "is not directed against Russia". Smaller system The US has insisted that its defence shield was designed to protect its allies against attack from "rogue states" like Iran, and was not aimed at Russia. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, however, said the system would upset the

strategic balance. They threatened to train nuclear warheads on Poland and the Czech Republic in response. Mr Obama's decision to abandon the original plan in September was greeted with enthusiasm in Russia, and came amid attempts to "reset" the relationship between Washington and Moscow. The anti-ballistic missile shield favoured by former President George W Bush would be replaced by a reconfigured system designed to shoot down short- and medium-range missiles, Mr Obama announced. He said intelligence suggested Iran was concentrating on shorter -range, not intercontinental, missiles. The new system is built around ship-based SM-3 anti-missile missiles and on similar missiles to be stationed on land. In October, US Vice-President Joseph Biden visited Poland, Romania and the Czech Republic seeking support for the new system. Poland has already signed up. Print Sponsor Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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Report: Boy Booted From Honor Group Over Facebook Page (FOXNews.com)

from a school that was lowly ranked because of poor standardized tests scores. Message from fivefilters.org: If "It wasn't anything malicious," you can, please donate to the full he said. "It was just a joke taken -text RSS service so we can the wrong way." continue developing it. When he returned from winter A Tampa-area high school break last month, a panel of student says he was kicked out of teachers voted unanimously to the National Honor Society dismiss him from the National because he started a Facebook Honor Society on the grounds he page critical of his school, had not upheld a pledge to show MyFoxTampaBay.com reported. loyalty to his school, Fuentes The decision to kick Alex said. Fuentes out of the National The school's principal, Carin Honor Society at Wesley Chapel Nettles, said she couldn't talk High School led him to transfer specifically about Fuentes' case. to another school last month, the But she said the National Honor student told The Tampa Tribune Society has to follow procedures f o r a s t o r y p u b l i s h e d set out in its constitution when a Wednesday. member is accused of violating Fuentes, an 18-year-old senior, the pledge that inductees take. started the page three months "They don't just kick someone ago. Titled "Wesley Chapel High out," she said. = Fail," it became a popular "There's nothing referencing venue for students to criticize the F a c e b o o k i n t h e n a t i o n a l school north of Tampa. constitution," said David Cordts, Fuentes said he was frustrated associate director of the National that he was going to graduate Honor Societies. Cordts, who Submitted at 2/4/2010 7:43:53 AM

was reaching out to officials at Wesley Chapel High, told FoxNews.com that he was awaiting word from the school about their dismissal of Fuentes. "Students who fall below the standards by which they were selected can be considered for disciplinary actions," he said. "We do not stipulate any set guidelines as to what constitutes a dismissible offense â&#x20AC;&#x201D; that is always determined by the staff at the local level." Fuentes said he decided to transfer to a neighboring high school after discovering that three of his teachers were on the panel that voted to expel him from the honor society. Click here for more from MyFoxTampaBay.com. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Heinz Ketchup Packets Get First Major Makeover in 40 Yrs (FOXNews.com)

cases of its ketchup packets in the U.S. every year and it will continue to sell the traditional Message from fivefilters.org: If packet. The new packet is in test you can, please donate to the full markets in the Midwest and -text RSS service so we can Southeast and will roll out at continue developing it. select fast-food restaurants in the P O R T L A N D , O r e . T h e fall. ketchup packet has been around Heinz is still working out prices for more than 40 years, and with customers but said packets complaints about it for nearly as will cost a little more than long: too messy, too small, too regular packets. hard to open. Now ketchup giant Will they catch on? It's hard H.J. Heinz Co. is unveiling the telling, but the news may cheer first major packaging change to some ketchup fans like Matt the to-go condiment. Kurtz, a 22-year-old student who The new design has a base that's f i n d s t h e p r o b l e m s a r e a s more like a cup for dipping and u b i q u i t o u s a s t h e p a c k e t s also a tear-off end for squeezing, t h e m s e l v e s . plus it holds three times as much The self-proclaimed ketchup ketchup than a traditional packet. aficionado became so annoyed "The packet has long been the two years ago after spilling bane of our consumers," said ketchup on his jeans while on a Dave Ciesinski, vice president of road trip, he started one of Heinz Ketchup. "The biggest hundreds of anti-ketchup packet complaint is there is no way to groups on Facebook. He dubbed dip and eat it on-the-go." it "Prop 57" as a gentle poke at Heinz has long struggled to find Heinz, saying it is to "draw a design that lets diners dip or awareness" to the packets' squeeze ketchup that could also shortcomings. be sold at a price acceptable to "I said 'There has to be a better its restaurant customers. For this way'," he said. effort, it bought its design team a Five Filters featured article: used minivan two years ago to Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: test if their ideas really worked PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, while eating on the road. Term Extraction. Heinz sells more than 11 million Submitted at 2/4/2010 8:25:25 AM

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Planned Parenthood, Athletes Respond to Tebow Super Bowl Ad

First US national Tea Party held

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"She taught me that only women can make the best decisions about their health and their Message from fivefilters.org: If future." you can, please donate to the full In a statement accompanying the -text RSS service so we can video, Planned Parenthood continue developing it. President Cecile Richards said T w o f o r m e r p r o f e s s i o n a l Tebow's story was "compelling," athletes are calling for the but added that every woman "respect of women's choices" in must be able to make important response to the upcoming Super medical decisions for herself and Bowl advertisement featuring the her family. pro-life birth story of college "The Tebow story underlines football standout Tim Tebow. what Planned Parenthood has The YouTube video, released by learned from the millions of Planned Parenthood, features women doctors and nurses at its Olympic gold medalist Al Joyner health centers have cared for and former NFL player Sean over nearly a century," Richards' James. While James says he statement read. "Women take "respects and honors Mrs. decisions about their health very T e b o w ' s d e c i s i o n , " e v e r y seriously. They consider their woman's decision must be doctors’ advice, they talk with " v a l u e d … t r u s t e d a n d their loved ones and people they respected." trust, including religious leaders, "My mom showed me that and they carefully weigh all women are strong and wise," considerations before making the James says in the advertisement. best decision for themselves and Submitted at 2/4/2010 6:27:07 AM

their families." Joyner, meanwhile, said he trusts his daughter to "take care of herself" during the Planned Parenthood video. "My daughter will always be my little girl," Joyner says. "But I am proud everyday as I watch her grow up to be her own person, a smart, confident young woman. I trust her to take care of herself. We celebrate families by supporting our mothers, by supporting our daughters. By trusting women." Richards said Focus on the Family, the organization that paid for Tebow's 30-second advertisement to run on Sunday, is "far outside the mainstream" of American life. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Brown helped his election last month as Massachusetts senator, says the BBC's Madeleine Submitted at 2/4/2010 8:24:51 AM Morris from Washington. Message from fivefilters.org: If But there has been controversy you can, please donate to the full over the conference's use of paid -text RSS service so we can lobbyists and PR companies and continue developing it. former Alaskan governor Mrs The first US national convention Palin's reported $100,000 fee. of the Tea Party movement has In an opinion piece published on b e g u n , w i t h f o r m e r v i c e - USA Today website, she said: "I presidential candidate Sarah will not benefit financially from Palin due to appear as a speaker. speaking at this event. My only The movement brings together goal is to support the grassroots people who oppose President activists who are fighting for Barack Obama's healthcare plan, responsible, limited government stimulus package and other - and our constitution. issues. "In that spirit, any compensation Some activists have complained for my appearance will go right a b o u t t h e $ 5 0 0 ( £ 3 1 7 ) back to the cause." registration fee for the Nashville She said she was speaking at the conference. conference "to keep faith" with Barely a year old, the movement people who had put their faith in gained influence during the her. healthcare debate. "This movement is truly a Members, gathered from state- grassroots, organic effort. It's not level Tea Parties, complain that a top-down organisation; it's a big spending to stimulate the ground-up call to action that economy is being wasted in already has both political parties Washington and on Wall Street rethinking the way they do while small-town America has to business." tighten its belt. Print Sponsor And the coalition of disaffected Five Filters featured article: conservatives is undoubtedly Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: growing in influence - its PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, endorsement of Republican Scott Term Extraction.