Liberty Newspost Feb-18-10

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17/02/10 - 18/02/10

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Yvo de Boer quits UN climate change body (Latest news, breaking news, current news, UK news, world news, celebrity news, politics news)

Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen that ended in a weak accord.

His departure will also be a blow to the UN at a time when Submitted at 2/18/2010 6:30:50 AM the science behind climate Message from fivefilters.org: If change is increasingly under fire you can, please donate to the full after a series of scandals.

-text RSS service so we can But his resignation also led to continue developing it. hope that new blood may be able

By Louise Gray, Environment to reinvigorate the process in Correspondent time for the next international Published: 2:05PM GMT 18 meeting in Mexico next year, Feb 2010 where it is hoped world As Secretary General of the UN governments will draw up a Framework Convention on legally binding treaty on Climate Change (UNFCCC), climate change.

Mr de Boer was in charge of Mr de Boer acknowledged that negotiating a new international the failure of rich and poor deal to stop global temperature nations to agree at the recent rise. negotiations was frustrating. But However after four years in the he insisted that the Accord had post he has decided to step down at least begun the process of to go and work for global reducing greenhouse gases. accounting firm KPMG. "We were about an inch away The former Dutch civil servant from a formal agreement. It was insisted he had been planning to basically in our grasp, but it stand down for some time but didn't happen ... so that was a already there are questions over pity," he said. the nature of his departure and The science body set up to his possible replacement. advise the UN on climate Many blamed Mr de Boer for change, the Intergovernmental the failure of the recent UN P a n e l o n C l i m a t e C h a n g e

(IPCC), is already under fire after mistakenly claiming in a 2007 report that the Himalayas will melt by 2035.

Other scientific research included in the same IPCC report has also been questioned because it comes from the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit (CRU).

Sceptics claim that emails stolen from the CRU show that climate change scientists were willing to manipulate the data in a scandal known as 'Climategate'.

Mark Lynas, a climate change consultant who advised the President of the Maldives during the UN negotiations, said many in developing countries are still angry at the failure of Copenhagen. He said the resignation of Mr de Boer showed how much strain the international negotiations are under.

"It is quite bad news he is quitting at this point because the world is in desperate need for a reliable pair of hands to get through this dark period where climate change negotiations are

under assault from anti-science deniers, by the Climategate furore and by the US Senate. I think he is very likely to be going because he has had enough. Because the whole process is unravelling at this point."

However Ed Miliband, the Energy and Climate Change, insisted the negotiations were still on track. “Yvo de Boer's patient work helped produce the Copenhagen Accord which contains commitments covering 80 per cent of global emissions, something never previously achieved," he said. “We must quickly find a suitable successor, who can oversee the negotiations and reform the UNFCCC to ensure it is up to the massive task of dealing with what are some of the most complex negotiations ever."

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Vancouver's worst dressed: strange outfits at the Winter Olympics (Latest news, breaking news, current news, UK news, world news, celebrity news, politics news) Submitted at 2/18/2010 6:51:08 AM

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For reasons best known to him, France's Mathieu Crepel decided to compete in the Snowboard Halfpipe event with a silly moustache painted on his face Picture: AFP/GETTY Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

ADVERTISEMENT: (BloggingStocks) Submitted at 2/18/2010 10:30:00 AM

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UN top climate change official Yvo de Boer quits (Top stories from Times Online)

be a difficult task.

Mr de Boer, 55, broke down in tears and had to leave the Submitted at 2/18/2010 5:42:50 AM debating chamber at the Bali Message from fivefilters.org: If climate summit two years ago you can, please donate to the full amid bitter infighting between -text RSS service so we can country delegates about UN continue developing it. procedures. He returned to the The United Nations’ top climate platform to an ovation from the change official has announced thousands of delegates. his resignation, weeks after Only two weeks ago, Mr de admitting that the Copenhagen Boer was forced to admit that climate summit had failed to even the weak and not legally reach a robust deal on cutting binding accord reached in greenhouse gases.

Copenhagen was beginning to The departure of Yvo de Boer, unravel. Several countries failed executive secretary of the UN to meet the January 31 deadline Framework Convention on agreed at Copenhagen for Climate Change and a passionate announcing emissions reduction supporter of carbon reduction targets. policies, is a setback for the Mr de Boer’s resignation takes global environmental movement. effect on July 1, five months Mr de Boer, a Dutchman, is before the 194 nations are due to trusted as an honest broker by reconvene in Mexico for another the 194 countries who are attempt to reach a worldwide members of the Convention. He a g r e e m e n t o n c o n t r o l l i n g exerted pressure behind the g r e e n h o u s e g a s e s . scenes on world leaders to raise Mr de Boer — who will be their commitments on climate joining the consultancy group change and was widely credited KPMG as global adviser on with bringing the issue to the top climate and sustainability as well of the global political agenda a s w o r k i n g w i t h s e v e r a l before December’s Copenhagen universities — denied that his summit. Finding a figure who resignation was related to the commands similar respect will failure of Copenhagen. He said

that he had begun looking for another job before the summit.

However, he had struggled for months to conceal his frustration at the lack of progress in the climate negotiations. Several countries, including Britain, have said that the Framework Convention’s process, which requires all countries to agree, is too slow and cumbersome and needs to be replaced by a morestreamlined operation, possibly led by a smaller group of large countries.

Jake Schmidt, a climate adviser for the US-based Natural Resources Defence Council, said: “I saw [Mr de Boer] at the airport after Copenhagen. He was tired, worn out. [The summit] clearly took a toll on him.”

Mr de Boer admitted today that the Copenhagen deal had fallen short of consensus and merely been “noted” rather than formally adopted by all countries.

He said: “Copenhagen wasn’t what I had hoped it would be.

We were about an inch away from a formal agreement. It was basically in our grasp, but it did’nt happen. So that was a

pity.”

In advance of the summit, Mr de Boer had said that anything less than agreement on emissions caps for individual developed nations would count as failure.

In his resignation statement, he said he would continue to work for a deal but though the business community.

“Copenhagen did not provide us with a clear agreement in legal terms, but the political commitment and sense of direction toward a low-emissions world are overwhelming. This calls for new partnerships with the business sector and I now have the chance to help make this happen,” he said.

“It was a difficult decision to make, but I believe the time is ripe for me to take on a new challenge, working on climate and sustainability with the private sector and academia.”

Mr de Boer was appointed to the UN body in September 2006.

Before then he was extensively involved in European Union environmental policy as deputy Director General of the Dutch Environment Ministry.

The UN said that Ban Ki Moon, its Secretary-General, would

#3 Apple - Most Innovative Companies 2010 (Fast Company) Submitted at 2/18/2010 7:15:51 AM

It's hard to fathom that Apple opened its App Store less than

two years, and it already offers more than 140,000 apps, consumers have downloaded around 3 billion apps, and it generates an estimated $1 billion

a year. All that should only grow interest in streaming TV shows w i t h t h e m u c h - a n t i c i p a t e d suggest the seeds of new revenue release of the iPad. Meanwhile, in a revamped iTunes.

Apple's acquisition of musicstreaming company Lala and its

make the final decision on who would replace Mr de Boer.

Developing countries, which account for four fifths of the world’s population, will press for one of their citizens to be the new executive secretary. Seb Walhain, head of environmental markets at Fortis Netherlands, said: “I would like to see someone from a developing country who can negotiate with those countries.”

Ed Miliband, Energy and Climate Change Secretary, said: “Yvo de Boer’s patient work helped to produce the Copenhagen Accord which contains commitments covering 80 percent of global emissions, something never previously achieved.

“We must quickly find a suitable successor, who can oversee the negotiations and reform the UNFCCC to ensure it is up to the massive task of dealing with what are some of the most complex negotiations ever.”

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Suspected armed robber Peter Blake Man arrested for goes on run from jury-free trial stealing 1,200 pairs of shoes in Seoul (Top stories from Times Online)

Submitted at 2/18/2010 6:17:20 AM

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A man facing the first major criminal trial to take place without a jury in England in 400 years was being hunted by police today after he went on the run from court.

Peter Blake, who police warn is dangerous and has previously had access to firearms, was reported missing just after the lunch break at the Royal Courts of Justice in London yesterday.

The Court of Appeal ruled last year that the case should be heard by a judge alone because of the danger of jury tampering.

It is the fourth trial over the £1.75 million heist at Heathrow after three previous attempts collapsed at a cost of £22 million. It opened a month ago.

It is believed that Mr Blake, 57, who was seen waiting for the trial to restart, simply left the building. He was on bail and so was not subject to any formal security.

He is described as a white man,

5ft 7in (1.7m) in height with blue eyes and grey, receding hair. He was last seen wearing dark trousers and a black, anorakstyle raincoat.

Flying Squad officers have alerted all ports and are making inquiries at smaller airports across the country.

Detective Superintendent Stuart Cundy, of the Metropolitan Police’s Flying Squad, said: “Peter Blake is considered dangerous and we would ask members of the public not to approach Peter Blake but, if they do see him, to call 999 immediately.”

Along with John Twomey, Barry Hibberd and Glen Cameron, Mr Blake is accused of taking part in the hold-up at a Heathrow warehouse in February 2004.

The four were being tried by Mr Justice Treacy after being charged with several counts connected with taking part in a “professionally executed” robbery.

The court heard that an armed gang of six, wearing highvisibility jackets, escaped with £1.75 million in various currencies.

Guns were used to threaten 16

members of staff, who were then tied up. One of them was shot at as he tried to escape.

Mr Twomey, 61, of New Milton, Hampshire, Mr Hibberd, 43, of Shepherds Bush, west London, Mr Cameron, 50, of New Milton, and Mr Blake, of Notting Hill, west London, all deny a series of charges, including robbery and firearm possession.

The trial is the first to take advantage of provisions contained within the 2003 Criminal Justice Act that allow for trial by a judge sitting alone.

Last year the Court of Appeal decided that the 400-year unbroken history of jury trials had to end because of fears over jury nobbling.

The Act requires evidence of a “real and present danger” that such tampering will take place before the jury can be removed.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Finchley Flying Squad on 020 7230 8666; or, if you wish to remain anonymous, call Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

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NASA Brings the Dark Side of the Sun to Your iPhone

by Betsy Mason (Wired Top Stories)

NASA's newest free app lets in real time on your iPhone. you keep track of sunspots, coronal loops and solar tsunamis

(Top stories from Times Online)

buffed and polished slip-ons for his second hand shoe business.

But the 59-year-old has now Submitted at 2/18/2010 5:11:36 AM been arrested for stealing Message from fivefilters.org: If hundreds of pairs of shoes, you can, please donate to the full police said.

-text RSS service so we can It is a Korean custom to remove continue developing it. outdoor footwear before entering They came from all around the a building, a ritual especially South Korean capital as victims practised in funeral homes. of an unusual crime. Each had Park would disguise himself as a lost an expensive and cherished mourner and make his way pair of shoes while attending a around the city's funeral homes funeral. swiping shoes as he went.

They were the mourners who He was only stopped when had slipped off their shoes out of police caught him stealing three respect, according to the pairs of shoes, with a total retail national tradition, but hadn't v a l u e o f t w o m i l l i o n w o n noticed the man scanning their ($1,750) when new, at one footwear. funeral parlour.

That man, known only as Park, When they raided his warehouse would then take off his own police discovered over a vast f o o t w e a r , p u t o n a m o r e quantity of shoes in neat rows expensive pair and walk off. organised according to size ready Now police in Seoul have for resale. meticulously laid out some 1,200 Five Filters featured article: pairs of shoes and appealed for Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: their owners to come and reclaim PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, them.

Term Extraction.

Park was amassing ranks of

Feb. 18, 1838: Physicist Machs His Entrance

by Jason Paur (Wired Top Stories) Submitted at 2/17/2010 9:00:00 PM

It's the birthday of Ernst Mach, who knew a thing or two about speed.

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Ray Gosling released on bail after mercy killing claim

Is Our Currency Headed for a Collapse?

(Latest news, breaking news, current news, UK news, world news, celebrity news, politics news)

by Mark Fightmaster (BloggingStocks)

Submitted at 2/18/2010 6:54:50 AM

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Published: 2:44PM GMT 18 Feb 2010 Gosling, 70, left Oxclose Lane police station in Nottingham via a back entrance after being questioned on suspicion of murder for a day and a half.

His lawyer Digby Johnson said: ''He has been released on police bail. There are further inquiries to be carried out by the police.

He provided the police with a lot of information and they have now got to sift through that.''

Bail had been provided for a couple of months, he added.

Earlier today, detectives were given a further 12 hours to question Gosling.

He was arrested yesterday after he told BBC East Midlands' Inside Out programme that he smothered a male lover who was suffering from Aids.

During the programme aired on Monday, Gosling said he

smothered his partner because he was "in terrible, terrible pain".

Since then, he has refused to name the man involved but has insisted his decision to speak out publicly was right.

During the shock confession in the 30-minute show about death, Gosling broke down, saying: "I killed someone once. He was a young chap, he'd been my lover and he got Aids.

"In a hospital one hot afternoon, the doctor said 'There's nothing we can do', and he was in terrible, terrible pain.

"I said to the doctor 'Leave me just for a bit' and he went away. I picked up the pillow and smothered him until he was dead.

"The doctor came back and I said 'He's gone'. Nothing more was ever said."

Gosling, a freelance presenter of hundreds of radio and TV documentaries, added: "We'd got an agreement, if it got worse, the pain, and nobody could do anything.

"He was in terrible pain, I was there and I saw it. It breaks you into pieces."

Gosling said he was not "making a cause" of assisted dying but that there was a case

for changing the law.

Aiding or abetting another person's death is illegal in England and Wales under the 1961 Suicide Act, and is punishable by up to 14 years in jail.

But Gosling has been arrested on suspicion of murder and, if convicted, he faces a mandatory life sentence.

The BBC said earlier that it broadcast Gosling's revelation for "reasons of journalistic integrity".

A spokesman said: "We believe we have handled the report sensitively and appropriately.

"We kept him fully informed about our representation of his story in the report and he understood that a revelation of this nature could have a number of consequences.

"The BBC is under no legal obligation to refer the matter to the police in these circumstances and since transmission we have been approached by the police and are co-operating fully."

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Submitted at 2/18/2010 10:00:00 AM

Filed under: Rumors, Politics, Financial Crisis A couple days ago, I took a look at different cities that were printing their own money; today, I found this article about a lawmaker who wants to ban federal currency.

Earlier this month, South Carolina Republican Mike Pitts introduced legislation that would ban "the unconstitutional substitution of Federal Reserve Notes for silver and gold coin" in his state.

To clarify Pitts's move, a Federal Reserve Note is defined as legal tender currency notes by the U.S. Treasury -- it's money folks. Pitts is looking to ban paper money in favor of a monetary system based solely on gold and silver. Interesting? Yes. Constitutional? Not according to the CBSNews Political blog,

which notes that the bill "would likely be ruled unconstitutional because it 'violates a perfectly legal and Constitutional federal law, enacted pursuant to the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution, that federal reserve notes are legal tender for all debts public and private.'"

Continue reading Is Our Currency Headed for a Collapse?

Is Our Currency Headed for a Collapse? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 18 Feb 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Miliband denies going soft on Israel Martha Stewart Living over 'Mossad' killing Omnimedia Serves Up a Tasty Quarter (Top stories from Times Online)

talk about what happens inside these meetings."

Mr Miliband, who was not Submitted at 2/18/2010 5:22:10 AM present, said afterwards that Message from fivefilters.org: If British officials had stressed you can, please donate to the full h o w s e r i o u s l y t h e U K -text RSS service so we can government was taking the continue developing it. possible abuse of UK travel The Foreign Secretary today d o c u m e n t s b y a f r i e n d l y described the cloning of six g o v e r n m e n t .

British passports in a suspected "What the Permanent Secretary Mossad assassination as an made clear is that we wanted "outrage" and denied that Britain Israel to co-operate fully with w a s " g o i n g t h r o u g h t h e the investigation (that has been motions" in its dealings with launched by Gordon Brown and Israel over the issue. is being undertaken by the R o n P r o s o r , t h e I s r a e l i Serious and Organised Crime ambassador, was asked to attend Agency), and to send back to his a 15 minute meeting today at the government the seriousness with Foreign Office with Sir Peter which we are addressing this R i c k e t t s , t h e P e r m a n e n t situation," said Mr Miliband.

Secretary who heads Britain's "There has obviously been a very diplomatic service. serious incident involving British As he left Whitehall, Mr Prosor, passports and British passport Israel's most senior envoy to holders who woke up yesterday Britain, stressed that he had morning extremely worried." been "invited" rather than Mr Miliband denied that the summoned to the meeting, mild step of inviting Mr Prosor signalling that it was not a in for talks was merely "going diplomatic dressing down. through the motions", and "I was unable to add any pointed out that Soca's inquiry additional information to Sir was still ongoing. Later, on the Peter Ricketts' request," he told Jeremy Vine radio show, he journalists afterwards. "As you d e s c r i b e d t h e m i s u s e o f know it is not the usual way to passports as an "outrage".

"The most important thing is to get to the bottom of the misuse of fraudulent British passports," he added. He revealed that the cloned passports had been of the old style, without the latest microchip technology that makes them harder to clone.

Lieutenant General Dahi Khalfan Tamim, the Dubai police chief, said today that he is 99 per cent sure that Israel was involved in the killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh at a Dubai luxury hotel, according to the Emirates-based National newspaper.

"Our investigations reveal that Mossad is involved in the murder of al-Mabhouh. It is 99 per cent, if not 100 per cent, that Mossad is standing behind the murder," said Tamim.

Dubai police now believe that the assassination team comprised 18 members, and that they used a location in Austria as a "command centre."

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by Steven Mallas (BloggingStocks) Submitted at 2/18/2010 9:00:00 AM

Filed under: Earnings Reports, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSO) I've never been a fan of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia ( MSO). I don't have a problem with Martha Stewart, but I think the business model's prospects are tied too closely to one personality. Investors have debated this point, but speaking for myself, if I were to initiate a position in the stock, it would not be with a significant time horizon in mind.

Which brings me to the fourthquarter report. Total revenues increased 20%, driven by recognition of royalties from Kmart. The company earned 37 cents per diluted share. In the comparable quarter, there was a loss of 15 cents per diluted share.

Google buys Remail, nears On2 deal

by Tom Krazit (Webware.com) Submitted at 2/17/2010 4:51:00 PM

Mobile e-mail company Remail iPhone application. And On2 is joining forces with Google, shareholders approve Google's which means the end of its i n c r e a s e d o f f e r f o r t h e i r

company.

Originally posted at Relevant Results

Continue reading Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Serves Up a Tasty Quarter Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Serves Up a Tasty Quarter originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 18 Feb 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

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Coup attempt launched in Niger (Latest news, breaking news, current news, UK news, world news, celebrity news, politics news)

Claire Deschamps, a French national living in Niamey, told the AFP news agency.

Soldiers were blocking the road near to the prime minister's Submitted at 2/18/2010 6:36:42 AM office, and all other streets Message from fivefilters.org: If nearby were said to be deserted, you can, please donate to the full with shops shuttered.

-text RSS service so we can The president was not thought to continue developing it. have been injured during the first

By Mike Pflanz, West Africa bout of sustained gunfire.

Correspondent A member of his personal staff Published: 2:36PM GMT 18 at the presidential palace told the Feb 2010 Reuters news agency that "for The sounds of machine-gun fire now everything is alright". and heavy weapons were heard But tensions have been rising in from the government district of the vast West African country on the capital Niamey, and smoke the southern fringes of the was rising from the presidential Sahara, since the constitutional palace. amendment two months ago.

It was not immediately clear Mr Tandja forced the change who was behind the apparent through by claiming that "his attempt to oust President people" wanted him to stay T a n d j a , w h o c h a n g e d h i s past his prescribed two term limit country's constitution in August in order to "finish the work I to allow him to stay in power. have started".

"We heard automatic gunfire and At the same time, he dissolved then large detonations. The parliament and awarded himself house was shaking. It lasted extra powers, moves which about a half hour, non-stop," drew international criticism and

sanctions from neighbouring states.

Mr Tandja won elections in 1999 and 2004 that were widely seen as free and fair.

Niger produces close to eight percent of the world's uranium, traditionally in partnership with French and Canadian mining firms.

In the last two years, it has signed deals with two Chinese state owned companies to extract uranium and pump oil from new wells. One of the Chinese deals, agreed in June 2008, is worth ÂŁ3 billion.

Niger, where the main religion is Islam, is one of the countries in the region where Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb - the network's North African affiliate - has become active.

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Can Redbox Survive 28Day Delays?

by Zac Bissonnette (BloggingStocks) Submitted at 2/18/2010 9:30:00 AM

Filed under: Competitive Strategy, Videos Redbox, the fast-growing DVD rental arm of coin-counting giant Coinstar ( CSTR), recently agreed to a deal with Warner Bros. that will mean the chain gets access to the studios new DVD releases 28 days after they hit stores.

Other studios have restricted Redbox's access to new releases, so the company has acquired the DVDs from other outlets. But that's come at the expense of profitability and the company has had difficulty in securing

Video: The Assassination of Mahmoud Al Mabhouh (Little Green Footballs) Submitted at 2/17/2010 4:35:35 PM

A carefully assembled series of CCTV videos from Dubai shows the mysterious hit team that Fell 2% in the Fourth Quarter assassinated Hamas terrorist Walmart Sales Fell 2% in the Mahmoud al Mabhouh, as they F o u r t h Q u a r t e r o r i g i n a l l y arrive in Dubai, don disguises, appeared on BloggingStocks on a n d m o v e a b o u t t h e c i t y Thu, 18 Feb 2010 10:30:00 EST. preparing for the operation.

Please see our terms for use of (There are three parts in this feeds. Permalink| Email this| playlist — hover over the video Comments to see the arrows for the previous or next video in the list.)[Video]

Walmart Sales Fell 2% in the Fourth Quarter

by Connie Madon (BloggingStocks)

compared to the same period last year. More bad news is on the way. Walmart also forecast a Submitted at 2/18/2010 10:30:00 AM "challenging" first quarter.

Filed under: Earnings Reports, All of the big guns at Walmart Forecasts, Management offered their reasons for the Now here's shocker. Wal-Mart decline. Deflation in the price of Stores Inc. ( WMT), the world's groceries, which account for largest retailer, reported that 40% of sales, was one factor. flat screen TVs were also cited. sales fell 2% in the fourth quarter Price discounts in electronics and Continue reading Walmart Sales

enough copies.

Continue reading Can Redbox Survive 28-Day Delays?

Can Redbox Survive 28-Day Delays? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 18 Feb 2010 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Why the Blackberry Kindle App May Be More Important Than the Kindle 3

by Kit Eaton (Fast Company) Submitted at 2/18/2010 8:34:34 AM

We've been pondering how Amazon could turn the next Kindle into a great machine, but the company has just gone and done something that's probably much more important: It's released a Kindle e-reader app for RIM's BlackBerrys.

Amazon's had e-reader apps for Windows smartphones, as well as the iPhone and iPod Touch, for ages. And they're fully integrated into the Kindle ecosystem, even remembering which page you're reading and then syncing it back to an actual Kindle e-reader, assuming you have one. Releasing these apps made perfect sense for Amazon, since it lets the company broaden its Kindle subscriber base for little or no effort, and small ongoing costs--and it broadens the global reach of its e-book store.

But while Apple's iconic smartphone has redefined the genre, RIM's more pedestrian BlackBerry's still rule the roost.

At the end of last year BlackBerrys still had something like 50% of the smartphone

market, compared to the iPhone's 30%--even though consumer satisfaction with RIM's products may be waning as they fall more and more behind the cutting edge of technology. Those figures will change, of course, assuming the iPhone's ascendancy continues and BlackBerry's continues to slip... but the crackberry is still king of smartphone land for the time being, and will remain so for quite some time.

And that's precisely why Amazon's BlackBerry Kindle app may well be a bigger deal than any upcoming Kindle 3. An

improved Kindle device would help win even more consumer mind share in the coming e-book wars, but Amazon is more of a software provider than a hardware seller at heart. And there are rumors that the emerchandising giant may even give Kindles away to tempt people toward its services over the upcoming Apple iBooks-iPad threat. This is a radically different model to the one being followed by e-books upstart Apple, which is essentially a hardware-profitable business, with some extra revenue from

content sales bolted on the top.

This is precisely why Apple's happier to give more leeway to the e-book publishers themselves, since it doesn't need to force this part of the business to make a profit. Having said that, Apple's maneuver here may also have paid off from a consumer point of view--it looks like the new agency model may not result in overly-elevated ebook prices for the iPad. Hence Amazon's welcoming more users to the Kindle fold via BlackBerry at this point, before the iPad hits, is an ideal

maneuver. Especially as the business types who still tend to dominate the BlackBerry userbase may well have higher disposable incomes, and more free time commuting to enjoy the benefits of an e-reader app on their addictive little pocket smartphone. But Amazon needs to pull off more tricks like this if it's to retain a significant chunk of the e-book market once Apple rolls in there.

Read more: Amazon Taps Its Inner Apple [July 2009] [ Amazon via TechFlash, The New York Times]

Wednesday Night Music: Pat Metheny Group, 'Have You Heard' (Little Green Footballs) Submitted at 2/17/2010 6:50:56 PM

I just have to inflict some more Pat Metheny Group on you this evening. This piece is from the

excellent album Letter from Home, titled “Have You Heard.� ( iTunes Store has it too, with

samples you can hear in your browser.)[Video]

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Thinking Back to the 1984 Summer Olympics: The Glory and the Magenta

by Sean Adams (Fast Company) Submitted at 2/18/2010 9:58:14 AM

Being a designer in Southern California is like doing comedy; it's much harder than it looks.

The 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles was a perfect example of this. I remember the spring before the Olympics.

Everyone planned to leave town.

"It will be like Armageddon," people said. "The freeways will be jammed. People will be stranded on the 405 for days."

The games began and the freeways were wide open. It wasn't because everyone was in Palm Springs or San Diego.

There was a remarkable L.A. spirit surrounding the Olympics and I'm sure the design set the tone.

The design program included the talents of The Jerde Partnership, Robert Miles Runyon, Sussman/Prejza and an extravaganza of other Los Angeles designers.

Sure it's bright and fun and has a touch of new wave. But it

worked beautifully. It had a unique and energetic spirit and functionally navigated an enormous audience around a complicated city.

Like the 1968 Mexico City Summer Olympics, the visual system's vibrant and playful attitude told everyone, "Relax, have a good time." Of course, to the outside world, that's LA. Now the downside was that the

design was not somber and serious, a study in grey and grey.

So I'm sure somebody really snooty looked at it in their dark basement apartment, and said to the television set, "Well! That is simply too much! Too bright, too fun, and too happy. Don't those designers realize how serious the Summer Olympics are?"

Fortunately, they did, and they created something impossible

that looks effortless and light and creates joy, but functioned flawlessly, backed with years of hard work and sweat by an entire community.

Related: Designing the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics Read more of Sean Adams' blog Settler's Landing Browse blogs by other Expert Designers Sean Adams is a partner at

Officials pressing search for baby in NJ river (AP) (Yahoo! News: U.S. News) Submitted at 2/18/2010 5:46:17 AM

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you can, please donate to the full -text RSS service so we can continue developing it. john f buzzed up: New jobless

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AdamsMorioka in Beverly Hills, California, whose clients include The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Adobe, Gap, Frank Gehry Partners, Nickelodeon, Sundance, Target, USC, and The Walt Disney Company. Work by AdamsMorioka has been exhibited widely, including a solo exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Sean has been recognized by every major competition and publication including STEP, Communication Arts, Graphis, AIGA, The Type Directors Club, The British Art Directors' Club, and the New York Art Directors' Club, and as one the forty most important people shaping design in the I.D.40. Sean is a frequent lecturer and competition judge, teacher at Art Center College of Design and president ex-officio of AIGA. He is the co-author of Logo Design Workbook, Color Design Workbook, and the book series Masters of Design.

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BBC's Radical Website Redesign, Explained by the BBC

by Dan Nosowitz (Fast Company) Submitted at 2/18/2010 8:43:41 AM

The BBC is undergoing a massive redesign of their entire online property, everything from the news site to mobile sites to their proprietary iPlayer video streamer. Usually when a site initiates this kind of facelift, they'll offer a quick "look how far we've come, check out our new site, hope you like it!" story-tech blog Engadget's redesign in November is a good example of this. But the BBC went about fifteen steps further, laying out templates, charts, and explanations for every design change, from the front page's grid structure straight through to the typeface. It's fascinating-especially given the BBC's first online incarnation, pictured above.

In the words of Bronwyne Van Der Merwe, Head of Design and User Experience at the BBC: We set out to broaden our ambitions; to create a design philosophy and world-class design standards that all designers across the business could adhere to. We wanted to find the soul of the BBC. We

wanted something distinctive and recognisable; we wanted drama. We knew whatever we created needed to be truly crossplatform and that we needed to simplify our user journeys.

That philosophy manifested itself in a more streamlined, universal grid-based structure for all elements of the site. The grid

idea is the most inspired choice of a lot of inspired choices--it's designed to allow for a certain amount of flexibility while still maintaining a consistent visual effect. Basically, they've got both a 16-pixel vertical grid and an 8pixel horizontal grid, so content can be arranged either vertically or horizontally. The BBC is

excited about the flexibility of this design, but it could also be abused enough to ruin any consistency across pages--the difficulty will be to keep each page visually logical.

But it's the little touches that really bring the design together.

The heavy use of the Helvetica font, mandated transparent black overlay on headlines and subheadlines in videos, and a more neutral color palette really lend a modern, edgy feel to the whole site. What's especially exciting about this is the designer's openness to discussing how they came to make the choices they did, from the inspiration (see picture above) straight through to the nitty gritty. [via BBC]

Nasa sky probe sends back images (BBC News | Americas | World Edition) Submitted at 2/18/2010 4:56:37 AM

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Nasa has published the first images from its Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or Wise, which has been scanning

the skies since January.

"Wise has worked superbly," said the agency's Ed Weiler in Washington DC. The images include a comet, a "star factory" 20,000 light years away in our Milky Way galaxy and our nearest large neighbour, the Andromeda spiral galaxy.

Wise will search on until October when its supplies of frozen coolant for chilling

instruments will run out.

It's hoped it will find many more comets and, from them, provide information about the birth of our Solar System. It's also looking for asteroids and cool stars called brown dwarfs.

By the time the mission ends the explorer should have scanned the sky one-and-a-half-times with its "infrared goggles", revealing objects not visible to the naked

eye.

"All these pictures tell a story about our dusty origins and destiny," said Peter Eisenhardt, Wise project director at Nasa in California.

"Wise sees dusty comets and rocky asteroids tracing the formation and evolution of our solar system. We can map thousands of forming and dying solar systems across our entire

galaxy.

"We can see patterns of star formation across other galaxies, and waves of star-bursting galaxies in clusters millions of light years away," he explained.

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Toyota faces new US investigation (BBC News | Americas | World Edition)

investigation into whether it was quick enough in recalling millions of cars over problems Submitted at 2/17/2010 11:06:10 PM involving accelerator pedals and Message from fivefilters.org: If braking systems. you can, please donate to the full It has denied any cover-up and -text RSS service so we can says it will "co-operate to continue developing it. provide all the information they Japanese carmaker Toyota is have requested" on the US facing a new US investigation inquiry. into complaints of steering The saga began in the US with problems in its Corolla model. reports that accelerator pedals The investigation is expected to were getting caught under the be opened on Thursday and will floor mats. involve an estimated 500,000 The Japanese car giant began vehicles. recalling vehicles potentially I t i s a l r e a d y f a c i n g a n affected by that problem in investigation into whether it was October last year and Toyota quick enough in recalling cars then redesigned the mats. o v e r p r o b l e m s i n v o l v i n g The floor mat issue affected a accelerator and braking systems. number of vehicles in the US, Toyota said on Wednesday that but not in the UK. it was looking into complaints of Later, separate acceleration introduction of the iPad and Apple's iBooks digital bookstore power steering problems with the problems were found to be caused by the pedal sticking.

--they must have known about Corolla.

The National Highway Traffic This was then followed by the this provision before the announcement, so maybe they've Safety Administration (NHTSA) recall of about 436,000 hybrid just decided to back Apple says it has received more than vehicles, including the Prius (which has a precedence of 150 complaints about possible model, over brake concerns. success in digital media, with steering problems in the 2009- Print Sponsor Five Filters featured article: i T u n e s ) i n t h e h o p e s t h a t 2010 Corolla.

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Apple May Challenge Kindle on Ebook Pricing After All

by Dan Nosowitz (Fast Company) Submitted at 2/18/2010 8:33:38 AM

When Apple announced that its ebooks, destined for its upcoming iPad tablet, would sell for $12.99 to $14.99, well above Amazon's established $9.99 price, publishers beamed. But more details on Apple's deal with those publishers has come to light, and it turns out that price was actually a ceiling--and Apple has the power to demand lower prices for bestsellers.

The NYTimes is reporting that Apple inserted provisions into its

contract with the major publishers that require bestsellers to take a dip in price, probably down to the $9.99 level offered by competitors like Amazon and Barnes & Noble. It's a reasonable position; bestsellers are always discounted in the old-fashioned ink and paper versions, so why not discount them in their digital form? Besides, digital media always needs to undercut physical media--it's been that way with music and video for years.

This development is interesting as it relates to publishers, who were universally thrilled at the

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UK prepared in Falklands, says PM (BBC News | Americas | World Edition)

Real Radio in the North East, Mr Brown said he did not expect to send a taskforce to the area.

Submitted at 2/18/2010 6:12:56 AM It's clear that Britain has the Message from fivefilters.org: If military assets it needs in or you can, please donate to the full around the Falkland Islands to -text RSS service so we can back up its diplomacy with continue developing it.

Argentina - on the principle that The UK has made "all the diplomacy succeeds best when a preparations that are necessary" nation can talk softly but carry a to protect the Falkland Islands, big stick.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown The MoD will only say that it is has said. "maintaining" a deterrent force However, the Ministry of in the area, and that this is not a Defence has denied reports that a new taskforce - but it leaves little naval taskforce is on its way to doubt that the UK has the means the Falklands. to defend the Falkland islanders Argentina has brought in already in place to back up its controls on ships passing through diplomatic stance. its waters to the islands over UK But at the same time, the British plans to drill for oil. government does not want to Shadow foreign secretary escalate the current row with William Hague told the BBC the Argentina, even as it remains Royal Navy's presence in the firm on Britain's right to explore region should be increased. for oil around the Falklands, with The Sun newspaper reported the prime minister and others that up to three ships were to join e m p h a s i s i n g t h a t t h e y s e e the islands' regular patrol vessel. "sensible discussions" prevailing.

BBC defence correspondent Earlier this week, Air Chief Caroline Wyatt understands the Marshal Sir Stephen Dalton, the destroyer HMS York and the oil head of the Royal Air Force, supply tanker RFA Wave Ruler drew attention to the situation in are in the area, as well as HMS the South Atlantic in a speech to Clyde, which is permanently the International Institute of based there.

Strategic Studies, referring to the However, the MoD said Britain "increasingly tense situation" already had a permanent naval around the Falkland Islands to presence in the South Atlantic as stress the need for maintaining well as more than 1,000 military air superiority. personnel on the islands.

He said he hoped "sensible 'Very clear' discussions" with Argentina Speaking on Gateshead-based would prevail, adding: "We have

made all the preparations that are necessary to make sure the Falkland islanders are properly protected."

Foreign Secretary David Miliband said all UK oil exploration in the area was "completely in accordance with international law".

He added: "We maintain the security of the Falklands, and there are routine patrols continuing."

After Argentina's invasion of the Falklands in 1982, a UK taskforce seized back control in a short war that claimed the lives of 649 Argentine and 255 British service personnel.

The BBC's Andrew Harding in Buenos Aires said it was difficult to find anyone in Argentina who believed the Falklands were in danger of being at the centre of a military conflict.

But Argentine Deputy Foreign Minister Victorio Taccetti said his country would take "adequate measures" to stop oil exploration.

Meanwhile, speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Mr Hague called for "some sort of increased naval presence - it may just be one more ship visiting more regularly" in the region.

He added: "That kind of thing would show very clearly to Argentina - with whom, again, we want friendly relations - that we will be very firm about this.

It would send a signal not to

misunderstand British intentions.

"One of the things that went wrong in the 1980s is that the Argentines thought we weren't really committed to the Falkland Islands. So, we mustn't make that mistake again. Our commitment should be very clear."

Buenos Aires claims sovereignty over the Falkland Islands, which it calls Islas Malvinas.

It has previously threatened that any company exploring for oil and gas in the waters around the territory will not be allowed to operate in Argentina.

Ocean bed On Tuesday, Argentine President Cristina Fernandez signed a decree requiring all vessels travelling between Argentina and the islands, or those wanting to cross Argentine territorial waters en route to the Falklands, to seek prior permission.

But a drilling rig from the Scottish Highlands, the Ocean Guardian, is nearing the islands and is due to start drilling next week, the UK-based company Desire Petroleum has said.

Last week, a ship carrying drilling equipment was detained

by Argentine officials.

Geologists say the ocean bed surrounding the Falklands could contain rich energy reserves.

Last year, Argentina submitted a claim to the United Nations for a vast expanse of ocean, based on

research into the extent of the continental shelf, stretching to the Antarctic and including the island chains governed by Britain.

It is due to raise the issue at the UN next week.

On Thursday, an MoD spokesman said the government was "fully committed" to the Falklands, adding: "A deterrence force is maintained on the islands."

Foreign Office Minister Chris Bryant said it was important not to lose sight of the fact that the UK and Argentina were "important partners".

But he added: "'We have no doubt about our sovereignty over the Falkland Islands and we're clear that the Falkland Islands government is entitled to develop a hydrocarbons industry within its waters."

The waters surrounding the disputed islands are considered by the UK to be part of the British Overseas Territories.

But Buenos Aires believes the UK is illegally occupying the Falklands, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands.

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Study: States must fill $1 trillion pension gap (AP) (Yahoo! News: U.S. News) Submitted at 2/18/2010 6:16:35 AM

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HARRISBURG, Pa. – States may be forced to reduce benefits, raise taxes or slash government services to address a $1 trillion funding shortfall in public sector retirement benefits, according to a new study that warns of even more debilitating costs if immediate action isn't taken.

The Pew Center on the States released a survey Thursday of state-administered pension plans, retiree health care and other postemployment benefits in all 50 states that blamed a decade's worth of policy decisions for leaving them shortchanged.

The result for some states will be "high annual costs that come with significant unfunded liabilities, lower bond ratings, less money available for services, higher taxes and the specter of worsening problems in the future," the study said.

The cost of the trillion-dollar shortfall, which will be paid over the coming decades, is about $8,800 for each American household. The study did not include many city, county and municipal pension plans, which are thought to have similar underfunding.

"We have a significant problem now, but it's a problem that can be solved by taking relatively modest steps," said Susan K. Urahn, the center's managing director. "If they don't do anything, if they wait, eventually they will have an unmanageable crisis on their hands."

As of 2008, states had $2.4 trillion to meet $3.4 trillion in promised pension, health care and other post-retirement benefits, according to the report.

The true gap may even be wider, because the study did not account for the full impact of investment losses in late 2008, during the stock market downturn, and because many plans employ multiyear smoothing techniques to lessen the effect of a single year's losses. But more recent stock market returns could help — on Wednesday, for example, Pennsylvania's $47 billion public school pension plan reported it had earned about 12 percent on investments in the 2009 calendar year.

Pew deemed 16 states solid performers in how they fund pensions, 15 needing improvement and 19 considered to be facing serious concerns.

"Meanwhile, more and more baby boomers in state and local government are nearing retirement, and many will live longer than earlier generations

— meaning that if states do not get a handle on the costs of postemployment benefits now, the problem likely will get far worse, with states facing debilitating costs," the study said.

The exploding financial burden could be a bitter pill for taxpayers, many of whom will not be collecting similar pensions or other benefits when they retire, said David Kline with the California Taxpayers' Association. About one in five private sector workers have traditional defined benefit pensions, compared with about 90 percent of public-sector employees — including some that do not get Social Security.

"Taxpayers in the future will be paying for people who worked decades before they may have even lived in the area or begun paying taxes, because the obligation for these benefits is just snowballing," Kline said.

The study graded states on how well they have managed employees' retirement benefits.

Florida, Idaho, New York, North Carolina and Wisconsin began the current recession with fully funded pension systems, while eight states have left more than one-third of their pension liability unfunded.

Illinois was rated the most troubled pension system during the study period, with a 54 percent funding level and a total

liability of more than $54 billion.

In Pennsylvania, a series of decisions by the Legislature and governor have shielded taxpayers from much of the pain for the past decade, but costs of less than $ 1 billion a year now is projected to climb to about $6 billion annually in the coming three years.

The report said policy makers have exacerbated the problem by expanding benefits, relying on overly optimistic assumptions about investment returns and failing to sufficient fund the programs.

"Even though the actuaries tell the states what they should be doing, the states feel free to ignore that," said Olivia Mitchell, director of the Pension Research Council at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. "So putting some teeth behind the requirements is really the problem."

Pew calculated a $587 billion national cost for current and future retiree health care and other nonpension retirement benefits, with only about 5 percent of that amount funded as of 2008. The cost of health care and the number of retirees are both on the rise, adding to the pressure on states.

The study found that 15 states made some legislative changes to their state-run systems last year,

12 did so in 2008 and 11 in 2007. About a third of states had formal efforts to study potential reforms under way last year.

"Pension plans work when they are allowed to work, and part of that dynamic is that sometimes adjustments have to be made," said Keith Brainard, research director with the National Association of State Retirement Administrators. "It's important not to take away decent retirement benefits for some of the few people that have them."

Pew said states should consider changes that have proven to be effective and politically viable.

Among them: setting minimum contribution levels that are actuarially sound, sharing some of the investment risk with employees, cutting benefits, increasing the minimum retirement age, making employees pay more into the system and providing more robust oversight and investment rules.

Mitchell said many states have constitutional prohibitions against lowering employee pension benefits, but health care programs can more easily be altered.

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Shooting deaths decimate Ala. college department (AP) (Yahoo! News: U.S. News) Submitted at 2/18/2010 7:20:50 AM

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HUNTSVILLE, Ala. – The bullet police say Amy Bishop fired into fellow college professor Joseph Leahy's head has left him in a neuro-intensive care unit, where tubes and a maze of medical technology help sustain him.

The microbiologist's fight to recover mirrors the challenge facing the biology department where he and Bishop taught at the University of AlabamaHuntsville, the scene of a mass shooting six days ago that claimed the lives of the department head and two other professors.

Leahy, another professor and a staff member were wounded Feb. 12, when authorities allege Amy Bishop pulled a pistol at a faculty meeting and started shooting her colleagues.

With three professors dead, two wounded and one charged with murder, "our department has pretty much been cut in half," said Leland Cseke, a faculty member. "It's devastating."

And the other half of the 14-

member department is traumatized; most of them witnessed the attack up close.

Remaining department members have been meeting in small groups, said one of them, John Shriver. They're trying to help each other cope with the loss of Maria Ragland Davis, Gopi Podila and Adriel Johnson, all 52 and holding doctorates in the field.

Staff assistant Stephanie Monticciolo was hospitalized in critical condition Thursday.

Another faculty member, Luis Cruz-Vera, was shot in the chest and has been released.

The devastated department takes an early step in its recovery Thursday as the family of Podila, the biology chairman who was born in India, holds a public visitation and a smaller funeral for close friends and relatives.

Services for Johnson and Davis are to follow Friday and Saturday, and the school plans an evening memorial for all the victims Friday.

Bishop, an assistant professor, is accused of shooting all six in a small conference room. The Harvard-trained researcher and inventor was in her final year of teaching at the school after being denied tenure last April, but the motive for the shooting remains

unclear. Podila had supported her tenure application.

Bishop, 44, remains jailed on one count of capital murder and three counts of attempted murder.

At a school respected for its academics, and a department recognized for its work in a city of NASA engineers and other high-tech industries, the shooting left students without teachers and administrators trying to regroup amid the mourning.

The university proudly notes its ranking by U.S. News & World Report among the 150 best national doctoral universities in the U.S., and the biology department is particularly wellregarded for its achievements in biotechnology, school spokesman Ray Garner said.

"These guys are doing some really good work," he said.

Podila was chair of the biological sciences department at UAH, where he began working in 2001 and did research involving plant biology and work that can be used in the development of biofuels. He was admired for his ability to not only run the department and "keep everybody happy," Shriver said, but also to continue doing important research, travel overseas on behalf of the

department and still teach.

Davis had industry experience that set her apart from other faculty members who had more academic backgrounds, said another professor, Joseph Ng. "The students just loved her. She always had a very nice demeanor, and she was always there for the students," he said.

Johnson was known for his sense of humor and students "flocked to him" because of his willingness to open up to them, said Florence Holland, an administrator at Auburn University who knew and worked with him.

A mentor for minority students, Johnson started at UAH in 1989 and was also involved with the school's Minority Graduate Student Association.

"He was always trying to encourage underrepresented groups to go into math and science and engineering," Holland said. "Some people, when they get to a certain level of success are like 'I have mine, you get yours,' but Dr. Johnson wasn't like that. He was very willing to work with students and just overall passionate about that."

UAH President David B. Williams said for now the school is concentrating on grieving.

The First and Last Meeting of Everyone With a Fully Sequenced Genome

by Aaron Rowe (Wired Top Stories)

On April 27, nearly every person whose entire genome has been sequenced will gather in

one room. Currently there are a dozen or so in this group, but that number is about to explode.

Work will begin soon to rebuild the department, he said, and several colleges in the state have offered teachers to help fill the gap in the meantime.

"The overwhelming response has just been enormous," Williams said.

Leahy remained in critical condition Thursday at Huntsville Hospital, though he already has shown signs of progress, according to a blog his family has been writing.

"Joe has been showing the most body movement/activity since the shooting, particularly on the left side," a recent posting reads.

"Neurosurgeon used term 'purposeful' in describing the movements." ___ Associated Press writers Jay Reeves and Greg Bluestein in Huntsville contributed to this report.

(This version corrects that campus memorial service is scheduled for Friday evening, not midday.)

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Missionaries freed by Haitian judge back in US (AP) (Yahoo! News: U.S. News)

expressed relief, including Sean Lankford of Meridian, Idaho, Submitted at 2/18/2010 5:52:41 AM whose wife and daughter were Message from fivefilters.org: If among the eight released. When you can, please donate to the full asked by The Associated Press -text RSS service so we can how he felt late Wednesday, he continue developing it. offered two words: "Damn MIAMI – Eight American good." missionaries charged with child The group's swift departure kidnapping in Haiti were back in from Haiti began Wednesday the U.S. Thursday and looking when Judge Bernard Saint-Vil forward to homecomings, even said eight of the 10 missionaries as two others remained in a were free to leave without bail Haitian jail in an ordeal sparked because parents of the children by the group's attempt to take 33 had testified they voluntarily children out of the earthquake- gave their children to the stricken country. missionaries believing the The missionaries arrived on a Americans would give them a U.S. Air Force C-130 just after better life. midnight at Miami International "The parents gave their kids Airport, about 12 hours after a away voluntarily," Saint-Vil said Haitian judge approved their in explaining his decision. release. They spent a night in He said, however, that he still soft hotel beds at the airport wanted to question the group's before some were seen heading leader, Laura Silsby, and her to gates for morning domestic former nanny, Charisa Coulter, Delta flights. because they had visited Haiti Silas Thompson, 19, of Twin prior to the quake to inquire Falls, Idaho, said it was "great" about obtaining orphans. to be back on U.S. soil. Asked to Just after dusk in Haiti, the name the first thing he'll do when bedraggled, sweat-stained group he gets home, Thompson replied: of eight walked out of the jail "Hug my mom." He spoke to escorted by U.S. diplomats. They reporters as he walked to the waited until they were safely Delta terminal Thursday morning inside a white embassy van after emerging from the hotel before some flashed smiles and with three other men, who all gave a thumbs up to reporters. declined to identify themselves Their plane took off from Portor answer questions. au-Prince shortly thereafter as a E a r l i e r , e l a t e d r e l a t i v e s group of reporters watched.

The missionaries were charged with child kidnapping for trying to take 33 Haitian children to the Dominican Republic on Jan. 29 without Haitian adoption certificates.

Their detentions came just as aid officials were urging a halt to short-cut adoptions in the wake of the earthquake. Before their release, Haiti's No. 2 justice official, Claudy Gassent, informed them of the judge's decision but said he also gave them a lecture.

"They know they broke the law," he said.

The missionaries say they were on a do-it-youself "rescue mission" to take child quake victims to a hastily prepared orphanage in the Dominican Republic, denying the trafficking charge.

Silsby originally said they were taking only orphaned and abandoned children, but The Associated Press determined that at least 20 were handed over willingly by their parents, who said the Baptists had promised to educate them and let their parents visit.

Saint-Vil said he did not release Silsby, 47, or Coulter, 24, because of their previous activities in Haiti during a December visit. Silsby hastily enlisted the rest of the group after the quake. Coulter, of

Boise, Idaho, is diabetic and the judge signed an order Wednesday afternoon authorizing her hospitalization.

He said he had planned to question both women Thursday but that Coulter's health situation could prompt a delay. She had briefly been taken to a U.S. field hospital on Wednesday for treatment after feeling faint but was then taken back to jail.

Silsby's sister in Idaho, Kim Barton, said learning that her sister could not leave Haiti was difficult.

"At this point I don't have any comment. I don't know any more than you do," Barton said.

Gary Lissade, the Haitian attorney for freed detainee Jim Allen of Amarillo, Texas, said he expected the charges to be dropped against the eight.

"My faith means everything to me, and I knew this moment would come when the truth would set me free," Allen said in a statement issued by the Liberty Legal Institute in Plano, Texas. ___ AP's Bajak reported from Portau-Prince, Haiti.

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Report: Warning Issued Just Before Conn. Plant Explosion (FOXNews.com) Submitted at 2/18/2010 5:40:01 AM

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MIDDLETOWN, Conn. A worker monitoring natural gas levels at a Middletown, Conn., power plant reportedly called for an evacuation moments before last week's explosion that killed five workers.

The Hartford Courant, citing witnesses and investigators it did not identify, said the message, radioed throughout the Kleen Energy plant, warned workers that gas meter readings had spiked.

SLIDESHOW: Deadly Connecticut Power Plant Explosion The newspaper reported Wednesday that investigators have recovered the two gas meters used at the time of the explosion, which occurred while workers were purging gas lines at the plant, which was under construction.

Investigators said they hope to recover memory chips that could allow them to determine the gas levels before the explosion.

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Freed American Missionaries Return From Haiti (FOXNews.com)

expressed relief, including Sean Lankford of Meridian, Idaho, whose wife and daughter were Message from fivefilters.org: If among the eight released. When you can, please donate to the full asked by The Associated Press -text RSS service so we can how he felt late Wednesday, he continue developing it. offered two words: "Damn MIAMI Eight American good." missionaries charged with child The group's swift departure kidnapping in Haiti were back in from Haiti began Wednesday the U.S. Thursday and looking when Judge Bernard Saint-Vil forward to homecomings, even said eight of the 10 missionaries as two others remained in a were free to leave without bail Haitian jail in an ordeal sparked because parents of the children by the group's attempt to take 33 had testified they voluntarily children out of the earthquake- gave their children to the stricken country. missionaries believing the The missionaries arrived on a Americans would give them a U.S. Air Force C-130 just after better life. midnight at Miami International "The parents gave their kids Airport, about 12 hours after a away voluntarily," Saint-Vil said Haitian judge approved their in explaining his decision. release. They spent a night in He said, however, that he still soft hotel beds at the airport wanted to question the group's before some were seen heading leader, Laura Silsby, and her to gates for morning domestic former nanny, Charisa Coulter, Delta flights. because they had visited Haiti Silas Thompson, 19, of Twin prior to the quake to inquire Falls, Idaho, said it was "great" about obtaining orphans. to be back on U.S. soil. Asked to Just after dusk in Haiti, the name the first thing he'll do when bedraggled, sweat-stained group he gets home, Thompson replied: of eight walked out of the jail "Hug my mom." He spoke to escorted by U.S. diplomats. They reporters as he walked to the waited until they were safely Delta terminal Thursday morning inside a white embassy van after emerging from the hotel before some flashed smiles and with three other men, who all gave a thumbs up to reporters. declined to identify themselves Their plane took off from Portor answer questions. au-Prince shortly thereafter as a E a r l i e r , e l a t e d r e l a t i v e s group of reporters watched.

Submitted at 2/18/2010 5:59:36 AM

The missionaries were charged with child kidnapping for trying to take 33 Haitian children to the Dominican Republic on Jan. 29 without Haitian adoption certificates.

Their detentions came just as aid officials were urging a halt to short-cut adoptions in the wake of the earthquake. Before their release, Haiti's No. 2 justice official, Claudy Gassent, informed them of the judge's decision but said he also gave them a lecture.

"They know they broke the law," he said.

The missionaries say they were on a do-it-youself "rescue mission" to take child quake victims to a hastily prepared orphanage in the Dominican Republic, denying the trafficking charge.

Silsby originally said they were taking only orphaned and abandoned children, but The Associated Press determined that at least 20 were handed over willingly by their parents, who said the Baptists had promised to educate them and let their parents visit.

Saint-Vil said he did not release Silsby, 47, or Coulter, 24, because of their previous activities in Haiti during a December visit. Silsby hastily enlisted the rest of the group after the quake. Coulter, of

Boise, Idaho, is diabetic and the judge signed an order Wednesday afternoon authorizing her hospitalization.

He said he had planned to question both women Thursday but that Coulter's health situation could prompt a delay. She had briefly been taken to a U.S. field hospital on Wednesday for treatment after feeling faint but was then taken back to jail.

Silsby's sister in Idaho, Kim Barton, said learning that her sister could not leave Haiti was difficult.

"At this point I don't have any comment. I don't know any more than you do," Barton said.

Gary Lissade, the Haitian attorney for freed detainee Jim Allen of Amarillo, Texas, said he expected the charges to be dropped against the eight.

"My faith means everything to me, and I knew this moment would come when the truth would set me free," Allen said in a statement issued by the Liberty Legal Institute in Plano, Texas.

Click here for more from WSVN.com.

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Snowstorms Cause $1.5M in Damage at Maryland Zoo (FOXNews.com) Submitted at 2/18/2010 6:46:54 AM

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BALTIMORE An owl is on the loose and the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore will have to delay its season opening because of damage from two heavy snowstorms.

Zoo officials say they have at least $1.5 million in losses from historic storms across the MidAtlantic.

An aviary for Maryland birds was a total loss, the African aviary was heavily damaged and more than 60 trees or large limbs fell.

A long-eared owl from the damaged aviary is still on the loose.

The zoo was scheduled to reopen March 1 after its winter break. But zoo President Donald Hutchinson says the opening will have to be postponed at least two weeks and more snow could push the opening back further.

He says missing a month could cut revenue substantially for the zoo already struggling with financial difficulties.

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Dalai Lama to meet Obama amid row (BBC News | Americas | World Edition) Submitted at 2/17/2010 10:25:37 PM

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Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.

A crowd of Tibetans gathered to greet the Dalai Lama Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, is set to meet US President Barack Obama at the White House, despite objections from China.

The meeting comes amid tension in US-Sino relations, with disputes simmering over US arms sales to Taiwan, claims of Chinese cyber-spying and trade deals.

China, which views the Dalai Lama as a separatist, has warned the meeting will undermine relations.

The US is keeping formalities low-key and has downplayed China's concerns.

On his arrival in Washington on Wednesday, the Dalai Lama headed to a hotel for a ceremony to mark the Losar new year with fellow Tibetans.

The Dalai Lama's special envoy, Lodi Gayari, said that it was "important in itself that the meeting is happening".

He said that the Dalai Lama would be asking the US president to "help find a solution

in resolving the Tibet issue that would be mutually beneficial to the Tibetan and Chinese people".

Sensitive issues White House spokesman Robert Gibbs last week defended the decision to receive the Dalai Lama, saying he was "an internationally respected religious leader".

He said the Sino-US relationship was mature enough to disagree while finding common ground on international issues.

Mr Obama avoided meeting the Dalai Lama in Washington last year ahead of his own first state visit to Beijing.

Thursday's meeting will take

place in the White House Map Room, not the symbolic surroundings of the Oval Office, where Mr Obama normally meets foreign leaders and VIP guests.

The Dalai Lama will also meet Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the State Department.

Citing the "high sensitivity of Tibet-related issues", China's foreign ministry had urged the US to call off the visit to "avoid any more damage to Sino-US relations".

China, which took over Tibet in 1950, considers the Dalai Lama a separatist and tries to isolate the spiritual leader by asking foreign leaders not to see him.

The Dalai Lama fled Tibet in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule and has since been living in India.

'Cyber attack' The White House meeting comes soon after China expressed strong displeasure at the sale of $6.4bn (ÂŁ4bn) worth of US weapons to Taiwan.

Beijing regards Taiwan as a Chinese territory to be reunified by force if necessary.

Another source of tension is internet censorship, following claims by the search giant Google that it had suffered a "sophisticated and targeted" cyber attack from inside China.

Mr Obama has also given signs

of getting tougher on the longstanding dispute over China's currency, which some traders feel is kept artificially weak.

However, the US wants Chinese support in the United Nations regarding sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programmes.

This is not the first time that China has been angered by US support for the Dalai Lama.

Beijing was infuriated in 2007 when President George W Bush both received the Dalai Lama at the White House and attended a ceremony at which he was awarded a Congressional Gold Medal - the top US civilian honour.

It was the first time a sitting US president had appeared in public with the exiled Tibetan leader.

Are you in China? What do you think of the meeting between Barack Obama and the Dalai Lama? Will it undermine US China relations? Send us your views 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.

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Should members of US Congress follow back on Twitter?

(Holy Kaw!) Submitted at 2/18/2010 12:25:24 AM

Since last December, Amelia Hassani began following 178 members of the US Congress on Twitter. She understood that reciprocation of her follow was completely optional and that the responsibility of managing the engagement of constituents can be overwhelming and time consuming.

Sue Walitsky, communications director for Senator Ben Cardin (D-Md.) said, "We do monitor mentions regularly and have been pleased by the positive response to our tweets."

The first to return her follow was Congressman Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii) and then thirteen other members.

Dave Helfert, communication director for Abercrombie, told OhMyGov that "Rep.

What content will you pay for online?

(Holy Kaw!)

subscribers only. Nielsen reveals that 47% of respondents are willing to accept more ads to A new Nielsen survey shows help subsidize free content. that 85% would prefer to keep A p p a r e n t l y t h e o t h e r 5 3 % online content from media and haven't discovered AdBlock entertainment companies free. Plus.

Media firms are constantly Your turn to weigh in. debating the merits of different W o u l d / D o y o u p a y f o r business models and approaches subscriber-only digital content? t o c h a r g i n g f o r d i g i t a l If so, what kind of content would content—but only around half of you be willing to break out the the 27,000 consumers surveyed wallet for? say micropayments or an easy Full story at The Hollywood payment method would make Reporter. them more likely to pay for Why pay when you can get the online content. same for free? Go open source.

Most people, as it turns out, Photo credit: Fotolia believe they can get the same (or Permalink| Leave a comment » similar) content elsewhere for free if a site is restricted to paid Submitted at 2/18/2010 2:25:40 AM

Abercrombie uses Twitter and Facebook and YouTube because he has an appreciation for the way people communicate today ... and he wants to, as an elected official, keep in touch with the people, not only for them to hear what he says, but also so he can hear what they say."

As Hassani points out, there are benefits of following

constituents back, what do you think?

Full story at OhMyGov!.

Follow the blogs and tweets of the US House of Representatives and US Senate.

Photo credit: Fotolia Permalink| Leave a comment »

Remorseful Fla. Burglar Turns Himself in to Police (FOXNews.com) Submitted at 2/18/2010 6:35:29 AM

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GAINESVILLE, Fla. A burglar who regretted his actions is facing felony charges after turning himself in to a Gainesville police officer.

According to Alachua County jail records, 55-year-old Robert

G. Dillingham is charged with burglary of a conveyance and possession of burglary tools.

Bond had not yet been set, but Dillingham was expected to appear in court on Thursday.

It was unclear if he already had

an attorney.

Police say Dillingham approached an officer who was investigating an attempted breakin of a vehicle Wednesday and turned over a claw-type device.

He told the officer he had

attempted the break-in and felt remorseful.

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The Internet currency of attention - and how to budget it (Holy Kaw!) Submitted at 2/17/2010 6:46:00 PM

Fortune 500 SEO Fail

Social media is the new search engine (Holy Kaw!)

shift advertisers' focus significantly. Although search engines offer a great way of (Holy Kaw!) natural search visibility at all for W e b m e a s u r e m e n t f i r m providing directed content for their most advertised keywords.

Submitted at 2/18/2010 2:25:00 AM Furthermore, with longer queries Compete Inc recently announced advertisers, consumers spend the On average, Fortune 500 on search engines, the visibility that Facebook has overtaken vast majority of their time at companies collectively spend d e c r e a s e d e v e n m o r e . . . a Google as the top source for their destination on the web, not about $3.4 million on nearly whopping 68% of keywords traffic to major portals like on search pages. SEO isn't gone 100,000 keywords for search were found on a landing page Yahoo and MSN. Analysts say for good, but keep your eyes engine optimization. Although (e.g. amazon.com/cellphone) that as people spend less time peeled for new, innovative it's obvious that there's a fair rather than top-level domain browsing the Internet on their methods used to harness the chunk of change being spent on pages (e.g. amazon.com). Does own, and more time basing their marketing potential of social time o n media.

SEO campaigns, it's amazing this mean the Fortune 500 is I n t e r n e t recommendations from friends, Full story at SFGate. how ineffectual the choices are. going social media?

Only 2% of the Fortune 500 Full report at Media Post News. social media begins to surpass These companies know where domains surveyed have a chosen Avoid the Fortune 500 problems traditional search engines in the social advertising is. terms that have a significant and make your website visible being a major driver of web Photo credit: Fotolia traffic.

Permalink| Leave a comment » presence in the top results. with SEO. This change in dynamic may Natural search visibility is Photo credit: Fotolia integral to companies that want Permalink| Leave a comment » lots of exposure to the public.

Yet 53% of the F500 have no Submitted at 2/18/2010 2:26:13 AM

If you buy into Jeff Jarvisism, links are the new Internet currency. Chris Brogan, however, offers a new notion: with new social media spawn like Google Buzz vying for users, maybe attention is the new currency. How do you manage so many services competing for our time without getting overwhelmed? Chris makes the great suggestion of creating an “attention budget.” All you have to do is list the top ways you want to spend your day. Then stick to it.

It’s more nuanced than that, so read the full post at ChrisBrogan.com.

More on social media.

Photo credit: Fotolia Permalink| Leave a comment »

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TUAW Exclusive: Aaron Patzer on the future of mobile finance, Mint.com, and Quicken on the Mac

by Michael Grothaus (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)) Submitted at 2/17/2010 8:00:00 PM

Filed under: Software, Internet Tools, TUAW Interview At the age of twenty-six, Aaron Patzer founded the financial website Mint.com. In many ways Mint was much like an Apple product: it had a simple interface, it was easy to understand and use, and many of Mint's early adopters became very loyal evangelists.

Word of mouth spread, and just 18 months after its launch (Mint officially went public in 2007), Mint had added its one millionth user.

To the dismay of many, Mint sold to Intuit in September 2009 for $170 million. I say dismay because many users of Quicken products had been less than thrilled with Intuit's offerings for some time, and some people were concerned what a twentyyear-old company that seemed stuck in its ways would do with a popular user-friendly Web 2.0 startup.

Out of all the negative press, perhaps Mac users could be forgiven for having the most anxiety over the acquisition.

Many had abandoned Quicken Mac 2007 in favor of Mint.com.

Mac users wanted to move on from the stale Quicken ecosystem and go with

something simple and easy.

Now, that simple and easy solution had moved to where the users had escaped from.

Luckily, Intuit wasn't like other companies who buy smaller start -ups just to eliminate a competitor. Intuit recognized that Patzer and his team possessed the much-needed original financial software ideas and UI design mojo to put a spark in their aging products. In November 2009, Intuit made Aaron Patzer VP/GM of Intuit's Personal Finance Group -- which

left him in charge of Intuit's personal finance offerings, including Quicken for Mac. It was January 2008. At Macworld Expo, Steve Jobs had just unveiled the MacBook Air. Over at Intuit's booth, the company was previewing an anticipated update to Quicken Mac 2007- one that didn't require Rosetta to run and didn't have an un-Mac-like UI. Unfortunately, the UI that Quicken ended up with consisted of a Cover Flowesque interface. It was 2008 after all, and Cover Flow was the hot

new UI element, but this was a finance app. We didn't need glitz when we just wanted to see how much cash we had in the bank.

That aside, the single-window interface was a welcome change.

Intuit announced that Quicken Mac 2007's sequel, Quicken Financial Life for Mac, would ship in the Fall of 2008.

Fall 2008 came and went. At Macworld Expo 2009, Intuit previewed a new beta of Quicken Financial Life for Mac and delayed its release again until Fall 2009. I was an early tester of

the new beta, and it was buggy; the user interface looked friendlier than it actually was - in other words, the beta was everything you had come to expect from an Intuit product for the Mac. July 2009 came around and, no surprise, Intuit announced it was delaying Quicken Financial Life again, this time until 2010. 2010 - four years after the last version of Quicken for Mac came out (2007 was released in 2006). This time TUAW page 21

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Police push for warrantless searches of cell phones (CNET News.com) Submitted at 2/18/2010 4:00:00 AM

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When Christian Taylor stopped by the Sprint store in Daly City, Calif., last November, he was planning to buy around 30 BlackBerry handhelds.

But a Sprint employee on the lookout for fraud grew suspicious about the address and other details relating to Taylor's company, " Hype Univercity," and called the police. Taylor was arrested on charges of felony identity fraud, his car was impounded, and his iPhone was confiscated and searched by police without a warrant.

A San Mateo County judge is scheduled to hear testimony on Thursday morning in this case, which could set new ground rules for when police can conduct warrantless searches of iPhones, laptops, and similarly capacious electronic gadgets.

This is an important legal question that remains unresolved: as our gadgets store more and more information about us, including our appointments, correspondence, and personal photos and videos, what rules should police investigators be required to follow? The Obama administration and many local prosecutors' answer is that warrantless searches are

perfectly constitutional during arrests.

"There are very, very few cases involving smartphones," Chris Feasel, deputy district attorney for San Mateo County, said in an interview on Wednesday. "The law has not necessarily caught up to the technology."

Feasel said the county's position is that a search of a handheld device that takes place soon after an arrest is lawful. "It's an interesting issue that may decide the future of how courts handle these kinds of cases, especially smartphones and iPhones," he said.

Attorneys for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the San Francisco civil liberties group that's representing Taylor, have asked the court to suppress any evidence obtained from the search of his iPhone. They say the search was "unconstitutional" because it was done without a warrant--and they say it also may have violated a 1986 federal law designed to protect the privacy of e-mail messages.

Privacy advocates say that longstanding legal rules allowing police to search suspects during an arrest--including looking through their wallets and pockets --should not apply to smartphones because the amount of material they store is so much greater and the risks of intrusive searches are so much higher. A 32GB iPhone 3GS, for instance, can hold approximately 220,000 copies of the unabridged text of

Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

"Neither the search of (Taylor's) vehicle nor the search of his iPhone was justified by any exception to the warrant requirement," the EFF and its cocounsel, San Francisco attorney Randall Garteiser wrote in a brief filed earlier this month.

Sex photos drew federal lawsuit Concerns about privacy are not merely hypothetical. In March 2008, Nathan Newhard was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving in Culpeper, Va., and his cell phone was seized. In the pictures folder of the cell phone were multiple pictures of Newhard and his then-girlfriend, Jessie Casella, nude in sexually compromising positions.

Newhard and Casella--at that point no longer a couple--filed separate civil rights lawsuits against Sgt. Matt Borders, who they said alerted the rest of the police department on the radio "that the private pictures were available for their viewing and enjoyment." Newhard claimed that, as a result of the incident, he was nonrecommended for continued employment with the Culpeper school system, where he had worked before the arrest.

A federal judge in Virginia last year agreed that the police conduct was "irresponsible, unprofessional, and reprehensible" but said that Culpeper police officers could not be held legally responsible because they did not violate any

clearly established constitutional rights. In addition, the court pointed out, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled that "officers may retrieve text messages and other information from cell phones and pagers seized incident to an arrest" to preserve evidence.

The problem for EFF and its cocounsel in the San Mateo County case is that, while the U.S. Supreme Court has not taken up the issue, a number of other courts have reached similar conclusions. In 2007, the Fifth Circuit concluded that police were permitted to conduct a warrantless search for call records and text messages during an arrest. So did the Seventh Circuit in a 1996 case dealing with information from numeric pagers ("It is imperative that law enforcement officers have the authority to immediately 'search' or retrieve, incident to a valid arrest, information from a pager in order to prevent its destruction as evidence.")

"There's a very good case that the police, as awful as it sounds, should be able to go through the contents of this phone," said Adam Gershowitz, a professor at the South Texas College of Law who has written a paper on the topic. "Courts for the most part have held that a phone is like a container, a wallet or a purse."

Then again, does an iPhone or Nexus One really have that much in common with a numeric pager? "The Fourth Amendment

requires a search to be reasonable," Gershowitz said.

"At a certain point it just becomes so excessive as to be unreasonable, and we may be getting close to that point."

From pagers to iPhones The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, of course, prohibits "unreasonable" searches and seizures.

Warrantless searches generally violate the Fourth Amendment.

But the Supreme Court has allowed an exception permitting warrantless searches at the time that someone is being arrested, on the grounds that police should be allowed to look for weapons or items that could be linked to an alleged crime. A second exception to the warrant requirement is a "booking search" that allows police to establish an inventory of the defendant's possessions.

The examination of Taylor's iPhone by the Daly City police department was a two-step process. After Taylor was taken to the prisoner processing center, Daly City detective Joseph Bocci conducted what prosecutors describe as a "limited search of the iPhone." Then, armed with a search warrant, Bocci completed an analysis of the phone's contents.

Meanwhile, Taylor's business seems to be languishing. The HypeUOnline.com blog, created POLICE page 25

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TUAW continued from page 19

Intuit released a statement all but admitting that the company had failed at providing the Mac with usable financial software: Feedback from Mac customers led us to rethink our approach to developing Quicken for Mac. We went back to the drawing board and are making changes to everything from what the program does to how it looks.

We spent extra time building a reconcile mode for the new register, a robust Windows-toMac transfer function for new Mac users (and existing customers running Quicken on a Windows virtual machine), and redesigned the experience to make it look and feel like a native Mac application should.

At the same time, Intuit announced Quicken Financial Life for Mac would be available for pre-order from Intuit's site on October 12, 2009. Guess what happened? That's right. But at least this delay was only two months. By the time the product actually did go live with preorders many, including myself, thought it was too little, too late.

Luckily though, something happened at Intuit between the pre-order delay in October and the December pre-order release: Aaron Patzer was put in charge of Quicken Essentials for Mac (they scrapped the Quicken Financial Life name for a reason I'll get to in a moment).

I interviewed Aaron by phone yesterday and he had a lot of things to say about the

frustration Mac users have with Intuit. Perhaps that's because he experienced the same frustration with Quicken - and that frustration led him to found Mint.com. Speaking with Aaron, I could hear the passion in his voice for simple products that allow users to easily access their data in a straightforward way.

Those original ideas and UI design mojo I mentioned earlier?

Aaron put them to work right away. "When I first saw Quicken Financial Life, it had Cover Flow for no reason," he laughed.

Cover Flow? No reason? Gone.

"Quicken for Mac 2006 and 2007 were C/C++ programs that looked like bastardized versions of the Windows product. Little things matter," he told me. "In the old apps you would think you were supposed to press Command-A to select all of the entries in your registry, because that's what Command-A does on a Mac - it selects all. But in Quicken Mac 2007 it would actually bring up your accounts list. It's little things like that, that you could tell the people [writing the program] weren't real Mac aficionados."

Aaron himself uses a 15" MacBook Pro. The team that he spearheads for Quicken Essentials is a group of "Mac guys who live and breathe this stuff." The team consists of "five or six developers and three guys on QA with product managers coming on and off and the graphics guys switching between

the Windows and Mac versions."

Speaking of Quicken on Windows, Aaron himself wrote the spec for the next version of Quicken for Windows ( 2011, due out later this year). Why is that important? Because Aaron has a clearly defined vision of what the future of financial software will look like. "You'll start to see the mess of all the [Intuit] products merged together. Longer term it shouldn't matter where you use your financial application, whether it's on the Mac, Windows, or Linux. I want to get everything to parity [on] the features and actually do the back -end so it's all a consistent single data model - probably based on Mint - and then just skin the front ends (applications) to look like a Mac product, to look like a Windows product, to look like an iPhone or an Android app - to take advantage of the unique advantages of those platforms.

But the back-end would be the same so you can just migrate any time you want to from Mint.com to Quicken Essentials for Mac to your Android phone or iPhone."

Well, that sounds awesome, but what about people that have years worth of old Quicken data?

"Eventually we will make it so you can just one-flip click your 20 years of data into the cloud and pull it down on any of these devices - that's the holy grail and it'll take over a year to do that,' he says. "But you can see that already in using the new QEM -

it's using a lot of the same user experience paradigm (the way you budget on the Mac, the way you click through the pie charts) and that makes the back-end easier."

That's the larger picture, and after listening to Aaron's enthusiasm, if anyone can make it happen, it'll be him. Let's get back to Quicken Essentials for Mac, though.

"It's called Quicken Essentials for Mac because it's what we consider to be essential for most users - about 80% of users." It's not just what Aaron and his team think is essential; it's what people tell them they want. "We do a lot of usability studies, that's why Mint turned out the way it did. We applied the same to QEM. We went to people's homes and watched them use it.

The majority of them just want to know: How much do I have?

How much do I owe? How much do I spend on gas and food?

How many times do I go to this restaurant? How many times do I go to Starbucks? What investments do I have? Let me set a budget to control my spending." Yeah, but what about the thing many arm-chair reviewers talk about? "Only 6% of users across all platforms use bill pay," Aaron says. "Most people still go to their bank's website to pay a bill."

What about other requested features, like deeper investment tools? That's where the future of Quicken on the Mac comes in.

Intuit isn't abandoning the Mac platform anytime soon; in fact, they're embracing it: "For the next version of Quicken for the Mac we are planning two SKUs: Quicken Essentials and a Deluxe version which adds the deeper investment tools - history of investments, stock lots (buying shares of one stock at different times), etc."

You may rightly point out that Quicken for Windows and even the old Quicken for Mac supported these investment tools and that Quicken for Windows supports bill pay (for the paltry 6% who actually use it), but give it time. Aaron has only been on QEM for four months now, but has already helped completely reinvent Quicken on the Mac in that short timespan (yes, it's finally a Cocoa app). Though many may complain of the lack of investing/bill pay features, I can only liken Quicken Essentials for Mac to QuickTime X. Both apps have been rewritten from the ground up to replace clunky legacy code that would have slowed their scalability in the future. Just as QuickTime X is missing some of the features of QuickTime 7, Quicken Essentials for Mac is missing some of the features of Quicken Mac 2007 - for now. But because of the clean-sweep rewrites, these new applications are just the launching point for the programs into a better, more TUAW page 25

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Mashable’s Weekly Guide to Jobs in Marketing & Social Media

by Tamar Weinberg (Mashable!)

Submitted at 2/18/2010 7:01:04 AM

If you’re seeking a job in social media, we’d like to help out. For starters, Mashable’s Job Lists section gathers together all our resource lists, how-tos and expert guides to help you get hired. In particular, you might want to see our articles on How to Leverage Social Media for Career Success and How to Find a Job on Twitter.

But we’d like to help in a more direct way, too. Mashable’s job boards are a place for sociallysavvy companies to find people like you. This week and every week, Mashable features its coveted job board listings for a variety of positions in the web, social media space, and beyond.

Have a look at what’s good and new on our job boards: Mashable Job Board Listings Information Architect at Discovery Communications in Silver Spring, MD. Conduct the analysis, design and documentation of Discovery Education product architecture, including labeling systems, organization of site structure, interactive metaphors and navigation schemes.

Read more about this opportunity here. Digital Strategist at Ketchum Digital in New York, NY.

We’re looking for a Digital Strategist to join our ranks, an individual deeply ingrained in media culture, “pull-not-push” marketing and the dynamics of on- and off-line communitybuilding.

Read more about this opportunity here. Web Developer at MTV Networks in New York, NY. MTV Networks is seeking a Web Developer to join our existing team in the maintenance and development of a premium music video destination.

Read more about this opportunity here. Manager of Product Development at MTV Networks in New York, NY. Researches new products, products enhancements, and product redesign that align with the goals of the organization.

Read more about this opportunity here. Social Media Sales Executive at Syncapse in New York, NY. We’re looking for sales executives to sell our social technology products, specifically at this point, SocialTALK (www.socialtalk.com).

Read more about this opportunity here. Campaigns Media Coordinator at PETA in

Washington DC. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) seeks a Campaigns Media Coordinator to generate media coverage of PETA’s campaigns.

Read more about this opportunity here. Manager Social Experience Planning at Sapient in Miami Beach, FL. Provide leadership in the planning of Social Marketing campaigns and/or strategies for clients Read more about this opportunity here. Web Content Manager at iPressroom in Austin, TX or Los Angeles, CA. iPressroom, Inc. (http://www.ipressroom.com), which provides hosted software solutions to marketing and public relations organizations through its powerful iPressroom Media Platform CMS is looking for a Web Content Supervisor for its Austin, Texas and Los Angeles, CA. offices.

Read more about this opportunity here. Product Manager at DigiSynd in Burbank, CA. DigiSynd, a successful new media and social marketing agency, is seeking an experienced product manager to

join its ranks.

Read more about this opportunity here. Social Media/Communications Manager at Dermazone Solutions Inc. in Tampa, FL. We are currently seeking an experienced Social Media / Communications Manager to support our sales, and marketing initiatives as well as assist in the coordination of key office functions for sales, marketing and administration.

Read more about this opportunity here. Digital Specialist – Healthcare at MS&L in New York, NY. The ideal candidate is someone with a strong understanding of the relationship between traditional public relations, and the use of current online/digital technology.

Read more about this opportunity here. Search and Traffic Editor at The Washington Post in Washington DC. We are looking for an Editor to head up Search & Traffic efforts in the newsroom through smart use of online content optimization.

Read more about this opportunity here. Freelance Developer at HUGE in New

York, NY. The Freelance ZEND PHP/WordPress Developer will participate in development efforts on projects for external clients.

Read more about this opportunity here. Social Media Specialist at Global Graphics Software Ltd in Cambridge, United Kingdom.

The role would suit an energetic, self-motivated Internet enthusiast who is saturated in social media, is commercially savvy with experience of SEM, and has excellent written skills combined with outstanding attention to detail.

Read more about this opportunity here. Marketing Manager at Funny Or Die in Palo Alto, CA. As our Marketing Manager you will spearhead Funny or Die’s social media programs on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr.

Read more about this opportunity here.

Mashable has a variety of web 2.0, application development, business development, and social networking job opportunities available. Check them out at Mashable’s Job Board.

Got a job posting to share with our readers? Post a job to Mashable today ($80 for a 30 MASHABLE’S page 26

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NBC's Delayed Telecasts Show A Company Living In The Last Century

And, Of Course, Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against Google Over Buzz

by Mike Masnick (Techdirt)

by Mike Masnick (Techdirt)

Submitted at 2/18/2010 4:33:00 AM

Submitted at 2/18/2010 2:22:25 AM

This is just bizarre. As NBC continues its screwed up process of broadcasting the Olympics by delaying the actual telecast of important events until prime time, apparently a bunch of folks are pissed off that real news sources are reporting on what's actually happened. They're targeting the wrong thing, of course. If they're upset that the news is being reported before it's being shown on TV, the real problem is NBC's decision not to show stuff live on TV or to webcast it for those who would prefer to see it live. But people are taking out their anger on newspapers who are giving live reports of what's actually happening: "Could you please ask the editor of the front Web page to not name the winners within the headlines/sub-headlines?" asked Ken Waters of Phoenix. Matt Gooch of Harrisonburg, Va. said he was disappointed when The Times reported the results of the men's downhill before NBC showed the event. "This is not Taliban news, nor TARP news, or even Paula Jones type news," Gooch said. "There is no meaning to this except the

anticipation and suspense that sports viewers feel watching the event live. Please help me understand why your organization needs to spoil the experience."

Other news organizations are hearing similar complaints. Liz Spayd, managing editor of The Washington Post, told a reader who asked for a spoiler alert yesterday that, "It's an issue we're trying to evaluate right now." She said that it's a tricky question "for a news site whose greatest value is to break news.

We don't want to be the game spoilers, but when big news happens -- an unexpected gold for the U.S., for example, we want it prominently visible on the site." Thankfully, the NY Times "has no intention of changing its approach," recognizing that it's a news organization, rather than a business to prop up NBC's ridiculous broadcast scheduling choices.

This does highlight a larger issue that I've been noticing lately. In our more "real-time" society, especially with things like Facebook and Twitter, the

idea that you can hide from "spoilers" is increasingly arcane.

Now, for most broadcasters (other than NBC, apparently) this should represent good news: as it will drive more people to watch content live, rather than trying to save it for later, since they'll want to avoid spoilers ahead of time. In this case, though, NBC has apparently decided that it knows better than to enable such things.

Of course, plenty of people are smart enough to realize just how badly NBC is managing this, falsely believing that people will just sit and wait until NBC decides to show what it wants, rather than letting people actually follow what's happening. News reports are popping up highlighting how many people are pissed off at NBC for the ridiculous decision to hide live events in a real-time world. With the end result being that NBC's brand is being dragged through the mud for not understanding how to broadcast a sporting event in a real-time world:"In the age of DVRs, Hulu, and mobile phone scoreboards, the pointlessness of

NBC's broadcast strategy -Olympics and otherwise -- has never been more obvious. People don't eat dinner during Nightly News then settle in for three hours of prime-time network programming anymore. They want things when they want them, not when NBC wants them." NBC's bizarre reasoning for this is that it wants to put all the "highlight" moments during prime time when it can sell the most advertising.

But, apparently no one there thought that perhaps they could show the actual events live and then use prime time for a nice summary of what happened that day at the Olympics. In that way, they might actually get more viewers.

If you ever wanted the epitome of a company still living in the last century, it appears to be NBC Universal.

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I definitely agreed with others that Google's failure to realize the potential privacy problems of automating followers based on who you talk to the most -- and then making that info public -was a privacy mistake, but is it worth a class action lawsuit? To lawyers, of course it is. These days, if you do anything that people don't like, you can pretty much expect a class action lawsuit that really serves only one purpose: to enrich the lawyers bringing the class action lawsuit. So, it comes as no surprise that a class action lawsuit have been filed against Google for the Buzz privacy mishap. But, really, is this necessary? The company quickly admitted it had made a mistake and changed things. At this point, what good does a class action lawsuit do? It's not like the company hid something bad and tried to avoid taking responsibility for it. Class action lawsuits can have real value, but in this case, it's a pure money grab.

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Tech/

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Apple's obsessive secrecy hurting relations with overseas suppliers

by Chris Rawson (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)) Submitted at 2/18/2010 9:00:00 AM

Filed under: Apple Corporate, Rumors, Bad Apple Apple's obsession with secrecy is legendary. For all the rumors and leaks that stoke media attention, very rarely do we have a clear picture of a new product until Steve Jobs comes out on stage and shows it to us. Even people who work for Apple often have very little idea what the company is up to; retail employees at Apple Stores usually don't know any more about upcoming products than anyone else, and retail managers have told me the first clear picture they get of new products is when they arrive on a truck. Even people who work in Apple R&D on products like the iPad operate in a " cone of silence," with security measures in place at Cupertino's labs that sound like something out of a James Bond film. And last year, an employee of Chinese supplier Foxconn allegedly leapt to his death to avoid further interrogation after he "lost" an iPhone prototype.

A new report from Reuters offers more insight into Apple's cloak and dagger world.

Confidentiality agreements are

can't be used for other clients, and excess inventory cannot be repurposed.

The Reuters report paints a very dark picture of Apple's relations with its suppliers. The company has its reasons for being secretive, some of them more valid than others, but it seems incredibly ironic that the same company who satirized George Orwell's 1984 in their iconic Super Bowl commercial now employs the same sort of policestate tactics with both its own employees and its overseas contractors. As much as I enjoy using Apple's products, reports like the one from Reuters make it only the beginning when it m o n i t o r e d w o r k e r s a r e hard for me to like the company comes to Apple's tactics with its responsible for final assembly. itself. o v e r s e a s s u p p l i e r s . A p p l e Apple also has a unique vetting Read the Reuters report for contacts suppliers at the last process for its contractors: it will yourselves, and then let us know minute, often only weeks before switch up product suppliers how you feel about Apple's a product's release, and provides occasionally, issuing them obsession with secrecy in the information about its products on different products, all in the comments. a strict "need to know" basis. name of hunting down and [Via AppleInsider] Apple also divides its projects squashing leaks. Well, that and TUAW Apple's obsessive between multiple suppliers, an attempt to thwart cheap secrecy hurting relations with meaning that for a product like k n o c k o f f s - - a s o m e w h a t overseas suppliers originally the iPhone, no one supplier is common practice in certain parts appeared on The Unofficial responsible for producing or of the manufacturing world.

Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, assembling all of its components. One South Korean supplier has 18 Feb 2010 09:00:00 EST. As a result, even most of the s t a t e d A p p l e m a k e s Please see our terms for use of people who are standing on the "unreasonable requests." The feeds. assembly line making Apple's c o m p a n y ' s d e m a n d s f o r Read| Permalink| Email this| products have no idea what they customization in its designs Comments look like when they're finished. means suppliers are left with Only a handful of very closely equipment and components that

Macworld 2010: Steve Shepard of Storyist

by Dave Caolo (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)) Submitted at 2/18/2010 10:00:00 AM

Filed under: Macworld, Software, Video Last year we reviewed Storyist, the software for writers. It's a great app that lets you manage all aspects of a writing project, like plot points, research, characters and more. Once you're done writing, you can export to many popular file formats, as well as prepare your document for an editor, for use as a screenplay or even digital distribution.

I sat down with Steve Shepard at our Macworld booth to discuss the app, how to get the most out of it, his experiences at the show and finally whether or not he's got any plans for the iPad. Check out the video above to see our conversation.

TUAW Macworld 2010: Steve Shepard of Storyist originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 18 Feb 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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POLICE

TUAW

continued from page 20

after his arrest, features only three test posts. And the linked Twitter account features only a series of messages titled "2,218 New Followers Within 7 Days" and "Make Money On Twitter" that include links to a nonexistent Web page. (Prosecutors say Taylor has prior convictions for forgery, fraud, and identity theft.)

Another reason why a search of Taylor's phone was constitutional, said Feasel, the deputy district attorney, is because "of the transitory nature of that information, because iPhones do present interesting issues with regards to e-mails, and because the iPhone with the 3.0 operating system does have a feature known as a remote wipe."

"The potential for destruction of evidence by a defendant further bolsters our argument regarding limited search incident to arrest," Feasel said.

There is a dispute about whether the iPhone was protected with a password. San Mateo County said in court papers that there is no evidence "that the iPhone was locked." Feasel said that if there had been a password, "there

continued from page 21

would need to be a search warrant."

EFF, on the other hand, says its client is positive that Bocci, the detective, "bypassed the password" on the iPhone.

Jennifer Granick, an EFF attorney, says she plans to ask the officer about it during Thursday's hearing.

There are guides online showing how to do just that, including one titled "Defeating the iPhone Passcode." The technique works on both jail-broken and unaltered iPhones and involves overwriting an iPhone file that stores the password. A $29.99 Windows application called QuickPWN reportedly does the trick.

"If the government can look at a paper appointment book, why can't they look at a contact list on an iPhone?" said Orin Kerr, a law professor at George Washington University who has written extensively about electronic investigations. "Where I think things get much more difficult is searching through the phone using keyword searches."

A 2007 decision by a San Francisco federal judge, which

CNET reported at the time, noted that "the line between cell phones and personal computers has grown increasingly blurry" and that the U.S. Department of Justice "asserted that officers could lawfully seize and search an arrestee's laptop computer as a warrantless search incident to arrest." The Obama Justice Department, in a series of prosecutions including one in Nebraska involving a crack cocaine dealer, has taken the same position about warrantless searches of cell phones.

"I think eventually courts will probably have a new rule" for smartphone searches, said Kerr, the George Washington law professor. "The question is, what the limit will be? You can imagine different possibilities.

Maybe there's a time limitation.

We just don't know. It's too early."

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feature-rich future.

I've been playing with Quicken Essentials for Mac for a few days now (I'll have a full review of it on February 25) and I can already tell you, I'm a convert. I abandoned Quicken for Mint, but QEM has brought me back into the fold. It's worth it for the Cocoa rewrite alone.

What else does Intuit have in store for the Apple community?

Aaron told me that after Mint releases its Android app, the team will be adding features to the next iPhone version. Some of those features include adding manual transactions - the ability to enter checks that haven't cleared yet, and an easier way to enter cash. "Doing that on the iPhone is probably the most useful way to do it because you are usually paying cash in a cab or buying a quick coffee with it."

Another thing under consideration is an ATM locator.

"We know which bank accounts you have so we can tell you which ATMs in your area are not gonna charge you a fee."

Also expect to see an iPad app.

"Yes, it's something we've been looking into. Ideal implementation would be Mint's pie chart that you can click through and dive into to see Caption by Ina Fried Food-Dining-McDonald's, etc.

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The Olympics' 'mission control' (photos) (CNET News.com) Submitted at 2/18/2010 4:00:00 AM

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Magnus Alvarsson, chief integrator for technology consultant Atos Origin, says that he is practically bored with all the computer systems running so smoothly.

Photo by Ina Fried/CNET

launch and probably not before late summer at the earliest.

What about Aaron's brainchild?

I use Mint for all my US accounts, but what about my UK bank accounts? Will the rest of the globe soon be able to utilize Mint.com? "Mint is working with the Global Division at Intuit, planning how to internationalize our code base."

As Aaron points out, that's one of the advantages of such a large company taking over a Web 2.0 startup - the startup can use the company's resources to go further than it could have on its own. As for that large company?

Well, something tells me that acquiring Mint and Aaron Patzer is the best thing that could ever have happened to Intuit - and you can take that to the bank.

TUAW TUAW Exclusive: Aaron Patzer on the future of mobile finance, Mint.com, and Quicken on the Mac originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 17 Feb 2010 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Inside the Olympics' 'mission control' (CNET News.com) Submitted at 2/18/2010 4:00:00 AM

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VANCOUVER, British Columbia--While the Winter Olympics have brought many headaches for organizers, the computing systems haven't been one of them.

In fact, things have been pretty quiet inside the low-rise building in east Vancouver where the technology operations are headquartered.

"In here, our objective is to be bored," said Atos Origin's Magnus Alvarsson, one of those in charge of overseeing the Olympics' IT setup. And from where he sits, just outside the computer-filled room that is the equivalent of NASA's mission

MASHABLE’S continued from page 22

day listing) and get it highlighted every week on Mashable.com (in addition to exposure all day every day in the Mashable marketplace).

Tags: career, jobs

control, things have been just about as uneventful as he could hope for.

Among the biggest problems have been minor things such as people forgetting their password or moving computers from one location to another at a venue. "It shows up on our monitoring that someone is unplugging something," Alvarsson said.

His team also had to move some wiring at the luge site when the course was rerouted after the death of a Georgian athlete.

"They moved the start point a little," he said. "We had to re do a little bit of cabling."

Although the Games are still just a few days old and workers continue to monitor things, Alvarsson said his thoughts are starting to turn to the process of taking out the massive amounts of computing and networking gear installed at spots throughout

Vancouver and Whistler.

"We know that the solution we put in place works," he said.

"Now it has to be something very unforeseen like an outside agent or a power outage for there to be a technology issue."

Sure there have been controversies over cauldrons, weather woes, and snow-lacking slopes, but Alvarsson said nothing has been in his domain, not even the glitch in the opening ceremonies that left part of the Olympic cauldron unable to be lit.

"I'm very happy to say we have nothing to do with the hydraulics," he said. "We only deal with the information technology."

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Google Books Case Fosters Intellectual, Legal Crossroads

by David Kravets (Wired Top Stories) Submitted at 2/18/2010 6:21:00 AM

Nobody in their right mind opposes the intellectual soundness of digitizing the world’s books and making them available online. Yet Google will

encounter stiff resistance in a Manhattan federal court Thursday during a marathon hearing that could grant Google the keys to freeing the written word from a business and intellectual model as old as paper and ink.

Cash4Gold Lawsuit Against Whistleblowers Over; Florida State Investigation Just Beginning

by Mike Masnick (Techdirt)

though it doesn't say that exactly.

Plus, the two former employees Submitted at 2/17/2010 8:40:00 PM are reasonably upset that their You may recall that, a year ago, names are splashed all over the the company Cash4Gold got into news as being involved in a some hot water after some rather lawsuit over "breach of contract" unflattering stories were written from a former employer. Of about the company and its course, in suing for breach of practices.

S o m e f o r m e r contract, the company was e m p l o y e e s a c t e d a s effectively admitting that what whistleblowers to explain some the whistleblowers said was true o f t h e m o r e q u e s t i o n a b l e rather than false. practices the company adhered Separately, Consumerist notes to. In response, rather than that while this lawsuit is over, proving them wrong or cleaning things keep looking worse for up its act, Cash4Gold threatened Cash4Gold, as the Florida state and then sued Consumerist, a Attorney General has now complaints website, and two started an investigation into the whistleblowers. Of course, the company's practices. l a w s u i t j u s t e n c o u r a g e d So, good work, Cash4Gold. Not Consumerist to dig deeper and only did your actions lead to find even more questionable significantly more attention to p r a c t i c e s o n t h e p a r t o f your questionable practices, your Cash4Gold. Late last year, the lawsuit against those who company seemed to realize that exposed you didn't accomplish suing Consumerist was not a anything other than giving them smart move and dropped the an opportunity to expose more of lawsuit against the site, though it your practices, and the end result continued its suit against the is an investigation from state whistleblowers. officials. Maybe next time focus Consumerist is now reporting on improving your business, that the lawsuit against the rather than suing those who whistleblowers is now over as expose your shady practices. well, but they don't explain Permalink| Comments| Email exactly what happened. The This Story implication is that Cash4Gold has finally dropped the lawsuits,

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27

First Chevy Volt cars will not be E85 ready (CNET News.com) Submitted at 2/18/2010 7:26:00 AM

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GM's first batch of the 2011 Chevy Volt may not have E85 capability, though the company promises later versions will.(Credit: Martin LaMonica/CNET) The first batch of General Motors Chevy Volt 2011 plug-in hybrid cars will not be compatible to run E85, a blend of gas and ethanol.

Tom Stephens, GM vice chair

for global product development, called for more government support of ethanol and a need for more E85 stations during his Tuesday speech at the Renewable Fuels Association conference in Florida. Stephens mentioned that early editions of the 2011 Chevy Volt may not be E85 compatible, several news outlets have reported.

Tony Posawatz, vehicle line director for the Chevy Volt, confirmed the same notion on the leading Chevy Volt blog on Wednesday.

"We are finalizing some of our options and the associated timing that goes with them. The E85

capable emission package will have its timing finalized soon. It will not be available for November 2010," Posawatz told GM-Volt.com.

The news is a little shocking to those who've followed the Volt and GM closely. The company has been very publicly supportive of E85 and has been

UK Court Says It Has Jurisdiction Over Racist Material Stored On California Server... If Content Created In The UK

by Mike Masnick (Techdirt) Submitted at 2/17/2010 10:44:00 PM

We've had numerous posts lately about jurisdiction questions raised online, and PRK alerts us to a case in the UK where two men were convicted for publishing racist information online. The jurisdictional question came in because the content itself was hosted on servers in California. The court said that UK law still applied because the actual action of

creating the content was done by the two men in the UK, and it was then just uploaded to the server elsewhere. While there are serious concerns over "libel tourism" type cases in the UK, in this case I can understand the reasoning behind the ruling. The actions themselves took place in the UK, so it does make sense to try the men there.

Of course, there are some other issues related to the case, including the court saying it didn't matter whether or not

anyone in the UK had actually seen the content -- which seems a bit odd. While the content ran afoul of some sort of hate speech laws in the UK, it does seem reasonable to ask whether or not the content itself was ever actually seen by anyone, but the court found otherwise:"The point that there cannot be publication without a publishee is in our judgment fundamentally misconceived," he said. "It is based on an irrelevant comparison with the law of libel.

Libel is a tort or civil wrong where it is necessary for the claimant to prove that the words complained of were published of him and were defamatory of him ... the offences of displaying, distributing or publishing racially inflammatory written material do not require proof that anybody actually read or heard the material."

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investing in flex-fuel technology for its cars for some time. GM has also long maintained that the Chevy Volt would be a flex-fuel vehicle as well as a plug-in hybrid.

Posawatz told CNET News specifically in April 2009 that the 2011 Volt, in addition to being a plug-in hybrid, would also be a flex-fuel vehicle capable of running on either gasoline or E85.

Requests for comment from GM were not immediately returned.

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Low Cost Ways to Stay Healthy - from Consumer Reports

by Press Room (Consumer Reports) Submitted at 2/17/2010 9:00:59 PM

Low Cost Ways to Stay Healthy - from Consumer Reports Money may be tight -- too tight for a club membership ... but there are some low- or no-cost strategies for recession-era wellness. From Consumer Reports February issue. CR Podcast 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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Tech/ Tech News/ Economy/

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Why Can't All These Ideas For Content On The iPad/Tablets Also Work On The Web?

by Mike Masnick (Techdirt) Submitted at 2/18/2010 6:19:14 AM

Last month, at a panel in Silicon Valley on the future of journalism, one of the topics of discussion was whether or not tablet computing would be the "savior" of news, with most of the focus being on a recent video put together by Sports Illustrated of what a specialized tablet version of the magazine might look like. More recently, Wired Magazine demonstrated a working prototype of a tabletized version of the magazine. Both of these demos are certainly impressive -- but I'll say the

same thing that I said about the SI demo on that panel discussion: why is the focus on the hardware? Nothing in either demo really requires a tablet. If this format is so compelling, why aren't these publications already offering it for use on regular computers? Certainly, the ability to use touchscreen controls is nice, but you could easily replicate the basics with a mouse. If the overall format is so compelling, then what does it have to do with a tablet/iPad, specifically? Now, perhaps Wired does intend for this to be useful on other platforms, as its version is just an Adobe AIR

app, and so it could function just fine on a desktop/laptop, but again, the video seems to keep focusing on the tablet as if that's necessary. Yes, perhaps the form factor of a tablet computer makes this experience more enjoyable, but I think it's important in judging whether or not these apps actually make sense to separate the hardware from the software, to see if either makes sense without the other, or if they really are joined at the hip.

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Kindle App Arrives on BlackBerry [Downloads]

by Kevin Purdy (Lifehacker) Submitted at 2/18/2010 7:30:00 AM

Nearly one year after arriving on iPhones and iPod touch, Amazon's Kindle app has arrived on BlackBerry. As you might last pages read with an actual expect, it synchronizes your Kindle, or the iPhone or desktop books, bookmarks, notes, and

Kindle software. If you're rocking one of the compatible Bold, Curve, Storm, or Tour models (listed at Amazon's page), you can grab it by heading to amazon.com/kindlebb from your mobile browser. [via CNET]

AT&T Goes Google, Will Finally Sell First Android Device

by Jennifer Van Grove (Mashable!)

Submitted at 2/18/2010 7:03:26 AM

Beginning March 7, AT&T will start selling the Androidpowered Motorola BACKFLIP. Although the carrier is slated to sell the Dell Mini 3 exclusively later this year, the Motorola BACKFLIP will be the first Android device sold by AT&T. Motorola debuted the new device — which combines a reverse QWERTY flip keyboard with a custom Android operating system supporting the company’s social mediaintensive MOTOBLUR technology — back in January, but AT&T will be the first carrier to sell it stateside. AT&T will sell the device for $199.99 with a required two-year contract and smartphone data plan at retail locations and online.

The union of AT&T and Android became official earlier this year when we learned that AT&T would begin selling at

least five Android phones in 2010. AT&T has been slow to sell phones powered by Google’s operating system, which means come March it will be the final major U.S. carrier to embrace Android.

Given AT&T’s size and reach we should see Android’s market share continue to climb in 2010.

With Apple taking more than 25% and Android doubling up to 5.2% of the smartphone market, every additional carrier and Android device creates an opportunity for Google to close that gap.

Tags: android, att, Google Android, Mobile 2.0, Motorola, motorola backflip

FOMC Minutes

by Barry Ritholtz (The Big Picture) Submitted at 2/18/2010 7:26:05 AM

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-text RSS service so we can continue developing it.

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The E-book Price War Isn’t Over Yet

Search Your Evernote Notebook with Chrome [Evernote]

by Stan Schroeder (Mashable!)

by Kevin Purdy (Lifehacker)

Submitted at 2/18/2010 2:00:44 AM

As Apple announced its iPad and iBookstore, there was a shift of momentum in the book publishing industry. Amazon’s strategy for selling e-books on the Kindle was to sell them at a discounted price, such as $9.99, but Apple, somewhat surprisingly, announced higher book prices for titles bought through the iBookstore.

Soon, however, the big publishers such as Macmillan pressured Amazon into letting them sell books through an agency pricing model, which essentially means more money to them, but higher book prices – $12.99 or $14.99 – for the end users.

Now, there’s another twist to this story, as the New York Times discovers that Apple may have a deal with publishers that

29

Submitted at 2/18/2010 5:40:00 AM

ensures lower prices for bestsellers. A title that costs $12.99 would cost significantly less once it hit the bestseller list.

Furthermore, Apple wants cheaper hardcover titles to also be cheaper in e-book form.

If this is true, it means cheaper prices for the consumer. But it also means that the publishers (who hate the idea of a technology company controlling their prices) are betting big on the iPad, and are thus ready to give Apple a bit of a headstart at their own expense.

Tags: amazon, apple, e-books, iBookstore, ipad

Steve Jobs featured in Icons art exhibit, wins award at MWC

by Mike Schramm (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW))

the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week. He wasn't actually at the conference (don't you know Apple only does their Submitted at 2/17/2010 7:45:00 PM own thing these days?), but he Filed under: Steve Jobs His w a s s t i l l d u b b e d " M o b i l e Steveness was honored twice Personality of the Year." Show recently. First, he showed up in a host Stephen Fry didn't have piece of art featured in a New anyone from Apple handy to York exhibit. "Icons" is a set of give the award to, but he'd p o r t r a i t s t h a t s h o w s o f f promise to get it to the right Microsoft founder Bill Gates, place. Two more achievements F a c e b o o k f o u n d e r M a r k for Jobsy to place on his already Zuckerberg, Twitter founder crowded mantle.

Jack Dorsey, and of course our TUAW Steve Jobs featured in own iCEO. The art itself isn't Icons art exhibit, wins award at that original (a takeoff on the old MWC originally appeared on Warhol pieces), but the idea, I The Unofficial Apple Weblog guess, is to enshrine the modern (TUAW) on Wed, 17 Feb 2010 icons of the Internet in the same 19:45:00 EST. Please see our way we did back in the 60s with terms for use of feeds. movie stars and musicians.

Read| Permalink| Email this| Jobs also won an actual award at Comments

If you're a fan of universal memory service Evernote, but can't or won't run its desktop software for quick access, the service suggests making Evernote.com easy to search from the address bar.

Evernote's team explains the process in the video above, but it's also easy to describe in text.

Right-click on Chrome's address/OmniBar, select Edit Search Engines, and hit the Add button in the next dialog. From there, enter these results into the three fields: • Name: Evernote • Keyword: Evernote.com • U R L : http://www.evernote.com/search ?q=%s If you'd spent a good deal of time with Evernote.com, or read our power user's guide to Chrome, you might have already figured this one out. If not, it's a nice little convenience.

Searching through Evernote with Google Chrome[Evernote Blogcast]

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Tech/ Politics/ Tech News/

E-reader News Edition

Class Action Complaint Amazon Launches a Filed Over Google Buzz Kindle App for BlackBerry

by Stan Schroeder (Mashable!)

Submitted at 2/18/2010 1:27:13 AM

by Adam Ostrow (Mashable!)

When Google unleashed Buzz onto Gmail users, did it invade their privacy? Some folks definitely think it did, as a local class action complaint was filed in San Jose federal court, alleging that Google Buzz broke the law by sharing personal data without user consent.

The complaint, filed on behalf of a Florida woman called Eva Hibnick, claims Google has broken several electronic communications laws, with the plaintiff seeking both monetary relief and injunctions to prevent Google from taking similar actions in the future.

This is not the first privacyrelated incident Google Buzz has caused. Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada had

Submitted at 2/18/2010 4:41:16 AM

some doubts about Google Buzz; the issue then, as it is now, was the fact that Buzz automatically finds users to follow based on your e-mail correspondence.

Google quickly announced some changes in the way Google Buzz handles private data, but that might even reinforce the case that Buzz’s original behavior was breaking the law.

Google declined to comment on this new case, claiming it hasn’t yet been served with the complaint.

Tags: class action complaint, google buzz, privacy, social media

Amazon has launched a Kindle application for BlackBerry that lets customers purchase and read e-books.

Just like the company’s application for iPhone and iPod touch, if you already have a Kindle, you’re able to sync the BlackBerry app with it, meaning information like the last page you were on is consistent across devices.

The download is free, though only newer BlackBerry models are supported -– specifically Curve 8520 and 8900, Tour 9630, Bold 9000 and 9700, and Storm 9500, 9530, and 9550.

In a statement, Amazon notes

Start Windows 7 Media Center in Live TV Mode [Windows Media Center]

by Kevin Purdy (Lifehacker) Submitted at 2/18/2010 6:00:00 AM

that they’re currently developing both a Mac and iPad version of Kindle. The company launched a PC version back in November.

Do you currently use Kindle on any platforms besides the device itself? Let us know in the comments.

Tags: amazon, amazon kindle, blackberry, ebooks, Kindle

Traficant Stays Mum On Whether He Will Run (Newsmax - Politics) Submitted at 2/17/2010 11:33:50 PM

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Democrats in northeast Ohio are watching to see if a former congressman who spent seven years in federal prison for corruption will try to stage an

unprecedented political comeback.

Former Democratic U.S. Rep. James Traficant, who once made a failed bid for Congress from prison, has warned for weeks that he may try to unseat one of the Democrats representing the economically struggling Youngstown area. Congressional primary hopefuls must submit petitions to run by 4 p.m.

Thursday.

Traficant's spokesman Dennis Malloy says the former congressman has petitions ready to file in both the 6th and 17th congressional districts, but he may pass on the primary altogether and run as an independent.

Traficant was released from prison in September. © Copyright 2010 The

Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Sometimes you just want to turn on the television and, well, actually watch TV, but maybe keep Windows Media Center handy to record or watch something else. A quick shortcut hack can start your rig up on live television.

If you're used to editing program shortcuts, one of the How-To Geek's favorite Windows tricks, you can go ahead and change the target of your Windows Media Center shortcut to this line: %windir%\ehome\ehshell.exe "/mcesuperbar://tv?live=true" For a more detailed and explanatory look at the trick, hit up the Geek's home away from Lifehacker for the full tip.

Automatically Start Windows 7 Media Center in Live TV Mode[the How-To Geek]

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Macworld Expo: Jim Rea talks about the early days of Mac development

by Michael Rose (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)) Submitted at 2/18/2010 1:00:00 AM

Filed under: Macworld, Software, Cult of Mac When Apple first introduced the Macintosh, there weren't many authorized third-party developers around... even fewer unauthorized ones, when you think about it. One guy did manage to sneak in the back door and ship his app for the original Mac on an accelerated schedule: Jim Rea, the founder of ProVUE

soon-to-ship Panorama version 6. Both videos are in the continuation of this post. Part 1: Buzz Settings Page Goes Part 2: Live in Gmail, Allows TUAW Macworld Expo: Jim Rea talks about the early days of Total Disabling Mac development originally [Updates] appeared on The Unofficial by Kevin Purdy (Lifehacker) Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 18 Feb 2010 01:00:00 EST. Submitted at 2/18/2010 7:00:00 AM Please see our terms for use of As recently promised, Google Development. The company's later evolved into Panorama, feeds. original database for the Mac, which continues to run on the Read| Permalink| Email this| has updated Gmail to include a "Buzz" tab, where you can O v e r V U E , w a s t h e 2 n d Macs of today.

Comments prevent the public from seeing commercial app to ship for the Jim was kind enough to share your followers list, remove the platform (Microsoft's Multiplan some of his memories from the Buzz inbox from Gmail, and, as was #1). The DB application early years, and update us on the the nuclear option, completely kill your Buzz account That last link, with the warning sign and red text, completely Glenn Beck[The keynote Hon. Marco Rubio removes Buzz from your Google speaker. --ed.]

Hon. Rick Santorum Profile, according to its wording.

Amb. John Bolton Hon. J.C. Watts A commenter notes that it might Andrew Breitbart George F. Will also kill your Google Profile Herman Cain Judge Andrew Napolitano entirely, so be cautious if that's Tucker Carlson Phyllis Schlafly something you want to keep Liz Cheney UPDATE at 2/17/10 6:19:49 around.

Ann Coulter pm: Are you hitting the killswitch on Sen. Jim DeMint The John Birch Society’s booth Buzz, merely hiding it from your Hon. Newt Gingrich at CPAC sure looks nice and inbox, or just waiting to see David Keene clean: The united colors of the where this social network train Rep. Mike Pence Wayne LaPierre John Birch Society. ends up taking you? [via PC Rep. Tom Price Rep. Ron Paul World] Hon. Mitt Romney Gov. Tim Pawlenty

CPAC Pre-Game Thread (Little Green Footballs) Submitted at 2/17/2010 6:09:28 PM

The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) starts tomorrow, featuring the John Birch Society as a cosponsor; here’s the schedule for the first day: CPAC 2010 : Thursday, February 18, 2010.

Speakers this year include: Hon. Dick Armey Hon. John Ashcroft Rep. Michele Bachmann

The Fight over the Google of All Libraries: An (Updated) Wired.com FAQ

by Ryan Singel (Wired Top Stories) Submitted at 2/18/2010 6:09:00 AM

It's the beginning of the endgame for the The Google Books project -- an audacious attempt to create the most comprehensive

library in the history of the world -- as the case moves again to a federal hearing in New York.

The story is a complicated one,

combining copyright law, antitrust issues, plain old capitalist competition and the odd problem of orphan books, and Wired.com

is here to help you sort it all out.

32

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The Scribbler

by Jason Zengerle (The New Republic - All Feed)

Al Sharpton, made off with the champagne that he had ordered to commemorate the last show.

Submitted at 2/17/2010 9:00:00 PM But there may have been no Message from fivefilters.org: If lower moment for Carlson than you can, please donate to the full the one he experienced in -text RSS service so we can S e p t e m b e r 2 0 0 6 , w h e n h e continue developing it. became a contestant on the If you’re a journalist, chances reality-TV show “Dancing With are you’ve had some pretty low the Stars.” His friends and moments in the last few years, as colleagues begged him not to do your industry has imploded all the show. It’s career suicide, they around you. But, in your darkest told him. You run the risk of hours, you were always able to becoming another Jerry Springer. console yourself with one But Carlson ignored their advice, thought: At least I’m not Tucker and, in the weeks leading up to Carlson. the show, he practiced four hours Just consider his bad run. It a day with his professional dance started in October 2004, when partner--only taking a break to Jon Stewart went on CNN’s go to Lebanon to cover the Israel “ C r o s s f i r e , ” c o - h o s t e d b y -Hezbollah war. And then, after Carlson, and accused the show of all that, Carlson lasted only one “ h u r t i n g A m e r i c a , ” w h i l e episode--becoming the first m a k i n g f u n o f C a r l s o n ’ s contestant to be eliminated, five trademark bow tie and calling episodes before Springer himself him a “dick”--all to the laughter was cut from the show. and applause of the studio More than three years later, audience. A few months later, Carlson is still defending his C a r l s o n l e f t C N N a n d “Dancing With the Stars” turn, if “Crossfire” was canceled. He not his dancing ability. “Oh, I resurfaced on msnbc, where, loved it,” he insists, professing now sans bow tie, he hosted his that his recent trajectory has not own show; but the new neckwear bothered him in the slightest. “I didn’t seem to make a difference, never take the long view on my and, after three time slots (late own career. I don’t even know night, late afternoon, and early that I have a career or have ever evening) and two names (“The had one--and I’m not sure I Situation With Tucker Carlson” would ever want one." and “Tucker”), his program was It’s a Tuesday morning in midcanceled before it reached its January, and he’s sitting in his third birthday. Adding insult to office at his new professional injury, according to Carlson, the home, a D.C.-based website entourages of two of “Tucker”’s called The Daily Caller, which, final guests, Marion Barry and at that moment, is just a little

more than 24 hours old. The brainchild of Carlson and his old Trinity College roommate, a former Dick Cheney aide named Neil Patel, The Daily Caller boasts 21 employees, $3 million in financing from a conservative businessman, and, according to Carlson, the straightforward mission of publishing “stories that add to the sum total of known facts about politics and government.”

If that sounds like a fairly traditional journalistic enterprise, it is. And that’s because Carlson is, at heart, a fairly traditional journalist--and an excellent one at that. It may be hard to remember now, staring back through the thick haze of cablenews smackdowns, but, before Carlson embarked on a TV career--and, at various points, even during that TV career--he was a great writer and reporter.

His 1999 profile of George W. Bush for Tina Brown’s shortlived Talk painted a portrait of the then-Texas governor-stubborn, profane, callow--that should have told voters everything they needed to know about why he would be such a terrible president. The piece he wrote for Esquire about traveling to Africa with Sharpton, Cornel West, and other civil rights activists was at once viciously hilarious and bracingly humane, like David Foster Wallace’s or Michael Lewis’s best reportage.

At The Weekly Standard, where he worked for much of the

1990s, he was one of the rare writers less consumed with scoring political points than producing quality journalism.

Which is what was so painful about Carlson’s recent travails-if not for him, then for those who admired his writing and reporting. Indeed, the very qualities that made him such a good print journalist are what made him such a lousy TV one.

Although he is undoubtedly a conservative, his conservatism is of the libertarian (and therefore frequently unpredictable) variety.

This has often led him to be out of sync with more lockstep conservative commentators-whether on the Iraq war (which, after initially supporting, he turned against one year after the invasion) or gay marriage (which he favors). And his almost preternaturally good nature was often no match for the paranoia and bombast of other cable-news talkers. In a medium that rewards extreme opinions and partisan allegiances, Carlson was an increasingly bad fit.

Worst of all, Carlson’s TV career prevented him from doing the sort of journalism he does so well. “You either can’t travel because you’re tied to a show, or, when you do travel, you’re accompanied by a huge entourage of people and a lot of gear,” he says. “The process of making TV requires you to be in one place and plan every movement.”

Thankfully, those days are over.

Carlson is keeping a foot in the TV world, with a contract to serve as a commentator on Fox News (the network that, back when he was working at CNN, he deemed “a mean, sick group of people”). But his primary job will be as editor of The Daily Caller, which he envisions becoming a right-leaning Huffington Post. To that end, he has striven for a mix of articles, ranging from blanket coverage of Scott Brown’s election in Massachusetts to a Golden Globe fashion report written by notorious Republican dirtytrickster (and notorious dandy) Roger Stone. Most promising, Carlson intends to use the site for long-form writing of his own.

His one feature-length effort so far, an investigation into the third alleged White House gatecrasher, Carlos Allen, reminded him of why he got into journalism in the first place. “I interviewed a lot of people. I was talking to a friend of mine who said, ‘Oh, you’ve got to talk to this guy,’ so I called him and he said, ‘Come over to my house,’ and I went over to his house, and it was a completely bizarre scene. It was totally off-therecord, so I can’t quite describe it, but he had a very unconventional living situation, let me just put it that way, and I spent a couple hours in the guy’s bedroom. It was so interesting.

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Washington Diarist

by Leon Wieseltier (The New Republic - All Feed)

you lived in a brownstone with Irish maids who never called you Master Louis and parents who Submitted at 2/17/2010 9:00:00 PM hollered up and down the stairs Message from fivefilters.org: If instead of ringing bells.” This you can, please donate to the full was Auchincloss’s bathetic -text RSS service so we can reminiscence of his boyhood, continue developing it. though it also anticipates the I should not speak ill of the shrunken epicene standpoint of dead, but what of the dead who the Manhattan of Bloomberg and spoke ill of the dead? Many Blankfein--except for one glaring years ago an acquaintance of difference, one deliciously mine applied for a position at the American usurpation. Master Museum of the City of New Louis never knew what it meant Y o r k , o v e r w h i c h L o u i s to be poor in New York, of Auchincloss presided. The course; and when critics accused search committee met in the h i m o f P a r k A v e n u e writer’s apartment on Park provincialism, he accused them Avenue. When the candidate was o f “ c l a s s p r e j u d i c e , ” a n d asked to describe what he would protested grumpily that “nobody do to improve the institution, he holds it against” James and replied that too many people Wharton and Thackeray and were not represented in its Proust. That is because their galleries, and noted in particular subject was not money, even if the inadequacy of the museum’s they wrote about the rich; but portrayal of African Americans. never mind, snobbery is a hurtful “What would you have us do,” thing. It pleases me to think of Auchincloss sneered, “create a A u c h i n c l o s s ’ s w h i t e - s h o e period room with a hovel in it?” I resentment. A country in which was reminded of that sickening he whined about class prejudice r e m a r k w h e n I r e a d is a hopeful place. We are not a Auchincloss’s obituary in the solid but a fluid. In America, Times a few weeks ago. It was elitists cannot sleep. one of those death notices that And certainly not if Sarah Palin make me chuckle. How’s this for has her way. “I’m never going to immortality? “I knew perfectly pretend like I know more than well what it meant to be rich in the next person,” she recently New York. If you were rich, you told Chris Wallace, which is just lived in a house with a pompous as well. And she added: “I’m not beaux-arts façade and kept a going to pretend to be an elitist. butler and gave children’s parties In fact, I’m going to fight the with spun sugar on the ice cream elitist, because for too often and and little cups of real silver as for too long now, I think the game prizes. If you were not rich elitists have tried to make people

like me and people in the heartland of America feel like we just don’t get it.” At the Tea Party convention in Nashville, Palin made a similar claim for the moral superiority of ordinariness, twangily championing “real people, not politicos, not inside-the-Beltway professionals,” and “everyday Americans,” and finally “the people.” Palin is packaging herself as the perfect image of the American mean. It is an affront to the heartland. But since the pitch is working--“the lady is good,” the sobersides David Broder exclaimed--a few clarifications are in order. For a start, there are no unreal people.

Even Mitch McConnell is real.

Even Frank Rich is real. The invocation of “the people” sounds inclusive, but it is a technique of exclusion. (This was also the case in the preamble to the Constitution.) It is based upon a particular definition of “the people.” How do Palin and the partiers know who the real Americans are? The mystical certainty of her divisive intuition reminds me of what intellectual historians used to call the “epistemological privilege” of Marx’s proletariat, his reprehensible old idea that access to truth is a feature of class position. Palin, too, is idealizing the proletariat for the uniqueness of its understanding, though her economics is starkly indifferent to its tribulations. And if you throw in Palin’s views on the

“social issues,” on the questions by which we measure the decency of our society, then it is clear that this is an anti-elitism that is not an egalitarianism, a common touch without genuine commonality, which is quite an accomplishment.

There is also the rather immense hypocrisy of Palin and many other populists. Anyone who has run for the vice presidency, and has published a monster bestseller, and appears regularly on television, and will run for the presidency is a member in good standing of the American elite.

Even lesser attainments of prominence and success confer the same loathed status. The antielitists in the Republican caucus in the House and the Senate, and in the conservative commentariat, and in the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute and the Cato Institute--they are anti-elitists in the elite. Scott Brown proved that nothing gets you to Washington faster than a pickup truck, but he will have a hideaway now. For years liberals used to be ridiculed for their condescension to “the people.”

(Like every common man I adore the scene in The Deer Hunter when Robert De Niro, John Cazale, Christopher Walken, and the others in the bar sing “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” along with the jukebox, but when I saw it a few weeks ago it looked to me like a bunch of guys from Tribeca slumming in a

Pennsylvania steel town.) Now conservatives deserve the same ridicule. The comforting fact is that there is no significant ideology and no significant policy agenda that is not represented among the elite. The appeal to authenticity is universal (Obama has his “folks” and the netroots have their “roots”), but it is universally beside the point. The wisdom of a policy is not determined by its social origins. There is a distinction between populism and “the people,” though most populists do not want you to know it. The populism that bases its criticisms on a preference for one segment of the populace is merely another special interest, its denunciations of special interests notwithstanding. This does not mean that its criticisms are wrong; but when they are right, it is because their reasons are moral, not sociological. The appeasement of Wall Street after what Wall Street did to this country is objectionable not on grounds of class, but on grounds of fairness, of justice. Is there any more inclusive standard for public policy? (Financial regulatory reform and gay marriage: that’s populism!) But justice is not well-pursued by resentment. The anti-politician politicians who seek the favor of angry Americans are deceiving them, because anger is nothing WASHINGTON page 35

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As Harry Reid Maps Comeback, Casinos a Factor (Newsmax - Politics)

mantra since Republican Sen. Scott Brown's upset victory in Massachusetts last month.

Message from fivefilters.org: If CityCenter "makes it more you can, please donate to the full difficult for Republicans to make -text RSS service so we can the argument that you are better continue developing it. off with us than with Harry Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid," says David Damore, a Reid's poll numbers make him University of Nevada, Las look like an easy mark, but Vegas, political scientist. casino owners who have a But with voters deeply unhappy history of disregarding party and with Congress, and in a state going with the winner in Nevada l e a d i n g t h e n a t i o n i n politics are putting their money bankruptcies and foreclosures, "I on him winning re-election. don't think he can be inoculated," While his leadership is under Damore added. "There is this assault in Washington and the populist impulse out there" GOP has made him its No. 1 threatening Reid and other target in November's election, incumbents nationwide.

Reid is counting on decades of Even with the opening of close ties with the gambling C i t y C e n t e r , l e i s u r e a n d industry and the nearly one in hospitality jobs in Nevada every three jobs it supports in the c o n t i n u e d t o e v a p o r a t e i n state to win over disapproving D e c e m b e r . M a n y o f t h e voters. thousands of voters bitter about On Friday, he'll be joined in Las the state's economy are newer Vegas by President Barack residents who know little about Obama at the largest privately Reid, 70, or his decades-long financed construction project in political career. And his highU.S. history, the $8.5 billion profile position pushing Obama's CityCenter casino-resort co- agenda has also hurt him with owned by gambling giant MGM independent voters.

Mirage. Eleven thousand people A survey commissioned by the work in the complex, which Las Vegas Review-Journal in might not be there if Reid hadn't December found a lackluster 38 gotten on the horn with bankers percent of voters had a favorable to finance it. opinion of Reid, the same result The event will send a simple as in an October survey. message when one in five The timing of Obama's visit isn't N e v a d a w o r k e r s i s e i t h e r ideal. Earlier this month, the unemployed or underemployed: president issued a written jobs, jobs, jobs, a Democratic clarification after suggesting in a Submitted at 2/17/2010 10:45:36 PM

speech that people saving money for college shouldn't spend it in Las Vegas. It was the second time since taking office that Obama singled out Las Vegas as a potential example of reckless spending. Even Reid said the president "needs to lay off Las Vegas."

Few states are as reliant on, or influenced by, one industry as Nevada.

Gambling accounts for 15 percent of the jobs in the state, according to state data, but these days casinos are often just part of lavish resorts that include restaurants, shopping malls, nightclubs, hotel rooms and entertainment stages.

One of the senator's early campaign ads featured an endorsement from MGM Mirage CEO Jim Murren, whose company owns most of the hotelcasinos on the Vegas Strip.

Looking squarely into the camera, Murren credits Reid with using his clout to save CityCenter when its financing nearly collapsed during the depths of the recession.

Reid "called every CEO of every bank that I know," Murren says. "There is no one else that could have done that."

In a campaign in which Reid plans to raise a Nevada-record $25 million, casinos and the powerful unions whose members fill many of their jobs have been among his top supporters.

MGM Mirage and its employees were the senator's top donors from 2005 through 2010, giving him more than $150,000, according to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington group that monitors campaign finance.

Funding from Harrah's Entertainment, another major player on the Strip, and its employees ranked third, at nearly $82,000. Neither MGM Mirage's political arm nor Harrah's has donated to any of Reid's leading Republican rivals.

Republicans in the gambling industry who support Reid include Tom Breitling, a senior vice president at Wynn Resorts, and Lorenzo Fertitta, co-founder of Station Casinos.

Reid "has done a nice job of locking down the gaming industry," said Ryan Erwin, senior adviser to Republican candidate John Chachas, a Wall Street banker who moved back to Nevada.

But "industries don't drive the political process, people do," Erwin added. "If polling is any indication, Sen. Reid is not doing very well connecting with the people."

The casino support is not unanimous — Republican candidate Sue Lowden and her husband own stock valued at more than $50 million in Archon Corp., a Las Vegas investment and gaming company.

It's possible some casinos might be holding back dollars until a Republican nominee emerges from a crowded field that includes Lowden, a former state senator who resigned as chairwoman of the state GOP to run; Danny Tarkanian, son of former UNLV basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian; former Assemblywoman Sharron Angle; and Chachas.

Lowden's campaign manager, Robert Uithoven, said casino support for Reid stems from fear of the Washington leader, not support for Democratic policies.

"You don't become a career-long politician in Nevada and have an adverse relationship with our single largest industry," Uithoven said. In a troubled economy, big casino companies "fear coming on board with any Republican candidate could affect their ability to get that very important phone call to a bank," alluding to Reid's role with MGM. Š 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.

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Hearts and Minds

by E.J. Dionne Jr. (The New Republic - All Feed) Submitted at 2/17/2010 9:00:00 PM

Message from fivefilters.org: If you can, please donate to the full -text RSS service so we can continue developing it.

WASHINGTON--If you want to be honest, face these facts: At this moment, President Obama is losing, Democrats are losing, and liberals are losing.

Who's winning? Republicans, conservatives, the practitioners of obstruction, and the Tea Party.

The two immediate causes for this state of affairs are a single election result in Massachusetts, and the way the United States Senate operates. What's not responsible is the supposed failure of Obama and the Democrats to govern as "moderates."

Pause to consider where we would be if a Democrat had won January's Massachusetts Senate race. In all likelihood, health reform would be law, Democrats could have moved on to economic matters, and Obama would be seen as shrewd and successful.

But that's not what happened, and Republican Scott Brown's victory revealed real weaknesses

on the progressive side: an Obama political apparatus asleep at the switch, huge Republican enthusiasm unmatched by Democratic determination, and a focused conservative campaign to discredit Obama's ideas, notably his economic stimulus plan and the health care bill.

The Obama administration argues that both the stimulus and the health bill are better than people think. That's entirely true, and this is actually an indictment --it means that on the two big issues of the moment, Republicans and conservatives are winning an argument they should be losing.

The dreadful Senate is a major culprit here, and that's why Sen. Evan Bayh's complaints in explaining his retirement rang partly true, but also partly false.

What's true is that the Senate isn't working. What's false is that there is no room for moderation.

The fact is that the legislative outcomes on both the stimulus and health care were driven by moderates.

Economists agree that the stimulus worked, but Senate moderates made it less effective by shrinking its size and including irrelevancies--notably $70 billion to fix the alternative

minimum tax--that did little to create jobs. The moderates got their way because the stimulus needed 60 votes, an absurd standard now that we have an ideologically polarized, parliamentary-style party system.

We can waste time mourning that development, or we can recognize it and act accordingly.

On health care, months of delay in a futile quest for Republican support got the Democrats the worst of all worlds. The media gave them no credit for reaching out to the other side but did blame them for an ugly, gridlocked process.

The demands of moderate Democrats for concessions-remember the politically lethal Nebraska payoff for Sen. Ben Nelson?--made the process look even seamier. The bill's conservative opponents shrewdly focused on such side issues and on made-up issues like the "death panels."

Nobody wants to admit that on health care, the moderates won all the big fights. Single-payer was out at the start. The public option died. A Medicare buy-in died. The number of Americans who would be covered shrank.

The insurance companies held on to their antitrust exemption. If a

bill eventually becomes law--as it must if the Democrats are not to look like a feckless, useless lot --the final proposal will be much closer to the moderate Senate version than to the more progressive bill passed by the House.

And if the Republicans refuse to cooperate, this will not mean that the bill isn't moderate. It will mean only that Republicans refuse to vote for a moderate bill.

But if all the media talk about the "failure of moderation" is nonsense, this doesn't get liberals or Obama off the hook.

While liberals were arguing about public plans and this or that, and while Obama was deep into inside deal-making, the conservatives relentlessly made a straightforward public case based on a syllogism: The economy is a mess. Obama and the Democrats are for big government. Big government is responsible for the mess.

Therefore the mess is the fault of Obama and the Big Government Democrats.

Simplistic and misleading?

Absolutely. But if liberals and Obama are so smart, how did they--or, if you prefer, "we"-allow conservatives to make this argument so effectively? Why do

after the great manipulation is the increasingly Sisyphean task of public reason, which is its own kind of insurgency.

Leon Wieseltier is the literary PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, editor of The New Republic.

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WASHINGTON continued from page 33

more lasting than a political consultant’s contract. Emotions are stoked by elections and are spent by them. What remains

the mainstream media give it so much credence?

Of course, I think the conservatives' argument is wrong. But at this point, I have to admire their daring and discipline. Moderate and progressive Democrats alike have eight months between now and this fall's elections to change the terms of the debate and prove they can govern. Otherwise, they'll be washed out by a tidal wave.

E.J. Dionne's e-mail address is ejdionne(at)washpost.com.

E.J. Dionne, Jr. is the author of the recently published Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith and Politics After the Religious Right. He is a Washington Post columnist, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and a professor at Georgetown University. (c) 2009, Washington Post Writers Group For more TNR, become a fan on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

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House GOP Seeks Televised Jobs Meeting (Newsmax - Politics)

of the lessons of Sen. Scott Brown's surprise win in Massachusetts was that voters Message from fivefilters.org: If a r e u p s e t w i t h b i p a r t i s a n you can, please donate to the full bickering and each party leaving -text RSS service so we can the other out. Mr. Obama also continue developing it. faced months of criticism for not Stealing a page from President airing health reform meetings on Obama's transparency book, C-SPAN, a transparency promise H o u s e R e p u b l i c a n s o n he made while he was running Wednesday asked Democratic for office. leaders to hold an on-camera A spokeswoman for Mr. Hoyer, meeting with them on the of Maryland, said he is interested economy and how to create jobs. in the idea.

"Despite our differences, we " L e a d e r H o y e r i s a l w a y s believe that it is imperative for i n t e r e s t e d i n t a l k i n g t o us to begin discussions and work Republicans who want to offer together toward a shared goal of serious, substantive ideas and putting Americans back to work constructively together work," the House's top two t o w a r d s o l u t i o n s , " s a i d Republicans wrote in a letter to spokeswoman Katie Grant. "He the House's top two Democrats. is encouraged that the House The letter to Speaker Nancy Republican leadership appears Pelosi and Majority Leader interested in taking him up on his S t e n y H . H o y e r c o m e s a s repeated offers to work together Democrats remain divided over and reach compromises on how to address the nation's critical issues including job unemployment rate and as creation and strengthening the growing public distrust of economy."

Congress has made a transparent Mr. Obama challenged House process nearly as important as Republicans on their health care the results. proposals in a televised meeting Several lawmakers say that one last month and was able to put Submitted at 2/18/2010 12:09:37 AM

Google Really Wants to Launch a Cloud-Based Media Service [Rumor]

them on the defensive for not offering a comprehensive alternative. Republicans, for their part, said they would never support a broad plan but instead favor a step-by-step approach.

House Republicans want another chance to air their opinions and policy suggestions on public television with their Democratic counterparts.

"Though House Democrats have yet to participate in such a forum, we write to ask that you follow this precedent and agree to participate in an open meeting focused on job creation and economic growth between leaders of both parties in the House," wrote Minority Leader John A. Boehner of Ohio and Minority Whip Eric Cantor of Virginia.

A plan Mr. Cantor gave to Mr. Obama during the White House jobs summit in December would eliminate tax increases including an extension of the tax cuts implemented under former President George W. Bush, freeze discretionary spending, reform the unemployment system, and reduce certain

corporate offshore taxes, among other ideas.

The House passed a $154 billion jobs bill in December - a proposal that would have sent money to highway projects and localities to help pay public employees' salaries that was opposed by all Republicans and 38 Democrats.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid introduced his own $15 billion jobs bills this month, but only after refusing a plan crafted by the top Democrat and top Republican on the Finance Committee. The move prompted Republicans to accuse him of casting aside any hopes of bipartisan cooperation. Mr. Reid said the bill was overloaded with unrelated special-interest projects. © Copyright 2010 The Washington Times, LLC Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

to his point of view--and that he won’t have to compromise his site’s standards too much to lure readers. Sitting in his office as he chomps on a piece of Nicorette, he confesses his biggest fear: “You could wind up with a page only about porn, executions, and

Sarah Palin every day.”

PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Jason Zengerle is a senior editor Term Extraction. at the New Republic.

For more TNR, become a fan on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

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by matt buchanan (Gizmodo) Submitted at 2/18/2010 9:27:58 AM

Google's looking intently at Catch Media, a little company that works on making media cross-platform—that is, make it easy to play music, videos and other media on any hardware or platform.

Catch's tech lets companies track and move digital goods across different platforms. Right now, they're supposedly focused on music, and have licensed music from all of the big four record labels. Google apparently started looking at them right after Apple purchased Lala, so it seems pretty clear that Google's interest in music is more than passing, especially now that Apple's about to launch a cloudbased iTunes. [ Cnet]

SCRIBBLER continued from page 32

The point is, I really miss that.”

In a speech he gave at last year’s Conservative Political Action Conference, Carlson pleaded with conservative journalists to forsake punditry in favor of reporting and, taking The New York Times as a model, “to go

out there and find what is happening ... not just interpret things they hear in the mainstream media, but gather news themselves.” Although that plea was met with a chorus of boos, Carlson holds out hope that conservatives will come around

Consumer Reports/ Gadgets/

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Retiring abroad: Three useful online resources

Q&A: How much "good" fat should I eat?

by Consumer Reports Shopping Blog (Consumer Reports)

by rss@consumerreports.org (Consumer Reports) Submitted at 2/18/2010 6:54:23 AM

Submitted at 2/18/2010 3:59:59 AM

Retiring abroad: Three useful online resources Recently I posted a little Q&A interview with the author of a book on retiring abroad. If you're fantasizing about that possibility, here are some additional resources: • The Social Security Administration explains the ins and outs of collecting your benefits while living abroad in this publication. If you scroll to the end you'll also see some info on Medicare.

• The IRS describes the tax implications in this publication.

• Finally, the U.S. State Department publishes quarterly reports on the comparative cost of living in various foreign locales here. These reports take some effort to digest but could be worth it if you're seriously

contemplating a move and considering more than one country.

— Greg Daugherty Greg writes the “Retirement Guy” column each month in the Consumer Reports Money Adviser newsletter.

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Q&A: How much "good" fat should I eat?

How much "good" polyunsaturated or monounsaturated fat should I eat? —J.F.M., Milton, Del. That depends on your overall calorie intake. Recent guidelines suggest that you can get up to 35 percent of your daily calories from fats. For a person on a 2,000-calorie-a-day diet, that amounts to a high of about 78 grams of fat (since 1 gram of fat contains 9 calories). A vast majority of those—at least 60 grams—should come from the heart-healthy unsaturated fats you cited. (Artery-clogging saturated fats should account for no more than 7 percent of calories—about 16 grams for a

2,000-calorie diet—and trans fats, no more than 1 percent, or about 2 grams.) Good sources of unsaturated fat include fish, nuts, seeds, and vegetable oils.

Take a look at our guide to fats in food and find out why some people are more likely to have high cholesterol than others.

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37

Perhaps We Should Hold Apple And Other U.S. Companies Responsible For Foxconn’s Crimes

by Michael Arrington (CrunchGear) Submitted at 2/18/2010 6:49:17 AM

Buried in a Reuters report on Foxconn, a division of Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision Industry, is a description of an attack on a journalist visiting a Foxconn factory in China while chasing down a lead on an Apple product. The journalist was taking pictures of the factory from a public road, he says, when two guards attacked him and tried to drag him into the factory:

A new penny for your thoughts

by Consumer Reports Shopping Blog (Consumer Reports) Submitted at 2/18/2010 7:33:40 AM

A new penny for your thoughts We’ve speculated here on the future of the penny, and readers

have offered their polite suggestions on what to do with them.

Now comes word that the U.S. Mint has introduced a new penny, which may be showing up in your pocket change any f r o n t , b u t , a s t h e p h o t o day now. (Abe’s still on the

illustrates, the back features a shield design with 13 vertical stripes, meant to symbolize the preservation of the union.)

Will the new design make any difference—or is the humble coin headed for extinction? We welcome your two cents.

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Tech News/ Gadgets/

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FaceChipz: Internet of Things Meets Social Networking

by Sarah Perez (ReadWriteWeb) Submitted at 2/18/2010 7:30:10 AM

Remember POGS? Don't feel bad if you don't - you've just dated yourself, that's all. These round collectible discs were used to play a children's game (also called POGS) back in the 1990's.

Thanks to the incredible popularity of these little tokens, collecting POGS became a generation-defining fad for the demographic group known as the millenials. Where baby boomers had baseball cards and Generation X had Garbage Pail Kids, the young members of Gen Y had their POGS. Now prepare yourself for POGS' return - POGS 2.0, if you will.

Except this time around, the chips have been wired for the digital age. And today, the "game" is a social network called FaceChipz instead of a oldfashioned variation on marbles.

Sponsor FaceChipz: If POGS Was a Social Network FaceChipz is a new social networking site designed just for kids. Intended primarily for the "tween" set who's outgrown children's websites but hasn't quite aged into Facebook yet, FaceChipz merges real-world networking with an online

component. After purchasing a starter set of five chips, the child has their parent register an account for them on the FaceChipz website. Then the game begins.

The child registers all their chips online using the unique identification code found on the back of each token. When all the chips have been registered, they can be distributed to friends. In return, the child's friends will hand them their FaceChipz.

When the exchange is complete, the child returns to the computer to register the new codes from the chips they've collected. The end result is a social network of friends with a physical counterpart in the real world - a brightly colored collection of FaceChipz that can be toted around just like POGS were decades ago. Social Networking Training Wheels Parents will appreciate the fact that the FaceChipz network offers a more secure and private environment for their kids than traditional social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook. No strangers can solicit friendship requests here the child's only online friends are those they've connected with in real life. There isn't even a search mechanism for friends to find each other without first

FaceChipz makes sure that none of their site's pages are indexed by search engines. Finally, when the child is ready to graduate to a more adult network, their account can be permanently deleted. Will FaceChipz Become the New POGS? All the elements are there that could make FaceChipz a success: trading chips. While that design collectible tokens, an online decision is obviously meant to element and parent-friendly keep FaceChipz sales steady, the company ethics. There's another company claims it has another bonus, too: the chips are cheap. goal as well: to prepare children A five-pack is just$4.99 at for the online world of social ToysRUs and the one-time site networking. Reads the company registration fee is only $1.00. If website, "FaceChipz wants to anything, the fee is only there so help kids stay safe, but also mom or dad get involved and are enable them to communicate made aware of the child's online u s i n g t o d a y ' s t e c h n o l o g y activities. platforms...If your kids are savvy However, in this day and age, enough to make appropriate real FaceChipz may be too innocent a world friendships, we believe portal to attract tweens. On a that those relationships will be web filled with insane YouTube suitable and appropriate for the videos and the (often disturbing digital network they create." and occasionally pornographic) Other privacy protections are w e b c a m - h o p p i n g s e r v i c e , offered too. For example, the Chatroulette, will a "your first code on the back is only valid social network" site even have a upon first entry. Afterwards, if a chance? Will today's youngest lost chip ended up in a stranger's generation take to a modern possession, they couldn't use the equivalent of POGS or have they code to connect to the child. seen too much already? Only Also, FaceChipz profiles are time (and sales figures) will tell. designed so kids are only Thanks to Springwise for permitted to post a limited spotting this. Discuss amount of information and their email address is not stored.

Nooka Augmented Reality Accessorizer: Not real but it should be

by John Biggs (CrunchGear) Submitted at 2/18/2010 6:18:41 AM

Nooka is one of our favorite brands and these guys created a new way to try on a Nooka watch at home. By using augmented reality technologies – albeit technology that may not work quite yet – you can try on any watch just by putting on a specially coded bracelet. The system senses the position of your hand and lets the Nooka watch appear in 3D right on your wrist. It’s honestly an amazing idea and someone better patent it before Trojan and Victoria’s Secret get their hands on it.

We’ve seen a few of these, including Avatar toys that come to life on your screen, but never have I seen them shown in such a compelling and fascinating manner. If you were flipping through a magazine would you stop and take a photo of a little bug in the corner of the page or are you more likely to peel of a intriguing watch and go to a website to see something even cooler?

AR is finally getting to a point where the uncanny valley has finally been reached. Expect amazing things in just the next few years.

Thanks, Dr. Mark Wright

Tech News/ Gadgets/ Sports/

E-reader News Edition

Hacking the iPhone App Store's Ranking Algorithm

by Dana Oshiro (ReadWriteWeb)

mobile app store, it's more important than ever to promote your app using the right Submitted at 2/17/2010 7:00:00 PM marketing mix. The company I f y o u ' r e a m o b i l e a p p collected data from the Regie developer, one of your biggest Autonome Transports Parisiens concerns is getting noticed. (RATP) French commuter app to Companies like Smule and create a good formula for T a p u l o u s a l r e a d y h a v e product, pricing, placement and recognized brands; however, for promotion. the independent app designer, the Product & Pricing: faberNovel promotion process requires a fair found that a differentiated amount of strategy. One proven pricing strategy was a good way method of increasing downloads to earn revenue. While the is becoming listed as one of the company hit a few hiccups with App Store's top selling services. its initial pricing of 1,59€, after W e s p o k e t o f a b e r N o v e l ' s cutting the premium service cost Baptiste Benezet to find out how b y 5 0 % a n d b u i l d i n g a indie developers can hack the phenomenal free experience, the App Store ranking algorithm. new pricing strategy generated 3 Sponsor times more sales. Says Benezet, How to market your app View "A good free version is crucial in more presentations from Ouriel pushing users towards the Ohayon. premium service, especially Benezet explains that although when the cost of the paid app is Apple offers a variety of featured high." In addition to monetizing content within the web-based via app sales, the company App Store interface, 80% of earned a good chunk of revenue sales are made via the mobile through in-app advertising in the ecosystem. While sales are free version. d r i v e n b y A p p l e e d i t o r i a l Promotion: Buying impressions content, category browsing and on major websites was abysmal rankings, because there are no in drawing new users. From opportunities to advertise in the 500,000 impressions purchased

"The formula for App rankings only accounts for your last 4 days of sales." The formula is 8 times the sales of the current day + 5 times the sales on the 2 proceeding days + 2 times the sales on initial date.

Benezet suggests that a promotional campaign of 4 consecutive days is more likely to pay off with a top ranking on major French networks, the rather than a staggered date site was only able to generate 4 campaign. Furthermore, because app sales. Benezet suggests that app sales tend to increase by cross-application advertising is a about 20% on Saturday and better solution as relevant users Sunday (even with a commuter are targeted via the devices app), it is most advantageous to they'll use to download the new be one of the top ranking category apps at the start of the apps.

Place: Benezet argues that in the weekend. As your sales increase world of iPhone applications, over the weekend, your app's size matters. Once the RATP daily ranking increases and the application download was n e x t f o u r d a y s r e v e n u e r e d u c e d b e l o w 1 0 M b , t h e generation becomes a selfcompany saw its largest sales fulfilling cycle.

While the rankings remain peak ever as users were able to access the service via their 3G relative to other application networks (rather than via the web sales, faberNovel believes this -based App store). In addition to model will help you increase the this consideration, Benezet's success of app downloads. After most groundbreaking finding testing the theory, the company was in the App Store's ranking w e l c o m e s f e e d b a c k t o algorithm. Explains Benezet, f a b e r N o v e l . c o m . D i s c u s s

Olympic Chat: Seth Wescott’s Olympic Playlist (WSJ.com: The Daily Fix) Submitted at 2/17/2010 5:28:54 PM

Olympic gold-medalist Seth Wescott chats with WSJ’s Christina Jeng about what music

he listens to while snowboarding, his opinion about this year’s funky gold medals

and those jeans he was sporting down the slopes:

39

Pioneer’s “Cherry” and “Leather Belt” Earphones

by Serkan Toto (CrunchGear) Submitted at 2/18/2010 4:21:46 AM

I don’t know what it is about Japan and earphones, but this country does offer some unique ones. Today, it wasn’t some weird little company but Pioneer that announced strange earphones: One is cherryshaped[JP], the other looks like a piece of a leather belt[JP] for some reason.

Needless to say, the 9mmearphones aren’t anything special technically, but you will only want to buy these for the design only anyway. Both types will be offered in four different colors.

The Cherry model comes in an extra-cute bag (see below).

All of these Japan-only earphones will go on sale in the middle of next month (price: $30). Ask import/export specialists Japan Trend Shop, Geek Stuff 4 U or Rinkya if you’re interested but don’t live in japan.

40

Tech News/

How The Internet Can Impede Democracy

by Richard MacManus (ReadWriteWeb)

their network of friends totally transparent (you can use any of a number of Twitter tools to see Submitted at 2/18/2010 5:00:00 AM the extent of interconnectedness, Yesterday I asked the question: friend overlap, number of @ does China really feel threatened messages back and forth, etc)

by U.S. social media services and leaving a completely such as Twitter, Facebook and searchable history. Anyone with YouTube? As usual, I got an a serious anti-CCP agenda would education in the comments to the be an idiot to use Twitter." post. While it's true that the Also worth noting: Moronov Chinese government blocks said in his TED talk that cyberTwitter, Facebook and all of the M o r o n o v a s s e r t e d t h a t activism may be offset by what main American social media governments like China's have he termed "cyber-hedonism." He s i t e s , s e v e r a l c o m m e n t e r s "mastered the use of cyberspace c l a i m e d t h a t p e o p l e a r e pointed out they are blocked not for propaganda purposes." becoming passive due to the because of their popularity Morozov noted that in the Iran Internet. He said that we often (because they aren't, in fact, very Twitter protests of June of 2009, assume that the Internet is going popular in China), but due to s e r v i c e s s u c h a s T w i t t e r , to be the catalyst of change, but their degree of freedom. In other F a c e b o o k a n d b l o g s w e r e it may actually be "the new words, the more open a social actually operational and being opium for the masses." media service is, the more likely used by activists. According to Moronov's theories were it will be blocked in China.

Morozov, this was great for the challenged in the comments to However, perhaps authoritarian Iranian government - as it that TED video. One commenter governments shouldn't block enabled them to "gather open claimed that "we focus on the social media - it may actually be s o u r c e i n t e l l i g e n c e . " T h e obvious totalitarian regimes helpful to them! government could identify how while our so called democracies Sponsor Iranian activists connect to each use propaganda on a daily basis."

Evgeny Morozov, a Belarus- other, by looking at their Regardless, Moronov raises born researcher and blogger, Facebook pages or Twitter some very valid points. While presented at TED last year on the connections. the Web promotes freedom of topic of How the Net aids Kaiser Kuo commented in expression, at the same time it dictatorships. In his presentation yesterday's post about the same enables authoritarian regimes to (embedded below), Morozov issue in China: monitor their citizens and makes the contrarian argument "...it's astonishing how cavalier identify troublemakers. that the Internet is actually some critics of the CCP [China Let us know your thoughts on h e l p i n g a u t h o r i t a r i a n C o m m u n i s t P a r t y ] a r e o n this in the comments. governments - more so than Twitter, making no effort to Photo: harrystaab Discuss being a challenge to them. disguise their identities, making

E-reader News Edition

Unlaunched Comic Company Buys 10 Year Old Comic Fan Community

by Marshall Kirkpatrick (ReadWriteWeb) Submitted at 2/17/2010 6:06:29 PM

Boulder, CO based Graphic.ly has put some of its venture capital to work and rolled up 10year old comics community iFanboy.

Graphic.ly is developing an as-yet unlaunched comic and graphic novel reading application for Windows, Adobe AIR and mobile phones. The company has raised just over $1 million in backing. According to Joseph Tartakoff at PaidContent, the company already has clients, including Disney's Marvel.

The iFanboy site is a place for comics fans to find reviews, audio and video shows. It publishes under a Creative Commons license and sees just over forty thousand visitors per month, according to Quantcast.

Some portion of those visitors are paid subscribers.

Sponsor The iFanboy community appears to be embracing the merger enthusiastically in comments on the official announcement. That's not something that can be taken for granted. The site's journalistic objectivity comes under scrutiny now that one vendor owns iFanboy, something the site

founders discuss explicitly in their announcement.

Graphic.ly CEO Micah Baldwin describes the deal in lots of detail on his personal blog and says the two companies were introduced

by Joe Stump, co-founder of hot pre-launched geolocation API provider SimpleGeo. Graphic.ly came from Boulder's TechStars incubator and raised its money from a diverse group including but not limited to Houston's DFJ Mercury, Starz Media, Northstar Equity Partners, Dave McClure, Chris Sacca and Paige Craig.

Comics and graphic novel fans eagerly await the launch of Graphic.ly. We eagerly await seeing this tech-savvy startup in an eye-catching niche publishing market make its next move.

Discuss

Tech News/ Gadgets/

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41

Information Blocked: The Racial & Gender Makeup of Google & 4 Other Tech Giants

by Alex Williams (ReadWriteWeb) Submitted at 2/18/2010 1:48:25 AM

The Obama Administration told the country on Wednesday about all of the jobs saved since the U.S. Congress passed the stimulus package one year ago.

This got us to thinking about how the technology world is faring in these hard times.

Unfortunately, some of the largest technology companies in the world don't want their story to be told. In this post we tell the story about the racial and gender makeup of technology giants in Silicon Valley; and how diversity has changed over the past several years.

Sponsor Recently, federal regulators ruled in favor of five technology companies that waged an 18month battle to block a San Jose Mercury News Freedom of Information request for employment information. The federal regulator ruled that collecting the data would cause "commercial harm" by potentially revealing the companies' business strategy to competitors.

According to the San Jose Mercury News, Google, Yahoo!, Apple, Oracle and Applied Materials argued that the race

and gender of its work force is a trade secret that cannot be released.

It's a decision that borders on the absurd. It's unbelievable that the racial makeup and gender of a company would reveal its strategy to competitors.

We highlight this news to point out how the lack of diversity in the tech sector prevents minorities from enjoying the high salaries and benefits that

come when working for large technology companies.

Plus, as the Mercury News reports, it prevents us from understanding what the civil rights legislation should be in this day and age. Technology companies like Apple did not exist back in the 1960s when civil rights legislation first passed.

The issue about diversity in the tech economy is especially

relevant when you look at what communities are suffering the most during this current recession. Joblessness among blacks is twice that of whites.

The Mercury News eventually did get access to Department of Labor data and the results show how great the gap is in the Silicon Valley:"The Labor Department data ultimately obtained by the Mercury News shows that while the collective work force of 10 of the valley's largest companies grew by 16 percent from 1999 to 2005, an already small population of black workers dropped by 16 percent, while the number of Hispanic workers declined by 11 percent.

By 2005, only about 2,200 of the 30,000 Silicon Valley-based workers at those 10 companies were black or Hispanic.

In addition, among the roughly 5,900 managers at those companies in 2005, about 300 were either black or Hispanic -- a 20 percent dip from five years earlier. Women slipped to 26 percent of managers in 2005, from 28 percent in 2000."

We look at Google, Apple and Oracle as leaders in technology development. How they fare in terms of diversity is a matter that unfortunately will be kept in the shadows under the cloak of trade secrecy. Discuss

Swarming helicopters create 3D display

by John Biggs (CrunchGear) Submitted at 2/18/2010 7:30:09 AM

If we’re going to be killed by swarming robots, they might as well look good doing it.

Scientists at the MIT SENSEable City lab created a 3D display using tiny remote controlled helicopters that float in patterns in the air and light up, thereby creating a volumetric display.

Called the Flyfire, it seems that this is either still in concept stages or they’ve gotten it to work in limited situations.

Obviously these little helicopters are really hard to fly but presumably you could do this fairly easily in a closed room – although propeller interference could be an issue. via DVice

42

Tech News/ Gadgets/ Entertainment/

E-reader News Edition

Brush Up on Your Fashion Knowledge with This Geek-Friendly Primer [Fashion Hacks]

by Jason Fitzpatrick (Lifehacker) Submitted at 2/18/2010 6:30:00 AM

You likely don't work in an industry where knowing cutting edge fashion is a requisite but that's no excuse for looking clueless or unprofessional.

Check out this basic but thorough primer to get up to speed.

Photo by Kevin N. Murphy.

Interestingly "up to speed" in regard to men's fashion largely means being aware of fashion trends that have existed for hundreds of years or longer.

Over at productivity blog Stepcase Lifehack, they're put together a basic but comprehensive guide to fashion tips and tricks every man should be aware of, many of which fall into the "have existed for centuries" category. Regarding dress suits: You never button the bottom button. Apparently, Edward VII got fat and couldn't button his vest over his belly, so now nobody does. On a three-button

Rotobotmouse Is the Computer Mouse Offspring of Dr Robotnik [Steampunk]

by Kat Hannaford (Gizmodo) Submitted at 2/18/2010 10:20:22 AM

jacket, you button the middle; the top button is optional. If you have a jacket with 4 or more button, you obviously know what you're doing already.

Regarding collars: Shirts with button-down collars are not dress shirts. They're sports shirts, so wear them with a sports coat. Polo players used to button their collars down so they wouldn't flap up in their face while they played. (Are you beginning to sense a theme here?

Fashion rules are largely dictated by what English gentleman and nobility did generations or even centuries ago. Sports coats? You wore them during sport, i.e. hunting. Regimental stripes on ties? They indicated your regiment in the British military.

And so on.)

The list covers shirts to shoes and everything in between. If you've largely just been imitating—or not imitating at all—the fashions of your

workplace, reading the guide is a great way to see where you've been going wrong and why we do the things we do in regard to fashion.

Have your own great resource for learning the ins and outs of fashionable dress? Let's hear about it in the comments.

Newbie Fashion Tips for GrownUp Men[Stepcase Lifehack]

Pics: Get to Know 'American Idol''s Top 24 (ETonline - Breaking News)

Randy Jackson, Kara DioGuardi, and Ellen DeGeneres granted Submitted at 2/18/2010 3:29:00 AM them the opportunity to move on Two dozen "American Idol" into the Top 24. Take a look at contestants can take a breath of the photos to see if your favorites relief after judges Simon Cowell, are still in contention of winning

the big title. The first live results show will take place on Thursday, February 25 on FOX, as two more girls and two more guys are sent home. The gals perform on Tuesday and the

guys take the stage Wednesday.

It'll be up to viewer votes to decide who progresses further at this point in the competition.

There's some of us who think it looks like Dr Robotnik. Others think it's a waste of a typewriter.

Artist and creator Aaron Ristau thinks it's a computer mouse worth $300.

To use it, you have to insert your smallest finger through the copper on the side of the mouse, and click the typewriter L and R keys for different commands, and the scroll wheel to scroll.

The shiny red nose—I mean, red light—makes your hand glow red. It'd almost feel rude, running a finger along his...eyebrow? [ Makers Market via Technabob]

Gadgets/

E-reader News Edition

An iPad Is Not a Laptop [Ipad] by matt buchanan (Gizmodo)

especially not in New York. (The closet-sized abraco excepted, where everybody always seems Cafe Grumpy's one of the best escstatic about being there, and coffeebars in NY. It's known for perhaps not coincidentally, two things: One of the few cannot sit.) People used to go to places that to get Clover-made coffee shops to talk. Read. Or coffee in NY, and it banned hell, enjoy coffee. Now they're laptops. I was there last Sunday; simply the other place to use a it's incredible. People were laptop: not home, not work. talking.

People sit affixed and silent. For That is, instead of staring hours. I've done it. But there's no silently, glass-eyed and slack- question: Laptops smother the jawed, faces aglow with the soft atmosphere. So it's amazingly light of a laptop, occasionally refreshing to feel something slurping coffee, rows and rows different, people connecting to of slumped-over humanity. The people, instead of gadgets. place was packed. Bustling. Which brings us to the iPad. It's Alive. I couldn't find a place to supposed to be this third thing. sit.

Bigger than a phone, smaller It's a vibe I haven't seen in a than a laptop. It browses; it's got c o f f e e b a r i n a l o n g t i m e , books; it plays video. Can it Submitted at 2/18/2010 9:30:10 AM

possibly have a place in a laptopfree utopia? I asked Caroline Bell, who owns Cafe Grumpy, if she's going to drop the banhammer on the iPad when they come out. Her reply surprised me: I think iPads would make for some interesting conversations these days because you don't see too many around yet...plus, they don't take up much table space nor do they create a physical barrier between you the rest of the world when you put them down in front of you. So, I guess I won't be adding no iPads to the signs just yet!

I wonder how long that'll last.

43

Motorola Devour to sell for $150 at Best Buy?

by Darren Murph (Engadget) Submitted at 2/18/2010 9:52:00 AM

You've just got to love the slow trickle of information about your next smartphone, right? Just days after hearing that Best Buy would gladly accept your preorder on Motorola's Devour(without actually telling you the final price, comically enough), this leaked flyer has flown into our inbox to clear up the mystery. Unless we've got some seriously awesome Photoshop work going on here, it seems as if the Flash supporting handset will sell for $149.99 on a 2-year Verizon contract, and of course, that's sans mail-in rebate

if you snag one from the Big Yellow Tag. Not bad given the specs, wouldn't you say?

Update: Looks like a case (shown after the break) has popped up as well. Thanks, H.R.!

[Thanks, Anonymous] Continue reading Motorola Devour to sell for $150 at Best Buy? Motorola Devour to sell for $150 at Best Buy? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Feb 2010 09:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| | Email this| Comments

44

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Another Windows 7 tablet PC hits with the iiView Vpad

by Tablet (BestTabletReview.com) Submitted at 2/17/2010 6:26:02 PM

Message from fivefilters.org: If you can, please donate to the full -text RSS service so we can continue developing it.

The iiView Vpad tablet PC They’re officially popping out of the woodwork now. iiView has announced their Vpad which will start at $499 and climb to $699 depending on whether you want a larger hard drive or 3G. The Vpad tablet PC features an Intel Atom N270 1.6GHz processor, runs Windows 7 Starter Edition (like the muchloathed Archos 9), has an Intel 945 chipset and a 10.2-inch 1024 x 600 resolution touchscreen.

There’s also 3 USB ports, 1.3MP webcam, audio in/out, VGA, Ethernet, 5-in-1 card reader and 802.11n WiFi. The battery is rated for 3 hours and they sell an optional battery that can boost capacity to 8 hours. It measures

10.5 x 6.57 x 1 inches and weighs 2.1 lbs.

Now comes the a la carte options for the iiView Vpad. The $499 starting price gives you a 160GB HHD and 1GB of RAM. The same package with 3G bumps the price to $599. For the same price you can get a Vpad with a 320GB HD and 2GB of RAM and $100 more will get you that package with 3G included. That’s cheaper than some of the other Windows 7

tablets we’ve seen recently even with a larger screen. However only included Windows 7 Starter Edition is a huge blow to functionality. Still, it’s only one OS reinstall away from being a pretty decent Linux pad.

Source: Crunchgear Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Submitted at 2/18/2010 10:13:41 AM

Crystal Mangum, the North Carolina woman who falsely accused those Duke lacrosse

players of rape, has been charged with arson and attempted murder

by Brian Barrett (Gizmodo)

rather compete in the US exclusively with their own products. So let's see how that Okay, Sony Ericsson CEO Bert turned out, shall we?

Nordberg, here's the deal: if The Nexus One, despite you're going to spill the details of lackluster sales, has established backroom discussions that never itself as the best Android phone panned out, be sure the story at out there. More importantly, it's least makes you look good. given manufacturer HTC huge Because this Nexus One ditty b o o s t s i n r e p u t a t i o n a n d does not! recognition.

Nordberg was speaking to Meanwhile, sad Sony Ericsson S w e d i s h p u b l i c a t i o n has yet to release an Android Sydsvenskan when he confirmed phone in the US. Whoops? that Google had first approached Maybe Bert Nordberg is just that Sony Ericsson to be its Nexus desperate to become a trending for setting her boyfriend's clothes One hardware partner, and that t o p i c . [ S y d s v e n s k a n v i a on fire in a bathtub(!) and Sony Ericsson cold refused. E n g a d g e t ] t h r e a t e n i n g t o s t a b h i m . Apparently Sony Ericsson would Goodness.

Duke Lacrosse Accuser Lady Goes Wild [Crime]

by Hamilton Nolan (Gawker)

Sony Ericsson: Google, Like, Totally Asked Us to Build the Nexus One First [Confirmed] Submitted at 2/18/2010 9:19:14 AM

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45

Chumby prototype with Marvell innards spotted at MWC 2010

by Chris Ziegler (Engadget)

is a veritable cornucopia of Good Things, and we couldn't help but notice that they're showing what Even though they don't make appears to be one of Chumby's retail devices, the booths of not-for-sale reference designs c o m p o n e n t m a k e r s l i k e sporting an 800 x 600 display Qualcomm, Broadcom, TI, and w i t h a n 8 0 0 M H z M a r v e l l Marvell at trade shows are often A r m a d a c o r e ( h e n c e t h e great venues for actually seeing appearance here in the booth). retail devices -- these guys have For the record, we're told this is a to help showgoers make the successor to last year's reference connection between a boring platform known as "Silvermoon" chunk of silicon and an end that had been running on a 1GHz product if they're hoping to score PXA168 and that there's a o r d e r s , a f t e r a l l . I n d e e d , chance it'll be available in retail Marvell's tent at MWC this year form later this year. The UI's Submitted at 2/18/2010 9:03:00 AM

attractive, but not really as multifunctional as Sony's Dash-- you can think of this as more of a giant Chumby One, really, with some extra screen elements

designed to take advantage of the significantly higher resolution.

There's no guarantee this'll ever be produced -- or if so, when -so for the time being, our video

UI tour after the break is about as close as you're going to get.

Continue reading Chumby prototype with Marvell innards spotted at MWC 2010 Chumby prototype with Marvell innards spotted at MWC 2010 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Feb 2010 09:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| | Email this| Comments

Infinitec details Infinite USB Memory Device functionality ahead of launch

by Darren Murph (Engadget)

promising ad hoc streaming from any Windows-based PC to just Submitted at 2/18/2010 10:20:00 AM about anything you can think of: Surely you remember Infinitec, B l u - r a y p l a y e r s , m e d i a right? You know -- that Dubai- s t r e a m e r s , p r i n t e r s , a n d b a s e d s t a r t u p t h a t f i r s t practically any other gizmo with showcased its so-called Infinite a U S B p o r t . N e w d e t a i l s USB memory device (IUM) at provided to us by Infinitec CES? Now that we've jogged ensure that game consoles are your memory, we'd like to point supported, as is high-def video out some new information on the content. The company has also product. We're told that the l a i d o u t a n u m b e r o f u s e c o m p a n y i s g e a r i n g u p t o scenarios for those curious about officially launch the stick soon, how this thing could improve

your daily life, all of which are just beneath the break. Stay tuned for more in the coming days -- pricing and release deets

should be headed our (and in turn, your) way soon.

Gallery: Infinitec Infinite USB Memory Device (IUM)

Continue reading Infinitec details Infinite USB Memory Device functionality ahead of launch Infinitec details Infinite USB Memory Device functionality ahead of launch originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Feb 2010 10:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Infinitec| Email this| Comments

"Yeah, the Chiquita Commercial. No, Like Right Now." [Open Caption]

by Richard Lawson (Gawker)

[ That's Leighton Meester, mister, filming a scene for "Edith

Wharton's Gossip Girl" in New York; image Bauer-Griffin]

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Leonardo DiCaprio Thrills NYC with 'Shutter Island'

Wacom introduces HD interactive pen displays for professionals

(ETonline - Breaking News)

by Tablet (BestTabletReview.com) Submitted at 2/18/2010 5:41:22 AM

Message from fivefilters.org: If you can, please donate to the full -text RSS service so we can continue developing it.

Wacom introduces new HD interactive pen displays It looks like our Wacom graphics tablet is all growd up.

Sure, it was in that hip, arty phase for a while, but finally decided it had to move out of the parent’s house and get a real job.

Now we have the DTU-1631 and DTU-2231 which focuses on providing large format, high definition displays aimed at industry professionals (like emergency responders, radiology technicians, engineers, planners and other smart people).

The DTU-1631 has a 15.6-inch screen with a 1366 x 768 resolution and sells for $1,249.

Submitted at 2/18/2010 3:25:00 AM

ET joined Leonardo DiCaprio, director Martin Scorsese and more stars on the red carpet for the premiere of their new suspense thriller, 'Shutter Island,' Newly Declassified in New York City on Wednesday UFO Reports from The night.

"It was a very intense National Archives filmmaking experience, and it [Ufos] was one of the more challenging

by Mark Wilson (Gizmodo) roles I've ever taken on to date, and I’m really proud to show it.

Submitted at 2/18/2010 10:00:00 AM The DTU-2231 has a larger 21.5- and DTF-521. These new 720 I’m really happy with this film," inch screen and a 1920 x 1080 and 1080 HD capable screens are The UK government has just Leo told ET. resolution which sells for $1,899. sure to make some professional’s released seven more years of "I get inspiration from him on Both models feature 512 levels jobs much easier. p r e v i o u s l y c l a s s i f i e d U F O the set," Martin said of Leo. of sensitivity, 2 USBs, DVI-I Source: Akihabara News and reports, spanning 1994-2000. I "He's an extraordinary kid input/output, adjustable stand, Slashgear can almost guarantee that you'll b e c a u s e h e ' s g r o w i n g a n d 16:9 aspect ration and battery- Five Filters featured article: f i n d s o m e g r e a t r e a d i n g utilizing all his experiences and free pen.

Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: inside—note that the screengrab putting it right into his creative These pen tablets add to PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, here is actually from the archive. energy, and the results, I think, Wacom’s already existing line of Term Extraction. [ UFO Files] are wonderful." special industry displays like the DTZ-2100, DTU-1931, DTF-720

PRW-5000: Casio updates its Protrek sports watch line

by Serkan Toto (CrunchGear)

announced[JP] the Protrek PRW5000/PRW-5000T, which at $630 ($780 for the 5000T) is Back in February 2009, we considerably cheaper than its reported about Casio adding the $1,000 predecessor. (These are PRX-2000T to its Protrek series the Japanese street prices.) of watches for sports and The new Protrek model is the trekking enthusiasts. And today, first that features Casio’s “Tough “Tough Solar” (a small solar about one year later, Casio Movement” functions, i. e. panel enabling the watches to Submitted at 2/18/2010 7:00:16 AM

recharge when they are exposed to light) or “Multiband 6 (time calibration signals from six stations (two in Japan/one each in the USA, Germany, China and the UK). There’s also a digital compass, altimeter, barometer, and thermometer.

Casio Japan says they will start

selling both the Protrek PRW5000 (resin band) and the 5000T (titanium/pictured above) on March 1. The company will produce 3,000 units monthly.

Gadgets/ Entertainment/

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New Photo: Tiger Woods' First Public Sighting (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 2/18/2010 4:30:00 AM

Alcatel OT-980 with Android hands-on, we feel frugal just looking at it

by Chris Ziegler (Engadget) Submitted at 2/18/2010 9:26:00 AM

This is arguably one of the cheesiest Android devices we've ever handled -- and yes, we're including KIRFs in that observation -- but you've got to give Alcatel some credit here for taking the platform to a form factor that's entirely underserved and doing so with an

affordable price point in mind.

The company plans to aggressively target HTC's Tattoo when the OT-980 launches in its usual non-US markets later this year with Android 2.1, full HSPA, WiFi, AGPS, compass, and a 2.8-inch display. The thing is a straight-up fingerprint magnet (and the harsh lighting certainly wasn't doing it any favors), but that's not really any

different from the Pre that it vaguely apes. The only prototype Alcatel had on hand had a busted display -- if you look closely, you can make out the UI, so it seems the backlight may have passed on to the giant circuitboard in the sky. That doesn't speak very highly of the build quality here, but then again, this is an homage to the Pre, right?

Gallery: Alcatel OT-980 with Android hands-on, we feel frugal just looking at it Alcatel OT-980 with Android hands-on, we feel frugal just looking at it originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Feb 2010 09:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink| | Email this| Comments

In what is believed to be his first public sighting since his headline -grabbing car accident last November, Tiger Woods was snapped taking a jog outside on Wednesday near Orlando, FL. The public sighting comes on the heels of the news that Woods will hold a press conference on Friday morning at 11 a.m. at the PGA Tour headquarters to apologize for his behavior and discuss what's to come in the future for him.

Woods' agent told ET earlier Wednesday, "Tiger plans to discuss his past and his future and he plans to apologize for his behavior. While Tiger feels that what happened is fundamentally a matter between he and his wife, he also recognizes that he has hurt and let down a lot of other people who were close to him.

He also let down his fans. He wants to begin the process of making amends and that's what he's going to discuss."

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How Low Can Starbucks Go? [Hobos]

by Hamilton Nolan (Gawker) Submitted at 2/18/2010 10:01:25 AM

A short history: Starbucks owned upscale consumers. Then the recession hit. Upscale consumers disappeared.

Starbucks weakened.

McDonald's moved in to steal former Starbucks customers.

Starbucks responded by going downscale. That seemed to work.

Now: Starbucks plunges even further into hobodom.

Starbucks will begin selling its "Seattle's Best" brand of belowyuppie-grade coffee in Burger Kings. In Burger Kings. This way Starbucks can stick it to McD's, reach "real" Americans [Thanks, Michael N] Sony Ericsson CEO: Google who would be naturally averse to asked us to build the Nexus One, things as fancy as a "Starbuck," we refused originally appeared a n d h o b o u p t h e i r h o b o on Engadget on Thu, 18 Feb credentials all in one elegant 2010 08:36:00 EST. Please see move. And Burger King gets our terms for use of feeds. new coffee for you to sip with Permalink| Sydsvenskan.se| their soon-to-be released " funnel cake sticks." Everyone wins, Email this| Comments particularly America.

[Pic: Flickr]

Sony Ericsson CEO: Google asked us to build the Nexus One, we refused

by Vladislav Savov (Engadget) Submitted at 2/18/2010 8:36:00 AM

Aw, why don't these CEOs say stuff like this in press conferences? Sony Ericsson's head Bert Nordberg has shared with Swedish publication Sydsvenskan the rather salacious news that his company was

asked to build the so-called Google phone before HTC... and it turned down the opportunity.

Fearing brand dilution or something equally crazy, Nordberg states that Sony Ericsson is committed to building only its own-branded hardware and will not be a subcontractor to anyone.

Haughty words from a company

whose own Android device is still a good couple of months away from hipsters' pockets, but we're sure Bert knows best. After all, it's not like HTC got a ton of positive press and brand awareness out of its partnership with Google, and it's exceptionally clear that SE doesn't need a dime of additional revenue. Oh, wait.

Apple/

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49

10 Ways to Make MobileMe Perfect

by Liam Cassidy (TheAppleBlog) Submitted at 2/18/2010 7:50:30 AM

When Phil Schiller unveiled MobileMe onstage at WWDC in 2008 and described it as “Exchange for the rest of us,” I was sold. Who wouldn’t be? All my email, contacts and calendar data pushed to all my devices, all of the time? My entire digital life kept seamlessly, perfectly synchronized with zero effort on my part? I was completely sold.

But MobileMe had a rocky start.

By ‘rocky’, I mean to say that it was an unmitigated disaster, released to the public when it wasn’t even properly baked.

Since then, only about five people (including me) have bothered to pay for an annual subscription. But despite all that early negative coverage, I can honestly say that the vast majority of the time, MobileMe works brilliantly.

Of course, there are things that could be done to improve it. And at a time when about half of all new Macs are sold to Switchers, and the iPhone is dominating the smartphone market, it seems a prudent time to ponder what Apple could do to make MobileMe not only brilliant, but irresistible.

So, in no particular order…

Webmail The web-based mail interface is sleek, minimal and… a bit rubbish. I totally get Apple’s design aesthetic, but every other

webmail service on the planet offers more compelling functionality and mail management. The UI feels like it was made in 1998, not 2008.

There’s no reason it can’t make it totally modern and totally ‘Apple’. Performance This is another web-app issue.

The web-based Mail, Contacts and Calendar are too slow. There are odd days when they just pop on the screen – sometimes so fast I have to wonder whether it was the browser doing a little javascript-burp. But other days they’re so painfully slow they time-out. This happens to me on different machines, on different networks, in different browsers.

Browsers While we’re on the subject of browsers…if Google can get GMail to work in different browsers without resorting to smug incompatibility warnings, Apple should be able to do the same. Dear Apple Engineers: so what if a customer is using IE7?

Plenty people are. That’s not going to change any day soon.

Stop worrying them about it and just deal with it. Sync Speed There are times when a change takes an interminable length of time to propagate through the system to my other devices. Not often, but it would just be awesome if that never happened.

Gallery Overhaul The MobileMe Gallery looks beautiful. It’s also fantastic for sharing pictures and videos with family who would feel

intimidated in Flickr. Yet, Apple really ought to look hard at Flickr and take notes; there’s a lot more the Gallery could do to make it a killer web app.

Massive Storage Upgrade This one’s easy. In fact, I expect to see this happen, and soon.

Google offers gigabytes upon gigabytes of free storage via Gmail, Picasa and Google Docs.

Even Microsoft offers more generous storage with Mesh, FolderSync and other Windows Live services. By comparison, MobileMe’s 20GB is not only meagre, it’s downright mean spirited. More Granular Sharing Options A MobileMe ‘family pack’ already exists, but doesn’t offer the same kind of flexibility and

migrate to a new iPhone, and not have to spend an inordinate amount of time tediously configuring app settings one by one; instead, I’d enter my MobileMe data into the iPhone and a few minutes later all my preferences for all installed apps would be set for me. Bliss! iWork.com Schiller did say that iWork.com was free while it remained in beta. So once that service gets upgraded into something worth actually using (issues which range far beyond the scope of this article!) and Apple starts charging us to use it, makes sense that all paying MobileMe subscribers should get unfettered access. Right? iTunes in the fine-grained data-sharing one Cloud Imagine being able to would find in an Exchange service. I’d love to “link” my synchronize your entire iTunes MobileMe account with my l i b r a r y ( a n d I d o m e a n spouse’s so we can both access everything in your library) to the and edit selected calendars. A Cloud and then being able to global address book would be access it over the web through awesome, too. In a multi- any Internet-connected device.

Mac/iPhone household, that kind Would that be worth something of granular sharing would be to you? Say, $99 per year?

So there you have it — that’s invaluable. iPhone Backup Speaking of iPhones, how about my modest list. 10 simple automatic wireless backup of an suggestions for improving and iPhone’s other data not already expanding the MobileMe service synced through MobileMe? Sure, that will make it a no-brainer for emails, contacts and calendars both Mac and PC users alike. are already covered, as well as What do you think MobileMe Safari Bookmarks. But how n e e d s t o l i f t i t f r o m t h e about adding SMS messages to doldrums? Share your ideas in t h a t l i s t ? O r a p p l i c a t i o n the comments below, but, do me preferences? I dream of a day when I can restore my iPhone, or WAYS page 50

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a favor – resist saying “You’re crazy for paying when GMail is free.” I know I’m crazy. But this isn’t about me.

Related GigaOM Pro Research: Is it Time For the “Web OS”?

Front-Row Fashions!

Stars Show Off Their Sizzlin' Styles at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week!

(ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 2/18/2010 3:00:00 AM

Oooh! Aaaah! Fashion!

The hottest names in Hollywood, music and fashion have come together in glittering NYC to soak up all the glitz and glamour of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week. Take a look at the celebs taking their fashion to the streets and looking stylish in their front-row seats!

E-reader News Edition

Kris Allen Will Return Will Charlie Sheen's to 'Idol' on Feb. 25th for Legal Troubles Muck Haitian Relief Up CBS's Fall Sked?

by Allison Waldman (TV Squad)

by Allison Waldman (TV Squad)

Submitted at 2/18/2010 8:20:00 AM

Submitted at 2/18/2010 10:01:00 AM

Amid all the singing and interviews and pressure to make it in Hollywood,'American Idol' actually slips in some good, humanitarian work. This year the giving is starting early to benefit the earthquake victims in Haiti, and last year's 'American Idol' winner Kris Allen will go to Haiti to offer a first hand account of the devastation.

'American Idol' teamed up with the United Nations Foundation to dedicate the February 25 'American Idol' episode to Haiti.

During the results show -- and yes, there will be results -viewers will see a video of Kris from his trip to Haiti, hear his music, and be encouraged to donate to the relief efforts via texting or an online web site. All the funds go to the bigger 'Idol Gives Back' drive that culminates with the April 21st

When the TV executives meet the media at the annual CBS upfront presentation in May, there will be certainty and uncertainty when it comes to the Monday night sitcom anchor'Two and a Half Men.' The certainty is that it will be in the line up because it was renewed for three years in 2009.

The uncertainty is if Charlie Sheen will be on 'Two and a Half Men' in the face of his felony charges in Colorado.

There are implications beyond special episode.

Continue reading Kris Allen the obvious question of Charlie Will Return to 'Idol' on Feb. 25th being there to do 'Two and a Half Men.' He's one of the for Haitian Relief Filed under: OpEd, American highest paid actors on televisionI d o l , M u s i c a n d V a r i e t y , - approximately $20 million a Celebrities, Alumni, Performances Permalink| Email this| | Comments

season -- which accounts for a big chunk of the operating budget. Whether he's on air or written out for a while, he has to be paid.

Continue reading Will Charlie Sheen's Legal Troubles Muck Up CBS's Fall Sked?

Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, OpEd, Celebrities, Upfronts, Reality-Free, The Big Bang Theory Permalink| Email this| | Comments

‘American Idol’ Taps 12 Girls and 12 Guys to Top 24 (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 2/18/2010 4:34:00 AM

It was the moment of truth for the Hollywood Week contestants on "American Idol." On

Wednesday night, dreams were fulfilled, while others were slashed, as Simon Cowell, Kara DioGuardi, Randy Jackson, and Ellen DeGeneres announced the final 24 contestants.

Janell Wheeler, 24, from Tampa, FL was elated that she will progress to the show's next round. She burst out of the theater doors to Ryan Seacrest and pronounced, "If I was Bikini

Girl, I'd kiss you right now."

Not everyone was a rookie auditioner. Lacey Brown, 24, returned after not making it through last year. She impressed the judges with her rendition of

"What a Wonderful World," which offered as background vocals for a montage of other contestants receiving good news.

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51

How Can Anyone Survive This?

[Olympic Mysteries]

by Richard Lawson (Gawker) Submitted at 2/18/2010 10:10:26 AM

'Leverage' - 'The Maltese Falcon Job' Recap

by Danny Gallagher (TV Squad)

remark about someone else's mother. Enough said.)

Sure on the surface it appears to Submitted at 2/18/2010 1:20:00 AM be a mid-adrenaline, action(S02E15) "My job is to get your adventure spy/mystery/crime back, all the way down, but I show, but the season finale gave need you to do your job." - Eliot it an emotional depth and to Nathan character progression that even "What's that?" - Nathan most serious dramatic shows fail "Be Nathan Ford, be the person to accomplish. And it goes way we came back for." - Parker beyond "not sucking."

My eyes have only seen a few Continue reading'Leverage' episodes of'Leverage,' and my 'The Maltese Falcon Job' Recap brain is just now starting to Filed under: Other Drama understand its appeal. (My S h o w s , E p i s o d e R e v i e w s , bodily organs don't work very R e a l i t y - F r e e well together. It's a long story.

Permalink| Email this| | Words were said, tempers flared, C o m m e n t s pancreases made an off-color

In our continued series of Olympic investigations, pure indepth sports analysis, we wonder today: How does the thing happening in the above picture not kill you? You're traveling 70mph and landing on ice. Plus: was holding him prisoner. I pointy things!

Look, we're no doctors or guess that's what happens when you have damning intel that can p h y s i c i s t s ( a t l e a s t n o t bring down a powerful weapons professionally), but it seems to us that it's a miracle that every developer.

'Lockdown' was another fast and one of last night's Women's fun hour of'Human Target', a Downhill crashers were able to show that literally orders viewers just get up and walk off the to turn off their brain, sit back course. Old man Tim Ryan was and enjoy the implausible ride. equally amazed, and he's seen it Continue reading'Human Target' all! Apparently officials have decided to lower that last jump - 'Lockdown' Recap Filed under: Other Drama on the course, because it was just S h o w s , E p i s o d e R e v i e w s , too insane. More insane? That Reality-Free, Episode Recaps these people didn't die.

P e r m a l i n k | E m a i l t h i s | | All images via Getty. Click images for larger versions.

Comments

'Human Target' 'Lockdown' Recap

by Mike Moody (TV Squad) Submitted at 2/18/2010 10:29:00 AM

(S01E06) It's always a pleasure to watch nerd for hire Kevin Weisman stammer his way through a guest spot on a great show. I loved him as Marshall on'Alias', enjoyed his stints on'Moonlight' and'Roswell', and who could forget his brief appearance as 'Hobbit Lover' in Kevin Smith's'Clerks II'?

Weisman literally played a nerd for hire in this episode. His character, Martin Gleason, was a brilliant weapons engineer in need of a little rescuing. The twist was that his own company

52

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Obama Would Face Off Which Actor Lost His Costar With Jon Stewart But Girlfriend Because of His Boyfriend?

Not Stephen Colbert?

[Blind Items]

by Brad Trechak (TV Squad)

by Brian Moylan (Gawker)

Submitted at 2/18/2010 9:29:00 AM

Submitted at 2/18/2010 10:00:36 AM

According to White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, President Obama would happily appear on'The Daily Show with Jon Stewart' but is hesitant to appear on'The Colbert Report'.

Gibbs further explained that "I have yet to see a politician best Stephen Colbert in an interview on his show."

There could be another reason for the President's opinion given the different context of the two shows. Jon Stewart presents himself in a pretty straightforward fashion. He finds contradictions in public figures and makes them more obvious.

Colbert's humor is more subtle and requires an understanding of satire and irony.

You know the story: boy meets girl, girl loves boy, boy gets another boy, girl finds out and throws all of boy's possessions to the curb. Also introducing a boob-loving singer and a gay rapper. Time to meet cute!

1."This gorgeous actor and gorgeous actress met on the set of a popular TV show in which they both had regular roles. They eventually became as close in real life as their characters were on the show. Given that their relationship seemed very healthy, it was little surprising

Continue reading Obama Would Face Off With Jon Stewart But Not Stephen Colbert?

Filed under: OpEd, Celebrities, Reality-Free Permalink| Email this| | Comments

Former Olympian Michelle Kwan Talks Figure Skating (WSJ.com: The Daily Fix) Submitted at 2/17/2010 7:41:18 PM

Former Olympic figure skater Michelle Kwan talks to The Wall Street Journal about figure

Fashion Week Fall 2010 Runway Visions: Rodarte

by ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog) Submitted at 2/17/2010 7:54:37 PM

Snow filled the streets — and the runway — as Rodarte skating’s new judging system, presented its fall ready-to-wear her love of the sport - yes it is a collection. sport, she says - and who to All Photos: Kelly Stuart watch.

Click here for our complete fall 2010 Fashion Week coverage

when they broke up. It turns out that there was another man involved. No, not with her. With him. That's right, folks, he was the one with a boyfriend on the

side. When she found out, she took everything he owned, piled it up in the driveway, and banned him from ever entering the house again." [ Blind Gossip] 2."Which star lined up a megaboobed babe to b**k with at every record label bash? The cheeky fella obviously wants to have his cake and eat it..." [ UK Mirror] 3."Which rapper is secretly dating a member of his all-male entourage? The small fella in question gets big favours in return for showering him with lavish gifts..." [ UK Mirror]

US producer prices jump on energy costs (Financial Times - US homepage) Submitted at 2/18/2010 6:29:40 AM

Message from fivefilters.org: If you can, please donate to the full -text RSS service so we can continue developing it.

US wholesale prices continued to heat up in January on the back of rising energy costs, but most other sectors saw little sign of inflation pressure, official figures

showed on Thursday.

Separately, labour department figures showed a bigger-thanprojected rise in new claims for jobless benefits, as the sputtering labour market continues to lag behind the rest of the US economy’s recovery.

Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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Sources: Houston Rockets agree to acquire Sacramento Kings' Kevin Martin

by Marc Stein (ESPN.com)

the talks confirmed to ESPN.com late Wednesday that routing McGrady to the Knicks Message from fivefilters.org: If is still the goal. But the Kings you can, please donate to the full and Rockets -- who are longtime -text RSS service so we can fans of Martin -- are committed continue developing it. Tracy to the deal they've struck, even if McGrady To The Knicks? Tracy t h e y a r e u n a b l e t o w o r k McGrady To The Knicks? something out with the Knicks.

The Houston Rockets have The deal hammered out unexpectedly emerged from their Wednesday night would send long-running efforts to trade Martin, Kenny Thomas, Hilton T r a c y M c G r a d y w i t h a n Armstrong and Sergio Rodriguez agreement in place to acquire to the Rockets for McGrady, coveted guard Kevin Martin Sixth Man Award contender Carl from the Sacramento Kings, Landry, Joey Dorsey and an ESPN.com has learned. undisclosed amount of cash.

Multiple sources told Sources told ESPN The ESPN.com that the Rockets and Magazine's Ric Bucher that Kings will spend Thursday McGrady and Rodriguez would trying to make this a three-way be sent to the Knicks in a threedeal that lands McGrady with the team scenario sure to feature New York Knicks, who have New York's Jared Jeffries if it b e e n M c G r a d y ' s p r e f e r r e d comes to fruition. destination ever since he and the "It's a sad day for me in the sense Rockets mutually agreed in late that [Sacramento] was the first December to find the 30-year-old team that took a chance on me a new team via trade. late in the first round of the Martin draft," Martin told the "I think it will happen," one Sacramento Bee from the team source close to the situation told bus after news of the deal spread.

ESPN.com of McGrady winding "They showed so much loyalty up with the Knicks. to me throughout the years. They O n o r d e r s f r o m t e a m gave me the big contract to show management, Martin was pulled that [they] loved me. ... [But] I from the second half of the just think it was time for us to go Kings' game Wednesday night at in a different direction. I was the Golden State in anticipation of young guy before, and now I'm the fast-developing trade with the oldest starter. I think it's Houston, sources said. good."

One source with knowledge of If the deal cannot be expanded Submitted at 2/18/2010 6:58:40 AM

Thursday to include the Knicks, it remains to be seen whether Sacramento will simply buy out the remainder of McGrady's $22.5 million expiring contract, setting up McGrady to sign as a free agent and be eligible for the playoffs as long as a buyout happens before March 1.

Earlier Wednesday -- before Sacramento relaxed its stance on Martin after insisting for weeks that the high-scoring guard could exist alongside prized rookie Tyreke Evans and would not be made available -- Houston and New York continued their longrunning dialogue toward a deal for McGrady.

Even though the sides have clashed on the final parameters, specifically the draft considerations going from the Knicks to the Rockets, one source close to the talks said of McGrady winding up a Knick: "I'm pretty confident."

Sources say that the Knicks were also increasingly interested Wednesday in swinging a separate deal with the Chicago Bulls before the deadline that would send out Al Harrington in exchange for Tyrus Thomas and the expiring contract of former Knicks center Jerome James.

But it remains to be seen which Knicks would be needed to satisfy the Kings and Rockets in a three-way trade construction.

Houston had narrowed the

McGrady field Tuesday to the Knicks and Bulls as the only destinations for the disgruntled two-time scoring champion.

But Chicago began moving in different directions with its trade assets as Wednesday wore on, sending John Salmons and his $5.8 million contract next season to the Bucks.

"I'm hopeful," Knicks president Donnie Walsh said Wednesday of McGrady before ESPN.com's initial report regarding Houston's acquisition of Martin had been circulated. "It's a matter of trying to a fair deal for your franchise and a fair deal for the other franchise."

The Knicks are determined to move Jeffries in any trade they complete Thursday, because that would remove $6.9 million from next season's payroll and put Walsh in better position to make offers this summer to two toptier free agents.

But the Knicks and Rockets clashed Wednesday over the price New York should pay for the privilege of shedding Jeffries' deal, with Houston seeking three assets: the Knicks' 2012 firstround pick; the right to swap first -round picks with the Knicks in the 2011 draft; and Knicks rookie Jordan Hill.

The Knicks, sources said, conveyed in response that they're only willing to package two of those assets along with Jeffries

and the $13.7 million expiring contract of Larry Hughes for McGrady's own expiring deal.

Sources said the Knicks also wanted 1-to-10 lottery protection on any draft pick it surrendered to the Rockets, while Houston was pushing for the 2012 pick to be fully unprotected.

"We'd like McGrady and the cap relief," one Knicks source told ESPN.com's Chad Ford on Wednesday. "But the Rockets are asking for too much. We're willing to pay a premium to make a deal. But the price right now is still too high."

It's expected that many of the same names and assets will be discussed Thursday when talks resume on bringing the Knicks into this deal.

The Bulls' re-entrance in the McGrady talks, meanwhile, was considered unlikely after Chicago's minor deal with Milwaukee, which has huge implications.

The Bulls pulled Salmons out of Wednesday's game in New York because of the pending trade.

Initial reports had the Bulls getting the expiring contracts of Kurt Thomas and Francisco Elson from Milwaukee, but the Chicago Tribune reported late Wednesday that the Bulls could receive Thomas and Elson or a package of the expiring deals of SOURCES: page 58

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Shaun White serves up Olympics gold with a McTwist

by Associated Press (ESPN.com) Submitted at 2/17/2010 11:51:36 PM

Message from fivefilters.org: If you can, please donate to the full -text RSS service so we can continue developing it. NyQuil Winter Games Recap: Day 6 NyQuil Winter Games Recap: Day 6 WEST VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Shaun White had the trick in the bag, along with an Olympic gold medal.

Might as well go for it, right?

Putting on a show when he hardly needed to, White capped his sensational night on the halfpipe with his signature move Wednesday -- the dangerous, spiraling Double McTwist 1260 during a victory lap that will go down as nothing short of epic.

"I wanted a victory lap that would be remembered," White said. "I achieved that."

The redheaded shredder scored a 48.4 on the final run, even though he was already assured of defending his Olympic title with a score of 46.8 on his first trip.

Getting ready to close the night, he debated with his coaches for a minute, then made the decision.

Showtime! To the delight of cheering fans, he jerked his body around to milk the last half of the 3½ twists he crams into two head -over-heels flips.

An exclamation point on a spectacular day at the games for the Americans, who already had golds from Alpine skier Lindsey

Vonn and speedskater Shani Davis, and wound up with six overall medals, including Scotty Lago's halfpipe bronze.

Wearing a blue bandanna with white stars, all of which goes perfect with the red hair, White easily outdistanced Finland's Peetu Piiroinen.

"It's impossible to beat Shaun unless he falls," Piiroinen said.

Lago's bronze gave the United States multiple medals on the halfpipe for each of the last three Olympics. Including the women, the U.S. halfpipe team has won 12 of the 21 medals awarded since the sport came to the games in 1998.

But has there ever been a bigger snowboarding star than White?

He's the multimillionaire who somehow flashes a businessman's smarts without losing touch with the culture that defines snowboarding -- the only sport that would think of competing in snow pants designed to look like torn-up jeans.

He keeps it fresh and he keeps people guessing.

White skipped the Double McTwist on the first run down the mountain, saying in an interview, "I know I have it in me, but the Olympics is pretty heavy. I was sweating it a little."

But if he was nervous on the first run, it didn't show. And it certainly wasn't anything to apologize for.

Soaring through the crisp, clear, Canadian sky, he flew 25 feet

above the halfpipe at the top, linked a pair of spiraling, doubleflipping moves in the middle and stayed on his feet the whole way down.

Roenigk: Routine key Shaun White's "un-halfpipe"like pre-run ritual turned out to be just the right call in leading the American to a second straight Olympic gold medal, writes Alyssa Roenigk. Story NBC spelled it all out in living color, transposing the shots of White's straight air and that of one of the medal contenders, Iouri Podladtchikov -- the "IPod." Suffice to say that had they actually been jumping at the same time, White would have landed on I-Pod's head.

In White's case, though, it doesn't always end when he wins.

He has become one of those rare athletes who makes the victory lap as dramatic as the show -think Mary Lou Retton's second straight perfect-10 vault at the 1984 Olympics.

Knowing he had won, and celebrating at the top, he gathered himself and talked it over with one of his coaches.

The conclusion: Snowboarding is supposed to be fun.

"He had to take a moment to collect himself, take several breaths to let out some screams and shouts and really celebrate," U.S. coach Mike Jankowski said.

The decision was impressive to everyone, including the godfather of the sport, Jake

Burton, who is also one of White's key sponsors.

"With a gold medal already in his pocket, Shaun went out and beat his winning score," Burton said. "What a testament to how much fun snowboarding is. And what a true champion Shaun is."

White started the run by linking two double-flipping tricks -"easier" versions of the signature move -- but then lost a little speed on the fourth jump, the one that sets up the finale. He went for the big trick anyway. It wasn't exactly perfect. He had to really twist his body to get the last half rotation, but he did it, landed on his feet, and the party that had already started got even bigger.

"That's what Shaun does," said Louie Vito, the "Dancing with the Stars" star who finished fifth.

"He can go up there and lay down a run and take care of business. That's why he is who he is."

Instead of "Double McTwist 1260," White wants the trick to now be known as the "Tomahawk," after a huge steak he ate at the Winter X Games in Aspen.

"It was massive. Thirty ounces.

Finished it," White said.

He began developing the trick about a year ago, but an injury halted his work on it. Meantime, he couldn't get himself to commit to it because it was dangerous -- he dinged his head gruesomely while practicing it at the X Games but walked away --

and he didn't really think he'd need it.

At that point, back-to-back double corks were enough to win almost any contest, and nobody did them better than The Flying Tomato.

But things changed drastically when one of White's main rivals, Kevin Pearce, suffered a severe head injury while practicing the double cork. At the next meet, a good friend of Pearce's, Danny Davis, dedicated his run to Pearce and became the first rider to try three double corks in the same run. Stuck them all. Beat White. And caused him to cancel his vacation plans so he could get back to work on his signature trick.

"It was an amazing, once-in-alifetime run for him," White said.

"And I'm happy he did it because it got me to where I am today."

Within a few weeks, White had perfected his new jump, debuted it at a contest in Utah, landed it and brought the halfpipe world back into its proper orbit. He was the best, he had the toughest trick and if he landed it, he would win every contest he entered.

Lago's bronze medal came on what might have been his best run of the season. He is one of a group of riders who call themselves the "Frends" -because there is no 'I' in snowboarding -- a group that includes Davis and Pearce, who SHAUN page 59

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Cleveland Cavaliers get Washington Wizards' Antawn Jamison in 3-team deal

by Marc Stein (ESPN.com)

"Antawn is a great pro. We are very excited to have an experienced all-star player of Message from fivefilters.org: If Antawn's caliber and character you can, please donate to the full join us," Cavaliers general -text RSS service so we can manager Danny Ferry said in a continue developing it. Breaking statement announcing the trade.

Down The Antawn Jamison "He has the ability to add a Trade Breaking Down The special, unique dimension to our Antawn Jamison Trade VIDEO team with a strong inside PLAYLIST presence and the ability to stretch • Breaking Down The Antawn t e a m s d e f e n s i v e l y , w h i l e Jamison Trade Breaking Down impacting the entire court. We The Antawn Jamison Trade think he matches the culture we • Jamison Headed To The Cavs have built, and continue to build, Jamison Headed To The Cavs and will fit well with our group on the court and off."

Cleveland, Washington and the Jamison left the arena shortly Los Angeles Clippers pulled off before the Wizards game on a three-team deal on Wednesday Wednesday. As he entered his that sends Antawn Jamison to car, all he had to say to reporters the Cavaliers as LeBron James' was: "Not now." new sidekick, instead of Amare He did have a message for Stoudemire.

Wizards' fans. "You know I love Cleveland sends Zydrunas them more than they love me."

Ilgauskas and his expiring $11.5 "Antawn Jamison has been the million contract to Washington. embodiment of leadership on and Washington also gets a 2010 first off the court for this franchise for -round draft pick from Cleveland five-and-a-half seasons and we along with the rights to Emir thank him for all he has done for Preldzic, who was selected in the the Wizards and the city of second round of last year's draft. Washington," said Wizards The Wizards receive Al president Ernie Grunfeld.

Thornton from the Clippers, with "Unfortunately, our on-court L.A. getting forward Drew r e s u l t s h a v e n o t m e t o u r Gooden, whom Washington expectations and we felt it was acquired in last week's trade with necessary to make changes to Dallas. improve our future and our Besides Jamison, Cleveland also financial flexibility. This trade will acquire Clippers guard accomplished both of those Sebastian Telfair. objectives."

Submitted at 2/18/2010 6:11:20 AM

After long-running trade talks with Washington and Phoenix, Cleveland opted for the Jamison deal, leaving the Miami Heat as the only known suitor for Stoudemire in advance of Thursday's 3 p.m. ET trading deadline.

The Cavs have been chasing Jamison since last season and ultimately preferred this trade in part because they did not have to surrender blossoming young forward J.J. Hickson. The Suns were demanding Hickson along with Ilgauskas' expiring salary for Stoudemire.

Washington relented on its insistence for Hickson because the trade brings more deckclearing payroll and luxury-tax relief after last week's deal with Dallas that sent Caron Butler, Brendan Haywood and DeShawn Stevenson to Dallas.

Jamison should immediately step in at power forward for Cleveland and supply James with another legitimate scoring option as the Cavaliers' seek their first championship. Jamison is still owed $28 million over the next two seasons.

Jamison was extremely popular not only with fans, but also with his teammates and the late owner Abe Pollin. After Gilbert Arenas was suspended indefinitely early last month, Jamison was the one who was chosen to speak to the crowd before the Jan. 8 game.

He apologized for a skit that pantomimed shooting guns, calling it: "very embarrassing."

Now, Jamison is gone and Wizards coach Flip Saunders lauded him.

"He's one of the most professional guys I've ever been around," Saunders said.

Gooden was reportedly seeking a buyout. Unlike his three former Mavericks teammates, he did not practice with the Wizards on Tuesday, but was at shootaround Wednesday morning. He was listed as inactive.

"Basically, we started looking at opportunities to clear cap space for this summer and in the meantime acquire assets that we also liked," Clippers general manager Mike Dunleavy said.

"In the last two days, we were able to do that. And it gives us the flexibility to pretty much go in a lot of different directions."

Jamison was an All-Star in both 2005 and 2008, and averaged 20.5 points in 41 games. He missed the first nine games of this season with a sprained right shoulder.

The 33-year-old played his first five seasons with Golden State and after playing the 2003-04 season with Dallas, was traded to Washington. Jamison has a career average of 19.9 points.

Ilgauskas, who is 34, has played his entire 12-year NBA career with the Cavaliers. He was

supplanted as the starting center

by Shaquille O'Neal this season.

He's averaging 7.5 points and 5.3 rebounds this season. His career averages are 13.9 points and 7.7 rebounds.

"Z has been a cornerstone part of this franchise and his jersey will hang in the rafters here some day, not only because of his play, but because of the tremendous person he is and what he has meant to the franchise and the community," Ferry said. "He has represented the Cavaliers, Cleveland and the NBA at a consistently high level for many years. We wish Z and his family the best."

Ilgauskas' agent, Herb Rudoy, told the (Cleveland) Plain Dealer that he would work quickly to get a buyout from Washington.

That would free up Ilgauskas to sign with another team -including re-signing with the Cavaliers, although he'd have to wait 30 days to return to Cleveland.

"I've already heard from a few teams -- good teams -- that are really interested in wanting to talk about Z going to play for them," Rudoy told the paper.

A source told ESPNDallas.com's Tim MacMahon on Wednesday that one of those teams is the Dallas Mavericks, who lost Erick CLEVELAND page 58

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Tiger Woods to speak Friday about behavior, future

by Associated Press (ESPN.com)

However, Steinberg said Woods will not take any questions from a small group of media. "This is Submitted at 2/17/2010 9:41:19 PM not a press conference," he said.

Message from fivefilters.org: If “ you can, please donate to the full He wants to begin the process of -text RSS service so we can making amends and that's what continue developing it. Rick he's going to discuss.”-- Mark Reilly On Tiger Woods Rick Steinberg, Tiger Woods' agent Reilly On Tiger Woods VIDEO It will be Woods' first public PLAYLIST appearance since Nov. 27, when • Rick Reilly On Tiger Woods he crashed his SUV into a tree Rick Reilly On Tiger Woods outside his Florida home.

• Tom Rinaldi With The Latest Woods' only comments since On Woods Tom Rinaldi With then have been made through his The Latest On Woods Web site.

• Tiger Woods Timeline Tiger Woods is to speak at 11 a.m. ET Woods Timeline Friday from the clubhouse at the • Is Tiger Woods Ready To TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Return? Is Tiger Woods Ready Beach, Fla., home of the PGA To Return?

Tour.

There was strict control over the MARANA, Ariz. -- Tiger appearance, typical of Woods' Woods will speak publicly career.

Friday for the first time since his Steinberg described the bizarre, Thanksgiving night car gathering as a "small group of accident, beginning what his friends, colleagues and close agent called "the process of associates," who will listen to making amends" for the sex Woods apologize as he talks scandal that sent him into hiding about the past and what he plans for three months. to do next. He said three wire "While Tiger feels that what services have been invited -- The happened is fundamentally a Associated Press, Reuters and matter between he and his wife, Bloomberg -- and he asked the he also recognizes that he has Golf Writers Association of hurt and let down a lot of other America to recommend pool people who were close to him," reporters.

Mark Steinberg said in an e-mail Only one camera will be in the Wednesday. "He also let down room to provide live coverage his fans. He wants to begin the via satellite. Steinberg said other process of making amends and writers with proper credentials that's what he's going to discuss." c o u l d w a t c h f r o m a h o t e l

ballroom more than a mile away.

"The first time out, he's better controlling it," fellow player Padraig Harrington said from the Match Play Championship in Arizona. "Over time, there will be questions. At the moment, the best thing is a more controlled environment and gradually ease his way back into it."

The timing is peculiar. The appearance will take place during the third round of the Arizona tournament, sure to steal attention away from the first big event of the year. The tournament is sponsored by Accenture, the first sponsor to drop Woods when he became embroiled in the sex scandal.

"He's got to come out at some point," Irish golfer Rory McIlroy said. "I suppose he might want to get something back against the sponsor that dropped him. No, I don't know. It just went on for so long. I'm sick of hearing about it.

And I'm just looking forward to when he's getting back on the golf course."

Sobel: Talk Of The Town For the second year in a row, Tiger Woods stole the headlines at the WGC-Match Play. The difference? This year, Woods did it with a statement rather than his golf clubs, writes ESPN.com's Jason Sobel. Column PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem said he did not think Woods' appearance was going to undermine the World Golf

Championship event.

"We have tournaments every week," Finchem said. "I think it's going to be a story in and of itself. A lot of people are going to be watching golf this week to see what the world of golf says about it, my guess is. So that will be a good thing."

As far as the PGA Tour's part in the Woods event, Finchem said: "We were asked to make the facility available and to help with the logistics. That's what we're doing."

Steinberg said only that Woods' appearance during the championship was "a matter of timing." Asked if it could have waited until Monday, he said, "No." Not everyone agreed.

"It's selfish," former U.S. Open and British Open champion Ernie Els told Golfweek magazine. "You can write that. I feel sorry for the sponsor.

Mondays are a good day to make statements, not Friday. This takes a lot away from the golf tournament."

Woods had a spectacular fall from his perch atop golf. He was believed to have been the first athlete to gross $1 billion in earnings and endorsements and, at 14 majors, was closing in on golf's record of 18 majors held

by Jack Nicklaus.

It all collapsed in the early morning hours after Thanksgiving.

Over the last few months, Woods has been on the cover of gossip magazines and the butt of jokes on national talk shows.

In the days before Woods' accident, a National Enquirer story alleged the world's No. 1 golfer had been seeing a New York nightclub hostess.

Following the crash, a stream of women came forward to claim they had romantic relationships with him. One woman provided Us Weekly magazine with a voicemail she said Woods left her three days before the crash, asking her to take his number off her phone.

Woods admitted to "infidelity" in a statement on his Web site in mid-December and has been on an indefinite break from golf ever since.

Ian Poulter, who went extra holes to win his opening match, was among those curious to hear what Woods had to say. His only hope was to hear about it later.

"Hopefully, I'll be on the golf course and not listening to it," he said.

Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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Report: Kevin Martin to the Rockets, Doubles Luge: Lingers, Tracy McGrady in Sactown Sics Lead the Pack

by Bethlehem Shoals (FanHouse Main)

As for Houston, there was no question that Trevor Ariza, installed as their number one Submitted at 2/17/2010 6:23:00 PM option, wasn't suited for the role.

Filed under: Kings, Rockets In fact, he seemed to be the least This trade deadline just keeps Daryl Morey-friendly player ever getting better, and it hasn't even in this incarnation, as opposed to happened yet. Jamison to the the streamlined, two-way threat Cavaliers was huge, and has he'd been with the Lakers. Look championship implications. for that player to return. In Kevin But it's now looking like the Martin, they get a true number Rockets might swap Kevin one scoring option who who gets Martin for Tracy McGrady, a buckets with frightening move that's downright dizzying to the Kings. A brief run-through efficiency. On a team with to consider in the effect it could of why this is great for all toughness and defense to spare, have on big names and teams on parties: The Martin- Tyreke plugging in Martin is a natural the rise. Marc Stein first reported E v a n s p a r t n e r s h i p w a s n ' t fit. He's also well-suited to play the Rockets "have agreement in working, and now it's Evans's alongside Yao Ming, since he principal with Sacramento to show in Sacramento. It's unclear demands the ball in his hands far acquire Kevin Martin." just what Tracy McGrady is less than other scoring machines.

Then, Adrian Wojnarowski capable of these days, but that It's funny, we've gotten so use to filled in the other side of the doesn't really matter. Swingman one-sided trades, or deals where equation: The Sacramento Kings Francisco Garcia's a supremely one team's benefits are hard to are in advanced talks with the underrated piece in Sactown, and appreciate in the here-and-now.

Houston Rockets on a trade that this could open up minutes for For the most part, this is addition will swap Kevin Martin for him. If McGrady can contribute, by subtraction for Sacramento, Tracy McGrady, league sources great; if not, he's just the biggest but when that means letting one told Yahoo! Sports. contract in league about to come of the league's brightest young Along with Martin, the Kings off the Kings' payroll, or be stars begin his career in earnest, will send Sergio Rodridguez, flipped elsewhere. Oh, and Carl and landing the mother of all Hilton Armstrong and Kenny Landry, one of toughest, most expiring deals ... well, you don't Thomas to the Rockets. Joey active little big man, is no mere have to be a CBA geek to get Dorsey and Carl Landry will go throw-in. excited about that.

(WSJ.com: The Daily Fix) Submitted at 2/17/2010 6:20:17 PM

There are goofy sports in the Winter Olympics and then there is doubles luge, which is one guy — or girl, since it’s that rare non -gender-specific Olympic sport — lying on top of another one as they careen down the luge track.

AFP/Getty Images Austria’s Andreas Linger and Wolfgang Linger compete in the men’s Luge doubles.

After the first of two runs, the Austrian brother team of Wolfgang and Andreas Linger are in front. They lead the Latvian cousins team Andris and Juris Sics (seriously, we can’t make this stuff up) followed by the Italian duo of Christian Oberstolz and Patrick Gruber.

(As far as we can tell, the Italians are not related).

The American team of Mark Grimmette and Brian Martin, who are a combined 70 years old and medalled in 1998 and 2002, failed to crack the top 10, but Christian Niccum and Dan Joye are hovering in contention in sixth place.

One more run to go this evening. The competitors are

starting from the juniors start, as the women did yesterday, a move that was made after the death of the Georgian luger in training on Friday. Moving the start down eliminates several turns at the top of the course and significantly reduces speed.

Oh, and if you see some toddlers sledding double on top of each other this weekend at the park, tell them they may have an Olympic future ahead of them.

Update: The Linger brothers won their second consecutive Olympic gold medal in doubles luge, completing their two runs in 1 minute, 22.7 seconds. The Sics finished in 1:22.969 and won silver, and Germany’s Patric Leitner and Alexander Resch took bronze with a time of 1:23.404. Christian Niccum and Dan Joye were sixth.

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SOURCES:

CLEVELAND

continued from page 53

Hakim Warrick and Joe Alexander.

Finding a home for Salmons' salary next season was legitimately as huge for the Bulls as trading Jeffries would be for the Knicks. That's because it will give Chicago sufficient salarycap space to bid for a top-tier free agent to pair with its AllStar guard Derrick Rose, along with teams such as New York, Miami, New Jersey and the Los Angeles Clippers.

The Clippers joined that enviable club by shedding the contracts of Al Thornton and Sebastian Telfair in a three-way trade earlier Wednesday that sent Wizards forward Antawn

continued from page 55

Jamison to Cleveland.

The Bulls initially sought McGrady's expiring contract to break into that club, but found another way with the help of the Bucks. And Houston -- having landed Martin after numerous inquiries were rejected by Sacramento -- has ensured that it landed a rising star in exchange for McGrady, no matter what happens Thursday in discussions with the Knicks.

That was the Rockets' aim from the start when they mutually agreed in late December to try to find a new home for McGrady via trade, after the two-time scoring champion's labored recovery from microfracture

knee surgery. The only apparent downside for the Rockets is the fact they will have to surrender Landry, after the young forward's wholly unexpected emergence as one of the league's most prolific fourth-quarter Tiger Trying To Rewrite scorers this season.

Rulebook With Senior writer Marc Stein covers Conditional, Contrived the NBA for ESPN.com.

Five Filters featured article: Apology Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: by Greg Couch (FanHouse PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Main) Term Extraction.

Submitted at 2/17/2010 4:00:00 PM

Filed under: PGA This is not the way the game is TIGER page 58

Colbert, Speed Skating’s No. 1 Fan, Cheers On U.S. (WSJ.com: The Daily Fix)

sport has rarely had such a high profile in the U.S., thanks to his repeated features with them. And Stephen Colbert, the man who his viewers chipped in to fill the put speed skating on the cover of $300,000 hole created by DSB’s Sports Illustrated, had a front- departure. row seat at the Richmond The faux-conservative Olympic Oval to take in the personality has ironically talked m e n ’ s 1 0 0 0 m e t e r r a c e trash about Canadians since the W e d n e s d a y . G e t t y I m a g e s bit first began, calling them C o l b e r t c h e e r s o n t h e “Saskatche-whiners,” among competitors at the Richmond other things. On Wednesday he Olympic Oval. said he wasn’t working on Colbert helped bail out the U.S. n i c k n a m e s f o r t h e o t h e r team after Dutch bank DSB, its p r o v i n c e s . previous sponsor, went bankrupt He taped a show this morning in months before the race. The front of a downtown crowd that Submitted at 2/17/2010 4:59:47 PM

weather: Youve covered Winter Games, Summer Games, (and) whatever season this is.”

Workers here also spotted him taping segments at the Oval.

“I was supposed to shoot all day yesterday but our flight got delayed,” he said. “I got delayed. he estimated at 5,000 people. I s h o t a l l d a y t o d a y w i t h According to the Canadian Press, members of the team and now he interviewed Canadian singer I’m watching the race.”

Michael Buble, U.S. men’s As he talked, with not a hair out hockey Olympic hero Mike of place, he wore a bright red Eruzione and NBC announcer jacket that read “Assistant Sports Bob Costas. One of his better Psychologist” on the back. lines was to Costas about the

Dampier to a finger injury.

James can become a free agent this summer, leaving this as Cleveland's final shot at a championship before he decides to stay or go. The Cavaliers also had the league's best record last season, when they failed to reach the NBA finals.

Maybe Jamison can help them take that next step.

The 6-foot-7 Thornton has averaged 13.7 in his three-year career with the Clippers.

Telfair, who's 24, will be playing for his fourth team. The former first-round pick has averaged 7.9 points in his career.

Senior writer Marc Stein covers the NBA for ESPN.com.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.

Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

TIGER continued from page 58

played. Tiger Woods is going to finally pop his head back out of the hole he has been living in, and rejoin the world Friday morning. His agent said he'll talk to "a small group of friends, colleagues and close associates."

Also, to a small pool of reporters.

TIGER page 59

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TIGER continued from page 58

He plans to apologize and start to make amends. He will not take questions.

Now hold on a minute. If he's trying to make amends, then why is he apologizing this way? It is an insult to everyone he's apologizing to.

No questions? Friends and colleagues only? Sorry Tiger, but real apologies don't come with conditions and demands from the person saying he's sorry.

This is yet another fraudulent moment in Tiger Woods history, carefully choreographed by his

SHAUN continued from page 54

is recuperating in a hospital in Colorado.

Lago draped the American flag around his shoulders after his bronze medal was sealed.

The real celebration, though, was reserved for White, who by the looks of things, never gets tired of this.

He'll get the gold medal down in Vancouver on Thursday.

Yet another nice prize to throw

agency, IMG. It's the same company that choreographed client Mark McGwire's pathetic apology.

Let me say that I don't think Woods owes us an apology for having sex with consenting adults. I have never seen how this is any of our business. Yes, he has sold us cars and watches based on a false image.

What if Final Fantasy VII came out 10 years earlier (and had questionable artwork) Street Chic:

by Christopher Grant (Joystiq) -interactive reimagining after the break. Sure, some of the art New York looks like it's cut from a fanfic One of gaming's favorite and the gameplay actually looks Fashion Week pastimes: "What if" scenarios worse than 1987's Final Fantasy

in his always-expanding bag of tricks.

Submitted at 2/18/2010 9:35:00 AM Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: involving Final Fantasy VII. PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, What if they actually made a Term Extraction. next-gen version that looked like Advent Children? What if Square hadn't defected to the PlayStation? What if Aeris didn't have to die and instead was real and we were in love and got married?

Of course, only slightly less popular is the "What if Final Fantasy VII came out ten years earlier and was 8-bit" scenario.

We're pretty sure someone already did the actual work of porting the game over to the Famicom(thanks, Shenzhen Nanjing Technology Co, Ltd!) but in case you missed that, take a gander at Martin Barreby's non

1, but it's "just a small project with not that much effort put into it" says Barreby, so lay off.

Next: What if Cloud's sword and hair were subject to the same laws of gravity that we are?

Continue reading What if Final Fantasy VII came out 10 years earlier (and had questionable artwork) What if Final Fantasy VII came out 10 years earlier (and had questionable artwork) originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 18 Feb 2010 09:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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by ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog) Submitted at 2/18/2010 4:00:00 AM

Silver-and-black banded leggings add sparkle to winter white.

Photo: Kelly Stuart Click here for our complete fall 2010 Fashion Week coverage Think you are Street Chic? Email us your photo and you could appear in ELLE.com's Street Chic Daily.

Follow ELLE on Twitter.

Become our Facebook fan!

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Capcom offers 50% off five PSN games; this week: Marvel vs. Capcom 2

by Christopher Grant (Joystiq) Submitted at 2/18/2010 9:05:00 AM

While it's true that the highrolling blogging lifestyle has left us out-of-touch with the needs of the unwashed masses, even the fat cats at Joystiq understand that everyone loves a deal (if only to free up some much needed capital for, let's say, a chronically underfunded game publishing division).

To help lighten the burden on your wallets, Capcom is offering the following: 50% off a single PSN game every week for five weeks, beginning with Marvel

$7.49 March 4, 2010 - Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD Remix for $4.99 March 11, 2010 - Age of Booty for $4.99 March 18, 2010 - 1942: Joint Strike for $4.99 Capcom offers 50% off five PSN games; this week: Marvel vs. Capcom 2 originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 18 vs. Capcom 2. In total you could full list below for you to mull Feb 2010 09:05:00 EST. Please scoop up all five games for just over: see our terms for use of feeds. under $30 and, since this is a February 18, 2010 - Marvel vs. Read| Permalink| Email this| 50% off sale, that also means Capcom 2 for $7.49 Comments you'll have saved just under $30. February 25, 2010 - Super Street That's math. We've pasted the Fighter II Turbo HD Remix for

Semi-stars fight it out in Battlefield: Bad Company 2 charity event

by Justin McElroy (Joystiq)

with a more ill-suited and uninspiring crew than the one that will actually be in Imagine you told us that Dr. Hollywood tonight for the Chad Ocho Cinco (Hon.) and Battlefield Celebrity Bracket Olivia Munn intended to throw a Challenge.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 We understand Hal Sparks and party and invite all their pseudo- Perez Hilton are there, that's just celebrity pals to play for charity. the law, but the rest of the NFL If you asked us to dream up a players and 90210 and CSI:NY guest list, we doubt we would be stars that fill out the list so strain physically capable of coming up and pervert the word "celebrity" Submitted at 2/18/2010 10:30:00 AM

that it can now be accurately applied to karaoke DJs and birthday party illusionists. The

sole exception here is Heroes star Greg Grunberg, who's a totally decent guy that just seems to

have fallen in with the wrong crowd. Bad company indeed, Greg. Bad company indeed.

Semi-stars fight it out in Battlefield: Bad Company 2 charity event originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 18 Feb 2010 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AIG drops derivatives portfolio sale plan (Financial Times - US homepage) Submitted at 2/17/2010 4:07:38 PM

Adidas retro kicks come with a retro game

ESRB: Magic Carpet, Sorcerer's Maze materializing on PS3 and PSP

by JC Fletcher (Joystiq)

If that doesn't grab you, you'll also be able to pick up Sorcerer's Maze at some point. While not a

by Randy Nelson (Joystiq) Adidas, has five minutes to "run, Last week, Xbox 360 owners Molyneux game (it's a lowmoon-walk, climb walls, avoid Submitted at 2/18/2010 5:00:00 AM some dodgy-looking thugs, got the first look at Fable 3, the budget Arkanoid-style game Now here's a shoe-in for the list collect power-ups, and pull off newest Peter Molyneux game. published by XS Games) it is of the year's best gaming-related insane rooftop-to-rooftop stunts" Don't feel left out, members of also about a sorcerer(not sure clothing: Adidas has brought in order to get on-stage before the PlayStation Family -- you've about the "maze" part). And how back its ZX 500 running shoe, his set starts. It looks fittingly got your own Molyneux game on can you refuse that box art, even in a digital version with no box? and, since it originally hails from retro -- see for yourself in the the way! An old one!

T h e E S R B h a s r a t e d t h e ESRB: Magic Carpet, Sorcerer's the '80s, the gaming inspired video we've included after the PlayStation version of Magic Maze materializing on PS3 and design and coloring is a no- break dance. brainer ... right? The kicks may Continue reading Adidas retro Carpet for release on PS3 and PSP originally appeared on PSP, meaning it'll join last Joystiq on Thu, 18 Feb 2010 not be the coolest part of the kicks come with a retro game deal, either; they come packaged Adidas retro kicks come with a week's release of Populous: The 10:00:00 EST. Please see our with a combination bracelet/USB retro game originally appeared Beginning as PSOne Classics at terms for use of feeds. f l a s h d r i v e c o n t a i n i n g Z X on Joystiq on Thu, 18 Feb 2010 some point in the future. Why Read| Permalink| Email this| Runner, a PC game based on ... 05:00:00 EST. Please see our settle for being a king when, for Comments the low price of $5.99, you could the shoe itself. terms for use of feeds.

GameCulture writes that the Read| Permalink| Email this| be a wizard on a flying carpet! game stars a character named Comments "DJ Zed" who, according to Submitted at 2/18/2010 10:00:00 AM

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AIG has shelved plans to sell the whole of its derivatives portfolio, which nearly destroyed the insurer in 2008. It believes that keeping up to $500bn worth of complex positions could help it to survive as an independent entity and repay US taxpayers.

The decision underlines the management’s confidence in AIG’s future but could prove controversial in Washington, where officials have baulked at the cost of the US government bail-out of the insurer and scrutinised its use of derivatives.

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Furmania on the Street and Down the Runway

by ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog) Submitted at 2/18/2010 5:15:00 AM

Love it or hate it, fur seems to be the fabric of choice for fall 2010. Many of the designers showing during New York fashion week over the past 8 days—from Proenza Schouler to Oscar de la Renta—have incorporated some element of fur into their collections. Joseph Altuzarra used goat fur for his S&M-tinged coats, while Carolina Herrera and Marc

Jacobs used it to trim evening dresses and peek-a-boo plastic rain-coats respectively. Models, with their intrinsic ability to set trends (and also a deep desire to keep warm as they traipse from show to show), have already adopted the look off the runway.

Tell me, what are your feelings on fur? Why do you think so many designers have focused on it for fall? Personally, in my dreams, I’d give my right arm reality, I’ve never been able to for the fur-trimmed cape Camille bring myself to buy the real deal Bidault-Waddington wore on the (it just doesn’t feel right for me). runway at Marc Jacobs. In

Now, the search for the perfect real-looking faux-fur jacket begins.

—Violet Moon Gayn or Fur on the runway, left to right: Altuzarra, Marc Jacobs, Derek Lam, and Zac Posen (Imaxtree) Street photos shot by, from left to right: Violet Gaynor, Kelly Stuart, and Anne Ziegler Click here for our complete fall 2010 Fashion Week coverage Follow ELLE on Twitter.

Become our Facebook fan!

Irina Lazareanu Reveals Her Fall 2010 Lust List

by ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog) Submitted at 2/17/2010 8:37:35 PM

Fashion darling (and Phillip Lim fav) Irina Lazareanu stopped by the Marchesa presentation this evening and gushed over the "fantasy world" that Georgina Chapman and Keren Craig created for fall 2010. For a girl who can get her hands on any style her heart desires, here is

Irina's fall wishlist so far: "Everything on Phillip Lim's runway today. I almost had an orgasm in the audience." Also topping her list is Marchesa's white feather dress. “It makes me want to play dress up.” To get through the frenzy of fashion week Lazareanu suggests drinking mass amounts of water, eating lots of food, and getting at "been sticking to the rules.” least six hours of sleep per night, —Violet Moon Gayn or though she admits she hasn’t Clockwise from left: Irina at the

Marchesa presentation this evening; models take their final walk down the runway at 3.1 Phillip Lim this afternoon; Irina's favorite dress from Marchesa's fall collection Runway images: Imaxtree Click here for our complete fall 2010 Fashion Week coverage Follow ELLE on Twitter.

Become our Facebook fan!

Submitted at 2/18/2010 6:21:04 AM

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14:15 GMT. The recent rally in riskier assets fizzled out on Thursday as traders once again worried about the health of the

eurozone, and after a flash of stagflation in the US. Meanwhile, confirmation that fiscal woes were not the prerogative of Greece saw UK gilt yields spike to a 15-month

(Financial Times - US homepage) Submitted at 2/18/2010 5:33:14 AM

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Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, said comparable sales at its US stores fell 2 per cent during its fourth quarter against last year, and warned of a “more challenging” first quarter in the US, compared with last year’s strong growth.

Net US sales fell 0.5 per cent to $70.9bn, believed to be Walmart’s first US sales decline.

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Assassinations: A time to kill (The Economist: News analysis)

Risk rally fades as eurozone worries resurface (Financial Times - US homepage)

Walmart suffers first US sales decline

high as Britain’s public finances deteriorated sharply.

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Assassinations Revelations in Dubai about a well-planned ASSASSINATIONS: page 63

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ASSASSINATIONS: continued from page 62

assassination of a Hamas man Feb 18th 2010 | From The Economist print edition USING subterfuge to entrap and kill adversaries, in locations far from any battlefield, has been a feature of conflict for the past 3,000 years or so—at least since Jael, one of the warrior heroines of ancient Israel, lured the enemy commander Sisera into her tent, lulled him to sleep with a refreshing drink of milk, and then used a tent peg to smash out his brains.

In modern times targeted killing is a more elaborate business, and many of the finer points—how the victim is stalked, how many people are involved—usually remain under wraps. But the plot to eliminate Mahmoud alMabhouh, a Hamas commander who was found dead in a Dubai hotel room on January 20th, has been laid bare in stark detail by the police in that country, not normally regarded as a model of open government.

Hamas instantly blamed Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, confirming that the dead man was a founder of the movement’s military wing. Israel had fingered him in particular for the abduction and killing of two soldiers in 1989. Mr Mabhouh’s brother claimed that he had been killed by an electrical appliance that was held to his head. The local police said he had been suffocated.

The gory details of his end were not made public in Dubai, but

many of the events that led up to it were starkly exposed. Indeed any amateur student of espionage and its tradecraft can now consult YouTube, the videosharing site, to see closed-circuit television footage of some of the 11 people (all travelling on European passports) who are said by the Dubai authorities to have joined in the plot. On February 15th the country’s police chief offered a blow-byblow account of the plotters’ doings, elucidating the images.

The key agents were “Gail” and “Kevin” who supervised the hit, and “Peter” who was in charge of preparatory logistics. In the films their appearances changed frequently. Kevin acquires glasses and a full head of hair, after going to the loo. It is clear that the plotters were expecting Mr Mabhouh’s arrival. One spotter waited at the airport; he duly tipped off a couple of colleagues, stout figures in tennis gear, who wait at the hotel and take note of the victim’s room number, 230. The plotters book room 237, which they use as a base. In later footage Gail and Kevin are seen pacing the corridor nearby. Four men in baseball caps, one also wearing gloves, are seen getting into a lift to leave; they seem to be the ones who did the job.

In Israel the initial reaction to the killing was of telling smirks, plus leaks to the effect that the victim was buying arms from Iran. But this gave way to

embarrassment as the Dubai authorities produced their evidence, and as protests came from countries—Britain, France, Germany and Ireland—whose passports had apparently been faked or abused; and from individuals whose identities were “borrowed”.

The Israeli security services have never voiced any moral doubts about targeted assassinations (whether in the neighbourhood or farther afield) but there was a concern that the latest killing might go down on a list of plots that have misfired in unforeseen ways. In 1997, for instance, Mossad agents tried to eliminate Khaled Meshal, a senior Hamas official, in Jordan.

Two agents posing as Canadians were caught trying to poison him and Israel, under threat that its agents would be executed, agreed to send an antidote. In 1973 Israeli agents murdered a Moroccan waiter in Lillehammer in Norway, mistaking him for the leader of Black September, the group blamed for a massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics.

These bungles contrast with operations that Israeli spooks recall with defiant pride: the killing of Imad Mughniyeh, a top member of Hizbullah, in Damascus in 2008 (a particular coup since Syria is hostile territory for Israel); and the dispatch of Abu Jihad, a senior Palestinian official and founder of the Fatah movement, by a

squad that swooped into Tunis in 1988. The not-so-cold war Israel has no monopoly on killing its foes far from home.

European countries, including Britain (since the 1950s, anyway) claim to eschew such methods. But during the cold war both superpowers conspired eagerly to eliminate people they deemed undesirable. In America there was a rethink after a committee, under Senator Frank Church, disclosed that it was probing a web of plots to kill senior figures in countries like Congo, Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Vietnam. This led to a series of presidential decisions—most famously order number 12,333, signed by Ronald Reagan in 1981—which barred assassinations.

The real force of such orders was to squelch rogue plots hatched in the lower levels of the security services; procedures still exist for the president, in consultation with congressional leaders, to authorise the killing of a perceived adversary. In 1998, three years before the 9/11 attacks, Bill Clinton mandated the capture or killing of Osama bin Laden, after bombs at American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

Since the start of the “war on terror”, the boundaries in American thinking between legitimate military action and cold-blooded assassination have become fuzzier still. Among America’s foreign-policy pundits

there were serious discussions, back in 2003, as to whether simply killing Saddam Hussein would be a humane alternative to waging war against Iraq. More recently, as the fronts in the battle with al-Qaeda have broadened from Afghanistan and Pakistan to Somalia and Yemen, so too has the scope of American actions to eliminate perceived foes. Last September, for example, American helicopters fired on a convoy of trucks in Somalia and killed Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, who was blamed for an attack on an Israeli hotel in Kenya in 2002, and for the embassy bombs of 1998.

On February 3rd Dennis Blair, the director of national intelligence, told Congress that American forces might sometimes seek permission to kill a citizen of the United States, if he was a terrorist. This followed a report that Barack Obama had authorised an attack on Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical American imam, in Yemen.

The operation in Somalia earned Mr Obama a rebuke in the Harvard law faculty, where he first shone as a progressive young legal scholar. Such actions were counterproductive and of dubious legitimacy, a columnist in the Harvard Law Record argued. But defenders of the right to kill selectively cite the shooting down of Japan’s Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto in ASSASSINATIONS: page 66

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Does Greece in 2010 Foreshadow a Financial 2012?

by Jack McHugh (The Big Picture) Submitted at 2/17/2010 11:05:54 PM

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Good Evening: U.S. stocks closed higher once again on Wednesday, though with quite a bit less zest than they displayed yesterday. Though they are still reflected in racy news stories, anxious editorials, and cautionary market letters, worries about Greece have receded for the time being.

Investors, it seems, wish to focus on things like corporate earnings while leaders in both Greece and the EU wrestle to find a mutually acceptable way forward.

Perhaps it’s appropriate that the nation that gave birth to the Olympic Games should have its financial issues fade into the background during the winter edition of the ancient Olympiad.

The fortnight of competition in Vancouver may not bring Greece any closer to stability, but the Games will be more pleasant to watch if the political wrangling takes a back seat for a while.

Soon enough will Greece know its fate; it’s unfortunate that more than a decade of budgetary comedy will likely lead to the tragedy of fiscal stringency.

How long will the U.S. and U.K. be able to avoid a similar comeuppance?

This morning’s economic data (housing starts, industrial production, capacity utilization, etc.) was mixed and a non factor.

Deere’s frisky earnings report, however, did lend a bullish backdrop as the opening bell rang in New York. But after opening 0.2% to 0.4% higher, the major averages spent the rest of the day in a narrow range.

Not even the release of the minutes from last month’s FOMC meeting could jostle Mr. Market from his slumber today.

Oh, the Fed did once again talk about getting tough some day, but few market participants took the words as a sign of clear and present danger. The indexes went out just about where they opened, with gains ranging from the Dow’s 0.4% to the Russell’s 0.6%. Treasurys were weak, and yields rose between 3 and 7 basis points. The dollar was firm all day before it closed 1% higher, but the greenback’s levitation didn’t much affect commodity prices. The precious metals slipped, but the CRB index fell a mere 0.3% on Wednesday.

During the Christmas holidays, my youngest son prevailed upon me to take him to see the movie, “2012. This escapist disaster movie didn’t threaten to enter my personal top ten list, but I did find two aspects of the movie interesting. The violent shifts in the earth’s crust depicted in the movie and the resulting supertsunamis that washed up on

shores across the globe were an interesting metaphor for the huge tide of debt sloshing around the world here in 2010. I also found it fascinating that the writers of the screenplay decided that salvation for John Cusack and the rest of humanity lay in long range planning — and some vital assistance by the Chinese.

I don’t want to push this comparison too far, but avoiding a financial version of 2012 will be difficult for many governments during the next couple of years. The focus may be on Greece for the moment, but Iceland and Ireland preceded them in the debt wringer months ago. Spain, Portugal, and Italy are also lined up for the same treatment, but how many investors really believe such a fate could one day befall Great Britain, or even the United States? Given the latest news on international capital flows, it doesn’t look like Uncle Sam can count on China to keep supporting its debt habit (see below). Japan has stepped into the breach by upping its Treasury purchases in recent months, but Japan has huge and growing budgetary problems of its own to contend with as its society ages and saves less. It seems only a matter of time before the U.S. must start facing the same painful realities facing Greece and the others right now.

The final two articles you see below reach similar conclusions,

though they each tackle the problem from slightly different perspectives. Niall Ferguson’s “A Greek crisis is coming to America” depicts the daunting fiscal challenges looming for both the U.S. and U.K. For Mr. Ferguson, there is “no such thing as a Keynesian free lunch.” To him, deficits do matter, and for the U.S. to continue on its present course is sheer folly.

“We’re All Austrians Now”, by Paul Brodsky and Lee Quaintance of QB Partners, examines the same issues with a perspective more sensitive to the impacts of monetary policy and the investment implications of our financial woes. One of the authors’ keenest insights is that investors should rank asset classes from “least risky” to “most risky” not only in nominal terms, but in real terms as well.

Since the authors believe our political system is poorly equipped to administer the medicine of liquidation and debt deflation, they see monetary inflation and currency debasement as the ultimate outcome. They even prescribe their own “cure” for the problem, one for which any holder of precious metals and their related equities will have sympathy.

Since there is no way I can do either piece justice in these paragraphs, please read them for yourselves. You may not agree with every word, but you will find yourself thinking these

issues will require the type of leadership, responsibility, and shared sacrifice that have been increasingly hard to find in Washington D.C. during the post -WWII era. You will also find yourself wondering where you’ve heard warnings like these before. And then you’ll remember how many thoughtful individuals (Jim Grant, Bill Fleckenstein, Barry Ritholtz, and Jeremy Grantham leap to mind, but there are others) offered warnings about the dangers of crazy mortgage lending during the housing bubble. Like the authors below, many of these same folks now see some variety of a funding crisis washing up on these shores some day soon.

Suddenly, 2012 doesn’t seem all that far off, does it?

– Jack McHugh Stocks, Dollar Advance on Economy Outlook as Treasuries Decline International Demand for U.S. Financial Assets Slowed In Ireland’s deep budget cuts, an omen for a heavily indebted United States?

Moody’s Says U.K., U.S. Aaa Ratings Relatively Weaker A Greek crisis is coming to America We Are All Austrians Now Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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Europe.view: Stay off the potash (The Economist: Daily columns)

only bottled water available at the otherwise admirable Ö restaurant was Vittel or Perrier, Submitted at 2/18/2010 12:04:28 AM both French brands. Paris has Message from fivefilters.org: If j u s t a g r e e d t o s e l l s o m e you can, please donate to the full formidable amphibious-warfare -text RSS service so we can ships to the Russian navy, with continue developing it. potentially dire consequences for Europe.view Eastern Europe- the security of the Baltic states. friendly boycotts are difficult to F r e n c h f o o d s t u f f s a r e pull off encountering a certain froideur Feb 18th 2010 | From The across the region as a result.

Economist online Finding alternative brands of VOTING with your wallet is a drinking water is easy (and tap tempting substitute for real water is better on ecological politics. Time was when the grounds anyway). Dealing with British left demonstratively the wine list is more difficult. b o y c o t t e d S o u t h A f r i c a n Most European wine-producing oranges. The same people c o u n t r i e s a r e u n s o u n d o n usually regarded Israel as no security questions: as well as better than the apartheid regime. France, the list includes Italy They also ruled out “fascist” (Berlusconi, Russia's biggest Spain and Portugal, and Greece chum in the EU), Germany (the under military dictatorship. Russia-sponsored Nordstream Barring the odd shipment from pipeline) and Austria (almost Costa Rica or Cuba, progressive e v e r y t h i n g ) . G e o r g i a n , politics was bad for the fruit M o l d o v a n , C r o a t i a n o r bowl.

Macedonian wines would be Much the same dilemma now ideal but are hard to come by, so faces those who care about the new world vineyards have to fill security of the ex-communist the gap. Champagne creates an region. In Tallinn last week, your e v e n b i g g e r p r o b l e m . T h e columnist, wining and dining Crimean labels are rare and one of the country’s top foreign- u s u a l l y t o o s w e e t . Y o u r policy thinkers, learned a new columnist likes an English Estonian phrase: “Palun tooge sparkling wine called “Nutty”; eesti kraanivett jääga” [Estonian his friends and family are tap water with ice, please]. The unconvinced.

The choice is hardest when it comes to cheese. It is difficult to find anywhere that produces tasty soft cheese and is not subject to unhealthy Russian influence. Even the kind of conspiracy theorist who wears a tinfoil hat to protect his brain from being zapped by Kremlin mind-rays would have to accept that this is a coincidence. But it is certainly an annoying one for Atlanticist cheese lovers.

Penalising weak-kneed European countries is hard enough. It is even more difficult when trying to put pressure on the source of the problem. If you want to boycott Belarussian goods, say, because of that government’s persecution of its Polish minority, you are unlikely to change your lifestyle much, unless you use industrial quantities of potash or need a lot of cheap tractors. Similarly, unless your consumption pattern includes weapons and vodka, giving up Russian goods is easy but pointless.

But the real problem with personalised sanctions regimes is conceptual. For a start, they risk seeming silly. Why punish a hapless French cheese-maker or Italian vineyard for the sins of their governments? The thinking is that plunging export sales

might create pressure for a change in foreign policy. But this seldom happens in practice.

For countries like Belarus, a trade boycott is outright counterproductive. The more Belarus trades with the rich industrialised world, the weaker will become the ties binding it to Russia. It may be reasonable to try to take custom away from companies that owe their existence to commercial ties with sleazy politicians. But such bodies tend not to sell anything that a normal consumer in the outside world is likely to buy directly. You may not like the fact that some pennies from your fuel bills eventually trickle into the coffers of Kremlin cronies, but there is not much you can do about it.

The occasional flourish, especially with the wine list, is fine. But systematic sanctions are self-defeating. Trade opens borders and minds; protectionism closes them. That principle is worth fighting for too. Readers' comments The Economist welcomes your views.

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Taibbi: “The Best 18 Months of Grifting This Country Has Ever Seen”

by Barry Ritholtz (The Big Picture) Submitted at 2/18/2010 6:00:06 AM

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I have a few quotes in Matt Taibbi’s no holds barred look at Wall Street’s profits and bonus culture.

It is classic Taibbi, full of righteous indignation and fury over the bailed out banks quick transformation from near bankruptcy to record profits. He details 7 scams the various TARP recipients have pulled.

Here’s a taste of the article: “The nation’s six largest banks set aside a whopping $140 billion for executive compensation last year, a sum only slightly less than the $164 billion they paid themselves in the pre-crash year of 2007.”

The question everyone should be asking, as one bailout recipient after another posts massive profits — Goldman reported $13.4 billion in profits last year, after paying out that $16.2 billion in bonuses and compensation — is this: In an economy as horrible as ours, with every factory town between New York and Los Angeles looking like those hollowed-out ghost ships we see on History TAIBBI: page 66

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Coming Soon: Chapter 9 Municipal Bankruptcies

by Barry Ritholtz (The Big Picture)

to pay off debts. Created in the wake of the Great Depression, Chapter 9 is widely considered a Submitted at 2/18/2010 3:19:50 AM last resort and filings under it are Message from fivefilters.org: If more taboo than other parts of you can, please donate to the full bankruptcy code because of the -text RSS service so we can r e s u l t i n g u n c e r t a i n t y f o r continue developing it. everyone from municipal “People believe that municipal employees to bondholders. d e b t i s s a f e b a s e d o n The economic slump, however, assumptions that are no longer is forcing debt-laden cities, true.” towns and smaller taxing -Kenneth Buckfire districts throughout the U.S. to > consider using Chapter 9. As The above quote comes from the their revenue declines faster than CEO of Miller Buckfire & Co., expenses, some public entities an investment bank that is are scrambling to keep making currently advising cities on payments on municipal bonds. m u n i c i p a l r e s t r u c t u r i n g s . And that is causing experts to Technically, these are called worry about the safety of Chapter 9 reorganizations. securities traditionally The WSJ notes: considered low risk.”

“The seldom-used part of U.S. There have been but 600 cases b a n k r u p t c y l a w g i v e s since this chapter of the municipalities protection from bankruptcy code became law in creditors while developing a plan 1934. The largest Chapter 9

filing was back in 1994, when Merrill Lynch bankrupted Orange County, California via a form of unsuitable investments that lost a billion plus dollars on a form of Interest Rate Swaps.

Given the various pressures states and cities are under, a surge in municipal bankruptcy filings is all but unavoidable . . . > Source: Muni Threat: Cities Weigh Chapter 9 IANTHE JEANNE DUGAN And KRIS MAHER WSJ, FEBRUARY 18, 2010 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB2 00014240527487043988045750 71591602878062.html Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

ASSASSINATIONS: continued from page 63

the second world war, which was quite a cold-blooded business—though he was clearly an enemy combatant.

In truth, the factor that has changed the tactics of the American administration is less legal than mechanical: the advent of drones that can be directed with lethal accuracy (most of the time) from offices in Virginia.

The best-known target was Baitullah Mehsud, leader of the Pakistani Taliban, who was blown up at his home in Waziristan last August. A study by the New America Foundation, a think-tank, points out that CIA drone attacks have become far more frequent since Mr Obama took office, with more strikes being ordered in his first ten months than in George Bush’s last three years.

In a world where Western voters demand maximum results for minimum expenditure of blood and treasure, assassination by machine has an obvious appeal to political leaders. Although they cost more “enemy” lives

(including civilian ones) than old -time stabbing or poisoning, they also arouse less controversy. But for how long? Legal watchdogs say it makes unlawful killing more likely by dehumanising the process; and Pakistani officials, even those committed to fighting the Taliban, say the ruthless use of drones is alienating local people.

Whether death is by computer or by more old-fashioned methods, the antecedents and details of assassination are easier to hide in rough, remote locations than in rich, westernised ones. And even in wild places, awkward facts can come out—as they obviously did in Dubai. Readers' comments The Economist welcomes your views.

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see my fingerprints all over this one . . . > Source: Wall Street’s Bailout Hustle MATT TAIBBI Rolling Stone, Feb 17, 2010

_bailout_hustle Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

TAIBBI: continued from page 65

Channel documentaries like Shipwrecks of the Great Lakes, where in the hell did Wall Street’s eye-popping profits come from, exactly? Did Goldman go from bailout city to $13.4 billion in the black because, as Blankfein suggests, its “performance” was just that awesome? A year and a half after

they were minutes away from bankruptcy, how are these assholes not only back on their feet again, but hauling in bonuses at the same rate they were during the bubble?

The answer to that question is basically twofold: They raped the taxpayer, and they raped their clients.”

Every now and again, you spend some time with a journalist, trying to push them down a particular path of discovery.

Sometimes you influence a story a bit, end up with a quote or two, but otherwise are a minor factor.

I am thrilled with how much of our conversation ended up in this article. Regular TBP readers will

http://www.rollingstone.com/poli tics/story/32255149/wall_streets

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5 Things That Will Make E-Readers Better in 2010 (MalaysiaNews.net) (Yahoo! News Search Results for e-readers) Submitted at 2/17/2010 9:29:17 PM

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Apple has put the pressure on ebook readers with its forthcoming iPad tablet. But Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Sony aren’t taking it lying down.

Color, touchscreens and improved black-and-white displays are some of the innovations that consumers can expect to see in electronicreading gadgets this year.

“E-readers today are where the pre-iPod MP3 players were,” says Robert Brunner, founder of Ammunition, a design firm that worked on Barnes & Noble’s Nook. “It’s still very early and development is just beginning to ramp up.”

Since the launch of Amazon’s Kindle in 2007, e-readers have become a fast-growing category of consumer electronics products. But with the entry of the iPad, the e-reader market is at a crossroads. With its 9.7-inch color LCD screen, the iPad supports not just movies and web surfing, but also has an e-reading feature. Apple will also begin selling e-books for the iPad through its iTunes store.

But e-reader enthusiasts say that

dedicated digital reading devices will continue to thrive despite competition from Apple.

Let’s take a look at five technologies that e-reader makers are betting on to keep their products relevant.

Better touchscreen and multitouch could improve user interface in e-readers.

Touch Touchscreens have been pivotal to the recent success of smartphones, so it is no surprise

that e-reader manufacturers are looking at ways to bring the technology to their devices.

Unlike phones, e-readers are used primarily to consume content, which makes touchbased interaction a perfect fit.

Flipping a page, clicking on a link or highlighting a paragraph is easier using simple touchbased gestures.

But touch on e-readers today is THINGS page 70

68

E-reader News/

E-reader News Edition

5 Things That Will Make E-Readers Better in 2010 (Wired News) (Yahoo! News Search Results for e-readers) Submitted at 2/17/2010 9:43:03 PM

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Apple has put the pressure on ebook readers with its forthcoming iPad tablet. But Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Sony aren’t taking it lying down.

Color, touchscreens and improved black-and-white displays are some of the innovations that consumers can expect to see in electronicreading gadgets this year.

“E-readers today are where the pre-iPod MP3 players were,” says Robert Brunner, founder of Ammunition, a design firm that worked on Barnes & Noble’s Nook. “It’s still very early and development is just beginning to ramp up.”

Since the launch of Amazon’s Kindle in 2007, e-readers have become a fast-growing category of consumer electronics products. But with the entry of the iPad, the e-reader market is at a crossroads. With its 9.7-inch color LCD screen, the iPad supports not just movies and web surfing, but also has an e-reading feature. Apple will also begin selling e-books for the iPad through its iTunes store.

But e-reader enthusiasts say that

dedicated digital reading devices will continue to thrive despite competition from Apple.

Let’s take a look at five technologies that e-reader makers are betting on to keep their products relevant.

Better touchscreen and multitouch could improve user interface in e-readers.

Touch Touchscreens have been pivotal to the recent success of smartphones, so it is no surprise

that e-reader manufacturers are looking at ways to bring the technology to their devices.

Unlike phones, e-readers are used primarily to consume content, which makes touchbased interaction a perfect fit.

Flipping a page, clicking on a link or highlighting a paragraph is easier using simple touchbased gestures.

But touch on e-readers today is THINGS page 69

E-reader News Edition

69

THINGS continued from page 68

where it was on smartphones before the arrival of the iPhone: It’s primitive, not widely used and full of compromises. For instance, the resistive touchscreen on Sony’s e-reader does not offer the smooth, fast response that the capacitive touchscreen of an iPhone or a Motorola Droid can.

Adding a touch-sensitive upper layer to a screen also dims the display slightly, a real problem with the already low contrast ratio of E Ink screens.

“We are so used to responsive displays that if we touch something and it doesn’t react immediately, it is disappointing,” says Brunner. Nook has added touch into its secondary, 3.5-inch LCD touchscreen, instead of the larger E Ink display. Amazon hopes to take the technology to the next step.

The company recently acquired Touchco, a early-stage technology startup that could allow for a touch-capable layer to be embedded below the screen, instead of adding it on top as current touch technologies do.

E Ink is also working on its own to create touch-sensitive displays that put pressure sensors behind the display. The company hopes to have the first version ready by the end of the year.

Meanwhile, SiPix, another electronic paper display maker, is offering touchscreens that it claims are better than the resistive e-paper displays seen in

devices such as the Sony Touch Reader. SiPix’s touchscreen will be available in e-book readers created by French company Bookeen.

Qualcomm's Mirasol technology promises low-power color displays.

Color If there’s one thing that most ereader enthusiasts want from the next generation of devices, it is color.

Sure, die-hard readers will scoff at the notion that color could enhance the experience of reading plain text, and they’d be right. But color would be key to enhancing illustrations, photos, covers and maybe even the clarity of the fonts themselves.

Display manufacturers are competing intensely to solve this problem with a variety of technologies. E Ink promises to have a color screen available by the end of the year. Qualcomm is already shopping around its 5.7inch color display called Mirasol, which could debut in an e-reader by fall. Meanwhile, Pixel Qi, a California-based startup, is showing LCD displays that can do double duty as color screens as well as low-power, black-andwhite displays.

Now that Apple iPad has paved the way, e-reader makers could also be re-evaluating the LCD as an alternative to the bistable, low -power but black-and-white E Ink display. Despite its ability to offer full color and touch, LCD screens didn’t set the e-reading

market on fire because of their low battery life and the perceived issue of eyestrain.

If the iPad is successful, it won’t take long for Amazon and other ambitious companies to produce LCD-based tabletlike devices that are optimized for digital books and magazines, says Brunner.

Flexible screens will be lightweight and shatterproof.

Flexibility E Ink is talking about flexible displays for the next generation of its screen technology.

Flexibility doesn’t mean you’ll be able to roll up the screens and stuff them in your backpack, but it is key to making readers with larger screens light enough to hold conveniently in one hand.

Instead of a layer of glass (which is at the foundation of most displays available currently) the next generation of e-readers will have lightweight screens that are based on a metal foil.

“Flexible doesn’t mean the display is floppy,” says Sri Peruvemba, vice-president of marketing for E Ink. “What flexible does mean is that it is lightweight, shatterproof and rugged.”

E Ink’s flexible displays combine a thin stainless steel foil transistor substrate with electronic-ink display material that is coated on a plastic sheet.

That results in a screen that is extremely lightweight and slim, allowing for newer hardware

design.

Weight is an area where E Ink can claim advantage over LCD displays. For instance, despite its glass, the 9.7-inch Kindle DX is about 27 percent lighter than the similar sized iPad: The Kindle DX weights 1.1 lbs compared to the iPad’s 1.5 lbs. With a foilbased substrate, the DX could be lighter by another 40 percent, says Peruvemba.

“When you get to a 11-inch screen size, if you put a glass substrate, you need two hands to just hold the device,” he says.

“That’s why tablets haven’t taken off for reading. People want a device where they can have a free hand.”

The e-reader interface has much room for improvement.

Better Software There’s more to a gadget than just good hardware. An elegantly designed user interface can put a gadget head and shoulders above its peers.

That’s where most e-readers have fallen short. E-reader manufacturers’ focus on hardware design means their user interfaces often feel like an afterthought.

Almost all e-readers today lack the interactive experience that could make reading digital books truly interesting, says Brunner.

“If you look at the current products out there, they are they are just repurposing content from print and delivering it on a different medium without adding the value generated by that

medium,” he says.

Meanwhile, Blio, e-reading software, has shown it is possible to develop an interface that could inject life into e-books. Blio is currently available for PCs, iPhone and iPod Touch. A similar interface for an e-reader could change the game.

Another way to enhance the experience may be through opening up e-readers to thirdparty apps, as Amazon has done with the Kindle. That could bring additional features to the devices and maybe even alternate readers with more elegant interfaces.

Better contrast in e-reader screens is high on the wish list of consumers and device makers.

This photo approximates the difference between E Ink (left) and paper (right) More Contrast E Ink’s displays may be the current industry standard. But what they offer in clarity and readability, they lack in contrast: Their look is decidedly gray, like an Etch A Sketch.

The screens are also slow to change, sometimes taking as much as a second to switch between pages.

Fortunately for readers, the company plans to introduce new screens this year that will come with a faster response times and offer twice the contrast as existing products.

“The fundamental advantage is better contrast,” says Peruvemba.

THINGS page 71

70

E-reader News Edition

THINGS continued from page 67

where it was on smartphones before the arrival of the iPhone: It’s primitive, not widely used and full of compromises. For instance, the resistive touchscreen on Sony’s e-reader does not offer the smooth, fast response that the capacitive touchscreen of an iPhone or a Motorola Droid can.

Adding a touch-sensitive upper layer to a screen also dims the display slightly, a real problem with the already low contrast ratio of E Ink screens.

“We are so used to responsive displays that if we touch something and it doesn’t react immediately, it is disappointing,” says Brunner. Nook has added touch into its secondary, 3.5-inch LCD touchscreen, instead of the larger E Ink display. Amazon hopes to take the technology to the next step.

The company recently acquired Touchco, a early-stage technology startup that could allow for a touch-capable layer to be embedded below the screen, instead of adding it on top as current touch technologies do.

E Ink is also working on its own to create touch-sensitive displays that put pressure sensors behind the display. The company hopes to have the first version ready by the end of the year.

Meanwhile, SiPix, another electronic paper display maker, is offering touchscreens that it claims are better than the resistive e-paper displays seen in

devices such as the Sony Touch Reader. SiPix’s touchscreen will be available in e-book readers created by French company Bookeen.

Qualcomm's Mirasol technology promises low-power color displays.

Color If there’s one thing that most ereader enthusiasts want from the next generation of devices, it is color.

Sure, die-hard readers will scoff at the notion that color could enhance the experience of reading plain text, and they’d be right. But color would be key to enhancing illustrations, photos, covers and maybe even the clarity of the fonts themselves.

Display manufacturers are competing intensely to solve this problem with a variety of technologies. E Ink promises to have a color screen available by the end of the year. Qualcomm is already shopping around its 5.7inch color display called Mirasol, which could debut in an e-reader by fall. Meanwhile, Pixel Qi, a California-based startup, is showing LCD displays that can do double duty as color screens as well as low-power, black-andwhite displays.

Now that Apple iPad has paved the way, e-reader makers could also be re-evaluating the LCD as an alternative to the bistable, low -power but black-and-white E Ink display. Despite its ability to offer full color and touch, LCD screens didn’t set the e-reading

market on fire because of their low battery life and the perceived issue of eyestrain.

If the iPad is successful, it won’t take long for Amazon and other ambitious companies to produce LCD-based tabletlike devices that are optimized for digital books and magazines, says Brunner.

Flexible screens will be lightweight and shatterproof.

Flexibility E Ink is talking about flexible displays for the next generation of its screen technology.

Flexibility doesn’t mean you’ll be able to roll up the screens and stuff them in your backpack, but it is key to making readers with larger screens light enough to hold conveniently in one hand.

Instead of a layer of glass (which is at the foundation of most displays available currently) the next generation of e-readers will have lightweight screens that are based on a metal foil.

“Flexible doesn’t mean the display is floppy,” says Sri Peruvemba, vice-president of marketing for E Ink. “What flexible does mean is that it is lightweight, shatterproof and rugged.”

E Ink’s flexible displays combine a thin stainless steel foil transistor substrate with electronic-ink display material that is coated on a plastic sheet.

That results in a screen that is extremely lightweight and slim, allowing for newer hardware

design.

Weight is an area where E Ink can claim advantage over LCD displays. For instance, despite its glass, the 9.7-inch Kindle DX is about 27 percent lighter than the similar sized iPad: The Kindle DX weights 1.1 lbs compared to the iPad’s 1.5 lbs. With a foilbased substrate, the DX could be lighter by another 40 percent, says Peruvemba.

“When you get to a 11-inch screen size, if you put a glass substrate, you need two hands to just hold the device,” he says.

“That’s why tablets haven’t taken off for reading. People want a device where they can have a free hand.”

The e-reader interface has much room for improvement.

Better Software There’s more to a gadget than just good hardware. An elegantly designed user interface can put a gadget head and shoulders above its peers.

That’s where most e-readers have fallen short. E-reader manufacturers’ focus on hardware design means their user interfaces often feel like an afterthought.

Almost all e-readers today lack the interactive experience that could make reading digital books truly interesting, says Brunner.

“If you look at the current products out there, they are they are just repurposing content from print and delivering it on a different medium without adding the value generated by that

medium,” he says.

Meanwhile, Blio, e-reading software, has shown it is possible to develop an interface that could inject life into e-books. Blio is currently available for PCs, iPhone and iPod Touch. A similar interface for an e-reader could change the game.

Another way to enhance the experience may be through opening up e-readers to thirdparty apps, as Amazon has done with the Kindle. That could bring additional features to the devices and maybe even alternate readers with more elegant interfaces.

Better contrast in e-reader screens is high on the wish list of consumers and device makers.

This photo approximates the difference between E Ink (left) and paper (right) More Contrast E Ink’s displays may be the current industry standard. But what they offer in clarity and readability, they lack in contrast: Their look is decidedly gray, like an Etch A Sketch.

The screens are also slow to change, sometimes taking as much as a second to switch between pages.

Fortunately for readers, the company plans to introduce new screens this year that will come with a faster response times and offer twice the contrast as existing products.

“The fundamental advantage is better contrast,” says Peruvemba.

THINGS page 71

Gallup Poll/

E-reader News Edition

71

THINGS continued from page 70

“The blacks will be blacker and the whites whiter. That’s a major request from our customers.”

See Also: • Plastic Logic Aims New Que E-Reader at Business Users • Roundup: E-Reader Gift Guide • Slim, Large Screen E-Reader Skiff to Debut on Sprint • Why E-Books Look So Ugly

Photos: Jon Snyder/Wired.com Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

THINGS continued from page 69

“The blacks will be blacker and the whites whiter. That’s a major request from our customers.”

See Also: • Plastic Logic Aims New Que E-Reader at Business Users • Roundup: E-Reader Gift Guide • Slim, Large Screen E-Reader Skiff to Debut on Sprint • Why E-Books Look So Ugly

CONSUMERS'

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Consumers' Spending This January Was Just Like the Last (All Gallup Headlines)

spending an average of $113 per day in stores, restaurants, gas in January 2010 -- down 25% except the South, where it Submitted at 2/17/2010 7:00:00 PM stations, and online in January -from December and 14% from increased by 8%. The greatest Message from fivefilters.org: If down 14% from December's January 2009. In sharp contrast, decline was in the West (-13%), you can, please donate to the full $132, and essentially matching men spent an average of $75 per followed by the Midwest (-7%) -text RSS service so we can their $110 average of a year ago. day in January -- $4 less than in and the East (-6%). The South's continue developing it.

Middle- and lower-income December and $3 more than a improvement and the West's PRINCETON, NJ -- Contrary to Americans (those making less year ago. deterioration are consistent with the impression given by some than $90,000 a year) likewise Year-Over-Year Self-Reported the relative strength of the two recent government reports, reported 13% less spending in Spending Down in All Regions job markets.

A m e r i c a n s ' s e l f - r e p o r t e d January ($54 per day) than in but the South Youngest Reduce Spending the spending declined in January December ($62), and slightly Consumer spending declined in Least; Oldest, the Most 2010 compared with December, less than in January 2009 ($58). all regions compared with Month-to-month consumer returning to the seeming "new Upper-income Americans' December: in the East, it was spending fell across all age n o r m a l " l e v e l s o f 2 0 0 9 . spending in January returned to down 18%; in the West, 16%; in groups in January, with the Americans in upper-income the relatively tight range ($107the Midwest, 13%; and in the decline greatest among older h o u s e h o l d s ( t h o s e m a k i n g $121) that, with the exceptions South, 11%. Year-over-year CONSUMERS' page 72 $90,000 or more a year) reported of October and December, spending declined in all regions continued from page 71

characterized this group in 2009.

Since upper-income households by definition have more disposable income and, thus, tend to do more discretionary spending than other Americans, this return to the 2009 range likely represents a resumption of the "new normal" spending patterns. The slight decline in middle- and lower-income spending confirms this.

Women's Self-Reported Spending Falls Sharply Average self-reported spending among women was $49 per day CONSUMERS' page 71

72

E-reader News Edition

CONSUMERS' continued from page 71

Americans (-22%) and least among young adults (-5%).

Spending across all age groups was essentially unchanged in January 2010 compared with January 2009.

Spending New Normal Probably the most stunning aspect of January's self-reported spending results is the way spending among upper-income Americans returned to the 2009 new-normal spending range.

Evidently these Americans decided to use their discretionary income during the holidays, but pulled back once more in early 2010. Older Americans and women show a similar pattern, increasing their spending in December and pulling back once more in January 2010.

Consumer spending during the first two weeks of February shows a similar pattern. Yearover-year comparisons show consumer spending returning to the new-normal range of last year.

Wednesday's one-year anniversary of the president's signing the federal stimulus plan

into law has given politicians and economists an opportunity to debate the legislation's effectiveness at bolstering the economy and creating jobs.

While this debate may be of great importance politically, it has little real meaning for the lives of most Americans.

Instead, policymakers would seem to be better off focusing on what they need to do to get women, and upper-income and older Americans more comfortable about spending.

Regional spending results may suggest part of the answer: yearto-year spending is up in the South, where job conditions are best, and down the most in the West, where job conditions are worst. Creating private-sector jobs is essential to getting consumers to increase spending.

However, Gallup's spending data also suggest another important consideration: the spending new normal. After the financial crisis and recession of the past couple of years, many upper-income and older Americans, as well as women in

general, may no longer feel as secure or comfortable in spending as they have in the past. They seem to want to reduce their debt and strengthen their household balance sheets.

On the one hand, this suggests that policymakers may want to think about how they can increase the financial comfort of Americans in general and these groups in particular. On the other hand, all Americans and the businesses that serve them may want to think about how best to adjust to the current spending new normal in case it persists for some time to come.

Review and export the complete daily trends on these measures: Economic Indexes; Consumer Spending; Economic Outlook; Economic Conditions; Job Market Survey Methods For Gallup Daily tracking, Gallup interviews approximately 1,000 national adults, aged 18 and older, each day. The Gallup consumer spending results are based on random half-samples of approximately 500 national

adults, aged 18 and older, each day. Results for January are based on telephone interviews with more than 14,000 adults.

For these results, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is Âą1 percentage points.

Results for the various breakout reported here are based on interviews with more than 1,000 respondents with a maximum margin of error of Âą3 percentage points.

Interviews are conducted with respondents on land-line telephones and cellular phones.

In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.