Liberty Newspost Mar-02-10 by Liberty Newspost

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McCain says he was misled, but not everyone agrees

In pictures: CeBIT innovation fair in Hanover

David Morgan (Front Row Washington)

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

Submitted at 3/1/2010 7:25:44 AM

John McCain says he was misled by former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson into supporting the Wall Street bailout. “We were all misled,” the Arizona Republican told NBC’s “Meet the Press” over the weekend. Misled in what way? With the economy showing every sign of burning to the ground, McCain says Paulson told Congress the Bush administration wanted to buy up toxic mortgages blamed for the conflagration. But he turned around and gave the money directly to Wall Street. “Whoever thought that we

would, when we passed that, we would own General Motors and Chrysler, GMAC? I mean, it’s beyond what anyone had anticipated,” McCain said. Dick Durbin, a leading Senate Democrat, confirms part of the story: Paulson’s initial pitch was for money to buy up bad mortgages; then the focus switched to Wall Street’s balance sheets. But Durbin, who like McCain has been in Congress for 28 years, says it’s difficult to see that as misleading. “It’s hard to understand how John McCain could have been brainwashed by Hank Paulson,” the Illinois senator said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “The bottom line is, whether we were buying toxic assets or cleaning up their balance sheets,

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we were helping big banks and big insurance companies. We knew what all that was all about,” Durbin said. “At the end of the day, hundreds of billions of dollars were going to stabilize Wall Street.” McCain’s efforts to distance himself from the $700 billion TARP bailout may show how angry voters are about Washington’s willingness to

help Wall Street during the worst recession since the 1930s, among other things. Conservative voters, especially. Politico says McCain had more power than anyone as the Republican presidential nominee to derail the Troubled Asset Relief Program in the fall of 2008. Now McCain is up for reelection and facing a serious primary challenge from conservative J.D. Hayworth, a former Republican congressman running with Tea Party support. For more political coverage from Reuters, click here Photo credit: Reuters/stringer (McCain), Reuters/Brendan McDermid (NYSE)

Submitted at 3/2/2010 6:45:22 AM

• "; } s+=''+google_ads[i].line1+""; s+=" "+google_ads[i].line2+" "+google_ads[i].line3+""; s+=' '+google_ads[i].visible_url+""; s+=" Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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CHILE continued from page 18

said the situation was worse than he had expected. "When we have a catastrophe of this magnitude, when there is no electricity and no water, the population... starts losing the sense of public order," he said. About two million Chileans are believed to have been affected by Saturday's earthquake, the seventh most powerful on record and the worst disaster to befall Chile in 50 years. The epicentre of the quake was 115km (70 miles) north-east of Concepcion and 325km southwest of the capital Santiago. About 1.5 million homes in Chile have been damaged. Most

of the collapsed buildings were of older design - including many historic structures. One US risk assessor, Eqecat, has put the cost of repairing the damage at between $15bn and $30bn (ÂŁ9.8bn - ÂŁ19.6bn) or 1020% of the country's gross domestic product. Are you in Chile? How are you coping with the aftermath of the earthquake? Send us your comments, pictures and video. Send your pictures to yourpics@bbc.co.uk or text them to +44 7725 100 100. If you have a large file you can upload here. At no time should you endanger

yourself or others, take any unnecessary risks or infringe any laws. Read the terms and conditions The BBC may edit your comments and not all emails will be published. Your comments may be published on any BBC media worldwide. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Texas makes posthumous pardon (BBC News | Americas | World Edition) Submitted at 3/2/2010 2:36:56 AM

The governor of the US state of Texas, Rick Perry, has posthumously pardoned a man who had died in jail after being wrongly convicted of rape. It is the first time Texas has issued a posthumous pardon. In 1986, Tim Cole was sentenced for the rape of a student. He always maintained he was innocent, right up to his death. He had spent 13 years in prison when he died of an asthma

attack in 1999. His innocence was proved by DNA tests nearly 10 years later. Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play. Mr Cole spurned an offer of early parole as it would have meant accepting guilt. Years after his death, his family demanded DNA tests after they received a letter from a convicted rapist confessing to the crime. It transpired the man had confessed earlier. He had sent letters to court officials four years before Mr Cole died - but

3 Residents Killed in Chicago Suburb Home Invasion (FOXNews.com)

doesn't appear there's a suspect running around the neighborhood." Three people have been found Darien Mayor Kathleen Weaver shot dead in a Chicago suburb in described the situation as a what officials describe as a home invasion. home invasion. "We are such easy targets being Darien police Chief Robert close to the highway (Stevenson Pavelchic says a young woman Expressway)," Weaver said, called 911 early Tuesday while MyFoxChicago.com reported. she was hiding in a closet. The names of the victims Pavelchic says officers found haven't been released. Police say the three victims when they no suspects are in custody. arrived at the house. Detectives Police have not arrested any are talking to the woman. suspects. Pavelchic says the shootings Click here for more from don't appear to be random and MyFoxChicago.com. he doesn't believe residents in The Associated Press the area are in danger. contributed to this report. "The neighborhood is not in Five Filters featured article: d a n g e r , " P a v e l c h i c s a i d , Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: a c c o r d i n g t o PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, MyFoxChicago.com. "This does Term Extraction. not appear to be a random act. It Submitted at 3/2/2010 6:24:34 AM

the admission was never followed up. Mr Perry said he hoped it would give Mr Cole's family a measure of peace. Mr Cole's mother told the BBC she was ecstatic on hearing the news - as her son had always wanted to be exonerated. He had written in a letter that he always believed in the justice Barry Ritholtz (The Big Picture) system, even if the justice system had not believed in him. Submitted at 3/2/2010 6:55:42 AM Print Sponsor Five Filters featured article: Art Cashin, director of floor Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: operations at UBS. PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Airtime: Tues. Mar. 2 2010 | Term Extraction.

Cashin on Dollar Correlation 8:50 AM ET Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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Bogus Copyright Claim Silences Yet Another Larry Lessig YouTube Presentation Mike Masnick (Techdirt) Submitted at 3/2/2010 4:26:29 AM

Nearly a year ago, we wrote about how a YouTube presentation done by well known law professor (and strong believer in fair use and fixing copyright law), Larry Lessig, had been taken down, because his video, in explaining copyright and fair use and other such things, used a snippet of a Warner Music song to demonstrate a point. There could be no clearer example of fair use -- but the video was still taken down. There was some dispute at the time as to whether or not this was an actual DMCA takedown, or merely YouTube's audio/video fingerprinting technology (which the entertainment industry insists can understand fair use and not block it). But, in the end, does it really make a difference? A takedown over copyright is a takedown over copyright. Amazingly enough, it appears that almost the exact same thing has happened again. A video of one of Lessig's presentations, that he just posted-- a "chat" he had done for the OpenVideoAlliance a week or so ago, about open culture and fair use, has received notice that it has been silenced. It hasn't been taken down entirely -- but

the entire audio track from the 42 minute video is completely gone. All of it. In the comments, some say there's a notification somewhere that the audio has been disabled because of "an audio track that has not been authorized by WMG" (Warner Music Group) -- which would be the same company whose copyright caused the issue a year ago -- but I haven't seen or heard that particular message anywhere. However, Lessig is now required to fill out a counternotice challenging the

how amazingly problematic things get when you put secondary liability on companies like Google. Under such a regime, Google would of course disable such a video, to avoid its own liability. The idea that Google can easily tell what is infringing and what is not is proven ridiculous when something like this is pulled offline (or just silenced). When a video about fair use itself is pulled down for a bogus copyright infringement, it proves the point. The unintended consequences of asking tool providers to judge what is and what is not copyright infringement lead to tremendous problems with companies shooting first and asking questions later. They are silencing speech, on the threat takedown -- while silencing his direct claim by Warner Music. that it might infringe on video in the meantime: While In fact, the issue may be the copyright. you can still see the video on identical one, as I believe the This is backwards. YouTube, without the audio, it's problem last year was the We live in a country that is p r e t t y m u c h w o r t h l e s s . muppets theme, which very, supposed to cherish free speech, Thankfully, the actual video is very briefly appears in this not stifle it in case it harms the available elsewhere, where you video (again) as an example of business model of a company. can both hear and see it. But, fair use in action. But it was We live in a country that is really, the fact that Lessig has Warner Music and others like it supposed to encourage the free had two separate videos -- both that demanded Google put such expression of ideas -- not lock it of which clearly are fair use -- a fingerprinting tool in place up and take it down because one neutered due to bogus copyright (and such companies are still company doesn't know how to infringement risks suggests a talking about requiring such adapt its business model. We serious problem. I'm guessing tools under the law). And yet, should never be silencing videos that, once again, this video was this seems to show just how l i k e l y c a u g h t b y t h e problematic such rules are. BOGUS page 26 fingerprinting, rather than a Even worse, this highlights just

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Court Says Domain Name Is Located Where Its Registrar Is Located Mike Masnick (Techdirt) Submitted at 3/2/2010 2:09:31 AM

It's been nearly a decade since we first heard about John Zuccarini -- an internet character who made his name by registering a ton of typosquatting domain names, and was sued a bunch of times for it, but avoided dealing with things for a while by being impossible to find. And, even when he was found, he was notoriously vague in answering questions. From a bit of testimony from back in the day: Question: What is your current address? Zuccarini: 957 Bristol Pike, Apartment D-6, Andalusia, Pennsylvania, 19020. Q: Is that where you currently reside? Zuccarini: Not necessarily. Q: Where do you currently reside? Zuccarini: I don't have - that's my legal address. I really don't have a permanent address at this time. Q: Where do you currently reside? Zuccarini: Right now, I am staying at the Millennium Hotel in New York. Q: When you are not in New York for a deposition, where do

you live? Where have you lived in the past two weeks? Zuccarini: I have been living in various places. Q. What are the various places that you have been living? Zuccarini: Friends' places. You know, that type of thing. Different hotels. Q. 957 Bristol Pike is not your residence? Zuccarini: No, it's not. It's my legal address. I have a lease on the apartment and that's where I have - some things are sent there which I get. Q: Do you live in Pennsylvania? Zuccarini: I don't know. I don't have a permanent address so I can live anywhere. I don't live anywhere right now. I can't give you a permanent address. Eventually, the FTC ordered that thousands of his sites should be shut down. And then it fined Zuccarini$1.9 million. But, still no one could find him. A year and a half later, he was finally found and arrested leading to an eventual guilty plea. Of course, that didn't stop

BOGUS continued from page 25

because they might infringe on copyright. Situations like this demonstrate the dangerous unintended consequences of secondary liability. At least with Lessig, you have someone who knows what happened, and knows how to file a counternotice -- though, him. In 2007, he was fined yet court finds that, indeed, domain who knows how long it will take again by the FTC, this time for names are considered property, for this situation to be corrected. typosquatting on domain names and that jurisdiction should be But for many, many, many other that kids were likely to visit -- based on where the registrar of people, they are simply silenced. and sending them to hardcore that domain is located(pdf) Silenced because of industry porn sites. Yeah. He's that kind rather than wherever John efforts to turn copyright law into of evil. Zuccarini may be hiding at the something it was never intended Anyway, going all the way moment. Since, in this case, the to be: a tool to silence the wider back to a decade ago, when registrar was VeriSign, and audience in favor of a few large various companies were filing V e r i S i g n i s i n N o r t h e r n companies. lawsuits against him, one such California... the court was ruled The system is broken. When lawsuit involved Office Depot, to be the proper jurisdiction. even the calls to fix the system which was none too pleased While the court does explain are silenced by copyright about Zuccarini's registration that this appears to be exactly claims, isn't it time that we fixed and use of offic-depot.com. what our anti-cybersquatting the system? Office Depot sued and won, but laws say when it comes to Permalink| Comments| Email given Zuccarini's slippery jurisdiction, that does lead to This Story nature, was unable to collect its some other interesting legal judgment. Eventually, Office questions when it comes to Depot handed over the judgment jurisdictions. It seems like it t o a c o m p a n y c a l l e d D S could be somewhat troubling if Holding, who then wanted to get your domain is officially located paid. It eventually asked a court wherever the registrar is in other in Northern California to hand types of cases, as suddenly over some of Zuccarini's other anyone registering a domain domains to fulfill the judgment. name needs to take into account The court agreed, but Zuccarini the location of the registrar in appealed, claiming that the court case of a lawsuit. in California had no jurisdiction Permalink| Comments| Email over his domain names. This Story Eric Goldman points us to the ruling in the case where the

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DOE's Chu looks to past for energy breakthroughs (CNET News.com)

underground storage of carbon dioxide. On Tuesday, Chu announced W A S H I N G T O N - - E n e r g y that the ARPA-E is now taking Secretary Steven Chu sees the solicitations for grid storage solutions to today's energy technologies to complement challenges in the work of wind and solar energy, which scientists in decades past. are intermittent sources that can Chu delivered the opening cause a significiant drop in keynote at the first ARPA-E electricity flow in the grid. Summit here on Tuesday, where "If you want renewable energy he used examples of historic to be 30 or 40 or 50 percent (of technology breakthroughs as the power generation), you need m o d e l f o r m a k i n g n e w much better energy transmission discoveries in clean energy. The a n d m u c h b e t t e r e n e r g y Department of Energy is storage," he said. "It is seeking to recreate the structure a b s o l u t e l y e s s e n t i a l f o r of research that yielded great r e n e w a b l e e n e r g y . " technology jumps, such as the He also announced that the precursor of the Internet or ARPA-E has set up a program lasers. to fund development of air ARPA-E is an agency funded conditioners that are three times last year with a goal of funding more energy efficiency than b r e a k t h r o u g h e n e r g y today's machines. As people in technologies on a relatively the developing world purchase short time scale. So far, ARPA- air conditioners, the question of E has awarded over$250 million efficiency becomes much more in grants to companies and important, he said. academic institutions, touching In addition, ARPA-E is offering on a wide range of areas, g r a n t s t o c o m p a n i e s a n d including electric vehicles and researchers that can develop Submitted at 3/2/2010 7:00:00 AM

chips for efficient power electronics, which can be used for a variety of application such as microinverters on solar panels, wind turbine generators, or solid-state lighting. Because many of the "best minds" in electrical engineering in the past years went into microelectroncis for computers, there is a skills shortage in this area, Chu said. Unapologetic nerd During his talk, Chu outlined the structure the DOE is seeking to establish in order to speed a "industrial revolution" that decreases dependence on foreign oil, creates new jobs, and addresses global warming. Some programs are set up to fund fundamental research and others are geared at demonstration projects which seek to make improvements on existing technologies, such as batteries for grid storage. ARPA-E, which stands for Advanced Research ProjectEnergy, is structured around very specific projects with a short time scale, he said. In

addition, the DOE has created what Chu calls "Bell Lablets" where groups of academics from different disciples are focused on a single task, such as advanced biofuels or building efficiency. The history of scientific breakthrough shows that giving talented people a specific focus but freedom to work on cuttingedge technology leads to innovation in science, he said. For example, after World War II researchers set off to make improvements on radar, which ultimately led to the development of lasers. Improvements on that eventually led to the creation of the first transistor at Bell Labs. "We're trying to upturn innovation but in a time scale and effort reminiscent of the Manhattan Project or Lincoln Labs," he said. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

The Sleepiest Apple Design Timeline (But Wait! In 3D!) [Apple] matt buchanan (Gizmodo) Submitted at 3/2/2010 9:14:32 AM

It's too early for trance for this mellow (mmm, bed...sleeeeeep) but the 3D models of iconic Apple products from the Newton to the OG iBook to iPad are genuinely delicioso enough to keep your eyes open for. Then sleep. [ Recombu]

Botnets cause surge in February spam (CNET News.com) Submitted at 3/2/2010 6:46:10 AM

Spam now accounts for close to 90 percent of all e-mail worldwide due to a surge in February, according to Symantec. BOTNETS page 28

The FDA Takes on Cheerios (AEI.Org: Articles) Submitted at 3/1/2010 3:00:00 PM

Last year the Food and Drug Administration made itself fodder for late-night comedy when it warned the manufacturer of Cheerios

against boasting about some of the cereal's health benefits. "We have determined [Cheerios] is promoted for conditions that cause it to be a drug," the FDA said in a letter to General Mills. By this logic, consumers would need a prescription to buy a box

of the oats. The letter typifies the FDA's longstanding discomfort with health claims made on food labels, particularly those touting the medical benefits of certain diets and ingredients. FDA staff worry the food claims aren't

backed by anything close to the science that supports the medical claims made on drug labels. The two, they argue, shouldn't be treated much differently. This article is available by subscription from the Wall

Street Journal. Scott Gottlieb, M.D., is a resident fellow at AEI. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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BOTNETS continued from page 27

Two botnets named Grum and Rustock helped push spam levels up 5.5 percent in February over the prior month, according to the security firm's report(PDF). After doing business as usual over the past year, Grum suddenly sprang to life in February, increasing the amount of spam it generated by 51 percent. As a result, the botnet is now to blame for 26 percent of all global spam. Rustock also surged last month, pushing up global spam levels by 25 percent on February 17 to the highest level for the entire month. The rise of both botnets were traced to activity related to Canadian pharmaceutical spam, Symantec said. One of the hottest scams on the Internet, pharmaceutical spam now is responsible for 65 percent of all worldwide spam. "Whether the spammers are trying to clear this spam run more quickly or have discovered that it is successful, they have

certainly been using multiple botnets to distribute highvolume spam campaigns in February," Symantec MessageLabs Intelligence senior analyst Paul Wood said Monday in a statement. "The activities of this single spam operation have been driving recent global surges in spam rates and strongly impacting global spam levels in turn. Based on these latest spam patterns, we can predict additional surges in spam in the coming weeks." Though spam levels rose last month, the size of the typical spam message and the number of junk e-mails with file attachments both fell. The average size of a spam e-mail is now around 3.3KB compared with 5KB in October. The number of spam messages with attachments dropped to 1 percent in February from 10 percent last April. But that's not really good news, noted Symantec, because spammers

now are hosting images online, shrinking the size of each spam and helping the botnets send out more spam per minute. The Waledac botnet also got some press recently. Playing it low-key for the past year, Waledac spiked in January, accounting for around 1 percent of all malware caught. In its effort to battle the botnets, Microsoft was granted a court order on February 22 that shut down 277 domain names apparently related to the spread of Waledac. This move has seemingly ended Waledac's career for now. The takedown of Waledac was an effective step in the fight against malware, Symantec noted in the report, which explained how the botnet operated in the past. "Malware connected to Waledac are not distributed by the botnet itself but are sent by other botnets," Wood said. "Recently, Waledac malware has been sent

from the Cutwail botnet. Also noteworthy is that spammers using the Waledac malware seem particularly focused on the major free Webmail hosting services using email addresses in use by individuals. Waledac is adept at evading traditional dormant honeypot addresses." Spam levels reached 93.4 percent of all e-email in Italy last month, making it the most spammed country. Denmark was next at 92.8 percent, followed by Russia at 91.8 percent. In the United States, 90.2 percent of all e-mail was spam in February, while in the U.K., spam levels dropped at bit to 88.6 percent. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Glamorous-Looking Kate Gosselin Says She'll Win 'Dancing with the Stars' (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 3/2/2010 5:46:00 AM

A completely made-over Kate Gosselin showed she's got the legs for "Dancing with the Stars" and explained her strategy to win. Appearing on " Jimmy Kimmel Live" in a tight, peach and black dress cut well above the knee with her signature hairstyle long gone -- replaced with curled extensions and a fresh color -the glamorous mother of eight revealed how she'll train to compete. "I cannot dance," she admits, but says, "I'm gonna win."

Fakeuccinos Are Frugal Starbucks Placebos [DIY Creations] Kevin Purdy (Lifehacker)

cheaper. And, as one Instructables coffee addict Submitted at 3/2/2010 5:30:00 AM shows, reusing your bottles aids Those little bottled Starbucks the illusion. f r a p p u c c i n o s ? N o t c h e a p . Take what starburst552 whips Blending your own mocha up as more inspiration than beverages with hot cocoa mix direct step-by-step. You might and other add-ins? Not exactly not, for example, need to re-use the same, but a good deal glass Frappuccino bottles to

trick yourself into believing you're really having one. You

might also substitute a superior French press brew over his Keurig-derived coffee, or use fancier cocoa or another recipe entirely. That's fineâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;just see what he has to show you, though, about how little you're really getting for your $2-andup per bottle, and think about

whether a good 15 minutes' work on one weeknight could save you a good deal throughout the week. Starbucks Fakeuccino[Instructables]

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AT&T plans for SXSW 2010 Mike Schramm (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW))

brand new genre of app, the "check-in" network). So what's going to be the app pushing data Submitted at 3/1/2010 8:00:00 PM through the AT&T network this Filed under: Gaming, Freeware, year? The buzz so far is around Internet, Apple, iPhone, sxsw Twitter's coming ad platform, Happy March! The super hip though it's hard to think that an and trendy South-by-Southwest ad platform could be a killer music and tech festival is app. My money's on some sort coming up this month, and like of location-based social game -many tech conventions these while Foursquare has gaming days, AT&T is working on a elements, I think an app like plan to keep their network up MyTown could take the concept and running as thousands of even farther, and we still haven't iPhones descend on Austin, really seen an actual GPS-based Texas to send around voice, RPG or MMO break out. Even texts, and data. Macworld-- while my iPhone those of us who aren't at SXSW GigaOM has a little insight into worked fine most of the time, I this year will be paying attention how they're planning to do it still only have a 1G, and I was to what people are doing on this year, and if you're interested u s i n g S p r i n t M i F i o n m y their iPhones there, because in the nuts-and-bolts of keeping Macbook most of the time), but odds are good that the app that a cell phone network up and i t s o u n d s l i k e a p r e t t y clicks with attendees there will running (or at least trying to -- c o m p r e h e n s i v e s e t u p . be what we're all playing with in this is AT&T, after all), it's Of course, the other reason a few months. worth a read. They're beefing up AT&T is pushing to get ready TUAW AT&T plans for SXSW the cell towers in the city's for SXSW is that the convention 2010 originally appeared on The vicinity, setting up a whole new has become sort of an unofficial U n o f f i c i a l A p p l e W e b l o g system around the convention testing ground for the next big (TUAW) on Mon, 01 Mar 2010 center itself, and putting money social apps. A few years ago, 20:00:00 EST. Please see our into the backend as well, to try Twitter made its first big push terms for use of feeds. and increase bandwidth coming around SXSW, and last year, Read| Permalink| Email this| into the region. I don't know if Foursquare was the app to use Comments they've done anything like this (which has since spawned a before (I can't really judge with

Chile Quake Shortened Day by 1.26 Microseconds Clay Dillow (Popular Science New Technology, Science News, The Future Now) Submitted at 3/1/2010 1:21:52 PM

The 8.8 magnitude seismic shock that rocked Chile over the weekend likely also rocked the

Earth's axis, shifting the planet's mass enough to shave 1.26 microseconds (millionths of a second) from all Earthly days going forward, a NASA scientist says. But that's nothing; the magnitude 9.1 Sumatran quake

that spawned the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 subtracted a whopping 6.8 microseconds.

Twitter Location API to Support Places Stan Schroeder (Mashable!) Submitted at 3/2/2010 1:19:21 AM

I know what you may be thinking: Twitter location API already supports places; that’s why they call it the location API, right? Well, yes and no. Currently, it supports latitude and longitude, which tells the world where, exactly, you were located when you tweeted. But now Twitter’s Raffi Krikorian promises support for places, meaning locations (not necessarily very precisely defined) with a name, such as “Joe’s Bar on Manhattan” or “downtown LA.” From the Twitter API announcements message board: “Our goal is to provide a few more options to API developers (and the users they are servicing) through this contextual information. people, we find, inherently want to talk about a “place”. a place, for a lot of people, has a name and is not a latitude and longitude pair. (37.78215, -122.40060), for example, doesn’t mean a lot to a lot of people — but, “San Francisco, CA, USA” does. we’re also trying to help users who aren’t comfortable annotating their tweets with

their exact coordinates, but, instead, are really happy to say what city, or even neighborhood, they are in. annotating your place with a name does that too.” Sounds like a minor detail, but it’s actually quite important, because it gives Twitter the ability to compete with locationbased services such as Foursquare or Gowalla, which let you check in at various locations and share them with your friends. For further analysis of the importance of location sharing on Twitter see our recent article on the subject. It’s important to note, though, that Twitter will gradually rollout these new features, starting with the US, so competitors will have some time to prepare for whatever Twitter plans to do with location. Tags: api, location, trending, twitter

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Open source: Still room for the little Assassin's Creed II guy? multiplayer, Rayman 2 out now on the iPhone (CNET News.com)

Submitted at 3/2/2010 6:08:49 AM

Open source started small, but it's increasingly looking like it's a game for big vendors to play. That's because open source is all about scale, which is hard to attain as a small player. MySQL took 10 years, Red Hat wasn't much faster, and JBoss was also a long-term project. Companies like IBM, Oracle, and even Microsoft find it much easier to get quickly to scale through their built-in communities. Is open source a game only an IBM can play? There is no such thing as automatic community, of course, so we see companies (big and small, but mostly small) either latching onto existing communities and then trying to monetize them. Or we see big companies kick-starting community, as Google has done with Android. The downside to the smallcompany-big-community approach is that it can be hard to sell value around a community that is used to getting everything free of charge. The upside to the big-companycreate-community approach is that large-scale enterprises generally don't need to worry about selling value because they

Mike Schramm (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW))

see from the trailer above, this one's been ported by Gameloft. As with most iPhone Submitted at 3/1/2010 9:00:00 PM platformers, the game uses Filed under: Gaming, Software, virtual controls, but Touch Freeware, iPhone, App Store Arcade says they work just fine. Two major league games have The save system is the biggest hit the App Store already this issue -- your iPhone is not the week, one of them for the best platform for playing games surprise price of free. Ubisoft for long stretches of time, and has released the multiplayer any game that kicks you back version of their Assassin's Creed out to a menu if you happen to II game on the App Store, and step away for a second will it's available for free for the first cause frustration eventually. 48 hours. The game's a top- Still, it sounds like a solid down multiplayer game that has platformer port, and there are already have profitable product about "The Man" taking over you walking around the world of certainly fans of those out there. lines that complement the open- open source. Open-source the console version, both The game is$6.99 on the App source projects they feed. projects of all shapes and sizes targeting other players and Store right now. T h i s h a s b e c o m e a n continue to sprout and flourish being targeted yourself. All the TUAW Assassin's Creed II i n c r e a s i n g l y i n t e r e s t i n g outside the control of the reports say it's definitely worth a multiplayer, Rayman 2 out now approach for companies as enterprise-software hegemons, try, and if you can catch it o n t h e i P h o n e o r i g i n a l l y before they raise the price back appeared on The Unofficial d i v e r s e a s I B M , A p p l e , or by any company at all. F a c e b o o k , a n d M i c r o s o f t . Sure, to thrive many will seek up (sounds like Ubisoft is trying Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Indeed, open source accounts outside sponsorship, either from t o f i n d a p l a c e f o r t h e i r Mon, 01 Mar 2010 21:00:00 for much of the most interesting a V C o r a s t r a t e g i c r e l e a s e s ) , y o u s h o u l d . EST. Please see our terms for tech strategy such companies investor/partner like IBM. And as expected, Rayman 2 is use of feeds. engage in. And for some B u t m a n y o t h e r s w o n ' t , also out on the App Store -- it's Read| Permalink| Email this| c o m p a n i e s , i t ' s t h e o n l y preserving the rich tradition of a port of the 3D Playstation Comments interesting tech outreach they both serving The Man and platformer that was actually a do, at least in the view of this sticking a finger in his eye-- Ubisoft property, but as you can highly biased open-source often at the very same time. advocate. Five Filters featured article: Despite this big company Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: d o m i n a n c e i n t h e m o r e PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, intriguing areas of open source, Term Extraction. I don't think we need worry

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HootSuite Rolls Out Android Apps and iPhone App Upgrade Jennifer Van Grove (Mashable!) Submitted at 3/2/2010 7:09:54 AM

Popular professional Twitter app maker HootSuite has just updated its iPhone app and released three new mobile applications. HootSuite’s mobile arsenal now includes a total of four apps — iPhone and Android apps in both full and free versions. You may recall that HootSuite’s iPhone app retails for $1.99 and is designed to appeal to business Twitter users with a robust functionality that includes unlimited account support and stats and analytics on shared media. Now version 1.2 supports Facebook integration and landscape view. There’s an even a free “Lite” version that maintains a majority of the functionality, but dumps the price tag and sacrifices the click

the same as its iPhone twin — also includes click-through statistics for Twitter data analysis. Of course, given that HootSuite bills itself as the professional Twitter client you can expect the mobile apps to integrate nicely with your web account. Existing -through date and unlimited HootSuite users can import their account support feature in the configured accounts and sync process. their activity between the web HootSuite’s also introducing client and the mobile apps. two brand new Android As the Android operating applications, both of which system continues to gain market bring the same robust HootSuite share, HootSuite’s expansion on Twitter iPhone experience to to that platform makes absolute Android devices, but with sense. In fact, in the months background notifications to ahead we expect to see more boot. Both versions of the app iPhone-only apps — especially s u p p o r t m u l t i p l e T w i t t e r popular social media standbys accounts (the Lite version is — make their way over to limited to three accounts), Android as well. message scheduling, hashtag Tags: android, hootsuite, and search streams, photo- and iphone, iphone app, Mobile 2.0, URL-sharing, and trending twitter topics descriptions. The fullfeatured version — which costs

GM triples funding for Opel to €1.9bn (Financial Times - US homepage) Submitted at 3/2/2010 4:52:27 AM

General Motors announced on Tuesday that it was increasing its contribution to the restructuring of Opel from €600m to €1.9bn ($2.6bn) –

more than half the €3.7bn it says it needs to turn round its lossmaking European operations. The move came less than a day after Nick Reilly, the head of GM Europe, told the FT that the US carmaker was “not working on” any plan to increase its

contribution to Opel’s €3.7bn restructuring plan, which was originally set at €3.3bn but has since been lifted due to pressure from the German government. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

New Chrome Beta Offers Automatic Web Page Translation Stan Schroeder (Mashable!) Submitted at 3/2/2010 2:56:21 AM

There’s a new beta version of Chrome available (version 4.1.249.1021), bringing two very nifty features to Google’s browser. First is automatic translation of web pages in language different from your preferred language setting in Chrome. The browser automatically detects the language and offers you an option (via a drop-down menu bar below the bookmarks bar) to translate it, using Google’s translation tools. I’ve tried it out, and while it works well on some pages, sometimes it doesn’t recognize the language (for example, Baidu.com is not recognized as a Chinese web page, possibly because it contains very little text). You can also set Chrome to always translate pages in a certain language, which really can speed up your browsing if you often open pages in foreign languages. However, there’s no option to manually translate a

web page, which is an odd omission, especially given the fact that Chrome’s language detection doesn’t work perfectly yet. The other interesting feature in the new Chrome beta are the new privacy settings, available under Options – Under the Hood – Privacy. With the new options, you can fine tune your privacy settings and control how Chrome handles cookies, images, JavaScript, plug-ins, and pop-ups for individual sites. Check out a demo of the automatic translation feature, as well as the new privacy settings, below. Tags: chrome, Google, translation

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Opera 10.5 is Out, Dubs Itself the Fastest Browser on Earth Stan Schroeder (Mashable!) Submitted at 3/2/2010 4:54:17 AM

Al Gore taunted at shareholders' meeting, gets 10k more options anyway Mike Schramm (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW))

with the environment. Shelton Ehrlich (who apparently has a reputation among Apple Submitted at 3/1/2010 10:00:00 PM shareholders as a conspiracy Filed under: Apple Corporate, believer) stood up and called Apple Financial, Apple Gore a "laughingstock," railing Last week in this post and last against Gore's re-election to the night during the talkcast, we board of directors. Good times m e n t i o n e d t h a t A p p l e ' s - we're sure Gore is used to shareholders had passed on a dealing with controversies like sustainability proposal during that, but we wouldn't have last week's meeting (the first e x p e c t e d i t a t t h e A p p l e time in recent memory that s h a r e h o l d e r m e e t i n g . Apple didn't go for stricter Still, that hasn't dissuaded him environmental standards), but from working with the company apparently the shareholders -- according to an SEC filing, he weren't just against the proposal. also picked up another 10,000 At least one of them was openly stock options from Apple, heckling Al Gore about his work netting him more than $227k

according to Apple's current stock price. Good deal. At least one of Apple's shareholders isn't too happy with Gore's work for the environment, but the relationship between Gore and Apple seems like it's here to stay for a while. TUAW Al Gore taunted at shareholders' meeting, gets 10k more options anyway originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 01 Mar 2010 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

The debate about web browser speed never ends. When it came out, Firefox was considered speedy, but then Opera and Google Chrome kept recapturing the “speediest browser” title and the race hasn’t ended to this day. Still, Opera is the browser that has been focusing on speed the most, partly due to its Opera Turbo feature, which compresses web pages on Opera’s servers so users can get them faster. Now, with Opera 10.5, the folks at Opera once again claim that Opera is the “fastest browser on Earth”. We’ve covered the various development builds of Opera 10.5, but here’s another rundown of the most important features in the final version of Opera 10.5. Opera has increased room for content on your screen by replacing the menu bar with the menu button. The new version also integrates with Windows

7/Vista, letting you access your Speed Dials, tabs and other features diretcly from the taskbar. Furthermore, Opera 10.5 features a new JavaScript engine, Carakan, and a new graphics library called Vega. Both should improve browsing speed, with Carakan being as much as 7 times faster than the Futhark JavaScript engine used in Opera 10.10. Finally, Opera’s private browsing features allow you to browse privately either in a tab or a separate window. You can freely download Opera 10.5 for over on the official Opera site and see a full list of changes in the new version here. Tags: opera, web browsers

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Man Creates Useful City Parking iPhone App... And City Doesn't Get Upset Mike Masnick (Techdirt)

that city officials would be upset about it. But... instead, they Submitted at 3/1/2010 8:00:00 PM actually seem happy about it: He It's really tragic that this even just start selling his Elgin seems like it's worth a post at Parking iPhone application last all, but we've seen so many week, but already city officials ridiculous stories of people are commending him. For a creating cool and useful apps for download price of $1.99, it their cities or universities-- only helps people comply with the to have officials freak out that city's odd/even parking law. outsiders are somehow violating Hopefully, this means that intellectual property laws, and common sense is making a bit only official city/university apps of a comeback. I half expected should be allowed. So, when officials to either be upset that we heard about a guy in Elgin, he was "making money" by Illinois who created a simple selling an app that helped people iPhone app to help people avoid avoid parking tickets, or be parking tickets, it just felt likely upset that, with fewer parking

tickets to give out, they'd have less revenue -- but it's great to see the city endorsing this sort of thing, where a citizen is free to help make life better for others in the city. And... since people sometimes complain that too many of the stories on Techdirt are negative, it seemed worth a post to give kudos to Elgin for not doing the stupid things that many other cities have done. In this day and age, that's progress. Permalink| Comments| Email This Story

Hivision SpeedPad Android tablet has an ARM11 and a very inexpensive price Tablet (BestTabletReview.com)

dongle connectivity and also features a 4200mAh battery good for 6 hours of use between Submitted at 3/1/2010 7:10:00 PM charges. Other goodies include JKK is living up to his mobile web browser, email, webcam name by running around the a n d a f e w o t h e r c h o i c e CeBIT show filming a lot of a p p l i c a t i o n s . interesting toys. Among them is However the main ear-perker is a n e w A n d r o i d t a b l e t b y that Hivision says they will Hivision called the SpeedPad. wholesale the SpeedPad for The Hivision SpeedPad has a 7- under $100. If true, that could inch 800 x 480 resolution LCD make this tablet one fast seller. touchscreen, Samsung ARM11 Source: Jkkmobile 800MHz processor, 2GB of Five Filters featured article: storage, 256 DDR2 RAM and Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: runs Android. It has WiFi b/g, PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, external 3G, Bluetooth and GPS Term Extraction.

Despite legal threats, Apple stair back on Ebay Dave Caolo (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW))

them away if he could have one, and they said yes, according to Mark's story on Gizmodo. After Submitted at 3/2/2010 10:15:00 AM storing it at his place for a Filed under: Apple Corporate, while, he decided to put it up for Retail, Odds and ends A former auction on Ebay. Apple Store employee has Shortly thereafter, Seele defied legal threats and re-listed c o n t a c t e d M a r k t o c l a i m a broken stair on Ebay. ownership of the stair and In 2008, three broken stairs demand that the auction be were removed from the spiral t a k e n d o w n a n d t h e s t a i r staircase in the Fifth Avenue returned to them. Mark removed Apple retail store in New York. the auction but refused to return F o r m e r e m p l o y e e M a r k the stair, claiming that it had Burstiner asked the Seele GmbH become his property. employees who were hauling Now, the Ebay listing is back

they still claim ownership of the stair. Buyer beware, indeed. [Via ifoapplestore] TUAW Despite legal threats, Apple stair back on Ebay originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 02 Mar 2010 10:15:00 EST. Please see our up. As of this writing, the bid is terms for use of feeds. at US$9,9500. It's only a 3-day Read| Permalink| Email this| auction, so get your bid in early. Comments Also be aware that the winner will take home a massive glass step (it weighs more than 200lbs) as well as Seele's ire --

Open WiFi To Become A Liability In The UK Under Digital Economy Bill Mike Masnick (Techdirt) Submitted at 3/2/2010 6:00:57 AM

Back in January, while in France, I experienced firsthand one of the "unintended consequences" of France rushing forwarding with a "three strikes" law that kicks people off the internet based on accusations (not convictions). OPEN page 34

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OPEN continued from page 33

Because of that, the idea of open WiFi is now pretty much gone(which, amusingly, was pissing off the very same music execs who were such big fans of the law). It seems that something similar might be happening in the UK, as the folks behind the much maligned Digital Economy Bill have admitted that there will be no exceptions for anyone operating an open WiFi network, even a library or a university. Thus, if a library had an open WiFi network, and it received a few accusations of file sharing, Peter Mandelson could decide to kick them off the internet for as long as he would like.

The iMaxi: someone had to do it Michael Grothaus (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW))

all the puns and innuendo possible: "With its durable vinyl outer layer and plush, quilted-cotton Submitted at 3/2/2010 9:00:00 AM Filed under: Accessories, sleeve, the iMaxi helps keep Humor your iPad clean and dry. Plus, What can I say? Who didn't see the iMaxi's Velcro-latched, t h i s o n e c o m i n g ? H i p advanced wing design wraps Handmaidens, a company that snugly around your device, so sells handcrafted wares "born your iPad always stays where it out of a bizarre group of should. Best of all, it shields it talented housewives," has from all those unsightly and created the iMaxi -- the only embarrassing data leaks that Apple iPad case with protective would make any motherboard wings. You know, I could worry!" describe the case to you, but I Want to hear something even think Hip Handmaidens have hit more disturbing? They offer the

option of a special blood red threading for that "lived in" look. The perfect Mother's Day gift anyone? I didn't think so. TUAW The iMaxi: someone had to do it originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 02 Mar 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

While it doesn't technically "outlaw" open WiFi, it does put such a big liability on it that it leads to the same result. It effectively makes it so that no one, not even community organizations, will want to offer open WiFi. At a time when the UK government claims it's trying to encourage greater connectivity, it seems pretty silly to put in place a law that could lead to exactly the opposite. Permalink| Comments| Email This Story

Osmond Family Smiles Through Tragedy (ETonline - Breaking News)

Donny Osmond said, "Whenever there's a situation where there needs to be rallying, The Osmond family has turned the Osmonds rally around each to one another as they strive to other and support each other. move forward following the And, there's a lot of that going suicide of Michael Blosil, on right now." Marie's son. Marie's brothers Upon receiving the devastating and nephew gathered in Utah on news of Michael's death, the Monday night to support the brothers immediately boarded release of David's new album, Donny's plane to join their sister "Reflected." They also used this in Las Vegas. "It meant a lot to as an opportunity to reflect on her to have us at her house," the tragedy that has afflicted reported Donny. their tight-knit family. Submitted at 3/2/2010 5:19:00 AM

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Pencils Down Nathaniel Frank (The New Republic - All Feed) Submitted at 3/1/2010 9:00:00 PM

On February 2, at the first Senate hearings on gays in the military since 1993, Admiral Mike Mullen became the only sitting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to support allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military. He said the “institutional integrity” of the armed forces demands that they stop forcing gay service members to lie in order to serve their country. The current policy of “don't ask, don't tell” (DADT), Mullen argued, ends up needlessly “devaluing” a critical segment of the military population. But the endorsement of DADT’s repeal by the top brass-Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said he backs the plan, which President Obama has pledged to work with Congress to implement--was tempered by concerns that a quick timetable would be unwise. Gates said he wants a study period to “help inform the legislative process of some facts about the attitudes of our men and women in uniform, what they think about a change in the law, [and] what their families think.” He added, “The truth is, we don't have any facts.” But is that true? While taking time to study the transition may seem reasonable at first blush,

the reality is that the government, the military, and independent researchers have been studying this issue for decades. And all of their findings point to the same truth: Openly gay service does not impair military effectiveness. What's more, existing research already shows what steps should be taken to repeal DADT. It’s far from clear what good will come from another year of study --but it's easy to see obstructionists using the window to sow fear and doubt as a tactic to kill the plan for a repeal. Indeed, the script emerging from this month’s opening salvo at the DADT hearings is eerily similar to the one that played out in 1993, when President Bill Clinton’s effort to lift the gay ban was derailed during a sixmonth study period. During that window, opponents of reform, led by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, rallied to defend the status quo, forming a wall of military resistance that some said amounted to insubordination. They were joined by skeptical members of Congress. Ultimately, Clinton yielded to the pressure and backed away from his promise. To avoid a repeat of that debacle, it’s crucial to understand both what went wrong last time and what mountains of research already tell us about how to end discrimination against gay

troops. In his first State of the Union, Obama vowed to repeal DADT, and, at the subsequent Senate hearings, Gates said the military would take up the president’s charge. “The question before us is not whether the military prepares to make this change but how we best prepare for it," Gates noted. In 1993, thenDefense Secretary Les Aspin, also said he would follow the president's directive to determine how, not whether, to lift the ban. To that end, Aspin ordered two different studies-one by the RAND Corporation, an esteemed think tank with close ties to the military, the other by a “Military Working Group” (MWG) of active, highranking officers, who would give the military’s “independent judgment” about how to proceed. But things didn't quite go as planned. RAND commissioned a team of 75 social scientists from its National Defense Research Institute to study the issue. They examined scientific literature on group cohesion, the experiences of foreign militaries, the theory and history of institutional change, public health concerns, the history of racial integration in the military, policies on sexuality in police and fire departments, and numerous other issues. The result was a 500-page report confirming that there was no evidence that

openly gay service members posed a threat to the military, recommending that the armed forces not consider sexual orientation when determining who should serve, and outlining a clear, quick process for lifting the gay ban. But the report, which cost taxpayers $1.3 million, barely made it out of RAND's Santa Monica headquarters because, according to The New York Times, Pentagon officials tried to keep the study from going public. They ultimately never considered it when shaping policy, the Times reported, because of resistance from the Joint Chiefs of Staff. (Precisely the same thing had happened with previous studies on gays in the military. The Navy’s 1957 Crittenden Report and the1988 and 1989 studies from the Pentagon’s Personnel Security Research and Education Center (PERSEREC) both found that there was no basis for the gay ban, yet both were buried.) Instead, with President Clinton’s reluctant blessing, the military opted to focus on the 15 -page report written by the MWG, a panel of five senior generals and admirals. The group had undertaken its charge begrudgingly. Only when press reports revealed that no action had been taken several months after their appointment did the members even meet. Offering no proofwhatsoever, the final

report stated, “All homosexuality is incompatible with military service.” Going further, it cast homosexuals as dangerous: “Due to their sexual practices, active male homosexuals in the military could be expected to bring an increased incidence of sexually transmitted diseases,” including AIDS, which could create the perception of an “enemy within.” With backlash mounting, Clinton gave up his effort to lift the gay ban and, instead, agreed to compromise by crafting a new law with Congress. In November 1993, he signed DADT, which instructed the military to stop asking recruits about their sexual orientation but also called for service members to be discharged if they said they were gay or engaged in homosexual conduct. The next month, the Pentagon, using the MWG report as a blueprint, issued its own DADT regulations, consistent with the new law. All of the evidence from the RAND study--not to mention from the Crittenden and PERSEREC reports--was simply ignored. Seventeen years later, Gates has asked RAND to update its findings, and he has appointed another MWG. But what would an updated RAND report, much less another MWG study, add to PENCILS page 37

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Venice in Texas Jed Perl (The New Republic All Feed)

recent discovery of a fourth fragment in Austin, can we see what Veronese had in mind. No Submitted at 3/1/2010 9:00:00 PM matter that several pieces are Paolo Veronese: The Petrobelli still missing and are unlikely to Altarpiece be recovered: the Petrobelli Blanton Museum of Art Altarpiece, some fifteen feet Combine a mystery and a h i g h , t u r n s o u t t o b e a n masterpiece and what do you a s t o n i s h i n g l y p o w e r f u l have? You have “Paolo meditation on themes of V e r o n e s e : T h e P e t r o b e l l i mortality and immortality. Altarpiece,” a small, perfectly Veronese brings a luxuriant focused exhibition recently at gravitas to his representations of the Blanton Museum of Art at saints and sinners alike. The the University of Texas at canvas, for all its bold public Austin. The show--which has appeal, has undercurrents of also been seen at the Dulwich haunted, dusky reverie. Picture Gallery in London and Mounted in one of New York’s the National Gallery of Canada m a j o r m u s e u m s , “ P a o l o in Ottawa--comes with a Veronese: The Petrobelli backstory engaging enough to Altarpiece” would be hailed as make museum-goers pay close exactly the kind of brilliant, attention. concise exhibition we need in In the 1560s, already in these recessionary times. In command of his genius for Austin, the exhibition was opulent decorative effects, embraced by a loyal audience V e r o n e s e p a i n t e d a v a s t that has come to expect worldaltarpiece for a Franciscan class scholarly work from the church in the town of Lendinara, curators at the Blanton. When I not far from Venice. Two was last in Austin, a little over a centuries later, after the convent year ago, the museum was host with which the church was to a show unlike “The Petrobelli associated was suppressed, the Altarpiece” in every respect altarpiece was acquired by an art except its sky-high quality. This dealer, and he cut it into pieces was “Reimagining Space: The and sold them off one by one-- Park Place Gallery Group in “just like meat in a butcher’s 1960s New York,” organized by shop,” as the Scottish artist Linda Dalrymple Henderson, an Gavin Hamilton observed at the art historian at the University of time. Only now, after decades of Texas. Henderson brought work resolving the relationship unexpected shadings to our o f f r a g m e n t s i n L o n d o n , understanding of New York in Edinburgh, and Ottawa, plus the the 1960s by focusing on a

group of artists--among them Mark di Suvero, Robert Grosvenor, and David Novros-who were re-imagining the old Abstract Expressionist swagger in terms of their own increasingly hard-edged, conceptual, and technologically oriented sensibilities. And two years before that, Jonathan Bober, the curator of European art at the Blanton who is responsible for bringing the Veronese show to Austin, organized a retrospective of the sixteenth-century Italian painter Luca Cambiaso. He is best known today for his geometricized drawings of the human figure, which have long had a cult following among painters, who see their sharply angled forms as a prefiguration of Cubism. In his paintings, Cambiaso’s mingling of analytical rigor and poetic fantasy occasionally brings to mind the uncanniness of Uccello. The Blanton was the only American venue for this unprecedented event. “Paolo Veronese: The Petrobelli Altarpiece,” “Reimagining Space: The Park Place Gallery Group,” and the Luca Cambiaso retrospective epitomize a kind of offbeat, imaginative programming that is at risk in our museums even in the best of times, and is most certainly at risk today. There are perfectly good reasons why museum administrators prefer brand-

name events. Monet--or, for that matter, Warhol--has a proven track record when it comes to bringing in a reluctant public. And if you seek sponsors for a Monet show, you won’t have to cope with the blank looks with which the name Cambiaso will be received. Innovative curators such as Bober and Henderson are fighting an uphill battle, no question about it. Ned Rifkin, the new director of the Blanton, arrives at a museum where there is surely a desire to enlarge the audience for art in Austin. This is an altogether honorable objective. For the Blanton, which has in recent years considerably expanded its operations, fundraising is perhaps more of a priority now than ever. One has only to consider the museum’s ambitious new building complex, which opened in stages between 2006 and 2008. There are civilized, invitingly proportioned galleries for the museum’s permanent collection, with strengths in mid-twentiethcentury American painting, in modern Latin American art, and in late Renaissance, Baroque, and Rococo painting, drawing, and printmaking. There is also an unfortunate tendency toward gigantism in these interiors, beginning with a sky-high atrium and formal staircase that a visitor cannot help finding simultaneously overbearing and bland. Behind such overblown

public spaces--you see them in new museums all over the world --there is the assumption that if you build it big, big crowds will come. The truth is that the people who do come end up feeling small. But what is the Blanton to do in these straitened times? A few months ago the National Endowment for the Arts released a rather bleak “Survey of Public Participation in the Arts,” indicating that although museums were faring better than other cultural institutions, attendance at art museums and galleries was down to 22.7 percent of the adult population in 2008, from a high of 26.7 percent in 1992. Frankly, I think there can be too much anxiety about that missing 4 percent. We are not selling Pepsi here. We are selling the experience of Veronese. Anybody running an arts organization must attend to the bottom line: we can all agree about that. What I would like to hear from more museum directors is an insistence that in a country as wealthy as this one-and this is still a rich country, recession or no recession-museums have an obligation to present the finest work in the most uncompromising way, because in the long run that is how you sustain a culture. So far as I can see, that kind of old-fashioned thinking has VENICE page 44

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the debate? RAND's findings remain accurate, as no new social science data has emerged that finds homosexuality to be incompatible with military service. To the contrary, post1993 studies on gays in the military have only bolstered the RAND report and showed that another research delay mandated by the military's top brass would do no good--indeed, it might actually do harm. According to the original RAND study, the two of the most important factors in a personnel policy transition like the repeal of DADT are decisive leadership and a single code of conduct for all personnel. But RAND also found that a successful new policy must be “decided upon and implemented as quickly as possible” to avoid anxiety and uncertainty. "[F]ast and pervasive change will signal commitment to the [new] policy," and “any waiting period also permits restraining forces to consolidate." These findings are supported by decades of research on institutional change, public policy implementation, and cohesion theory. Much of that literature has focused on leadership and institutional culture. In their 1983 book, Implementation and Public Policy, for instance, Daniel Mazmanian and Paul Sabatier note the importance of, as the RAND report described, “committed implementers as

driving forces for policy change.” And, in their 1986 book, The Political Hand, Barbara Ferman and Martin Levin explain that the key to effective change is having leaders communicate that a new policy is now consistent with the institutional identity of a group. Such research has been borne out in foreign militaries that have lifted their own gay bans. This week, the Palm Center, where I work, released the largest study in history assessing the experiences of other countries with openly gay service. The study, of which I am the principal author, details the implementation process in Britain, Canada, Australia, South Africa and Israel, five of the 25 countries that have moved to let gays serve openly. Central to these five cases were swift, simple implementation of new policies (usually in under four months) under the guidance of strong leadership. Despite some substantial grumbling at first, the new policies enjoyed wide acceptance throughout the countries’ armed forces in a relatively short amount of time. Another Palm Center study that I coauthored, which will appear in a book published this spring by an Air Force publishing arm (and which is already available on the Palm Center’s website), details specific regulations and organizational changes that would be required

to repeal DADT in the United States. The number of necessary changes would be quite small, as existing military regulations already address interpersonal issues such as sexual harassment, fraternization, romantic relationships, and public displays of affection, which are frequently raised in discussions about lifting the ban. Even those changes that would be required would not involve any new bureaucratic apparatus, as the military already has in place a process for the periodic revising, reissuing, or cancelling of its regulations. And yet, while research clearly shows that the process of allowing gays to serve openly would be straightforward, harmless, and most effective if done quickly and confidently, its opponents have continued to cast it as too fragile to tackle. Using an approach that might be called the “thorny questions” strategy, they have sought to fill the airwaves with unjustified doubts about whether and how quickly the ban could be lifted. It was a plan that worked in 1993. That January, Georgia Senator Sam Nunn, a Democrat who led the charge for DADT, said on the Senate floor, “Too many times, we in the political world send down edicts and don’t think about the implications of the things that have to follow.” Nunn then served up dozens of “thorny

questions” in quick, and rather angry, succession: What would be the impact of changing the current policy on recruiting, retention, morale, discipline, as well as military effectiveness? … Should there be restrictions on homosexual acts with other military personnel, or only with nonmilitary personnel? … If discrimination is prohibited, how would a non-discriminatory policy affect pay and benefits and entitlements? Should homosexual couples receive the same benefits as legally married couples? … If homosexual couples are given such benefits, will they also have to be granted to unmarried heterosexual couples? On and on Nunn went, despite the fact that the bulk of his questions had already been answered, namely by the neglected RAND report. Nunn insisted that the military get to “study this for whatever time they’d like, and we’re going to have the time to ask the key questions over here in Senate hearings, and most of all--most fundamentally--to hear from the men and women in uniform.” Today, we are hearing the same argument. Representative Buck McKeon of California, a Republican, has said that changing law in Congress before the Pentagon’s new Working Group conducts research would “[place] the cart

before the horse.” (The research is due just after the Democrats are expected to lose seats in mid -term elections in November.) And, despite the evidence undercutting their concerns, naysayers are again employing the "thorny questions" strategy. Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss, a Republican, said at the February 2 hearings that military life restricts many behaviors, including “alcohol use, adultery, fraternization, and body art.” He asked, “If we change this rule of ‘don’t Ask, don't Tell,’ what are we going to do with these other issues?” Another of the questioners’ favorite fear-mongering strategies is tying the repeal of DADT to the contentious issue of gay marriage. A worry tract penned by a retired colonel on a military news website asked, “Will gay couples be afforded all the rights and privileges of married couples when assigned to states where gay marriages are recognized?" But we already know the answer: The Defense of Marriage Act prevents the federal government, including the military, from recognizing any same-sex marriages performed in those few states that allow them. Indeed, there is little prospect that the military will grant special privileges to gay couples--much less lift the ban on full-sleeve tattoos. PENCILS page 41

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N.Y.'s Paterson Declares He'll Govern to End of Term (Newsmax - Politics)

she wasn't home; and finally when she told officers that Johnson had been served with a As New York Gov. David restraining order. Paterson tried to reassert his Calls to Johnson's and Booker's authority to govern for the lawyers were not returned. remainder of his term, an Paterson said Friday that he i n v e s t i g a t i o n o f h i s ended his campaign for a full administration stormed ahead, term because the scandal was making even the governor's long too great a distraction from his -term friends wonder whether mission to pull the state's his time in office might end finances out of crisis. much sooner. One of the governor's longtime "I have the authority to govern," friends, Democratic Sen. Bill Paterson declared Monday in his Perkins, said Monday that if first public comments since Paterson believes Cuomo's ending his campaign on Friday investigation will find he because of a scandal under engaged in illegal or improper i n v e s t i g a t i o n b y A t t o r n e y behavior that could force his G e n e r a l A n d r e w C u o m o ' s resignation, the governor should office. The probe addresses consider quitting now. whether Paterson and members "My position is, normally, let of his state police security detail the investigation run its course," illegally contacted a woman said Perkins, who represents who accused one of his top P a t e r s o n ' s o l d d i s t r i c t i n aides of domestic violence. M a n h a t t a n ' s H a r l e m N e w Y o r k C i t y P o l i c e neighborhood. "Unfortunately, Commissioner Raymond Kelly these are not normal times and said the officers who handled clearly the state is in the midst the Oct. 31 domestic violence of a fiscal crisis — even worse, r e p o r t s p o k e t o C u o m o ' s a crisis of confidence — and I investigators Monday. He said it b e l i e v e i t ' s p u t t i n g o u r was part of the investigation into D e m o c r a t s i n j e o p a r d y . " contacts with the woman who Perkins said the governor made the report but ultimately knows what he did or didn't do didn't pursue charges against and should act on that now. He Paterson aide David Johnson. said he won't rule out asking the Kelly said police had been to governor to resign after seeing the Bronx home of 40-year-old Cuomo's findings. Sherruna Booker three times: "The governor knows ... who he once on Halloween; once to talked to, who gave orders to the check in after the incident, but state police that might have Submitted at 3/1/2010 11:41:42 PM

contacted the woman who was a victim," he said. "If this investigation turns out the way many suspect, then obviously his resignation is inevitable. ... Maybe it's in the best interests of the state to cut bait now." Other top Democrats watching developments are starting to question whether Paterson will be able to serve the less than a year left in his term. "My greatest fear is the next shoe will drop, and the situation further deteriorates both in terms of the governor's future and the direction of the Legislature in getting this budget passed," said Assemblyman Ronald Canestrari, majority leader of the Assembly. Legislative leaders supported Paterson's continued role in governor, for now. "Why should he resign?" asked Democratic Senate Majority Leader John Sampson. Sampson, a Paterson ally from Brooklyn, said that the allegations against him haven't been substantiated and that Cuomo's investigation should be completed before any action is taken. "I don't know what the results of an investigation will produce," said Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, also a Democrat. "Until the facts are out, you should hold onto your power. ... Ultimately, it's probably his

decision." For his part, Paterson was resolute Monday. "I already have the authority," Paterson said. "I'm the governor." When asked whether his resignation was off the table, Paterson said, "I would think it's off the table. I don't even know why it's on the table." He also said, "There are plenty of governors who in their last year in office, who are termlimited governors ... who have been able to accomplish a lot." Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, a fellow Democrat, said later that he doesn't think "anyone knows" whether Paterson can be a viable governor. "I'm not going to spend a lot of time speculating about it, because he is the governor and we have to get on with the problems of the people of New York," Brodsky said. "The speculation by both the political class and the press are doing a terrible disservice to the state," said Brodsky, of Westchester, north of New York City. "It's enough already." State Democratic Chairman Jay Jacobs, close to Paterson, said the governor shouldn't step down if there are no more damaging reports. He's advising Democrats to "take a deep breath, work with the governor and his team and hammer some

compromises to keep the state solvent. That's how elected officials are going to be judged in November." Paterson said abandoning his campaign frees him to govern and address a deficit of more than $8 billion in the upcoming state budget. "I can make decisions and I won't have to hear a robotic response from the Legislature that 'he's doing this for politics, he's doing this to get his poll numbers up, he's running against the Legislature because we're more unpopular than he is,'" Paterson said. Paterson was lieutenant governor when he succeeded Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who resigned in a prostitution scandal. —— Associated Press writers Ula Ilnytzky and Colleen Long in New York and Valerie Bauman in Albany contributed to this report. © 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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The Republican Civil War Ed Kilgore (The New Republic - All Feed)

for expressing insufficiently ferocious conservative views. Below is your guide to this Submitted at 3/1/2010 9:00:00 PM year's most important A l l a c r o s s t h e c o u n t r y , ideologically-freighted GOP Republicans are fantasizing p r i m a r i e s a n d t h e i r about a gigantic electoral tide c o n s e q u e n c e s . C o n f i n i n g that will sweep out deeply ourselves just to statewide races, e n t r e n c h e d D e m o c r a t i c let's take them in chronological incumbents this November. In order: their telling, this deep-red surge TEXAS, MARCH 2: Today's will be so forceful as to dislodge showdown is in Texas, where even legislators who don’t look “establishment” Republican vulnerable now, securing GOP Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison is control of both houses of c h a l l e n g i n g c o n s e r v a t i v e Congress. incumbent Governor Rick Perry. But could this scenario really Perry, who won only 39 percent come to pass? That will depend, of the vote in a four-candidate i n p a r t , o n w h a t t y p e o f race in 2006, spent much of the Republican Party the Democrats last year cozying up to Tea are running against in the fall. Party activists and occasionally Hence the importance of this going over the brink into talk of year's Republican civil war. In a secession. He seemed to have string of GOP primary elections the race against the Washingtonstretching from now until tainted Hutchinson well in hand, S e p t e m b e r , t h e f u t u r e until a third GOP candidate, ideological composition of the libertarian/Tea Party favorite elephant party hangs in the Debra Medina, started to surge b a l a n c e . M a n y o f t h e s e in the polls early this year. primaries pit self-consciously Medina's candidacy once hard-core conservatives, often threatened to knock Perry into a aligned with the Tea Party r u n o f f o r e v e n d i s p l a c e movement, a g a i n s t Hutchison from the second spot. “ e s t a b l i s h m e n t ” But then Medina went on the candidates—some who are G l e n n B e c k P r o g r a m a n d incumbents, and some who are expressed openness to the simply vulnerable to being possibility that the federal labeled “RINOs” or “squishes” government was involved in the

9/11 attacks. Still, it’s not clear Perry will clear 50 percent. An expensive and potentially divisive runoff would weaken him against the Democratic candidate, Houston Mayor Bill White, who looks quite competitive in early polling. INDIANA, MAY 4: In the Hoosier State, right-wingers are flaying each other. Former Senator Dan Coats, a relatively conservative figure with strong “establishment” support, faces three even more conservative rivals in the race to succeed Evan Bayh. Coats is a longtime favorite of religious conservatives and an early member of the evangelical conservative network which author Jeff Sharlet dubs "The Family." He's secured early endorsements from D.C.-based conservative leaders Mike Pence and James Bopp (an RNC member who authored both the “ Socialist Democrat Party” and “ litmus test” resolutions). But his Beltway support has created a backlash in Indiana, and some Second Amendment fans recall that Coats voted for the Brady Bill and the assault-weapons ban. Coats is also smarting from revelations that he’s been registered to vote in Virginia since leaving the Senate, and

working in Washington as a lobbyist for banks, equity firms, and even foreign governments ( h i s f i r m represented—yikes—Yemen). With the vote coming so soon, hard-core conservatives probably won’t have time to unite behind an alternative; some favor Tea Party-oriented state senator Marlin Stutzman, while others are sticking with a old-timey right-wing warhorse, former Representative John Hostetler. But if they do, and Coats loses, it will probably spur a headlong national panic among “establishment” Republicans, even wellcredentialed conservatives who haven’t quite joined the tea partiers. Indiana Democrats have managed to recruit a strong Senate nominee in Congressman Brad Ellsworth, who might hold onto Bayh’s Senate seat. UTAH, MAY 8: Utah Senator Bob Bennett, the bipartisan dealmaker, is in trouble. He voted for TARP, he has been a high-visibility user of earmarks, and, worse yet, he co-sponsored a universal health-reform bill with Democratic Senator Ron Wyden. So right-wingers want his head. Bennett's defeat has become an obsession of influential conservative blogger

Erick Erickson of Red State, and the Club for Growth, the big bully of economic conservatism, has attacked Newt Gingrich for speaking on his behalf. Bennett's first test will come on May 8, when delegates to Utah's state GOP convention will vote on a Senate nominee. If he fails to get 60 percent, he’ll be pushed into a June 22 primary. Bennett faces three potentially credible right-wing challengers, but the “comer” seems to be Mike Lee, a former law clerk to Justice Samuel Alito, who has been endorsed by Dick Armey’s powerful FreedomWorks organization. Since this is Utah, there is no Democrat in sight who is strong enough to exploit such a right-wing "purge." Bennett's defeat would only make the Republican Party more conservative, and provide another object lesson to any GOP-er thinking about cosponsoring major legislation with a Democrat. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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Roberts versus Roberts Jeffrey Rosen (The New Republic - All Feed)

Marshall, had done. Roberts spoke about the need for justices to show humility when dealing Submitted at 3/1/2010 9:00:00 PM with the First Amendment, Last month, the Supreme Court adding that, unlike professors handed down its most polarizing writing law review articles, decision since Bush v. Gore. judges should think more about The 5-4 ruling in Citizens their institutional role. “Yes, United v. Federal Election you may have another great idea Commission called into question about how to look at the First decades of federal campaign Amendment,” he said, “but, if finance law and Supreme Court you don’t need to share it to precedents by finding that decide this case, then why are c o r p o r a t i o n s h a v e a F i r s t you doing it? And what are the Amendment right to spend as consequences of that going to much money as they want on be?” election campaigns, as long as Since then, Roberts has t h e y d o n ’ t c o n s u l t t h e presided over some narrow, candidates. It was precisely the u n a n i m o u s ( o r n e a r l y k i n d o f d i v i s i v e a n d unanimous) rulings and some unnecessarily sweeping opinion bitterly divisive ones. And so, that Chief Justice John Roberts it’s been hard to tell how had once pledged to avoid. seriously he is taking his pledge In 2006, at the end of his first to lead the Court toward less term on the Court, Roberts told polarizing decisions. Then came me and others that he was Citizens United, by far the concerned that his colleagues, in clearest test of Roberts’s vision. issuing 5-4 opinions divided There were any number of ways along predictable lines, were he could have persuaded his acting more like law professors colleagues to rule narrowly; but than members of a collegial Roberts rejected these options. court. His goal, he said, was to He deputized Anthony Kennedy persuade his fellow justices to t o w r i t e o n e o f h i s c o n v e r g e a r o u n d n a r r o w , characteristically grandiose unanimous opinions, as his decisions, challenging the greatest predecessor, John president and Congress at a

moment of financial crisis when the influence of money in politics--Louis Brandeis called it “our financial oligarchy”--is the most pressing question of the day. The result was a ruling so inflammatory that the president (appropriately) criticized it during his State of the Union address. What all this says about the future of the Roberts Court is not encouraging. For the past few years, I’ve been giving Roberts the benefit of the doubt, hoping that he meant it when he talked about the importance of putting the bipartisan legitimacy of the Court above his own ideological agenda. But, while Roberts talked persuasively about conciliation, it now appears that he is unwilling to cede an inch to liberals in the most polarizing cases. If Roberts continues this approach, the Supreme Court may find itself on a collision course with the Obama administration-precipitating the first fullthrottle confrontation between an economically progressive president and a narrow majority of conservative judicial activists since the New Deal. The first indications that

Roberts might not be as conciliatory as he promised came during his second term, which ended in 2007. During his first term, which his colleagues treated as something of a honeymoon, the Court had decided just 13 percent of cases by a 5-4 margin. But, in the next term, that percentage soared to 33 percent. (It would fluctuate up and down a bit over the next two years.) What’s more, the 2007 term ended with unusually personal invective, as both liberal and conservative colleagues expressed frustration with Roberts. That year, during the Court’s second encounter with the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law (which it would gut in Citizens United), Antonin Scalia accused Roberts of “faux judicial restraint,” for chipping away at restrictions on corporate speech without overturning them cleanly. Meanwhile, the liberal justices seemed angry that Roberts was refusing to budge from rigid positions in divisive cases. “Of course, I got slightly exercised, and the way I show that is I write seventy-seven-page opinions,” Justice Stephen Breyer told me in the summer of

2007, referring to his angry dissent from Roberts’s 5-4 decision striking down affirmative action in public school assignments. That same summer, I asked Justice John Paul Stevens whether Roberts would succeed in his goal of achieving narrow, unanimous opinions. “I don’t think so,” he replied. “I just think it takes nine people to do that. I think maybe the first few months we all leaned over backward to try to avoid writing separately.” In other words, once his first term ended, Roberts faced a choice: In cases he cared intensely about, he could compromise his principles to reach common ground or he could stick to his guns and infuriate his opponents, who would feel they had been played for dupes. On virtually all of the most divisive constitutional topics, from affirmative action to partial-birth abortion, Roberts stuck to his guns. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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Candidates Make Last Sweep Before Texas Primary (Newsmax - Politics)

Washington message, Hutchison told voters at a Houston shopping mall that she was the With the clock ticking in a "real conservative." She said she rough Republican primary, Gov. had fought in Washington for Rick Perry and Sen. Kay Bailey Texas and against President Hutchison swept through the Barack Obama's stimulus and urban areas of Texas on Monday health care proposals. s e e k i n g v o t e s i n t h e i r "Tomorrow's my big day," she g u b e r n a t o r i a l s h o w d o w n . told people munching on their GOP activist Debra Medina, a lunches in the food court as she favorite of many tea party handed out her card and urged voters, is also in Tuesday's them to vote. She said she contest — a race that could would institute state ethics result in a runoff if no one wins reforms and combat the 30 a majority. Perry wants an percent dropout rate. unprecedented third full term; Among Democrats, ex-Houston Hutchison argues that he's trying Mayor Bill White is the frontto stay too long; and Medina runner looking to defeat wealthy says she's the best alternative to Houston hair-care magnate the establishment candidates. Farouk Shami, a political novice Perry visited Harris County who put up large sums of his Republican Party headquarters own money to run. on Monday and told supporters Houston, Dallas and San packed into a small room to get Antonio were hot spots on the themselves and their friends to campaign trail for the major the polls Tuesday and help him candidates Monday. Hutchison "get this behind us." also ventured into East Texas, "A resounding victory tomorrow visiting Tyler. Perry had to is going to be about Texas. It's cancel one stop in Beaumont going to be continuing to send a because of bad weather, but message to folks all around this called in to the scheduled rally country that Texas is the land of there so he could speak to opportunity," he said, praising voters. the state as a place of fiscal Hutchison and Perry each spent responsibility and criticizing millions of dollars on television Washington, D.C., for wasteful ads in a heavyweight race that spending. Texas hasn't seen since Trying to combat Perry's anti- Republicans began taking over Submitted at 3/1/2010 10:45:23 AM

state government — with George W. Bush leading the way — in the 1990s. White, who's been airing TV ads too, greeted lunchtime diners at a Mexican restaurant in San Antonio on Monday. He said he grew up in San Antonio and hopes to be seen as a hometown candidate. He acknowledged that much of the attention has been on the Republican fight, but he said that hasn't been a disadvantage for him. "I get to learn what Texans are thinking, while the career politicians are just worried about staying in office," White said. A multitude of other state and congressional offices are on Tuesday's ballot. Some of the more competitive down-ballot races are between Democrats, such as the one between comedian and author Kinky Friedman and cattle rancher Hank Gilbert in the race for the agriculture commissioner nomination. And there are heated Republican races for the State Board of Education, where some GOP candidates are trying to unseat prominent Christian conservatives. Early voting over the past two weeks was high compared with the last gubernatorial primary

PENCILS continued from page 37

When the answers are so clear, anyone still asking “thorny questions” is willfully ignoring year, as measured in the 15 most evidence--either because he populated counties by the Texas doesn't want to believe it, or Secretary of State's Office. because he personally can't Agency spokesman Randall stand the ideas of gays in the Dillard said it was difficult to military. Obama's top military say if that would signal a higher leaders have asked for more -than-usual election turnout time to research repealing DADT. But time won't reveal overall. A total of 491,116 early votes anything new--it will only were cast in the 15 most threaten to derail the repeal of a populated counties, or 6 percent d i s c r i m i n a t o r y p o l i c y o u r of the registered voters in those country, and military, should not counties. In 2006, when there tolerate. was last a governor's race, early It’s not time for more study; it's voting in the 15 most populated time to just do it. counties totaled 251,432, or 3 Nathaniel Frank is a senior percent of their registered research fellow at the Palm Center at University of voters. This year 62 percent of early California, Santa Barbara, and ballots cast in those high- author of Unfriendly Fire: How population centers were in the the Gay Ban Undermines the Military and Weakens America. Republican primary. For more TNR, become a fan —— on Facebook and follow us on Associated Press writers Juan Lozano and Ramit Plushnick- Twitter. Masti in Houston and Michelle Five Filters featured article: R o b e r t s i n S a n A n t o n i o Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: contributed to this report. PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, © C o p y r i g h t 2 0 1 0 T h e Term Extraction. 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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Senate Talks Close in On Deal for Wall Street Regs

Hands-on review of the PocketBook 302 eReader

(Newsmax - Politics)

Tablet (BestTabletReview.com)

Tennessee, could break the logjam that has prevented a Submitted at 3/1/2010 11:25:10 PM bipartisan bill from emerging in More than a year after Lehman the Senate. While the sources Brothers' collapse set off a said the Banking Committee's f i n a n c i a l p a n i c , S e n a t e chairman, Democrat Christopher negotiators appear close to Dodd of Connecticut, was resolving a narrow dispute that seriously entertaining the plan, it was holding up broad legislation w a s u n c l e a r w h e t h e r t h e to set new rules for Wall Street. committee's top Republican, At issue was whether a Sen. Richard Shelby of government consumer watchdog Alabama, was receptive to it. should be free from bank Dodd would also need to regulators to write rules that persuade fellow Democrats to govern everything from credit accept the compromise. card and overdraft fees to "Senator Dodd is keeping payday loans and mortgages. members informed on how After a flurry of offers and things are progressing — as he counterproposals over the past has throughout this process," three days, the Senate Banking Dodd spokeswoman Kirstin Committee was closing in on a Brost said. "We do not have an d e a l t h a t w o u l d h o u s e a agreement yet. He hopes to have government consumer entity a consensus bill in the coming inside the Federal Reserve but days." give it autonomous power to While the political world has write regulations, three people focused on attempts to revive familiar with the talks told the health care legislation, tougher Associated Press Monday night. Wall Street regulations could The sources spoke on the end up being this year's biggest condition on anonymity because legislative accomplishment. The they were not authorized to House passed its version of the discuss the evolving talks bill in December. And President publicly. Barack Obama has made new T h e i d e a , p r o p o s e d b y regulations a priority in his Republican Sen. Bob Corker of response to the recession.

Still, a Fed-housed consumer entity would fall short of Obama's initial demand for a stand-alone Consumer Financial Protection Agency that would replace the consumer oversight now assigned to bank regulators. The House-passed version would create a separate agency. The White House, eager to give Dodd room to negotiate, had backed off its insistence on a stand-alone agency. On Monday, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the agency still would have to have "strong independent authority, an independent head, an independent budget, independent authority to do what it needs to do." The banking industry has opposed an independent agency, arguing that regulators should retain authority over consumer protections. If the latest Senate plan were to hold, it would represent a remarkable turnaround for the Fed, which has been criticized for failing to adequately protect consumers as part of its regulation of state-chartered banks and bank holding companies.

Consumer advocates prefer the House-passed financial regulation bill. They criticized a plan that Dodd floated Friday to place the agency inside the Treasury Department because it would give bank regulators the right to appeal consumer regulations. Shelby and Corker also opposed it. The consumer agency has been the final obstacle in Dodd's effort to get bipartisan support for the bill. The legislation also would create a council of regulators that would determine which financial institutions deserve special supervision because their size and breadth could pose a threat to the economy. The legislation also would provide a mechanism to dismantle large failing institutions, with the cost borne by their banking peers. © 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.

Submitted at 3/1/2010 6:54:20 PM

Nate’s Ebook News has a great review of the PocketBook 302 eReader including a video walkthrough and demo. This new eReader offering from PocketBook, also known for their 360 eReader, features a 6inch EPD touchscreen with microSD card expansion, 2 USB ports, headphone jack, accelerometer, WiFi and replaceable battery. It uses FBReader and Adobe Reader Mobile which feature support for all the typical eBook formats and also includes extras like games, dictionary, sketchpad, web browser, RSS and clock. The screen is rather reflective and murky looking, but Nate says all in all he’s pretty happy with the PocketBook 302. The 302 comes in white and black and starts at $339.99. PocketBook is currently taking preorders that will begin shipping this month on their website. Make sure to read the first part of Nate’s review here. Source: Nate’s Ebook News Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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The 77 Percent Effect (AEI.Org: Articles)

shift is already affecting the thinking of state governments, as evidenced by their RTT Cynics have argued that the applications. Department of Education's The administration has not been "Race to the Top" (RTT) shy about its claims on this program has distracted attention count. It has celebrated its selff r o m t h e n e e d t o a d d r e s s proclaimed effort to "take on unsustainable state budgets. b u s i n e s s a s u s u a l " a n d Such cynicism has been deemed revolutionize the shape of u n f a s h i o n a b l e b y O b a m a - federal education funding. The administration allies, cash- president has declared it his aim starved state and local officials that "instead of funding the k e e n t o s t a y i n t h e status quo, we only invest in administration's good graces, reform." and editorial writers eager to say As a longtime advocate of nice things about our earnest using federal education dollars education secretary, Arne to support state and local Duncan. The Kumbaya chorus reformers and not just subsidize has even been swelled by the status quo, I have been eager conservative voices, including to verify these happy reports. those of David Brooks and the Have states indeed ditched the Wall Street Journal editorial usual calculations based on page. bodies and budgetary health and M u c h o f t h i s p r o - R T T begun letting reform policies enthusiasm has been driven by d e t e r m i n e t h e i r f u n d i n g the fact that the program has (in requests? After gorging on $100 theory) changed the way the b i l l i o n i n f o r m u l a - d r i v e n federal government and the stimulus aid last year--aid that states do business. We are yielded no reform but aimed shifting from a model driven by expressly to subsidize the status aid formulas toward one focused quo--did states succeed at o n t r a n s f o r m a t i o n a n d crafting reform-centric budgets? performance--or so I've been Well, my colleague Daniel told. I've been assured that this Lautzenheiser and I ran some Submitted at 3/1/2010 3:00:00 PM

numbers. It turns out we can figure out almost everything we need to know about how much RTT funding a state asked for if we look at only two things, neither of them related to the state's RTT application. The first is state student enrollment, and the second is the size of a state's reported 2010 budget shortfall. Those two figures allow us to predict with 77 percent accuracy how much money a given state requested in its RTT application. The simple correlation between student enrollment and the size of the RTT request was an eyepopping .83 (a 1.0 would mean the numbers marched in perfect lockstep). This suggests that, whatever the ins and outs of their actual proposed reforms, states' requests were largely a product of headcounts. Even more interesting, the correlation between the 2010 budget shortfall and the (seemingly unrelated) RTT request was a cool .63. Missouri, looking at a $770 million budget shortfall, happened to request $743 million. Nebraska, trying to make up a $150 million

shortfall, put together a proposal that seeks $123 million. Then there are the big states, which, bleeding cash, wildly disregarded the Department of Education's guidelines for budget requests. California, eyeballing a staggering shortfall in the tens of billions, asked for $1 billion. New York, wrestling with a shortfall of more than $15 billion, asked for $831 million. These results should lead us to question what all the hefty consultant fees and late-night grant-writing really amounted to. Moving forward, the Obama administration's claims about the impact of RTT and the intentions of winning states ought to be met with sensible scrutiny. Frederick M. Hess is a resident scholar and director of Education Policy Studies at AEI. P h o t o C r e d i t : iStockphoto/RonTech2000 Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Accordion Table Scoffs at Drawers [Design] Mark Wilson (Gizmodo) Submitted at 3/2/2010 9:40:00 AM

I can't say it's any more practical than existing kitchen countertops, but the Accordion Table concept would certainly make an impressive centerpiece to your cooking space. Instead of being bolted to the floor, the Accordion Table is fit with wheels (or something that can scrape against your flooring), allowing you to pull and rotate the tabletop to reveal hidden compartments at the seams. As the design dictates, these compartments can be slid out easily for cleaning or replacement. And you still get some drawer space at each end of the table. Yes, it's a bit design for designs sake. But come onâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;admit itâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;the thing looks pretty cool, even if its convenience is a bit of an illusion. [ Yanko Design]

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Voters Finally Get a Say in Rough Texas Primary (Newsmax - Politics)

unprecedented third full fouryear term. Hutchison argues he's trying to stay too long and has Voters will finally get their g r o w n a r r o g a n t i n o f f i c e . chance Tuesday to weigh in on Medina calls herself the best Texas' long, rough gubernatorial alternative to establishment primary. candidates. Both Republican Gov. Rick Perry has pushed an antiPerry and rival Sen. Kay Bailey Washington message and talked Hutchison planned a last round up Texas as having one of the of public appearances in Dallas, n a t i o n ' s b e s t e c o n o m i e s , with Hutchison stopping at a something he says he helped polling place and Perry, in his bring about. o f f i c i a l r o l e a s g o v e r n o r , "People understand that over the participating in a military- last seven or eight years this related Texas Independence Day state has had the type of proven celebration. executive leadership that has The two are vying for the GOP taken Texas to a very unique gubernatorial nomination along position in all the 50 states," w i t h p a r t y a c t i v i s t D e b r a Perry told supporters in Houston Medina. Medina is a favorite of on Monday. many tea party voters and could Hutchison says she'll do things pull in enough support to force a differently from Perry, including runoff. lower business taxes and tackle If no one wins a majority of ethics reforms and an education Tuesday's vote, the top two system plagued by a 30-percent finishers will face off April 13. dropout rate. She characterizes The Republican winner will go Perry's contention that she is a up against the Democratic W a s h i n g t o n i n s i d e r a s nominee in November. Ex- " r i d i c u l o u s . " Houston Mayor Bill White is "It's clear I've fought for Texas favored among the Democrats m y w h o l e l i f e , " s h e s a i d over Houston hair-care magnate Monday, rattling off a list of Farouk Shami and five others. stances that included fighting a Perry, the state's longest- "takeover of our health system" serving governor, wants an and President Barack Obama's Submitted at 3/1/2010 11:28:26 PM

stimulus package. White, meanwhile, brushes aside suggestions that backlash against Obama and the Democratic-led Congress will destroy his chances of winning the governorship in the Republican-leaning state. "What you find is more and more Texans call themselves independents," White said Monday in San Antonio. "That's the heart of my strategy." The Texas Secretary of State's Office said 62 percent of early ballots cast in the state's 15 most populated counties were in the Republican primary. —— Associated Press writers Juan Lozano and Ramit PlushnickMasti in Houston and Michelle Roberts in San Antonio contributed to this report. © 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.

VENICE continued from page 36

powered some of the most exciting exhibitions at the Blanton, exhibitions in which the best art historical scholarship, closely linked to the academic values of the university, flows seamlessly into the dazzling showmanship that any museum needs to attract the public. And many of these exhibitions are supported by important catalogues, contributions to culture that museum patrons ought to be proud to leave out on the coffee table long after the show has closed. Is “Paolo Veronese: The Petrobelli Altarpiece” a lifechanging show? Of course not. But it is a powerful example of a medium-sized museum building on its strengths and coming up with something truly substantial. For decades there had been a mystery as to what precisely was at the center of the Petrobelli Altarpiece, because the large fragments in London, Edinburgh, and Ottawa came only from the top and the left and right sides of the canvas. The conservation of figure groups in London and Ottawa had revealed fragments of a

missing figure, apparently the Archangel Michael, a sword in his right hand, a scale for weighing souls in his left, his feet firmly planted on the sprawling and defeated figure of Satan. But what that figure of Saint Michael looked like was anybody’s guess, until Xavier Salomon--a curator at the Dulwich in London who coorganized the show with conservator Stephen Gritt-remembered seeing a head of an angel by Veronese on a visit to the Blanton, and the mystery was solved. Art historians love this kind of whodunit. So does the general public. All you need are a few bankable movie stars and some ecclesiastical-satanic twists and you would have a Dan Brown–style Hollywood hit. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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The Incredibly Strange Browser That Q&A: Removing or Stopped Living But Refused to Die lightening dark patches of skin? (Little Green Footballs)

Internet Explorer 6 saga might be wondering what the big deal is. How could the life or death R e p o r t s o f t h e d e a t h o f of one browser be so critical to Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 the future of our increasingly (aka Satan’s Browser) may have Internet-based lives? When been greatly exaggerated. compared to browsers of today, Today was supposed to be a IE6 is a standards-incompliant great day for the Web. As of antique. It debuted during a March 1, 2010, Google will no dark, dark period in Web longer support Microsoft’s history; In the summer of 2001, Internet Explorer 6 browser—a Microsoft had soundly beaten decade-old dinosaur engineered Netscape into submission for a to navigate the Web as it existed 90% lock on the browser market in the year 2000. Why would a n d w a s i n t h e u n i q u e l y this be cause for celebration? powerful position to decide Because IE6 is barely capable of which Web standards it would navigating the modern Web and ignore, which it would integrate, a total nightmare to build sites, which it would halfway adopt services and applications for. and which it would simply make But ten years after its release, up. And IE6 is the bastard child it’s still being used by an of this hubris. It doesn’t behave estimated 20% of surfers. And like any other browser on the while Google’s move is one in market because it doesn’t the right direction, I’m not interpret Cascading Style Sheets breaking out the whiskey and or JavaScript according to the noisemakers for IE6’s funereal universal standards set by wake quite yet. Sadly, IE6 isn’t organizations like the W3C. I’ve going away for good anytime heard of developers spending soon. anywhere between 20% and Those unfamiliar with the 50% of their time on a project Submitted at 3/1/2010 5:56:50 PM

making a site work in Internet Explorer 6. I know of many others who simply chop out advanced features, enhanced interactivity and slick design elements altogether, just so their work doesn’t “break” in IE6. Why do they bother? Because nearly a decade after it shipped with Windows XP, IE6 still commands a mind-blowing 20% market share for browsers, according to the most recent statistics compiled by NetMarketShare. That’s more than double the shares of Chrome and Safari combined, and just shy of Firefox’s 24% piece of the pie. And that’s only Internet Explorer 6. Combined with its better-behaving but by no means perfect descendants, IE7 and IE8, Internet Explorer as a whole owns 62% of the browser market. Now, browser market share is not an exact science and the numbers vary widely from site to site and country to country, but you get the picture.

rss@consumerreports.org (Consumer Reports) Submitted at 3/2/2010 6:41:12 AM

Q&A: Removing or lightening dark patches of skin? I’m a 63-year-old woman with several dark brown patches of skin on my face that won’t go away. Is there some cream or lotion that can lighten or remove them? — Name withheld, Portland, Ore. Some treatments may lighten them but probably won’t remove them. The most likely cause of that darkening is overproduction of pigment by skin cells—usually triggered by increased levels of the hormone estrogen during pregnancy or while taking oral contraceptives or hormone-replacement therapy. But your doctor should also rule out other possible causes, such as an allergic reaction to a drug, including certain antibiotics, antiseizure and psychiatric drugs, and diuretics; and underlying conditions such as hyperthyroidism and certain nutritional deficiencies. Stopping an offending drug or treating an underlying condition probably won’t cause the patches to fade, but they may be

lightened somewhat by using a nonprescription bleaching cream containing hydroquinone (Black & White Bleaching Cream, Esoterica), either alone or together with a prescription exfoliating cream such as azelaic acid(Azelex) or tretinoin(Renova). Sunshine encourages the darkening, and those treatments can make you extra sensitive to sunlight, so wear sunscreen whenever you’re exposed to the sun. Read more about maintaining healthy skin and get tips on preventing age spots, wrinkles, and pigment changes. 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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12 ways to an easier colonoscopy rss@consumerreports.org (Consumer Reports)

liquid, or an electrolytebalanced solution. Sodium phosphate solutions(Visicol and Submitted at 3/1/2010 2:05:53 PM OsmoPrep) may increase your 1 2 w a y s t o a n e a s i e r risk of kidney damage, so ask c o l o n o s c o p y H a v i n g a your doctor to prescribe colonoscopy is the most p r o d u c t s t h a t c o n t a i n effective way for you to be polyethylene glycol, either alone s c r e e n e d f o r c o l o r e c t a l (GoLytely) or combined with cancer—just ask President bisacodyl(sold separately, or in Obama. Yet many people dread combination as HalfLytely). the procedure, or far worse, • About a day before the test, avoid it all together likely you’ll need to stop eating solid b e c a u s e o f t h e o v e r a l l foods and drink only clear unpleasantness or the fear of not liquids, so stock up chicken or knowing what to expect. But the vegetable broth, apple juice, and alternative to skipping it can be bottled water with electrolytes. life-threatening. A colonoscopy • Stop taking supplements with can help detect the cancer early iron a week before and avoid on before you have symptoms, red-colored liquids or gelatin the and prevent it by finding small day before. • Avoid drugs such growths called polyps that might as aspirin or ibuprofen(Advil turn into cancer if they are not and generic) for one week, since removed. they can cause gastrointestinal So if you are 50 or older, or fall bleeding. into the high-risk category, you • The electrolyte-balanced should start getting screened solution can be difficult to now. Here are 12 need-to-knows drink, because of the vile taste, to help you get through the so ask your doctor ahead of time before, during, and after of your if you can add flavor like ginger, colonoscopy: lemon, or lime to the solution or Before if you can take an anti-nausea • Plan to take two days off drug. Another option for getting work—the day before the test the solution down is to chill it, and the day of the test. suck on some lemon after each • F o l l o w y o u r d o c t o r ’ s glass, or get it over with and instructions—you’ll likely be drink each glass as quickly as asked to take a laxative pill or possible.• Be sure to stay home

near a bathroom as your system clears out, and use wet wipes and a skin-soothing product such as Vaseline or Desitin since to prevent soreness and chafing. During• Try to relax before the procedure by breathing deeply or meditation. You may also want to bring an mp3 player and headphones with you and listen to relaxing music or your favorite podcast during the procedure. One of our staffers told us her doctor held her hand right before the procedure and that helped her feel more at ease. • You should ask a supportive friend or relative come to the appointment with you, and to drive you home afterwards.• When it’s time for your test, you doctor will provide just enough pain medication so that you’re comfortable during the colonoscopy but not overly groggy afterward. If you find

that the sedation is too light, ask for more. Or, if you are especially anxious and would rather be knocked out entirely, ask your doctor beforehand if that would be wise in your case. Also ask the doctor to provide extra sedation if the procedure proves longer or more difficult than expected. After You may feel some mild cramping or bloating and, rarely, nausea, up to a day afterward, because there may be air left in your colon. • Eat lightly for a few days and if your discomfort is extreme or persists, call your doctor.• Breathe easy and take comfort in knowing that, unless you’re a high-risk candidate, you won’t need to schedule another colonoscopy for 10 years. — Ginger Skinner We’d like to hear from you. Have you had a colonoscopy? What were some ways you or your doctor made the experience less stressful? 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

The Asus Eee Keyboard will now be released in April 2010 Matt Burns (CrunchGear) Submitted at 3/2/2010 6:30:11 AM

It seems a little odd that we first saw the Eee Keyboard at CES 2009 and it’s still not available. The demo that we played with at least seemed like it was nearly production ready. But here we are over a year later and now the Asus chairman is stating that the new release date is April 2010. Like we haven’t heard that one before. At this point Asus better produce a flawless product. It’s unbelievable that there isn’t more generic clones available. One was spotted at CES 2010 made by the Chinese company Great Wall, but it’s a Chinaonly model. Hopefully we’ll see the Eee Keyboard sometime this year. You might as well start saving your pennies though, it’s not going to be cheap.

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National Flood Insurance Program is New crash test ratings Acura ZDX, Hyundai caught in Senate wrangling Consumer Reports Shopping Blog (Consumer Reports) Submitted at 3/1/2010 2:31:53 PM

National Flood Insurance Program is caught in Senate wrangling Will you be able to get insurance for your flooded basement this spring when snows start to thaw? At this very moment, the National Flood Insurance Program, the government-run program that provides most flood insurance for residents and businesses nationwide, is officially out of money. Funding for the program ran out last night. The House Financial Services Committee voted to extend the program through March 31. But in the Senate Banking Committee, an extension of funding for flood insurance and several other, more prominent programs, was blocked today by Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., who said they would add to the deficit. Here's what the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which oversees the flood program, said today: Authorization for the National Flood Insurance Program

expired February 28, 2010. If reauthorization takes place after this date, policies that are already in the process of being issued or renewed will be issued when Congress re-authorizes the National Flood Insurance Program. Payments for claims on existing policies will not be impacted; such policies will continue uninterrupted. In all likelihood, a bill will be passed to extend the coverage and make it retroactive to Feb. 28th, says John Priple, vicepresident of government affairs for the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of America. In the intervening days, however, you won't be able to buy flood insurance. Once it's available again, however, consider getting it. As Consumer Reports Money Adviser outlines, flood insurance fills in gaps not

covered by private insurance, protecting your home and belongings not only from overflow of nearby bodies of water, but from other types of water-related damage, such as mudslides and basement seepage from saturated gardens and yards. At www. floodsmart.gov, you'll learn of some insidious perils that only flood insurance will cover. FEMA estimates that a quarter of all its flood claims come from low- and medium-risk areas that don't expect flooding. Premiums for homes in those areas is relatively inexpensive. The agency requires a 30-day waiting period after purchase before the coverage will kick in. Generally you buy it through an insurance agent. Priple says that FEMA has never defaulted on claims payments through the flood program, and probably won't in the future.—Tobie Stanger 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

Elantra, and Toyota Sienna Consumer Reports Shopping Blog (Consumer Reports)

midsized luxury SUV, earned a Good in the Institute’s frontal test for crash protection. For Submitted at 3/2/2010 6:31:25 AM more on this new vehicle, see New crash test ratings Acura our preview. ZDX, Hyundai Elantra, and Toyota’s redesigned 2011 Toyota Sienna Sienna minivan continues to The 2010 Hyundai Elantra has p r o v i d e e x c e l l e n t c r a s h i m p r o v e d i t s s i d e - i m p a c t protection and earned Good protection in the Insurance scores in the Institute’s frontInstitute for Highway Safety’s and side-impact tests. For more (IIHS) latest crash tests. Elantra details on the Sienna’s redesign, models built after November see our preview and first drive. 2009 received design changes to View more than 300 crash tests the side air bags, body side, and performed by the IIHS in our rear door structure to improve crash test video player. To aid occupant protection in side with vehicle research, you’ll impacts. This has changed the also find crash tests within our small cars side-impact rating model overview pages, within from Marginal to Good. The the Photos/Videos tab. front tests also earned a Good — Liza Barth Subscribe now! score. The Elantra scores high in S u b s c r i b e t o our testing and the SE line, ConsumerReports.org for expert which comes with standard Ratings, buying advice and electronic stability control, is reliability on hundreds of our Top Pick small car for 2010. products. Update your feed The 2010 ZDX, Acura’s new preferences

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SXSW 2010 for Futurists Jolie O'Dell (ReadWriteWeb)

A Touchy History of the Future "We pinch it, tap it, shake it and poke it. We're so enthralled with A ReadWriteWeb Guide finally getting to touch our Social media? Oh, please. Some products. But there's so much of these sessions are so 2009. more to direct manipulation than How can you have any fun at just tapping it with our fingers! SXSW this year if you can't see Let's explore some progressive any real innovation. interaction models that go If space shuttles, cyborgs and b e y o n d t o u c h a n d i n t o technological singularity are movement, infrared, wearable what make you bleep and bloop, computing, sound and ambient you're going to love these ten data to really give us an idea of events at SXSW Interactive what our immersive interactive 2010. At the very least you'll get future may hold and how we to share beer with a few cool might curate that future now." hardware hackers, learn more And this wasn't the only session about lunar exploration or get we found exploring futuristic involved with a crowdsourced interfaces! Check out Beyond science project. Scifi: Design For Surfaces and Sponsor Big Screens, No Touching! This is part of a series of Truly Invisible Interfaces and ReadWriteWeb guides to SXSW T h a t G a m e F e e l s N i c e : Interactive 2010. If this guide Tomorrow's Touch Interfaces, isn't your cup of tea, be sure to too. c h e c k b a c k f o r m o r e How SciFi Shapes the Internet information soon! First things first, we look back Dorkbot in the past to see how our "Think of it as a science fair f o r w a r d - t h i n k i n g f o r b e a r s with free beer. Ample doses of i m a g i n e d t h e f u t u r e . electricity, tomfoolery, mayhem, "What if Rod Serling had a makers and music combine to blog? Would Alfred Hitchcock form one exquisite geek talent Tweet? These great producers show. Sponsored by SXSW and directors brought suspense Interactive, the International and irony to the popular medium Game Developer's Association of the time; television. How did of Austin, Mr. Data, Ricochet their work shape the minds of Labs and the Digital Media the young people of the time Council. " who would grow up to create Submitted at 3/1/2010 8:50:35 PM

Doing it Wrong: Recently Possible Technology "Like ninjas battling on stage, Bre Pettis and Tal Chalzin will volley projects demonstrations back and forth. From guitar player robots to machines that vomit plastic skulls, the presentation will include a mix of projects they've worked on and that have been worked on at the GarageGeeks, NYCResistor 'our' Internet?" and beyond. This presentation Is the Brain the Ultimate will both thrill and repulse you Computer Interface? with the possibilities that have "Will we be able to jack into the recently emerged in the DIY brain and upload helicopter hacker technology space." instructions, like in The Matrix? Museum of Digital Art We already have the technology S h o w c a s e to control a prosthetic arm or "The Austin Museum of Digital Twitter with thoughts alone. Art presents a party featuring Dishes of neurons can control a live electronic music and visual robot. And scientists have art. Expect video projections, created a working artificial interactive installations, and a memory chip in rats." Laptop Battle with musicians Moon 2.0: The Outer Limits of competing to outperform one Lunar Exploration another in a series of elimination "Space sector representatives r o u n d s . F r e e f o r S X S W will discuss how the use of web Interactive badgeholders." and mobile technologies create Here Are Lions: The opportunities for participation in Cartography of the Future future exploration of the Moon. "A new breed of maps is The panel focuses on how X revealing breakthroughs in our PRIZE, NASA, commercial u n d e r s t a n d i n g o f b i o l o g y , space companies, and others neuroscience, ecology and the generate greater interaction and physical world. We can now interest in Moon missions using m a p n o t j u s t p h y s i c a l collaborative platforms and geographies, but also genomes, social media." neural pathways, emotions,

social networks and ideas. These new maps reveal how society will change over the next twenty years." Open Science: Create, Collaborate, Communicate "From discovering galaxies to folding proteins: how to actively contribute to science. Science projects are harnessing open collaboration to further discovery and exploration. As a result, citizen science is witnessing a renaissance. The panel will discuss how you can get involved and challenges faced in making science open." With Spacehack's Ariel Waldman. Zero Waste: The Future of Green "Innovation, global warming, and green technology are all pushing in the same direction: zero waste. This concept is in practice in several cities (including Austin) and will soon be in yours. Learn about the current, future, and upcoming needs of this movement and how technology is playing a vital role." Those are our SXSW Interaction recommendations for futurists of all stripes. If you've got suggestions or feedback, let us know in the comments! See you in Austin, folks! Discuss

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Censorship in China: How ReadWriteWeb China Was Closed Down For a Month Richard MacManus (ReadWriteWeb)

According to Wikipedia, Internet censorship in China is "conducted under a wide variety Submitted at 3/1/2010 5:35:47 PM of laws and administrative In the West, the concept of the regulations." In particular China 'read/write Web' is a relatively looks to censor political or e a s y o n e t o g e t b e h i n d . social content. In mid-2009 a E v e r y b o d y c a n c o n t r i b u t e number of prominent Western content to the Web ('write'), as social networking sites were well as read it - it's a very blocked in China, including democratic notion. Facebook and Twitter. Western However in countries where media speculated that the bans democracy doesn't prevail, the were put in place to prevent read/write Web is often subject activists from using social to censorship rules. Indeed in networks to organize themselves December, ReadWriteWeb - which happened in Iran in June China was off the air due to the of 2009, when Iranian election t e m p o r a r y c l o s u r e o f o u r protesters used Twitter to call syndication partners Yeeyan. In attention to their cause. Selfthis post we look at how and censorship why that happened. Inside China, self-censorship is Sponsor practiced by many web The Global Times recently publishers in order to prevent published a special report about trouble. "Self-censorship is the censorship in China. It is an rule of survival that prevents illuminating analysis of a popular websites from being number of publishers who have shut down," said veteran web been censored or who self- developer Zoe Wang in The censor themselves in order to Global Times. s u r v i v e . O n M a r c h 1 5 , However, self-censorship is ReadWriteWeb founder Richard difficult to do in practice MacManus will participate in a because it's not regulated by a special event at the Paley Center single authority and so there are i n N e w Y o r k C i t y : a a lack of clear rules on what to conversation with Chinese artist censor. Web publishers in China Ai Weiwei and Twitter co- are never sure what could get founder Jack Dorsey about their site shut down. digital activism in China. On sites driven by user-

generated content, publishers routinely censor political content. But while this may appease the government, it risks upsetting the core users. This has been the case on Douban, a popular social network in China with 33 million registered users. Censorship has recently tightened on Douban, leading to "veteran members" protesting about the censorship of certain photos, poetry and book reviews. Site Closures, Including RWW China The Golbal Times points to three recent examples of sites closed down by authorities: Fanfou, Yeeyan and Blogbus. The latter two were recovered in January.

These site closures directly affected our own company, as Yeeyan is our syndication partner for ReadWriteWeb China. Yeeyan is a community translation website (our initial review 3 years ago), which publishes some well-known Western news sites such as The Guardian, Time Magazine, the New York Times and of course ReadWriteWeb. In early December, Yeeyan was forced to shut down its site - including ReadWriteWeb China. At the time of the closure, the following message was posted to the Yeeyan homepage by the Yeeyan team: "Due to our errors in handling some of the articles on the website, we went against the relevant regulations; therefore Yeeyan has to temporarily shut off its server, and adjust the relevant content." Ethan Zuckerman from the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School concluded that "at least one of the authorities that control the Chinese internet - which include the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology - found the prospect of frequent, high-

quality translation of US and European media [from Yeeyan] threatening." Yeeyan re-opened in January (using .org instead of .com) and we're certainly very pleased to see that ReadWriteWeb China is back as a result. Free the read/write Web! There's no shortage of rhetoric from the West about why China should cease censorship of the Web. Indeed Google made a brave move earlier this year by threatening to pull out of China if it continued to have to censor search results. While there has been no resolution in the Google -China case as yet, at least the issue is being highlighted and challenged by companies of Google's stature in 2010. I hope that ReadWriteWeb's participation in the March 15 event at the Paley Center in New York City, where I will be discussing these and other issues alongside prominent Chinese activist Ai Weiwei and Twitter's Jack Dorsey, does its bit to help encourage China to remove censorship on the Web. Bookmark our special Weiwei webpage to track the latest buzz about the March 15 event and view a video about Ai Weiwei's art and digital activism. Discuss

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Watch Out, iPhone Devs: One-Man Android App Nets $13K Monthly Jolie O'Dell (ReadWriteWeb) Submitted at 3/1/2010 6:55:27 PM

To all those companies and developers focused exclusively on iPhone apps: Watch your back. The Android platform is catching up, and none too slowly. As Android's growth continues to explode since the release of the Droid, only the most foolish of app shops are not planning to expand beyond Apple's walled garden. One developer, in fact, wrote that his app, which was showing modest, double-digit daily sales late last year, now reports that his app is making $13,000 a month. When that kind of opportunity exists for a single app, why would developers put all their eggs in one basket, a.k.a. the "Jesus phone"? Sponsor A few weeks ago, we told you, "As of December 2009[...] 4 percent of all smartphone owners now use a phone running some version of the Android OS. That's an increase of 200 percent since the previous survey released in September. "Respondents were also asked about their plans to purchase a smartphone in the future. Among those who planned to purchase within the next 90

days, 21 percent said they would now choose Android." It's this growth that helped fuel the success of Eddie Kim's app, Car Locator. In a blog post today, the developer revealed that his Android app "started as a little side-project while I was vacationing with my family, turned into a few extra bucks for lunch money every day[...] has continued its upward trend and is now beyond my wildest fantasy of what could have been

possible. " Car Locator is a pretty simple application: Users save their location when they park their cars, and the app navigates them back to their cars later. The app was available in free and paid versions with varying feature sets. The paid version originally sold for $1.99, and the price was later increased to $3.99. Kim has done no marketing for the app, but it did win third place in Google's Android Developer Challenge 2.

the free app has been downloaded 70,000 times, with paid app sales at about 10 percent of that figure. "The application was netting an average of about $80-$100/day, until it became a featured app on the Marketplace. Since then, sales have been phenomenal, netting an average of $435/day, with a one day record of $772 on Valentine's Day. Too bad I didn't have a Valentine's date this year - we would've gone somewhere real special!" (Catch that, ladies?) Kim also stands by the Android platform, saying, "Some may be quick to point out that a featured Android application is only able to net $400/day, while top iPhone apps make thousands[...] However, I still think that Android is only a fraction of When Motorola's Droid was what it will eventually become. released, Kim saw his first Each release of a new Android handset gets me excited, as it major spike in sales: "In the first 2 months, the app means a wider reach for the saw sales of about $5-6/day. Marketplace." Nothing too fancy," he wrote. Folks, if you've been longing "But starting November 7, for a much-hyped app to make there's been a significant uptick its way to the Android Market, in sales, peaking on November forward this article to the 9, where the app saw $44 in developers and marketers in sales. Sales have since settled to charge. There's money to be about $20/day, but it's probably made there, and the userbase is too early to tell if this will hold." only getting bigger. Discuss Little did Kim realize that his sales had just begun. To date,

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Weekly Poll: What is the Top Threat Apple Goes After HTC to Cloud Computing? In Lawsuit Over 20 iPhone Patents Alex Williams (ReadWriteWeb)

Submitted at 3/1/2010 5:30:16 PM

The first peek at Apple's new data center stoked much of the interest in our poll last week. We asked: "Why is Apple building a massive, $1 billion data center?" A total of 1,456 people responded. This week is the RSA Conference, the largest security conference in the world. A major topic for discussion will focus on cloud computing security. Sponsor In anticipation of RSA, the Cloud Security Alliance has listed the top security threats to cloud computing. What do you

think? Take Our Poll surveys class="alignright" Last Week's Poll: Why Is Apple Building a Massive, $1 Billion Data Center Last week's poll reflected the deep interest people have in Apple's data center. Of the 1,456 people who responded, 53 percent of respondents agreed that there are several reasons for Apple's massive data center.

Top reason: To give Apple the ability to deliver its own content, followed by the belief that Apple will make iTunes an online application. In our post, several people commented with their own speculations: Tim Jones:"Why is Apple building a massive, $1 billion data center? Because it's playing catch-up to Google, Amazon, etc. No way anyone would trust Steve Jobs to store their stuff with him when he'd likely wakeup one day and decide to erase all the words that begin with the letter H in the data center, because he felt he didn't like words that begin with the letter H that day." Discuss

Erick Schonfeld (CrunchGear) Submitted at 3/2/2010 6:56:00 AM

Apple is using its strong patent portfolio to fight iPhone competitors in court. Its latest target is HTC. Apple has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against the cell phone manufacturer. The suit involves “20 Apple patents related to the iPhone’s user interface, underlying architecture and hardware.” Steve Jobs is quoted in a press release saying: “We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it.

We’ve decided to do something about it. We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours.”

HootSuite Mobile Gets Ads with 140 Proof Mike Melanson (ReadWriteWeb) Submitted at 3/2/2010 7:19:00 AM

While the blogosphere has been buzzing over how and when Twitter will finally roll out the full details of its anticipated ad platform, 140 Proof has put together an advertising platform for the microblog service of its own. Today, it announced that it will integrate targeted advertising for HootSuite on both Android and iPhone.

HootSuite is launching an Android version of its Twitter client today, along with a new version for the iPhone, both of which will have ads by 140 Proof. Sponsor While this certainly may not be the most exciting news around to Twitter users (has anyone ever said "Boy, this would be great, if only it had some advertising!"), companies looking to reach Twitter's userbase have a way for

A big difference here, however, is that the expected Twitter ad platform would only appear in searches. The 140 Proof ad targeting their ads. From what we heard last week platform, on the other hand, is about Twitter's expected ad highly targeted, focusing on a platform, 140 Proof takes a number of features, such as similar approach. According to "keywords in tweets, followers, TheFilter Recommends the company's press release, as well as device, location and Music, Movies, and Web "the ads behave just like tweets: p l a t f o r m " , a c c o r d i n g t o -Based Video [Media] each ad must have a real tweet TechCrunch. The ads will show Jason Fitzpatrick (Lifehacker) associated with it so users can up directly in the user's tweet stream, but will be easily Submitted at 3/2/2010 6:30:00 AM reply, and if desired, retweet the identifiable. Discuss ad." THEFILTER page 52

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THEFILTER continued from page 51

Four years ago we recommended TheFilter as a way to sort through your iTunes music and automatically build playlists. You can still get TheFilter as an iTunes plugin but it's also a web-based suggestion engine for media of all sorts. Just like before, if you're in Windows, you can install a plugin for iTunes—Windows Media Player and Winamp too. Doing so allows you to not only sort and generate playlists in the respective media players but also beam your music habits into TheFilter's main site. Even

if you opt to use TheFilter in a web-based format only you can quickly build a database by importing your Flixster and Last.fm information or start from scratch by entering in your favorite bands, movies, and browsing web-based videos and ranking them on TheFilter. You can rank everything from the whole song or movie to the individual people encompassed by it—musicians, actors, directors, and so on. The view you see above, of the giant heart, is the "taste sphere" that shows you where the things you rank in relation to your taste.

The thing you give high ranking gravitate towards the heart and the things that you dislike or that fall out of your favor gravitate towards the graveyard Opera 10.5 Final for on the surface of the sphere. TheFilter is free and requires a Windows Brings the basic signup. The web-based service is available to everyone, Speed [Downloads] but the plugins for iTunes, Kevin Purdy (Lifehacker) WMP, and Winamp are Windows only. Have a favorite Submitted at 3/2/2010 4:40:00 AM suggestion service? Let's hear Windows: As expected, Opera about it in the comments. made version 10.5 of its browser TheFilter[via MakeUseOf] official this morning, calling it

Submitted at 3/2/2010 6:00:00 AM

Food blog Cheap, Healthy, Good is all about stretch food frugality very, very far, while keeping the meals tasty and leftover-friendly. An older post illustrates how one roast chicken can make 17 meals for a total of $26. Blogger and serious home economist Kristen Swensson bought a 7-pound Purdue roaster chicken for $6.92, less than $20 worth of other supplies over a week, and gave herself some rules for cooking dinners and lunches. Swensson went for no repeats or very similar dishes on the menu, used as many pantry

goods as possible, and tried to add as little fat as possible to the plates. How'd it turn out? Victory, for the most part. I ended up cooking five distinct, delicious, largely healthy dinners with PLENTY of

leftovers. And miracle of miracles, there were no duds in the group. (Thanks, online reviewers!) However, I did go $0.86 over budget. I'm okay with that, though. Between what we

Edit Staff (TheAppleBlog) Submitted at 3/2/2010 7:00:55 AM

Climbing at 14,000 feet? Sailing in Sydney Harbour? Sitting in the emergency room at 3 a.m.? You never know when access to your home or work computer will come in handy… Some people say the iPhone isn’t for business. But in fact, a recent survey of 400 LogMeIn Ignition for iPhone users found OPERA page 53 that more than 65 percent of them are accessing their work computer with their iPhone. Perhaps even more amazing, 57 consumed each night and ate for percent said they now ditch their lunch the next day, that $25.86 laptop in favor of carrying their made 17 full meals, which Apple device (and the LogMeIn works out to $1.52 each. That's app) at least half the time. less than a cup of Starbucks The survey results are revealed in a new e-book now available coffee, so … aces. You can grab all of Swensson's from LogMeIn entitled, “Hey, recipes, her full shopping list, that guy is running his laptop and read her notes on every from his iPhone.” recipe at the post, helpfully dug The e-book also shares true-life up by Boing Boing. If you've stories of iPhone users, from found your own miracle budget- doctors to mountain climbers, stretching food, tell us how you who successfully used their work it in the comments. 1 iPhone and the LogMeIn app to Chicken, 17 Healthy Meals, $26 stay connected and productive B u c k s , N o M a y o [ C h e a p , — no matter where work or life Healthy, Good Boing Boing] takes them. Download it today!

Make 17 Meals from One Chicken [Cooking] Kevin Purdy (Lifehacker)

Sponsored Post: If It’s on Your Computer, It’s on Your iPhone

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OPERA continued from page 52

"the fastest browser on Earth" and also touting its Windows 7 integration, HTML5 video support, better private browsing, and more. In terms of HTML5 and video, Opera has gone the way of Firefox, supporting native, Flash -free streams of the Ogg Theora format, but not H.264. Apple's Safari supports only H.264, and Google Chrome supports both. Opera has also added in extensive Windows 7 graphical look and taskbar support, as we've detailed, and also added the seemingly requisite "private

browsing" option. What the Opera developers are really touting, though, is Opera's JavaScript and page loading speedsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and we don't blame them. Here are two quick reminders of how Opera's 10.5 pre-alpha (labeled erroneously as a beta in these charts) fared against its competition. First in JavaScript: And in "cold" (right off a reboot) and "warm" (having previously opened) start-ups: Opera's certainly managed to get everyone's attention with their new Carakan engine, that's

for sure. In our own tests, Opera 10.5 feels very snappy and lightweight when moving about the web, and that's without the server-caching Turbo is turned on. Opera 10.5 is a free download for Windows systems only; Mac and Linux users should expect their own versions to follow very soon. Opera browser[via DeepTech/CNET]

'Two and a Half Men' - 'Tinkle Like A Princess' Recap Allison Waldman (TV Squad) Submitted at 3/2/2010 9:02:00 AM

(S07E16) Holy hoochey-mama! Looked like the old Charlie Harper was back by the time all was said and done. For a while there, it wasn't a certainty. Charlie had all the symptoms of a Woody Allen schlemiel as'Two and a Half Men' PDFs, and crop your results, but ventured into territory that you usually don't need to. The seemed out of kilter. It was like buttons to save, email, and print the Kubler-Ross five stages of your results are all there, too, grief. Fortunately, acceptance and this app just works. for Charlie was just a bender Simple Scan is a free download away. More on that and the for Linux systems only. Source $18,000, too, after the jump. code is available in addition to Continue reading'Two and a Ubuntu packages, but we're Half Men' - 'Tinkle Like A guessing the app runs best on Princess' Recap U b u n t u . S i m p l e Filed under: Other Comedy Scan[Launchpad via Starry S h o w s , E p i s o d e R e v i e w s , Hope] Reality-Free Permalink| Email this| | Comments

Simple Scan Makes Linux Scanning BeginnerFriendly [Downloads] Kevin Purdy (Lifehacker) Submitted at 3/2/2010 7:00:00 AM

Linux: The default image scanning app on most Linux destkops, XSane, has many, many buttons and sliders. When all you want to do is make a PDF from text, or scan a picture, Simple Scan is there for you. Robert Ancell, a developer for Ubuntu backer Canonical, is developing Simple Scan to drop into the next release of Ubuntu, Lucid Lynx, due out in April.

Although his software isn't officially at a finished, 1.0 stage, it's already decent enough to be an attractive install for Ubuntu users. Load up your scanner,

plug it into your system, fire up Simple Scan, switch between Photo and Text, and hit the Scan button. Yes, you can adjust the dpi resolution, create multi-page

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Panasonic Toughbook C1 claims world’s lightest 12.1-inch convertible tablet crown Doug Aamoth (CrunchGear) Submitted at 3/2/2010 6:42:09 AM

Just 3.2 pounds, folks. That’s all. Jetsetting, globetrotting, running after trains and then jumping into that one open car with all the hay in it. That could be you. Except once you’re in the hay car you could get on Twitter and be like, “Just ran alongside train and jumped in open car filled with hay. Need a Claritin! Blah! ROTFLOL!” The features, please: • Intel Core i5 CPU at 2.4GHz (with “Turbo Boost” up to 2.93GHz) • 12.1-inch LED-backlit multitouch screen at 1280×800 resolution • “Up to ten hours of battery life, enabled by a twin hotswappable battery design” – one battery for five hours, both batteries for ten hours • 3.2 pounds with single battery, 3.7 pounds with both batteries • Able to withstand a drop from 30 inches • Windows 7 with XP downgrade option • 250GB hard drive, 2GB of RAM (expandable to 6GB) • Wi-Fi (b/g/n), Bluetooth 2.1, optional Gobi networking Initially, the screen will be available as a “Multi-touch +

digitizer screen allowing input

via finger, gestures and

electronic stylus pen” but in the

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PANASONIC continued from page 54

Fall, there’ll be a “Gloved multi -touch screen allowing input via finger and gestures.” Now before you get too excited, this thing’s meant for the health care, field service, and education sectors and, as such, carries a pretty gigantic starting price tag of $2500. It’ll be available for purchase sometime in June of this year. Here’s a YouTube video from Panasonic: And some hands-on photos that CrunchGear’s own J. Biggs took recently. Full Press Release: Panasonic Introduces the Toughbook® C1 – World’s Lightest 12.1” Convertible Tablet PC Innovative design and exceptional performance ideal for professionals in healthcare and other highly mobile markets SECAUCUS, N.J.–( BUSINESS WIRE)–Panasonic Computer Solutions Company, manufacturer of durable, reliable Panasonic Toughbook® mobile computers, today introduced the Panasonic Toughbook C1, the world’s lightest 12.1” convertible tablet PC. The new device delivers up to 10 hours of battery life, a 30” (to base) drop rating, optional Gobi2000™ mobile broadband and a host of other features designed to maximize return on investment and reduce the total cost of ownership. Powered by the Intel® Core™ i5 520M

vPro™ processor and weighing only 3.2 pounds (with one battery, 3.7 lbs with two), the Toughbook C1 offers desktopclass performance in a lightweight, convertible tablet form factor that is ideal for road warriors and mobile workers in a variety of markets, including healthcare, field service, sales and education. Innovative Design The Toughbook C1 is one of the first laptops to support multi -touch and digitizers, offering the input of a finger, gesture or an electronic stylus pen for handwriting recognition and greater precision. By leveraging Panasonic’s advanced battery technology, the Toughbook C1 delivers up to ten hours of battery life, enabled by a twin hot-swappable battery design that allows for continuous use, pushing productivity in the field to a new level. The Toughbook C1 also features a shockmounted, flex-connect 250GB hard drive with a quick-release feature that allows for enhanced data protection. The Toughbook C1 is the first convertible to employ a unique triple hinge design – one set of hinges for opening and closing the screen and another hinge for rotating the screen to tablet mode. The Toughbook C1’s triple hinge design significantly reduces hinge failures (a common problem with current generation convertible tablets)

by separating the two actions normally required of a single hinge. Toughbook C1 also offers a ‘hand-free’ ergonomic strap and dome hand support system that cradles the hand for comfortable long term use as well as providing a natural keyboard tilt. Meets Needs of Medical Professionals “One of the main markets for the Toughbook® C1 is healthcare,” said Greg Davidson, healthcare senior business development manager, Panasonic Computer Solutions Company. “We have been working with our healthcare customers to design a convertible tablet that truly addressed their needs. To date, the market has been making do with tablets that fail to offer the light weight, ergonomics and battery life needed by healthcare professionals. We believe the new Toughbook C1 addresses all these issues, while offering the additional benefits of excellent performance and durability.” Desktop Performance The Toughbook C1 is powered by the Intel® Core™ i5-520M vPro™ Processor (2.4 GHz with Turbo Boost up to 2.93 GHz, Intel® Smart Cache 3MB), giving the device desktop performance in a lightweight and highly mobile form factor. “The Toughbook C1 is an example of a convertible tablet

PC that has been designed for a mobile workforce,” said Erik Reid, mobile client marketing director, Intel Corporation. “Intel® Core™ i5-520M vPro™ Processor technology makes the Toughbook C1 more valuable by helping to address remote management and security issues. This creates a compelling solution for organizations that want the most out of their mobile employees.” Real World Durability In order to withstand the demands of a highly mobile work environment, The Toughbook C1 has been designed to endure drops, bumps and spills. The Toughbook C1 successfully survived drops of 12” from any angle for the unit itself and from 30” for the shock-mounted, flexconnect hard drive. Additionally, the Toughbook C1 survived a 30” (just over the typical height of a desk or table) drop to the base of the unit while operating. The unique Panasonic spill-resistant keyboard design protects against liquid spills of about 6 ounces (200 cc), and both the lid and base of the notebook are designed to withstand more than 225 lbs (102 Kg) of pressure. In addition, Panasonic’s commitment to quality—at both the component and finished goods level—results in a total of more than 500 checks and tests during and after production.

“An exceptional level of engineering has gone into the Toughbook C1,” said Kyp Walls, director of product management, Panasonic Computer Solutions Company. “The unique triple hinge design, ‘hand-free’ ergonomic strap, twin hot-swappable battery system and quick-release HDD Pack exemplify our commitment to go beyond ‘good-enough’ and delivering products that map to how our customers use them. The Toughbook C1 sets the standard for what an enterprise convertible tablet should be.” Embedded Wireless Connectivity The Toughbook® C1 offers a variety of embedded wireless technologies, including Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n, Bluetooth® 2.1 and optional Gobi2000™ mobile broadband technology from Qualcomm. Gobi simplifies complex multi-carrier wireless deployments for IT departments and allows mobile employees improved connectivity options while traveling at home or abroad. The Toughbook C1 is also designed so Wi-Fi, WiMAX and 3G mobile broadband modules can be embedded in the same unit, while allowing exceptional reception and flexibility for data access on the go. The Toughbook C1 will be certified on the Sprint and Verizon PANASONIC page 58

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Review of the PocketBook 360 eReader – Lean, Light, Beautiful and Blazing Fast Tablet (BestTabletReview.com) Submitted at 3/2/2010 5:47:44 AM

This post was written by Roger Pelizzari, a semi-retired writer and recent adopter of electronic readers. Ebook readers have been arriving in ever greater tidal waves over the past few years, some loaded with features, others barely able to perform as eBook readers. This January when I began my search, I was looking for one feature, the ability to read books easily, without eye strain. I have no desire to divide my mind with music or the internet while reading. So when my ivory colored PocketBook 360° appeared before my eyes—lean, light, and beautiful—I had a feeling that it would be a perfect fit. In fact, being the size of a CD case, and weighing a mere 5.3 ounces (half that of the Kindle or Nook), it fit perfectly in my pocket. The 360° is the latest model from PocketBook Global, the Ukraine-Taiwan company with offices in Long Island and Kansas City. It gets its name from the built in accelerometer which allows for automatic orientation of pages in portrait or landscape mode. The text

reflow looks like magic the first time you see it and is a real boon for lefties. The device comes well packaged and opens easily. The detachable hard shell protective cover has a beautiful swirling design and attaches to the back for safe keeping, adding no bulk to the size, unlike most eBook covers. It connects via USB and is instantly recognized on Intel Macs and PCs. You simply drag your files onto the icon. The 360° reads more formats than any reader out there, including FB2, FB2.zip, TXT, PDF, RTF, HTML, PRC, CHM, DJVU, DOC, EPUB, TCR, JPG, BMP, PNG, and TIFF. There is also native support of Adobe Digital Editions, which means you can read DRM protected EPUBs and PDFs as well as free library books. It also supports a wide range of languages, Latin and Cyrillic based and also Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Arabic and Hebrew. EASY ON THE EYES Sporting a 5 E-Ink Vizplex 600×800 166dpi, with 16 grayscale levels, the screen looks sharp, has great contrast and is glare free, perfect for reading books without eye strain. You can take it outdoors and read easily in direct sunlight. With the included FBReader,

you can choose one of several fonts or add your own, size them from tiny to elephantine, change the margins and line spacing, and zoom in several levels. SPEEDY NAVIGATION Speed is the word for Pocketbook 360°. Just 10 seconds after booting, you’ll see the menus. Books open in 5 seconds. Flipping pages is as fast or faster than any eBook reader I’ve heard of. The refresh between pages is about half a second, twice as fast as the Kindle or Nook, and hardly noticeable. And that’s with DRM and non-DRM ePUBs and

PDFs. Pocketbook’s next version of firmware will add the ability to turn a page with just the flick of your wrist. A turn to the right goes back, a turn to the left moves forward. The 360°s motion sensor will act as a trigger for the page turns. The feature is already available using a custom version of FBReader. SEARCHING Simplicity here is a plus. With its large wing-shaped forward/back buttons that give a nice audible click and a very responsive directional joypad,

the 360° really flies. No need for a heavy physical keyboard or the glare from a touch screen. The pop-up virtual keyboard works with dictionaries, applications, working with files and creating notes. It’s also a turbo speed searcher. Just a tap of the joypad and a couple clicks and your word is found and highlighted. The 360° always finds your last place in a book, never loses bookmarks, easily jumps to a specific page. MENUS The main menu offers quick access to your two recently read titles, plus icons to take you to eBooks, News (via a Windowsonly RSS feed downloader), favorites, photos, dictionary, notes, apps, calendar or settings. Applications included are a clock, a calculator, a dictionary, and games (solitaire, chess, Sudoku and SeaBattle). While in a book, tapping the center of the joypad brings up a quick menu. When reading ePUBs, the lower right hand icon brings up a settings menu for choosing almost any font size. Though not available with PDFs or DRM files, you can still use the up arrow to chose from five levels of zoom. The 360°’s speed covers folder support too with hierarchical REVIEW page 57

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REVIEW continued from page 56

and directory structure. You have 3 ways to view content—with icons, thumbnails, or in a list. Flags next to the icons signal whether a book is not yet read, being read, or finished. Comparing to the big boys, the Kindle still lacks folder support and the Nook has a more complicated, split screen personality. SLEEP, SHUT DOWN, AND BATTERY LIFE The Pocketbook 360° has a sleep mode, key lock mode and automatic shut off, but with such fast boots, I just turn it off manually when I’m done. The battery is rated 8,000 page turns, so if you use it 4 hours a day without sleeping or locking the keys, you’ll enjoy 2-3 weeks of reading. Even with the accelerometer activated, long shut-off settings, and a SD card inserted, you’ll still get over a week of use. And best of all, the battery is user-replaceable, so you won’t ever need to send it in for a pricey replacement as with new Kindles and all Sony

models. WHAT I’D STILL LIKE TO SEE Naturally, there’s always room for improvement. Luckily, all three of my suggestions are scheduled to be fixed in future versions of firmware. Pocketbook software engineers regularly read forum suggestions and respond to them. 1.An option for starting at the first or last entry when entering a new module—Books, Pictures, etc. 2.A more elegant way to eject the 360° from a Mac. Right now you have to pull the plug to stop the 360°’s icon from reappearing. One user has already posted a fix that works fine using a free program called Hidden Cleaner. 3. Older Macs with PPC processors do not currently recognize the 360°. You need an Intel Mac or PC to load books. FLEXIBLE FIRMWARE The 360°’s firmware is another feature that distinguishes it from

the crowd. It’s completely user configurable. You can change the functions of the all buttons, and even modify the FBReaders’ config file through the main menu. Thanks to PocketBook’s developer kit many applications are also available. Already loaded are several games as well as applications (clock and calculator). Also available are a language learning program and a terminal emulator for those who can work with Linux. PRICE TAG The PocketBook 360° sells for $239.99 at the Pocketbook w e b s i t e , http://www.PocketbookReader.c om, and for $20 extra you get an AC adapter and MicroSD card. So that puts it at the same price as the Kindle and the Nook, but Pocketbook’s 2 year warranty, gives the 360° a clear advantage in value. SUMMARY The Pocketbook 360° is one of the simplest, fastest, and most beautiful eBook readers out

there. If you want to focus on reading, this may just be the one. If you need 3G and/or Wifi, consider the upcoming PocketBook 302, but if you just want to read books, you’ll appreciate the total ease of use of the 360°. • Small, light, easy to hold. • Very fast page turns. • User-replaceable battery. • ADE connectivity to buy books or borrow from your library • Sturdy protective cover. • Large page turn buttons with left-handed compatibility. • Excellent customer service replies within hours rather than weeks! • Two year warranty – twice the standard length Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

The Most Desired Man in the World, Ladies and Gentlemen [Open Caption] Richard Lawson (Gawker) Submitted at 3/2/2010 9:38:55 AM

[ Twilight twinklehunk Bobby Patentleather outside the New York premiere of his new film, Christopher Pike's Remember Me. (It's not actually based on the Christopher Pike book, sadly.) Image via INF]

Apple sues HTC for infringing 20 iPhone patents Nilay Patel (Engadget)

infringing 20 patents "related to the iPhone's user interface, underlying architecture, and Looks like Apple's going on the hardware." Steve, you have warpath, kids. Just a few months something to say? after Cupertino got into it with "We can sit by and watch Nokia over phone patents, competitors steal our patented Apple's filed suit against HTC, i n v e n t i o n s , o r w e c a n d o decided to do something about alleging that the company is something about it. We've it," said Steve Jobs, Apple's Submitted at 3/2/2010 9:52:00 AM

CEO. "We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours." Okay then. We're pulling the complaint filing now, we'll let you know the exact details as soon as we learn them. Apple sues HTC for infringing

20 iPhone patents originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Mar 2010 09:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Apple| Email this| Comments

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PANASONIC continued from page 55

Wireless networks, allowing workers to stay connected at all times. Other wireless carrier certifications will be announced soon. Integrated Features To enable advanced communication and collaboration, the Toughbook C1 offers integrated features, such as an optional modem or a webcam for mobile video conferencing and a standard built-in dual array microphone for superior speech recognition. Multiple security features are also available, including options for SmartCard and fingerprint readers, to ensure sensitive data is kept secure and private. Panasonic Toughbook® C1: Select Features and Specifications Genuine Windows 7® (with XP downgrade option) Intel® Core™ i5-520M vPro™ Processor (2.4 GHz with Turbo Boost up to 2.93 GHz) 250GB shock-mounted flexconnect hard drive with quickrelease 2GB RAM (DDR3-800), expandable to 6GB Choice of two 12.1” WXGA

(1280 x 800) displays with LED backlighting Multi-touch + digitizer screen allowing input via finger, gestures and electronic stylus pen Gloved multi-touch screen allowing input via finger and gestures (available Fall 2010) Anti-glare screen treatment 6 backlit tablet buttons (5 userdefinable) Hot-swappable twin battery design 5 hour battery life (with one battery); 10 hour battery life (with two batteries) 3.2 lbs (with one battery); 3.7 lbs (with two batteries) Optional webcam Built-in dual array microphone Business-rugged 30” operating drop (to base only) 26 sides 12” drop (nonoperating) 225 lb pressurized vibration Magnesium alloy case Spill-resistant keyboard (protects against 6 ounces spills) Triple hinge design with screen rotation lock ‘Hand-free’ ergonomic strap and dome hand support

Embedded Connectivity Optional integrated WWAN / Gobi2000™ mobile broadband (EV-DO and HSPA) Intel® Centrino® Advanced-N 6200 802.11a/b/g/n Bluetooth® v2.1 + EDR (class 2) Optional Integrated Security Features: Fingerprint reader SmartCard reader 11.8” (H) x 8.9” (W) x 1.2”1.7” (D) Optional desktop dock with DVD multi-drive and dual monitor support Optional 4-bay battery charger Pricing and Availability The Panasonic Toughbook® C1 will be available worldwide starting June 2010. In the United States, the Toughbook C1 is expected to be available at an estimated street price of $2499 from authorized Panasonic resellers and distributors. The Toughbook C1 includes a standard three-year limited warranty.

Panasonic's Multitouch Toughbook C1 Tablet Has No Time for This "iPad" [Tablets] John Herrman (Gizmodo)

battery options, respectively, while the whole assemblage is Submitted at 3/2/2010 9:30:00 AM tied together by Windows 7, or There was a time when the optionally, XP. The casing is, w o r d " t a b l e t " i n v o k e d a n like every other Toughbook, entirely different vision, of water-resistant and just short of keyboards and hinges and bulletproof. And lastly, the people working on stuff and, trackpad is circular, because well, not this. The Toughbook why the hell not? C1, Panasonic's 2000s-style Anything beyond a superficial 12.1-inch rugged convertible c o m p a r i s o n t o t h e n e w tablet, remembers those days generation of slate-style tablets well. would be misguided, because That's not to say that the C1 is this is a decidedly workmanlike overly bulky, or necessarily device. It has multitouch in the o u t d a t e d — i t s s p e c s h e e t same way that other Windows 7 suggests the opposite, listing its tablets and notebooks have dimensions at a surprisingly thin multitouch, which is to say, er, 1.2-1.7 inches and its weight at technically. It comes with a a reasonable 3.2lbs, making it stylus. Under the hood, it's pure the "world's lightest" 12.1-inch laptop. And then there's the convertible tablet. Behind the matter of price: The Toughbook keyboard you'll find a 2.4GHz C1 will start at $2500. Not that Intel Core i5, 2GB (expandable) this matters, since most of the of DDR3 RAM, a 250GB shock p e o p l e w h o u s e o n e w i l l -resistant hard drive, and probably have it issued and optional EV-DO or HSPA data. expensed, but still: $2500! Ship Battery life claims fall at 5 and date falls sometime in June. [ 10 hours for the single and dual Panasonic]

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Apple Sues HTC For Infringing On 20 iPhone Patents [Apple] Kat Hannaford (Gizmodo) Submitted at 3/2/2010 9:33:02 AM

Whoa, Apple just sued HTC for infringing on 20 patents "related to the iPhone's user interface, underlying architecture and hardware." The guns are out. Steve Jobs' biting take on the lawsuit: "We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We've decided to do something about it. We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours." Sound familiar? Of course it does, because Nokia's being accused of the same thing, and Apple had similar nasty comments for Palm as well, though they haven't led to a lawsuit (yet). We're digging up what exactly HTC is in trouble over, with Apple merely stating it's related to the "iPhone's user interface, underlying architecture and hardware." However, it's worth noting Apple won a fairly huge multitouch patent just a couple of weeks ago, and now they're nailing HTC for twice as many patent infringements as they busted Nokia on in that

'Chuck' - 'Chuck Versus the Fake Name' Recap Allison Waldman (TV Squad) Submitted at 3/2/2010 1:03:00 AM

countersuit. Apple's original set of iPhone interface patents were actually fairly limited when you drill down, but we'll see pretty shortly what, precisely, they're suing HTC over. Which should give us a pretty good idea of whether or not this just the first of many lawsuits, since HTC's not exactly the only other multitouch game in town. The terse press release, in full: Apple Sues HTC for Patent Infringement CUPERTINO, Calif. March 2

/PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Apple® today filed a lawsuit against HTC for infringing on 20 Apple patents related to the iPhone's user interface, underlying architecture and hardware. The lawsuit was filed concurrently with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) and in U.S. District Court in Delaware. "We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We've decided to do something about

it," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours." Apple reinvented the mobile phone in 2007 with its revolutionary iPhone®, and did it again in 2008 with its pioneering App Store, which now offers more than 150,000 mobile applications in over 90 countries. Over 40 million iPhones have been sold worldwide.

(S03E08) It seems more and more like the spy job is less and less attractive for Chuck. Just when things were on the verge of getting really good for Chuck on the personal front, there were complications based on the past and the job and the choices he's been forced to make. If this is spy life, it's no wonder James Bond drinks so much. More on that and the chicken pepperoni after the jump. Continue reading'Chuck' 'Chuck Versus the Fake Name' Recap Filed under: Episode Reviews, Chuck, Reality-Free Permalink| Email this| | Comments

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Panasonic slips Core i5 into 'world's lightest' 12.1-inch Toughbook C1 convertible tablet Darren Murph (Engadget) Submitted at 3/2/2010 9:04:00 AM

We tell ya -- all this tablet talk sure has us feeling like it's 2003. You know, minus all that Y2K hangover stuff. Anywho, Panasonic has today outed what it's calling the planet's lightest 12.1-inch convertible tablet PC, with the Toughbook C1 offering the line's iconic rigidity while boasting 10 hours of battery life, an optional Gobi 2000 mobile broadband module and Intel's

decidedly potent 2.4GHz Core i5-520 processor. All told, the device weighs just 3.2 pounds with a single battery (3.7 pounds with twins), and there's full support for digitizers and multitouch. Other specs include a shock-mounted, flex-connect 250GB hard drive, 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi, up to 8GB of DDR3 memory, a WXGA (1,280 x 800) LED-backlit panel, a triple hinge design and the ability to survive a 30-inch plummet. It's available to (quite

literally) smash iPads starting this June, though that $2,499 starting price may be somewhat off-putting to those without

copious amounts of disposable income. Gallery: Panasonic Toughbook C1 convertible tablet PC

Continue reading Panasonic slips Core i5 into 'world's lightest' 12.1-inch Toughbook C1 convertible tablet Panasonic slips Core i5 into 'world's lightest' 12.1-inch Toughbook C1 convertible tablet originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Mar 2010 09:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| | Email this| Comments

RedEye mini converts iPhone, iPad or iPod touch into IR-beaming universal remote Darren Murph (Engadget) Submitted at 3/2/2010 9:30:00 AM

ThinkFlood's original RedEye was pretty swank, but unfortunately, it was both expensive and somewhat convoluted. It's only been four months since that very device hit the scene, but it's safe to say it's already history. Today, the RedEye mini is setting a new bar in the world of iPhone / iPad / iPod touch remotes, with a single plug-in Infrared (IR) adapter enabling your Apple device to beam out a nearlimitless array of IR commands. All that's needed is the 3.5mm

dongle (read: your dock connector remains open), the latest iPhone OS and the free RedEye app; once you're setup, you can then control your TV, AV receiver, Blu-ray player and

whatever else is lucky enough to be in your home theater rack and support IR dictation. Better still, the app allows users to customize the way they control their gear, with full multitouch

and accelerometer support complementing the ability to add (soft) macro buttons. Oh, and did we mention that this wealth of functionality will only set you back $49? Huzzah! Continue reading RedEye mini converts iPhone, iPad or iPod touch into IR-beaming universal remote RedEye mini converts iPhone, iPad or iPod touch into IRbeaming universal remote originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Mar 2010 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| ThinkFlood| Email this| Comments

Netflix Would Very Much Like to Know If You Would Like an iPhone App (Hint: YES) [NetFlix] matt buchanan (Gizmodo) Submitted at 3/2/2010 10:05:55 AM

Here's a real interesting question from a recent Netflix survey: "How likely would you or someone in your household be to instantly watch movies & NETFLIX page 61

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'Dancing with the Stars' Celebs Get Paired Up with Partners

continued from page 60

TV episodes on your iPhone via a Wi-Fi network?" If you recall, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings promised that Netflix streaming would come to the iPhone "eventually" just a few months ago. While survey questions can be indicative of a company's plans—it wouldn't be the first time for this kind of company to tip their video hand via survey—I wouldn't get too excited. Not because of the tech, which is trivial (even considering the jump from Microsoft's Silverlight technology on the desktop) but because of the rights. Netflix has already run into issues with studios afraid of it massing too much influence, too many eyeballs, squeezing the lifeblood remaining in DVD

profits preserved by the window system—the journey a movie takes from the multiplex to DVD to PPV to HBO to cable— before the studios can extract the last final drops themselves. That disgusting 28-day window before you can rent a new Warner Bros. movie is a primo example. So, to get mobile streaming rights? That's probably a whole 'nother ballgame, and I don't expect the studios will play any nicer. But we can dream, we can hope, we can pray. Even if it is only over Wi-Fi. [ Hacking Netflix via SAI]

(ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 3/2/2010 6:57:00 AM

Frameless laptop screens expected soon Doug Aamoth (CrunchGear)

reinforced glass substrate is more expensive than a conventional one (US$19-21 for The infinity pools of the the former compared to US$12computing industry, frameless 15 for the latter in a 15.6-inch laptop screens are expected in model), the cost of frame (Financial Times - US Consumer Financial Protection the second or third quarter of materials and assembly can be homepage) Agency originally proposed by t h i s y e a r , a c c o r d i n g t o reduced, the sources said.” the Treasury. Designed to D i g i T i m e s . Submitted at 3/1/2010 7:55:38 PM Apparently there are some regulate the sale of products They’ll be a little more manufacturers developing The Federal Reserve would s u c h a s c r e d i t c a r d s a n d expensive than standard laptop frameless screens without using receive additional consumer m o r t g a g e s , t h e C F P A screens, but those costs are lids at all, opting to instead protection responsibilities as became one of President Barack e x p e c t e d t o d e c l i n e a s “conduct electroplating and part of a proposal circulated on Obama’s most cherished reform production increases. coating processes directly on the Monday by Chris Dodd, the proposals. According to the article: back of display panels.” Senate banking committee Five Filters featured article: “The frameless LCD screens are Frameless-screen notebooks c h a i r m a n , i n a s u r p r i s i n g Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: made using reinforced glass expected to hit market in 2Q10 reversal of the central bank’s PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, substrates fitted onto or 3Q10, say Taiwan political fortunes. Term Extraction. magnesium-alloy or plastic lids, m a k e r s [ D i g i T i m e s . c o m ] The new division, if approved, the sources said. Although a falls short of an independent

Dodd proposes consumer role for the Fed

Submitted at 3/2/2010 7:20:36 AM

It takes two to tango! The newest slew of celebrities to hit the dance floor of ABC's "Dancing with the Stars" have been paired up with their pro partners -- and the match-ups may surprise you. Reality show mom Kate Gosselin will be dancing with Tony Dovolani, who is returning for his ninth season on the show. Another reality show favorite, "The Bachelor" Jake Pavelka is teaming up with "Dancing" pro cutie Chelsie Hightower. "Baywatch" beauty Pamela Anderson will be dancing with the newest pro of the show Damian Whitewood, while "90210" star Shannen Doherty has been paired up with Mark Ballas. ESPN host Erin Andrews will dance with "DWTS" bad boy Maksim Chmerkovskiy, and "The Insider" correspondent Niecy Nash is hot to trot with Louis van Amstel. Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger is matched up with season 7 champ Derek Hough.

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Jay Leno: There's No Place Like Home

XP downgrade lawsuit thrown out, MS lawyers celebrate rare victory Tim Stevens (Engadget) Submitted at 3/2/2010 9:51:00 AM

It's hard to imagine a more busy team of lawyers than those onstaff at Microsoft, and while the news isn't always good for them, today they can hold their heads high as a lawsuit filed last year alleging that MS was profiting from so-called "downgrade fees" has finally been dismissed. US District Court Judge Marsha Pechman found that the plaintiff, Emma Alvarado, didn't prove Microsoft was in any way gaining value from these charges. In fact the downgrade fee to move to XP was, in this case, being charged by Lenovo, not Microsoft, and was to cover the additional time it took to physically install that OS over the standard (at the time) Vista.

(ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 3/2/2010 4:35:00 AM

"The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" re-launched Monday night in black and white with Jay impersonating Dorothy from 'The Wizard of Oz.' Kevin Eubanks and Ross " The Intern" Mathews crowded around his bed as Jay came back In other words Alvarado missed to consciousness from his the mark and in the process "dream" to host the show. There surely cost taxpayers and was also a cameo from the very Microsoft thousands and funny Betty White, who thousands of dollars. Hooray! commented about the drab dĂŠcor XP downgrade lawsuit thrown of the barn. out, MS lawyers celebrate rare Ben Drawbaugh (Engadget) able to see those particular Jay's new set is anything but victory originally appeared on updates, but also join in on the drab, but rather full of color and Engadget on Tue, 02 Mar 2010 Submitted at 3/2/2010 9:00:00 AM fun by watching the same modernity. One thing was 09:51:00 EST. Please see our If you thought the constant roll movie. A pretty neat way to missing, thoug--a desk. He t e r m s f o r u s e o f f e e d s . out of VUDU updates would promote and discover content, traveled around Burbank door-to P e r m a l i n k a r s t e c h n i c a | end once Wal-mart took over but we're not sure we'd want to -door to find a new one. A ComputerWorld| Email this| the reins, think again -- and no, f o l l o w a n y o n e w i t h s u c h creepy crawler, Randy Jackson, Comments were not talking about how mundane updates and wonder if a n d A d a m C o r o l l a w e r e quickly the after dark content baking the social features in interviewed in "Tonight Show" got pulled. The update this week makes more sense, you know, neighbor's living rooms until he found a desk that was just right. will be of particular interest with the way Boxee does it. those who love to flood their VUDU rolls in Facebook and social feeds with their every Twitter integration originally movement, as now VUDU will appeared on Engadget on Tue, u p d a t e y o u r F a c e b o o k o r 02 Mar 2010 09:00:00 EST. Twitter status with the your Please see our terms for use of impressions of the movie you're feeds. Permalink| | Email this| watching. In addition your Comments friends with VUDU will also be

VUDU rolls in Facebook and Twitter integration

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Shenzhen TESO wins “biggest iPhone” award with new tablet clone Tablet (BestTabletReview.com)

1GB of DDR2 RAM, 3G, 4-in-1 card reader, WiFi b/g, three USB 2.0 ports, VGA, optional Submitted at 3/1/2010 6:28:45 PM GPS, accelerometer, 320GB HD The Shenzhen TESO tablet PC and 3000mAh LION battery. It Have you been looking for a measures 11.4 x 5.9 x 0.79 comically large iPhone for your inches and weighs 2.65 lbs. Mime Steve Jobs routine? Then (great for superior arm strength). the day is yours. The Shenzhen Actually, that doesn’t sound TESO is exactly what you need. like a half-bad tablet. We’ll be We guess it could also double interested to see how the as a tablet PC since it runs eventual price compares with Windows 7 and an Intel Atom the cloned source. N450 1.66GHz processor. The Source: Cloned in China 10.1-inch 1024 x 600 resolution Five Filters featured article: screen is also capacitive touch Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: (in keeping with the theme). PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Rounding out the spec sheet is Term Extraction.

Logitech outs the sub-$100 600 and 650 Harmony remotes Matt Burns (CrunchGear) Submitted at 3/2/2010 6:00:01 AM

The Harmony universal remote line just got two well-needed additions to its stable. The 600 and 650 offers most of the Harmony magic at a more affordable price-point. Both models do the computer-assisted setup thing that made the brand

so successful in the first place, but forgos a few creaturecomforts to reach the sub-$100 market. The $99 650 seems like it’s just like the few-months-old 700 model with a small color screen and ergonomic feel, but lacks the rechargeable batteries. The $79 600 keeps the same body but comes with a monochrome

backlit screen instead. But the easy-to-set-up macros and activites buttons are still in place so they are probably fine remotes. In fact, the 650 seems like a great deal over the 700 if you consider batteries are cheap and they tend to last a long time in these remotes. Just saying.

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Apple Supplier Audit Reveals Child Labor, More Violations Darrell Etherington (TheAppleBlog)

action. Plus, I can’t imagine Apple’s audits come as a surprise to suppliers, so who Submitted at 3/1/2010 8:17:32 AM knows the extent to which the Apple has been criticized in the violations might truly go. past for not doing enough to Besides the age violations, ensure that labor conditions in inspectors from Apple also its supplier factories were up to found that more than 50 of its international humanitarian supplier’s factories forced standards. Today, it released its employers to work more than 60 2010 Supplier Responsibility hours in a given week, a r e p o r t ( P D F ) , i n w h i c h i t maximum cap set by Apple provides the details of audits it t h e m s e l v e s . M a n y o f t h e conducts at those supplier facilities were also found to be facilities, in order to gauge the not paying staff correctly. 48 degree to which violations are or facilities were using improper aren’t taking place. calculations to determine This time around, the report overtime pay, and at 24 workers details no less than 17 violations were receiving less than the at its supplier facilities, and minimum wage for regular more than a few of them are working hours. In those cases, fairly serious indeed. Underage the reason given was largely that worker serious, in fact. Apple’s employees needed to meet strict i n s p e c t o r s f o u n d t h a t 1 1 attendance requirements before employees were employed prior becoming eligible for the to being of legal working age in minimum wage rate. the countries in question. Other violations included According to the report, the age depriving staff of benefits like issue was moot at the time the sick leave, and the falsification audit was conducted, since the o f r e c o r d s . M a n y o f t h e employees in question had falsification violations occurred either reached legal age by then, in conjunction with other types or were no longer employed at of offenses, which makes you the supplier. Kind of convenient w o n d e r h o w m a n y t i m e s if you ask me that all of these falsifications were “successful” violations just happened to be and went unnoticed. At least one past offenses and required no facility was found to have

specific violation, but also the underlying management system needed to prevent its recurrence. We track completion of each corrective action to closure, with an expectation that all violations will be corrected as quickly as possible, but not later than 90 days after the audit. If, after a follow-up audit to determine that corrective action has been taken, the company is still found to be in violation, Apple works further with them definitely covered up hiring It’s excellent to find that in to ensure that the fix really is underage employees in the past, some cases Apple is basically put in place. Finally, as a course and another was found to have acting as a regulatory body of last resort, “Apple may have hidden records of overworking where none would otherwise no choice but to terminate the and underpaying employees. e x i s t , b u t w h a t a r e t h e business relationship.” Apple’s audit this year was the consequences if facilities are I respect Apple’s efforts largest on record improving on f o u n d t o h a v e a c t u a l l y regarding this responsibility the 83 facilities covered in the p e r p e t r a t e d v i o l a t i o n s ? report. No one is forcing them to report covering the 2008 period: Especially in the case of child do this, and it does seem like In 2009, Apple conducted labor violations, one might Cupertino is attempting to bring audits at 102 facilities, including expect to see Apple ending its considerable pressure to bear annual audits of all final professional relationships, in improving the working assembly manufacturers, first- p a r t i c u l a r l y w h e n r e p e a t conditions of some of its most time audits of component and violations become apparent. Not vulnerable employees. But nonproduction suppliers, and 15 necessarily so, though. The without actual consequences repeat audits of facilities where section detailing the “corrective implemented in a swift and a core violation had been action process” informs as to consistent manner, it just seems discovered. During most of our what the actual consequences like a public relations exercise audits, suppliers stated that are for these suppliers: instead of a measure genuinely Apple was the only company When a violation is found, concerned with the welfare of that had ever audited their Apple requires the facility to human beings. f a c i l i t y f o r s u p p l i e r implement a corrective action responsibility. plan that addresses not only the

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Apple Acknowledges, Will Service iMac Screen Color Issues Darrell Etherington (TheAppleBlog) Submitted at 3/1/2010 11:00:56 AM

The 27-inch iMac has not been Apple’s proudest moment. The pricier version of the company’s all-in-one desktop has had more than its share of problems since its launch in October of 2009. Apple has released a number of fixes aimed at getting things back on track, but until recently the Mac maker hadn’t addressed the very vocal complaints of some of its most important customers. The high-end iMac is the machine of choice for many graphic and photo professionals, so screen color temperature issues is not a problem that can be treated lightly if you expect to maintain the loyalty of one of your core customer groups. Now, according to Gizmodo, Apple has acknowledged the problem, and is telling people to contact Apple Care to get it resolved. In case you’re wondering about the specific symptoms of this problem or its the first time you’re hearing about it, a

number of owners of the new iMacs are complaining that their screens have an unpleasant yellowish tinge as you move from top to bottom. Since the temperature is inconsistent across the display, the problem is even more noticeable. Gizmodo managed to elicit a public statement regarding the problem by contacting Apple

We’ve addressed the issues that caused display flickering and yellow tint. Customers concerned that their iMac is affected should contact AppleCare. I still remember being told by an Apple Store employee that the same color tint issue which affected two of my replacement iPhones was a “cosmetic” issue and wouldn’t be addressed if it occurred more than twice, which it did. At least on the much larger screen Apple is admitting that it is, in fact, a problem, and not pretending it’s just something customers should get used to. If you think your iMac may be affected, but you aren’t sure or you don’t have a reliable way to directly and by repeatedly prove it once you actually do publishing stories about the book your Genius appointment specific issue, since it affected to have it looked at, try pointing multiple machines purchased by your browser of choice at this one of the tech site’s writers. link. The shades of gray are the The statement is brief, but it same top and bottom, and it should be enough to allow should pretty clearly show any customers to bring in their yellowish tinge that may be affected machines and receive affecting the bottom of your no hassle from Apple store screen, even to dubious Apple Store employees. employees:

Blacklight: Tango Down coming to PSN, XBLA and PC this summer Justin McElroy (Joystiq) Submitted at 3/2/2010 9:15:00 AM

Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network haven't traditionally been the most familiar territories for new firstperson shooters, but titles like Serious Sam HD and Battlefield 1943 have started carving out a respectable niche. Ignition has decided to join the fray, announcing that Blacklight: Tango Down is set to arrive on XBLA, PSN and PC this summer. Details are hard to come by on the Zombie Studios title ( first revealed nearly a year ago), but we know it's a "military action" franchise that prides itself on its weapon and character customization. Zombie describes the near-future world of Blacklight as "disturbingly detailed," with "old-world architecture dripping with modern sci-fi lighting and brightly lit advertisements." And just a crazy number of Grateful Dead posters. Gallery: Blacklight: Tango Down Blacklight: Tango Down coming to PSN, XBLA and PC this summer originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 02 Mar 2010 09:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

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'How I Met Your Mother' - 'Hooked' Recap Joel Keller (TV Squad)

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Dustin Hoffman Taking on TV with 'Luck' Allison Waldman (TV Squad) Submitted at 3/2/2010 10:10:00 AM

In 1965, Dustin Hoffman played Buddy in an episode of CBS's legal drama 'The (S05E16) When I was out in LA Defenders.' It didn't cause much for the press tour in January, I of a ripple. He was still an had the pleasure of watching the unknown, struggling actor when table read for this episode. This he landed the role of Benjamin was the actual Monday-morning in 'The Graduate,' a role bigger table read, not a show for the names had all turned down gathered critics; the writers were including Charles Grodin, sitting by taking notes that Robert Redford and Warren would be used to make changes Beatty. The point is that unlike before shooting. many young actors, television What struck me about the table did not launch the career of tworead was that, despite the fact time Oscar winner Dustin that it was the first draft and the Hoffman. cast hadn't fully gotten into how But Dustin is giving TV of what was coming, I laughed exactly they were going to play another shot. Dustin Hoffman as hard as I did when I was on the script, the episode was will star in 'Luck,' David Milch's funny. People were genuinely the set a month and a half ago. If new series for HBO. Michael that's not the sign of a top-notch laughing, including the writers, Mann has also signed up to who have lived with the script episode, I don't know what is. direct the pilot, and Dennis for some time; they weren't Continue reading'How I Met Farina and John Ortiz have been cackling in an effort to sell their Your Mother' - 'Hooked' Recap cast as well. That's a boat-load funny lines. In fact, it was one Filed under: OpEd, How I Met of talent and a good indication of the funniest episodes of the Your Mother, Episode Reviews, that HBO is high on the project. Reality-Free season. P e r m a l i n k | E m a i l t h i s | | Presumably, Hoffman, Milch, Watching the final version, I Mann and company don't come C omments noticed that not a whole lot changed from that table read. And, even though I knew most

New Beauty Obsession: NP Set Pretty Presto Palette ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog) Submitted at 3/2/2010 6:30:00 AM

Submitted at 3/2/2010 9:24:00 AM

I love Napoleon Perdis’ NP Set palettes because they’re affordable, compact, and chockfull of beautiful, universally flattering shades. At the moment, the new Pretty Presto set ($17, Target stores) is getting the most face time—I’m a sucker for a faux glow, and the rosy blush and bronze eye shadows are to die for! The best part is that the brown shimmers aren’t just easy on the eyes; they’re perfect for the cheeks cheap. Milch's previous work too. So when I want sun-kissed for HBO includes 'Deadwood' skin in a hurry, I take the biggest powder brush I have, and 'John in Cincinatti.' C o n t i n u e r e a d i n g D u s t i n swirl it over the blush and Hoffman Taking on TV with shadows, and apply the resulting rosy-bronze combo along my 'Luck' Filed under: OpEd, Celebrities, cheeks, forehead, and nose. For A w a r d s , C a s t i n g , E m m y s , an extra dose of glamour, I pop out the palette’s mini-mascara Reality-Free P e r m a l i n k | E m a i l t h i s | | and lip gloss and, voila! I’m ready to go. Comments —Emily Hebert Photo: Courtesy of Napoleon Perdis Follow ELLE on Twitter Become our Facebook fan

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New Cast for 'Dancing Which Tweener Likes to Have CokeWith the Stars' Revealed Fueled Sex in Public? [Blind Items] Michael Pascua (TV Squad)

Brian Moylan (Gawker)

Submitted at 3/2/2010 8:00:00 AM

Submitted at 3/2/2010 10:03:42 AM

The celebrity cast of'Dancing with the Stars' Season 10 has been announced. ABC wisely trimmed the cast down from 16 to 11. Hopefully this will get rid of the unnecessary double eliminations. On paper, this season's cast feels like the celebrities have a higher caliber. They are at least closer to B-listers than just washed-up celebrities. This balances out the reality TV stars that stretch the definition of "Star." I have come to terms with the fact that Kate Gosselin will end up on my television in one way or another with the excuse that she's doing it for her kids. The full list after the jump. Continue reading New Cast for

She walked into the party, like she was walking on to a yacht. OK, it was more like walking into a brothel. This MTV star doesn't want her sex tape to be the clouds in her coffee. They're so vain. 1."This A list female tweener from a cable channel recently wandered into a party drunk out of her mind. When she first arrived she ignored everyone ' D a n c i n g W i t h t h e S t a r s ' else and just sat on the lap of the guy who brought her to the Revealed Filed under: OpEd, Dancing party. She then takes out an eight ball of coke and snorts line With The Stars, Casting P e r m a l i n k | E m a i l t h i s | | after line, not even paying attention to the rest of the Comments people at the party. Some people leave, so there's only about 5 or 6 people left, and she keeps saying how hot she is so she just takes off her shirt, breasts totally exposed. At this point everyone else is kind of like, 'What in the...?' Anyway a little later on, everyone's still drinking, she gets up on this bunk bed that's in the living room with the guy she came with, on the top bed. She

just hikes up her skirt and pulls him on top of her. He asks if she wants a condom and she says, 'Nah, f**k it.' They then had sex in front of a room of people. After having sex, the guy she came with passed out. Our tweener got down off the bunk without even saying anything, did some more lines and left." [ CDaN] 2."Today's Blind Item involves someone from an MTV show

(either past or present). A source discovered one of the show's stars had a hidden side job that a little internet research might be able to uncover. She's been in several amateur adult films. It wouldn't be that big of a deal, but she wants a future as an actress and is even shopping out a network show and doesn't want the internet clips discovered. Not Snooki." [ BuzzFoto]

Think you are Street Chic? Email us your photo and you could appear in ELLE.com's Street Chic Daily.

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Street Chic: Milan Fashion Week ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog) Submitted at 3/2/2010 4:00:00 AM

Rachel Zoe's multistrand

necklace makes a strong statement. Photo: Imaxtree Click here for our complete fall

2010 Fashion Week coverage

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It Would All Have Been Fine if Anyone Had Listened to Rahm Emanuel [Rahmance] Ravi Somaiya (Gawker)

presidency and thus overstretched somewhat. Emanuel, meanwhile, quietly According to a Washington b l a s p h e m e d a n d r a g e d t o Post profile, Rahm Emanuel— himself while getting behind hired as White House chief-of- whatever he was told to get s t a f f f o r h i s l e g i s l a t i v e behind. cunning—has been right on Who knows what's really going almost every issue from the on in the White House. We'll Manhattan terror trial to jobs probably only find out in postand healthcare. But no one mortem tell-all books. But this listened. sounds awfully plausible: be," said an early Obama Instead, according to the Post, [Senior advisor David] Axelrod supporter who is close to the many were caught up in the has a strong view of the historic president and spoke on the historic nature of Obama's character Obama is supposed to Submitted at 3/2/2010 8:42:26 AM

condition of anonymity to give a frank assessment of frustration with the White House. The source blamed Obama's charmed political life for creating a self-confidence and trust in principle that led to an "indifference to doing the small, marginal things a White House could do to mitigate the problems on the Hill. Rahm ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog) knows the geography better. Submitted at 3/1/2010 3:35:47 PM

Milan Fashion Week Fall 2010 Favorites

While power dressing emerged as a major trend coming out of Milan, unapologetic sexiness also stood out as an important runway statement. Donatella showed motocross minis at Versace, while Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana explored was inspired by a great work of ski-bunny chic at D&G(reindeer print catsuit anyone?). Here, a art: Inspired by his children's few of my favorite things from Thomas the Tank Engine toys, Milan. [producer Ross] Breitenbach —Violet Moon Gayn or approached the transportation Left to right: Sexy ski-bunny authority last year about an chic at D&G, a motocross mini a n i m a t e d c h i l d r e n ' s s h o w at Versace, Bottega Veneta focused on the subway. But the beetle-adorned cuff and clutch, conversation quickly shifted to and Versus velvet number Follow ELLE on Twitter. something more vérité. Anyhow it's all on hold cause Become our Facebook fan! the MTA is broke and criminally incompetent. Surprise. [ NYT. Pic via]

Sad MTA Can't Even Manage TeeVee Show [Reality TV] Hamilton Nolan (Gawker) Submitted at 3/2/2010 9:44:09 AM

From the network that brought you "Paranormal Cops" and that show about the exterminator comes a new drama about the dramatic tedium faced by New York MTA workers. Well—it would be coming, if the MTA had its shit together. A&E has an idea. Not just any idea; an idea for a reality show about life as a worker in New York's subway system. There would be, you know, trains,

surly people, delays, homeless people, the maddeningly slow hands of the clock, crazy people. Everything. It's no "Parking Wars," sure, but it has the

potential to equal or even surpass " Sell This House" in its ability to leverage a distasteful task into purported entertainment. And its creator

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Canada a step closer to hiking rates from record low?

'American Idol''s First Four Cut Talk to ET

Peter Boockvar (The Big Picture)

(ETonline - Breaking News)

went out.' I felt like I kept it together, I sang my song better Submitted at 3/2/2010 3:10:00 AM than I sang it the first time and America voted and Janell I'm really happy with how it Wheeler, Ashley Rodriguez, Joe went," Janell says. Munoz and Tyler Grady were all For his part, Tyler says he isn't eliminated from the ninth season clear why he was eliminated, of "American Idol"'s Top 24. except for the fact that he didn't Now ET talks to the ousted g e t e n o u g h v o t e s . " A s a "Idol" hopefuls about the performer you have to stick to disappointment of not making it your guns," he says. "You have another week on the singing to be honest and you have to competition. stay true to yourself. If you're "If there was any way to go out, going to change your style of I'm so proud of myself in the performance and your style of way that I did. Several of the vocals and be inconsistent, you girls have even texted me and won't be able to build a solid fan just said, 'Janelle, you had so base, because people won't be Hamilton Nolan (Gawker) much poise, you were a class act able to catch on to you." Submitted at 3/2/2010 9:06:34 AM and we look up to you and we really admire the way that you A judge ruled yesterday that if you invested with Bernie Madoff, but withdrew all the money you invested, you didn't actually "lose" money, regardless of the fictional (Financial Times - US The move is a sign that, after a c c o u n t b a l a n c e M a d o f f homepage) suffering big losses on their presented you. Take one guess investments in western financial who disagrees with this. Submitted at 3/1/2010 11:13:46 AM g r o u p s d u r i n g t h e c r i s i s , Yes, it's those very same Sovereign wealth funds from sovereign wealth funds are i n v e s t o r s . T h e y s a y t h e i r China and Singapore have been prepared to put their money to "losses" should be calculated l i n e d u p t o h e l p f u n d work in the sector, especially on according to their final account Prudential’s $35.5bn purchase deals in their core markets. balances, which were totally of AIA, the Asian arm of AIG, Five Filters featured article: made up by Bernie Madoff, out in a move that could give state- Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: o f p i x i e d u s t , a n d w h i c h backed investors a substantial PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, stake in the region’s biggest Term Extraction. insurer.

Submitted at 3/2/2010 7:05:02 AM

After Australia raised rates to 4% as expected, the other major commodity country, Canada, decided to leave rates unchanged at their record low of .25%, as expected. They also repeated that policy won’t change before the end of Q2 but they hinted that they could go up soon after as they said “core inflation has been slightly firmer than projected, the result of both transitory factors and the higher level of economic activity.” promptly disappeared when the They also said “the level of fraud was discovered. But the economic activity in Canada has people who invested with been slightly higher than the Madoff and didn't get their bank had projected” in its Jan original investment out in report. Rates have been at time—the ones who lost real record lows because of the money, as opposed to fantasy BoC’s concern with economic money—say they should get growth in the US, Canada’s first crack at any reparations, biggest trading partner, and due and a judge agreed. to the strength in the Canadian $ Is it possible to feel sorry for which today is rallying to a 6 people and think they're greedy, week high vs the US$ but the at the same time? Because that time has passed for record low is how we feel about these "I am i n t e r e s t r a t e s i n C a n a d a entitled to my fantasy money" considering their more positive Madoff investors. If this is not outlook and bubbly housing possible, we just feel sorry for market. everyone. Five Filters featured article: [ NYT] Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Madoff Investors Denied Fantasy Money [Scams]

Asian funds line up to back Pru deal

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Host Nation’s Hockey Gold Caps Canada’s Success (WSJ.com: The Daily Fix) Submitted at 3/1/2010 8:34:02 AM

Canada won a record 14 gold medals in the Vancouver Olympics, but the ones draped around a happy group of hockey players are the pieces of precious metal that Canadians will celebrate most exuberantly from coast to coast for a long time. No other medal shines as radiantly as the one worn by one of the NHL’s dominant young stars, Sidney Crosby, whose overtime goal beat a scrappy Team USA, 3-2. The result was a fitting conclusion for Canada’s collection of all-world hockey talent, which started slowly in the tournament, including a loss to their most bitter rival to the south, sending Canadians into fits of paroxysm. But the nation of 34 million fanatics is on top of the hockey world today thanks to Crosby’s magic, and all is well in the Great White North. Getty Images A hockey team so good, they made bouquets look tough. “Had Crosby not slipped a pass from Jarome Iginla through the pads of Ryan Miller, the nonpareil American goalie, and had the Americans beaten the permeable Roberto Luongo once more, the past three weeks would’ve been deemed a failure across Canada, for hockey is really all that matters,” Yahoo’s Jeff Passan writes. “This isn’t to demean any of the record 14

gold medals won by Canada. Just know the populace would trade 13 if it meant one in hockey.” The Toronto Star’s Damien Cox says it was fitting that Crosby, on hockey’s biggest stage, scored the winning goal. “He was expected to do it,” Cox writes. “And when it didn’t seem as if he would produce the moment in an Olympic tournament that appeared determined to push him to the rear and make him something other than the main story, he did it anyway. He found the moment.” In the New York Daily News, Filip Bondy notes that Sid the Kid saved Canada twice in a tournament in which he wasn’t the best player. “Crosby rescued Canada once before in this tournament, in a shootout against Switzerland,” Bondy writes. “In truth, he didn’t look all that great yesterday, or for much of this entire tournament, yet he won two games by himself. That’s what superstars do.” ESPN’s Scott Burnside has a simple question after such a pulsating, nerve-racking game. “Could we have some more, please? Did it have to end?” Burnside asks. “Maybe Crosby’s shot didn’t really surprise U.S. netminder Ryan Miller and end this gold-medal game. Maybe Sunday’s titanic afternoon of hockey could go

on. And on. And on.” The Vancouver Olympics closed with a finale of fireworks and a star-studded celebration. Video courtesy of AFP. But it did end in heartbreaking fashion for Team USA, which battled back valiantly from a two-goal deficit and forced overtime on Zach Parise’s goal with 24.4 seconds left in regulation. In the Los Angeles Times, Bill Plaschke writes that he thinks both teams came out winners. “The victory gave Canada its 14th gold medal here, a record for any country in the Winter Olympics,” Plaschke writes. “The silver gave the U.S. 37 overall medals, also a Winter Games record. Given that, could it be the outcome worked for both sides? Is such a thing even possible in sports anymore?” Team USA didn’t have the storybook ending it yearned for, but its surprising run to the gold -medal game shows how much depth and skill the team has, CBS Sports’s Wes Goldstein writes. The New York Post’s Mike Vaccaro says fans will remember the game — and the finish — for years to come.

“You will always remember the sinking feeling of seeing that puck leave Sidney Crosby’s stick, elude the Americans’ brilliant goalie, and settle in the back of the net, freezing the scoreboard forever at Canada 3, USA 2,” Vaccaro writes. “There is nothing quite so sudden as sudden-death hockey, when an entire season — or an entire Olympics — comes to a screeching, permanent halt.” Vaccaro’s Post colleague Phil Mushnick loved that a big sporting event started at a decent hour. Writing before the gold-medal game, the Pittsburgh PostGazette’s Dejan Kovacevic questions whether the NHL would continue to suspend operations for the Olympics without better U.S. television coverage. Also in the Post-Gazette, Ron Cook writes that he wants the NHL’s best to continue playing in the Olympics. Yahoo’s Dan Wetzel lists the Games’ winners and losers. The Guardian’s Lawrence Donegan reviews the best and worst of the Vancouver Olympics. Slate’s Josh Levin playfully takes stock of the commercial appeal of skater Kim Yu-Na in her native Korea. Making a second appearance, Plaschke writes in the L.A. Times that he appreciates the kindness and friendship of

Canadians. “Forget the medal counts and podium ceremonies, there was only one true winner here, the beauty and breadth of its land equaled only by the daily kindness of its people,” Plaschke writes. “Canada, you were gold.” But not to Fort Worth StarTelegram columnist Gil LeBreton. “From the opening ceremony to Sunday’s closing, from the tragic death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili to Sunday’s gold -medal hockey game, on the streets of Vancouver and at the Olympic venues, only a token nod was given to the rest of the world’s athletes,” LeBreton laments. “I was as surprised as I was disappointed. Had the classic Canadian inferiority complex finally decided to bite back?”* * * And now that the Olympics are over, the Fix returns to other games. With Kansas, Kentucky and Purdue all losing on the penultimate weekend of regularseason college basketball, No. 4 Syracuse is poised to jump over that trio to No. 1 when the latest Associated Press poll is released Monday. In front of a record crowd at the Carrier Dome on Saturday, the Orange routed No. 7 Villanova, 95-77. Yahoo’s Jason King writes that the Orange should get the top ranking, which HOST page 75

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Shaquille O'Neal of Cleveland Cavaliers has surgery on injured thumb, out 8 weeks

Moving back to average is much easier in Asia

Associated Press (ESPN.com) Submitted at 3/1/2010 7:07:09 PM

• Email • Print • Comments '); document.write(''); function showShareUI(){ v a r H = {APIKey:"2_B48MVBl19K9C Qj72UVrAqLh7VSAyZDfMkcl kt8foSSRaAbdWu36H_N3Ky_ ERWhDG", enabledProviders: "facebook,twitter", cid:"ESPN.Story"}; var I = n e w gigya.services.socialize.UserAct ion(); var containerID = "gigyacontainer"; var D="Test "; var A = {}; I.setUserMessage(""); if (("div.headline h2").length > 0) { I.setTitle(jQuery("div.headline h2").text()); } else { I.setTitle(decodeURIComponent ("Shaq%20has%20surgery%20o n%20thumb,%20to%20miss%2 08%20weeks")); } I.setLinkBack("http://sports.esp n.go.com/nba/news/story?id=49 5 6 2 4 2 " ) ; if(("#videoInfo").length > 0) { I.setDescription(jQuery(".article p:nth-child(4)").text()); } e l s e { I.setDescription(jQuery("p:first"

).text()); } A.userAction = I; gigya.services.socialize.showSh areUI(H,A); return false; } } Associated Press INDEPENDENCE, Ohio -Cleveland Cavaliers center Shaquille O'Neal had surgery on his injured right thumb Monday and seems likely to miss the rest of the regular season. If he gets back for the playoffs, though, O'Neal is promising to make up for his time out. O'Neal will miss about eight weeks, the team said. He was examined Sunday by specialist Dr. Thomas Graham at the National Hand Center in Baltimore, who performed the surgery Monday morning. "He feels like he let us down, but we understand injuries happen in the game," said teammate Jamario Moon, who, along with the other Cavs, got a text from the star center. "I think he's really down about being out. ... He let us know it's time to continue playing basketball and he's going to be all right." The recovery timeline means O'Neal, who turns 38 on Saturday, may not be ready for the start of the playoffs April 17. The Cavaliers acquired him last summer with an eye toward the postseason, after Dwight Howard and Orlando eliminated them in the Eastern Conference

finals. Cleveland enters its game Monday against the Knicks leading Orlando by six games for the best record in the East. Should the Cavaliers and Magic retain the top two seeds, they wouldn't meet until the Eastern Conference finals, which begin in mid-May. "Will be out for a min but when I return it is on," O'Neal posted on his Twitter account Monday morning. "Win da ring for da king! Luv my team, Cavs baby!" O'Neal has played well for the Cavaliers, averaging 12 points and 6.7 rebounds in 53 games. He injured the thumb Thursday at Boston when his shot was blocked by Glen "Big Baby" Davis with just over 7 minutes left in the first half. Cavs general manager Danny Ferry said O'Neal will wear a splint for the next two weeks, then begin his rehab. "Our guys have done a very good job of stepping up this season. We are confident they will do the same in this situation," Ferry said. "We are fortunate to have some depth in our front court that can keep us moving forward while Shaq recovers and returns to play for the postseason." Anderson Varejao will continue to start at center for Cleveland, which has the NBA's best record

at 44-16. J.J. Hickson and Leon Powe, who recently returned from knee surgery, are also options. Former backup Zydrunas Ilgauskas, traded to Washington for Antawn Jamison, is now a free agent following a buyout by the Wizards. Ilgauskas is free to sign with any team, but will have to wait another couple of weeks under NBA rules should he elect to re-sign with the Cavaliers. Cleveland has battled injuries and personnel losses all season. Point guard Mo Williams recently returned after missing 11 games with an injured shoulder and guard Delonte West bounced in and out of the rotation early because of personal reasons. Powe debuted last week after recovering from knee surgery last summer. "There's nothing we can do about it," coach Mike Brown said. "It's happened all year. Hopefully someone will step up and fill the void and we'll just keep moving forward." Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Peter Boockvar (The Big Picture) Submitted at 3/2/2010 6:44:05 AM

After cutting interest rates from 7.25% to 3% over the Aug ‘08 to Apr ‘09 time frame to battle the credit implosion, the Reserve Bank of Australia continues to normalize policy. They raised rates 25 bps to 4% as they believe growth is “likely to be close to trend and inflation close to target over the coming year.” Helped by huge exposure to Asia “where financial sectors are not impaired,” allows policy to move back to “average.” The US, UK, etc…, in contrast, won’t know back to “average” for years to come. Growing optimism that the Greek fire is flaming out for now ahead of this week’s details on more cuts has Greek CDS falling to a 7 week low to around 300 bps. After falling below 1.35 vs the US$ for the 5th day in the past 8, the euro is back above it thus making 1.35 a key short term line in the sand. Feb euro zone CPI rose .9% y/o/y, in line. Jan Japanese unemployment fell unexpectedly to 4.9%. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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The Count: About Those Medal Records for U.S., Canada…

Focus remains on forex as stocks build on gains

(WSJ.com: The Daily Fix)

(Financial Times - US homepage)

Submitted at 3/1/2010 3:34:02 PM

For the second straight Olympiad, the title of mostdecorated nation is in dispute. The host Canadians won 14 gold medals, more than any other nation ever has at a Winter Olympics and four more than Germany, which finished second in that category. But the U.S. won the most medals overall, a record haul of 37. Assign three points for gold, two for silver and one for bronze, and the U.S. also won, edging Germany by seven points and Canada by nine. Go with a 5-3-1 system that counts the gold more heavily, and the bronze less so, and the U.S. still leads, this time with Canada and Germany tied for second, seven points back. (The U.S. led all nations in both silvers and bronzes.) Either of these point systems is arbitrary, but then so is the medal system itself — third arbitrarily was chosen to count infinitely more than fourth in the overall medal count. (The Journal sought to rectify this by counting which countries had the most last-place finishes.) Reuters All those shiny discs for

Canada’s triumphant men’s curling team counted as just one medal in the overall count. This is reminiscent of the previous Olympics, in Summer 2008, when the host nation of China led the gold-medal count but the U.S. won the most medals overall. Chinese athletes and sports administrators viewed other medals merely as tiebreakers, as do other nations. Canada’s view is a little less clear; the nation’s Own the Podium goals were 35 medals, which Canadian athletes didn’t achieve, and 12 golds, which they exceeded. Such disputed national winners are common at Winter Games, thanks to the lack of international consensus on what constitutes medal supremacy. I applied these four potential scoring systems to the last 13 Winter Olympics medal tables, including this year’s (starting in 1964, the first time there were at least 100 medals handed out; this year there were 258). Four previous times — in 1980, 1984, 1994 and 2002 — the nation that won the most golds didn’t the overall medal count, according to Sports Reference’s Olympics database.

winners on the system chosen highlights how troublesome it can be to lump disparate sports together. There are other problems with seeking an overall ranking. The 44 Canadian men and women who beat American teams in hockey This slice of Winter Olympics gold-medal games each were history also places the two awarded a gold medal, but those records — Canada’s gold-medal wins counted as just two medals count and the Americans’ record in Canada’s overall count. medal total — in context. The Meanwhile two Norwegian rapid rise in number of events cross-country skiers, Marit makes it easier to record big Bjørgen and Petter Northug Jr., totals. Consider that the U.S. combined for five gold medals won 14.3% of all medals this and nine overall. year, 13.5% of points in the 3-2- Also, these rankings don’t take 1 system and 13.3% of points in into account nations’ divergent the 5-3-1 system, while Canada resources in population and won 16.3% of all golds. In money. Norway won 14 other 1976, the Soviet Union nearly medals besides those crossd o u b l e d e a c h o f t h o s e country skiers’ nine, which is percentages while winning 13 yet another impressive pergolds and 27 medals overall. In capita showing for a nation of the 12 prior Winter Olympics, under five million. Based on 14 nations won a greater share financial resources, Slovakia, of all medals than the U.S. did Slovenia, Croatia and Estonia this time around; 18 beat the –with a combined GDP of about U.S. on percentage of 3-2-1 2 % t h a t o f t h e U . S . ’ s — p o i n t s a n d 2 0 b e s t e d t h e impressed by combining for Americans on 5-3-1 points. And seven silvers and three bronzes. 14 nations took a greater share of available golds than Canada did this year. The dependence of identifying

Submitted at 3/2/2010 6:53:06 AM

14:45 GMT. Stocks added to recent gains on Tuesday, but traders kept a wary eye on further tremors in the forex markets as sterling and the euro remained in focus. The FTSE World equity index rose 0.8 per cent, with risk appetite fuelled by recent supportive economic data – such as Monday’s worldwide surveys of manufacturing– and signs that the pressure on Greek debt may be easing. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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Allen Iverson is not returning to Philadelphia 76ers this season ESPN.com news services (ESPN.com) Submitted at 3/2/2010 7:14:47 AM

• Email • Print • Comments '); document.write(''); function showShareUI(){ v a r H = {APIKey:"2_B48MVBl19K9C Qj72UVrAqLh7VSAyZDfMkcl kt8foSSRaAbdWu36H_N3Ky_ ERWhDG", enabledProviders: "facebook,twitter", cid:"ESPN.Story"}; var I = n e w gigya.services.socialize.UserAct ion(); var containerID = "gigyacontainer"; var D="Test "; var A = {}; I.setUserMessage(""); if (("div.headline h2").length > 0) { I.setTitle(jQuery("div.headline h2").text()); } else { I.setTitle(decodeURIComponent ("Iverson%20won\'t%20be%20r eturning%20to%2076ers%20thi s%20season")); }

I.setLinkBack("http://sports.esp n.go.com/nba/news/story?id=49 5 8 7 0 9 " ) ; if(("#videoInfo").length > 0) { I.setDescription(jQuery(".article p:nth-child(4)").text()); } e l s e { I.setDescription(jQuery("p:first" ).text()); } A.userAction = I; gigya.services.socialize.showSh areUI(H,A); return false; } } ESPN.com news services Allen Iverson, who has not played since Feb. 20, will not return to the 76ers for the rest of this season, the team announced Tuesday morning. The 11-time All-Star guard has been intermittently absent from the team since Feb. 3, the first time he missed a game to take care of his 4-year-old daughter, Messiah, who has been ill. "After discussing the situation with Allen, we have come to the conclusion that he will not return to the Sixers for the remainder of the season, as he no longer wishes to be a distraction to the organization and teammates that he loves

very deeply," 76ers president and general manager Ed Stefanski said. "It has been very difficult for Allen and the team to maintain any consistency as he tries to balance his career with his personal life." Speculation that members of the 76ers organization were contemplating cutting ties with Iverson surfaced early last week in a report from Yahoo! Sports. Iverson, who returned to the team briefly on Feb. 16, told reporters then that doctors still were uncertain what was ailing Messiah, who was scheduled to be treated at Children's Hospital in Philadelphia. "It was tough to leave her and my wife and kids," Iverson said then. "But I do have a commitment and an obligation to be with my team and to do my job. But it is rough. I think this is the only thing I do in life where for a couple hours during the game I don't think about nothing but [basketball]." He made an emotional return to the 76ers in early December,

when he signed a one-year, prorated deal as a free agent after a short, ill-fated tenure with the Memphis Grizzlies. In between, he had announced his retirement. Iverson, a four-time scoring champion, played three games with Memphis before taking a leave of absence to attend to personal matters. He was waived in mid-November after the two sides agreed to part ways. Iverson, 34, was voted an Eastern Conference starter for the NBA All-Star Game, which he missed to stay with Messiah. In 25 games with the 76ers, he averaged 13.9 points and 4.1 assists. 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.

Syracuse Orange climb to No. 1 in ESPN/USA Today coaches' poll ESPN.com (ESPN.com) Submitted at 3/1/2010 6:31:18 PM

• Email • Print • Comments '); document.write(''); function showShareUI(){ v a r H = {APIKey:"2_B48MVBl19K9C Qj72UVrAqLh7VSAyZDfMkcl kt8foSSRaAbdWu36H_N3Ky_ ERWhDG", enabledProviders: "facebook,twitter", cid:"ESPN.Story"}; var I = n e w gigya.services.socialize.UserAct ion(); var containerID = "gigyacontainer"; var D="Test "; var A = {}; I.setUserMessage(""); if (("div.headline h2").length > 0) { I.setTitle(jQuery("div.headline h2").text()); } else { I.setTitle(decodeURIComponent ("SU%20can:%20Orange%20cli mb%20to%20No.%201%20in% 20coaches\'%20poll")); } I.setLinkBack("http://sports.esp n.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=49 5 6 5 9 0 " ) ; if(("#videoInfo").length > 0) { I.setDescription(jQuery(".article p:nth-child(4)").text()); } e l s e { I.setDescription(jQuery("p:first" SYRACUSE page 74

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Report: LeBron James wants No. 6, let Michael Jordan own No. 23 ESPN.com news services (ESPN.com) Submitted at 3/2/2010 7:02:43 AM

0switch%20to%20No.%206")); } I.setLinkBack("http://sports.esp n.go.com/nba/news/story?id=49 5 8 3 2 4 " ) ; if(("#videoInfo").length > 0) { I.setDescription(jQuery(".article p:nth-child(4)").text()); } e l s e { I.setDescription(jQuery("p:first" ).text()); } A.userAction = I; gigya.services.socialize.showSh areUI(H,A); return false; } } ESPN.com news services LeBron James could reportedly have a new number next season, but Cleveland Cavaliers fans hope the words remain the same. James filed paperwork to switch from No. 23 to No. 6, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported on Monday. He beat a Wednesday deadline to make the request. The All-Star said in November that he was thinking of giving up 23 out of respect for his hero Michael Jordan, but at that time he was "50-50," according to the

newspaper. "I've done it," James told the Plain Dealer. "I already sent it in. I'm going to be No. 6." Six is James' jersey number on the Olympic team, but the NBA does not have to grant his request. If James switches teams, he can choose any number he wishes. The change only applies if he stays with the Cavaliers. James will be part of the vaunted 2010 free-agent class that includes Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. While Bulls fans would like to see him try to make No. 6 as legendary as No. 23 in Chicago, New York has also maneuvered to have enough cap space to sign James. Cleveland can sign James to a longer, more lucrative deal, however. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

SYRACUSE continued from page 73

).text()); } A.userAction = I; gigya.services.socialize.showSh areUI(H,A); return false; } } ESPN.com Syracuse kept winning last week while Kansas, Kentucky and Purdue lost. The results were enough to boost the Orange to the No. 1 spot in the ESPN/USA Today coaches' poll released Monday. Former No. 1 Kansas fell to No. 2, followed by No. 3 Kentucky, No. 4 Duke and No. 5 Kansas State. The Orange (27-2) beat Providence and then-No. 8 Villanova last week, with the latter win coming in front of an NCAA on-campus record crowd of 34,616 at the Carrier Dome. Meanwhile, Kansas and former No. 2 Kentucky dropped decisions on the road at Oklahoma State and Tennessee, respectively. Syracuse earned 23 available first-place votes from the panel of 31 Division I coaches. Kansas got seven first-place votes and Duke received one. It's the second time Syracuse has held the top spot in the coaches' poll. The first time was the final poll of 2003, after Syracuse won the national championship. Kansas State climbed one spot to No. 5, while Purdue fell three places to No. 6 after a tough week, in which the Boilermakers lost forward

Robbie Hummel for the season to a knee injury and fell to Michigan State at home. Ohio State, West Virginia, Villanova and New Mexico round out the top 10. The Lobos climbed into the top 10 with a win over Mountain West Conference rival BYU, which fell four spots to No. 15. Butler dropped one spot to No. 11, while No. 12 Michigan State and No. 13 Tennessee rose up the poll with their wins. They're followed by Gonzaga, BYU, Temple, Wisconsin, Pittsburgh, Vanderbilt and Georgetown. UTEP, Baylor, Maryland, Texas A&M and Texas round out the top 25. Tennessee's win over Kentucky vaulted the Volunteers four places to No. 13, while Georgetown fell seven spots to No. 20 after a home loss to Notre Dame. The Hoyas play Monday night on ESPN at No. 8 West Virginia (7 p.m. ET), followed by No. 25 Texas hosting Oklahoma (9 p.m. ET). No. 22 Baylor and No. 23 Maryland entered the poll Monday, while former No. 22 Northern Iowa and former No. 24 Richmond dropped out. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Sports/

E-reader News Edition

Inside Pride House (WSJ.com: The Daily Fix)

in Whistler’s Olympic Village. One wall of the lounge is covered in photos of gay You’ve seen the Molson and athletes, the ceiling is draped Heineken houses, the pavilions with a piece of the longest for the Swiss, the Irish and the rainbow flag in the world. Then Jamaican bobsledders. What there’s the piece de resistance: a nobody’s seen before these statue of a nude hockey player Olympics is Pride House, the taking aim at an invisible puck. first venue dedicated to gay and No mistaking this vibe. lesbian athletes, attendees and Edmonton, Alberta-based artist supporters. Edmund Haakonson, who took Located in Whistler’s Olympic as his inspiration the famous Village, near the courses for Greek statue of the discus cross-country and alpine skiing, thrower, describes the statue as the idea behind Pride House was “ a n c i e n t G r e e k O l y m p i c to have a comfortable place for sculpture crashed headlong into gay athletes and attendees to modern Canadian sport.” (He’s hang out, says venue organizer an Edmonton Oilers fan.) Dean Nelson. As the games draw to an end, Phred Dvorak interviews Nelson says there’s been a sculptor Edmund Haakonson steady stream of visitors but few about his statue at Pride House celebrity athletes, possibly Submitted at 3/1/2010 9:49:48 AM

because they’re worried about the consequences of coming out — or even of being rumored to be gay. “The ramifications are very big for an athlete,” says Nelson. “If you’re a hockey player you may get passed over on a trade. You might lose millions of dollars in sponsorships.” Still, the House has seen Canadian two gold medalists stop by: swimmer Mark Tewksbury (Barcelona ‘92) and skeleton racer Jon Montgomery, who dropped by with his girlfriend during a party and ended up auctioning off a cookbook and some art work (he’s a car auctioneer in real life).

Alistair Overeem Likely to Face Brett Rogers on May Strikeforce Card Mike Chiappetta (FanHouse Main) Submitted at 3/1/2010 4:03:00 PM

Filed under: Strikeforce, News Strikeforce heavyweight champion Alistair Overeem is expected to make his longawaited return to the fold and fight for the promotion during its May event. Overeem confirmed his participation on his Twitter account, and though he later deleted the message, a source told MMA Fighting that he is still expected to compete on the event, which is still unannounced but expected to

HOST continued from page 70

would be their first in 20 years, and will contend for the national title. The Syracuse Post-Standard’s Mike Waters blogs that three schools — Kansas, Kentucky and Syracuse — could make a claim for the top spot. At the Sporting News, Mike DeCourcy surveys the damage surrounding the Boilermakers, who played their first game Sunday without forward Robbie Hummel — out for the rest of the season with a torn ACL — and lost to Michigan State.* * *

A new biography of Willie Mays has hit the bookstores. In the New York Times, Pete Hamill reviews James S. Hirsch’s book “ Willie Mays: The Life, the Legend,” which he calls a “long, fascinating account.” Can’t Stop the Bleeding’s Ben Schwartz wasn’t too impressed by Hamill’s review, however. “Only the adolescent perfection of Hamill’s pre-teen Brooklyn seems to matter as a yardstick here,” Schwartz writes. “To him, steroids are apparently the

only thing in baseball history that has ‘permanently stained’ the innocence of the game. Not segregation (90 years of it), not pre-steroid era drugs, bans on free agency, the Black Sox, not the pre-union days of discarded and broken players without health care, not the totally arbitrary ‘golden age’ of NY Babe Ruth baseball [versus] reality in determining records and Hall of Fame ballots or standards of achievement nope, just steroids.” – Tip of the Fix cap to reader

Don Hartline and to fellow Fixer David Roth. Found a good column from the world of sports? Don’t keep it to yourself — write to us at dailyfix@wsj.com and we’ll consider your find for inclusion in the Daily Fix. You can email Garey at ris84rap@gmail.com.

take place on May 15. The source said Overeem is likely to fight Brett Rogers in a non-title matchup, but that the fight was not yet officially signed.

Sports/

E-reader News Edition

Jim Brown Actually Was Hurt -Once Terence Moore (FanHouse Main)

linebacker power during his nine NFL seasons, was he ever concussed? Submitted at 3/1/2010 3:00:00 PM "Well, I don't know if I had a Filed under: FanHouse concussion. I got dinged. We Exclusive Ever hear of Jim called it getting dinged, where I Brown? Well, he was on the couldn't remember the plays," other end of the phone from his said Brown, 74, who, needless Cleveland home, and as always, to say, isn't sure of the year or he wasn't boring. The NFL's allthe opponent involved with the time best running back had a moment. He does remember that few things to say about the he was hit violently in the back releasing of LaDanian of his neck and that he never left Tomlinson and Brian the game. Added Brown, "I Westbrook, along with the lack didn't get knocked out, so I of loyalty in the game that has could still function, but I just running back when his forward couldn't remember the plays. So spanned the decades. First things first, though. Never progress is stopped. I told the quarterback to tell me h a v e l e a g u e o f f i c i a l s a n d Just wondering: Did the world each play -- tell me before each members of the players union every spin backward during the o n e o f t h e m w h a t m y placed this much emphasis on late 1950s through the early assignment is, and I will carry it trying to reduce concussions. 1 9 6 0 s ? W h i c h i s t o s a y , out." They even are considering courtesy of noted tough guy He chuckled softly. making it illegal to pound a Brown blasting folks with

Florida's Donovan Knew Syracuse Was This Good Brett McMurphy (FanHouse Main)

our team in the 2005-06," Donovan said on Dec. 10 after Syracuse improved to 9-0. "We Submitted at 3/1/2010 9:02:00 AM lost [three starters] and started Filed under: Florida, Syracuse, the year unranked and we went Big East on to win the national SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Give c h a m p i o n s h i p . Billy Donovan credit. The "Based on what I've seen, I Florida coach was way ahead of think they're capable of winning the curve about how good the national championship. ... I Syracuse was going to be this think they have everything. year. They've got a low post presence. Back on Dec. 10 after losing to They rebound. They shoot the 3. the Orange 85-73 in Tampa, They're an unselfish team. They Fla., in the SEC/Big East can turn you over. They can beat Invitational, Donovan said you in a lot of different ways." Syracuse had the look of a On Saturday night, Villanova national title contender. And was the latest to discover Donovan should know after Syracuse's versatility. The g u i d i n g t h e G a t o r s t o Wildcats lost at Syracuse 95-77 c o n s e c u t i v e n a t i o n a l in the Carrier Dome before an championships in 2005-06 and on campus NCAA record crowd 2006-07. of 34,616. "Syracuse reminds me a lot of

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Dreams Undimmed, Graham Jokes Abound for Knicks, Rahal Joins IndyCar Whose Only Hope Is the Unemployment Line Last Laugh Holly Cain (FanHouse Main)

Pat McManamon (FanHouse Main)

Submitted at 3/1/2010 8:22:00 AM

Filed under: NASCAR Rumors, IRL On the bright side, Graham Rahal figures by the time the IZOD IndyCar Series begins March 14 in Brazil, he will have essentially earned an advanced degree in marketing and promotion. What the 21-year-old really wants, however, is a job behind the wheel of a race car -preferably a car without fenders. "I know there have been a lot of NASCAR rumors, but right now my focus is 100 percent on being in the IndyCar Series,'' Rahal told FanHouse this weekend. "I'm not just an IndyCar driver, but very much a fan of the sport and to make a big switch like that takes time to consider. As

Rumor: Japanese game programmers report low salaries

Submitted at 3/1/2010 4:30:00 PM

of this second, everything I have going is for IndyCar.'' So instead of joining Danica Patrick in the stock car ranks -even as a part-time gig -- Rahal has been visiting America's corporate boardrooms hoping to attract financial backing for the 2010 IndyCar season. The timing, however, couldn't be worse.

Filed under: Cavaliers, Knicks CLEVELAND -- Is it worth it? That's the question that came to mind, over and over, as the Cleveland Cavaliers obliterated the New York Knicks Monday night. Obliterated might be too kind a word, actually. Because the Cavs eviscerated the Knicks, tore them up and down and all apart. The team that LeBron James plays for this season pretty much embarrassed the team some folks think he will play for next season.

JC Fletcher (Joystiq) Submitted at 3/2/2010 4:30:00 AM

[ Chris Gladis] It would be, like, totally glamorous and exciting to be a programmer for a game company in Japan, right? Maybe The 124-93 final actually was not so much. According to anonymous responders on misleading. How bad was it? "They outclassed us," New York Japanese super-forum 2ch (as coach Mike D'Antoni said. translated by CNNGo), salaries " T h e y o u t m a t c h e d u s . for game programmers are far below what you'd expect for a Outplayed us." tech job in one of the most expensive countries in the world to live in. RUMOR: page 78

Splinter Cell: Conviction Xbox 360 bundle coming this April Richard Mitchell (Joystiq)

Europe, Australia and New Zealand. The bundle will retail for $399 and will include two click for more top-secret controllers, a standard edition images As was foretold, c o p y o f S p l i n t e r C e l l : Microsoft has announced a Conviction and a 250GB hard special Splinter Cell: Conviction drive. We should remind readers Xbox 360 bundle set to arrive that, unlike the one offered in the second controller will this April in North America, the Final Fantasy XIII bundle, actually be useful in Splinter Submitted at 3/2/2010 10:15:00 AM

Cell: Conviction, thanks to its split-screen co-op modes. Check out hi-res images of the bundle in the gallery below. Gallery: Splinter Cell: Conviction Xbox 360 bundle Splinter Cell: Conviction Xbox 360 bundle coming this April originally appeared on Joystiq

on Tue, 02 Mar 2010 10:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

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Welcome Wii-centric studio Judobaby to the world Justin McElroy (Joystiq) Submitted at 3/2/2010 8:35:00 AM

Several old hands from Sony, Crystal Dynamics, Sega, and Capcom have unveiled their newest project, Wii-focused developer Judobaby, to the world. Just like a real baby, it's been in "stealth development" for around a year*, crafting its family-friendly first release as part of what the company says will be "a line of fun, humorous, 'pick-up & play' products." At the helm of the Redwood City, California firm is Dan Mueller, who last founded the now-dead BottleRocket. Its secret project is set to launch this year, and Gamasutra reports there's already talk of "a liveaction motion picture tie-in." Subsequently, we hope that you will join with us and sign this petition, protesting the rumored film version of this game that

we will some day care about a great deal, maybe. The time for action is later! (But we're getting a head start.) *Yes, we understand the gestation time for a typical human is nine months. Please stop messing up our joke. Welcome Wii-centric studio Judobaby to the world originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 02 Mar 2010 08:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

RUMOR: continued from page 77

"짜130,000 [$1,457] for 256 hours of work a month," one poster reports. "짜160,000 [$1,793] and I am ready to die," another laments. "I can't even afford the 'recruit suit' I'll need for interviewing for another job." How do you live in Tokyo on that kind of scratch? "짜180,000 [$2,017] a month, no bonus, and only thanks to the company dorm can I afford to live in Tokyo," one responder explains. It seems that game development is considerably less prestigious than other fields. "I'm 27, live in Tokyo, working for a major company, and make 짜680,000

[$7,622] a month, with a separate yearly bonus," one anonymous poster boasts. "But it isn't in the game industry. Ha!" The moral of this story is this: Don't work for a game company in Japan. [Via Kotaku] Rumor: Japanese game programmers report low salaries originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 02 Mar 2010 04:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

Hideo Kojima's Twitter feed goes bilingual, now in English Griffin McElroy (Joystiq)

now up and running, revealing that Kojima is just an ordinary dude. Whod've thunk it? G i v e o u r l i m i t e d Take, for example, this recent comprehension of the Japanese Tweet: "My stomach hurts, language, we were free to nose's running, and my hair is imagine Hideo Kojima's Twitter g e t t i n g l o n g . " A n d t h e n , feed to be an outlet for the following that, a picture of his idiosyncratic developer's most hair. See? He's just like you or outlandish, puzzling statements. us, only when he's done posting However, an English-language self-shot pictures of himself on version of his Twitter page is the internet, he gets back to Submitted at 3/2/2010 9:45:00 AM

making Metal Gear Solid games. Hideo Kojima's Twitter feed goes bilingual, now in English originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 02 Mar 2010 09:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

Fashion/ E-reader News/

E-reader News Edition

Freescale's New Chip Could Revolutionize E-Readers (PC World via Yahoo! News) (Yahoo! News Search Results for e-readers)

operate at full speed and then switch off to save power. Given the extensive battery life of Submitted at 3/1/2010 1:23:00 PM current eReaders, adding more eReaders are about to get juice is just icing on the cake. hotter, faster and cheaper. OMG When? Freescale Semiconductor-- Freescale's Web site says the makers of the guts behind i.MX508 will be available to Amazon's Kindle and Sony's "select customers early in the Reader -- announced it has third quarter of 2010." By created a chip that will rock the "select customers" Freescale eReader world. The forthcoming likely means its most powerful i.MX508 processor will double clients, Amazon and Sony. eReader speed, support large Burchers was careful to add that color screens, improve battery it usually takes about six months life and lower the retail cost by from sampling a chip to a about $30. finished product going on sale. Faster and Long-Lasting With a job posting that hints at Current eReaders generally flip bringing color to the Kindle, pages in about two seconds; Amazon's device could wield ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog) not, age needn’t apply. Click Freescale wants to cut that down serious competition to colorful here to find out how to make to size. Glen Burchers, a tablet devices like Apple's iPad, Submitted at 3/1/2010 12:14:22 PM spring’s hottest trends—from marketing director at Freescale, and just in time. Truth be told, Daria Werbowy r u f f l e s t o f r i n g e — a g e - purports that its new chip will How Much Will eReader Prices populate E Ink screens in less Drop? could look chic in a burlap sack. a p p r o p r i a t e . than half a second-- that might The new chip will cost That said, at 26, (a good 8-10 —Violet Moon Gayn or years older than many of the Two of spring's standout trends: even be faster than turning a manufacturers less than $10 in quantities greater than 250,000 models walking the runways in feminine flourishes on the physical book's page. New York, London, Milan, and r u n w a y a t V a l e n t i n o a n d In terms of battery life, the units and will have a minus $30 Paris) Werbowy looks better military-chic worn by Daria at i.MX508 processor includes effect on retail sales. Some are "special power modes" that predicting the Kindle could drop than ever. On the runway at Balmain allow the eReader and some to under $150. Again, this could Balmain back in October, she Runway photos: Imaxtree peripherals ( eReader apps?) to g i v e t h e i P a d a n d i t s perfectly embodied Decarnin’s Follow ELLE on Twitter. military-chic look for spring. Become our Facebook fan! When it comes to this season’s statement pieces, supermodel or

Look Chic in Your 20s, 30s, and 40s Wearing the Season’s Hottest Trends

comparatively bloated price tag a run for its money and further Amazon's reign on the eReader market. Will Traditional eReaders Still be Relevant? The big question is whether or not people will still be buying traditional E Ink eReaders by the time Freescale's chip is released. Color, touchable screens could experience a massive boom in the next few months, which could lead to a decline in consumer interest in E Ink. Tablets are one thing; eReaders are another. Amazon always stresses that its Kindle is meant for book readers, whereas tablets are for people engaged in other interests as well. And with such fierce competition out there, and eReaders' relative newness to the market, it's likely to me that Freescale will arrive just in time. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Economy/ E-reader News/

E-reader News Edition

New Freescale Semiconductor technology will drive down prices on e-readers like Kindle (New York Daily News) (Yahoo! News Search Results for e-readers) Submitted at 3/1/2010 2:36:00 PM

Mortgage Rates: Only One Way to Go Michael Panzner (The Big Picture)

While there have been some suggestions that the Fed may extend and expand the program Submitted at 3/2/2010 6:45:03 AM beyond the end of next month, T h e r e â&#x20AC;&#x2122; s b e e n p l e n t y o f nothing has been said officially. speculation about what will Assuming it ends on March 31st happen to mortgage rates if and as planned, the laws of supplywhen the Federal Reserve wraps and-demand would seem to up the last of its planned indicate that the MBS market is purchases under the $1.25 headed for a heap of trouble. t r i l l i o n M o r t g a g e - B a c k e d Why? The Fed has been the S e c u r i t y ( M B S ) p u r c h a s e biggest buyer of residential program, first announced in mortgage-backed securities by November 2008. far over the past year or so.

That means yields and/or spreads on mortgage-related borrowings have only one way to go. As it happens, a quick read of the chart of the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage yield less its government bond market counterpart lends further weight to that view. That is, it looks rather bullish â&#x20AC;&#x201D; which is bad for borrowers. In fact, based on what happened following the similar technical pattern that developed in the

early 1990s, we may well be on the cusp of a secular rise in the cost of mortgage-related financing costs. Another reason, perhaps, to bet against a nearterm recovery in house prices. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Reuters Tuesday, March 2nd 2010, 4:00 AM New technology to lower price of e-readers Will you buy a Kindle or another kind of e-reader if price drops by $30? Freescale Semiconductor says its newest chip will help drive down prices in the next generation of electronic readers, which analysts say is key to the devices gaining mass adoption. Freescale's next-generation ereader chip combines two important pieces -- an applications processor and a display controller -- into a single piece of hardware, which the company says will cut the retail price by around $30. "Cost is really the main driver of the market's growth," said Glen Burchers, director of global consumer marketing for Freescale. He said the chip will also allow for faster, more responsive performance. Privately held Freescale, whose chips are already used in Amazon.com Inc's Kindle and Sony Corp's Reader, says it NEW page 81

E-reader News/

E-reader News Edition

Intel: Think of the children - give them PCs, not e-readers (The Register) (Yahoo! News Search Results for e-readers)

Classmate tablet design aimed at school children. The new Classmate runs on an Submitted at 3/2/2010 2:46:15 AM Atom processor and can run Intel: Think of the children - Windows or Linux. Demo give them PCs, not e-readers models today were running Tablets for the kids Windows 7. The touch-sensitive By Joe Fay at Cebit• Get more r e v e r s i b l e s c r e e n c a n b e from this author "written" on with a stylus, with Posted in PCs & Chips, 2nd text conversion part of the March 2010 10:33 GMT reference platform. Free whitepaper – Deploying The ruggedised design should high-density zones in a low- be droppable from desk height, density data center and hacks at Cebit today were Intel said school kids need happily chucking the devices to computers, not e-readers, as it the floor as Intel product kicked off the Cebit computer managers warned these were show in Hannover this morning. preproduction samples. Apart from the pre-teen crowd, Asked if the device pointed the the vendor made a grab for way for Intel's interests in the eeveryone from desk jockeys to reader market, Gehad Galal, data centre managers as it tried director of ecosystem relations to get round the fact it's already for emerging markets, said in made most of its announcements the education market the need for the quarter. was for more than just eThe server giant showed a reading. Students needed to be

able to access links, cut and paste text and the like. "We believe in e-learning, not just ereading." The platform design is designed for the K8 market - ie just into the teens, and should be priced at slightly more than the current classmate design, which starts at $200. Older students can be expected to focus their broader ambitions - and presumably bigger (parental) budgets - on full fat notebooks. Intel expects local OEMs to start shipping Classmate products next quarter. ® Free whitepaper – Power and Cooling Capacity Management for Data Centers Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

NEW continued from page 80

controls 90 percent of the market in e-reader applications processors. The technology world has seen a burst of new players jumping into the e-reader market, providing fresh competition for market leader Amazon. Strong growth is forecast for the industry. Research group DisplaySearch expects the global e-reader market to more than triple in 2010 to more than 14 million units. Analysts say the market is still limited by high prices. The lowest price Kindle from Amazon is $260, while Samsung's new E10 is about $700. Freescale says the market will open up even more when prices fall below $200. And some believe the e-reader market is already imperiled by a

coming wave of touchscreen tablet computers, led by Apple's iPad, which offer e-reader-like functionality along with more computing power. But Burchers said the main demographic for e-readers -users in their 40s for whom reading is the main leisure activity -- ensure that there will always be a market for a dedicated device. He said Freescale's new chip will be in e-readers on store shelves by the end of the year. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Gallup Poll/

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Americans, Toyota Owners Still Confident in Toyota Vehicles (All Gallup Headlines)

Americans paying close attention to the news about Toyota vehicles are more PRINCETON, NJ -- Sixty critical of both Toyota and the percent of Americans believe U.S. government. Among the Toyota's vehicles are safe, and 26% of Americans who are 61% say they have not lost following the news about confidence in the automaker Toyota recalls "very closely," despite the safety issues that 66% say Toyota and 52% say have resulted in large-scale the U.S. government did not recalls of Toyota vehicles. respond fast enough. Current Toyota owners are even Bottom Line more positive about the The safety concerns company's cars -- 74% say they surrounding Toyota vehicles are have not lost confidence in surely not welcome news for the Toyota vehicles and 82% think automaker. While Americans they are safe to ride in. are generally critical of the "Though most Americans company's response to the remain confident in Toyota matter, most believe the vehicles, they are less charitable company's vehicles are safe and in their views of the way the say their confidence in the company has handled the automaker has not been poll attempted to assess the car in the near future, 11% say c o m p a n y h a s h a n d l e d t h e affected. Toyota's sales likely matter." These results are based on a longer-term impact of the recall they no longer will consider matter. A majority, 55%, say will continue to suffer, but most new USA Today/Gallup poll, by asking those who plan to buy buying or leasing a Toyota Toyota Motor Corporation did Americans in the car-buying or conducted Feb. 27-28, as Toyota or lease a car within the next because of the recent recalls; not move quickly enough to leasing market -- and about respond to safety issues with its three-quarters of those who confronts safety issues affecting three years whether they would 79% still would. some of its vehicles, most consider Toyota vehicles. In all, This high degree of Toyota vehicles. Most of the rest, 32%, would have considered a Toyota n o t a b l y f o r u n e x p e c t e d 17% of prospective car buyers loyalty may stem in part from say the response has been about before the recent recalls -- say acceleration. The company say they will no longer consider the fact that relatively few right. Toyota owners and non- they will still consider buying or issued recalls for many of its Toyotas because of the recalls. Toyota owners claim to be owners have similar views on leasing a Toyota vehicle. models to address the problem, But three times as many likely affected by the recalls. Just 14% the question. Survey Methods The U.S. government gets Results are based on telephone which has been attributed to the car buyers, 53%, say they would say their vehicle appeared on the vehicles' floor mats and to still consider buying or leasing a r e c a l l l i s t f o r g a s p e d a l slightly better reviews for its interviews with a random sticky gas pedals. Toyota Toyota, suggesting that there problems, while 70% say their response -- 42% say it did not sample of 2,021 national adults, executives -- including company remains a potentially large car was not on the list, and 16% move quickly enough to respond aged 18 and older, conducted to Toyota safety issues, only Feb. 27-28, 2010. For results President Akio Toyoda -- market for Toyotas in the United are unsure. States. Twenty-nine percent of Most Say Toyota's Response slightly more than the 37% who based on the total sample of testified at congressional say the government's response national adults, one can say with hearings regarding safety and likely U.S. car buyers say they Too Slow would not have considered a T h o u g h m o s t A m e r i c a n s has been about right. Toyota 9 5 % c o n f i d e n c e t h a t t h e company practices last week. Toyota even before the recalls. remain confident in Toyota owners and non-owners rate the maximum margin of sampling Toyota's share of the U.S. auto Among current Toyota owners vehicles, they are less charitable government's response about the market has already suffered AMERICANS, page 83 because of the safety issues. The who are likely to buy or lease a in their views of the way the same. Submitted at 3/1/2010 7:00:00 PM

PopSci/

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AMERICANS, continued from page 82

error is ±3 percentage points. For results based on the sample of 495 adults whose household owns or leases a Toyota or Lexus vehicle, the maximum margin of sampling error is ±5 percentage points. For results based on the sample of 990 adults whose plan to buy or lease a vehicle within the next three years, the maximum margin of sampling error is ±4 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.

A Bird's Eye View of the Chile Earthquake's Energy Distribution Clay Dillow (Popular Science New Technology, Science News, The Future Now) Submitted at 3/1/2010 11:30:28 AM

It's easy to think of tsunamis as phenomenon that mimic the behavior of ripples on the surface of water; you toss a stone into a pond and the resulting energy from the splash moves out away from the epicenter in a series of even, concentric circles. But this NOAA energy distribution map from the 8.8 magnitude earthquake in Chile over the weekend tells a different story. Though the tsunami threat

wasn't great - the reddest portions of the above map represent only 3-foot-plus waves - you can really see the way the energy pushed out away from the continental shelf, posing the

same threat to islands in the mid -Pacific and all the way across the ocean in Asia as it did to nearby coastal regions along South America's northern Pacific coast (though the

immediate coastal areas near the epicenter did experience some deadly waves, with the sea coming as far as two miles inland in places). Three-foot surges were reported in places as far away as California and small waves hit shores in Hawaii and then Japan, though damage in those places was minimal. It's a reminder just how powerful and far-reaching the natural processes of our blue planet can be. [ NOAA, New York Times]

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A Newthe Inside Look Excruciatingly at Newton's Slow Second Death LawofCould Internet Explorer 6 Explain Away the Existence of Dark Matter Tom Conlon (Popular Science - New Technology, Science News, The Future Now) Jeremy Hsu (Popular Science Submitted at 3/1/2010 1:07:52 PM - New Technology, Science It's the designers News, Thebane FutureofNow) everywhere, and it makes most Submitted at 3/1/2010 12:15:21 PM modern sites look broken and And all itSo takes to measure horrible. why are 20%isofa simple spinning disk here Web surfers still using it? on EToday a r t h . was W h esupposed n r e a c h etod be f oar comment, Dark Matter says: great day for the Web. As of "Come youGoogle almostwill found March 1,on, 2010, no me!" longer support Microsoft's Dark matter's as a Internet Explorer status 6 browser-a mysterious and invisible lurker decade-old dinosaur engineered in the universe hasasfrustrated to navigate the Web it existed scientists years.Why Now, one in the yearfor2000. would hopes to solve the puzzle this be cause for celebration?a different way: modified Because IE6 is using barelyacapable of version of Newton's second navigating the modern Web law and that would eliminate the sites, need a total nightmare to build for dark matter altogether. services and applications for. Researchers Brazil have But ten years in after its release, devised an experiment it's still being used bythat an cestimated o u l d p u20% t t hofe surfers. m o d i fAnd ied Newtonian dynamics while Google's move (MOND) is one in to the test, New the right direction,Scientist I'm not reports. breaking out the whiskey and Much indirectfor evidence for dark noisemakers IE6's funereal matter -supposedly 25 percent wake quite yet. Sadly, IE6 isn't of the mass in the universe -going away for good anytime comes from observing its soon. invisible gravitational with effectthe on Those unfamiliar visible galaxies and their stars. Internet Explorer 6 saga might Deep underground be wondering what experiments the big deal on Earth have to is. How could theattempted life or death directly detect the weakly of one browser be so critical to interacting particles (WIMPS) the future of our increasingly that scientists believe constitute Internet-based lives? When dark matter. compared to browsers of today, Butisdark matter's existence is IE6 a standards-incompliant antique. It debuted during a dark, dark period in Web history; In the summer of 2001, Microsoft had soundly beaten Netscape into submission for a

based on the assumption that Newton's second law of motion holds true at all physical scales. In 1981, Israeli physicist Mordehai Milgrom hypothesized that Newton's second law might change slightly at extremely small accelerations. That MOND proposal could in turn explain the irregularities astrophysicists have observed in the motion of galaxies and stars without the need for dark matter. A team headed by Vitorio De Lorenci of the Federal

University of Itajubรก, Brazi devised an experiment that could finally try to directly test MOND. They discovered that certain points on a well-placed, precisely-controlled spinning disc can cancel out the acceleration of the Earth's rotation, its orbit around the sun, and the orbit of the sun around the galaxy's center. Canceling out all those interfering accelerations would allow for a measuring device mounted on the disc's rim to work unimpeded. If Newton's

second law holds as usual, the device should not detect any unusual force. But if MOND holds true, the device should feel a strange kick. That would allow scientists to at least see if all forces act differently at small accelerations or not. But the spinning disc would not test another version of MOND that proposes only gravity is affected. Such an experiment would need to take place in space. [ ARVIX via New Scientist]

There was no social networking, no RSS feeds, and no real blogs. It was a different time - and people's browsing needs were South Korea Will Debut different." "National App The post goes on Store" to explicitly recommend of IE6. and Open moving Public off Data to The problem is, corporate IT Developers departments won't do so until Jeremy Hsu (Popular Science they absolutely must, which -may New Technology, Science be well after the April News, The Future Now) 2014 death knell sounds. If Microsoft Submitted at 3/1/2010 2:37:58 PM was smart, it would actively But will officials recant their their help businesses upgrade hard line on "unauthorized use IE6-based systems to IE8 (and of public data" by independent future versions). And they developers? would do it for free. Apple's store Why? successful Because iTunes IE's very not onlycould houses music survival be at stake.and If videos, also provides all Microsoftbut doesn't, then Google manner of applications could certainly affordfor to smart offer phones. Now the Korean similar support forSouth companies to government to launch move their hopes systems over its to own "national app store" the Chrome. Overnight, we in could form of a universal API for see Chrome's market share public which would balloon todata, 30% and all versions encourage private companies of Internet Explorer shrink to and developers below 40%. to create and sell apps data, the Walshbased pointson outthat that Explorer's Korea reports. market Times share is being further The ever-growing use of smart threatened by empowered Web p h o n e s , land a p t oa pmore s o reducated tablet developers computers driven demand Web-going has public. "There's this for apps that that not only enable assumption people are news gaming on the goingreading to goandstraight from go, but also allow6 for mobile Internet Explorer to Internet b a n k i n g7 or a n8," d ihe d esays. n t i f y"But, ing Explorer sthe t r athing n g e r we s ohave n t htoe realize s t r e e tis. South Korea's that browsers as a"app wholestore" have would based on an open becomebemore popular. Five ayears p p l iago, c a t imost o n ppeople r o g r aprobably mming didn't know whatpage a browser SOUTH 85 was, but more and more they're able to indentify them. And as Web sites drop IE6 support,

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interface (API), so that third party developers can access massive amounts of government data and create apps that can offer services such as real-time or predicted traffic conditions for buses and trains. The government API would launch sometime during the first half of 2010, and eventually expand from a website to mobile platforms. But as the Korea Times notes, South Korean officials have not always smiled so kindly on independent developers making "unauthorized use" of public info. The popular iKorail app on Apple's iTunes store shared realtime train status and schedule info, at least until state rail operator Korail blocked the app

from accessing its Internet server. Another app called "Seoul Bus" ran into similar trouble with a provincial government for providing realtime status for buses. Whether or not the new government API would allow for unrestricted access to public data for anyone remains to be seen, although that sounds like the plan. Hopefully South Korea keeps an open mind on the apps that it allows, unlike Apple's rather draconian line. [via Korea Times]

An Open Letter to John Doerr Regarding Bloom Energy info@greentechmedia.com (Greentech Media: Headlines) Submitted at 3/2/2010 4:00:38 AM

AN OPEN LETTER TO JOHN DOERR Dear John, I want to congratulate you and all your colleagues at Bloom Energy. Both for putting on a great show over the last several days, but more importantly for

having the fortitude necessary to make it to this point. I am sure that you and KR are acutely aware that you are standing on the shoulders of many good technologists from the past. Welcome to the energy business. I've been in the business, oops, space -- both clean and not so OPEN page 86

Company Promising Electricity from Heat (and Vice Versa) Gets $2.7 Million info@greentechmedia.com (Greentech Media: Headlines) Submitted at 3/1/2010 9:34:18 AM

Tempronics, which wants to make electricity out of hot air and vice versa, has landed $2.7 million in a Series A round of funding, the company said today. Nth Power led the round. The company specializes in thermoelectric materials, which can convert waste heat into electricity. Potentially, the material could be wrapped around pipes in a factory to take advantage of waste heat. Conversely, you can insert electricity (from solar panels or other sources) into the material and produce heat, which can be used to cook with or run chillerstyle air conditioners. "Thermoelectric devices have the potential to be lower cost, more reliable, lighter, smaller and more environmentally friendly than many of today's rotating machines used for cooling and power generation, including: compressors, gas turbines, steam turbines and electrical generators," said Tarek Makansi, CEO of

Tempronics in a prepared statement. Waste heat and thermoelectrics could become a big business someday. The U.S. consumes 100 quads of energy a year, and approximately 55 to 60 percent of the total gets dissipated as waste heat. Companies such as Recycled Energy Development have created industrial, mechanical systems for harvesting waste heat for factories. In West Virginia, the company is working on a project to generate 45 megawatts of power from waste heat in a factory setting. These mechanical systems, however, don't scale down easily. Thermoelectric companies believe they can expand the market with their solid state solutions. Some of the companies that have emerged in recent years are Alphabet Energy, which says its chips could produce power for $1 a watt in volume production. The company, which grew out of research conducted by ARPA -E's director Arun Majumdar while he was at Lawrence Berkeley National Labs, came

out of stealth last year. Its secret sauce is silicon nanowires, according to sources: traditional thermoelectric chips rely on less efficient bismuth telluride. GMZ Energy, Promethean Power, Komatsu and Cypress Semiconductor are all also experimenting with thermoelectric devices. GMZ and Cypress want to turn heat into power, while Promethean converts electricity from PV panels directly into heat. MIT researchers, meanwhile, want to insert quantum dots into laptops and cell phones that could use the devices' internally generated heat to trickle-charge their batteries. It's power you are already paying for -- you might as well get to use it. MC10 and Photonic Devices recently received grants from ARPA-E to develop waste heat semiconductors. Hmmm. Maybe ARPA-E and the DOE like this concept. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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clean -- for almost four decades. I have to admit that I am a technology junkie and wouldn't make a good VC, since I never met an energy technology or energy technologist that I didn't like (well, almost never). But I'd like to talk to you a little like a "Dutch Uncle," since you and Bloom are entering what is really new territory for you, but old and familiar to me. First, the technology is not really all that disruptive. As a matter of fact, when Clayton Christensen published his first book (1997), he spoke at a local angel investors group in Palo Alto. He mentioned that someone told him "fuel cells were a new, disruptive technology for the energy business." He looked a little sheepish when I told him that fuel cells had been around forever. Yes, the technology sizzles (metaphorically, I hope), but there are other ways to get where you say you are right now. For instance, a 650-kilowatt Caterpillar genset fueled with natural gas and backed up by a 500-kilowatt diesel genset and all the necessary electric panels costs under $1 million. Home Depot had four similar systems operating from 2004 to 2006 around New York City. Gas prices were about $6.50/Mcf (Mcf = 1000 cubic feet) at the meter and the cost of generation was about 10 cents per kilowatt-

hour. Home Depot didn't purchase any power from ConEd and saved $30,000 per year (about 10 percent) for each of the stores. Last year, natural gas prices in California to commercial customers ranged from about $6.00/Mcf to about $9.50, so the old-style gensets are still in the mix to the right customers. Each of the Home Depot units cost about twice what you say your customers pay for each of the Bloom Servers, with all the "price supports." The gensets use about 60 percent more natural gas per kilowatt-hour. But each of the units at The Home Depot produced more than six times the amount of electricity as each of the Bloom Energy Servers. You can spend a lot on natural gas for the savings in capital costs. So the Bloom Servers really don't provide such a big disruption in the business of distributed power, and maybe not all that much of a technology disruption. They do seem, at least from the outside, to be providing some substantial improvements in fuel cells. It used to be that the size of solid oxide fuel cells had a tough time going below about 250 kilowatts because of the sizing of the steam reformer -that's the thing that takes the fuel and chops off the hydrogen from the methane or hydrocarbon molecule. It sounds

as though you have pushed that along pretty well. I thought General Powell hit on some really good points. Developing countries need power. KR can tell you that the gensets that Caterpillar and others supply are a ubiquitous part of life in most of these countries. At least ubiquitous for the elites. There is a fantastic after-market for refurbished gensets from the U.S. and Europe into these countries. So here again, you'll run into some obstacles at the pricing points you currently have. That's not to say that the Bloom Energy Server can't contribute. Since the fuel cell is more forgiving with respect to the type fuel, the generation of biogas and biofuels in developing areas could be huge. At the right price. The military already has some pretty good substitutes. The M1 battle tank has a 1,500 hp (that's about 1.2 megawatts) gas turbine engine. They're expensive and use a lot of fuel. But they're also not much bigger than your box and they have 12 times the output. More importantly, the Army can have kids with a high school diploma fix them in the field with a small tool kit. Now for the markets. About 90 percent of all commercial buildings have access to natural gas. This compares to about 70 percent of

all residential buildings (though there are 70 million of them). Both of these markets are really, really, really big. Lots of opportunities. But it's puzzling from what you said on 60 Minutes -- that you find this to be an electric utility play. Yes, it replaces the need for big power plants. But it uses natural gas. Let me say that again. It uses natural gas. Not all customers have the same company deliver natural gas and electricity. Probably half the customers have to write two checks each month. One bill going to the electric company and one to the local gas distribution company. Even where gas and electric service is provided by the same company, they are hardly the same when you view them from inside the organizations. There aren't many CEOs in these companies who got their start on the gas side of the business. Certainly, HR in these companies should check with legal to see if there could be any discrimination lawsuits. The cultures tend to be very different. I had a friend start out on the gas side of his company and later became the COO of the electric side. He said he always had a better time on the gas side of the business than the electric side. Please don't take that to mean that people who run electric companies are strange. They are

not. It's just that the businesses are different. Electric companies are the most difficult business in the world to run. Their customers want electricity when they want it. That very instant. And they can't really put any product into inventory (at least not very easily). As far as your comments about locating Bloom Servers at electric substations, boy, it's been a long time since I heard that. In the early 90s, it was one of the mantras of the distributed generation crowd. It never really took off much. You don't really find many gas mains close to electric substations. So let me come back around to the beginning. The Bloom Energy Server looks like a really neat technology. It isn't, at this point, something that's going to knock the market on its ear. But that's how the energy business works. You've got something that you can take to the market and have at least an even chance of being heard. That's all you really need. That and patience. You should have a clear shot at the commercial market. The residential market is different. If you can get KR to rework the insides of the box to be able to serve the variations in electric, space conditioning, and hot water that residential customers need, then the sky's the limit. Even if you have to OPEN page 89

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Making Energy Efficiency Easy to Finance info@greentechmedia.com (Greentech Media: Headlines)

through long-term loans and technical assistance to local homeowners. Submitted at 3/1/2010 10:16:57 AM • Property Assessed Clean Before solar or renewable Energy (PACE): Government energy sources are installed on programs offer property owners buildings, buildings need to be 20-year loans for EE that are more energy efficient. That repaid through property tax means better weatherization and assessments. insulation, smarter lighting and • On-Bill Financing: San Diego controls, and more efficient Gas & Electric’s program is an heating and cooling. example of the 100% financing But the chief obstacle that terms for EE that small and prevents solar from being medium-sized customers receive installed -- high upfront costs -- with loan repayments included i s t h e s a m e o b s t a c l e t h a t on the regular utility bill. prevents energy efficiency (EE) • Utility Aggregated EE m e a s u r e s f r o m b e i n g Deployment: Ice Energy implemented. partners with utilities to deploy CalCEF Innovations, the large numbers of Thermal market strategy and public Energy Storage units under a policy arm of the California single financing structure at no Clean Energy Fund (CalCEF), cost to customers. released a white paper • Efficiency Services titled:"Energy Efficiency Paying Agreement: Metrus Energy t h e W a y : N e w F i n a n c i n g offers industrial and commercial Solutions Remove First Cost customers a PPA-like solution Hurdles." The report uncovers to finance and implement EE EE financing options and projects with repayment based explores six new models for EE on a cost per avoided unit of financing. The report also realized energy savings. includes some illustrative case • Managed Energy Services studies. Agreement: Transcend Equity Here are the programs and case finances and implements EE studies: upgrades at commercial • Clean Energy Works b u i l d i n g s a n d t a k e s Program: An initiative in responsibility for repaying a P o r t l a n d , O R p r o v i d e s customer’s utility bill. comprehensive financing

We reported on the PACE program as deployed by Renewable Funding here. The Energy Services Agreement as deployed by Metrus Energy is another method of making EE affordable. Metrus Energy is funded by Go Green Capital with the goal of executing ESAs -- Efficiency Service Agreements. ESAs bear some similarity to the PPA (Power Purchase Agreement) model, but they are energy efficiency programs instituted at large industrial or commercial facilities. Metrus' ESA eliminates the obstacle of initial up-front cost for customers, making it easier for a business to institute efficiency measures. ESAs typically have terms of less than ten years with a customer repayment obligation based on a set cost per unit of avoided energy use. The bottom line -- customers use energy savings to pay for efficiency upgrades. We spoke with Metrus Energy founder and CEO Bob Hinkle. There are several key points about Metrus' Energy Service Agreement according to Hinkle: • The customer has zero firstcost and pays for projects using energy savings • The customer's electric bill is

the same or lower • Metrus takes on the performance risk of the project • Metrus covers select maintenance costs on the project

result in energy savings equivalent to more than one million annual kilowatt hours (kWh). BAE Systems is only paying for the value of actual and The ESA from Metrus Energy verified savings, with customer allows the customer to finance a repayment based on a cost per large retrofit project (on average avoided unit of realized energy $2 million to $4 million) with savings. no first cost. The cost of the The American Council for an agreement is based on the Energy Efficient Economy avoided cost of energy. Hinkle expects there to be a $250 notes, "Lighting has the quickest billion market for efficiency payback, but more capital upgrades in the commercial and intensive items like boilers are industrial sector over the next tougher and carry a longer decade. payback." A founding father of EE policy Metrus works with Energy in the U.S., Art Rosenfeld, is a Service Companies (ESCOs), CalCEF board member and but while ESCOs are focused on retired Commissioner of the construction a n d California Energy Commission. implementation, Metrus According to Rosenfeld, provides the financing piece. “Energy efficiency should be Metrus provides customers with the foundation of our clean a service agreeement structure, energy infrastructure." much like their traditional utility And according to CEO Hinkle, bill. "The goal is avoiding capital Metrus just closed a big initial outlay and saving money right project with a customer and an out of the gate." ESCO. It's a large-scale energy Five Filters featured article: efficiency retrofit project at Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: BAE Systems' Merrimack, N.H. PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, facility, installed by Siemens Term Extraction. Industry, and financed under Metrus' ESA by Bank of America. The project is scheduled for completion in 2010 and Metrus claims it will

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Can Sound Waves Reduce Power Consumption? info@greentechmedia.com (Greentech Media: Headlines) Submitted at 3/1/2010 3:08:34 PM

It's an air conditioner, but it works sort of like a loudspeaker. Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) has launched an effort to replace the mechanical compressors in refrigerators and air conditioners with thermoacoustic compressors. More details will come out at the ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit taking place this week in Washington, D.C. Thermoacoustic compressors essentially compress or expand gases with high-intensity sound waves. Compressing gases generates heat, while letting the gases expand cools things off. Think of the chill that gets created when a carbon dioxide cartridge is suddenly discharged and the gas is allowed to expand. Mechanical compressors work on the same principle. Mechanical compressors, however, typically only achieve around 12 percent of the theoretical maximum. Thermoacoustic compressors can triple and more that efficiency rating because of the inherent properties of sound

waves. A thermoacoustic compressor can potentially complete 10,000 cycles a second, according to Scott Elrod, vice president of the hardware systems laboratory and head of PARC's green tech efforts. "You can do the same thing with a sound wave, but with more successive compression and expansion cycles," said Elrod. "It would look pretty much like a speaker but with high intensity sound waves." Thermoacoustic compressors are employed in labs to turn atmospheric gases like nitrogen into extremely chilly liquids. However, that equipment works best in extreme situations and is not particularly efficient or economical for keeping office buildings at 72 degrees. PARC's breakthrough lay in devising a thermoacoustic device for ambient temperatures. If it works and can go commercial, the cooling sound from PARC could take a substantial chunk of out U.S. and even global power consumption. Coolingrefrigeration and air conditioning-account or 17 percent of the energy consumed in commercial buildings and 20

percent in residences, according to the 2008 Buildings Energy Data Book Buildings from the Department of Energy. Buildings account for 39 percent of total U.S. energy consumption and 76 percent of the electrical consumption. If widely deployed in the U.S., the technology could reduce energy consumption for cooling from 7 BTUS to 4 BTUs, which translates to a 13 percent reduction of electricity consumption in the U.S., according to PARC. Air conditioning may not be as groovy as electric cars or even solar, but the field has begun to attract entrepreneurs and investors. Ice Energy, which makes thermal mass (i.e., ice) powered air conditioners, has raised nearly $75 million since 2002. The company is currently trying to convince utilities to cover the cost of swapping out existing, inefficient air conditioners in certain regions with their units: Ice Energy's Ice Bear units make the ice at night and therefore curb peak power consumption. Other companies to track: Chromasun ( solar-powered air conditioner company founded by Ausra co-founder Peter Le

Lievre), Calmac(producer of large-scale ice air conditioners), Coolerado (a novel system that extracts heat with mist via the Maisotsenko Cycle), Optimum Energy (software for optimizing air conditioner chiller performance) and anyone with desiccant coolers (a gel that shifts from solid to vapor to eliminate heat). In some cities like San Francisco and Seattle, architects are also exploiting passive, ambient cooling and leaving out the AC unit entirely in new buildings. Last week we met with EcoThermics, which says it can generate hot and cold air from compressing and releasing carbon dioxide. It developed the unit for the U.S. Army after the E.U. passed regulations mandating that NAT and other organizations eliminate air conditioners based around questionable chemical refrigerants. See Eleven Cool Names and Concepts to Watch In Air Conditioning for more. PARC has created computerized simulations and a basic prototype. Two prototypes coming in the relatively near future will hopefully validate the simulations. How do they work? Gases are inserted into a tube filled with

mesh membranes called regenerators. As the sound wave passes through the regenerators, a low-pressure, lowtemperature/high-pressure, hightemperature gradient begins to form. One end gets hot while the other gets cool. Heat exchangers can then be used to extract and exploit the heat or cooling power. Like some other green projects at PARC, the thermoacoustic coupler can be traced back to printers and copiers. (This place used to be Xerox's internal lab before it got spun out as an independent subsidiary in 2002. It's where the PC was invented.) PARC had once conducted research on exploiting sound waves to focus ink-jet droplets, said Elrod. The idea was to develop photo quality imaging. Although promising, Xerox did not commercialize the technology. Research on controlling toner powder has lead to a spiral that could one day be used in water purification or separating algae from water to make biofuel. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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pair it with one of TJ's [T.J. Rogers--ed.] solar panels. But look to the natural gas side of the business and to the current HVAC market -including companies like York, Trane, etc. -- to install the systems. They know that market cold. Talk to the people in the gas transmission and supply side. I'm sure Aubrey McClendon at Chesapeake will take your call and can tell you how to make it happen. You're going to have a blast making the business work. And just one more thing... Remember, above all, this ain't the Web. Rich Hilt / Menlo Park, CA Bio In the '70s, Rich was involved in Corporate Energy Management at a $2 billion Fortune 100 Company with annual energy costs of $100 million. He crawled over industrial boilers, slogged through nasty chemical plants, and changed light bulbs in manufacturing facilities. To help increase operational efficiency,

he set up a reporting system to measure and track energy consumption and match that against plant output. He created a corporate awareness campaign to better communicate the importance of reducing energy use to the average employee. In the '80s, Rich worked for the natural gas industry in Washington during the industry's period of deregulation. He helped build and run a strategic policy analysis group to position the industry for a more competitive environment. This group became an important player in D.C. energy policy discussions, contributing to: the debates on coal gasification; early information on how increased use of carbon would effect world energy use; the expansion of natural gas into the electric power industry; the impact of proposals for the Clean Act Amendments of 1991; and the potential contribution energy technologies would have on the economy and the environment. In the '90s, Rich tried to do the same for the electric power

industry. He worked to redirect the strategic position of the Electric Power Research Institute in preparation for the industry's deregulation activities. After leaving EPRI, he continued to address industry policy direction, by writing several special studies that were published by McGraw-Hill. Some of the studies were used by states in developing information on the impact that deregulation would take and on the legislation the ensued. He provided benchmarks for the industry that were useful in measuring both operational and financial performance. Later, he and several other EPRI expats formed BrightLine Energy, which focused on the opportunities that arose from the deregulated environment. He was involved in writing business plans for a variety of energy related startups, including one for a unique microturbine business model. In the first years of the 21st century, Rich helped found a company providing energy to "big-box retailers." He worked

on the Smart Grid (before it was too smart) in the marketing department of CellNet Data Systems. He was a cofounder of Arare Ventures -- first time VCs focused on CleanTech -- that morphed into LiveFuels, an algae-to-biofuels science-based startup. Afterward, he tried to "jump the chasm" by proposing to develop a 1,000 hectare algae farm in Chile. Just as the financial markets collapsed. His educational background is in engineering, economics, and public policy. Rich is always looking to help out in greentech to atone for his past sins. He can b e r e a c h e d a t brightline@sbcglobal.net. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.