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Republican wants more Massa exposure but Democrat says it’s over

Tourists pat and kiss grey whales in San Ignacio Lagoon, Baja California Sur, Mexico

David Morgan (Front Row Washington)

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

Submitted at 3/10/2010 7:18:02 AM

House Republican Eric Cantor thinks Congress should get to the bottom of Eric Massa’s bizarre tale of congressional nudity, satanic White House advisers, the groping of men (or not) and a congressional healthcare putsch

by Democrats. But House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer says the case is over.

“I know that Steny joins me in hoping that the ethics committee in Congress looks into this adequately and can get to the bottom of all of this,” said Cantor, who appeared along with Hoyer on NBC’s Today show. ”The best place for this to be resolved is in the ethics committee and let’s get to the bottom of it.”

Otherwise, the whole thing seems to make Cantor want to

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hold his nose. And he is not alone. “I’m a little taken aback and stunned,” the Virginia lawmaker confided. “I don’t know the facts of this at all. I know that the American people are sickened.”

Massa’s descriptions of the events that led him to the exit door have become a spectator sport with more back-andforth grunting than professional tennis. And with only one player.

He did, or didn’t, leave because of his health. Did or didn’t grope a male staffer. Did or didn’t jump ship to avoid an ethics probe into sexual harassment claims. Did have a close encounter with a naked Rahm Emanuel. Did decide that Emanuel’s a blood relative of Satan. Did get pushed from office by a White House infuriated over his refusal to back the Obama healthcare reform plan.

Or did he? Hoyer describes only one chain of events leading to Massa’s departure, and relatively speaking, his account sounds pretty realistic if only by virtue of its plainness.

Hoyer’s office learned of the harassment claims on Feb. 8 and strongly advised the young man in question to go to the ethics committee. In fact, Hoyer may have applied some pressure. But not the kind Massa likes to talk about. ”I said further: ‘If you don’t make the complaint, I will.’ And

within the next 48 hours, I was told that, in fact, they had contacted the ethics committee,” Hoyer recalled.

“Within three weeks, as you know, the congressman decided that the charges that were pending, or the situation that existed, was serious enough that he was going to resign.”

Did Democrats try to oust Massa? “Absolutely not.

Period.”

And what about the need for further investigation? “This was a situation that needed to be dealt with immediately. And it was, and action has been taken, and the member is now not in Congress.”

Photo Credit: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque (House Ethics Committee room); Reuters/Official Handout (Eric Massa) Click here for more political coverage from Reuters

Submitted at 3/10/2010 8:24:13 AM

When the massive, barnaclespotted head of a Pacific grey whale slid alongside Pachico Mayoral's wooden boat, he nervously reached out to touch it. Like other fishermen, he usually beat his boat with a stick to try to frighten the giant mammals away, but for once he hesitated. "I was curious and, very gently, I stroked the whale's face. And nothing happened. It stayed calm," Mayoral said, driving a boat of tourists across the San Ignacio lagoon some 40 years later Picture: AFP/GETTY Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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Karl Rove says did not ask for gay marriage fight Ed Stoddard (Front Row Washington)

possible to bring a courteous and caring tone to a divisive issue. The issue also revealed Submitted at 3/10/2010 8:35:39 AM the nuttiness of the Left, which Karl Rove, the political never saw how persistent operative widely credited with America's traditionalism really the electoral successes of former was. Instead, the Left seemed U.S. President George W. Bush, convinced that Bush and I says in his new book that he did e n g i n e e r e d t h e i s s u e ' s not choose gay marriage as a e m e r g e n c e t o d r i v e B u s h w e d g e i s s u e b u t t h a t partisans to the polls. But, of circumstances thrust it his way. course, it was a liberal supreme Conventional wisdom, at least court that brought the issue to in some circles, has it that the fore," he writes.

Rove masterminded gay He was referring to a marriage as an issue in the November 2003, Massachusetts 2004 White House race in a bid Supreme Judicial Court decision to get conservative evangelicals that legalized gay marriage in -- a key base for the Republican that state. Rove said that Party, especially during the development sparked the ballot Bush years -- to the polls. There initiatives and he maintains their were ballot initiatives in about a impact in the election battle dozen states that year to ban against Democrat John Kerry gay marriage (or, supporters of has been greatly exaggerated. such measures would argue, What did matter in his view was to defend traditional marriage). that state court decision.

Many political commentators " In the end, whether a state had have said such tactics are in a marriage ballot measure didn't keeping with the "Rovian" affect Bush's share of the vote: strategy of ginning up the base he increased his portion of the to clinch narrow victories. vote between 2000 and 2004 by R o v e , i n " C o u r a g e a n d an average of 2.7 points in the Consequence: My Life as a states without referenda and by Conservative in the Fight," says an average of 2.5 points in the the ballot initiatives made little eleven states with defense-ofdifference to the outcome that marriage initiatives on the year and that they were not his November ballot, a statistically idea anyway. insignificant difference ... But " Gay marriage was an ugly the Massachusetts Supreme fight we had not asked for but Judicial Court decision did could win if we handled with affect the 2004 election by care. Done right, our response to m o t i v a t i n g c u l t u r a l l y gay marriage could show it was conservative Democrats and

independents who might otherwise have voted Democratic to abandon Kerry over his wobbly views on marriage."

Bush of course opposed samesex marriage and called for a federal constitutional amendment to bar it, though Rove also notes that the former president supported same-sex partner rights such as hospital visits and health coverage.

conservative Christian circles.

Rove also talks about the allegations that his adopted father was gay -- allegations we blogged about the other day when he said in an interview that families should be off limits in politics. He says that the reporters who pushed those allegations were " driven by hatred" and that they wanted to push the angle that Karl Rove, the anti-gay crusader, had a gay father.

For the record, Rove says he does not know to this day and does not care if his late father was gay.

Rove does not have much more to say on the hot-button social issues and religious vote that have been associated with him and Bush. I have only had a chance to read a few sections of the book but according to the index the word abortion is only found on about a dozen of the book's over 500 pages and some of those references are brief. " Neither Bush nor I regret his The word "evangelicalism" is stand on gay marriage. The mentioned on only a handful of issue was thrust upon us and we pages as well. were perfectly willing to make Rove was widely seen as a our case. To overturn the time- hardened warrior in the trenches honored definition of marriage of America's culture wars. But is a socially revolutionary act. he says he was reluctantly To do so through the courts and dragged into some of those against the will of the people battles. makes the attempt even more radical," Rove writes, giving the standard critique of gay marriage that one hears in

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Massa: some tickling, nothing General Odierno gives sexual, and it’s about healthcare vote “The Hurt Locker” friendly review Tabassum Zakaria (Front Row Washington) Submitted at 3/9/2010 8:23:56 PM

One day after resigning as a freshman congressman from Upstate New York, Eric Massa has found his 15 minutes of fame.

He landed on two major talk shows Tuesday — Fox News Channel’s Glenn Beck and CNN’s Larry King — and they both wanted to know about allegations of sexual harrassment against male staffers.

Larry King asked him outright if he was gay. Massa, who is married, said it was an insult to every gay American that such a question was being asked in this day and age, and he refused to answer it.

Glenn Beck wanted Massa to name names in his allegations of a conspiracy to oust him from Congress. When the talk show host didn’t succeed in eliciting the answers he was seeking, he apologized to his audience for wasting their time with the interview.

The following are some highlights from the Massa interviews.

one of his wife’s best friends.

When King asked several times why the former congressman did not call the former staffer to find out what it was all about, Massa said he didn’t have the number any more.

At one point, Massa said the main reason he resigned was because of health concerns. At another, he said Democratic leadership wanted him gone because he didn’t support their healthcare reform. When pressed, Massa said he forced himself out.

“I am in trouble because I’m a Democrat standing up to a “Now they’re saying I groped a horrific mistake that we’re about male staffer – yeah I did. Not to make, period,” Massa told only did I grope him, I tickled King. “You end up bucking him until he couldn’t breathe. your party, you’re out.”

Then four guys jumped on top “ T h a t ’ s a b s u r d , ” H o u s e of me,” Massa told Beck. “It Democratic leader Steny Hoyer was my 50th birthday. It was said, when asked about Massa ‘kill the old guy.’ You can take contending he was being pushed anything out of context.” out. “That is really untrue.

He later said: “I did nothing A b s o l u t e l y , d e f i n i t i v e l y , sexual. I did some things u n t r u e . ” wrong.”

For more Reuters political Massa told King that he had not coverage, click here known that the allegations were P h o t o c r e d i t : forwarded to the House Ethics Reuters/massa.house.gov/hando Committee by his former deputy ut (Massa) chief of staff — a man who had lived with his family and was

Antony Gormley takes his statues to New York (World news: United States | guardian.co.uk)

Antony Gormley is breaking into America with a debut

showing of public art in Manhattan

Tabassum Zakaria (Front Row Washington) Submitted at 3/9/2010 7:05:19 PM

As the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, General Ray Odierno must have on-theground knowledge of the American military teams that defuse roadside bombs in Iraq.

So it seems like high praise, indeed, that he complimented the Oscar-winning movie “The Hurt Locker” for how it portrayed the sacrifices made by bomb disposal soldiers in the Iraq war.

“I think what I like about it is, it shows, first, the camaraderie that is required here, the tension, the risk that’s involved in some of the jobs that we do here,” Odierno said in an interview with PBS Newshour.

“I’m sure many people would say it could be a bit more accurate in some areas, but I believe it’s a good representation of the sacrifice, dedication that it takes here in order to combat such a very difficult mission of terrorism

and fighting a war on terrorism,” he said.

“The Hurt Locker”, an Iraq war drama about a team of bombdefusing specialists, won the Oscar for best picture and placed Kathryn Bigelow into history books as the first woman ever to win the Academy Award for best director.

Photo credit: Reuters/Lucy Nicholson (Bigelow poses with her Oscar for “The Hurt Locker”)

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Honored, humbled and a bit embarrassed, first lady consigns her gown to history

Trainee teachers 'should act like Clint Eastwood to gain respect'

David Morgan (Front Row Washington)

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

Submitted at 3/9/2010 11:31:45 AM

Michelle Obama acknowledged having mixed feelings Tuesday as she consigned her 2009 Inaugural Ball gown to posterity and a glass case at the Smithsonian.

“So, here we are. It’s the dress,” she laughed at a ceremony in the National Museum of American History to mark the addition of her one-shouldered, floorlength, white silk chiffon gown to a permanent exhibit on first ladies.

She was joined by the gown’s 26-year-old Taiwan-born designer, Jason Wu. “To be honest, I am very honored and very humbled, but I have to say that I’m also a little embarrassed by all the fuss,” she added. “Like many of you, I’m not used to people wanting to put things I’ve worn on display.”

Humble comments from the first black woman to become America’s first lady.

The collection includes inaugural gowns from the nation’s long march of January

galas, including Jackie Kennedy’s and Mary Todd Lincoln’s.

Mrs. Obama had to wonder how the other first ladies felt in their dresses.

“Did her feet hurt in those shoes? How many times did her husband step on that train?” she said.

And what of her own experience?

“When I look at my gown — which I, in fact, have not seen since the day that I took it off — memories of that moment truly

come rushing back. I remember that it was freezing cold in Washington. I know we all remember that. Yet, despite the frigid temperatures, hundreds of thousands of people flooded the Mall. Nothing was going to stop them from being part of history.”

Click here for more political coverage from Reuters Photo Credit: Reuters/Jason Reed (Michelle Obama and Jason Wu)

teaching. In films, the really tough men are not ones with big machine guns. They're the ones who stare and quietly say 'I don't think you want to do that'.

Submitted at 3/10/2010 8:53:12 AM Published: 4:18PM GMT 10 ''There are times when you do Mar 2010 need to shout. But good Jim Wood, who trains teachers c l a s s r o o m m a n a g e m e n t i s a t t h e U n i v e r s i t y o f about taking decisions. My Southampton, champions an instinct may be to shout. But if I ''intimidation through silence'' stop for a second then I might approach similar to that of the think it would be better to use a Dirty Harry movie star. quiet voice.''

Mr Wood, who is a deputy head Linda Jones, director of the Kip a t B a y H o u s e S c h o o l i n McGrath centre, said: ''Jim is Gosport, Hampshire, says this really exceptional. He covered is more effective than shouting v a r i o u s t e c h n i q u e s a n d like Arnold Schwarzenegger, s t r a t e g i e s f o r m a n a g i n g which he c l a i m s o n l y behaviour mainly for secondary ''entertains'' the children rather school pupils. than control them. ''His technique is about being He presented his ideas to a non-confrontational, you do not seminar of teachers held at the get into an argument with the Kip McGrath education centre pupils, you steer away from the in Portsmouth. confrontation.''

"The Arnold Schwarzenegger She added that the two style of teaching is to be strong seminars were fully booked and and shouty," he said. ''But a third has now been arranged most pupils say they love that. to be held in Southampton on T h e y f i n d i t e n t e r t a i n i n g April 21. because the teachers have lost Five Filters featured article: control and they can see them Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: going red in the face and their PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, temples throbbing.

Term Extraction. ''The most effective, though, is the Clint Eastwood style of

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Bibi's snub to Biden may backfire | Simon Tisdall Simon Tisdall (World news: United States | guardian.co.uk)

Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev were deployed on firefighting duties on Wednesday, dutifully uttering Submitted at 3/10/2010 9:32:45 AM I n t e n t i o n a l o r n o t , t h e conditional words of contrition. a n n o u n c e m e n t o f n e w "We have to express our settlements in East Jerusalem apologies for this serious may push the US into a tougher blunder," Herzog said. stance towards Israel But protestations of innocence It's not the first time that Israel by interior minister Eli Yishai, has stiffed Barack Obama over head of the Shas religious party his attempts to kick-start Middle in Netanyahu's coalition and no East peace negotiations. But the great advocate of American sudden, highly inflammatory attempts to forge a two-state announcement of plans to build peace settlement with the an additional 1,600 homes in Palestinians, are hard to credit. occupied East Jerusalem, in the " T h e r e w a s c e r t a i n l y n o midst of a visit to Israel of US intention to provoke anyone, vice-president Joe Biden, was and certainly not to come along certainly the most brutally and hurt the vice-president of contemptuous rebuff so far to the United States," Yishai said.

American peacemaking.

These are weasel words. Is it to It may be that Binyamin be believed that Yishai, like Netanyahu, Israel's rightwing Netanyahu, was unaware of prime minister, was unaware in what his own ministry was advance of the provisional doing? Did he have no idea the decision by a Jerusalem district planning decision was pending? planning committee, as he Did he, as an experienced claims. But the announcement politician, not foresee the was promulgated by his interior destructive political implications ministry, which thereby gave it o f t h i s a m b u s h ? L i k e an official stamp of approval. If Netanyahu, Yishai presumably Netanyahu did not know, then regards Jerusalem as Israel's why not? eternal and indivisible capital.

D e s p i t e t h e e v i d e n t Another day on, it seems he was embarrassment and considerable determined to rub Biden's nose political damage caused by the in that insupportable idea. decision, Netanyahu has so far The Americans, until now, have made no move to repudiate it. been too polite, or too weak, to Lesser figures, such as welfare say it, but Netanyahu spent most minister Isaac Herzog and last year deliberately frustrating

Obama's pledge to mediate a resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict and with it, an end to the Israel-Arab confrontation that has scarred the region for generations. Netanyahu resisted direct talks, rejected a full settlement freeze, flaunted his uncompromising views on Jerusalem, pooh-poohed a Syria opening, and, at the same time, endlessly reiterated his supposed willingness to talk to the Palestinians "without conditions".

Simultaneously, Israel's leader tried, with some success, to shift the US conversation on to Iran, which he says poses an existential threat to his country and the region. All in all, it was an Oscar-standard performance in obfuscation, prevarication and disingenuousness. To the achingly smart, but politically less pugnacious Obama, Netanyahu's behaviour was intellectually insulting. The fact he has put up with it until now may be a measure of Israel's clout in Washington, especially on Capitol Hill.

This could change. Obama's problem, and not just in the Middle East, is that he is liked but not feared. After a first year in office devoid of substantive achievement, Washington insiders say the president must show he is ready to fight, to get down and dirty, to drop his

professorial aloofness and get publicly passionate and angry about the things he believes in.

At home, this could apply to healthcare reform. Abroad, the new approach may single out Israel-Palestine.

Biden's visit, though reassuring and conciliatory on the surface until the east Jerusalem bombshell dropped, may mark the start of this tougher approach. Many Obama supporters in the US and Europe, and in the post-Cairo Muslim world, will wish it so.

The vice-president, whose attack dog qualities were unleashed on the subjects of Russia and Ukraine last year, certainly did not mince his words, once he realised the extent of the insult.

"I condemn the decision by the government of Israel to advance planning for new housing units in east Jerusalem," Biden said.

"The announcement ... is precisely the kind of step that undermines the trust we need right now and runs counter to the constructive discussions that I've had here in Israel." In the last part of this sentence Biden seems to be suggesting that Netanyahu told him one thing to his face and did another behind his back. Little wonder he kept Israel's first couple waiting for dinner.

It doesn't seem to realise it, but

Israel cannot afford to keep on behaving in this disobliging manner towards its friends.

Whether it is blatant disregard for international rules concerning the protection of civilian life, as in Gaza; whether it is calculated insults aimed at neighbours, as with Turkey; or whether it is the theft of passports and identities from friendly countries and the lawless assassination of its enemies, as in Dubai, it goes too far.

Now, Netanyahu has deeply angered his country's best and most powerful friend – again.

The coming message to Bibi: don't over-reach.

• Comments on this article will remain open for 24 hours from the time of publication but may be closed overnight • Middle East • Israel • Joe Biden • Binyamin Netanyahu • Palestinian territories • Barack Obama • United States • US foreign policy Simon Tisdall guardian.co.uk© Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions| More Feeds

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Water Found in Apollo Moon Rocks (National Geographic News)

Space Center in Houston, Texas.

Lofgen, who wasn't involved with the new research, called it Recently NASA crashed two "solid work" worthy of further spacecraft into the moon and investigation. orbiters scanned the lunar ( R e a d m o r e a b o u t m o o n surface for telltale light exploration.) signatures—all to confirm the New Line of Evidence for rocky body isn't bone dry after Moon Water all.

Hints of water in moon samples But, it turns out, solid evidence first surfaced in a 2008 study in for water on the moon was the journal Nature, in which under our noses the whole time. scientists reported having Tiny amounts of water have detecting water molecules in been found in some of the lunar glasses from the Apollo famous moon rocks brought missions. back to Earth by the Apollo That team, however, hadn't astronauts, scientists announced been able to prove the water l a s t W e d n e s d a y . hadn't been introduced to the (Related:"Apollo 11 at 40: moon rocks on Earth, perhaps Facts, Myths, Photos, and through sloppy handling.

More.")

One way to determine a water The water levels detected in s a m p l e ' s b i r t h p l a c e i s t o Apollo moon rocks and volcanic m e a s u r e t h e a m o u n t s o f glasses are in the thousands of different hydrogen isotopes p a r t s p e r m i l l i o n , a t inside the water—a technique most—which explains why unavailable to the Nature team, analyses of the samples in the s a i d J a m e s G r e e n w o o d , a late 1960s and early 1970s p r o f e s s o r o f E a r t h a n d concluded that the moon was environmental sciences at absolutely arid.

Wesleyan University in "Only in the last decade have M i d d l e t o w n , C o n n e c t i c u t . instruments become sensitive Isotope measurements can enough to even analyze water at serve as fingerprints. Water those kinds of concentrations," from Earth's mantle has a said Gary Lofgren, the lunar different isotope ratio than water curator at NASA's Johnson from a comet, for example.

Submitted at 3/9/2010 2:23:21 PM

When the Nature study came out, Greenwood was pioneering a technique that allowed him to study the chemical makeups of Martian meteorites. He later applied his method to samples of the mineral apatite, culled from a variety of moon-rock types, to determine the fingerprint of the water molecules inside.

The work proves that the moonrock water "is not from us," he said at a presentation of his findings at the 41st Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston, Texas. ( Video: Moon 101.)

Water in the Moon Minerals At the presentation, a second team announced the discovery of water in apatite-bearing rocks from one of the moon's mares, dark regions thought to have been formed by ancient lunar lava flows. (See"Volcanoes Rocked Dark Side of the Moon.")

In part by bombarding the mineral with a particle beam from an electron microprobe, the researchers were able to calculate the amounts of the gases fluorine and chlorine within the sample.

Given known formulas for apatite, the amounts of fluorine

and chlorine present suggest there's another compound needed to complete the mineral's crystal structure.

The missing molecule, the team concluded, must be hydroxide—a common component of apatite and a byproduct of the breakup of water.

The finding is "one of the first to detect water in a lunar magmatic mineral" and adds to evidence that moon magma, in general, contains trace amounts of water, according to geoscientist Francis McCubbin, who participated in the research.

But, though discoveries of moon water continue to mount, they're really just drops in the bucket, said McCubbin, of the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C. "While there is a lot more water in the moon than we previously thought," he said, "it is still orders of magnitude drier than the Earth and Mars and therefore completely consistent with the last 40 years of lunar sample observation."

Where's Moon Water From?

Going forward, the researchers plan to investigate how water ended up in the moon. The most common guesses center on the

Italy, FBI raids crack down on Mafia in US, Sicily (AP) (Yahoo! News: U.S. News) Submitted at 3/10/2010 9:29:02 AM

Nathan buzzed up:'Lost Boys' 6 s e c o n d s a g o 2 0 1 0 - 0 3 - Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: actor Corey Haim dead in 1 0 T 0 9 : 3 5 : 0 2 - 0 8 : 0 0 PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Burbank at 38 (AP) Five Filters featured article: Term Extraction.

moon's earliest days, shortly after it had been created by the collision of a Mars-size object with Earth.

One possibility, according to Wesleyan's Greenwood, is that icy comets hit the molten young moon as it was still solidifying.

Another possibility, said the Carnegie Institution's McCubbin, is that not quite all the water was driven off when chunks of Earth were flung spaceward to form the moon—in other words, the water may be from an ancient version Earth. (See"Where Is W at er on M oon From—Volcanoes, Sun ...

Earth?")

The tiny amounts of water now being found in lunar rocks are about what you’d expect if water had been depleted during the moon's fiery birth, McCubbin said. "But you are never going to get rid of all of it."

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Tortured logic of intelligence chief | Vikram Dodd Vikram Dodd (World news: United States | guardian.co.uk)

what they were doing."

It did not require a high degree of James Bond-style espionage for MI5 to realise – much earlier Submitted at 3/10/2010 7:31:07 AM F o r m e r M I 5 h e a d E l i z a than she says it did – that Manningham-Buller denies Guantánamo and other US sites knowing about mistreatment of were places where torture was detainees. Didn't she read the practised. papers?

Before her retirement in 2007, To be fair to Britain's security then, all that Manninghamservices, the gathering of Buller needed to have been intelligence can be the most d o i n g w a s r e a d a d e c e n t difficult of jobs. newspaper or use a web search, The claim on Wednesday from either of which would have the former head of MI5, Eliza produced headlines and articles Manningham-Buller, that the that would have pricked the US hid from the UK security curiosity of even the dullest of services the torture they were minds. Never mind those who meting out to the Muslim men see themselves as among the they had labelled terrorists, sharpest and brightest. comes as a bit of surprise. In a So, for the benefit of the former lecture given in the Palace of intelligence chief, the list of Westminster, she related: reporting of disturbing "I said to my staff, 'Why is he allegations and evidence of [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed] torture employed by the US and talking?' because our experience its allies in the war on terror of Irish prisoners and terrorists starts here – but please add your w a s t h a t t h e y n e v e r s a i d own in the thread below: anything …

Guardian: Father fears for son "They said the Americans say held by US in Afghanistan, 10 h e i s v e r y p r o u d o f h i s February 2003 achievements when questioned Guardian: Briton held as terror about it. It wasn't actually until suspect says CIA threatened after I retired that I read that, in torture, 4 October 2003 fact, he had been waterboarded Guardian: Officials 'knew of 160 times." beatings at Guantánamo', 15 She went on to claim that "The May 2004 Americans were very keen that Observer: US guards 'filmed people like us did not discover beatings' at terror camp, 16 May

2004 New York Times: Threats and responses: The interrogations; Account of plot sets off debate over credibility, 17 June 2004 Guardian: US abuse could be war crime, 5 August 2004 Times: Britons accuse US Government of 'torture' at Guantánamo Bay, 28 October 2004 Times: Guantánamo report reveals 'torture', 1 December 2004 Guardian: Guantánamo Briton 'in handcuff torture', 2 January 2005 Independent: My nightmare of torture and assault, by Briton held in Guantánamo, 30 January 2005 Washington Post: Va. terror suspect testifies to torture, 20 October 2005 Guardian: Hunger strikers allege 'force feed torture' at Guantánamo, 21 October 2005 Guardian: Torture claims 'forced US to cut terror charges', 25 November 2005 ABC News: History of an interrogation technique: Waterboarding, 29 November 2005 Telegraph: Torture law victory for terror suspects, 9 December 2005 Guardian: US accused of using gangster tactics over terror

suspects, 25 January 2006 Washington Post: Guantánamo force-feeding tactics are called torture, 1 March 2006 Guardian: Evidence against terror suspect extracted by torture, hearing told, 10 May 2006 Times: Bush admits that terrorist suspects were held in secret prison network, 7 September 2006 Guardian: Cheney condemned for backing water torture, 28 October 2006 • Torture • Guantánamo Bay • al-Qaida • Khalid Sheikh Mohammed • MI5 • MI6 • Human rights • United States • Dick Cheney • George Bush • Global terrorism • Terrorism policy • UK security and terrorism Vikram Dodd guardian.co.uk© Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions| More Feeds

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Exclusive: Chile Earthquake Aerial Pictures (National Geographic News) Submitted at 3/9/2010 12:40:24 PM

Destroyed Houses Photograph by Nicolás Piwonka Smashed houses and other debris lie scattered in the mud left after waters receded from the village of Tubul, Chile, as seen in a March 6, 2010, aerial photograph.

Following the February 27 Chile earthquake, many of the seaside houses in the 3,000person village were inundated by both a succession of tsunami waves and the overflowing Tubul River, according to the New York Times.

As of March 2, the rural, mostly poor village had not yet received any aid from local or federal officials, residents told the Times, though people there are desperate for drinkable water, food, and fuel.

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Lava, Not Water, Made Mars "Riverbed" (National Geographic News)

The channel is also roofed over in some areas and lined with vents—features most often A channel in an ancient Martian associated with lava tubes. On "riverbed" wasn't carved by Earth, lava tubes form during liquid water but was built by sustained volcanic eruptions, molten lava, according to a new when lava flowing through study of surface features on previously solidified masses Mars. leaves behind empty channels in Pictures of the red planet have the rock. (Related:"Mars Has long revealed features such as Cave Networks, New Photos v a l l e y s a n d a l l u v i a l f a n s Suggest.") reminiscent of those seen "You don't see this on Earth in around water bodies on Earth. [river] settings," Bleacher said.

(Related:"Huge Mars Region "But you see it all the time in S h a p e d b y W a t e r , R o v e r volcanic settings. So that's kind Mission Finds.") of our smoking gun."

Water is a prerequisite for life That's not to say liquid water as we know it, so these formerly never flowed on Mars, said wet landscapes have been touted Bleacher, who presented his as some of the best places on work last week at the 41st Lunar Mars to look for traces of past a n d P l a n e t a r y S c i e n c e life.

Conference.

But new high-resolution images But the findings do mean that of a peculiar 168-mile-long (270 researchers might need to -kilometer-long) channel near reevaluate when and where they the Ascraeus Mons volcano think water might have existed aren't likely to have been made o n t h e r e d p l a n e t . by water after all.

(Related:"Mars Had Liquid "We started seeing that, instead Water in Recent Past, Rover of this [liquid] cutting into an Finds.") existing surface, it was building Solving a Martian Puzzle a surface—it built a ridge up to The results are also exciting 40 meters [130 feet] high" because they add new layers to millions of years ago, said study Mars's volcanic history, said co-author Jacob Bleacher of Laszlo Kestay, a planetary NASA's Goddard Space Flight geologist on the NASA team Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. that produced the new images of Submitted at 3/9/2010 2:35:15 PM

the channel.

"I think there are some very clearly water-formed features on Mars, but there are other things that are more puzzling. Jake and colleagues make a very compelling case that at least this one is volcanic," said Kestay, with the U.S. Geological Survey's Astrogeology Science Center.

And there's a good chance other channels in the Ascraeus Mons area will turn out to be lavamade as well, Kestay said.

In general, the latest find is among the myriad new details about Martian lava flows being uncovered by high-resolution imaging of the Martian surface, Kestay said.

The new image data, he said, are "revealing not just these channels but a whole suite of smaller volcanic features and showing that volcanism is more widespread spatially than people thought."

NASA Grants a "HiWish" In addition, the new study highlights a pioneering program that allows people anywhere in the world to get behind the lens of the Mars-orbiting camera used in Bleacher's work: NASA's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment.

HiRISE started sending back

The Highlights of Glenn Beck's Interview with Eric Massa (Little Green Footballs)

A public service announcement from Glenn Beck. Apply

directly to the forehead.[Video]

color pictures of the Martian surface in 2007, with the primary goal of finding a suitable landing site for the upcoming Mars rover Curiosity, slated to launch in 2011.

Now that the options have been narrowed down to four possible landing sites, NASA has launched HiWish, a Web site where the public can suggest new targets for the highresolution camera.

Bleacher's research is based on images taken after he had submitted a request to a beta version of HiWish made available to scientists.

In previous pictures of the Ascraeus Mons region of Mars, "the big hindrance has been that you can see [only] the big features," Bleacher said. "But you really need the details to see how things evolved."

HiRISE offers "a more detailed glimpse into what's going on with these volcanoes. Now, as we're able to look at these things in their entirety, we really need to readdress our thoughts on how they formed."

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Chile Fund (ECH): Post -Quake Buy Steven Halpern (BloggingStocks) Submitted at 3/10/2010 11:10:00 AM

Filed under: International Markets, Newsletters, ETF Investing, Commodities, Stocks to Buy"Our latest buy recommendation, the i Shares MSCI Chile Investable Market Index( ECH), is a high-risk bet that Chile's stock market will weather the devastation of the earthquake just fine and resume its already strong upward trend," says international expert Nicholas Vardy.

In The Global Bull Market Aler t, he explains, "The market will very likely be weak near term because of the general level of uncertainty and concerns over damage to infrastructure.

Looking back a few weeks from now, I believe this will represent a buying opportunity.

Continue reading Chile Fund (ECH): Post-Quake Buy Chile Fund (ECH): Post-Quake Buy originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 11:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ancient Corpses Ritually Dug Up, Torn Apart, Reburied (National Geographic News) Submitted at 3/9/2010 2:33:30 PM

According to the first known evidence of "double burials," ancient people in what is now Mexico routinely dug up decomposing bodies and took off their arms, legs, and heads, then reburied the bodies, new research shows.

Indigenous peoples of the Cape Region of Baja California Sur (see map) practiced these double burials for about 4,500 years, from about 300 B.C. to the 16thcentury A.D, when Europeans first arrived in the region, anthropologists say.

To the native groups, death was "a motionless, painful state, from which the living could free" the dead by sectioning the limbs, physical anthropologist Alfonso Rosales-Lopez said in an email translated from Spanish."

(See pictures of facedown burials from around the world.)

The double-burial practice, he added, is consistent with beliefs in other cultures around the world that death isn't the end of

life but rather a passing from one state to another.

Since 1991 Rosales-Lopez has examined more than a hundred of the double burials along the southern coast of Baja California and is currently working on a paper describing the practice.

Double-Burial Corpses Torn Limb From Limb Immediately after death, candidates for double burial were shrouded in animal skins and bound tightly in the fetal position with cords made from agave plants, the same succulents used in tequila production. Each corpse was then placed in an individual shallow grave lined with seashells, charcoal, and soil.

"It would appear this would end the funeral, but the abundance of sectioned remains clearly shows this is not the case—rather, it was only the first part," said Rosalez-Lopez, of Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History.

About six to eight months after a first burial, a body would be exhumed. At this point, the

corpse would have decomposed enough that the limbs and head could be easily broken off, he noted.

Once separated, the dismembered parts were placed near the body and reburied.

Near the burial sites, RosalezLopez and colleagues also found stone tools—such as projectile heads, knives, and fishing harpoons—that would have been used to kill and prepare food. Food remains including shells of mollusks, seeds, and plants were also discovered.

(Related:"Baja California Rock Art Dated to 7,500 Years Ago.") Reasons for Double Burials Still Speculative Double burials appear unique to the Cape Region, said Don Laylander, senior archaeologist with the archaeological consulting firm ASM Affiliates and co-editor of The Prehistory of Baja California: Advances in the Archaeology of the Forgotten Peninsula.

Rosales-Lopez's research also offers some new insight into the culture of Mexico's ancient native peoples, Laylander said.

Google Maps to add bike maps, directions Tom Krazit (Webware.com) Submitted at 3/9/2010 9:00:00 PM

Cyclists will be able to use

Google Maps to plot directions around 150 U.S. cities when bike directions go live on Google later on Tuesday.

Originally posted at Relevant Results

For instance, the double burials and the shells and bones found at the sites certainly point to a culture that emphasized ceremony and were seminomadic, Laylander, who was not involved in the research, noted via email.

That's because the artifacts suggests the people did not abandon their settlements forever—they had an obligation to revisit and protect their dead, project leader Rosalez-Lopez said.

Not much more is known about the culture, Laylander said. The Cape Region groups became culturally extinct more than two centuries ago, he added, and there are few modern ethnographic accounts of them.

As for Rosales-Lopez's interpretations as to why the bodies were torn apart, Laylander said those conclusions are only "speculation."

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China Mobile Bets $5.8 Billion on Mobile Banking Tom Taulli (BloggingStocks) Submitted at 3/10/2010 12:20:00 PM

Filed under: Competitive Strategy, China Mobile Limited (CHL) In terms of subscribers, China Mobile ( CHL) is the largest mobile carrier (the base is more than 500 million). But of course, the company wants to become even bigger.

And one of the most promising markets is mobile payment.

However, it can be difficult to pull this off. So, China Mobile has agreed to pay$5.83 billion for a 20% stake in Shanghai Pudong Development Bank. The transaction was priced at a 13% discount.

Continue reading China Mobile Bets $5.8 Billion on Mobile Banking China Mobile Bets $5.8 Billion on Mobile Banking originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 12:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Comments

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Number of failing schools leaps 150 per cent under new regime (Top stories from Times Online)

since the new inspections were introduced in autumn last year inspectors had focused on Submitted at 3/10/2010 5:25:48 AM weaker schools.

The proportion of schools Schools previously found to be judged inadequate has leapt good or outstanding are now since a tougher inspection inspected less — once every regime was introduced last year. five years — while those judged Ofsted inspectors placed 218 only satisfactory or weak are schools — 10 per cent of those inspected every three years. inspected — in its lowest Weaker schools also receive category in the first four months monitoring visits after an of the new regime. inspection.

Of these, 102 were placed in Ms Gilbert said: “My job is to special measures and 116 given raise expectations on behalf of notices to improve. the pupils and parents. It seems This represents a jump of 150 to be absolutely right that per cent from the previous parents expect their child can academic year, when 4 per cent attend a good school, that they of the schools inspected were can thrive at that school, learn found to be inadequate. well at that school and achieve Fewer schools were also judged good results.” outstanding. A total of 199 were The new inspection regime given Osfted’s highest rating brought protests from heads and b e t w e e n S e p t e m b e r a n d teachers, particularly ver the December, or 10 per cent of n e w n e w t h r e s h o l d s f o r those inspected, compared with achievement, child protection 19 per cent in the previous year. and equality which schools had Christine Gilbert, Ofsted’s chief to meet to be judged good or inspector, said it was misleading outstanding. to compare the figures because Ms Gilbert suggested that such

concerns were not borne out by the figures — only 17 schools of 2,140 inspected since then had failed because of child protection practice alone, she said.

Last weekend John Morgan, president of the Association of School and College Leaders, used a speech to his organisation’s annual conference of head teachers in London to demand an apology from Ofsted, saying that schools had unfairly been given lower gradings under the new inspection system.

Among the first to fall foul was Shenfield High School in Brentwood, Essex, which was inspected a fortnight after the new system was introduced in September last year.

The school, which had been rated good with outstanding features in 2007, was downgraded to satisfactory.

John Fairhurst, its head teacher, blamed lower GCSE results from one group of students, which sat their exams in 2008

and who the school knew to be a difficult year group.

The better results of the previous year were discounted by inspectors as they were reflected in the 2007 Ofsted inspection, Mr Fairhurst said.

Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, said: “It is absolutely no surprise that there is higher rate of inadequate schools at the start of the inspection cycle — exactly the same happened when a tougher inspection regime was introduced in 2005.

“Weaker schools are being specifically inspected more regularly and earlier in the inspection cycle to turn them around, while outstanding and good schools are now inspected every five years and satisfactory schools every three years.

“A single term’s figures are not a reliable indicator of performance for the year.”

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“Mad Men” Barbies (Holy Kaw!) Submitted at 3/10/2010 9:37:00 AM

Move over, Ken; there’s a new dashing fellow in the toy box.

Mattel has announced plans to release Barbie and Ken-like versions of four “Mad Men” characters, including handsome womanizer Don Draper. Don’s wife Betty, Roger Sterling, and a decidedly scrawny-looking Joan Holloway round out the collection that will sell for $74.95 each, cocktails and cigs not included.

Full story at New York Times.

Tons of TV news.

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BPA in plastic permanently alters uterus (Holy Kaw!) Submitted at 3/10/2010 8:39:00 AM

Exposure to bisphenol A (BPA), a common component of plastics, causes permanent

abnormalities in the uterus of offspring, including alteration in their DNA, new research shows.

The study is the first to show that BPA exposure permanently affects sensitivity to estrogen.

Hugh Taylor, a professor at

Yale University, says that exposure to BPA as a fetus is carried throughout adulthood.

“What our mothers were exposed to in pregnancy may influence the rest of our lives."

Full story at Futurity.

Get smarter: research news.

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Microsoft launches free rival to BBC iPlayer - the MSN Video Player

Google announces business app store for Google Apps

(Top stories from Times Online)

Tom Krazit (Webware.com)

will have to watch single 30second advertisements before, during and after the programme.

Submitted at 3/10/2010 4:25:00 AM The system is available only in Microsoft is launching a free the UK. online video player - the first The system was launched by serious rival to the BBC’s Ashley Highfield, Microsoft’s iPlayer UK consumer and online The MSN video player, which managing director, who had goes live tomorrow, will feature been one of the key figures a thousand hours of television behind the development of the programming that is aimed BBC’s iPlayer. mainly at the youth market, The iPlayer has been young f a m i l i e s a n d remarkably successful in professionals.

Britain, regularly dealing with Rather than providing a “catch- m o r e t h a n 4 0 m i l l i o n up” service like the iPlayer, programme requests a month. w h e r e p e o p l e c a n w a t c h However, Mr Highfield insisted programmes for only a few days that Microsoft’s product, which after they are aired, Microsoft has been in testing for the past says that it will allow viewers six months, is superior to the to enjoy full series of their iPlayer. “Not all video players favourite shows. are equal,” he said. “Our The new service features average viewer watches for 25 programmes including the cult minutes, significantly higher comedy Peep Show, the teen than other online services. It drama Skins and the reality shows we’re doing more than show Wife Swap. slapping on any programme for The service is free, but viewers people to watch.”

The technology company has secured deals with a number of television studios and broadcasters such as Endemol, the maker of Big Brother; RDF Media, which created Location, Location, Location; and BBC Worldwide.

Microsoft is also in talks with some of the big film studios and believes that its new player will feature a suite of movies in the near future.

It claims that it may have solved one of the main bugbears with other online videos pictures stuttering because of poor internet connections. Using the company’s Silverlight technology, the screen quality will adjust automatically according to the strength of the connection. However, those who do not download Silverlight will be able to watch programmes - an important concession to viewers, since many experts consider Silverlight to be a flawed and

failed technology.

Microsoft’s move into internet video programming is set against in increasing battle over the medium. The BBC is awaiting a green light from its own regulatory body over a controversial web video service.

Project Canvas, a joint venture between the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Five, BT and Carphone Warehouse, aims to offer ondemand video over a broadband connection. It has been roundly attacked by BSkyB, the pay-TV operator that is 39 per centowned by News Corporation, parent company of The Times.

Sky says that the service does not do anything that commercial rivals cannot provide. The satellite broadcaster has also launched a online video player, but it is available only to paying subscribers.

Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Submitted at 3/9/2010 6:15:00 PM

Software developers can cater to Google Apps customers through a new application store announced at Google's Campfire One event in Mountain View.

Originally posted at Relevant Results

Onion: Breaking News (Little Green Footballs) Submitted at 3/9/2010 5:45:14 PM

[Video] (Language warning. NSFW.)

Taking a pass on work during March Madness?

(Holy Kaw!)

that really affect their work?

It certainly appears to, at least among a segment of the M i l l i o n s o f A m e r i c a n s , population who use research including President Obama, fill libraries, according to a study by out their “brackets” when the Charles Clotfelter, a professor at NCAA Tournament field is Duke University. He used data announced each March, but does from 78 research libraries in the Submitted at 3/10/2010 7:25:15 AM

U.S. and found that usage fell 6

percent in the week right after tournament’s power to influence the NCAA field was announced. patterns of work," he says.

The following week, library Full story at Futurity. usage resumed its increase, at a Get smarter: research news. rate of 3 percent a week.

Photo credit: Duke University “This drop in research activity Permalink| Leave a comment » in these libraries is quantitative evidence of the NCAA

12

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Ex-Cazenove partner found guilty of insider dealing (Top stories from Times Online)

other a suspended sentence.

Calvert’s conviction is a significant victory for the Submitted at 3/10/2010 8:04:55 AM Financial Services Authority, Malcolm Calvert, a former which is bringing a series of p a r t n e r a t C a z e n o v e , t h e insider-dealing prosecutions as Queen’s stockbroker, has been part of a wider campaign to convicted of insider dealing and clamp down on financial crime. faces up to seven years in Calvert, who retired from prison.

Cazenove ten years ago, used an A jury at Southwark Crown u n k n o w n i n s i d e r t o g e t Court today returned a guilty confidential information on a verdict for Calvert, 65, on five series of proposed takeovers and counts of insider dealing after mergers. Then he directed his 18 hours of deliberation. He was friend Bertie Hatcher to buy acquitted of a further seven more than 150,000 shares in counts. three businesses.

He will be sentenced at 2pm The FSA told the jury that tomorrow. A confiscation of C a l v e r t a n d h i s a l l e g e d assets hearing will be scheduled accomplice made a £280,000 for a later date. profit from the trading, which Calvert, of Cobham, Surrey, was split two thirds, one third in will be sentenced tomorrow. Calvert’s favour.

F o u r p e o p l e h a v e b e e n Mr Hatcher gave evidence for convicted of insider dealing in the prosecution in return for the past 12 months, three of i m m u n i t y f r o m a n F S A whom received immediate prosecution. Mr Hatcher said custodial sentences and the that he had left Calvert’s share

of the profits in cash envelopes with a bookmaker at a racetrack.

It can now be revealed that Mr Hatcher agreed to pay a £56,000 fine and accept a ruling of market abuse as part of his immunity deal.

Rob Moulton, a partner at law firm Nabarro, said: "This is a big victory for the FSA, as it is their first criminal success against a "city" name. At a time when FSA is fighting for its survival, this conviction is a real boost to FSA's credible deterrence strategy.

"Prosecuting financial crimes has often proved problematic, but the FSA is on something of a roll. It has said it wants to be seen as a 'scary regulator' and this case is going to help to get that message across."

Dan Hyde, a corporate fraud consultant at Cubism Law, said: "This case signals the onward march of the FSA in its criminal prosecution of insider dealing.

"Calvert was convicted of five counts involving three separate companies and the jury were evidently satisfied in relation to those that he was in possession of specific price sensitive information he knew to be from an inside source, as oppose to merely a hot tip.""

Calvert’s lawyers argued from the outset that the FSA’s case was based on a “gigantic assumption” because they could not identify who the inside source at Cazenove was or how and when they had passed information to Calvert.

They said that Calvert was a skilled stock-picker with 40 years' stock market experience who did not need inside information “to pick a winner”.

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Foursquare unveils its SXSWi arsenal Caroline McCarthy (Webware.com) Submitted at 3/9/2010 11:37:00 AM

In heated war with rival Gowalla for the geek seal of approval at the annual digital culture festival, Foursquare unveils new badges, new partners, and new promotions.

Originally posted at The Social

Google Maps Finally Adds Bike Routes Mary Catherine O'Connor (Wired Top Stories) Submitted at 3/9/2010 9:01:00 PM

With a click of a mouse, cyclists can get the quickest, and flattest, route between Point A and Point B.

Glenn Beck's Massa attack | Richard Adams Richard Adams (World news: United States | guardian.co.uk) Submitted at 3/10/2010 8:18:54 AM

Maybe it takes one to know one, but Glenn Beck wasn't buying any of Eric Massa's stream of gibberish last night Here's a taste of the much-

anticipated Glenn Beck interview with serial strange person Eric Massa, the representative who abruptly resigned from Congress for ... well, it depends who you ask and when.

After alleging he was the victim of sinister forces within the

Democratic party, Massa got an invite to spend an hour talking to Glenn Beck on Fox. And if you want to see what an encounter between two swiveleyed inhabitants of the planet Mad looks like, watch the video above.

As a rule: an interview where

Glenn Beck comes out as the sane and rational one means you're doing it wrong.

• • • • •

Glenn Beck US politics Democrats Fox News US television

• United States Richard Adams guardian.co.uk© Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions| More Feeds

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Pay freeze for mandarins 'won't influence wider salaries' (Latest news, breaking news, current news, UK news, world news, celebrity news, politics news)

restraint and it proposes no increases for our remit groups this year.

“We are not persuaded by this signalling argument since we Submitted at 3/10/2010 8:32:52 AM

By James Kirkup, Political have seen no evidence, in this Correspondent or previous years, that the level Published: 4:32PM GMT 10 of settlements for our small Mar 2010 remit groups has any impact on Gordon Brown said that curbs b e h a v i o u r i n t h e w i d e r on public sector pay would save e c o n o m y ” . more than £3 billion by 2013- The SSRB also warned that 14. repeated pay freezes among Confirming the freezes, the senior officials could end up Prime Minister said the deals d r i v i n g a w a y t a l e n t e d would persuade other workers i n d i v i d u a l s . t o a c c e p t s m a l l e r p a y “The fact remains that the public settlements. sector needs to pay sufficient to Mr Brown said: “It is important recruit, retain and motivate in the present economic climate people of high calibre to lead that senior staff in the public and manage public services sector show leadership in the and serve in the judiciary and exercise of pay restraint." uniformed services. Otherwise it But the Government’s Senior will become harder over time to Salaries Review Body, which fill senior posts with people of reviews public sector pay, sufficient quality,” the body explicitly rejected that claim. said.

In a report to ministers, it said: “Our concern is that in recent “The Government has argued years our remit groups are that senior staff should increasingly gaining the demonstrate leadership on pay impression that the Government

takes their loyalty and goodwill for granted.”

The pay freezes for senior public sector staff were first announced by the Treasury last year.

Mr Brown confirmed that senior civil servants, NHS managers, judges, military commanders, GPs and dentists will all have their pay frozen.

Some junior staff in the same sectors will receive wage rises, although the Government also rejected a recommendation for a 2.25 per cent rise for NHS managers earning less than £80,000.

The Conservative have said they would impose a one-year pay freeze on 4 million public sector workers earning more than £18,000.

Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

The Beck-Massa Convergence Open Thread (Little Green Footballs) Submitted at 3/9/2010 1:57:51 PM

Here’s an open thread as we rub our hands in glee waiting for the Glenn Beck show to begin.

The big questions: will Eric Massa even show up? Will he throw a fit and stalk off the set?

Will Glenn Beck go nuclear on Massa about the groping investigation? (He pretty much

has to, to keep any street cred with the kookosphere.)

Will Massa muss Beck’s hair?

13

Rush Limbaugh, Costa Rica bound? | Richard Adams Richard Adams (World news: United States | guardian.co.uk)

medical insurance for people who want to be treated faster in private hospitals and clinics.

Is Rush totally ignorant? ... or Submitted at 3/10/2010 9:33:34 AM In praise of Costa Rica's does he want the best of all healthcare system – although c o m b i n a t i o n s : a p e a c e f u l Rush Limbaugh appears to be country, no army, great health unaware of its existence care, great affordable education.

My colleagues at Cif America The major bad thing: lousy h a v e a n e n t e r t a i n i n g p o l l drivers who are intend to kill running at the moment on Rush each other by the most stupid of Limbaugh's vow to move to actions. Maybe Rush would like Costa Rica if healthcare reform to join the kamikaze motorcycle gets passed by Congress. So far drivers of this country. more than 2,000 voters are Limbaugh should also be aware hoping that Rush will up and that the country's newly-elected leave – although of course that president is a woman, Laura number may include opponents Chinchilla, who aims to make of healthcare reform who side Costa Rica the first carbonwith Rush. neutral nation in the world.

What has Costa Rica done to • US healthcare deserve this? It's the second • Costa Rica most beautiful country on earth, • US politics after all. More importantly, • US domestic policy zwabber, a commenter on the • United States Cif America poll thread points • Healthcare industry out: This does not make sense at all: Richard Adams Costa Rica has the best guardian.co.uk© Guardian socialized medical safety net of News & Media Limited 2010 | all central American countries, Use of this content is subject to if not Latin American countries. our Terms & Conditions| More Infinitely much better then the Feeds US system. In addition there is the government run "extra"

14

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British Fritzl escaped for 30 years despite seven incest accusations

Large Hadron Collider timeline

(Top stories from Times Online)

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

Submitted at 3/10/2010 7:24:46 AM

A father who repeatedly raped his two daughters and fathered nine babies with them during a 35-year orgy of physical and sexual abuse escaped detection due to a litany of failings by care professionals, a report revealed today.

Professor Pat Cantrill, author of the independent report, said that action should have been taken to rescue the women at least a decade earlier once a “substantial picture” of the abuses had been drawn up.

She said a culture of “having a quiet word” had contributed to the failure to intervene, despite seven allegations of incest from members of the family.

Public sector agencies in Sheffield and Lincolnshire today issued an unreserved apology to the women, now adults, for failing to protect them from

their father.

Chris Cook, independent chair of Lincolnshire Safeguarding Children Board, said: “We are genuinely sorry. We should have protected you.”

Agencies involved with the family failed to take action against the father even though he was accused of incest on seven separate occasions, with a further 12 reported incidents of violence.

The 57-year-old man, who cannot be named to protect his children, received 25 life sentences after his daughters finally told social workers of their lifelong ordeal in 2008.

An independent review of the case, published today, disclosed that more than 100 care professionals from 28 agencies were involved with the family in Sheffield and Lincolnshire over a 35-year period from 1973 to 2008.

The report found that professionals were suspicious

that the man was fathering his daughters’ children and there were seven family allegations reported to professionals about incest or sexual abuse.

On 23 separate occasions from 1998 to 2005 the girls were specifically asked about the paternity of their children by various people, it said.

The report said: “Between 1990 and 1996 either Adult M or Adult N was pregnant every year or on some occasions twice a year. On four occasions they were pregnant at the same time.”

No action was taken because professionals felt that there was nothing they could do. It was not until the family returned to Sheffield and the police were given a statement in 2008 that the man was arrested.

Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Submitted at 3/10/2010 8:40:10 AM

By Richard Alleyne, Science Correspondent Published: 4:40PM GMT 10 Mar 2010 10 September 2008 - scientists successfully fire first protons around the tunnel 19 September 2008 - a malfunction causes a loss of approximately six tons of liquid helium.

23 September 2008 - closed for repairs initially until Spring 2009 but then until summer and then until autumn.

November 2009 - a bird drops a

bit of a baguette into the machine causing further delays 30 November 2009 - LHC becomes the world's highest energy particle accelerator achieving 1.18 TeV March 2010 - LHC expected to reach seven TeV, 3.5 times the power of any previous collider.

March 2010 - Dr Steve Myers, of CERN, announces that it will close at the end of 2011 for up to a year Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

March 10, 2000: Pop Goes the Nasdaq!

Tony Long (Wired Top Stories) Submitted at 3/9/2010 9:00:00 PM

The Nasdaq begins its spectacular collapse, signaling the end of the dot-com boom.

Are LED lamps a best buy for cities?

(Holy Kaw!)

lifespan—from production to disposal—a new bulb comparison shows.

Light-emitting diode (LED) The study, conducted by streetlights strike the best U n i v e r s i t y o f P i t t s b u r g h balance between brightness, e n g i n e e r s , c o i n c i d e s w i t h a f f o r d a b i l i t y , a n d e n e r g y initiatives in several U.S. cities s a v i n g s o v e r t h e i r to replace energy-guzzling HPS Submitted at 3/10/2010 9:08:00 AM

lamps—known for their flat orange glow—with LEDs. The

city of Pittsburgh is considering replacing 40,000 streetlights with LEDs, similar to retrofits and pilot programs under way in several cities, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Raleigh, and Ann Arbor.

Full story at Futurity.

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Cleanteach: Can David Learn to Love Goliath John Elkington (Fast Company) Submitted at 3/10/2010 11:51:28 AM

Traveling around Silicon Valley last week, I heard the David vs. Goliath story over and again, but in surprisingly different versions. In some, David (in the form of a cleantech start-up) aims to kill incumbent market giants, in others they end up in bed together. Yes, this was San Francisco, but it seems we are seeing a seismic shift in the cleantech industry's underlying narrative.

Nowhere was this more apparent than at the sixteenth Cleantech Forum. After trekking through the Valley of Death, as Cleantech Group President Sheeraz Haji put it, many cleantech firms see operating conditions improving--not least because of the $512 billion in direct government stimulus funding. But he warned that China's $200 billion cleantech stimulus is way ahead, with China and Hong Kong accounting for 69% of cleantech investment last year.

I was in the Valley to help guide a group of founders, CEOs and senior executives of 19 U.K. cleantech companies taking part in the first Clean & Cool Mission. And it was striking how the sustainability lexicon surfaced everywhere we went, whether to giant

companies like HP, public sector actors like San Francisco's City Hall, leading change agents like Arup or IDEO, or early stage companies like Better Place or Serious Materials.

Once again, as economist Joseph Schumpeter predicted, the great economic tectonic plates are in motion--with key

drivers including climate change, energy security, water scarcity and the growing green sensibility. Cleantech Group Executive Chairman Nick Parker told the Forum's opening session that "creative destruction is accelerating." In 1960, S&P listed companies lasted an average 40 years, which had halved to 20 years by

2000--and the turnover rate is now 10% a year.

Who, he wondered, would be tomorrow's "clean chips?" He underscored the growing interest of corporate giants, with Google alone responsible for two of the largest three cleantech deals last year. We are seeing a shift from cleantech-focused venture capitalism to cleantech-oriented

M&A, accelerated by the fact that the downturn has ensured there are "a lot of cheap assets on the chopping block."

Several major corporations used the Forum to trail their cloak, among them Boeing, Coca-Cola and Duke Energy.

There are many reasons why CLEANTEACH: page 19

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Oh, what a (bad) feeling nospam@example.org (Scott Jagow) (Marketplace Scratch Pad)

eaten by saber-toothed tigers.

The caveman brain creates a simple pattern about a simple problem: All saber-toothed Submitted at 3/9/2010 12:20:50 PM Toyota announced another tigers are deadly. They are to be recall today— this time 2004- avoided. That may not be true, 2009 Prius Hybrids — and this but it’s close enough for the morning, there was another caveman brain. wreck involving such a Prius. A An example from today: The woman crashed into a stone wall brain sees another runaway in upstate New York. She said Toyota. The brain creates the accelerator got stuck. What another simple pattern: All is going on?

Toyotas are dangerous. But the As I’m sure you’ve heard, brain is wrong this time because yesterday, just hours after this is not a simple problem. It’s Toyota held a news conference a highly complicated one. And to dispute an ABC story about we need to make our brains a c c e l e r a t i o n p r o b l e m s , stretch to fully comprehend California police had to help a what is happening, instead of 61-year-old driver stop his applying a simple, though Prius. He reached speeds of 94 understandable, solution to a mph, saying the accelerator was complex situation. stuck. His car was a 2008 Edmunds.com recently pointed model. The woman in New out that unintended acceleration York was driving a 2005. has been a problem for some It’s hard to deny that Toyota time within the car industry as a could have a serious flaw in its whole. The website compiled recent engineering, but it’s the following list: becoming more and more Toyota, consisting of its difficult to assess how much of T o y o t a , L e x u s a n d S c i o n this is mechanical and how brands, logged 1,133 consumer much of it is psychological. c o m p l a i n t s o f u n i n t e n d e d Frank Ahrens at the Washington acceleration filed with the Post puts it this way: NHTSA through Feb. 3.

An example from 100,000 Ford, including the Ford, years ago: The brain sees three Lincoln and Mercury models, of its caveman brain buddies get received 387 complaints.

Chrysler, including the Chrysler, Jeep and Dodge models, was hit with 171 complaints.

General Motors, including the Pontiac, Cadillac, GMC, Saturn, Saab, Buick, Hummer and Chevrolet brands [including the Chevy Cobalt SS, above], tallied 152 complaints.

Honda, including its Acura division, received 113 complaints.

Nissan, including its Infiniti division, logged 62 complaints.

Last month, I heard a crisis management expert on Talk of the Nation say how the American consumer marketplace is very emotional and different from Germany and Japan. Is it possible that the emotional reaction to this situation is making people panic on the road?

A similar theme was echoed in today’s LA Times by Michael Fumento, director of the nonprofit Independent Journalism Project. Fumento, who was in a bad Toyota crash many years ago (and still drives Toyota) suggests that the extraordinary focus on a few dramatic incidents does a disservice to the goal of making the roads safer:

Leonard Evans, author of the book “Traffic Safety,” also bemoans what he calls “the lethal American obsession with technical flaws.” Evans said: “Whether it’s … defect or a child darting into the road, most crashes occur because drivers don’t leave an adequate safety margin.”

“One hundred people are … killed every day, and it has nothing to do with technology, recent or otherwise,” says Evans. “We can cut that number by half by concentrating on driver attitudes.”

Defects can lead to terrible circumstances over which a driver has no control. I’ll never forget, nor will my wife, who now suffers from epilepsy that’s probably a result of the crash.

But while it’s the extraordinary that makes for headlines and congressional demagoguery, focusing on the ordinary is what will truly save lives.

I’m not trying to make a case for or against Toyota here. I’m simply trying to understand what it is that we’re actually witnessing. Any thoughts?

Overwhelming Majority Of EU Parliament Votes Against ACTA Mike Masnick (Techdirt) Submitted at 3/10/2010 5:27:12 AM

Wasn't expecting such a lopsided result, but EU Parliament voted 663 to 13 against ACTA, saying that "it flouts agreed EU laws on counterfeiting and piracy online."

Beyond that, apparently the Parliament is ready to go to court to stop EU negotiators from continuing down the path they're on: MEPs will go to the Court of Justice if the EU does not reject ACTA rules, including cutting off users from the Internet "gradually" if caught stealing content. Some Members of Parliament are also pointing out that the EU negotiators are violating the Lisbon Treaty, which says that EU Parliament Members should have "full and immediate access at all stages of international negotiations."

This is pretty big -- and a massive setback for ACTA supporters. The MEPs didn't just reject the lack of transparency, they were blatantly rejecting some of the proposals that were in the leaked documents.

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How to Make the $499 iPad 3G Compatible (Thanks, Verizon!)

Kit Eaton (Fast Company) Submitted at 3/10/2010 11:57:19 AM

Verizon won't be getting any action from Apple's iPad directly but, bless 'em, they're trying to make good of the matter and push 3G wireless dongles on users who've bought Wi-Fi only versions. Thing is, they've probably got the right idea.

The guys at Engadget have been "leaked" an internal memo from Verizon on the matter.

And it's so desperately hopeful it's almost cute. Until you remember that this is a multibillion-dollar market that this company is desperately sticking claws into so it don't lose its grip on the market. Check out the screenshot above to see what I mean.

"Apple introduces the iPad--an opportunity for VZW" and "Sounds great, but isn't iPad exclusive to AT&T?" being the most priceless phrases in there.

The document is otherwise straightforward, and merely lists the key hardware and contractual features we already know about Apple's wonder device. But the intention is

obvious: It's clear that many iPad buyers will opt for the lower-priced versions lacking 3G chips inside since they're $130 cheaper. Apple's already explained that you won't be able to tether the tablets to iPhones to exploit that device's 3G powers, so if you're ever to use a Wi-Fi only iPad while mobile, you'll need a different solution.

Which is where Verizon sees itself fitting right in. It'll be

offering a specialized version of its battery-powered 3G units that, when powered on, grab Verizon's 3G signal from its nationwide network and converts it to a local Wi-Fi signal your iPad can pick up.

Meaning people who opted for the low-end iPad can hook up to mobile broadband just like the more cash-rich folk who buy a 3G iPad. The trick in all this is pricing,

of course. Verizon will have to sell the dongle for less than the $130 premium Apple's charging for a 3G-enabled iPad, and it'll have to be super-smart about the way it charges for access to mobile data too, since we know that in the U.S. at least, AT&T's opting for a European-style "opt -in, opt-out" non-contract payment model. And this AT&T option is a smart move, which will certainly appeal to people

who're not interested in yet another two year 3G contract.

But Verizon, for all its "cuteness" on this issue, has tapped what's likely to be a very lucrative revenue vein, and it's one that'll be replicated elsewhere around the World. It's partly because of the nature of the iPad itself, as a halfsmartphone, half-PC device. For me, this will make it invaluable when I'm mobile and need to write. But I already use a 7.2 mbps 3G datastick for my laptop, and I don't need to duplicate that functionality in a 3G-enabled iPad. I'm certain I'll be looking for a similar solution to Verizon's here where I live.

And I'm 100% sure I won't be alone in this. Which makes me wonder...while Apple's clearly sticking with its AT&T exclusivity, is the Wi-Fi-only iPad a way to subtly tap the other 3G providers in the U.S. who don't suffer from AT&T's sucky reliability image?

[Via Engadget] To read more news like this, possibly on your iPad in a month, follow me, Kit Eaton, on Twitter.

10 Movies That Should Never, Ever Be Converted to 3D Matt Blum (Wired Top Stories) Submitted at 3/10/2010 7:39:00 AM

Why, really, did the 3D movie trend start? Does anybody remember, before the trend

began, thinking 'You know the some work, and some don't and problem with movies? They’re some would be bad ideas. Here too two-dimensional?' Anyway, are 10 that should never be

attempted.

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Interested in SBA Loan Incentives? Get in Line Now

Breaking: Massa Under Investigation for Allegedly Groping Male Staffers

Courtney Rubin (Inc.com)

(Little Green Footballs)

weekly average before the passage of last year's American Submitted at 3/10/2010 7:13:00 AM Recovery and Reinvestment The clock is ticking if you want Act. The SBA estimates the new to apply for bank loan with a funding will support $1.8 billion Small Business Administration in small business lending. guarantee.

Got a non-Recovery Act 7(a) or The incentive program – 504 loan and wondering about consisting of a 90 percent cancelling or resubmitting to government guarantee on the take advantage of better terms?

SBA's flagship 7(a) loans for No can do. Nor can you have start-ups and small businesses, the fees waived retroactively. as well as a trim or total cut of The extension doesn't affect the fees on 7(a) and 504 loans– other SBA Recovery Act was set to expire February 28. programs, including the President Barack Obama signed America's Recovery Capital an extension through March 28 Loan Program, which offers up into law last week. to $35,000 in short-term relief to Though Obama has proposed help small businesses ride out keeping the loan breaks through the recession. The ARC the end of the year, it's best not currently still has money, and to wait another minute to apply will hand it out until it runs out – the deal runs out when the or September 30, whichever funding does. If that's not comes first. enough to get you moving, Landrieu, the chair of the consider that the program has totalling some $231 million that billion to some 55,000 small Senate Committee on Small proved so popular that the piled up after February 22. businesses – was included in last Business and Entrepreneurship, agency has twice run out of Before the Senate passed the year's economic stimulus bill. said after last week's bill was money to supply it, first in bill, Senator Mary Landrieu, The 90 percent guarantee – up passed that the extension “is a November and then – despite Democrat of Louisiana, spoke of from the usual 75 percent – good first step to providing our Congress's last-minute infusion a small-business owner on the made the loans less risky for small businesses with the tools of cash in December – on waiting list who told the senator lenders, while also attracting they need to keep their doors February 22. So with the $60 she'd have to lay off 27 workers borrowers through lower fees. open and growing.” million last week's legislation if she did not obtain new SBA Administrator Karen Mills “I look forward to working my said the program led average handed the SBA, the agency financing. colleagues in the Senate to Money for the original program weekly loan approvals to leap today starts working through a ensure these programs receive a waiting list of the 652 loans – which helped to lend $22 by 87 percent compared to the longer extension,” she said.

Submitted at 3/9/2010 12:23:41 PM

Good grief. Is this story ever blowing up in Glenn Beck’s face: Massa under investigation for allegedly groping male staffers.

Former Rep. Eric Massa (DN.Y.) has been under investigation for allegations that he groped multiple male staffers working in his office, according to three sources familiar with the probe.

The allegations surrounding the former lawmaker date back at least a year, and involve “a pattern of behavior and physical harassment,” according to one source. The new claims of alleged groping contradict statements by Massa, who resigned his office on Monday after it became public that he was the subject of a House ethics committee investigation for possible harassment.

Massa had said that the allegations were limited to his use of “salty language” with his staff.

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Morning Reading nospam@example.org (Scott Jagow) (Marketplace Scratch Pad)

sidestep the whole mess and say, “A plague on both your houses.” Yet it is public policy to a certain extent that leaves the Submitted at 3/10/2010 5:52:32 AM Good morning. A few things to TV viewer stuck where he is start the day — Goldman gets because over time government sued, the Pentagon expresses has granted the major players in c o n c e r n a b o u t c o n s u m e r these battles certain rights and protection and a list of new exemptions to laws that have economy slang: given them leverage over the Pension fund sues Goldman rest of us.

Sachs over compensation(CBS) Game consoles are zapping US The International Brotherhood energy(Marketplace Morning of Electrical Workers pension Report) fund said the bank allocates Noah Horowitz is with the about 47 percent of its 2009 Natural Resources Defense revenue toward compensation, Council. He says the most according to the Reuters news popular models are energy agency. The lawsuit aims to vampires. r e c o u p s o m e o f t h e NOAH HOROWITZ: If you compensation for Goldman l e a v e y o u r X b o x 3 6 0 o r s h a r e h o l d e r s , s a y i n g t h e Playstation 3 on all night long payments “ v a s t l y when you’re done, you’re using overcompensate management as much energy each year as and constitute corporate waste.” two new refrigerators would.

The Oscars, the NFL and failed Pentagon weighs in on public policy(Real Clear consumer protection(PBS Markets) NewsHour) In both cases, however, the This is hardly the first time the consumer sits in the middle of military has concerned itself this game as the two sides hurtle with consumer protections. towards each other. I suspect Since 1994, the military has that many people would like to required personnel to receive

CLEANTEACH: continued from page 15

this is happening, but Parker saw the take-off point as 2005, when both General Electric and Walmart switched on to sustainability. Now even Bill Gates has put his substantial shoulder to the climate wheel, with his recent TED speech.

The most striking of the big corporate come-ons was unveiled by Veolia Environnement. Senior Vice President Philippe Martin announced their new Innovation Accelerator, saying that he expects to be joined on the Forum platform in 2011 by the CEOs of at least four new cleantech firms Veolia will be working with by then.

They say you hear what you're Sample sentence: “At first I felt listening for--so I was instantly really bad about being decruited alert when Nick Parker reflected from that corporate law firm that it has taken "a long time for after spending two summers of this to get into the C-Suite." I law school interning for them. had already discussed with Fast But then I decided to make the Company a new blog series we most of my funemployment and hope to launch early in April, use my signing bonus to travel focusing on how sustainability around Europe.” and social innovation challenges are looming on the radar screens of CEOs, CFOs, COOs, CTOs, CMOs, and CSOs (the new breed of Chief Sustainability Officers), among others.

The U.K. cleantech firms I was out all the stops to be selected with made a quite an impression with some attention-getting on those we visited. Virtually an stunts that scream to the search A-to-Z, from AMEE (which helps clients calculate their giant "Pick me! Pick ME!" carbon footprints) to Xeros (which aims to green the global financial literacy training. At first, it seemed that required education had little effect: A 2005 report by consumer advocacy group Center for Responsible Lending found that 1in 5 active-duty military personnel had been payday borrowers in the past year and that “predatory payday lending costs military families over $80 million in abusive fees every year.”

Recession slang: Ten new terms for the new economy(Christian Science Monitor) • Decruited, adj. To be fired from a position one has not even started yet.

Call Me Google. (And Call Me, Google) Curtis Silver (Wired Top Stories) Submitted at 3/10/2010 6:23:00 AM

Google's announcement that it

intends to build and test super fast fiber-optic broadband networks in a few communities around the US has a few communities in the US pulling

19

laundry market), they aim to develop partnerships with the right sort of giants.

Venture capital is a stepping stone--with Xeros CEO Bill Westwater joking that he might even set up a laundry in Sand Hill Road to help VCs see his particular version of the future.

That said, several Canadians I spoke to worried that economically weaker countries seem to be wrapping up their cleantech IP in "pretty bows" so it can be scooped up by Valley VCs! In summary, the challenge for those of us acting as dating agencies between the Davids and the Goliaths will be to ensure that the resulting relationships are as equitable and productive as possible, to encourage a tsunami of innovators, entrepreneurs and investors to pour into this vast new opportunity space.

John Elkington is co-founder and executive chairman of Volans Ventures and co-founder and director SustainAbility. His most recent book was The Power of Unreasonable People: How Social Entrepreneurs Create Markets That Change the World (Harvard Business School Press, 2008).

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The future of television nospam@example.org (Scott Jagow) (Marketplace Scratch Pad) Submitted at 3/9/2010 9:49:30 AM

Two pieces of news today provide clues about what TV and the Internet will be like in the not-so-distant future. Maybe it’s not that impressive to people who’ve grown up with the Internet and TV slowly merging, but as someone who remembers getting up to turn the dial on a wood-paneled Magnavox to channel U, it’s still kind of amazing.

Now, Cisco may have overhyped its announcement just a tad, saying it would change the Internet forever.

Cisco simply unveiled a new router, the CRS-3. But it’s a whopper of a router, to be sure, which can transmit 322 terabits per second. It’s supposedly 12 times the capacity of existing routers, and that can only mean one thing— video: John Chambers, CEO of Cisco, said this new router will serve as the foundation of the nextgeneration Internet that will see tremendous growth due to video.

“Video is the killer app,” he said. “Video brings the Internet to life and most of the devices that will be coming on the network will evolve quickly into video. “

B of A kills overdraft fees nospam@example.org (Scott Jagow) (Marketplace Scratch Pad)

Consumer groups like the move.

But let’s be real. Overdraft fees are a multi-billion dollar business. That revenue has to Submitted at 3/10/2010 9:02:02 AM Bank of America’s decision to be collected somewhere else, get rid of overdraft fees on debit either through budget cuts or purchases sounds like a win for more likely, other fees. This customers based on a rare could mean the end of free commodity in the financial checking or rewards programs. sector — common sense. But is Consider this: it really?

In the past, a relatively small The bank says starting June 19, number of customers generated customers who try to use their s u c h e n o r m o u s f e e s f r o m debit cards without enough overdraft charges and penalties money in their checking account o n c r e d i t c a r d s t h a t t h e y will simply be declined. More subsidized free checking and “Whether it was gaming or service as well as video from from the New York Times: generous rewards programs for video or tablets or ESPN W e b s i t e s l i k e G o o g l e ’ s “What our customers kept the majority of customers. bringing 3-D sports to TV, it’s YouTube, according to these telling me is ‘just don’t let me In the case of overdraft, 93 about video,” he said. Chambers people. It also lets users to spend money that I don’t have,’ percent of the fees are generated added that this video traffic, personalize a lineup of shows, ” said Susan Faulkner, the by just 14 percent of the along with other data intensive these people said. bank’s deposit and card product customers who exceed their applications for things such as With the test, Google moves e x e c u t i v e , w h o s a i d t h e balances five times or more a health care, will require more deeper into a crowded field of overdraft changes were part of a year, according to a 2008 study bandwidth than anyone could companies, large and small, that broader push to build trust b y t h e F e d e r a l D e p o s i t have imagined a short time ago. have been trying for years to among its customers. “We Insurance Corporation. ThreeCheck out this slide from marry the Web and TV and their wanted to help them avoid those quarters of customers are not Cisco’s presentation: business models—from rivals unexpected overdraft fees.” charged overdraft fees at all, the Meanwhile, the Wall Street Microsoft Corp. and Apple Inc. Keep in mind that two weeks study found.

Journal reports that Google and t o t h e m a n u f a c t u r e r s o f after this policy takes effect, So the question is: As a Dish Network are collaborating televisions and set-top boxes. banks will be required to get a customer, do you favor the o n a n e w t e l e v i s i o n Remember when companies customer’s permission before elimination of overdraft fees, p r o g r a m m i n g s e r v i c e : were trying for years to come up enrolling them in a overdraft even if it means free checking or The service, which runs on TV with set-top boxes? program. B of A will still offer other perks go away? set-top boxes containing Google overdraft protection on checks Or is it unfair that a majority of software, allows users to find and automatic payments, with customers will have to make up shows on the satellite-TV the customer’s permission. The for the fees that were generated bank’s decision to eliminate by a minority of customers? overdraft completely on debit purchases is a bit of a surprise.

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Battlestar Galactica Coming Soon to Fight With Star Wars and Star Trek MMOs Kevin Ohannessian (Fast Company)

various classes of characters, and weaponry, and ships, and dramatic storyline, and big Submitted at 3/10/2010 12:07:04 PM worlds to play in," said Bill B i g p o i n t a n d U n i t y Kisper, the GM of the digital Technologies announced on platforms group at Universal T u e s d a y t h a t B a t t l e s t a r Partnerships and Licensing.

G a l a c t i c a O n l i n e w i l l b e Players will be able to play as released this Fall. The MMO either humans or Cylons, in both (massively multiplayer online ship combat sequences and game) will debut on Syfy away missions on planets. The Channel's site first, as a 30-day developers are working closely exclusive, and will use browser- with the production company at based 3-D software Unity. Universal that is behind the "We've always felt that show, sharing sound and Battlestar was the perfect IP for computer assets, and possibly gaming. It's got all the elements more, "There will really be a that you would want: The link between the show and the

game itself, with the characters and storyline. It's not just some starships flying around in orbit and we call it a Battlestar game," said Heiko Hubertz,

CEO of Bigpoint. Details about what characters and stories from the show will be featured in the game will be forthcoming.

But can the game succeed in a

New Mixed Media Edition of Seth Godin Book Unleashed Nadine Heintz (Inc.com)

SUPER Ideavirus.

The e-book, which costs just 99 cents for an online version or T o d a y , V o o k r e l e a s e d a iPhone app, has a uncluttered, multimedia version of Seth crisp design. You can choose to G o d i n ' s U n l e a s h i n g t h e view it as text only, video only, Ideavirus, which was originally or a mix of both text and video. published online ten years ago. Each section features text and I've been reading a lot about accompanying videos. For mixed media books designed for example, the section about the tablets and e-readers, so I d e c l i n e o f " i n t e r r u p t i o n thought I'd check out the new marketing" includes a video take on Godin's book, which case study about the Little Miss Vook is calling Unleashing the Matched sock company. Some Submitted at 3/10/2010 7:03:28 AM

of the terms in the text are linked, so you can click on GeoCities, for example, to read about the company on Wikipedia. Of course, there are pictures and plenty of graphs that help illustrate Godin's ideas.

Another cool feature of the vook is the ability to click on the "connect" view to comment on the book on Facebook or Twitter or go to Godin's website and blog.

It might take a while to adjust

to toggling back and forth between the videos and text, especially if you're viewing the vook on your iPhone. But the concept makes a lot of sense now that more and more books are being read on tablets and ereaders. In particular, the multimedia approach works well for instructional books such as Godin's. I think I'd rather read my Jane Austen the old fashioned way, though.

market that feature both the recently launched Star Trek MMO and the coming Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO? Kisper said, "It's a crowded and competitive space. We're a little bit different because, while those are more of a traditional MMO with a box product and an on-going subscription, we are coming into the browser-based space. We thought that made sense for Battlestar Galactica because the fanbase for the show is quite broad and spans a number of different demographics. We wanted to make it more accessible."

Mach 6 Cruise Missile, Ready for Prime Time?

Nathan Hodge (Wired Top Stories) Submitted at 3/10/2010 8:42:00 AM

This spring, the Air Force was preparing for a groundbreaking test of the X-51 WaveRider, a hypersonic cruise missile that would reach speeds of up to Mach 6. But it looks like the WaveRider’s debut flight will have to wait while some technical issues are addressed.

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Analyst Calls: ADI, BCS, CMA, CVX, FACT, GR, ITMN, JCG, LMT, NFLX ...

Eric Buscemi (BloggingStocks)

from underweight following the company's Q4 results.

• Lockheed Martin ( LMT) was Submitted at 3/10/2010 11:30:00 AM upgraded to neutral from Filed under: Analyst Reports, underperform at Macquarie.

A n a l y s t U p g r a d e s a n d • Analog Devices ( ADI) was Downgrades, Analyst Initiations upgraded to outperform from Analyst Upgrades market perform at Bernstein.

• T h i n k E q u i t y u p g r a d e d • Goodrich ( GR) was upgraded InterMune ( ITMN) to buy from to conviction buy from buy at h o l d f o l l o w i n g t h e F D A Goldman. advisory committee's approval of Esbriet. InterMune was also Continue reading Analyst Calls: upgraded to outperform from ADI, BCS, CMA, CVX, FACT, market perform at Wells Fargo. GR, ITMN, JCG, LMT, NFLX • Piper Jaffray upgraded Radian ... the Jamaica station, Mies Hora ( RDN) to neutral from Analyst Calls: ADI, BCS, is splitting the difference, using underweight with a $9 target. C M A , C V X , F A C T , G R , a green-lettered EXIT and the The firm believes the company ITMN, JCG, LMT, NFLX ... running man. Maybe it'll wean will not have to raise capital as o r i g i n a l l y a p p e a r e d o n us off the red menace altogether. the government is allowing it to BloggingStocks on Wed, 10 (By the way, hear Turner talk increase its leverage ratio Mar 2010 11:30:00 EST. Please about the graphic design horror beyond historic maximum see our terms for use of feeds. that is Penn Station on WNYC's levels.

Permalink| Email this| Brian Lehrer Show. It's not the • JPMorgan upgraded Comments designers' fault--it's ExlService ( EXLS) to neutral bureaucracy. The three owners of Penn Station just can't get their act together to unify the wayfinding system. You can see the actor has passed away. a nice, if overly dramatic, (ETonline - Breaking News) Authorities say that early slideshow of getting lost in Penn Submitted at 3/10/2010 5:24:00 AM Wednesday morning, Corey was Station at the Slate article here.)

'80s teen heartthrob Corey Haim transported by ambulance to St. was pronounced dead this Joseph's hospital in Burbank, morning in Los Angeles. He CA, where he was pronounced was 38. dead. The hospital then notified The North Hollywood police police. department confirms to ET that

Please Exit in an Orderly, WellDesigned Fashion William Bostwick (Fast Company)

door, developed in the late '70s by the Japanese designer Yukio Ota. It's called, unsurprisingly, Submitted at 3/10/2010 10:41:33 AM the running man, and its Slate editor Julia Turner advocates say it's more legible explains why American exit (wordless and green, not red, signs need to be shown the door. which means "stop" not "run Over at Slate, in her epic six- away"). But still we stick with part series on wayfinding, the red letters. Why? deputy editor Julia Turner Well, mainly because we explains the exit sign: designed couldn't think of anything better, to stand out, but ignored by T u r n e r s a y s . T h e o n l y designers--at least in the U.S.-- a l t e r n a t i v e s h e c i t e s w a s for 75 years. In America, we developed for the AIGA's have the commanding, red symbol set for DOT(right) but it EXIT, standardized in the '30s never caught on, for obvious and '40s. But most everywhere reasons. Still, there might be else, it's the ISO standard: a hope. In his new pictograph green man bounding out the system for MTA, being tested at

Corey Haim Dead At 38

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Govt Considers Free(ish) Broadband InterMune Showered for All. Err... with Analyst Love on FDA Approval Addy Dugdale (Fast Company)

Elizabeth Harrow (BloggingStocks)

Submitted at 3/10/2010 11:58:37 AM

Next week sees the release of the Government's National Broadband Plan, in which it briefly outlines a "broadband for all" idea (something that our U.K. readers might remember from the British Government's Digital Britain report of 2009.)

The FCC is proposing that free or low-cost wireless spectrum be set aside in an attempt to get the 93 million or so Americans who are currently without broadband in their homes. In an effort to keep the costs low, they're looking to the private, not-for-profit, and philanthropic sectors.

While admirable--and typically forward-thinking from the Obama administration--there's a small flaw to the plan. No ISP in its right mind would be happy about this, and their lobbyists will kick up a right old stink in

Submitted at 3/10/2010 12:00:00 PM

Filed under: Major Movement, Analyst Reports, Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades, Good news, Products and Services Late Tuesday, an advisory panel of the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) voiced its approval for pirfenidone, the experimental lung drug from D . C . - - o r s q u a s h t h e danger of "a new category of InterMune ( ITMN). The panel functionality of the free service second-class citizens." voted 9-3 in favor of until it's barely useable.

Alongside this hot potato, the recommending pirfenidone to Given the huge amount of National Broadband Plan is also p a t i e n t s w i t h i d i o p a t h i c entertainment the Internet now proposing measures to combat p u l m o n a r y f i b r o s i s . p r o v i d e s , i t ' s b e c o m i n g digital illiteracy, with an Online The FDA is expected to follow increasingly hard to view Skills Portal and a Digital the advice of the advisory panel, broadband as a utility. However, Literacy Corps. Congress gets to although it's not required to do you can't argue with FCC Chair hear the plan next Wednesday, so. The regulatory agency is due Julius Genachowski's warning March 17. that, without computer literacy [ V i a E l e c t r o n i s t a a n d and Internet access, there is a Z D N e t . c o m ]

Clinton Endorsement Shakes Up Maine Gov. Race (Newsmax - Politics) Submitted at 3/9/2010 12:06:44 PM

Former President Bill Clinton stirred up Maine’s Democratic race for governor Tuesday when he announced his support for Maine Senate President

Elizabeth Mitchell.

Mitchell long-time supporter of the Clintons, is expected to get a huge boost from the former president to help her campaign reach the number of qualifying contributions for Clean Elections funding.

The e-mail blast from Clinton to Maine Democrats arrived 22 days before Mitchell must submit 3,250, $5 qualifying contributions to the state, the Web site of the Maine Public Broadcasting Network.

You can read the full story

here. Š Newsmax. All rights reserved.

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to issue its final ruling on the drug's fate by early May. Continue reading InterMune Showered with Analyst Love on FDA Approval InterMune Showered with Analyst Love on FDA Approval originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Biden steps up pressure on Israel (BBC News | Americas | World Edition)

of the planning decision, saying it represented "the ruining of trust and a serious blow" to Submitted at 3/10/2010 9:19:33 AM peace efforts.

Please turn on JavaScript.

Mr Abbas has refused to Media requires JavaScript to resume direct negotiations with play. the Israeli government because Joe Biden: Israeli government's of its refusal to put a complete decision "undermines trust" stop to the expansion of US Vice-President Joe Biden settlements in the West Bank has again condemned Israel over and East Jerusalem. a controversial building project, Israeli denial saying its approval undermined In November, Israel announced trust in the peace process. a 10-month suspension of new Mr Biden was speaking after building in the West Bank, meeting the Palestinian under heavy US pressure. But it Authority President, Mahmoud considers areas within the Abbas, in the West Bank.

Jerusalem municipality as its Mr Abbas also said the territory and the restrictions do approval of another 1,600 not apply. homes in occupied East Close to 500,000 Jews live in Jerusalem threatened the peace s t a t e m e n t o r a c t i o n s t h a t said - can take the risks needed planning for new housing units more than 100 settlements built process and demanded the plans inflamed tensions or prejudiced for peace. in East Jerusalem undermines since Israel's 1967 occupation of be scrapped. the outcome of talks. Strong But equally it wants to exert that very trust - the trust that we t h e W e s t B a n k a n d E a s t Israel has insisted the move had words. But was Israel's prime s o m e p r e s s u r e o v e r a need right now in order to begin Jerusalem. They are considered nothing to do with Mr Biden's minister listening? government that, in resisting a as well as produce profitable illegal under international law, visit. although Israel disputes this.

M a n y o b s e r v e r s s e e M r full-scale settlement freeze, has negotiations."

'Lasting peace' Netanyahu's priority as being pretty well outfoxed the US Mr Biden said achieving peace During their dinner on Tuesday Israel and the Palestinians had political survival, and he is during the first year of President would require both Israel and evening, Israeli Prime Minister a g r e e d t o h o l d i n d i r e c t practiced in the art of navigating Obama's tenure. t h e P a l e s t i n i a n s t o t a k e Benjamin Netanyahu told Mr "proximity talks" in a bid to between domestic pressures and Mr Biden told a joint press " h i s t o r i c a l l y b o l d " s t e p s . Biden that he had no prior restart the peace process, which those coming from Washington. conference with Mr Abbas that M r A b b a s s a i d h e w a s knowledge of the decision to has been stalled for 17 months.

Historical boldness, as Mr h e w o u l d c o n d e m n a l l addressing the Israeli people in authorise the new housing units However, the Israeli settlement Biden put it, is not in his nature statements that inflamed the saying that the "time is right for in the ultra-Orthodox settlement a n n o u n c e m e n t h a s c a s t a - nor in fairness is it part of the situation or prejudiced the peace peace based on two states - an of Ramat Shlomo, officials said. shadow on those talks, with the make-up of President Abbas. process.

Israeli state living in peace and He said the plans had been Palestinian Authority saying the But that is just what the US now He said the US would play an security alongside a Palestinian submitted three years ago and approval showed Israel believed expects. had only received initial active and sustained role in the state".

US negotiation efforts had failed Mr Biden's mission underscores talks process and warned that it He said there should be a a p p r o v a l t h a t d a y . before they had even begun. the fundamental ambivalence in was "incumbent on both sides "permanent, lasting and just " T h e d i s t r i c t c o m m i t t e e s In the future, he asserted, the US position. It must seek to not to complicate the process". peace" that took in all areas, approve plans weekly without Washington would hold both make Israel feel secure, because "Yesterday, the decision by the including Syria and Lebanon.

BIDEN page 30 sides accountable for any only a secure government - it is Israeli government to advance But he was also highly critical

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New national math, English standards drafted (AP) (Yahoo! News: U.S. News)

consensus, said Chris Minnich, director of standards and assessment for the Council of SEATTLE – Math and English Chief State School Officers. instruction in the United States "We really used evidence in an moved a step closer to uniform u n p r e c e d e n t e d f a s h i o n , " — and more rigorous — Minnich said Monday. standards Wednesday as draft In contrast, states that have new national guidelines were engaged in consensus-building released. have not made the tough Supporters of the project led by decisions about what should be t h e N a t i o n a l G o v e r n o r s contained in the standards and Association and the Council of what shouldn't, Minnich said.

Chief State School Officers Some have criticized the hope the lists of things kids process, saying adoption of the should learn at each grade level new standards will not be will replace a patchwork of voluntary. systems across the country. "First they tried to tie it to Race The effort is expected to lead to to the Top money ... now they're standardization of textbooks and trying to tie it to Title I funds," testing and make learning easier s a i d R o b e r t S c o t t , T e x a s ' for students who move from commissioner of education. state to state.

President Barack Obama told T h e f e d e r a l g o v e r n m e n t the nation's governors last recently opened bidding for month that he wants to make $350 million to work on new Title I dollars for public schools national tests that would be contingent on adoption of given to students in states that c o l l e g e - a n d c a r e e r - r e a d y adopt the national standards. reading and math standards, but People involved in the effort the president said the states endorsed by 48 states, two would not be required to adopt territories and the District of the coalition's standards.

C o l u m b i a s a i d t h e n e w Texas and Alaska are the only standards will raise expectations states not participating in the of student achievement in some national standards effort and states and be in line with the Texas also opted out of the educational expectations of top- f e d e r a l R a c e t o t h e T o p performing states and countries. competition for $4.35 billion for Unlike most efforts to revise education reform. standards at a state level, this "Texas has chosen to preserve document was not built on its sovereign authority to Submitted at 3/10/2010 6:06:33 AM

determine what is appropriate for Texas children to learn in its public schools," Scott wrote in a letter to U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. "It is clear that the first step toward nationalization of our schools has been put into place."

The public is invited to comment on the proposed new national standards until April 2, and the developers hope to publish final education goals for K-12 math and English in May. A glance at the math standards reveals the changes are not dramatic: Kids would still learn to count in kindergarten, not multiply and divide. Minnich said the main improvement is clarity and focus. In that, they follow the trend already set by recent state standards revisions.

Each grade will have fewer goals in each subject area, but each goal goes deeper; the goals are written in plain English with little or no educational jargon; and some learning goals may start to show up earlier than expected.

For example, second graders now are expected to add and subtract triple digit numbers.

Fractions start in third grade.

And kindergartners are expected to learn to count to 100.

Grade placement of particular topics in both the math and English standards was based on state and international

comparisons and the collective professional judgment of educators, researchers and mathematicians.

"These are rigorous standards.

These standards are as high as the highest standards that any state has," said William McCallum, chairman of the math standards committee, math professor and head of the mathematics department at the University of Arizona.

One math expert who was not involved in writing the draft standards questioned the value of moving concepts earlier.

Cathy Seeley, senior fellow at the Charles A. Dana Center at the University of Texas, has been involved in the revision of math standards in more than a dozen states. She saw a lot of similarity between the recent state revisions and the national plan.

Seeley, who plans to participate in the public comment period, said she doesn't think making kids learn things earlier translates into higher standards.

"It's not that they're learning it well but too late. It's that they're not learning it well," Seeley said.

The development team worked to resolve differences between those who would like to see math instruction focus on computation and those who prefer the discovery method that

focuses on higher-level problem solving. McCallum said the draft standards respect both points of view, calling for both conceptual understanding and computational skills.

"We tried to resolve conflicts and go beyond some of these arguments," McCallum said.

"We listened very hard."

The draft report also addresses the debate over how much should be expected from immigrants who are just learning English. An introduction to the standards explains that English language learners should be held to the same standards but should be given more time and instructional support to meet the requirements.

Students with disabilities should also be challenged to master as many of the standards as they can, the document argues. ____ AP reporter April Castro contributed to this story from Austin, Texas. ____ On the Net: Common Standards Initiative: http://www.corestandards.org/ Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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'Jihad Jane' indictment shows terror's evolution (AP) (Yahoo! News: U.S. News) Submitted at 3/10/2010 8:40:12 AM

PHILADELPHIA – The selfdescribed "Jihad Jane" who thought her blond hair and blue eyes would let her blend in as she sought to kill an artist in Sweden is a rare case of an American woman aiding in foreign terrorism and shows the evolution of the global threat, authorities say.

The suburban Philadelphia woman, Colleen R. LaRose, is accused in the indictment filed Tuesday of trying to recruit fighters, as well as agreeing to murder the artist, marry a terrorism suspect so he could move to Europe and martyr herself if necessary.

LaRose is "one of only a few such cases nationwide in which females have been charged with terrorism violations," said U.S. Department of Justice spokesman Dean Boyd.

LaRose, 46, of Pennsburg but with close ties to south Texas, has been held without bail since her Oct. 15 arrest in Philadelphia.

Authorities said the case shows how terrorist groups are looking to recruit Americans to carry out their goals.

"Today's indictment, which alleges that a woman from suburban America agreed to carry out murder overseas and to

provide material support to terrorists, underscores the evolving nature of the threat we face," said David Kris, assistant attorney general for national security.

LaRose had targeted Swedish artist Lars Vilks and had online discussions about her plans with at least one of several suspects apprehended over that plot Tuesday in Ireland, according to a U.S. official speaking on condition of anonymity because the official wasn't authorized to discuss details of the investigation.

Irish police said Wednesday those arrested were two Algerians, two Libyans, a Palestinian, a Croatian and an American woman married to one of the Algerian suspects.

They were not identified by name.

A U.S. Department of Justice spokesman wouldn't confirm the case is related to Vilks, who angered Muslims by depicting the Prophet Muhammad with the body of a dog. At least three Swedish newspapers published the cartoon Wednesday, arguing that it had news value or was a free-speech symbol.

The indictment charges that LaRose, who also used the name Fatima LaRose online, agreed to try killing the target on orders from the unnamed terrorists she met online, and traveled to

Europe in August to do so.

LaRose indicated in her online conversations that she thought her blond hair and blue eyes would help her move freely in Sweden to carry out the attack, the indictment said.

LaRose is a convert to Islam who actively recruited others, including at least one unidentified American, and her online messages expressed her willingness to become a martyr and her impatience to take action, according to the indictment and the U.S. official.

Killing the target would be her goal "till I achieve it or die trying," she wrote a south Asian suspect in March 2009, according to the indictment. Her federal public defender, Mark T. Wilson, declined to comment Tuesday.

"I'm glad she didn't kill me," Vilks told The Associated Press on Wednesday, saying the suspects appeared to be "lowtech." He said he he has built defense systems in his home to thwart would-be terrorists, including a safe room and electrified barbed wire.

U.S. Attorney Michael Levy said the indictment doesn't link LaRose to any organized terror groups.

In recent years, the only other women charged in the U.S. with terror violations were lawyer Lynne Stewart, convicted of

helping imprisoned blind Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman communicate with his followers, and Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani scientist found guilty of shooting at U.S. personnel in Afghanistan while yelling, "Death to Americans!"

But neither case involved the kind of plotting attributed to LaRose — a woman charged with trying to foment a terror conspiracy to kill someone overseas.

Stewart has insisted she is "not a traitor," while Siddiqui has accused U.S. authorities of lying about her.

LaRose called herself JihadJane in a YouTube video in which she said she was "desperate to do something somehow to help" ease the suffering of Muslims, the indictment said. According to the 11-page document, she agreed to obtain residency in a European country and marry one of the terrorists to enable him to live there.

She moved to Europe in August with her boyfriend's stolen passport and intended to give it to one of her "brothers," the indictment said. She hoped to "live and train with jihadists and to find and kill" the targeted artist, it said.

LaRose also agreed to provide financial help to her coconspirators in Asia and Europe, the indictment charged.

LaRose had an initial court appearance on Oct. 16 but didn't enter a plea. No further court dates have been set.

Her boyfriend, Kurt Gorman, told the Philadelphia Daily News that the two met in Ennis, Texas, several years ago and that nothing seemed amiss until she packed up her clothes and moved out of their apartment in Pennsburg without warning in August, the day after his father's funeral.

"I was upset, worried. Maybe something happened to her," he said.

A few weeks later, two FBI agents visited him, and in November or December he was subpoenaed by a federal grand jury to testify, Gorman said.

"She never talked about international events, about Muslims, anything," he told the newspaper. "It's very strange. I still can't believe it." ___ Associated Press writers Devlin Barrett in Washington and Louise Nordstrom and Karl Ritter in Stockholm contributed to this report.

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'JihadJane' a Sign of the Evolution of Terrorism Threat?

(FOXNews.com) Submitted at 3/10/2010 8:46:56 AM

PHILADELPHIA The selfdescribed "Jihad Jane" who thought her blond hair and blue eyes would let her blend in as she sought to kill an artist in Sweden is a rare case of an American woman aiding in foreign terrorism and shows the evolution of the global threat, authorities say.

The suburban Philadelphia woman, Colleen R. LaRose, is accused in the indictment filed Tuesday of trying to recruit fighters, as well as agreeing to murder the artist, marry a terrorism suspect so he could move to Europe and martyr herself if necessary.

LaRose is "one of only a few such cases nationwide in which females have been charged with terrorism violations," said U.S. Department of Justice spokesman Dean Boyd.

LaRose, 46, of Pennsburg but with close ties to south Texas, has been held without bail since her Oct. 15 arrest in Philadelphia.

Authorities said the case shows how terrorist groups are looking to recruit Americans to carry out their goals.

"Today's indictment, which alleges that a woman from suburban America agreed to

carry out murder overseas and to provide material support to terrorists, underscores the evolving nature of the threat we face," said David Kris, assistant attorney general for national security.

LaRose had targeted Swedish artist Lars Vilks and had online discussions about her plans with at least one of several suspects apprehended over that plot Tuesday in Ireland, according to a U.S. official speaking on condition of anonymity because the official wasn't authorized to discuss details of the investigation.

Irish police said Wednesday those arrested were two Algerians, two Libyans, a Palestinian, a Croatian and an American woman married to one of the Algerian suspects.

They were not identified by name.

A U.S. Department of Justice spokesman wouldn't confirm the case is related to Vilks, who angered Muslims by depicting the Prophet Muhammad with the body of a dog. At least three Swedish newspapers published the cartoon Wednesday, arguing that it had news value or was a free-speech symbol.

The indictment charges that LaRose, who also used the name Fatima LaRose online, agreed to try killing the target on orders

from the unnamed terrorists she met online, and traveled to Europe in August to do so.

LaRose indicated in her online conversations that she thought her blond hair and blue eyes would help her move freely in Sweden to carry out the attack, the indictment said.

LaRose is a convert to Islam who actively recruited others, including at least one unidentified American, and her online messages expressed her willingness to become a martyr and her impatience to take action, according to the indictment and the U.S. official.

Killing the target would be her goal "till I achieve it or die trying," she wrote a south Asian suspect in March 2009, according to the indictment. Her federal public defender, Mark T. Wilson, declined to comment Tuesday.

"I'm glad she didn't kill me," Vilks told The Associated Press on Wednesday, saying the suspects appeared to be "lowtech." He said he he has built defense systems in his home to thwart would-be terrorists, including a safe room and electrified barbed wire.

U.S. Attorney Michael Levy said the indictment doesn't link LaRose to any organized terror groups.

In recent years, the only other

women charged in the U.S. with terror violations were lawyer Lynne Stewart, convicted of helping imprisoned blind Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman communicate with his followers, and Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani scientist found guilty of shooting at U.S. personnel in Afghanistan while yelling, "Death to Americans!"

But neither case involved the kind of plotting attributed to LaRose — a woman charged with trying to foment a terror conspiracy to kill someone overseas.

Stewart has insisted she is "not a traitor," while Siddiqui has accused U.S. authorities of lying about her.

LaRose called herself JihadJane in a YouTube video in which she said she was "desperate to do something somehow to help" ease the suffering of Muslims, the indictment said. According to the 11-page document, she agreed to obtain residency in a European country and marry one of the terrorists to enable him to live there.

She moved to Europe in August with her boyfriend's stolen passport and intended to give it to one of her "brothers," the indictment said. She hoped to "live and train with jihadists and to find and kill" the targeted artist, it said.

LaRose also agreed to provide financial help to her coconspirators in Asia and Europe, the indictment charged.

LaRose had an initial court appearance on Oct. 16 but didn't enter a plea. No further court dates have been set.

Her boyfriend, Kurt Gorman, told the Philadelphia Daily News that the two met in Ennis, Texas, several years ago and that nothing seemed amiss until she packed up her clothes and moved out of their apartment in Pennsburg without warning in August, the day after his father's funeral.

"I was upset, worried. Maybe something happened to her," he said.

A few weeks later, two FBI agents visited him, and in November or December he was subpoenaed by a federal grand jury to testify, Gorman said.

"She never talked about international events, about Muslims, anything," he told the newspaper. "It's very strange. I still can't believe it."

Click here to read more on this story from MyFoxPhilly.com.

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Calif. jury recommends death for serial killer (AP) (Yahoo! News: U.S. News)

serial killer, this is what I did' and give up the victims."

Jurors took just an hour SANTA ANA, Calif. – It was Tuesday to return the death 2005 when Bruce Barcomb r e c o m m e n d a t i o n a f t e r a received the call he'd been sometimes surreal six-week trial a w a i t i n g f o r n e a r l y t h r e e in which the 66-year-old Alcala decades: Police had finally — w h o w a s r e p r e s e n t i n g identified the man who raped himself — grilled the mother of and murdered his little sister in a one of his victims, crossremote canyon on a dark night examined police investigators in 1977. and answered his own questions Police told Barcomb the while taking the stand in his suspect, Rodney James Alcala, own defense. was already on death row for Alcala also relied on a piece of killing a 12-year-old girl and an Arlo Guthrie song and a 1978 had to exhaust his appeals clip of himself as a winning before there could be a new trial contestant on "The Dating with the newly discovered Game" in his rambling and victims included. sometimes incoherent defense.

So Barcomb wrote Alcala in Alcala has been sentenced to prison, begging him to admit to death twice before in the 1979 killing his 18-year-old sister, murder of 12-year-old Robin J i l l , a n d f o u r o t h e r s i n Samsoe of Orange County, but stranglings between 1977 and those verdicts were overturned 1979. Alcala never wrote back. on appeal.

"I wrote to him four times," Prosecutors refiled charges in Barcomb said Tuesday, after a t h a t c a s e a n d a d d e d J i l l jury recommended the death Barcomb's murder and three penalty for Alcala in Jill o t h e r s i n 2 0 0 6 a f t e r Barcomb's murder and four investigators linked them to others more than 30 years after Alcala using DNA samples and the crimes. other forensic evidence. Those "It was always about why put us cases, which had gone unsolved through the carnage of this trial? for decades, went on trial for the Really tell us the truth: 'I'm a first time this year.

Submitted at 3/10/2010 4:47:29 AM

Alcala, an amateur photographer and UCLA graduate, focused his entire defense on the Samsoe case and ignored the murders of the four Los Angeles County cases.

"Thirty-six people now have convicted him of death and that's a great feeling knowing that Robin did not die for nothing. We took a monster off the street, we've got closure for other families who didn't have it," said Robin's older brother, Robert Samsoe, 44. "This is a joyous occasion."

Alcala gave his own closing arguments earlier Tuesday, telling jurors that a death recommendation would make them "de facto killers" and "wanna-be killers in waiting."

He then played a piece of Arlo Guthrie's 1967 song " Alice's Restaurant," in which the narrator tries to avoid being drafted for the Vietnam War by trying to convince a psychiatrist that he's unfit for the military because of his supposed extreme desire to kill.

"I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth," the song's narrator sings. "Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean: kill, kill, kill, kill."

Robert Samsoe stalked out of court as the song was played.

Juror Greg Lacey said the lyrics deeply affected the panel — but not in the way Alcala had hoped.

"It didn't make sense to us.

We're sitting there doing our duty, we're not out there stalking someone," Lacey said, adding that the gruesome evidence in the case gave him many sleepless nights.

Robin Samsoe was kidnapped while riding a bicycle to ballet class on June 20, 1979. Her body was found 12 days later in the Angeles National Forest.

Alcala was arrested a month after Samsoe's disappearance when his parole agent recognized him from a police sketch and called authorities.

Alcala has been in custody ever since.

He was first tried in Samsoe's murder in 1980. Prosecutors added the murders of the four women in 2006 after investigators discovered forensic evidence linking him to those crimes, including DNA found on three of the women, a bloody hand-print and marker testing done on blood Alcala left on a towel in the fourth victim's

home.

The jury convicted Alcala of the murders on Feb. 25, and also found true special-circumstance allegations of rape, torture and kidnapping, making him eligible for the death penalty.

During the guilt phase of trial, Alcala's defense took a surreal turn when he played a secondslong clip showing himself on a 1978 episode of "The Dating Game."

He said the grainy clip proved that he was wearing a gold-ball earring almost a year before Samsoe was killed.

Prosecutors said the earring, found in a small pouch with other earrings in a storage locker Alcala had rented, belong to Samsoe and that Alcala had taken it as a trophy.

The other women murdered were Georgia Wixted, 27, a nurse from Malibu; Charlotte Lamb, 32, a legal secretary from Santa Monica; and Jill Parenteau, 21, a key punch operator from Burbank.

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Completely Erase Storage Drives for Security [Security] Kevin Purdy (Lifehacker) Submitted at 3/10/2010 7:30:00 AM

No matter how you're getting rid of a computer or external drive, you want all your data

removed from it, because ways to wipe down a hard drive, identity thieves love laziness. SSD, or USB drive. More » MaximumPC details the best

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US 'hid terror suspect treatment' (BBC News | Americas | World Edition)

UK security officers.

Eliza Manningham-Buller's intervention has provided a few Submitted at 3/10/2010 3:19:15 AM more insights into the The former head of MI5 has contentious issue of what the claimed US intelligence UK knew about the US agencies "concealed" their treatment of detainees but it mistreatment of terror suspects. does not provide us with a full Baroness Eliza Manningham- picture or final answers.

Buller said she only discovered From what she said, it is clear alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid that in at least one case the UK S h e i k h M o h a m m e d w a s learned of mistreatment and waterboarded after retiring in lodged protests with the US. 2007.

But in other instances, notably In a lecture at the House of the case of Khalid Sheikh Lords, she said the US had been Mohammed, Lady Manningham "very keen to conceal from us -Buller indicated the service had what was happening". not known that he was Her comments follow waterboarded. controversy over UK agents' In the crucial case of Binyam alleged collusion with US Mohamed, we know that MI5 at counterparts using torture s o m e p o i n t d i d r e c e i v e techniques. documents from the US Last month it emerged that detailing his treatment in Binyam Mohamed, a British Pakistan but we do not know r e s i d e n t f o r m e r l y h e l d a t who exactly saw these and at Guantanamo Bay, had been what stage. subjected to "cruel, inhuman Answering the question of who and degrading" treatment. knew what and when will be Ministers and current MI5 head central to the ongoing police Jonathan Evans have insisted investigation into possibly that there was no collusion by complicity in torture.

However, questions remain about exactly when they learnt that the US apparently changed its rules on torture after the 9/11 attacks.

Lady Manningham-Buller, who headed MI5 between 2002 and 2007, said: "The Americans were very keen that people like us did not discover what they were doing."

In a lecture at an event organised by the Mile End Group, she said she had wondered, in 2002 and 2003, how the US had been able to supply the UK with intelligence from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and was told that he was "very proud of his achievements when questioned about it".

"It wasn't actually until after I retired that I read that, in fact, he had been waterboarded 160 times," she said.

Lady Manningham-Buller said the government had lodged "protests" with the US about its treatment of detainees, but refused to go into further detail.

Mistreatment A Foreign Office spokeswoman

was not prepared to comment on the former MI5 chief's comments.

She said the Foreign Office could not, at this stage, find any details of protests lodged by the British government with the US over the treatment of detainees.

BBC security correspondent Gordon Corera said Lady Manningham-Buller's remarks were an acknowledgement MI5 had been slow to realise what the US was doing.

However, he said, there was still not a complete picture of what happened.

"It is clear that at some point documents came to the UK saying he [Binyam Mohamed] had been mistreated by the US. What we don't know is exactly when those documents came and... who saw them," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

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Blu-Ray Players - from Consumer Reports Press Room (Consumer Reports) Submitted at 3/9/2010 9:00:59 PM

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Get the Most From Your Point-and-Shoot Camera [Photography] Jason Fitzpatrick (Lifehacker) Submitted at 3/10/2010 9:00:00 AM

Just because you've got a relatively inexpensive point-and -shoot camera and not a $1500+ DSLR rig doesn't mean you can't take awesome photos.

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Barry Ritholtz (The Big Picture) Submitted at 3/10/2010 7:16:04 AM

This is dead pan brilliance: Maritime Ship Construction and Environmental Concerns Back to work!

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Employees Comfort Dead Houston Oil Exec's Family (FOXNews.com) Submitted at 3/10/2010 6:53:05 AM

Employees of a Houston energy company are rallying around the family of an executive found dead in New Orleans, MyFoxHouston.com reported.

Police say a body recovered from the Mississippi River is that of Douglas Schantz, 54, who went missing early Friday morning.

The discovery was made just before noon Tuesday by volunteers from Texas Equusearch, a Houston-based organization led by Tim Miller.

Equusearch volunteers found Schantz's body in the river, near the French Quarter.

Schantz, a top executive of a Houston energy company, was last seen leaving a bar on Bourbon Street in New Orleans.

Security cameras recorded him a short time later walking through the French Quarter.

New Orleans Police Superintendent Warren Riley said Schantz, who left the Razzoo Bar and Patio about 2 a.m. Friday, was seen on security video walking on a 2-

foot walkway by the river.

The video evidence led police to no longer suspect foul play, saying it was "likely" Schantz fell into the river and accidentally drowned. Riley said Schantz appeared disoriented and added that he had been drinking.

Shantz had a tremendous reputation in Houston as a business executive and philanthropist at heart. He was the president of Sequent Energy Management, L.P. Online, people from around the world have been offering words of hope and prayers for a miracle. Hundreds joined the Facebook group, "Have you seen Doug Schantz?"

One person wrote Schantz was an "exceptional executive, a good friend and a wonderful person."

When news came a body had been found, his sister wrote, "We are praying it's not him."

An hour later, Susanne Schantz posted: "It is with a broken heart that I have to tell you our wonderful Doug is dead. He drowned in the Mississippi River. Our love

for him is endless, we were lucky to have him in our lives.

Thank you for all your love and support."

Family and friends have refused to speculate about what might have happened to Schantz, but his oldest son pointed out earlier his father was taking several medications.

"He does have high cholesterol and high blood pressure that he's on medicine for. He had a cough and a cold, and from what I understand he might have been on antihistamine and antibiotic," said Michael Schantz.

His strange death is in contrast to the way he lived his life as a family man and passionate leader. The Sequent Energy offices released a statement praising the response and amount of resources dedicated to the search. Schantz leaves behind a wife and three adult children.

Click here for more from MyFoxHouston.com.

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informing me," Interior Minister Eli Yishai, the chairman of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, told Israel Radio on Wednesday morning.

"If I'd have known, I would have postponed the authorisation by a week or two since we had no intention of provoking anyone."

But the US government has not accepted Israel's explanation that the announcement was essentially part of a bureaucratic process that had no connection with Mr Biden's visit, says BBC Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen in Jerusalem.

Israel, deliberately or not, inflicted something close to a humiliation on the Obama administration and the words they chose in reaction reflected that, our correspondent says.

The UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband condemned the announcement by Israel.

"This is a bad decision at the wrong time. It will give strength to those who argue that Israel is not serious about peace," he said in a press statement.

"I condemn it as certain to undermine the mutual confidence we need."

EU foreign affairs chief

Turn a Hoodie into a Laptop Bag [Clever Uses] Jason Fitzpatrick (Lifehacker) Submitted at 3/10/2010 6:30:00 AM

If you like getting the most use out of your possessions as possible, this guide will help

into a laptop bag, baby carrier, and more. More Âť you turn a hooded sweatshirt

Catherine Ashton also condemned the move, saying it risked peace talks before they had even begun and called on Israel to reverse the decision.

The Arab League was due to meet in Cairo to decide on a response.

Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev insisted Israel had "a very good working relationship and a very good personal relationship" with the US. He dismissed speculation that the interior ministry's announcement was a deliberate move by some members of Mr Netanyahu's cabinet to scupper any chance of peace talks.

The US special envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, is scheduled to arrive in the region next week to conduct the second round of proximity talks.

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US activist Granny D dies at 100 (BBC News | Americas | World Edition)

Loopholes "This country has become one in which, in order to run for Submitted at 3/10/2010 1:43:03 AM office, a poor man has to sell his Doris Haddock, who walked soul, or he has to be a multiacross the US at the age of 89 to m i l l i o n a i r e . T h a t ' s n o t press for changes in election d e m o c r a c y , " s h e s a i d . campaign funding, has died at Granny D's aim was to press her home in New Hampshire. Congress to plug loopholes in Granny D, as she was widely campaign laws that allowed known, trekked 3,200 miles what was known as "soft (1,650km) in 1999 and 2000 to money" from corporations, trade draw attention to the high cost unions, and interest groups to of running for office in the US. influence political campaigns.

A candidate had "to sell his In 2002, Congress passed the soul" or be a multi-millionaire, Bipartisan Campaign Reform she told the BBC during her Act (widely known as the journey.

McCain-Feingold act after the In 2004, she ran for the US senators who proposed it), Senate for the Democrats, losing which banned national political 66% to 34%. party committees from On 1 January 1999, Granny D accepting or spending soft set out on her walk across the money contributions.

US, covering about 10 miles a In another development, in day, six days a week.

January this year the US Speaking about the then Supreme Court overturned longpresidential race, she said the standing limits on how much amount of money being thrown companies could spend on about was "obscene". political campaigns.

'Raising hell' After her walk, Granny D kept campaigning. In 2004, she jumped into the race for the US senate at the last minute, losing New Hampshire to the Republican incumbent Judd Gregg.

"We are always saddened when someone with a genuine commitment to their values and principles passes away," New Hampshire Republican Party Chairman John Sununu said.

"Granny D was an unwavering advocate for her beliefs."

Granny D died at her home in Dublin, New Hampshire, on Tuesday just two months after celebrating her 100th birthday.

The subtitle of her autobiography was: "You're Never Too Old to Raise a Little Hell."

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Google Maps Adds Bike-Friendly Directions and Trails [Google Maps] Kevin Purdy (Lifehacker) Submitted at 3/10/2010 8:00:00 AM

It's long been one of Google Map's most requested features, cyclists and bike commuters and now it's here. Recreational alike can plot cycle-friendly

routes, find trails, and avoid snarling traffic with Google Maps' Bicycle layer. More »

31

Calif. Teacher Charged With Having Sex With Student (FOXNews.com)

"She walked in with her attorney...and said, ‘Hey, I came to surrender for what I did.'"

A 33-year-old Burbank middle Beck surrendered at the police school teacher accused of station on Monday afternoon. having sex with a teenage male "She said she had sexual student over a six-month period relations with one of her l a s t y e a r w a s c h a r g e d o n students," Quesada said.

Tuesday with unlawful sex with Police interviewed the boy "and a m i n o r , M y F o x L A . c o m confirmed that the acts did reported. occur" between March and Amy Victoria Beck, a teacher at September of last year, the David Starr Jordan Middle sergeant said.

School, is scheduled to be The boy was 14 at the time the a r r a i g n e d W e d n e s d a y i n alleged sexual activity began, Burbank Superior Court on four and he is now 15, Quesada said. counts of unlawful sex with a His name was not released. person under 16 and one count Beck had taught English and of oral copulation with a person Social Science at the school for under 16, according to the ten years, according to The District Attorney's Office. Burbank Leader. She resigned If convicted, Beck faces up to on Friday. seven years in state prison, "She’s a well-respected and officials said. loved teacher," Principal Sharon SLIDESHOW: 'Sex' Teachers Cuseo told the paper. "We’re all Who Still Get Paychecks shocked."

"We’re still trying to piece Click here for more from everything together, what MyFoxLA.com. happened, where, what kind of Five Filters featured article: sex acts, how many, and how Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: long it’s been going on," PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Burbank police Sgt. Robert Term Extraction.

Quesada said, according to The Burbank Leader.

Submitted at 3/10/2010 6:15:06 AM

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Insurers 'face $7bn Chile bill' (BBC News | Americas | World Edition)

Munich Re said it still expected to report a profit of more than 2bn euros ($2.7bn; £1.8bn) this Submitted at 3/10/2010 2:43:45 AM year.

The earthquake in Chile may Analysts said that while the c o s t t h e g l o b a l i n s u r a n c e losses were large, they were industry as much as $7bn probably not sufficient to ( £ 4 . 7 b n ) , S w i s s R e h a s reverse recent falls in the prices estimated. reinsurance companies charge The company, the world's insurance firms to cover natural second-largest reinsurer, said disasters such as earthquakes or the impact on the sector would hurricanes. between $4bn and $7bn.

"Although it will almost Swiss Re said its own losses certainly lead to a change in from last month's 8.8 magnitude reinsurance prices for business earthquake would total about in that region, it is not an $500m. industry-changing event on its Chile's outgoing government own," said Helvea analyst Tim has said it will take the country Dawson. up to four years to recover, but Reinsurance companies allow economists say Chile is well insurance firms to reduce their placed to do this. risk and exposure.

Another reinsurance company, Stable economy Germany's Munich Re, has also Chile is regarded as having one said how much it estimates it of the best-run economies in will have to pay out as a result Latin America. of the Chilean earthquake - Led by its substantial copper $543m. production - which was

relatively unaffected by the quake - economists predict the country's economy will still grow by 5% this year.

The country also has one of the lowest government debt to economic output ratios in Latin America.

Chile's inflation rate is currently at 1.5% and its interest rate is 0.5%, where it has been since August of last year.

Chile's President-elect Sebastian Pinera will take control of the country's earthquake recovery work when he takes office on Thursday.

He is preparing an emergency bill and a reconstruction law, saying the country's 2010 budget will be "adjusted to reflect our needs and the reality on the ground".

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Use the Stock Theory of Decluttering to Clean Your House [Clutter] Jason Fitzpatrick (Lifehacker) Submitted at 3/10/2010 8:30:00 AM

We become invested in our junk, through the price we paid

when we bought it and brought

it home, and we're loathe to look at that as wasted money. Use the "Stock Theory of Decluttering" to help purge your junk. More »

10 biggest IPO flops in history (Holy Kaw!)

very highest end of the pricing spectrum. Unfortunately, it turned out that the underwriters An initial public offering (IPO) had gotten greedy and finished i s o f t e n d e s c r i b e d a s a the next day down $1.75, one of company's "coming out party." the worst IPO debuts of the I t ' s t h e m o m e n t w h e n a year. s u c c e s s f u l , p r i v a t e l y h e l d • Webvan.com: Webvan.com business says, "Hey, world! was almost too good to be true.

Who wants a piece of the Unfortunately, it was also a action?" Then again, you can't financial pipe dream. Webvan really predict a party's outcome. went public in 1999 and raised What if nobody shows up? $375 million in the process. Yet The same is true for IPOs. Sure, even with this cash -- plus an an IPO can bring an instant incredible $1 billion from flood of capital, but it can also private investment firms, the mean opening your company to company was unable to be greater public scrutiny, cranky profitable. In a last ditch effort shareholders and fickle market to save money, Webvan.com f o r c e s . F o r t h e f o l l o w i n g drastically cut the variety of companies, their long-awaited products it offered on the site IPOs proved to be DOA. but still had to declare • Shanda Games: In China, bankruptcy in 2001, a mere 18 Shanda Games is synonymous months after its triumphant IPO. with the hugely popular online gaming market. Shanda planned F u l l l i s t a t a big coming out party with a H o w S t u f f W o r k s . c o m .

U.S. IPO in September 2009.

Total aggregation of Feeling the time was ripe for a H o w S t u f f W o r k s . c o m . big payday, the underwriters Photo credit: Fotolia bumped up the total number of Permalink| Leave a comment » initial shares, and they set the opening price at $12.50, the Submitted at 3/10/2010 9:36:16 AM

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33

7-Year-Old Calls 911, Saves Family Even as tiny blocks, you’ll recognize Super Mario Bros.

From Attack (FOXNews.com)

Call The boy and his 6-year-old sister hid unnoticed in the NORWALK, Calif. A terrified locked bathroom while the 7 - y e a r - o l d b o y b e g g e d suspects threatened his mother emergency dispatchers to send and father at gunpoint. police to his Southern California "There's some guy who's going h o m e w h e r e t h r e e a r m e d to kill my mom and dad," he robbers threatened his parents, said breathlessly. "Bring cops. A according to a recording of the lot of them! ... And soldiers, call released Tuesday. too."

Gunmen broke into the boy's The suspects eventually broke home Tuesday morning and into the bathroom and someone announced that they would take screamed. The 911 operator whatever they wanted, Los s o u n d e d s h a k e n a s s h e Angeles County sheriff's Lt. explained what happened to her Steve Kenny said. colleagues.

VIDEO: Listen to the Boy's 911 Kenny said the suspects Submitted at 3/10/2010 8:45:07 AM

grabbed the boy and asked who he called. He responded, "911."

The gunmen fled without taking anything or injuring the family.

"If not for the brave and educated actions of the 7-yearold boy, this might have ended tragically," said sheriff's Capt.

Pat Maxwell.

The three men remain at large.

Click here for more from MyFoxLA.com.

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in this Arduino project Doug Aamoth (CrunchGear) Submitted at 3/10/2010 8:00:14 AM

Funny thing, isn’t it? That you can watch some little blocks moving on an 8×8 LED matrix and recognize the first level of Super Mario Bros. buried in the squares?

Developed by a Carnegie Mellon student named Chloe for an Arduino class, the project is

“a simple version of Super Mario Bros using an 8×8 LED matrix (one color), an Arduino Nano, two buttons for the input (forward and jump), and a piezo sensor hooked to a separate Arduino for the theme song.”

Nice work, young lady. I give it an A++, the highest mark known to mankind. [ Vimeo via Make]

Green plastic breakthrough from Big Blue, Stanford (CNET News.com)

"Additionally, the team has developed a new strategy for the synthesis of high molecular Jim Hedrick is a researcher at weight cyclic polyesters and the IBM's San Jose, Calif., facility generation of new families of w h o w o r k e d o n t h e biocompatible polymers for o r g a n o c a t a l y s i s biomedical applications," b r e a k t h r o u g h . ( C r e d i t : according to IBM. IBM/Monica M. Davey) In terms of real-world A group of scientists from IBM application, the science could a n d S t a n f o r d U n i v e r s i t y lead to plastics becoming a n n o u n c e d W e d n e s d a y a endlessly recyclable rather than chemistry breakthrough that junk in a landfill. could change the nature of As IBM points out, many plastics and plastics recycling. plastic bottles, while they are Using organic catalysts, the now being recycled, can only be team has developed a new recycled once for what is called method for producing and "second-generation use." Most breaking down plastic polymers. bottles made from secondSubmitted at 3/10/2010 9:04:44 AM

Many people have been working on the plastics issue, and there are several organicbased recyclable plastics being introduced. In February, for example, the Imperial College London and BioCeramic Therapeutics introduced a degradable plastic polymer made from the sugars derived from the breakdown of lignocellulosic biomass. There also already exists several plantand cornstarch-based plastic products including household generation recycled plastic paper goods, food packaging, cannot be recycled yet again, and bioplastic children's toys and so are typically sent to from Cereplast. Metabolix also has several lines of corn-based landfills.

plastic products in conjunction with partner companies.

Details of the polymer development can be found in the paper "Organocatalysis: Opportunities and Challenges for Polymer Synthesis," which has been published in the American Chemical Society journal, Macromolecules.

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YouTube Darlings OK Go Say Bye-Bye to EMI Brenna Ehrlich (Mashable!)

Submitted at 3/10/2010 7:33:36 AM

Welcome to Act III of the OK Go/EMI drama: According to EMI, the pop band has decided to leave the record company and form their own independent label, Paracadute Recordings, under which they will take over control of their third album, Of the Blue Colour of the Sky. Here is the full statement from EMI: “OK Go, the band whose inventive internet campaigns and self-directed music videos have set records and won the band a GRAMMY® Award, and EMI Music’s Capitol Records, the band’s label since 2001, have agreed to part ways by mutual agreement. OK Go has formed their own independent label, Paracadute Recordings. They will take on all distribution and promotion functions for their latest album, Of The Blue Colour Of The Sky, which was released in January. ‘We’d like to thank the people at EMI Music who have worked so hard on our behalf,’ said OK Go singer Damian Kulash. EMI Music said: ‘We’ve really enjoyed our relationship with OK Go. They’ve always pushed creative boundaries and have broken new ground, particularly with their videos. We wish them the greatest success for the future.’”

How Did We Get Here?

As we have reported in the past, OK Go took arms against the sea of troubles that arose back in January when EMI and YouTube disabled embedding on a video for one of their new singles, “This Too Shall Pass.”

The band has built its reputation to some degree on the popularity of its viral videos, and Kulash and the rest believed that the lock-down version of “This Too Shall Pass” was hindering fans’ enjoyment of the video as well as any publicity the band might garner from sharing. Kulash released a public statement on the band’s site and even wrote an op-ed in The New York Times on the issue.

An interesting tidbit from the op-ed: “When EMI disabled the embedding feature, views of our treadmill video dropped 90 percent, from about 10,000 per day to just over 1,000. Our last royalty statement from the label, which covered six months of streams, shows a whopping $27.77 credit to our account.”

Blogs, fans and news outlets were buzzing, and it was clear that people were interested in the issue of ownership and the battle between achieving virality and making money. In fact, according to a release from Big Hassle Media, who represent OK Go, Kulash’s blog post about the issue went viral itself, garnering more than 500,000

According to State Farm Advertising Manager Todd Fischer, the band and the insurance company had been in talks since the fall of 2009 about the possibility of making a sponsored video. “Both of us hits in just two days. The State kind of looked at each other as Farm Factor iconic brands in our own sense Therefore, the band had the — the OK Go guys liked what world’s attention when they State Farm has been doing in the released another video for the m u s i c a n d e n t e r t a i n m e n t same song last week, this time space… On the flip side, we featuring a Rube Goldberg obviously — like so many other machine and fully embeddable, people — had great respect for thanks to sponsorship from State what OK Go had done in the Farm Insurance. Just for point of social media space and how they reference: At press time, this had used their videos to connect video, which was released on with young adults and with March 1, has nearly seven music fans along the way.” million views. The first video, Although the insurance featuring the Notre Dame company has done branded marching band, was released on integration with movies and TV January 8. As of now, it only before, this the first time they’ve has 1,181,070 views. been involved in a viral music When asked whether he thought video, an avenue by which they the controversy surrounding the saw an opportunity to connect first video contributed at all to with a whole new market. the success of the second, We’ve reported in the past on bassist Tim Nordwind said, “It’s several viral video campaigns hard to know if Damian’s op- that made use of this growing p i e c e h a s m a d e a h u g e medium as a way to grab the difference, but for people who attention of the Internet-savvy pay attention to it, yes, I think set — the Ray-Bans tattoo that it’s one reason that people commercial and the Chuck are paying attention. Or maybe Liddell Reebok spot spring to even possibly rooting for us… I mind. t h i n k w h a t p e o p l e a r e Fischer says that the partnership responding to is that it’s just speaks to the evolving manner kind of an awesome video. I by which we consume media. think people are reacting to the “You see a lot more brands Herculean effort that it took to starting to play in the space [of make this thing.” viral videos]… I think it’s

changed the way people look at a 30-second television ad spot because they also think of how it will translate to the online space, because of the power and the influence that online has in reaching so many more people these days.”

On OK Go’s side, the band was able to create the video that they wanted, while also attracting tons of media attention. “We had this idea to do a Rube Goldberg project and it was a slightly more expensive idea than what we had had in the past and they were willing to sponsor it, but also let us do whatever it was we wanted to do,” Nordwind says.

According to Fischer, the company would also be game to partner with the band again, as well as other bands that might have similarly innovative ideas.

What Does This Split Mean?

This chain events, as well as the most recent chapter in the drama, raises the question that everyone’s been asking as of late: Does OK Go — or any band for that matter — require a relationship with record company in order to survive?

According to an representative from EMI, the label was instrumental in setting up the partnership with State Farm.

EMI has a unit called Brand Partnerships, Licensing and Synchronization that basically YOUTUBE page 37

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35

Don't trust the critics: Four Apple products they thought would fail Chris Rawson (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)) Submitted at 3/10/2010 10:00:00 AM

Filed under: iPod Family, iPhone, iPad Ever since the iPad's introduction a month and a half ago, the internet has been awash in criticism of the as-yetunreleased device. "It's just a big iPod touch," many have said.

"No Flash, no multitasking, no sale," others bemoaned. And a few have gone so far as to say, "It doesn't do a lot of things that a netbook that costs half as much will do." For these reasons and many more, many of the pundits and forum dwellers have but one prediction: the iPad is going to crash and burn.

Don't you believe it, because the critics have been wrong before. Several times, actually, according to The Week, which provides a list of five Apple products the critics thought would fail. Out of those five, only one, the Newton, failed to find mainstream success. The other four were industrydefining products which went on to sell millions of units each.

What did the critics have to say about these four "failed" Apple products when they first debuted, and which products were they? Click "Read More" to find out.

1. The Mac

It seems absurd now, but there was a time when some critics thought the Mac would be a complete failure. They considered the mouse-driven interface "Useless." Ponder that one for a bit. "Awkward," "Not easy to learn," and of course, "Costs too much" were other 1984-era complaints leveled at Apple's latest creation. These critics were used to the keyboard-driven interface of DOS-running PCs, and from the sounds of things, they considered the Mac, with its graphic user interface and "awkward" mouse, to be nothing more than an overpriced novelty, doomed to fail.

I hardly need to tell you what happened next. The original Macintosh completely revolutionized the computer industry. Within only a short time, companies like Microsoft scrambled to duplicate the GUI/mouse combo the Mac brought to the market. Today, nearly every desktop, notebook, and netbook out there runs a GUI/mouse interface. And 26 years after the first Macintosh debuted, Apple still sells Macs by the millions every year. I wish I could fail half as hard as that.

2. The iMac "No floppy drive?!?" was the echoing cry among the tech

Slashdot's now-famous opinion of the just-announced iPod: "No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame."

The comments that follow are even better. "I don't see many sales in the future of iPod." "All I can say is, as an Apple 'fan', I'm sad." But don't just take Slashdot's word for it. The forum folks at MacRumors had some true gems too: "Great just what the world needs, another freaking MP3 player." "I still can't believe this! All this hype for something so ridiculous! world in 1998. Add to that the Who cares about an MP3 iMac's hermetically-sealed case player?" "'I'd call it the Cube 2.0 and not particularly upgrade- as it wont sell, and be killed off friendly components, and once in a short time...and it's not again, tech critics and build-it- really functional." "The Reality yourself users who had been Distiortion Field[TM] is starting used to beige towers predicted to warp Steve's mind if he thinks the iMac would never catch on. for one second that this thing is Instead, the iMac sold like crazy gonna take off." "Not exactly and almost instantaneously 'revolutionary'. " "The real d o u b l e d A p p l e ' s P C money is in DRM and marketshare. Twelve years later, distribution (ala Real Musicnet). the iMac is still Apple's best- If Apple were smart they would selling desktop, and it shows no be focusing on high gross s i g n s o f g o i n g a n y w h e r e revenue from services rather anytime soon... unlike those than a playback device." "It is floppy disks everyone once by no means revolutionary or thought were so crucial. groundbreaking. It is an MP3 3. The iPod player. BFD. It is just a step in One of the greatest things about the evolution of an MP3 player the internet is that in a way, it's [...] Think different is dead." the closest any of us will get to It goes on like that, for pages time travel. Let's go back to and pages. And this is at a site October 23, 2001, and get full of Apple fans, the majority

of whom were unimpressed with the iPod at best and thought it was Apple's death knell at worst. People who weren't great fans of Apple at the time, like the guys behind Penny Arcade, had even harsher things to say about the iPod, even two years after its release (not safe for work language -- it is Penny Arcade, after all). Over nine years later, where are we? Over a quarter of a billion iPods have been sold since then, and it's largely due to the iPod's momentum that Apple has become the phenomenal success it is today.

4. The iPhone For the first half of 2007, before the iPhone actually hit stores, people either thought it was the greatest innovation of the past ten years (at least) or an overpriced, overhyped device that lacked features common to many other phones. Of course, there was no lack of punditry from those who thought the iPhone was doomed, and Apple right along with it. Tech critic John Dvorak said of the iPhone, "I'd advise people to cover their eyes. You are not going to like what you'll see." A former CEO of Palm said, "We've learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a DON'T page 43

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GDC 2010: Real Racing and Flight Control on the iPad with Firemint Mike Schramm (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)) Submitted at 3/10/2010 9:00:00 AM

Filed under: Gaming, Software, Freeware, App Store, iPad We got to sit down with Australian developer Firemint here at the Game Developers Conference 2010 in San Francisco -- it's a mobile game developer who hit it big last year with the very popular iPhone game Flight Control, and while it used to make mobile games for just a handful of larger game publishers like EA, the company is now trying to cement a reputation for making a smaller stable of high quality App Store games. "We like to joke that we went from ten customers to ten million," community manager Alexandra Peters told us.

She also showed us their second game, Real Racing, which has been winning all kinds of awards even in the crowded accelerometer racing game genre, and talked with us both about Flight Control HD (their upcoming "soon after launch" title for the iPad) as well as what's next for the company.

Real Racing was impressive for an iPhone racing game. While the accelerometer-as-steering is basically a cliche in iPhone games at this point, Real Racing

pulls it off pretty well by focusing on that -- depending on the settings, you can simply let the car accelerate and even break on its own, and just focus on hitting the curves while driving 48 different cars around the game's 12 tracks, or actually jump in and control the car yourself.

We only got to drive a few laps, but the game's crystal-clear presentation got us interested enough to want to play more.

The game is currently $4.99 in

the App Store, but there is an interesting lite version to try as well -- Volkswagen actually approached Firemint after the success of the game and commissioned an "adverware" version to release on the App Store. It's there to try-unfortunately, the content is a little light for a game with so many ads, but it's one of the better integration models for ingame ads I've ever seen, and the extra commission for Firemint certainly help offset the costs of

development for a free game.

Firemint also told us about the version of Flight Control they're working on for the iPad. It will be called Flight Control HD, and of course it'll make use of the bigger touchscreen, but like most developers, Firemint hasn't had an actual iPad dev device to work with -- they've only got the game running in the iPad SDK simulation. Peters said the iPad makes for a "very personal and very immersive experience," so they're hoping to take advantage

of that with Flight Control HD - they've even set up a Wacom tablet to test the larger control scheme out. And they're hoping the game comes out soon after the iPad's launch on April 3rd, so look for it then.

Other than that, Firemint also has two other games in development, still under wraps.

The first will be coming out later this year, and the other one is definitely the biggest iPhone GDC page 38

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Sorry, There's No Silver Bullet Business Model For The Music Industry Dennis Yang (Techdirt) Submitted at 3/10/2010 4:01:00 AM

Forrester analyst Mark Mulligan believes that the problem for the recording industry is one of demographics.

Mulligan uses the fact that the billionth application purchaser on iTunes, 13 year-old Connor Mulcahey, was much younger than the 10 billionth iTunes music purchaser, 71 year-old Louie Sulcer, to highlight the issue: older users may still pay for music tracks, but younger users are more likely to "part with their cash" for apps than for music. To Mulligan, the problem is with the current digital-music product itself.

Thus, he prescribes a featurerich app as the savior -- and the future -- of the music industry.

He proposes a music application that wraps digital tracks with social networking, live ondemand footage, song lyrics, games, and forums. This sounds like an interesting idea, which could see some success (if wellexecuted), but if the music industry is seeking a "silver bullet" business model, this is not likely to be it.

It's pretty well understood that

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YOUTUBE continued from page 34

brings bands and brands together — they’re the ones who get songs into commercials (which is becoming a more and more common way for a band to make money). According to a rep from EMI, the label approached State Farm and pitched the idea to the company. what has driven the recording model: Record music that it is very unlikely to drive the “Basically our label sort of industry for decades now is " people want to hear on physical type of purchasing behavior worked as a middleman,” format change," where the media. Sell that media. Repeat. that, in the past, came with each Nordwind says, “but it was r e c o r d c o m p a n i e s h a v e Then, the 00s brought the latest new recording format -- and it basically us sort of dealing with c o n t i n u a l l y a s k e d t h e i r maturation of the recording certainly won't "save recorded State Farm. But to be really customers to essentially re-buy format, the mp3, with its near- music." The problem is that the honest, the label and State Farm their recordings each time a new infinite portability and an audio user is no longer locked into the were very hands-off with us. format is adopted -- from quality that can only really be recording industry's physical They really just let us do what records, to cassettes, to CDs. contested by audio snobs. Since product for the distribution of we wanted to do.”

Therefore, the question With each new technology, it could be easily copied and music. There is no "one thing" customers were compelled to used in many different devices, they can sell that the audience becomes: Is the band/label b u y t h e p r o d u c t s n o t b y it had the opportunity to become will have no alternative but to s i t u a t i o n a k i n d o f R u b e legislature or law, but rather, by the most widely used music buy. To be successful, the Goldberg machine in its own a continual desire to have their format ever. But, because of its recording industry is going to right — an overly elaborate music be more accessible. First, near-infinite portability, the have to experiment and figure system built up to achieve a the phonograph made music recording industry's old tried- out how make revenue from simple outcome? Can OK Go more affordable and accessible, and-true business model of many different sources, which achieve the success on their as compared to hiring a band of selling physical media was no requires creativity that the labels own? It will be interesting to see musicians to come and play in longer as viable. have so far been unable or what results from their breaking your living room. In the 80s, The evolution of recording unwilling to muster. While the away from EMI, and how they the cassette tape made listening formats shows that what has industry is out there looking for continue to use the medium of more portable, albeit with a loss really driven the industry has the "silver bullet" of a business the Internet to spread their in audio quality. Then, in the been a hunger for increased model, the reality is that the music.

90s, the CD combined both accessibility and portability, not answer is more like a whole clip We’ve reached out to the band portability and high audio necessarily the introduction of full of silver bullets, coupled for further comment and will quality into one small package, n e w f e a t u r e s . S o , w h i l e with some garlic, and finished update this post if we hear leading to a huge up-swell in Mulligan's music application off with a wooden stake or two. anything more. recording purchases. For years, idea may drive some interest in Permalink| Comments| Email Tags: EMI, music, OK Go, State-Farm, youtube the recording industry has had a recoded music, by empowering This Story fantastic, well-defined business the audience to do more with it,

38

Tech/ Gadgets/

E-reader News Edition

What Apple's and Microsoft's patent threats mean for start-ups (CNET News.com) Submitted at 3/10/2010 8:34:46 AM

Perhaps retirement doesn't suit former Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz.

Just weeks into his post-Sun life, Schwartz offers some delicious anecdotes in a blog post, summarizing Apple's and Microsoft's threats to sue Sun for patent infringement as more about bluster than substance.

But that's not the lesson I learn from Schwartz's commentary.

Instead, what is immediately obvious to me is that a) the technology industry is a morass of conflicting patent claims, b) since there's really no way to completely avoid others' patents the best defense is to have a hefty counterbalancing patent portfolio of one's own, and c) thus, only big companies can truly compete in a triggerhappy, patent-wielding marketplace.

Guess what? This rules out virtually all new entrants to a market, including companies

like Facebook that not-so-longago were start-ups. But it may fall particularly hard on opensource projects and companies, which typically eschew patents.

When Apple came calling to threaten Sun with a userinterface design patent lawsuit, and when Microsoft asked to smoke the peace pipe over OpenOffice (at the "small" price of a royalty on every copy of OpenOffice downloaded, as Schwartz read it), Sun had a compelling response: it's possible that we violate your patents, but have you looked into your own trampling on Sun's IP? It's a good argument, if a depressing one. Depressing, because it's the kind of argument that only big companies can make since often they're the ones with more patents than sense.

The Open Invention Network and other patent collectives have sought to level the playing field by buying up patents to be held for the defense of their

members, and they offer a good start. But it's just a start, and it costs quite a bit to participate fully with them. (This makes sense, given how much money such collectives must spend to buy the patents in the first place.)

Whatever the cost, this may be the only refuge for start-ups and others, like Red Hat, that don't have an aggressive patentacquisition policy.

As I said, the technology industry is a quagmire of conflicting patent claims. For example, it's as certain that Microsoft violates Linux-related patents as it is that Linux violates Microsoft patents. The industry is simply too messy for it to be otherwise.

We need better, more comprehensive ways for smaller companies to be able to compete in this market without the fear of running afoul of some big company's patent portfolio. It's great that companies like IBM have been pledging patents for the protection of its preferred

Dress Yourself, Linux Users [Linux] Mark Wilson (Gizmodo) Submitted at 3/10/2010 10:40:00 AM

A t-shirt-stuffed Linux store has opened for business, the proceeds from which support

the Linux Foundation. But since

Linux users are such pennypinchers, $18 is probably more than they'll pay for a single garment of clothing. [ LinuxStore via CrunchGear] More Âť

GDC continued from page 36

project they've ever done (we got the impression that it would be a larger, 3D action project) open-source projects (like that will be out sometime in Linux), but we need more than 2011. We asked them if those charity in order to offer start-ups games were planned for the --open source or otherwise-- iPhone or the iPad, and they told "Sun-like" protection from the us while they were currently working on both of them for the patent extortion racket.

At some point, the interests of iPhone, "we'll have to wait and open source-friendly IBM or see" on the iPad. Oracle will conflict with a start- All in all, Firemint seems to be up or project, just as has a company that has really taken happened with Microsoft, and advantage of the opportunities then big brother the protector in the App Store, and grown will become Big Brother the both their reputation and their repetoire thanks to Apple's tormentor.

Perhaps it's time we focus our platform. Flight Control and collective efforts on a single Real Racing have both been patent collective like Open excellent examples of their "just I n v e n t i o n N e t w o r k , a n a few good games" philosophy, organization that becomes the and we can't wait to see what equal of a Microsoft in a patent they do with other titles and the feud? As in the insurance iPad. TUAW GDC 2010: Real industry, the premium should come down as more participants Racing and Flight Control on the iPad with Firemint originally join in. appeared on The Unofficial Other ideas?

Five Filters featured article: Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: Wed, 10 Mar 2010 09:00:00 PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Term Extraction.

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Panasonic, Best Buy double down on 3D TV (CNET News.com) Submitted at 3/10/2010 8:48:00 AM

Brad and Ashley, a couple from Manhattan's Upper West Side, score a 3D TV bundle.(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET) Panasonic has announced its first 3D TV bundle available exclusively at Best Buy stores, featuring a plasma TV and 3Dcompatible Blu-ray player. The bundle will cost $2,900 for a 50inch TC-P50VT20 TV (a $2,500 value by itself) and 3Dcompatible DMP-BDT300 Bluray player ($400), and also include one pair of 3D glasses (model TY-EW3D10U, $149).

The Panasonic bundle and TVs will be "sold exclusively at select Best Buy stores via Magnolia Home Theater," according to Panasonic. The 50inch model will be followed by 54-, 58-, and 65-inch versions later this year, though pricing has yet to be determined.

If the TC-P50VT20 sounds different from the TC-P50VT25 model that was CNET's Best of CES pick earlier this year, that's because it is--albeit just slightly.

The two models are nearly identical: the VT25 has minor external styling differences (different color bezel) and includes an RS232 port and ISF

both of whom insisted 3D content is in the pipeline.

DirecTV pledged that the first of its three promised 3D channels would be online by June, and dropped a teaser that this year's baseball All-Star Game would be broadcast in 3D. Fox's Mary Daily, meanwhile, announced that "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs" will soon be coming to 3D Blu-ray. However, she couldn't provide any details as to when Fox's "Avatar," the 3D standard-bearer, would be available for home viewing in 3D. In the meantime, Brad and Ashley--and anyone else who purchases a 3D TV and 3D Bluray player--won't really have any 3D content to watch.

(Panasonic may be including a calibration mode not found on pre-arranged by Best Buy models have already begun 3D demo reel with the Blu-ray the Best Buy version, but it's beforehand.) With New York popping up in showrooms player, but unlike Samsung-slightly more expensive. (See an sales tax, the total came to about around the country, and they've which is bundling "Monsters vs. early hands-on evaluation here.) $3,100. Immediately afterward, been available via Amazon for Aliens"--there won't be any To drum up excitement for the t h e y w e r e b o m b a r d e d b y several weeks. Still, the event theatrical feature included.)

3D launch, the companies held a questions and interviews from was another reminder that 3D Titles will be trickling out as the joint press event at the Best Buy the large group of media who p r o d u c t s a r e r e a l , n o t year progresses, but many of them will be animated movies store in Manhattan's Union had shown up to document the v a p o r w a r e .

Square. Immediately following event.

But if the hardware's here, targeted at children. the press conference, the first In the end, despite the hype, finding 3D content to watch still Five Filters featured article: bundle was sold to customers this wasn't the first 3D TV r e m a i n s a c h a l l e n g e . Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: Brad and Ashley, a couple from actually sold in 2010. Samsung Wednesday's media event also PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Manhattan's Upper West Side. has also launched a 3D bundle included representatives from Term Extraction.

(The timing of the sale had been in partnership with Best Buy. Its DirecTV and Fox Home Video,

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TextExpander 3 makes short work of keyboard shortcuts TJ Luoma (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW))

feature to capitalize new sentences as well, but that feature was a little hit-or-miss Submitted at 3/10/2010 12:00:00 PM for me.

F i l e d u n d e r : S o f t w a r e In its new application form, TextExpander, one of my very TextExpander has to be running most favorite (yes, I like it that for it to work. That may seem much) utilities has been updated obvious, but since it used to be a to version 3. This is a major preference pane, users may be update and renovation of the used to it running "hidden" as a program, which has changed daemon in the background. from a preference pane to an There is an option to hide the application. application icon in the dock. If I honestly don't think that I you hide it in the dock, you can c o u l d u s e a M a c w i t h o u t still access TextExpander from TextExpander anymore. I have a its icon in the menu bar. They've customized list of "frequently even included several different misspelled words" that I have it styles of icon for the menu bar, correct for me, as well as a which is good news for those of snippet of text for creating a you who believe that menu bar new shell script, a shortcut to items should only be black and insert the current date or time, white.

HTML markup, and more.

The menu bar offers a slew of TextExpander has been able to cool new features, including a sync via MobileMe for some search function and a list of all time, but version 3 also includes of the folders and snippets for the ability to sync via Dropbox. you to navigate, in case you It can also correct "double caps" have forgotten a shortcut. This at the beginning of a sentence is a good reason to start sorting w h i c h h a p p e n w h e n y o u snippets into "Groups" which accidentally hold down the shift were previously a bit of a pain key for too long. There is a because you had to tell each

looks like a great upgrade to what was already a full-featured application.

TextExpander costs $34.95, but they offer a full-featured demo and a 90-day guarantee which is far longer than I'm used to seeing for software. If you own an earlier version of TextExpander you can upgrade for $15. Those who bought TextExpander on or after group to sync via MobileMe. November 1st, 2009 are eligible Syncing is now an "all or for a free upgrade. nothing" option.

There's even a companion You can also create a new application for the iPhone and snippet, edit the last expanded iPod touch called TextExpander snippet (handy if you realize touch which will sync to your that you need to "tweak" it), or local Mac, so you can use your use the clipboard to make a new snippets in a wide range of snippet. New in this version is iPhone apps. also the avility to create global TUAW TextExpander 3 makes "hotkeys" which will reduce the s h o r t w o r k o f k e y b o a r d "friction" involved in making a shortcuts originally appeared on new shortcut. I know I've The Unofficial Apple Weblog previously thought "Oh, I ought (TUAW) on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 to make a shortcut for this" but I 12:00:00 EST. Please see our usually wait too long before I terms for use of feeds. finally get sick of re-typing it Read| Permalink| Email this| and actually do it.

Comments I've only just started playing with this new version, but it

Rumor: Cisco Prepping New Flip Video Cameras [Cisco] Adam Frucci (Gizmodo) Submitted at 3/10/2010 12:20:44 PM

Silicon Alley Insider is reporting that Cisco is prepping a new line of Flip video cameras to be announced next month at the NAB conference in Vegas.

Makes sense! No details on the models themselves, unfortunately. [ Silicon Alley Insider] More Âť

R.I.P. Dell Adamo XPS, You Died Too Young [Obituary] Rosa Golijan (Gizmodo) Submitted at 3/10/2010 11:10:46 AM

We thought the Dell Adamo XPS to be a truly beautiful creation, an innovative

MacBook Air. It had potential.

More Âť challenger that one-upped the

Tech/

E-reader News Edition

FT Boss: Positive Thinking And Balls Are The Secrets To A Successful Paywall

WhitePages.com halts ad networks over malware

Mike Masnick (Techdirt)

(CNET News.com)

Submitted at 3/10/2010 9:16:00 AM

It's no secret that I'm pretty skeptical of the longterm viability of just about any newspaper paywall. Among the "success stories," however, many people point to the Financial Times, which has a policy of only letting unregistered users see a single story per month before locking them out. If you register (still free) you get ten stories per month. After that you have to pay (or you erase your cookies, or use Google searches, since you can get access if you come via Google). This has resulted in about 126,000 customers, which isn't bad, though I still question if it can last (I'll explain my reasons at the end of the post).

However, in an interview, Rob Grimshaw, the managing director of the Financial Times, suggests that lots of others can do well with a paywall if they just had "balls" and "put their mind to it." Really:"Publishers

should have more balls, they should have more confidence about what they're doing," is how Rob Grimshaw, managing director of FT.com put it.

"If they put their mind to it then they can produce compelling products online which people will pay for." You would think that someone working for a savvy business publication, like the FT, would offer a bit more in the way of strategic detail.

Confidence alone doesn't change the market position. I agree that if they put their mind to it, others can come up with compelling products that people will pay for -- but these have to be products of scarce value.

The FT has mostly been able to do this with good financial/business content, but that may not be sustainable. It's really a huge opportunity for someone else to step in and offer top financial and business content for free and pick up the readers that don't want to pay for either the FT or the WSJ. And that group of people is growing.

The younger

generation (that's rapidly hitting the business world) has never paid for a newspaper subscription and see no reason to start now. None. So, the papers with the paywalls are limiting themselves to an audience that will die off.

That's dangerous. Furthermore, as we keep pointing out, news consumers today aren't there to just read, but to share the news.

In other words, the very act of putting up this paywall makes the newspaper less valuable to the current news consumer, because they can't freely share the content with others.

There are strategies for alternative revenue streams for publications, but locking up your content and hoping people will just pay to access it is an attempt to set up artificial scarcities in a world of abundance. It's a strategy that's hard to make last for very long.

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malware that had affected Senate computers the day before.

WhitePages.com has stopped ad Matt Drudge denied the networks from delivering ads to accusation on his site and its site after they were found to accused the committee of contain fake antivirus malware. politicking. But several CNET " O n M o n d a y m o r n i n g readers reported that they too WhitePages received reports had been hit with the malware from users [about] malware in when they visited the Drudge the form of a fake antivirus Report Web site, a conservative upsell program that we believe news aggregator that sometimes originated (against our terms) authors stories too. from a third-party advertising Web sites that have ad network serving ads on our networks serve their ads are website, in addition to other susceptible to malware being w e b s i t e s , " a W h i t e P a g e s distributed on their sites without spokeswoman said in an e-mail their knowledge or involvement. late Tuesday.

Visitors to the Drudge Report, "We immediately suspended the The New York Times, the San networks in question at which Francisco Chronicle, and other time the reports from users Web sites were found to be subsided," she wrote. "We are d e l i v e r i n g a d s c o n t a i n i n g working diligently to prevent m a l w a r e l a s t y e a r . this from happening in the The Drudge Report did not future." return an e-mail seeking A representative for the comment Wednesday.

S e n a t e ' s C o m m i t t e e o n Five Filters featured article: Environment and Public Works Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: said on Tuesday that officials PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, were looking a t Term Extraction.

WhitePages.com and Drudge Report as possible sources of Submitted at 3/10/2010 9:01:00 AM

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LifeLock Has To Pay $12 Million Corey Haim Dies: Fans For Bogus Advertising, Little Actual Pay Tribute on Social Protection And Awful Security Media Sites Mike Masnick (Techdirt)

CEO of LifeLock, after having his own identity fraudulently used, went to the home of the AdamR was the first of a few of guy who did it to "coerce a you to point out that the FTC confession." (along with 35 state attorneys But the bigger questions were general) has fined Lifelock $12 about the service itself. All it m i l l i o n f o r a v a r i e t y o f really did was put a fraud block misdeeds, starting with bogus on your credit, which you could advertising. This should be no do for free. It didn't stop people surprise to Techdirt readers, as from using your existing credit the discussions around LifeLock cards if they had access to the have always raised a lot more information, or from taking out questions than were answered. loans in your name (which is It kicked off with the fact that what happened to the CEO) -LifeLock's CEO, who proudly even though its advertisements places his Social Security implied you'd be safe from such Number on ads to "prove" how situations (which are more convinced he is that LifeLock common than someone taking will protect him... was a victim out a credit card in your name). of identity fraud himself. Oh, Oh, and then there was the fact and there was also the stuff that the fraud reports that about how one of the founder's Lifelock would put on accounts of the company had a past that were found to be illegal. involved doing bad things with All that looks pretty bad -- and the private information of his it gets worse as you read the own customers. And then there details of the FTC slapdown. was the story about how the There was the questionable Submitted at 3/10/2010 6:50:00 AM

advertising, which went beyond just false implied promises -- to sending out letters that tried to claim that the recipient's info "wasn't safe" as a scare tactic.

On top of that, apparently, LifeLock itself wasn't particularly secure with how it handled its customers private information. This fact looks even worse when you realize that LifeLock would prey on firms who had recently had data breaches, and suggest they sign up customers for a "free" year of LifeLock -- thereby putting their data at risk yet again. Not only was the data not properly handled, but LifeLock falsely claimed that the data was encrypted and only authorized employees would have access.

Neither turned out to be true.

Basically, it sounds like rather than protect your identity, LifeLock put you at greater risk.

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How to Improvise a Laptop Carrying Bag [How To] Jesus Diaz (Gizmodo)

these easy steps. [ Likecool] More »

Submitted at 3/10/2010 12:00:00 PM

In case of emergency, you just

need a hoodie and to follow

Christina Warren (Mashable!)

Submitted at 3/10/2010 9:37:17 AM

Corey Haim, best known as one half of “the two Coreys,” was found dead in his home this morning at the age of 38, apparently from an accidental drug overdose.

The actor was a teen icon and heartthrob in the late 1980s, known for his roles in films like Lucas, The Lost Boys, License to Drive and Dream a Little Dream. While his more recent work has been more limited, that hasn’t stopped fans from flooding Twitter and Facebook with responses to this news.

Haim is most prominently known for his work in the The Lost Boys— a coming-of-age story about teenage vampires.

The film, which was his first collaboraton with Corey Feldman, has become something of a cult classic, spawning a straight-to-video sequel in 2008, with another follow-up planned.

Today, however, it’s a trending topic on Twitter.

Because Corey Haim and Corey Feldman were frequently associated with one another, it’s not surprising that for a brief period of time, “The Goonies”

became a trending topic on Twitter as well. However, it was Feldman, not Haim, that starred in that classic.

Facebook groups like“R.I.P. Corey Haim (The Lost Boys)” are also sprouting up.

Haim, who suffered from drug addiction throughout the 1990s and 2000s, gained Internet attention in 2001 when he attempted to sell his hair and teeth on eBay(these auctions were eventually pulled down because they violated eBay’s TOS, which states you can’t sell body parts). He also starred in a reality show called The Two Coreys alongside Corey Feldman for two seasons on A&E. What was your favorite Corey Haim movie? Let us know in the comments!

Tags:#ripcoreyhaim, corey haim, death

Tech/ Economy/

E-reader News Edition

43

"Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" uses Macs to solve mysteries Victor Agreda, Jr. (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)) Submitted at 3/10/2010 8:00:00 AM

Filed under: Cult of Mac If you happen to have gotten caught up in the phenomenon known as the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, then you know that the computer of choice for these world-class computer genius hackers is made by Apple. I screened the film version of the story, and MacBook Pros are visible throughout as the the tool used to solve mysteries. It's a good film as well, as far as taut thrillers from Sweden go. In fact, I found it a refreshing take on the thriller (with a little social commentary thrown in)

and was unsurprised to find it was based on a highly-regarded novel.

The lead character, Lisbeth Salander, actually uses her MacBook Pro to hack into all manner of places, just as Macs have managed to appear in all sorts of movies. There's even a Flickr group dedicated to chronicling the appearance of them in film and TV. If you got a kick out of Hackers back in the day, Lisbeth will be a little familiar, but she's a nice modern spin on the "cool hacker" type.

TUAW is part of a "blog hunt" for clues to win prizes for the movie, and you can find out more on the next page...

Join the Dragon Tattoo Blog

Dragon Tattoo is in theaters near you starting March 19th.

The next clue: No 9 to 5'ing for this guy. Just like Lisbeth and Mikael, this renegade, Jonathan Fields, made his own way (he even wrote a book about it) and he helps people find the career that lets them do what they love to do.

TUAW"Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" uses Macs to solve mysteries originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 H U N T - - a n I n t e r n e t - w i d e books, the movie soundtrack, 08:00:00 EST. Please see our scavenger hunt tied to the posters and more. To join the terms for use of feeds. feature film launch of the contest, start at the beginning of Read| Permalink| Email this| bestselling book The Girl With the HUNT by visiting the Comments the Dragon Tattoo. Win great contest page for full details and prizes: free movie tickets, the first clue. The Girl With the

DON'T continued from page 35

decent phone. PC guys are not going to just figure this out.

They're not going to just walk in." And who could forget Steve Ballmer of Microsoft, perhaps the best-remembered critic of the iPhone: "There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance." Ballmer claimed Apple would be lucky to get 2-3% cellphone marketshare.

Over 42 million iPhones later, Apple has become the largest mobile device company in the world. And whether you agree

that HTC and other phone manufacturers have violated Apple's patents or not, the influence the iPhone has had on the smartphone industry is undeniable. Before June of 2007, almost all smartphones looked like clones of the Blackberry. Less than three years later, an awful lot of smartphones now look like clones of the iPhone instead.

With these four products, Apple drove the evolution of three industries: PCs, portable media players, and smartphones. All

four products were smashing successes despite all the doom and gloom from both professional and armchair tech critics. Now, with the introduction of the iPad, Apple is aiming at a new industry: ultraportable computers. For the past month and a half, at least half of everyone paying attention to the iPad has laughed at it, pointed out its shortcomings, and predicted its failure. My prediction? A year from now, we're going to have a very long list of misguided iPad

quotes to point and laugh at.

TUAW Don't trust the critics: Four Apple products they thought would fail originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Stocks edge higher on hopes for global economy (Financial Times - US homepage) Submitted at 3/10/2010 9:01:47 AM

By Jamie Chisholm, Global Markets Commentator Published: March 10 2010 08:41 | Last updated: March 10 2010 17:01 Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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Hack: The iPod serial library enables Get Satisfaction Brings homebrew remote controls Customer Support to Facebook Pages Kelly Guimont (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW))

Jennifer Van Grove (Mashable!)

Submitted at 3/10/2010 11:00:00 AM

Filed under: Hardware, iPod Family, Hacks, iPhone Warning: If you are baffled by people who think dismantling technology is fun, and completely fail to understand the excitement of building robots to battle other robots, this post may not be for you. Just so you know.

On the Make: magazine blog, they recently posted a piece about the evolution of a project.

It was an iPod remote from last year that has gone from a "start and stop" only device to a full featured remote. It is a lovely piece of tech, powered by Arduino hardware. Arduinos are open-source circuit boards and software you can use to develop interfaces with all sorts of electronics.

I remember reading the first post about this remote last fall and being interested in where he would take this project, mostly because I love seeing what people do with Altoids tins. I have to admit hooking one up to a giant "Easy" button for my car never really occurred to me, though.

I really like the idea of building my own remote; partly so I can

Submitted at 3/10/2010 9:02:08 AM

say I did it, but also because it would be a nicer way to get my iPod or iPhone (depending) working nicely with my car stereo.

Honestly I only understand about half of what he's talking about in this article, but I'm good at following instructions and I am reasonably handy with a soldering iron, so this doesn't look completely unreasonable.

If I do end up building one I'll be sure to post all about it for you. In the meantime, have you built an unholy alliance between your Roomba and your iMac, or

any other variety of Mac Tech Mashup? Tell me about it, I'd love to see what you all can do!

P h o t o b y http://www.flickr.com/photos/fi nsprings// CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 TUAW Hack: The iPod serial library enables homebrew remote controls originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Today Get Satisfaction is bringing their popular social CRM tool inside Facebook Pages with Social Engagement Hub. The new app, created by Invovler using the Get Satisfaction API, gives brands and businesses the ability to integrate the entire support experience into Facebook.

That means the Ask A Question, Share an Idea, Report a Problem, and Give Praise functionalities are all present and commingling with the service’s intelligent question database so both customers and brand representatives have the ability to collectively tackle queries.

The Social Engagement Hub lives in its own tab inside the Facebook Page and can be fully customized, branded, and tweaked for a specific purpose or campaign. The most impressive part, though, is that all activity inside the hub is centralized on the Get Satisfaction platform, so no

conversation is lost inside the Facebook experience and each one can be distributed across multiple environments (which allows for repurposing).

The application is currently being tested by a handful of brands (check out POM’s support tab), but the company is rolling it out to all interested businesses. The Social Engagement Hub is targeted to bigger brands, but coming this spring Get Satisfaction will roll a slightly scaled down version — minus customization — for small and medium business that will cost $99 per month in addition to their current paid plan.

Tags: facebook, facebook page, get satisfaction, MARKETING, software

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The First Rule Of Developing For The iPhone Is: You Do Not Talk About Developing For The iPhone Mike Masnick (Techdirt) Submitted at 3/10/2010 8:07:00 AM

We've certainly covered many different practices by Apple that harm its developers, from arbitrarily choosing what gets approved to arbitrarily shutting down apps with little or no explanation. Now, the EFF has used a Freedom of Information Act request to NASA (who recently released an iPhone app) to get a look at the amazingly one-sided agreement that Apple forces developers to sign. The reason that the EFF was forced to file an FOIA request to see

and post the document is that part of the agreement itself is that you won't make any "public statements" about the agreement itself, a la fight club.

As the EFF notes, this is an incredibly one-sided document, which isn't all that surprising, given Apple's standard operating procedures. And while Apple remains a giant player in the market, many developers will just suck it up and accept it. But Apple may find, over the long term, that this comes back to bite them in some pretty serious ways.

Treating your developers -- the

people who really make your platform valuable -- like crap means that they'll be ready to jump to other platforms as they become viable. Perhaps Steve Jobs believes that Apple can keep innovating ahead of the curve far enough that demand will remain ridiculously high for the iPhone and iPad, but it's definitely a high wire act for the company, who could face serious developer defections if an alternative platform becomes really viable.

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Case-mate Hug Review: A Wireless iPhone Charging Pad That Actually Works Well [Review] Jason Chen (Gizmodo) Submitted at 3/10/2010 11:20:00 AM

Wireless charging has been around—even for the iPhone—for years, but it wasn't until the last 12 months that it's been refined to be as good as standard wired charging. Case-

mate's Hug is our favorite iPhone charging pad. More »

Google Maps Now Includes Intelligent Bike Routes Jennifer Van Grove (Mashable!)

Submitted at 3/10/2010 8:42:16 AM

Bikers rejoice, Google has just added intelligent biking directions for more than 12,000 U.S. bike trails as a new option inside Google Maps.

The company writes that the new biking features will “include as much bike trail data

as possible, provide efficient routes, allow riders to customize their trip, make use of bike lanes, calculate rider-friendly routes that avoid big hills and customize the look of the map for cycling to encourage folks to hop on their bikes.”

The new option now sits next to the current Google Maps standbys — car, public transit and walking — for online

routing options, so users can select the new option from the dropdown menu to uncover a

Google-recommended bike routes (likely sans big hills!).

You can also turn on a “Bicycling” layer via the “More” tab when zoomed into a particular city in Google Maps.

The trails’ green hues should indicate terrain and road type.

Dark green equates to bike-only, light green means there’s a bike lane, and dashed green means it’s a decent biking path but one

without a bike lane.

Before you get too excited, we should note that as of right now biking is not an option in mobile apps, so make sure to plan ahead before you hit the pavement.

Tags: biking, Google, Google Maps

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YouTube Deploys Ads on Mobile Site

Boston Review on 'What Darwin Got Wrong'

Samuel Axon (Mashable!)

(Little Green Footballs)

Submitted at 3/10/2010 9:15:31 AM

Submitted at 3/9/2010 12:03:52 PM

YouTube will now display banner ads on the mobile version of its website. Google made the announcement in a blog post today, enticing wouldbe advertisers to sign up by saying that users of its mobile video website are tech-savvy early adopters with cash to spend — the ideal ad demographic.

Google’s all about the mobile ads nowadays; it acquired mobile ad network AdMob for $750 million last November, and AdWords (those contextual sponsored links in search results and the like) went live on iPhone and Android a year ago.

YouTube has experimented with mobile ads in the past, running exclusive campaigns with select advertisers and deploying ads to some users in

the United States and Japan.

Sony advertised the DVD release of recent Oscar-nominee District 9 on YouTube mobile, for example.

The company’s leaders and engineers are wise to try and stay on top of this. The search giant is a prominent force in desktop ads, but as more people adopt smartphones it’s not hard to imagine that mobile will eventually be an even more powerful influence in the advertising sphere.

Tags: ads, advertising, business, MARKETING, Mobile 2.0, youtube

Palmarini set out to dismantle that framework. They argue that standard evolutionary At the Boston Review, Ned t h i n k i n g — w h a t t h e y c a l l Block and Philip Kitcher have Darwinism—is guilty of a basic an excellent piece on a new logical error, not a mistake in book titled “ What Darwin Got biology but an “intensional Wrong,” that tries to cast doubt fallacy.” That fallacy, they say, on Charles Darwin’s theory of undermines the entire enterprise. evolution by approaching the To be clear, the authors preface subject from a philosophical t h e i r d e m o l i t i o n w i t h a standpoint: Misunderstanding disclaimer: in attacking Darwin, Darwin. they are not supporting any Since the science isn’t in religious view of “origins”; question, it makes sense that thoroughgoing materialists, they a t t e m p t s t o d i s c r e d i t do not think that biological evolutionary science don’t patterns require an intelligent actually involve, you know, designer. But their criticisms are science. The interesting thing intended to knock evolutionary about the book, though, is that t h e o r y f r o m i t s s c i e n t i f i c the authors aren’t the usual pedestal by demolishing the f u n d a m e n t a l i s t r e l i g i o u s scientific credentials of natural fanatics, but materialists. (Or so selection. they say.)

Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini … Even as some scientists are not biologists. Fodor is a suggest that natural selection leading philosopher of mind and may be limited in ways Darwin cognitive scientist, best known could not envisage, they accept f o r h i s i d e a s a b o u t t h e his basic insights and work to m o d u l a r i t y o f m i n d a n d i m p r o v e o u r b i o l o g i c a l language of thought; Piattelliunderstanding within the Palmarini is a cognitive f r a m e w o r k h e s e t f o r t h . scientist. They do not have new In their controversial new book, d a t a , n e w t h e o r y , c l o s e What Darwin Got Wrong, Jerry acquaintance with the everyday Fodor and Massimo Piattelli- p r a c t i c e o f e v o l u t i o n a r y

investigations, or any interest in supplying alternative explanations of evolutionary phenomena. Instead, they wield philosophical tools to locate a “conceptual fault line” in contemporary Darwinism.

Apparently unshaken by withering criticism of Fodor’s earlier writings about evolutionary theory, they write with complete assurance, confident that their limited understanding of biology suffices for their critical purpose. The resulting argument is doubly flawed: it is biologically irrelevant and philosophically confused. We start with the biology.

Read the whole thing and give your cerebral cortex some exercise. This review kind of made me want to read the book, just to see if it’s as bad as Block and Kitcher say it is. (Boo! There’s no Kindle version yet.)

PZ Myers also has an interesting post, responding to a summary of the book published in New Scientist. (He’s not fond of it either.)

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Maliki vs. Allawi Michael Crowley (The New Republic - All Feed) Submitted at 3/9/2010 9:00:00 PM

In the late summer of 2007, Baghdad was buzzing with talk of a coup. Iraq was gripped by horrific civil war, and the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki seemed at best unable to do anything about it.

(At worst he appeared guilty of contributing to sectarian violence himself). In November, U.S. national security advisor Steve Hadley had returned from a visit with Maliki and reported grave doubts about the prime minister’s competence. “[T]he reality on the streets of Baghdad suggests Maliki is either ignorant of what is going on, misrepresenting his intentions, or that his capabilities are not yet sufficient to turn his good intentions into action,” Hadley wrote in a memo leaked to the media. On August 21, George W. Bush himself seemed to encourage Maliki’s overthrow.

“The fundamental question is: Will the government respond to the demands of the people?”

Bush asked at a press conference. “If the government doesn't respond to the demands of the people, they will replace the government.” It was practically an invitation to a coup.

Perhaps feeling that he’d given Maliki a useful scare, Bush soon reaffirmed his support for the

Iraqi leader, and the coup never materialized. Maliki would go on to prove his doubters wrong.

Through a combination of Bush’s troop surge, alliances with Sunni insurgent leaders, and his own stubborn leadership, Maliki oversaw Iraq’s transformation from a Mad Max-like apocalyptic hellhole to a merely treacherous and struggling nation.

But Maliki may yet find himself toppled in the coming weeks—this time not by a secret coup plot, but through the open democratic process. Although last Sunday’s votes are still being counted and it could take months to form a new government, Maliki has gone from the near-certain prospect of holding onto his job to the real possibility of losing it when Iraq’s government reorganizes.

And one man seems likely to emerge as the top challenger to Maliki’s power in the postelection coalition-making: Ayad Allawi, who served as Iraq’s prime minister from 2004 to 2005. Allawi, as it happens, was the man considered most likely to be installed in a possible 2007 coup. Back then, Washington stopped short of pushing for Allawi to replace Maliki. But now that Iraqis have voted and a new government must be formed, the question of American interests comes to mind. Would the Obama team prefer Maliki or Allawi to

prevail?

The Obama White House might back Allawi over Maliki for several key reasons. The first is that he’s an old friend of America. It’s true that Allawi started out as a Baathist ally of Saddam Hussein in the 1970s.

But that relationship soured—culminating with the night two of Saddam’s henchmen broke into Allawi’s house and took several whacks at him with an axe. Allawi miraculously survived the attack, and later emerged as a top Iraqi opposition leader in exile, developing nearly as many contacts within the CIA as the notorious exile leader Ahmed Chalabi (and similarly feeding the CIA some bad information about Saddam’s WMD programs).

The second reason Obama might be pulling for Allawi is his wariness towards Iran. On a visit to Iraq last December, I heard one prominent Sunni politician complain about Maliki’s ties to Shiite Iran.

During his own period of exile, Maliki spent eight years living in Iran, and since he became prime minister in 2006, he has paid several state visits to Tehran. The Sunni politician complained bitterly about Shiite leaders in Baghdad who are “only Iraqi on their official documents”—which sounded like a reference to Maliki’s longtime residency in Iran.

Though Allawi is also a Shiite, he is more secular than Maliki and has expressed more suspicion of Tehran. Shortly before Sunday’s election, for instance, Allawi paid a noteworthy visit to Saudi Arabia, Iran’s chief regional rival. That’s not just reassuring to the United States. It also endears Allawi to Iraqi Sunnis like the politician with whom I spoke. (The difference is not black-and-white, to be sure: Tehran, for instance, has always favored the aggressively antiAmerican Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq over Maliki’s Dawa party; fortunately for the Obama administration, ISCI appears to have fared poorly in Sunday’s vote.)

What’s more, Maliki has shown some recent and troubling signs of autocratic thuggishness, including his use of the Iraqi Army to intimidate his political rivals, and his defense of an effort to ban hundreds of former Baathists from Sunday’s election ballot, which certainly looked like a sectarian power play that could haves stoked more violence.

Still, there are some good reasons to hope that Maliki sticks around. He offers continuity, for one thing. While Iraq may be extremely fragile—and a series of major bombings have undermined Maliki’s authority and popularity—the country has

generally stabilized under his control in the past two years.

His instincts have sometimes proved surprisingly good. The Bush administration was surprised by Maliki’s impulsive March 2008 offensive against Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militias in Basra; but the operation was a success which helped to pacify Iraq’s restive south.

And Allawi has some dark patches on his record, including his WMD claims and a 2004 Australian newspaper report, citing two unnamed eyewitnesses, which claimed that Allawi had lined up six prisoners in Baghdad and executed them with a gun before 30 witnesses. Allawi also didn’t do a particularly impressive job during his first go-around as prime minister. He tried to promote a vision of nonsectarian unity, but may have appeared too close to his Washington patrons, and lacked the political skill to connect with the Iraqi public. (Even today, he is criticized for being a wan campaigner.) He served for a year before his party fared poorly in Iraq’s 2005 national election and he was out.

In truth, however, there’s not all that much Obama can do to choose the winner; American influence over Iraqi politics has dramatically dwindled. The MALIKI page 53

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Rough Week on Ethics Front Could Lead to Reforms (AEI.Org: Articles)

my bias as a friend, but Sandy Levin is as decent, thoughtful and honorable a Member of Last week was rocky on the Congress as we have, and he is e t h i c s f r o n t f o r H o u s e driven by all the right reasons to Democrats, starting with the be in public service and serve sturm und drang over Rep. his country.

Charlie Rangel (N.Y.), and it I expect Ways and Means, as did not get much better at the important as any committee in start of this week. Rep. Eric Congress, to move quickly out Massa (N.Y.) did not take the of its largely moribund status admonition "No Massa" very over the past year and become seriously, going on media active and engaged in all the key outlets to blast his party's policy areas within its purview, leaders, to blast Rahm Emanuel including jobs, health, taxes, as the "son of the devil's spawn" welfare, trade and the global --apparently making him the economy. I expect Levin to grandson of the devil--and to make a real effort to bring o f f e r h i s d e f e n s e o f h i s Republicans into the dialogue. i n a p p r o p r i a t e c o m m e n t s . And I hope if and when he does On the radio, he described his so that they respond with real exchanges with his own staff at efforts to engage, and without a a wedding party (where, he said, reflexive opposition to all the his staff were drunk to near- b i l l s c o n s i d e r e d i n t h e incoherence). After one staffer committee (or, as has happened apparently suggested to the boss too much in the House, to vote that he should be "fracking" a en bloc against bills on the floor bridesmaid Massa had danced after working in a bipartisan with, the Congressman cleared f a s h i o n o n b i l l s i n t h e things up by tousling the hair of c o m m i t t e e ) . a male staffer and said he should By fighting hard and long to be "fracking" him. Glad he create an independent Office of c l e a r e d t h a t u p - - I h a d Congressional Ethics, against mistakenly thought Massa might the ardent opposition of many of have done something that her own Democrats and nearly reflected badly on the conduct all of the House Republicans, o f a n e l e c t e d M e m b e r o f Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.)

Congress. took a big and difficult step to One good thing has come out of create a meaningful ethics this mess: the Democrats' choice investigative process in the of Rep. Sander Levin (Mich.) to House. Now it is clear that the chair the Ways and Means ethics process itself needs help Committee. Take into account from her and her colleagues, Submitted at 3/9/2010 3:00:00 PM

including Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and the main progenitor of OCE, Rep. Mike Capuano (D-Mass.). They need both to make sure that the OCE survives and thrives as an entity with credibility outside the institution as well as inside, and to make sure the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct lives up to the "standards" in its name and focuses on setting and enforcing those standards.

On trips outside the U.S. paid for by private entities, we need much clearer guidelines about do's and don'ts, along with real penalties for those who step over the line--which includes failure to disclose the real costs of trips and failure to provide full and accurate information before a trip in order to gain "pre-clearance" from the ethics panel.

Pelosi is apparently considering taking other bold steps, including, as Monday's Roll Call reported, a ban on earmarks. I don't have any problem with a one-year ban on earmarks. For many reasons, I would have a problem with a permanent ban on them. First, earmarks are not unbridled evil.

Someone has to make allocation decisions and having them made

by Washington-based bureaucrats has its problems and limits. Getting some input from local officials and local residents about their needs and priorities is not a bad thing, if

done the right way.

Second, a ban on earmarks could result in more corruption, not less. There are many ways to influence allocation decisions, many of them not public. Keep in mind that nearly all of the quids pro quo (Latin in this case for bribes) that ex-Rep. Duke Cunningham (R-Calif.) perpetrated were not earmarks in the traditional sense. Many were contracts with the Department of Defense or with intelligence agencies, done via private influence he exerted on executive branch employees making the contract awards in the relevant agencies.

Before the explosion of earmarks, Members of Congress shaped a lot of the allocation decisions by adding often opaque language in committee reports or via more subtle influence on the agency employees. Most were not corrupt, but trying to find links between campaign contributions and earmark requests, or trying to find a connection between earmarks implemented and the personal financial stake of the earmarkers and their families and friends, was very hard-much harder than it is in the age of transparency and earmarking, especially after major reforms in this Congress that provided much more transparency than we had before. Earmarks clearly have careened out of control, distorting the budget and

moving beyond any reasonable balance of costs vs. benefits for taxpayers, and we have seen a major increase in the appearance of conflicts of interest via the nexus of campaign contributions and earmark requests. So we need more reform of this process. The suggestion coming from a group of freshmen to ban campaign contributions from executives involved with organizations receiving earmarks is a good one.

An even better idea, in my view, is for lawmakers to create credible independent processes to sift through earmark requests and thereby insulate themselves from any questionable connections. If all lawmakers created independent commissions in their districts, akin to the judicial selection commissions used by many Senators, to screen and evaluate all earmark requests and rank them as priorities for their Representatives, no one could make a credible accusation of improper connections between money and earmarking.

Despite the flaps of the past couple of weeks, most Americans are not focused on ethics issues in Congress; they have bigger things to worry about. But the low public esteem for Congress, combined with the populist anger out there fueled by a lousy economy, is a ROUGH page 52

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THE READ: Common Calamities Ruth Franklin (The New Republic - All Feed)

The earthquake seems to have acted as a great leveler, erasing the previous divisions of class Submitted at 3/9/2010 9:00:00 PM and piety: Heinrich von Kleist’s famous Amidst these awful moments story “The Earthquake in Chile” that had brought about the is set in Santiago in 1647. A destruction of all of humanity’s young Carmelite nun named worldly possessions, and during Josephe, condemned to death for which all of nature threatened to becoming pregnant out of be engulfed, it did indeed seem w e d l o c k , i s a b o u t t o b e that the human spirit itself beheaded. Across town, her blossomed like a lovely flower. lover, Jeronimo Rugera, is In the fields all around, as far as preparing to hang himself in the the eye could see, there were prison where he has been people of all social classes lying incarcerated. Just as the bells together, nobles and beggars, announcing Josephe’s imminent m a t r o n s o f o n c e s t a t e l y execution begin to toll, a households and peasant women, gigantic earthquake strikes: We civil servants and day laborers, now know that it measured m o n k s a n d n u n s : a l l around 8.5 on the Richter scale, commiserating with each other, just a little less than the recent helping each other, cheerfully 8.8 quake. The pillar on which sharing the little of life’s Jeronimo was to hang himself necessities they’d been able to becomes his support, and he salvage, as though the common escapes as the building collapses calamity had joined all those around him. His beloved, saved who’d managed to survive it by the same “heavenly miracle,” into a single harmonious family finds him in the countryside, of man. where the refugees from the city But the new harmony is even have gathered. (This quotation shorter-lived than the European and the others come from Peter solidarity with America after Wortsman’s new translation of S e p t e m b e r 1 1 ( r e m e m b e r Kleist’s Selected Prose, just out the“We are all Americans” in an attractive new edition from declarations?). When Josephe Archipelago Books.) The same and Jeronimo attend church with townspeople who earlier that their new friends, they are day had gathered to watch stunned to hear the priest Josephe’s execution now greet denounce the moral corruption the pair with warmth and that brought the earthquake compassion. Had the past, they upon the city, referring to the wonder, only been a bad dream? two of them by name. Josephe

and Jeronimo are identified by people in the crowd—Jeronimo by his own father—and murdered. It takes more than an earthquake, Kleist suggests, to rend the social fabric. Physical buildings may crumble, but societal structures are fixed more firmly.

Amid the news reports comparing the earthquakes in Chile and Haiti and their different effects—especially the often-repeated statement that more people survived in Chile, despite the quake’s greater magnitude, because of the country’s stricter building codes and generally greater wealth—I found myself turning back to Kleist’s parable of injustice and inevitability. I had hoped, I suppose, to find some kind of wisdom or consolation in it, some explanation for the massive human suffering that accompanied these “acts of God.” (As my colleague Leon Wieseltier wrote several weeks ago, earthquakes do not solve metaphysical problems.)

Apparently I had forgotten how little consolation is to be found in Kleist’s unsparing vision of the human condition. His stories are set all over the globe, but their worldview is the same: a society—if a group of human beings with so little fellow feeling deserves that name—where people who dare to live by an inner-conception of

morality and justice are tormented by inflexible, inhumane laws or codes of behavior. (Kafka considered Kleist a kind of honorary ancestor.) His narratives are taut with psychological tension, but the outcome can never really be in doubt: innocents will pay for the crimes of the guilty, who go unpunished.

“Depending on how you view them, from the outside in or the inside out, Kleist’s narrative structures … are either emotional arches about to collapse overhead, or pressure cookers about to explode, that hold somehow, while the pressure gauge whirrs out of control,” Wortsman writes in an afterword to his translation. In addition to “The Earthquake in Chile,” the book also includes a less well-known story called “The Betrothal in Santo Domingo,” which takes place in what is now Haiti at the beginning of the nineteenth century, during the revolution—or, as Kleist puts it, “when the blacks slaughtered the whites.” The story, which describes the efforts of a mestizo girl to save a group of white refugees from a trap laid by her mulatto mother and her stepfather, the “dreadful old Negro” Congo Hoango, is irredeemably racist, as Wortsman acknowledges. (It is not a little misogynist, too: the

young heroine falls in love with a European man after he rapes her.) The blacks in the story are conniving and bloodthirsty; the whites have apparently done no wrong, and the heroine dies in her attempt to save her lover from her relatives’ clutches. I’m not sure that, as Wortsman writes, it would have been a “literary calumny” to leave this story out of the volume. And on the surface, at least, this story seems to have very little relevance to the miseries depicted in the photographs that have been coming out of Haiti since January. But, like Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, beneath the offenses of “The Betrothal in Santo Domingo” lies a narrative of the human condition that, like suffering itself, finally transcends race.

Was not the massive death toll in Haiti really the price that innocent victims paid for the corruption, crimes, and ignorance of others?

Ruth Franklin is a senior editor of The New Republic.

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Promises, Promises, Promises Jeffrey Rosen (The New Republic - All Feed) Submitted at 3/9/2010 9:00:00 PM

In a recent TNR article about the Citizens United decision, “Roberts versus Roberts,” I argued that the chief justice has so far failed to achieve his goal of promoting narrow, unanimous decisions rather than ideologically polarizing ones.

After the piece came out, Ed Whelan claimed that Roberts had never promised to try to lead the Court in such a fashion.

In fact, in an interview in 2006, Roberts acknowledged to me that he had set himself a daunting task in seeking unanimity and consensus rather than polarizing 5-4 decisions, but he said it was one worth pursuing because it would be good for the court and the country.

Today, TNR contributor Doug Kendall and I are testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee for a hearing entitled "We the People? Corporate Spending in American Elections after Citizens United." I've included in my testimony, posted below, remarks he made at a commencement address at Georgetown University Law Center in May 2006, as well as more extensive selections from what Roberts told me in July of that year. (“It’s a high priority to

keep any kind of partisan divide out of the judiciary,” he said.)

As these statements clearly show, the chief justice presented his vision for more consensus on the Court forcefully and repeatedly, although he acknowledged that it would be difficult to achieve.

Hearing before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary We the People? Corporate Spending in American Elections after Citizens United Wednesday, March 10, 2010

By Jeffrey Rosen Professor of Law George Washington University Legal Affairs Editor The New Republic Dear Senator Leahy and members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Thank you very much for holding this hearing and inviting me to testify about the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. My name is Jeffrey Rosen; I teach constitutional law at George Washington University and am the legal affairs editor of The New Republic and a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

The 5-4 ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission has been strongly opposed by Americans of both parties: last month, in a

Washington Post-ABC News poll, 80 percent of respondents said they opposed the Court’s decision to allow unregulated corporate spending in general elections, with relatively little difference among Democrats (85 percent opposed to the ruling) and Republicans (76 percent opposed). That’s not a surprise during a time of financial crisis when the influence of money in politics—Justice Louis Brandeis called it the “curse of bigness” and “our financial oligarchy”—is the most pressing political question of the day.

You asked me to testify about the constitutional implications of the decision—and what it suggests about the Roberts Court's attitude toward corporate interests and government regulation of the economy in the future.

Unfortunately, the implications are not encouraging.

Citizens United is an activist decision by any definition of judicial activism. It is activist in its disregard of constitutional history, tradition, Supreme Court precedent, and the considered views of the president and Congress. It is precisely the kind of divisive and unnecessarily sweeping decision that Chief Justice John Roberts pledged to avoid in his confirmation hearings and after,

when he said he would try to promote narrow, unanimous opinions, rather than deciding hotly contested questions by ideologically polarized 5-4 votes. The most significant area where the Roberts Court has succeeded in achieving near unanimity is in cases affecting business interests, which tend to be decided in a pro-business direction. The broad rhetoric in Citizens United about the rights of corporations, combined with the apparent willingness of the 5 -4 conservative majority on the Roberts Court to invalidate federal regulations that have broad bipartisan support, could lead to future confrontations between the Supreme Court and Congress on matters of economic fairness that citizens care intensely about.

Let me begin by describing how Citizens United is hard to reconcile with the vision of bipartisan unity that Chief Justice John Roberts originally embraced. In 2006, at the end of his first term on the Court, Chief Justice Roberts said in several speeches and interviews that that he was concerned that his colleagues, in issuing 5-4 opinions divided along predictable lines, were acting more like law professors than members of a collegial court.

His goal, he said, was to persuade his fellow justices to

converge around narrow, unanimous opinions, as his greatest predecessor, John Marshall, had done. Speaking to the Georgetown University Law Center commencement in May 2006, Chief Justice Roberts said: [T]here are clear benefits to a greater degree of consensus on the Court. Unanimity or near unanimity promote clarity and guidance to lawyers and to the lower courts trying to figure out what the Supreme Court meant.

Perhaps most importantly there are jurisprudential benefits: the broader the agreement among the justices, the more likely it is that the decision is on the narrowest possible grounds. It’s when the decision moves beyond what’s necessary to decide the case that justices tend to bail out. If it’s not necessary to decide more to dispose of a case, in my view it is necessary not to decide more. In Felix Frankfurter’s words, a narrow decision helps ensure that we “do not embarrass the future too much.”

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Senate Hopeful Has WWE in Her Corner (Newsmax - Politics) Submitted at 3/10/2010 1:52:55 AM

When Linda McMahon resigned her job last year running World Wrestling Entertainment in hopes of filling the seat of retiring Democratic Sen. Christopher J. Dodd in Connecticut, she told voters she was no longer active in the company that's made her wealthy enough to finance a campaign with tens of millions of dollars of her own money.

But World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), best known for its televised wrestling matches and soap opera storyline plots, was plenty active early in Mrs. McMahon's campaign.

According to a little-noticed regulatory filing, the WWE was producing political ads for the McMahon campaign, as the former chief executive launched a bid to win the Republican primary.

The hiring of the wrestling company to produce $162,000 in ads appears nowhere in any of Mrs. McMahon's campaignfinance reports, however. That's because the WWE was acting as a subcontractor to one of the campaign's vendors, and federal election law generally doesn't require campaigns to publicly report payments by vendors to

subcontractors.

Campaign officials say the money for the WWE-produced ads flowed from the McMahon campaign to its media consulting firm, which, in turn, hired the WWE at fair-market value.

The arrangement, which is legal, sheds light on a side of the federal election law that allows campaigns to spend millions of dollars on media consultants, yet requires no public paper trail to show how these same consultants pay out substantial sums of campaign cash.

The WWE's role as subcontractor in the McMahon campaign became public only through a recent U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing by the WWE. Like all publicly traded companies, the WWE must report on any so-called "related party" dealings between the company and entities or people who may have personal or family relationships with its executives.

"Mrs. McMahon's election team engaged the Company to produce certain television advertisements during the initial months of the campaign," the WWE reported in the SEC filing.

"The Company performed these services and charged the

campaign the fair-market value for the provided television production services," worth approximately $162,000, the company said.

McMahon spokesman Ed Patru said the campaign's media consultant, Scott Howell & Co., hired the WWE among other subcontractors "at market rate to use production facilities and equipment."

"Scott Howell & Co. chose to subcontract with WWE facilities because their facilities and capabilities met the firm's needs, and the proximity and availability met our campaign's needs," he said.

"WWE bills Scott Howell & Co. directly, which in turn pays those bills," he said. "As Scott Howell & Co. submits reimbursement invoices to the campaign, we pay those bills."

So far, Mr. Patru said, the campaign has received two invoices from Scott Howell & Co. for $69,150.94, which he said were paid and later reported in an FEC disclosure report.

The law does not require campaigns to make public how media companies spend campaign money, though federal regulators still require that records be kept in case of an audit.

"I think any additional disclosure of transactions

involving related parties would be a good thing," said Paul Ryan, associate legal counsel of the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center.

Mr. Ryan said that while the law prohibits candidates from converting campaign funds for "personal use," campaigns nonetheless can pay a company owned by the candidate or family members as long as the services are charged at fairmarket value.

WWE spokesman Robert Zimmerman said the company, which typically doesn't produce political ads, undertook the job at the request of the campaign.

"WWE has done outside production for others at which WWE charged/charges fairmarket value, such as THQ and MyNetwork TV," Mr. Zimmerman wrote in an e-mail to The Washington Times.

"This is done on an 'as able' basis, if asked," he said. "WWE agreed, at the request of the campaign and for a fair-market fee, to provide production services for the short period in question."

The same SEC filing also notes that Mrs. McMahon rented office space from the WWE for 2 1/2 months, for which the company received a fair-market value of $23,000.

Mr. Zimmerman said the office

space was leased to Mrs. McMahon personally, not to the McMahon campaign.

Mrs. McMahon's affiliation to the WWE has surfaced as an issue on the campaign trail. She has pointed to her experience as a corporate executive to bolster her business credentials, but critics have pointed to the content of WWE programming as a potential liability.

She founded the WWE with her husband, Vince, who serves as the company's chief executive and chairman. According to the Center for Responsive Politics analysis last year, Mrs. McMahon and her husband have contributed nearly $90,000 to federal candidates and committees since 1989, with 54 percent to Republicans and 44 percent to Democrats.

Mrs. McMahon has said she won't take money from political action committees and reportedly is set to spend up to $50 million of her own money to finance her campaign. Š Copyright 2010 The Washington Times, LLC Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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N.H. Campaign Finance Activist Granny D Dies at 100 (Newsmax - Politics) Submitted at 3/9/2010 11:39:54 PM

Doris "Granny D" Haddock, a New Hampshire woman who walked across the country at age 89 to promote campaign finance reform and later waged a quixotic campaign for U.S. Senate, has died. She was 100.

Haddock died Tuesday night of chronic respiratory illness at her home in Dublin, N.H., said spokeswoman and family friend Maude Salinger. She was surrounded by her son, daughter -in-law, grandchildren, and great -grandchildren.

In 2000, Haddock walked 3,200 miles to draw attention to campaign finance reform. In 2004, at age 94, she ran for U.S. Senate against Republican Judd Gregg. The subtitle of her autobiography, written with Dennis Burke, was "You're Never Too Old to Raise a Little Hell."

"Her age wasn't a factor in what she did," Salinger said. "She never gave up. Until the end, she advocated for public funding. She would wanted

people to know that democracy and government belongs to us."

Haddock was born Jan. 24, 1910, in Laconia and attended Emerson College before marrying James Haddock. She later worked at a shoe company for 20 years.

After retiring in 1972, Haddock became more active in community affairs. She became interested in campaign finance reform after the defeat of the first attempt of Sens. John McCain and Russ Feingold to remove unregulated "soft" money from campaigns in 1995.

Inspiration for her cross-country trek came from the Tuesday Morning Academy, a group of women in Dublin who met every Tuesday at 8 a.m. to do ballet exercises and discuss world affairs.

"Sometimes I think it was a fool's errand, but I think there are more people in this country who know what campaign finance reform means since I started," she told The Associated Press in February 2000.

Covering about 10 miles a day,

ROUGH continued from page 48

combustible combination.

Failure to act firmly to get the House in order could have real consequences.

Norman J. Ornstein is a resident scholar at AEI.

P h o t o C r e d i t : Stock.xchng/harrykeel Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Haddock walked through more than 1,000 miles of desert, climbed the Appalachian Range in blizzard conditions and even skied 100 miles after snowfall made roadside walking impossible. She started in nearobscurity, but soon was discovered by local and national media.

Burke, who co-wrote Haddock's memoir, met Haddock as she walked through Arizona on her way to Washington.

"Doris was one of the youngest people I have ever known. She was a little kid about her country — so in love she was with it and so excited for it always," he said early Wednesday.

In 2004, Haddock jumped into the Senate race on the last day to file after the presumptive Democratic nominee dropped out when his campaign manager was accused of financial fraud.

A few months before the election, she officially changed her name to "Granny D," but stressed that the "D" stood for "Doris," not her party affiliation.

She lost to Gregg 66 to 34 percent.

"It comes down to this — if you want something done right today, you have to run for Congress yourself — or at least send your grandmother," said.

In recent years, she founded a group that pushed the state Legislature to create the Citizen Funded Election Task Force and attended the task force's weekly meetings. She was honored at a Statehouse ceremony in January to mark her 100th birthday.

She was working on a new book, "My Bohemian Century," which focuses on her college days and her Senate campaign and is expected to be published this spring. Haddock had stayed with Burke's family in Phoenix last month to complete work on it, he said.

Both Democrats and Republicans offered condolences Tuesday night.

"Her commitment to fair and open democracy should inspire us all to work even harder for reform," state Democratic Party Chairman Ray Buckley.

"We are always saddened when

someone with a genuine commitment to their values and principles passes away," said Republican Party Chairman John H. Sununu. "Granny D was an unwavering advocate for her beliefs, and her tireless efforts inspired many Granite Staters to participate in our political process," he said.

In her new book's dedication, Haddock offers readers advice: "You have to keep the young adventurer inside your heart alive long enough for it to someday re-emerge. It may take some coaxing and some courage, but that person is in you always — never growing old."

A public memorial service is planned. © Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Ga. Bill Would Outlaw Abortion for Race, Sex (Newsmax - Politics) Submitted at 3/10/2010 1:59:41 AM

A Georgia bill that would outlaw abortions based on race, color or sex is fueling arguments over whether abortion providers are targeting black women.

The Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act would apply to abortion "the same standards of nondiscrimination" that govern employment, education, government and housing, said Georgia state Rep. Barry Loudermilk, a Republican who introduced the bill last month with bipartisan support.

If enacted, the bill would make it illegal to knowingly solicit, perform or accept funding for race- or sex-selected abortions.

The bill has a hearing set for Wednesday before the Judiciary Non-Civil Committee.

The Radiance Foundation has been raising the issue of black abortion with billboards that say, "Black Children Are An Endangered Species" and "toomanyaborted.com."

Pro-choice leaders are outraged by both the billboards and the bill.

"The wording of the campaign is offensive … to many of us, it compares our children to exotic animals. Our children are not animals," said Loretta Ross, national coordinator of SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective.

In a phone briefing Tuesday held by RHRealityCheck.org, a Web site committed to advancing sexual and reproductive rights, Ms. Ross called the bill an intrusion upon the doctor-patient relationship because it would require doctors to ask women why they wanted an abortion and then record their answers.

What's really going on is a "test case" for national legislation to get abortions outlawed and to create divisions in the black community, Ms. Ross said.

It's "absurd" to say that abortion providers target women of color, said Dr. Melissa Gilliam, an associate professor for obstetrics

and gynecology at the University of Chicago Medical Center. Unplanned pregnancies, lack of access to health care and lack of income for contraception are all reasons for differences in abortion rates, she said.

Planned Parenthood has been wrongly depicted as racist through "race-baiting phone calls," added Dr. Vanessa Cullins, vice president for medical affairs for Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

She was referring, among other things, to calls from pro-lifers pretending to be racists who wanted to donate money to Planned Parenthood if it would be used to abort minority children.

Planned Parenthood — which has retrained its staff to recognize and handle such calls — "does not tolerate racism and does not accept racially motivated donations. When we are presented with any evidence that this may be occurring, we act swiftly to correct that," Dr.

Cullins said.

Meanwhile, Georgia Right to Life is continuing to raise the black-abortion issue, which it says is long overdue to be discussed.

"We are not demonizing black women," said Catherine Davis, director of minority outreach for Georgia Right to Life, to CNN last week. "What we are saying is that the abortion industry has targeted, specifically, the black community."

The goal is to "alert the community and awaken the community," she said.

Guttmacher Institute figures say that of 1.2 million abortions obtained in 2005, 37 percent were to black women. Blacks make up about 13 percent of the U.S. population. © Copyright 2010 The Washington Times, LLC Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

and Obama national security council. (One caveat: “It’s hard to see either ‘headliner’ serving in the other's government,” he says. “I don't anticipate that either Maliki or Allawi would take a Hillary-like position in a prominent ministry.”)

Heaven knows there are plenty

of less ideal outcomes. The inability of Iraqi politicians to form a new government after the country’s 2006 elections fueled that year’s explosion of violence. It’s also possible that the political jockeying could wind up placing in charge an outright antagonist of

Washington’s, perhaps including our old friend—and recent nemesis—Ahmed Chalabi. And you thought Iraq was depressing now.

Michael Crowley is a senior editor of The New Republic.

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

53

What You Missed Last Night: Michael Emerson Reveals a 'Lost' Secret to Kimmel Bob Sassone (TV Squad) Submitted at 3/10/2010 12:35:00 PM

I thought last night's episode of 'Lost' was one of the best ever: exciting, unpredictable, with several developments that moves the story along and it even had a cliffhanger. Michael Emerson deserves an Emmy for this episode alone. He also showed up on 'Jimmy Kimmel Live' to reveal, um, something.

[Watch episodes of 'Jimmy Kimmel Live' and other shows at SlashControl.]

Filed under: Lost, Video, Watercooler Talk, Celebrities, Reality-Free Permalink| Email this| | Comments

MALIKI continued from page 47

good news is that neither Allawi nor Maliki should terrify the Obama team. “In both cases they are people we can do business with and are at least reasonably competent administrators, not extremists,” says Douglas Ollivant, who handled Iraq issues on the Bush

Twitter.

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Track test: How does brake-override affect enthusiast driving?

Consumer Reports Shopping Blog (Consumer Reports) Submitted at 3/10/2010 4:59:59 AM

Track test: How does brakeoverride affect enthusiast driving? Some driving enthusiasts are griping that " smart throttle" or "brakeoverride" technology, intended to halt dangerous suddenacceleration events, will take the fun out of driving. Not to worry.

We've just run some tests that prove that the thrill isn't gone.

Brake override is a software algorithm that gives the brakes precedence over the throttle if both are activated at once.

Toyota, plagued by reports of sudden-acceleration problems and now undertaking massive recalls, has pledged to implement this feature in all future models and to retrofit it in some of the recalled vehicles.

It's already widely used by Chrysler, Mercedes-Benz, N i s s a n / I n f i n i t i , Volkswagen/Audi, and on some GM models.

Despite some concerns, brake override doesn't impede a boy racer from using fancy footwork

like heel-and-toe downshifting or left-foot braking to tease a car through fast turns or from pulling off those crowdpleasing, tire-smoking, "brake stand" burnouts. Nor does it prevent a regular driver from using the brake and gas pedal together to start off on a hill.

Here's what we did: At our track we set up some challenging driving situations and used three of our test cars that came equipped with brakeoverride technology: a Mercedes -Benz E350 and a Volkswagen Jetta Sportwagen with automatic transmissions, and a manualshift Volkswagen GTI. Heel and toe: Driving the sporty GTI, we zipped through our serpentine handling course using the heel-and-toe technique to rapidly downshift, blipping the throttle while braking before each corner. The engine revved just as expected and desired.

Trail braking: A practiced driver can sometimes take corners faster in a front-wheeldrive car by using brakes and throttle simultaneously. In an autocross simulation, we could power our GTI through the turns

name of science.

What did we prove? We performed these demonstrations not just to set race drivers' minds at ease but to undo a fundamental misconception.

Brake-override doesn't cut all power to the engine when you hit the brakes. It reduces power just fine while lightly applying enough that hard braking will the brakes. always easily stop the car even Hill starts: If you have to start if for some reason--any reason-off when part way up a steep the throttle mechanism is stuck hill, say when stopped for a open. traffic light, you normally hold We think it should be the car with the brake while mandatory in every car. It's not easing down on the gas pedal. a cure-all, but it is an easy-toThe Jetta and the Mercedes adopt safety measure that should E350 executed this start-off with halt a runaway car using brakes ease, as did our 2010 Toyota alone, whether that event is C a m r y , w h i c h h a d b r a k e - caused by a jammed gas pedal, a override installed during a stuck linkage, an electrical fault, recent recall service. or by some driver errors. (But, Brake stand: Brake-override of course, brake-override won't doesn't even bar drivers from h e l p i f t h e u n i n t e n d e d spinning the rear wheels, if they a c c e l e r a t i o n i s c a u s e d b y want to. Using our Mercedes someone flooring the accelerator E350 with its traction control instead of using the brake.) switched off, we sat on the Read: " Consumers Union calls brakes and kicked down the for changes to strengthen U.S. accelerator. As you'll see from car-safety net." the picture, we could still smoke — Jake Fisher and Gordon Hard the tires. Of course we would Be sure to follow Consumer never, ever, do this except in the Reports Cars blog ( RSS) and

Twitter (@CRcars) to keep up with the latest information and advice, also see our unintended acceleration guide.

Related: Consumers Union calls for changes to strengthen U.S. carsafety net Toyota reportedly worked with feds to save $100 million in recalls Eight things that can dramatically improve auto safety Five key fixes automakers should make now to reduce unintended acceleration Unintended acceleration stories wanted How to tell if your Toyota is affected by the recent recalls How to stop a runaway car: Don’t pump the brakes Subscribe now!

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Corey Haim Update: Coroner Says No Illegal Drugs Found (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 3/10/2010 7:20:00 AM

ET has the latest on Corey Haim, who was pronounced

dead early this morning. Ed Winter of the coroner's office offers new details to ET. Ed tells ET that Corey woke up somewhere between 11:30 and

11:45 p.m. complaining of flulike symptoms. He got out of bed, feeling weak, and fell to his knees. His mother called paramedics. He was pronounced

dead at the hospital at 2:15 a.m.

Ed also says that no illegal drugs were found, but some prescription drugs have been identified. Chief Winter says the

coroner has Corey's body and the investigation is ongoing.

Consumer Reports/ TV/

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Samsung’s 3D TV offer: Buy a 3D TV and a 3D Blu-ray player, get 3D glasses and "Monsters vs.

Aliens 3D" free James Willcox (Consumer Reports)

-inch (UN46C7000) and 55-inch (UN55C7000) 7000-series models, priced at $2,600 and Submitted at 3/9/2010 2:32:31 PM $3,300, respectively. New 7000 Samsung’s 3D TV offer: Buy a and 8000 ultra-thin plasma 3D 3D TV and a 3D Blu-ray player, sets, which start at $1,800, get 3D glasses and "Monsters won’t be available until May. vs. Aliens 3D" free Samsung's All of Samsung’s 3D TVs have 3D glasses. built-in processors that can Photo: Samsung render standard 2D content into If you’re willing to leap head- 3D on the fly. The new C8000first into 3D rather than gingerly series LCD sets have edge LED testing the waters with your backlights that can be locally toes, Samsung has an offer for dimmed, a feature normally you: Buy both a 3D TV and a reserved for full-array LED 3D Blu-ray player or 3D HTIB, models. All 3D models have and you’ll get a free 3D Starter Internet connectivity, plus Kit that bundles two pairs of Samsung Apps, which provide battery-powered 3D glasses with a c c e s s t o o n l i n e c o n t e n t , DreamWorks’ Monsters vs. including Netflix, Pandora, Aliens 3D title.

Twitter, USA Today, and Vudu, At a press event this morning in among other. Samsung BDNew York City, Samsung C6900, a 3D Blu-ray player unveiled its entire lineup of 3D Photo: Samsung LCD and plasma TVs, which Samsung’s 3D-enabled Blu-ray range in price from $1,700 for a player, the BD-C6900, is priced 4 6 - i n c h L C D w i t h a at $400. It’s a slim-line player conventional CCFL backlight to with built-in Wi-Fi and a almost $7,000 for a 55-inch transparent cover so you can see L C D m o d e l w i t h 2 4 0 H z the disc spinning. The 7.1technology and an edge LED channel 3D-enabled Blu-ray backlight. All 240Hz LCDs in H T I B s y s t e m , m o d e l H T Samsung’s lineup are 3D C6930W, is $900, and it models, and all except one includes wireless rear satellite series (the C750 set mentioned speakers. above) have LED backlights. 3D For a limited time, you’ll get a TVs immediately for sale are 46 free 3D Starter Kit, which

2010 • UN46C8000 $2,800 46" April 2010 • UN55C7000 $3,300 55" March 2010 • UN46C7000 $2,600 46" March 2010 • UN40C7000 $2,000 40" May 2010 includes two pairs of basic active LCD shutter glasses and the Monsters vs. Aliens 3D disc, with the purchase of a Samsung 3D HDTV and either the Samsung BD-C6900 3D Blu-ray Player or the HT-C6930W 3D Home Theater System.

Samsung will also offer two other 3D glasses—a model with Touch of Color accents and a rechargeable battery, and a model designed especially for kids. If purchased separately, the glasses are $149.

Here’s a breakdown of Samsung’s 3D TV lineup, with pricing: LCD with LED backlights • UN55C9000 $7,00055" April 2010 • UN46C9000 $6,000 46" April 2010 • UN65C8000 $5,000 65" July 2010 • UN55C8000 $3,500 55" April

Plasma TVs • PN63C800063"$3,800 2010 • PN58C800058"$3,000 2010 • PN50C8000 50" $2,100 2010 • PN63C7000 63" $3,500 2010 • PN58C7000 58" $2,700 2010 • PN50C7000 50" $1,800 2010

'Mad Men' to Become Ken and Barbie Dolls Nick Zaino (TV Squad) Submitted at 3/10/2010 11:45:00 AM

May May May May May May

Panasonic will be officially unveiling its 3D lineup tomorrow, so check back in with our blog for our report. — James K. Willcox Subscribe now!

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If you can't wait for season four of'Mad Men' when it debuts later this year, Mattel can help you play 'Mad Men' and create your own stories. According to the New York Times, the toy company is creating versions of Barbie and Ken based on four 'Mad Men' characters- Don Draper, his wife Betty, Roger Sterling and Joan Harris.

If you want to play out Draper's past, you can get a full-sized G.I. Joes and swap clothes. Or you can get a bunch of regular Barbies and have an office party and make them dance to the 'Mad Men' soundtrack.

Continue reading'Mad Men' to Become Ken and Barbie Dolls Filed under: Celebrities, Reality -Free, Mad Men Permalink| Email this| | Comments

56

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Cash for Appliances Update: Bigger 'The Bachelor''s Jake rebates generate greater consumer Pavelka Puts on His interest 'Dancing' Shoes Consumer Reports Shopping Blog (Consumer Reports)

Such demand may explain why Florida is requiring residents to reserve rebates for the sizable 20 Submitted at 3/9/2010 2:03:32 PM percent givebacks through its Cash for Appliances Update: $ 1 7 , 5 8 5 , 4 6 6 E n e r g y S t a r Bigger rebates generate greater Appliance Rebate Program, consumer interest If Iowa and which runs April 16-25. "We Minnesota are any indication, don't want a lot of disappointed the more generous the rebate in people," program manager the U.S. Department of Energy's Brenda Buchan told The Palm $300 million State Energy Beach Post.

Efficient Appliance Rebate Several other states, including Program, the faster the money Pennsylvania and Texas, are t e n d s t o g o . B o t h s t a t e s also requiring reservations, e x h a u s t e d t h e i r c a s h f o r perhaps a sign that there's pentclunkers for appliances funding up demand for appliances in a single day. (Iowa doled out among consumers. Indeed, $ 2 , 8 8 1 , 0 0 0 ; M i n n e s o t a , based on the latest Consumer $5,009,000.)

Reports Index, the major-

appliances category was one of only two where consumers spent more in February.

— Daniel DiClerico Essential information: Get the latest information from the cash for clunkers for appliances Web site in your state. Also check out our cash for appliances buyer's guides to dishwashers and washing machines and find out where to buy appliances.

Subscribe now!

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(ETonline - Breaking News)

me in … no guy should wear shoes like that. They have a heel on them and they make your "The Bachelor"'s Jake Pavelka feet hurt. Now, I am more strikes a pose with his "Dancing sensitive to Vienna[ Girardi] with the Stars" partner Chelsie when she says her feet hurt. I H i g h t o w e r - - a n d E T i s get it." exclusively behind the scenes of Jake and Chelsie will be his "Dancing" photo shoot for performing the Viennese Waltz OK! magazine. for their first dance, and the "It is all in the hips," he tells ET f o r m e r " B a c h e l o r , " n o w when asked how his dance engaged to Vienna, says he may lessons are going. "I am sore. be in for trouble because he is in My knees hurt; my hips hurt. shape!

The shoes that they are putting Submitted at 3/10/2010 5:04:00 AM

Q&A: Statin side effect? rss@consumerreports.org (Consumer Reports)

involving the liver or kidney.

The most common causes of strong-smelling urine are Submitted at 3/10/2010 3:29:59 AM insufficient fluid intake, a Q&A: Statin side effect? urinary-tract infection(in which My urine has developed an case urine may also be dark unusually strong smell. Could it yellow), or certain vegetables, be from the cholesterol-lowering such as asparagus or broccoli. statin I’m taking? — M.A., If you think you have an Gardner, Kan. infection—signaled by strongProbably not, though a dark- smelling urine plus the need to brown color could be a sign of a urinate frequently or a burning dangerous statin side effect sensation when you go—contact

your doctor. If dehydration or diet is the culprit, drinking more water or easing up on odorproducing vegetables should

eliminate the smell.

Learn more on how to read changes in your urine, and for more on statin side effects, read our free Best Buy Drugs report.

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 Elyssa Pallai (ReadWriteWeb)

SXSW 2010 for Marketers & Online Strategists Submitted at 3/10/2010 6:00:00 AM

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Navigating SXSW is overwhelming to say the least!

To help you out ReadWriteWeb has been breaking the events, panels and parties down into vertical reviews. This post provides what we think are some of the best for marketers and online strategists. We'd also love to hear your recommendations in the comments.

Online strategy is multi-faceted.

You need to know as much about marketing and understanding people and their motivations as you do perfecting the online experience, understanding the next technology breakthrough on the horizon and being an excellent conversationalist - while still being able to measure the impact of it all. So this list provides a smattering of some of the best to see in all four.

Sponsor This is part of a series of ReadWriteWeb guides to SXSW Interactive 2010. If this guide isn't your cup of tea, be sure to check back for more information soon!

How Your Brand Can Succeed in the New Web With Brian Solis. "Engage is the new book by Brian Solis that will debut at SXSW. Representing the third book on new media and its impact on society, culture and communication. Engage will help anyone not only understand

the changes in the media landscape but also how to lead it. Brian Solis will be joined by a special guest to discuss the new book and answer questions followed by a book signing."

The Future of Influence "The ability to share online has allowed consumers to control and filter the Web. For brands and publishers, tapping into Influence is critical to social media's future. What is influence and how is it measured? Leading voices in social media from multiple backgrounds will define the value of influence, discuss best practices, and predict future impact. Data will be shared!

This panel is sponsored by ShareThis." With Tim Schigel, Paul Berry, Dave Knox, Mike John-Baptiste, Shiv Singh.

Extending Your Brand? There's an App for That "For many, brand extension into the digital realm means a Web site, a banner ad, a viral campaign. But applications can extend conversations and perceptions of a brand, as well as add to discussions and ideas in compelling new ways. How can applications help your brand and idea be more authentic, genuine, user friendly, and just plain old fun? Learn from the folks that are making it happen.

This panel is sponsored by Microsoft Silverlight."

The Human Experience With Gary Vaynerchuk. The

content of this presentation has not been announced, but knowing Gary and his successful track record in growing business through the use of social media, this one is not to be missed.

Program or be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age With Douglas Rushkoff.

"Winner of the first Neil Postman award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity, Douglas Rushkoff is an author, teacher, and documentarian who focuses on the ways people, cultures, and institutions create, share, and influence each other's values."

I Don't Trust You One Stinking Bit "What gives people confidence on the Web? Bringing together experts in social capital and online trust, we help you build the company your users can love and call their own." With Chris Brogan and Julien Smith.

Monkeys with Internet Access: Sharing, Human Nature, and Digital Data Clay Shirky hasn't announced the content of his presentation yet. He "divides his time between consulting, teaching, and writing on the social and economic effects of Internet technologies. His consulting practice is focused on the rise of decentralized technologies such as peer-to-peer, Web services,

and wireless networks that provide alternatives to the wired client/server infrastructure that characterizes the Web." The Young and the Digital With Craig Watkins. "In 2006, S. Craig Watkins participated in the MacArthur Foundation's well-funded digital media initiative alongside a select team of scholars and tech experts.

The goal was simple: to understand young people's emphatic embrace of social and mobile media. Watkins went on to build a small research team that skillfully collected over 500 surveys and conducted 350 indepth interviews with young adults, parents, and educators."

Design and Usability, The UX of Mobile "The term 'user experience' used to be an afterthought in mobile application design. The iPhone changed all that and has set a new benchmark for user experience on mobile devices.

This panel will serve as a primer for anyone interested in learning how to apply UX principles to the creation of applications for iPhone, Android, and mobile websites." With Barbara Ballard, Tom Limongello, Scott Jenson.

The Ten Commandments of User Experience "User experience is the result of your interactions with a product or service, specifically how it's delivered and its related artifacts according to the design. In this

presentation we will explain how following the 10 commandments can boost your project's ease of use, appeal, conversion rates, and more."

With Raina Van Cleave, Nick Finck.

Persuasive Design: Encouraging Your Users To Do What You Want Them To! "So you've designed a great product, fixed a stack of usability problems and spent a fortune on marketing. The only problem is, people aren't using it. In this session you will learn how to get your users to do what you want them to through good design, human psychology and a touch of mind control." With Andy Budd.

My Three-Year Old Is My Usability Expert "Children are perfect testers for the innate usability of visual structures. Learn how neuroscience and cognitive psychology research can make your designs and interfaces more intuitive." With Dave Stanton.

Can the Real-Time Web Be Realized?

"The emergence of the real-time Web enables an unprecedented level of user engagement and dynamic content online.

However, the rapidly growing audience puts new, complex demands on the architecture of the Web as we know it. This SXSW page 61

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Hulu on the iPad? Not as Easy as it Sounds Sarah Perez (ReadWriteWeb)

collaborative, experimental effort to bring streaming TV to web (and make it profitable) has In a recent interview, Hulu managed to attract a number of C E O J a s o n K i l a r t o l d users in the U.S. Although the technology reporter Om Malik audience size varies widely that his company was "very depending on who's counting, bullish" on mobile, even going the company has managed to so far as to say "we will become a household name embrace every device." That's a t h a n k s t o e y e - c a t c h i n g funny statement, considering commercials on NBC featuring that the company has been actors from the network's top touting that same sentiment for shows. years but has yet to launch But there's a problem facing anything for mobile, be it an app Hulu: in-video advertising is, o r s i m p l y a m o b i l e - r e a d y apparently, not as profitable as streaming site. once hoped. In fact, it's just too Now, with the launch of the expensive, says Marc Ruxin, the iPad just around the corner, the Chief Innovation Officer for ad rumors of an iPhone/iPad Hulu a g e n c y n e t w o r k M c C a n n app are rising up again. But Worldgroup. Hulu has been there's a bigger mobile web than aware of this problem, though, just the one accessible via Apple and has been hinting towards the products, and that may be what launch of a subscription service, Hulu has its eye on now. "We with News Corp. chairman don't think about one device Rupert Murdoch telling an only," Kilar said. investor conference last fall that However, going mobile is the company, was looking at going to be a challenge for "adding subscription services Hulu. And it's not as simple as and pay per view" options. re-encoding a few videos, no Through the subscription model, matter what you may have Hulu could potentially generate heard. enough revenue to keep the Sponsor studios happy and maybe even Problem A: Hulu's Business encourage them to offer up more Model Needs Work programming.

The fact that Hulu exists at all Unfortunately, the subscription is somewhat of an amazement. model has yet to launch and the Through tenuous connections profits from video ads have been w i t h m a j o r s t u d i o s , t h e far too lean for some Hulu Submitted at 3/10/2010 9:03:54 AM

hot shows like the now-departed Comedy Central fare. Problem B: Will Apple Allow a Hulu App on the iPhone/iPad? Another problem? Hulu has been planning to delay its iPhone app launch until a participants. Recently, for subscription model was in place, example, Viacom pulled two of according to earlier reports. But the top shows - The Daily Show with the biggest names pulling and the Colbert Report - from out, subscriptions could be a the site, claiming that they harder sell. Still, even if Hulu simply weren't earning enough was able to make subscriptions money via the advertising model happen, there are no guarantees currently in place. Viacom Inc. that Apple would ever allow C h i e f E x e c u t i v e O f f i c e r them into the iTunes store, Philippe Dauman said that "on especially considering they're the current economic model for o f f e r i n g a c o m p e t i n g Hulu, there's just not much in it product.(See: Google Voice for us to continue at this time." banishment from the iPhone, for example).

And so the situation degrades.

So what is Hulu doing now? It's Meanwhile, Hulu's online site trying to attract more viewers to doesn't work in the iPhone's web its site with the launch of " If I browser because it was built in Can Dream," an original series Flash. If Apple rejects the Hulu that premiered earlier this app from iTunes, the company's month. The fact that they're now other option is re-encoding all making the foray into this sort their site's content in HTML5, of online programming is the new web language that somewhat worrying. After all, if offers streaming video sans hit video webisodes alone made plugin. But for a site with a for a profitable service, then large repository of video, the YouTube would have achieved switch from one technology to profitability ages ago, instead of another is no small matter...not " (maybe) getting there this year, no problem," as others have five years post-launch. Let's recently claimed. And let's not face it, original programming is forget that HTML5, for all its a bonus for Hulu users, but it's glory, is still in development not going to take the place of and the working group has not chosen one codec as the

reigning standard.

However, going the HTML5 route would probably be the best solution for Hulu since it would be a future-proofed technology implementation that would work on multiple platforms, including Apple's, with or without that company's blessing. What's Hulu Doing Now? So is this the plan Hulu has decided on now? It's hard to know for sure. Like Apple, the company is incredibly secretive about their plans and product roadmap, often refusing to respond to calls and emails entirely, even to say "no comment."

And yet, the Hulu iPhone app exists. We've spoken to someone who's seen it...but that was ages ago. For all we know, iPhone/iPad app plans have since been scrapped to work on a new solution that works around any potential Apple restrictions. But sources inside Hulu have clammed up lately, meaning they're either building something top, top secret...or perhaps nothing at all.

We hope it's the former, because frankly, an iPad without Hulu is a sad, sad affair. But will we ever see a real app? At this point, we're not holding our breath. Discuss

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Does HTML5 Really Beat Flash? The Surprising Results of New Tests Sarah Perez (ReadWriteWeb)

performed worse. Testing Flash and HTML5 Jan Ozer is an expert in video With the impending launch of encoding technologies, has the Apple iPad, the Cupertino- worked in digital video since based company's shunning of 1990 and is the author of 13 Adobe Flash technology has books related to the subject. been brought to the forefront of Recently, he put HTML5 up technological discussions. While against Flash in a series of tests it was one thing to forgo Flash that pitted the two technologies on a small, mobile device such against each other on both the as the iPhone or iPod Touch, Mac and PC and in different some are questioning whether web browsers including Internet lack of Flash support is going to Explorer 8, Google Chrome, be a make-it-or-break it feature Apple Safari and Mozilla for the new slate devices Firefox. arriving next month - devices The results of the tests in their which, if you believe Apple entirety are published here on CEO Steve Jobs - are "better StreamingLearningCenter.com. than netbooks."

The summary in a nutshell?

O n t h e f l i p s i d e , A p p l e Flash isn't always a CPU hog, supporters echo the company's sometimes that honor goes to sentiments that "Flash is a CPU HTML5. hog" and including support for Some of the highlights of the technology in Apple's Ozer's findings are below, mobile line-up would negatively broken up into both Mac and impact battery life.

Windows test results. Mac Tests Sponsor However, recent tests have put • With Safari, HTML5 was the Flash up against HTML5, the most efficient and consumed new web markup language that less CPU than Flash using only eliminates the need for the 12.39% CPU. With Flash 10.0, Adobe plugin. The results of CPU utilization was at 37.41% these tests show that this is not a and with Flash 10.1, it dropped simple black-and-white issue. Is to 32.07% Flash really a CPU hog? Yes, in • With Google Chrome, Flash some cases. But, surprisingly, and HTML5 were both equally n o t a l l t h e t i m e . I n f a c t , inefficient(both are around 50%) sometimes HTML5 actually • With Firefox, Flash was only Submitted at 3/10/2010 7:15:50 AM

22.41% CPU and Flash 10.1 used 14.62% CPU

X/Safari platform (or their iPod/iPhone/iPad one, either) by not providing the access to the Hardware Acceleration Key to hardware it needs to reduce its Flash Performance CPU load. Adobe is waiting and In analyzing the results of the watching to see if they do, but, tests, Ozer determined that the as Ozer says "the ball is in key to better Flash performance Apple's court." was dependent upon whether or Will Apple budge? At this not it could access hardware point, it's unlikely. In blocking acceleration. This feature, Flash on Apple devices, the launched in Flash 10.1, allows company can easily claim that the plugin to use the graphics it's simply not an efficient processing unit (GPU) on some technology...and that's true for computers to decode video. now, considering how it's set up.

Depending on the video card But if the company wanted to a n d d r i v e r s , ( N V I D I A , allow it and make it work, it slightly less efficient than in AMD/ATI and Intel offer seems reasonable to believe that Safari, but better than in products that support this), the they could. This is what leads Chrome video decoding process in Flash some insiders to believe that the 10.1 can now work for all video decision to block Flash is less of Windows Tests playback, not just full-screen a technological one and more of playback as was available in a business-minded one. After • Safari wouldn't play HTML5 Flash 10.0. all, if you could easily visit videos, so there was no way to According to Adobe, hardware Hulu.com (or, overseas, the test that. However, Flash 10.0 acceleration is not supported BBC iPlayer, for example) to used 23.22% CPU but Flash under either Linux or Mac OS stream TV shows and movies, 10.1 only used 7.43% CPU X, the latter because Mac OS X then why would you need to buy • Google Chrome was more does not expose access to the them from the iTunes Store? efficient on Windows than Mac. required APIs. Adobe goes on to So while Flash's "CPU Playback with Flash Player 10.0 say "The Flash Player team will hogging" may be a contributing was about 24% more efficient continue to evaluate adding factor in Apple's decision to not than HTML5, while Flash hardware acceleration to Linux support the technology on their Player 10.1 was 58% more a n d M a c O S X i n f u t u r e mobile devices, that's probably efficient than HTML5. releases." not the only reason behind the • On Firefox, Flash 10.1 Here's what this all means in block. dropped CPU utilization to 6% layman's terms: Apple isn't Thank you to Dan Rayburn, from 22% in Flash 10.0 allowing Flash to become more who pointed us to Jan Ozer's • In IE8, Flash 10.0 used efficient on their Mac OS article. Discuss

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Expensify: Easy, Paperless Expense Tracking and First Look at 'The Twilight Reporting Chris Cameron (ReadWriteWeb)

travel reservations that require special treatment, users can email the confirmation to Submitted at 3/10/2010 9:00:00 AM Expensify and the app will T u e s d a y n i g h t G o o g l e generate the data and include a announced the creation of the PDF of the email in the report.

Google Apps Marketplace, a If you use the wrong card or pay place for third-party applications with cash, mobile applications developers to share their work for iPhone, Blackberry, Android with the community of Google and Palm devices allow users to A p p s u s e r s . C u r r e n t l y , snap a picture of the receipt and businesses can use enterprise send it to Expensify. versions of Google's popular When sending reports, suite of web apps, and with the Expensify makes full color new Apps Marketplace, they can PDFs with tables, charts and integrate outside applications graphs of the data. Recipients into these services. One of the can accept, modify or reject the applications launching in the expense reports and can even App Marketplace is Expensify, reimburse the expenses from an online tool for gathering and directly within Expensify by reporting expenses. printing a check or sending a Sponsor payment via direct deposit. Or, Expensify, whose motto is if need be, the reports can be "Expense reports that don't send to third-party bookkeepers suck," prides itself on its ability for review. Expensify's CEO to create detailed and IRS David Barrett hopes, however, certified expense reports without that small businesses and the need for a single scrap of startups taking advantage of paper. Users can associate a Expensify will be able to cut credit card with their account for bookkeepers out of their work automatic tracking of purchases, flow entirely. and Expensify will create " E x p e n s e r e p o r t s a f f e c t electronic versions of the everyone of all business sizes, receipt, eliminating the need for from sole proprietorships to paper receipt hoarding. m i l l i o n d o l l a r For expenses like hotel and businesses...Everyone has this

Apps Marketplace, software vendors like Expensify are problem and everyone hates the h e l p i n g u s b u i l d a r i c h current solution," Barrett told ecosystem of integrated apps ReadWriteWeb Tuesday. "One that work seamlessly with thing that makes Expensify Google Apps." unique from other applications One of the large benefits of the is it's not built for accountants; app is that it is relatively it's built for the people actually inexpensive. It is free for users to send reports, but costs $5 per doing it."

With the new Google Apps m o n t h , p e r s u b m i t t e r f o r Marketplace, companies looking managers with the first two to implement the app into their submitters free. Integration with business can simply add it as an FreshBooks and QuickBooks extension of Google Apps. This makes Expensify a solid choice means that employees won't to track and report expenses for have to create new Expensify small businesses and startups. accounts; the application does Additionally, Expensify is a t h a t a u t o m a t i c a l l y i n t h e great example of how thirdbackground when added to party developers can now use Google Apps through the Apps Google's new marketplace to Marketplace. From anywhere build, integrate and market their within Google Apps, users can products. Startups can use and click the "More" tab at the top develop on Google apps like of the screen, select "Expenses" Gmail, Calendar and Docs a n d t h e y a r e d i r e c t e d t o instead of creating their own.

Expensify's site with the help of This makes it much easier to quickly launch products and OpenID. "We are very excited to have features, but running a business Expensify in the Google Apps built on the shoulders of Google M a r k e t p l a c e , " s a i d S c o t t may not necessarily be a longM c M u l l a n , G o o g l e A p p s term solution. The marketplace P a r t n e r L e a d f o r G o o g l e does, however, provide great Enterprise in a press release exposure potential for apps.

Tuesday. "Through the Google Discuss

Saga: Eclipse' (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 3/10/2010 5:20:00 AM

The third installment of 'The Twilight Saga' is months away from hitting the big screen, but ET has a sneak peak of 'Eclipse' that includes Taylor Lautner shirtless and Robert Pattinson in a lovers embrace with Kristen Stewart.

'Eclipse' picks up where 'New Moon' left off as the love triangle between Edward Cullen (Pattinson), Bella Swan (Stewart) and Jacob Black (Lautner) continues to grow. "I know the consequences of the choice you're making," Edward tells Bella while laying down.

Teen wolf Jacob is still fighting for Bella's affections, expressing to her, "I'm going to fight for you until your heart stops beating."

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Bicycling Directions, Trails Come to Google Maps

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SXSW continued from page 57

panel will discuss what is needed to make the real-time Web achievable." With Scott Mike Melanson intersections. Google says that it Raymond, Brett Slatkin, Dare (ReadWriteWeb) even takes hills and other factors Obasanjo, Marshall Kirkpatrick, into account when calculating Jack Moffitt.

Submitted at 3/10/2010 5:31:00 AM your trip time. "Assuming Time + Social + Location.

There's nothing worse for a typical values for mass and for W h a t ' s N e x t I n M o b i l e bicyclist than finding yourself a and stick to the bike trails when wind resistance, we compute the E x p e r i e n c e s ? mile in to a two-mile stretch of it could. The directions got a effort you'll require and the "As more devices become shoulder-less, busy, highway- little wonky when we threw it a speed you'll achieve while going location aware, social uses will speed traffic with no alternative few curve balls, but we expect uphill," Google says in its Lat continue to evolve beyond just who and what,to WHEN. route. Before today, this was a this to happen with any mapping Long Blog. common occurrence if you went service, especially one still in Google worked with the Rails- Adding the temporal dimension to trusty Google Maps to get beta. But, as we've learned, you to-Trails Conservancy to bring creates new opportunities for bicycling directions, but starting can't just go mindlessly follow more than 12,000 miles of social interaction. Learn about directions, lest you end up in a biking trails to its map, along ways to leverage and use today, that has all changed.

Google has added bicycling lake. w i t h b i k e l a n e s a n d technology to add features at the directions, lanes and routes to The new feature also includes a recommended streets for 150 intersection of temporal, social, Google Maps, meaning you no "Bicycling Layer", which shows cities across the country. Google and location." With Naveen longer have to drive, walk or bike paths and bike-friendly makes sure to point out that the Selvadurai, Josh Babetski, Greg bus to get directions. And we streets with or without lanes. feature is still in beta, so feel Cypes. can tell you, bicyclists are Three different lanes appear in free to tell Google the next time ActivityStrea.ms: Is It Getting the layer. excited. you find yourself on a crowded, Streamy In Here?

• Dark green indicates a shoulder-less highway because "From Facebook's newsfeed to Sponsor Twitter's relentless real-time Before now, the only option to dedicated bike-only trail;• Light of Google Maps. green indicates a dedicated bike cyclists to get even remotely And for those of you headed to updates, the metaphor of the appropriate directions, was to lane along a road;• Dashed fair Austin this week, make sure "stream" has taken social use the walking option, but this green indicates roads that are to take a look at the new feature, networking beyond blog posts would still ignore bike trails. designated as preferred for because it includes all of and on to rich social activities.

Google has heard the pleas of bicycling, but without dedicated Austin's numerous bike trails Learn about ActivityStrea.ms cyclists and, from first look, we lanes and bike lanes. If you've never the open format adopted by have to say that the feature is been to Austin for SXSW F a c e b o o k , M y S p a c e , a n d well implemented. before, bicycling is the way to Windows Live - and how it's We gave it a test to see if it get around town and now you'll fundamentally changing the would put us on some of According to Google, it has know how to get there. Discuss s o c i a l W e b . " W i t h C h r i s Messina.

Austin's more bike unfriendly also taken steps to avoid uphill streets, but it managed to chose and long downhill routes, busy some good alternative routes r o a d s a n d e v e n b u s y

HTML5: Tales from the Development Trenches "HTML5 is coming. Originally called "Web applications 1.0", it brings new semantics, JavaScript APIs for drag and drop, offline storage, generating images, plugin-free video and form validation. It's upset semantic Web advocates, accessibility evangelists and baffled developers. Cut through the crap: learn what it is and what it does."

What Are Analytics? A Guide To Practical Data "Analytics are often a confusing and convoluted mess, but that doesn't mean that they have to be. The Guide to Practical Data will help ensure you're reaching your full analytical potential.

Learn how to analyze public and proprietary data to accelerate the success of any initiative." With Margaret Francis, Blake Robinson.

Those are our SXSW Interaction recommendations for marketers and Web strategists.

If you've got suggestions or feedback, let us know in the comments! See you in Austin!

Discuss

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Charlie Sheen Returning to Work After Rehab (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 3/10/2010 7:19:00 AM

TNA Wrestling can trend on Twitter just fine, but can it draw actual TV ratings? (No.) Nicholas Deleon (CrunchGear) Submitted at 3/10/2010 9:30:07 AM

We’re all well aware that Twitter represents man’s best chance of Redemption. No one’s disputing that. What is in dispute today is just how representative Twitter is of The Real World. Case in point: TNA Wrestling made its long awaited move to Monday nights this week, and all throughout the night “TNA” was a trending topic on Twitter. We’ve been led to believe that anything that trends on Twitter is hugely important, not merely in the cozy confines of the Twitterverse, but all over Planet Earth. Explain this, then: the

show only drew a 0.98 rating(it rounds up to a 1.0). I thought Twitter = ratings?

Right, so all throughout the night, “TNA” was all over the Twitter, and it was trending for the duration of the broadcast.

Clearly people on the terribly important Web site thought highly of the show. Too bad nobody else did.

The show only drew a 0.98 rating, which is pretty much the disappointment of all disappointments. I mean, you had Hulk Hogan vs. Ric Flair on American TV for the first time in something like 10 years. If that’s not a ratings draw, then I don’t know what is. (A successful rating would have been in the neighborhood of

1.3.)

It speaks to the perception that Twitter is God. If it’s on Twitter, by golly, then everyone must be talking about it. Clearly not.

Twtiter has something like 75 million registered accounts, of which only 10-15 million of them can be considered active.

And who knows how many of those active accounts are nothing but annoying bots? As soon as we write something here, something like 20 bots automatically re-tweet it.

Imagine how many bots are retweeting popular sites!

There’s a whole lot to TNA’s rubbish rating, chief among them terrible build-up and terrible promotion. Why would

you spend the time it takes to create a movie for your YouTube account, which has all of 9,000 subscribers, when you could have used that same time to create a video package to air on your TV show, where a lot more than 9,000 people are watching? Using social media to promote your product when you’re already on prime time TV is beyond dumb.

The point? There really isn’t one, I’m just sort of bored and wanted to write about the TNA rating. If there’s a lesson to be drawn here, it’s to not think of Twitter as the end-all, be-all of “what’s what” in America.

Actor Charlie Sheen is scheduled to return to his hit CBS show "Two and a Half Men" following his short stint in rehab.

Sheen checked into a rehab facility on February 23 as a preventative measure, but will be back on set as early as next Tuesday, the actor's rep confirms to ET. In February, three counts were filed against the actor, a felony menacing count and two misdemeanors (3rd degree assault and criminal mischief), in relation to an alleged domestic violence dispute that occurred last Christmas between him and his wife Brooke Mueller. The next court date on the matter is set for March 15.

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The Field Guide To Modern 3D Glasses Matt Burns (CrunchGear)

you the SSG-2100AB with a user-replaceable battery, while Submitted at 3/10/2010 8:30:16 AM the $200 set is rechargeable.

You might want to take a ( S S G - 2 2 0 0 A R ) T h e r e i s a d i f f e r e n t a p p r o a c h w h e n rechargeable pair for children shopping for a 3D TV than a priced at $180. ( SSG-2200KR) standard HDTV. Instead of just Samsung 3D TVs come bundled looking at the picture quality, with two glasses and a 3D Bluyou should also take a serious ray movie. Sony look at the brand’s 3D glasses. Sony hasn’t official announced S o m e s h o w s o m e c l e a r its US 3D TV accessories, but advantages to purchase that it’s probably safe to say that the brand’s 3D TV and until there’s Japanese-market versions will a standard format for 3D be available here, too. The glasses, each brand requires its standard size TDG-BR100 gray own unique glasses, thereby model, along with the smaller l o c k i n g y o u i n t o t h a t blue and pink TDG-BR50 manufacturer’s products. Yeah, glasses will sell for 12,000 yen it’s a bit messy right now. Click in Japan. That translates to $132 through for details on all of USD. The glasses also require them. Samsung the TMR-BR100 IR emitter, There are three different models too. (5,000 yen, $55 USD) Only currently available. $150 gets the LX900, which retails for

290,000 yen or $3,204 USD, comes with glasses — two, in fact. Panasonic The Panasonic TY-EW3D10U glasses clearly win the “most radical” award. Each Panasonic 3D TV comes with a set and they retail for $149.99.

Nvidia 3D content can also be seen on computers with the right gear from Nvidia. The $199 Nvidia 3D Vision kit includes one pair of glasses, IR emitter, and connection cables. Additional glasses can be purchased for $149 each. Keep in mind, though, that a 3D-ready monitor/projector, GPU, and operating system like Vista or Win7 is also required.

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Final Four to be shown in 3D theaters Doug Aamoth (CrunchGear) Submitted at 3/10/2010 7:30:45 AM

Mark Cuban and Bud Mayo have been pushing the current generation of 3D long before the current generation of 3D had even been pitched as the next big thing to consumers by TV manufacturers. Cuban and Mayo (sounds like a delicious sandwich) aren’t trying to get you to watch 3D television in your home, though. They actually want you to leave the house.

And you’ll be able to do just that if you live near one of the Cinedigm-fitted 3D theaters that’ll be showing the semifinals and championship game for the NCAA Final Four college basketball tournament in early April.

What’s it like to watch a basketball game in 3D? Ask Mark Cuban. In an interview we did with him at CES in 2009 he said, “We did a live Mavs game this past March in 3D and I can just tell you, it’s crazy. It is crazy. It’s the LSD of 2009!”

Granted, he’s probably a teensy, weensy bit biased. And there’s no guarantee that it’ll also be the LSD of 2010 but if you’re into the tournament and 3D, you won’t want to miss it.

No word on which theaters will be participating (Cinedigm has locations all over the US) or how much tickets will cost, but you can sign up for more info on Cinedigm’s site.

LIVE 3D – FINAL FOUR TOURNAMENT[Cinedigm.co m via CEPro.com]

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Will Critics Spoil the Ridiculous End of Remember Me? [Spoilerz] Richard Lawson (Gawker) Submitted at 3/10/2010 10:07:17 AM

Twilight sparkleboyfriend Robert Pattinson is starring in a new movie, premiering Friday, about a young couple falling in love in New York. It's all romantic and silly, until the film's exploitative gotcha! ending. Want to know what it is? More Âť

G-Tec Intendix brain-computer interface ready for consumers (video) Joseph L. Flatley (Engadget)

for starters). Well, it looks like that day is close at hand: With Submitted at 3/10/2010 11:19:00 AM the brand name Intendix, the If you've seen G-Tec's thought â‚Ź9000 (about $12,250) braincontrol cap being used to control computer interface gives you a Second Life avatar, play a everything you need to send text game of Pong, or make music in messages with brain activity an orchestral setting, you alone via EEG cap. According probably wondered when the to the company, most people thing would become available achieve five to ten characters for less frivolous pursuits (to per minute the first time they help the disabled communicate, use the thing, with some folks

eventually typing as fast as 1 character per second. In addition to to text messages, the system can also be used to trigger an alarm, send email, or send commands to external devices.

There's no word on a shipping date yet, but we did thoughtfully provide that Second Life demo for you after the break.

Continue reading G-Tec Intendix brain-computer

interface ready for consumers (video) G-Tec Intendix brain-computer interface ready for consumers (video) originally appeared on KDDI concocts Engadget on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 snooping mobile phones, 11:19:00 EST. Please see our line managers rub hands terms for use of feeds. with glee Permalink Singularity Hub| Intendix| Email this| Comments Vladislav Savov (Engadget) Submitted at 3/10/2010 10:27:00 AM

Sci-fi movies present us KDDI often page 65

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KDDI continued from page 64

with omniscient villains who are able to track the most minute actions of their underlings and foes. Rarely do we get a glimpse into their surveillance systems, but you have to imagine that some of the more rudimentary "employee evaluation" hardware will not be too far off from KDDI's latest. The Japanese cellphone giant has unveiled a new system, built around accelerometers, that can detect the difference between a cleaner scrubbing or sweeping a floor and merely walking along it.

Based on new analytical software, stored remotely, this should provide not only accurate positional information about workers, but also a detailed

breakdown of their activities.

The benefits touted include "central monitoring, "salesforce optimisation," and improvements in employee efficiency. We're guessing privacy concerns were filed away in a collateral damage folder somewhere.

KDDI concocts snooping mobile phones, line managers rub hands with glee originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 10:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| BBC| Email this| Comments

Target launches first scannable mobile coupon program, frugalistas going wild Laura June (Engadget) Submitted at 3/10/2010 11:42:00 AM

Target's announced it is launching a scannable mobile coupon program -- the first of its kind. The opt-in program will provides Target shoppers with a customized webpage on their mobile phones, with all offers scannable at checkout via a single barcode. Target's no stranger to innovative marketing -- its gift cards are well known for their cute, gadgety ways-and while this new program is essentially a text message driven sale (meaning it could quickly become a mere annoyance), anything that minimizes our interactions with fellow humans gets our stamp of approval, so the ability to scan your own barcode at the register? Thumbs up. The full press release is after the break.

Continue reading Target launches first scannable mobile coupon program, frugalistas

Breast Milk Cheese: Tastes Like Pickles [Yum] Hamilton Nolan (Gawker) Submitted at 3/10/2010 10:23:21 AM

going wild Target launches first scannable mobile coupon program, frugalistas going wild originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 11:42:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| | Email this| Comments

Yesterday, Lori Mason won plaudits from kinky sex freaks far and wide for allowing her chef husband to make cheese from her breast milk. Alas! Now comes a food critic to dispel your dreams of tasty human bosom curd. More Âť

Obama Hires Internet's Favorite Pretty Chart Guy [Charts & Graphs] Pareene (Gawker) Submitted at 3/10/2010 11:19:08 AM

Barack Obama has appointed

designer and statistician Edward Tufte to the stimulus-monitoring Recovery Independent Advisory Panel. To a certain segment of

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the internet, this is like learning

that Admiral Ackbar is the new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. More Âť

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Lost WTF of the Week: The Invincibles [Clips] Richard Lawson (Gawker) Submitted at 3/10/2010 10:43:01 AM

Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3t Adidas Finale Madrid: This is the fancy ball that will be used review at the Champions League final Joanna Stern (Engadget)

Submitted at 3/10/2010 10:52:00 AM

Who says you have to pick between a netbook and the coming onslaught of standalone tablet devices? Okay maybe some (eh hem Apple), but Lenovo's trying to have it both ways with the IdeaPad U1 and the S10-3t. In clamshell mode the S10-3t looks like any old 10inch netbook, but swivel around its capacitive mulitouch display and it turns into that slate device you've been dreaming of. That's not all: the S10-3t is one of the first netbooks (or netveritbles) that has the new Intel 1.83GHz

Atom N470 processor. But can the S10-3t straddle both worlds and do it well? And perhaps more importantly, is it worth the premium $649 price tag? That's the question we've been asking ourselves for the last few days, so hit the break for some answers in our full review.

Gallery: Lenovo IdeaPad S103t review Continue reading Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3t review Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3t review originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 10:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| | Email this| Comments

Nicholas Deleon (CrunchGear) Submitted at 3/10/2010 8:30:12 AM

The convergence of sport and technology! I don’t know, I think it’s cool. So, here’s another. This is the Finale Madrid, and it will be used at the UEFA Champions League final in Madrid this May. In a perfect world, the game will be played between Real Madrid and Barcelona—I will lose my mind if that happens.

Like other soccer balls (the Adidas Jabulani and the Nike T90 Ascente), there’s a lot going on in here. You see the

stars? Somehow, Adidas has managed to make that completely inseparable from the ball itself—it’s not just painted on there. That helps ensure the ball’s flight is as unobstructed as possible. The ball keeps the PSC Texture as seen in previous balls. It’s the golf ball effect: golf balls have dimples in order to steady the flight, and so does the Finale Madrid.

Again, the UEFA Champions League final will be played in Madrid (Real Madrid’s home stadium, the Santiago Bernabéu, to be exact) on May 22. I will be completely unreachable during the game.

Last night's Lost episode was definitely strange, and not just because it was directed by Mario van Peebles. (But srsly, wtf?) There was also weirdness about Richard Alpert, our mysterious and eyelinered island eternal. More »

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A nice boost for rssCloud (Scripting News)

update notification. River2, the aggregator I've built for Frontier (it runs in the OPML Editor) has It's been a while since we could support for rssCloud. announce new major support for For a demo here's a screen shot rssCloud, but today is one of o f a n u p d a t e I p o s t e d t o those big days we'll remember identi.ca. Note the time of the for a long time. update. I immediately refreshed Status.net has now enabled the home page of my River2 rssCloud support in the RSS 2.0 server, and there's the update. feeds for all its users.

Elapsed time ==> 12 seconds.

This means that identi.ca, the That's what real time means. server operated by status.net, This is my feed. A source has the feature, as well as all screen shot shows the element. other sites they operate. I It's also a holy grail for the idea assume it will be baked into a of a distributed loosely-coupled subsequent open source release network of Twitter-like services, (status.net is GPL software). linked together in real time What does this mean? Well, using RSS.(What a mouthful!) when I post an update to my It's very elegant and lightweight account on identi.ca, any cloud- and it works today. aware aggregator will receive an Submitted at 3/9/2010 4:36:30 PM

Casio Exilim G EX-G1 review Donald Melanson (Engadget) Submitted at 3/10/2010 12:04:00 PM

Casio's Exilim G EX-G1 camera made a solid enough first impression with us when we got our hands on it in January, but we've now had a chance to use it a fair bit more both indoors and out, and reach some firmer conclusions about it. The short verdict is that the camera, like any other rugged

device, comes with its fair share of compromises. If you value ruggedness over everything else, the Exilim G definitely deserves some serious consideration (especially in this price range).

On the other hand, if you're looking for an all-around, everyday point-and-shoot that just so happens to be a bit more durable than the rest, you may well find yourself disappointed.

Read on for our full review.

Gallery: Casio Exilim G EX-G1 hands-on Continue reading Casio Exilim G EX-G1 review Casio Exilim G EX-G1 review originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 12:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| | Email this| Comments

Iron Cross Director Sues Variety Over Oscar Shakedown [Legit] John Cook (Gawker) Submitted at 3/10/2010 10:11:10 AM

Joshua Newton, the director who thought a $400,000 Oscar campaign in Variety would buy his movie a positive review, has

made good on his threat to sue the Hollywood trade. More Âť

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First Look: FileMaker Pro 11 Weldon Dodd (TheAppleBlog)

data from Bento, XML files, Excel spreadsheets and other sources.

A year after the launch of Once you are up and running in FileMaker Pro 10, the Apple- a database, there are a few owned database company is interface changes that will jump back to debut the latest version out at you immediately. First up o f i t s f r a n c h i s e p r o d u c t . is the new Quick Find feature.

FileMaker Pro 11 introduces Quick Find adds a Spotlight-like long-awaited features and builds search field to your toolbar that on the interface and engine will search through multiple improvements to create new fields on the current layout. capabilities. I have been taking This feature is handy if you are the product through its paces for looking for something like a the last few weeks and I am left phone number, but are not sure with the impression that this is if the number is in the home, what FileMaker Pro 10 should office, mobile, or fax fields. have been because the changes You can set which fields are made to the interface and the included in the Quick Find scripting engine are really index to limit the search and the evident in 11. The update size of the indexes. Quick Find i n c l u d e s a v a r i e t y o f works like an “AND” search improvements that will benefit across multiple fields and both users and developers. A matches on the start of strings New Start only. It does not do partial string When greeted by the redesigned m a t c h i n g s o a s e a r c h o n Start Screen, among the starter “ m a k e r ” w i l l n o t m a t c h solutions offered as a template is “ F i l e M a k e r ” a t t h i s t i m e . a new Invoices solution. This L a y o u t s solution allows you to track One small refinement is Text c u s t o m e r s , p r o d u c t s , a n d Highlighting. You can mark text invoices in a single database. with a yellow background in a Invoices implements multiple field to bring attention to the tables and relationships on highlighted section. More multiple keys and provides a significant changes have been g r e a t i n t r o d u c t i o n t o a made to improve the ease of moderately complex database. I working with layouts. The new recommend peaking under the layout assistant makes setting up hood to get a feel for how things table-based report layouts a are done if you are new to breeze. The assistant walks you FileMaker. Beyond the starter through choosing fields, setting solutions, you can also create a the sort order and adding subnew database by starting with summaries. In the table view Submitted at 3/9/2010 12:00:36 PM

itself, you can now directly add fields and records with convenient + buttons and change the sort by clicking on column headers. Layouts themselves can now be organized into layout folders to make it simpler for both users and developers to work in a database with a large number of layouts.

Another layout option is Portal filtering. Portal filters allow you to limit related records that are displayed in a portal by either fixed or calculated criteria.

When designing layouts, new Inspector palettes grant immediate access to common formatting functions and settings. The Inspector has three tabs, but you can open up multiple inspectors and have each tab visible. The addition of the Inspector may seem a minor

change, but it does bring the database product into better alignment with the iWork applications. Inspectors are packed with detail that might be overwhelming to some users, but they do add a bit of convenience and expose some features to discovery that may have been hidden deep in menu options.

Charting The biggest visual change to Filemaker Pro 11 is the addition of the new charting feature. You can create pie charts, bar charts (vertical and horizontal), line graphs, and area charts and include those directly in your layouts. The charts provide an opportunity to not only create better reports but also design completely new interfaces for dashboard views and other ideas.

Snapshot Links Another new user-focused feature that takes a bit of explaining is Snapshot Links.

You can take a snapshot of the current records that you are viewing and send those to a coworker with access to the same database. The snapshot includes the current found set, but also remembers the selected record, the current layout, the focused tab on a layout and other information. Previously, you may have printed a report to PDF or saved a search in FMP 10. The problem with those approaches is that the PDF is

completely static and the results of the saved search may change between the time you look at the records and send those to someone else. The snapshot link always shows the current information in the database, and keeps the found set intact even if the underlying data changes.

It took me a while to fully grasp the implications, but the more I think about it, the more uses I find to use this feature in a workgroup environment.

Other Improvements Recurring import will watch an external file like an Excel spreadsheet and update the data in FileMaker as the watched spreadsheet changes. You can set script triggers on this file as well to have it update every 15 minutes or some other interval.

You can copy and paste scripts to make it simpler to bring tricks over from other solutions.

External file protection improves the security of Filemaker databases. The server version has new diagnostics to help find out which user has issued the query that is bringing the system to a crawl. Filemaker Pro 11 Server Advanced also removes user limits in this version.

System requirements are substantially the same. Pricing All FileMaker 11 products are immediately available.

FileMaker Pro 11 is $299/$179 FIRST page 69

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Why Apple Should Buy Adobe Andrew Flocchini (TheAppleBlog)

about them altogether. This would come down to money in the long run. I personally don’t Submitted at 3/9/2010 2:00:16 PM think Apple needs to worry The rumors of Adobe being about the PC side unless they bought by Apple come up every a r e g o i n g t o l e g i t i m a t e l y so often. Apple could easily compete against AVID for afford such a purchase and the dominance. Design results would be interesting. I Photoshop and Illustrator go would love to see Adobe hand in hand with Apple. The restructured by a company like general public thinks of Apple A p p l e . A d o b e h a s m a n y when Photoshop is mentioned applications that are the gold and vice versa. This is known as standard but it seems to lack o n e o f A p p l e ’ s s t r o n g e s t focus. These are my thoughts on markets. Most believe that these what Apple could do with design apps run better on a Mac Adobe’s biggest apps and make but as we know, Adobe is slow everyone’s life a lot easier. in keeping these flagship apps Video on the cutting edge. Apple could Adobe’s video market could be force them to be designed for trimmed down. Anything that t h e l a t e s t a n d g r e a t e s t can already be done in Final Cut environments. While they’re at S t u d i o s h o u l d b e g o n e , it, stop releasing new versions i n c l u d i n g P r e m i e r e a n d every year that don’t have any Soundbooth. I’m not sure if s i g n i f i c a n t i m p r o v e m e n t s .

After Effects would even be Adobe needs the money to keep worth it in the end. Most believe r o l l i n g i n t h r o u g h y e a r l y that Final Cut is a very nice revisions but Apple wouldn’t video suite on the Mac platform have this problem. Make a new and in the PC world, AVID version when real features are holds the crown. Why is a created. In an educational program like Premiere needed? environment, we are forced to It’s not quite AVID but way upgrade every year because the better than Windows Movie textbooks only cover the newest Maker. Now throw Sony Vegas versions. This puts a large strain in there and it’s starting to get on software budgets. Documents crowded. Apple could create Acrobat should also be Final Cut for the PC or forget restructured and brought back to

keep it around until HTML5 took over. They should only provide security fixes but no new features. This would allow it a peaceful death.

Adobe has so many products that it’s kind of ridiculous. Most of them could either be worked into existing Apple products or forgotten forever. If Apple did purchase Adobe, what about the PC side of Adobe’s business?

They would have to crunch the numbers to see what products are worth the extra cost of its core purpose. Every other development, but Apple could week we hear of an exploit in really limit what’s available for PDF’s and it’s because they Windows. Whether that would don’t do the simple task they that be a good or bad thing, I’m were conceived to do. Strip out not really sure. In Apple’s mind, all the extra junk and just make if it sells more Macs then it’s PDF’s do what they need to do. worth doing.

Reader should be killed for the I believe Apple could really Mac OS also, Preview is way improve Adobe’s products and quicker and does the job just make them more reliable than fine. Flash they ever have been. It would Then there’s the elephant in the end the grudge that they have room, Flash. Oh my dear old against each other and hopefully friend, you were once so cool. get applications like Acrobat Animations, games, crazy and Flash back to their roots. navigation menus and long site Adding useless features just to intros were such a treat. Now I sell a different version every have grown bored with you. year will not win you any fans.

The problem is that Flash is so Make it a worthwhile upgrade or ubiquitous with the web that it inexpensive and I will gladly can’t just be tossed out into the support you. street. Apple would need to clean it up significantly and

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upgrade (U.S. suggested list price) and FileMaker Pro 11 Advanced is $499/$299 upgrade. FileMaker Server 11 is $999/$599 upgrade and FileMaker Server 11 Advanced is $2,999/$1,799 upgrade.

For a limited time, FileMaker extends upgrade pricing to licensed users of FileMaker 8 and 8.5 products. This offer expires September 23, 2010, and details are online.

Recommendation There is something for everyone in this update to FileMaker Pro. Users will love the convenience of Quick Find, the visual enhancements in charting and layouts, and sharing snapshots. Developers will love the Inspector for quickly making layout changes, the scripting improvements, and the flexibility of using portal filtering and charting to create great layouts and reports without extra plugins.

I see great possibilities to use these new features to create solutions with FileMaker Pro and I am probably more excited about the future of the product now than I have been over the last few years. It feels like the investment in previous versions has paid off and everything is firing on all cylinders to move ahead.

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Analyst: iPhone to Overtake BlackBerry in 2011 Darrell Etherington (TheAppleBlog)

significant milestone for the iPhone, and one consumers should be wary of more than Submitted at 3/10/2010 7:33:46 AM anything. As a disruptor of the A few years ago it would’ve status quo, Apple innovates, and been only the insane and the innovates well. Once it reaches insanely prescient who were the top of the pile and predicting that Apple would subjugates its competition, that replace RIM in terms of world doesn’t necessarily continue to mobile phone market share. hold true. A victory over RIM in Now it doesn’t seem that the mobile phone market could outlandish, but the question of lead to a stagnation of iPhone how soon we’ll actually see it innovation, something the minor happen remains up in the air. updates to the iPhone 3GS were According to a new financial hopefully not a sign of. analysis company, Trefis(via The iPhone can overtake the Forbes), the iPhone will pass BlackBerry by continuing to BlackBerries in 2011. So as of expand the markets in which it next year, the iPhone will is available, and by going with supposedly overtake RIM’s multiple carriers in places where varied line of smartphones, it only has presence with one or despite offering far less in terms two so far. It may have seemed of consumer choice, and being unusual to hang on to singlelimited to only one network in the stock price will climb factors like the iPad will provider models for this long, major markets like the U.S. So accordingly. They have a neat p r o b a b l y have a but now it’s in a much stronger how’s that supposed to happen? little tool that illustrates this, disproportionately large effect position in terms of negotiating Before we get to how, let’s look and you can set your own on the stock price of Apple in with others. It’s also begun to a t w h y T r e f i s t h i n k s t h i s prediction to see how it affects the coming months. Marketing grow its share in the enterprise, information is important. If the model. h y p e d e f i n i t e l y i n f l a t e s where the BlackBerry has you’re looking to buy Apple It’s neat, but it’s also a gross consumer expectation and traditionally held sway. stock, then it’s very important o v e r s i m p l i f i c a t i o n . E v e n hopefully appetite, but it also 2011 could indeed be the year indeed. Trefis estimates that w i t h o u t c o n s i d e r i n g t h e misrepresents how important a of the iPhone, but I’m hoping around 52 percent of Apple’s potentially market-rearranging product is to a company’s RIM makes a comeback before stock value is dependent upon effect the continuing emergence future. then to stoke the fires under its mobile phone business, so of Android might have on If Apple does overtake RIM, A p p l e a n d s t a v e o f f a n y that as the iPhone’s global mobile phones globally, other h o w e v e r , i t w i l l m a r k a impending complacency that market share continues to grow, might crop up.

E-reader News Edition

Video: The elusive iPhone Shoryuken Richard Mitchell (Joystiq) Submitted at 3/10/2010 10:30:00 AM

The jury is still out on Street Fighter IV for iPhone, but let it be known: You probably won't pull off a Shoryuken -- the "Rising Dragon Fist" -- on your first try. Or the second. Or the third.

We learned this very quickly when trying out the game at Capcom's Fight Club event during GDC. Granted, there is a simplified input configuration -which we discovered after this video was shot -- but longtime Street Fighter fans could get a tad miffed by all the whiffs.

Should you make the $10 investment for SFIV, on your phone, you'll probably want to spend some time in the game's expansive "Dojo" training mode before hitting the world circuit.

Video: The elusive iPhone Shoryuken originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Analyst: Apple “Disrupting” iPhone TV 101: How 'Lost' Is Competitors With Legal Threats Like a Loveless Marriage Charles Jade (TheAppleBlog) Submitted at 3/9/2010 10:30:55 AM

Via Apple 2.0, Oppenheimer analyst Yair Reiner asserts in a research note that Apple’s lawsuit with HTC over the iPhone interface was the culmination of “blunt talks” with other phone manufacturers.

According to Reiner, starting in January Apple began closeddoor discussions with OEMs regarding the company’s “growing displeasure” with the theft of Apple’s intellectual property.

That displeasure was first noted a year earlier at a conference call. Apple COO Tim Cook responded to a question about the Palm Pre by stating that “we will not stand for having our IP ripped off,” though Cook wasn’t necessarily talking about Palm, or just Palm, anyway. Earlier this month, Steve Jobs publicly accused HTC of theft in a press release associated with the iPhone lawsuit. Unfortunately, that lawsuit may not ultimately protect the iPhone the way Steve Jobs thinks.

However, in the short term tough talk and legal action has,

according to “industry checks”

by Reiner, resulted in hardware manufacturers reassessing their positions regarding Google’s Android operating system.

Rival software and hardware teams are going back to the drawing board to look for workarounds. Lawyers are redoubling efforts to gauge potential defensive and offensive responses. And strategy teams are working to chart OS strategies that are better hedged.

Ignoring the negative impact on

consumers from stifling innovation in the name of intellectual property rights, the real-world implications of driving hardware manufacturers away from Google is that they will be going towards Microsoft.

With Windows Mobile as good as dead, and Windows Phone Series 7 not to be released until the end of the year, it could have been argued that Microsoft was close to being pushed out of the mobile market entirely. Don’t count on that now.

Microsoft has been quick to sniff out this burgeoning opportunity and has begun to aggressively promote the strength of its own IP portfolio, as well as its willingness to join battle with customers that come under IP attack.

It’s one thing to threaten a relatively small company like HTC, but quite another to go after Microsoft, as Apple found out once before. While temporarily disrupting Android through lawsuits isn’t going to make that problem go away, it might just help Microsoft get back in the mobile business.

Jay Black (TV Squad) Submitted at 3/10/2010 11:02:00 AM

For a lot of ' Lost' fans, the only numbers that really matter anymore are 5, 23, and 10 - May 23rd of this year, the Dharma Train finally pulls into the station and we'll find out once and for all whether the writers knew what they were doing.

It's almost a certainty that you're going to be disappointed.

Had the show ended during its second or third season, I would have stocked up on flashlights, canned goods, and pornography to wait out the riots that surely would have followed some lame "not all questions are meant to be answered" kind of ending.

I'm not worried now because that kind of car-tipping passion just isn't there anymore. For most fans, this last season marked the moment when our relationship with 'Lost' stopped

being a love affair and started being a loveless marriage.

Continue reading TV 101: How 'Lost' Is Like a Loveless Marriage Filed under: OpEd, Lost, TV 101, Reality-Free Permalink| Email this| | Comments

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You Look Ridiculous: The Other Augmented Reality Issue David Klein (TheAppleBlog) Submitted at 3/10/2010 7:27:09 AM

Augmented Reality (AR) is a hot topic in the app stores these days. So, what’s AR? It’s multiple technologies being used simultaneously to provide you with data relevant to your location. This includes your phone’s compass to determine the direction you are facing, GPS to determine your exact location, Internet connection to gather information about your surroundings, camera to capture your reality, and the screen to augment it with extremely specific data.

The app that gets the most free publicity is Layar for its onagain off-again relationship with Apple’s app store. Whether or not this app should be allowed in the app store is the issue people have been harping on for several months now. I think there is a much more urgent AR issue.

You look completely ridiculous when you use it.

Seriously. People take pictures all the time with their mobile phones. It’s a simple, quick task.

But using an AR app is

Jimmy Smits Returning to TV in NBC Legal Drama Allison Waldman (TV Squad) Submitted at 3/10/2010 10:31:00 AM

confusing and time-consuming.

You have to maintain the phone’s direction and camera angle otherwise you lose the details on your screen. Your face is glued to your screen for a longer than appropriate time period. We have quickly grown accustomed to people looking down at their phones while walking around town (although some would argue that this is aggravating and dangerous). AR users have taken this awkward behavior to a new high since their phones are at eye level with people walking by.

Below is Layar showing the Drink layer. Note the confusing interface that requires thorough focus to decipher while you are standing on a sidewalk holding your phone in the air.

Here’s Yelp’s easier to comprehend (although it can quickly become cluttered) “Monacle” feature. Note: To activate this feature you must shake your phone when on the Nearby tab.

And finally, an innocent AR user begging to be mugged while trying to learn more about his location.

We can all agree that AR is extremely cool. Hopefully it will soon be a useful way to understand your surroundings.

But for now these apps feel more like usability and HCI research experiments.

Related GigaOM Pro Research: Augmented Reality: Lots of Promise, Lots of Hurdles

Is it a step down for Jimmy Smits that he'll only be a Supreme Court Justice in a new NBC pilot? Some might think so since his last stint on NBC was as Congressman Matt Santos who became the President of the United States on the last season of ' The West Wing.' However, in the pilot that John Eisendrath is putting together, Jimmy Smits has agreed to play a judge for NBC. Not any judge. The character is a strict interpreter of the constitution, a 'by the book' Supreme Court Justice (there are only nine at any one time), who steps down from the bench so he can return to the law as an

attorney who specializes in fighting constitutional injustices.

Continue reading Jimmy Smits Returning to TV in NBC Legal Drama Filed under: OpEd, Celebrities, Casting, Emmys, Reality-Free Permalink| Email this| | Comments

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73

Please fix WordPress for podcast feeds (Scripting News)

Click the screen shot for the full effect.

See the red arrow pointing to Jay and I use WordPress to do the box called Enclosure? That's the http://rebootnews.com/ site. where you paste the link to the It's a mixed bag. On the pro enclosure. Anyone no matter side, we both know how to use how technical they are not, WordPress, and because Jay could be taught to do that writes the show notes and I do correctly. the tech stuff, it's a good tool to everyone listens to).

We never had the problem put between us.

For the last three episodes of WordPress is having. Granted a But WordPress doesn't do our podcast, it's failed to add an lot fewer people did podcasts podcast feeds well. enclosure element to the feed. then than now. Maybe. I'd argue And that's being generous.

As a result none of our listeners that the way WordPress works Here's how the UI works get the podcast on time, and it n o w i s k i l l i n g t h e a r t o f currently. You edit your post always takes some fussing by podcasting because it's so and link to an MP3 or a movie the WordPress tech people to unpredictable and it's virtually or an AVI or some other media get it working, and for all I g o t t h e m a r k e t c o r n e r e d . object. The first one that WP know a bunch of people never R e g a r d l e s s , I ' m a p a y i n g encounters as it parses your text, hear the podcast. I suppose it c u s t o m e r , a n d I ' d l i k e t o it will supposedly turn into an depends on whether or not the continue to use WordPress, but enclosure. If you happen to link client sees an item as read if the eventually I'm going to have to to two MP3s but the second is guid doesn't change but all of a switch because it's killing our the enclosure, you're out of luck. s u d d e n t h e i t e m h a s a n product.

And for some reason if you e n c l o s u r e . I m h o a p r o p e r Please Matt and company, fix store the MP3 on Amazon S3, as podcast client would just watch this! we do, it usually doesn't even the guid, and therefore would PS: I wish Wordpress.com was find the enclosure. But this is miss the enclosure. Regardless, more hackable, if there was a variable. Today they've hacked it's simply unacceptable that way for me to patch our feed I up our link to point to some WordPress work this way and could fix this without their help. server on wordpress.com, totally that Automattic doesn't do Alas it's not something I can fix without our permission. What a something to fix it. myself and I don't have any mess. And even so there's no This is how we did it in Radio interest in running my own enclosure in our feed for this 8, in 2002, eight years ago. installation or fussing around week's show (which btw I think Here's a screen shot. with PHP etc. is one of our best, one I hope Submitted at 3/10/2010 5:01:06 AM

For Iverson, the Answer Rests in the Past Kevin Blackistone (FanHouse Main) Submitted at 3/9/2010 2:30:00 PM

Filed under: NBA Steve James was well into making in Chicago what would become his epic sports documentary Hoop Dreams when his father, back in his home in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia, started regaling him about a phenom of a teenage athlete at James' rival high school, Bethel.

The kid already had quarterbacked Bethel to the state football title over James' alma mater, Hampton. He was working on doing the same in basketball.

The kid's name was Allen Iverson.

"He ... was incredible," James on Tuesday told me he came to realize of the wiry Iverson in the newspaper clippings his father,

Billy, sent him in the early '90s.

The only thing that was more amazing about Iverson was what happened to him after a basketball game his senior year in which he celebrated at a bowling alley. A brawl erupted after someone spat a racial slur at Iverson and his friends.

Iverson wound up arrested, charged and convicted for mob violence. No white participants in the fight were busted.

On Sunday, James' newest documentary, No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson, is scheduled for an official premiere at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas.

"To me, Allen Iverson's public image that has persisted to this day," James said, "began when he was 17 in this bowling alley incident."

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What's On Tonight: 'Scrubs,' 'Human Like Carolina, Manny Legace Target,' 'America's Next Top Model,' Is Coming on Strong 'Tosh.0' Susan Slusser (FanHouse Main) Submitted at 3/10/2010 3:29:00 AM

Bob Sassone (TV Squad) Submitted at 3/10/2010 12:15:00 PM

Here's tonight's TV lineup (all times Eastern).

• At 8, ABC has a new'Scrubs,' followed by new episodes of'The Middle,' 'Modern Family,' 'Cougar Town,' and'Ugly Betty.'

• CBS has a new'Old Christine' at 8, then new episodes'Gary Unmarried,' 'Criminal Minds,' and'CSI: NY.' • NBC has a new'Mercy' at 8.

• FOX has new episodes of'Human Target' and'American Idol.'

• The CW has the season premiere of'America's Next Top Model' at 8, followed by the premiere of'High Society.'

• TCM has'The Gay Divorcee' at 8, then'Top Hat.' • At 9, Bravo has a new'Real Housewives of Orange County,'

of'Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns' at 10.

• Food Network has a new'Dinner: Impossible' at 10.

• E! has'Chelsea's Big Interview Special' at 10.

• Also at 10: MTV has a new episode of'The Real World.'

• At 10:30, Comedy Central has a new'Tosh.0' at 10.

Filed under: Hurricanes Manny Legace has no one but himself to blame for tumbling into the NHL scrapheap before this season -- or, at least, that's what the Carolina goaltender would argue.

"It was my fault for not being special enough," Legace said of then a new'Shear Genius.' his time in St. Louis last season.

• Syfy has a new'Ghost Hunters' "I was coming off my best at 9.

Check your local TV listings season, an All-Star game (start), • F o o d N e t w o r k h a s a for more. and it was one thing after new'Throwdown with Bobby After the jump, the late night another after that. It was a bad Flay' at 9. talk shows. situation, and I made it worse by • Travel Channel has'Man vs. Continue reading What's On letting things bother me. It was Food Presents Carnivore' at 9. Tonight: 'Scrubs,' 'Human my fault. I should have played • History Channel has a Target,' 'America's Next Top better." new'MonsterQuest' at 9.

Model,' 'Tosh.0' Legace is in some ways a • At 9:30, BBC America has a Filed under: Late Night, p e r f e c t r e p r e s e n t a t i v e o f n e w e p i s o d e o f ' T h e Programming, Celebrities, Talk Inbetweeners.'

Show, What To Watch Tonight, • At 10, NBC has a new'Law Reality-Free and Order: SVU.' Permalink| Email this| | • USA has the season finale C o m m e n t s of'Psych' at 10.

• TBS has two new episodes

Carolina's season. Somewhat forgotten, he's picked up steam, winning his past five starts in net, including a shutout over Atlanta in his most recent game.

The Hurricanes, meantime, are red hot, winning 12 of their past 15.

Derek Anderson Says Browns Fans Don't Deserve a Winner Adam Gretz (FanHouse Main) Submitted at 3/9/2010 2:50:00 PM

Filed under: Browns, NFL Fans, NFL Free Agency Cleveland Browns fans are extremely passionate, loyal and

perhaps even a little nuts about their team. And they don't always have a great relationship with their starting quarterbacks.

Take, for example, the time they made former No. 1 overall pick Tim Couch cry, or when

they cheered Derek Anderson

after he suffered a seasonending knee injury.

On Tuesday, Anderson was released by the Browns, ending a four-year run with the team that included a trip to the Pro Bowl in 2007 and a steady

decline over the following two years.

Still stinging from hearing fans cheer his injury, the 26-year-old quarterback sounded off about the orange-and-brown faithful.

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Is Nascar Pleasing its Fans, Toying With Death or Both?

(WSJ.com: The Daily Fix) Submitted at 3/10/2010 9:14:38 AM

Associated Press Cars are not supposed to point in this direction.

Like fighting in the NHL, concussive brutality in the NFL and neck tattoos in the NBA, the threat of wild, scary, supertelegenic car crashes is one of the less reputable but undeniable elements in Nascar’s appeal. Put a bunch of macho dudes in souped-up sedans in a tight space, and accidents will happen.

The issue that Nascar faces at the moment is different. In Sunday’s Sprint Cup race in Hampton, Ga., star racer Carl Edwards nudged the bumper of Brad Keselowski’s car in retaliation for an earlier on-track incident, propelling Keselowski into a dramatic airborne crash.

On Tuesday, Edwards was handed a penalty that many drivers and racing pundits found stunningly light: a three-race probation. This might be a good time to look at the picture of that accident again.

“You know what? He did get off easy,” Yahoo’s Jay Busbee writes. “If it had been someone else other than a controversial rookie flying through the air, if it had been a less notable driver causing the wreck, you can bet the hammer would have hit harder. NASCAR, like every other enterprise, is a

celebritocracy; the brighter lights get the biggest breaks.”

In the Baltimore Sun, Tania Ganguly notes that the protectthe-star sentiment runs the other way, too, as Keselowski is an unpopular figure among his fellow racers.

Some see the crash as the immediate and unmistakable consequences of Nascar’s recent decision not to enforce harsh discipline for incidents like this one. Now, that decision has its signature image. It will likely not be the last such image, Scott Fowler writes at ThatsRacin.com. “This is the dark side of ‘Boys, have at it,’ ” Fowler writes. “Those four words make economic sense, adding more excitement and selling more tickets. But

sometimes, when emotions are boiling, it’s a philosophy that is tantamount to letting the inmates run the asylum.”* * * The transition from what’s-thematter-with-UConn/UNC articles to ones pondering the weirdness of an NCAA tournament field without either team was made about a month ago. Reality now just about has caught up to those articles, as UConn left the Big East tournament in the first round on Tuesday in a strikingly disengaged 73-51 loss to St. John’s. North Carolina faces the prospect of having to win the ACC tournament to secure a March Madness berth.

Eventually, sprawling post mortems will be written on the collapse of these two bluest of

blue-chip programs this season.

For the time being, as obscure mid-major and small-conference teams punch tournament tickets every day — way to go, Wofford — all most fans can do is wonder what happened.

UConn’s experienced roster and super-talented backcourt suggested great things ahead when the season started. But the Huskies were hobbled by inconsistency all season, and coach Jim Calhoun’s healthrelated sabbatical in the middle of the season ensured plenty of distracting is-he-retiring speculation. Still, the Huskies seemed just too good to wind up in the NIT. In the Hartford Courant, Jeff Jacobs writes that the team has been forced to realize that it isn’t. “The big

hopes are gone, of course, dashed by a four-game losing streak that ended with three mind-numbing stinkers,” Jacobs writes. “Only the little hopes are left now. Jim Calhoun said he had never thought about turning down an NIT invitation before, but he wanted a few days this time.”

The schedule has given North Carolina an extra day of hope, but the Tar Heels have looked far worse than the Huskies all season long, despite a comparable level of big-time talent. In the Greensboro NewsRecord, Ed Hardin examines the team-wide apathy that doomed a Heels team with plenty of players left over from the roster NASCAR page 77

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Longtime Boston Red Sox shortstop Nomar Garciaparra announces retirement Gordon Edes (ESPN.com) Submitted at 3/10/2010 9:21:31 AM

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p):first").text()); } else { I.setDescription(jQuery("p:first" ).text()); } if (jQuery(".article .image, .headshot").length > 0) { var theimage = (jQuery(".article . i m a g e , .headshot").find("img").attr("src ")); I.addMediaItem( { type: 'image', src: theimage, href: 'http://sports.espn.go.com/bosto n/mlb/news/story?id=4981701' }); } A.userAction = I ; gigya.services.socialize.showSh areUI(H,A); return false; } } By Gordon Edes ESPNBoston.com Archive FORT MYERS, Fla. -Longtime Boston Red Sox shortstop Nomar Garciaparra retired from baseball on Wednesday morning, signing a one-day contract with the Red Sox in order to retire as a member of the team. “ Everywhere I go I get so many [Red Sox fans] come to me and tell me 'Thank you. We miss you. We still love you.' And it's so genuine and the feeling is mutual. Hopefully from my actions throughout my career in that uniform and hopefully my actions today again tell them what it means to me.”-- Nomar Garciaparra "I've always had a recurring

dream, to be able to retire in a Red Sox uniform," Garciaparra said at a press conference at City of Palms Park. "Thanks to Mr. [John] Henry, Mr. [Tom] Werner, Mr. [Larry] Lucchino and Theo [Epstein], today I get to fulfill that dream and retire as a Red Sox. "Earlier today, I did sign a minor league contract to be a part of the organization once again. I was getting choked up then, and I'm getting choked up now. I've got the chills.

"But to be able to have that dream come true, I really just can't put into words because of what this organization has always meant to me, meant to my family, the fans. I always tell people Red Sox Nation is bigger than any nation out there, and to be able to tell people that I came back home to be back to Red Sox Nation is truly a thrill."

Garciaparra will join ESPN as a baseball analyst. He will be seen primarily on Baseball Tonight but will also serve as an occasional game analyst.

The 36-year-old Garciaparra spent the first nine seasons of his 14-year career in Boston, where he developed into a fan favorite, a perennial All-Star and the best shortstop in team history. He won the American League Rookie of the Year Award in 1997 and won batting

titles in back-to-back seasons in 1999 and 2000. His career average with the Red Sox stands at .323, with 178 homers and 690 RBIs. He stressed Wednesday that fan support was one of the biggest reasons why it was so important to him to retire in a Red Sox uniform.

"Everywhere I go I get so many [Red Sox fans] come to me and tell me 'Thank you. We miss you. We still love you,'" Garciaparra said. "And it's so genuine and the feeling is mutual. Hopefully from my actions throughout my career in that uniform and hopefully my actions today again tell them what it means to me."

Lucchino echoed those sentiments from the team's perspective.

"We welcome you home," Lucchino said at the press conference. "It gives us enormous pride to recognize the respect you have to the organization, the connection you feel to the organization, the connection you feel to our fans and Fenway Park, and I'm here to fell you the feelings are mutual. When the history of the Boston Red Sox is written again, there will be a very large and important chapter devoted to Nomar Garciaparra."

Garciaparra said he decided to

retire when he realized this offseason that due to a condition that has limited him over the years, he "just couldn't work out the way I like to work out, and that really was my ultimate decision."

"There was a time this offseason when I was getting ready and I remember coming home and looking at my wife and going 'My tank is empty,'" Garciaparra said. "And that for me was an absolute thrill to be able to say that. I really just gave everything I could to this game."

Garciaparra's wife, former soccer star Mia Hamm, attended the press conference with the couple's twin daughters.

Garciaparra was famously traded to the Chicago Cubs by general manager Theo Epstein at the trade deadline during the 2004 season, a controversial move that resulted in the addition of Doug Mientkiewicz and Orlando Cabrera, who helped to spark the team to its first World Series title in 86 years.

Garciaparra re-signed with the Cubs in 2005, but injuries limited him to just 62 games that season. He played with the Los Angeles Dodgers from 2006 -2008 and was a part-time player with the Oakland LONGTIME page 79

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NASCAR continued from page 75

that won last year’s NCAA championship.

The NCAA tournament field will get to 65, with other teams probably filling the spots usually given by default to UConn and UNC. Count North Texas, one of the worst basketball programs in the nation a decade ago, among that group. The Mean Green held off Troy University in the Sun Belt Conference finals and are staging an impressive programwide comeback, Tim MacMahon writes at ESPN Dallas.

Another member of the tournament field will come out of the Mid-American Conference, but as the Journal’s Darren Everson reports, that likely will be the last we hear of them. No MAC team has won an NCAA championship in any sport since 1965, and the conference hasn’t had a team win an NCAA tournament game in six seasons.* * * Because he does his work quietly, and in the small baseball market of Minnesota, Joe Nathan remains somewhat underrated. By the numbers, though, only Mariano Rivera has even approached Nathan’s excellence as a closer during the

last half-decade or so. All of which is to say that the news of Nathan’s torn elbow ligament and likely date with Tommy John surgery is a very big deal indeed for the Twins. In the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Jim Souhan assesses the impact of Nathan’s likely absence.

In Sports Illustrated, Joe Posnanski runs down the list of the Twins’ in-house replacements and goes in-depth on Nathan’s mastery. “With Nathan out, there is definitely a new wind of hope blowing through the American League Central,” Posnanski concludes.

“Combined, the Indians, Tigers, Royals and White Sox hit .161 against Joe Nathan. They’ll be happy to take their swings against someone else.”* * * Many professional athletes charge fees for their autographs.

The biggest names can score a solid payday simply by scribbling said name a few hundred times. So there was nothing so controversial about Tim Tebow participating in an autograph signing in Jacksonville last weekend, nor even about the 2007 Heisman Trophy winner’s fees of $160 per autograph and $75 for a photo. Still, because that price

was more than the rate for other former collegiate star quarterbacks Colt McCoy and Sam Bradford, and because it’s Tebow — surely the most vanilla controversy-magnet in sports history — it has become a story. At CNBC, Darren Rovell brushes off the controversy over Tebow’s pricy signature as an example of the market at work.

At Deadspin, Dashiell Bennett does Rovell one better, floating the idea of Tebow as a one-man economic-stimulus package. “If a guy can get this much attention for an autograph signing, imagine what would happen if he actually appeared in a football game,” Bennett writes. “Granted, this probably only applies to Northern Florida, but the economic benefits may be much greater than we ever anticipated.”* * * Willie Davis enjoyed a long and successful big-league career, but was never mentioned in the first tier of National League outfielders during his glory years with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Given that said first tier comprised Hall of Famers such as Willie Mays, Henry Aaron, Frank Robinson and Roberto Clemente, it’s understandable that — despite

two All-Star Game appearances and three Gold Gloves — Davis never quite reached that level.

But Davis, who died Tuesday at the age of 69, remains a legend to those who saw him play.

“What none of those [top tier] players had — few that I can recall in any era — was Davis’ combination of urban cool and blazing speed,” the San Francisco Chronicle’s Bruce Jenkins writes. “He addressed the world at a slow, measured pace, never in a rush. He basically let life come to him.

Even as he approached home plate with a bat in his hands, he struck the impression of a man wearing shades at the far corner table of a jazz club.”

— Tip of the Fix cap to readers Gerard Cosloy, Don Hartline and Steve McCants, and to fellow Fixer Garey Ris. 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 David at droth11@gmail.com.

Street Chic: Paris Fashion Week ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog) Submitted at 3/10/2010 9:00:00 AM

An elegant fur and a statement bag offer a double dose of luxe style.

Photo: Anne Ziegler Click here for our complete fall 2010 Fashion Week coverage Think you are Street Chic? Email us your photo and you could appear in ELLE.com's Street Chic Daily.

Follow ELLE on Twitter.

Become our Facebook fan!

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Derek Anderson says he regrets lashing out at Cleveland Browns fans following release ESPN.com news services (ESPN.com) Submitted at 3/10/2010 8:22:26 AM

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1767"); if (jQuery("#videoInfo").length > 0 ) { I.setDescription(jQuery(".article p:not(div.beta-opt p):first").text()); } else { I.setDescription(jQuery("p:first" ).text()); } if (jQuery(".article .image, .headshot").length > 0) { var theimage = (jQuery(".article . i m a g e , .headshot").find("img").attr("src ")); I.addMediaItem( { type: 'image', src: theimage, href: 'http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/ne ws/story?id=4981767' }); } A.userAction = I; gigya.services.socialize.showSh areUI(H,A); return false; } } ESPN.com news services Former Cleveland Browns quarterback Derek Anderson says he regrets statements he made blasting Browns fans following his release from the team on Tuesday.

A Tough Town For QBs Derek Anderson's comments point to two things that are true in Cleveland, writes James Walker. Browns fans are frustrated. And they're often smitten with the quarterback holding the clipboard. Blog On Tuesday, the Browns

released Anderson, a former Pro Bowl quarterback, after five years in Cleveland, as the team decided to cast its lot with Brady Quinn and avoid paying Anderson a $2 million roster bonus and a $7.45 million salary in 2010.

The move came just one day after the team acquired Seneca Wallace in a trade with the Seattle Seahawks.

Following his release, Anderson lashed out at Browns fans in an e-mail to the Willoughby News-Herald.

"The fans are ruthless and don't deserve a winner," Anderson said in the e-mail Tuesday. "I will never forget getting cheered when I was injured.

"I know at times I wasn't great. I hope and pray I'm playing when my team comes to town and [we] roll them."

In a statement released Wednesday, Anderson said those words came out of frustration. “ I wasn't taken out of context, but I was speaking out of frustration after my career with the Browns came to a close.”-Ex-Browns QB Derek Anderson "I said some things to [News-

Herald reporter] Jeff Schudel earlier that I regret," Anderson said. "Those of you who got to know me personally from covering the Browns over the past five years, know this was out of character for me. I wasn't taken out of context, but I was speaking out of frustration after my career with the Browns came to a close.

"I had some great times playing in Cleveland, especially during the 2007 season, and I met some great people and made many lifelong friends along the way," Anderson said Wednesday. "I'm looking forward to starting a new chapter in my life."

According to a league source, Anderson already has two scheduled visits -- first with the Seattle Seahawks on Thursday and then the Arizona Cardinals on Friday.

ESPN.com AFC North writer James Walker and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Street Chic: Paris Fashion Week ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog) Submitted at 3/10/2010 7:30:00 AM

A sophisticated print stands out against black basics.

Photo: Anne Ziegler Click here for our complete fall 2010 Fashion Week coverage Think you are Street Chic? Email us your photo and you could appear in ELLE.com's Street Chic Daily.

Follow ELLE on Twitter.

Become our Facebook fan!

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Marion Jones signs contract with WNBA's Tulsa Shock Associated Press (ESPN.com) Submitted at 3/10/2010 9:27:45 AM

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0over,%20signs%20with%20W NBA%20team")); } I.setLinkBack("http://sports.esp n.go.com/wnba/news/story?id=4 982240"); if (jQuery("#videoInfo").length > 0 ) { I.setDescription(jQuery(".article p:not(div.beta-opt p):first").text()); } else { I.setDescription(jQuery("p:first" ).text()); } if (jQuery(".article .image, .headshot").length > 0) { var theimage = (jQuery(".article . i m a g e , .headshot").find("img").attr("src ")); I.addMediaItem( { type: 'image', src: theimage, href: 'http://sports.espn.go.com/wnba/ news/story?id=4982240' }); } A.userAction = I; gigya.services.socialize.showSh areUI(H,A); return false; } } Associated Press TULSA, Okla. -- Former sprinter Marion Jones has signed on to play with the WNBA's Tulsa Shock, hoping to launch a new career after being stripped of five Olympic medals for using performance-

enhancing drugs.

Jones was a star at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney but admitted two years ago that she had taken a designer steroid known as the "clear." The International Olympic Committee took away her medals, including three golds.

She also spent about six months in a Texas federal prison for lying about doping and her role in a check-fraud scam.

Before she became known as the world's fastest woman, Jones was the starting point guard on North Carolina's national championship team in 1994.

She was drafted by Phoenix in 2003 but never played in the WNBA. Jones was introduced Wednesday at a news conference in Tulsa.

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Athletics last season.

Red Sox manager Terry Francona's experience with Nomar bookends the beginning and end of Garciaparra's time with the Red Sox. Francona managed Garciaparra in the Arizona Fall League in 1994, after Garciaparra's first season with the Sox organization, and was managing the Sox when Nomar was traded in 2004.

"The time I had him in the Fall League was one of the highlights of my career,'' Francona said Wednesday. "[In 2004,] I think he was kind of Boston'd out. It kind of wore on him for whatever reasons.

Sometimes it's just time to move on.''

Spring training updates Gordon Edes, Joe McDonald and the rest of the ESPNBoston.com team have you covered on the Red Sox from Fort Myers. Blog • Sox spring training photos » The biggest thing that caught Francona's eye in the Fall League? "A 20-year-old kid personally passing out Christmas cards three weeks early. I hadn't even bought my family presents yet.

"He wasn't pulling the ball yet, everything was to right-center, but you could see it coming.''

Francona recalled a meeting he had with Kevin Kennedy, who was managing the Red Sox at the time, and Tim Johnson, one of his coaches, and being asked whether he thought Garciaparra could play second base.

"I said I don't know who you have at short, but whoever it is you might want to move him.''

In 1997, when Garciaparra made it to the big leagues, new manager Jimy Williams did just that, prompting a brief walkout from camp by John Valentin, who reluctantly gave up short and played second and third.

Francona, who was in his first season as manager with the Red Sox, said he didn't fully realize how iconic Garciaparra was in Boston until after the tradingdeadline deal that sent Nomar to the Cubs.

"When it was over, I remember laughing with Theo [Epstein], 'I was behind you every step of the way, not in front of you.'''

Gordon Edes covers the Red Sox for ESPNBoston.com.

Follow him on Twitter.

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The Count: UConn Women Face Tough Historical Comparison (WSJ.com: The Daily Fix)

opponents. Then again, against more limited top-flight competition last year, UConn The Big East and the rest of the was more dominant, winning by nation’s women’s basketball an average of 29 points against teams haven’t posed much of a top 10 teams, compared to 26 challenge to UConn this season. points this year.

The Huskies improved to 32-0 Also notable: This year’s team and won their record 71st last year’s UConn team, which is stingier on defense, yielding consecutive game overall with a went 39-0. an average of 47 points per 59-44 defeat of No. 7 Notre This year’s team needs seven game, compared to 53 last year D a m e i n t h e B i g E a s t more tough wins to match that at this point in the season. When t o u r n a m e n t s e m i f i n a l s o n record. But so far, it’s kept pace baskets are harder to come by, a Monday. If UConn keeps rolling or even passed the prior year’s double-digit points deficit is — t h r o u g h t h e B i g E a s t model. The average victory more dominant. championship game against margin this year is 35 points, There’s one qualitative way this West Virginia on Tuesday, and c o m p a r e d t o 3 1 l a s t y e a r year’s UConn team could assert the six games needed to win the through the Big East semis. dominance over last year’s.

N C A A t o u r n a m e n t — i t s During the equivalent 32-game Neither one had Tennessee on biggest rival might be last year’s spans, this year’s team has the regular-season schedule. The UConn team. Associated Press fewer losses by fewer than 15 two traditional powerhouses — Maya Moore and UConn have — two compared to seven — winners of 11 of the last 15 work to do to match last year’s and by fewer than 20 points — national titles — haven’t faced five compared to 10.

Huskies team. each other in over three years, That 15-point victory over Also, UConn has faced an thanks to a spat over recruiting.

Notre Dame was too close for arguably tougher schedule this Last year’s UConn team missed c o m f o r t f o r t h e H u s k i e s . year. By this point last season, t h e V o l u n t e e r s i n t h e They’ve had just two wins by UConn had played five games tournament, as it was a down smaller margins this season, the against top 25 opponents, and year for Tennessee. This year, closest a 12-point victory over three against top 10 teams. This the Volunteers are ranked fourth No. 2 Stanford in December. year the Huskies already have in the nation and could meet the Just one team has won all of its faced 12 games against top 25 Huskies in the Final Four. games by double-digit margins, teams, 11 against top 13 teams including in postseason play: a n d s e v e n a g a i n s t t o p 1 0 Submitted at 3/9/2010 12:59:19 PM

E-reader News Edition

Clips Dump Dunleavy, Bench Davis and Hope for LeBron Tim Povtak (FanHouse Main) Submitted at 3/9/2010 5:05:00 PM

Filed under: Clippers, Magic ORLANDO, Fla. -- It was another wacky day in the weird world of the Los Angeles Clippers, one of the most confounding franchises in NBA history.

The Clippers fired -- or as they said, "severed ties''-- with general manager Mike Dunleavy, and announced it during a game in which they never were competitive. In making the announcement on the team's Web site, Clipper management also blasted Dunleavy on his way out the door.

It was a game in which point guard Baron Davis-- their highest-paid player and supposed leader -- lashed out for being benched after missing a morning practice with "a stomach ailment.''

Fears of China property bubble grow (Financial Times - US homepage) Submitted at 3/10/2010 8:06:27 AM

Chinese real estate prices accelerated last month, rising by their fastest pace in two years despite government efforts to cool the market amid fears of a looming property bubble.

Prices of commercial and residential property in China’s

70 largest cities rose by 10.7 per cent in February from the same period a year earlier, a marked increase from the 9.5 per cent year-on-year gain in January, according to China’s statistics bureau.

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48-year-old defenseman Chris Chelios called up by Atlanta Thrashers Pierre LeBrun (ESPN.com) Submitted at 3/10/2010 8:51:19 AM

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{ I.setTitle(decodeURIComponent ("Thrashers%20call%20up%204 8 y e a r old%20Chelios%20from%20A HL")); } I.setLinkBack("http://sports.esp n.go.com/nhl/news/story?id=49 82207"); if (jQuery("#videoInfo").length > 0 ) { I.setDescription(jQuery(".article p:not(div.beta-opt p):first").text()); } else { I.setDescription(jQuery("p:first" ).text()); } if (jQuery(".article .image, .headshot").length > 0) { var theimage = (jQuery(".article . i m a g e , .headshot").find("img").attr("src ")); I.addMediaItem( { type: 'image', src: theimage, href: 'http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/ne ws/story?id=4982207' }); } A.userAction = I; gigya.services.socialize.showSh areUI(H,A); return false;

} } By Pierre LeBrun ESPN.com Archive Chris Chelios is headed back to the show.

The 48-year-old defenseman has been called up by the Atlanta Thrashers, general manager Don Waddell told ESPN.com Wednesday.

Chelios had 22 points (5 goals, 17 assists) in 46 games with the AHL's Chicago Wolves this season. He signed an NHL deal with the Thrashers on March 2.

The Wolves are Atlanta's primary AHL affiliate.

The Chicago native last played in the NHL last May 27 with the Detroit Red Wings against the Chicago Blackhawks in the Western Conference finals.

Pierre LeBrun covers the NHL for ESPN.com.

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Report: Rebellion cuts 20 staff, Derby studio shuts down Alexander Sliwinski (Joystiq)

the Derby studio, which once upon a time was Core Design( Tomb Raider), has been on the Rebellion has allegedly let go chopping block for months. If approximately 20 staff from its y o u a r e a m e m b e r o r main studio in Oxford, UK, representative of the studio, while its Derby location has please don't hesitate to contact b e e n s h u t d o w n , r e p o r t s us(whether on or off the record) Develop. Rebellion, which most with clarification.

-recently released Aliens vs [Via Edge] Predator, has yet to confirm the Report: Rebellion cuts 20 staff, details Derby studio shuts down As is typical with these types of originally appeared on Joystiq stories, it's hard to tell if the on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 11:00:00 layoffs were part of the natural EST. Please see our terms for game development cycle after a use of feeds. major release, or if there's an Read| Permalink| Email this| actual "issue" going on. As for Comments Submitted at 3/10/2010 11:00:00 AM

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Warning to NASCAR Dopes: Someone Is Going to Die

Wholesale inventories unexpectedly falls and I/S ratio now at record low

Jay Mariotti (FanHouse Main)

Peter Boockvar (The Big Picture)

Submitted at 3/9/2010 3:05:00 PM

Submitted at 3/10/2010 7:22:07 AM

We know what would happen, of course. If Carl Edwards was driving down a freeway somewhere in America and decided to play a vindictive game of bumper cars, he'd be convicted of vehicular assault and sent to jail for months, if not years. But out on a NASCAR track, in a souped-up racing machine speeding at 195 miles per hour with thousands of spectators close by, an angry Edwards somehow is allowed to retaliate against Brad Keselowski by purposely wrecking into his car and sending it airborne into the front -stretch retaining fence in Atlanta.

This is beyond lunacy. It's an invitation for tragedy, the equivalent of Major League Baseball granting its pitchers permission to head-hunt, a death game that endangers drivers and fans in the name of creating attention and television ratings for a fading sport. The problem with the gearheads who run NASCAR is that they think drivers and fans can't die at the

Jan inventories at the wholesale level unexpectedly fell by .2% vs a forecasted gain of .2% and Dec was revised lower by .2 of % pt to a decline of 1%. Durable good inventories fell across the board, in auto’s, computers and machinery partially offset by a rise in nondurables, led by groceries. Auto wholesale inventories have now fallen for a 3rd month. Machinery inventories fell for a 12 straight month. Because sales rose 1.3%, the inventory to sales ratio fell to an all time record low of 1.10 track. Let me state right here, "boys, have at it" philosophy -- season and send him to a shrink. f r o m 1 . 1 2 . B o t t o m l i n e , right now, that we're going to permitting drivers to police But in the fantasy world of inventory restocking (which have a funeral or two sooner themselves and settle scores NASCAR, where they pretend statistically lifts GDP) has still than later if these foolish, amid bad wrecks and heat-of-the that cars are props and human not handed the baton to stocking desperate good-old-boys don't - b a t t l e d i s a g r e e m e n t s - - beings are mannequins, he will likely due to the still uncertain reassess their policies and p r e s i d e n t M i k e H e l t o n keep driving in the Sprint Cup outlook with final demand. With prevent drivers from retaliating announced that Edwards has and Nationwide Series. Why? this said, inventories are very inside their moving coffins. been placed on probation for Oh, probably because Edwards lean and even the slightest pick Incredibly Tuesday, NASCAR three weeks. In real life, this is has a sponsor, Aflac, and in the up in end demand should lead to didn't suspend Edwards for his akin to an enraged motorist current economy within a the eventual restocking. scary and very intentional run at sending another driver into a financially struggling sport, it's Five Filters featured article: Keselowski last Sunday, an guardrail and totaling his car, better to give a hall pass to a Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: incident that came when he was only to receive a $5 fine. vehicular maniac than risk PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. trailing by a whopping 153 laps. Personally, I would banish losing a major account.

Staying true to its shameful Edwards for the rest of the Sad. And sick.

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Metareview: Final Fantasy XIII Alexander Sliwinski (Joystiq)

long for the days of old. When Vanille is knocked out in battle, she sometimes says: 'What went wrong' It's a question we find ourselves wondering as well."

• Edge: ( 50/100): " FFXIII takes brave risks with the series' foundations, but they ultimately create trembling fractures throughout the entire edifice, that robust battle system unable to support the weight of an entire world. Final Fantasy games are always an investment.

This time, the returns are questionable."

Submitted at 3/10/2010 12:00:00 PM

Sweet Shiva, the Final Fantasy XIII reviews are all over the place. What has been clear over the past couple years is that the Japanese RPG has been going through some seriously violent flux. The genre is trying to find a new path, and even as Japanese developers seem to search for a balance that'll please several markets, they're freaking out western reviewers and audiences, who have a certain expectation going into these games -- a fault of fans, as much as decades of ingrained convention by those developers.

The new JRPGs aren't necessarily great games. They certainly break conventions of what a JRPG is, so how to review them? Along comes Final Fantasy XIII, another risk taker, but this time by the genre's big kahuna -- at least, it is in the west. We've weighed in

with our review; let's see what other outlets think:

myth, Final Fantasy XIII is a phenomenal RPG destined to be remembered as a technical • Game Informer( 93/100): "For milestone for the series." years, gamers have had visions • Eurogamer( 80/100): of this title as an industry- "Palatable is very much the transforming epiphany, but no word for Final Fantasy XIII. game could possibly live up to The Final Fantasy series, with such astronomical expectations. its lengthy cinematics, stubborn That's no reason to lose faith; style and carefully prescribed though reality doesn't match the limitations, can never hope to

please everyone. So it's strange to see it try, and no surprise that the result is not a total success."

• VideoGamer( 70/100): "You have to hand it to Square Enix for trying to move things forward - better that than yet another rehash of the tried and tested Final Fantasy formula ...

But it does so along a path so narrow and straight that you

Gallery: Final Fantasy XIII Metareview: Final Fantasy XIII originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Person-ELLE Style: Head-to-Toe Black ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog)

gothic school girl, and Sarah toyed with androgyny in her rare but directional skirt-pant...or is Great fashion minds think alike; it skant? No matter how it's a n d , y e s t e r d a y , t h r e e i n worn, all-black is a strong particular were thinking head-to fashion statement to make.

- t o e b l a c k . M a l i n a w e n t Sometimes mistaken for gloom, minimalistic (not generally a it's a look that's chic in its intangible, subtle toughness habit of hers), Jade channeled a simplicity and embodies an without being too literal. In the Submitted at 3/10/2010 9:10:17 AM

ELLE fashion department, we rarely get to flex our math muscles, but we couldn't resist this happy coincidence cum fashion algebra equation: Malina + Jade = Sarah!

From left: Malina Joseph, Fashion Bookings Editor; Jade Frampton, Market Editor; Sarah

Schussheim, Assistant Fashion Editor —Jennifer Gach, Assistant Fashion Editor Follow ELLE on Twitter.

Become our Facebook fan!

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Regulators tell US banks to hold funds (Financial Times - US homepage) Submitted at 3/9/2010 2:30:42 PM

US regulators have told banks not to increase dividends or buy back shares until political and economic uncertainty surrounding the industry dissipates, in a move that will delay by months the return of capital to shareholders.

Some investors in financial

Reggie: Nintendo not 'thinking seriously' about next console yet JC Fletcher (Joystiq) Submitted at 3/10/2010 12:30:00 PM

In a Forbes interview, Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime gave the impression that a new home console from Nintendo is still in the distant future.

"The way we approach that innovation," he said, referring to Nintendo's innovative "jumps" (like the Wii), "because we have hardware developers working side by side with software developers, is that when the software developer comes forward with an idea that can't

be executed on the current platform, that's when we start thinking seriously about the next system. We're not there yet, from a Wii perspective." Of course, E3 is still a few months away.

Satoru Iwata recently commented that a Wii successor would "need something new" in addition to HD graphics to be worthwhile, and Fils-Aime, who has previously, " forcefully" denied plans for an Wii HD model, echoed this sentiment.

"So when people talk about high definition for the Wii console, our feedback is that that by itself

will not create a brand new experience. Therefore, we're not interested. What we have to push for are groundbreaking new experiences. Technology has to enable it, not to be a means all by itself."

[Via Edge] Reggie: Nintendo not 'thinking seriously' about next console yet originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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stocks argue that winners of the credit crisis, such as JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, have profitable businesses and strong balance sheets and should consider raising dividends or buying back stocks.

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Lone Star set to revive KEB stake sale (Financial Times - US homepage)

Suisse to advise on the stake sale, according to people familiar with the matter, in the Submitted at 3/10/2010 5:24:00 AM clearest sign for months that it is Lone Star, the US private p r e p a r e d t o e n g a g e w i t h equity fund, is set to restart the p o t e n t i a l b u y e r s . sale process of its controlling Five Filters featured article: stake in Korea Exchange Bank, Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: paving the way for the ending of PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, one of Asia’s longest running Term Extraction. financial sagas.

The fund has appointed Credit

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Your friend’s favorites Zack Sheppard (Flickr Blog)

one of my contact’s favorites, finding a photo, checking out that person’s favorites, etc.

Favorites are a great way to Photos from Arman-h , Jim explore Flickr. You’ll almost P a t t e r s o n P h o t o g r a p h y , always find jewels leading you j a s o n t h e a k e r , to new photostreams and groups LOlandeseVolante, Matilde B., that you’d otherwise have never and[Adam_Baker]. found. So next time you’re Five Filters featured article: looking at someone’s photo, Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: mouse over their buddy icon and PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, click “Favorites”. The above Term Extraction. photos were found by looking at Submitted at 3/9/2010 10:19:05 AM

GDC Hands-on: Joe Danger (PSN) Andrew Yoon (Joystiq)

The little we've seen of Joe Danger up to now has been a bit misleading. It has come off as a Hey PS3 owners, have you simple, cartoony motocrossbeen waiting for the PSN style racer. During my GDC equivalent of Trials HD? Well, demo, however, developer Hello Joe Danger's for you. Have you G a m e s n a m e - d r o p p e d a n been waiting for a new side- intriguing, if not seemingly scrolling Sonic the Hedgehog r a n d o m l i s t o f c e l e b r a t e d game? Then, Joe Danger is also inspirations for the game -for you. How about an HD ranging from Tony Hawk to version of Canabalt? Yep, Joe Super Monkey Ball. After a few Danger is your game. Or, have moments of play, the shutouts you been missing those split- made sense. screen multiplayer racing games While it may appear to be a of old? It should be obvious by simple racing game, Joe Danger now: Joe Danger is the game hides a surprising level of depth you're looking for. and complexity in its stunt Submitted at 3/10/2010 11:30:00 AM

system, while not being unapproachable. Tricks are very easy to perform: simply press L1 or R1. There's no need for complex button inputs or tricky stick twirls.

Gallery: Joe Danger Continue reading GDC Handson: Joe Danger (PSN) GDC Hands-on: Joe Danger (PSN) originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 10 Mar 2010 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The World of Giuseppe Zanotti Design Opens Online boutique ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog) Submitted at 3/10/2010 9:19:43 AM

With the launch of giuseppezanottidesign.com, news, pictures, video clips, plus services designed and devoted to the designer’s most faithful customers are available with the swish of their mouse. Even better—the designer’s coveted creations can be purchased at the brand-new online store operating in Europe, the United States, Japan and many other countries.

The site has three notable sections: first and foremost is the “e-collection,” featuring two unique and exclusive pieces created in a limited edition for the launch of this new website, and available only by ordering online. Essential and elegant, the superflat sandal made of black nappa leather sparkles with a band of iridescent crystals and the matching clutch bag is also covered with a cascade of small shining stars.

These two jewel accessories come in three shades of color: crystal, aurora borealis and cobalt.

Delman Exhibit Opens at the Fashion Institute of Technology Museum ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog) Submitted at 3/10/2010 9:06:28 AM

The section “Special request” is devoted to fashion addicts. It’s a simple and handy solution for making often hard-to-find pieces available, with a special form that lets visitors send requests for certain items and, once ready, they can be picked up at the closest boutique.

Another innovation on the giuseppezanottidesign.com website is the “Your wedding shoe” section devoted entirely to brides. Giuseppe is showing special attention to the

matrimonially minded by not only offering his stunning bridal accessories for purchase, but by also giving brides the opportunity to order items made -to-measure. The customer can set up an appointment with a Giuseppe Zanotti Design boutique online and, once in store, a personal shopper at the boutique will assist the customer in picking out the model, material, and color that goes best with the wedding dress.

Sophisticated brooches, elegant

embroidery work and expertly decorated heels will make the bride’s look truly extraordinary on the most special day of her life.

I promise just visiting the website will make any shoe lovers heart skip a beat.

—Kyle Anderson, Senior Accessories Editor Follow ELLE on Twitter.

Become our Facebook fan!

You can tell more about a woman by the shoes she wears than by reading her palm," said legendary shoeman Herman Delman, who’s being honored in a wonderful exhibit that opened yesterday at the Museum of F.I.T. called “Scandal Sandals and Lady Slippers: A History of Delman Shoes.” A laundry list of iconic women such Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Marilyn Monroe, Ava Gardner, and Marlene Dietrich all wore Delman shoes, and thanks to the exhibition, Delman's special allure is very much on view this spring. Innovative shoes from the Museum and Delman's own archived footwear is shown along with classic Delman ads

by Russian artist Erte, and photographs by John Rawlings and Man Ray. “Delman showcased fine craftsmanship as much as promoted beautiful DELMAN page 87

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DELMAN continued from page 86

design," wrote the co-curators Hours: Tuesday-Friday, 12pmSarah Byrd and Laura Mina, 8pm, and Saturday 10-5pm. who produced the show with — K y l e A n d e r s o n , S e n i o r their graduate colleagues at FIT. A c c e s s o r i e s E d i t o r The exhibit continues through Follow ELLE on Twitter.

April 3rd at the Museum of the Become our Facebook fan!

Fashion Institute of Technology, which is located at 227 West 27th Street at seventh Avenue in New York City.

Life insurance: Snoopy sniffs an opportunity (The Economist: News analysis) Submitted at 3/9/2010 11:38:03 PM

Life insurance AIG reluctantly hands its crown as America’s global life insurer to MetLife Mar 10th 2010 | NEW YORK | From The Economist print edition ANOTHER week, another opportunity for AIG’s rivals to expand at the American insurer’s expense. Days after sealing a $35.5 billion deal for its Asian life-insurance operations with Britain’s Prudential, the firm, which is being dismembered to recoup bail-out costs, agreed on March 8th to sell another crown jewel, Alico. The acquisition propels New York-based MetLife, which is paying $15.5 billion, into the industry’s global elite.

Though it is the biggest life

insurer in America, where its Snoopy logo is ubiquitous, it has been tentative abroad. Alico will give it a presence in 64 countries, up from 17 now, taking its non-American revenue from 15% of the total to 40%.

The biggest leap will be in Japan, the world’s secondlargest life market, in which Alico is a top-tier competitor.

But MetLife’s boss, Robert Henrikson (who took over in 2006 from Robert Benmosche, now AIG’s chief executive), also has his eye on the fastergrowing markets in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Latin America that make up almost a quarter of Alico’s business. Another attraction is its distribution network: 60,000 agents, brokers and other local middlemen.

MetLife was well placed to grab Alico, having emerged

from the financial crisis bruised but far from broken, with a solid investment-grade credit rating.

The firm raised private capital as opportunities arose, avoiding the need to take public money when markets froze.

Its new focus on foreign markets is understandable.

Domestic premiums are stabilising after plummeting during the turmoil, but growth is likely to be anaemic. American life insurers returned to profit last year after recording a thumping loss of $52 billion in 2008 (on a statutory-accounting basis). But A.M. Best, a rating agency that specialises in insurance, has a negative outlook on the sector. Among the agency’s concerns are economic weakness, tighter federal regulation (insurers are currently overseen state by state) and the public’s loss of

faith in retirement products. A survey by LIMRA, an industry group, in October found that only 18% of Americans had “strong” confidence in insurers.

Logical though it is, foreign expansion carries risks for MetLife. Moody’s, a rating agency, responded by cutting its outlook to negative, citing “execution risks” and heightened pressure on cash flow due to increased debt issuance. Analysts worry that MetLife will be less adept at navigating local regulatory regimes than AIG, whose ability to negotiate sweetheart deals in tricky markets was legendary. In Japan, the acquisition is a gamble on the continued growth of medical insurance as the population ages, even as other Western firms, such as Aflac, strengthen their foothold there.

Another potential grenade is

Alico’s investment portfolio, with its substantial exposure to spicy sovereign debt (Greek and Polish bonds) and property (all manner of mortgage-backed securities).

Thanks to AIG’s woes, MetLife has been able to pick up a solid, diverse franchise that would have taken many years to replicate organically. But in insurance, as in banking, most mergers end up flopping, says A.M. Best’s Andrew Edelsberg.

Snoopy’s tail may be wagging, but it is not yet time to dole out the treats. Readers' comments The Economist welcomes your views.

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139-year Monthly Database for the U.S. Stock Market Bob Bronson (The Big Picture) Submitted at 3/10/2010 8:00:23 AM

For the past 42 years, Bob Bronson ( BRONSON CAPITAL MARKETS RESEARCH) has applied a disciplined, analytical approach to understanding and forecasting capital markets and advising investment advisors. Through his rigorous analysis of capital markets and economic data and his background in mathematics

and financial economics, he has developed a number of unique investment concepts and refined portfolio-management techniques that improve returns and lower downside-volatility risk. To learn more, read his BIO. ~~~ The Supercycle mean-reverting nature of the stock market is best revealed through its real total returns (that is, adjusted for price inflation and dividends reinvested), as illustrated in the

chart below (See chart below).

The stock market’s performance over nine alternating Bronson Asset Allocation Cycle (BAAC) Supercycle Bull and Bear Market Periods (green and red shaded areas, respectively) create a robust high-low volatility channel, with parallel upper and lower boundaries showing growth of 6.6% annualized over the 139-year period.

Notice how Supercycle Periods

have become increasingly emergent, as especially seen in rolling 16-year returns rather predictably peaking at 15% +/1% and troughing at 0% +/- 2% (see the lower panel of the chart), which further establishes 16 +/- 4 years as the average length of a BAAC Supercycle Period (Bull or Bear).

The S&P 500 index is currently at the same level as it was four to five months ago, 15 months ago and 12 years ago – that is, there are 0% gains over

each of those periods, the latter of which especially has caused the 16-year Supercycle Oscillator to be approaching its predictable 0% +/- 2% trough.

We continue to expect the end of the current Supercycle Period (a Supercycle Winter, or deflationary Supercycle Bear Market Period) will be signaled by the Oscillator declining still further from about 5% at present to probably below 1% 139-YEAR page 89

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139-YEAR continued from page 88

during the next several years, a forecast supported by our Supercycle fundamental valuation and other indicators in our forecasting models. > click for giant chart > The monthly real total return index used in this chart is from our uniquely compiled capitalization-weighted index (CWI) of all exchanged-traded US common stocks which, along with several important enhancements explained below, splices the S&P/Wilshire 5000 Composite Index with a database going back to 1870 that is maintained

by Yale professor of economics R o b e r t S h i l l e r : http://.econ.yale.edu/~shiller/dat a.htm.

Our CWI contains only common stocks, which currently comprise some 6,000 of the more than 10,000 securities currently traded on the NYSE, NASDAQ and ASE. It excludes the more than 4,000 noncommon stocks, which would otherwise constitute statistically -distorting data that is duplicative or irrelevant.

Shiller’s database splices the Cowles Commission database from 1870 to 1926 with the high -quality, no-survivor-bias, CRSP database, as explained h e r e : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cen ter_for_Research_in_Security_P rices But instead of essentially smoothing data as Shiller does by using the average of daily closing prices during each month, we prefer not to smooth and instead to track very important mean-reverting bullbear volatility. Thus, our CWI uses intra-month, cyclical bulland bear-market high and low prices, identified in exhibit E: http://www.financialsense.com/ editorials/bronson/model.pdf, which we substitute for monthend prices for the S&P 500 Index since Dec 1949 and for the S&P Wilshire 5000 Composite Index since Apr 2001.

Further, in order to capture as much meaningful price volatility as reasonably possible for the even earlier monthly data prior to 1950, we’ve replaced Shiller’s monthly averaged data with Dow Jones Industrial Average intra-month cyclical

bull- and bear-market high and low prices going back to its first availability in 1896: http://www.djaverages.com/inde x.cfm?view=industrial&page=re ports&show=performance&sym bol=DJI All of this spliced, expanded and more refined monthly CWI data is further enhanced by presenting it as a real total return index, which reveals Supercycles better than more popular presentations that do not adjust for either dividends or price inflation.

Subscribers to our private list may request a fully detailed and easy-to-maintain spreadsheet of the 139-year price-only, nominal-total-return and realtotal-return history of our monthly CWI index, not otherwise available, for their private, non-commercial use.

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New Mixed Media Edition of Seth Godin Book Unleashed (Inc Magazine) (Yahoo! News Search Results for e-readers) Submitted at 3/10/2010 9:02:44 AM

Today, Vook released a multimedia version of Seth Godin's Unleashing the Ideavirus, which was originally published online ten years ago.

I've been reading a lot about mixed media books designed for tablets and e-readers, so I thought I'd check out the new take on Godin's book, which Vook is calling Unleashing the SUPER Ideavirus.

The e-book, which costs just 99 cents for an online version or iPhone app, has a uncluttered, crisp design. You can choose to view it as text only, video only, or a mix of both text and video.

Each section features text and accompanying videos. For example, the section about the decline of "interruption marketing" includes a video case study about the Little Miss Matched sock company. Some of the terms in the text are linked, so you can click on GeoCities, for example, to read

about the company on Wikipedia. Of course, there are pictures and plenty of graphs that help illustrate Godin's ideas.

Another cool feature of the vook is the ability to click on the "connect" view to comment on the book on Facebook or Twitter or go to Godin's website and blog.

It might take a while to adjust to toggling back and forth between the videos and text, especially if you're viewing the vook on your iPhone. But the concept makes a lot of sense now that more and more books are being read on tablets and ereaders. In particular, the multimedia approach works well for instructional books such as Godin's. I think I'd rather read my Jane Austen the old fashioned way, though.

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Updated: Federal Withholding Tax Revenue Barry Ritholtz (The Big Picture)

move above zero will require that some new net jobs get created. I hope we get that, but Submitted at 3/10/2010 8:58:30 AM in 2002 we had a massive realMatt Trivisonno no stranger to estate building spree going on these pages. He has set up a new and creating jobs for every body site to do “ Real-Time Tracking from copper miners to i-bankers. of the US Economy Using We don’t have anything like that Withholding Tax Revenue:” : today.

The Daily Jobs Update.

So, I do worry that we won’t be Here’s Matt: able to run up to +8% as fast as “I’m thinking that if payrolls we did last time.” stay flat, the annual growth rate And of course, Matt has some can move up to zero. But to new charts for us:

This is the daily plot of the annual growth rate of the raw data. Matt observes we are making the same pattern that we did at the bottom of the last recession in 2002. > Daily Federal Withholding Year over Year Percentage Change > The next chart is also an annual, but plotted every 12 days to smooth the line. Its also adjusted to reflect when the

April 2009 withholding tax credit went into effect. then, so I created a second data series to try and estimate what withholdings would have been without the credit.

(Methodology here) With the adjustments, the curve has turned up decisively. > > Here are the QuarterlyAdjusted version (except for the last four quarters). Those four

bars use the adjusted data. > These charts are updated every day at: The Daily Jobs Update.

If you want the most up-to-date, real time tax data, you can also become a paying subscriber to his site there.

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Flickr on Black Cris Stoddard (Flickr Blog)

also get a dynamic badge to display on your profile or website, showing off your own Take a look at 3 Flickr viewers, or your group’s photos. We each of which displays Flickr really enjoy pulling up random photos “on black”, offers selections from groups to find continuous scrolling, and allows hidden gems buried in the pool. you to authenticate with your The map integration is stellar; Flickr account to comment or search for a place and the map favorite to enhance your Flickr appears at the top of the page. experience. Of course, each app Learn more about the App is showing photos that are Garden in our FAQ. hosted on Flickr, with Photos by spieri_sf, attribution and links back to the Warriorwriter, anda74, photo pages on Flickr.

Abizeleth, dog ma and Fluidr presents photos quickly iceman9294. and seamlessly. It even includes photo viewing options, from with comment boxes built right Applications by haelio, Laurent some EXIF data, the description being able to see photos large to into the page and one-click Henocque and iosart. and geodata as a map right next c r e a t i n g a s k i n n a b l e commenting on multiple photos. Five Filters featured article: to the photo. Our favorite background. We enjoy the ease Flickriver is a classic. Alex Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: feature? Surprise! It gives you a of which you quickly add links c o n t i n u a l l y u p d a t e s t h i s PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, random selection from one of to your photo’s descriptions to application, adding new features Term Extraction. the 4 billion photos in the view them on black in Darckr. which are sure to delight.

Flickrverse. It couldn’t be easier You can even quickly catch-up B e s i d e s e x c e l l e n t a n d to discover something new. on your contact’s recent uploads uncluttered browsing, you can Darckr delights in its wealth of Submitted at 3/10/2010 7:35:04 AM

Amazon Is Building a Better Browser for Kindle (Wired News) (Yahoo! News Search Results for e-readers) Submitted at 3/9/2010 6:13:23 PM

Browsing the web on one of Amazon’s Kindle e-readers is like taking a step backwards in time. It’s clunky and has only limited support for web standards, and bare-bones JavaScript capabilities.

But now Amazon may be looking to add browser AMAZON page 92

UC professor looks to innovate e-readers (The News Record) (Yahoo! News Search Results for e-readers) Submitted at 3/9/2010 6:38:44 PM

A University of Cincinnati electrical engineering associate professor is looking to add a little color to e-readers.

Jason Heikenfeld, an associate professor of electrical engineering at UC, is working on implementing color on products such as the Amazon Kindle and

the Sony Reader, or electronic paper.

Electronic readers have had a substantial impact, according to DisplaySearch, a research firm specializing in the display industry. The firm expects the market to bring in approximately $10 billion by the year 2018 and grow approximately 41 percent annually.

Despite these estimates, the field is facing many challenges,

including the addition of color.

“We’re moving forward, but there is still a lot of work to be done,” Heikenfeld said.

Much of Heikenfeld’s research has focused on instituting the color format style of current print publications into the electronic readers. “[Consumers] want color,” Heikenfeld said. “You’ve got to have bright color and you’ve got to have video.”

There are currently seven or

eight substantial technologies attempting to make color feasible for electronic readers.

The Fujitsu FLEPia, the first color e-book, debuted mid-2009 at a starting price of approximately $1,000.

Until the industry adopts a technology allowing it to use color, the electronic readers will be used predominately by travelers and emerging readers, Heikenfeld said.

One goal UC research has is to

improve the reflectivity of color on electronic readers to a 60- to 70-percent range with full-color — reflectivity of print paper with color is 80 percent.

If that goal is achieved, it could allow a device like the Kindle to become a portable e-paper device that could be used for almost anything, Heikenfeld said.

Despite the potential versatility PROFESSOR page 92

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engineers to the Kindle team, according to the job listings on the company’s website.

A job posting for a browser engineer at Lab126, the division of Amazon that develops the Kindle, indicates the company is looking for somebody to develop “an innovative embedded web browser” for a consumer product.

The role at Lab126 includes designing new features for a new browser while supporting the existing code. Job requirements include familiarity with current web standards and web rendering engines, as well as experience with Java and embedded Linux, both of which the Kindle runs.

The Kindle’s current browsing experience is notably subpar.

It’s good enough to check your e-mail, post to Twitter or read

Wikipedia, but it doesn’t handle images or more complex web apps particularly well. It certainly doesn’t live up to the same vision of the mobile web being outlined by the iPhone, or Android phones like the Droid or Nexus One. And with the coming of the Apple iPad and other threats to Amazon’s dominant e-reader, which should behave on the web about as well as (if not better than) the iPhone, the Kindle had better improve its browser if the device is going to continue to compete with these more capable devices.

Amazon recently launched a beta program for third-party app developers who want to build software for the Kindle.

Apparently, the job listing has been up for a month, but I only became aware of it once

CNET’s Stephen Shankland tweeted about it.

Calls to Lab126 and Amazon on Monday morning went unreturned. I’ll update this post if and when I get more information from Amazon or anyone else.

Meanwhile, if you have any advice about improving the Kindle’s browsing mojo, leave it in the comments.

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Fewer Americans Set on Buying Foreign Cars (All Gallup Headlines)

2009 update found a slight bump in the percentage of Americans who would consider PRINCETON, NJ -- In their car American cars exclusively. The p u r c h a s i n g d e c i s i o n s , latest update shows no further Americans are now less likely to m o m e n t u m i n A m e r i c a n s ' show exclusive loyalty to commitment to domestic cars, foreign brands than they were in but as Japanese automaker PROFESSOR FEWER continued from page 91 continued from page 92 the recent past. Six percent in a Toyota struggles with safety of e-readers, print media will H e i k e n f e l d i s a l e a d i n g adults, dropping from 20% to March 4-7 Gallup survey say issues, Gallup finds a significant not be immediately affected. i n n o v a t o r i n t h e f i e l d . ” 7% since December 2008. This they would consider only drop in the percentage of The effects might be visible in Five Filters featured article: group, aged 18 to 34, had foreign makes when buying a A m e r i c a n s w h o w o u l d five or 10 years, Heikenfeld Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: previously been the most likely car, compared with 12% in exclusively consider imports. said PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, to say they would consider only February 2009 and 15% in The remainder of Americans “E-readers are of great interest Term Extraction. foreign brands when making an December 2008. Meanwhile, the (57%) say they would consider to our subscribers,” said Philip auto purchase; today, however, percentage who would consider both foreign and domestic Ross, senior editor of Gallup finds few Americans of only American cars has leveled brands when making a car “Spectrum” magazine, a any age group feeling that way. off after showing gains from purchase.

Younger Adults Steering publication of the Institute of A corollary finding is that 2008 to 2009.

Electrical and Electronic young adults are significantly Gallup first asked Americans Toward U.S. Brands Engineers. “Professor more likely today than in a b o u t t h e i r c a r - b u y i n g The decline in preference for December 2008 to say they preferences as the government foreign cars is especially would consider only American was considering a bailout of the p r o n o u n c e d a m o n g y o u n g struggling U.S. automakers in FEWER page 93 FEWER page 92 late 2008, and in its February Submitted at 3/9/2010 7:00:00 PM

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brands -- 29% versus 19%. By contrast, a surge in "buy American" sentiment seen among middle-aged adults a year ago has tapered off somewhat in the latest poll.

Despite these changes, older adults remain the most loyal to U.S. car companies, with 45% saying they would consider only American brands, vs. 32% of middle-aged adults and 29% of younger adults.

Preference for American Autos Still Skews Downscale Among income groups, willingness to rule out foreign car brands is highest among households earning less than $30,000 per year (46%) and lowest among those earning at least $75,000 (24%). However, over the past 15 months, most of the increase in loyalty to U.S. car brands is seen among middle -income households. Among this group, willingness to purchase only American cars rose from 26% in December 2008 to 37% in March 2009, and it remains at about that level today (39%).

At the same time, all income groups have become less likely

to say they would consider only foreign cars.

Bottom Line Although the economic downturn has been devastating to the U.S. auto industry -bringing it to the brink of collapse barely a year ago -- the silver lining for Detroit is that the crisis has helped draw Americans' attention to its cars.

And because Americans like what they have seen, or because they feel more compelled to support American brands, or perhaps because of Toyota's highly publicized safety problems, Americans are showing a greater willingness to put themselves behind the wheel of an American vehicle.

This is apparent in the February market data showing new car sales at Ford, Chrysler, and General Motors up compared to a year ago. It is also evident in Gallup polling showing more Americans willing to look at an American brand for their next car purchase. Currently, 93% of Americans say they would either consider American cars along with foreign cars, or consider only American cars.

That's up from 87% in February 2009 and 82% in December 2008.

Survey Methods Results are based on telephone interviews with a random sample of 1,014 national adults, aged 18 and older, conducted March 4-7, 2010. For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is Âą4 percentage points.

Interviews are conducted with respondents on landline telephones (for respondents with a landline telephone) and cellular phones (for respondents who are cell-phone only).

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.

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Green Kingpins Part 1: KR Sridhar of Bloom Energy info@greentechmedia.com (Greentech Media: Headlines) Submitted at 3/10/2010 5:29:56 AM

By the time they are done, J. Craig Venter of Synthetic Genomics and KR Sridhar of Bloom Energy will have raised more than a billion dollars of venture investment between the two of them. Both of these men are world-class entrepreneurs with world-class investor backing.

They spoke at the Wall Street Journal ECO:nomics event last week. The men are in very different markets with and deal with very different sciences.

But both are both taking on enormous technical and societal challenges and huge markets while armed with big war chests -- and big egos. We'll cover Sridhar first.

K.R. Sridhar, the CEO of Bloom Energy, fresh from the peak of the Bloom hype cycle, gave what sounded like a humble Oscar acceptance speech during his time on stage, thanking his investors and employees and saying that he was "just the face of the company."

Despite endorsements from 60 Minutes, Colin Powell, Coca Cola, eBay and others, the firm has won

nothing yet. They've shipped 30 of their Bloom box units so far and "that's nothing compared to what the world needs." He said, "We have to execute and that burden is on us. We take that responsibility very seriously."

When asked to identify the actual breakthrough that Bloom has made, Sridhar responded, "It's about how you put it together," adding, "We have the advantage of being at the right time and the right place of advances in materials and internet technology."

Sridhar addressed the issue of cost and affordability when confronted with the math of a $750,000 box that generates 100kW. That reads as $7500 per kilowatt -- while competitive cost targets for distributed generation are more in the range of $400 per kilowatt for the system and $100 per kilowatt for the stack.

"That's the wrong way to look at the whole problem," Sridhar responded. "The commodity is not the box, it's the electrons."

Sridhar claims that the customer cost of electricity will range from 4 cents per kilowatt hour to 15 cents per kilowatt hour, adding that "the economics for GREEN page 95

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Green Kingpins Part 2: Craig Venter of Synthetic Genomics info@greentechmedia.com (Greentech Media: Headlines)

generation biofuels using photosynthetic algae. That investment will occur over a Submitted at 3/10/2010 5:45:27 AM number of years -- but that's still By the time they are done, J. a lot of cash. It's more than the Craig Venter of Synthetic total amount of venture capital Genomics and KR Sridhar of invested in algae startups since Bloom Energy will have raised 2005. A drop in the bucket for more than a billion dollars of Exxon but still, big money. venture investment between the Here's what Venter had to say: two of them. Both of these men "We are at the early stages of are world-class entrepreneurs seeing what biology can do." w i t h w o r l d - c l a s s i n v e s t o r Venter has come up an idea to backing. trick algae into pumping more They spoke at the Wall Street lipids out. He also claims to Journal ECO:nomics event last have "engineered algae to week. The men are in very c o n t i n u o u s l y p u m p o u t different markets and deal with h y d r o c a r b o n s , " w h i c h very different sciences. But eliminates much of the cost and b o t h a r e b o t h t a k i n g o n energy-intensity of conventional enormous technical and societal algae oil farming. If that can be challenges and huge markets done, economically and at scale while armed with big war chests -- it is absolutely disruptive.

-- and big egos.

Venter understands the Craig Venter is a visionary who challenge confronting him (and led the effort to sequence the every other algae oil aspirant), human genome and now he's saying, "The real bugaboo is working on an equally world- scale." Exxon is ready to invest changing project: Using algae to $600 million but "the next phase g o d i r e c t l y f r o m C O 2 t o will require billions." hydrocarbons.

Venter speaks in a matter-ofIn July of last year, Synthetic fact manner about his activities Genomics announced a $300 but beneath that calm tone are million agreement with Exxon mind-bending ideas straight out to research and develop next of science-fiction novels.

Venter has already created the first cell with a synthetic DNA gene. If not exactly creating life, Venter is bending the genetic code to do his bidding.

He said that he is "going from the four-letter genetic code of A, C, G and T to the binary codes of ones and zeros."

He is "amassing a genetic database...continually learning to write the genetic code" and "treating the genetic code as a raw material." By "changing the DNA software in the cell, the cell converts to a new species." In Venter's words, "The concept of life is changing." He's looking to "design a new algae from scratch with two to three times more efficiency."

Venter is still determining what types of algae to use and whether it is more efficient to grow them in open ponds or in closed containers called bioreactors -- and that's telling.

If these are still questions at Synthetic Genomics and Exxon (i.e., how to grow the algae and which species or strain to use), then these firms have betrayed that we are still very early in the research portion of the program;

we are not yet at the development part of the R&D equation.

In Venter's "optimistic" estimation, it will take roughly a decade to get to scale on CO2 to fuel. But "once the proof of concept is done, this will move rapidly."

There remain many problems with algae -- it's not just a matter of tricking the algae to pump more lipids out or to secrete hydrocarbons. There's an entire process chain in algae farming that needs to be optimized -- algae growth, water issues, nutrient issues and more.

But Venter is a man of action and it's not a good bet to wager against him.

Green Kingpins Part 1: KR Sridhar of Bloom Energy Green Kingpins Part 3: John Doerr of KPCB Green Kingpins Part 4: VC Vinod Khosla Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Green Kingpins Part 3: VC John Doerr of KPCB info@greentechmedia.com (Greentech Media: Headlines) Submitted at 3/10/2010 6:00:47 AM

The occasionally lachrymose but always compelling John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins has been a longtime and vocal advocate of all things green, both in Silicon Valley as well as in Washington, D.C., where he is an advisor to President Obama. Doerr has invested in some of venture capital's most famous successes (Google, Amazon, Sun) and in some less than successful efforts (GO Corporation, MyCFO, Segway).

He has spearheaded KPCB's investment efforts in greentech to create a team of about 20 investment professionals and a portfolio of more than 20 greentech startups including Silver Spring Networks, Fisker Automotive, Bloom Energy, Alta Devices and Solexel.

John Doerr spoke at the Wall Street Journal ECO:nomics event last week. Here are some of the highlights of his talk: According to Doerr, China is investing ten times more than the U.S. on new clean energy as a percentage of their GDP and his conclusion is that "China is winning." He said, "China will be the largest wind GREEN page 96

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GREEN

When Sleep Saves info@greentechmedia.com (Greentech Media: Headlines) Submitted at 3/10/2010 3:49:10 AM

Sleep saved Starwood Hotels and Resorts $350,000 in 2009.

The company initiated a program in 2007 to put employee PCs into sleep mode after an hour of inactivity, according to Mark McBeth, Vice President IT, North America for Starwood. IT managers often come up with these sorts of programs, but the goals can get sidetracked when employees reset their computers. (The system also does an early sleep on desktop monitors.)

For its 13,000 desktops, the company installed ScriptLogic's Desktop Authority, which lets IT managers figure out different sleep regimens for various groups in the company.

The company expects to save $400,000 this year and $1 million over a three-year period.

Starwood started using the technology at 20 properties but now has expanded to 150

locations. Verdiem, a start-up that has partnered with Cisco Systems for desktop energy management, has signed similar large contracts.

Computers and IT equipment are not the biggest energy hogs out there. Computers only consume 4 percent of the energy in U.S. commercial buildings, or about the same as refrigeration, according to the Department of Energy. Other electronics like printers and phones account for 7 percent. Still, green IT will likely become a growth market because 1) solutions exist to curb power and 2) IT giants like Intel, IBM, Cisco, Oracle, Dell and others see energy efficiency as a way to drive demand and differentiate their products.

Antivirus companies will likely make a more concerted push into PC energy management -Symantec has already started.Thin client manufacturers like N Computing and Wyse say that their products are gaining traction because of reduced energy consumption.

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Companies and organizations in the U.S. waste $2.8 billion a year in energy costs by leaving computers on overnight, according to a 2009 study by software company 1E and the Alliance to Save Energy.

"Though there is a small energy surge when a computer starts up, this small amount is still less than the energy used when a computer runs for long periods.

For energy savings and convenience, consider turning off the monitor if you aren't going to use your PC for more than 20 minutes, and both the CPU and monitor if you're not going to use your PC for more than two hours," the Department of Energy advises.

Because hotels operate on a 24hour basis, Starwood chose to go with putting computers in sleep mode rather than switching them off entirely.

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the customer are very simple.

The customer can know with certainty and consistency their fuel cost from natural gas or biogas."

He continued: "The economics of the electrons are already there today with subsidies. And we have a pathway and a roadmap that makes us believe that the subsidy can go away."

I spoke with a long-time energy entrepreneur with experience in PPAs for distributed generation.

He sees Bloom having a chance if the costs of the unit can be viewed over 20 years rather than five and if maintenance can be minimized.

Google was the first Bloom Box customer and the company's unit has been operating for 19 months.

Sridhar claimed that the units have "exceeded every expectation." Sridhar adds that there are "no transmission lines, no transmission losses. Net-net, we will be better than the best power plant. We don't need a grid infrastructure and therefore have a significantly better carbon footprint."

Sridhar emphasized that the fuel cell itself uses no precious metals, employs flat wafer technology and does not need to

be fabricated in a clean room.

Fabrication of the unit does not take specialized training -- an operator can be trained in three weeks. Sridhar also asserted that there is a Moore's Law of sorts at work in the form of advances in materials.

Illustrating Mr. Sridhar's need for good marketing communications people, Sridhar volunteered that, "Urgency is our middle name. Quality is our last name."

He concluded by saying, "We are not just building a company, we are building an ecosystem -and building an ecosystem takes time."

We covered the Bloom unveiling here and here. And we brought some perspective to their market challenges here.

Green Kingpins Part 2: Craig Venter of Synthetic Genomics Green Kingpins Part 3: John Doerr of KPCB Green Kingpins Part 4: VC Vinod Khosla Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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manufacturer, with 120 gigawatts of wind by 2020.

China went from two percent to 50 percent in solar within a few years." He added that, "I believe as a red-blooded American capitalist -- we cannot let this market pass us by."

"The only way we accomplish what we want to accomplish is by using capital markets," he suggested.

One thing that really intrigues Mr. Doerr on the technological side is the prospect of discovering solid-state ways to be disruptive in energy storage - in other words, the supercapacitor. Whether Doerr is referring to stealth, mystery portfolio firm EEStor or another supercapacitor firm remains to be seen.

Explaining why the supercapacitor idea is compelling, Doerr quoted fellow KPCB investor, Bill Joy, with this aphorism: Physics beats chemistry and chemistry beats biology. (Craig Venter of Synthetic Genomics might not agree with this.)

Doerr said that he's learned that energy is not an industry -- it is many, many industries with many different market structures. His firm didn't have a clear sense of how long it would take -- it has been nine years since they wrote the first check to Bloom Energy, their first clean energy investment.

What John Doerr is looking for in the clean energy world is "the Netscape moment," the event that fires people's imagination

and creates massive entrepreneurial ecosystems.

Fellow panelist and former KPCB partner Vinod Khosla thinks that this could be the year that happens.

Green Kingpins Part 1: KR Sridhar of Bloom Energy Green Kingpins Part 2: Craig Venter of Synthetic Genomics Green Kingpins Part 4: VC Vinod Khosla Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.