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Obama transport security pick avoids Iraq contract pothole Jeremy Pelofsky (Front Row Washington)

Army’s chief of intelligence and director for operations in the Defense Intelligence Agency. Submitted at 3/24/2010 1:50:23 PM After retiring, he set up his own President Barack Obama’s pick security consulting firm which to oversee U.S. transportation he sold last year. security appears to have dodged The top Republican on the a major pothole on the road to panel, Maine Senator Susan being confirmed by the Senate Collins, grilled Harding about a after assuaging concerns about a $6 million contract his former government contract his old company, Harding Security f i r m w o n t o p r o v i d e Associates, won from the i n t e r r o g a t o r s i n I r a q . Defense Intelligence Agency in Retired Major General Robert 2004 to provide interrogators H a r d i n g w a s u n d e r t h e and debriefers in Iraq — the m i c r o s c o p e a t t h e S e n a t e company had to reimburse the H o m e l a n d S e c u r i t y a n d government nearly one-third of G o v e r n m e n t a l A f f a i r s that amount. Committee on Wednesday for Harding told the committee that his nomination to head the he hired 40 people, but three T r a n s p o r t a t i o n S e c u r i t y months into the contract the Administration, a job that has government decided that it no been filled on a temporary basis longer needed the outside since Obama took office. interrogators and debriefers and Harding spent more than three terminated the contract. One decades in the U.S. military, concern raised during an audit including a stint as deputy to the of the contract was that he tried

stay engaged with my employees and take care of them, in an effort to take care of my stakeholders, which is the Iraq support group, I lost sight of the fact that I also had to be cognizant of what was going on in my back room, in the accounting shop, in the contract shop,” Harding told the panel. He said that afterwards he hired a chief financial officer, installed accounting software and hired more staff. Harding added that his experience with the contract would be useful in t o g e t a b o u t $ 8 0 0 , 0 0 0 the TSA job to ensure taxpayer reimbursed for severance he money is used appropriately. paid to the employees. “Based on today’s hearing and The two sides settled the case my review of the record, I and Harding’s firm paid back believe General Harding has about $1.8 million. adequately addressed my “I’m convinced that I made a concerns regarding his former mistake. This was our largest, firm’s contract with the Defense and our most important contract. Department,” Collins said in a And in an effort to stay engaged statement after the hearing. with my client, in an effort to “ B e f o r e m a k i n g a f i n a l

Why the IMF changed its mind about capital controls | Kevin Gallagher Kevin Gallagher (World news: United States | guardian.co.uk)

Kevin Gallagher: Video: The IMF has endorsed the use of capital controls to mitigate the effects of the financial crisis in

developing countries. The US must also come on board Kevin Gallagher

determination on the nomination, however, I want to review additional information in order to ensure that all relevant data regarding the nominee have been thoroughly examined,” she said. In response to another question from Collins, Harding said none of his interrogators or debriefers had been accused of abusing or mistreating prisoners amid some reports there had been such cases at a base in Iraq. A spokeswoman for the chairman of the committee, Independent Senator Joe Lieberman, said that he “was satisfied with the General’s responses to multiple questions about the contract that were posed to him at today’s hearing.” - Photo credit: Reuters/Mike Segar (A TSA screener searches a traveler at Newark airport.)

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Is McCain taking his toys and going home? Patricia Zengerle (Front Row Washington) Submitted at 3/24/2010 12:47:20 PM

Is Republican Senator John McCain bringing playground logic to Washington’s bitter partisan divide? White House spokesman Robert Gibbs seems to think so. McCain, defeated by President Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election, vowed that R e p u b l i c a n s furious after passage of Obama’s historic healthcare overhaul, will not work with Obama’s Democrats this year. “There will be no cooperation for the rest of the year,” McCain told an Arizona radio program, criticizing the way Democrats steered the healthcare bill

through Congress. “They have poisoned the well in what they have done and how they have done it.” Gibbs likened those comments to how a furious child might respond after losing at hopscotch or kickball.

“I find it curious that not getting your way on one thing means you decided to take your toys and go home,” Gibbs said at his daily press briefing on Wednesday. “It doesn’t work well for my 6year-old. I doubt it works well

in the United States Senate,” he said. “We have issues that are important for his constituents and for all of America.” So was Gibbs comparing the senior senator from Arizona to a 6-year-old? The White House Press Secretary responded with his own gloves off. “I think the notion that if you don’t get what you want, you’re not going to cooperate on anything else, is not a whole lot different than what I might hear from a 6-year-old,” he said. Photo credit: Reuters/Jason Reed (Senators McCain and Alexander during bipartisan meeting on healthcare reform, Feb. 25) Click here for more Reuters political coverage

How to share ridiculously large files (the video) Josh Lowensohn (Webware.com) Submitted at 3/24/2010 2:33:00 PM

CNET's Tom Merritt walks you through a few picks from our popular post "How to save and share ridiculously large files" in a video how-to guide. Originally posted at Web Crawler

Motorola DEVOUR now on sale at Verizon for $149.99 Robin Wauters (CrunchGear) Submitted at 3/25/2010 6:37:01 AM

The Hidden Cost of Living in the Suburbs: Transportation Ariel Schwartz (Fast Company) Submitted at 3/25/2010 7:39:13 AM

Some of the cost benefits of living in a city are obvious-walkability, easy access to public transportation-- but the high price of housing and other amenities often overshadow any benefits. But GOOD points us to a tool from creative think tank CNT showing that it's actually more expensive to live in many

suburbs and exurbs once transportation costs are taken into account. CNT's tool analyzes 337 metro areas covering 161,000 neighborhoods and 80% of the U.S. population. The overwhelming result: It's cheaper or just as cheap to live in cities when transportation is factored in..Transportation costs can range from 15% of household income in location efficient neighborhoods to over

28% in inefficient locations. So for example, while housing costs will suck up at least 30% of your income in San

Francisco, transportation will cost less than 15%. In comparison, housing in nearby Richmond costs under 30% of

residents' income, but transportation uses up to 28% of all income. The numbers vary depending on location, but as oil prices increase, cities will only start to look more affordable. Perhaps our own Michael Cannell's prediction that suburbia is permanently on the decline is starting to come true.

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Funding a Global Health Fund | Jeffrey Sachs Jeffrey Sachs (World news: United States | guardian.co.uk)

million lives. The Global Fund's remarkable successes result from its operational procedures. DiseaseSubmitted at 3/25/2010 6:51:45 AM The fund that fights killer specific committees, called the diseases such as TB and Aids C o u n t r y C o - o r d i n a t i o n needs to build on its success, but M e c h a n i s m ( C C M ) , a r e it is facing a fiscal crisis constituted in each developing World leaders will come country. Each CCM is chaired together at the United Nations in by the national government, but September in order to accelerate incorporates input from nonp r o g r e s s t o w a r d s t h e government organisations to Millennium Development Goals formulate national-scale, disease (MDGs). Three of the eight -specific plans for submission to MDGs involve bringing primary the Global Fund. health services to the entire Once the Global Fund receives world's population. A small these plans, they are sent to a amount of global funding, if Technical Review Panel (TRP) w e l l d i r e c t e d , c o u l d s a v e to check that the plans are millions of lives each year. The scientifically sound and feasible. key step is to expand the Global If the TRP approves, the plan is F u n d t o F i g h t A i d s , sent to the board of the Global Tuberculosis, and Malaria into a Fund, which then votes to Global Health Fund. approve financing. Once the The Global Fund was created in programme gets underway, the 2002 to help the world battle G l o b a l F u n d f o l l o w s i t s three killer diseases, and its implementation, undertaking accomplishments have been a u d i t s , m o n i t o r i n g , a n d spectacular, making it arguably evaluation. Since 2002, the the most successful innovation Global Fund has approved in foreign assistance of the past around $19bn in total funding. decade. As a result of Global There are two huge challenges Fund programmes, an estimated now facing the Global Fund, 2.5 million people are on a n d e s p e c i a l l y t h e d o n o r antiretroviral Aids therapy. No countries that support it. The fewer than 8 million people first is lack of financing. The have been cured of TB. And G l o b a l F u n d h a s b e e n s o more than 100 million long- successful that countries are lasting insecticide-treated bed s u b m i t t i n g i n c r e a s i n g l y nets have been distributed in the ambitious programmes for fight against malaria. In total, consideration. studies suggest that Global Fund Unfortunately, the Global Fund programmes have saved 5 is already in a state of fiscal

crisis. It needs around $6bn per year in the next three years to cover expansion of programmes for the three diseases, but it has only around $3bn per year from donor countries. Unless this is corrected, millions of people will die unnecessarily. The second challenge is to broaden the Global Fund's mandate. So far, the Global Fund has addressed MDG 6, which is focused on the control of specific killer diseases. Yet control of these three diseases inevitably involves improvement of basic health services – community health workers, local clinics, referral hospitals, emergency transport, drug logistics – that play a fundamental role in achieving MDG 4 (reduction of child mortality) and MDG 5 (reduction of maternal mortality). All three health MDGs are interconnected; all are feasible with an appropriate scaling up of primary health services. The obvious step to address MDGs 4 and 5 is to explicitly expand the Global Fund's financing mandate. Many programmes, such as those in the Millennium Villages project, already show that a scaling up of primary health systems at the village level can play a decisive role in reducing child and maternal mortality. Expanding the Global Fund's mandate to include financing for training

and deployment of community health workers, construction and operation of local health facilities, and other components of primary health systems could ensure the development of these local systems. Many countries – including France, Japan, Norway, the United Kingdom, and the United States – have recently recognised the need to move beyond the financing of control of Aids, TB, and malaria to financing improvements in primary health systems more generally. But they seem to view the issue of health-system financing as an either/or choice: scale up control of Aids, TB, and malaria, or scale up financing of primary health systems. The truth, of course, is that both are needed, and both are affordable. The annual cost of specific disease control in the next three years is perhaps $6bn, and another $6bn per year for health -system expansion. The total, $12bn per year for an expanded Global Fund, might seem unrealistically large compared to the $3bn spent now. But total annual funding of $12 billion is really very modest, representing around 0.033% (three cents per $100) of the donor countries' GNP. This is a tiny sum, which could be easily mobilised if donor countries were serious. Barack Obama has been outspoken in support of scaling

up primary health services, yet the specific budget proposals from his administration are not yet satisfactory. The worst of it is that the Obama administration's budget for the 2011 provides just $1bn per year to the Global Fund. This small sum is unworthy of US leadership. If the US would expand its annual support to the Global Fund to around $4bn per year, it would likely induce the rest of the world's donors to put in $8bn per year, keeping the US share at around one-third of total funding. To raise these extra amounts, the Obama administration could levy an excess-profit tax on Wall Street to make up the budget gap. Wall Street bankers, whose poor performance did so much damage to the world economy in recent years, and who still are reaping excessive bonuses, would also begin to make amends by seeing their new tax payments contribute to saving the lives of millions in the coming years. • Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2010 • Aids and HIV • Malaria • Tuberculosis • International aid and development • United States • Charities FUNDING page 7

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A Republican problem with the law | Afua Hirsch Afua Hirsch (World news: United States | guardian.co.uk) Submitted at 3/25/2010 6:08:43 AM

The Bush administration had contempt for international law and many healthcare opponents even seem to be domestic outlaws American healthcare reform just got a lot easier to grasp. Like most non-Americans, I'm still perplexed by the controversy over reforming a system that denied healthcare to people with pre-existing conditions, provided the major cause of bankruptcy and drove people into poverty, not to mention consistently bypassing those who were already there, including hugely disproportionate numbers of African-Americans. While I'm still in the dark as to why every single Republican opposed this change, it's been crystal clear that in the aftermath of the bill passing, ordinary rules of decorum, courtesy and general observance of criminal law seem to have gone out the window for a significant minority of Republican opponents. Good old Sarah Palin has produced a variation on a familiar theme of no-nonsense politics by illustrating democratic congressional districts with rifle crosshairs and suggesting that fellow Republicans "Don't

retreat. Instead RELOAD!" Republican minority leader John Boehner told Democrat Steve Dreihaus that he would be a "dead man" if he voted for the bill. He later apologised but who knows whether his deranged supporters stuck around for that part. Steve King, another charming Republican, held up a poster of House speaker Nancy Pelosi and made a slapping motion across her face. Hitting a woman. How low can you go? This is not to mention the numerous members of the public who have taken it upon themselves to throw bricks through windows or make abusive phone calls to Democrats who supported the bill. These guys are the lawmakers – you know, the ones who are supposed to make the law, rather than breaking it with incitement to violence and barely frivolous death threats. The reason all this is illuminating, rather than just plain bonkers (it's that too) is that the ability to put aside law and convention in pursuit of a short-term political frenzy is something we've all seen before in US politics. Just down the road from where Democrats are sharing tales of their deaththreats, the American Society of International Law annual conference is discussing the willingness of American politicians to ignore

international law, too, in pursuit of wars that are hard to justify under the existing rules. Bush claimed that the threats of a post-9/11 world required an entirely new set of rules – something Professor Antony Anghie, who gave the opening speech at the ASIL conference – described as a "Grotian moment". Hugo Grotius, a 16thcentury contender for the title of "founding father of international law", said something similar about the demands of a world with increasingly interdependent trade, commerce and diplomacy. It's one of many things that were regressive about Bush's approach to international law. Anghie, who is an expert on international law from a developing world perspective, went on to compare Bush's concept of an "axis of evil" to 19th-century sociological approaches to the sovereignty of states – they were either civilised or uncivilised. In Bush terms, they were either democracies or "rogues". The influence that a state's democratic nature should have in determining its ability to command the respect of other states is a whole other can of worms. The US under Bush was a democracy, but transparency and observance of international law were not exactly core characteristics. A democracy exercising emergency powers

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can be guilty of the most rogue behaviour of all. The Obama administration – for all its flawed implementation so far – has put international law back into US government decision-making. The novelty of that development may be wearing off, as international observers re-adjust to the expectation that such things are basic. But judging by the stunning inability of Obama's opponents to stay within the realms of even their domestic law – such as not threatening healthcare reformers with violence and assault – keeping America within the boundaries of international law is as big a deal. As profound, perhaps, for the rest of the world as healthcare reform is for Americans. • US healthcare • Law • Barack Obama • US foreign policy • Obama administration • United States

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Found Photoshop Contest: The Future of Medical Bills

Foursquare coming to Bing Maps Caroline McCarthy (Webware.com) Submitted at 3/25/2010 6:36:48 AM

Tips and recommendations from the hot location-based start -up will be searchable in the Microsoft mapping tool later this spring. Originally posted at The Social

Wired Magazine (Wired Top Stories) Submitted at 3/24/2010 9:00:00 PM

Show us what you think medical bills will look like in the days to come.

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Darling attacked for silence over 'stealth tax' in Budget speech (Top stories from Times Online) Submitted at 3/25/2010 4:35:13 AM

Alistair Darling was accused today of failing even to mention in his pre-election Budget speech a measure that will mean higher tax bills for an estimated 30 million workers. The Chancellor announced last year that he would be freezing personal allowances — the amount of earnings free from income tax — because the country was experiencing negative inflation. Yesterday, as he unveiled a Robin Hood-style raid on million-pound house sales, Mr Darling did not bother to remind MPs that personal allowances would remain frozen at £6,475 for a person of normal working age despite a subsequent sharp rise in the cost of living. But George Osborne, the Shadow Chancellor, described it as a "stealth tax" designed to pay for "Gordon Brown's mistakes". He told Sky News: “That is an effective tax rise on 30 million working people, because when he said he was going to freeze it last autumn, inflation was negative. Now inflation is 3.7

per cent on the RPI [retail prices index]. “What that means, in effect, is a tax rise for millions of working people and, if you’re someone on the basic rate, that’s around £50 extra tax a year, if you’re a couple, around £100 extra tax a year, and of course that’s not including the National Insurance tax on people’s incomes which is coming down the track. "So one of the largest tax measures in the Budget was not even mentioned in Alistair Darling's speech." Mr Darling said that the allowances had been frozen only because they were set at a time of negative inflation in September last year and to increase them as the Tories suggested would cost the Treasury billions. "If that really is their policy, they need to say where the money is coming from,” he told GMTV. Mr Darling accused the Tories of being “conspicuously silent” on their own plans for taxes and spending cuts. The Chancellor also defended himself against allegations that his decision to raise the stamp duty threshold to £250,000 for first-time buyers was “stolen”

from the Conservatives, saying that parties often came up with similar ideas in politics. Mr Osborne said: “If you’ve got good ideas you don’t actually mind seeing them implemented by someone else because in politics it’s about changing your country, so therefore if someone else is going to take up my good ideas, fine. “But you’ve got to be a little sceptical when you hear Labour politicians saying Tory politicians have nothing to offer.” Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman, said that the stamp duty holiday would help a small number of people to get on the property ladder but would do nothing to ease the housing shortage. “It is certainly helpful for a few people at the bottom," he said. "But the thing to remember is, this doesn’t create a single affordable home. "That is the underlying problem — it is the supply of property that people can buy or rent, and he hasn’t done anything about that.” Asked whether he would have raised the personal allowances, Mr Osborne said: “I would

have got to grips with the waste, the bloat, the excessive spending that got Britain into the problem it faces today. “I would have set out a credible plan to deal with the debts, that would have protected our country’s credit rating, kept interest rates lower for longer, and avoided the ever-increasing spiral of taxes which seem to come from this Government to working people.” Asked whether he would raise taxes, including VAT, he said: “No Chancellor or Shadow Chancellor, including Alistair Darling or indeed Gordon Brown before him, would ever rule out tax rises in the future — that would be a totally irresponsible thing to do. “What I am saying to you is telling you about my priorities and values, which are about trying to avoid tax rises on working people by dealing with bloated government waste that has caused this debt problem, that threatens higher interest rates, that costs jobs and puts taxes up on working people.” Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Options Update: Proshares UltraShort Barc 20-Year Treasury ETF Volatility Stays Low on Bond Sell-Off Paul Foster (BloggingStocks) Submitted at 3/25/2010 8:00:00 AM

Filed under: Options, Genzyme (GENZ) Proshares UltraShort Barc 20Year Treasury ETF ( TBT) closed at $48.95. TBT April, May and June option implied volatility is at 22, below its 26week average of 30, according to Track Data, suggesting decreasing price movement. Two stocks with IV rise on March 24: Genzyme ( GENZ) +4%, Annaly Mortgage Management ( NLY) +6%, according to IVolatility. ISE Sentiment Index-ISEE closed at 155 on 3/24/10. ISEE 10-day moving average is 131. Options Update is by Stock Specialist Paul Foster of theflyonthewall.com. Options Update: Proshares UltraShort Barc 20-Year Treasury ETF Volatility Stays Low on Bond Sell-Off originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 25 Mar 2010 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Comments

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'Marry me, not my millions', said wife in prenuptial court battle (Latest news, breaking news, current news, UK news, world news, celebrity news, politics news) Submitted at 3/25/2010 5:56:13 AM

By Caroline Gammell Published: 12:56PM GMT 25 Mar 2010 Katrin Radmacher, who is worth £100 million, is battling her ex-husband Nicolas Granatino, the son of a French millionaire, after eight years of marriage. He initially received £5.85 million in their divorce settlement, but this was reduced to £1 million by the Court of Appeal in London last year In the landmark decision, the appeal court ruled the couple’s prenuptial agreement should be recognised, even though such a contract is not legally binding in English law. Mr Granatino, a 38-year-old investment banker turned student is now challenging the decision in the Supreme Court. He claims he did not understand the prenup because it was written in German, he had

no legal advice and had no idea how much his wife, now 40, was really worth. Richard Todd QC, representing Miss Radmacher, said when the 1998 document was signed, Mr Granatino was an investment banker with JP Morgan earning considerably more than his wife. “At the time the prenup was entered into, it was on the basis of him shortly to be earning £320,000 a year. He thought he would be a billionaire. “He wanted to protect his assets from the wife. She, for her part, wanted to protect her wealth. “It was not the case at the time that the wife was worth £100 million, she was worth somewhere over one million Deutschmark (£460,000) and had some shares.” Mr Todd said both parties had agreed the prenuptial agreement of their own “free will” and had been happy to live off their individual means which were “far above average”. “She says ‘I want you to marry me for me and not for my money and it’s important for me emotionally’,” said the

barrister. “He says ‘I don’t want to marry you for your money, I will sign the prenup’.” In 2003, Mr Granatino went back to university as a biotechnology researcher, earning £30,000 a year, the court heard. “He chose to give up the world of being a banker and embrace an easier life, firstly by being a student and ultimately a researcher,” said Mr Todd. “It was less stressful and certainly less well remunerated.” In 2005 his money ran out and the couple, who have two daughters – now aged seven and 10 - divorced in 2006. Since then, Mr Granatino has “deployed every skill he has to avoid his bargain” and tried to ensure that his former wife funds his “lavish lifestyle”, said Mr Todd. On Monday, Nicholas Mostyn QC claimed his client would face bankruptcy and destitution if he loses his Supreme Court battle. Mr Todd said: “We don’t

believe that at all.” Under the appeal court ruling, Mr Granatino has access to a £2.5 million home in England while the girls are under 21, an annual income of £146,000 to help him care for the children, a holiday home in the south of France and £25,000 for a car. Mr Todd said his client had no wish to see her ex-husband “destitute” and had offered to pay £484,000 in legal costs if Mr Granatino dropped the Supreme Court case in 2009. “He has chosen to throw the dice and has never even had the courtesy to reply to the offer,” said the barrister. “This does rather suggest that this is a man who is backed by multi-million parents who is not going to be destitute.” The nine justices sitting at the Supreme Court have reserved their judgement. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Coming to Fring for iPhone: Two-way video calls Jessica Dolcourt (Webware.com)

We got a chance to preview two iPhone features in the works for VoIP calling and chatting app

Fring. Originally posted at CTIA 2010

Oracle Third Quarter Earnings Preview: Is Tech on the Rebound? Michael Fowlkes (BloggingStocks) Submitted at 3/25/2010 10:00:00 AM

Filed under: Earnings Reports, Analyst Reports, Forecasts, Oracle Corp (ORCL), Technology, Recession Tech giant Oracle Corp. ( ORCL) will be reporting its fiscal third quarter numbers Thursday after the market close, and analysts are looking for a strong quarter from the company. The company is expected to report earnings of 38 cents per share. During the same period last year, the company had earnings of 35 cents a share. Continue reading Oracle Third Quarter Earnings Preview: Is Tech on the Rebound? Oracle Third Quarter Earnings Preview: Is Tech on the Rebound? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 25 Mar 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Comments

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Family holidays push school truancy to record level (Top stories from Times Online)

parents going away during term. David Laws, the Liberal Democrat schools spokesman, Submitted at 3/25/2010 4:57:57 AM said: “These figures are The number of primary school d i s g r a c e f u l . children playing truant rose “It’s obvious that Labour’s topsharply last year as official down approach has failed. We figures indicate that some pupils need a more effective local are missing more than a term a approach involving parents, year. schools and the police. Pupils under 11 missed 12 per “The Liberal Democrats will cent more days of school give schools extra money to without permission last year allow teachers to work with than in 2007/08. individual children and make Overall, 67,000 pupils of all sure that they are engaged in the ages skipped part of school on a classroom.” typical day because of truancy, Primary pupils truanted on 0.64 family holidays, illness and per cent of all days, an increase other reasons, the statistics of 12 per cent on the previous suggest. year, when the figure was 0.57 Apart from sickness the most per cent. popular reason for absence, Unauthorised absence in state authorised and unauthorised, secondary schools remained was for family holidays. Six constant at 1.49 per cent. million school days were lost as Overall authorised absence parents took their children out of dropped to 5.21 per cent in class to go away outside of term 2008/09, down from 5.28 per when travel costs are lower. cent in 2007/08. One in five holiday days was Vernon Coaker, the schools t a k e n w i t h o u t p e r m i s s i o n minister, said: “Schools are, despite a government edict to quite rightly, cracking down on headteachers to get tough on absence. Weak excuses for

missing school, such as oversleeping or a day’s holiday, are no longer accepted, so it’s no surprise that with this tougher approach there is a slight rise in unauthorised absence. “Ultimately it is down to parents, not schools. Parents have a clear duty to ensure that their child is in school and are not simply allowing them to miss their education.” The statistics also reveal that hundreds of thousands of pupils are still skipping six weeks of school, making them “persistent absentees”. The overall rate of absence for persistent absentees is 34.7 per cent, which is more than five times higher than the rate for all pupils and equates to 13 weeks of school, or an entire term, missed. Girls are slightly more likely to be repeatedly absent, with 3.3 per cent across all school levels compared to 3.2 of boys. Across the school year, 208,380 primary and secondary pupils missed more than 20 per cent of

all possible half days, a total of 52 sessions, or 26 days. Of these, 51,960 were in primary schools and 147,630 were at secondaries. The rest were attending special schools. Christine Blower, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said: “There are no magic solutions to tackling hardcore truanting. All the evidence shows that, despite schools’ very best efforts, hardto-reach families will remain hard to reach. “The Government should quite simply recognise that engaging with families whose children are persistent truants is a long hard slog involving cross-localauthority service responses and support. “Any other promise about reducing truancy will simply be a promise that can’t be kept.” Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

BlackBerry e-mail utility Bccthis helps you talk about people behind their backs Jessica Dolcourt (Webware.com)

Bccthis can add a private message to select recipients at the same time you send a public

one. Originally posted at CTIA 2010

Survey: 53% of email marketers thinks social media increases ROI (Holy Kaw!) Submitted at 3/24/2010 9:22:00 PM

Ad Week pulls up some interesting statistics that suggest that social media may work hand-in-hand with email marketing instead of replacing it. It lists a bunch of facts from an eMarketer survey of e-mail marketers about social media. For instance: • 78% of respondents said they believe social media increases brand reputation and awareness. • 53% said they thought social media increases the ROI of email programs. • 81% said social media extends the reach of email content to new markets. Read the full story at Ad Week. More on social media. Photo credit: Fotolia Permalink| Leave a comment »

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Pakistan police arrest 'mastermind' of Sahil Saeed kidnap (Top stories from Times Online)

started searching for valuables and cash. “But they couldn’t find much so Submitted at 3/25/2010 6:02:46 AM they decided to take the boy and The alleged mastermind behind make a demand for ransom. the kidnapping of a five-year- “They are very much connected old British boy in Pakistan has (with the kidnapping). They been arrested, police said today. have admitted that they have A n o t h e r m a n w a n t e d i n done this. They are professional connection with the kidnapping criminals. as well as 22 murders was also “We are still in search of two arrested, Pakistan police said. others. We are after them and The two suspects were captured very soon we will catch them.” during a series of raids last night He said one of those arrested in the city of Jhelum, where was the alleged “mastermind” of Sahil Saeed was taken on March the kidnap group and the other 4. was already wanted in R e g i o n a l p o l i c e c h i e f Rawalpindi, where his gang had Muhammad Aslam Tareen, who a l l e g e d l y c o m m i t t e d 2 2 is leading the investigation, said m u r d e r s . the men had admitted taking The men were arrested at part in the kidnapping. different locations in Jhelum He said the men decided to take during raids across the city the boy and demand a ransom involving 200 officers. d u r i n g a n o p p o r t u n i s t i c The police chief said a “huge burglary. quantity” of arms and The police chief said the house a m m u n i t i o n w a s a l s o where the boy was kidnapped r e c o v e r e d , i n c l u d i n g was targeted after a door was K a l a s h n i k o v s , a u t o m a t i c left open. weapons, hand grenades, rocket He said: “It was random. They launchers and explosive devices. went to rob a house and when At the weekend, Sahil’s father, they were on the move they saw Raja Saeed, described how the the door was open. heavily armed gang who took “They entered the house and his son said they could put an

explosive jacket on the boy and “blow him to pieces”. He said the kidnappers - four men with guns and grenades ambushed the family as they prepared to travel to the airport by taxi at the end of their holiday. Mr Saeed, from Oldham, said: “They said, ’We’re going to take your son. We know you’re a businessman and we know you have lots of money’. “My heart pounded. I pleaded with them, telling them I was not a rich man and had no money. I was completely helpless.” A man from the gang initially demanded £200,000 as a ransom, which was slowly negotiated down to £110,000. Sahil was eventually released unharmed on March 16. Three people - two Pakistani men and a Romanian woman have already appeared in court in Spain accused of involvement in the kidnapping. Two others were arrested in France. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

If it Ain't Broke Renee Oricchio (Inc.com)

shower in need of making a note that I have a job interview next Tuesday. Who needs that? I You know the rest; don't fix it! want more steps involved. I I'm thinking about the quest for want to wait for things to boot the perfect digital calendar. up, click on some icons, as well Some people keep track of their as type in several fields of appointments with their iPhone information (and preferrably or other mobile device. with a little plastic stylus, if Some people use Microsoft possible). Outlook or Google Calendar or I long for a solution that means whatever their corporate combining my business calendaring client may be. obligations with my personal I confess; I still use a pen and life obligations in a place that the back of my checkbook. compromises my privacy (like I was with a friend of mine m y e m p l o y e r ' s c o r p o r a t e yesterday arranging a time to get network). Who wouldn't want together. She still uses a that? Dayplanner (You know; those Even better; I want things that come in three ring "collaboration" calendaring. binders with the calendars Naturally, I want my co-workers printed on real paper). We had a put on notice to adapt our moment while shrugging off our meetings around my next gyno mutual luddite methods. appointment. But hey, if it ain't broke... Here's why I think I haven't The truth is that I've tried for f o u n d a p e r f e c t d i g i t a l years to make the jump to calendaring solution yet. One organizing my time in a way does not exist. that wastes electricity and/or Until then, I have the back of battery time, too. It just hasn't my checkbook and what's happened for me. written there is between me and I've tried for years to reverse my God. the simplicity of just writing my Sometimes, it pays to be a committments on paper on the luddite. See you you-knowfly, whether I'm sitting in a when, Janice. business meeting or on the phone while dripping from the Submitted at 3/24/2010 2:03:00 PM

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Monte Rico Rejoices LWI Editor (LWI News Center) Submitted at 3/25/2010 7:00:57 AM

EL SALVADOR – Monte Rico Omar Garcia, Missions Pastor at Kingsland Baptist Church in Katy, Texas, traveled to El Salvador in February to help bring the gift of clean water to a village called Monte Rico. Here are his reflections and photos from the trip. Monte Rico is a small village of about three hundred close-knit neighbors hidden away in the lush green hills of western El Salvador. You have to be going there to see it because it’s well off the beaten path. Very few homes have electricity, none have running water, and most are in some state of disrepair. But, the great thing is that everybody knows everybody. The people of Monte Rico enjoy spending time talking and interacting with one another. The presence of our Living Water team stirred lots of excitement. For five days the local folks, including school kids, stopped by the drill site to chat or to just sit and watch the activity. Their smiles, laughter, questions, and conversations made each day enjoyable and

memorable. On two days, we worked very late into the night. Motivated by the faces and smiles of our new friends, we didn’t mind the extra hours at all. Meeting the folks of Monte Rico transformed this into more than a project for us. Monte Rico became a purposeful mission to provide our new friends with clean drinking water and with a clear presentation of the story of Jesus, the living water. Our team worked with determination, unwilling to allow anything to stop us from giving the gift of

water and the Word to our new friends. Once we completed the waterwell, the folks of Monte Rico showed up to help us dedicate it to God. Our Living Water team gave more than the gift of clean water to this community. The water-well we provided represents the redemption of time for those who spend several hours fetching water for their households every day — time that can now be invested in family and education and other pursuits. One man summed it up best. As the first stream of water

came up from the depths a man behind me whispered in Spanish, “Blessed be the name of our great God.” At the end of the week, every member of our team was physically tired, spiritually refreshed, and much more grateful for the access to clean water that we all enjoy. I am especially grateful for the Living Water staff and my fellow team members for a great week of service. And, I rejoice with and for the people of Monte Rico – people loved by God and deserving of a cup of clean water in Jesus’ name. Editor’s note: After Omar’s Living Water trip to Monte Rico, he returned home and immediately planned another trip for his church—and requested four additional trips next year. Want to get your church involved? Visit www.water.cc/trips for more information. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

75% of teenage girls use phones/texts to alert friends about sales, while 5% use Facebook (Holy Kaw!) Submitted at 3/24/2010 10:41:00 PM

A new, unscientific study by Euro RSCG Worldwide shatters the popular vision of social media as a marketing magic bullet for teens. According to its recent findings, 75 percent of teenage girls said they would close friends about sales on their favorite brands using phone calls or texts—a contrast to the 5 percent of teenage girls who said they would spread the same news using Facebook. The same group also reported that they were more likely to buy things in shops rather than on the Internet. Full story at the New York Times. More on teens. Photo credit: Fotolia Permalink| Leave a comment »

The Latest Anti-Health Care Death Threat (Little Green Footballs) Submitted at 3/24/2010 9:17:17 PM

Racial slurs, gas lines cut, death

threats against children, and now this: Coffin placed on Carnahan’s lawn. A coffin was placed on a

Missouri Democrat’s lawn, overhaul. another in a string of incidents Rep. Russ Carnahan (D-Mo.) against lawmakers after their had a coffin placed “near his vote Sunday on a health care h o m e , ” a s p o k e s m a n s a i d

Wednesday evening.

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'Osama bin Laden' threatens revenge for 9/11 trial (Top stories from Times Online)

channel. “Your friend at the White House is still walking in the footsteps Submitted at 3/25/2010 6:00:46 AM of those before [him] in many Osama bin Laden has warned important matters,” including in that Americans would be killed e s c a l a t i n g t h e w a r i n in retaliation if a US court Afghanistan and “oppressing s e n t e n c e s K h a l e d S h e i k h our prisoners that you are Mohammed to death, according holding, beginning with the to an audio recording broadcast mujahid hero Khaled al-Sheikh today. Mohammed,” he said. Mr Mohammed, the self- The self-styled founder of the al confessed mastermind of the -Qaeda movement said US September 11th attacks, is politicians have “oppressed us expected to stand trial in a and still do, especially by civilian court in America next backing Israel, which occupies year. The O b a m a the land of Palestine". Administration has already The controversial civilian trial indicated that the toughest of Mr Mohammed was due to be sanction is likely to be imposed. held in Manhattan but the cost An audio message, apparently of security arrangements is recorded by bin Laden, threatens likely to mean the case is heard t o a v e n g e h i s d e a t h b y in a less metropolitan area. murdering US citizens who are The case against Mr taken hostage by al-Qaeda. Mohammed and his four co“The White House has declared a c c u s e d w i l l b e b e s e t b y i t s w i s h t o e x e c u t e evidence problems because [Mohammed]. The day the Mohammed was tortured by the United States takes such a CIA soon after his capture in decision, it would be also taking Pakistan. He was subjected to the decision that any of you s i m u l a t e d d r o w n i n g falling into our hands will be (waterboarding) 183 times in executed,” said the message M a r c h 2 0 0 3 , m a k i n g a n y broadcast by the al-Jazeera news evidence obtained from him

then, and since, almost definitely inadmissible. Mr Mohammed admitted to interrogators that he was the mastermind behind the attacks. He said he proposed the idea to bin Laden as early as 1996 before obtaining funding for the attacks, training the hijackers in Afghanistan and Pakistan and then overseeing the operation. The Pentagon says he has admitted to being responsible "from A to Z" for the attacks against Washington and the World Trade Center in New York. He also reportedly claimed that he had personally decapitated Daniel Pearl, an American journalist, in 2002 and admitted to a role in 30 plots, including one carried out by British shoe bomber, Richard Reid. He was captured in Pakistan in March 2003 and sent to Guantanamo in Cuba in 2006. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Managing IT Through SaaS Curt Finch (Inc.com) Submitted at 3/24/2010 8:06:17 AM

SaaS continues to grow in popularity for a number of reasons. Even IT folk are catching on, as a recent article highlights: “IT departments benefit from this trend because it relieves them of many of the hassles associated with implementing and administering traditional, on-premise software and supporting the application end-users. In addition, there is a growing array of SaaS-based management solutions aimed at making it easier and more costeffective for IT professionals to do their own jobs.” The fact is that traditional locally hosted software becomes less practical as the world increasingly shifts towards mobile devices and remote work teams. It also has a lot of value during tough times.

An Entrepreneur article notes the following benefits: “No upfront infrastructure cost, less risk of data security and reliability issues, and ubiquitous authorized access that the business owner can control.” The way forward according to one enlightened CIO I interviewed is to "Focus on doing things in-house that are related to the core sustainable differentiators of your company - everything else should be SaaS if it can be. It should be validated by IT, with security processes wrapped around it. Make sure it's not on a shaky power grid in some unstable country for example." Good advice I think. Curt works for Journyx, which has solutions for project management and execution.

DVDStyler Burns Virtually Any Video to DVD [Downloads] Adam Pash (Lifehacker) Submitted at 3/25/2010 6:00:00 AM

Windows/Linux: Burning any old video file to a playable DVD is a bit of a hassle. We've

always liked using DVD Flick for tackling the task, but DVDStyler is another great

option with a bit more focus on nice menus. More »

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Osama bin Laden threatens US soldiers over Khalid Sheikh Mohammed trial

Before the Bell: Futures Higher After Employment Data

Adam Gabbatt (World news: United States | guardian.co.uk)

Melly Alazraki (BloggingStocks)

would be tried in a civilian court in New York. The speaker in the tape broadcast today said Obama was Submitted at 3/25/2010 7:02:16 AM Al-Qaida leader purportedly "following the footsteps of his recorded saying execution of predecessor". 9/11 suspect would prompt the "The politicians in the White capture and killing of American House were practising injustice troops against us and still they are. O s a m a b i n L a d e n h a s Especially by supporting Israel threatened to kill American in its continuous occupation of soldiers if the US executes Palestine." Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the The recording continued: "They P a k i s t a n i a l l e g e d t o h a v e used to think that America masterminded the 9/11 attacks. across the oceans is protected An audio tape, purportedly by from the rage of the oppressed t h e a l - Q a i d a l e a d e r , w a s until our reaction was loudly broadcast on the al-Jazheera heard at your home on the 9/11, news channel today. with God's help." "The day America will take The US president has already such decision [to execute f a c e d c r i t i c i s m o v e r t h e Mohammed and any others] it t r e a t m e n t o f M o h a m m e d , would have taken a decision to although so far it has come from execute whoever we capture," closer to home. His decision to the speaker said. put the alleged 9/11 organiser on The US is understood to be trial in central New York has seeking the death penalty seen the president come under against Mohammed and four pressure, with Republicans other men accused of planning saying al-Qaida will use the trial the 9/11 attacks. President for propaganda. Barack Obama announced in Others have criticised the November last year that the five security threat represented by

holding the trial in New York, while the debate continues over whether the suspects could be guaranteed a fair trial in a civilian court. Legal experts predicted the suspects would plead guilty in order to win execution and martyrdom. The last communique purporting to be from Bin Laden was released in January. In that audio tape the al-Qaida leader claimed responsibility for the attempted bombing of a plane over Detroit on Christmas Day. • Osama bin Laden • al-Qaida • US military • Global terrorism • United States Adam Gabbatt guardian.co.uk© Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions| More Feeds

Submitted at 3/25/2010 8:55:00 AM

Filed under: Before the Bell, International Markets, Market Matters, Best Buy (BBY), ConAgra Foods (CAG), Economic Data U.S. stock futures climbed Thursday as data showed yet another decline in jobless claims figures. Investors are also awaiting a meeting of European leaders with Greece's debt problems in mind. A testimony from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is also in focus Thursday. Initial jobless claims fell declined by 14,000 to 442,000 -the lowest level in six weeks -as the rebound in the economy encourages companies to make fewer cuts in payrolls. The number of people continuing to

Taurus Concept Is Like Hot Segway Bike From the Future Charlie Sorrel (Wired Top Stories)

The Taurus is pretty much a Segway with a seat -- you even control it by leaning forward

and back. This alone puts it way closer to a Tron light-cycle than the stand-on dork-mobile.

receive jobless benefits decreased 54,000 in the week ended March 13 to 4.65 million, the lowest since Dec. 20, 2008. Continue reading Before the Bell: Futures Higher After Employment Data Before the Bell: Futures Higher After Employment Data originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 25 Mar 2010 08:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Comments

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Pagani Zonda S was driven by racing Lloyd's of London driver when it crashed, owner reveals Turns in Record Year (Latest news, breaking news, current news, UK news, world news, celebrity news, politics news)

prepared to say that the driver was “an internationally famous racing champ” and the crash last September was not his fault. He added: “A magazine was Submitted at 3/25/2010 6:17:56 AM By Auslan Cramb, Scottish doing an appraisal of the car for Correspondent an article and it was being Published: 1:17PM GMT 25 d r i v e n b y a p r o f e s s i o n a l . Mar 2010 There’s no way I’d have given The accident in Aberdeenshire the keys of my car to anyone has resulted in one of the who wasn’t qualified to handle biggest motor insurance pay- it. outs in Britain, but Mr Jones, “We were travelling at speed. 58, the multi-millionaire owner He was driving the car in such of the vehicle, is philosophical fine balance that he never about the expensive accident. once triggered the traction H e s a i d t h a t h i t t i n g a n control. It was the state of the e l e c t r i c i t y p o l e w a s a n road that caused the crash. We “ a p p r o p r i a t e l y h u m b l i n g ” hit mud, which is constantly experience for the driver, but the being dragged on to the main d a m a g e w a s “ o f n o roads by tractors coming out of consequence”. the fields.” He has refused to say who was Mr Jones, speaking at Arnage behind the wheel but was once C a s t l e , h i s h o m e i n photographed next to the car Aberdeenshire, said the driver with Sir Jackie Stewart, the was “mortified”, adding: “He former Formula 1 champion, was extremely upset and very who was forced yesterday to sorry. But my main reaction deny local rumours that he was was sheer glee that neither of us involved. had been injured. Mr Jones, a retired oil industry “There are far worse things tycoon, said he was only happening in the world today

and it’s only a car. It's of no consequence." He bought the Zonda for £400,000 a few years ago, but they are so rare that they appreciate in value. The businessman is understood to have made more than £30 million when he sold the Aberdeen-based firm, Dominion Gas, in 2007. The vehicle has been sent for repair to Pagani in Modena, Italy, and is expected to be ready by May. Meanwhile, Mr Jones has already consoled himself by buying a £900,000 Pagani Zonda F Club Sport. A spokesman for the insurer Aviva said: ''This is the biggest insurance pay-out we have had for repairs to a private car in the UK. This is out of the ordinary for an insurer.” Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Tom Johansmeyer (BloggingStocks) Submitted at 3/25/2010 9:30:00 AM

Filed under: Earnings Reports Last year was a good one for Lloyd's of London. Profits more than doubled, surging to a record $5.81 billion, thanks largely to strong investment gains and a quiet catastrophe year. Investment gains last year amounted to $2.66 billion, an increase of 84.8%. But, it wasn't all just a rising tide in the financial markets. Lloyd's did pick up a gain of more than 20% in premium volume -- and currency fluctuations played a role. Says Lord Peter Leven, Lloyd's chairman, the increase in profits "has been achieved despite the economic turbulence that characterized most of 2009,

although we were certainly helped by a low level of catastrophe losses." In particular, a quite hurricane season in the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico was kind to Lloyd's balance sheet. Continue reading Lloyd's of London Turns in Record Year Lloyd's of London Turns in Record Year originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 25 Mar 2010 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

Tip: All the magazine and media mobile apps in one place (Holy Kaw!) Submitted at 3/24/2010 10:18:00 PM

Tired of smart alecs who tell you “There’s an app for that”

when you really just wish there were an easier way to find it in the first place? Well, the Magazine Publishers of America has created a cool site called

“mapps”—a listing of all the

mobile apps made by magazine and media companies, totaling some 120 applications with the links to download them. Full story at Folio.

More on the iPhone. Permalink| Leave a comment »

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Glenn Beck apologises for publicly insulting James Cameron (World news: United States | guardian.co.uk)

show in 2007 that "only pure evil could have directed the movie Titanic", he was only Submitted at 3/25/2010 7:19:57 AM referring to the Céline Dion US TV commentator Glenn song, My Heart Will Go On, Beck has apologised for which he maintained was likening James Cameron to the " h o r r i f i c " . antichrist, but queried the Beck expressed surprise at the director's claim that he'd like to enduring nature of Cameron's kill climate-changed deniers bitterness about the quip. "The US TV commentator Glenn guy's making a billion dollars on Beck yesterday claimed he was a Smurf-murdering movie and speaking in jest when he said he's stewing about a joke the director James Cameron was nobody heard on a network that "running for antichrist". This nobody watched. s e m i - a p o l o g y c o m e s a f t e r "I don't think he's upset with me C a m e r o n b r a n d e d B e c k a through. He's also upset with "fucking asshole" earlier in the you because you're a globalweek. warming denier." The latest in the high-profile Beck then introduced an audio spat came from an appearance clip from Tuesday's press by Beck on his Fox News conference programme. Beck said he had promoting the forthcoming only met Cameron once in a release of Avatar on DVD makeup chair and couldn't release at which Cameron had remember the details. "If I did made his rebuttal to Beck. say anything to you, James, in Cameron had gone on to talk person, I'm sorry." about his film's environmental He added that when he'd message. "I want to call those claimed on his former CNN [climate-change] deniers out

into the street at high noon and shoot it out with those boneheads." Said Beck, back in the studio: "Since he took my antichrist joke so seriously, I guess I have to ask James to stop threatening to shoot people in the street. Seventy-nine percent of Americans aren't convinced greenhouse gases were the most important factor in the planet warming." "Why must you kill all of them?" he continued, apparently weeping on his desk. • James Cameron • Glenn Beck • News Corporation • Fox News • United States • CNN • Climate change guardian.co.uk© Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions| More Feeds

General Mills Reports Impressive Income Increase in Q3 Steven Mallas (BloggingStocks) Submitted at 3/25/2010 8:30:00 AM

Filed under: Earnings Reports, Campbell Soup (CPB), Kellogg Co (K), General Mills (GIS), Kraft Foods'A' (KFT) General Mills ( GIS), whose colleagues at the food markets include Kellogg ( K), Kraft Foods ( KFT), and Campbell Soup ( CPB), performed well in the fiscal third quarter. On an adjusted basis, net income increased 23% to 97 cents per diluted share. This beat estimates by four pennies. General Mills was able to expand the gross margin by keeping an eye on efficiency opportunities and optimizing the overall quality of the inventory mix. Of course, there was a little luck involved, too, as

commodity costs weren't as expensive as they previously had been. It's always good when that happens. Continue reading General Mills Reports Impressive Income Increase in Q3 General Mills Reports Impressive Income Increase in Q3 originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 25 Mar 2010 08:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

USA Today one of the first sites to run ads on iPad (Holy Kaw!) Submitted at 3/24/2010 9:41:00 PM

It seems that some traditional media outlets see the iPad as not only a new conduit for

news—but also as one for advertisements, the bread and butter of most media business models today. Gannett’s USA Today, reports ClickZ, is jumping into the fray as one of

the first sites to launch on the

iPad with ads for the new Apple device. While the tablet doesn’t support Flash, an ad firm executive on the project promises a fresh way to interact with promotions using the

gadget’s new technology. Read the full story at ClickZ. More on advertising. Photo credit: Fotolia Permalink| Leave a comment »

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A Is for App: How Smartphones, Handheld Computers Sparked an Educational Revolution Anya Kamenetz (Fast Company) Submitted at 3/25/2010 8:36:37 AM

From Left: Angel Taylor, 6, Jose Becerra, 7, and Julissa Munoz, 6. | Photograph by Danielle Levitt As smartphones and handheld computers move into classrooms worldwide, we may be witnessing the start of an educational revolution. How technology could unleash childhood creativity -- and transform the role of the teacher. Gemma and Eliana Singer are big iPhone fans. They love to explore the latest games, flip through photos, and watch YouTube videos while waiting at a restaurant, having their hair done, or between ballet and French lessons. But the Manhattan twins don't yet have their own phones, which is good, since they probably wouldn't be able to manage the monthly data plan: In November, they turned 3. When the Singer sisters were just 6 months old, they already preferred cell phones to almost any other toy, recalls their mom, Fiona Aboud Singer: "They loved to push the buttons and see it light up." The girls knew most of the alphabet by 18 months and are now starting to read, partly thanks to an iPhone

app called First Words, which lets them move tiles along the screen to spell c-o-w and d-o-g. They sing along with the Old MacDonald app too, where they can move a bug-eyed cartoon sheep or rooster inside a corral, and they borrow Mom's tablet computer and photo-editing software for a 21st-century version of finger painting. "They just don't have that barrier that technology is hard or that they can't figure it out," Singer says. Gemma and Eliana belong to a generation that has never known a world without ubiquitous handheld and networked technology. American children

now spend 7.5 hours a day absorbing and creating media -as much time as they spend in school. Even more remarkably, they multitask across screens to cram 11 hours of content into those 7.5 hours. More and more of these activities are happening on smartphones equipped with audio, video, SMS, and hundreds of thousands of apps. The new connectedness isn't just for the rich. Mobile adoption is happening faster worldwide than that of color TV a half-century ago. Mobilephone subscribers are expected to hit 5 billion during 2010; more than 2 billion of those live in developing countries, with the

fastest growth in Africa. Mobile broadband is forecast to top access from desktop computers within five years. As with television, many people are wondering about the new technology's effect on children. "The TV set was pretty much a damned medium back in the '60s," says Gary Knell, CEO of Sesame Workshop. But where others railed against the "vast wasteland," Sesame Street founders Joan Ganz Cooney and Lloyd Morrisett saw a new kind of teacher. "They said, Why don't we use it to teach kids letters and numbers and get them ready for school?" Sesame Street, from its 1969 debut,

changed the prevailing mind-set about a new technology's potential. With its diverse cast and stoop-side urban setting, the show was aimed especially at giving poor kids a head start on education. Today, handheld and networked devices are at the same turning point, with an important difference: They are tools for expression and connection, not just passive absorption. "You put a kid in front of a TV, they veg out," says Andrew Shalit, creator of the First Words app and father of a toddler son. "With an iPhone app, the FOR page 18

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FOR continued from page 17

opposite is true. They're figuring out puzzles, moving things around using fine motor skills. What we try to do with the game is create a very simple universe with simple rules that kids can explore." For children born in the past decade, the transformative potential of these new universes is just beginning to be felt. New studies and pilot projects show smartphones can actually make kids smarter. And as the search intensifies for technological solutions to the nation's and the world's education woes -"Breakthrough Learning in a Digital Age," as the title of a summit at Google HQ last fall had it -- growing sums of money are flowing into the sector. The U.S. Department of Education has earmarked $5 billion in competitive school-reform grants to scale up pilot programs and evaluate best practices of all kinds. Major foundations are specifically zeroing in on handhelds for preschool and the primary grades. "Young kids and multisensor-touch computing are a huge area of innovation," says Phoenix Wang, the head of a startup philanthropic venture fund called Startl -- funded by the Gates, MacArthur, and Hewlett foundations -- that's entirely focused on educational investing. Google, Nokia, Palm, and Sony have all supplied handheld devices for teaching.

Thousands of new mobiles -not just smartphones but also ever-shrinking computers -have come into use at schools in the United States and around the world just in the past year. Photograph by Danielle Levitt Angel Taylor, Jose Becerra, Julissa Mu単oz(Click for slideshow) To understand the transformative potential -- and possible pitfalls -- of this device -driven instructional reboot, you can look at the impact of one machine, the TeacherMate, that is getting educational futurists excited. It has the total package of appropriate design, quality software, and an ability to connect kids with teachers and technologists. And while it will have to leap huge hurdles -systemic, bureaucratic, cultural - to be widely adopted, it does pre-sent the tantalizing prospect of revolutionizing how children are educated by drawing on their innate hunger to seize learning with both hands and push all the right buttons. When I walk into the first-grade classroom at Henry Clay Elementary School on Chicago's South Side, the lights are off and the room is silent. Threequarters of the 20 children are plugged into headphones, staring into little blue machines. The TeacherMate, as it is called, is a handheld computer with a four-hour battery life. It runs full-color Flash games on a

platform partly open to volunteer developers worldwide, and it can record and play back audio. Julissa Mu単oz shyly tells me that she likes this device better than her PlayStation 2 at home. "They have lots of games," she says. "I like the fireman game," where exciting music plays as you choose the right length ladder, which sneakily teaches simple addition and subtraction. Julissa's teacher, the delightfully named Kelly Flowers, explains that the software on her laptop lets her track each student's performance. Once a week, when she plugs each student's TeacherMate into her docking station, she downloads a record of their game play and generates reports for herself as well as for parents. Then she sets the precise skills, levels, and allotted time for the upcoming week. The programs are synced with the reading and math curricula used in the school -right down to the same spelling words each week. Most important, says Flowers, the TeacherMate works. She privately sorts her kids into three groups based on their reading skills -- green (scoring at or above grade level), yellow (borderline), and red (underperformers). "This year, with TeacherMate, I started with 11 greens, 2 yellows, and 7 reds. By the middle of the year, I had

just 2 reds. I can move a red to a yellow on my own, but this is my first year moving a red directly to a green. I've never seen that much growth in that short a time." Flowers's observations are backed up by preliminary University of Illinois research that suggests that reading and math scores in classrooms with TeacherMates are significantly higher than in those without. Flowers says the kids like the TeacherMate because it gives them a feeling of freedom. "It doesn't feel like homework," she says. "They can choose from a whole list of games. They don't know that I decided what [skills] they'd be working on." And during the time her class spends with TeacherMates each day, Flowers can devote more focused time and attention to small groups of students. TeacherMate is the brainchild of a bearded technology lawyer turned social entrepreneur from Evanston, Illinois, named Seth Weinberger, who punctuates his verbal volleys with waving hands and liberal profanity. He says he's on year 15 of a 30-year personal life plan to transform schooling in America using technology. When Weinberger's daughter and son, now college-age, were toddlers, he and his wife helped start a preschool. "I donated some computers and was going to donate some reading

software," he says. "I went to Best Buy in 1993 and I couldn't see how any of the stuff they had could teach a kid anything." At his law firm, Weinberger happened to have some videogame designers as clients; he asked them to create a gamebased reading program. It was a hit. "The school loves it, I love it. To me, this is the future of education. I go back to the clients and say, 'This is a great beginning!' They say, 'No, this is the great ending. There's no market for educational software.' " Weinberger disagreed, and decided to teach himself how to program. He would work from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. at the law firm, go home, and work from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. at his computer -- his obsession with education making him a near-absentee dad to his own kids. Eventually, he licensed the software, which allowed him to "hire real developers who rewrote everything, laughing hysterically," he says. For the next 12 years, Weinberger continued to develop K-2 level reading and math software through his notfor-profit, Innovations for Learning, coordinating the work of programmers in India and Argentina with teachers at a dozen schools in Chicago. Three years ago, Weinberger and his FOR page 19

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team realized handheld mobile devices had gotten sophisticated enough to be ideal for classroom use. They were cheaper and more durable than laptops, and teachers found their smaller size proved less distracting in class. Moreover, he says, kids seemed to intuitively understand how to use the simpler machines. "We encourage teachers not to do any pretraining," he says. "Pass them out, turn them on, and have the kid start." Existing PDAs such as the PalmPilot and Dell Axim, on initial testing, proved a little too delicate and expensive for classroom use. So Innovations for Learning worked with a Chinese company to cheaply design and develop the TeacherMate, which debuted in 2008. Currently, it sells for $100, bundled with games customized to match each of the major K-2 reading and math curricula. The name was chosen carefully: Weinberger says he has realized that educational innovation is useless if the teachers don't find it helpful -- it can't be a distraction, an additional burden on their time, or a threat to their authority. Innovations for Learning is partnering with Chicago's Academy for Urban School Leadership, a not-forprofit that focuses on professional development, emphasizing that helping teachers learn to work with

TeacherMate is their priority. With the backing of the JPMorgan Chase Foundation and Arne Duncan, then the superintendent of the Chicago Public Schools and now the secretary of education, IFL took the TeacherMate from its longtime cluster of 12 Chicago schools to 500 schools in 14 states as of the fall of 2009. Weinberger can't stop talking about the TeacherMate's untapped possibilities. It seemingly has a solution for every educational buzzword out there: differentiated instruction, English-language learners, class size. It can let a Spanishspeaking parent help a student with his homework in English. (In addition to Spanish, software is being developed in Arabic, Hebrew, and Tagalog, with a goal to get to 100 languages.) It can help a teacher track exactly how much reading is going on at home. And it can allow a math whiz to speed ahead several grade levels. While the TeacherMate doesn't yet sport wireless connectivity, that should be coming within the next year or two. Weinberger envisions porting the software to the iPod Touch and iPad and then a next-generation of moresophisticated machines running Android, Google's open-source operating system. Content could expand to include scienceexperiment demos and immersive historical

environments for social studies. For longtime school reformers, the sales pitch for the TeacherMate may sound familiar. When it comes to our nation's public schools, the Miracle Man's wagon pulls into town every week with some magical intervention or other. What feels different about Innovations for Learning is that it isn't wedded to any particular gadget. While his organization has put significant resources into developing the TeacherMate, Weinberger says his true investment is in the concept. What matters is the development of new teaching and learning practices built around an idea: affordable, portable machines paired with constantly updated, collaboratively designed, openplatform software. "It's about the system," he says, "not a device." At the same time, even as he's careful to note that the TeacherMate is just one stage in an ongoing, deliberate process, Weinberger can't restrain a tone of geeklike glee at what his team has produced -- a convergence of compelling features, a reasonably affordable price, and demonstrated results - which is winning converts under its own momentum. "There's no stopping it," he says. "These devices are just too freaking good." Late on Thanksgiving night, I'm

in a van bumping over gravel roads in Baja California, Mexico, with Paul Kim, the chief technology officer of Stanford University's School of Education; a field team of four students; and two boxes of TeacherMates. Stray dogs prowl in front of roadside taquerias, their eyes glowing red in our passing headlights. Noah Freedman, a 19-year-old Princeton sophomore, is on his laptop in the front seat doing some last-minute debugging of an interactive storytelling program, while Ricardo Flores, a Stanford master's student, translates the software's directions into Spanish -- giving a new meaning, Freedman jokes, to "mobile development." We spend the next two days meeting with Mixtec and Zapotec children at campos, farm workers' camps with rows of corrugated-steel-roofed barracks set on packed mud. We roll into the compounds in the back of a truck driven by a local missionary and hand out bags of rice and beans to the mothers, who tell me that the youth here - clad in the international uniform of hoodies, jeans, and sneakers -- are struggling with borderlands issues of drugs and violence on top of rural poverty and isolation. And though schools here are supposed to run in half-day sessions, we find schoolhouses empty and locked both morning and afternoon.

Photograph by Danielle Levitt Eliana Singer, Gemma Singer(Click for slideshow) Kim is devoted to using cell phones to provide poor children with the basics of education and with access to all of the world's information. "Kids love stories," he says. "In places with no TV, no Internet, no books, when they are given these devices, these are like gifts from heaven." He has long dreamed of a machine that is cheap, powered with a solar or bicycle charger, and equipped with game-based learning content -- a complete "Pocket School." For the past four years, he has been testing phones from a dozen different manufacturers, but the TeacherMate, which he discovered in March 2008, comes closer than anything to the Pocket School ideal. The Mexico trip is one of a whirlwind of small user-testing and demonstration projects that Kim has undertaken in the past 12 months. He has personally brought TeacherMates to Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, India, South Korea, Costa Rica, the Philippines, Palestine, and several sites in Mexico, in most cases working with local not-for -profits, trying them out for a few hours and on a few dozen children at a time. He brings along programmers, like Freedman, so they can get FOR page 20

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feedback and tweak the software accordingly. In South Korea, Mexico, and the Philippines, schools and community centers continue to use the devices and collect data. Kim's TeacherMate strategy, like Weinberger's, is to let the kids figure it out by themselves. In Baja, I watch children aged 6 to 12 pick the machine up and within a few minutes, with no direct instructions, they're working in groups of three, helping one another figure out the menus in English by trial and error, playing the same math games as the students in Chicago, and reading along with stories in Spanish. The children agree that the TeacherMates are bonitas -- "cute." An 11-yearold named Silvia asks me hopefully, "Son regalos?" ("Are these gifts?") I have to say that they are only for borrowing. The missionary, Pablo Ohm, will keep the TeacherMates at the community center he runs in the town of Camalu, but access won't be regular. One of Kim's inspirations was George Washington Carver, who brought a "movable school" -- a horse-drawn wagon full of agricultural exhibits -- to poor black communities in rural Alabama in the 1920s. Kim is targeting especially the kids whose circumstances make it impossible to attend school regularly: refugees, migrants, the homeless. "Unesco reports

that there are 150 million street children and another 250 million who will never see a book," he says. "Donating books is great, but think about it. When you mail a book from here to Rwanda, the shipping will cost you way more than the cost of the book, and maybe nobody there can read the book." Whereas Weinberger wants to improve teaching practices at existing schools, Kim focuses overwhelmingly on empowering kids to teach themselves. He sees technology as a liberating force, helping kids in rich and poor countries alike bypass schools, with all their waste, bureaucracy, and failures, entirely. "Why does education need to be so structured? What are we so afraid of?" he asks. "The more you expect from a kid, the smarter they're going to get." Kim is drawing on his own painful experience with formal education. In postwar South Korea, Kim found school a conformist "assembly line." As a "bottom 2%" performer, he was beaten regularly for major and minor infractions. "Other kids, when they were punished, would go home and tell their parents, and their parents would come to school and give the teachers white envelopes, and the treatment would get better," he says. "But I never wanted to tell my parents what happened at school." At the age of 19,

Kim taught himself English in the library using middle-school textbooks before escaping to college in rural Americus, Georgia. Returning to Korea, he became a teacher with a passion for fostering people's innate capacity to learn. As I watch him kneel in the Mexican dirt, surrounded by eager kids, his face wreathed in a broad smile, he seems to delight in the way that the TeacherMate puts the kids in charge. "That's a phenomenon I've found even in Rwanda -where only 1% have electricity," he says. "With these devices, what the kids pick up in two minutes, the teachers need two hours to learn. The kids explore by themselves and figure it out. When you work with those kids directly, no matter where they are, they're so innovative." Photograph by Danielle Levitt Jordan Shakeel, Jocelyn Mines(Click for slideshow) For all his infectious passion, Kim would be the first to admit he has no specific plan for how the Pocket School might come to scale. His "development team" is an ad hoc group of volunteers -- like Freedman and his 15-year-old brother, Aaron, who composed the music for the fireman game. They have altruism and lots of heart, but they don't have a business plan. Enter a self-described Iowa farm boy named Richard Rowe, who founded and leads an

organization called the Open Learning Exchange, which is spreading educational technology by working closely with governments worldwide. Teaching is in Rowe's blood -his mother once taught in a oneroom schoolhouse in a town called Buffalo Wallow. He has spent a lifetime at the intersection of technology and education. In 1964, while working for the American Institutes for Research, Rowe helped oversee the automation of secondary-school entrance exams across English-speaking West Africa. Until then, blue books traveled by train and steamship to England, taking an entire year to be graded and returned. "We flew an IBM 360 from Frankfurt to Lagos and brought in some scanners and introduced multiple-choice testing," he says. "That increased accuracy, cut the cost dramatically, and reduced the lag time from 12 months to one, transforming the lives of literally millions of kids almost overnight. That's a use of [technology] to transform education completely, and it's not even all that clever." Rowe once headed the One Laptop Per Child Foundation, but came to believe that the much-hyped $199 computers -funded by eBay, Google, and private donors for supply to the developing world, with the next, flashiest Yves BĂŠhar -- designed

version coming in 2012 -- were too clever by half. The OLPC project has been widely criticized for delays, cost overruns, and limitations in its software. Rowe says he had a more serious problem with it: He and OLPC founder Nicholas Negroponte "fundamentally disagreed about the approach to basic education. It was his belief that if you have a really neat technology, if you build it, they will come. I had been around a lot longer than he in this field and knew from my own experience that it's far more complicated than that." (Negroponte was unavailable for comment; Matt Keller of One Laptop Per Child says, "We provide the technology. That's who we are. At the same time, we're an organization that cares about supporting the writing of poetry, not about the pens.") Taking a leaf from the burgeoning open-education movement -- like MIT's Open CourseWare site, which provides all of the university's courses online for free -- Rowe started the Open Learning Exchange with the redoubtable aim of providing quality basic education to 1 billion children in 100 countries by 2015. The OLE is structured as a global network of centers led by local social entrepreneurs who share materials, best practices, and FOR page 21

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new technologies. Already active in seven countries and setting up in several more, they are building a free "billion kids library" of open-source educational software and working with an eye toward adoption of technology-based educational "accelerators" by each country's government. Rowe, who calls Innovations for Learning "one of our great partners," says, "Content is king, and too often little attention is paid to content, as with One Laptop Per Child. TeacherMate is a shining exception to that rule. What makes it so good is the software: it actively engages the student and frees up the teacher to be more of a mentor." OLE Rwanda has launched a demonstration project with 500 TeacherMates supplied by Innovations for Learning; the project will compare them to OLPC's XO laptop for effectiveness and costeffectiveness. OLE Rwanda director Jacques Murinda says, "I think that the use of mobile phones in education has a great future even in developing countries. Teachers are being capacitated to use them, but children are already very creative in using them." Another of the seven OLE centers, an organization in Andhra Pradesh, India, called the Rishi Valley Institute for Educational Resources, is also trying it out. Use of the TeacherMate, if

successful, is likely to spread to other OLE centers; that's what the exchange is designed to do. However, Rowe says the TeacherMate software probably has a brighter future than the hardware. It could easily run on the next generation of cheap mobile phones as soon as an open, free platform like Android becomes more standard. "Mobile phones used offline have virtually the same features as the TeacherMate -- screen, speaker, mic, buttons. Mobile phones will continue to be more iPhone/iPad-like in the not-toodistant future. And they can communicate two-way, which the TeacherMate does not." Rowe sees low-cost, appropriate mobile technology as just one piece of a greater educational strategy that also pays plenty of attention to fostering local leadership and collaboration. "The history of educational technology, which goes way, way back, is just full of graveyards," he says. "Now can be different -- maybe. Technology is getting smarter and cheaper. Software is getting more powerful and effective. The open-source movement is making content more widely available at much lower cost. But we need to recognize that the technology itself is only a very small part of the solution for ensuring highly effective education." The OLE's business plan is to

prove both the costeffectiveness and teachingeffectiveness of these tools and strategies through research, so that governments around the world will be moved to take them up on a grand scale. "We have to be far more creative about appropriate information technology in the developing world," Rowe says. "Our job is to enable a given country to take what is available and adapt it and try it out." Mobile phones have transformed communications, especially in the developing world, more swiftly than anyone could have imagined. The prospect of doing the same for education -- putting best-ofbreed learning software in kids' hands anytime, anywhere -- is tantalizing. Yet not everyone is so excited about what might be called the iTeach future. While a $100 curriculum-in-abox may seem like a good value even by developing-country standards, wide distribution would still be costly. Many experts maintain that educational interventions in the poorest countries should stick to even cheaper technologies that have already proven their value, like chalkboards and paper. "Before one can make use of a computer, reading and writing are fundamentals," says Erin Ganju, CEO of the social enterprise Room to Read, which has built and stocked 9,000

developing-world libraries over the past decade with plain old paper books. "For as little as $5 a year per child, we can create a well-stocked library with a trained librarian." And then there is the anticommercialization camp. Skeptics are wary about the motives of cell-phone makers and telecom-service providers, which would reap a windfall should governments embrace mobile learning -- Unesco has estimated educational spending worldwide at $2.5 trillion annually. And as with the boob tube before it, there's worry that wide adoption of mobile technologies for learning will give marketers direct access to a very impressionable demographic. "Cell phones are increasingly a way for advertisers to target children," says Josh Golin of the Campaign for a CommercialFree Childhood. "We've seen branded Burger King games downloaded to cell phones and text-message advertising sent to kids." But the biggest challenge to Pocket School -- style learning may not be the business model. The same possibilities that make these technologies so exciting -the sight of Gemma, Eliana, Julissa, and Silvia pushing the buttons, controlling their own learning and their own destiny -make them threatening to the educational status quo. A system

built around tools that allow children to explore and figure things out for themselves would be radical for most developingworld schools, which emphasize learning by rote. In the United States, which is currently so in love with state curriculum benchmarks and standardized tests, it could be just as hard a sell. What's at issue is a deep cultural shift, a fundamental rethinking not only of how education is delivered but also of what "education" means. The very word comes from the Latin duco, meaning "to lead or command" -- putting the learner in the passive position. Rabi Kamacharya is an MIT engineering grad who returned to his native Kathmandu from Silicon Valley to found a software company and started OLE Nepal, the network's most established branch, in 2007. Kamacharya talks about technology putting "children in the driver's seat" -- to overcome the limited skills of teachers: "Even in urban areas, teachers who teach English, for example, do not know English very well. Children are at the mercy of the teachers, who may not be motivated or have sufficient materials to work with. We want to enable them to go forward with self-learning and assessment." FOR page 28

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Small Business Web: Leverage and Cooperation Howard Greenstein (Inc.com)

Small Business Web cofounders Michelle RiggenRansom, Director of Many start-up or small business Communications for BatchBlue owners look for partners to a n d S u n i r S h a h , " C h i e f leverage their business. Whether Handshaker" of Freshbooks sat the butcher recommends the down with me at the South by b a k e r o r t h e p r o g r a m m e r Southwest(SXSW) Interactive r e c o m m e n d s a d e s i g n e r , Festival to talk about this manybusinesses work on connections. company integrated solution. The Small Business Web is a “We want to work towards an group of software companies Open Web platform because whose programs are connected Open is the fastest way to build to each other via a set of the biggest market,” said Shah. communication channels. These You can find out more about APIs (Application Programming t h e s e c o m p a n i e s i n t h e i r Interfaces) in and out of the directory, which was announced s o f t w a r e p l a t f o r m s o f 7 0 last week at SXSW. companies let them pass data The Small Business Web’s from one program to another – “Most Connected Customer” is giving small business solutions Brandon Dunlap, Managing the capabilities of an integrated Director of BrightFly, a research enterprise suite of applications based consulting company, at a small business price. focused on business As a startup owner, you m a n a g e m e n t o f a u d i t a n d probably don’t care about APIs information security. Dunlap did – but you might care that putting about 100K miles in air travel y o u r i n v o i c i n g d a t a i n t o last year, going to conferences Freshbooks will let it flow into and working with professional bookkeeping and tax solution associations as well as clients. Outright. Or that sending your As someone who is never “in business cards to ShoeBoxed the office,” he uses software means that you can add the data from 7 of the Small Business you get to CRM provider Web companies. BatchBlue’s BatchBook “We’re a decentralized database as well as send it organization, a virtual team. I through sales lead provider was using another solution to Jigsaw. scan business cards and receipts; Submitted at 3/24/2010 12:11:00 PM

it was time a consuming process. A colleague turned me on to ShoeBoxed at the same time we were having accounting software upgrade problems. From them we came across Freshbooks and Outright. Freshbooks let us do online invoicing, and integrate the receipt scanning from ShoeBoxed, which imports to our Outright financials,” said Dunlap. After conferences, instead of sending materials on CD ROMs, BrightFly started emailing folks with links. But keeping track of who was sent what was difficult. "Now we send cards to ShoeBoxed, they’re scanned and uploaded to BatchBook. We can send people mail messages based on contact lists from BatchBook using MailChimp. Batchbook keeps track of whom we contacted, when, and where we met them." Contact emails come back to him, and he can use CRM in BatchBook to track connections. He’s now using Survey Gizmo for data collection and Eventbrite for some of their upcoming live web events. Google’s Apps program recently announced a marketplace where companies using Google’s mail and other programs can also purchase

applications. Several of the Small Business Web companies are now available in the Google Apps Marketplace. This allows a single sign on for a small business – logging into their mail also permits login and connection to their marketplace apps. (Note: My Inc. colleague Renee Oricchio has some concerns about the marketplace.) There are several categories in the directory where competitors are listed – such as online form builders FormSpring and WuFoo. However, the philosophy of the leaders is “Hug it Out.” Riggen-Ransom of BatchBlue ran into the CEO of another online CRM company while with Shah of Freshbooks. Shah suggested that in the spirit of the open web, the competitors hug and talk business. Riggen-Ransom told me “We have a lot in common with people making competitive products, and the friendly competition is going to make all the products better for our customers.” Are you using integrated solutions from the Small Business Web, or other cooperating vendors? Let us know in the comments below.

Fetish: Exoskeletal Glove Gives Motorcyclists an Iron Fist Joe Brown (Wired Top Stories)

This motorcycle gauntlet of Kangaroo hide, Kevlar, stainless

steel and thermoplastic will help you brace for that smack on the

pavement if you ever fall.

Unemployed man hands out $10 every day (Holy Kaw!) Submitted at 3/24/2010 10:52:57 PM

Reed Sandridge’s mom taught him a valuable lesson growing up: tough times are the moments when you most need to give back. Sandridge embraced this message recently when he lost his job and began handing out $10 every day and documenting the handouts in a small notebook. By Day 94, Reed’s giving journey had cost him nearly $1,000, but paid him back ten-fold in the sense of satisfactionhe has received from helping others. Full story at Neatorama. More heart-warming good news. Permalink| Leave a comment »

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Failed Filmmakers Pretend Piracy Group 'Stole' Film To Try To Get Publicity

How Apple Got Its Name Max Chafkin (Inc.com) Submitted at 3/24/2010 8:40:12 AM

Obamacare is the law. It's official: After decades of debate, a universal health care reform package was signed by President Obama yesterday. There's still wrangling in the Senate over the reconciliation package, but the basics are a done deal. Inc. contributor Robb Mandelbaum has a nice blog post over at the New York Times that explains why most businesses probably don't have much to fear about the new law. Meanwhile, there's an interesting debate going on about what the health care reform package means for entrepreneurs who have yet to start a business. Some argue it will encourage people to quit their jobs and get started, since they won't have to worry about not having health insurance. Others say health insurance wasn't a barrier to entrepreneurship in the first place. What do you think? How Apple and Intel got their names. Business Insider looks at 13 technology powerhouses to find out how the companies got their names. After running three months late to file its trademark, Steve Jobs told his co-founders to come up with a

Mike Masnick (Techdirt) Submitted at 3/25/2010 1:45:06 AM

better name by the end of the day or he'd go with Apple. Intel's co-founders really wanted to call their baby Moore Noyce (after their names), but a hotel chain had already trademarked it. Sony was meant to appeal to Americans--a nod to "sonny boy," which was a phrase that was popular in Japan during the 1950s. Y Combinator start-ups attract the rich and almost-famous Paul Graham's business school cum investment fund, Y Combinator, just held its tenth demo day. Twenty-four startups strutted their stuff before Google executives, VCs, and Ashton Kutcher. The Twitter video entrepreneur and star of That 70's Show says he came to see "what the future looks like," according to the San Jose Mercury News. To judge from the start-ups that presented, the future includes Web video, social games, and organizing digital data. Curt Schilling plays hard ball over business tax breaks. ExRed Sox pitcher and--who knew?--video-game

entrepreneur, Curt Schilling, is making waves in Boston. Schilling has threatened to move his four-year-old company out of Massachusetts to any other state that puts together the most attractive tax-incentive program. According to the Boston Globe, Schilling has confirmed that he's in preliminary talks with Rhode Island officials to move his company, 38 Studios, to the Ocean State. Schilling is also testing the free-agency market with a number of other economic-development officials who are eager to woo the 167employee company to their state. As Schilling states, "We're hearing from states that don't have programs talking about putting programs in place for us." Of course, like every free agent in the midst of contract negotiations, Schilling says he would prefer his company to stay in Massachusetts...as long as the money's right. As he says, "This is where we started. This is where we want to be." Inside an acquisition. For years, Darryl Ohrt, the founder of the ad agency Plaid, turned down

offer after offer to buy his business. But, as he writes for AdAge, this time was different. Here's the inside look at why this offer was right and what he's learned in the process. (Which reminds us of this classic Bo Burlingham feature on the sale of our own magazine in 2005.) Tumblr gets a business model. Pop the Champaign and buy yourself a custom theme. Tumbler's first attempt to make some money off of its wildly popular blogging platform involves a twist on Apple's iPhone app store. The company is allowing anyone to sell premium designs to Tumblr bloggers (prices range from $9 to $49). Valleywag is impressed, but snarkily so. More from Inc. Magazine: Get this delivered to your inbox. Or get it on the Kindle Follow us on Twitter or Tumblr. Friend us on Facebook. Apply now for the 2010 Inc. 500|5000.

We've talked about smart filmmakers learning to embrace file sharing to enlarge their audience and to improve their business model, but it appears that some filmmakers are getting the wrong kind of message. TorrentFreak has the story of how some filmmakers in Denmark, who had a total flop on their hands, pretended that the local Piratgruppen organization literally broke into the studio, stole (used correctly, for once) the film, and were threatening to put it online. Of course, the whole thing was completely made up in a weak attempt to get publicity. Little actually came of it until it was exposed as totally made up -but it's a pretty serious issue. The studio was blatantly lying and accusing people of out-andout criminal behavior, knowing that it was false. And this is in Denmark, where the local antipiracy group has been quite aggressive in going after anyone for copyright infringement. Shameful. Permalink| Comments| Email This Story

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Small Businesses Grapple with New Health Care Britain Expels 'Mossad Law Courtney Rubin (Inc.com)

Official'

Submitted at 3/24/2010 8:44:00 AM

(Little Green Footballs)

For small businesses, it may be a case of the best of times and the worst of times. A group long distrustful of government stands to benefit early and often from the health care reform legislation President Barack Obama signed into law on Tuesday. But as 14 states challenges the legislation in court and Republicans make its repeal a 2010 campaign theme, many entrepreneurs are wondering what will come next—and how they will be affected. The National Federation of Independent Business, a conservative interest group that opposed the Democratic reform bill, estimates that only about 12 percent of small businesses will benefit from the tax credits. Though a sliding scale of credits is designed to help foot the bill, there's a maximum rebate of 50 percent starting in 2014, and the credit disappears after five years. Moreover, the 50-percent credit is only available to firms with fewer than 10 employees and average annual wages of less than $25,000. The federation's New Jersey chapter has pointed

Submitted at 3/24/2010 9:57:43 AM

out that the average salary for its 8,000 members is $27,000. The NFIB also claims some 5 million jobs will be lost in five years, a casualty of small business owners forced to choose paying for healthcare over keeping an employee. "Small-business owners had the highest rise in health insurance costs, and nothing in this legislation is going to change that around," Bill Cron, associate dean of the Neeley School of Business at Texas Christian University, told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. "I saw nothing that's going to reduce that. "If there's any good news, implementation is staggered," Cron continued. "A lot will be stretched over the next three-tofive years. I think for the most part, this legislation had to do with the availability of health care and not as much as cost." Less than half of businesses with between three and nine workers offered health insurance in 2009, according to the nonprofit Kaiser Family

Foundation. That figure jumped above 70 percent for companies with 10 to 24 employees and to nearly 90 percent for those with 25 to 49 workers. Gail Lindley, owner of Denver Bookbinding Company, employs 13 people. Her family has run the book restoration and rebinding firm since 1946. “When you’ve been in business a while, you remember the old days,” she told Denver's ABC TV affiliate. “I remember when health insurance used to be considered a benefit. Now, it’s considered an entitlement.” She's concerned about the bill's mandate that business foot more of the health care bill. “Why would government add more burden on to you when it’s tough enough to stay in business?” she asked. Other small businesses confessed they weren't sure exactly how the legislation would affect them – not a surprise considering that the 153 -page follow-up bill that will iron out some of the reform details is still being debated in

Britain has expelled an Israeli diplomat said to be a “ a senior Mossad official,” as a response to the use of forged British passports by the hit team that assassinated Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai. Foreign secretary David Miliband also directly accused Israel of carrying out the killing, saying the passports were copied from real UK passports by Israeli agents. Al-Mabhouh was a murderous terrorist, no doubt, and no one should weep for him. But Israel seems to have seriously miscalculated the diplomatic fallout from this operation.

the Senate. Nancy Lurker, CEO of PDI, a New Jersey company that outsources services to the pharmaceutical industry, said she wasn't sure if the bill required extending coverage to the company's stable of 60 parttime employees. (It doesn't technically, but two part-timers count as one full-time employee for purposes of determining whether a business has 50 employees – the threshold at which a company is required to offer a minimum level of coverage or pay a per-employee fine.) Paying for part-timers' health c a r e w o u l d s e t b a c k t h e Developers, Websites company's plans for hiring. Respond to iPhone “It’s very murky,” Lurker said. “If there’s uncertainty, you App Payola Story Brian X. Chen (Wired Top don’t hire.” What are your biggest questions Stories) about how healthcare reform Submitted at 3/25/2010 6:00:00 AM will affect your business? The iPhone community has reacted strongly to Wired'com's article exposing pay-to-play policies among app review sites.

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Caveat emptor and vice versa nospam@example.org (Scott Jagow) (Marketplace Scratch Pad) Submitted at 3/24/2010 1:04:18 PM

I pointed out a new Bloomberg poll today that contains mostly expected results. Americans have unfavorable views of Wall Street, Congress, insurance companies and business executives. But a little surprising were the answers on consumer protection: Almost seven out of 10 people surveyed support using current bank regulators for consumer protection, backing positions held by the financial industry and Republicans over President Barack Obama’s proposal to establish an independent agency… Obama’s proposal for a standalone consumer agency has been a main sticking point in negotiations between Senate Democrats and Republicans on broader legislation to increase oversight of Wall Street. “By creating a new consumer agency, we will finally set and enforce clear rules of the road

across the financial marketplace,” Obama said in a March 22 statement. “I will continue to fight to strengthen the bill and against attempts to undermine the independence of this agency.” But the current proposal has the consumer protection agency housed at the Fed. Bloomberg also had this quote: “People are generally satisfied with the way consumer protection has worked with banks,” said Mr Ernie Patrikis, a lawyer who specialises in banking supervision. “Most Americans could care less about redoing the financial regulatory structure.” I seriously doubt the spirit of that last comment, but he may have a point. What people want isn’t necessarily an independent this or a supervising that. They want some semblance of fairness, and they want to see repercussions for people who take advantage of others and for those who behave recklessly with their own money or with money that eventually comes

out of the taxpayer’s pocket. They want to know what the rules are and that they will be enforced. Scratch Pad reader Sam in Texas asks important questions: 1) how does a Consumer Protection Agency stay independent, and 2) would the proposed Consumer Protection Agency have been able to prevent the booking of bad mortgages that led to our current financial crisis? Even under the Fed, the consumer protection agency would have an independent budget, a somewhat independent process for choosing leadership and a somewhat autonomous rule-making authority. How that all would work in reality inside the Fed’s walls is up for debate. But independent agencies have failed in the past, too. Who knows whether such an agency could’ve prevented the subprime crisis? Maybe that’s part of the hesitation we’re seeing in this poll. I harken back to a 1933 FDR

speech in which he proposed disclosure requirements on stock sales: This proposal adds to the ancient rule of caveat emptor, the further doctrine “let the seller also beware.” It puts the burden of telling the whole truth on the seller. It should give impetus to honest dealing in securities and thereby bring back public confidence. The purpose of the legislation I suggest is to protect the public with the least possible interference with honest business. What’s interesting is that FDR proposed the regulation without a regulator in mind. The SEC eventually took up the mantle, but FDR started with the regulation, not the regulator and its independent qualities. It was the principle that was important. Perhaps that’s what Americans are trying to say now.

Eerie #16: 'A Strange Girl Called Sarah Gives You the Chills' (Little Green Footballs) Submitted at 3/24/2010 4:44:02 PM

Cheap political snark via #Eerie Magazine #16 (July 1968), from the Lizard Collection of Creepy

and Eerie mags. This is another book in really good condition, after being stored in a sealed wooden crate for more than 40 years; because they were kept ink and yellowing of paper is away from light, the fading of

minimal. (Again, the reflections are caused by the acid-free plastic bags in which the books are stored.)

$150 Kobo eReader: The Real Kindle Killer? Charlie Sorrel (Wired Top Stories) Submitted at 3/25/2010 6:46:00 AM

The iPad is no Kindle-killer (although buying the almost $500 DX now seems a little silly) because Amazon's singlepurpose device, with the sunlight-friendly e-ink display and the long, long battery life, will continue to be great for just reading books. The real Kindlekiller will be a cheap e-reader, and it has just arrived: The $150 Kobo.

Relaxed Minds Remember Better [Mind Hacks] Adam Pash (Lifehacker) Submitted at 3/25/2010 5:30:00 AM

If you're serious about getting the most mileage from that brain of yours, a new study points out that people form stronger, more lasting memories when they're relaxed. More »

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Your stimulus in action nospam@example.org (Scott Jagow) (Marketplace Scratch Pad)

be close to getting a refund on its purchase price. That’s only the beginning. After analyzing SEC filings, the Submitted at 3/24/2010 8:44:19 AM The government’s generosity Journal says more than 250 toward big business in this companies are expecting a total r e c e s s i o n h a s k n o w n f e w of $12 billion in refunds because boundaries. Take, for example, of this deal. It was passed in the a little-known tax provision that name of “stimulus”: was slipped into the jobless Some critics have found the benefits extension bill last corporate-tax-refund technique November. JP Morgan is trying wanting as a stimulus or jobto use the tax break to get back c r e a t i o n m o v e . P r i o r t o most of the money it spent Congress’s passage of the $787 buying Washington Mutual. billion stimulus law in early As the Wall Street Journal 2009, the Congressional Budget explains, the provision allows Office looked at six possible companies to apply losses from stimulus approaches and ranked 2008 or 2009 against taxes paid this one least effective, saying in the previous five years. You e a c h c o r p o r a t e t a x d o l l a r try getting that deal from the refunded would generate at most IRS. 40 cents of boost to gross Under the benefit, WAMU is domestic product. The corporate apparently eligible for $2.6 -tax-refund approach wasn’t billion in refunds. JP Morgan, included in the big stimulus bill which took over WAMU in fall early in the year but was part of 2008, is talking with the FDIC legislation in November that and its bondholders about extended jobless benefits. claiming more than half that as a Douglas Shackelford, a tax refund this year. It paid $1.9 professor at the University of billion for WAMU, so it would North Carolina at Chapel Hill,

said using federal tax receipts to shore up corporate balance sheets amounts to “public borrowing to pay off private debt…It’s not clear to me that’s a good use of money at all.” Now, there is some anecdotal evidence that the tax breaks may have saved a few jobs. Liz Claiborne says the refund will help it expand this year instead of closing stores, for instance. But it’s particularly disconcerting, considering the glut of homes on the market, to see that home builders are getting the biggest boost from the tax provision: Some companies intentionally took steeper losses last year to qualify for bigger tax refunds. KB Home sold land at a loss in 2009, the Los Angeles home builder told investors in January. “We were able to dispose of lots, generate cash, take advantage of [the tax break], improve our balance sheet,” KB Chief Executive Jeffrey Mezgersaid. “It was a very nice move for us.”

Undoubtedly. One more thing: TARP recipients aren’t supposed to qualify for this tax break. JP Morgan received $25 billion from the government under TARP. WAMU bondholders say it’s ludicrous that JP Morgan should get a refund: J.P. Morgan officials have told other parties in the case that the ban on TARP recipients using the tax break is irrelevant, because it was WaMu that paid the taxes on which the refund is based. J.P. Morgan has noted the refund wouldn’t go to it directly; it would sit in a receivership at the FDIC that also houses the $1.9 billion J.P. Morgan paid for WaMu’s banking assets and deposits. You gotta hand it to ‘em. Getting $1.9 billion worth of assets for about $500 million — why, that’s a steal.

AppBrain Manages Your Android Apps on the Web [Downloads] Kevin Purdy (Lifehacker) Submitted at 3/25/2010 7:00:00 AM

Android: With more than 30,000 apps in the Android market, finding good apps and filtering the cruft can be challenging. AppBrain manages your apps online, recommends good stuff based on your installs, and makes it easy to share apps with friends. More »

FBI Investigates 'Suspicious Incident' in Virginia (Little Green Footballs)

Lee Catlin, community relations director for the Albemarle County Fire Marshal, The FBI is investigating a cut s a i d i n a s t a t e m e n t t o propane gas line at the home of POLITICO that the office is the brother of pro-health bill “investigating a suspicious Rep. Tom Perriello’s (D-Va.), incident” at the home of the after the address was posted on congressman’s brother. “The the web by tea party “activists.” F i r e M a r s h a l ’ s O f f i c e i s Submitted at 3/24/2010 11:39:04 AM

conducting the investigation in cooperation with the FBI,” Catlin said. “While officials are not willing to characterize the exact nature of the incident because of the ongoing investigation, it did not involve an immediate threat to occupants of the residence.

However officials are taking the incident very seriously and conducting a vigorous investigation,” the statement said. POLITICO reported on Monday that Mike Troxel, an organizer for the Lynchburg Tea Party, posted on his blog what

he thought was the congressman’s address, encouraging tea party activists to “drop by.” The address has since been posted on websites of at least one other local tea party activist. Another word for this kind of “activism” starts with a T.

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

expenditures they used to fund with debt—big-ticket items like factories, expensive equipment, and new buildings. Submitted at 3/25/2010 5:56:49 AM Good morning. To start the Speaking of cash, big day, let’s talk about the merits companies are bathing in it(Los o f a c a s h e c o n o m y , t h e Angeles Times) d r a w b a c k s o f t o o m u c h “The good news for America corporate cash, and the vultures now is that companies are very — I mean, plantiffs — that are competitive, flush with cash and circling Toyota. ready to expand,” said Joseph Credit is dead. Long Live Carson, an economist at money Cash!(Newsweek) management firm Texas electricity provider First AllianceBernstein in New York. Choice Power in January But others worry that the launched a prepaid service business giants’ clout has called Control First. “In Texas, increased significantly at the there are about a million expense of workers — the households who have slim credit millions in the ranks of the or no credit at all,” says jobless as well as those who c o m p a n y p r e s i d e n t B r i a n remain employed but must work Hayduk. Without requiring a harder than ever. deposit or credit, customers are The one provision that could permitted to prepurchase a set sink financial reform(The New amount of electricity—say $100 R e p u b l i c ) C o u l d n ’ t a g r e e per month. The company installs m o r e … a smart meter that lets people Whenever an agency doesn’t do k n o w h o w m u c h t h e y ’ v e its job in Washington, the used—which spurs customers to temptation is to create still manage their energy use more another agency to oversee it. intelligently. That was the proposed solution The rise of the cash economy for the intelligence failures of has made businesses hesitant to the Central Intelligence Agency make the type of capital a n d F e d e r a l B u r e a u o f

on behalf of at least 6 million drivers. Some say Toyota knew about the sudden acceleration problems but failed to tell consumers. Others say Toyota’s solution ignores the real problem — flawed electronics. Whatever the reason, owners all claim the value of their cars has plummeted since last fall’s recall, and they want full refunds. Investigation. And now it’s GM’s unveils a networked mini Washington’s solution to the -car for the city streets failures of the Federal Reserve. As drivers await the arrival of But this council wouldn’t G e n e r a l M o t o r s ’ s m u c h address the principal reasons for anticipated Chevy Volt plug-in the failure of the Fed from 1997 hybrid car later this year, GM or so through 2007, when it unveiled an electric vehicle of pressed for further financial an entirely different stripe on deregulation and ignored or Wednesday at the World Expo downplayed the warning signs 2 0 1 0 i n S h a n g h a i . T h e of the dot-com and housing company’s Electric Networked b u b b l e s . W e k n o w w h a t Vehicle (EN-V) is a mini happened next. electric vehicle built for two, Lawyers jostle to lead the unless you are using it to go charge against Toyota(NPR) shopping, in which case you There are so many lawsuits, in might have room for yourself fact, that a panel of federal and a bag of groceries. judges in San Diego is meeting Thursday to sort out the timing, location and logistics of the legal battle. The suits each claim to be filed

Photo Tutor Teaches Basic Camera Exposure on the Go from Your iPhone [Downloads] Erica Ho (Lifehacker) Submitted at 3/25/2010 5:00:00 AM

iPhone/iPod touch: If you're interested in getting beyond automatic mode on your camera but don't have a lot of time, the free versions of Photo Tutor Module Lite 1 and 2 explain the finer points of aperture and shutter speed on-the-go. More »

Tame Clutter by Asking "How Much Is Enough?" [Clutter] Jason Fitzpatrick (Lifehacker) Submitted at 3/25/2010 6:30:00 AM

It's easy to accumulate too much and often we don't ask "How much is enough?" often

enough. Evaluate your stuff

today to find out where you're wasting space with needless duplication. More »

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Student loans and health care nospam@example.org (Scott Jagow) (Marketplace Scratch Pad)

vote for a lot of people, me included,” he said. “And the more things that you can go home and say are in the bill that Submitted at 3/24/2010 10:00:08 AM If you’re wondering why the are sort of universally popular, health care legislation is finally yeah, it helps. To say our getting through Congress, you community colleges are going to might look no further than the benefit, there is going to be part of the bill that overhauls the more Pell grant scholarships nation’s student loan business. available for more people. Yes, part of the health care Institutions that serve Africanpackage that has nothing to do Americans, Hispanics, Asian with health care would end Americans, Native Americans government subsidies to private are going to benefit from this. It student lenders. By cutting out cuts corporate welfare, which I the middlemen, the government really think is the present projects $61 billion in savings program.” over 10 years. That money He continued, “It’s another set would go directly to more of deliverables that people like.” student loans like Pell grants. It The government’s takeover of would also go toward reducing student loan programs means t h e d e f i c i t a n d o f f s e t t i n g banks and lenders like Sallie expenses of the health care bill. Mae will lose. That’s right — it The overhaul appealed to many appears the financial industry Democrats who were on the lobby isn’t going to win this fence about the health care one. But in a story last week on m e a s u r e s . C o n s i d e r t h e Marketplace, we pointed out c o m m e n t s o f N e w J e r s e y that colleges were already going D e m o c r a t R o b A n d r e w s : directly to the government: “This is a controversial, difficult …some schools are ignoring the

student loan debate. They’re starting to cut out the middleman themselves. Students don’t have to get their government loans through the banks. There’s already a direct government loan program. The loans aren’t cheaper for the students, but they’re more convenient. And more schools have started offering them. Questions: Is this overhaul actually necessary? Will it be better for students to have the government as the major — if not only — choice for loans? ( Here’s a Q and A about aspects of the overhaul). Democrats say this will end a piece of corporate welfare to Sallie Mae and the banks. Republicans see it as another piece of the government extending its power. Does this deal sit well with you, knowing that health care might’ve died without it?

FOR continued from page 21

Photograph by Danielle Levitt Srijani Dasararaju, Shalini Dasararaju(Click for slideshow) This idea, common among these tech-driven educational entrepreneurs, imagines a new role for teachers. "The main transformational change that needs to happen is for the teacher to transform from the purveyor of information to the coach," says Weinberger of Innovations for Learning. As Rowe puts it, "Up until very recently, most communications were hub-and-spoke, one to many. The Internet is a many-to -many environment, which is in the early stages of having a major impact on education. It involves a fairly major change in the concept of what education is, which is one of the reasons we use the term 'learning' as distinct from 'education.' It's student-centered and studentempowered." The challenge of putting such ideas into practice -- and getting the kids into the educational driver's seat -- is so daunting it's almost laughable. Still, when

you've seen a tiny child eagerly embracing a device that lets her write, draw, figure out math, and eventually find an answer to any question she might ask, it's hard not to feel the excitement of the moment, or its revolutionary potential. We're talking about leapfrogging over massive infrastructure limitations to unleash what Kim calls "the only real renewable resource" -- the inventive spark of 1 billion children. "They're creative, these children," he says, "no matter where they are." Photograph by Danielle Levitt Logan Bailey, Madison Richardson, Oscar Soto(Click for slideshow) Anya Kamenetz is the author of the new book DIY U: Edupunks, Edupreneurs, and the Coming Transformation of Higher Education.

agreed to put it through its paces including: assembly, a test call, and then a fast lap around the press room here at CTIA. Please join us after the break as we torture test the Cell-Mate. Continue reading Cell-Mate headset heads-on

Cell-Mate headset heads-on originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 25 Mar 2010 09:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| | Email this| Comments

Cell-Mate headset heads-on Sean Cooper (Engadget)

these but is surprisingly useful, comfortable, and at $14.99, dirt Submitted at 3/25/2010 9:49:00 AM cheap. The box includes the CTIA always has its fair share wire headset and a couple of dodgy goods, from mildly Velcro adhesive pads that you quirky to downright laughable, apply to your set; slap one on to we see all kinds. The Cell-Mate your phone, attach to the wire handsfree. Our own Paul Miller admittedly touches on all of frame and you're ready to talk

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CBS.com: First Big Network to Embrace the iPad's HTML5 Video Mojo? Kit Eaton (Fast Company)

interest in the device that fans of CBS TV shows will drive significant iPad-based traffic to Whatever you may think about CBS's site. This is not a move to the Apple-Adobe battle over be taken lightly--there's some Flash on the iPad, it's clear that small expense involved in Apple's not going to move on making the change-over, for a the matter. And now CBS.com start--even while the re-coded is trialling Web videos in iPadsite would be compatible with friendly HTML5 format. the next-gen HTML5 system, The guys at TheOtherMac blog which will eventually be the noted this first, and then tech behind how most sites are MacRumors did some digging, coded. We can certainly expect and found out exactly what's other big online content players going on. Basically CBS's Web to think about doing the same site suddenly gained a few "iPad thing. Our stopwatch is already - test" video links among its if it's an iPad Safari version, or is revealed when you peep at the though not quite as clearly counting until the next move more usual Flash-based online access the relevant pages site's CSS code--HTML5- targeted at the iPad as this new like this hits the headlines. content. Clicking on these using through the iPad SDK, CBS's specific and Webkit references CBS move. Which makes the [via MacRumors] a "normal" device like a laptop secrets pop up. The pages are are dotted throughout. This is discovery somewhat important: To keep up with this news and or PC just took you to a regular incomplete, and the video precisely the tech needed to A major network is going to the more like it, follow me, Kit CBS-style video--using the playback simply wont work, make the things work on the trouble of building iPad-specific Eaton, on Twitter. That QR code same core Flash technology that i n d i c a t i n g i t s s t i l l u n d e r iPad. versions of its online presence. on the left will take you to my powers much of the current development. But the video is We know that Google's been CBS clearly believes that the Twitter feed too. video footage online. being transmitted using HTML5 t r y i n g a f e w H T M L 5 iPad is going to be a success, But the truth is revealed if you format rather than Flash, which experiments itself for YouTube, that there will be enough user spoof your browser to appear as Submitted at 3/25/2010 7:49:38 AM

Meizu partners with Karry Auto to sing KIRFer's Delight Tim Stevens (Engadget)

guessing you're a little more familiar with the history there. The two companies have joined K a r r y A u t o ( a p h o n e t i c forces in China, with Karry mistranslation of the English Auto giving away a a Meizu M8 word "carry") is a division of SE with every tiny truck or little the Chinese car maker Chery, van sold until April 30. Should involved in this deal, just take a infamous for getting sued by you have any lingering doubts long look at that guy up there on Chevy for knocking off its about the legitimacy of the the right. Everything is A-OK. designs. Meizu... well, we're designs of either cars or phones

originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 25 Mar 2010 09:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink Meizu Me| Karry Auto| Email this| Comments

Submitted at 3/25/2010 9:26:00 AM

[Thanks, Etzer] Meizu partners with Karry Auto to sing KIRFer's Delight

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China's Second Largest Mobile Network Drops Google Search Engine on Its Cellphones Addy Dugdale (Fast Company) Submitted at 3/25/2010 7:53:04 AM

The slow drip of the Google backlash has started, it seems. China Unicom, the country's second largest cellphone operator behind China Mobile, is to remove the search engine from its Android smartphones. The cellphone provider, which has suffered a 73% drop in profits, due to its customers' reluctance to use its 3G network, following massive investment in it, will leave the choice of search engines to

handset manufacturers. Earlier this week the network provider was forced to drop a brace of cellphones it had been developing alongside Google, due to the Internet giant's ongoing tussle with China's censorship laws. Although most of the repercussions are not going Google's way, it has found two allies, in Go Daddy, who announced yesterday that it was pulling out of China, due to the country's surveillance and censorship issues, and Congress. Senator Byron Dorgan (D, North Dakota) praised Google for its stance on the censorship

market, compared to the american firm's 40%. What will hit Google hard, however, is if China Mobile and China Telecom, the two telcos with the most 3G subscribers, dispense with Google's services. So, is this when Microsoft muscles in? A couple of weeks ago, it signed a deal with Motorola to make Bing the default search engine for its Android phones in China. Elsewhere in Googleland, issue, while a New Jersey rather than enabling tyranny, yesterday's Chinese hack was Representative, Chris Smith, which they're doing now," he not, it seems, a hack. It was a dissed its search engine rival, said. bug. They're common this year, Microsoft. "They need to get on Google's, big competitor in as Winter segues into Spring, the right side of human rights China, Baidu, holds 65% of the apparently.

Windfall for Europe as GE Invests $450 Million in Offshore Turbines Addy Dugdale (Fast Company)

manufacturing, engineering and service facilities. The company is taking its next-gen, Submitted at 3/25/2010 8:02:11 AM gearboxless, 4-megawatt Direct Four European countries are to Drive Wind Turbine to the benefit from G E ' s continent's shores. This is not announcement this morning that t h e f i r s t s n i f f o f t h e o l d it is to invest 340 million euros c o n t i n e n t ' s a i r s t h a t G E ' s in the offshore wind business, turbines have had: a test site has over five years. w h i c h w i l l i n c l u d e been operating in Norway for As well as the Norwegians,

Sweden and Germany, who already host offshore wind facilities run by GE, have been joined by Britain, which is hoping for the creation of 2,000 jobs over the next decade, thanks to a manufacturing plant and service engineering resources. With an estimated 70% increase in Europe's

offshore wind sector this year, GE sees Europe as a big opportunity for growth, as the European Union has pledged to produce 20% of its energy via renewable resources by 2020. [ GE Newscenter]

Free Wi-Fi In NY for All Road Runner Users [Wi-Fi] Jesus Diaz (Gizmodo) Submitted at 3/25/2010 8:50:44 AM

Time Warner Cable has opened Wi-Fi hotspots in public places all across New York for all their

Road Runner internet customers. They will be able to use thousands of Optimum

WiFi's hotspots, plus some new open space Wi-Fi areas: More Âť

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US case raises new queries for Pope (BBC News | Americas | World Edition)

personally. They concerned the Rev Lawrence Murphy, who worked Submitted at 3/25/2010 6:04:02 AM at a Wisconsin school for deaf Questions are being raised children from the 1950s. about whether Pope Benedict Three archbishops of was personally involved in Wisconsin were told Fr Murphy covering up a case of child sex was sexually abusing boys but abuse by a Roman Catholic those allegations were not priest. reported to civil authorities at Documents seen by the New the time. York Times newspaper allege Alleged victims quoted by the that in the 1990s, long before he New York Times gave accounts became Pope, he failed to of the priest pulling down their respond to letters about a US trousers and touching them in case. his office, his car, his mother's Fr Lawrence Murphy, of c o u n t r y h o u s e , o n c l a s s Wisconsin, was accused of excursions and fund-raising abusing up to 200 deaf boys. trips, and in their dormitory Defending itself, the Vatican beds at night. said US civil authorities had "If he was a real mean guy, I investigated and dropped the would have stayed away," said case. Arthur Budzinski, 61, a former For more than 20 years before pupil of at St John's School for he was made Pope, Joseph the Deaf, in St Francis, in the Ratzinger led the Congregation Diocese of Milwaukee. for the Doctrine of Faith - the "But he was so friendly, and so V a t i c a n o f f i c e w i t h nice and understanding. I knew responsibility, among other he was wrong, but I couldn't issues, for the Church's response really believe it." to child abuse cases. According to the New York Allegations that the Church Times, Fr Murphy was quietly sought to cover up child abuse m o v e d t o t h e D i o c e s e o f by Catholic priests in Europe Superior in northern Wisconsin have haunted the Vatican for in 1974, where he spent his last months. 24 years working freely with 'So friendly' children in parishes and schools. The documents seen by the He died in 1998, still a priest. New York Times suggest that in Two lawyers have filed 1 9 9 6 , t h e t h e n C a r d i n a l lawsuits on behalf of five men R a t z i n g e r t w i c e f a i l e d t o alleging the Archdiocese of respond to letters sent to him M i l w a u k e e d i d n o t t a k e

sufficient action against the priest. One of the lawyers, Jeff Anderson, told the Associated Press news agency that the documents they had obtained on Fr Murphy, and shown to the New York Times, showed the Vatican was more concerned about possible publicity than about the abuse allegations. "Instead of removing him from the priesthood, they just gave him a free pass," he said. 'Tragic case' The Pope's official spokesman, Federico Lombardi, called it a "tragic case" but pointed out that the Vatican had become involved only in 1996, after US civil authorities had dropped the case. "During the mid-1970s, some of Fr Murphy's victims reported his abuse to civil authorities," the Rev Lombardi said in a statement. "The Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith was not informed of the matter until some 20 years later." The Milwaukee diocese was asked to take action by "restricting Father Murphy's public ministry and requiring that Father Murphy accept full responsibility for the gravity of his acts", the Rev Lombardi added. He also said that Fr Murphy's poor health and a lack of more recent allegations had been

factors in the decision not to defrock him. But the Vatican's decision not to carry out its own investigation is the question that brings the now Pope's own involvement centre stage, says BBC religious affairs correspondent Christopher Landau. Victims of sexual abuse by priests have long argued that the Church has been more interested in protecting its reputation and helping its priests than seeking justice for victims, our correspondent adds. Fr Murphy died in 1998, with in the Church's view - no official blemish on his priestly record. But questions about why Cardinal Ratzinger failed to respond to concerns being raised by American archbishops still demand answers, our correspondent says. And such questions mean that this sexual abuse crisis continues to have an impact at the very highest level in the Roman Catholic church, he adds. Print Sponsor Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

8-bit hanger is a gravitydefying, geek-gratifying implement of mass distraction Vladislav Savov (Engadget) Submitted at 3/25/2010 10:10:00 AM

What's this you say, your clothes would be better off if they weren't strewn all over the floor, but you just don't know how to maintain them airborne sans magical abilities? Fear not, we've finally found a hanger worthy of a true gadget geek in the retro styled 8-bit pointer you see above. There's not an overwhelming amount of complexity to it -- hell, even the one screw that holds the finger to the wall is permanently attached -- but nothing communicates your tech credentials quite like a pixelated mouse cursor from yesteryear. Available now for $19.99 a piece plus shipping. 8-bit hanger is a gravitydefying, geek-gratifying implement of mass distraction originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 25 Mar 2010 10:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink Wired| Meninos| Email this| Comments

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Hearing set for Montana fugitive found in Ariz. (AP) (Yahoo! News: U.S. News)

Corrections spokesman Bob Anez. "It's imperative that individuals be held accountable HELENA, Mont. – Frank for their actions." Dryman first escaped hanging, Prosecutors in Arizona said then he just escaped. He wasn't they did not know if Dryman found for four decades until he had an attorney. A call to the was discovered running a wedding chapel Wednesday was wedding chapel some 1,300 not answered. miles south of the Montana Dryman initially received a town where he killed a man who hanging sentence for Pellett's had offered him a ride in a death after a quick trial in 1955. blizzard. His case became the focus of a Dryman, 78, was awaiting battle over the death penalty and e x t r a d i t i o n p r o c e e d i n g s frontier justice, and he received Thursday for skipping out of a new sentence of life in prison Montana 38 years ago while on with the help of the Montana parole for the 1951 killing of Supreme Court. Clarence Pellett, who had In 1969, after just 15 years in picked up Dryman as a 19-year- prison, he was paroled. The old drifter caught in the snow M o n t a n a D e p a r t m e n t o f outside the northern Montana Corrections said that today, the town of Shelby. soonest a person sentenced to Dryman was arrested Tuesday life in prison could gain parole after the victim's grandson hired is 30 years. an investigator who tracked the Dryman disappeared three fugitive to the Cactus Rose y e a r s l a t e r . N o M o n t a n a Wedding Chapel, the Arizona offender had been missing City, Ariz., notary and chapel longer. business where he went by the "He just went into thin air in name Victor Houston. 1972," said Clem Pellett, the Dryman had blended into local victim's grandson. "I don't think society and even cultivated that my grandfather's death was friendships with previous county well represented; it just got lost sheriffs, Pinal County Sheriff in all the ideologic conversation Paul Babeu said. of the time." "I think this sends a message to Clem Pellett, a surgeon in other fugitives that they are Bellevue, Wash., pursued the never off the radar screen," said case after first learning details M o n t a n a D e p a r t m e n t o f last year while digging through Submitted at 3/25/2010 5:59:21 AM

old newspaper clippings in storage. He said the issue was never discussed in the family. He said he was driven by a sense of curiosity, and does not feel like he needs any revenge since he never knew his grandfather, and knew little about the murder. Newspaper clippings from the time say that Clarence Pellett stopped to pick up Dryman in 1951 during a spring blizzard near Shelby. Pellett, who ran a cafe, was shot seven times in the back as he tried to run away, according to the accounts. The private investigator hired by the grandson used scores of documents the family dug up from old parole records, the Montana Historical Society and Internet searches to trace Dryman to the wedding chapel. Pellett told Montana corrections officials of the discovery. Officials said Dryman acknowledged his identity to officers. County officials said they didn't know if Dryman was performing weddings. Under Arizona law, a couple must take out a marriage license, have a ceremony performed by an ordained minister or a Justice of the Peace and then return the signed license to court for recording. If Dryman was ordained under

a different name and was performing weddings, they would still likely be legal, according to two Phoenix-area divorce lawyers. "They're probably valid if they were otherwise performed as a legal ceremony in Arizona and recorded," Scottsdale family law attorney Alexander Nirenstein said. The Montana Department of Corrections said that Dryman will be sent back to the state prison. He will face a parole revocation hearing within the next few months — and possible resumption of his life in prison sentence. Pellett, who only decided to hire a private investigator on a whim during a dinner party conversation, said he is not driven to see Dryman punished. "The legal system will handle it," the grandson said. "Whatever they decide is fine with me. I mean he is 78 years old." ___ Associated Press writer Bob Christie in Phoenix contributed to this report. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Asus adding USB 3.0 to entire PC line Matt Burns (CrunchGear) Submitted at 3/25/2010 6:54:47 AM

U SB 3.0 is quickly on the road to becoming a standard issue item and Asus is helping it along in a big way. The computer manufacturer just announced that its adding the faster interface to every PC computer it makes. Yup, that includes Eee netbooks and the Eee box. Of course not all of these products will initial be able to take full advantage of USB 3.0’s 5Gbps max throughput as other computer components might not be able to keep up. However as Moore’s law keeps marching on dragging chipsets and hard drives along with it, we’ll eventually see netbooks and nettops transferring files quicker than eSATA today.

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Dozens of cars pulled from Alaska auto graveyard (AP) (Yahoo! News: U.S. News) Submitted at 3/25/2010 2:54:01 AM

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – When Anchorage had to dispose of thousands of cars and trucks damaged in a powerful 1964 earthquake, it dumped them off a 350-foot bluff near the outskirts of town. The car dumping didn't end there. Over the years, the bluff remained a convenient place to get rid of stolen or unwanted vehicles, as evidenced by the 2006 Dodge amid the heap of crumpled, rusted car frames and muffler pipes poking out at odd angles. But now an effort is under way to pull some of the more than 2,000 vehicles from the bluff and clean up the wildlife refuge below that was established in 1971. So far, workers have removed 60 to 70 cars, 2,000 tires and about 25 tons of other debris in an all-volunteer effort that began 2 1/2 years ago. Organizers of the cleanup have come to the realization that the post-quake dumping wasn't such

a great idea after all. "I'm sure they were just overwhelmed by all the debris they had to take care of," said Shawn Crouse, an employee of a construction company. "At the time, it probably seemed like a logical place to put it." The vehicles damaged in the quake are packed into the side of the bluff overlooking Cook Inlet, barely concealed under a wind-swept layer of snow and sand topped with wispy strands of grass. "That whole bulge in the hillside is where we think there are at least 2,000 vehicles and all sorts of debris," said Joe Meehan, refuge manager for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. "It is just all solid cars in behind that." On a recent cold morning, a bulldozer with a hydraulic claw picked up mangled cars and other debris, including a child's bicycle. Another piece of heavy equipment hauled the junkers away. Part way down the bluff, two cars remained embedded in the bank. The bulldozer just spun its

wheels and snapped two cables attached to the cars as it struggled to pull them out. Curt Abbas, a 62-year-old retired construction supervisor, had to smile when he heard work was under way to remove some of the cars. "A long time ago, I pushed them over that bank," he said. Back then, the flat land atop the bluff was a gravel pit and dump. Abbas said he and another guy used bulldozers to push several hundred vehicles over the edge in 1970, when officials wanted the site cleared to build a dirtbike course. Sand left over from the gravel operation was mixed with soil to bury the cars. But Abbas said there wasn't enough soil. Now, the sand is eroding, exposing the crushed cars. Meehan said at least one person has tried to commit suicide by driving off the bluff, going over the edge in a pickup truck. "He survived the descent down to the bottom and spent the night in the vehicle and the next morning climbed back up the bluff in his underwear, bloodied

head to toe," Meehan said. The dump operated from 1965 until the late 1970s, when the community realized that dumping stuff over the side wasn't exactly environmentally responsible. All sorts of household items were discarded along with autos: wheelchairs, empty beer kegs, lawn mowers, refrigerators, couches, snowmobiles. Many of the junked cars will have to remain where they are because pulling them out will further erode the bluff. Most of the tires that were cast over the edge ended up in the Anchorage Coastal Wildlife Refuge, an important stopping point for migrating shorebirds, ducks, geese, swans and cranes. It's been hard work during the summer pulling the tires out of the marsh. "Unfortunately, with tires they tend to roll long distances," Meehan said. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

LG's LX9500 3DTV Will Go On Sale May [3dTv] Kat Hannaford (Gizmodo) Submitted at 3/25/2010 8:43:08 AM

Panasonic and Samsung already have their 3DTV sets on store shelves in the US, and Sony will

they did launch a set in Korea last year, but their new LX9500 launch theirs in June. LG? Well, will debut this May. More »

Scientific Test: The Most Accurate Smartphone Touchscreen [Smartphones] Jesus Diaz (Gizmodo) Submitted at 3/25/2010 8:36:18 AM

Some people said that Moto Development Group's original touchscreen accuracy tests were unreliable because there were done by a human. Their solution? Use an industrial robot with precise constant pressure and speed. And the winner is... More »

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Calif. voters could legalize pot in Nov. election (AP) (Yahoo! News: U.S. News)

the economic downturn, are considering a plan to decriminalize possession of an SACRAMENTO, Calif. – ounce or less by anyone 18 or When California voters head to older. the polls in November, they will A proposal to legalize the sale decide whether the state will a n d u s e o f m a r i j u a n a i n make history again — this time W a s h i n g t o n w a s r e c e n t l y by legalizing the recreational d e f e a t e d i n t h a t s t a t e ' s use of marijuana for adults. legislature, though lawmakers The state was the first to there did expand the pool of legalize medicinal marijuana medical professionals that could use, with voters passing it in prescribe the drug for medicinal 1996. Since then, 14 states have use. followed California's lead, even And a group in Nevada is though marijuana remains pushing an initiative that marks illegal under federal law. the state's fourth attempt in a "This is a watershed moment in decade to legalize the drug. the decades-long struggle to end The California secretary of failed marijuana prohibition in state's office certified the this country," said Stephen initiative for the general election Gutwillig, California director ballot Wednesday after it was for the Drug Policy Alliance. determined that supporters had "We really can't overstate the g a t h e r e d e n o u g h v a l i d significance of Californians s i g n a t u r e s . being the first to have the The initiative would allow opportunity to end this public those 21 years and older to policy disaster." possess up to one ounce of California is not alone in the marijuana, enough to roll dozens push to expand legal use of o f m a r i j u a n a c i g a r e t t e s . marijuana. Legislators in Rhode Residents also could grow their Island, another state hit hard by own crop of the plant in gardens Submitted at 3/25/2010 3:35:03 AM

measuring up to 25 square feet. The proposal would ban users from ingesting marijuana in public or smoking it while minors are present. It also would make it illegal to possess the drug on school grounds or drive while under its influence. Local governments would decide whether to permit and tax marijuana sales. Proponents of the measure say legalizing marijuana could save the state $200 million a year by reducing public safety costs. At the same time, it could generate tax revenue for local governments. A Field Poll taken in April found a slim majority of California voters supported legalizing and taxing marijuana to help bridge the state budget deficit. Those who grow and sell it illegally fear legalization would drive down the price and force them to compete against corporate marijuana cultivators. Other opponents view marijuana as a "gateway drug" that, when used by young

people, could lead them to try other, harder drugs. They worry that legalization would persuade more people to try it, worsening the nation's drug culture. "We are quite concerned that by legalizing marijuana, it will definitely lower the perception of risk, and we will see youth use go through the roof," said Aimee Hendle, a spokeswoman for Californians for Drug Free Youth. The initiative is the second proposal to qualify for the November ballot. The other is an $11.1 billion water bond measure championed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the state Legislature. ____ Associated Press Writers Lisa Leff and Marcus Wohlsen in San Francisco contributed to this report. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

If You Use IE8, Firefox, and Safari, Today Is a Bad Day [Security] Jesus Diaz (Gizmodo) Submitted at 3/25/2010 9:10:00 AM

No browser is safe: Internet Explorer 8, Firefox, and Safari, all of them have been hacked at 2010 Pwn2Own, and used to take full control of a Windows 7 machine (Chrome wasn't targeted). [ Zdnet, Zdnet, Zdnet] More »

Kobo eReader Looks Pretty Nice for $150 [EReaders] Mark Wilson (Gizmodo) Submitted at 3/25/2010 10:13:24 AM

Kobo, who you know from their relationship with Borders, has revealed their own eBook reader. And for $150, it may be

the first semi-premium option for those too thrifty to buy a Kindle or Nook. More »

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'Bin Laden's 9/11 trial threat' (BBC News | Americas | World Edition) Submitted at 3/25/2010 6:54:41 AM

A message said to be from Osama Bin Laden threatens to kill Americans if the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks is executed by the US. Al-Jazeera news channel broadcast an audiotape reportedly from the al-Qaeda leader talking about Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other suspects. The tape said that if the US made the decision to execute, alQaeda would also "execute" anyone it captured. The five suspects are due to be tried in New York for the 2001 attacks. Trial criticism The taped message said: "The White House has declared its wish to execute (Mr Mohammed and the other suspects). The day the United States takes such a decision, it would be also taking the decision that any of you falling into our hands will be executed." The White House has been

criticised for planning to put the five suspects on trial in New York. Critics say the trial near the Ground Zero will be expensive and disruptive. White House officials have yet to decide if the trial will take place in a federal courtroom, or in a military commission. Prosecutors are expected to seek the death penalty, while White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said in January that Mr Mohammed was going to "meet his maker" if found guilty. The Pentagon says Mr Mohammed has admitted to being responsible "from A to Z" for the attacks in New York and Washington. Following his capture in Pakistan in 2003, Mr Mohammed was held at a CIA secret prison, where he was subjected to harsh interrogation techniques and a practice known as "waterboarding", which simulates drowning, until he was moved to Guantanamo Bay in 2006. 'Rage of the oppressed' In the tape broadcast on

Thursday, the speaker said to be Bin Laden also accused US President Barack Obama of "following the footsteps of his predecessor". "The politicians in the White House were practising injustice against us and still they are especially by supporting Israel in its continuous occupation of Palestine," he said. "They used to think that America across the oceans is protected from the rage of the oppressed until our reaction was loudly heard at your home on the 9/11 with God's help." In a previous recording said to be of Bin Laden, broadcast by al -Jazeera in late January, he blamed the US for global warming. A day earlier he praised the attempted bombing of a US airliner on 25 December. Print Sponsor Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Sarah Palin Lands TV Series (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 3/25/2010 6:32:00 AM

Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, who went from Republican vice presidential candidate to best selling author

to FOX News correspondent, is now getting her own TV show. Produced by reality show heavy w e i g h t M a r k Burnett("Survivor"), the show will be a series of stories told by Palin about her home state of

Alaska, the Associated Press confirms. The eight-part series will air on TLC and will be called "Sarah Palin's Alaska."

Mysterious Monkey of Tampa Bay is a Facebook Phenomenon Adam Ostrow (Mashable!) Submitted at 3/24/2010 8:24:56 PM

A monkey has gone viral … on Facebook. The story dates back more than a year, when numerous sightings of a mysterious monkey were first reported around the state of Florida. Since then, the local media has latched onto the case, with the St Petersburg Times devoting a microsite to the primate. In recent days, the story has garnered national attention, and the most recent update to a Facebook Page for the creature indicates that there have been 15,000+ new fans added in the past day thanks to coverage on the Today Show and in USA Today. Like other infamous Facebook fugitives, fans are posting wall comments in droves, encouraging the elusive monkey to continue to fight the good fight when it comes to evading authorities. There are also the requisite mock campaign posters and lolcats knock-offs. Of

course, this is all made considerably more humorous by the fact that the subject of the Fan Page is, after all, a monkey. Facebook’s favorite primate lists his personal interests as, “Bananas, swinging through trees, messing with the popo, flinging feces, screeching at the top of my lungs, and basically hanging out with my peeps. I am also interested in the theory of relativity, and post modern art. I also like the warm sun, a cold cervesa, and a nice grouper sandwich.” For more social media coverage, follow Mashable Social Media on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook Tags: facebook, internet memes, social media

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Inspired by bugs, start-up seeks night vision (CNET News.com)

To cope, NocturnalVisioin takes an approach they call spatiotemporal summation. In a Henrik Malm o f nutshell, it analyzes what's NocturnalVision speaks at the going on across each frame of I m a g e S e n s o r s E u r o p e an image--the spatial component conference.(Credit: Stephen --and what's going on from one Shankland/CNET) frame to the next--the temporal LONDON--Every researcher c o m p o n e n t - - t o t r y t o from Isaac Newton on knows intelligently direct the noise well the advantages of seeing reduction process. farther by standing on the So, for example, with a man shoulders of giants. Some walking across a videocamera's Swedish researchers, though, are field of view, the company's seeing better by standing on the process detects his motion. That shoulders of tropical bees. information can help inform A Swedish start-up called whether one pixel is changing NocturnalVision wants to help from dark to light because of the cameras see in the dark better. random fluctuations of noise, To do so, it took inspiration which which case it should be from Megalopta genalis, the suppressed, or the arrival of the bee, and other insects active at man into that part of the frame, night, said Henrik Malm, of in which case the change should Lund University and now the be preserved. start-up, in a talk at the Image The comparison of a frame Sensors Europe conference here. t a k e n r e c o r d e d w i t h a The researchers are working on videocamera a night shows the addressing common problem original frame at left, the with digital image sensor amplified signal at the center, technology: the image- a n d t h e i m a g e w i t h degrading speckles called noise N o c t u r n a l V i s i o n ' s n o i s e that show up in low-light r e d u c t i o n a p p l i e d a t conditions. right.(Credit: Henrik Malm, Image sensors work better with L u n d U n i v e r s i t y a n d more light, but people want to N o c t u r n a l V i s i o n ) take photos and videos in dim "I think the noise reduction is conditions such as a party in a pretty strong," Malm said. restaurant. Cameras can amplify The technique also adjusts the information they record, a u t o m a t i c a l l y t o l o c a l transforming a dark image into differences across the frame, so one that shows what's going on for example details in a dim area in the scene, but doing so also can still be seen even after a amplifies the noise. very bright light source intrudes Submitted at 3/25/2010 6:52:43 AM

One difficulty with the company's process is its computational requirements. It works by a mathematical analysis of a multi-frame sequence, working its way through an entire video. That means for real-time work, there's a delay of about six frames before the image processing can kick in. In addition, the mathematics involved take some processing. Right now, the company can produce five frames of video per second at a resolution of 640x400 pixels, Malm said-well slower than the frame rate cameras today employ. However, the process can get a helping hand from a graphics chip; the company is currently using an Nvidia GForce 880GTX for its work. "This algorithm is well-suited for parallel programming on a GPU or on other parallel architectures," Malm said. With newer hardware, it's likely the into another area. tropical bee that inspired algorithm could work in real Trying to discern dim details N o c t u r n a l V i s i o n ' s time--in other words, for video while avoiding the blinding approach.(Credit: Henrik Malm, cameras that shoot at the effects of bright lights sounds L u n d U n i v e r s i t y a n d ordinary rate of 30 frames per like a problem nighttime drivers N o c t u r n a l V i s i o n ) second. have, and indeed, Toyota is The start-up is interested in Five Filters featured article: interested in the researchers' consumer cameras, camera Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: approach. phones, surveillance cameras, PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, The carmaker has rights to the a n d p e r h a p s m i l i t a r y Term Extraction. technology for automotive a p p l i c a t i o n s , h e s a i d . applications, Malm said, and The company is seeking NocturnalVision has rights venture capital and also is in elsewhere. talks with Sony Ericsson, Malm Megalopta genalis, a small said.

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On Apple's $40 billion, and the question of dividends David Winograd (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW))

preparation for the next big recession. This doesn't seem to hold much water, however, since analysts predict that Apple Submitted at 3/25/2010 8:00:00 AM Filed under: Apple AAPL has will grow by 18% per year for been hitting new highs just the next five years. That should about every day. Yesterday the provide more than enough cash, stock price hit an intra-day high predicting that Apple will report of $230.20, a lofty height net income of around $21 billion indeed. We pointed out earlier in 2014. that Apple now has the fourth Of course, predictions are often largest market cap of any wrong, but Apple has been p u b l i c l y t r a d e d d o m e s t i c excellent when it comes to company, so maybe it's time to beating expected earnings revisit the question of Apple numbers for some time. 77% of declaring dividends on its stock. informal Motley Fool poll Apple has not declared a respondents think that Apple dividend since December of should declare dividends. After 1995. After the last shareholder all, that cash is really owned by meeting, Steve Jobs stated that the stockholders and it seems the money was best left in the that a good number of them bank so there would be no would like to get some of it question of loans if something back. big was to be bought. "The cash Read on for another view. in the bank gives us tremendous Some contrary opinions were flexibility," explained Steve. voiced on CNN Money. One The Motley Fool makes an reason cited for issuing no interesting case in favor of dividends is to keep the Apple dividends. Apple has no history legal war chest fat, since Apple of massive acquisitions, and has a history of being litigious. keeping $40 billion around for That seems reasonable, but then just that reason sounds less than again, $40 billion is well over reasonable. A case is also made the amount Apple would need to for keeping the money as pay for endless lawyers.

the same percentage of the company they started with, but that percentage is worth less. I bought AAPL when dividends were declared, but that didn't enter into my decision to buy. When dividend distribution was stopped, it didn't faze me one bit, since I bought for growth, not periodic income, and that strategy has paid off handsomely. If Steve and the board feel more comfortable rolling around in money, that's just fine with me. I don't see any With huge amounts of cash at along with the other stores positive outcome of declaring its disposal, Apple can tie up the planned around the world. dividends at this point. If you best component prices. Due to As a long time AAPL owner, see differently, please let us the success of the iPod and my take on it is fairly simple: If know in the comments. iPhone, Apple has become the it ain't broke, don't fix it. Not TUAW On Apple's $40 billion, biggest customer for flash declaring a dividend certainly and the question of dividends memory in the industry, and to hasn't hurt Apple one bit. It sure originally appeared on The get the best prices the company hasn't restrained investors from U n o f f i c i a l A p p l e W e b l o g often pre-pays vendors, as it did buying the stock, and so issuing (TUAW) on Thu, 25 Mar 2010 with Samsung last summer with dividends doesn't seem to be an 08:00:00 EST. Please see our a half billion dollar order. incentive for getting the stock terms for use of feeds. Another reason is real estate: sold. But the worst reason I can Read| Permalink| Email this| A p p l e h a s s p o k e n a b o u t think of for declaring dividends Comments building a second Cupertino is that that by doing so, the campus which, if it happens, value of my stock will be won't be cheap. Also not cheap diluted, thereby making it worth is the plan to open 25 stores in less. It is true that after a China over the next two years dividend, everyone still owns

Lawsuit: TMZ a Hotbed of Annoying Drug Use [Scandals] Hamilton Nolan (Gawker) Submitted at 3/25/2010 9:35:16 AM

Christian Shostle, a former

TMZ producer, went on medical leave for depression, unsurprisingly. When he came were using drugs on the job. He back, he says, his colleagues

complained. He was fired. Now he's suing. Might TMZ lack professionalism? More Âť

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WordPress Founder: Open Source Is About People, Not Technology Ben Parr (Mashable!)

source. The birth of Linux was one of the major turning points Submitted at 3/24/2010 5:40:00 PM for open source. We’ve discovered a lot of great WordPress’s founder then ideas here at The Economist focused on his own story of I n n o v a t i o n C o n f e r e n c e i n starting WordPress: he didn’t Berkeley, California. Pixar’s build the software from the President spoke on how the ground-up, but looked to the company creates great films and open source software that he Paola Antonelli of the Museum was using at that time to blog. o f M o d e r n A r t ( M o M A ) That software was b2/cafelog. discussed the history of the @ When he and his partner Ryan s y m b o l , a m o n g o t h e r Boren realized that it was presentations and workshops. abandoned, they decided to Now one of the biggest forces build on top of it to create a in social media, founder of b e t t e r o p e n s o u r c e b l o g WordPress Matt Mullenweg, software, the beginnings of has taken the stage to speak WordPress. a b o u t t h e o p e n s o u r c e A few years after he built movement, the origins of WordPress, he built the WordPress, and how it has company that now surrounds it: fostered innovation. Automattic. The Automattic Here are my notes on his talk: e m p i r e n o t o n l y i n c l u d e s Open Source and the Origins of WordPress and WordPress.com, WordPress but Gravatar, Akismet, blo.gs, M u l l e n w e g o p e n e d b y IntenseDebate, and PollDaddy. remarking that open source is He also built his company to be not about technology, but about an international, telecommuting people. He focused a little on company, because he wanted to the history of open source — he get the best talent, no matter believes it started in 1984 at where they were. In fact, only MIT. Since then, there has been six WordPress employees are in a slow transformation of how the Bay Area. Software Has w e v i e w s o f t w a r e , f r o m Changed proprietary to free and openSoftware design has

prominent proponents of open source. It promotes innovation because it allows developers to share ideas and code to build better ideas for less of a cost. WordPress’s founder said that the city of San Francisco this year will spend more on software than WordPress has fundamentally changed, spent in its entire time of Mullengweg said. There is no existence. He hopes that such thing as a “killer feature” eventually that kind of spending anymore because of extensions will go away as open source and plug-ins — if an app like becomes a more integral Firefox or WordPress doesn’t component of our lives. Your have the feature you want, you Thoughts can add it with an API or a plugWhat do you think of the open in. It means that everybody has source movement? Is it a different, unique version of essential to the future of WordPress, and thus it changes software? Is it monetizable and how he builds on his platform. sustainable? Is Matt right when The audience got a chance to he says open source is about ask questions; the big one was people, not technology? about how WordPress makes Let us know your thoughts in money. The answer: Back-up the comments. services, hosting, anti-spam, and For more technology coverage, other paid upgrades make the follow Mashable Tech on majority of revenues. While not Twitter or become a fan on many users buy these features, Facebook when you have millions of users Tags: innovation, Inovation it adds up. He also is happy that Conference, matt mullenweg, its revenue model isn’t The Economist, Wordpress overwhelming its users. Overall, Matt Mullenweg is one of the biggest and most

China Unicom ditches Google on mobiles (Financial Times - US homepage)

By Kathrin Hille in Beijing and Justine Lau in Hong Kong Published: March 24 2010

18:52 | Last updated: March 24 Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: 2010 18:52 PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Five Filters featured article: Term Extraction.

A 'Hot Tub Time Machine' '80s Fashion Flashback! (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 3/25/2010 12:20:00 AM

John Cusack goes back to the '80s with his pals in the 'Hot Tub Time Machine,' a campy comedy receiving rave reviews, and the stars of the movie find themselves re-living their '80s fashion memories for ET! "I think there was the 'uplift people' crowd, and then there were the people who 'can't remember,' and I was in the 'can't remember' crowd," says John about his '80s heyday, recalling, "I had the Tiger sneakers, which I thought were really cool." "My shoes used to glow in the dark," says Craig Robinson. "I actually had a hi-top fade [hairstyle] for a while there -- it was pretty high, just like in the movie. I think they at one point asked me what my hair was like, so I wonder if that was the inspiration."

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Microsoft hopes Bing users pick up the tab (CNET News.com) Submitted at 3/25/2010 6:00:00 AM

When it released Bing last year, Microsoft hoped that users would be willing to click on a host of additional options presented in a column along the left side of Bing search results. It turns out, though that disappointingly few users clicked on the added options. The low click rate meant that some of the pages that Microsoft invested the most in--topic pages, articles, and custom data feeds--were being overlooked by lots of users. Aiming to try to get more attention for its special pages, Microsoft is testing a new look that will add a series of tabs in the center of its Bing results pages, prominently identifying when there are additional types of content. A subtle change to Bing will move options such as video results and reference articles to a series of tabs in the center of the result page(Credit: Microsoft) Although the change is subtle, Microsoft's Brian MacDonald says that the tabs could have a significant impact on the way users interact as compared with the current options on Bing's results pages.

like related searches, search history and other refinements that a user might want to make to their query. The changes to Bing's look will also include more prominent labeling of official sites and other smaller tweaks. Not all of the updates Microsoft is planning are cosmetic, though. The software maker is also looking to pull in more of the kinds of structured data it already offers for things like weather and recipes, as well as changes that make the engine more "social." For example, a Bing search for the New York Times will soon pull up not only a link to the main page, but also a list of the most popular New York Times links being shared on Twitter. It's part of Microsoft's effort to "When you see a list like that, it percent of U.S. visitors will start Microsoft user experience continue to gain share in the tells people, hey, choose one to see the tabbed look, with manager Paul Ray showed some search market. The company has from this list," MacDonald said plans to make those pages the of the early Bing designs earlier gained share almost every i n a t e l e p h o n e i n t e r v i e w . standard view over the coming this month in a session at the month since Bing debuted, "Whereas tabs kind of mean, weeks. It's the most visible of Mix10 event in Las Vegas. although much of that gain has hey, check out what's behind several changes Microsoft is Microsoft spent months testing come not against Google but at door No. 2, check out what's making as part of its spring all manner of tabs as well as left the expense of others in the behind door No. 3, and, hmm, refresh for Bing. -side and right-side navigation m a r k e t , i n c l u d i n g Y a h o o , what's behind door number Interestingly, the tabbed look is panes before ultimately deciding Microsoft's soon-to-be-partner four? You're expected a little not really that new. It's actually on the left-side navigation in the search business. more to engage with all of one of the user interface ideas system that debuted last year. Five Filters featured article: them." that Microsoft had considered With the new look, Bing isn't Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: Well, that's the hope anyway. but rejected when it first scrapping the left navigation PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Starting Thursday, roughly 5 introduced Bing last year. altogether, keeping it for things Term Extraction.

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Bogus DMCA Takedown Is Not Copyright Infringement And Not Libel Mike Masnick (Techdirt) Submitted at 3/24/2010 10:52:00 PM

We've had a few discussions concerning the available damages awards for bogus DMCA takedown notices. Unfortunately, if you've had your content taken down incorrectly, the damages you can get from those who sent the takedown, are greatly limited. This is a big problem, because bogus takedowns are regularly sent for a variety of reasons, including attempts to silence speech and because a copyright holder is taking a machine gun approach to dealing with infringing content. The case that's received the most attention on this has been the Lenz vs. Universal Music case, involving Universal Music's failure to take fair use into account in taking down a short video of a baby dancing to music. However, Michael Scott points us to Marty Schwimmer's blog post detailing a content creator's

attempt to claim a bogus DMCA takedown was both copyright infringement itself as well as libel, two rather interesting legal claims... both of which got dismissed pretty quickly. The case involved Actors' Equity Association (AEA) which apparently has some sort of setup where it has the right to alert YouTube to any videos that violate the copyright of its members. How it knows whether those videos are authorized or not is not at all clear -- and, in this case, AEA screwed up. It issued a takedown on a video that was posted by the copyright holder who was pretty pissed off. AEA apologized, but the guy sued, and beyond just using the DMCA's 512(f) clause on dealing with bogus takedowns, tried some other claims as well - including the copyright infringement and libel claims mentioned above. The claim of copyright infringement claim is quite

creative. It was based on the fact that copyright gives you the exclusive right to distribute and display your works, and the bogus takedown interfered with those exclusive rights. Of course, there's a pretty big problem with this theory, which the court was quick to point out: just because copyright law gives you that exclusive right, it doesn't mean that everyone has to automatically let you distribute or display your works, which is effectively what the guy was claiming. If this theory won out, then no one could stop someone else from displaying their works or it would be considered copyright infringement. So it's good that the court rejected this. Related to this, the court also rejected the 512(f) claim, by noting that only applies to situations where the takedown issuer had actual knowledge of the fact that the takedown was bogus, which greatly limits its applicability. The libel claim stems from the

idea that he was falsely labeled for infringing copyrights when he had not done so -- and the court ties that to the same 512(f) claim, pointing out that this would only apply if there were actual knowledge that the takedown notice was bogus. The ruling here certainly makes sense, but still highlights a massive problem with the DMCA -- which is that those issuing takedowns have absolutely no incentive to determine if those takedown notices are valid. This would seem to seriously violate what's supposed to be a fine balance between copyright law and the First Amendment, in that it allows individuals or companies to stifle the speech of others, using the law, even if they're doing so incorrectly. This seems like a massive problem in how the DMCA is constructed. Permalink| Comments| Email This Story

Celebs Spring into Spring with Floral Fashions! (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 3/25/2010 5:10:00 AM

Spring is here! Celebs are putting away the black and daring to bare their most colorful floral prints! Take a look at all the celebs who have been donning dozens of blooming floral creations this spring!

Naked Apartments Strips the Hassle out of Real Estate Hunting Brenna Ehrlich (Mashable!) Submitted at 3/24/2010 4:16:47 PM

NAKED page 44

Sun Sets on MTV Show 'The Hills' (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 3/25/2010 6:20:00 AM

The show that made Heidi Montag, Spencer Pratt and Lauren Conrad household

names, "The Hills," is coming to an end after six seasons. “I think we’ve told the story of struggle and of finding yourself in L.A.,” creator Adam DiVello tells Entertainment Weekly. “A

lot of these kids have found themselves and have certainly embarked on different careers and different paths.” Montag recently underwent 10 plastic surgery procedures in

one day and DiVello reveals how the upcoming season will address the transformation, telling EW, "We tell the whole story. We pick right up where Heidi goes and sees her parents.

And our cameras are there that minute the mother opens the door and sees her daughter for the first time."

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NAKED continued from page 43

This post is part of Mashable’s Spark of Genius series, which highlights a unique feature of startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here. The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. Name: Naked Apartments Quick Pitch: The Match.com for NYC real estate. Naked Apartments pairs ideal brokers with the right renters to simplify the apartment search. Genius Idea: If you live in New York, you know that there are two things that are almost impossible to find: a stable, healthy relationship… and an apartment. Well, Naked Apartments ain’t gonna find you a husband (unless you end up with your broker), but it will match you up — online datingstyle — with the broker for you. Naked Apartments soft launched back in September, and there are already 15,000 apartments available on the site

— 5,000 with no fee, which is a major score in NYC, where broker’s fees can cost more than rent. The site is pretty easy to use. Just sign up by creating a profile (just like you would on OKCupid or Nerve), but instead of entering in your hobbies and preference for 5-7 children, fill in all the usual apartmenthunting info: preferred neighborhood, rent range, etc. You can also indicate how dire it is that you move in by your preferred move-in date. Round it all out with a credit check and you’re good to go (this is a cool feature, too, as often the credit check comes after you’ve found a place and signed a ton of paperwork — seriously, scoring an apartment in NYC is like obtaining the Lost Ark). The cool part of the site comes next. While you can still search for apartments (check out the brand new condo I found below whilst scanning the Brooklyn

neighborhood of Williamsburg) all by your lonesome, brokers can also contact you based on your profile and show off their listings. Your interaction will be completely anonymous until you choose to exchange information. We at the New York Mashable offices are completely down with any tool that makes finding new digs in the big city easier, and we like the anonymity and security that the site provides and we hope that Naked Apartments expands to other cities as well. Naked Apartments also made a video tour for those less into reading. Check it out below: For more social media coverage, follow Mashable Social Media on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark BizSpark is a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as

connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today. Entrepreneurs can take advantage of the Azure Services platform for their website hosting and storage needs. Microsoft recently announced the“new CloudApp()” contest– use the Azure Services Platform for hosting your .NET or PHP app, and you could be the lucky winner of a USD 5000* ( please see website for official rules and guidelines).” Reviews: Facebook, PHP, Twitter Tags: MARKETING, online dating, real estate

Johnny Maestro, '16 Candles' Singer [And Now He's Dead] Hamilton Nolan (Gawker) Submitted at 3/25/2010 9:12:56 AM

Johnny Maestro, the doo wop singer who led the group Brooklyn Bridge, died yesterday at the age of 70. His biggest hit was "16 Candles," when he was singing with The Crests in the 1950s. That was the jam. More »

'American Idol' - '1 of 11 Eliminated' Recap Jane Boursaw (TV Squad)

Bowersox, Michael Lynche, and Siobhan Magnus -- but all of the Submitted at 3/25/2010 6:27:00 AM contestants have their moments. Last night, we learned the Top What I love about this season is T e n w h o ' d b e g o i n g o n there's such a diverse group of the'American Idol' tour this singers, each with their own fan s u m m e r . O u t o f a l l t h e base. We've got Crystal's bluesy contestants who made it into the -folksy vocals, Katie Stevens' Top 24, I'm ok with who's left. teen pop, Michael Lynche's vocals (I'm convinced he can There are really only a handful soulful blues, Casey James' s i n g a n y t h i n g w e l l ) , T i m of standouts for me -- Crystal guitar rock, Aaron Kelly's mad

Urban's Zac Efron vibe, and Siobhan's edgy pop-rock. Lee DeWyze, Didi Benami, and Andrew Garcia don't really pop out at me, but there's still time. Did the right person go home last night? Let's talk about it after the jump. Continue reading'American Idol' - '1 of 11 Eliminated' Recap

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Foursquare comes to Bing Maps (CNET News.com) Submitted at 3/25/2010 6:36:48 AM

Foursquare on Bing Maps, which will be coming out this spring.(Credit: Bing) Microsoft's Bing Maps tool will soon feature tips and comments from location-based networking service Foursquare. Don't panic: This won't broadcast your location to anyone hunting around on Bing Maps. It will, however, pull up the quick "tips" that Foursquare users can attach to a given business or other venue, like the one I saw when I "checked in" to a restaurant last night and was greeted with "Love, love, love the Brussels sprouts." A new Silverlight-based tool will pull in the Foursquare features to Bing Maps. This and other Bing updates will be launched over the course of the spring. Microsoft announced the upgrade Thursday morning in New York at the SES

conference, which also saw the preview of a new Bing user interface. A Bing blog post offers further explanation: "Let's say you're traveling to New York City for the week, but you don't know what's hot in Greenwich Village. Selecting the Foursquare Map App in Bing Maps, and zooming into to

Greenwich Village will get you tips that show you what locals are saying about the hot spots in that area. It's like an interactive day planner, designed to help find the best things to do in that area." There is also a way to rank tips based on Foursquare user reputation--the users who have unlocked specific "badges," for

example, or who check in the most frequently. The location-based social media market has been hyped for a while but reached a fever pitch earlier this month during the South by Southwest Interactive Festival, where the tech community was eager to figure out which of the halfdozen-or-so start-ups in the

space would emerge the favorite. While it's still unclear how far ahead of its close competitors Foursquare is, if at all, search deals like the Bing partnership puts it in competition with the likes of Yelp. Meanwhile, Yelp launched its own Foursquarelike check-ins earlier this year. Bing already has a "firehose" deal in place with Twitter, a deal that reportedly brought Twitter a decent sum of cash in return. Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley declined to say much about whether any money had changed hands in the Bing deal announced Thursday. "Bing came to use with the idea of creating a real-time map of Foursquare check-ins," he said, "and we were happy to share the data." Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

'Justified' - 'Riverbrook' Recap Danny Gallagher (TV Squad) Submitted at 3/25/2010 8:23:00 AM

(S01E02)"I gotta ask, why the hat?" - Rachel "I tried it on one time and it fit." - Raylen It's been a long time since I've

been itching to catch up on a show. I mean, the kind of frustrating nervousness that makes your gut ache and wish you had control over time and space. It got even worse my TiVo decided not to record Tuesday

night's episode, which means I

had to wait to find out what happens next. This just made my nerves twitch and convulse more until my entire body lit up like a Christmas tree of pain, which didn't help since I'm already fighting off a killer cold. The weirdest part? It actually

feels kinda nice. Continue reading'Justified' 'Riverbrook' Recap Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free, Episode Recaps Permalink| Email this| | Comments

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Smart Phone Motion Control Patented; Held By Shell Company Mike Masnick (Techdirt)

behind the patent, and who's funding the litigation. No lawsuits have been filed yet, as Aubrey Wells was the first of a far as we know, but with a lot of folks to send over John patent so broad, it seems likely Paczkowski's excellent analysis that we'll see something soon. Mike Masnick (Techdirt) such a plan. could have the unintended effect of a highly questionable patent Of course, this is the same old T h e n w e h a v e t h e b i g of hindering the development t h a t w a s i s s u e d r e c e n t l y story. The idea behind motion Submitted at 3/25/2010 4:12:53 AM cybercrime bill put forth by a n d u s e o f c u t t i n g - e d g e concerning motion control on a sensing in a mobile device is With health care reform out of Senators Hatch and Gillibrand technologies, products, and smartphone. The patent ( hardly a new or non-obvious the way, lots of politicians are S e n a t o r s R o c k e f e l l e r a n d services, even for those that 7,679,604) is incredibly broad, idea -- the problem was really pushing out new legislative Snowe( updated, since there are would protect our critical and appears to cover technology just that the hardware wasn't ideas, hoping that Congress can two separate cybersecurity bills, information infrastructure." that is in use in many current there yet. There were, certainly, now focus on other issues -- so and its the Rockefeller/Snowe They added the bill might devices. What's odd, however, other motion sensing technology w e ' r e s e e i n g l o t s o f b a d one that has people scared), that impose a bureaucratic employee is that the inventors on the out there, and there is absolutely legislation proposed. Let's do a tries to deal with the "serious - c e r t i f i c a t i o n p r o g r a m o n patent appear to be Google and nothing in this patent that two for one post, highlighting threat of cybercrime." But, of companies or give the president Apple engineers, but the patent furthered the art. This sort of two questionable bills that many course, it already has tech t h e a u t h o r i t y t o m a n d a t e itself appears to be held by a interface was coming whether or of you have been submitting. companies worried about the security practices. This is one of shell company, of which there is not it was patented. But that's The first, proposed by Senators u n i n t e n d e d c o n s e q u e n c e s , those bills that sounds good for little available information. what happens with so many S c h u m e r a n d G r a h a m , i s especially when it requires the headlines (cybercrime is This suggests (though, it's not patents these days -- the focus is technically about immigration complying with gov't-issued bad, we need to stop it), but has definite) that it's a typical patent on patenting the obvious and reform, which is needed, but security practices that likely the opposite effect in reality: litigation setup. It's pretty t h e n s u i n g e v e r y o n e w h o what's scary is that the plan won't keep up with what's setting up needless "standards" common for patent holders to i m p l e m e n t e d i t . includes yet another plan for a actually needed:"Despite all that actually prevent good set up shell companies to sue Permalink| Comments| Email national ID card. Didn't we just [the] best efforts, we do have security practices. It's bills like others with -- in part because it This Story go through this with Real ID, concerns regarding whether both of these that remind us that allows them to hide who's really which was rejected by the g o v e r n m e n t c a n r a p i d l y t e c h n o l o g i c a l l y i l l i t e r a t e states? Jim Harper, who follows recognize best practices without politicians making technology this particular issue more than defaulting to a one-size-fits all policy will do funky things, just about anyone, has an approach," they wrote. assuming that technology works excellent breakdown of the "The NIST-based requirements with some sort of magic. proposal, questioning what good framework in the bill, coupled Permalink| Comments| Email a national ID does, while also with government procurement This Story pointing to the potential harm of requirements, if not clarified, Submitted at 3/25/2010 5:43:43 AM

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While biofuels sputter, green chemicals attract cash (CNET News.com)

We Interrupt Our Regular Programming: YouTube Is Down [UPDATE: It's Back]

Submitted at 3/25/2010 6:25:47 AM

Stan Schroeder (Mashable!)

After betting big on biofuels with little success, investors appear to be switching gears to focus more on making chemicals from plants. Chemical company Genomatica on Thursday said that it has raised $15 million in series C financing, which was led by TPG Biotch, a venture capital arm of private equity company Texas Pacific Group. With the money, Genomatica plans to start building a demonstration facility later this year to produce the industrial chemical 1,4butanediol, or BDO, from sugar and to expand its product line. Working with bacteria to make chemicals.(Credit: Genomatica) Genomatica is one of several biotechnology companies using genetically modified organisms to make fuels or chemicals from plants. In biofuels, few companies have been able to produce fuels from non-food feedstocks at large scale because of technical challenges or difficulty raising money from risk-averse bankers. Chemical companies face similar challenges, but they typically can charge more for their products, said Christophe

Submitted at 3/25/2010 4:20:13 AM

At the moment, YouTube is not available, displaying only a “500 Internal Server Error” or an “Http/1.1 Service Unavailable” message. Users all over the world have noticed the error, and Twitter and Facebook are swarmed with messages related to the outage. At the time of writing, according to user reports, the outage has been going on for approximately 30 S c h i l l i n g , t h e C E O o f completed next year, will be minutes. Genomatica. "Fuels represent a used to test with partners the Currently, there’s no word from significantly larger market in quality of BDO for making Google about the reasons for the terms of volume, but it does products, such as spandex fibers outage; we have contacted Google and will update this post have the challenge of delivering or plastics used in cars. at costs at points competitive Another biotech company, when we learn more. with fossil fuels," he said. A Codexis, plans to produce both *Update: Interestingly enough, pound of BDO, for example, liquid fuels and chemicals the videos on YouTube seem to costs several times more than a through its process. It's one of a work, only the front page seems pound of ethanol. handful of green start-ups which Genomatica has developed a plan to go public. Two other strain of the e.coli bacteria to companies targeting the market convert sugar water, either from for plant-derived chemicals, sugar cane or sugar beets, into Segetis and Rennovia, recently B D O . S c h i l l i n g s a i d t h e raised money from venture c o m p a n y p r o j e c t s i t c a n capital companies. undercut the cost of BDO made Five Filters featured article: Richard Lawson (Gawker) from oil or natural gas on price Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: Submitted at 3/25/2010 9:40:23 AM alone. PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, The demonstration facility, Term Extraction. [ Real Housewife Kelly which Schilling expects to be Bensimon in Miami yesterday, just before the whole of Florida was swallowed by the sea;

to be affected. *Update #2: We’ve received the following short message from Google: “ YouTube is temporarily unavailable. Our engineers are currently working to restore the site.” *Update #3: It’s back. The downtime lasted approximately one hour. For more technology coverage, follow Mashable Tech on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook Tags: outage, video, youtube

There Was a Great Gnashing of Teeth, and Then You Were Gone [Open Caption] image via INF] More »

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Prevent iTunes web previews from opening iTunes automatically TJ Luoma (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)) Submitted at 3/25/2010 9:00:00 AM

Filed under: iTunes Ever since Apple rolled out web previews for iTunes links several months ago, I've been meaning to find a way to disable those pages from automatically opening iTunes, which I don't usually have running. These pages have a "View in iTunes" link already, so if I want to open iTunes, it's easy enough to do manually. The Apple Blog posted some instructions for doing this, but that method didn't seem to always work for me. Some links still opened iTunes. My best guess is that Apple uses a variety of methods of opening these links, but The Apple Blog's instructions were only addressing one. Then I remembered RCDefaultApp from Rubicode, a freeware application which allows you to easily set which application will open files based on filename extension (such as the ".doc" in "review.doc") or

Terrifying Poop Gas Bubbles Will Kill Us All [Journalismism] Hamilton Nolan (Gawker) Submitted at 3/25/2010 10:13:21 AM

by the protocol in a URL, such as http:// or itms://. I went into the URLs section of RCDefaultApp (which is a preference pane), and disabled the following protocols: • itms:// (this seems to be the most prevalent in my limited testing) • itunes:// • itmss:// Then I went to the "Extensions" tab and disabled the "itms"

extension, based on The Apple Blog's advice. I tested several iTunes web preview links and did not find any which still automatically opened iTunes. The other advantage to using RCDefaultApp is that the settings should work for all browsers. Speaking of iTunes links, the folks over at Bjango have posted an article dissecting iTunes links and how to craft them. Great reading.

TUAW Prevent iTunes web previews from opening iTunes automatically originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 25 Mar 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

AutoSmiley uses the iSight to turn your face into an emoticon

Street Chic: New York ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog) Submitted at 3/25/2010 4:00:00 AM

Liquid leggings add a sleek

edge to voluminous layers. Photo: Anne Ziegler Think you are Street Chic? Email us your photo and you

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

The Wall Street Journal has published the best story in, I'm guessing, its entire history, pertaining to monster manure gas bubbles threatening to explode all over the US heartland, with devastating effects. More »

Mike Schramm (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)) Submitted at 3/25/2010 7:00:00 AM

Filed under: Humor This one's AUTOSMILEY page 49

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AUTOSMILEY continued from page 48

a little silly but I still really like it -- AutoSmiley is a public domain app that runs in the background while you work, quietly monitoring your iSight's camera input. Whenever it detects a smiling face on the camera(so any time you smile while working), it will send a ":)" emoticon to the keyboard. It's probably not quite practical, as there are a lot of times when you might smile but don't want to actually send an emoticon. I do like the idea that it turns emoticons into real expressions of emotion. When you actually

see a ":)" or an "lol" in someone's IM or email, you never really know if they've actually smiled or laughed at what you've typed earlier, and a program like this puts a little more power behind the colon and parenthesis. As the app's description says, using it can go a little farther towards "enforcing honesty in your online communication." The app is a free download for US, UK, and NL keyboards on the Mac. The app was featured on Wednesday's TUAW TV Live, which you can watch to see

AutoSmiley in action. TUAW AutoSmiley uses the iSight to turn your face into an emoticon originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 25 Mar 2010 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

Which Actor Is Giving Other Celebrities Herpes? [Blind Items] Brian Moylan (Gawker) Submitted at 3/25/2010 10:20:00 AM

Apple seeds Mac OS X 10.6.3 build 10D573 to devs, release probably not imminent Michael Grothaus (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW))

Safari 4.0.5 will be re-offered by Software Update after upgrading to 10D573 from a previous seed. Last week a TUAW reader was Submitted at 3/25/2010 10:00:00 AM Filed under: OS The saga of the a b l e t o d o w n l o a d a 1 0 . 6 . 3 b u i l d s c o n t i n u e . *PRERELEASE** build of Yesterday Apple seeded a new 10.6.3 on his iMac. We took the build -- build 10D573 -- to Apple slip-up as a sign of an developers. This latest build, imminent launch, but the builds similar to the others, asks just keep on coming. Is it going developers to focus on Graphics to be released soon? Who the Drivers, Images & Photos, Mail, heck knows? But now my guess Q u i c k T i m e , a n d S e c u r i t y is that Apple might be waiting Certificates. There is one known for the April 3rd launch of the remaining issue, like in the iPad. Perhaps 10.6.3 and a new previous two builds, in which iTunes will be required to sync

seed notes. TUAW Apple seeds Mac OS X 10.6.3 build 10D573 to devs, release probably not imminent originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 25 Mar 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments it to your computer? I'll just be happy to start seeing those 10.6.4 builds. Jump on over to World of Apple for 10D573's

They'd call him Santa Claus if he gave any more gifts. One actress is obsessed with her weight (and her bulimia) another is obsessed with her boyfriend's ex. This singer has two boyfriends at once. Let's hope one isn't Santa. More Âť

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Apple releases Pro Applications, Canon Printer Drivers updates Michael Grothaus (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW))

Jim Hoft (Gateway Pundit) Staged the Carnahan Coffin Stunt (Little Green Footballs)

Submitted at 3/25/2010 7:30:00 AM

Filed under: Software Update Apple has released two new updates. The first is Pro Applications Update 2010-01. The update is a revision to Final Cut Studio (2009). It includes Final Cut Pro 7.0.2, Motion 4.0.2, Color 1.5.2, Compressor 3.5.2, Apple Qmaster 3.5.2 and Cinema Tools 4.5.1. Apple says the software improves overall stability and addresses a number of other minor issues. The update is recommended for all users of Final Cut Studio, Final Cut Server, and Logic Studio and weighs in at 321.1 MB. It requires Mac OS X 10.5.8 or later and QuickTime 7.6.2 or later. The second update is Canon Printer Drivers 2.3 for Snow

Submitted at 3/24/2010 11:05:29 PM

Leopard and includes the latest Canon printing and scanning software for Snow Leopard. The update weighs in at 281.16MB and requires Mac OS X 10.6.1 or later. The updates are available through the download links above or via Software Update. TUAW Apple releases Pro

Applications, Canon Printer Drivers updates originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 25 Mar 2010 07:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

Dubai unveils debt restructuring (Financial Times - US homepage) Submitted at 3/25/2010 4:16:15 AM

Dubai announced a restructuring proposal for troubled conglomerate Dubai World on Thursday, including a

commitment to pump $9.5bn into the company and Nakheel, its development arm. The government, which said the plan would take several months to implement through talks with creditors, will fund the new business plan with the $5.7bn

left over from the $10bn bail-out loans from Abu Dhabi last year, and the remainder from internal government resources. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

The coffin that was placed on the lawn outside the private home of Rep. Russ Carnahan (D -Mo.) was a stunt organized by the St. Louis Tea Party Coalition and religious fanatic blogger Jim Hoft (“Gateway Pundit”), kicking his usual insanity up a notch into actual threatening behavior. And he’s proud of it. Hoft sees absolutely nothing wrong with showing up outside the private home of an elected official carrying a coffin, in a week during which there have been numerous reports of threats and violent incidents. Nope. Hoft says the media and Russ Carnahan are “lying.” What they’re lying about, he doesn’t say. He doesn’t deny any of the facts of the story. He did show up with the coffin at Carnahan’s private home, and he and his accomplices did put it on Carnahan’s lawn. Hoft’s twisted rationale is that it’s a “lie” to see this kind of creepy behavior as a threat. He really believes he had a perfect

right to stalk around outside Carnahan’s home with a coffin and terrorize Carnahan’s family — but even more than that, Hoft is angry with the media for not reporting that he was right to do it! Here’s Hoft’s post at Father Richard John Neuhaus’s First Things website: Coward Russ Carnahan Pushes Bogus Tea Party Lie to Media– Claims Prayer Service With Coffin Was a Violent Threat. We prayed for Russ Carnahan. We prayed that God would forgive him for taking away our freedom. We prayed for the babies who will never feel the warmth of the sun or a gentle spring rain. We prayed for the elderly who will die waiting for care because they couldn’t make it past the Obama death panels. We prayed for Russ Carnahan. So obviously it came as quite a shock tonight to see that the Carnahan people and the Democratic-media complex had twisted this innocent prayer vigil into some kind of threat against Russ Carnahan.

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Syphilis (Or Was It Facebook?) Blamed Test Shows: iPhone For People Not Understanding That Touchscreen Still the Correlation Does Not Mean Causation Best Mike Masnick (Techdirt)

Marshall Kirkpatrick (ReadWriteWeb)

Submitted at 3/25/2010 7:10:00 AM

I really really really wasn't going to write this post, but so many people kept submitting it, I figured it needed to be done. The Telegraph has some ridiculous story claiming, without any actual evidence, that Facebook is "linked to the rise in syphilis." Quite a claim. The evidence? Oh, that's not included. There's just some public health guy claiming that there's evidence -- without presenting any. About the only thing in the article is that (a) more people in this particular area of the UK seem to be reporting that they got syphilis (b) people in that area are also (marginally) more likely than in other areas to use social networking (c) at least some of

Submitted at 3/24/2010 7:48:02 PM

the people who got syphilis mentioned that they have met sexual partners via Facebook. So, yes, you have a bit of weak correlation combined with selfselected anecdotal bias. And that proves what? Uh, absolutely nothing. So, please, for the sake of the sanity of statisticians everywhere, please

learn to practice safe statistics, where before you claim something is linked to something else, you actually use "protection" in the form of some real data. Permalink| Comments| Email This Story

Merkel says summit will detail Greece aid (Financial Times - US homepage) Submitted at 3/25/2010 4:03:42 AM

German chancellor Angela Merkel said European Union leaders were set to “specify” what “combination of IMF and

bilateral aid could be given in the eurozone” should Greece ask for help. But, addressing the German parliament ahead of an EU summit later on Thursday and Friday, Ms Merkel stressed “no concrete help” would be

discussed by heads of state and government. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

If the future is all about touchscreen interfaces, then performance of the screen in registering where it's been touched is pretty important. International design firm Moto ran a robotic finger test on 6 leading touchscreen smart phones to see how well they registered a robot's loving touch. Some of the phones did remarkably poorly, like the BlackBerry Storm and the Motorola Droid. The iPhone, Google Nexus One and HTC Droid Eris all did quite well. Check out the video below to see the tests and marvel at the apparent differences between touchscreens and their performances. Sponsor Robot Touchscreen Analysis from MOTO Development Group on Vimeo. As Sadat Karim writes on Neowin,"Hope is not lost though, as Moto Labs concludes that they do expect these problems to be remedied in the

future as touchscreens mature and gain further traction in the industry. Commitment and competition will ultimately deliver seamless touch experiences for all consumers over time, since phone makers are continuously perfecting their products." To see touchscreen hardware nerds duke it out over the test, check out the Moto Labs blog. How about you, readers? Have you felt the difference in performance across some of these handsets? See also: User Interfaces Rapidly Adjusting to Information Overload Discuss

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Trojan Horse John B. Judis (The New Republic - All Feed) Submitted at 3/24/2010 9:00:00 PM

Much of the controversy over financial regulatory reform has swirled around the proposal for a consumer financial protection agency. But what I find most controversial in the bill that Senator Chris Dodd drafted and that the Senate Banking Committee recently reported out on a party-line vote is the provision for a new financial oversight council that would oversee the Federal Reserve and other agencies. It’s not just unnecessary. It could also have a pernicious effect on regulation. It is a Trojan Horse for the status quo. The proposed nine-person council—dubbed a “Financial Stability Oversight Council”—would be chaired by the Secretary of Treasury and consist primarily of officials drawn from the Securities and Exchange Commission and other federal agencies. Dodd’s council appears to go beyond the similar body that was part of the House bill that was passed last December. The House’s Financial Services Oversight Council would advise the Federal Reserve and Congress on threats to stability and issue “formal recommendations” to take action when a financial company is in distress. But the Finance Committee’s Oversight

Council would also approve and devise regulations and have the right of approval or disapproval over key regulatory decisions that the Fed makes. Whenever an agency doesn’t do its job in Washington, the temptation is to create still another agency to oversee it. That was the proposed solution for the intelligence failures of the Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation. And now it’s Washington’s solution to the failures of the Federal Reserve. But this council wouldn’t address the principal reasons for the failure of the Fed from 1997 or so through 2007, when it pressed for further financial deregulation and ignored or downplayed the warning signs of the dot-com and housing bubbles. We know what happened next. Many liberals now blame the ideological propensities of Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, a former Ayn Rand disciple, for the deregulatory excesses of the period—but the real problem was the “Dow 35,000” boom psychology that afflicted liberals and conservatives alike and that led them to oppose any measures that would restrain market growth. Secretary of the Treasury Robert Rubin and his successor Lawrence Summers joined Greenspan in opposing the regulation of derivatives and

in backing the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, which had walled off commercial from investment banking. Bill Clinton reappointed Greenspan twice—in 1995 and again in 2000. Would an oversight council have halted these measures and instilled financial sobriety? The question answers itself. Rubin and then Summers would have chaired the council. Or take the Bush years. Federal Reserve chair (and before that Bush economic advisor) Benjamin Bernanke has not really explained why he downplayed, or just plain missed, the housing bubble, but his judgement was probably clouded by a fear of taking steps that would imperil a tenuous recovery. Would Secretary of the Treasury John Snow and SEC chair Christopher Cox have advised Bernanke to put on the brakes—or would they, as is more likely, have either acquiesced in what Bernanke wanted to do or urged even worse steps to be taken? The other reason for the Fed’s failure from 1997 to 2007 was probably its proximity to the people and institutions it was supposed to regulate. Sandy Weill of Citigroup had more access to Greenspan or to the chairman of the New York Federal Reserve—the second most powerful Fed official—than a labor leader or

consumer advocate. When the interests of the banking community coincide roughly with the national interest—as they did when the Federal Reserve was founded in 1913—that’s no problem. But when Wall Street has special interests in deregulation that don’t coincide with the national interest, its influence becomes problematic. Would a council address this problem? Was the financial community less likely to influence Snow or Cox than it was Bernanke? Is the current Secretary of the Treasury more likely to listen to Goldman Sachs’ Lloyd Blankfein or to Mark Cooper of the Consumer Federation of America? There are several obvious lessons that most economists and policy-makers outside the University of Chicago have drawn from this financial crisis: first, the need to include “nonbank” financial companies like AIG in the purview of the government’s financial regulatory agencies; second, the need to break up, when necessary, giant financial corporations whose failure could pose a systemic risk to the system; third, the need to prohibit commercial banks and non-bank financial institutions from engaging in proprietary trading and investing in hedge funds and private equity funds. The latter is currently referred to as “the Volcker rule.”

If you look at Dodd’s proposal, what you discover is that all of these measures are not written into law, but are to be carried out at the discretion of—you guessed it—the Financial Stability Oversight Council. If the Fed wants to break up a “large complex company [that] poses a grave threat to the financial stability of the United States,” it will have to obtain a two-thirds vote of the council. If it wants to regulate a non-bank financial company, it has to obtain a two-thirds approval of the council. And the Volcker rule will or will not be implemented depending upon the “recommendations” from a “study by the Financial Stability Oversight Council.” In other words, Dodd’s council could not only rubber-stamp bad decisions by the Fed, but it could also block good ones. Think again of who would have populated the council during the George W. Bush administration or even of the current squabbling among the Fed, the Federal Deposit Insurance Commission, and other financial regulatory agencies over who is in charge of what. Washington policy-makers need to listen for once to the wise advice of William of Ockham: “Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity.” William, of course, was talking about Platonic TROJAN page 54

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Majorly or Radically? Jonathan Cohn (The New Republic - All Feed) Submitted at 3/24/2010 9:00:00 PM

“There’s no fixing the government health care takeover Democrats forced through on Sunday. It must be repealed.” So said Jim DeMint, the Republican senator and presidential hopeful, speaking one day after health care reform passed the House of Representatives, clearing the final legislative hurdle to enactment. And it’s a sentiment you hear a lot on the right these days. Over the last week or so, as passage seemed ever more likely, Republicans moved from denial to anger: If they couldn’t stop this bill from becoming a law, they would stop the law from taking effect. A historical precedent for repeal exists. In 1988, President Ronald Reagan and the Democratic Congress passed the Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act. The bill promised to fill in some key gaps in Medicare coverage, chief among them an overall limit on benefits and a lack of prescription drug coverage. But the bill proved unpopular. Only a tiny fraction of seniors ever experienced catastrophic expenses that surpassed the Medicare limits; the drug benefit, although helpful, didn’t start right away. To pay for the benefit, the act raised taxes on wealthy seniors.

Conservatives attacked that future mercilessly, implying (wrongly) that many more seniors would end up paying the tax. The public turned sharply against the act and, within a year, Congress had repealed it by an overwhelming margin. Democrats complacent about their victory this week should remember that example and remember it well. But they should also take comfort in the fact that the situation is different in several key respects. Although most of health care reform’s benefits won’t begin until many years from now, the architects of the bill understood what happened with Medicare Catastrophic. That is why they front-loaded the bill with a handful of tangible benefits. Seniors will get additional assistance buying drugs, young adults under 26 will get to stay on their parents’ policies, the government will prohibit annual and lifetime limits on benefits and insurers will be prohibited from rescinding policies without good cause--all within the first year. The politics have changed too. Precisely because Medicare Catastrophic was a bipartisan act, passed by a Democratic Congress and signed by a Republican president, neither party really took political ownership of it. Neither Reagan nor congressional Democrats had made it a defining issue of

their previous campaigns and after enactment, neither was going to expend huge political resources defending it. The situation today could not be more different. President Barack Obama and his allies made health care reform a centerpiece of the 2008 campaign. And over the last year, they’ve made it the signature cause of Obama’s first term. Their political survival depended on its passage and, now, their political survival depends on its implementation. In short, they are going to keep fighting for it. Of course, the prospect of yet more fighting over health care won’t excite most Americans, who at this point just want to move on to other matters. (Heck, even some of those who write about health care for a living are eager for something new.) But there’s nothing wrong with fighting about--or, at least, debating about--health care. It’s an argument about how we, as a nation, want to set priorities. It’s a discussion we’ve been having for decades--over everything from Medicare spending to insurance regulation--and it’s a discussion we were bound to keep having, no matter what happened to reform. What’s changing this week, with the enactment of the Democrats’ bill, is the boundaries of that discussion. All societies have to make

decisions about how to allocate resources. Broadly speaking, there are two ways to make those decisions. A society can make those decisions collectively, through government, by imposing regulations and spending taxpayer dollars. And a society can make those decisions individually, through the market, by simply allowing individuals to spend money according to his own preferences and means. It’s not a stark, either/or choice. Instead, each nation finds its own middle ground between the two extremes. And, historically, the U.S. middle ground has been closer to the market side. Unlike in the rest of the developed world, government didn’t guarantee access to coverage, although it subsidized it for some people who couldn’t afford it. Government didn’t set overall budgets for health care spending, although it would limit the money its own programs spent for treatment. For a long time, Americans were comfortable with that approach. But, over time, it caused more and more people to struggle. Millions had no health insurance; millions more had either insurance that was too expensive or insurance that didn’t cover enough. Health care reform promises to shift the middle ground between government and market,

modestly, but in a way that will have far-reaching effects. Now government will guarantee that all (or most) people have the ability to get insurance that will actually meet their needs. It won’t do so by taking over the insurance business--even if, truthfully, that’s what some of us would prefer. Instead, it will do so by setting rules for how the insurance industry behaves. And it won’t make insurance free for all people. But it will provide financial assistance, enough so that people of limited means won’t have the same high exposure to medical costs they do now. Minutes after the House finished passing health care reform, Obama described the bill as a major, but not a radical, reform. That about sums it up. It will change the way people live far more than it will change the principles by which we govern. Jonathan Cohn is a senior editor of The New Republic. This column is a collaboration between TNR and Kaiser Health News. KHN is an editorially independent news service and is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization, which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente. For more TNR, become a fan on Facebook and follow us on MAJORLY page 54

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TROJAN

The New Nullifiers E.J. Dionne Jr. (The New Republic - All Feed)

government can require individuals to buy health insurance. The other is the Submitted at 3/24/2010 9:00:00 PM states' rights question. In a suit WASHINGTON -- Virginia separate from Cuccinelli's, 13 A t t o r n e y G e n e r a l K e n state attorneys general -- 12 Cuccinelli seems determined to Republicans and a conservative use an attack on health care Democrat from Louisiana -- also reform to bring us back to the challenged the mandate. But 1830s. their main argument is that the Cuccinelli, to cheers from the federal government cannot force Tea Party crowd, went to court states to pay for an expanded this week to overturn the new Medicaid program and take law, which he says conflicts other steps the law requires. w i t h a V i r g i n i a s t a t u t e It would take a rashly activist "protecting its citizens from a court to find the individual government-imposed mandate m a n d a t e u n c o n s t i t u t i o n a l to buy health insurance." because it is structured as a tax. "Normally, such conflicts are No one will go to jail for not decided in favor of the federal buying insurance. Starting in government," he said, "but 2014, people who refuse will because we believe the federal have to pay a penalty to the law is unconstitutional, f e d e r a l g o v e r n m e n t , Virginia's law should prevail." administered by the IRS. There The Republican attorney are subsidies for those who general's move reveals how far cannot afford coverage on their into the past America's New o w n , a s w e l l a s h a r d s h i p Nullifiers want to push the e x e m p t i o n s . nation. They don't just want to The idea is simple: Most people abandon a more than seven- without insurance currently decade-long understanding of receive at least some medical the Constitution's interstate h e l p , a n d t h e m a n d a t e i s commerce clause that has designed to get everyone paying allowed the federal government into the system. One of the best to regulate a modern, national defenses of a health insurance economy. They also want to mandate came in a Wall Street resurrect states' rights doctrines Journal op-ed piece published in discredited by President Andrew April 2006. Jackson during the nullification "By law, emergency care cannot crisis of the 1830s and buried by be withheld," this commentator the Civil War. wrote. "Why pay for something There are two issues here. One you can get free? Of course, i s w h e t h e r t h e f e d e r a l while it may be free for them,

continued from page 52

everyone else ends up paying the bill, either in higher insurance premiums or taxes." He concluded: "Some of my libertarian friends balk at what looks like an individual mandate. But remember, someone has to pay for the health care that must, by law, be provided: Either the individual pays or the taxpayers pay. A free ride on government is not libertarian." That would be Mitt Romney. The former Massachusetts governor is now trying to insist that the health plan with a mandate that he championed in his state -- with the support of a legislator named Scott Brown -is oh-so-different from the bill President Obama signed this week. But Romney can't take back his own words. Still, at least the quarrel over the mandate is about something relatively new. The old states' rights argument, if successful, could upend years of federal legislation. Will we have a system where states can pick and choose among federal laws? We want our elderly to get Medicare, and give us more highway money, but forget this health care expansion. That sounds like the logic of the nullifiers of the 1830s, fighting to resist a federal tariff they thought was too high. Gov. Robert Y. Hayne of South Carolina, their leader, sounded rather like today's Tea Partiers.

His state, he declared in 1832, was "inflexibly determined never to surrender her reserved rights, nor to suffer the constitutional compact to be converted into an instrument for the oppression of her citizens." Andrew Jackson's response to the nullifiers is classic. He denounced "the strange position that any one State may not only declare an act of Congress void, but prohibit its execution." He also wondered how a state could "retain its place in the Union, and yet be bound by no other of its laws than those it may choose to consider as constitutional." OK, at least today the attorneys general are going to court before taking further action. But in the case of Cuccinelli, the very law he is relying on to justify his suit was passed by Virginia's Legislature in direct defiance of a federal bill they knew might be coming. Call it Nullification Light. It's no way to run a serious country, and it's a reckless approach to politics. E.J. Dionne's e-mail address is ejdionne(at)washpost.com. (c) 2010, Washington Post Writers Group Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

forms, but his advice could easily apply to the proposal for a financial oversight council. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

MAJORLY continued from page 53

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

Branstad Takes Wide Lead in Iowa Gov's Race (Newsmax - Politics) Submitted at 3/24/2010 8:22:55 AM

This year's race for governor in Iowa continues to be largely a battle between two candidates who've already held the office. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely voters in the state shows former Republican Governor Terry BRANSTAD page 55

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BRANSTAD continued from page 54

Branstad leading current Governor Chet Culver by 16 points, 52 percent to 36 percent. Six percent (6 percent) prefer some other candidate, and six percent (6 percent) are undecided. Branstad, who served as governor from 1983 to 1999, held virtually identical leads over the Democratic incumbent a month ago and in the first survey of the race last September. Culver is doing better this month, however, against another Republican, Bob Vander Plaats, a businessman and former high school principal with failed runs for governor and lieutenant governor under his belt. Vander Plaats led Culver by six points a month ago but now holds a narrow 42 percent to 40 percent lead. Eight percent (8 percent) favor another candidate, and 11 percent are undecided. Culver also barely edges a newcomer in the race, State Representative Rod Roberts, by 40 percent to 38 percent margin.

Given this match-up, 10 percent of Iowa voters favor another candidate, and 13 percent are undecided. Republicans will pick their gubernatorial candidate in a June 8 primary. Republican Charles Grassley continues to hold a comfortable lead over his three chief Democratic challengers in the U.S. Senate race in Iowa. Clearly a problem for Culver is that for the second month in a row, just 41 percent of voters in the state approve of the job he's doing, with 11 percent who Strongly Approve. Fifty-seven percent (57 percent) disapprove of his job performance, including 33 percent who Strongly Disapprove. Male voters prefer the Republican over Culver in all three match-ups, but Branstad is the only GOP hopeful who wins female voters away from the incumbent. Voters not affiliated with either major party favor the Republicans by double-digit margins.

Nineteen percent (19 percent) of all Iowa voters hold a very favorable opinion of Culver, while 30 percent view him very unfavorably. Branstad is viewed very favorably by 26 percent and very unfavorably by 18 percent. For Vander Plaats, very favorables and very unfavorables both total 15 percent. Roberts is regarded very favorably by six percent (6 percent) and very unfavorably by six percent (6 percent). Just six percent (6 percent) of voters in the state have no opinion of either Culver or Branstad. But 27 percent don't know enough about Vander Plaats to venture even a soft favorable or unfavorable opinion of him. Forty-two percent (42 percent) have no opinion of Roberts. That's one reason why at this point in a campaign, Rasmussen Reports considers the number of people with a strong opinion more significant than the total

favorable/unfavorable numbers. Barack Obama carried Iowa with 54 percent of the vote in 2008, and now 50 percent of voters in the state approve of his performance as president. Forty-nine percent (49 percent) disapprove. These findings include 26 percent who Strongly Approve and 39 percent who Strongly Disapprove. This survey was taken prior to the passage of the controversial national health care plan, so it's not clear what impact, if any, that will have on voters in Iowa. In the Senate, Grassley voted against the plan, while Iowa's other senator, Democrat Tom Harkin, voted in favor of it. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

ChloĂŠ Studded Boots ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog) Submitted at 3/24/2010 3:50:00 PM

Sarah Schussheim, Assistant Fashion Editor, in ChloĂŠ studded boots "These are the perfect pair of boots: They're embellished, super comfortable, and add a little height." Photo: Kelly Stuart

'America's Next Top Model' - 'Let's Dance' Recap Michael Pascua (TV Squad)

sponsor Bluefly.com. Granted, this isn't the first time crossover has happened between the two (S14E03) I find it amusing when shows. Previous contestants like two shows start bleeding into Dani (Cycle 6), Bianca (Cycle each other. This week'America's 9), and Anya (Cycle 10) have Next Top M o d e l ' modeled for contestants on their that, I got several commercials borrowed'Project Runway's' final runway shows. Because of Submitted at 3/25/2010 5:18:00 AM

for Bluefly.com with Anthony announcing "Period" each time. Ren continued to self-eliminate herself throughout the episode, and yet didn't have the guts to actually quit. Tyra must be annoyed that the person that she hand picked didn't succeed.

Continue reading'America's Next Top Model' - 'Let's Dance' Recap Filed under: Other Reality Shows, OpEd, Episode Reviews Permalink| Email this| | Comments

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Card 'Em Linda Hirshman (The New Republic - All Feed) Submitted at 3/24/2010 9:19:45 AM

When Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law yesterday, it became official: health care was not to be, as certain Republicans promised, the president’s Waterloo. Republicans quickly swung to predicting that health care would instead be a deceptively successful but actually disastrous victory—more like Napoleon’s conquest of Moscow, say, which launched his bloody winter march from power. Obama and the Democrats will realize the folly of their health care triumphalism, Republicans say, when the midterm elections roll around. Should Democrats buy into this narrative? No, and here’s why: The solution lies right in my wallet. And the wallets of the millions of other Americans who have crossed the 65 year mark since 1965: a little red, white, and blue Medicare card. The day

President Obama signed the HCR bill into law every American became eligible for a little card of her own. I haven’t seen the Obama message gurus produce one, so I did it for them. When Lyndon Johnson signed the law that created Medicare, he had two Medicare cards ready: one for Harry Truman and one for his wife, Bess Truman. Nice gesture. But the Trumans were already going to vote Democratic. What a waste. George W. Bush, whose record on reelection is substantially superior to that of Lyndon Johnson, knew better. When he achieved the record-setting tax cuts in 2001, taxpayers received not one, but two missives from the Republican controlled federal government. First they got a letter, telling them they were going to get a tax rebate. And then they got a rebate check (postmark: Austin, Texas, the president’s campaign headquarter city), printed with the slogan “tax relief for America’s workers,” which had been a hallmark of the Republican campaign. Long ago, people who study

political behavior noticed something weird. When people don’t have something, they are pretty rational about what they’d be willing to pay to get it. But when they already have something, they pay wildly more not to lose it, even if it’s the same thing. The Obama folks should not need me to tell them this; I learned it from one of the president’s advisors, the behavioral economics guru Cass Sunstein. He wrote about it in his book, Nudge. Put an Americare Card in the hands of every adult and parent in America and then let the Republicans come for it. I’m guessing, in the words of a great Republican, Charlton Heston, they’d have to pry it out of our cold dead hands. Linda Hirshman is a retired professor of philosophy. She is at work on a book about the gay social movement. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Time Warner Cable enables city-wide WiFi for NYC subscribers Tim Stevens (Engadget) Submitted at 3/25/2010 8:29:00 AM

If you're a Time Warner Cable subscriber in the greater NYC area, your life just got a little bit better this morning. TWC has come to an agreement with Cablevision, allowing the former's subscribers to tap in to the city-wide WiFi the latter started rolling out way back in 2008. No, we're not talking unbroken coverage from the Hudson to the East Rivers, but there are thousands of Optimum -branded hotspots all over boroughs that cover plenty of

parks and rail stations across the city. Unfortunately TWC isn't opening this up to all of its subscribers, just NYC-based ones, but if you have the requisite @nyc.rr.com suffix on your e-mail address hit that source link and find yourself a hotspot. Time Warner Cable enables city-wide WiFi for NYC subscribers originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 25 Mar 2010 08:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink GigaOM| Time Warner Cable WiFi, PRWeb| Email this| Comments

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Bing Keeps Getting Smarter: Adds More Info About Cars, Sports Teams Frederic Lardinois (ReadWriteWeb)

specs instead of directing you to another site with this info. This page will also include links to Submitted at 3/25/2010 7:00:00 AM additional images and videos Bing now knows a lot more about the car, as well as the about cars and will also give a ability to restrict the search select group of users the option query by different trims and to compare the performance of links to the specs of cars in the different sports teams. Microsoft same class. just announced these updates at In Microsoft parlance, these the Search Engine Strategies pages are called "domain task event in New York. The new pages" and chances are that - if comparison answers for sports successful - the company plans will be rolled out to only about to roll out more of these for 5% of Bing's users at first. In additional topics in the near addition, Microsoft will also future. The task pages are part begin to roll out some minor of Bing's efforts to provide users design changes to a small group with specialized answers for of users today that will better popular queries in verticals like highlight Bing's assets like weather. According to a recent weather and travel search. job posting, other topics for Sponsor these pages that Microsoft plans Starting today, mobile users to launch in the future could will also see improvements to include "movies, music, games Bing's autosuggest feature, a n d o t h e r h i g h - v o l u m e which will now include answers domains." Given that Bing bills for things like stock quotes right itself as a "decision engine," it in the autosuggest box. only makes sense for Microsoft Domain Task Pages for Cars to try to capture as many Whenever a user searches for popular searches as possible and cars and car-related topics (" present its users with relevant 2010 Toyota Camry specs," for answers right on Bing.com example), Bing will now bring instead of sending them on to up a page will all of the car's other sites.

Sports Comparison and UI Changes A small number of Bing users will now also be able to compare the performance of sports teams by simply typing the name of two teams in the search form. As Stefan Weitz, Microsoft's Director of Bing, also told us during a briefing earlier this month, about 0.7% of all queries on Bing are comparison searches and the company hopes to capture more of these in the future and present the right answer in Bing instead of sending users to multiple sites. The same number of users (about 5%) will now also see a new user interface for the boxes at the top of the page that Bing will often display for popular topics. For searches related to cities and towns, for example, these "Bing boxes" will now include info about local weather, a relevant link to Bing Maps, as well as airfare info from your

current location (based on your IP address). For popular artists, these boxes will now also include information about upcoming concerts and other relevant information. Sadly, this concert info is based on chronology and doesn't take a user's current location into account. Overall, these are interesting updates - not necessarily because Bing now knows a lot more about cars and sports, but because they show the direction the Bing team is going in. As a "decision engine," the Bing team's intend is to give users more information directly on the site instead of just presenting them with a couple of links. While these links can be relevant (and Bing still shows them most of the time, too), the Bing team wants to reduce the number of queries that result in links and increase the number of times the software can present users with direct answers Microsoft has sourced from its own databases or from sources across the Internet. Discuss

WB announces multiplatform Legend of the Guardians game JC Fletcher (Joystiq) Submitted at 3/25/2010 4:55:00 AM

Finally, your chance to play a heroic owl in an owl-focused game! WBIE announced that it's adapting Zack Snyder's new film, Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole, into a game for Wii, PS3, Xbox 360, and DS, with release planned in September. The PS3, 360, and Wii versions are developed by Krome, with Tantalus Media in charge of the DS release. Legend of the Guardians puts the player in the role of a Guardian, a member of a group of owls devoted to doing good. Which, judging by the trailer, means fighting with other owls and taking part in that flight game staple, flying through rings. Perhaps you also get to estimate the number of licks required to reach the center of a Tootsie Pop, but that's not reflected in the trailer. WB announces multiplatform Legend of the Guardians game originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 25 Mar 2010 04:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

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Act Now. Amazon and Microsoft Launch Windows Server License Mobility Pilot Mike Kirkwood (ReadWriteWeb) Submitted at 3/25/2010 2:53:00 AM

Early this morning, we received an announcement from Amazon the company is launching a pilot for EC2 customers to allow your enterprise organizations to move existing Microsoft Windows Server licenses to Amazon and receive a proper discount for the new EC2 instance. The offer is open until September and is being called a pilot by the companies to test the waters and pattern for hosting Windows within Amazon. Sponsor The note from Amazon is on the Windows Server license mobility prompts immediate action:"Dear Amazon EC2 Customer, We are excited to announce the immediate availability of the Microsoft Windows Server速 License Mobility Pilot, which enables customers with Microsoft Enterprise Agreements (EA) to migrate their existing Windows Server licenses to Amazon EC2. By

moving existing licenses to the cloud, you can leverage licenses that you have already purchased to reduce your cost of running Windows On-Demand or Reserved Instances by up to 41%. Microsoft will stop accepting new enrollments for the pilot on September 23, 2010 so it is important to act quickly. To participate in this pilot, Microsoft requires that your company meet the following criteria: * Your company must be based (or have a legal entity) in the United States * Your company must have an existing Microsoft Enterprise Agreement (EA) that is valid for a minimum of 12 months after your entry into the pilot * You must already have purchased Software Assurance from Microsoft for your EA Windows Server Enterprise, Datacenter, and Standard licenses * You must be an Enterprise customer (Academic and Government institutions are not covered by this pilot) Once you have enrolled in the pilot, you will be eligible to run

cause organizations look at old hardware with a new rigor. If this program grows, we could see whole blocks of your Windows Server licenses infrastructure move to Amazon in Amazon EC2 for the next 12 and new Windows servers months following your sign-up. materialize. You will still be responsible for Even if this license mobility is a maintaining the appropriate low or no-revenue event to n u m b e r o f C l i e n t A c c e s s Microsoft in year one, the licenses and External Connector company will win to see those licenses needed to operate your servers in action. Each one, no matter where it is hosted, EA Windows Server licenses. To learn more about this pilot r e p r e s e n t s v a l u e f o r t h e o r s i g n - u p , p l e a s e v i s i t company and the ecosystem. http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/win We think that Amazon wins dows-license-mobility-pilot. We with Windows Server license hope that you take advantage of mobility. We can see system admins de-provisioning this new pilot!" By clicking that link, you are hardware adding a step to the one form away from that script "fire up new instance at hardware in your closet moving EC2" and feeling even better to Amazon. Make sure your about tidying up your data license administrator is handy, it center. asks for the basics, and of License mobility seems to be course the company agreement another sign of how the cloud may just be more portable in its numbers with Microsoft. Microsoft is Going Big into nature. And faster that FedEx. Are your windows servers Cloud. And Amazon, Deep licenses ready for EC2? Discuss For the right license holders, this is could be a big opportunity to jump to Amazon's cloud. This could

Pixel art poster celebrates arcade games, helps kids JC Fletcher (Joystiq) Submitted at 3/25/2010 9:30:00 AM

Artist Army of trolls (Gary Lucken) has created a beautiful poster featuring embellished pixel art versions of classic arcade cabinets, including some unlikely choices like Bomb Jack and Giga Wing, available for purchase through the Poster Cause website. Not only is the $25 poster arguably an act of charity toward your wall, purchasing it also contributes to a for-real charity! All of the profits from sales of the poster will be given to SpecialEffect, a UK-based charity that helps make computer games more accessible to kids with disabilities. As if you really needed another reason to want to buy one of these. Pixel art poster celebrates arcade games, helps kids originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 25 Mar 2010 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

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Augmented Reality Among Time's 10 Tech Trends for 2010 Chris Cameron (ReadWriteWeb)

Postal Service's virtual box simulator that helps customers determine what size box to use Submitted at 3/25/2010 3:00:00 AM by holding the item they are T h a n k s t o t h e g r o w i n g shipping up their webcam. popularity of mobile augmented Unfortunately, Fletcher merely reality (AR) applications such as skims the surface of AR in his Layar and Wikitude, as well as 1 0 p a r t a r t i c l e p u b l i s h e d countless advertising campaigns Monday, and in doing so he from corporate giants, AR is unintentionally labels players in beginning to make its way out t h e m o b i l e A R s p a c e a s of the shadows of obscurity and "gimmicky." I can see how it into popular culture. Once an would be easy for someone experimental technology left for investigating AR iPhone apps to e x p e r t e n g i n e e r s , A R i s be overwhelmed at the plethora b e c o m i n g m o r e a n d m o r e of apps that let you shoot things accessible to both developers in an augmented first-person a n d c o n s u m e r s o f t h e perspective, but it is still experiences. Now, the greater disappointing that he failed to AR community has another notice the quality apps in the feather for its cap as Time space. Magazine has recognized it as But hey, it's still great for us one of its 10 Tech Trends for augmented reality fans to see 2010. our beloved emerging Sponsor technology receive national "One challenge for 2010 will be notoriety in a publication such harnessing the growing ubiquity as Time, so we'll take what we of webcams and smart-phones can get. AR snagged the #4 to make augmented reality position on Time's list, but when useful as a tool in day-to-day you look at some of the other l i f e , " w r i t e s T i m e ' s D a n trends listed, you notice that AR Fletcher, pointing out the U.S. is already taking advantage of

the application. One could argue that AR uses all of the other nine technologies featured on Time's list with the exception of the iPad, which unfortunately most, if not all of them. Time's #1 tech trend for 2010 is has no camera with which to location, and it points out the augment our realities. growing popularity of services On a related note, Layar colike Foursquare and Gowalla. founder Claire Boonstra was Mobile AR applications have named to Laptop Magazine's list b e e n t a k i n g a d v a n t a g e o f of the most influential women in location data since day one and technology. Alongside Boonstra it continues to play a crucial was Google's Marissa Mayer, role. After location comes Caterina Fake of Flickr and " b u i l d i n g p l a t f o r m s , n o t Hunch fame, and Melinda websites," which Layar has been Gates. This, as well as Time's developing with their third-party inclusion of AR on their tech P O I d a t a - s e t s a n d t h e i r trends list, is great exposure for upcoming layer marketplace. augmented reality. G o o d t h i n g " f r i c t i o n l e s s If you'd like to learn more payments" is another trend to about how companies are using watch for in 2010, otherwise augmented reality for marketing Layar's marketplace would be in both desktop and mobilebased experiences, be sure to ahead of its time. Also on Time's list is social check out our latest premium gaming, and social objects, report on the subject which was immediately reminding me of released earlier this week. Tonchidot's Sekai Camera app Discuss which lets users leave AR objects in physical space for people to interact with through

China comments add to sovereign debt fears (Financial Times - US homepage) Submitted at 3/25/2010 6:43:35 AM

13:40 GMT: Growing concerns about sovereign debt found a

significant mouthpiece on Thursday, when a senior Chinese central banker warned that the Greek crisis was just the beginning. “We don’t see decisive actions

telling the market we can solve this,” Zhu Min, a deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China, was reported as saying. Five Filters featured article:

King of Fighters XIII brings Mai back this summer JC Fletcher (Joystiq) Submitted at 3/25/2010 10:05:00 AM

King of Fighters XII wasn't quite the spectacular highdefinition debut the series deserved. Sure, there were problems with the netcode, but one problem with the roster irritated just as many fans: the omission of the scantily clad ninja, Mai Shiranui. So, naturally, SNK is leading with the bouncy character in its promotion for King of Fighters XIII. A teaser site for the game, opened after a preview event, features a picture of Mai with her trademark fan, along with a note that the game will be released in arcades this summer. [Via Andriasang] King of Fighters XIII brings Mai back this summer originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 25 Mar 2010 10:05:00 EST. Please Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: see our terms for use of feeds. PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Read| Permalink| Email this| Term Extraction. Comments

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IBM Partners To Offer $190 Cloud- Oprah Settles Connected Netbook For Emerging Defamation Suit Markets Brad Trechak (TV Squad) Submitted at 3/25/2010 9:02:00 AM

Alex Williams (ReadWriteWeb) Submitted at 3/25/2010 4:00:00 AM

IBM, Canonical and Simmtronics will offer emerigng markets a fully loaded, cloudconnected Netbook for $190. It's a clear example of how a cloudbased approach fits with the emerging Netbook market and its importance in the global marketplace as a channel for enterprise collaboration technologies. The Simmtronics Simmbook will initially be available in South Africa and emerging markets. In addition to African countries, the Simmbook will also be available in India, Thailand and Vietnam. Sponsor The Simmbook will come preloaded with IBM Client for Smart Work, which includes IBM software like Lotus Symphony and access to IBM LotusLive cloud collaboration services. The Simmbook will run Ubuntu from Canonical as its operating system. The Simmbook is one of the first Netbook to provide direct access to the cloud by offering a package of online collaboration tools. The OS is not cloud-based

but LotusLive is a robust enough application suite to give customers a cloud environment that should prove useful and less expensive than the costs of a Windows-based operating system. Simmbook launched in India at the beginning of the year. Simmtronics is an electronics company with a 20-year history developing motherboards, memory modules and graphic cards. Leadership By Numbers explains how Simmtronics competes at such a low price point: "The Simmbook is where they have put all the pieces together, to enter the laptop market with a low-cost netbook....Managing Director, Indrajit Sabharwal of Simmtronics pointed out that "because the motherboard and memory is 25% of overall cost," Simmtronics has a competitive pricing edge. By removing the expense of a Microsoft operating system, and relying on Ubuntu (Windows XP is an option, at an increased expense), Simmtronics has created a

mobile computing device with 1 G of RAM, Intel Atom processor and a 160 HD that will be selling in the neighborhood of $250 US. " Simmbook has another edge to it. It's OS is open-source. The IBM software is built on open standards. Earlier this week we discussed LotusLive and its strong growth. We got a little grief from our commenters. So, how do you view this? At this point it seems plausible that Google Apps and Lotus Live will compete to some degree in the Netbook market channel. Part of the strategy here is to convince IT managers in emerging markets that the Netbook is a legitimate alternative to the PC, especially when it comes pre-loaded with Ubuntu and productivity applications with no custom work required. Our biggest question concerns the availability of broadband to take advantage of cloud-based collaboration services. A Netbook is viable due its low cost and capabilities compared to a PC. Reliable broadband? That seems to be a challenge well out of the control of IBM and its partners. Discuss

It looks like Oprah Winfrey will not be going to trial. The queen of day-time talk shows settled a lawsuit out of court with Nomvuyo Mzamane, a former headmistress of her South African school. The lawsuit was based on statements Winfrey made after allegations of student abuse at the school occurred. In 1998, Oprah was sued by some Texas cattle ranchers due to a segment on her show about mad cow disease. In that case, she did go to trial and was acquitted (even taping episodes of her show from Texas). However, it's difficult to know if the same results can be obtained from a South African court. There are two sides to this settlement. The first is that if Oprah feels her statements were

valid and her celebrity shouldn't be taken into account, she should have gone to South Africa to defend herself. The other is that her time is way too valuable to waste on what seems to be a frivolous lawsuit. What do you think? Should Oprah have defended her honor? Filed under: OpEd, Celebrities, Reality-Free Permalink| Email this| | Comments

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Time Warner Cable just gave New York free Wi-Fi John Biggs (CrunchGear) Submitted at 3/25/2010 6:51:17 AM

Live in New York? Pop over here and register for your free Wi-Fi! If you have a RoadRunner cable account, you can connect to free WiFi in “several” locations around New York including Bryant and Madison Square Parks and some parks in Queens. If you’re thinking to yourself “Hey, a few parks in Manhattan, some DMZ out in the boonies, and some spots in Port Washington (probably where the uncles of Time Warner executives live) do not make overarching WiFi access for the masses,” then you’re probably right. But when’s the last time Time Warner Cable did anything nice for you? Maybe you could be appreciative? Thankfully you also have access to “thousands” of Optimum Wi-Fi hotspots, so it’s not THAT bad. But then Optimum’s coverage isn’t exactly in Manhattan. Time Warner Cable Wi-Fi Zones Now Available To New York City Area Road Runner High-Speed Online Customers Time Warner Cable and Cablevision’s Optimum WiFi Partner to Provide Free Seamless Wireless Internet Connectivity to High-Speed Internet Customers of Both Companies New York, NY

(Vocus/PRWEB ) March 25, 2010 — Time Warner Cable’s NYC Region today introduced Time Warner Cable Wi-Fi service, giving its one million local Road Runner residential customers unlimited access to a fast and free wireless Internet connection at several locations in the NYC area. Through a

partnership with Cablevision, Time Warner Cable customers will also have access to thousands of free Optimum WiFi locations throughout Cablevision’s service area. Time Warner Cable Wi-Fi is now available at several Wi-Fi zones in Manhattan and Queens, including several parks and

some Long Island Railroad platforms and their respective parking lots in the company’s service area. High-Speed Internet customers of both Time Warner Cable and Cablevision will be able to access free, unlimited Wi-Fi services in each other’s New York City metro service areas,

allowing for a fast Internet connection at designated Wi-Fi zones. Time Warner Cable Road Runner customers will have access to Cablevision’s Optimum WiFi network, and Cablevision’s Optimum Online customers will have access to Time Warner Cable Wi-Fi zones when they travel out of their service area. Time Warner Cable’s New York City service area includes Manhattan, Queens, Staten Island, western Brooklyn, Mt. Vernon, parts of the Hudson Valley region, and Bergen and Hudson Counties in New Jersey. Cablevision’s coverage area includes Long Island, parts of New Jersey and Connecticut, Westchester, Rockland, Northern Hudson Valley, the Bronx, and Brooklyn. “Our sophisticated network is a combination of wireless and wireline services, bringing a wide spectrum of products and services to our customers. This free new Wi-Fi option adds another dimension for Road Runner customers, bringing even more convenience,” stated Howard Szarfarc, Executive Vice President of the company’s New York City Region. “Road Runner customers can experience a fast, simple and easy connection from their laptops or portable Wi-Fienabled devices in Time Warner TIME page 63

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i3D's glasses-free prototype screen aims to take on all of 3D's problem areas Joanna Stern (Engadget) Submitted at 3/25/2010 8:58:00 AM

Uncomfortable, expensive glasses and a lack of 3D content -- that'd be the short list of stuff we dislike about current 3D TVs, but coincidentally it also happens to be the exact issues i3D is determined to wipe out with its glasses-free technology. We stopped by to meet with the young, Los Angeles-based company last week, and though it obviously isn't the first to develop spec-less displays, its proprietary hardware and software combo was really impressive. The demo of a 7inch prototype really tells the whole story -- and we encourage you all to see it for yourself in the video after the break, though obviously you won't be able to experience all three dimensions from your standard LCD. Our time screen-gazing was pretty breathtaking, even though the

smaller display was far from immersive. As for the viewing angle issue that's the Achilles' heel of the others, i3D claims its technology allows for threedimensional viewing at close to 90 degrees, though it was hard for us to really evaluate that on such a small screen. The coolest thing by far is the software's ability to convert 2D

to 3D content on the fly. One second we were watching a twodimensional clip of Cars and then with the tap of the 3D button the car was driving off the screen. While this isn't the first company dabbling in 2D conversion, we haven't seen any others doing this without the glasses, and i3D does claim it can convert any resolution

programming. We'll have to see it to believe it, but if it does work and the quality lives up to what's being promised there'd go our lack of content issue! Apparently the price of the technology should add at most 20 percent to that of a current HDTV, but here's where we tell you that we wouldn't be surprised if it took years for all

this technology to make into Best Buy's Magnolia Home Theater section. Given the fact that we met with the company in a backyard, we'd say that both it and its technology are in the early stages. But hey, it makes you feel better that someone is working on that 3D frustration list, right? Gallery: I3dtek prototype hands -on Continue reading i3D's glassesfree prototype screen aims to take on all of 3D's problem areas i3D's glasses-free prototype screen aims to take on all of 3D's problem areas originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 25 Mar 2010 08:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| i3dtek| Email this| Comments

'At the Movies' Canceled Bob Sassone (TV Squad) Submitted at 3/25/2010 9:45:00 AM

This is rather sad, as far as TV show cancellations go:'At The Movies' is going away after 30 years on the air. The show that Roger Ebert and

Gene Siskel started so many years ago is a victim of the modern age. People get their movie reviews from so many places now, half-hour syndicated shows like this aren't as plentiful as they used to be, many changes in the past few and this show went through so years that it was easy to see that

it would be gone soon. Filed under: Cancellations, It's actually a miracle that the Reality-Free show survived the whole Ben Permalink| Email this| | Lyons debacle, so we should be C o m m e n t s glad that we got a year with Michael Phillips and A.O. Scott. Continue reading'At the Movies' Canceled

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Kobo releases a $149 eReader to support their eBook marketplace

TIME continued from page 61

Cable Wi-Fi zones, meeting their growing need for mobility.” According to Kevin Curran, Tablet (BestTabletReview.com) Cablevision’s Senior Vice President of Wireless Submitted at 3/24/2010 11:00:31 AM Development, “Optimum WiFi has become a valuable and The Kobo eReader popular enhancement for our Back in December we stared high-speed Internet customers, into the crystal ball we bought who appreciate the ability to from the crazy homeless gypsy take their Internet connection ‘to woman and predicted a few go’ when they are out of the things about the Kobo/Borders home or office. We are very partnership. First, we said that pleased to help mark the launch Borders would use this of Time Warner Cable Wi-Fi by partnership to bring an eReader linking our networks and to the market in order to better expanding our customers’ compete with the Kindle and access to fast and free wireless Nook. However, we also warned Internet, especially as demand that Borders and Kobo needed for mobile data continues to to do their homework and come increase.” out with an eReader that took Time Warner Cable Wi-Fi advantage of the burgeoning color display technology before and Borders is banking on is the s a l e i n C a n a d a t h i s M a y zones include: Kindle 3.0 and Nook 2.0 could. eReader being the cheapest out followed by a Borders-only Eight commuter rail platforms We finished the article by of the bunch at $149. The small release in the U.S. this Summer. on the Long Island Railroad Port saying “realistically we’re price tag will allow you to read By the way, that crystal ball Washington line: Woodside, probably looking at another E- eBooks purchased on the Kobo turned out to be a much better Ink eReader or some variation marketplace in ePub or PDF purchase than the monkey paw. formats. The Kobo also has If you ever use your wish on thereof.” Kobo has introduced another E- Bluetooth connectivity (no WiFi universal health care coverage I n k e R e a d e r t o b e s o l d or 3G naturally), five font sizes, make sure to include a few e x c l u s i v e l y i n B o r d e r s . 1GB of internal storage and an caveats. Unfortunately this eReader expandable SD card slot. The Source: MobileRead didn’t do its homework and battery is rated for 8,000 Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: features a 6-inch E-Ink screen pageturns. and the guts of a four year old So nothing new, but something PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, eReader (the Netronix eBook borrowed and something blue Term Extraction. reader to be exact). What Kobo for Kobo. The unit will go on

Flushing Main Street, Murray Hill, Broadway, Auburndale, Bayside, Douglaston, Little Neck; Manhattan: Bryant Park, Madison Square Park and 79th Street Boat Basin; Four parks in Queens: Bowne Park and Kissena Park in Flushing, Baisley Pond Park and Railroad Park in Jamaica. Road Runner customers will also have access to thousands of Cablevision’s Optimum WiFi zones. For a complete listing of Time Warner Cable Wi-Fi z o n e s , v i s i t TimeWarnerCableWiFi.com. A user-friendly Q+A is available on the site too. For a complete listing of Optimum WiFi l o c a t i o n s , v i s i t Optimumwifi.com.

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Making the Magic of 'Clash of the Titans' in 3D (ETonline - Breaking News)

'Avatar' and 'Terminator Salvation.' "That's something that I like about movies -- when S a m W o r t h i n g t o n d e f i e s the lights go down you get demons and gods in the all-new transported into these epic 'Clash of the Titans,' in theaters tales." April 2, and the English-born, ET was first on the set of the Aussie star tells ET of his new Louis Leterrier-directed movie, 3D extravaganza, "It brings you in which Sam plays Perseus, into the action a bit more; it raised as a man but born of a brings you into the dynamics of god, who leads a mission to the movie, and when people sit d e f e a t t h e g o d o f t h e down in that dark cinema, they underworld, Hades ( Ralph want to get their 16 bucks' worth Fiennes), before he can usurp and be transported, and I believe Zeus ( Liam Neeson), the king that's what 3D as a tool can of the gods, and unleash hell on help." Earth. Along the way, Perseus "I like doing big movies; I like fights all manner of monsters doing movies that I would like and demons in order to save his to see, in worlds and stories that love, Andromeda, played by are larger than life," says the 'Defiance' star Alexa Davalos. star of such blockbusters as Submitted at 3/25/2010 12:16:00 AM

Meet robot Hanako, the dental patient simulator (video) Serkan Toto (CrunchGear)

mouth, etc. Standing 157cm tall, Hanako’s body is the work of Tmsuk, Three Japanese universities ( while the “medical features” Waseda, Kogakuin and Showa) were developed by the dental and robot maker Tmsuk have faculties of the universities developed Hanako, a robotic involved in the development of dental patient who can behave the robot. There are nine joints like a human patient (to some in her body, for example in her extent). The robot, who is jaw, tongue and even in her supposed to be female, can eyelids. converse with doctors (“Please The main goal is to offer examine me!”, “That hurts!” dentists or dental students a way etc.), discharge robotic saliva, to practice “real-life” procedures sneeze, open and close her on a robot before taking care of Submitted at 3/25/2010 6:40:34 AM

human patients (at Showa University, dental students actually have to take tests using Hanako). This actually makes a lot of sense, I would say. Hanako reacts to mistakes by verbally expressing pain, rolling her eyes or even simulating a vomiting reflex, thanks to the touch sensors in her mouth. Watch Hanako in action in the video embedded below: Via Node[JP]

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Why Apple’s iPad Can’t Succeed in Schools (Yet) Liam Cassidy (TheAppleBlog) Submitted at 3/24/2010 7:49:47 AM

Apple has started making the iPad available on its online education store in packs of 10 with an appallingly–stingy discount of only $20 per iPad. If Apple wants to start a computing revolution with the iPad, it absolutely must get the device into schools. But in order to do that, it’s going to have to try a lot harder, and generous discounts are the easiest problem to solve. There are much bigger hurdles standing in the way. Let’s start with costs alone. Assume a school wants to buy an iPad for each of its students. Assume the school is small with only 300 children enrolled. Assume also that the school wants to buy the cheapest iPad without AppleCare. At a little more than $450 per iPad, that’s a cost of almost $144,000. I imagine the average statefunded school enjoys less than half that in its annual I.T. budget. “Aha!” you might argue, “Many schools in underprivileged areas get subsidies from the state and provide laptops for their pupils.” And, of course, you’d be right. Many schools do provide their students with free or ‘nearlyfree’ laptops. But not decent

laptops. We’re talking cheap, disposable netbooks that cost far less to insure against loss or damage. (Let’s be realistic – the younger the student, the greater the chance of laptop-death!) No Competition I graduated from High School back in the early 90s, and even then my school was considered ahead of the curve when it came to the adoption of computer technology in class. Even so, there were no Macs in my school. They were just too expensive. Here in the UK, the fierce battle in the 1980’s between Acorn, Sinclair, Atari, Amstrad and Commodore meant that there were many perfectly capable, cheap microcomputers available to schools. The Mac was superior to those machines in almost every way, but it couldn’t compete on price. It has been 16 years since I graduated from high school. And while I’m happy to report that my old school now has iMacs in most classrooms, sadly they only run Windows XP. The reason for this comes down to two simple factors; Cost, and What’s Best for the Kids. It seems more educational titles are available at lower prices on Windows than on Mac OS X. And, outside school, the kids encounter more Windows PCs than Macs.

Issues You see, tablets-as-books is a great idea until the battery dies, and then the student has no textbook and no computer. She will have to plug-in to a power outlet if she wants either of those things back. But consider the delicate health and safety issues associated with cablesafety in a classroom environment. Not to mention the maintenance costs (that’s a lot of power outlets being used So I look at the upcoming iPad more than ever before) and and, even though I can see the don’t forget the school will p o t e n t i a l i t o f f e r s t o suddenly incur higher energy schoolchildren (and the wider bills. Say what you will about a education market), I can’t help paper-textbook, at least it but wonder if it has any real doesn’t need plugging-in. chance of making a dent at this And then there’s the issue of time. HP’s upcoming slate PC damage. What happens if an has more chance of being iPad screen is cracked? A adopted by my old school damaged book cover doesn’t simply because it works with all render the book’s contents their existing software and runs inaccessible, nor is it likely to Windows — the platform the slice into fingers. Plus, the cost school believes the pupils are of a replacement book is trivial. better served knowing, rather Remind me how much the than Mac OS X, which they cheapest iPad is? have concluded is just too Oh, and let’s not forgot that Apple isn’t perfect. Remember obscure and “specialist.” And as though these fiduciary w h e n t h e i P h o n e O S w a s and policy-driven decisions updated to 3.1 in September last aren’t bad enough, there’s year? I wrote about it here, and another glaring challenge to the comments quickly ran to getting the iPad widely accepted over 100. iPhones everywhere in schools; at the end of the day, were freezing, crashing, and it’s just not a book. Delicate generally just refusing to work, and all as a result of an official

update from Apple itself! What happens when Apple does the same thing with the iPad? Even the most diligent students who take the greatest of care with their always-charged-intime-for-class iPads will suffer if an update from Apple proves flaky. And, finally, there’s the matter of crime. No one ever wanted to rob a kid from my school. The only thing we ever carried in our bags was biology books and the occasional Thundercats pencil case. But what if my school handed-out iPads to its pupils? Overnight, the school uniform would become an advertisement to any would-be criminal; “mug this kid – expensive computer on-board.” I’d dearly love to see all school kids and college students everywhere take-up iPads as their favorite learning tools. Sadly, I just don’t see how that can happen as long as they remain significantly more expensive than textbooks, more sophisticated than simple e-book readers and less resilient than the existing, proven toolset — traditional, dead-tree textbooks. Related GigaOM Pro Research: Forecast: Tablet App Sales To Hit $8B by 2015

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Instapaper Coming to the iPad Liam Cassidy (TheAppleBlog) Submitted at 3/24/2010 2:17:41 PM

“Read Later – 4”. I live my life by it. I find an interesting article but have no time to read it – 4. A crazy-long message in Gmail that’s just perfect for, um, ‘bathroom reading’ – 4. Pretty much anything that demands attention but can wait until I’m curled up in bed at the end of the day? 4. What’s all this 4 stuff about? Why, that’s my browser shortcut to Instapaper by Marco Arment. Instapaper strips the text out of almost any browser page and stores it for later reading; for me, that’s usually via the Instapaper Pro app on my iPhone. And now Arment brings us Instapaper for the iPad. I’ve never been more excited! On the Instapaper blog yesterday, Arment wrote; I’m probably supposed to keep this secret and build everyone’s anticipation to hype this up. Oh well. Maybe I’ll do that for the Instapaper edition for Apple’s next revolutionary computing platform. First: Instapaper is definitely coming to iPad. Second: Instapaper is coming to iPad very soon. Possibly even

on day one — yes, I’m going for it — but that’s optimistic. Third: Instapaper Pro will be a universal iPhone/iPad application. That means that you only have to buy Instapaper Pro once to have it on both devices, and the iPad edition will be available to all Pro purchasers at no additional charge when it’s released. You know that joy we all felt when Apple announced Snow Leopard would be super-dupercheap? Remember the way you smiled when you heard the news, and felt a warm glow inside? That’s how I feel about Instapaper Pro on the iPad. I think I even went “Squee!” when I read Arment’s post. (I was alone, so no one knows I made a fool of myself. Oh, wait…) Arment adds; It looks like Instapaper Pro, but bigger, and with slight interface tweaks and redesigns where appropriate. When everyone else was stalling their iPhone development for months in order to redesign entire applications for the iPad, I made the obligatory cardboard prototype and mocked up a bunch of radical interface departures.

may not work in ‘real’ life, on an actual hold-it-in-your-handsand-swipe-with-your-fingers iPad. There’s a big difference between how we interact with a computer monitor, and how we interact with a magazine – and the iPad is the mongrel offspring lovechild of the two. (You know what I mean.) Truth is, no amount of cardboard dummy iPads and on-screen simulations Ultimately, none of them were will provide the same tactile very practical. Some worked feedback and degree of firstwell, but only with ideal content hand quality control offered by (which, in practice, is rarely the an actual iPad. case except in the Editor’s Picks Some developers are no doubt folder). And I didn’t want to hoping that the iPad’s super-size commit to any huge risks f u n c t i o n ( b y w h i c h a p p s because I don’t have an iPad to designed for the iPhone are test them on. displayed at more than double And that’s the hurdle many their original size on the iPad) iPad developers currently face. will keep customers happy until Any developer will agree it’s they can get a real iPad and important to be in the iPad app s p e n d t i m e p r o p e r l y store as close to Day One as (re)developing their apps for it. p o s s i b l e , b u t a l l a p p So why didn’t Arment just let development and testing is Instapaper Pro run in that horribly crippled by the ‘little’ supersize, double-pixel mode? fact that no one has an iPad yet. After all, content in Instapaper Emulators and simulations are is mostly text. No worries about all very well and good, but pixelated graphics there, right? nothing beats having the real Wrong. Arment fired up thing to hold in one’s hands. Instapaper in his iPad simulator. Supersize The result? What might seem like a great It sucked, and it was completely design decision or function unusable by my standards… implementation in a simulator While I could have taken the

conservative option and waited until a month or two after the iPad’s release before launching Instapaper for it, an iPad without native Instapaper Pro is not a device I want to own. Me neither. And, if early reports are accurate, neither will a lot of other people for whom the iPad is, for the most part, a reading device. According to a report today on TUAW, a comScore poll of prospective iPad customers revealed that 37 percent said it’s likely they’ll read books on the device; 34 percent were more certain, saying that they would use the iPad for reading magazines and newspapers. For those of you, like me, who are using Instapaper heavily every day, the iPad is like a dream come true and I can say with certainty that catching up on all those 4’d articles and web pages will be what my iPad is used for most often. And for the 34 percent of iPad customers-inwaiting, Instapaper (and the inevitable copycat apps that follow) will make the iPad just about the only screen from which we’ll want to do any reading, ever again. Related GigaOM Pro Research: Evolution of the e-Book Market

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iPhone Gains Gaming Market Revenue Share Darrell Etherington (TheAppleBlog) Submitted at 3/24/2010 8:54:58 AM

Software market research firm Flurry Analytics has posted some interesting information about where Apple’s iPhone stands in regards to the gaming market at large. The report also includes details about how the iPhone is stacking up in the mobile market against its two major rivals, the Nintendo DS and the Sony PSP. In 2008, Apple’s iPhone OS accounted for only one percent of the overall gaming market, compared to 20 percent for other portable games, and 79 percent for console. 2009 saw a definite swing towards portable gaming overall, with Apple alone reaping about half of the benefit of that shift. Apple’s overall share of video game software sales climbed to five percent in 2009, which represents an impressive 500 percent growth rate for the year. The general portable market, which seems to include not only the Nintendo DS and PSP, but also other mobile gaming platforms like cellular devices, grew by five percentage points as well, taking 24 percent of the market in 2009. The home console market, by comparison, dropped to just 71 percent. The numbers seem to indicate a growing portable market, of which Apple is currently taking

the lion’s share. According to Flurry Analytics’ estimates, using information from the NPD group, which details gaming revenue, the market overall took in $11 billion in 2008, and had a lightly less lucrative 2009, taking in only $9.9 billion. That means Apple’s take grew from $115 million in 2008 to somewhere around $500 million in 2009. With the introduction of the iPad in 2010, that number stands grow at an even faster rate as a whole new market segment is

opened up to App Store gaming. Zooming in on how the iPhone is doing relative to its two strongest competitors in portable gaming, the Nintendo DS and the PlayStation Portable, we see an even more dramatic picture of tremendous growth. Where the iPhone accounted for only five percent of the revenue share of the three platforms in 2008, in 2009 it took 19 percent. That means that it surpassed the PSP, which fell from 20 percent to 11 percent market share year over year. The DS stayed strong at 70

percent in 2009, but that still represents a fall of 5 percentage points from 2008. The PSP is in big trouble, but it also looks like Nintendo may only be doing better because it had such a hefty head start to begin with. Recently, Apple announced that its next generation portable console, the Nintendo 3DS, is set for release in the not-too-distant future, so that could help its prospects. The PSP, on the other hand, had a very disappointing year with the release of the PSP Go, which

wasn’t very well received, and no plans have been announced about the device’s next iteration as of yet. Apple’s iPhone platform, on the other hand, is set to make some major leaps forward this year. There’s the very concrete and tangible benefit the iPad will have when it comes out early next month, compared to Nintendo’s vague plans regarding a new device somewhere on the horizon. Then IPHONE page 68

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How-To: Image Snow Leopard to a Hard Drive for Quick Install Dave Greenbaum (TheAppleBlog)

versions easily. Getting Started To start, you’ll need a copy of Snow Leopard (or whatever OS Submitted at 3/24/2010 10:00:55 AM version you want to install). Whether your hard drive has Open Disk Utility, which is failed or your OS has become t y p i c a l l y f o u n d i n corrupt, you may occasionally /Applications/Utilities. On the have to reinstall the Mac OS. left-hand side you see your disk Fortunately, Apple does a appear as “Mac OS X Install b e a u t i f u l j o b o f m a k i n g DVD.” Go ahead and click the installing or reinstalling your New Image icon to make a copy operating system relatively of the DVD. Save the file at p a i n l e s s c o m p a r e d t o o u r your preferred location (I have a Windows b r e t h r e n . Archive folder on my hard drive Unfortunately, it’s still a for installer disks). painfully slow process running Prepare the Drive off a DVD. Not to mention, Now that you have a digital optical media can get scratched copy of your installer, the next easily (one of the reasons for the step is to prepare the hard drive long install times is Apple’s you will use for the restoration. optical media verification). In this example, I connected an To solve this problem, I old 160GB hard drive from my recommend backing up your MacBook into an external case. Mac OS installation DVD to a I’m dividing this particular one hard drive. Doing so protects it into three partitions: one for and allows you to install the OS Leopard, one for Snow Leopard, quickly, as well as run Disk and one for other installers such Utility on your main drive or as iLife. I could put Tiger on it, reset a password. I keep a hard but I get few requests for that drive with Leopard and Snow OS. Since I want this to boot Leopard installers so I can Intel-based Macs, I’m going to reinstall or repair multiple OS click options and make sure

“Restore Failure: Could not find any scan information. The source image needs to imagescanned before it can be restored.” If you get this message, go ahead and go to the Images menu and choose “Scan Image for Restore.” Choose the disk image you are using as source. Now click Restore; it shouldn’t ask again. In my example, I’ll do the same GUID Partition is selected. I’m for the second partition and put making the partitions 10GB, but Leopard on it. Both partitions you can choose any size above will be named Mac OS X Install 8.5GB to play it safe. You could DVD. That can be confusing on also use a USB flash drive, but boot, so I suggest you copy the those can be slow. I suggest icon from each installer CD and sticking with a hard drive-based paste it onto the respective hard solution for speed reasons. disk volumes. You’ll easily be Restore the Image able to tell from the icon alone After preparing your drive, which OS you are installing. If you’ll need to restore the image you hold down Option during to your hard drive partition. the startup of your Mac, you’ll Click the Restore tab in Disk be presented with those icons as Utility. For Source, click w e l l s o y o u k n o w w h i c h Image… and choose that image installer will boot, and you can y o u c r e a t e d e a r l i e r . F o r go ahead and install the Mac OS Destination, drag the partition the normal way. you want to restore the OS to, then click “Restore.” You might get an error saying,

IPHONE continued from page 67

there’s the near-certainty that Apple will be releasing a new iPhone in late Spring/early Summer, which should bring at the very least better processor power and graphics rendering for more impressive and ambitious games. Therein lies Apple’s main advantage, besides its appeal to casual gamers: new hardware every 12 months, at least. The iPhone, iPod touch, and presumably the iPad, too, all get annual refreshes at the very least. And those refreshes often mean more muscle under the hood, which translates to more for game developers to work with. Significant performance updates to Sony’s and Nintendo’s platforms are few and far between. The iPhone platform is still struggling to find purchase with core gamers, but I think the iPad, especially with its support for Bluetooth keyboards, might finally make significant inroads with that crowd. Watch for 2010 to be the year Apple dominates portable gaming.

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Future MBAers vs. Future NBAers (WSJ.com: The Daily Fix)

Darren Everson explains why this study in on- and off-court contrasts is especially worthy of After a brief break in which a few hours of couch-based fans and players alike caught study. “There hasn’t been a their respective breaths, the college basketball matchup in NCAA tournament is slated to some time that better defines start up again Thursday. If the this sport’s extremes,” Everson Sweet 16 is nearly as amazing writes. “Or, for that matter, one as the first two rounds, about six that will render so many verdicts of those eight games should be on its future. Given all their very close, maybe three will be differences, these two teams are near-classics, and another break hardly even playing the same to catch our collective breath sport.” after the weekend will be very Despite Cornell’s impressive necessary. And of course just showing in the tournament’s about every one of Thursday’s first two rounds, most hoops Sweet 16 games comes with a prognosticators have the Big distinctive and interesting Red as the underdog by a largeb a c k s t o r y . G e t t y I m a g e s ish margin in this one. Vegas According to published reports, oddsmakers favor Kentucky by John Calipari’s salary is more n i n e p o i n t s . B u t i n t h e than triple Cornell’s total men’s Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Ron basketball budget. Cook reports that while Cornell A t t h e t o p o f t h e l i s t ? beating Kentucky would be an Thursday’s matchup between u p s e t , i t w o u l d n ’ t b e Kentucky and Cornell. With the unprecedented, given Cornell’s shocking departure of Kansas in 92-77 blowout road win over the second round, Kentucky has UK at Rupp Arena back in been anointed the new favorite 1966. t o c l a i m t h e n a t i o n a l In the New York Times, Pete championship. Cornell, a 12 Thamel profiles Cornell backup seed, is the first Ivy League Mark Coury, who joined the Big team to advance this far in the Red as a transfer after starting tournament since 1979. 29 games as a sophomore walk“Now Cornell, the team with on at Kentucky. How Coury five guys who plan to get went from being a starter on an MBAs, gets Kentucky, the team admittedly mediocre Kentucky with four guys who could get team to being a reserve in the drafted in the first round by the Ivy League isn’t even the most NBA,” Rick Bozich writes in interesting part of his story. the Louisville Courier-Journal. Because long-shot teams such In the Wall Street Journal, as Cornell — or 11th-seeded Submitted at 3/24/2010 8:11:10 AM

Washington, or 10th-seeded St. Mary’s, or 9th-seeded Northern Iowa — have to work so hard to get to the Final Four, it’s natural for fans to pull for them to make it. But at CBS Sports, Gary Parrish warns that an allunderdog Final Four could be summed up thusly: “Woof.” “That’s the strange truth about the NCAA tournament,” Parrish writes.“We like upsets early but want powers there in the end.” Parrish speaks for himself on this. What your Fixer really likes is watching basketball. Results notwithstanding, Thursday can’t come soon enough.* * * Kevin Pritchard played for five teams over parts of four NBA seasons, never averaging more than 12.5 minutes per game. But given a turn in the spotlight as a NBA general manager, he has enjoyed notably more success. His Portland Trail Blazers are ensconced in the eighth spot in the ultra-competitive Western Conference as of Wednesday, and his extreme makeover of the disgraced “Jail Blazer” teams that he inherited has generally been regarded as a triumph. So why was Assistant G.M. Tom

Penn fired last week, and why is Pritchard himself rumored to be on the chopping block? It’s a complicated story, but what we know of it thus far offers a fascinating look into NBA front office politics. “It is unfathomable that the man who played a major role in transforming the Blazers from the NBA’s worst team on and off the court, into what is today one of the best examples in pro sports of a franchise that can win while valuing character, is in jeopardy of losing his job,” the Oregonian’s Jason Quick writes. “Something is terribly amiss with this franchise. Anyone under Kevin Pritchard in this organization loves him and swears by him. Anyone over him appears uncomfortable with him or threatened by him.” At CBS Sports, Ken Berger writes that the now-public power politics behind this strange, slow-mo crisis make the organization look bad. “The secret is out,” Berger writes. “Working for the Blazers isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.” Dave, the lead blogger at Blazer’s Edge, writes that the most painful part of the whole experience is knowing that fans will never hear the whole truth about what’s going on with their Blazers. The strange, strained goings-on in Portland have fans using words like crisis. For the Golden State Warriors, this sort of thing

is generally known as “Tuesday.” The Warriors have been among the most dysfunctional teams in the NBA for most of owner Chris Cohan’s tenure, so the rumors that Cohan is considering selling the club has been greeted with tears of joy by the Warriors’ surprisingly large group of diehard followers. At Yahoo, Marc J. Spears reports that the Warriors have hired a company to “spearhead the sale” of the team — very Silicon Valley, that — and are courting a bid from tech mega-billionaire Larry Ellison. At Deadspin, Barry Petchesky provides a quick gloss on both the outsize Ellison and his Nimitz-class ego that begs the question of whether this would be good news. “This guy practically invented the arrogant, kooky billionaire,” Petchesky writes. There are crises and then there are crises, though. Back in February, Denver Nuggets coach George Karl revealed to his team that he has throat cancer and would be undergoing an aggressive regimen of radiation therapy. “Every day since then has been shaded by Karl’s health — his presence, his absence, his battle for survival and the uncertainty of his future with the team,” Howard Beck writes in the New FUTURE page 74

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Cornell or Kentucky? A Fan’s Existential Crisis (WSJ.com: The Daily Fix) Submitted at 3/24/2010 12:58:28 PM

Associated Press/Getty Images Can Matt Atlas choose between Ryan Wittman and John Wall? On one side, crazed bumpkins wearing Richie Farmer jerseys. On the other, a group of yuppies -in-training who’d rather watch hockey, if not spend the weekend at the library. Kentucky and Cornell. Thursdays best Sweet 16 matchup represents two basketball worlds that couldnt be further apart. Except in the chosen body of one person: My best friend, Matt Atlas. He is a rabid Kentucky fan and a Cornell graduate. Matt grew up in Louisville and came to love Kentucky after a still unforgivable defection from the hometown Cardinals. He followed the legendary Pitino teams to Florida and Hawaii. His Cornell degree also helped shape him into a brilliant, unflappable lawyer. He can argue persuasively on any issue from David Paterson’s governing style to John Calipari’s cruel treatment by the NCAA. But I’ve never seen him flummoxed like this. Kentucky or Cornell? Cornell or Kentucky? He laughs nervously over the phone. Which one, Matt? He gives the kind of wishywashy answer you’d expect to

hear from Richard Williams, father of tennis-playing sisters Serena and Venus: “I’m very happy with whoever wins.” How lame. How unacceptable. Life gives us plenty of opportunities to muddle along. To duck. To hedge. Sports is not one of

them. Sports unlock our emotions. It’s not something we should have to think about. We just feel the answer. Refusing to budge, Matt walks through his existential dilemma. Choosing Kentucky is obviously the safer bet. The

duck-walking John Wall and petulant DeMarcus Cousins are a lethal inside-outside combination. Even I, a disappointed Louisville fan, marvel at Wall’s speed and poise. The odds say that Kentucky will beat Cornell, cruise to the

Final Four and win a championship. It is not an overstatement to say this would be one of the greatest moments of Matt’s life, especially since he could share it with his twin 5year-old boys. He has already CORNELL page 74

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Pittsburgh Steelers' Ben Roethlisberger case: Nightclub unable to obtain video ESPN.com news services (ESPN.com) Submitted at 3/25/2010 6:46:30 AM

• Email • Print • Comments '); document.write(''); } else if ( show_gigya ) { document.write('• '); document.write(' '); function showShareUI(){ var H = {APIKey:"2_B48MVBl19K9C Qj72UVrAqLh7VSAyZDfMkcl kt8foSSRaAbdWu36H_N3Ky_ ERWhDG", enabledProviders: "facebook,twitter", cid:"ESPN.Story"}; var I = n e w gigya.services.socialize.UserAct ion(); var A = {}; I.setUserMessage(""); if (jQuery(":header:first").length > 0 ) { I.setTitle(jQuery(".article").find( ":header:first").text()); } else { I.setTitle(decodeURIComponent ("Nightclub%20fails%20to%20r ecover%20Roethlisberger%20vi

deo")); } I.setLinkBack("http://sports.esp n.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=502 6596"); 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=5026596' }); } A.userAction = I; gigya.services.socialize.showSh areUI(H,A); return false; } } ESPN.com news services The attorney representing the Georgia nightclub where Ben Roethlisberger is accused of sexually assaulting a college student said the club cannot salvage recorded video footage of the night the alleged incident took place. The Capital City nightclub's

system recorded over footage from March 5, attorney Carl Cansino told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review for Thursday's editions. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation was unable to retrieve the footage as potential evidence, he said. "The DVD system overwrote itself," Cansino told the Tribune -Review. "Had it just been deleted, they might have been able to save some of it." A source familiar with the investigation told ESPN's Kelly Naqi that there was no camera inside the Milledgeville nightclub that was pointed toward the bathroom where the 20-year-old woman claims the Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback "sexually assaulted or sexually manipulated" her -- many of the club's security cameras are focused on the main dance floor area. The value of any footage obtained from those recordings would be to see the demeanor of the accuser and her friends as they made their exit from the club, the source told Naqi. The source also maintains club manager Rocky Duncan viewed

the footage from the output of those cameras from the night in question before the GBI requested the footage from him, but said it was hard for Duncan to determine much from the footage because there were a couple of hundred people in the club and the footage is in black and white. Duncan did not return a call from ESPN for comment. The source added that the GBI initially had trouble getting the footage from the club's DVR but ultimately was successful in doing so. A call to GBI Public Information Officer John Bankhead was not immediately returned. A member of Roethlisberger's entourage shot his own video inside the club, where Roethlisberger had gone to celebrate his birthday. According to Cansino, the video shows the accuser with the 28year-old Roethlisberger, but the attorney described the footage as your standard home video. Among the people who arrived at the club with Roethlisberger on March 5 were teammate

Willie Colon, a Coraopolis, Pa., police officer and a Pennsylvania state trooper. Roethlisberger has a home about 30 miles from the nightclub. The investigation is entering its third week. Roethlisberger has not been charged and his lawyer, Ed Garland, said this week that he hoped the investigation would wrap up within a month. Garland said he believes Roethlisberger will not be charged. On Wednesday, the GBI withdrew its request for a DNA sample from Roethlisberger. The Steelers start offseason practices and training sessions for regulars beginning Monday, and coach Mike Tomlin said he expects Roethlisberger to attend. Kelly Naqi is a reporter for ESPN. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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The Fitzkrieg Triplets Still Have a Shot (WSJ.com: The Daily Fix) Submitted at 3/24/2010 1:58:47 PM

I was in eighth grade when I won my first OK, only NCAA tournament bracket pool. The information at my disposal, back then, came via the odd college hoops game on television and the AP roundups in the Bergen Record’s sports section. In the years since, every bit of information one could conceivably funnel into an aweinspiring bracket has become easy to find. Getty Images Could a certain set of three youngsters have picked Butler because the first syllable of that word gave them the giggles? Dozens of ostensible experts proffer their opinions on a daily basis. College basketball games in conferences big and small are on TV with a frequency matched only by reruns of “Scrubs.” The most arcane of advanced stats are easy to find, if not always easy to understand, at sites such as KenPom.com. All great stuff, for the most part. Just not of any great help. Some of us here at the Fix wondered if all this information might have been as much the problem as the solution. And so we took it upon ourselves, in the least scientific way possible, to

test this hypothesis in the Daily Fix’s online NCAA tournament bracket. This doesn’t mean that the bracket is some sort of grand experiment. It’s just that mixed in among those of us who take this sort of thing (entirely too) seriously are a few wild cards who took unique approaches to picking their brackets. The lowest score among finished brackets in the pool belongs to Kate Dorr of Tacoma, Wash., a college friend of mine. She is, as her team name “iknowlessthannothing” suggests, not a big college hoops fan. “I was going to pick by [team's] uniforms, then I realized looking them up would be a pain,” she says. “Conveniently, when I dragged the team name the logo popped up, so I chose by that. Sometimes the decision was hard: Mincing devil? Angry chicken? Pirate-themed restaurant? But in the end I went with superbear (Maryland) triumphing over confused bulldog (Wofford).” That said “superbear” is actually a turtle doesn’t much perturb Dorr, who has picked 17 of 48 games correctly. Tennessee-born Julie Culver, who now lives in New York City, took a pastiche approach

to building her bracket something of a necessity, given that she has never watched a college basketball game. “When I didn’t have a sibling’s school to pick, I went with mascots,” she writes. “And when I got bored of that I hit the auto-fill button.” As with many people, Kansas’ loss in the second round hit Julie’s bracket fairly hard. Unlike many people, she picked Kansas because the Jayhawks logo “looks a bit sassy.” Still, with 36 correct picks, Julie sits in 132nd place, fairly comfortably ahead of the Daily Fix bracket’s only true collective, The Fitzkrieg Triplets. The Triplets are indeed triplets, age 5, who made their picks by telling their mother which team they preferred. While their choice of 15th-seed Morgan State for the Final Four hasn’t worked out, their other three Final Four teams are still in the hunt. If Butler does indeed wind up beating Duke in the final, their position in the

standings will improve significantly. It will also probably crack the triplets up their mother reports that they laughed every time she said “Butler.” In some cases, though, an unconventional approach has paid dividends. Jonathan Kaminsky, for instance, lives in Palau. Which means that he lives 4,450 miles southwest of Hawaii, 565 miles southeast of the Philippines and well out of range of Saturday afternoon Big Ten games on ESPN2. He has, however, watched the Aussieheavy St. Mary’s Gaels on ESPN Australia with some regularity. He picked them to go to the Elite Eight, and so far the upstart Gaels have made him look pretty good. Kaminsky enters the Sweet 16 tied for 21st out of 183 entrants. His 42 correct picks put him well above the triplets, Kate Dorr, Julie Culver and me. Despite all my careful study, Im in a 21-way tie for 68th place, with 39 correct. If there’s a lesson to be learned from Jonathan’s success, I can only hope that the Journal will fly me to the South Pacific so that I can discover it.

Amazon offering $20 gift card with Halo: Reach David Hinkle (Joystiq) Submitted at 3/25/2010 5:55:00 AM

Hot on the heals of Walmart's very sweet deal on Halo: Reach, Amazon has gone ahead and matched it, offering patrons of the pre-order arts a $20 gift card to sign up for Bungie's latest. Based on some very high-brow mathematical calculations, we've deduced that the gift card is actually a 47 percent savings on the title's $59.99 price tag -a damn decent deal, to be frank. ... what? Oh, you think our math is off? What, did you go to some math college or something? You did? Well, uh, we're ... uh -look, jet packs! [Via Slick Deals] Amazon offering $20 gift card with Halo: Reach originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 25 Mar 2010 05:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

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Tiger Woods to conduct April 5 news conference at the Masters Bob Harig (ESPN.com) Submitted at 3/25/2010 5:20:42 AM

%20Masters%20news%20confe rence")); } I.setLinkBack("http://sports.esp n.go.com/golf/masters10/news/s tory?id=5025550"); 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/golf/ masters10/news/story?id=50255 50' }); } A.userAction = I; gigya.services.socialize.showSh areUI(H,A); return false; } } By Bob Harig ESPN.com Archive ORLANDO, Fla. -- Tiger Woods will conduct his first news conference in more than

four months April 5 at the Masters, according to an interview schedule released Wednesday by Augusta National. Woods, who on Sunday conducted his first interviews since a sex scandal put his career on hold, is scheduled for a 2 p.m. session with accredited media on the Monday prior to play in the Masters, his first tournament since winning in Australia on Nov. 15. No other interviews are scheduled for that day. The news came on the same day that golf legend Arnold Palmer suggested Woods take questions from reporters as a way to "move on." "I suppose the best thing he could do would be open up and just let you guys [media] shoot at him," said Palmer on the eve of his tournament, the Arnold Palmer Invitational. Woods is the two-time defending champion of the event and has won at Bay Hill six times overall. It is the first

time he is skipping the tournament as a pro, as he announced last week that he would make his debut at the Masters. The last time Woods faced a room full of reporters was nearly five months ago after he won the Aussie Masters in Melbourne for his 82nd career win. His middle-of-the-night SUV crash into a tree, which set off revelations of rampant infidelity, occurred 12 days later. Woods typically has his press conference at the majors on Tuesday. Among those scheduled to speak the day after Woods are Phil Mickelson, Geoff Ogilvy and Jack Nicklaus. Bob Harig is a golf writer for ESPN.com. Information from The Associated Press was used in this report. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Borghese Nail Polish's Ultra-Chic Biscotto Beige Shade ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog) Submitted at 3/24/2010 3:44:29 PM

As I try to find more and more ways to amp up my outfits without depleting my bank account, I find that my answer is literally right at my fingertips. No matter what a fashionista is wearing, no outfit feels complete without that perfect color of nail polish. This season’s nudes and grays are the perfect complement to any ensemble, and I’ve found some of the best colors at a most reasonable price. Borghese nail polishes are about $8 and come in the most sought-after shades, including my new stand-by color, Biscotto Beige. It screams ultra chic without saying a word. —Jodi Belden, Accessories Assistant

James Surowiecki speaks with Michael Mauboussin Barry Ritholtz (The Big Picture) Submitted at 3/25/2010 5:00:44 AM

James Surowiecki speaks with

Michael Mauboussin, the Chief Investment Strategist at Legg Mason Capital Management and the author of “Think Twice: Harnessing the Power of

C o u n t e r i n t u i t i o n , ” a b o u t market woes. They met last PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, common investment mistakes, week in New York City. Term Extraction. how to improve decision- Read more making, and what investors can Five Filters featured article: learn from the recent stock- Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools:

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indoctrinated them into the warped ways of Big Blue Nation. One of them cried after Kentuckys last loss. So there’s the answer, right? It’s about forging lifelong bonds with his boys. About reminding them of their roots in the bluegrass from their home in New Jersey. This is heavy stuff. Dynasty stuff. “Nothing would be better than an eighth national championship,” he says. Then I hear a grimace. “Except maybe a Cornell Final Four.” Even Matt must admit there is something mechanically professional about Kentucky. Calapari has a “special” relationship with player adviser William “Worldwide” Wesley, who has reportedly helped deliver him Wall and former Memphis star Derrick Rose. And don’t forget the new Wildcat Coal Lodge an ultraluxe dorm for the basketball team built with $7 million from the state’s coal moguls. Contrast that to the sadsack state of Cornell hoops through the years. During his time in Ithaca in the mid-1990s, Matt

continued from page 69

regularly played pick-up games with players on the Cornell team. He claims to have held his own, in part, because the team was so bad. “They keep referring to Cornell as midmajor,” Matt says. “But there’s nothing mid-major about the Ivy League. It’s about the lowest of the low.” Could he picture himself running late-night games at the UK rec center? “I don’t think they’d let John Wall near a pickup game,” he says. Matt had no problem trudging through brutal Ithaca winters to attend Cornell home games. Problem was, only 25 other people would bother to join him. And for good reason. Since 1955, Cornell had won the Ivy title only once before the breakout season of 2007-08. During Matt’s stay in Ithaca, the team was a collective 16-35 in Ivy competition. Simply put, the odds say that 35 -year-old Matt will die before Cornell reaches another Sweet 16, much less an Elite Eight. “We’ve been really terrible for 40 years. And now we’re really good,” says Matt’s friend Brad

Hopper, a banker and former fraternity brother. “We might be really terrible again for 40 more years.” So, Matt. Which one? He keeps hedging. “My problem is if you could guarantee me the next game, I’m definitely pulling for Cornell. My worst fear is that Cornell beats Kentucky and then loses to West Virginia.” On Thursday night Matt plans to watch the game at a Cornell bar in Manhattan. Hes hedged himself for that, too: He plans to wear a Cornell sweatshirt over a UK T-shirt. Maybe when the game starts Matt will finally make a choice. Or, rather, the choice will find him. “It’s almost like he rehearsed it. He claims he’s agnostic, which I don’t think is even applied right,” Hopper says. “You can’t be. You can’t be. Doesn’t your heart have to move one way or the other when you’re watching the game?”

York Times. Karl suffered a setback in his treatment Sunday, leaving the Nuggets to face the unpleasant prospect of entering the postseason without their coach on the bench. In an unusually restrained column at ESPN, Rick Reilly wrote about Karl’s punishing medical treatment and his determination to beat cancer for a second time.* * * The Sweet 16 is also set in the women’s draw of the NCAA tournament, but the unexpected results of the men’s side are nowhere to be seen. Connecticut continues to steamroll everyone, top seeds generally lord it over lower seeds, and 11-seed San Diego State is the only truly unexpected entrant. In other words, sort of like the regular season, but in a different month. And yet the women’s collegehoops season has not been without its surprises. In the New York Times, Jere Longman addresses the most unexpected of these: a marked uptick in on-court violence — that is, punch-you-in-the-face violence, not clear-path-foul violence — in the women’s game. “What is going on?” Longman asks. “Experts say they cannot be precisely sure. Little research has been done on excessive behavior of elite female athletes.” At Jezebel, Katy Kelleher colors herself unsurprised. “Given our society’s obsession

with sports, dominance, and aggression, it shouldn’t be remotely surprising that women entering into a male-dominated space will begin to measure their success in similar forms,” Kelleher writes. “And lash out in similar ways.”* * * Some items appear in the Daily Fix because they’re legitimately excellent pieces of writing. Others are here because their subject is topical, or appeals to my biases (hint: Mets). But the only reason we’ve included this link to a MLB.com article about Ichiro Suzuki’s spectacularly, ridiculously excellent Willie Mays-ian catch in an exhibition game on Tuesday is that Ichiro’s catch is so spectacularly, ridiculously excellent. Yes, there are some nice quotes from the players who witnessed the catch — “[Ichiro] has GPS,” according to Mariners manager Don Wakamatsu — but really: watch the video. It’s why these words are here. — Tip of the Fix cap to readers Don Hartline and Fixer emeritus 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.

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Syracuse Orange's Arinze Onuaku won't play vs. Butler ESPN.com news services (ESPN.com) Submitted at 3/24/2010 11:28:59 PM

I.setTitle(decodeURIComponent ("Syracuse\'s%20Onuaku%20to %20miss%20third%20NCAA% 20game")); } I.setLinkBack("http://sports.esp n.go.com/ncb/tournament/2010/ news/story?id=5025094"); 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/ncb/to urnament/2010/news/story?id=5 025094' }); } A.userAction = I; gigya.services.socialize.showSh areUI(H,A); return false; } } ESPN.com news services SALT LAKE CITY -- Syracuse will be without Arinze Onuaku

when the top-seeded Orange play Butler in the West Regional semifinals of the NCAA tournament on Thursday. "He's getting better, but he's not practicing," Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim said Wednesday. "He will not play." Onuaku has not practiced since injuring his right leg during a Big East tournament quarterfinal game March 11 against Georgetown. He's missed NCAA victories over Vermont and Gonzaga. Boeheim would not say whether Onuaku would be available for a potential Elite Eight game if the Orange defeat No. 5-seeded Butler. "He will not play [Thursday's] game, that's it," Boeheim said. "That's all I've got." ESPN.com's Mark Schlabach contributed to this report. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Knuble Shines as Caps Edge Pens A.J. Perez (FanHouse Main)

out Marc-Andre Fleury and fire the puck over the Pittsburgh Penguins goalie's glove to seal a Filed under: Capitals, Penguins 4-3 victory at Verizon Center W A S H I N G T O N - - M i k e Wednesday night. Knuble didn't believe what he "He just went in and did what he was feeling. does, which is shoot the puck "I didn't have a shift in the and he scored a goal," Boudreau overtime and he's tapping me on sad. "I just felt that he was going the shoulder," said the 37-year- to score." old Washington Capitals It was one of the most forward. "I am glad he didn't tell anticipated games since the last me anything either because it time these two teams met Feb. didn't allow me time to get to 7, and it didn't disappoint. While nervous." the Caps didn't come back from While there were other younger three goals down like that game, and likely more suitable options, and the Penguins didn't have to Caps coach Bruce Boudreau drive through the aftermath of a turned to his oldest player. blizzard to get here, Washington Knuble, who scored the game's d i d c o m e b a c k f r o m t w o first goal but had gone scoreless deficits: 2-1 after two periods through his four career shootout and 2-0 in the shootout. opportunities, proceeded to wait Submitted at 3/24/2010 4:49:00 PM

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Why is Goodell So Sharp, Selig So Inept? Jay Mariotti (FanHouse Main)

Around the Net In Media: 'WSJ' Revamps Sports Focus

Submitted at 3/24/2010 3:30:00 PM

(MediaPost | Media News)

Filed under: NFL, MLB, Sports Business and Media In the same productive week when the NFL improved its silly overtime format, voiced optimism that a labor stoppage will be avoided, took more steps to protect players' brains, expressed concerns about a marijuana problem among draftees-to-be and passed other rules that will enhance the sport's popularity and safety, guess what Bud Selig and the boys did? They slept. As usual, Major League Baseball ignored the alarm clock, pushed the snooze button and rolled over, all zonked out and oblivious to the needs of fans and the game's ultimate well-being. If you ever wondered why football is the American passion and baseball is gradually sliding into old-man oblivion, your

Submitted at 3/24/2010 9:02:18 PM

answers came with razor clarity the last few days. Bravo to Roger Goodell, the best commissioner in sports, for listening to public outcry about the NFL's ridiculous overtime system and lobbying the league's notoriously stubborn owners to accept a more sensible solution. Instead of placing too much emphasis on a coin flip, allowing a team to win

The Wall Street Journal's New York sports section will assign beat reporters to the major local sports teams, including the Mets, Yankees, Jets, Giants and the Knicks, sources said. They'll be credentialed for home games, and they'll travel to road games. But the focus is features and trends -- much like The New York Timess. The Journal has hired Jim with an easy sudden-death field overtime games since 1994 were Baumbach from Newsday as goal and not giving an opponent won by the team that was their lead Yankees reporter and a chance to retaliate, the format victorious in the coin flip, a Mike Sielski of the Calkins mercifully was modified. disproportionate-to-reality ratio Media newspaper chain as their Now, it will take an immediate that cheapens the path to Mets reporter, said sources. Sam touchdown to end the game, and victory, takes the ball out of the Walker, currently The Journal's while that still isn't entirely fair hands of great quarterbacks ( sports editor, will oversee the or right -- the other team should B r e t t F a v r e i n t h e N F C section, a source said. have a possession to try and c h a m p i o n s h i p g a m e ) a n d Five Filters featured article: score a touchdown -- it's better minimizes a grinding four- Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: than the traditional alternative. month regular season in a PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, As it was, almost 60 percent of violent sport. Term Extraction.

Florida's Meyer Rips Reporter in Defense of Player FanHouse Newswire (FanHouse Main)

Florida coach Urban Meyer had harsh words for a reporter following spring practice Submitted at 3/24/2010 6:39:00 PM Wednesday. Filed under: Florida, General Meyer, speaking for the first CFB Insanity GAINESVILLE, time in a week, confronted an Fla. (AP) -- With a stern look Orlando Sentinel reporter and and some finger pointing, d e f e n d e d r e c e i v e r D e o n t e

Thompson. It was unclear why Meyer took

issue with the Sentinel's story. Reporter Jeremy Fowler quoted Thompson as referring to John Brantley as "a real quarterback," in comparison to Tim Tebow. The exchange was caught on video, captured by a photographer and witnessed by

a dozen or more people -including several fans leaving spring practice.

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Butler Comfortable With 'Hoosiers' Image Chris Tomasson (FanHouse Main) Submitted at 3/24/2010 2:58:00 PM

Filed under: March Madness, NCAA Tournament, NCAA Tournament - West Region SALT LAKE CITY -- You'd think they'd be tired of the stereotype. Underdogs from Indiana. Fundamentally sound guys who are supposed to have crew cuts. Aren't they just like small-town Hickory High from the movie Hoosiers? After all, the climatic scenes from that 1986 movie, modeled after tiny Milan High winning the one-division Indiana state final in 1954, were filmed in Indianapolis' Hinkle Fieldhouse, where the Butler Bulldogs actually do regularly out-fundamental foes. But just when you think the Bulldogs are tired of all those clichĂŠs, up steps Butler guard Shelvin Mack. On his own

Mafia II ready to hit retail August 24, 2010 Alexander Sliwinski (Joystiq) Submitted at 3/25/2010 8:23:00 AM

Wednesday, he borrowed a line from Hoosiers in which Hickory coach Norman Dale, played by Gene Hackman, measures the baskets at 10,000-seat Hinkle to show they're the same height as the ones in Hickory's bandbox of a gym. "The most important thing I think I took from that is knowing that 10 feet in New Zealand is the same as 10 feet in

Take-Two announced today that Mafia II is ready to offer North American retail an Utah,'' Mack said about having and won a game in 2001, they August 27, 2010, release date -we doubt they'll refuse. We played last year for Team USA became a Cinderella story. i n t h e U n d e r - 1 9 W o r l d But now they're a fixture. When guess that leaves LA Noire or Championships in New Zealand. fifth-seeded Butler faces top- Max Payne 3(we'll be shocked if Butler, though, long has figured seeded Syracuse in an NCAA it's Civilization V) as the game out baskets are 10-feet high in W e s t R e g i o n a l S e m i f i n a l that could potentially be delayed the NCAA tournament. After Thursday at EnergySolutions b y t h e p u b l i s h e r . ( U m m , the Bulldogs made the tourney Arena, it will mark the Bulldogs' assuming this final date doesn't in 1997 for just their second third Sweet 16 appearance since get gunned down at the last minute.) time ever and for the first time 2003. in 35 years, they were a novelty. MAFIA page 78 After they finally broke through

EA Sports President Peter Moore Talks Tiger, Madden and Gaming Culture Jon Weinbach (FanHouse Main)

video games, notably John Madden Football-- the No. 1 sports title of all-time -- and Submitted at 3/25/2010 12:50:00 AM FIFA Soccer, the industry's topFiled under: Sports Business, selling sports game. (And as old FanHouse Exclusive, Sports -school gamers fondly recall, Business and Media Electronic EA published one of the earliest Arts is best known for its wildly sports hits in video game vs. Dr. J, for the Commodore 64 successful and innovative sports history, One on One: Larry Bird

home computer.) Over the last year, however, EA has been hit hard by the broader downturn in the video game sector -- in 2009, sales of game titles dipped 11 percent in the U.S., and sales of the latest Madden title were far lower than expected. In November, EA

announced that it would lay off more than 1,500 employees, and last month EA issued a pessimistic sales outlook for the 2010 calendar year, which disappointed Wall Street and sent the company's stock tumbling.

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The ECB joins the ‘Save Greece’ campaign

continued from page 77

The game will also be playable by the public for the first time at PAX East, which starts tomorrow in Boston. Mafia II ready to hit retail August 24, 2010 originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 25

Mar 2010 08:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Comments

Peter Boockvar (The Big Picture) Submitted at 3/25/2010 5:27:57 AM

Sanita Clogs: The Original Danish Clog ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog) Submitted at 3/24/2010 8:10:02 AM

The clog took center stage as a major trend on the runways for spring—most notably at Chanel. But for anyone looking for the real deal, look no further than Sanita. The makers of handcrafted originals since 1907, Sanita can take credit for inspiring the new generation of wood platform. The Danishbased clog maker has taken the old world handcraftsmanship

they’re known for and infused it with modern flair—their newest collection brings that decidedly Scandinavian mix stateside. Hearing the words “clog” and

quirkiness into something genuinely fashionable—the retailers’ pick is the “Vela” platform, which includes an artful grommet detail. Riding the emerging wave of the clog’s return, Sarita has indeed carved a refreshingly modern sole out of an offbeat trend. Whether it’s nouveau or '70s retro, this “comeback” might be a hard pill season’s humble clog will leave t o s w a l l o w , b u t i n t h e i r your soul renewed. Spring/Summer collection, — K y l e A n d e r s o n , S e n i o r Sanita has turned the wooden A c c e s s o r i e s E d i t o r shoe’s unconventional

Jessica Alba Puts a Ladylike Spin on Proenza Schouler's Surfer-Girl Look ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog) Submitted at 3/24/2010 3:55:00 PM

Jessica Alba toughened up her often demure look last night in LA, wearing head-to-toe Proenza Schouler for a Tribeca Film Festival party. For spring 2010, Lazaro Hernandez and Jack McCollough gave their

fans a bright mix of surfer-girl staples – tie-dyes, scuba details, fringe, and plastic. Alba paired the designers’ tie-dye mini and strappy wedges with a delicate, even ladylike, pair of Melissa Joy Manning earrings and upswept hair. On the runway, think of this chic catwalk look hair hung long with an almost on the red carpet? matte texture. What do you

Click here to shop the spring runway look —Violet Moon Gayn or Photos: runway: Imaxtree; red carpet: Getty Images Follow ELLE on Twitter. Become our Facebook fan!

The ECB decided to chip in to the ‘Save Greece’ campaign by extending to year end 2011 their altered eligibility requirements for accepting collateral to repo. Instead of expiring at year end, the ECB will continue to accept BBB- or higher rated collateral instead of having it revert to its previous cutoff of A-. With Greece hanging by its A- rating by a thread, it relieves pressure on those banks that hold Greek sovereign debt. The move is helping European stocks, led by the banks, Greek debt is also rallying and the euro is up. Another over levered situation is getting a reprieve today as Dubai’s government said they will give Dubai World $9.5b to help them restructure. Dubai stocks are up 4%+ in response. UK Gilts are down after a mixed review of the new UK budget release but the pound is rallying after a better than expected retail sales report. With yesterday’s possible tipping point in global bond markets, the US sells 7 yr notes today. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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Homework Assignments for Monetary Policymakers Guest Author (The Big Picture)

financial crisis. A key part of the Federal Reserve’s response was to fulfill its traditional role Submitted at 3/25/2010 12:30:05 AM of providing backup liquidity to Vice Chairman Donald L. Kohn sound institutions during times At the Cornelson Distinguished of financial turmoil. In a break Lecture at Davidson College, with tradition, we had to provide Davidson, North Carolina that liquidity to nonbank March 24, 2010 financial institutions as well as * 50 KB PDF to banks. One assignment is to The events of the past few years evaluate the implications of the have raised many questions for changing character of financial central bankers. Although markets for the design of the prompt and innovative actions liquidity tools the Federal by the Federal Reserve and Reserve has at its disposal when other central banks helped panic-driven runs on banks and prevent a severe economic o t h e r key financial downturn from turning into intermediaries and markets something even worse, our threaten financial stability and experience also highlighted a the economy. In addition to number of areas we need to p r o v i d i n g l i q u i d i t y o n a n study further to see whether we u n p r e c e d e n t e d s c a l e , w e can improve the conduct of reduced our policy interest rate monetary policy. I’ve titled my (the target for the rate on p r e s e n t a t i o n “ H o m e w o r k overnight loans between banks) Assignments” because I don’t effectively to zero, and then we think the answers are clear, continued to ease financial though I will venture some conditions and cushion the tentative thoughts. I have four effect of the financial shock on assignments on my list; I could the economy by making largeeasily have more. And others scale purchases of several types would have yet a different list. I o f s e c u r i t i e s . M y s e c o n d recognize that the complexity of assignment involves improving these questions could keep us our understanding of the effects profitably engaged for a whole of those purchases and the semester, but let’s see if I can associated massive increase in outline some of the challenges bank reserves. and possible responses in an The third and fourth evening. assignments relate to whether The first two assignments changes to the conduct of concern the policy actions the monetary policy in normal times Federal Reserve and other could make financial instability central banks took during the and its wrenching and costly

economic consequences less likely. Number three involves considering whether central banks should use their conventional monetary policy tool–adjusting the level of a short-term interest rate–to try to rein in asset prices that seem to be moving well away from sustainable values, in addition to seeking to achieve the macroeconomic objectives of full employment and price stability. The fourth and final assignment concerns whether central banks should adjust their inflation targets to reduce the odds of getting into a situation again where the policy interest rate reaches zero. 1 Changes in Financial Markets and the Federal Reserve’s Liquidity Tools Financial markets have evolved substantially in recent decades. The task of intermediating between investors and borrowers has shifted over time from banks, which take deposits and make loans, to securities markets, where borrowers and savers meet more directly, albeit with the assistance of investment banks that help borrowers issue securities and then make markets in those securities. An aspect of the shift has been the growth of securitization, in which loans that might have been on the books of banks are converted into securities and sold in markets. Serious deficiencies

with these securitizations, the associated derivative instruments, and the structures that evolved to hold securitized debt were at the heart of the financial crisis. Among other things, the structures exposed the banking system to risks that neither participants in financial markets nor regulators fully appreciated. The implications of these changes are far reaching, but I want to concentrate on those that bear on the tools we use to supply liquidity to the financial system. Every central bank had to adapt its liquidity facilities to some degree, but the Federal Reserve had to adapt more than most. Before the crisis, the Federal Reserve adjusted the liquidity it provided to the financial system through daily operations with a relatively small set of broker-dealers against a very narrow set of collateral–Treasury debt, agency debt, and agency mortgagebacked securities. Those transactions had the effect of changing the quantity of reserve balances that banks hold at Federal Reserve Banks, and that liquidity was distributed by interbank funding markets through the banking system in the United States and around the world. In addition, the Federal Reserve stood ready to lend directly to commercial banks and other depository institutions at the “discount

window.” At their discretion, banks could borrow overnight at an above-market rate against a broad range of collateral when they had a need for very shortterm funding. But this structure proved inadequate in the crisis. Interbank markets stopped functioning as effective means to distribute liquidity, increasing the importance of direct lending through the discount window. At the same time, however, banks became extremely reluctant to borrow from the Federal Reserve for fear that the borrowing would become known and thus cast doubt on their liquidity condition. Importantly, the crisis also involved major disruptions of important funding markets for other institutions. Commercial paper markets no longer served as sources of funds to lenders or to nonfinancial businesses; investment banks could not borrow for even a short term on a secured basis when lenders began to have doubts about some of the underlying collateral; banks overseas could not reliably exchange their currency in swap markets to fund their dollar assets beyond the very shortest terms; and investors pulled out from money market mutual funds. These disruptions posed the HOMEWORK page 80

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same threats to the availability of credit to households and businesses as did runs on banks in a more bank-centric financial system. Intermediaries unable to fund themselves were forced to sell assets, driving down prices and exacerbating the crisis; they were unwilling to make markets necessary to allow households and businesses to borrow; and households and businesses unable to borrow were unable to spend, deepening the recession. The Federal Reserve responded by providing funding when it became unavailable to banks and other intermediaries. We reduced the spread of the discount rate over the target interbank rate, lengthened the maximum maturity of loans to banks from overnight to 90 days, and also provided discount window credit through regular auctions to overcome the reluctance to borrow. In addition, we created emergency liquidity facilities to meet the funding needs of key market participants, including primary securities dealers, money market mutual funds, and other users of short-term funding markets. 2 We did so while generally adhering to time-honored central banking principles for countering a financial panic: Lend freely to solvent institutions at a penalty and against good collateral. We also lent dollars to other central

banks so that they could help banks in their jurisdictions meet their dollar funding needs, thus easing pressures on U.S. money markets. Now that the financial markets are functioning much better, we have closed the emergency facilities that we created to lend to nonbanks. The homework assignment is to think about the design of liquidity facilities going forward. I’ve tentatively concluded that the recent crisis has demonstrated that in a financial system so dependent on securities markets and not just banks, we need to retain the ability to lend against good collateral to certain groups of sound, regulated, nonbank financial firms. I’m not suggesting that we establish permanent contingency liquidity facilities, just that the Federal Reserve retain the authority to create the tools necessary to meet liquidity needs of groups of nonbank institutions should a panic impair the ability of securities markets, as well as banks, to function and the Board of Governors find that the absence of such functioning would threaten the economy. 3 The collateral would have to be of good quality and the institutions sound to minimize any credit risk to the Federal Reserve. Holding open this possibility is not without cost. With credit potentially available from the

Federal Reserve, institutions would have insufficient incentives to manage their liquidity to protect against unusual market events. Hence, the emergency credit would generally be provided only to groups of institutions that were regulated and supervised to limit such moral hazard. If the Federal Reserve did not directly supervise the institutions that would potentially receive emergency discount window credit, we would need an ongoing and collaborative relationship with the supervisor. The supervisor should ensure that any institution with implicit access to emergency discount window credit nevertheless maintained conservative liquidity policies. The supervisor would also provide critical insight into the financial condition of the borrower and the quality of the available collateral and more generally whether lending was necessary and appropriate. Large-Scale Asset Purchases and the Buildup of the Reserve Base The Federal Reserve and other central banks reacted to the deepening crisis in the fall of 2008 not only by opening new liquidity facilities, but also by reducing policy interest rates to close to zero. Such rapid and aggressive responses were expected to cushion the effects of the shock on the economy by

reducing the cost of borrowing for households and businesses, thereby encouraging them to keep spending. In addition, the Federal Reserve and a number of other central banks have provided more guidance than usual about the likely future path of interest rates to help financial markets form more accurate expectations about policy in a highly uncertain economic and financial environment. In particular, we were concerned that market participants would not fully appreciate for how long we anticipated keeping interest rates low. If they hadn’t, intermediate- and longer-term rates would have declined by less, reducing the stimulative effect of the very low policy rates. Given the severity of the downturn, it became clear that lowering short-term policy rates alone would not be sufficient. We needed to go further to ease financial conditions and encourage spending. Thus, to reduce longer-term interest rates, like those on mortgages, we purchased large quantities of longer-term securities, specifically Treasury securities, agency mortgage-backed securities, and agency debt. Central banks have lots of experience guiding the economy by adjusting short-term policy rates and influencing expectations about future policy

rates, and the underlying theory and practice behind those actions are well understood. However, the economic effects of purchasing large volumes of longer-term assets, and the accompanying expansion of the reserve base in the banking system, are much less well understood. So my second homework assignment for monetary policymakers and other interested economists is to study the effects of such balance sheet expansion; better understanding will help our successors if, unfortunately, they should find themselves in a similar position, and it will help us as we unwind the unusual actions we took. One question involves the direct effects of the large-scale asset purchases themselves. The theory behind the Federal Reserve’s actions was fairly clear: Arbitrage between shortand long-term markets is not perfect even when markets are functioning smoothly; and arbitrage is especially impaired during panics when investors are putting an unusually large premium on the liquidity and safety of short-term instruments. In these circumstances, reducing the supply of long-term debt pushes up the prices of the securities, lowering their yields. But by how much? Uncertainty HOMEWORK page 81

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about the likely effect complicated our calibration of the purchases, and the symmetrical uncertainty about the effects of unwinding the actions–of reducing our portfolio–will be a factor in our decisions about the timing and sequencing of steps to return the portfolio to a more normal level and composition. Good studies of these sorts of actions are sparse. Currently, we are relying in large part on studies that examine how much interest rates dropped when purchases were announced in the United States or abroad. But such event studies may not be an ideal means to predict the consequences of reducing our portfolio, in part because the economic and financial environment will be very different, and also because event studies do not measure effects that develop or reverse over time. We are also uncertain about how, exactly, the purchases put downward pressure on interest rates. My presumption has been that the effect comes mainly from the total amount we purchase relative to the total stock of debt outstanding. However, others have argued that the market effect derives importantly from the flow of our purchases relative to the amount of new issuance in the market. Some evidence for the primacy of the stock channel has accumulated

recently, as the prices of mortgage-backed securities appear to have changed little as the flow of our purchases has trended down. A second issue involves the effect of the large volume of reserves created as we buy assets. The Federal Reserve has funded its purchases by crediting the accounts that banks hold with us. Those deposits are called “reserve balances” and are part of bank reserves. In our explanations of our actions, we have concentrated, as I have just done, on the effects on the prices of the assets we have been purchasing and the spillover to the prices of related assets. The huge quantity of bank reserves that were created has been seen largely as a byproduct of the purchases that would be unlikely to have a significant independent effect on financial markets and the economy. This view is not consistent with the simple models in many textbooks or the monetarist tradition in monetary policy, which emphasizes a line of causation from reserves to the money supply to economic activity and inflation. Other central banks and some of my colleagues on the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) have emphasized this channel in their discussions of the effect of policy at the zero lower bound. According to these types of

theories, extra reserves should induce banks to diversify into additional lending and purchases of securities, reducing the cost of borrowing for households and businesses, and so should spark an increase in the money supply and spending. To date, that channel does not seem to have been effective; interest rates on bank loans relative to the usual benchmarks have continued to rise, the quantity of bank loans is still falling rapidly, and money supply growth has been subdued. Banks’ behavior appears more consistent with the standard Keynesian model of the liquidity trap, in which demand for reserves becomes perfectly elastic when shortterm interest rates approach zero. But portfolio behavior of banks will shift as the economy and confidence recover, and we will need to watch and study this channel carefully. Another uncertainty deserving of additional examination involves the effect of largescale purchases of longer-term assets on expectations about monetary policy. The more we buy, the more reserves we will ultimately need to absorb and the more assets we will ultimately need to dispose of before the conduct of monetary policy, the behavior of interbank markets, and the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet can return completely to

normal. As a consequence, these types of purchases can increase inflation expectations among some observers who may see a risk that we will not reduce reserves and raise interest rates in a timely fashion. In fact, longer-term inflation expectations generally have been quite well anchored over the past few years of unusual Federal Reserve actions. And we are developing and testing the tools we need to remove accommodative monetary policy when appropriate. I am confident the Federal Reserve can and will tighten policy well in advance of any threat to price stability, and successful execution of this exit will demonstrate that these emergency steps need not lead to higher inflation. Monetary Policy and Financial Imbalances The past few years have illustrated two lessons about the relationship between macroeconomic stability and financial stability. First, macroeconomic stability doesn’t guarantee financial stability; indeed, in some circumstances, macroeconomic stability may foster financial instability by lulling people into complacency about risks. And second, some shocks to the financial system are so substantial, especially when they weaken a large number of intermediaries, that decreases in aggregate demand

can be large, long lasting, and not quickly or easily remedied by conventional monetary policy. Given the heavy costs of the financial crisis, the question naturally arises as to how it could have been avoided. My third assignment is to reexamine whether conventional monetary policy should be used to lean against financial imbalances as well as aim for the traditional medium-term macroeconomic goals of maximum employment and price stability. One key question is whether we are likely to know enough about asset price misalignments and the effects of policy adjustments on those misalignments to give us the confidence to deliberately tack away for a time from exclusive pursuit of our macroeconomic objectives. Obviously, reducing the odds of financial crises would be very beneficial, but we need to balance that important objective against the potential costs and uncertainties associated with using monetary policy for that purpose. One type of cost arises because monetary policy is a blunt instrument. Increases in interest rates damp activity across a wide variety of sectors, many of which may not be experiencing speculative activity. Moreover, small policy adjustments may HOMEWORK page 82

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not be very effective in reining in speculative excesses. Our experience in 1999 and 2005 was that even substantial increases in interest rates did not seem to have an effect on dotcom stock speculation in the first episode or on house price increases in the second. And larger adjustments would incur greater incremental costs. As a consequence, using monetary policy to damp asset price movements could lead to more variability in output and inflation around their objectives, at least in the medium term. Among other things, greater variability in inflation could lead inflation expectations to become less well anchored, diminishing the ability of the central bank to counter economic fluctuations. We simply do not have good theories or empirical evidence to guide policymakers in using short-term interest rates to limit financial speculation. Given our current state of knowledge, my preference at this time would be to use regulation and supervision to strengthen the financial system and lean against developing problems. Monetary policy would be used only if imbalances were building and regulatory policies either were unavailable or had proven ineffective. The homework assignment is to improve our ability to identify incipient financial imbalances

and understand their interactions with changes in policy interest rates. A related issue, which Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll assign for extra credit, is critical for the conduct of policy in the future. Some observers have attributed the bubbles observed in some asset prices in recent years to a decades-long downward trend in real interest rates. In this view, the decline in interest rates has caused investors to reach for yield by purchasing riskier assets with higher returns, driving the prices on riskier assets above fundamental values. Many critics of central banks ascribe the drop in real rates to monetary policy decisions that kept rates unusually low, on average, over the business cycle From my perspective, the decisions the central banks were making about their policy rates were shaped by the underlying determinants of the balance of saving and investment, including, in the past decade or so, the high saving propensities of the newly emerging Asian economies and the sluggish rebound in investment globally after the recession early last decade. Nonetheless, it is important that we understand the reasons for the decline in average real rates and whether low rates are likely to persistâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;and that very tough problem is the extra credit assignment. For one thing, as

the economic expansion gains traction and central banks back off the current highly accommodative stance of policy, policymakers will need to understand how the longerterm trend in real rates has influenced the point at which the policy rate becomes restrictive. For another, if rates are going to continue to be low by historical standards, regulators will need to be especially alert to any signs that a reach for yield by investors is contributing to excessive risk-taking. Inflation Objectives The final homework assignment concerns the inflation objectives of central banks. Central banks have widely chosen to target inflation rates near 2 percent. The Federal Reserve is required by law to conduct monetary policy to achieve maximum employment and stable prices. We havenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t announced an explicit inflation rate target consistent with that dual mandate, but the Federal Reserve governors and Reserve Bank presidents publish our individual forecasts for inflation over the longer run, conditional on our individual views of appropriate monetary policy. Those forecasts indicate that most of the FOMC participants believe that inflation should converge to 1-3/4 to 2 percent over time. Recently, some prominent economists have called for

central banks to raise their inflation targets to about 4 percent. Shifting inflation targets up would tend to raise the average level of nominal interest rates and thus give central banks more room to lower interest rates in response to a bad shock to the economy before running against the zero bound. Although I agree that hitting the zero bound presents challenges to monetary policy, I do not believe central banks should raise their inflation targets. Central banks around the world have been working for 30 years to get inflation down to levels where it can largely be ignored by businesses and households when making decisions about the future. Moreover, inflation expectations are well anchored at those low levels. Increasing our inflation targets could result in more-variable inflation and worse economic outcomes over time. First of all, inflation expectations would necessarily have to become unanchored as inflation moved up. I doubt households and businesses would immediately adjust their expectations up to the new targets and that expectations would then be well anchored at the new higher levels. Instead, I fear there could be a long learning process, just as there was as inflation trended down over recent decades. Second, 4

percent inflation may be higher than can be ignored, and businesses and households may take inflation more into account when writing contracts and making investments, increasing the odds that otherwise transitory inflation would become more persistent. For both these reasons, raising the longer-term objective for inflation could make expectations more sensitive to recent realized inflation, to central bank actions, and to other economic conditions. That greater sensitivity would reduce the ability of central banks to buffer the economy from bad shocks. It could also lead to more-volatile inflation over the longer run and therefore higher inflation risk premiums in nominal interest rates. It is notable that while the economic arguments for raising inflation targets are well understood, no major central bank has raised its target in response to the recent financial crisis. Another approach to this problem is for central banks to target a gradually rising price level rather than a constant inflation rate. Imagine a plot of the consumer price index (CPI) from today onward increasing 2 percent each year. Central banks would commit to adjusting policy to keep the CPI near that HOMEWORK page 85

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Israel, America and the world: A wall of suspicion (The Economist: News analysis) Submitted at 3/25/2010 12:43:40 AM

Israel, America and the world Despite a rare dressing down from America, Israel's leader shows no sign of yielding Mar 25th 2010 | JERUSALEM AND WASHINGTON, DC | From The Economist print edition GLUM Israelis likened the event to thieves entering in the night. When Binyamin Netanyahu and his aides met Barack Obama in the White House on March 23rd, the president forbade any media coverage—not even a quick photograph—in the Oval Office. The encounter with Israel’s prime minister did not seem to lead to the jovial reconciliation that politicians on both sides, after a fortnight of angry mudslinging between Washington and Jerusalem, had hoped for. The format was as odd as the extreme confidentiality. After the two leaders had sat alone for an hour-and-a-half, Mr Netanyahu closeted himself to “consult” his advisers, before returning for another half-hour discussion. Did Mr Obama, riding high after his historic victory over health care, choose to confront the silver-tongued Israeli prime minister with an unequivocal challenge to lay out his policy on peace with the Palestinians—and to back down

over the controversial issue of building Jewish houses in Israeli -annexed East Jerusalem, which Palestinians see as the capital of their would-be state? The need for such clarity was illustrated by yet another Israeli building project in East Jerusalem, which was publicised just hours before the White House meeting. In Israel there was speculation that someone had issued news of this untimely project, long in the works, in order, once again, to “trip up Bibi”, as the prime minister is known, when he was about to meet the president of Israel’s most vital ally. The crisis in American-Israeli relations flared up a fortnight ago when, just as the vicepresident, Joe Biden, was visiting Jerusalem, it was announced that 1,600 Jewish homes would be built in East Jerusalem. Mr Netanyahu apologised fulsomely for the bad timing but refused to rescind the decision. The suburb in question, Ramat Shlomo, is one of several all-Jewish ones built since 1967 in East Jerusalem, where 250,000 Israeli Jews now live. The latest scheme is much smaller—just 20 units—but a lot more incendiary. Whereas Ramat Shlomo is built on a rocky outcrop on the northern rim of the Israeli-delineated municipality, the new scheme involves installing a score of

Jewish settler families in a converted hotel in the densely populated all-Arab suburb of Sheikh Jarrah, close to the Old City. Mr Netanyahu contends that his building policy in Jerusalem is no different from that of all his predecessors since 1967, when Israeli forces conquered the entire city. “The Jewish people were building in Jerusalem 3,000 years ago,” he told 7,000odd delegates to the annual conference of the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a proIsrael lobby, in Washington on March 22nd. “And the Jewish people are building Jerusalem today. Jerusalem is not a settlement. It is our capital.” He complains privately that Mr Obama is needlessly picking on him. But American officials complain privately that Mr Netanyahu is dissembling. They point out that two of his predecessors, Ehud Barak (1999 -2001) and Ehud Olmert (200609), negotiated with the Palestinians over a peace plan for Jerusalem proposed by President Bill Clinton, who suggested sharing out the city’s sovereignty by districts: Jewishinhabited ones would go to Israel, Arab-inhabited ones to Palestine. The “holy basin” in the middle, including religious shrines, would fall under an international or divine

protectorate. Mr Obama now insists that Jerusalem, along with the other core issues of the conflict, such as the question of redrawing borders and the return of refugees demanded by the Palestinians, should be tackled in the “proximity talks” he is trying to launch between Israelis and Palestinians. He hopes they may lead to a resumption of long-stalled direct negotiations. Mr Obama also wants a series of “confidence-building steps” to bring the Palestinians back to the table. These include a release of Palestinian prisoners and the dismantling of Israeli military road-blocks that frustrate Palestinians’ lives and commerce on the West Bank. Mr Netanyahu says he cannot meet these demands because his allies on the nationalist and religious end of his ruling coalition would rebel if he did. But Mr Obama’s team may no longer be willing to accept that as a reason. Some observers in Washington felt in his speech to AIPAC Mr Netanyahu gave unduly short shrift to Mr Obama and ignored the president’s insistence that fresh talks between Israel and the Palestinians should go straight to the big issues, such as adjusting borders. “Of course the United States can help the parties solve their problems,” said the prime minister. “But it cannot solve the problems for

the parties. Peace cannot be imposed from the outside.” It was even suggested that Mr Netanyahu’s speech may have been written before Mr Obama’s health-care triumph in the House of Representatives the night before. It was said that people in the White House had been brooding with resentment over Mr Netanyahu’s illdisguised pleasure when Mr Obama’s political fortunes seemed earlier to be sliding. Mr Netanyahu has indeed had a tough time keeping his coalition together. Just before he left for Washington, he and his extreme nationalist foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, both secular Jews, persuaded a cabinet majority to accept ultraOrthodox demands for a new hospital emergency-room to be moved, at high cost, because its previously planned site might contain ancient Jewish graves. An ultra-Orthodox party that is an important coalition partner and holds the health ministry threatened to secede unless this was done. A public outcry then ensued. Already in Washington, Mr Netanyahu had to backtrack by setting up a committee to “reconsider” the cabinet decision. But for the time being, he would rather compromise with his Orthodox partners than consider the prospect, much ISRAEL, page 86

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More Foreclosures, Please . . . Barry Ritholtz (The Big Picture)

credit bubble. I estimate that making mortgage requirements disappear brought between 10 Submitted at 3/25/2010 4:15:16 AM and 20 million marginal new I have been dismayed about the home buyers into the real estate latest actions out of Washington m a r k e t d u r i n g t h e 2 , 0 0 0 s and Wall Street. The banks are decade. This drove prices to now pushing all manner of unsustainable levels, leading to mortgage mods and foreclosure a huge boom and eventual bust abatements. These are little cycle in housing. more than “extend & pretend” Prices have fallen about 30% measures, designed to put off nationally from the 2005-06 the day of reckoning. They are housing peak. As the artificial not only ineffective, they are demand created by free money c o u n t e r - p r o d u c t i v e . T h e y and an accompanying gold rush reward the reckless and punish mentality disappeared, the the responsible, and create a housing market collapsed. moral hazard. Worse yet, they Despite this, even down 30% or penalize middle America for the so, prices still remain elevated sake of giant Wall Street banks. by historical metrics. The net It may sound counter-intuitive, result has been 5 million but the best thing for the nation foreclosures and counting. One (but not necessarily the banks) is in four “Home-owers” are to allow the foreclosure process underwater — meaning, they to proceed unimpeded. We need owe more on their mortgages more, not less foreclosures. than their houses are worth. How did we get to this bizarre There are another 3-5 million place in history? A brief recap likely foreclosures coming over of our story so far: the next 5+ years. It started with the ultra-low The net results of the credit rates of 2001-04. It was aided bubble are as follows: and abetted by an abdication of 1) An enormous number of traditional lending standards, at families living in homes they first by non-bank lenders, but cannot afford. eventually, by nearly all. The 2) Bank balance sheets laden Lend-to-Sell-to-Securitizer with current bad loans and lots NonBanks pushed lending of potential future defaulting standards ever lower to the point loans. of non-existence. This increased 3) Real Estate Sales, despite the pool of potential mortgage being propped up with historic buyers, credit worthiness be low mortgage rates and tax damned. purchase credits, are continuing The net result of all this was a to slide.

4) A weak overall economy with a very slow, soft recovery. Whether a function of populist politics or bad economics, the proposals so far appear to address items one and three. But upon closer examination, they do nothing of the kind. In fact, they are actually gaming the system to help issue two — the bad loans the banks are carrying. Even worse, they are making issue #4 — the economy — increasingly problematic. We should allow the real estate market to experience a healthy price normalization process. Even though home prices have fallen dramatically, they have yet to reach their historical means relative to income or the cost of renting. This is to say nothing of the usual careening past the median towards undervaluation that typically follows a massive mis-allocation of capital. We own a home, and have a vacation property. Rooting for falling prices is “talking against my own book.” Why is it so beneficial to allow foreclosures to proceed unimpeded? Consider the following benefits of foreclosure: • Increasing Economic Activity: The areas of the country with the greatest foreclosure rates have seen the biggest increase in real estate activity. Look at California and Florida — they

have seen enormous upticks in sales versus the lower foreclosure states. The process moves real estate holdings from weak hands to stronger ones. When someone purchases a home they actually can afford, they end up spending quite a bit of money on additional goods and services. They do renovations, hire contractors, make durable goods purchases, buy cars. They do lawn work, plant gardens, paint and repair. They even hire baby sitters, go out to diner and movies, they spend money in the local community. The people who are hanging on by their fingernails, however, do almost none of these things. They pay a vastly disproportionate amount of their incomes to service their mortgages. This is not productive economic activity. • Helping Families: Foreclosures, wrenching thought hey may be, move overstretched families into housing they can afford. They avoid a steady stream of all manner of excess fees. The banks squeeze whatever they can from delinquent homeowners, who end up futilely tossing $1000s of dollars down the drain. Worse, the HAMP programs have been totally ineffective in keeping families in their homes. The vast majority ultimately default anyway. More fees paid, more debt accrued, for nothing.

The last thing these families need is a banking fee orgy, before they ultimate lose the house anyway. The HAMP programs have been an enormous taxpayer subsidized boondoggle for the banks, however. • Punishing the Prudent: The boom and bust saw irresponsible and reckless behavior by lenders and home buyers alike. They overused leverage, disregarded risk, ignored history. Having the taxpayers subsidize this behavior presents a moral hazard. Worse than that, it punishes the people who behaved prudent and responsibly. Those who refused to buy a home they could not afford, chose not to over-extend themselves, and have been saving for a down payment are the net losers in this. By working so feverishly to artificially reduce foreclosures and prop up home prices, we punish the first time home buyer, the newlyweds, the savers who want to buy a house they can actually afford. The net result of all these programs and subsidies for recklessness is that we prevent home prices from normalizing. The people who are punished the most are the group that was not reckless, speculative or foolish. MORE page 87

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line. The advantage of this approach, in theory at least, is that when a negative shock drives prices below the target level, people will automatically expect the central bank to increase inflation for a while to get back to trend. In principle, that expectation would lower real interest rates without the central bank changing its inflation commitment, even if nominal interest rates were pinned at zero. It could also make it easier for people to make longterm economic decisions because they could anticipate that inflation misses would be reversed over time, reducing uncertainty about the future price level. While I appreciate the elegance of this price-level-targeting idea, I have serious doubts that it would work in practice. Central to the idea is that the Federal Reserve would be committing to hit a price level that was growing at a constant rate from a fixed point in the past. The specific inflation rate that could be expected in the future would change over time, depending on the inflation that had been realized up to that point. You could know what inflation rate to expect only if you knew both the current consumer price index and the Fed’s target for the index in the

future. In addition, the inflation rate that you could expect would be different for different horizons. Moreover, central banks are able to control inflation only with a considerable lag and even then only imprecisely, so the process of hitting a target would likely involve frequent overshooting and correction and consequently frequently shifting inflation objectives. Contrast this approach with the communications required of central banks when targeting a specific inflation rate. For example, central banks targeting a 2 percent inflation rate typically put that target prominently on their webpage. If those banks were instead targeting a price level growing at 2 percent, their webpages would have to provide a table of inflation rate targets for a variety of horizons, and the targets would change each month. I fear that rather than anchoring people’s expectations about prices, it could leave them perplexed. As you can tell, I see compelling reasons why central banks should stick to their current inflation objectives. Those reasons relate most importantly to the effect of a central bank’s communications and behavior on its credibility and on the public’s expectations.

More study leading to a better understanding of the linkage between central bank actions and expectation formation should improve the ability of central banks to achieve society’s inflation and output objectives more effectively under a variety of circumstances, including in a severe negative shock of the type we recently experienced. Conclusion Many central bankers and economists, myself included, were a little complacent coming into the crisis. We thought we knew enough about the basic structure of the markets and the economy to achieve economic and price stability with relatively minor perturbations. And we thought we had the tools necessary to deal with liquidity shortages and maldistributions. The reality is that we didn’t understand the economy as well as we thought we did. Central bankers, along with other policymakers, professional economists and the private sector failed to foresee or prevent a financial crisis that resulted in very serious unemployment and loss of wealth around the world. We must learn from our experience. The questions I’ve posed are tough, but addressing these issues successfully should enable central banks to reduce

the odds of future crises and respond more effectively to any bouts of instability that still might arise. 1. The views expressed here are my own and not necessarily those of my colleagues on the Board of Governors or the Federal Open Market Committee. William Nelson of the Board’s staff contributed to these remarks. Return to text 2. Primary dealers are brokerdealers that trade in U.S. government securities with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Return to text 3. I am not referring here to the loans we extended to individual troubled institutions like American International Group, whose disorderly failure would have had catastrophic consequences for the economy. That sort of lending is more appropriately done by the fiscal authorities and conducted only in association with the exercise of new authority to regulate and resolve systemically important institutions. Return to text Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Around the Net In Media: 'Times T' Editor Exits For 'W' Helm (MediaPost | Media News) Submitted at 3/24/2010 9:02:55 PM

Condé Nast Publications named Stefano Tonchi, the editor of T: The New York Times Style Magazine, to be the editor in chief of its fashion magazine W. Tonchi wants to bring a more accessible, general-interest sensibility to W, a large-format magazine with lavish photography. Ad pages at W fell almost 50% in 2009, to about 1,050 pages, according to Media Industry Newsletter. That makes it one of the hardest-hit magazines at Condé Nast. Tonchi joined The New York Times as style editor for The New York Times Magazine in 2003. He had previously been a fashion and creative director at Esquire and the Condé Nast publications Self and vL'Uomo Vogue. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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ISRAEL,

Europe.view: What's in a name? (The Economist: Daily columns)

enormous amount of diplomatic time and energy over the past 15 years. It has prevented CTCBN, Submitted at 3/25/2010 2:12:16 AM a small, poor country, from Europe.view It is time for the joining NATO, and has blocked most tedious dispute in the the start of talks over its Balkans to be settled membership of the European Mar 25th 2010 | From The Union. The details of the dispute Economist online are so mind-bogglingly silly that IN THE headlines about they make the Polish-Lithuanian Europe’s economic woes, one row over spelling seem serious. country stands out. Its public it is difficult to know what sort finances are a disaster. It has of adjective or other qualifier, in s y s t e m a t i c a l l y f i d d l e d i t s what language or languages, s t a t i s t i c s . I t s o v e r p a i d , with or without a hyphen, in underworked public-sector what documents and in what employees are a laughing stock contexts, would be enough to across Europe. Rigid labour and satisfy CTCBN's feeling of p r o d u c t m a r k e t s , a n d identity without prompting membership of the euro, have paranoia in CTNH. imprisoned it in an economicNeither side is blameless. policy straitjacket. It urgently Politicians in CTCBN have needs a big bail-out. Call it the p r o v o k e d t h e i r s o u t h e r n “Country That Needs Help” neighbour. The controversial (CTNH). renaming of an airport and the Its next-door neighbour in south erection of a prominent statue of -eastern Europe is the “Country a historical figure claimed by T h a t C a n ’ t B e N a m e d ” both sides are the main charges (CTCBN). The name it would (no kidding: this is Europe in like to have annoys CTNH, 2010 and people are getting which regards it as an implicit seriously cross about statues). territorial claim on its northern For its part, CTNH has been province with the same name. ridiculously obdurate: having So the country is often called by said it would not let the name a c u m b e r s o m e f i v e - l e t t e r issue stop CTCBN’s integration acronym. into Euroatlantic organisations, The dispute has consumed an it has done exactly that.

Delay means playing with fire: CTCBN is divided ethnically and has weak national institutions. One of the things that keeps the country together is the prospect of integration into international organisations, chiefly the EU and NATO. CTCBN’s minority Albanian population has no dog in the fight. But if the name dispute goes on long enough, they may lose faith in CTCBN’s future as a country. Violence is not likely, but is certainly possible. If it does break out, CTNH’s footdragging will be largely to blame. So a lot rests on the meeting of the two countries’ prime ministers at an EU summit on March 25th. Matthew Nimetz, the American diplomat charged by the United Nations with mediating the issue, sees some signs of hope. (He deserves a Nobel prize for patience, if nothing else). What is missing is more muscular outside intervention. America thought of getting serious before the 2008 Bucharest NATO summit, but failed to push CTNH hard enough. Being realistic, even with health-care reform successfully passed, it is

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unlikely that the White House is now buzzing with excited talk about this arcane dispute as its next big priority. The EU is a more hopeful source of help. It is good at solving problems by being boring. Faced with the prospect of a near-death experience in a meeting room in Brussels, people often discover new possibilities for compromise. But the EU doesn’t want to get involved. That’s a pity. Without getting into crude arm-twisting, it should be possible to suggest to CTNH that talks about the bailout might go faster if the government showed a bit more flexibility. Sighs of relief would echo round the world. And the indefatigable internet propagandists insisting on either unadorned Macedonia or Greece -sanctioned FYROM would have to find something else to do. Readers' comments The Economist welcomes your views. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

favoured by Mr Obama’s team, of dumping them (and, by the by, Mr Lieberman’s lot) and coopting the more pragmatic Kadima party under Tzipi Livni. After winning most seats in a general election a year ago, she refused to join a coalition with Mr Netanyahu partly because he would not negotiate over Jerusalem. The world gangs up on you As if Mr Netanyahu had not been discomfited enough by his apparent dressing down from Mr Obama, he faced yet another embarrassment when Britain’s foreign secretary, David Miliband, publicly denounced Israel for forging 12 British citizens’ passports that were used in January in the assassination of a senior Hamas man in a hotel in Dubai. An Israeli diplomat in London, thought to be a member of Mossad, the external intelligence service, was asked to leave the country. Palestinians have gleefully watched two of Israel’s main allies rebuking it. They have rejoiced, too, as the peacemaking Quartet (the United States, the European Union, Russia and the UN) roundly condemned Israel’s building plans in East Jerusalem. Earlier the EU’s constitutional court had said that Israeli products made in West ISRAEL, page 87

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• Rewarding Bad Banks: Despite the helping families rhetoric, it is not what these mods are about. The various foreclosure abatements, mortgage mods and capital write -downs are little more than a game of kick the can down the road. All of these programs are part of a broad “Extend & Pretend” mind set. They are an extension of the FASB 157 rule changes that allows banks to hide their bad loans. The entire set of proposals canbe described as “ Whats good for the banks is good for America.” Only they are not. The various foreclosure programs are essentially a way the banks don’t have to take their write offs now. Avoid the hangover, have another shot of tequila, push the pain of into the future, regardless of economic cost. Were the banks required to report their mortgages accurately and/or write them down, they would be revealed as insolvent. ~~~

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Now we get to the ugly Truth: The mortgage mods and foreclosure abatement programs are really all about propping up insolvent banking institutions on the taxpayer dollar and at the expense of the middle class. These programs are another losing round of helping Wall Street at the expense of Main Street. It is the worst kind of trickle down economics. Herbert Spencer wrote, “ The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.” We have done precisely that. > Related: It is time to stop punishing prudence John Plender FT, March 24 2010 18 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/dacb d320-376b-11df-917600144feabdc0.html Bank of America to Reduce Mortgage Balances DAVID STREITFELD and LOUISE STORY NYT March 24, 2010

Bank settlements should not be given EU preferential trade tariffs. Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader, echoed Mr Obama’s demands for a settlement freeze in East Jerusalem, but he is wary of once again being left high and http://online.wsj.com/article/SB dry if the Americans were to 10001424052748703312504575 buckle over the issue, as they 141763259183050.html have done before. Moreover, he The Housing Crisis and the is nervous that the violence Resentment Zone between Palestinian protesters CASEY B. MULLIGAN and Israeli security forces, that Economix March 24, 2010 has increased in the past few weeks, may spin out of control. http://economix.blogs.nytimes.c Four Palestinians have recently om/2010/03/24/the-housing- been shot dead in the West c r i s i s - a n d - t h e - r e s e n t m e n t - Bank. So far Palestinian and zone/#more-57981 Israeli forces have co-operated Five Filters featured article: rather effectively to contain the Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: unrest. Even so, Palestinian PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, leaders are worried that a wider Term Extraction. intifada(uprising) may erupt, making it even harder to get talks going again. Some Palestinians might settle http://www.nytimes.com/2010/0 3/25/business/25housing.html Bank Launches Big Plan to Cut Mortgage Debt JAMES R. HAGERTY And NICK TIMIRAOS WSJ, March 25, 2010

for an Israeli assurance that settlement-building in East Jerusalem would cease while talks are under way, along with an Israeli promise seriously to negotiate borders and security straightaway. But Mr Abbas is unlikely to risk re-embarking on talks without the 22-country Arab League’s endorsement. The league’s impending summit is to take place in Libya, whose leader, Muammar Qaddafi, is keen for Mr Abbas’s Islamist rival, Hamas, to attend—a sure recipe for kiboshing a compromise plan to resume talks. Readers' comments The Economist welcomes your views. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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Welcome the National Archives UK to the Commons! Cris Stoddard (Flickr Blog) Submitted at 3/24/2010 7:49:56 AM

Join us in welcoming the National Archives UK as the newest member of the Commons on Flickr. Located in Kew, in the west of London, they are the UK government’s official archive. Holding over 900 years of history, they bring a smattering of images from parchment to digital media. Churchill? Got him! World War II archives? Got them! Fun on the beach in

Barbados? They’ve got it! Jane Austen’s will? Yes! The Commons on Flickr holds the world’s public photography archives that you can annotate

RESEARCH continued from page 88

the young Generation Y will lead spending in the recovery. When it comes to retirement add the National Archives as a and savings, Boomers have lost contact and make a few faves. the most, which means they now T h e y w e l c o m e g e o t a g have very different spending suggestions, too, which you can habits, according to Lisa Feigen do by adding machine tags as Dugal, PricewaterhouseCoopers' follows, if you know the U.S. retail and consumer coordinates of where the images practice advisory leader. Now it's the Gen X and Gen Y demos were taken: that have disposable income, geo:lat=1.2345 and they spend very differently geo:lon=1.2345 Photos from the National and have different ways of and access. These photos have seeking bargains. Archives UK. No Known Copyright Five Filters featured article: Among Gen Y consumers Restrictions. Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: (those between 18 and 27 for We hope you’ll tag them with PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, RESEARCH page 89 information, comment on them, Term Extraction.

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Submitted at 3/24/2010 9:02:42 PM

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which represents more than 1.6 million union workers, has begun airing ads in the districts of 14 Democratic members of Congress who voted for health-care reform, but whose seats may be at risk because of that vote come November. The campaign -- a one-week, $1 million TV ad buy

also backed by the group Health Care for America Now -- is titled "On Our Side." The ads applaud the members of Congress who were pro-reform against what AFSCME calls "the 2,049 health insurance company lobbyists and the $86 million in misleading ads" that were spent during the healthcare debate. "We understand the courage it has taken for these Representatives to stand up to the well-funded insurance

industry and its allies and to stand up for everyday Americans," AFSCME President Gerald W. McEntee said in a statement. "These Representatives were there for us, and we're letting them know that we'll be there for them." Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

be driving the recovery. And, the report notes, shoppers Submitted at 3/25/2010 6:15:26 AM will be more deliberate and According to a new report from purposeful in their spending, as PricewaterhouseCoopers and conspicuous consumption will Retail Forward, entitled The give way to more conscious or New Consumer Behavior p r a c t i c a l c o n s u m e r i s m . P a r a d i g m : P e r m a n e n t o r Rampant deal-seeking will be Fleeting?, for the first time in replaced by more purchase the last three recessions, it will selectivity and the use of not be Baby Boomers at the shopping techniques and tools heart of the economic recovery, discovered during the recession. as the recession has taken a bite A d d i t i o n a l l y , t h e a f f l u e n t of their savings and retirement segment of Generation X and accounts. This time it is the Gen RESEARCH page 88 Xers and Millennials who will

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this report) just 25% say the economy has significantly changed their spending behavior, while 36% of Gen Xers say it has, and 37% of Boomers say they have significantly changed shopping habits. In the past two recessions, Baby Boomers quickly led the recovery. However, this group has been hit hard by the recession at a point in life when their financial commitments loom large and retirement is on the horizon. Marketers will need to look to the smaller Gen X generation and large Gen Y population to fuel growth in the initial stages of the postrecession recovery. Among Gen X, one segment that will have a meaningful positive impact on spending is "up-market affluents" given their life stage needs and above-average spending potential. A higher proportion of Gen Y's income is discretionary as a result of fewer debts and a lessurgent need to accumulate wealth in the immediate term relative to older shoppers.

Furthermore, as this generation is accustomed to instant gratification and demands the latest gadgets, spending on technology staples like MP3 players and smart phones will remain a priority and create unique opportunities for techoriented retailers. Feigen Dugal adds "... there will not be a wholesale return to previous shopping patterns and behaviors. To succeed during the recovery, (marketers) will need to recognize that some shopper segments will still be in a 'recession' shopping mode... " As shoppers' "wants" are steadily reintroduced into the equation, trading-down behavior related to the choice of retailer, product, or brand will lose some traction in the recovery. However, private label brands will remain a significant factor due to their increasingly higher quality and low cost, since retailers don't have to advertise or promote them to the same degree as national brands. Findings included in study indicate that one-fifth of consumers will continue to

forgo buying items that seem too expensive, resulting in a contraction for the luxury and gourmet foods markets. The emergence of a more thoughtful approach to spending on luxury and non-discretionary goods means shoppers will place a premium on goods that have qualities of timeliness, usefulness, and versatility. Mary Brett Whitfield, senior vice president at Kantar Retail, concludes that "... retailers and suppliers can take advantage of this "frugal fatigue" and offer affordable do-it-yourself alternatives to pricier products... (shoppers) remain cognizant of today's economic realities and need to balance that with personal desires... " For the complete report from PriceWaterhouseCoopers, please visit them here Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Get More Time to Claim the Home Buyer Credit (Kiplinger Personal Finance)

have to rush to sign a contract before April 15. And you’ll Time is running out to buy a have until October 15 to file home and still qualify for either your return and claim the credit. of the home buyer tax credits. File Form 4868 to request an Time also is running out to file e x t e n s i o n . E v e n w i t h a n your tax return to claim the extension, taxpayers could file credit. To complicate matters, electronically and receive their the tax-filing deadline precedes refund in as few as ten days with the deadline for signing a direct deposit, according to the contract on a new home to IRS. qualify for the credit. If you’ve already filed your To qualify for the $8,000 first- return but sign a contract on a time home buyer credit or new home by April 30, be sure $6,500 credit for longtime to file an amended return to homeowners who buy a new claim the credit. home, you must sign a binding For more information about contract by April 30, 2010, and qualifying for the credits, see close on the property by June FAQs on the New Home Buyer 30, 2010. As I’m sure you Tax Credits. know, the tax-filing deadline is Five Filters featured article: April 15. Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: What to do? Ask the IRS for a PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, six-month extension to file your Term Extraction. 2009 tax return. Then you won’t

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AT&T connects everything to its network (CNET) (Yahoo! News Search Results for e-readers)

the emerging device business. The company is now branching out and offering wireless Submitted at 3/24/2010 7:03:16 PM connectivity to a slew of LAS VEGAS--First it was e- products. This week AT&T readers and Netbooks. Now announced a pet tracking collar AT&T wants to connect dog that allows dog owners to locate collars and pill caps to its their lost dogs. wireless network. "There are 25 million people AT&T's Glenn Lurie, who who say they treat their dog as h e a d s u p t h e c o m p a n y ' s well as their children," he said. emerging devices business, sees "I'm not one of them, but the a world in which any device can right type of product with the be connected over AT&T's right business model is out there wireless network. And for to develop a product for this almost two years, he has been market." working to get as many devices Indeed, there are countless signed up on the AT&T network other gadgets that could be as possible. "connected" to AT&T's wireless The business is just beginning, network, including the top of a but at the end of 2009, AT&T pill container that senses when reported it already had one s o m e o n e h a s t a k e n t h e i r million devices that were not medicine. Using the wireless cell phones connected to its network, it can alert people if network. they've forgotten to take their Initially, these devices were medication or it can inform a mostly Netbooks, e-readers, concerned doctor or family digital picture frames, and GSM member, Lurie said. navigation devices. Other devices that AT&T has "Netbooks and e-readers are the announced, include cargo pallets low-hanging fruit," Lurie said used to track shipped containers during an event at the CTIA and a low-cost 3G gaming trade show here this week, device. AT&T is also still where he provided an update on adding new Netbooks and

computing tablets to its network, such as the upcoming Apple iPad, which can connect to AT&T's 3G wireless as well as the new OpenPeak tablet computing device, which Lurie said was "game-changing." Today, the emerging device business doesn't contribute much revenue to AT&T. And service margins are low. But Ralph de la Vega, AT&T Mobility's CEO and president, said that the company is taking a long-term view when it comes to the business. And he predicts that emerging devices will contribute $1 billion in revenue annually to AT&T in about five years. "This is a long-range bet," he said. "In the short term it's not that significant to the financials. But we look at this on a fiveyear horizion and it will contribute a billion dollars in revenue, which can be significant even to a company the size of AT&T." Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Green Agricultureâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;The Next Hot Investment Sector? info@greentechmedia.com (Greentech Media: Headlines) Submitted at 3/25/2010 4:00:19 AM

VCs investing in agriculture? A surprising number of Silicon Valley investors and bankers gathered in the bucolic confines of the Four Seasons Hotel off of Highway 101 in Palo Alto, California to attend the Agriculture 2.0 Silicon Valley Event. I would hazard to say that the closest many of these folks have gotten to agriculture and soil is the Whole Foods produce aisle or perhaps a vineyard. (I actually had a brief but wildly successful stint as a commercial organic farmer, but that's another story.) It's a testament to the power of the greentech meme that more than 250 Silicon Valley types came out to learn about sustainable farming, water, GMOs, seeds and biodiversity. In the audience were investors from Mohr Davidow, Greylock, Kleiner Perkins, USVP, Redpoint, Rockport, Khosla Ventures, DFJ, Foundation Capital and many more. It's possible that VCs can do for agriculture what they've done for online dog food delivery, grocery delivery, and gyroscopic scooters. That is,

invest in a field they know nothing about, and totally jam it up. That being said, and now that I've gotten that last bit of snarkiness out of my system -there are more than a few venture firms with experience in these specialized fields and a few investment professionals with applicable domain experience. And certainly, many of the investors speaking today have their heart in the right place. It was the first time I heard pro-vegetarian views and tales of yoga practices on a VC panel. Panelist and Kleiner Perkins partner Amol Deshpande actually worked for Cargill at an indoor tilapia aquaculture firm as well as at a company exploring garlic germplasm growth. He believes that there is an investment opportunity in the agriculture space, but it is "painful and difficult to scale." Since coming to Kleiner Perkins he's been involved in two deals that are "notionally affiliated" with sustainable agriculture -organic waste treatment by Harvest Power and APT which is focused on water issues that are largely caused by GREEN page 91

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agriculture. Deshpande describes himself as "very interested in this space." Certainly the markets are huge. Agriculture accounts for 4 percent of the California economy according to Tom Tomich of UC Davis' Agricultural Sustainability Institute(agriculture also accounts for 8 percent of California energy use, 20 percent of California's land area and more than 40 percent of the state's fresh water use). Tomich also said, "The idea of the dumb farmer is truly a myth -- don't make that mistake," and, "Agricultural innovation responds to market forces." Despite the size of the market, the big question for investors is: Are VC growth expectations and scaling requirements even feasible in the admittedly huge agricultural markets? Limited partners in VC firms aren't going to lower their expectations in order to invest in farms simply because it's the right thing to do. The hope is just as greentech became mainstream, so can green ag. According to KP's Deshpande, "At KP we try to be creative, asking how can we change that industry." Along those lines, he mentioned in vitro meat production. (See this article in Beef Magazine and check out

the work of Jason Metheny.) Other investors with a green agriculture focus include Stu Rudick of Mindful Investors. Mindful invests exclusively in the natural, organic and sustainable consumer products and services marketplace. One of their portfolio firms, Organic Girl, sells organic greens and vegetables and had $150 million in sales in their second year of business. And Jim Schultz of Illinoisbased Open Prairie Ventures is also focused on agriculture with offices actually located in the middle of farmlands. One of their portfolio firms, Vestaron, is developing green pesticides based on spider venom. Issues that can be addressed by green ag investors include water, nitrogen, phosphorous, synthetic fertilizer, local foods, aquaculture, pests, and the move towards organics. Here is a small crop of examples of green ag companies that presented or exhibited at Agriculture 2.0: AeroFarm Systems: Calling themselves "The Future of Urban Agriculture," AeroFarm is developing aeroponic technology for growers of "leafy greens" in the $4 billion bag salad market. The design of their farming systems uses no soil, a minimum of fertilizers

and water, and can be stacked to maximize space. The company envisions using buildings in NYC to grows salad greens with enormous yields using LEDbased lighting. The firm is prerevenue, has raised $500,000 from The Quercus Trust and 21Ventures and is seeking a $5 million Round A. Inka Biospheric Systems: Vertical food growing systems and "micro-farms" that support hydroponics -- suitable for urban gardens. Local Dirt: An early-stage firm that matches producers of locally grown food with buyers. Marrone Bio Innovations: Environmentally responsible pro ducts for weed, plant disease and invasive pest management. Marrone uses naturally occurring microorganisms for Integrated Pest Management -insecticides, herbicides and products for controlling invasive mussels in waterways. Open Blue Sea Farms: Open ocean, caged "free-range" fish farmers. Open Blueâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s initial species is Cobia, a sashimigrade, marine white fish, targeted for the gourmet seafood market, the upper 20% of the seafood industry in the U.S. Pasteuria Bioscience: Nematodes, also known as roundworms, are the most numerous multicellular animals

on earth and many of them are parasitic on human agricultural products such as turfgrass and strawberries. Chemical control of nematodes is a multi-billion dollar business and Pasteuria Bioscience has developed a cultivation method for naturally occurring soil bacteria that specifically attack plantparasitic nematodes. PurFresh: 20 percent to 40 percent of fresh food is lost to over-ripening or decay. PurFresh has a family of products that spans the food supply chain in pre-harvest, post -harvest, transportation and retail to address this issue. Their transport product "snaps" into marine containers and kills mold, bacteria, viruses as well as eliminates ethylene, which accelerates ripening. The unit also measures atmospheric and physical conditions of the food environment, such as door breach, CO2, and O2, and communicates this information via satellite. The firm has 500 customers and 41 direct employees. They just closed a $10 million Round D. Earlier this month, they made our Top 50 Startups list. Solum: Solum makes a fielddeployable measurement tool that gives immediate answers on soil nutrient needs. Fertilizer amounts to 40 to 50 percent of

the operating expense for corn but it is currently applied in an inefficient manner based on average values rather than peracre needs. Solum allows farmers to apply fertilizer in the right amount, at the right place, at the right time. Verdant Earth Technologies: Developed at the University of Arizona, Verdantâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s system is a controlled-environment highyield agriculture process that will allow crops to be grown anywhere, with no soil and little water, in shipping-type containers that provide a growing environment for a variety of foods. The system can produce up to many times more food per square foot than conventional farming methods. *** There was an immense amount of innovation and entrepreneurship at this event. Still, it remains to be seen if this sector will capture the imagination and the wallets of Silicon Valley investors. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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Two More Car Companies To Buy EnerDel Batteries

Home Energy: Sungevity Guarantees Solar Savings and Big Boxes Go Green

info@greentechmedia.com (Greentech Media: Headlines)

Submitted at 3/24/2010 11:45:36 AM

The little battery company that could has two more car customers on the way. EnerDel, which specializes in lithium ion batteries for cars, "has two more OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) in the hopper" in the auto industry, says CEO Charles Gassenheimer, who swung through our offices today. The company is already producing batteries for Think, the Norwegian car manufacturer, and has signed a deal to produce batteries for Volvo's electric cars. One of those new customers could be Mazda, which has adopted EnerDel batteries for some experimental cars. Think is currently manufacturing five cars a day. "By the end of the year we expect to be at a run rate of 60 cars a day, which is 900 cars a month," he said. Think has a few thousand on its waiting list.

Volvo plans to produce 1,000 electric cars a year starting in early 2011 and may bring out more models of electric cars. The company earlier had a contract to produce batteries for the Karma coming from Fisker Automotive. Fisker switched to adopt batteries from A123 Systems, which also invested $23 million in Fisker. Fisker at the time needed an injection of investment, said Gassenheimer, and EnerDel had its commitments to Think. We will be posting a video later of our talk with Gassenheimer, but here are some other highlights: --EnerDel currently produces battery packs for cars at less than $700 a kilowatt hour. The industry average, roughly, is closer to$900 per kilowatt hour, according to sources. --The Department of Energy has a goal of driving down the price to $500 a kilowatt hour and $250 a kilowatt hour. The first goal will be hit. The second one will be tough. "I don't see a path to $300 a

kilowatt hour," he said. --The supply of batteries could be tight. Even if you bought every lithium ion battery in the world and stuck it into electric cars, you'd only have enough batteries for 250,000 cars, he said. In a way, though, that's good news for battery manufacturers because it reduces the potential risks in building new factories. "It is not going to be that challenging to soak up the capacity that exists," he said. EnerDel is taking a modular approach to factory capacity. It is currently building out a factory capable of churning out 15,000 battery packs a year. That factory will take the company to being cash flow positive. It will then build up to a 60,000 and then a 100,000 pack a year capacity. --The company has already begun to draw on the grants it won under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. It has also landed $70 million in grants from the state of Indiana and has applied for

DOE loans. If you didn't pick EnerDel as one of the emerging lithium ion battery makers in the U.S. a few years ago, don't feel bad. The company did not receive the lavish amounts of VC funds like Boston-Power or A123 Systems did. Like others, it also had to whistle past the graveyard in 2009. "Twelve months ago things were pretty dark," he said. "Think was in Chapter 11 in Norway." Although based in the Midwest, EnerDel is something of an international affair. The company's basic technology was coined by Peter Novak, a scientist and former member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The batteries also rely on technology from Japan and packaging know-how from Delphi. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Submitted at 3/24/2010 3:44:12 PM

You will save money, orders Danny Kennedy, founder of Sungevity. U.S. Bank will provide the funds for Sungevity's leasing program, Kennedy said in an interview. The bank is also the financial arm for the leasing programs offered by SunRun and Solar City. Sungevity, though, says it will one-up the other two competitors with more competitive terms. First, the term of the lease is only ten years, versus 15 to 18 years. After the ten-year period is up, consumers can extend their leases under the same terms or upgrade their solar systems. Second, Sungevity will guarantee that customers save money. "More than 60 percent of customers will be cash-flow positive or neutral from day one," he said. For the remaining 40 percent, Sungevity will provide cash rebates ranging up to $800 for a limited time. Sungevity will also give customers payments between the time from when the customer signs the contract and the solar panels begin to HOME page 93

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Cisco Invests in Grid Net info@greentechmedia.com (Greentech Media: Headlines)

Grid Net is whether or not utilities really need this kind of bandwidth. Smart homes will Submitted at 3/24/2010 10:19:19 PM send persistent amounts of data, Cisco has made an equity but in relatively low amounts investment for an undisclosed compared to that used by amount in Grid Net, a move that computers. Rival Silver Spring will give a boost to both in the Networks has been winning grid. contracts in the U.S. by selling Grid Net wants to build mesh networking equipment. broadband networks to connect Grid Net, by contrast, has utilities and their customers. argued that the flow of data will R i g h t n o w , t h e c o m p a n y increase, so utilities should build primarily makes equipment and their networks in anticipation of other technology based around needing more bandwidth. Last W i M a x , t h e l o n g - r a n g e year, the company signed a deal broadband protocol originally with Australian utility SP seen as a successor to Wi-Fi. AusNet. The utility plans to Grid Net, however, also has use the next-generation wireless plans to adopt high-speed technology to link about cellular networks. 680,000 household customers Other investors include Intel, with smart meters. Recently, it one of the early and persistent hired Andres Carvallo, one of promoters of WiMax, and the more prominent smart grid G e n e r a l E l e c t r i c . G e n e r a l execs in the U.S., from Austin E l e c t r i c a l s o l i c e n s e s t h e Energy. company's technology for some Cisco began to actively pursue of its meters. the green market in 2007 with a The big debate surrounding set of rousing speeches from

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CEO John "Are You Ready?" Chambers. The full strategy got fleshed out in January 2009 with the release of EnergyWise, a software layer designed to curb power consumption in PCs, networking equipment, phones and eventually buildings. After that, the compulsive shopping spree was only a matter of time. Cisco has already bought one outfit in building energy management. Some of its partners in this effort include Verdiem and GridPoint. Conceivably, the technologies from the two companies will complement each other. Another common trait: both companies despise Silver Spring. At least that will give them something to talk about during strategy meetings. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

generate energy. If an installation is delayed two months, for instance, and the solar panels would have saved $60 a month, Sungevity cuts a check for $120. Business, he added, is accelerating. Sungevity will install 330 kilowatts this month. The company currently focuses on the California market. Sungevity came to prominence with an application that allows installers to conduct solar estimates over the internet. Online estimates eliminate the need for the in-home visit and can cut the cost of a solar system by 5 percent or more. Sungevity will handle the financing and sales process, but it outsources installation. Meanwhile, in the past few weeks, the long predicted shift of big box retailers and home builders into the growing market for energy efficiency services and renewable energy has

begun. Select Lowe's outlets have begun to offer retrofit services in conjunction with Recurve. Lowe's performs the retrofits, but uses Recurve's software to plan and conduct the audit. Late last year, Lowe's also began to sell the all-in-one solar panels from Akeena Solar and followed it up with a deal in mid -March in which Akeena will serve as an installer for Lowe's. Meanwhile, 92 Home Depot outlets in northern California will begin to sell solar panels and installation services in conjunction with Solar City starting April 2. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Health Care Overhaul: What Happens When (Kiplinger Personal Finance)

The 2,400-page health care bill will gradually take effect over the next eight years, with many of the more popular provisions kicking in now, and more of the costs coming later. Here is a year-by-year rundown of what happens when: In 2010:

• Provides tax credits to small employers with no more than 25 workers and average annual wages of less than $50,000 if they purchase health insurance for employees. • Creates a temporary reinsurance program for employers that provide health insurance coverage to retirees over age 55 who are not eligible

for Medicare. Effective 90 days after the bill’s signing. • Establishes a temporary national high-risk pool to provide health coverage to individuals with preexisting medical conditions. Effective within 90 days of enactment. • Requires that all individual and group policies offer dependent coverage for children

up to age 26. • Provides a $250 rebate to Medicare beneficiaries who reach the Part D coverage gap in 2010. • Prohibits individual and group health plans from placing lifetime limits on the dollar value of coverage; prior to 2014, plans may only impose annual limits on coverage as

determined by the Secretary of Health & Human Services. Prohibits insurers from rescinding coverage except in cases of fraud and prohibits preexisting condition exclusions for kids. • Requires qualified health plans HEALTH page 95

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Health Care Reform: What It Means for Retirees (Kiplinger Personal Finance)

President Obama has signed the landmark health-care overhaul legislation into law, and the Senate is taking up a bill with proposed changes. Here are key provisions that could affect you. Medicare. The Part D prescription-drug doughnut hole will be gradually reduced by 2020. Seniors who reach the doughnut hole in 2010 will receive a $250 rebate. Starting in 2011, drug companies will be required to provide a 50% discount on brand-name drugs bought in the coverage gap. The federal subsidy for Part D premiums will be reduced for higher-income beneficiaries. Cost sharing for preventive-care services is eliminated. A new advisory board would submit recommendations to Congress to reduce the rate of growth in Medicare spending. The board is not allowed to submit proposals that would ration care or change benefits. More Medicare beneficiaries could be snared by the Part B premium surcharge for highincome seniors. The law freezes the income thresholds for

income-related Part B premiums from 2011 to 2019. Medicare Advantage plans. Studies have found that Advantage plans cost the government 14% more on average than traditional Medicare. To get costs more in line with traditional Medicare, the new law freezes federal payments to private Medicare Advantage plans at 2010 levels. These plans will be required to spend at least 85% of their revenues on patient care. Plans that prove they provide highquality efficient care will get rebates from the government. New taxes. The law would raise the Medicare payroll tax by an additional 0.9% (to 2.35%, from the current 1.45%) on earned income above $200,000 for individuals and $250,000 for joint filers. It would also impose a Medicare tax of 3.8% on investment income, such as dividends and interest, for individuals with adjusted gross income above $200,000 and joint filers with AGI above $250,000. These taxes will go into effect in 2013. Distributions from pensions, IRAs, 401(k)s and other qualified retirement

plans will be exempt. Selfemployed people will have to pay the additional tax. Medical tax deductions. Beginning in the 2013 tax year, the threshold for the itemized medical deduction rises to 10% of AGI, from the current 7.5%. Individuals age 65 and older, and their spouses, would be exempt for the tax years 2013 through 2016. Early retirees and selfemployed. For most workers who receive employersponsored coverage, the new law is not likely to have much impact. But the law provides a number of protections for those who need to buy insurance in the individual market. Six months after enactment, health insurers cannot place lifetime limits on the value of coverage or revoke existing coverage. Starting in 2014, insurers must accept all applicants, including anyone with preexisting medical conditions. Until then, individuals with preexisting conditions who have been uninsured for more than six months will be eligible to enroll in a national high-risk pool and receive subsidized

premiums. Cost sharing will be capped at $5,950 for individuals and $11,900 for families. This could be especially helpful to early retirees in Arizona and Nevada, which do not have state high-risk pools. It could also help Floridians, because Florida's is not open to new enrollees. Exchanges and coverage subsidies. Nearly everyone would be required to buy coverage, or pay a penalty. Early retirees, the self-employed and others without insurance would be able to purchase coverage through state-based exchanges. Tax credits would be available to individuals and families with income between 133% and 400% of the poverty level (that's $19,378 to $58,280 for a couple). Private insurance companies could sell policies through the exchanges. Buyers would choose among four benefit categories. Retiree health plans. If you are 55 or older and receive retiree health benefits from your employer, you could benefit from a government reinsurance program. The program will

reimburse employers or insurers for 80% of retiree claims between $15,000 and $90,000. Payments from the reinsurance program will be used to lower the costs for enrollees in the employer plan. The program will end on January 1, 2014. It will not reimburse costs for retirees who are eligible for Medicare. Long-term care. In 2011, workers can enroll in a national insurance program to cover nonmedical services in case of disability. After a five-year vesting period, the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports program will provide individuals who become disabled with a benefit of about $50 a day. The program will be financed with voluntary payroll deductions. For more authoritative guidance on retirement investing, slashing taxes and getting the best health care, click here for a FREE sample issue of Kiplingerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Retirement Report. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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Investors Are Missing the Bull Market (Kiplinger Personal Finance)

Suppose they gave a bull market and nobody came? That pretty much sums up the response of individual investors to the past year’s run-up in share prices. Left stunned and frightened by the preceding collapse of share prices, individual investors have lightened up on stock funds and shoveled money into bond funds. Those who exited stocks have missed a breathtaking rally. Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index returned 50% over the past 12 months through March 18. During the same period, the MSCI EAFE index of developed -market foreign stocks galloped 61%, the Russell 2000 index of small companies soared 66%, and the MSCI Emerging Markets index surged 89%. It doesn’t get much better than that. But fear of more losses has been a more potent consideration for most investors. The Leuthold Group, a Minneapolis-based research firm, computes that from the start of 2009 through March 10, 2010, investors, in aggregate, sold $6 billion in stock funds and purchased $446 billion in bond funds. Only in the past few weeks, as major averages have continued to rise, have stock funds finally begun to see net

inflows (meaning more cash has been coming in than going out). To be sure, many investors have simply stood still during the bull market, which celebrated its first birthday on March 9. A total of $4.8 trillion is invested in stock mutual funds. But, as a group, investors have been selling, not buying, during one of the most powerful rallies in history. What’s more, investors rushing into bond funds may well hit a buzz saw. By keeping shortterm rates near zero and pumping money into the nation’s moribund economy, the Federal Reserve may be planting the seeds of a significant jump in inflation at some point in the future. When that happens, bond yields are likely to rise, pushing down bond prices. When it comes to making decisions about mutual funds, bad choices are standard operating procedure. Whether due to poor timing, poor fund selection or both, the average investor tends to earn a good deal less in the stock market than the reported returns of funds would indicate. How can that be? An example will help. Suppose you have a fund with $100 million in assets. Over a 12-month period, it gains 40%, so its asset base climbs to $140 million. The fund garners a ton of positive media

attention, investors rush to buy, and assets climb to $500 million. But in the ensuing year, the fund loses 28.6%. The fund itself has broken even at the end of the two years. But far more investors have lost money than have made money. That, in a nutshell, is what happens in the real world. Morningstar figures that over the ten-year period through the end of 2009, the average mutual fund returned an annualized 3.2%. But the average dollar invested in mutual funds earned an annualized 1.7%. U.S. stock funds returned an annualized 1.6% over this period. But investors, on average, earned an annualized 0.2% -- an average of 1.4 percentage points per year less. Foreign stock funds returned an annualized 3.2%; investors earned an annualized 2.6%, or 0.6 point per year less. The bottom line: Investors don’t do as well as mutual funds by roughly 0.5 to 1 percentage point per year. And, as we know, over long periods twothirds of actively managed mutual funds fail to match the returns of the index they’re trying to beat. Combine the two factors, and investors are earning a whole lot less than what the market offers (see Why Your Results Stink). How to improve your returns Do you see yourself in this picture? We all make investing

mistakes. Even Warren Buffett, in his annual reports, spends a lot of time discussing the mistakes he made over the previous year. But, over time, he has made far more smart moves than dumb ones. How can you invest more like Buffett and less like the average investor? He gives one important clue: Analyze your mistakes. Try to figure out what went wrong and why so that you can, perhaps, avoid making the same error again. (See Learn From the World's Great Investors.) A good deal of investing is common sense. Keep your costs low, invest small amounts regularly, shun investments you don’t understand. For more ideas, see our Investor Psychology special report and 5 Lessons From the Crash -- and Recovery. Unless you plan to spend serious time on investing, stick to a portfolio of index funds, such as the one provided in Don't Abandon Stocks. Perhaps most important, don’t try to time the market’s shortterm moves. No one can, as the numbers in this article so sadly illustrate. Steven T. Goldberg is an investment adviser in the Washington, D.C., area. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

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to provide, at a minimum, coverage without cost sharing for preventive services rated A or B by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, recommended immunizations, preventive care for infants, children and adolescents and additional preventive care. In 2011: • Requires employers to disclose the value of health benefits on workers’ W-2 IRS forms. • Provides free preventive services to Medicare beneficiaries, such as screenings for colon, prostate and breast cancer. • Sharply cuts government payments to Medicare Advantage, the private plan part of Medicare. • Provides a 10% Medicare bonus to primary care doctors and general surgeons practicing in areas with shortages. • Offers grants for up to five years to small employers that establish wellness programs. • Creates a national, voluntary long-term care insurance program to help seniors buy services so they can continue to live in their community rather than a nursing home. • Sets up a five-year demonstration program with grants to states to study alternatives to malpractice litigation. • Requires chain restaurants and HEALTH page 96

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vending machines to disclose the nutritional content of each food item available for sale. • Bars Health Savings Accounts, Flexible Spending Arrangements and Health Reimbursement Arrangements from reimbursing participants for over-the-counter drugs unless they have a prescription from their physician. • Doubles (to 20%) the tax on distributions from an HSA that is not used for qualified medical expenses. • Provides Medicare Part D beneficiaries who reach the “doughnut hole” a 50% discount on brand-name drugs. • Imposes an annual fee on drug companies based on market share. In 2013: • Eliminates the deduction that employers now take for providing Medicare Part D Rx drug coverage to their retirees. • Increases the threshold, from 7.5% to 10% of adjusted gross income, above which medical expenses can be itemized on

Schedule A of the annual income tax form. Taxpayers age 65 and older will be exempt from this change through 2016. • Limits contributions to an FSA for medical expenses to $2,500 per year, increased annually by the cost of living adjustment. • Raises the Medicare Part A (hospital insurance) tax rate on wages by 0.9% on earnings over $200,000 for individual taxpayers and $250,000 for married couples filing jointly. There also would be a 2.9% assessment on unearned income for higher-income taxpayers. • Imposes an excise tax on the sale of medical devices, except for items purchased at the retail level by the public. In 2014: • Mandates that all U.S. citizens and legal residents have health insurance. There would be a phased-in tax penalty for those without coverage, starting at the greater of $95 or 1% of income, in 2014, and rising to the greater of $695 or 2.5% of income in 2016.

• Mandates the start of operations for state-based Health Insurance Exchanges to serve as a marketplace in which individuals and small businesses can buy health insurance. • Imposes fines on employers with 50 or more workers that do not offer coverage. The fine will equal $2,000 per worker, although the first 30 workers would not be counted. • Limits any waiting period for coverage to 90 days. • Provides a refundable tax credit to help low-income folks buy coverage. To be eligible, a person’s household income must be between 100% and 400% of the federal poverty level, generally around $11,000 to $44,000 for singles and $22,000 to $88,000 for families. • Expands Medicaid to all individuals under age 65 with incomes up to 133% of the poverty level. • Allows employers to offer employees rewards of up to 30% of the cost of coverage (possibly increasing to 50%) for

participating in a wellness program and meeting certain health related standards. • Establishes an Independent Payment Advisory Board made up of 15 members to submit recommendations to Congress to reduce the growth of Medicare spending if spending exceeds a target growth rate. • Requires that health insurance companies start paying fees to the government based on market share. In 2018: • Imposes an excise tax on highcost health plans, defined as those providing coverage in excess of $10,200 for individuals and $27,500 for families. For weekly updates on topics to improve your business decisionmaking, click here. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.