Liberty Newsprint Dec-22-09 by Liberty Newspost

E-reader News Edition

Ho Ho Healthcare By Deborah Zabarenko (Front Row Washington) Submitted at 12/22/2009 7:51:32 AM

21/12/09 - 22/12/09

http://www.LibertyNewsprint.com

New York a hell of a place, survey finds (World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk)

recently ravaged by hurricane Katrina. Nothing says Christmas in Then come Hawaii and Florida – Washington like a cloture vote! no surprises there – and the sunSubmitted at 12/22/2009 11:23:37 AM Keep those fir trees, ornaments, rich states of Tennessee, Arizona the city blanketed in white — Survey finds state is the least and Mississippi. though of course the U.S. capital happy place in America, with And there, right at the bottom, has all of those this year too. hurricane-ravaged Louisiana even beneath Connecticut and What real Washingtonians are coming in as happiest that much-maligned state New looking for is a getaway by N o w N e w Y o r k e r s h a v e Jersey, comes New York. December 25. And with an early something real to complain Asked whether he was surprised morning vote today to cut off about. A study of statistical by New York's apparently deeply Senate debate on healthcare information about the 50 US miserable condition, Oswald said reform legislation, it could states (or in this case 51 — the only a little. actually happen. the week leading up to Christmas town while senators hang around survey includes Washington DC) "Many people think these states It’s all about cloture. And don’t is pushing the envelope. for a series of healthcare votes. feel bad if you’ve never seen that Veteran Washington-watchers The first cloture vote was early has concluded that New York is would be marvellous places to word before. It’s an inside-the- r e c a l l t h e d a y s w h e n U . S . on Monday, the second was this the least happy place in America. live in," he said. "The problem is B e l t w a y t e r m t h a t m e a n s lawmakers came back for a week morning and a third one is To add insult to injury, one of that if too many individuals think the two economics professors that way, they move into those agreeing to limit legislative or two after Thanksgiving and expected on Wednesday. debate. Cloture requires a 60- then headed home to their For more Reuters political news, who pulled together the study is a s t a t e s , a n d t h e r e s u l t i n g Brit, Andrew Oswald from congestion and house prices vote majority of the 100-member districts for a long holiday break. click here. Warwick University. make it a non-fulfilling Senate, rather than a simple That tradition was broken, P h o t o c r e d i t : Oswald and his New York p r o p h e c y . " majority. It’s going to take three definitively, in 1998, when they REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst (A cloture votes to get to the final stayed in session until December snowy Capitol Hill during the colleague Stephen Wu pooled • United States vote on the bill, expected late on 19 to impeach President Bill S e n a t e h e a l t h c a r e d e b a t e , information from public sources to estimate the happiness levels guardian.co.uk© Guardian News Christmas Eve. Clinton. This year, the House of D e c e m b e r 1 9 , 2 0 0 9 ) across the states. & Media Limited 2009 | Use of The mere fact that members of Representatives has already left Top of the list comes Louisiana, this content is subject to our Congress are still working during which is in itself an eyecatching Terms & Conditions| More Feeds finding given that it was only

Top News/ Finance/ Gadgets/ Tech News/

E-reader News Edition

Traffic complaint? You travel by motorcade! By Patricia Zengerle (Front Row Washington) Submitted at 12/22/2009 10:50:33 AM

Virginia Governor Tim Kaine was surprised on his “Ask the Governor” monthly radio show on Tuesday when caller “Barry from DC” turned out to be a particularly well-known “Barry” from Washington, D.C. — U.S. President Barack Obama, not a listener he was told was telephoning to complain about traffic, a laughable suggestion given the president cuts through Washington’s notorious gridlock with the assistance of a multivehicle motorcade and heavily armed security detail. The president’s call to Kaine had been arranged in advance as a

surprise to the governor, who is also chairman of the Democratic National Committee, to mark his last time on the show, which airs on Washington radio station WTOP. Virginia’s constitution limits its governors to one four-

MCCAIN continued from page 2

Medicare Advantage benefits for voters in his state. It wasn’t just the wheeling and dealing that had McCain upset. “If the bill were signed by the president on the first of January, the taxes would kick in and the Medicare cuts and other cuts kick in, and it wouldn’t be (until) four years later that any of the benefits begin to accrue,” McCain told “Good Morning America. ”

Submitted at 12/21/2009 5:15:00 PM

Wired.com's 12th annual

The Galactic Empire Has Taken Over Wall Street [Star Wars] By Rosa Golijan (Gizmodo) Submitted at 12/22/2009 10:59:37 AM

It seems that Wall Street is finally an official part of a dark empire. Or at least that's the impression I'm getting from seeing Darth Vader himself ringing the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange earlier. Wonder if that long awkward silence is because everyone's trying to think of a non-obvious joke about this whole thing. [ Thanks, OMG! Ponies!]

Citibank Loses Millions Thanks to a Cyber Security Breach

“What is that?” he said. “That’s nutty stuff.” For more Reuters political news, click here. By Mark Fightmaster Photo credit: Reuters/Joshua (BloggingStocks) Roberts (McCain in his office Submitted at 12/22/2009 12:20:00 PM during interview) Filed under: Other issues, Rumors, Citigroup Inc. (C) The Wall Street Journal(subscription required) reports that the FBI is looking into a potential computer-security breach that resulted in the theft of roundup of the tech industry's tens of millions of dollars from most promised, hyped and Citibank by computer hackers. These hackers appear to be anticipated products that never linked to a Russian cyber gang actually shipped.

Vaporware 2009: Inhale the Fail By Michael Calore (Wired Top Stories)

year term in office and Kaine will be succeeded next month by Republican Bob McDonnell. “Governor Kaine, this is actually the president of the United States calling,” Obama said and congratulated Kaine on his

service as governor. With Kaine’s help, Obama won the state of Virginia in the 2008 presidential election, becoming the first Democratic presidential candidate to take the state since 1964. “OK, get back to your calls,” Obama instructed Kaine as their chat ended, delaying by two minutes the station’s trademark “traffic and weather on the eights,” which promises listeners those reports at 8, 18, 28, 38, 48 and 58 minutes after each hour. Then-Senator Barack Obama (R) applauds on stage with Virginia Governor Tim Kaine (L) during an election rally in Bristol, Virginia, on June 5, 2008. REUTERS/Jason Reed

who targeted Citigroup's ( C) Citibank subsidiary, including its North American retail bank and other businesses. This attack was detected over the summer, but there is a chance that it could

have happened as much as a year earlier. Continue reading Citibank Loses Millions Thanks to a Cyber Security Breach Citibank Loses Millions Thanks to a Cyber Security Breach originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 22 Dec 2009 12:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Comments

World/

E-reader News Edition

How do I know China wrecked the Copenhagen deal? I was in the room | Mark Lynas By Mark Lynas (World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk) Submitted at 12/22/2009 11:54:46 AM

As recriminations fly postCopenhagen, one writer offers a fly-on-the-wall account of how talks failed Copenhagen was a disaster. That much is agreed. But the truth about what actually happened is in danger of being lost amid the spin and inevitable mutual recriminations. The truth is this: China wrecked the talks, intentionally humiliated Barack Obama, and insisted on an awful "deal" so western leaders would walk away carrying the blame. How do I know this? Because I was in the room and saw it happen. China's strategy was simple: block the open negotiations for two weeks, and then ensure that the closed-door deal made it look as if the west had failed the world's poor once again. And sure enough, the aid agencies, civil society movements and environmental groups all took the bait. The failure was "the inevitable result of rich countries refusing adequately and fairly to shoulder their overwhelming responsibility", said Christian Aid. "Rich countries have bullied developing nations," fumed Friends of the Earth International.

All very predictable, but the complete opposite of the truth. Even George Monbiot, writing in yesterday's Guardian, made the mistake of singly blaming Obama. But I saw Obama fighting desperately to salvage a deal, and the Chinese delegate saying "no", over and over again. Monbiot even approvingly quoted the Sudanese delegate Lumumba Di-Aping, who denounced the Copenhagen accord as "a suicide pact, an incineration pact, in order to maintain the economic dominance of a few countries". Sudan behaves at the talks as a puppet of China; one of a number of countries that relieves the Chinese delegation of having to fight its battles in open sessions. It was a perfect stitch-up. China gutted the deal behind the scenes, and then left its proxies to savage it in public. Here's what actually went on late last Friday night, as heads of state from two dozen countries met behind closed doors. Obama was at the table for several hours, sitting between Gordon Brown and the Ethiopian prime minister, Meles Zenawi. The Danish prime minister chaired, and on his right sat Ban Ki-moon, secretarygeneral of the UN. Probably only about 50 or 60 people, including the heads of state, were in the room. I was attached to one of the delegations, whose head of

state was also present for most of the time. What I saw was profoundly shocking. The Chinese premier, Wen Jinbao, did not deign to attend the meetings personally, instead sending a second-tier official in the country's foreign ministry to sit opposite Obama himself. The diplomatic snub was obvious and brutal, as was the practical implication: several times during the session, the world's most powerful heads of state were forced to wait around as the Chinese delegate went off to make telephone calls to his "superiors". Shifting the blame To those who would blame Obama and rich countries in general, know this: it was China's representative who insisted that industrialised country targets, previously agreed as an 80% cut by 2050, be taken out of the deal. "Why can't we even mention our own targets?" demanded a furious Angela Merkel. Australia's prime minister, Kevin Rudd, was annoyed enough to bang his microphone. Brazil's representative too pointed out the illogicality of China's position. Why should rich countries not announce even this unilateral cut? The Chinese delegate said no, and I watched, aghast, as Merkel threw up her hands in despair and conceded the point. Now we know why – because

China bet, correctly, that Obama would get the blame for the Copenhagen accord's lack of ambition. China, backed at times by India, then proceeded to take out all the numbers that mattered. A 2020 peaking year in global emissions, essential to restrain temperatures to 2C, was removed and replaced by woolly language suggesting that emissions should peak "as soon as possible". The long-term target, of global 50% cuts by 2050, was also excised. No one else, perhaps with the exceptions of India and Saudi Arabia, wanted this to happen. I am certain that had the Chinese not been in the room, we would have left Copenhagen with a deal that had environmentalists popping champagne corks popping in every corner of the world. Strong position So how did China manage to pull off this coup? First, it was in an extremely strong negotiating position. China didn't need a deal. As one developing country foreign minister said to me: "The Athenians had nothing to offer to the Spartans." On the other hand, western leaders in particular – but also presidents Lula of Brazil, Zuma of South Africa, Calderón of Mexico and many others – were desperate for a positive outcome. Obama needed a strong deal perhaps more than anyone. The US had confirmed the offer

of $100bn to developing countries for adaptation, put serious cuts on the table for the first time (17% below 2005 levels by 2020), and was obviously prepared to up its offer. Above all, Obama needed to be able to demonstrate to the Senate that he could deliver China in any global climate regulation framework, so conservative senators could not argue that US carbon cuts would further advantage Chinese industry. With midterm elections looming, Obama and his staff also knew that Copenhagen would be probably their only opportunity to go to climate change talks with a strong mandate. This further strengthened China's negotiating hand, as did the complete lack of civil society political pressure on either China or India. Campaign groups never blame developing countries for failure; this is an iron rule that is never broken. The Indians, in particular, have become past masters at co-opting the language of equity ("equal rights to the atmosphere") in the service of planetary suicide – and leftish campaigners and commentators are hoist with their own petard. With the deal gutted, the heads of state session concluded with a final battle as the Chinese HOW page 8

World/

E-reader News Edition

We do: Mexico City blazes trail with legalisation of same-sex marriage By Rory Carroll (World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk)

emerge from the closet and challenge traditional macho stereotypes. The trend contrasts with recent votes against sameSubmitted at 12/22/2009 11:29:10 AM sex marriage in the United States, Move marks region-wide shift notably California, Maine and towards greater tolerance for New York, which have dismayed homosexuality activists. Gay rights activists across the Mexico's leftist Democratic w o r l d c o n s i d e r s a m e - s e x Revolution party (PRD) pushed marriage one of their toughest the bill through the capital's goals. Only seven countries assembly 39-20, changing the permit it: Belgium, Canada, city's civil code definition of Norway, the Netherlands, Spain, marriage from the union of a man South Africa and Sweden. A and a woman to the "free uniting handful of US states also allow it. of two people". But on Monday night, and The change will permit same-sex d e s p i t e o p p o s i t i o n f r o m couples to adopt children, apply conservatives and the Roman for joint bank loans, inherit Catholic church, Mexico City wealth and share insurance was in the vanguard of a Latin policies. It is a significant America-wide tilt towards greater expansion of rights granted under tolerance for homosexuality. The a 2006 law allowing same-sex Mexican capital became the first civil unions. in Latin America to allow same- The mayor, Marcelo Ebrard, a s e x m a r r i a g e w i t h a crusading leftist from the PRD, groundbreaking law which could was expected to sign the measure set a precedent for gay rights into law, paving the way for the across the region. region's first married gay couple. The city's assembly passed the Activists inside the chamber legislation, which will also give cheered and waved rainbow gay couples the right to adopt banners, scenes repeated outside children, in a dramatic vote that as news spread. "We are so triggered celebrations and chants happy," Temistocles Villanueva, of "yes we can" from activists a 23-year-old film student, told gathered in the chamber. Associated Press, as he embraced A r g e n t i n a , C o l o m b i a a n d and kissed his boyfriend. Uruguay have made recent Victor Romo, a member of the moves towards liberalisation and mayor's party, called it a historic debate is stirring in other day. "For centuries unjust laws countries, emboldening gays to banned marriage between blacks

and whites or Indians and Europeans. Today all barriers have disappeared." Conservatives condemned the change as an affront to those who lived outside the capital's liberal bubble. Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera said the law was immoral and that "innocent children" could be adopted by gay couples. President Felipe Calderón's National Action party said it would try to block the law. "They have given Mexicans the most bitter Christmas," Armando Martínez, the president of the College of Catholic Attorneys, told reporters. "They are permitting adoption [by gay couples] and in one stroke of the pen have erased the term 'mother' and 'father'. " Latin American governments have historically persecuted gay men and lesbians. Fidel Castro's Cuba as well as rightwing dictatorships were openly homophobic and punished gays as deviants from a macho ideal. Discrimination remains widespread, and the minority is still vulnerable. Walter Orlando Trochez, 27, a prominent gay and anti-coup activist in Honduras, was shot dead last week. Transgender sex workers across the region often complain of violent attacks by police and vigilantes. But in the last two decades attitudes have softened. The

proportion who said they would not like to have homosexuals as neighbours plunged from 59% in 1995 to 29% this year, according to a Latinobarómetro poll taken in 18 countries across the region. "Tolerance towards homosexuals has been the value dimension that has changed the most in the 15 years that we have been measuring," said Marta Lagos, the Chile-based pollster's founding director. "The vast majority – 70% – of the Latin American population tolerates homosexuals. Fifteen years ago it was the complete opposite." Lagos attributed the change to societies becoming more developed and people becoming more expressive. That did not mean progressive values were prevailing across the board: 36% said women should stay at home rather than work, the same proportion as in 1997. Opposition to abortion also remained high. "It doesn't mean Latin American societies are becoming more similar to European societies," said the pollster. Tolerance is most visible in capitals, with the likes of Buenos Aires, Bogotá and Mexico City boasting gay-friendly districts where same-sex couples have no fear of showing affection in public. Argentina's capital has opened Axel, Latin America's first luxury hotel aimed at gays. In a neat twist, it has declared

itself "heterosexual friendly". Buenos Aires legalised same-sex civil unions in 2002 but conflicting judicial rulings recently stymied same-sex marriages. Several other Argentine cities, as well as Mexican and Brazilian states, also permit same-sex unions. Uruguay has become the first Latin American country to recognise such unions and permit adoption by gay couples. Colombia has granted social security rights to gay couples; its neighbour Venezuela is considering same-sex civil unions. "Before, if you said you were gay, you were dead," said Alberto Rodriguez, a beautician from Venezuela. "But now we're more accepted. We hold events, parades and fashion shows." Gay rights in Latin America Argentina Buenos Aires legalised same-sex civil unions in 2002 and was on the verge of permitting the continent's first gay marriage last month when a court forced it to be suspended. The couple about to tie the knot have vowed to fight on for the right to be "husband and husband". Brazil Famed as the continent's most tolerant but now lags behind neighbours on gay rights. A handful of states permit sameDO: page 7

World/ Tech News/

E-reader News Edition

This is no smoking gun, nor Iranian bomb | Norman Dombey By Norman Dombey (World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk)

British foreign secretary, visited Iran in March 1976. The shah told him that he was particularly interested in the UK's fusion Submitted at 12/22/2009 11:00:01 AM programme and "if any Nothing in the published opportunity arose whereby Iran 'intelligence documents' shows could come in on the programme, Iran is close to having nuclear they would be happy to do so". weapons That interest has continued for Seven years ago Condoleezza more than 30 years. In 1993 Iran Rice said "there will always be agreed with China to co-operate some uncertainty" in determining in the study of fusion and there is how close Iraq may be to an continuing programme of obtaining a nuclear weapon, but work in Tehran. "we don't want the smoking gun Nuclear fusion is the mechanism to be a mushroom cloud". Now whereby the sun shines and the focus is on Iran, not Iraq. sustains life on earth. Nuclear Iran's nuclear projects are in the reactors and atomic bombs rely news again. According to the on fission; hydrogen bombs rely T i m e s l a s t w e e k , a l l e g e d on fusion. There are as yet no " c o n f i d e n t i a l i n t e l l i g e n c e fusion reactors that produce documents" show Iran is working energy because, even after 50 on testing a key final component years of trying, more energy is of a nuclear bomb. The notes, the needed to produce fusion than is newspaper claims, describe "a o b t a i n e d f r o m t h e o u t p u t . four-year plan to test a neutron Nevertheless, industrialised initiator, the component of a countries persist in research in nuclear bomb that triggers an this field. At present the joint EU e x p l o s i o n " . P r e s i d e n t -US-Japan-China-India-KoreaA h m a d i n e j a d y e s t e r d a y Russia Iter project is building a denounced the documents as fusion reactor prototype at more American forgeries. But Cadarache in France. Research in even if we take them as genuine, this area is allowed by the is this a real "smoking gun" – and nuclear non-proliferation treaty. what do the documents show The "intelligence documents" anyway? published by the Times describe In my opinion they should be a four-year project, so if the read recognising the long Iranian Iranians were to build a neutron interest in the physics of nuclear initiator for a nuclear weapon it is fusion. Jim Callaghan, then not being treated as a matter of

urgency. By contrast, the Manhattan Project scientists arrived at Los Alamos in early 1943, and the Trinity test occurred in July 1945. Then the documents state that "policy is to develop cooperation with research and university centres in order to carry out the projects outside of the centre" and that samples are to be produced "by mutual cooperation … [then presented] to other research centres for marketing purposes". It is unlikely that nuclear weapon projects would be distributed among several universities, or weapon parts marketed to research centres. The documents call for two physicists with PhDs and two with masters degrees to carry out the work. That doesn't sound like a top priority national programme. That sounds more like a university research project. Then there is uranium deuteride, or UD3. According to the Times: "Critically, while other neutron sources have possible civilian uses, UD3 has only one application – to be the metaphorical match that lights a nuclear bomb." That is a surprising statement. In fact the document's only mention of UD3 states that it would prefer not to use it but to replace uranium with titanium. That gives a clue about

what the Iranians are doing. Titanium deuteride is used to store deuterium gas so that the gas can be generated when it is heated. It seems to me, therefore, that the function of UD3 is to generate deuterium gas so that it can be used in a plasma focus neutron generator. The neutron generator could then produce isotopes for use by other laboratories, hence the reference to market samples. UD3 is not known to be used as a neutron initiator in nuclear weapons: it was not used as an initiator in American, British or Soviet weapons when those weapons were developed. So why the emphasis on UD3 as a initiator for a weapon? First, Abdul Qadeer Khan, the disgraced Pakistani scientist who stole centrifuge designs from the Dutch uranium enrichment plant at Almelo and began Pakistan's weapon project, claimed that UD3 was used as an initiator by Pakistan. Second, Chinese physicists reported they had imploded UD3 using chemical explosives and thus obtained a beam of neutrons. So the argument is that China now uses UD3 as an initiator, passed the design to Pakistan, which in turn passed it to Iran. This is possible, but not demonstrated by the documents. A neutron initiator for a weapon

Obama Names Ex-MS Security Chief as Cybersecurity Czar By Kim Zetter (Wired Top Stories)

After months of being rejected by other candidates, President

Obama finally appointed a new cybersecurity coordinator.

needs precise timing: this is difficult using implosion by chemical explosives. Khan is a highly unreliable source. The document does not discuss obtaining neutrons by implosion: it discusses using pulsed neutrons presumably obtained using oscillating magnetic fields. Perhaps I am wrong. Both fusion and fission physics involve processes which can be used either in military or civil applications. But I have read nothing in the documents published by the Times to be able to conclude that they are describing an initiator for a nuclear weapon. • Nuclear weapons • Iran • Physics • Weapons technology • Middle East • Mahmoud Ahmadinejad • Nuclear power • The Times • US military • Pakistan • China • Netherlands Norman Dombey guardian.co.uk© Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions| More Feeds

World/ Tech News/

E-reader News Edition

Ticketmaster and Live Nation merger given goahead

DO: continued from page 5

sex unions, and there are thriving gay scenes in cities such as Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, but By Graeme Wearden, Andrew expressed concern that the deal w o r l d ' s p r e m i e r e l i v e conditions the government might little sign of moves towards gay Clark (World news and would push up ticket prices or e n t e r t a i n m e n t c o m p a n y " . d e m a n d f r o m t h e m e r g e d marriage. Colombia In 2007 gay couples comment from the Guardian | make it harder for new Chris Edmonds, managing c o m p a n y . " guardian.co.uk) won the same social security companies to break into the box director of Ticketmaster UK, Europe's largest fan-to-fan ticket rights as straight couples, the first office market. said: "Today's clearance is an exchange, Seatwave, expressed Submitted at 12/22/2009 11:16:45 AM But after lobbying from the two important milestone in the d i s a p p o i n t m e n t w i t h t h e nationwide law of its kind in • UK green light for world's companies which argued that regulatory review process, and commission's decision, arguing L a t i n A m e r i c a . A l l o w s biggest concert promoter and critics had overstated their brings the companies a step that the deal will lead to higher homosexuals to include partners in health insurance plans. ticket seller influence in the music industry, closer to creating a new kind of ticket prices for concertgoers. • Deal faces US opposition with the commission dropped its live entertainment business." " T h e o n u s i s n o w o n Mexico Mexico City this week campaign against 'ticketdisaster' opposition. Christopher Clarke, Across the Atlantic, the US Ticketmaster and Live Nation to passed a law permitting same-sex A contentious merger between deputy chair of the commission, D e p a r t m e n t o f J u s t i c e i s demonstrate tangible, financial, marriage. Builds on a 2006 law music promoters Ticketmaster admitted it was "unusual" for the considering whether to take c o n s u m e r b e n e f i t , a n d w e permitting same-sex civil unions. and Live Nation cleared a major competition watchdog to change a c t i o n . A w e b s i t e c a l l e d certainly hope they do," said Uruguay In 2007 it became Latin hurdle towards completion today its mind in this way. Ticketdisaster.org was launched Seatwave's chief executive, Joe America's first country to legalise as the Competition Commission A key plank in the commission's last week to put pressure on the C o h e n . " T h e c o m p e t i t i o n same-sex civil unions, granting executed a surprise U-turn by ruling was the damage that could DoJ and harness grassroots commission have given them an g a y c o u p l e s r i g h t s o v e r o v e r r i d i n g c o n c e r t f a n s ' be caused to German ticketing opposition, backed by five early Christmas present and now inheritance, pensions and child scepticism and approving the firm CTS Eventim, which signed Democrat members of Congress we'll wait to see if the US custody. This year it scrapped deal. a deal with Live Nation to who dislike the merger. department of justice choose to military rules barring gays from The commission announced that expand into the UK in 2007. The rock star Bruce Springsteen stand up for fans or give them a the armed forces. • Gay rights it no longer believed that the Now, though, the commission has lent his voice to the merger's lump of coal." • Mexico public will suffer if the two has accepted Live Nation's critics, urging his fans to lobby • Music industry • Civil partnerships companies combine forces. But, argument that CTS will not lose their political representatives to • Ticket prices • United States with opponents in America o u t , a n d t h a t i t w o u l d b e p r e v e n t a " n e a r - m o n o p o l y • United States campaigning vigorously for the complicated and unfair to force situation in music ticketing". • Madonna Rory Carroll US department of justice to give the merged entity to sell off its Industry experts suggested that • Bruce Springsteen guardian.co.uk© Guardian News a red light to the tie-up, it could UK ticketing arm. the British decision meant the tie- • U2 & Media Limited 2009 | Use of still be blocked. Ticketmaster, the world's largest up has a good chance of reaching • Rihanna this content is subject to our Live Nation is the world's largest ticket seller, sold more than fruition. c o n c e r t p r o m o t e r , w h i l e 140m tickets last year, while Live "The UK decision is surprising Graeme Wearden Andrew Clark Terms & Conditions| More Feeds Ticketmaster sells more tickets to Nation's roster of stars includes but it sets the stage that the deal guardian.co.uk© Guardian News its events than any other vendor. Pink, Rihanna, Madonna and U2. could clear with US regulators," & Media Limited 2009 | Use of The pair announced plans to The two firms welcomed today's said Tuna Amobi, equity analyst this content is subject to our merge in February and Britain's decision, saying it "paved the at Standard & Poor's. "The only Terms & Conditions| More Feeds competition authority initially way for the creation of the q u e s t i o n m i g h t b e w h a t

Dec. 22, 1882: Looking at Christmas in a New Light By Tony Long (Wired Top Stories)

The Christmas tree gets a hightech addition: electric light. It's

the beginning of a long, tangled story, or rather a story about long

tangles.

World/ Tech/

E-reader News Edition

France may ban burka in public By Lizzy Davies (World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk)

been initially envisaged," Copé said at a press conference. He rebuffed claims that such a step would be an affront to Submitted at 12/22/2009 11:03:36 AM individual freedoms. Nicolas Sarkozy's ruling party Debate about the burka or niqab, cites concern over women's and its compatibility with the freedom in taking tough line with republican values of freedom, legislation secularism and gender equality, French women could be banned has been raging in France since from wearing the full Islamic veil S a r k o z y c a l l e d f o r a in public under legislation to be parliamentary commission to proposed by Nicolas Sarkozy's investigate it in June. ruling party next month. That committee, which has been J e a n - F r a n c o i s C o p é , hearing evidence from a wideparliamentary leader of the range of figures including Oxford rightwing majority UMP, said a -based scholar Tariq Ramadan law banning face-covering in o v e r t h e p a s t s i x m o n t h s , public places would be submitted wrapped up its work last week to parliament early next year. and is due to report back to Citing concerns over women's parliament next month. freedom and "public order", he But Copé's law will be put said a total ban was justified by forward before those results are growing fears over equality in made public. Many accused him France, home to Europe's largest of rushing into heavy-handed Muslim population. legislation in an area that needed Copé's proposal, which is to be treated with the utmost backed by a number of MPs in sensitivity. Sarkozy's party, is considerably "The UMP says that a law is more hardline than another essential. I would like to see all suggested measure that would other possibilities explored first," aim to outlaw face-covering in s a i d F r a n ç o i s S a u v a d e t , public services such as post parliamentary chief of the centrist offices and town halls. Nouveau Centre party. "We are going further than had He has, however, also spoken

out in favour of some kind of law banning the burka, a stance which polls have shown has considerable public support. France, which is in the middle of an incendiary debate about national identity and immigration that has often focused on the integration of the country's 6 million Muslims, has indicated a willingness to crack down on an item of clothing deemed by some to be misogynistic and alienating. Sarkozy himself, while keeping clear of the question of legislation, declared earlier this year that burkas were "not welcome" on French soil. However, some members of his government, mindful that an outright ban is likely to spark accusations of Islamophobia, have expressed support for a more moderate law. • France • Islam • Religion Lizzy Davies guardian.co.uk© Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions| More Feeds

Meebo Bar now available for all By Harrison Hoffman (Webware.com) Submitted at 12/21/2009 2:12:22 PM

Previously only available to

large blogs and businesses, the Meebo Bar, which features a variety of sharing and chat options, is now available to everyone.

Originally posted at The Web Services Report

HOW continued from page 4

delegate insisted on removing the 1.5C target so beloved of the small island states and low-lying nations who have most to lose from rising seas. President Nasheed of the Maldives, supported by Brown, fought valiantly to save this crucial number. "How can you ask my country to go extinct?" demanded Nasheed. The Chinese delegate feigned great offence – and the number stayed, but surrounded by language which makes it all but meaningless. The deed was done. China's game All this raises the question: what is China's game? Why did China, in the words of a UK-based analyst who also spent hours in heads of state meetings, "not only reject targets for itself, but also refuse to allow any other country to take on binding targets?" The analyst, who has attended climate conferences for more than 15 years, concludes that China wants to weaken the climate regulation regime now "in order to avoid the risk that it might be called on to be more ambitious in a few years' time". This does not mean China is not serious about global warming. It is strong in both the wind and solar industries. But China's growth, and growing global political and economic dominance, is based largely on cheap coal. China knows it is becoming an uncontested superpower; indeed its newfound muscular confidence was on

striking display in Copenhagen. Its coal-based economy doubles every decade, and its power increases commensurately. Its leadership will not alter this magic formula unless they absolutely have to. Copenhagen was much worse than just another bad deal, because it illustrated a profound shift in global geopolitics. This is fast becoming China's century, yet its leadership has displayed that multilateral environmental governance is not only not a priority, but is viewed as a hindrance to the new superpower's freedom of action. I left Copenhagen more despondent than I have felt in a long time. After all the hope and all the hype, the mobilisation of thousands, a wave of optimism crashed against the rock of global power politics, fell back, and drained away. • Copenhagen climate change conference 2009 • Climate change • China • Carbon emissions • Activism Mark Lynas guardian.co.uk© Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions| More Feeds

World/ Finance/ Gadgets/

E-reader News Edition

Chinese medicine firm Hutchison Chi-Med employs Cambridge University to research remedies

Where Is Palm Headed After the Hype from Last Summer?

By Richard Wray (World news and comment from the Guardian | guardian.co.uk)

By Brian White (BloggingStocks)

heart disease, the Shexiang Baoxin pill, and sold over 400 million doses of the drug in China over the first half of this Submitted at 12/22/2009 11:11:53 AM year. It has been shown to have Manufacturer Hutchison Chi- h e a l i n g p r o p e r t i e s b u t t h e Med signs three-year deal with research deal announced today Cambridge pharmacologists to will focus research on the core f i n d a c t i v e i n g r e d i e n t s i n ingredients of the pill. The traditional medicines medicine has been shown to Hutchison Chi-Med, the Chinese control angiogenesis, the growth medicine company backed by the of new capillary blood vessels in firm that created mobile phone t h e b o d y . D y s f u n c t i o n a l group Orange, has signed up the angiogenesis is associated with University of Cambridge to more than 80 diseases, from investigate the potential healing cancer and diabetic eye problems and anti-aging properties of a to stroke. number of the group's herbal Modulation of angiogenesis in remedies. the skin has also been shown to Aim-listed Chi-Med sells affect skin aging and over the traditional medicines in China three years of the Cambridge tieand also has a research and up, which will be run by Dr Taid e v e l o p m e n t l a b o r a t o r y i n ping Fan of the university's Shanghai where its scientists department of pharmacology, analyse herbal remedies, some scientists will try to identify dating back 2,000 years, to ingredients that could be used in establish their active ingredients. skin care products to be marketed The company already has a under Chi-Med's Sen consumer proprietary patent medicine for products brand.

Chi-Med is controlled by Hutchison Whampoa, a Hong Kong conglomerate that owns ports and telephone companies in the UK, and is headed by Asia's richest man, Li Ka-shing. Hutchison was also behind the creation of Orange in the early 1990s. The company's key product to date is HMPL-004, a compound based on a Chinese remedy for inflammation of the bowel, which Chi-Med is hoping will prove a winning treatment for ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease. Trials are ongoing. • Pharmaceuticals industry • Medical research • University of Cambridge • China Richard Wray guardian.co.uk© Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions| More Feeds

Submitted at 12/22/2009 1:00:00 PM

Filed under: Bad news, Competitive strategy, Palm Inc (PALM) Palm Inc. ( PALM) seemed like a company with a solid comeback plan last summer. After more than a year of downward spiraling, the company was on the verge of releasing its hottest product probably ever, the Palm Pre. This was supposed to be the wireless handset that would finally challenge the Apple ( AAPL) iPhone with it's slick user interface and svelte design. Sales of the Pre in recent quarters were indeed decent, although Palm's decision to choose Sprint Nextel ( S) as its exclusive launch partner may have dampened things a bit.

The camera blast shield is a one tough cookie By Matt Burns (CrunchGear) Submitted at 12/22/2009 10:30:48 AM

This is just cool. The pic is of a

camera blast shield that’s used to capture those spectacular but deadly explosion videos. The best part is that this is homemade

device seems somewhat easy to

make. That is, of course, if you’re interested in building a camera to record all the shit you blow up. Video after the jump.

Although Sprint's network, at this time, fares way better than AT&T's ( T) network that is constantly being made fun of, the Pre still didn't slow down iPhone purchases. Continue reading Where Is Palm Headed After the Hype from Last Summer? Where Is Palm Headed After the Hype from Last Summer? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 22 Dec 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

Finance/ Gadgets/ Tech News/

E-reader News Edition

Jabil Circuit Q1 Earnings Beat Estimates

Yelp rival, ReachLocal, Files for an IPO

By Brent Archer (BloggingStocks)

could be a good time to look at a bullish hedged trade on JBL. JBL opened this morning at Submitted at 12/22/2009 1:20:00 PM $16.01. So far today the stock Filed under: Major movement, has hit a low of $15.76 and a Earnings reports, Good news, high of $16.49. As of 11:55, JBL Options, Technical Analysis Jabil is trading at $16.46 up $1.44 Circuit ( JBL- option chain) (9.6%). The chart for JBL looks shares are rising today after the bullish and S&P gives JBL a company reported earnings last positive 4 STARS (out of 5) buy night, posting a first-quarter ranking. profit of $28.3 million, or 13 Continue reading Jabil Circuit cents per share. JBL's core Q1 Earnings Beat Estimates earnings came in at 32 cents per Jabil Circuit Q1 Earnings Beat share on revenue of $3.1 billion, Estimates originally appeared on By Zac Bissonnette topping analysts' forecasts of 29 BloggingStocks on Tue, 22 Dec (BloggingStocks) cents per share on revenue of 2009 13:20:00 EST. Please see $3.1 billion. If you think that the our terms for use of feeds. Submitted at 12/22/2009 12:40:00 PM stock won't fall by too much in Permalink| Email this| Comments Filed under: Newspapers Even the coming months, then now the week of Christmas isn't enough to provide a reprieve for the ongoing rout in the newspaper industry. Heartland Publications, which publishes around 50 community newspapers in nine states, filed By matt buchanan (Gizmodo) (meaning they know a lot of stuff for Chapter 11 bankruptcy about you), you probably wanna protection on Monday. The Submitted at 12/22/2009 10:48:08 AM know how they're thinking, right? company is looking to restructure This treatise was an email sent to The short version: open standards $156 million in secured debt, and Googlers about the meaning of and open information, whatever blamed "significant liquidity "open" for Google. It's long, but that means. [ Google] challenges" and "weakened if you use Google products

By Tom Taulli (BloggingStocks) Submitted at 12/22/2009 2:00:00 PM

Filed under: Google (GOOG), Initial public offerings Lately, the market for local online advertising has heated up. Based on various reports, it looks like Google ( GOOG) was ready to pay $550 million for Yelp, which is a leader in the space. But the operating results" for the filing. deal fell to pieces -- probably Increases in the minimum wage because of a disagreement on the have also been a problem. valuation. T h e c o m p a n y r e a c h e d a This definitely bodes well for restructuring deal with its first- another player, ReachLocal. In lien lenders, and will continue to fact, this week the company filed operate. to go public. Continue reading Heartland Continue reading Yelp rival, Publications Files for Bankruptcy ReachLocal, Files for an IPO Heartland Publications Files for Yelp rival, ReachLocal, Files for Bankruptcy originally appeared an IPO originally appeared on on BloggingStocks on Tue, 22 BloggingStocks on Tue, 22 Dec Dec 2009 12:40:00 EST. Please 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please see see our terms for use of feeds. our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Permalink| Email this| Comments Comments

Heartland Publications Files for Bankruptcy

What "Open" Means to Google [Google]

Accept Defeat: The Neuroscience of Screwing Up By Jonah Lehrer (Wired Top Stories)

If we can train our brains to embrace failure, we open

ourselves to new discoveries.

Finance/ Gadgets/

E-reader News Edition

Central Garden Is Trying Investors' Patience

Existing home sales surge 7.4% in November

By Joseph Lazzaro (BloggingStocks)

By Connie Madon (BloggingStocks)

Submitted at 12/22/2009 1:40:00 PM

Submitted at 12/22/2009 2:30:00 PM

Filed under: Stocks to Buy Central Garden & Pet Company's ( CENT) stock continues to meander, but I'm reiterating my buy rating for the shares, first recommended on June 22, 2009 at a price of $10.16. Here's why: Central posted Q3 EPS of 12 cents, in-line with the First Call Q3 EPS estimate of 12 cents, and that's good enough to keep the company's recovery narrative inplace. Namely -- that CENT, which receives about 50% of its revenue from pet products/care, will not suffer the fate of other retail plays, under the thesis that the now 'frugal consumer' Americans will give up a lot before giving up their pets. Continue reading Central Garden

Filed under: Good news, Economic data, Housing By all measures the housing market is improving. Last month we saw a 7.4% surge in existing home sales in November. 6.54 million units were sold, compared with 6.09 million in October. Analysts had expected sales to come in at 6.25 million. Much of the increase came from government incentives for first time home buyers. A tax credit of Is Trying Investors' Patience $8,000.00 was extended into next Central Garden Is Trying year. A second incentive of Investors' Patience originally $ 6 , 5 0 0 . 0 0 w a s a d d e d f o r appeared on BloggingStocks on homeowners who lived in their Tue, 22 Dec 2009 13:40:00 EST. homes for five years and are Please see our terms for use of willing to relocate. feeds. Permalink| Email this| Continue reading Existing home Comments sales surge 7.4% in November

Samurai Sword Chopsticks Let You Seppuku Your Sashimi [Chopsticks] By Brian Barrett (Gizmodo) Submitted at 12/22/2009 11:40:00 AM

If you love sushi but hate sharing, these chopsticks should help fend off any potential unagi poachers. There are three sets of chopsticks and holders, in all, named after actual 17th century samurai. Those who can't wait until May can pre-order here. Existing home sales surge 7.4% Don't be fooled: they may call it in November originally appeared a toy, but you and I both know on BloggingStocks on Tue, 22 that in the right hands it's a tool Dec 2009 14:30:00 EST. Please for righteousness. Or at least for see our terms for use of feeds. fatty tuna. [ Nerd Approved] Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

Last Minute Shopping: Gift Guide Roundup By Doug Aamoth (CrunchGear) Submitted at 12/22/2009 10:00:00 AM

Still haven’t gotten all those holiday gifts? You still have a wee bit o’ time left. Whether you’re planning to run out to a brick and mortar store or you’re

willing to test the limits of expedited shipping, here’s a quick rundown of ideas and info from our gift guide. • Public Service Announcement: Holiday Shipping Deadlines• Gift Guide 2009: Netbooks• Gift Guide 2009: Portable Media Players• Gift Guide 2009:

Peripherals• Gift Guide 2009: rules of HDTV buying• Bag Smartphones• Gift Guide 2009: Week Review Round-up Pocket Camcorders• Gift Guide 2009: Headphones• Gift Guide 2009: Gaming Consoles• Gift Guide 2009: Wireless E-book Readers• Gift Guide 2009: Toys• Gift Guide 2009: Gifts for the Technologically Impaired• The 5

CrunchGear 2009 Holiday Gift Guide

Gadgets/

E-reader News Edition

Microsoft loses patent appeal; Word and Office to be barred from sale starting January 11

Mom Calls Cops For Help With Son's Gaming Addiction [Video Games]

By Nilay Patel (Engadget)

By CNET (Gizmodo)

Submitted at 12/22/2009 1:35:00 PM

It's getting closer and closer to check-writing time for Steve Ballmer, as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has just upheld a decision that would see Microsoft Word and Office banned from sale starting January 11. If you'll recall, Microsoft lost a patent infringement suit against XML specialists i4i back in May when it was found that Word's handling of .xml, .docx, and .docm files infringed upon i4i's patented XML handling algorithms, but the injunction against further Word sales was put on hold pending the results of this appeal. Now that Microsoft has lost once again, we'd expect either another appeal and request for the injunction to be stayed, this time to the Supreme Court, or for a settlement between these two that would end this whole mess right

now. We'll see what happens -stay tuned. P.S.- Just to be clear on this, i4i isn't a patent troll -- it's a a 30 person database design company that shipped one of the first XML plugins for Office and was actually responsible for revamping the entire USPTO database around XML to make it

compatible with Word back in 2000. What's more, the patents involved here don't cover XML itself, but rather the specific algorithms used to read and write custom XML -- so OpenOffice users can breathe easy, as i4i has said the suite doesn't infringe. Existing Office users should also be fine, as only future sales of

Word are affected by the ruling, not any already-sold products. Engadget: Helping you flame with accuracy. Update: Microsoft says it's moving quickly to prepare versions of Office 2007 and Word 2007 that don't have the "little-used" XML features for sale by January 11, and that the Office 2010 beta "does not contain the technology covered by the injunction." It's also considering an appeal, so we'll see what happens there. Microsoft loses patent appeal; Word and Office to be barred from sale starting January 11 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 22 Dec 2009 13:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Wall Street Journal| Email this| Comments

New Bada UI screens look new-agey yet familiar By Tim Stevens (Engadget) Submitted at 12/22/2009 11:47:00 AM

Okay, so HTC doesn't own exclusive rights to create a flipclock displays on phones, but the style is something of a hallmark of Sense UI and now here one is in Samsung's Bada platform -though seemingly tucked away in

the date setting window. That's just one of a set of new screens uncovered at Samsung Hub showing off a media player that loves to show off album art and to truncate artist names, a photo browser full of delicious stock imagery, and that very familiar looking home screen to the left above. Things really don't look

bad at all, but we're still having a hard time getting excited about

this one. New Bada UI screens look newagey yet familiar originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 22 Dec 2009 11:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink MobileTechWorld| Samsung Hub| Email this| Comments

Submitted at 12/22/2009 11:58:17 AM

A 14-year-old boy's mother had enough with her son's gaming over the weekend. After turning off the console hoping he would stop gaming, she called police to ask for their help in solving her son's "addiction." According to the story first reported in the Boston Herald, Angela Mejia had enough with her son's gaming when she found him playing Grand Theft Auto at 2:30 a.m. She told him to go to sleep, but he refused. "Sometimes I want to run away, too," Mejia told the Boston Herald. "I have support from my church, but I'm alone. I want to help my son, but I can't find a way." After unplugging her son's game console, she decided to call 911. Police came to Mejia's home and coaxed the boy into going to sleep. "[The police] were just like, 'Chill out. Go to bed,'" Mejia's son told the Herald. What Mejia's son did when he woke up is unknown. My guess: he played a video game. Yours? This story originally appeared on CNET

Gadgets/

E-reader News Edition

USB Hourglass flips itself, generating random numbers in the process By Joseph L. Flatley (Engadget)

America the beautiful: Mother calls 911 because her kid was playing GTA past bedtime. Yeah. By Nicholas Deleon (CrunchGear) Submitted at 12/22/2009 9:30:29 AM

Gotta love cops. A woman in Boston got mad at her 14-yearold son for being up at 2:30am This is such a bizarre playing Grand Theft Auto. (At combination of the old and the least the kid wasn’t smoking dust new that at least a few of our in the street at that hour.) In fact, geekiest readers are sure to get a she got so mad that she called kick out of it. The USB 911 for help. You know, “You Hourglass is essentially an egg have to help me. My son is up in timer equipped with an optical the middle of the night playing beam for keeping an eye on sand video games! I don’t know what levels and a rotating mechanism to do!” The cops responded, no for flipping the thing when all the doubt aggravated that they had to sand has landed at the bottom. But that ain't all! The observed little beyond us this morning, Hourglass flips itself, generating deal with this garbage, by saying, “Calm down, ma’am. Just put light levels are sent to a host PC although we're sure that this will random numbers in the process (via USB, which also supplies produce a lively and intelligent USB Hourglass flips itself, your dumb kid to bed.” That’s power) where any of your discussion in the comments generating random numbers in not an exact quote, but you know favorite open source tools can ( w h e r e m a n y a l i v e l y a n d the process originally appeared that’s what they were thinking. The woman, Angela Mejia, u s e i t t o g e n e r a t e r a n d o m intelligent discussion has taken on Engadget on Tue, 22 Dec numbers. The rest of this -- place over the years). Just make 2009 12:52:00 EST. Please see feared that her son was addicted "entropy," "random" versus sure you peep the video after the our terms for use of feeds. to video games. Rather than " p s e u d o r a n d o m " n u m b e r break first -- it's a blast. Permalink Hack-A-Day| USB throwing the kid’s PlayStation generators, etc. -- is simply a C o n t i n u e r e a d i n g U S B Hourglass| Email this| Comments into the Charles like a normal parent would do, she waffles, baffled that her son is acting out by having the audacity to stay up late and play games. Submitted at 12/22/2009 12:52:00 PM

You Mess With Nature, Nature Will Mess With You Right Back [Nature] By Adam Frucci (Gizmodo) Submitted at 12/22/2009 11:20:42 AM

Here is a photo of a

videographer getting taken down by an eagle. This is basically the plot of Avatar completely summed up, made for

million. [ Reddit via The Daily What] considerably less than $250

And who knows: maybe this kid is absolutely miserable, and the time he spends playing video games represents his only outlet. That certainly sounds familiar. It’s like, I could see the mother being upset if her son ran with gang-bangers, but staying up past his bedtime to get in a little GTA? Doesn’t sound like too big a problem to me, and certainly not worthy of harassing the 911 operators. As if they don’t have actual emergencies to respond to!

Gadgets/ Tech/

E-reader News Edition

Panasonic officially owns Sanyo and boasts the world’s largest plasma panel plant now By Serkan Toto (CrunchGear)

located in Amagasaki in Southern Japan and is ready to produce the Submitted at 12/22/2009 9:20:15 AM largest PDPs in the industry Good news for Panasonic in the (Panasonic says panels sized at last 48 hours. The company 330 centimeters by 190 cm can announced yesterday that it now now be mass-produced). officially turned Sanyo into a The company seems to believe subsidiary after acquiring a there’s still a lot of room for flat 50.27% stake in its smaller rival. TV sales and has big plans for The merger was in the making the near future. Its new plasma f o r s e v e r a l m o n t h s , a n d panel plant will begin full-scale Panasonic paid a whopping $4.4 operation next month, producing billion to make it happen. So we 120,000 42-inch plasma panels now have Japan’s second largest per month. electronics maker in terms of Panasonic aims at offering a sales (Hitachi is still the biggest). total of 30 million plasma and And one day later, Tuesday LCD TVs in fiscal 2012, double m o r n i n g J a p a n e s e t i m e , the amount for fiscal 2009. Panasonic announced another Another new plant is scheduled By Donald Melanson accomplishment: The company to begin producing LCD TVs in (Engadget) has completed the world’s largest July 2010. Submitted at 12/22/2009 12:21:00 PM plant for plasma panels. It’s There's certainly plenty of good looking iPhone games available these days, but things could be about to get quite a bit more interesting, as Epic has now By Dong Ngo (Webware.com) based unit and launches the demonstrated its Unreal Engine 3 w o r l d w i d e P l u g C o m p u t e r (the same one used for games Submitted at 12/22/2009 11:30:00 AM like Gears of War 2) running on developer competition. Marvell celebrates the shipping Originally posted at News - the iPhone 3GS and 3rd gen iPod touch to our friend Anand Shimpi of the 10,000th SheevaPlug- Digital Media of AnandTech. Unfortunately, it

Epic shows off Unreal Engine 3 running on iPhone / iPod touch

Marvell launches worldwide Plug Computer competition

hasn't also announced any games or licensees that will be using the engine, but it seems like it has at least managed to get it running remarkably well on the hardware -- albeit in a somewhat limited demo, as you can see in the video after the break. What's more, Epic also reportedly said that it would be showing off the engine running on "another mobile platform entirely" at CES next month, but didn't drop any further hints besides that. Video after the break, and hit the read

link for the full scoop. Continue reading Epic shows off Unreal Engine 3 running on iPhone / iPod touch Epic shows off Unreal Engine 3 running on iPhone / iPod touch originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 22 Dec 2009 12:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| AnandTech| Email this| Comments

Gadgets/

E-reader News Edition

Comcast settles bandwidth throttling lawsuit for $16 million. That’s 4 hours of revenue. By Nicholas Deleon (CrunchGear)

Modder mods new fangled wireless keyboard Art Lebedev introduces to look like old timey one 'Fleximus' camera By Laura June (Engadget) Submitted at 12/22/2009 1:23:00 PM

Before you laugh awkwardly at the weird sense of nostalgia this keyboard dredges up in your mind, let us introduce you to its wonders. Apparently modded by a Dutch man or woman courageous enough to admit that (like us) they prefer the pretty much extinct, giant, tactile-as-allget out keyboards to newer, more streamlined models, this mod takes away the only gripe we ever had with such peripherals -namely, their wiredness. The enterprising DIYer's taken a Logitech wireless Wii keyboard apart, mapping all the key codes

along the way, thrown in a little basic soldering, wedged everything into the old keyboard and voila! Pretty magical, right? Well, okay -- not really, but still - we sort of dig it. There's a before shot after the break, and hit the source link for the poorly machine translated how-to. Continue reading Modder mods new fangled wireless keyboard to look like old timey one Modder mods new fangled wireless keyboard to look like old timey one originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 22 Dec 2009 13:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Tweakers| Email this| Comments

concept By Donald Melanson (Engadget) Submitted at 12/22/2009 2:43:00 PM

Well, it looks like Art Lebedev has more than the rather ingenious Transparentius concept in store for us today -- it's also introduced this so-called Fleximus concept for a flexible digital camera. Not exactly anything new there, per se, but Art Lebedev seems to be pitching this one specifically to photographers, not just folks that want to peek in hard-to-see places. To that end, the Fleximus comes equipped with a proper viewfinder on one end of camera, which can also be detached and

replaced with a 3-inch LCD module (check it out after the break). Of course, this is still just a concept so there's nothing in the way of specs, but you can get an exhaustive look at the design process at the link below. Continue reading Art Lebedev introduces 'Fleximus' camera concept Art Lebedev introduces 'Fleximus' camera concept originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 22 Dec 2009 14:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink Electronista| Art Lebedev| Email this| Comments

Submitted at 12/22/2009 11:00:28 AM

Whoever says the legal system in this country is broken, well, you’re right. Comcast was caught tampering with its customers’ packets two years ago. It bitched and moaned like nobody’s business, earning itself no friends. The Federal Communications Commission sanctioned the gigantic corporation in what amounted to a slap on the wrist. Big deal. A class action lawsuit was filed, which was just settled for $16 million. Comcast raked in$34.3 billion in revenue in 2008, meaning that this settlement amounts to four hours of revenue. That’s right: four hours. Take that, corporate America! If Comcast screwed with your packets between April 1, 2006 and December 31, 2008, you may be entitled to a piece of that $16 million pot. I write this happy as a clam with my Internet Service Provider, Optimum Online. Nothing wrong with totally uncapped 101/15 megabits per second.

Gadgets/

E-reader News Edition

Hello Kitty gets another 12.1 meowgapixel camera to celebrate her 35th anniversary By Laura June (Engadget) Submitted at 12/22/2009 2:11:00 PM

Why Even Clumsy People Like You Would Have Trouble Breaking The Display On a Motorola Droid [Science] By Sean Fallon (Gizmodo)

Apparently, Gorilla Glass differs from the product you might find in a typical smartphone because If you were cursed with buttery it allows "larger ions to penetrate fingers, you might want to the surface more deeply to consider what kind of display i n c r e a s e t h e c o m p r e s s i o n glass your gadgets are sporting. tolerance and tolerate deeper Devices like the Motorola Droid, scratches." This is achieved Dell Adamo laptop and Cowon though a aluminum-composite S9 PMP have added strength composition that can be made because of Gorilla Glass. extremely thin and light because Submitted at 12/22/2009 10:58:00 AM

of its strength. Corning, the company behind the glass, is hoping to expand the reach of their product to other consumer electronics and even vehiclesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;anything that needs to withstand the elements. And by "elements" I mean clumsy, uncoordinated types... Adam? [ Smartplanet and Gorilla Glass]

Can you believe that Hello Kitty's turning 35? She sure does look great for her age! Surprisingly this is not the first 12.1 megapixeled Casio digicam we've seen outed to commemorate this most special of occasions -- but it certainly comes in some of the hottest pinks we've seen thus far. This limited edition, Korea-only Casio EX-Z90 boasts all the same features as the regular one -- 3X optical zoom, auto-detect and

"Intelligent" autofocus -- plus those megapixels we already mentioned. Really, the biggest selling point here is the blinged up branding, and we'd assume that makes it worth the KRW 350,000 (around $300) price tag. Hello Kitty gets another 12.1 meowgapixel camera to celebrate her 35th anniversary originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 22 Dec 2009 14:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink Popgadget| Aving| Email this| Comments

Gadgets/ Tech/ Politics/

E-reader News Edition

Of course there should be a digital picture frame and alarm clock By Matt Burns (CrunchGear) Submitted at 12/22/2009 11:30:53 AM

I’ll just say it. Everything is better with a digital picture frame. If someone put a digital picture frame in a toaster, I would buy three. So with that in mind, imagine my excitement when I saw this Insignia alarm

This SNES controller has a flash drive loaded with ROMs inside By Matt Burns (CrunchGear) Submitted at 12/22/2009 12:00:56 PM

Step 1: Be a huge nerd. Step 2: Deconstruct a SNES controller and a flash drive. Step 3: Solder shit. Step 4: Become an even bigger nerd. [ Ben Heck Forums via hackaday]

World's Highest Glacier Ski Run is Nearly Gone (Little Green Footballs) Submitted at 12/21/2009 8:38:47 PM

The Chacaltaya glacier in Bolivia was once the highest

Lord Lucas Wants UK Digital Economy Bill To Include Remedy For Bogus Copyright Threats

The NS-DPFC01 is $50 at Best Buy and does the standard duties of a clock. The 320 x 240 3.5inch screen is backed with 128MB of memory, which is By Mike Masnick (Techdirt) more than enough for about a million and a half pics of my Submitted at 12/22/2009 11:11:00 AM clock with built-in digital picture dog, Ferrari. Oh, and it comes We've heard so many stories of frame. I know, right? Awesome. with a remote for some reason. copyfraud that many of us have ubergizmo> been wondering why there aren't greater penalties for making bogus copyright claims. It appears at least someone over in the UK is asking the same question. We already noted how Lord Lucas, a technology aware member of the House of Lords By Tom Krazit who can program and has run (Webware.com) some digital businesses, was 14 Christmas Wishes Submitted at 12/22/2009 9:49:00 AM speaking out against Peter Left Unspoken for Employees have known since Mandelson's Digital Economy Obvious Reasons April that they'll have to take Bill, noting that the entertainment [Photoshop Contest] unpaid leave or vacation days for industry is to blame for not the week between Christmas and adapting. By Adam Frucci (Gizmodo) New Year's as a cost-saving Now, via Michael Scott, we Submitted at 12/22/2009 11:00:00 AM learn that Lord Lucas has measure at Yahoo. introduced an addition to the There's a reason that people ask Originally posted at Relevant Digital Economy Bill adding for realistic stuff like the Star Results remedies against those who bring Trek Blu-ray for Christmas "groundless" copyright claims:" instead of what they really want 169A. Remedy for groundless in their heart of hearts. Because threats of infringement their heart of hearts are fucking proceedings crazy. (1) Where a person threatens another person with proceedings for infringement of copyright, a person aggrieved by the threats glacier ski run in the world — scientists.[Video] may bring an action against him and in the next few months it’s (Hat tip: KT.) claiming-going to disappear completely, (a) a declaration to the effect that five years ahead of the most the threats are unjustifiable; pessimistic prediction by climate

Yahoo shutting down for the holidays

(b) an injunction against the continuance of the threats; (c) damages in respect of any loss which he has sustained by the threats. (2) If the claimant proves that the threats were made and that he is a person aggrieved by them, he is entitled to the relief claimed unless the defendant shows that the acts in respect of which proceedings were threatened did constitute, or if done would have constituted, an infringement of the copyright concerned. (3) Mere notification that work is protected by copyright does not constitute a threat of proceedings for the purposes of this section. (4) A copyright infringement report within the meaning of section 124A(3) of the Communications Act 2003, if notified to a subscriber under section 124A(4) of the Communications Act 2003, does constitute a threat of proceedings for the purposes of this section." While it would be nice to see those who are falsely accused of copyright infringement have at least some stronger legal rights, it seems unlikely that this gets anywhere. Permalink| Comments| Email This Story

Tech/

E-reader News Edition

AT&T strategist learns lessons of battlefield (CNET News.com)

precisely the type of outing that Cicconi finds valuable. Cicconi, who has served in the White This is the last in a series of House under two U.S. presidents, profiles that look at how the tech is a huge history buff. industry is working with the But as a student of history, the federal government. point of the trip to Gettysburg W A S H I N G T O N , D . C . - - I n was not just a history lesson, but October 2006 Jim Cicconi, a it was a lesson in strategic senior executive vice president at thinking, a lesson that could be AT&T who heads up legislative applied to the regulatory and affairs, took his team of top legislative battles that are going regulatory lawyers to Gettysburg on in Washington, D.C., today. to teach them battlefield strategy. "It was a very instructive exercise For two days, 15 senior AT&T for understanding how Jim managers stood on the very spot approaches things," said Bob where more than 50,000 men had Quinn, a senior vice president at died during one of the greatest AT&T who works on Cicconi's battles in the Civil War, and they regulatory affairs team, and who listened to a former West Point attended the Gettysburg trip. "Jim history professor dissect the three is very good at figuring out the -day battle, paying particular right context in which to have a attention to the decisions made particular regulatory argument to by the Confederate and Union achieve victory." generals. Cicconi's political prowess and Jim Cicconi, senior executive ability to understand what vice president of legislative motivates his opponents has affairs, AT&T(Credit: AT&T) helped put AT&T ahead of many They discussed General Sickles companies on the regulatory and and his move toward Peach legislative front when it comes to Orchard. They heard about Lee's technology issues. And to know attack on Cemetery Ridge and something about Cicconi is to Pickett's Charge, which resulted better understand how AT&T in severe casualties. And they approaches important issues, analyzed the Union's defense of such as Net neutrality, wireless Little Roundtop, a strategic spectrum reallocation, and position that the federals held reforming the universal service during the battle and a battle that fund. helped seal the North's victory in Applying histories lessons in the Gettysburg. present W h i l e a " f i e l d t r i p " t o Cicconi has tried to instill his Gettysburg may seem like a strategic thought process in the strange choice for a corporate rest of his staff. And the key team-building exercise, it is theme from the Gettysburg trip Submitted at 12/22/2009 11:15:00 AM

unnecessary. On the opposite side of the debate are consumer groups, such as Public Knowledge and Free Press, as well as Internet companies, namely Google. These groups are united in their quest to bring official regulation and rules of the road to the Internet to ensure that Internet service providers don't favor certain players at the expense of others. The debate has heated up and cooled down over the past couple of years. But with a Democratic FCC now in power, it's almost certain that some regulation will that Cicconi wanted to emphasize be drafted by the FCC in the to his management team was that c o m i n g m o n t h s . C i c c o n i if you are going to engage in any recognizes this, and he has kind of battle, it is crucial to pick shifted his strategy to reshaping the terrain on which that fight is the fight to ensure regulations fought. At the end of the day, the don't go too far. Union army won the battle of "Net neutrality is an important Gettysburg because it was better issue to us but not in the sense situated on the battlefield. The you might think," Cicconi said. Union picked the good ground " T h e F C C ' s o p e n I n t e r n e t and forced the Confederate army principles have done a good job to attack them from a much less preserving Net neutrality. There's been one complaint in four or desirable position. It is this same strategy that five years and it was handled. So AT&T is employing in its fight the question going forward is can against Net neutrality regulation. the FCC find a sweet spot where A T & T a n d o t h e r n e t w o r k they can provide the reassurance providers have opposed the that some groups need that adoption of official regulation abuses won't occur, while making that will establish rules against certain it doesn't prohibit us from blocking or discriminating managing our networks or against Internet traffic on their offering certain services." network. AT&T, which has been Using this idea of choosing the at the forefront of the battle, terrain for the battle, AT&T believes that no new rules are earlier this year sent a letter to needed and official regulation is the FCC accusing Google, its

biggest rival in the Net neutrality battle, of violating the very principles it has been fighting to make regulation. In its letter to the FCC, AT&T accused Google of hypocrisy for blocking some phone calls on its free Google Voice product. Google has argued that Net neutrality principles don't apply to its service because it doesn't own the underlying infrastructure. "We were careful to choose an example where we could talk about how the Net neutrality principles and network openness should apply throughout the entire Internet ecosystem rather than focusing simply on certain network providers," Quinn said "The goal was to find a situation where Google would have a difficult time defending its decision to block calls." Politics and public service One of the things that you notice when you walk into Cicconi's office on the 10th floor of the old AT&T building on 20th Street, NW in Washington, D.C., are the pictures behind his desk of him shaking hands with Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush. There are also a few U.S. Navy Aircraft carrier hats lined up on another table. Cicconi, who has served two presidents during his career, says that the years spent in public service were very fulfilling, but also very stressful and taxing. AT&T page 20

Tech/

E-reader News Edition

The Top 2009 Social Media Trends for Moms By Noa Gafni (Mashable!) Submitted at 12/22/2009 9:51:59 AM

Noa Gafni is a social media consultant with a focus on women and Gen Y. She authors Webutantes, a blog about Internet trends impacting women. 2009 was the year of the social media mom. So-called “mommy bloggers” broke away from their niche audiences and went mainstream, and social marketers took notice. Here are some highlights from 2009, and some thoughts on what lies ahead for social media moms. Twitter Twitter was the social media success of 2009, one that particularly impacted moms. Twitter garnered rave reviews as the “perfect” social media outlet for mothers: easy to use and access, and the 140 character limit ensured minimal networking effort. As the microblogging site drew mainstream attention, moms moved from following friends and family to following the updates of brands and celebrities. Household names began tweeting multiple times per day. Martha Stewart made headlines when she publicly declared her preference for Twitter over Facebook. Kathy Ireland quickly followed suit. Oprah has over 2.8 million followers, and Ellen DeGeneres has nearly 4 million following her@TheEllenShow account. Facebook As marketers became more

comfortable using Facebook, they began targeting moms in more unique and engaging ways. In June, diaper brand Huggies teamed up with Circle of Moms to create a Huggies Zone on Circle of Moms’ Facebook application with parenting information, advice, quizzes, and offers from Huggies’ Enjoy the Ride rewards site. Chains like Outback Steakhouse and Papa John’s Pizza grabbed moms’ attention (and hundreds of thousands of fans) by enticing new fans with coupons. More recently, Clorox Clean Up and Toys “R” Us reached out to moms through charitable programs. Although these companies have traditionally been involved in sponsoring clothing drives and donating to children’s programs, particularly around the holidays, this is the first year that they promoted these activities and incorporated moms’ support on their Facebook pages. It will be interesting to see how Facebook’s new promotional guidelines will impact these campaigns going forward. Blogs Mommy bloggers became legitimate outlets for PR agencies this year. In 2008, the major mommy blogger issue was whether companies could contact mommy bloggers to test out products and run contests. In 2009, the issue was not if but how to approach bloggers in a respectful, mutually beneficial way. Mom bloggers were

PoshMama, dubbed “The Hip Hangout for Haute Mamas” is a Ning-operated social network that screens members prior to approving them. The site also features an online magazine with tips on fashion, fitness, and inspirational and informational features like “words to live by” credited with fueling a variety of and “gifts that don’t cost a cent.” trends, including the Zhu Zhu Looking Forward hamster toy fad. Cool Mom 2010 should bring even more Picks, Mamaista, GuruMommy, exciting updates for moms and and many others have created social media. The increasing successful businesses off of their penetration of smart phones will product reviews. The prevalence create opportunities for forwardof product reviews and product thinking brands. Expect more endorsement spurred such a mobile applications and ad controversy that the FTC revised campaigns targeting moms. i t s g u i d e l i n e s . C u r r e n t l y , Women are catching up to men in bloggers must provide disclosure o n l i n e v i d e o v i e w i n g a n d statements on their endorsements gaming, tools that marketers in order to avoid hefty fines that have, until now, stayed away could be assessed for each from when reaching out to offending post. Niche Social moms. Networks As Facebook tightens its rules Niche social networks for around what companies can and mothers are not new. Major cannot do on its site, brands will players like Café Mom and likely move to more flexible Circle of Moms have been platforms, like Twitter and around for years. However, the YouTube, for contests. Also, l a t e s t s i t e s h a v e a m o r e watch out for more multisophisticated appeal, enabling platform campaigns, encouraging mothers to connect on topics moms to engage with brands on beyond parenting. CityMommy multiple channels. is a location-based social network Image courtesy of iStockphoto, for moms in major metropolitan netris areas across the US. In addition Tags: Circle of Moms, facebook, to parenting groups and photo List, Lists, mommy bloggers, sharing, moms can also discover Moms, social media, twitter local events (such as yoga classes and running clubs), up-to-date neighborhood information, and an exhaustive local directory.

Justice Department May Unwind Diebold E -voting Sale To ES&S By Mike Masnick (Techdirt) Submitted at 12/22/2009 3:42:46 AM

After getting hammered publicly for having e-voting machines that didn't work well and had serious security problems, Diebold tried sell off its e-voting division for years with no luck. It then tried to change its name to Premier, hoping people wouldn't realize it was Diebold. In the end, Diebold finally found a buyer in ES&S, the other large player in the market. Between them they own 70% of the US market, apparently. And that's leading to some concern. The Justice Department is apparently looking into the deal to see if it should be unwound, out of fear that ES&S will jack up prices. Honestly, I don't see what the value is in unwinding the deal. Then you'll have two awful evoting companies with terrible track records with security and accuracy, rather than one. Instead, why aren't we focusing on requiring truly open solutions so that we actually verify that an e-voting system is both secure and accurate? Permalink| Comments| Email This Story

Tech/

E-reader News Edition

AT&T continued from page 18

Still, he said the experience has made him sympathetic to those now serving in the FCC or in Congress. "Working in the White House was the hardest job I ever had," he said. "Making important decisions in a constant sleepdeprived state was a sobering experience. So I understand that these are hard jobs. I know what it's like to serve in public office with the pressure and demands." Cicconi got his start in Washington, D.C., at the behest of James Baker, the former chief of staff for President Ronald Reagan. Cicconi, who met Baker while he was still in law school at the University of Texas, joined the White House as special assistant to Reagan in 1981. And he kept the position for four years. He then went to work at the Washington, D.C., law practice of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld. When President George H.W. Bush was elected in 1988, Cicconi left the private sector to return to the White House for two more years, this time as deputy chief of staff. He went back to his law firm as a partner and worked with AT&T. In 1998, Cicconi went to work for AT&T as the executive vice president of law and government affairs. A few months later he was named

general counsel. The early years that Cicconi spent with AT&T were mainly dealing with fallout from the breakup of the monopoly Bell phone system in 1984 and the s u b s e q u e n t 1 9 9 6 Telecommunications Act, which was supposed to force competition into the market. As the market evolved, AT&T a long-distance phone company, saw opportunity in competing in the local phone market. And local phone providers, such as SBC which had been prevented from operating a long-distance network, wanted to get into that that business, too. For eight years, Cicconi fought SBC and other former local phone companies at the FCC and in court over sharing elements of their voice networks to allow AT&T to compete with them. In retrospect, Cicconi says that he and everyone else at AT&T knew that forcing competition in this market was not a viable longterm strategy. But at the time it was the only option AT&T had, since building its own local phone network would have been expensive. "Network sharing is very counterproductive," Cicconi said. "What I didn't see at the time was that capital investment in building new infrastructure dropped dramatically during that

period. But the clarification from the FCC on regulations, helped unleash a lot of growth in broadband deployment. Verizon launched Fios. And AT&T started our U-Verse service. The cable companies started upgrading to Docsis 3.0." In 2004, Cicconi said that the writing was already on the wall for AT&T. In March of that year, AT&T and other companies like it, were dealt the final blow. The U.S. Appeals Court for the D.C. circuit overturned the FCC's regulations that forced phone companies to share their voice infrastructure with companies such as AT&T. Quinn said: "Those were some tough times. We were fighting for the future of the company. And it all happened pretty suddenly and people were really dragging for a while. But Jim said, 'Look, we have lost the battle, but we haven't lost the war yet.'" AT&T decided to get out of the local phone business. It cut its workforce and began concentrating its efforts on its business customers. Within months, AT&T had struck a deal with local phone company SBC Communications, and AT&T was sold in 2005 for about $16 billion. After nearly a decade of intense legal battles, Cicconi switched

sides. His ability to out-maneuver his opponents is a major reason he was asked to stay with the new AT&T. According to corporate folklore, then SBC CEO and Chairman Ed Whitacre said of Jim Cicconi that he needed to have the guy on his team who cost him $4 billion in legal bills. And so he offered Cicconi the opportunity to continue running the show for the new AT&T in Washington, D.C. Sitting in his sound-proof office, a relic left over from the old AT&T, which was paranoid that "spies" from MCI were eavesdropping from their offices literally across the street, Cicconi acknowledges the old battles are over. The competitors are different. And the issues have changed. "The industry has changed pretty dramatically since the days of the old AT&T," he said. "And the issues the industry fought over in the past are not the fights of the future." But for Cicconi the strategy of fighting the new battles remains the same. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

HTC Sends Cease & Desist To Developer Who Made Similar Android Widgets By Mike Masnick (Techdirt) Submitted at 12/22/2009 8:38:00 AM

Tim K alerts us to the news that phone maker HTC has sent a cease & desist nastygram to the developers of an Android widget that certainly had a similar look and feel to HTC's own Sense UI. Except, many people claim that this newer widget, from LevelUp Studios, was actually better. LevelUp apparently has no interest in fighting this, and are ditching the widget, but it seems that they could have a decent argument here. The bigger question, though, is why HTC is bothering? I'm actually a big HTC fan. My last two mobile phones have both been from HTC, and I had been expecting my next one to be from HTC as well. But this sort of bullying for no good reason makes me wonder why I'd want to support a company like that. Honestly, what was HTC "losing" by letting this widget be created? This seems like bullying just for the sake of bullying. Permalink| Comments| Email This Story

Tech/ Tech News/

E-reader News Edition

Tethering for the holiday traveler By Josh Carr (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)) Submitted at 12/22/2009 8:00:00 AM

Filed under: Hacks, How-tos, Internet, iPhone, Jailbreak/pwnage I know that many of our readers will be traveling during the holiday season, so I wanted to share a walk-through that will help keep your MacBook of choice connected on the go. This is an article intended for those using iPhones on carriers that do not officially support tethering. TUAW would like to remind you that this is unsupported and is enabled at the user's own risk. This does require jailbreaking your iPhone, so the unadventurous in the audience may want to pass this up. If you're not already jailbroken, you can download the necessary software, like blackra1n from George Hotz or Pwnage from the iPhone Dev Team. Once you've jailbroken your iPhone, install or open Cydia and navigate to the "Featured Packages" section. Find and install the package named "Modem." That's it on the iPhone side of things, on your computer, navigate to iphonemodem.com and download the helper

application or register the application for $9.99 to disable the registration reminder in the iPhone app (As far as we know, the free version is fully functional). Drag iPhoneModem to your Applications folder. The setup is really that simple. Now all you have to do is open the application on your computer, click connect, then launch the companion app on your iPhone.

The iPhone application will find the network your computer creates and share the Wi-Fi connection between the two devices so you can use your iPhone data plan on your laptop for better browsing. Here's how the developers say it works: On the computer, the helper application creates a new computer-to-computer (or adhoc) Wi-Fi network and

configures the system preferences to use the iPhone as an Internet gateway and proxy. On the iPhone, the application opens a routing engine, DHCP, DNS, HTTP, HTTPS and SOCKS proxies and connects to the helper on the computer. I've had pretty good success with this application in my time with it. I've been using it on and off for over a year -- it's been a great app in clutch situations. I'd recommend it as a virtual stocking stuffer if you have a friend or family member who's jailbroken their iPhone. Let us know your thoughts or your experiences with the app in the comments. Update As several commenters have pointed out, there are several other free solutions that seem to be just as easy as iPhoneModem. Please read through the comments to see if any of those solutions suit you better. TUAW Tethering for the holiday traveler originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 22 Dec 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

Tax prep preview: Which DIY app is right for you? By Jessica Dolcourt (Webware.com)

In anticipation of the 2009 tax season, we've gathered some preliminary information about

tax prep software for the DIY tax -doers among you. Originally posted at The

Download Blog

Google's creed: 'Open will win' By Tom Krazit (Webware.com) Submitted at 12/21/2009 4:04:00 PM

In a 4,000-word manifesto recently penned by Google's Jonathan Rosenberg on the importance of being open, the company once again swears it is a force for good. Originally posted at Relevant Results

Reactor Drawings Make Nuclear History Beautiful By Alexis Madrigal (Wired Top Stories) Submitted at 12/22/2009 11:15:00 AM

Gorgeously drawn, colored and detailed, this collection of nuclear reactor designs shows the history of nuclear power like you've never seen before. Salvaged from one scientist's collection of magazine inserts, the drawings are now digitized for all to admire.

Tech/ Tech News/

E-reader News Edition

NES emulator on the App Store? Not Dozen Daily Deals for anymore. December 22, 2009 By Kelly Guimont (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW))

By Victor Agreda, Jr. (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW))

Studio Debut 6 for PC or Mac for $20 + free shipping • Meritline: [iPod Accessories] USB-Powered Beer Barrel Submitted at 12/22/2009 9:00:00 AM Submitted at 12/22/2009 1:30:00 PM Speaker for $8 + free shipping Filed under: Gaming, iPhone, Filed under: Deals'Tis the season • Shop4Tech: [Store Events] A p p S t o r e , i P o d t o u c h , Apple as to why. I predict they've I would like to think this is the shop until your brains melt (or Shop4tech.com coupon: 15% off Jailbreak/pwnage TUAW loves either proven to be a pushover to issue Apple saw with Nescaline skip it all entirely, depending on no minimum our iPhones and we love our Nintendo, who has no valid claim and that's why it vanished, since your interpretation of the term • Buy.com: [Shipping] Buy.com: N E S g a m e s . W e ' v e b e e n against Nescaline, or decided the "Nintendo's knickers are in a holiday). In that spirit, for the Free shipping via next-day on convinced for some time now they really didn't want the ability twist" reason seems more heavy- next few weeks we'll be rounding select items via PayPal they are two great tastes that to play NES games in the handed. Then again, there's also up a dozen daily deals courtesy • BuyDig: [Secure Digital Cards] would no doubt taste great AppStore. NESv3 continues to be the"no un-vetted code running in our friends at DealNews.com. SanDisk and Lexar Memory together. Tonight I settled in to available in Cydia. Apple's emulation" rule that the C64 Each afternoon tune in to TUAW Cards: 4GB MicroSDHC for $7 write a post about how exciting it draconian and anti-competitive emulator ran afoul of previously, for this handy summary. Keep in + free shipping, more was that you could play old AppStore practices is [sic] sadly which might well be the issue. mind that while our posts will • OfficeMax: [Office Furniture] s c h o o l p u b l i c - d o m a i n a n d why jailbreaking will always Either way I'm disappointed: live on, the deals won't. Each is OfficeMax Folding Polyethylene freeware Nintendo games on remain a necessity. I was all set since my phone is not jailbroken lovingly generated by the deal- Tables from $30 + $8 s&h your iPhone now, thanks to to be indignant about this, but I can't just get it from Cydia now bot every day, so get 'em while • OfficeDepot: [Office J o n a t h a n Z d z i a r s k i a n d then I read the update again. Is it that it's gone from the App Store. they're hot. Enjoy! Furniture] Office Depot Furniture Nescaline, the app he built to do possible that Apple yanked it I do have a couple of long Clearance: Knollwood Corner Ljust that. Ah, Kid Icarus and simply for being available on weekends coming though, and • iTunes Music Store: [iPhone / Hutch for $65 + free shipping, Ninja Gaiden and Zelda and Cydia? Not being the person at Google says it's pretty easy... iPod Apps] Wild West Pinball more Mario, all my old friends back my house who runs a jailbroken TUAW NES emulator on the f o r i P h o n e / i P o d t o u c h • HandHeldItems: [iPhone] again (if I had legal licenses to i P h o n e , I d o n ' t h a v e a n y A p p S t o r e ? N o t a n y m o r e . d o w n l o a d s f o r f r e e , m o r e HandHeldItems.com: Up to 80% the ROM images, of course). I experience with anything being originally appeared on The • iTunes Music Store: [iPhone / off iPhone cases + extra 20% off w a s e x c i t e d t o r e l i v e m y available through Cydia that is U n o f f i c i a l A p p l e W e b l o g iPod Apps] App Store Price coupon pixelated past, but it was not to also available on the App Store. I (TUAW) on Tue, 22 Dec 2009 Drops: I Am T-Pain, DOOM, be. Jason updated his site this know there are those who have 09:00:00 EST. Please see our Tetris, Rock Band, more TUAW Dozen Daily Deals for evening saying Nescaline had been pulled from the App Store terms for use of feeds. • Apple Store: [Shipping] The December 22, 2009 originally been pulled: Nescaline was for one reason or another and Read| Permalink| Email this| Apple Store: Free shipping via appeared on The Unofficial removed from the AppStore by made their way to Cydia, but I Comments next-day no minimum Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, Apple at 22:19 PST tonight. I can't find any apps that seem to • Sony Style: [32" LCD TVs] 22 Dec 2009 13:30:00 EST. haven't received anything from be available in both places. Refurbished Sony BRAVIA 32" Please see our terms for use of 1080p LCD HDTV for $380 + feeds. free shipping, more Permalink| Email this| By Corrina Lawson (Wired Kids weigh in on what they We know some of them haven't • B u y . c o m : [ G r a p h i c s & C o m m e n t s Top Stories) think are the best movies, games, been alive long enough to know, Publishing Software] Anime books, toys, TV shows and but hey, they have opinions! Submitted at 12/22/2009 3:00:00 AM computer sites of the last decade.

Best of the Geek Decade: Let the Kids Decide

Tech/

E-reader News Edition

Steve Jobs, Best CEO in the World? Point Out A Potential Photoshopping Of A Demi Moore Picture, And She Has Her Lawyers Send Out The Nastygrams

By Christina Warren (Mashable!) Submitted at 12/22/2009 10:08:07 AM

Last month, Fortune Magazine named Apple’s Steve Jobs CEO of the Decade. Today, the Harvard Business Review has By Mike Masnick (Techdirt) debate over it, but either way, more attention to the question of released its list of the bestpeople moved on and it was whether or not the image was performing CEOs in the world Submitted at 12/22/2009 9:47:00 AM forgotten. Not so fast! While altered. And, in fact, the guy and unsurprisingly, Jobs tops the Sometimes you just shake your there was some discussion about who apparently first noticed the list. head and wonder. It's truly it -- and Moore herself chimed in supposed retouching -- and a Looking at just the strict amazing that people don't realize on Twitter to claim that the photo recipient of the legal nastygram - financial results, Jobs’s influence what will happen when they send was not altered -- she's now had - has responded by presenting on Apple is astounding. Since out ridiculous legal nastygrams. her lawyers threaten at least two some pretty compelling evidence 1997, Jobs has delivered an Take, for example, the situation publications over the original that the image was, in fact, industry-adjusted return of 3,188 from a few months back where story. Their claim is that the retouched. At the same time, he percent (which is 34 percent the company Ralph Lauren got posts are defamatory. Even if also reiterates that even if this is c o m p o u n d e d a n n u a l l y ) f o r itself into a lot more hot water by there was no retouching of the true, there's nothing wrong with shareholders and increased s e n d i n g a b o g u s D M C A photo, it's hard to see what is t h a t a n d c e r t a i n l y n o t h i n g Apple’s market value by $150 takedown, rather than just possibly "defamatory" in the defamatory about it. So what billion. 'fessing up to the fact that it s t o r y . D i g i t a l r e t o u c h i n g was the purpose of the legal How the List Was Created photoshopped a model's image h a p p e n s a l l t h e t i m e , a n d nastygram? The Harvard Business Review (badly). But in sending the claiming that a photo was And, in the end, what makes has included a rundown of all of DMCA takedown, Ralph Lauren retouched, if anything, would Demi Moore look worse? The the factors that influenced their called a hell of a lot more implicate the photographers or fact that some a cover shoot rankings. First, it identified the attention to a situation that most graphic artists at W, not Moore. photo of her may have been CEOs of all publicly traded people would have forgotten There's simply nothing even slightly altered... or the fact that companies listed on the S&P otherwise. close to defamatory in regards to lawyers on her behalf sent out Global 1200 or BRIC 40 since Apparently Demi Moore and her Moore herself. ridiculous legal nastygrams 1997. lawyers missed that whole story. Either way, the really bizarre against those discussing this Additionally, CEOs had to have Back in November some folks part is why sic the legal dogs on story? assumed the job no earlier than noticed what appeared to be a this? Any lawyer should know Permalink| Comments| Email 1995 and no later than December photoshopping of Demi Moore's that this has zero chance of This Story 2007. That’s why luminaries like left hip on the cover of W actually working and a very high Warren Buffett and Jack Welch magazine. There was some likelihood of simply calling a lot aren’t on the list. Performance was then tracked until the end of the CEOs’ tenure at the company or September 2009, whichever

was later. HBR then calculated the daily company returns for the entire length of a CEO’s tenure, using country-adjusted and industryadjusted returns, as well as market capitalization changes. CEOs were then ranked based on each metric and those rankings were averaged for the final number. Looking at the final list, you can see that Jeff Bezos from Amazon has actually achieved a higher country- and industry-adjusted TSR than Steve Jobs, but his market cap is more than $100 billion less. Other High Ranking Tech CEOs In addition to El Jobso, other high-profile tech CEOs on the list included John T. Chambers from Cisco (#4), Bezos from Amazon(#7), Meg Whitman from eBay (#8) and Eric Schmidt from Google(#9). Tags: apple, Harvard Business Review, steve jobs

Tech/ Tech News/

E-reader News Edition

Are Warner Music and Hulu cozying up? (CNET News.com) Submitted at 12/22/2009 11:45:00 AM

Concert footage and other music videos from Brit band, Muse was available at Hulu on Tuesday. Is there a partnership in the works?(Credit: Hulu) Hulu's foray into music videos may have taken another small step on Tuesday as it was hosting concert footage from Muse, the alternative band represented by Warner Music Group. Muse is the only Warner act with videos on Hulu that I could find. So what's happening? A Hulu representative was not immediately available. A Warner spokeswoman declined to comment, which likely means there's something up. Look for some kind of Warner-Hulu announcement soon. To be sure, Hulu's music-video library is modest at best. In addition to Muse, Hulu cut a deal last month with EMI to get access to select concert footage and music videos from some of

the label's artists. That agreement was believed to be Hulu's first label deal. YouTube is supposed to be the digital era's version of MTV. Google's video site has penned agreements with Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner and EMI but that doesn't appear to be

stopping Hulu from striking smallish deals with some of the labels. Warner is a likely candidate to test the waters with a new musicvideo outlet. The company has always said it seeks wide distribution of content and doesn't want any one distributor to have exclusive access. Now,

throw in a nine-month long feud between Warner and Google over the terms of their music-licensing agreement and what you have is an open door, however small, for Hulu to squiggle into. Clips from a handful of bands aren't enough to make Hulu a power in music videos, which incidentally, are the most watched fare at YouTube. But at the very least, the labels do appear to be looking for more control of their content. Earlier this month, Universal and Sony launched Vevo, a standalone music site that was launched with technological help from Google. Warner is also exploring its own music area at Youtube. Certainly, for the labels, competition between YouTube and Hulu is good. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Who's the Best Batman of All Time? By Scott Thill (Wired Top Stories) Submitted at 12/21/2009 9:36:00 PM

William Baldwin will be the new voice of Batman in Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths, an animated film due out next year. We rank historic Caped Crusaders from best to worst.

Firefox 4.0: New Design Changes Revealed [IMAGES] By Parr of (Mashable!) TheBen release Firefox FIREFOX page 254.0 may

And Here We Go Again: Argentina Extends Copyright By Mike Masnick (Techdirt) Submitted at 12/22/2009 5:27:55 AM

It's nearly impossible to keep track of the recording industry's efforts to extend copyright around the globe, using its usual "leapfrog" means of claiming that copyright lengths need to be "harmonized," and thus ratcheted up and up and up on a rotating

basis. Apparently, while everyone was focused on places like Europe and Japan, the industry has successfully been able to get Argentina to extend the length of copyright on performances from 50 years to 70 years. Amusingly, all those quoted in favor of it, make bizarre claims that retroactively extending copyrights on content

already created 50 years ago will somehow promote the creation of new music. And, of course, as this news comes out, it's worth pointing out that a commenter last week reminded us of economist Rufus Pollock's paper from June of this year, which tried to calculate the optimal length of copyright and found that it is likely in the 10 to

15 year range. So why are governments moving progressively further away from that rate based on nothing other than demands from the record labels who know that lengthier copyrights are nothing more than a monopoly rent for them? What's truly amazing is that pretty much the entire history of the copyright debate has been

based on claims without any evidence that "more" must be "better." But these days, we have plenty of evidence that shows that's not true. So why do politicians keep extending copyright? Permalink| Comments| Email This Story

Tech/ Politics/

E-reader News Edition

FIREFOX continued from page 24

still be nearly a year away, but the excitement for the new version is already growing. In July, we revealed the first images of Firefox 4.0. Now one of the designers behind the browser has shared on his blog updated mockups of the new design. While a lot of the original concepts from the July images are still intact (e.g. a combo stop/refresh/go button, color changes based on your actions), there are some new details revealed by designer and Mozilla contributor Stephen Horlander. Here are the new mock-ups of Firefox 4.0, along with an explanation of what’s new in this iteration: The New Design Changes As we’ve previously noted, the Menu Bar has changed from version 3.5 to 4.0. The biggest change was that the stop, refresh and go buttons have been

combined into one colorchanging button. But in these new mock-ups, there is a new button: the App Button. According to Stephen, the app button works a lot like the Windows 7 and Office 2010 menu button, which condenses a lot of those options into a single location. Instead of having File, Edit and all of those options take up space at the time, there would only be a single “Firefox” button at the top of the browser. The look of this button, though, is still up for debate. In fact, there are multiple proposals for how it should look. See for yourself: While the App Button may be the biggest change, it’s not the only one: the toolbar button is getting touched up to be more visible on multiple backgrounds, and the location bar is now recessed (rather than floating).

Finally, the bookmarks toolbar is getting some new functionality — if it hasn’t been modified by the user, it will not appear by default. Here are some more images for you to gawk at. Let us know what you think of the new changes in the comments: Firefox 4.0: Even More Images Firefox 4.0 with bookmarks toolbar: Firefox 4.0 with tabs under the navigation bar: Firefox 4.0 with bookmark bar between tabs and navigation bar: Comparison of Firefox 4.0 and Firefox 3.5 [via Chromatic Pixel] Tags: Firefox, Firefox 4.0, mozilla

Huckabee: Sen. Ben Nelson is Judas Iscariot (Little Green Footballs) Submitted at 12/22/2009 10:15:19 AM

Yesterday, in another sign of the deranged, irrational state of Republican “criticism” of health care reform, “aw shucks” theocrat Mike Huckabee compared Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson to Judas Iscariot.

But during his comments at the Omaha rally, Huckabee - a 2008 presidential candidate and potential White House hopeful in 2012 - likened Nelson’s deal to the biblical story in which Judas agreed to betray Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. “I don’t want [senators] to go up there…and then somehow go

back and boast, ‘Here’s some money that I got for you.’ The last time we saw that kind of historic moment it was 30 pieces of silver and that didn’t work out too well for us either,” Huckabee said.

Oh Look, People Are Already Looking At Expanding How Selectable Output Control Will Be Abused By Mike Masnick (Techdirt) Submitted at 12/22/2009 1:32:21 AM

For quite some time we've been covering how the MPAA has been pushing to get the FCC to allow them to use "Selectable Output Control" (SOC) to stop you from being able to record certain movies. In theory, the Hollywood studios claim that this will let them put movies out on video-on-demand offerings earlier than they do now. In actuality, there's nothing stopping them from putting these VoD offerings out now (and some do already). The studios' claim that this is needed to stop "piracy" of these movies also makes little sense, since even the studios admit that all of their movies are quickly available through unauthorized means around the time they're released in the theaters (i.e., well before they would be available on TV). The real issue, of course, is that Hollywood wants more control over your TV and what you can do with it. But when people suggest this, the MPAA and the

studios scoff and say that's ridiculous. They just want this one tiny exemption and nothing else. Except, that's not true at all. Remember that recent Congressional hearing about live streaming and sporting events? Well, the folks at Public Knowledge noticed that one of the speakers there was already noting how the FCC exemption on SOC could be useful in stopping "piracy" of sports broadcasting-- which of course is totally outside the realm of what the MPAA is asking for. But, of course, once the FCC allows someone to break your DVR or other consumer electronics device, it's not hard to see everyone else asking for their own "exception" as well... How about rather than breaking the devices that everyone purchased for a reason, the content providers stop freaking out about technology, and start learning how to use it to their advantage? Permalink| Comments| Email This Story

Tech/ Sports/

E-reader News Edition

Microsoft loses Word patent appeal, Opera 10.5 Pre-Alpha will change code Adds Speed and CSS3 Support (CNET News.com)

copies of Microsoft Word 2007 that will be sold on or after January 11, 2010. Prior copies of Updated 11:55 a.m. PST with Word 2007 are not affected by additional information and the injunction, and Word 2010 is background. being designed without the Microsoft has lost an appeal in a infringing technology, the patent case that will force it to company said. alter Microsoft Word to avoid an "While we are moving quickly to injunction on sales of the address the injunction issue, we product. are also considering our legal I4i Chairman Loudon options, which could include a Owen(Credit: McLean Watson) request for a rehearing by the Microsoft lost a patent case Federal Circuit Court of Appeals involving a company called I4i in en banc or a request for a writ of chairman of I4i, in a statement. May, after a jury ruled that The technology in question certiorari from the U.S. Supreme Microsoft infringed one of i4i's involves "any Microsoft Word C o u r t , " s a i d K e v i n K u r t z , patents with a custom XML products that have the capability director of public affairs for feature found in Word. In August of opening .XML, .DOCX or Microsoft, in a statement. an injunction was placed on sales The ruling also means that DOCM files (XML files) of Word pending the appeal, Microsoft is on the hook for $200 containing custom XML," which did not go in Microsoft's million in damages awarded by according to a copy of the favor Tuesday. injunction released in August. the jury as well as additional fees "We couldn't be more pleased I4i's Owen said at the time that and interest. Reuters reported the with the ruling from the appeals his company wasn't out to force a total would reach $290 million. court which upheld the lower halt in sales of one of Microsoft's Five Filters featured article: court's decision in its entirety. most profitable products, and it Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: This is both a vindication for I4i doesn't appear that will happen. PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, and a war cry for talented Microsoft said it planned to Term Extraction. inventors whose patents are remove the feature from all infringed," said Loudon Owen, Submitted at 12/22/2009 11:27:00 AM

Panthers Get Some Revenge In Philadelphia By Adam Gretz (Fanhouse Main)

Philadelphia Flyers met on the ice, Mike Richards crushed David Booth with a devastating Submitted at 12/22/2009 1:40:00 AM open-ice hit, knocking him out of Filed under: Flyers, Panthers, the lineup with a concussion. He NHL Fights, NHL Videos The hasn't played since. last time the Florida Panthers and On Monday night, the two teams

faced off again, and Florida not only picked up a 4-1 win in Philadelphia, but Panthers captain Bryan McCabe challenged Richards to a fight early in the first period.

By Christina Warren (Mashable!) Submitted at 12/22/2009 9:19:21 AM

Hot on the heels of last month’s 10.10 release, the web browser Opera has just issued a pre-alpha Opera Labs release of the upcoming Opera 10.5. The build is available for Windows and Mac users — with a Linux version coming later. The big news is that the Opera 10.5 pre-alpha offers users a taste of Opera’s new JavaScript engine, known as Carakan. The next generation of browser wars will be all about JavaScript speed. Carakan for Windows is seven times faster at JavaScript than the Futhark engine used in Opera 10.10. CSS3 and HTML5 Support Enhanced Although speed is clearly the big focus with the 10.5 pre-alpha, the Opera Desktop team has also added support for CSS3 transitions and transforms, as well as more HTML5 support for stuff like persistent storage. Opera’s CSS3 support is actually more advanced that what is currently being used in Safari 4 and in Google’s Chrome (I

haven’t tested it against the WebKit nightlies). Namely, rounded corners with borderradius and the variations in box shadows are far more complex. Even CSS3 Transforms and Transitions — something that has been part of Google Chrome and Safari 4 for quite some time — is more advanced in Opera 10.5. You can check out all the new features here. Opera will likely never be able to compete against the bigger names in the desktop browsing space, but by continuing to evolve and innovate, the browser and the team prove that they are worth keeping an eye on. Are you an Opera user? What do you think about the future of the desktop browser? Tags: css3, opera, opera 10.5, web browsers

Tech/ Entertainment/

E-reader News Edition

CBS and Disney to Join Apple’s TV WSJ: Apple likely to Subscription Plan? push TV subscription option in 2010 By Jennifer Van Grove (Mashable!)

Submitted at 12/22/2009 8:42:11 AM

Rumors that Apple would launch TV subscription plans via Apple TV and iTunes originated from All Things Digital in early November. Now The Wall Street Journal is giving even more credence to early reports, claiming that both CBS Corp. and Walt Disney Co. are interested in a partnership. Although company spokespeople are keeping mum, CBS — Hulu’s lone big holdout — and Disney would make for two influential gets that Apple could use in negotiations to lure in other networks. From the looks of it, Apple is poised to shake up the television business after all. The current guess is that Apple would offer consumers subscriptions to ad-free TV content for $30 a month and give a per subscriber cut to content

familiar with the matter. Disney has in the past been among the first to jump into online video, including on iTunes. Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs is Disney’s largest individual shareholder and sits on the company’s board.” While the deal could be quite contributors. Adding to that, The lucrative for some networks, this Wall Street Journal speculates is still uncharted waters for that “Apple would pay media Apple, and they’re bound to face companies about $2 to $4 a stark opposition from cable month per subscriber for a providers (Comcast has their own broadcast network like CBS or online offering in xfinity), and ABC, and about $1 to $2 a month the networks that work with them per subscriber for a basic-cable to sell their cable-network network.” subsidiaries in bundled deals. The Wall Street Journal also Should Apple yoke a few strong writes: deals, however, they will be in “As part of the Apple service, prime position to compete CBS is considering offering directly against cable providers. programs from both the CBS and Given the widespread nature and CW networks, according to appeal of digital content available people familiar with the matter.” in iTunes already, it’s a battle “Disney is considering including they have a chance to win. programs from its ABC, Disney Tags: apple, Apple TV, cbs, C h a n n e l a n d A B C F a m i l y disney networks, according to a person

A Marriage in Pics: Brittany Murphy & Simon Monjack (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 12/22/2009 5:12:00 AM

Actress Brittany Murphy passed away on Sunday, December 20 at

the age of 32. In May 2007, the gorgeous, 'Clueless' star married British screenwriter Simon Monjack, her constant red-carpet companion. Take a look at the

affectionate couple at their many star-studded events.

By Michael Rose (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)) Submitted at 12/22/2009 12:30:00 PM

Filed under: Apple Corporate, iTS, Video, iTunes The WSJ and the New York Times, among other outlets, are reporting that Apple is in preliminary discussions with ABC and CBS (at a minimum) about a possible subscription plan arrangement for broadcast and cable TV channels. This idea was noted by All Things D in November, which cited a target price of $30 a month for subscription access via iTunes. If the company can get content providers signed up, the service would be likely to launch next year, say both papers. It's also possible that Apple's Lala purchase could play into this new model, with 'shows in the cloud' and micropayment options that would improve the user experience for TV-watching. Meanwhile, the NBC-Comcast deal might throw a wrench into the works for Apple, and it's not clear that the other broadcast and cable networks are inclined to make a deal at this point; while

CBS has few cable assets to protect, and ABC/Disney have a powerful vote in favor of collaboration with Apple, the other companies may have more to lose by throwing in their lot with the iTunes juggernaut. NBC, in particular, has a hit on its hands with the ad-supported Hulu site, now the secondbiggest programming provider according to comScore. If only there were some kind of portable viewing device that could play back your videos... TUAW WSJ: Apple likely to push TV subscription option in 2010 originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 22 Dec 2009 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

Tech/ Economy/

E-reader News Edition

Digsby to Add In-Stream Ads Based Jobs chosen as best on Twitter Trending Topics performing CEO [IMAGES] By Mike Schramm (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW))

By Jennifer Van Grove (Mashable!)

— most of whom charge nominal fees or include ads in mobile apps — but a large majority of Submitted at 12/22/2009 8:59:45 AM web and desktop applications Twitter has yet to pull the trigger have avoided advertisements for on their purported advertising fear of alienating Twitter users. initiatives (though they are With the release of Trending profitable), and today OneRiot is Ads comes the promise of beating the microblogging site to Twitter application monetization, the punch and releasing RiotWise with an advertiser’s message which means you’re bound to see Trending Ads as part of its API appearing before you only after it the real-time ads in some of your and Mobile Ad Unit. passes a match check against favorite Twitter clients soon RiotWise Trending Ads is c u r r e n t l y t r e n d i n g t o p i c s . enough. In some cases this could essentially a real-time stream of Whether their algorithm works as be a win-win situation for ads — associated with trending promised remains to be seen, but developers and users, especially t o p i c s o n T w i t t e r — t h a t since Digsby is a launch partner, if your Twitter app already application developers can toss users of that service should i n c l u d e s l e s s c o n t e x t u a l into the Twitter mix to monetize notice the new real-time ads advertisements. Of course, there their desktop, web, iPhone or integrated into the News Feed in is the flip side, where Twitter other mobile Twitter apps. January. You can see an early users could easily be turned off Launch partner Digsby, a mockup of the new look below. by in-stream advertisements. popular IM and Twitter client, is Obviously, contextual ads How would you feel about about to flip the switch on the integrated into Twitter streams Trending Ads as a part of your new ads, integrating the trending fill a much needed void for favorite Twitter app? Let us ads right into users’ News Feeds. application developers who want know in the comments. The service, which is an quick revenue returns. As it Tags: digsby, OneRiot, social extension of OneRiot’s RiotWise stands, some Twitter application media, twitter initiative, touts ads that are developers have already figured highly relevant to trending topics, out how to monetize their apps

Stem cells help restore sight to blind (Financial Times - US homepage) Submitted at 12/22/2009 8:50:31 AM

A stem cell treatment developed in Newcastle has restored good vision to eight people who had

lost sight in one eye. ”This has transformed my life,” said one of the patients, Russell Turnbull, whose right eye was burned and scarred in an ammonia attack after intervening in a fight on a Newcastle bus 15

years ago. “I’m working, I can go jet skiing and also ride horses.” Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Submitted at 12/22/2009 7:00:00 AM

Filed under: Apple Corporate, Odds and ends, Steve Jobs, Apple Congrats to Steve Jobs, who's got another award to put on all the mantles he must have to hold all of the awards he's picked up: he's been chosen as the best performing CEO in the world by the Harvard Business Review. They cite AAPL's "whopping 3,188% industryadjusted return (34% compounded annually)" as well as an increased market value of $150 billion under Jobs' oversight. Oh, and they also mention his kickass index of 5,000% when adjusted for the globonational economy, as well as his black turtleneck market factor of 3.1 year-over-year. Ok, so we made those last two stats up. But yes, as if you needed to be told, Jobs is an amazing CEO, and it's in large part because of him and his work that Apple is the company it is today. The Business Review says that they didn't want to just choose most-admired or highestpaid CEOs (Jobs wouldn't

technically make that list, though he's not worrying about money, we're sure), but rather individuals who've really driven a company forward over their entire tenure in the position. And even with that criteria in place, they agree that "it may come as no shock that Steve Jobs of Apple tops the list." You're ruining the curve for the rest of them, Steve! Great job. [ via AppleInsider] TUAW Jobs chosen as best performing CEO originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 22 Dec 2009 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

Tech/ Entertainment/

E-reader News Edition

Marvell launches worldwide Plug Computer competition (CNET News.com)

Can Rolling Stone Sell TShirts Of Its Covers? It's Not That Simple, Apparently...

Submitted at 12/22/2009 11:30:00 AM

By Mike Masnick (Techdirt)

The original SheevaPlug computer(Credit: Dong Ngo/CNET) Six month ago, I had an exclusive First Look at Marvell's prototype plug-in computer, the SheevaPlug. Ever since, dozen of companies have contacted me about their applications. Most recently, CNET reviewed the Pogoplug from Cloud Engines. That said, it didn't surprise me when Marvell announced Tuesday that 10,000 SheevaPlug units featuring Marvell CPU technology have shipped. To celebrate this milestone, Marvell also announced today the launch of its worldwide Plug Computer developer competition, called "Free Your Imagination," to award the most innovative Plug Computing concept submitted. You can participate or find out more about this competition at plugcomputer.org. This Web site is also the main Web resource for the plug application development community, where members can access software that facilitates the development of the

Submitted at 12/22/2009 7:20:00 AM

SheevaPlug. Developers can also exchange ideas for free. While the applications differ from one vendor to another, in a nutshell, Marvell's Plug computer is a tiny unit, about a size of a small wall-plug power adapter. The little computer, despite its physical size, is equipped with Marvell's 1Ghz processor and some 256MB of RAM. The computer also comes with a USB port and an Ethernet port to be best used as a network storage or

an Internet-based cloud storage server. One of the biggest selling points of the Plug Computer is the fact that it uses very little energy and therefore is the cheapest solution to offer users high performance, always on, always connected, and environmentally friendly computing. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

they have exclusive licensing deals to sell products with those musicians. Rolling Stone is Well, here's an interesting arguing both that it has a First lawsuit. Apparently, Rolling Amendment right to do this, and Stone magazine decided it a f a i r u s e d e f e n s e t o a n y wanted to try selling t-shirts of intellectual property claim. I'm some of its covers. Considering reminded of a recent case the market for t-shirts, that might involving magazine covers, not be a bad idea (especially where the use of those magazine when compared to the market for covers in a book (by someone m a g a z i n e s t h e s e d a y s ) . else) was deemed fair use, though Obviously, the magazine and its the details are obviously quite publisher Wenner Media own the different. Still, it probably won't copyright on their own covers, so surprise many people that I tend there shouldn't be any problem, to think Rolling Stone should right? Not so fast. Since the prevail here. The key aspect of covers usually include musicians, what they're selling is that the and those musicians have vast designs are Rolling Stone covers m e r c h a n d i s i n g b u s i n e s s e s -- not specifically which band is t h e m s e l v e s , s o m e o f t h e on the cover. companies who handle the Permalink| Comments| Email merchandising for some top This Story artists have sued, claiming that

Next Stop, Holiday Travel Horror Stories! [Christmas Crash] By Brian Moylan (Gawker) Submitted at 12/22/2009 10:50:42 AM

Commenters are leaving great tales of airport woe and torturous car trips. If you want to try to win

a $50 MetroCard, go leave your

worst Christmas commute story in the comments of the original post. Happy trails! [ Image via]

Tech/ Entertainment/

E-reader News Edition

Yelp for Android now uploading photos

O2 network issues hinder iPhone users

(CNET News.com)

By Dave Caolo (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW))

Submitted at 12/22/2009 12:00:00 PM

A small update to version 1.2 lets you upload photos from your phone and share favorite businesses with friends.(Credit: Yelp) Yelp's first foray on Google's Android phones wasn't much to look at. The initial feature set of Yelp's business review app for Android, which debuted December 7, was minimalist. It contained enough features--read-only access to Yelp.com, click-to-call, and a hyperlink to get directions from the browser or Google Maps--to avoid a user riot, but one would hardly call it the answer to Yelp's iPhone app. On Tuesday, Yelp is making good on its promise to quickly pad the app's features. Version 1.2, an update available through the Android Market app on your smartphone, now lets you upload pictures from your Android phone to Yelp's site. If you're meeting someone at a restaurant, bar, or museum, you

Submitted at 12/22/2009 11:05:00 AM

can now share Yelp's business listing with others over SMS, email, Facebook, and other thirdparty apps you may have installed on your phone, like a Twitter service. As a third addition, you're also free to sign in to your Yelp profile from the smartphone. These changes may seem like small potatoes at first--you still can't add your own rating, write tips, or review a place from the

Filed under: Internet Tools, iPhone iPhone customers using O2 in the UK are three days into connectivity issues, according to Sky News. Many have been seeing the error message, "could not activate cellular data network." It's bound to happen once and a while, but such widespread outages ... and for so long ... have users rather cranky. Today it seems that O2 has identified the issue and is working on a fix: "We are aware of an issue currently impacting phone--but they reverse two of data access for some of our our complaints. Yelp tells us we customers," they told Sky News should expect to see more Online. "We have identified a interactive features in early 2010, fault with the allocation of IP like drafting a review for later addresses and are working to publishing, and bookmarking a r e s o l v e t h i s a s q u i c k l y a s business. possible. We apologise to any Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

affected customers." Some Twitter users have noted a return of service, while others wait. We've got our fingers crossed for you all. Good luck! [Via MacDailyNews] TUAW O2 network issues hinder iPhone users originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 22 Dec 2009 11:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

Just Released: Michael Jackson FBI Documents (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 12/22/2009 9:56:00 AM

ET has the latest... ET has just obtained the newly released FBI documents

regarding the late Michael Jackson. Between 1994 and 1995 and then again between 2004 and 2005, Jackson was investigated by California law enforcement

agencies for possible child molestation â&#x20AC;&#x201C; which he was later acquitted of. The papers are in regards to the aforementioned molestation as well as an extortion threats against the

singer. Customs Service as part of a Five of the files are in regards to child pornography investigation. child molestation and one file, opened in 1995, details a request made to the FBI to analyze a videotape provided by U.S.

Tech/ Tech Tips/ Picture/

E-reader News Edition

Unreal Engine 3 running on the iPod touch By Mike Schramm (The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)) Submitted at 12/22/2009 2:00:00 PM

Filed under: Gaming, Hardware, Software, Odds and ends, Developer, iPhone, SDK, iPod touch Whenever you talk about games on a mobile platform, you usually have to also mention that while things like high-end 3D graphics are certainly possible, there are usually some concessions that have to be made. But in the case of the iPhone, perhaps not: Epic Games has apparently been showing Anandtech their Unreal Engine 3 on Apple's handheld, the same graphical engine that runs

modern console hits like Gears of War 2 and Batman: Arkham Asylum. There's even video, and the thing looks pretty darn incredible. It's possible that in the hands of a skilled developer, you could have a very impressive

(and the OpenGL ES 2.0) to pull this off. But it's impressive nevertheless. Epic hasn't licensed this version of the engine yet as far as we know, but they promise to show off more in the future, so we'll be keeping an eye out. One more version of the iPhone, and we might be looking at games that can compete graphically with even modern consoles. [via Engadget] TUAW Unreal Engine 3 running on the iPod touch originally realistic graphical game running appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, on the iPhone hardware. Some of the iPhone hardware, 22 Dec 2009 14:00:00 EST. that is -- the engine was shown Please see our terms for use of off on the 3GS and the 3rd feeds. generation iPod touch, so only Read| Permalink| Email this| those have the speed and power Comments

Submitted at 12/22/2009 10:33:29 AM

Last week, BoyGenius claimed to have found browser logs that suggest that new versions (3.1.3 and 4.0) of Apple’s iPhone OS are being tested. It’s not solid evidence, but today there’s a little more fuel to add to that fire. MacRumors was tipped off to another sighting of iPhone OS 4.0 in the wild. One iPhone developer noticed a single instance of the version 4.0 operating system being used. The

new version was discovered via the developer’s application analytics data. While these discoveries are by no means concrete proof, we have every reason to suspect that Apple is testing a new version of the iPhone(they’ve released a

Fill Every Last Megabyte of Your iPod’s Free Space [IPods] By Gina Trapani (Lifehacker) Submitted at 12/22/2009 10:30:00 AM

When you sync your iPod/iPhone in iTunes 9 and you've got space left, check off the "Automatically fill free space with songs" box on the Music tab to use every last free megabyte. As David Chartier at The Finer Things in Mac site notes, there's no way to see what songs iTunes pulls and adds there for you. I'd like to think it uses some sort of smarts to determine what songs you haven't synced that you should have. Either way, nifty feature for quickly filling up your player without having to check off playlists manually. By Heather Champ (Flickr Note: As Smarterware reader new model annually since its Blog) Fran points out, iPhone and iPod original debut), and new touch users may want to skip this Submitted at 12/21/2009 4:26:24 PM hardware would most certainly if they're apt to install a lot of be accompanied by a new version • About Flickr apps on the go, since it could of the OS. It’s completely logical Flickr is a revolution in photo mean there's no space left over t h e n t h a t A p p l e w o u l d b e storage, sharing and organization, for a new app. Fill Every Last p r e p p i n g a n d t e s t i n g n e w making photo management an Megabyte of Your iPod's Free versions of the iPhone software. easy, natural and collaborative Space[Smarterware] Our guess is that should 3.1.3 process. Get comments, notes, exist, it will be released early and tags on your photos, post to next year, with 4.0 coming on to any blog, share and more! the scene at the same time as the Five Filters featured article: anticipated new hardware in Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: summer 2010. PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Tags: apple, iphone, iphone os Term Extraction.

iPhone OS 4.0: Already in the Wild? By Jennifer Van Grove (Mashable!)

Snowball fight!

Politics/ Tech Tips/

E-reader News Edition

Why I Left the Right, Exhibit P for Pawlenty (Little Green Footballs)

scientific suit. And it’s become a plank of the GOP platform in many states — Newsweek has an interview with including Minnesota(PDF link). M i n n e s o t a G o v e r n o r T i m Quote: Pawlenty, the very model of a P. Protecting educators from m o d e r n G O P c a n d i d a t e , disciplinary action for including considered by many as a possible discussion of creation science, front runner for the Presidency in and adopting science standards 2012: Anti-science and anti-gay. that acknowledge the scientific Let me ask you about social controversies pertaining to the issues your party has been theory of evolution. dealing with. In her book, Palin When a Republican governor is claims that McCain’s handlers openly in favor of teaching this wanted her to be silent about her nonsense to children — and belief in creationism. How would notice he says it “doesn’t have to you describe your view? be” in science class, not that he’s I can tell you how we handle it opposed to teaching it in science in Minnesota. We leave it to the class — it’s appalling. local school districts. We don’t And Pawlenty’s personal views mandate a curriculum or an are even more anti-scientific: a p p r o a c h . W e a l l o w f o r Where are you personally? something called “intelligent Well, you know I’m an design” to be discussed as a evangelical Christian. I believe comparative theory. It doesn’t that God created everything and have to be in science class. that he is who he says he was. Is this a kind of “moderate” The Bible says that he created creationism? man and woman; it doesn’t say Well, Pawlenty is clearly trying that he created an amoeba and to soft-pedal it, but no, there’s then they evolved into man and nothing “moderate” about this. woman. But there are a lot of The fact is that “intelligent theologians who say that the design” has no validity ideas of evolution and whatsoever, as a “comparative creationism aren’t necessarily theory” or any other kind of inconsistent; that he could have theory. ID is not a “theory” at all “created” human beings over in the scientific sense — it’s a time. marketing ploy to repackage Pawlenty has no problem with f u n d a m e n t a l i s t C h r i s t i a n teaching creationism as science, creationism in a cheap pseudo- but he wants to protect children Submitted at 12/21/2009 12:41:02 PM

from cross-dressing elementary school teachers, whether they actually exist or not. And he wants to make sure that gay couples don’t receive medical benefits — a position he’s reversed as the GOP has moved farther and farther to the right. I know you are opposed to gay marriage, but what about medical benefits for same-sex couples? I have not supported that. Why not? My general view on all of this is that marriage is to be defined as being a union of a man and a woman. Marriage should be elevated in our society at a special level. I don’t think all domestic relationships are the equivalent of traditional marriage. Early on we decided as a country and as a state that there was value in a man and a woman being married in terms of impact on children and the like, and we want to encourage that. To borrow a phrase, have your views evolved over time? In 1993 I voted for a bill prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation in public accommodation, housing, and employment. That was 16 years ago. Yes, gay-rights activists regarded you as a pretty cool guy at the time. We overbaked that statute, for a couple of reasons. If I had to do it

over again I would have changed some things. Overbaked? That statute is not worded the way it should be. I said I regretted the vote later because it included things like crossdressing, and a variety of other people involved in behaviors that weren’t based on sexual orientation, just a preference for the way they dressed and behaved. So it was overly broad. So if you are a third-grade teacher and you are a man and you show up on Monday as Mr. Johnson and you show up on Tuesday as Mrs. Johnson, that is a little confusing to the kids. So I don’t like that. Has the law been changed? No. It should be, though. So you want to protect kids against cross-dressing elementary -school teachers. Do you have any in Minnesota? Probably. We’ve had a few instances, not exactly like that, but similar. Yikes. So what happens if a crossdressing elementary school teacher wants to teach “intelligent design” creationism? Imagine, if you will, the massive cognitive dissonance that would ensue.

VLC Gets Dressed Up for Christmas [Easter Eggs] By Jason Fitzpatrick (Lifehacker) Submitted at 12/22/2009 8:45:00 AM

If you're a fan of VLC—the open-source and awesome media player that had made appearances in our Hive Fives for best video players, best portable applications, and best desktop media players—you may have noticed a little change in your VLC icon this week. Hidden in the VLC code is an easter egg—as of Christmas last year—where the little orange VLC construction cone wears a Santa hat for the week of Christmas. Love a fun software Easter egg? Make sure to check out our list of top 10 software Easter eggs, and visit previously reviewed Easter Egg Archive to find Easter eggs in everything from software to DVDs and video games. Have a favorite? Let's hear about it in the comments.

Politics/ Tech Tips/ Entertainment/

E-reader News Edition

Monday Night Music: Bruce Hornsby, 'Prairie Dog Town' (Little Green Footballs)

They lay in wait neath the Dakota moon Submitted at 12/21/2009 4:58:54 PM For the chance to make you their Here’s a great live performance next victim soon of “Prairie Dog Town,” by Bruce Poppin up, poppin down Hornsby and the Noisemakers, Burrowing, making their funny from their latest album Levitate. little sounds Like all of Bruce’s recent work, Guarding the ground and rooting this one goes in unexpected and all around musically intriguing directions — Watch your dry bones in the and the lyrics are a hoot. (Here it prairie dog town is at the iTunes Store.)[Video] Went to a party at the Prairie Poppin up, poppin down Dog Town Burrowing, making their funny Hills and holes and manicured little sounds grounds Guarding the ground and rooting Gaiety and chattering was in the all around air Watch your dry bones in the While grinning teeth waited to prairie dog town bite you there Teddy Roosevelt said come Small of mind better watch your quick back Theres a phenomenon and Im in Need rapid-moving eyes just to the thick of it keep track Riding around the badlands Behind the bush he makes the range gut strings wail They came upon those creatures You cant judge a dog by the wag so strange of its tail Theyre so small they couldnt Poppin up, poppin down hurt you Burrowing, making their funny Just like they said about little sounds Napoleon too Guarding the ground and rooting Oh so cute theyre sneaking all around around Watch your dry bones in the Hiding the crimes round the prairie dog town Prairie Dog Town Dont put your trust in a prairie

dog Theyll rob you back and steal your drawers Stay in your car behind the glass Or you might get some big sharp teeth in that ass Disregard the great ethical truths Its the collective life of the herd for you Closed society, no open door policy Collectivist secretive ideology Utilitarian Sublimation of individual identities Suppression of dissidents Communal living country club victory For him and her and she and he Poppin up, poppin down Burrowing, making their funny little sounds Guarding the ground and rooting all around Watch your dry bones in the prairie dog town The rose grows sick from the dark love of the worm That finds its way to her crimson bed And twists and turns And burrows and burns

Learn to Toss Pizza Dough, Impress Your Friends [Video Demonstration] By Lisa Hoover (Lifehacker)

pie nice and round. Hit up the video for a play-by-play visual on how to stretch and twirl the Getting good at making your dough while keeping it from own pizza dough is a skill well landing on your head. worth the time you put into it. Don't be surprised if you don't Impress friends with your mad get it right the first fifty times pizza-throwing skills with this you try dough-tossing. The v i d e o f r o m t h e C a l i f o r n i a smarties at science blog Physorg Culinary Academy. say there's a lot more to it than Michael Kalanty, a chef from the just throwing the crust in the air a California Culinary Academy, few times and hoping a pizza put together a snazzy video drops in your hands. In fact, tutorial on how to toss pizza apparently the physics behind dough in the air like a pro. He pizza dough-tossing could help uses sourdough in this lesson, but r e s e a r c h e r s d e v e l o p b e t t e r any stiff pizza dough will do. technology (who knew?). To get started, you'll need a big If you consider yourself a pizzabatch of flour to keep the dough flinging ace, let's hear your best from sticking (be prepared to tips in the comments. How to flour your arms), and a rolling Throw Pizza Dough[Wonder pin to get the initial shape of the How To] Submitted at 12/22/2009 11:00:00 AM

Michael Jackson's FBI File [Document Dump] By John Cook (Gawker) Submitted at 12/22/2009 10:32:16 AM

The FBI has released 333 pages of files on Michael Jackson. We're reading them now and will do a post later this afternoon. But

if you want to take a look as well, please let us know what you find.

Politics/ Tech News/

E-reader News Edition

White Supremacist Robert Stacy McCain Refuses to Debate with Barrett Brown (Little Green Footballs)

getting him to at least acknowledge that I had Submitted at 12/21/2009 9:10:06 PM challenged him to an e-mail Imagine my surprise to discover exchange whereby he would have that white supremacist blogger the chance to shoot down the R o b e r t S t a c y M c C a i n h a s various accusations that have cravenly refused Barrett Brown’s been made against him by challenge: Stacy McCain Finally Charles Johnson and myself Acknowledges, Declines My before they go into my soon-toOffer to Debate. be-completed book on the And in classic Stacy McCain American punditry. As I wrote: style, he throws in an ugly smear Regarding your most recent while running away. mention of me, I knew Avatar McCain uses his post as an was going to suck as soon as I opportunity to deploy – for the saw the first preview. third time, by my count – a jokey If you have the time to write jibe in reference to the fact that blog posts about how poorly my my upcoming book singles out book is going to do and how f o r c r i t i c i s m s e v e r a l much I dislike the Jews, then c o m m e n t a t o r s o f J e w i s h surely you have the time to background: Speaking of which, respond to my offer, even if only I’m told that Barrett Brown loved to decline it. Avatar. Not that he’s a racist. But McCain responded as he does suck. Be sure to look for follows:“Offer”? As if you were his book, People That Barrett the soul of generosity, and I in Brown Doesn’t Like (Mainly need of your philanthropy. Do J e w s ) , c o m i n g s o o n t o a your work, do it well, collect clearance bin near you. your pay and knock it off with Fair enough. I e-mailed McCain the humanitarian posturing. this afternoon in hopes of finally You’ve never done an unselfish

act in your life, and by pretending otherwise, you undermine your own credibility. Better to be honestly selfish than to be falsely charitable. To which I responded in turn: The word “offer” does not necessarily entail anything positive at all, much less anything along the lines of “charity” or “generosity.” Notice that I have used the term interchangeably with “challenge” and that I originally compared it to a duel, for instance. I am not extending this offer as any sort of good deed, although to the extent that you are actually in the right, such an offer as this would indeed be to your benefit. I am extending it to you for the same reason that you are declining it – because I would win any such exchange. I’ve yet to hear back. Also see: Regarding Barrett Brown’s Offer to Debate White Supremacist Robert Stacy McCain

OneRiot Launches New Real-Time Ads to Monetize Trending Topics By Frederic Lardinois (ReadWriteWeb) Tobias Peggs told us earlier this month, "2010 will be all about OneRiot, one of the leading realmonetizing the real-time Web." time search engines, just Real-time advertising, however, announced the launch of a new comes with its own set of advertising product for real-time challenges. While Google apps. RiotWise Trending Ads AdSense, for example, can take will give OneRiot's partners a its time to learn about what feed of ads related to currently works best for a certain keyword, trending topics on the Web. advertising systems for the realThese ads can, for example, be time web have to work with a integrated in a user's stream of different set of signals and react updates in Twitter apps or to an environment that is always displayed as regular mobile ad in flux. In this context, it makes units. Digsby, for example, plans sense for OneRiot to launch a to place these ads directly in its product that focuses on trending users' streams, but because the topics and not on trying to match units are delivered as a feed an individual user's stream to the through OneRiot's API, right advertiser. developers are free to use them in Initially, OneRiot will work whatever way the see fit. closely with developers to ensure Sponsor that the initial implementations of OneRiot's ad network, RiotWise, the RiotWise Trending Ads work launched about 2 months ago as a well for users. For now, closed beta with roughly 20 developers will have to get partners. The new RiotWise approval to use the new ads by Trending Ads program was built applying through the OneRiot on top of this network. The Developer Network. The network will feature a mix of company plans to roll out the CPM and CPC ads. program more aggressively in the 2010: It's all About Monetizing next year. Discuss the Real-Time Web As OneRiot's general manager Submitted at 12/22/2009 9:00:00 AM

Tech Tips/

E-reader News Edition

Five Wishes for Better Webapps [Lifehacker Wishlist] By Kevin Purdy (Lifehacker) Submitted at 12/22/2009 9:00:00 AM

As we look ahead to 2010, we're hoping it's the year the web becomes a truly great platform for working and connecting online. Here are five things we'd like to see fixed for that to happen. Photo by Morten Lund. Overaggressive Flash and widgets One week after your first time ever opening a web browser, you knew how it worked. Text that was differently-colored and turned your cursor into a little pointing hand was a link. Images could also be links, and content and advertising usually have distinct barriers on the page. When sites get annoying, they blur the lines. Festering squarely at the bottom of the barrel are "search" and "preview" bubbles that automatically pop up when your mouse glances past certain topical words on blogs and news sites. Sometimes they're doubleunderlined, sometimes they're not. Sometimes they simply offer a graphical thumbnail of the page you'd travel to if you clicked, and sometimes they promise "explainers" that are nothing but ad-infested, self-linking nightmares. In any case, they break and cheapen the web's promise as a reasonable, if loosely organized, center for information. It's akin to walking through a library, glancing at the Young Adult fiction section a

few rows over, and then being startled by a sales representative for the Twilight books, leaping up from beneath a counter and screaming "LEARN MORE ABOUT TEAM JACOB!" That's just one example from a different corner of the web, but it's something you can see in a sadly large number of interactive sites. "Share this" buttons that expand to take over text space when you cursor barely taps them, screen-covering slide-outs asking readers to "Subscribe to our newsletter!" or "Take our survey!", videos that automatically play when you mouse over them (or simply arrive on the page)â&#x20AC;&#x201D;they all come from a desire to fudge how interested a reader is in the supplemental stuff around the content. We know our own site isn't entirely void of sometimes

aggressive Flash-based advertising, but on the editorial side just over the business wall, we envision a future in which readers can expect a consistent, calm reading experience on most any site on the webâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and browser add-ons like AdBlock Plus, FlashBlock, and their ilk aren't crucially necessary. Contact miners If we think a webapp is a crucial convenience, and one that our friend and family need to get in on, we'll tell them. I know I've pushed a number of grudging friends, and a patient spouse, into Google Voice, Brizz.ly, and Evernote, but I did it when the thought occurred to me, not while signing up. Too many webapps offer to make it "easy" to "find contacts who are already on X," and then ask for your Gmail, Hotmail,

of getting hundreds of people every day to do what their contacts are doing. If you've got a good product, it will get noticed, people will use it, and the people who respect those early adopters will follow suit. If you play a numbers game based on little white webapp lies, you're MySpace. Webapps without mobile versions A well-made, thought-out iPhone app is a great thing, and there are great device-specific apps for Android phones, BlackBerry units, and other platforms. But having a mobile site and service that's fast, functional, and universally Facebook, or other sign-in accessible is the most powerful credentials. You already know tool of all. who you want to "connect" with Google could, by all means, on most sites, but if it's somehow make a killer Gmail app for the convenient to pull in everybody iPhone, and already has an from your massive contacts list, Android app that many users and then un-check the folks you swear is worth the price of don't need ties to, it's up to you to admission alone. But nobody decide whether it's worth handing knows what the future brings, over a sensitive password (and and having a platform that's then, maybe, immediately change accessible to just about any webcapable phone, while being fast it). But most eager webapps don't and feature-packed, is the smart stop there. For all the contacts investment. Intern Whitson is, for that aren't on XYZNet, they'd example, planning on getting a like to email all of them, let them Droid phone very soon, which know that you've joined up, and means having to give up on ask them to connect with you, be accessing uber-helpful personal your friend, share your reading finance site Mint.com on the go, list, etc. No webapp has any since there's nothing in the way reason to do this. It's spam, pure of an Android app, or usable and simple, and it preys on those mobile site, at the moment. For w h o a r e t o o h u r r i e d o r every great webapp out there, this overwhelmed to look before they FIVE page 37 click "Next," and the bulk odds

Tech Tips/

E-reader News Edition

Gadget and Gear Deals of the Day [Dealhacker] By Jason Fitzpatrick (Lifehacker)

$129.99(Regular Price: $162).

Submitted at 12/22/2009 10:00:00 AM

Cheap HDTVs, computer gear, and a dash of free goodies await in today's dealhacker roundup. Today and tomorrow are the last days to score in-time-forChristmas shipping, so check your list twice! Computer Gear! • 15.6" HP G60-530US Laptop for $459.99 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $540 use this form) • 13.3" HP DM3-1030US LED Laptop for $539.99 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $590 use this form) • 10" Dell Inspiron Mini 1011 8hr Netbook for $308.98 + Free 2 -Day Shipping(Regular Price: $350) • Logitech Webcam Pro 9000 for $64.40 + Free 2-Day Shipping(Regular Price: $84 use this form) • 24" Sony VPCL112GX/B VAIO L Series Touchscreen AllIn-One PC for $1,199.95 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $1300). • HP Pavilion Slimline s5220f Desktop PC for $399.99 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $456). • Epson Artisan 810 Wireless Touch Screen Color Inkjet All-In -One Printer for $129.98 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $197). • 13.3" Toshiba Satellite T135S1310 1.3GHz 4GB 320GB HDD Ultrathin Laptop for $599.99 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $682.05).

• 15.6" HP G60-530US 2.1GHz Intel Pentium CPU 3GB DDR Laptop with Windows 7 Home Premium for $459.99 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $539.98 - use this form). • 17.3" HP Pavilion DV72270US 2.0GHz Intel Core2 Quad Laptop for $949.99 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $1065 use this form). • 17.3" HP G71-340US 2.2GHZ Core 2 Duo Laptop for $580 with free shipping(Regular Price: $750 - use this form). • 16" TOSHIBA Satellite A505S6998 NoteBook for $1,299.99 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $1450). • 16" MSI A6000-029US Intel Core 2 Duo T6600 2.2GHz 16in Laptop for $479.99 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $599). • 15.6" Lenovo G550 Dual Core Laptop for $449.99 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $550). • 15.5" Sony VAIO Dual Core Laptop with 320GB HDD for $499.99 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $650). • 10.1" Asus EEE PC 1005HA Intel Atom N270 10.1in Netbook

w/ Case for $249.99(Regular Price: $329). • 10.1" HP Mini 110-1050NR Netbook for $319.00 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $450). • 10.1" Acer AOD250-1584 Blue Netbook for $299.99 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $339). • 23" Acer H233Hbmid LCD for $139.99(Regular Price: $197). • eMachines E211H bmd 22Inch LCD $99.98 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $138). • Epson Workforce 610 Wireless Color Inkjet All-in-One Printer for $99.99 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $130). • Canon SELPHY ES40 Compact Dye Sublimation Printer for $90 with free shipping(Regular Price: $140). • Verbatim 500GB USB 2.0 Premier Edition HDD for $79.99 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $109.31). • LEGO Mindstorms NXT Robotics Micro-controller Brick (Black) for $89.99 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $140). Home Entertainment Gear! • 58" Samsung PN58B560

Portable Gear! • Sennheiser PXC450 NoiseCanceling Headphones for $199.95 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $328 - use coupon code EBAAA315) • Garmin nüvi 855 4.3-Inch Widescreen GPS w/ Speech Recognition for $159.99 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $189) 1 0 8 0 p P l a s m a H D T V f o r • Aiptek PJV11X PocketCinema $1,499.98 + F r e e V10 Portable Projector for Shipping(Regular Price: $1,562) $249.99 + Free Shipping(Regular • 10.2" Viore PLCD10V59 Price: $299.99). Portable LCD TV w/ Built-In • Garmin nüvi 785/785T 4.3DVD Player for $148 + Free Inch Portable GPS Navigator Shipping(Regular Price: $199) with Bluetooth and Maps of U.S, • 6 0 " L G 6 0 P S 6 0 H i g h - Canada & Puerto Rico for definition 1080p Plasma TV for $219.99 + Free Shipping(Regular $1449 with free shipping(Regular Price: $319). • Viore PLCD10V59 10.2-Inch Price: $1699). • 55" Vizio VF550M120Hz Portable Widescreen LCD TV 1080p LCD HDTV + Extras for with Built-In DVD Player for $1499 with free shipping(Regular $148 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $198.65). Price: $1708). • 47" LG 47LH30 1080p LCD • Garmin nüvi 855 4.3-Inch TV for $769.00 + Free Widescreen Portable GPS Shipping(Regular Price: $851). N a v i g a t o r w i t h S p e e c h • Insignia Blu-Ray Player w/ Recognition for $159.99 + Free Wireless Networking for Netflix S h i p p i n g ( R e g u l a r P r i c e : Streaming $119.99(Regular $ 1 8 8 . 8 6 ) . • Flip Ultra U2120B 8GB HD Price: $199). • LG BD 370 Network Blu-ray Digital Camcorder for $160 with Player for $149.99 + Free free shipping(Regular Price: Shipping(Regular Price: $168). $180). • Sony STR-DN1000 7.1- • Samsung TL320 12MP 3-inch Channel A/V Receiver for $297 AMOLED Digital Camera for + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $229 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $297). $320). • Samsung BD-P1600 Netflix- • Fujifilm FinePix Z30 10MP Ready Blu-Ray Disc Player + GADGET page 37 $20 Gift Card for

TV/

E-reader News Edition

FIVE

GADGET

continued from page 35

will be an endless problem going forward as new mobile browsers—tablets, e-readers, heck, even in-dash car screens—come along, but it's a straight-forward fix. Sites that don't remember, block password saving Pushing a button that does nothing is a universal route to madness. Likewise, offering "Remember me" check boxes, and denying a browser's built-in ability to save passwords, is becoming the newest way to make your webapp unliked and, in fact, kind of hated. Most modern operating systems have a username/password login, and offer encryption controls for applications and data. Firefox, among other browsers, offers a Master Password that prevents unauthorized use of saved passwords. If a webapp thinks it can protect your data by regularly—or, worse, completely randomly—signing you out, it is sorely mistaken. Focus should be put instead on preventing DNS hijackings, improving password recovery protocols, cutting off brute-force password attacks, and similarly back-alley methods.

continued from page 36

Online banking sites, sure, we can understand the skittishness—but come up with better non-text solutions instead of forcing customers to install extensions for easy JavaScript hacks to fix the problem. Walled gardens This is the simplest, but most dire, demand of any application that allows you to—and, in fact, encourages you to—create data, connections, contacts, and more: let us take it all out. Google's Data Liberation Front is an initiative by the search firm to force discussion on the topic of data portability. Before you use a webapp, and before a webapp designer starts offering sign-ups, a few questions should be asked: • Can I get my data out at all? • How much is it going to cost to get my data out? • How much of my time is it going to take to get my data out?

Webapps vary greatly on how they adhere to these ideal data provisions. Looking at Gina's roundup of free tools to back up online accounts, it's plain to see that there are apps that offer simple, universally useful data (WordPress, Tumblr, most Google apps), apps that offer data if you know where to look (Twitter), and apps that make you hunt down backup solutions that aren't officially supported (Facebook). As such, many people remain non-committal about working in the web, because it's hard to say just how long-term some platforms can be, given their closed-off nature. What webapp annoyances make you question the web as the place where you'll work in the future? What would you change about your favorite webapps if you had a team of programmers and a week off to work on it? Let's hear what's on your web wishlist in the comments.

And the ideal answers are: • Yes. • Nothing more than I'm already paying. • As little as possible.

Digital Camera with 3x Optical Zoom and 2.7 inch LCD for $89.99 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $119.99). • BlueAnt X5 Bluetooth Stereo Headphones for $29.99 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $80). • Garmin nuvi 205W Portable GPS Navigation (4.3in) for $89.99(Regular Price: $99) • Magellan RoadMate 1470 GPS Navigation System for $129.99 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $149 - use coupon) • Altec Lansing UHP326 Backbeat Series In Ear Headphone with Ultimate Ears technology for $29.01 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $52). • Miccus Bluetooth Music Transmitter for iPod for $23.99 + Free Shipping(Regular Price: $56). Free Stuff! • Amazon Video On Demand $4 Credit for $0(use coupon code AVODGIFT) • Quadrum:colors (iPhone) for $0(Regular Price: $1.99). • MAKIBISHI COMIC (iPhone/iPod Touch) for $0(Regular Price: $2.99).

• MP3 Download-Night Before Christmas/The Smithereens(use this form). • Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas by Keyshia Cole (MP3) for $0(download here). • Christmas With A Monkey From the Album Curious George - A Very Monkey Christmas (MP3) for $0(download here). • It Really is (a Wonderful Life) by Mindy Smith (MP3) for $0(download here). • Free Nyquil T-Shirt (upload picture of yourself sleeping and get 5 friend's votes)(use this form). • Free Holiday Phone Call From Santa, Frosty or Tony Stewart(use this form). Thanks Dealzon, TechDealDigger, Slickdeals, Fatwallet, TechBargains, CheapStingyBargains, CheapCollegeGamers, and GamerHotline!

Twelve Days of Festivus: Two series finales By Annie Wu (TV Squad)

Sometimes shows purposefully bow out to end on a high note, Submitted at 12/22/2009 2:02:00 PM and sometimes shows On the second day of Festivus, unexpectedly get axed. Some TV gave to me... two series pack a punch in their short lives, finales. some get drawn out over several S h o w s e n d a l l t h e t i m e . decades and end amidst a chorus of "Finally!" Seriously. Shows

end all the time. Continue reading Twelve Days Which is why it's absolutely of Festivus: Two series finales cruel that I was assigned to pick Filed under: OpEd, Festivus, only two 2009 series finales to Reality-Free write about. Come on! Two. Permalink| Email this| | That's a lot of pressure to put on C o m m e n t s a girl.

Tech Tips/ TV/

E-reader News Edition

Opera 10.5 Pre-Alpha is All About Speed (and Private Browsing) [Downloads] By Kevin Purdy (Lifehacker)

By Bob Sassone (TV Squad) Submitted at 12/22/2009 3:04:00 PM

Submitted at 12/22/2009 8:00:00 AM

Windows/Mac: Opera's developers have released a very unstable but promising version of their web browser into the open. What does Opera 10.5 have to offer? If a quick test is any indication, faster JavaScript speed than any browser out there. Based on Opera's reports of their new JavaScript engine, Caraken, being "7x faster" than the standard Futhark engine built into Opera 10.10, we ran it through Mozilla's Dromaeo JavaScript tests, which combine Apple's SunSpider and Google's V8 JavaScript benchmarks. Pure runs-per-second speed isn't everything, of course, and engines can be built specifically to max out in these kinds of tests. That said, the results of Opera 10.5, rolled into our last round of browser speed tests, were more than a little impressive, using Dromaeo as a measuring stick: The chart up top is pulled from

What You Missed Last Night: Jimmy, Martha, and the Croquembouche

No, that's not something dirty, it's a holiday dish that Martha Stewart cooked last night on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. You might know it as "that cookie thing that's shaped like a tree and has sticky stuff on it." [Watch clips and episodes of Late Night and other shows at SlashControl.] Filed under: Late Night, Video, Watercooler Talk, Celebrities, Talk Show, Reality-Free Permalink| Email this| | Comments our most recent speed tests, with Opera 10.5 pre-alpha results rolled in. It shows some, shall we say, notable improvement. The gHacks blog put 10.5 against Firefox 3.6 beta and Chrome's development build in the SunSpider and V8 tests and found that Opera either beat, or came very close to, Chrome, in those separate runs, and usually left Firefox in the dust. We'll have to put Opera 10.5 through

its full paces when it's out of its very unstable build. If you're the adventurous type and do want to give the pre-alpha a try, you'll also find improvements to the page rendering engine, new Private Browsing tabs and windows that don't track any history, and some interface and visual design tweaks, detailed in the post below. The big JavaScript improvements aren't as

pronounced on the Mac build as on Windows, according to the development team, but are still there. Opera 10.5 pre-alpha is a free download for Windows and Mac systems. Tell us if you think there's some real speed-ups in this build, and what else you like, in the comments. Opera 10.5 prealpha for Labs[Opera via ]

Review: Men of a Certain Age - Mind's Eye By Jason Hughes (TV Squad) Submitted at 12/22/2009 12:43:00 PM

(S01E03) If there was any doubt that this show's goal was too be completely authentic and realistic, I think a discussion about how many creams Owen

uses on his ass just about seals the deal. I can only imagine what the waitress thinks of the bits and pieces she overhears of the boys' various conversations. But it does make it perfectly clear why that diner table has become the symbol of the show.

These boys have been a part of

each other's lives for so long now that they're family. The fact that they're able to have conversations like we see each week, that certainly go deeper and more intimate than most "guy" friendships would ever be allowed, is a testament to that.

Continue reading Review: Men of a Certain Age - Mind's Eye Filed under: Other Drama Shows, OpEd, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free Permalink| Email this| | Comments

Tech Tips/ Tech News/

E-reader News Edition

Would You Ditch Cable for Online Television Subscriptions? [Reader Poll]

Can Text to Speech iPhone Apps Improve Tech Blogging?

By Adam Pash (Lifehacker)

By Dana Oshiro (ReadWriteWeb)

Submitted at 12/22/2009 11:30:00 AM

According to the Wall Street Journal, CBS and Disney may soon partner with Apple to let users subscribe to television over the internet using iTunes. So let's say every network jumps on board: Would you ditch cable for an internet alternative? Photo by dailyinvention. The article is a little vague on details, but it sounds like you'd pay a flat rate for access to a selection of shows from the participating networks. The shows would also likely be adfree. I think most people would agree that collapsing all of your entertainment into a single internet pipe is inevitable somewhere down the line, but whether or not we're ready for it is another question. A lot goes into this kind of a decision from a consumer standpoint. For one, dollars-todonuts that those videos will be weighed down by iTunes DRM that would severely limit how you could enjoy what you're

Submitted at 12/21/2009 4:10:00 PM

paying forâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;that is, if you're not planning to watch your television through iTunes, an Apple TV, your iPod/iPhone, or QuickTime, you'd probably be in a bit of a pinch. On the other hand, having the choice to watch anything from a network you want, at any time, rather than dealing with an out-of-your-control firehose of mostly crap and commercials seems nice. Just to get a better gauge of the viability of this sort of model, let's strip away the iTunes part of

the equation altogether and assume that if it starts with iTunes, eventually several providers may offer a service like this. We want to know: Would You Ditch Cable for Online Subscriptions?( polling) Share more specifics on how a plan like this may (or may not) meld with your TV-watching habits in the comments. Apple TV-Service Proposal Gets Some Nibbles(Google Link) [WSJ]

In the competitive world of tech journalism and blogging, quality can sometimes take a backseat to speed. While most bloggers double check their drafts before having their work scrutinized by editors and audience members, mistakes do slip through the cracks. With text-to-speech programs, errors become glaringly apparent. Sponsor Eight Interactive just launched its FeedMe Tech iPhone app. The service lets us listen to top tech news while running errands, walking the dog or cooking our holiday feasts. It's a free application with feeds from 10 popular tech sites including Lifehacker, TechCrunch and ReadWriteWeb. At the moment users cannot add additional feeds; however, the application does record what you've read, where you've stopped reading and the posts you'd like to save. For now it's a barebones application that displays how online content providers can better reach their audiences. However, because it transcribes every character, the service can sometimes offer comedic results.

iPhone app demo for FeedMe Tech. from 8Interactive on Vimeo. Bloggers should take note that FeedMe Tech reveals every grammatical error and misplaced comma. Couple this with the fact that the program's default voice is set to depressed British robot and you'll realize that a poorly written article offers an experience a bit like being in Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. In the spirit of spending more time with family members, I, for one, welcome our depressed robot overlords. To create a custom-branded FeedMe application contact Eight Interactive. To try FeedMe Tech download it here. Discuss

Tech News/

E-reader News Edition

2010 Predictions By Richard MacManus (ReadWriteWeb)

consumer complaints about content farms polluting Google search results. Submitted at 12/22/2009 10:00:00 AM 4. A price war will erupt in the Every year the ReadWriteWeb eBook market and Amazon.com team tries its hand at predicting will offer the lowest prices, the future. Looking back at our leading to it gaining a dominant 2009 predictions, we got some position in the market with its wrong (I predicted that Facebook Kindle eBook Reader. would sign up to OpenSocial) but 5. Google will partner with a others turned out to be on the large PC manufacturer from money. I correctly guessed that A s i a , w h o w i l l l a u n c h a n the usual suspects would remain inexpensive netbook powered by unacquired in '09 - Digg, Twitter, Chrome OS in the U.S. market. It Technorati - but that FriendFeed will become a hot consumer item would get bought. OK, so I among school kids and university guessed that Google would be the students. buyer. But close enough! Marshall Kirkpatrick, Lead Without further ado, here are our Writer & VP Content Dev predictions for 2010. We'd love 1. Google Wave will win some to read your predictions in the respect back as people discover comments. valuable uses for it and get used Sponsor to the user experience. Richard MacManus, Founder & 2. Facebook will open aggregate CEO user profile and social graph data 1. There will be a breakthrough for outside analysis. consumer application for Internet 3. Some serious user interface of Things - involving the iPhone, innovations will blow our minds. RFID tags and a major consumer 4. Data portability will become p r o d u c t s u c h a s b o o k s o r more real, standard, expected and groceries. In general Internet of viable. Things will ramp up in 2010, 5. A new social network will rise with thousands more everyday to join the big ones. It may offer objects becoming connected to the privacy that Facebook is the Internet. moving away from, it may be 2. Google will acquire PostRank mobile and location-centric, it and promptly consign it to the may focus on personal content same graveyard Feedburner went recommendations. to. Sarah Perez, Feature Writer 3. Microsoft will acquire 1. MySpace doesn't quite make a Wolfram|Alpha and Bing will comeback, but gets a fresh start continue to make small gains in of sorts with their music and the search market. Google will be entertainment offerings. The Gen d i s t r a c t e d b y i n c r e a s i n g Y/Gen Z demographic sees

for it. 10. The netbook craze dies down. People start buying new "in-between" devices that are slightly larger and more powerful than today's netbooks - but smaller, more lightweight and cheaper than regular notebooks. Features like better processors, separate GPUs, and SSD HD options set these new "ultra portable" devices apart from the growth on the site but the traditional netbook, but they're n e t w o r k ' s o v e r a l l n u m b e r s still often called "netbooks" because of their size. Market continue to decline. confusion ensues. 2. Twitter launches ads. Jolie O'Dell, Writer & 3. TweetDeck finally launches a C ommunity Manager web version and becomes the number 1 Twitter client other 1. MySpace relaunches as a content network, leveraging the than twitter.com. 4. Cloud computing heats up. bands and filmmakers they AWS, Google, Microsoft and already have on board and others begin price wars to dropping the emphasis on social networking. compete for customers. 2. Twitter will find a 5. The iPhone still rules and grabs more mobile market share monetization model and launch things like ads and pro features. than ever before. 6. Meanwhile, Android becomes 3. Facebook will become the the #2 mobile platform by year- Borg. Its number of users will continue to climb until the end. 7. iPhone App backlash begins. network is as ubiquitous as There are too many worthless Google and lay people confuse apps and no decent way to find Facebook with “the Internet.” the good ones. Then Apple They’ll make more money and surprises us with a brand-new control more data than ever feature that improves greatly before. upon their "genius" offering to 4. iPhone’s exclusivity with help us find new and useful apps AT&T will come to a breaking point and we’ll see networkvia iTunes. 8. iTunes announces a web agnostic iPhones. service, thanks to the Lala 5. On the bright side, 2010 will signal the death of the login. acquisition. 9. Spotify finally gets the green Third-party authentications will light in U.S. and people go nuts become the norm, and user data

will be entrusted to a discrete handful of online properties. Users will pitch a hissyfit if ever they’re asked to create a username and password and upload an avatar. After all, doesn’t the Internet know they have a Facebook? 6. File-sharing will continue to be shut down around the world; by 2011, we’ll all be downloading via Tor and the U.S. will have instituted a lame 3 -strikes-no-Internet policy. 7. Cybercrime will be more of an issue than ever. Expect to see a major governmental security breach in 2010, as the government continues to adopt 2.0 tech without strong and permanent infosec personnel and procedures in place. Dana Oshiro, ReadWriteStart Writer 1. AR: Geo-locational games and AR will come together in 2010. We’re going to see strange behavior from those playing zombie shooter games on their commutes. 2. Agree with Sarah: Netbooks and gadgets like the PsiXpda are going to gain ground. 3. Mobile Music: Offline music caching will be expected of all streaming music apps. 4. The browser really will be the new OS. 5. Payment Systems: Between Square, PayPal X and advances in internet TV, we’re going to see payment options integrated in 2010 page 42

Tech News/

E-reader News Edition

Sponsor Post: MyDomain Shows How to Take Your Business Online in 2010 By RWW Sponsor (ReadWriteWeb)

you can use to reach potential customers online. From an economic perspective, Submitted at 12/22/2009 5:45:00 AM now is also a good time to Editor's note: we offer our long- consider starting or growing your term sponsors the opportunity to business. The global economy is write 'Sponsor Posts' and tell showing signs of recovery from their story. These posts are recession, and catching an clearly marked as written by economic upswing when growing sponsors, but we also want them a small business is always a good to be useful and interesting to our thing. Small business loans from readers. We hope you like the banks and other creditors may posts and we encourage you to still be difficult to come by, support our sponsors by trying however, which makes an online out their products. business an even better choice Over the past decade, the due to low start-up costs. In Internet has evolved at a rapid recent history, a great deal of pace, and if you didn't jump on attention has been paid to the the bandwagon in years past you massive growth in large social may be feeling like it's a bit too networks, but now the Internet late to establish an online appears to be shifting towards a business. That's not the case, more local or hyperlocal focus however, and 2010 is the perfect with smaller communities inside time to start doing business bigger networks becoming more o n l i n e . T h e u n d e r l y i n g common. As a result, small technologies of Internet businesses offering local architecture are well-established products or services can find a and are more affordable now than targeted audience of potential ever to end-users. customers to engage with. Sponsor All these factors make now a The last several years have also great time to start your business seen a huge increase in the online. Follow through on a 2010 number of available social tools, resolution to make money from web utilities and online services what you enjoy doing by starting t h a t m a k e p r o m o t i n g y o u r a complete business from the business and being visible online ground up, adding an online easier and more affordable. The component to your existing n u m b e r o f I n t e r n e t u s e r s physical business, or just using a continues to grow substantially website to supplement other across the globe, and there are an income and test the water for expansive number of channels your idea. Below are a few steps

names to find a great fit. Your domain name will be your you can take to get started. 9 website's permanent address on Steps to Getting Your Business the web, so it's important to get it right the first time. Online Get Web hosting: You'd be Find a little cash: It's probably surprised how many people think going to cost a lot to get started the domain name is all they need with a business website, right? to build a website. What you Not so much. Don't fool yourself need next is a place to store into thinking that you can't afford website files online. That could to start a business online just be something as simple as basic because you see startups with web hosting or a more powerful millions of dollars in venture capital funding featured on solution such as a virtual private ReadWriteWeb or other tech server- both of which we offer at b l o g s . A h u g e n u m b e r o f MyDomain. There are many s u c c e s s f u l o n l i n e s m a l l other options as well, including businesses were started out of a self-hosting on your own server. h o m e o f f i c e o r g a r a g e There's a decent chance you workspace. The Internet is know these basics already, so if massive, and if you can find a that's the case, make sure to share good niche, you don't have to be your knowledge with others who e v e r y w h e r e a t o n c e t o b e are looking to get started online. successful. Costs for getting Build a website: There are a started with a domain name, huge number of options when it hosting, basic website creation comes to creating a website in and online marketing can easily 2010. Most hosting packages be kept under $1,000 in your first come with some a website year of business if you plan well. builder that will create a decent, Get a strong domain name: If if not slightly dated looking you're in the early planning website from a template. If you're stages of your business, always not experienced in web design keep potential domain names in but want to create a good-looking mind when choosing a business site yourself, look into content name. If you move forward with management systems such as a great business name only to D r u p a l , J o o m l a , o r e v e n find the domain name is taken, it WordPress as viable options that are easy to keep updated. The could mean back to square one best - and not-surprisingly most on name planning. Instead, keep a domain search handy as you costly option - still remains to brainstorm and get creative with hire a Web design company or

freelancer. But if you're serious about your online business, your website design and usability should be a top priority. Create an e-commerce strategy: Now comes the fun part: figuring out how to let other people pay you. If you want to have an integrated shopping cart solution, you'll be able to sell directly through your site and manage complete product listings. However, this type of solution is the most expensive and complex way to sell online, and a simpler solution may be a better fit for a small business just getting started. A great place to start is simply integrating services such as Paypal or Google Checkout into your website to accept payments. Another viable alternative is to use a website as an informational source for your business, but sell through another online vendor like Amazon, eBay, or Etsy. A final option is to choose to not sell online, but instead establish a website to promote and market your physical business. Secure your site: If you're planning to sell through your website or will even be collecting sensitive information from visitors, you'll want to look into getting an SSL certificate for your website. SSL encrypts data transmissions to and from your SPONSOR page 44

Entertainment/

E-reader News Edition

2010 continued from page 40

unlikely places. Alex Williams, ReadWriteEnterprise Writer 1. Cloud computing will go through a shake-out. There are just too many companies out there for the market to sustain. The big players will go on a buying spree. The consolidation will deeply affect users. Some companies will fold overnight. Users will lose access to their data, leading to a whole new wave of skepticism about cloud computing. But it won’t be enough to slow down the move to cloud computing. More companies will consider the security risks as less of a factor, compared to the cost benefits and potential for innovation. Cloud computing technology will become more of a commodity. The business applications for cloud computing will take center stage. 2. The big players will come back strong. IBM, SAP and Microsoft will innovate just enough to show big gains with customers. 3. Consumer based social networks will make big efforts to gain wider access to the enterprise, as more companies seek to open up to the social Web. The information architecture of social networks will change to accommodate the greater degrees of control that the

enterprise requires. This will bring on the rise of “social middleware,” services that act as a layer between social networks and the enterprise. 4. A new breed of social networks will emerge that act as one-stop shops for applications and services. These will look more like marketplaces than social hubs for conversations around the proverbial virtual water cooler. SaaS leaders will face off for this growing market. 5. iPhone, Android or the Blackberry? I expect the Android to be the talk of the enterprise, especially if the Google Phone does make it to market. Such a phone would eliminate carrier costs and break down walled gardens that have limited application development. Sean Ammirati, COO 1. Facebook will go public & the IPO will be a huge financial success. 2. Hyperlocal advertising will heat up, delivering another nail in the traditional newspaper industry’s coffin. (Very similar to one of my 2008 predictions, but this time focused on the advertising aspects.) Specifically, it will be more common for a local establishment to pay marketing dollars to Yelp or FourSquare, for example, then their local newspaper. 3. Apple will release an

“iTablet” and the world will be a better place for it. Ok, more accurately we’ll all think the world is a better place for it. 4. Agree with Jolie regarding “the death of the login.” I'm hoping for open distributed alternatives along with Facebook and a handful of others. 5. Between Boxee’s continued development and a new AppleTV (hopefully synched with their iTablet), it will become much more common to enjoy the Internet on a TV. Elyssa Pallai, Marketing & Experience Manager 1. Skype becomes increasingly pervasive, as the younger generations force their parents to get online and consumers find new and interesting ways to cut costs and save money. 2. Software as service becomes ever more popular, as businesses and governments choose to focus on their core business and realize the benefits of lightweight technologies in the cloud including rapid deployment and the low cost of switching. 3. The online user experience has a renaissance, as web browsers and hardware become more sophisticated and designers / developers take advantage of that. 4. The growth of Internet of Things continues, RFID tags in everything. The initial bugs will

make funny things happen all around us. 5. iPhones and other smartphones become the purchasing tool of choice. 6. Consumers bypass carriers and create open wifi networks for all (which is already happening but not en mass). Jared Smith, Webmaster 1. Backlash against the App Store causes more and more developers to defect to Android and competing platforms. 2. Google Chrome’s market share increases at Firefox’s expense. Internet Explorer continues to lose ground as more rich, HTML5-aware Web apps spring up on the scene. 3. Opera begins to struggle, as WebKit becomes the rendering engine of choice on mobile devices. 4. Social analytics features explode onto the scene in 2010. Twitter opens Pro accounts, including analytics and an API to access them. Google strikes a deal to integrate Twitter analytics with its Google Analytics product. Discuss

Taylor Swift and The Black Eyed Peas Join Grammy Lineup (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 12/22/2009 5:04:00 AM

The Recording Academy has announced a stellar lineup of performances for the "52nd Annual Grammy Awards." ET exclusively revealed on Monday that Beyonce would be taking the mic. Taylor Swift, The Black Eyed Peas, Maxwell, and country act Lady Antebellum will also have their chance to showcase their music in the spotlight. Each of the performers are nominated for multiple awards on the big night. Leading the Grammy nominations is Beyonce with 10. Not far behind are Taylor Swift with eight and The Black Eyed Peas and Maxwell, with six apiece. Lady Antebellum is up for two trophies. The Black Eyed Peas are creating an interactive forum with fans for their performance of "I Gotta Feeling." Fans can submit a 20 second video singing along to the Grammy nominated song, for the opportunity to have it stream in the background during the group's live performance. The deadline for entries is January 15.

Tech News/ Entertainment/

E-reader News Edition

Opera Feels The Need for Speed: Releases First Pre-Alpha of Opera 10.5 By Frederic Lardinois (ReadWriteWeb)

found at the bottom of this page. New Features New Features: Submitted at 12/22/2009 7:00:19 AM • private browsing Opera just released the first pre- • better integration with native alpha version of Opera 10.5. systems While most users generally only • notification messages are now think about Firefox, Internet non-modal Explorer and Chrome as the • improvements to the search gestures like the three-finger major players in the current box and the address box browser wars, there can be no • new and improved highlighting swipe and Growl notifications. doubt that Opera is working hard • new in-line page search and Other new features include a new "private tab" and "private to push browser development password manager window" mode that actually forward as well. This latest alpha version shows that Opera has Along with the focus on speed - works far better than similar worked hard to speed up the an area where Opera used to lead features in other browsers. You browser. Carakan, the new before WebKit-based browsers just have to right-click on the tab JavaScript engine in Opera 10.5, like Safari and Chrome became bar and select "private tab" to is up to seven times faster than popular - the company also start the private browsing mode Opera's current engine. The new included a number of other in this new tab, for example. version of Opera also adds a enhancement in this early version Opera also updated the look and number of new features like an of 10.5. Windows 7 and Vista feel of the browser's in-line page enhanced private browsing mode users, for example, will notice search and password manager. and a new graphics engine that that the browser is now closely It's All About Speed can be hardware accelerated. integrated with the desktop The focus for Opera, however, is Sponsor environment and makes use of clearly not so much on bringing The new alpha is currently only features like Aero Glass in Vista new features to the browser (the available for Windows and OSX and Aero Peek and Jump Lists in current Alpha doesn't even users; a Linux version will follow Windows 7. On the Mac, Opera s u p p o r t O p e r a U n i t e , f o r soon. Download links can be can now make use of multi-touch example), but on testing the new

JavaScript engine. When we spoke to CEO Jon von Tetzchner about the state of the browser during LeWeb earlier this month, he stressed that the company was very focused on improving the speed of the browser. He did say, however, that the JavaScript engine was only a small part of this effort and that the company was also looking at other bottlenecks that are slowing the browser down. The fact that that the new image rendering engine is already pre-wired for hardware acceleration is a good example for this (though the feature isn't turned on yet). We will bring you more of our interview with von Tetzchner after the holidays. In our own tests, Opera performed remarkably well and this new version clearly shows that it would be unwise to underestimate Opera in the browser wars. We should note, however, that this is still a very early alpha version and that the browser is likely to crash occasionally. Discuss

Inside the 'Dance Your Ass Off' Auditions and Past Contestant Alicia Duque on her 110-Pound Weight Loss (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 12/22/2009 7:03:00 AM

It was wrap-up-in-your-warmest -outdoor-gear cold in New York City the day of the "Dance Your Ass Off" auditions, but even so, the hopefuls came from miles to audition for a chance to dance off their pounds on the second season of the Oxygen series. "It is frigid and they are lining up around the block," creator/exec producer Lisa Ann Walter tells ET. "They came from Atlanta, Toronto and Brooklyn. The show inspired them." Also on hand was season one contestant Alicia Duque, who made it to the semi-finals and has lost 110 pounds since her first weigh-in on the show tipped the scales at 257 pounds.

No Place Like 'Home for the Holidays' for Carrie Underwood (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 12/22/2009 3:09:00 AM

Fresh off her engagement, Carrie Underwood will be joining the

stage headlined by Faith Hill for "The 11th Annual A Home for the Holidays" television special to raise awareness for foster care and adoption.

Faith Hill addressed the audience and viewers, saying, "Tonight we're celebrating those whose lives have been changed by adoption and reaching out to

those children who are still waiting. I know how important it is." The Grammy Award-winning singer can sympathize with the

children waiting for a loving family to take them into their home. She said, "I was adopted and it changed my life forever."

Tech News/

Google Voice Competitor Ribbit Mobile Launches iPhone App (500 Invites)

E-reader News Edition

SPONSOR continued from page 41

website and is most commonly used to protect credit card and financial data. Varying levels of encryption and visible security indicators for your website are available. By Frederic Lardinois means that you can't use your Network like crazy: Traditional (ReadWriteWeb) Ribbit phone number to make networking can be crucial to the calls, and that the caller ID will early success of a business, and Submitted at 12/21/2009 5:55:31 PM always show your iPhone's social media can enable you to Ribbit Mobile, which offers a set Your voicemail inbox is the number. In the current version it's network effectively online. Talk of VoIP services that is very central focus of the app, and the also not possible to see a list of about social media for business similar to Google Voice, just way the app handles these is missed calls that didn't result in a use is everywhere, and there are a launched its first iPhone app ( exemplary. Once you click on a voicemail. You can, however, huge number of resources and iTunes link). The app allows message in the inbox, the app choose to receive alerts for articles available to help you get users to check their voicemail, switches to a new view that missed calls and new voicemails started. Make sure that above all read voicemail transcriptions, displays details about the call: by SMS, email and instant e l s e , y o u g o w h e r e y o u r forward voicemails by email and name of caller, number, date and message. You can set your alert customers are. Utilize the tools create a to-call list based on these time. Here you can also listen to preferences in the app and that will allow you to most messages. It uses the iPhone's t h e m e s s a g e a n d r e a d t h e t h r o u g h t h e s e r v i c e ' s w e b effectively communicate with native phone app to make calls transcript. (Ribbit offers both i n t e r f a c e . those customers. and the default SMS app to send a u t o m a t i c a n d m a n u a l We understand that Ribbit Track like crazy, too: Make sure text messages. transcriptions.) From here, a probably had to remove quite a you're using website analytics to Ribbit also gave us 500 invites small bar at the bottom of the app few features to stay on Apple's track your website visitors and to hand out to our readers. If you also allows you to respond to the good side, but the result of this is sales. Part of the beauty of the would like to get one, just read message by phone, SMS or that the app misses quite a few w e b v e r s u s a t r a d i t i o n a l on to find out how to claim it. recorded voicemail. In addition, essential features. Hopefully - storefront is the ability to easily Sponsor you can add the caller to your to- now that Ribbit managed to get track, sort and analyze all of the In terms of features, Ribbit call list and forward transcripts this castrated version of the app data collected from visitors to Mobile, which launched in and audio by email. Playing it approved - the Ribbit team will your website. Analytics can help November, compares very well Safe soon be able add more of the y o u i m p r o v e y o u r w e b s i t e to Google Voice. While the Given that Apple didn't allow missing features into the app. d e s i g n , t r a c k y o u r s a l e s interface takes some getting used the Google Voice app into the Invites conversion, see where you're to, the ability to make and store, Ribbit clearly played it safe Ribbit Mobile is still an invite- ranking in search engines and receive calls from Ribbit's with this app. While it provides only service. If you would like to website through the Flash-based a c c e s s t o a l l t h e s e r v i c e ' s give it a try, just head over to interface is extremely useful voicemail features, the app Ribbit's sign-up page and use the while traveling, for example. For doesn't replicate any of the following invite code: RWW09 a more detailed look at Ribbit phone's calling or SMS features. Discuss Mobile, have a look at our in- The app also doesn't allow you to depth review from November. access your Ribbit Mobile Focus on Voicemail address book. Sadly, this also

much more. Google provides some of the best options available with Analytics, Webmaster Tools and Website Optimizer that all provide invaluable data for any online business. Grow and organize for the future: If you've made it to the point where you have a website set up, sales are coming in and your business is growing, it's the perfect time to make sure you're fully organized online. Use custom email addresses for your business, and make use of powerful collaboration, calendar and task management tools such as Open Xchange, Microsoft Exchange or Google Apps. Stay on top of the latest Internet trends and changes as things will continue to change rapidly for the foreseeable future. From there, carry your 2010 success long into the future as the Web continues to expand as a great place to do business. Discuss

Tech News/ Apple/ Entertainment/

E-reader News Edition

YouTube Gets Short(er) Links, Too By Jolie O'Dell (ReadWriteWeb) Submitted at 12/21/2009 8:28:56 PM

Almost in the immediate wake of Google's announcing short URLs ( goo.gl) and Facebook experimenting with fb.me links, YouTube has made a gesture toward shorter web addresses, as well. Today, the video site announced it's launching youtu.be links. They're not as short as the superbrief URLs users might see from bit.ly or is.gd because each one contains a unique ID for the video it links to. But this extra bit of information makes the URLs more useful for developers, too. Sponsor While the resulting URLs aren't

significantly shorter than a regular YouTube link, users will have the added benefit of knowing exactly what kind of content they're being redirected to, which isn't always the case with many shortened URLs. Also, with the video ID as part of the short URL, writes YouTube Engineering Manager Vijay Karunamurthy, "developers can do interesting things like show you thumbnails, embed the video directly or track how a video is spreading in real time."

End users can shorten links manually simply by putting the video ID (the part of the YouTube URL that comes after the equals sign and before the ampersand, if there is one) after http://youtu.be/. For example, " http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=1acVM7_rWw4" is the regular URL of an interview we did over the summer with a great startup advisor in Boulder, CO. The short version of that link would b e " http://youtu.be/1acVM7_rWw4". Or, for those copy-and-pasteaverse folks among us, links will be automatically shortened when broadcast thought the site's sharing mechanisms. Discuss

Brittany Murphy's Husband Simon Monjack: How Did This Happen? (ETonline - Breaking News)

myself and her family -- we want to know why we lost our baby," he tells People.com. ET has the latest... Monjack says he hasn't slept In an all-new interview, Brittany since his mother-in-law found M u r p h y ' s h u s b a n d S i m o n Murphy in the bathroom early Monjack is speaking out just two S u n d a y m o r n i n g a n d t h a t days after his wife's untimely although he didn't initially like death. the idea of an autopsy, he knew it "How did it happen? Her mum, was necessary. Submitted at 12/22/2009 8:21:00 AM

Tap Tap Revenge Developer Makes $1M Per Month By Darrell Etherington (TheAppleBlog) Submitted at 12/22/2009 6:00:56 AM

Do you somehow still doubt that the App Store is a huge moneymaking enterprise, at least for a lucky few? Then consider the news that Tapulous, the development studio behind the wildly popular Tap Tap Revenge rhythm game franchise, rakes in a cool million every month. That’s not EA or Gameloft or someone similar that came in with a reputation. That’s an iPhone-

specific development company. If you’re not familiar with Tap Tap Revenge (you must not own an iPhone, or read our site very carefully), then you probably don’t know that it’s essentially a clone of games like Dance Dance Revolution and Rock Band, redesigned specifically for the iPhone’s unique interface. It’s fun, and incredibly addictive, which probably has something to do with its impressive degree of million times(although that isn’t success. necessarily unique installs) and Tap Tap Revenge has reportedly people have played more than been installed more than 20

600 million rounds. Rough estimates put the total install base of the game at one-third of all iPhones currently operating. Considering the iPhone’s success, that represents a hefty payday indeed. The source of revenue stemming from the Tap Tap Revenge series is varied. Most of the apps themselves cost at least 99 cents, though Tap Tap Revenge 2.6 is free, and artist-specific special editions cost more. But the real money is made from ads in the games, and from a cut of the in-

app purchases available in the latest version, which allow iPhone users to buy and download playable, often themed tracks from their favorite artists. Obviously, Tapulous is the exception, not the rule. The vast majority of iPhone-only devs don’t make anywhere near that kind of scratch, but if nothing else, this simple rhythm game proves the money’s out there to be made.

Apple/

E-reader News Edition

How-To: Droid Syncing on the Mac By Dave Greenbaum (TheAppleBlog) Submitted at 12/21/2009 1:00:56 PM

Maybe it’s because you’ve been watching too many of these ads, but for whatever reason, the iPhone isn’t for you. You opted for an Android-based phone instead. It may blend, but will it sync with your Mac? Read on. There are comprehensive third party desktop syncing programs available such as Missing Sync, but realize that with a “Googlebased” phone, over-the-air syncing is automatic and built in. When you purchase your Android-based phone, you’ll link it with your Google account (a free Google account is required to use the phone’s over-the-air syncing). Your phone will generally auto-sync with your Google account allowing you to possibly ditch your MobileMe subscription. The task then is to get your Mac to sync with the Google account. 1) Foreplay While using a Droid isn’t as easy as using an iPhone, it’s not that much harder. Here’s a tip, do NOT allow your mobile phone company to import your contacts from your old phone. This has caused problems with synchronization for some. It’s best to start with a clean list of contacts in your Google account.

If you haven’t synced your previous phone with your Mac, go ahead and do it before switching phones. If you can’t, you might consider typing the phone numbers into your Mac Address Book beforehand. 2) Safe Syncing Syncing is only one step above the SCSI voodoo of previous generations. It’s always best to start with a core data set and push it to other devices. Trying to merge two data sets can result in duplication and corruption. If your Google account already has contacts, export them from Google as a vCard file and import them into your Mac Address Book. Once imported, delete the contacts from Google so the initial sync pushes all your Mac info into Gmail. As always, it’s a good idea to back up your data before any sync endeavor. From the Mac Address Book, go to the File menu, then choose Export, and then Address Book Archive. For your calendar, the safe sync concept is similar but you actually want to start with a populated Google calendar and a clear iCal. From experience, if you push too much into Google at once, it can choke. If you already have a Google calendar, back it up by clicking “Settings” under the “My calendars” Then

Now that you have your individual iCals exported, go to that same Settings tab in Google under “My Calendars” and now import your individual iCals into your existing calendars. Note: it won’t give you an option to create a new calendar from the import, so have your Google calendars ready beforehand. Finally, delete your iCal calendars (remember to back up first) so your iCal is clear of info choose “Export Calendars”. and all your data is now on They’ll download as a zip file Google’s servers. 3) Getting that you can double click and get Your Sync On t h e i n d i v i d u a l . I C S f i l e s . If you skipped step two, proceed Similarly, backup your iCal by at your own risk. You have been visiting the File Menu and warned. choose “Backup iCal.” If you have Snow Leopard, Syncing can be buggy under the Google contact syncing is builtbest of circumstances, which is in: go to the Address Book why I recommend backups P r e f e r e n c e s a n d c h e c k throughout the whole process. “Synchronize with Google”. Put Now that both your Google i n y o u r G o o g l e n a m e a n d Calendar and your iCal calender password and let the syncing are backed up, you’ll then want begin! For Leopard users, you’ll to export your existing iCal need to own an iPhone or iPod calendars and import then into touch to enable syncing or use your Google calendar. This isn’t third party apps like Gsync. the same as backing them up. To sync calendars, you’ll need to Click on a calendar, and then go be running Leopard or Snow to the File menu and choose Leopard. Go to your iCal “Export This” which will create application and then go to individual .iCal files for each Preferences and then Accounts. calender you use. Note that C l i c k t h e + i c o n a n d p u t Google doesn’t like To Dos so go w h a t e v e r y o u w a n t f o r a h e a d a n d r e m o v e t h o s e description. For username put beforehand. your name@gmail.com and your

password for Gmail. Then under the disclosure triangle for Server O p t i o n s , p u t https://www.google.com/calendar /dav/(followed by your googlemail address) and then user. So for example, https://www.google.com/calendar /dav/myname@gmail.com/user would be what you enter. Your calendars will now start downloading from the cloud. Alternatively, you can use BusySync and avoid these hassles. For photos, iTunes-like picture sync isn’t available, but you can mount your Droid like any other mass-storage device and have it recognized. You’ll need to enable USB mounting first. Go to the menu at the top of your phone and then click USB Connection to mount the SD card. To move music and other multimedia files easily I recommend DoubleTwist. Having used a Droid for a while I’m pretty darn impressed and you gotta love the advertising. If Mac syncing is holding you back from buying one, you just removed one reason not to switch!

Apple/ Sports/

E-reader News Edition

Vodafone UK Announces iPhone Launch Date By Liam Cassidy (TheAppleBlog)

and reliability – something our customers have told us they really value. Submitted at 12/21/2009 4:00:52 PM Yeah. We also value more Do you remember the notion we competitive deals, Mr Laurence. used to have that multiple I did a very brief comparison of carriers selling the iPhone in the the three cheapest contract deals same territory seemed like a (not pay-as-you-go) offered by golden ticket to more options, the three biggest operators in the lower prices and altogether more UK: O2, Orange and Vodafone. competitive deals for customers? Here’s what I found. Well, forget it. Ain’t gonna The cheapest contracts are all happen. Not if the UK’s mobile pretty lengthy –two years, in fact. market is anything to go by. That doesn’t sound unusual for V o d a f o n e U K h a s t o d a y those of you in America, I know, announced the launch date of the but here in the UK mobile iPhone on their network (it’s contracts are often no longer than January 14, by the way) but once twelve months. Being locked-in you’ve picked your way through for two long years is a ponderous their online pricing minefield, it’s proposition for many Brits who hardly anything to write home m i g h t b e g r a d u a t i n g about. (tentatively) to the exciting world According to the Financial of modern smartphones from T i m e s , G u y L a u r e n c e o f their old Nokia 3310’s! Vodafone UK said the carrier has In addition, none of the carriers b e e n b u s y p r e p a r i n g t h e i r offers a competitive price for the network for the iPhone for the latest model, the iPhone 3GS. last twelve months; The most affordable iPhones We started preparing our happen to be the elderly 2008 network over a year ago so that model. The stingy 8 gigabyte iPhone customers will really feel 2008 model, at that. So if you opt the advantage of being with for a two year contract you’re Vodafone. We will offer an getting a model that, in about six outstanding iPhone experience months (barely one quarter into wherever our customers live, the lifetime of your new contract) work and travel, delivering speed is going to be two models behind

the latest and greatest from Apple. I’m just sayin’, is all. Here’s how it breaks down, assuming the recession has hit you as hard as it hit everyone else and you’re looking to buy the most affordable iPhone package with one of the major UK network operators; O2 For £34.26 ($55.22) a month you’ll get 600 free minutes of talk time and 500 free text messages. Data is unlimited. Assuming you never use more than the free talktime/SMS, this will cost you £822 ($1,324) over the course of the contract. Orange £29.36 ($47.32) each and every month gets you a measly 150 minutes of talktime and 250 text messages. The lifetime cost – £704.64, or 1,131.37 of your shiny American dollars. Vodafone For a few pennies more than O2,

you can get last year’s low-end iPhone for £35 ($56.20) each month. For your money you’ll get 600 free minutes and unlimited text messages. The lifetime cost – £840, or $1,348.70. Please don’t forget – and I can’t stress this enough – this is an unusually-long contract for the UK, and yet it’s last year’s phone. Add to that the fact that, of course, no one ever stays within the allotted talktime and SMS quotas – everyone has a bill that costs the monthly fee plus additional talk time and messages. Frankly, it all adds up to quite an expensive deal, given the age and limited storage capacity of the model on offer. I should add, too, that “unlimited” doesn’t actually mean “unlimited”. It means you’re allowed to consume as much data as the network provider deems “appropriate” for normal use. This tends to hover between 500 MB and 1 GB per month, which isn’t too bad unless you use your phone for watching YouTube videos eight hours a day. (Still, I take offense at the way network operators so casually use the word “unlimited” when it means

nothing of the sort.) The trouble is that, if our providers start behaving like AT&T, their idea of “acceptable data usage” is going to change, and not in our favor. The 3GS, on the other hand, is astonishingly more expensive than the 3G with little appreciable difference between the providers in terms of handset costs and tariffs. I wonder if this is because of the already-steep up -front costs they’ve shouldered in order to offer Apple’s handsets in the first place. If that’s the case, perhaps I should be more disappointed in with Apple’s aggressive pricing policies that those of my nationwide cellular network operators. In any case, at this point in time, I see no compelling reason to move away from O2 at the end of my current contract. Was I expecting too much in terms of competitive pricing? Are these prices fair, given the investments which must be made by operators to offer the iPhone ‘experience’? Or is this a shining example of unfettered network operator greed? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Unfortunate Moments in Announcing: Hobey Baker Edition By Adam Gretz (Fanhouse Main)

NHL Videos, NHL Press Box During New Jersey's 4-0 win in Pittsburgh on Monday night Submitted at 12/22/2009 2:20:00 AM Martin Brodeur set the all-time Filed under: Devils, Penguins, N H L r e c o r d f o r s h u t o u t s ,

recording the 104th of his magnificent career. If you happened to be watching the Fox Sports Pittsburgh broadcast of the game you would

have picked up this exchange hard." between announcers Paul Steigerwald and Bob Errey regarding a hit along the boards, Hobey Baker and "going down

Apple/ TV/ Fashion/

Kiwi: Another Mac Twitter Client Joins the Fray By Darrell Etherington (TheAppleBlog) Submitted at 12/22/2009 10:00:29 AM

Perhaps you’ve grown tired of Tweetie, Twitterific or Socialite. Before you resort to Adobe AIR apps like Seesmic and TweetDeck, give Kiwi, the new kid on the block, a try. Fans of customizable third-party clients for other social services like Adium will probably find something to love in this freshfaced addition to the Mac’s Twitter options. Kiwi comes with a number of theme customization options preinstalled, and being primarily utilitarian in my own tastes when it comes to Twitter, I’m not sure what else you could ask for. For those with more imagination and a thirst for variety, though, you can download countless more themes from the web. You can also customize the toolbar that appears above your time line in the client window, just like you can with Firefox. It’s a neat feature, but so far, there aren’t enough options to choose from to make this worthwhile. It could prove useful

way Kiwi handles account switching (click on your own profile icon and choose from a drop-down list) but at least multiple-account support is present. It seems to take up a bit more memory than Tweetie, too. Twitter search is easily accessed by typing a keyword into the bottom field and pressing enter. Once you activate a search, a l a t e r , d e p e n d i n g o n h o w Loop icon appears where your Twitter’s growth plays out account picture is usually found, feature-wise. and the results are displayed in Kiwi is simple, in terms of the main time line. Going back to functions, which makes it an your accounts is as simple as appealing choice for the casual c l i c k i n g o n t h e L o o p a n d Twitter user. You get one switching back, or using the window, with your basic time m e n u o r K i w i ’ s k e y b o a r d line, and icons across the top shortcuts. It’s a clean and allow you to switch the view to efficient way of managing many @ mentions or DMs. Clicking on f u n c t i o n s f r o m a s i n g l e , a tweet brings up a conversation c o n v e n i e n t l o c a t i o n . view, and clicking on a user’s Kiwi is free to try, but it’ll cost icon shows that person’s time you $14.95 to unlock the full line. version. Check it out if you’re Retweeting uses the new API, looking for something simple, yet and there’s no option to switch to customizable and unique. I’d old-school RT or “via” style definitely recommend it for new quotes. Users new to the service, users looking to transition or those who like Twitter’s smoothly from the web interface official implementation, might to a desktop solution. enjoy this, but it’s a deal-breaker for me. Nor am I crazy about the

E-reader News Edition

TV franchises offer up last minute Christmas gift ideas By John Scott Lewinski (TV Squad) Submitted at 12/22/2009 1:01:00 PM

NORAD is already tracking Santa Claus and his airborne reindeer team as it heads south from the North Pole and ignores boring Canada to give delightful Christmas presents to all the good American boys and girls. Fortunately, the U.S. Air Force apologized for that anti-aircraft missile that almost nicked Dasher. They sent a fruit basket and everything. The point is that you don't have much time to snag holiday toys for your TV fan friends and those few kids you actually like. Fortunately, there still some popular toys out there that can serve multiple gift giving purposes. The I Love Lucy Barbie from Mattel(right) sells for $45, so it might be more appropriate for an adult toy collector (an adult who collects TV-related toys, I mean). But, a Barbie is a Barbie, and few

Street Chic: Los Angeles By ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog) Submitted at 12/22/2009 4:00:00 AM

A whimsical red print adds character to basic blue and black. Photo: Anne Ziegler Think you are Street Chic? E- mail us your photo and you could

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

girls would turn one down -even if it features Lucy Ricardo auditioning for a part in Ricky's show at the Copa. Continue reading TV franchises offer up last minute Christmas gift ideas Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Other Sci-Fi/Supernatural Shows, Animation, Festivus, Children, Reality-Free Permalink| Email this| | Comments

Apple/ TV/ Entertainment/

E-reader News Edition

Firmware Update Could Maybe Resolve One of iMac’s Problems, At Least By Darrell Etherington (TheAppleBlog) Submitted at 12/22/2009 8:00:54 AM

If you’re having problems with your new 27-inch iMac, you’ll be interested to know that Apple released a fix via Software Update for the machines that’s said to resolve screen flicker issues. Now your expensive new purchase will only disappoint you in two or three other ways. Many users are also reporting issues with cracked screens and yellow tinting on the displays, with a gradient from cool to warm as you move from top to bottom down the monitor. I had the latter issue on two replacement iPhone 3GSes, too, so I can’t help but wonder if Apple’s increased ability to move product isn’t affecting quality control. Apple’s also passing the buck in the description of what the new fix for the software-based flicker

problem actually does. To wit: The 27-inch iMac Graphics Firmware Update applies to the graphics firmware on ATI Radeon HD 4670 and 4850 graphics cards to address issues that may cause image corruption or the display to flicker. Elsewhere, the company notes that the firmware update isn’t a

cure-all: If your screen remains black after applying the updater or if you continue to experience image corruption or display flickering after successfully completing this update, contact AppleCare or an Apple Authorized Service Provider. So not only does Cupertino seem

to be blaming ATI for the issue, it’s not actually promising to necessarily fix anything with this update, either. Whether Apple goes with ATI or NVIDIA, it just can’t seem to avoid graphics card -related issues. At least this time around it didn’t take two or three years for Apple to acknowledge the problem. Still, sales of the 27inch iMac have been halted, which probably isn’t making consumers or Apple very happy. Let us know if you’ve tried out the update, and whether your problems have been resolved following its installation. I’ve heard from at least one or two people that they haven’t noticed any improvements. One thing’s for sure: Apple has to nip iMacgate in the bud before further damaging its quality and reliability reputation.

Brittany Murphy's HalfBrother Calls Actress a 'Casualty' of Hollywood (ETonline - Breaking News) Submitted at 12/22/2009 7:13:00 AM

ET has the latest... The late Brittany Murphy's halfbrother Jeff Bertolotti calls the actress' death "heartbreaking" and says the people around her should have "taken care of her better." In a new interview with People.com, Bertolotti says he hadn't seen his sister in eight years because "the Hollywood walls went up" and that none of his calls to her were returned. Despite their estrangement, Bertolotti says the news of her death is shocking.

Comcast launches new online video service today By Bob Sassone (TV Squad) Submitted at 12/22/2009 1:30:00 PM

Buying NBC isn't the only big news from Comcast happening at the end of the 2009. Today they're launching a new online on -demand service. It's only for Comcast customers, but I'm a

Comcast customer, so I'll be able to watch it! It's called XFinity, which sounds like that name for the next Stargate spinoff but is actually a new part of the Fancast site where you can watch TV shows from channels like HBO, AMC, Channel, and Cinemax. That A&E, STARZ, The History

means you can watch shows like True Blood, Entourage, Mad Men, The Colbert Report, Big Love, and many other shows. (By the way, right now Fancast is running a marathon of Friends Christmas episodes.) Now that Comcast owns a big chunk of NBC, I wonder how

this service could someday be combined with Hulu in some way, or if launching this service will affect Hulu in other ways. Filed under: Programming, Web, Reality-Free Permalink| Email this| | Comments

Tech Blog/ Entertainment/

E-reader News Edition

Open is in the eye of the beholder (Scripting News)

3. The new way is never better because the deliberative process yields a design by committee. When I say the Twitter API may SOAP failed to be a source of be an open standard, I mean interop for just this reason. The something different than when working group had hundreds of Jonathan Rosenberg says Google members and pleasing even some likes open standards. of them meant creating a spec I mean it's open in that anyone that was so vague and rambling can implement it now. as to be pointless as a standard. It A s m a r t d e v e l o p e r c a n provided almost no interop. implement the Twitter API in a (BTW, I am an author of the first matter of weeks. version of SOAP, so I got to Rosenberg means that the watch the deconstruction of a process of defining the standard standard by a working group is open. He would start a process from the inside.) to define a standard that in two or Dare Obasanjo of Microsoft asks t h r e e y e a r s a t e a m o f 2 0 us to look at the process by programmers could implement in which RSS begat Atom as a another two or three years. Those cautionary tale. He says the are the kind of results that his designers of Atom had "no version of "open" delivers. choice" but to be totally In an ideal world I prefer defacto incompatible with RSS, but that's standards that are ratified by not true. They could have started unanimous consent by standards with RSS, and only deviated bodies. The deliberative process where absolutely necessary. I yields bad results for several urged them to do this. reasons: All this talk about open 1. The defacto standard doesn't standards processes is surfacing just shrivel up and die, despite now because WordPress and the best efforts of the latecomers Tumblr implemented the Twitter to force it to. Twitter isn't going A P I , t h e r e b y p u t t i n g t h e to shut off its API and kill its "defacto" ball in play. The d e v e l o p e r b a s e b e c a u s e a BigCo's don't like it because, like working group formed. WordPress and Tumblr, they're 2. You end up with two ways of late to the game and don't want to doing something, and two ways play on the same field as the little are worse than one, no matter companies. They want to force how much better the new way is. Twitter into a standards process, I As Anil Dash says, the Twitter assume. It's something Twitter API is now, for all practical might consider, but they should purposes, finished. be cautious. Submitted at 12/22/2009 3:08:17 AM

Microsoft welcomed the W3C to the standards process when Netscape threatened the dominance of the Windows desktop in the mid-90s. The W3C gave them a greater-thanequal voice to Netscape, even though they had nowhere near Netscape's market presence in the dawning market of the web. In 2009, Google is just beginning to be a presence in realtime. It's fairly thrilling to see realtime search results show up in Google searches. They should keep going but hold back some of their power to let the little companies have a chance to do what they do better -- drive innovation. If Google does what Microsoft did, and unleashes all their destructive power, they will destroy the market. And we will be left with a scorched battlefield instead of the growth that's promised by the blossoming prototype of the news system of the future that I believe Twitter is.

I've said all along, as I said with Netscape in 1994 -- Twitter desperately needs competition to toughen them up and make them more responsive to market opportunities. To give them a sense of urgency they lack. But what they and we don't need is Google and other big companies to stall the market in the name of being open. Their process is open only if you're a BigCo, and shuts out exactly the people we want in there. The gutsy bright-eyed young entrepreneurial minds at rising stars like WordPress and Tumblr. They are ready for a standard now, not someday in the future, after a huge working group is finished with it. Not two years after that when everyone has forgotten the Open Microblogging Intitiative or whatever it ends up being called. They're ready now, and so is the market. So Google, Microsoft, Facebook, et al should step back and consider how they can help now, and not throw obstacles in the path of a surging market. My argument to Microsoft 15 years ago was that they would get the lion's share of any growth that is achieved by the upstarts, so it worked against their interests to slow them down. That still is true today, but there are new players who own a large share of the future, no matter what. Don't screw it up.

Hipster of the Decade Update: Is Grifting/Blogging Truly 'Authentic'? [Polls] By Pareene (Gawker) Submitted at 12/22/2009 10:24:00 AM

Dov Charney, Carles, and Kari Farrell are locked in essentially a three-way tie for Gawker's Coveted Old-Tymey Mustache Trophy (awarded, for pretend, to the Hipster of the Decade.) And that is lame! Because, come onâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Carles and Kari are totally hipsters-comelately. Gavin McInnes gave them an ethos, and Dov sold that ethos back to them while touching many of them inappropriately and unwelcomely. Carles just makes fun of them and Kari just stole from them. We should also seek to celebrate the semi-anonymous ones who truly represent what it meant to be young and trust-funded on Driggs in 2003! A vote for Truck Guy or the Williamsburg Hair Man is a vote for the common hipster! And before you start your preaching, let me ask you this my friend: Have you forgotten Princess Cold Stare? Please vote again, lamestains. Who Is the Hipster of the Decade?( polls)

TV/

E-reader News Edition

Disney Channel Sets New Viewing Records in 2009 By Robert Seidman (TVbytheNumbers) Submitted at 12/22/2009 11:44:33 AM

via press release: December 22, 2009 Disney Channel Highlights For 2009 Disney Channel Sets New Viewing Records in 2009 TV’s No. 1 Network in Total Day in Tweens 9-14, and Scores its 7th Consecutive Win in Prime in Kids 6-11 and 9th Straight Win in Tweens 9-14 Disney’s “Wizards of Waverly Place The Movie” is 2009’s No. 1 TV Telecast in Kids 6-11, TV/Cable’s No. 1 Scripted Telecast in Tweens 9-14 and Total Viewers For the 2nd Consecutive Year, “Phineas and Ferb” Stands as TV’s No. 1 Animated Series in Kids 6-11 and Tweens 9-14 Crossover Event “Wizards On Deck with Hannah Montana” is Cable/TV’s No. 2 Scripted Telecast in Total Viewers and Tweens 9-14 “Wizards of Waverly Place” and “The Suite Life on Deck” Are TV’s Top 2 Series/Scripted Series in Kids 6-11 and Tweens 9 -14, Marking Disney Channel’s 4th Consecutive Year with the No. 1 TV Series in the Core Kid Demos Playhouse Disney’s “Mickey Mouse Clubhouse” Ranks as TV’s No. 4 Series in Kids 2-5, with 2009 the Block’s MostWatched Year With Viewers and

Preschoolers Disney Channel — 2009 In another banner year, Disney Channel delivered TV’s Top 2 scripted telecasts with“Wizards of Waverly Place The Movie” and crossover special“Wizards On Deck with Hannah Montana,” and the Top 2 scripted TV series with“Wizards of Waverly Place” and“The Suite Life on Deck,” ranking as TV’s No. 1 network in Total Day in Tweens 9-14. In addition, 2009 was Disney Channel’s most-watched year on record in Total Day in Total Viewers and Kids 6-11, and tied 2007 as the net’s highest-rated year in Tweens 9-14. In Prime, Disney Channel was TV’s No. 1 network for the 7th straight year in Kids 6-11 and for the 9th consecutive year in Tweens 9-14. In Total Viewers, Disney Channel ranked as cable’s No. 2 network, marking the channel’s 4th straight year ranking among the Top 2 cable networks. Paul DeBenedittis, Senior Vice President, Programming, Scheduling, Multiplatform, Acquisitions, Disney Channels Worldwide, Disney Channel, said, “Throughout the year, we had a robust program schedule with exciting new stories and characters, all of which resonated with kids, tweens and families. We’re gratified that our Disney Channel viewers connect so deeply with our content and look forward to delivering more entertainment made just for them

-11(1.05 million/4.3 rating; 20032009) and for the 9th straight year in Tweens 9-14(870,000/3.6 rating; 2001-2009). • The net’s Playhouse Disney block(M-F, 8:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m./SS, 6:00-11:00 a.m.) enjoyed another banner year, delivering all-time highs in the daypart in Total Viewers(1.40 million), Kids 2-5(490,000), Girls 2-5(247,000), Boys 25(242,000) and Women 1849(256,000).

in the coming year including the new series “Good Luck Charlie” and the new Disney Channel Original Movies “StarStruck” and “Camp Rock The Final Jam.” 2009 Total Day, Prime and Playhouse

2009 Program Highlights • The premiere of Disney’s Waverly Place d o u b l e - d i g i t p e r c e n t a g e s , “Wizards of increasing by 11% in Total The Movie”(8/28/09) ranked as telecast in Kids 6Viewers(1.65 million vs. 1.48 TV’s No. 1 million), by 11% in Kids 6- 11(5.32 million/21.8 rating), No. 1 scripted telecast in 11(615,000 vs. 553,000) and by TV’s 12% in Tweens 9-14(516,000 vs. Tweens 9-14(4.64 million/19.0 rating) and cable’s No. 1 461,000). scripted telecast of 2009 in Total Viewers(13.50 million).

• Disney Channel was TV’s No. 1 network in Total Day in Tweens 9-14(516,000/2.1 rating). • Disney Channel was cable’s No. 2 network in Prime in Total Viewers(2.53 million), • In 2009, Disney Channel surpassing No. 3 TNT by recorded its largest annual 1 2 % ( 2 . 2 5 m i l l i o n ) a n d Total Viewer(1.65 million) and representing the 4th consecutive Kid 6-11(615,000) audiences year the network has ranked in the net’s history, and tied among the Top 2 networks on all 2007 as the net’s top-rated year cable. in Tweens 9-14(2.1 rating). • • Year-to-year, Disney Channel grew its delivery by robust

• • Impressively, this year marked the 8th straight year that Disney Channel has delivered the No. 1 original movie telecast in Tweens 914, and 8th time in the previous 9 years in Kids 6-11.

• Among its target demos, Disney Channel captured • TV’s annual Prime trophy for the 7th consecutive year in Kids 6

DISNEY page 52

E-reader News Edition

DISNEY continued from page 51

• In Total Viewers, 2009 represented the 3rd consecutive year that Disney Channel delivered the year’s No. 1 scripted telecast on all cable: 2009: “Wizards of Waverly Place The Movie“ (13.50 million); 2008: “Camp Rock” (10.11 million); 2007: “High School Musical 2” (18.64 million).

as TV’s No. 1 animated series in Kids 6-11(1.61 million/6.6 rating) and Tweens 9-14(1.26 million/5.2 rating).

Day in Tweens 9-14, and Scores its 7th Consecutive Win in Prime in Kids 6-11 and 9th Straight Win in Tweens 9-14 Disney’s “Wizards of Waverly • In Tweens 9-14, Disney Place The Movie” is 2009’s No. Channel delivered TV’s Top 2 1 TV Telecast in Kids 6-11, scripted series, and 4 of cable’s TV/Cable’s No. 1 Scripted Top 5: Telecast in Tweens 9-14 and Total Viewers For the 2nd Consecutive Year, • In Kids 6-11, Disney “Phineas and Ferb” Stands as Channel held TV’s Top 2 TV’s No. 1 Animated Series in • Crossover event “ Wizards series, and 4 of the Top 5 on all Kids 6-11 and Tweens 9-14 O n D e c k w i t h H a n n a h television: Crossover Event “Wizards On Montana” (7/17/09) was cable’s Deck with Hannah Montana” is No. 2 scripted telecast in Cable/TV’s No. 2 Scripted Viewers(10.64 million), TV’s • A key competitive player Telecast in Total Viewers and No. 2 scripted telecast in Tweens e a c h w e e k d u r i n g 2 0 0 9 , Tweens 9-14 9-14(4.19 million/17.2 rating), Playhouse Disney’s “Mickey “Wizards of Waverly Place” and and TV’s No. 3 scripted telecast Mouse Clubhouse” ranked as “The Suite Life on Deck” Are in Kids 6-11(4.28 million/17.5 TV’s No. 4 series for the year TV’s Top 2 Series/Scripted rating). in Kids 2-5(699,000/4.3 rating). Series in Kids 6-11 and Tweens 9 -14, Marking Disney Channel’s S o u r c e : N i e l s e n M e d i a 4th Consecutive Year with the • In Tweens 9-14, “ Wizards R e s e a r c h , 2 0 0 9 : 1 2 / 2 9 / 0 8 - No. 1 TV Series in the Core Kid of Waverly Place” (1.63 12/20/09 – Live + Same Day Demos million/6.7 rating) and “ The blended with Live+7; Ratings Playhouse Disney’s “Mickey Suite Life on Deck” (1.60 based on national rating unless Mouse Clubhouse” Ranks as million/6.6 rating) qualified as o t h e r w i s e n o t e d ] . S c r i p t e d TV’s No. 4 Series in Kids 2-5, TV’s Top 2 scripted series of telecast excludes Sports/News. with 2009 the Block’s Mostthe year. K6-11/TW9-14 Program ranks Watched Year With Viewers and based on 000s then rating with a Preschoolers minimum 10 telecasts (trackage Disney Channel — 2009 • In Kids 6-11, “ The Suite data, excludes specials, breakouts In another banner year, Disney Life on Deck” (1.82 and programs under 5 minutes). Channel delivered TV’s Top 2 million/7.4 rating) and “ Wizards K2-5 program ranks based on all scripted telecasts with“Wizards o f W a v e r l y P l a c e ” ( 1 . 8 1 play average. of Waverly Place The Movie” million/7.4 rating) were TV’s December 22, 2009 and crossover special“Wizards Top 2 series of 2009. Disney Channel Highlights For On Deck with Hannah Montana,” 2009 and the Top 2 scripted TV series Disney Channel Sets New with“Wizards of Waverly Place” • For the second straight year, Viewing Records in 2009 and“The Suite Life on Deck,” “Phineas and Ferb” qualified TV’s No. 1 Network in Total ranking as TV’s No. 1 network in

Total Day in Tweens 9-14. In addition, 2009 was Disney Channel’s most-watched year on record in Total Day in Total Viewers and Kids 6-11, and tied 2007 as the net’s highest-rated year in Tweens 9-14. In Prime, Disney Channel was TV’s No. 1 network for the 7th straight year in Kids 6-11 and for the 9th consecutive year in Tweens 9-14. In Total Viewers, Disney Channel ranked as cable’s No. 2 network, marking the channel’s 4th straight year ranking among the Top 2 cable networks. Paul DeBenedittis, Senior Vice President, Programming, Scheduling, Multiplatform, Acquisitions, Disney Channels Worldwide, Disney Channel, said, “Throughout the year, we had a robust program schedule with exciting new stories and characters, all of which resonated with kids, tweens and families. We’re gratified that our Disney Channel viewers connect so deeply with our content and look forward to delivering more entertainment made just for them in the coming year including the new series “Good Luck Charlie” and the new Disney Channel Original Movies “StarStruck” and “Camp Rock The Final Jam.” 2009 Total Day, Prime and Playhouse • Disney Channel was TV’s No. 1 network in Total Day in Tweens 9-14(516,000/2.1 rating).

• In 2009, Disney Channel recorded its largest annual Total Viewer(1.65 million) and Kid 6-11(615,000) audiences in the net’s history, and tied 2007 as the net’s top-rated year in Tweens 9-14(2.1 rating). • • Year-to-year, Disney Channel grew its delivery by robust double-digit percentages, increasing by 11% in Total Viewers(1.65 million vs. 1.48 million), by 11% in Kids 611(615,000 vs. 553,000) and by 12% in Tweens 9-14(516,000 vs. 461,000).

• Disney Channel was cable’s No. 2 network in Prime in Total Viewers(2.53 million), surpassing No. 3 TNT by 12%(2.25 million) and representing the 4th consecutive year the network has ranked among the Top 2 networks on all cable. • Among its target demos, Disney Channel captured TV’s annual Prime trophy for the 7th consecutive year in Kids 6 -11(1.05 million/4.3 rating; 20032009) and for the 9th straight year in Tweens 9-14(870,000/3.6 rating; 2001-2009).

DISNEY page 54

TV/

E-reader News Edition

Little Genius Premiere Gets A Little Smaller as American Idol Super-Sizes By Robert Seidman (TVbytheNumbers) Submitted at 12/22/2009 11:40:21 AM

Note the 75 minute Idol airing on 1/13, Little Genius will get a 45 minute premiere. via FOX press release: THEY ALL START SOMEWHERE… “AMERICAN IDOL” RETURNS TUESDAY, JANUARY 12 AND WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 13, ON FOX Ellen DeGeneres Joins the Judges in Hollywood Top 24 Semifinalists Revealed Wednesday, February 17 Voting Begins Tuesday, February 23 Finalists Revealed Thursday, March 11 Finalists Perform for First Time Tuesday, March 16 The wait is almost over for the return of television’s No. 1 show! AMERICAN IDOL is set to return for its much-anticipated ninth season with a two-night premiere featuring extraordinary talent and outrageous new auditions from Boston Tuesday, Jan. 12(8:00-10:00 PM ET/PT) and Atlanta Wednesday, Jan. 13(8:00-9:15 PM ET/PT) on FOX. After the two-night premiere, auditions will continue for three weeks starting with the Chicago auditions on Tuesday, Jan.

19(8:00-9:00 PM ET/PT) and continuing from Orlando on Wednesday, Jan. 20(8:00-9:00 PM ET/PT). Then, Dallas auditions will air Tuesday, Jan. 26(8:00-9:00 PM ET/PT); Los Angeles on Wednesday, Jan. 27(9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT); Denver on Tuesday, Feb. 2(8:009:00 PM ET/PT); and “The Road to Hollywood” auditions on Wednesday, Feb. 3(9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT). This season on AMERICAN IDOL, the good, the bad and the awful audition for their shot at stardom. In the audition cities, Ryan Seacrest hosts, and Simon Cowell, Randy Jackson and Kara DioGuardi will be joined by rotating guest judges Victoria Beckham, Mary J. Blige, Kristin Chenoweth, Neil Patrick Harris, Joe Jonas, Avril Lavigne, Katy Perry and Shania Twain who will help select the hopefuls worthy of the “Golden Ticket” to Hollywood. The lucky auditioners who get the judges’ approval then move on to the “Hollywood Round” where contestants vie for a semifinalist position during the next phase of the auditions. Once in Hollywood, Ellen joins Simon, Randy and Kara as they continue to winnow down the competitors to a select group of performers who will get to sing their hearts out each week in front of a studio audience and television viewers.

The “Hollywood Round” episodes will air Tuesday, Feb. 9(8:00-9:00 PM ET/PT); Wednesday, Feb. 10(9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT); and Tuesday, Feb. 16(8:00-9:00 PM ET/PT). On Wednesday, Feb. 17(9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT), dreams come true for 24 contestants, as Simon, Randy, Kara and Ellen announce the Top 12 male and Top 12 female semifinalists. It will then be up to America to decide who moves forward in the competition. The first performance show featuring the Top 12 female semifinalists will air Tuesday, Feb. 23(8:00-10:00 PM ET/PT). The following night, Wednesday, Feb. 24(8:00-10:00 PM ET/PT), the Top 12 male semifinalists will perform. The results show revealing America’s first vote of the season will air Thursday, Feb. 25(8:00-9:00 PM ET live/PT tape-delayed), when the two male and two female contestants with the fewest votes will be sent home. For the next two weeks, the girls will perform on Tuesdays, the guys will perform on Wednesdays and the results shows will air on Thursdays. The Top 10 female semifinalists will perform on Tuesday, March 2(8:00-10:00 PM ET/PT), and the Top 10 male semifinalists will take the stage on Wednesday, March 3(8:00-10:00 PM ET/PT). On Thursday,

March 4(8:00-9:00 PM ET live/PT tape-delayed), four contestants – two girls and two guys – will be eliminated from the competition. The following week, the Top 8 female semifinalists will compete on Tuesday, March 9(8:00-9:00 PM ET/PT), and the Top 8 male semifinalists will perform on Wednesday, March 10(9:0010:00 PM ET/PT). Then, on Thursday, March 11(8:00-9:00 PM ET live/PT tape-delayed), the finalists will be revealed after four more contestants are eliminated. The competition heats up when the finalists take the stage LIVE and for the first time together on Tuesday, March 16(8:00-10:00 PM ET live/PT tape-delayed). One contestant’s journey will end when America’s vote is revealed Wednesday, March 17(9:0010:00 PM ET live/PT tapedelayed). RECAP(All times ET/PT) Tuesday, Jan. 12 (8:00-10:00 PM) Season Premiere, Part 1 Boston Auditions Episode Wednesday, Jan. 13 (8:00-9:15 PM) Season Premiere, Part 2 Atlanta Auditions Episode Tuesday, Jan. 19 (8:00-9:00 PM) Chicago Auditions Episode Wednesday, Jan. 20 (8:00-9:00 PM) Orlando Auditions

Episode Tuesday, Jan. 26 (8:00-9:00 PM) Dallas Auditions Episode Wednesday, Jan. 27 (9:00-10:00 PM) Los Angeles Auditions Episode Tuesday, Feb. 2 (8:00-9:00 PM) Denver Auditions Episode Wednesday, Feb. 3 (9:00-10:00 PM) “The Road to Hollywood” Auditions Episode Tuesday, Feb. 9 (8:00-9:00 PM) Hollywood Round, Part 1 Wednesday, Feb. 10 (9:00-10:00 PM) Hollywood Round, Part 2 Tuesday, Feb. 16 (8:00-9:00 PM) Hollywood Round, Part 3 Wednesday, Feb. 17 (9:00-10:00 PM) Hollywood Round, Part 4 Top 24 Semifinalists Announced Tuesday, Feb. 23 (8:00-10:00 PM) Top 12 Female Semifinalists Perform Wednesday, Feb. 24 (8:00-10:00 PM) Top 12 Male Semifinalists Perform Thursday, Feb. 25 (8:00-9:00 PM) First Results Show (ET live/PT tape-delayed) Two Male and Two Female Contestants Eliminated Tuesday, March 2 (8:00-10:00 PM) Top 10 Female LITTLE page 56

Sports/ Fashion/

E-reader News Edition

DISNEY continued from page 52

• The net’s Playhouse Disney block(M-F, 8:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m./SS, 6:00-11:00 a.m.) enjoyed another banner year, delivering all-time highs in the daypart in Total Viewers(1.40 million), Kids 2-5(490,000), Girls 2-5(247,000), Boys 25(242,000) and Women 1849(256,000).

• • In Total Viewers, 2009 represented the 3rd consecutive year that Disney Channel delivered the year’s No. 1 scripted telecast on all cable: 2009: “Wizards of Waverly Place The Movie“ (13.50 million); 2008: “Camp Rock” (10.11 million); 2007: “High School Musical 2” (18.64 million).

Suite Life on Deck” (1.60 million/6.6 rating) qualified as TV’s Top 2 scripted series of the year. • In Kids 6-11, “ The Suite Life on Deck” (1.82 million/7.4 rating) and “ Wizards of Waverly Place” (1.81 million/7.4 rating) were TV’s Top 2 series of 2009.

• A key competitive player each week during 2009, Playhouse Disney’s “Mickey Mouse Clubhouse” ranked as TV’s No. 4 series for the year in Kids 2-5(699,000/4.3 rating).

Source: Nielsen Media Research, 2009: 12/29/0812/20/09 – Live + Same Day 2009 Program Highlights blended with Live+7; Ratings based on national rating unless • The premiere of Disney’s otherwise noted]. Scripted “Wizards of Waverly Place • For the second straight year, telecast excludes Sports/News. The Movie”(8/28/09) ranked as “Phineas and Ferb” qualified K6-11/TW9-14 Program ranks TV’s No. 1 telecast in Kids 6as TV’s No. 1 animated series in based on 000s then rating with a 11(5.32 million/21.8 rating), Kids 6-11(1.61 million/6.6 minimum 10 telecasts (trackage TV’s No. 1 scripted telecast in • Crossover event “ Wizards rating) and Tweens 9-14(1.26 data, excludes specials, breakouts Tweens 9-14(4.64 million/19.0 O n D e c k w i t h H a n n a h million/5.2 rating). and programs under 5 minutes). rating) and cable’s No. 1 Montana” (7/17/09) was cable’s K2-5 program ranks based on all scripted telecast of 2009 in N o . 2 s c r i p t e d t e l e c a s t i n play average. Total Viewers(13.50 million). Viewers(10.64 million), TV’s • In Tweens 9-14, Disney Five Filters featured article: No. 2 scripted telecast in Tweens Channel delivered TV’s Top 2 Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: 9-14(4.19 million/17.2 rating), scripted series, and 4 of cable’s PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, • and TV’s No. 3 scripted telecast Top 5: Term Extraction. • Impressively, this year in Kids 6-11(4.28 million/17.5 marked the 8th straight year rating). that Disney Channel has • In Kids 6-11, Disney delivered the No. 1 original Channel held TV’s Top 2 movie telecast in Tweens 9- • In Tweens 9-14, “ Wizards series, and 4 of the Top 5 on all 14, and 8th time in the previous 9 of Waverly Place” (1.63 television: years in Kids 6-11. million/6.7 rating) and “ The

Makeover Fridays at Ted Gibson Salon By ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog) Submitted at 12/22/2009 10:00:00 AM

To celebrate the start of another season as TLC's resident hair guru on What Not To Wear, stylist Ted Gibson will be hosting "Makeover Fridays" at his New York salon. For 20 percent off any cut or color session in January, simply mention "Makeover Fridays" when booking your appointment (212633-6333). P.S. Don't think you have to get a drastic change for 2010; a high-shine glaze with a hint of color could give you just the boost you're looking for! —Emily Hebert Photo: Courtesy of Ted Gibson Salon Follow ELLE on Twitter

Predicting the Playoffs: the AFC Race Is All Scrambled Up By JJ Cooper (Fanhouse Main)

Denver Broncos could have held on to beat the Raiders on Sunday afternoon, the AFC playoff Submitted at 12/22/2009 1:40:00 AM picture would be pretty clear by Filed under: Broncos, Colts, now. But when JaMarcus Russell Dolphins, Jaguars, Jets, Ravens, turned into Jim Plunkett for a Steelers, Texans, Titans, NFL couple of moments Sunday Playoffs, NFL Analysis If the afternoon, he managed to throw

the AFC wild card race into a free-for-all.

There are only four teams in the AFC with losing records while 12 teams are either in playoff contention. In looking at the upcoming scenarios, it's safe to assume that it will take at least a 9-7 record to earn a wild card spot. With eight

teams sitting at 8-6 or 7-7 there's just no logical expectation that two of those teams won't go 9-7.

E-reader News Edition

TV/ Entertainment/

Ratings Notes for TNT, Adult Swim, truTV and TBS’ Lopez Tonight By Robert Seidman (TVbytheNumbers)

adults 18-34. TBS TBS’s late-night hit Lopez Submitted at 12/22/2009 10:26:54 AM Tonight enjoyed a strong week, via Turner for the week ending averaging 1.3 million viewers, up December 20, 2009. 7% when compared to the prior TNT week. In addition, it delivered Last Monday’s episode of The 845,000 adults 18-49, up 9% Closer ranked as ad-supported when compared to the prior cable’s #1 entertainment program week. The show continues to be for the week among viewers (5.5 tremendous hit with multicultural million) and households (4.1 viewers, with Hispanic viewers million). It also scored 1.6 accounting for 32% of its million adults 18-49 and 2.1 audience, while Africanmillion adults 25-54. American viewers account for TNT’s Men of a Certain Age 27% of its audience. continued its successful run last truTV Monday night at 10 p.m., with truTV, which is scoring its the series’ second episode biggest year ever in ratings, delivering 4.4 million viewers, (57%) when compared to last 1,001,000 vs. 877,000 enjoyed strong performances 3.2 million households, 1.8 year. • Adults 25-54: +16 % 899,000 from its original series last week, million adults 18-49 and 2.3 led by Operation Repo. The The 2009-10 NBA regular vs. 777,000 million adults 25-54. It grew season on TNT continues to • Men 18-34: +26 % 443,000 Monday, Dec. 14, 10 p.m. from its lead-in, The Closer, by experience tremendous growth, vs. 352,000 episode ranked among cable’s 10% among adults 18-49 and by a v e r a g i n g a 1 . 2 n a t i o n a l • Men 18-49: +18% 721,000 Top 5 entertainment programs in 6% among adults 25-54. its time period in delivery of household rating, up 20% over vs. 609,000 TNT’s Sunday 8 p.m. premiere the first 18 games of the 2008-09 • Men 25-54: +22% 647,000 adults 18-34 (583,000); adults 18 of Christmas in Washington, N B A s e a s o n ( 1 . 0 n a t i o n a l vs. 530,000 -49 (1,035,000); men 18-34 which featured performances by household rating). In addition, (331,000); and men 18-49 Justin Bieber, Mary J. Blige, Neil t o t a l viewers are S o u r c e : N i e l s e n M e d i a (587,000). D i a m o n d , S u g a r l a n d , R o b up 19%(1,813,000 vs. 1,518,000) Research, Live + Same Day data. Five Filters featured article: Thomas and Usher, was watched a n d h o u s e h o l d s a r e NBA Regular Season on TNT Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: by 1.9 million viewers and 1.3 u p 1 8 % ( 1 , 3 8 0 , 0 0 0 through 18 games, 10/27/09 – PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, million households, up 32% and v s . 1 , 1 6 8 , 0 0 0 ) . 1 2 / 2 0 / 0 9 v s . 1 0 / 2 8 / 0 8 – Term Extraction. 22%, respectively, over last The network has also seen 1 2 / 2 1 / 0 8 . year’s concert. Hosted by significant increases in key Adult Swim G e o r g e L o p e z , t h i s y e a r ’ s demos including: Adult Swim continued its p r e s e n t a t i o n a l s o s c o r e d • Adults 18-34: + 23% 594,000 successful year, ranking as adtremendous growth among adults in 2009 vs. 482,000 in 2008 supported cable’s #1 network for 18-49 (78%) and adults 25-54 • A d u l t s 1 8 - 4 9 : + 1 4 % the week in total-day delivery of

Barack Obama Wants to Be at Work Today Just as Much as You Do, America [Bored In The U.s.a.] By John Cook (Gawker) Submitted at 12/22/2009 9:43:55 AM

So he's prank-calling local newstalk radio shows as "Barry From D.C." Is it five yet? Anyone up for lunch? Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine was a guest today on a WTOP radio show in Washington, D.C., so Obama called in to wish him a Merry Christmas. He's got plenty of time to kill—according to the latest White House pool report, Obama just announced in the Roosevelt Room that he's not leaving for his Hawaiian holiday until the Senate passes a healthcare bill on Christmas Eve. "My attitude is if they are making these sacrifices to provide health care to all Americans, the least I can do is be around." Which means plenty of time to kill til then. Also, contrary to our report yesterday, the White House press corps won't have it any better than their counterparts on the Hill after all.

TV/ Popular News/

FOX Sunday Afternoon National Game Averages 25.8 million Over Four Games

E-reader News Edition

LITTLE continued from page 53

Semifinalists Perform Wednesday, March 3 (8:0010:00 PM) Top 10 Male Semifinalists Perform Thursday, March 4 (8:00-9:00 PM) Results Show (ET By Robert Seidman live/PT tape-delayed) (TVbytheNumbers) Two Male and Two Female Contestants Eliminated Submitted at 12/22/2009 10:11:28 AM Tuesday, March 9 (8:00-9:00 via FOX Sports release: PM) Top 8 Female EIGHT IS ENOUGH Semifinalists Perform ALREADY Wednesday, March 10 (9:00NFL ON FOX NATIONAL IS 10:00 PM) Top 8 Male WEEK’S HIGHEST-RATED, Semifinalists Perform MOST-WATCHED PROGRAM Thursday, March 11 (8:00-9:00 … AGAIN PM) Results Show (ET Saturday night’s big snowstorm live/PT tape-delayed) on the East Coast caused 1:00 Two Male and Two Female PM games in Philadelphia (vs. Contestants Eliminated; Finalists SF) and Baltimore (vs. Chicago) last year’s comparable 24.4 (vs. 22.9 mill). It is also pacing Revealed to be rescheduled for 4:15 PM, million, 14.7/28 doubleheader on + 1 7 % a n d + 2 0 % b e t t e r , Tuesday, March 16 (8:00-10:00 reversing the NFL on FOX CBS. Besides its perch as r e s p e c t i v e l y , t h a n C B S ’ s PM) Finalists Perform (ET schedule from four games early television’s No. 1 show among National Game (13.2/25, 21.8 live/PT tape-delayed) and two games late to the key male and adult demos for the mill), +30% and +34% better, Wednesday, March 17 (9:00opposite. The result was a solid week, it was also No. 1 in women respectively, than NBC’s Sunday 15.1/28 national household 1 8 - 3 4 a n d w o m e n 1 8 - 4 9 . Night Football (11.9/19, 19.6 rating/share, with 25.8 million Sunday’s 15.1/28 marks the fifth mill) and ranks as the highestviewers on Sunday (12/20) for a time this year an NFL on FOX rated and most-watched program four-game National Window. game exceeded a 15.0 rating in all of television across all key All markets eventually folded nationally, which has never male and adult demos for the (FOXNews.com) into the end of a thrilling Packers happened in 15 prior NFL on season. Submitted at 12/21/2009 11:10:35 PM -Steelers game, and for the eighth FOX seasons. Five Filters featured article: time in as many tries, the NFL on Through eight broadcasts the Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PHOENIX Officials say a dust FOX National Game was the NFL on FOX National Game is PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, storm has led to 20 or more highest-rated and most-watched averaging an impressive 15.5/29 Term Extraction. collisions on Interstate 10 in program of the week in all of and 26.2 million viewers, up central Arizona, with several television. vehicles catching fire. +9% in rating over last year’s The audience is +6% and rating 14.2/27 and +14% in audience The Arizona Department of +3% better, respectively, than Public Safety says at least one person has died and an unknown number of others have suffered

10:00 PM) Results Show (ET live/PT tape-delayed) One Contestant Eliminated AMERICAN IDOL is created and executive-produced by Simon Fuller, founder of 19 Entertainment; and executiveproduced by Cecile Frot-Coutaz, CEO, FremantleMedia North America; and Ken Warwick, executive producer, FremantleMedia North America. Visit americanidol.com for exclusive videos, interviews and photos, as well as special behindthe-scenes information and all of your AMERICAN IDOL news Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Arizona Dust Storm Leads to Highway Fatalities severe burns and traumatic injuries. The highway patrol says a commercial vehicle exploded, so a hazardous materials team is being being sent to the scene. The crash occurred near Casa Grande, about 10 miles north of the junction with Interstate 8. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

TV/

E-reader News Edition

Survivor runner-up Russell has a new web site By Bob Sassone (TV Squad) Submitted at 12/22/2009 2:29:00 PM

What's On Tonight: Carrie Underwood, Scrubs, ECW

If you watched the season finale of Survivor the other night, you probably noticed that, unlike a lot of runner-ups in the past, Russell Hantz was openly bitter and By Bob Sassone (TV Squad) Lab. Check your local TV listings for angry about not winning. He • History Channel has two new more. didn't try to hide it, which Submitted at 12/22/2009 12:13:00 PM episodes of How The Earth Was After the jump, the late night probably proved to the jury that Made. talk shows. they were right in voting for • At 7, ReelzChannel has a new • BBC America has a new Continue reading What's On Natalie in the first place. Hollywood Dailies with new Britain's Missing Top Model at 9. Tonight: Carrie Underwood, But Russell still thinks he should contributor Richard Roeper. • Comedy Central has four Scrubs, ECW have won and he has just • 8, FOX has Carrie Underwood: Christmas episodes of South Park F i l e d u n d e r : L a t e N i g h t , launched a new web site called An All-Star Holiday Special. starting at 9. Programming, Celebrities, Talk RussellGotScrewed.com, where • ESPN has the MAACO Bowl, • At 10, Syfy has a new ECW. Show, What To Watch Tonight, he asks you to vote for him if you BYU vs. Oregon State. • A&E has two new episodes of Reality-Free think he's "America's Top • At 9, ABC has a new Scrubs, Paranormal State at 10. Permalink| Email this| | then a new Better Off Ted. • Also at 10: HBO has a new C o m m e n t s • Discovery has a new Dirty Jobs Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel. at 9, followed by a new Ghost

Survivor." You can also make donations or buy shirts and other things in his store. Proceeds go to St. Jude's Hospital, which is a great thing, though I'm not sure exactly what he wants to accomplish with the whole "vote for me" thing. Maybe he wants a recount. He even told Natalie on the finale that if she asked Jeff to proclaim him the best player (though not the official winner) he would give her $10,000. She didn't take the offer. Filed under: Survivor, Web Permalink| Email this| | Comments

TV/ Sports/

E-reader News Edition

Serena Williams voted AP Female Athlete of the Year in landslide By Associated Press (ESPN.com) Submitted at 12/22/2009 8:16:51 AM

Playing her best at the most important events, Serena Williams re-established herself as the top player in women's tennis in 2009 and was a landslide choice as Female Athlete of the Year by members of The Associated Press. Williams received 66 of 158 votes cast by editors at U.S. newspapers that are members of the AP. No other candidate got more than 18 votes in the tally, which was announced Tuesday. Clearly, Williams' most infamous on-court episode -- a tirade directed at a line judge after a foot-fault call near the end of her U.S. Open semifinal loss in September -- didn't hurt her standing in the eyes of the voters. "People realize that I'm a great player, and one moment doesn't define a person's career," until next week. Williams told the AP. "And I was This season ‘World News” is right, for the most part: It wasn't averaging around 8 million right the way I reacted -- I never viewers and its Monday average said it was -- but I was right is 8.4 million. about the call." Five Filters featured article: She also noted that the outburst, Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: which resulted in a record fine PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, and two-year probationary period Term Extraction. at Grand Slam tournaments, "got a lot more people excited about tennis."

Diane Sawyer’s Premiere On “World News” Lifts Ratings ~6% Based On Early Numbers By Robert Seidman (TVbytheNumbers) Submitted at 12/22/2009 10:04:41 AM

It looks like Diane Sawyer’s debut on “World News” lifted ratings above average based on the preliminary Nielsen results where 8.934 million people watched ABC from 6:30p to 7p

on Monday night. Disclaimer: that’s much more preliminary than typical overnight numbers for primetime because all its doing is measuring every ABC affiliate for that time period, and not every ABC affiliate carries “World News” from 6:30p-7p. Official final numbers will not be available

The 28-year-old American tends to do that, thanks to her powerful, athletic play and her outgoing personality. "We can attribute the strength and the growth of women's tennis a great deal to her," WTA chairman and CEO Stacey Allaster said in a telephone interview. "She is a superstar." Williams, who is based in Florida, also won the AP award in 2002, a seven-year gap that is the longest between AP Female Athlete of the Year honors since golf's Patty Berg won in 1943 and 1955. "I'm just happy and blessed to even be playing seven years later. All this is a bonus, really," Williams said. "In 2002, I just was really dominant, and I think in 2009, I just brought that back. I kind of became that player again." Runner-up in the AP voting was Zenyatta, who capped a 14-0 career by becoming the first female horse to win the Breeders' Cup Classic. Tennis' Kim Clijsters finished third with 16 votes. Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Entertainment/

E-reader News Edition

Malcolm Gladwell's Stickiness Problem [Op-ed] By Jeff Wise (Gawker) Submitted at 12/22/2009 10:20:42 AM

It's tough out there for science writers following in Malcolm Gladwell's footsteps. Not because he's so good, but because he's so wrong. Here's a rant by author Jeff Wise, republished from Psychology Today, on undoing Gladwell's damage to the facts. The aughts been a good decade for Malcolm Gladwell. The reigning king of urban intellectuals has never not had a book among the New York Times's top 10 bestsellers since his first book, Tipping Point, debuted in 2000. (Currently, he has four.) With so much success, of course, invariably come brickbats. The latest volley of slings and arrows has arrived from the direction of Steven Pinker, the Harvard psychology professor who, reviewing Gladwell's book What the Dog Saw in the New York Times Book Review last month, declared that the author "unwittingly demonstrates the hazards of statistical reasoning and... occasionally blunders into spectacular failures." As someone who has just published a somewhat Gladwellian tome myself, I have a somewhat different perspective. The problem, I've discovered, isn't just that Gladwell is wrong. It's that his formulations are so darn sticky. I stumbled upon this realization when, last year, I began writing

my book, Extreme Fear: The Science of Your Mind in Danger. In the course of my research I delved into all the major manifestations of the emotion, including the phenomenon of athletes choking on the playing field. Gladwell, I already knew, had famously dealt with the subject in a 2000 New Yorker article entitled " The Art of Failure." He summed up the topic with breathtaking concision. Choking, he declared, is the opposite of panic. "Choking is about thinking too much," he wrote. "Panic is about thinking too little." It was the epitome of a Gladwellian idea:

with the erroneous notion that they are in possession of a really nifty insight into the nature of choking, so be it. No harm, no foul. But some bogus memes are less innocent. One of the chapters in Gladwell's second book, Blink, concerns the work of the University of California psychologist Paul Ekman, a man who, according to Gladwell, has mastered the secret of lie detection. Thanks to a combination of innate skill and scientific savvy, Ekman has supposedly trained himself to detect fleeting "microexpressions" on a liar's face and so can determine their true emotional state with stunning accuracy. It was the best chapter of the book, maybe the best chapter counterintuitive, startling, yet opposite of panic" doesn't make Gladwell has ever written. When immediately graspable. In other any sense. It's like saying "dogs Universal Studios paid $1 million words, sticky â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the supreme are the opposite of cats" â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a for the movie rights to Blink, this attribute for a successful meme. stimulating proposition, perhaps, was the part they really wanted; A n d t h u s i t s p r e a d . R e a d but logically unparsable. when the deal was inked, the anything about choking in the Meanwhile, as it happens, a studio announced that Steven popular press these days and great deal of fascinating research Gaghan was attached to the you'll likely get the Gladwell has gone into figuring out how project to write and direct, and line. Here's Jonah Lehrer, writing choking actually works. The Leonardo DiCaprio would star as in his book How We Decide: phenomenon is an expression of an Ekman-like character. That "Choking is actually triggered by a specifically social kind of fear, film is still gestating, but a s p e c i f i c m e n t a l m i s t a k e : a variety of performance anxiety meanwhile the Gladwell/Ekman thinking too much." (Italics his.) related to stage fright, panic j u g g e r n a u t h a s a l r e a d y And here's John Paul Newport, attacks, and the " shy bladder" steamrollered across the public writing this February in the Wall syndrome familiar to men at consciousness through the Fox Street Journal: "Choking... is airport urinals. It has nothing to TV show Lie to Me, currently in essentially the opposite of panic." d o w i t h a n e g a t i o n o r its second season. In the show, The only problem is that, from a u n d e r s u p p l y o f p a n i c . Tim Roth stars as Dr. Cal neuroscientific perspective, Okay, so who cares? If half the MALCOLM page 62 Gladwell's "choking is the United States is walking around

Entertainment/ Sports/

Does Tiger Woods Not Sell Magazines Covers Because He's Black? [Run For Cover] By Brian Moylan (Gawker) Submitted at 12/22/2009 10:28:51 AM

That's the conclusion that Rob Shuter comes to in the Huffington Post when he says that the tabloid covers that carried his famous face didn't move at the newsstand. Well, let's see how Brittany Murphy fares this week. Shuter writes: Sources with access to weekly sales numbers tell me that figures for last week's issues of In Touch, OK! and US Weekly, which all featured Tiger on their covers, were well below average. Only People, whose cover featured a sad looking Mrs. Woods, sold well. Of course that means that people would rather buy the magazine with the pretty white woman on the cover than the one with the scary, scary black man. He continues: Another editor, who asked to remain anonymous, told me something much more alarming: "With the exception of Oprah, no African-American sells magazine covers. Period. If Tiger were a white dude with this crazy messed-up, never-ending drama, the tabloids would be in heaven. They couldn't print magazines fast enough to keep up with demand." Like some of the other experts

of this rotting lemon. We barely even care that the sitting president got a BJ from an intern in the oval office, why should we spend our $3.99 on a magazine about a guy who fucked a bunch of waitresses from Hooters—especially when we've already met, picked on, and forgotten about all the waitresses thanks to the countless websites (including this one) that already covered it? The true test would have come this week now that Brittany Murphy's death takes over the Celebrity Industrial Complex, but all the weeklies closed early due to the holidays, so she didn't make their covers. If she sold scads of magazines, that might just prove that pretty white ladies can soar where black golfers bomb. We that would have happened anway. Her premature death is sad, don't get us wrong, but she only had a handful of hit Shuter spoke to, I think this is bunch of skanks. bullshit. Maybe this is just me A more likely reason that Tiger movies and was never a major being Pollyanna, but I find it hard isn't selling magazines is because celebrity. We've been bombarded to believe that when it comes to its sprawling non-narrative of with news about her since scandal people care about race. meaningless bits about bimbos Sunday, and there's few details After all OJ Simpson—another and divorce papers isn't suited left to share that people will black man with a pretty blond well for the magazines. Also, actually care about. We bet her wife—was once the reigning we're all bored with this scandal. sales figures would be just as tabloid king, and his skin as just No matter how many stripper poor as Tiger's, no matter how as dark as Tiger's. The difference mistresses totter forward on their white they make her look. is, Tiger is no OJ. Simpson Lucite platforms, no matter how actually killed people and was much money Elin gets in the the center of a protracted public divorce settlement, there is just trial. Tiger just had sex with a hardly any news left to wring out

E-reader News Edition

Bobby Bowden of Florida State disappointed to be leaving a year earlier than planned By Associated Press (ESPN.com) Submitted at 12/22/2009 10:49:51 AM

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Bobby Bowden says he wanted to coach another year at Florida State, however "that was out" as an option. Bowden told The Associated Press on Tuesday that he wanted to coach next season. A day after meeting with university officials, Bowden announced Dec. 1 that he would retire following the Seminoles' bowl game. The 80-year-old Bowden says he's getting over the "disappointment" of leaving Florida State a year earlier than he had planned. He's been cleaning out his memorabilia-filled office in addition to trying to get the Seminoles ready for their New Years' Day date against West Virginia in the Gator Bowl. Bowden, who has coached since leaving college 56 years ago, says he's preparing to move on with other challenges. Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Entertainment/ Sports/ Game/

E-reader News Edition

Joe Francis: Gawker's Douche of the Decade [Polls]

New Aliens vs. Predator trailer says it's about story, actually about gutting

By Pareene (Gawker)

By Ben Gilbert (Joystiq)

Submitted at 12/22/2009 11:17:00 AM

With, let's say, 140% of the vote reporting, we are deeply ashamed to announce that Girls Gone Wild impresario Joe Francis is Gawker's Douche of the Decade. Joe Francis got his start selling Faces of Death-style cheapo death-and-violence videos on late -night TV. After he found that licensing Mardi Gras footage proved even more popular, and perhaps easier to self-produce, he set about creating an empire of intoxicated ambiguously consensual exploitation. Via Vanessa Grigoriadis' 2002 profile, witness the mind of Francis at work: "More than anything else, Girls Gone Wild started off as a product of my sexual fantasy." Meaning? "Girls look really good from age eighteen to twentyfive," he says. "It's just a fact that that's the best time for girls. Afterward, things start to happen — bad things."

Francis wondered how he could market such a concept. On a plane one day, he took out a legal pad and wrote down titles: "College Women." "Girls Gone Crazy." Then he wrote, "College Girls Gone Wild," thought about it for a minute and put a big X through the word college. And he quickly became a

terribly rich and successful douche—which may have given him a leg up on the douches in the poll who are kings of the world only in their own shriveled minds and blackened hearts. But this coked-out amoral directmarketer (and rapist!) is basically a zillionaire, various tax leins against him nothwithstanding.

Kidnapping and non-penetrative dildo-menacing were not enough to stop the man who declared that he'd been "anally raped over and over by the media" shortly after literally assaulting a female reporter assigned to profile him. He palled around with our more tragic and douchey celebs. We had a shot at putting him in jail for good, but the hundreds of hours of underaged porn from his homes and plane was seized without proper search warrants. Problems—both legal and civil—actually piled up for Francis as the decade went on, but the fact remains that he continues to be rich, famous, douchey, and ever more loathsome by the hour. Joe Francis! You have made the world a worse place! You have assaulted and raped! You have degraded thousands! You are a terrible human being! You are Gawker's Douche of the Decade! Who Is The Douche of the Decade?( online surveys)

Dan Sexton Makes a Splash With Improving Ducks By Susan Slusser (Fanhouse Main) Submitted at 12/22/2009 5:00:00 AM

Filed under: Ducks When a woman approached a group of lesser-known Ducks players recently to ask some of the youngest members of the team

for autographs, she barely glanced at Dan Sexton. She handed her pen to the other three Ducks and skipped the 22year-old forward. "It wasn't too embarrassing," Sexton said with a laugh. "At least I didn't try to grab the pen or anything."

Sexton is used to being overlooked. He has had to fight

for every bit of recognition he gets his entire life in hockey -- he was even cut from his junior league team three years ago. So that makes his big, immediate splash in the NHL this month all the sweeter.

Submitted at 12/22/2009 1:00:00 PM

This is one of those situations where we wish we could just call up Mr. Sega (that's who runs Sega, right?) and ask him what he was thinking. How could he have possibly claimed this latest Aliens vs. Predator trailer has something to do with "story?" Here's the entire plot: There are humans, there are also Aliens, as well as a Predator. That's it! What else do you need, folks? Much like the snake and the mongoose (or 50 Cent and helicopters), these factions are natural enemies of each other. No story is required for them to make with the murdalizing -they just do. Check out the trailer above for further confirmation of our position on the subject. Gallery: Aliens vs Predator New Aliens vs. Predator trailer says it's about story, actually about gutting originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 22 Dec 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink| Email this| Comments

Sports/

E-reader News Edition

MALCOLM continued from page 59

Lightman, the protagonist with Ekman-type powers. The real Ekman serves as a script adviser to the show and writes about each episode on his blog. The chapter's most profound impact played out not on the screen but in the real world, when the Department of Homeland Security enlisted Ekman, soon after Blink's publication, to help implement a project to detect would-be terrorists in airports around the country. Called "Screening Passengers by Observation Technique," or SPOT, the program debuted in December, 2005. By 2008, TSA officers were pulling aside nearly 100,000 passengers a year for screening. (Of those, fewer than one percent were eventually arrested, and the TSA won't say how many were convicted.) You might think, given Ekman's

cultural ubiquity, that his discoveries on the subject of lying have laid the groundwork for a whole sub-field of research psychology. On the contrary. In fact, it has been well established by peer-reviewed studies that, Ekman's claims notwithstanding, no person can reliably tell whether or not another human being is lying simply by looking at them. "It's hokum," says Yale psychologist Charles A. Morgan III. So SPOT, it turns out, was a $3million-a-year waste of taxpayer money. So "Lie to Me" is scarcely more scientifically grounded than Ghost Whisperer. Well, okay. Dumb TV shows and wasteful government programs are nothing new. What's really disturbing, though, is that once Gladwell had granted Ekman his intellectual seal of approval, no one in the popular media was

willing or able to point out that the good professor's claims were spurious. For four years. That's the problem of Gladwell in a nutshell. He's masterful at brewing up memes so potent that they travel far beyond the realm of where the mere modest truth would go. They spread. And they stick. And having stuck, they proceed to affect the decisions that people make, the policies they implement, the laws that they pass. A normal person, when he is wrong, adds a little drop of erroneousness in the great sea of human conversation. Gladwell, when he is wrong, creates a tsunami of wrong. And it just goes on and on.

Jimmie Johnson Perfect Pick for Athlete of Year By Holly Cain (Fanhouse Main) Submitted at 12/22/2009 3:00:00 AM

Filed under: Jimmie Johnson Jimmie Johnson's selection Monday as the Associated Press Athlete of the Year isn't just a well-deserved honor for the fourtime NASCAR champ, but validation for NASCAR's place in the sporting world and a nice holiday antidote to all the recent athletes-gone-wild headlines. Johnson is the first race driver ever chosen in the 78-year old history of the award. And while you could argue others before him -- Michael Schumacher, John Force, Richard Petty or Dale Earnhardt -- also deserved the honor, Johnson is a perfect selection to cross that threshold. The good guy at the right time. "The wave is finally peaking, and we don't know where it's going to take us,'' Johnson said of the recognition. "The fourth straight title takes it

out of our sport and makes it a point of discussion -- like, 'Wow, a race car driver won this thing.' " Not only are his four consecutive Sprint Cup Series titles unprecedented, Johnson won them during the most competitive era in his sport's history -- posting a series-best 29 wins in his No. 48 Lowe's Chevrolet during the span.

Dwyane Wade Fuels Free-Agent Fire By Matt Moore (Fanhouse Main)

everything in the National Basketball Association. A development that if it were to Submitted at 12/22/2009 5:00:00 AM come about would have earthFiled under: Bulls, Cavaliers, shattering effects for the players, H e a t , K n i c k s , N e t s , N B A their teammates, the teams, the Rumors There's been talk of it league, global athlete marketing before. and the entire construct of player We're about 20,000 leagues into It's an idea that would change free-agency. the Ocean of Hype here, but we

are talking about two of the top three NBA players electing to sign with the same team this summer. And the reality of it just became a whole lot more likely. Dwyane Wade has not only suggested that he and LeBron James chose to sign extensions specifically built so that the

option would be available for them to play together, but that they would be willing to sign for less money to make that happen. And lo, the NBA did tremble in their wake.

Sports/

E-reader News Edition

No One Puts Favre in a Corner (WSJ.com: The Daily Fix)

sacked four times and rushed a million more. Julius Peppers all but lined up in the Vikings Most NFL teams already will backfield. The offensive line was have broken down last week’s terrible. Then again, did Brett game tape by Tuesday. That task Favre really need to mention it? will be uglier for some teams — When it goes bad for Tom Brady, the Washington Redskins could he takes the blame and defends swap in a “Saw” sequel for his teammates’ talent, effort, footage of their Monday night performance.” bumble-tacular blowout loss to Brad Childress went all the New York Giants without psychoanalytic with the story anyone being appreciably less Monday, claiming that his grossed out. Getty Images Who discussion about yanking Favre could’ve guessed Brett Favre’s from the game was “stream of success in Minnesota might come c o n s c i o u s n e s s . ” I n t h e with a catch? Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Judd But the Minnesota Vikings may Zulgad gets deeper into the affair have the most difficult day at the — which apparently was not the movies of any NFL club. The f i r s t t i m e C h i l d r e s s w a s Vikings will be stuck rewatching dissuaded from yanking the their desultory 26-7 loss to the erratic/heroically exuberant Favre decidedly meh Carolina Panthers. this year — and discovers some They’ll also have to deal with more unflattering truths. “A few some sideline game tape of Brett more pieces of information about Favre and coach Brad Childress what led up to Sunday’s events engaging in a “heated debate.” left legitimate questions about On Monday, what actually where things stand between happened on the sidelines last Childress and the future Hall of Sunday became a bit clearer, and Famer he worked so hard to sign what emerged wasn’t terribly this offseason,” Zulgad writes. In flattering to anyone involved. In the St. Paul Pioneer Press, Sean short, Childress wanted to pull Jensen helps pin down part of the the ineffective and sloppier-than- problem. usual future Hall of Famer on It all seems somewhat academic, Sunday. Favre informed his considering that the Vikings are coach that said move wasn’t 11-3 and clinched the NFC North going to happen. title on Sunday despite their loss. “From afar, it didn’t look like But there are clearly better ways you could pin the loss all on to start playoff pushes than with Favre’s surgically-repaired a public spat between a coach shoulder,” Yahoo’s Dan Wetzel and his star quarterback. At w r i t e s . “ A n d , a s B r e t t ESPN, Kevin Seifert sees the conveniently mentioned, he was l o n g s t a n d i n g r e l a t i o n s h i p Submitted at 12/22/2009 9:00:32 AM

between Childress and Favre as partially to blame for the whole kerfuffle. “Childress’ relationship with Favre is too close to ‘colleague’ and too far from ‘coach-player,’ ” Seifert writes.* ** Monday’s matchup between New Jersey and Pittsburgh was kind of a big deal, given that the Penguins and Devils have looked like the NHL’s best teams thus far this season. Thanks to Martin Brodeur, New Jersey’s transcendent goalie, the game wound up making hockey history. Brodeur shut down the Pens, 4-0, picking up his 104th career shutout and breaking Terry Sawchuk’s career shutout record and setting his fourth NHL career goaltending record of 2009. “Martin Brodeur could not have picked a bigger regular-season game to make history and cement his place as the greatest to play his position,” Tom Gulitti writes in The Record of North Jersey. (Fixer Emeritus Carl Bialik, however, pointed out recently that the Devils’ defense deserves a large share of credit for Brodeur’s feats.) In The Vancouver Sun, Wayne Scanlan examines the tormented, pain-filled life of the deposed

shutout champion. “Today, Sawchuk might have benefited from intervention and rehabilitation,” Scanlan writes. “The talk-show circuit and tabloids would have welcomed his personal story. During the 1950s and ’60s, tough hockey players were expected to suck it up and move on, and Sawchuk lived that mantra, playing without a mask, in equipment most kids today would be embarrassed to use for road hockey.”* * * Yes, it’s just a regular season NBA game between two marginal teams, but Sacramento’s comeback from a 35-point deficit against the Chicago Bulls is still worth mentioning. Although you probably shouldn’t mention it to Yahoo’s Kelly Dwyer, whose heart was broken by the Bulls’ history-making collapse. “I’m not going to lie, and pretend that I’m bemused by what happened on Monday night, but I’m also not going to act like I didn’t see it coming,” Dwyer writes. At the Kings blog Sactown Royalty, Tom Ziller is in an altogether better mood. “If there’s any team that could look completely awful for 27 minutes of basketball but keep plugging and eventually break through, it’s the Kings,” Ziller marvels. Which is, Ziller writes, “amazing, given the status of this franchise last year.”* * * Kentucky doubled-up Drexel on Monday night, 88-44, and in so

doing became the first college basketball program to tally 2,000 wins. Mark Story traces the road to UK2K in the Lexington Herald -Leader, but anyone who knows Wildcats fans knows that they already have the next win (and the next, and the next) on the brain. If Kentucky’s win was something of a foregone conclusion, it had nothing on Arkansas-Pine Bluff’s lopsided road loss to 12th-ranked Kansas State. The blowout was nothing new for UAPB, which is one of the eight remaining winless teams in NCAA Division I basketball, and which will play 14 consecutive road games — many of them against big-time programs — before finally hosting its first home game Jan. 16. At Fox Sports, Jeff Goodman feels UAPB players’ pain, but objects to the way the program is inflicting such suffering on itself. “I understand the school wants to pick up some extra cash and the best way to do it is to have your college basketball team go out and be the sacrificial lamb and play a ton of ‘buy’ games — ones in which you play highmajor programs and are paid in the neighborhood of $75,000 just to show up and get the you-know -what beaten out of you,” Goodman writes. “But someone needs to put a stop to this. These kids are supposed to be studentONE page 67

Sports/

E-reader News Edition

Ndamukong Suh of Nebraska Cornhuskers is first defender named AP College Football Player of the Year By Associated Press (ESPN.com) Submitted at 12/22/2009 10:38:42 AM

NEW YORK -- Nebraska Cornhuskers defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh bulled past the guys who play the glamour positions and proved you don't have to score touchdowns or toss passes to be the player of the year. Spurred by a dominant performance against Texas in the Big 12 title game, Suh became the first defensive player voted The Associated Press College Football Player of the Year on Tuesday. Suh had already won two defensive player of the year awards -- the Nagurski and Bednarik -- and two for best lineman -- the Lombardi and Outland. He also finished fourth in the Heisman Trophy voting. "Just being recognized as player of the year is a huge accomplishment," Suh said in a recent phone interview from Lincoln, Neb. He received 26 of a possible 59 votes from AP college football poll voters to edge Stanford running back Toby Gerhart, who received 20 votes. Heisman winner Mark Ingram

finished tied for third with Texas quarterback Colt McCoy, each getting six votes. Florida quarterback Tim Tebow received one vote. Since the AP started handing out a player of the year award in 1998, all the winners have been quarterbacks or running backs. "It's a great choice," Nebraska coach Bo Pelini said. " I give (the voters) a lot of credit. I'm not taking anything away from Ingram or McCoy or any of the other guys. I just think at his position, you would be hardpressed to say there's a better player than Suh. He's had a tremendous year." It's the fourth time the AP award went to a player other than the Heisman winner and first since Iowa quarterback Brad Banks beat out USC's Carson Palmer in 2003. Suh finished behind Ingram, Gerhart and McCoy in the Heisman voting, though he did receive more points than any fourth-place finisher in the 75year history of the award. Suh, a 6-foot-4, 300-pound senior, was already having an All -America-caliber season before the Cornhuskers played Texas on Dec. 5 at Dallas Cowboys Stadium.

He nearly led Nebraska to a stunning upset, with 12 tackles and 4Â˝ sacks. The Longhorns kicked a last-second field goal to escape with a 13-12 victory, but Suh was so utterly unblockable he earned a trip to New York as one of five finalists for the Heisman. He finished the season with 12 sacks and was the pillar of the ninth-ranked defense in the country. "I think I had a good year," he said. "I definitely got better in a couple of areas. I won't say I'm satisfied by any means, because we still have a big game left to play against Arizona in the Holiday Bowl." He'll tell you he's still learning to play the game. "I haven't played a perfect game yet so let's try and see if I can do that against Arizona," he said. Suh got a relatively late start to football. Soccer and basketball were his thing growing up in Portland, Ore., the son of a Jamaican mother and father from Cameroon. His name means "House of Spears" in the language of the Ngema tribe. But Suh literally outgrew soccer. His mother, Bernadette, was apprehensive about allowing her son to play football, but

eventually gave her permission. Ball carriers have been dealing with the repercussions of that decision ever since. Suh went through some tough times in his first two seasons at Nebraska, being part of one of the worst defenses in school history in 2007. Then Pelini became the Huskers coach and Nebraska's defense began to turn around with Suh leading the charge. Physically, Suh is everything an NFL team could want in a defensive linemen. Big, strong, quick and agile, he's projected to be one of the first players taken in April's draft. Suh credits the coaching of Pelini and defensive coordinator Carl Pelini, Bo's brother, for his development. "Mentally, being able to pick up on different reads and formations and what things can be run out of certain formations and tendencies of teams," Suh said. Carl Pelini's first chance to coach Suh came with the player unable to play. It was spring practice of 2008 and Suh was recovering from surgery. Without ever putting on pads, Suh impressed his coach. "I was coaching the other guys, and he was just watching," Pelini

said. "He was shoulder to shoulder with me. He hadn't practiced a snap but he was a better football player coming out of that spring. "He's a very cerebral guy. He wants to know why, and it's made him a great football player." Academics always came before sports in Suh's home. That can happen when your mom is a teacher. "They know coming from Third World countries that education is the key," he said. The 22-year-old graduated last weekend with a degree in construction management engineering. He said he plans to take some postgraduate courses while he prepares for the NFL combine. "The main focus is, now that I'm done with school, just worry about football and go from there," he said. Suh seems set to go far. Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Sports/ Game/

E-reader News Edition

New York Yankees acquire Javier Vazquez from Atlanta Braves for Melky Cabrera, Mike Dunn By ESPN.com news services (ESPN.com)

rotation that includes CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Andy Pettitte. The Yankees' top four Submitted at 12/22/2009 11:05:39 AM starters will combine for $64 The New York Yankees have million in payroll -- more than acquired right-hander Javier four teams paid their entire Vazquez from the Atlanta Braves rosters last season. for outfielder Melky Cabrera and With the trade and including the left-hander Mike Dunn. still-unfinalized signing of freeThe move pushes the Yankees' agent designated hitter Nick payroll for next season to more Johnson, the Yankees' payroll for than $200 million. next season stands at $200.9 The Braves also are sending million for 16 signed players. right-hander Boone Logan to the That includes two not expected to Yankees, and the Yankees are make the opening-day roster: sending the Braves right-hander pitcher Andrew Brackman and Arodys Vizcaino and $500,000 in infielder Juan Miranda. the transaction. Cabrera had been the Yankees' Vazquez, with a 15-10 record, starting center fielder for most of ranked second in the National the past three seasons. After League last season with 238 losing the job to Brett Gardner strikeouts and sixth in ERA at during spring training this year, 2.87 as the No. 2 starter in the he quickly regained it and hit rotation. This is his second time .274 with 13 homers and 68 around with the Yankees, having RBIs, helping the Yankees win pitched in New York in 2004, the World Series for the first time when he went 14-10 with a 4.91 since 2000. He is eligible for free ERA and made his only All-Star agency after the 2012 season. team. This move opens the door for His first stint in New York outfield moves for both teams. e n d e d m i s e r a b l y , w h e n h e The Yankees now are expected to relieved Kevin Brown trailing 2- explore both the free-agent and 0 in Game 7 of the American trade markets for a left fielder. League Championship Series But they've continued to portray against Boston and allowed a themselves as uninterested in first-pitch grand slam to Johnny anyone in the price range of Matt Damon. Holliday, Jason Bay or Damon. Vazquez, 33, joins a pitching One name that has been on their

radar screen is Mark DeRosa, whose $6 million asking price is in the dollar area they appear willing to allocate. The Vazquez deal frees up about $9 million for the Braves to spend on upgrading their offense -- Vazquez's $11.5 million salary, minus the $3 million or so Cabrera figures to earn via arbitration, and getting the $500,000 in cash from the Yankees. They'll now look to use that surplus on an outfield bat, a first baseman or possibly both. Damon is one possibility, particularly because his home in Orlando is within minutes of the Braves' spring training complex. Another option is free agent Xavier Nady, who could play first or the outfield and would come at a relatively low base price because he is recovering from his second Tommy John surgery. Or the Braves could look to deal an outfielder -- either Cabrera or possibly Jordan Schafer-- for a bat. They've been linked in trade rumors to Florida Marlins second baseman Dan Uggla, who could potentially slide to first base. Logan, acquired by the Braves from the White Sox in the Vazquez trade in December 2008, was 1-1 with a 5.19 ERA

in 20 relief appearances. He held left-handers to a .231 average and figures to fill the hole created by the departure of Phil Coke, who was sent to Detroit in a deal that brought the Yankees center fielder Curtis Granderson. Atlanta had a surplus of starting pitching after giving Tim Hudson a $28 million, three-year contract in November. The trade left the Braves with a rotation that includes Hudson, Jair Jurrjens, Tommy Hanson, Derek Lowe and Kenshin Kawakami. The 24-year-old Dunn had a combined 99 strikeouts in 73 1/3 innings at Triple-A ScrantonWilkes Barre and Double-A Trenton, going 4-3 with a 3.31 ERA in 38 relief appearances. He made his major league debut on Sept. 4 and had a 6.75 ERA in four appearances. Vizcaino, who is 19, was 2-4 with a 2.13 ERA at Class A Staten Island, striking out 52 in 42 1/3 innings. Information from ESPN.com's Jayson Stark was used in this report. 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.

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories recollects Feb. 5 UK release By Alexander Sliwinski (Joystiq) Submitted at 12/22/2009 2:30:00 PM

The " reimagined" first installment of Silent Hill is set to shatter memories in Europe on February 5, 2010. Konami confirmed the survival-horror title will release on Wii, PS2 and PSP on the appointed date. For those who can't wait, there's always an early Homecoming in anticipation for that return to the cursed town. Reviews of the game have been what Metacritic defines as " generally favorable," with a 76 average. Our own review took the approach that the game is good, but is it still Silent Hill with all the changes? Gallery: Silent Hill: Shattered Memories (Wii, 8/11/09) Silent Hill: Shattered Memories recollects Feb. 5 UK release originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 22 Dec 2009 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

Sports/ Fashion/

E-reader News Edition

Chris Henry: Cincinnati Bengals gather in New Orleans for teammate's funeral By Associated Press (ESPN.com) Submitted at 12/22/2009 11:29:43 AM

WESTWEGO, La. -- Chris Henry's fiancée wept as she spoke about the Cincinnati Bengals receiver at his funeral Tuesday, and she said while she may have helped steer him out of trouble, he changed her life. Henry, 26, was killed after he fell out of a pickup truck bed being driven by his fiance Loleini Tonga during what police described as a domestic dispute. Police are investigating, but no charges have been filed. "Can't nobody feel what I'm feeling right now. ... We loved each other very much. People say I helped change his life. No. He changed mine," said Tonga, wearing sunglasses and pausing between sentences. "We were supposed to get married in three months, but I'm going to wait until I see him again." NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and Henry's teammates were among the hundreds who packed the New Orleans Hornets practice facility for the funeral. The Bengals wore round lapels with Henry's No. 15. Many others wore red ribbons with a small photo of Henry that read:

"In loving memory" and "Chris 'Slim' Henry." Goodell said everyone makes mistakes. "His future as a husband and a father were important to him," Goodell said. "He was a young man that struggled, made some decisions that he regretted, but he put himself on the right path. And I'm proud of that. I'm proud of him." Cincinnati quarterback Carson Palmer and coach Marvin Lewis were expected to deliver eulogies. Lewis said before the service that Henry touched a lot of people in his very short life. "It's a bright story and one that didn't get to get all the way to the end of it which is the most unfortunate part," the coach said. "We'll miss Chris' sparkling smile." Henry grew up in the small, suburban community of Belle Chasse. Shane Shelley, 26, was Henry's high school QB when they made it to the state title game in 2001, their senior year. "It's a sad day for Belle Chasse. We really lost a good friend, a brother, one of my best friends," said a watery-eyed Shelley. "It's hard. We lost one of us. We're going to miss him. We love him." Henry died Thursday, a day after

he fell out of the truck in North Carolina, where he had been recovering from a broken forearm that ended his season. Police said Henry and his fiancee got into an argument at the Tonga family home and she drove away on a curvy residential street near downtown Charlotte. Henry jumped into the truck's bed. A witness has said he heard Henry say, "If you take off, I'm going to jump off the truck and kill myself." A 911 caller told a dispatcher she saw a shirtless man wearing a cast "beating on the back of this truck window." Police said Tonga stopped to assist Henry when he fell about a half-mile from the home. Tonga was flanked by family at the visitation and received hugs by those filing by Henry's open casket. Tonga and Henry had been raising three kids. Henry's football career had been marred by off-the-field problems, beginning when he played college ball at West Virginia. His troubles continued during a fiveyear NFL career. He was suspended five times for arrests ranging from weapons charges to drugs. The Bengals said Henry had turned his life around this season and showed a renewed focus on

his football career. A thigh injury slowed him early in the season, but he had 12 catches for 236 yards. His 19.7-yard average per catch led the team before he broke his left forearm during a win last month over Baltimore. Henry dreamed of playing in the NFL, but after he was ejected from a game and suspended for another at West Virginia, the Bengals were the only team to bring him in for a pre-draft visit in 2005. Selected in the third round, Henry played a vital role as a speedy, deep threat as Cincinnati reached the playoffs in his rookie season. But in the final month of the season he was arrested for marijuana possession. "The Chris Henry I knew was a good quiet young man, wasn't a troublemaker," said Shelley, his high school friend. "That's what everybody needs to know. He was a good man, a good father." Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

BCBG Max Azria’s New iPhone App By ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog) Submitted at 12/22/2009 10:38:37 AM

Christmas may be only three days away, but last-minute shoppers can check out friends’ fashion wish lists via one of the features of BCBG Max Azria’s new iPhone App—which also allows devotees of the brand to browse its e-commerce site, mix and match looks, view runway photos, locate nearby stores, and share coveted pieces. —Erin Clements Follow ELLE on Twitter. Become our Facebook fan!

Sports/

E-reader News Edition

The Count: Why Suns Can’t Buy a Win on TNT

ONE continued from page 63

athletes, but how can they possibly be students when they are rarely on campus and in (WSJ.com: The Daily Fix) it aired out of a hat. The first classrooms?”* * * The early days of college game it chose had a 58 in 132 Submitted at 12/21/2009 2:35:22 PM chance of being a loss. The football’s bowl season are as The Phoenix Suns, losers of six second game, though, had an i n t e r e s t i n g f o r t h e g o o f y of their last 10 games, have their even smaller chance — 57 in 131 compound names of the games work cut out for them the rest of — because a loss already had themselves as for the second- and 2009, with three of six games been chosen. By the time the third-tier teams in those games. against the Boston Celtics, the network was choosing a 17th But with all due respect to the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Los the Blazers, 105-102, running game, the probability of a loss p a r t i c i p a n t s i n t h i s y e a r ’ s Angeles Lakers, three of the their streak of futility to 17 w a s j u s t 4 2 o u t o f 1 1 6 . AdvoCare V100 Independence NBA’s toughest teams. But straight losses. M u l t i p l y i n g a l l o f t h o s e Bowl and The St. Petersburg there’s one scheduling factor What are the odds? probabilities yields an estimate of Bowl by Beef O’ Brady’s, the working in the Suns’ favor: If the Suns had a 50-50 shot in 5.4-million-to-one against the teams in Thursday’s Sheraton Hawaii Bowl are a bit more They’re not scheduled to appear each of those games, there would Suns’ rough patch. on TNT again for nearly a month have been a 1 in 131,072 chance But this isn’t quite as unlikely as interesting than the norm for — not until Jan. 18. Associated before the run of futility began it looks. That’s because TNT early bowl games. That’s because Press Brandon Roy and the that the Suns would emerge 0 for wasn’t choosing games out of a Southern Methodist University, Blazers extended the TNT-fueled TNT. But the Suns weren’t an hat, but instead chose games which was given the NCAA’s somisery of Channing Frye and the ordinary team in that span. pitting the Suns against strong called “death penalty” 23 years Suns last week. Instead, they were better than opponents. Sports-stats analyst ago, is one of the two teams L a s t m o n t h , t h e A r i z o n a average. Counting postseason Wayne Winston, at my request, making the trip to Honolulu. Republic’s Paul Coro noted that and preseason games, they went calculated the probability the (Nevada is the other.) The the Suns, otherwise consistently a 74-41 in all games not aired on Suns would win each TNT game Mustangs’ 7-5 record doesn’t winning team in recent years, had TNT, winning by an average of by using Sagarin ratings and look like much, but the story of lost 14 straight games aired on 3.8 points per game. On TNT, the accounting for home-court how the team got from its last TNT — including preseason and S u n s w e r e 0 - 1 7 a n d w e r e advantage, and found that only bowl game — the now-defunct postseason games, going back to outscored by an average of 10.6 four times were the Suns the Aloha Bowl, 25 years ago — to the 2008 playoffs. Since then, as points per game. Suppose their favorites. Just six times did they this one is a good deal more more losses have accumulated, overall record during that span, have even a 40% chance of interesting. other media outlets, including 74-58, was a measure of the winning. Overall, that lowers the Sports Illustrated, have taken Suns’ true ability. Then they had odds against their feat to 16,586notice. Last week, before the a 56% chance, on average, of t o - o n e . S t i l l , t h a t ’ s p r e t t y Suns were scheduled to face winning any of those 132 games. unlikely, though of course the Portland, TNT analyst Kenny That puts their feat at a 1-in-1.2- probability that any team would Smith told Coro, “That’s the million long shot. have such a streak at some point funniest, most interesting fact Look at it slightly differently, on some broadcaster is far higher. I’ve heard. I hope the curse and the ignominious streak seems doesn’t continue.” Alas, the Suns even more unlikely. Suppose that squandered a late lead and lost to TNT were choosing the 17 games

At Sports Then and Now, Dean Hybl details the long and distinguished history of football at SMU. In the Dallas Morning News, Kate Hairopolous Hairopoulos profiles SMU coach June Jones, who re-animated the program — and ended a stretch between 1989 and 2008 in which the team logged just one winning season — with his signature pass -happy, fun-and-gun offense. “Jones sought out SMU — downtrodden, but newly committed SMU — for a mix of reasons that he has yet to fully reveal,” Hairopolous Hairopoulos writes. “What is clear is that Jones arrived on the Hilltop with a plan.” — Tip of the Fix cap to reader Brendan Flynn. 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.

Sports/ Game/ Popular News/ Economy/

E-reader News Edition

2 Ex-Mass. Youth Soccer Coaches Plead Not Guilty to Rape

Carter Slides as Redick Rises in Orlando

(FOXNews.com)

By Tim Povtak (Fanhouse Main) Submitted at 12/21/2009 8:30:00 PM

Filed under: Magic ORLANDO -- J.J. Redick is finding his niche in the NBA about the same time that eight-time All-Star Vince Carter is showing his age. The Orlando Magic may get lucky with this one. Carter, acquired from New Jersey this summer to replace Hedo Turkoglu, was supposed to be the one to put the Magic over the top -- get them past Boston and Cleveland again this spring -but he is going to need help from his backup. The Magic (21-7) are tied with the Celtics for the most wins in the Eastern Conference, but they have done it with Carter struggling through the least-

Submitted at 12/21/2009 11:24:53 PM

SOMERVILLE, Mass. Two former Massachusetts youth soccer coaches have pleaded not guilty to raping a girl on their team. Roger Lau and Thomas Heinz, both 26, were arraigned in Somerville District Court on Tuesday on forcible child rape charges. Bail for Lau was set at $8,000, while Heinz was released on personal recognizance. productive season of his Middlesex District Attorney decorated career. Gerry Leone says the rapes His slide has coincided with the occurred between 2003 and 2004. surprising rise of Redick, now in At the time, Heinz was the head his fourth NBA season. Team Fortress 2 Bot Beta Test. coach and Lau was an assistant "J.J. is playing well,'' Carter said By Griffin McElroy (Joystiq) No download is required -- all on the alleged victim's under-14 after a 104-99 victory over the Submitted at 12/22/2009 1:30:00 PM you have to do is enter a simple soccer team in Medford. Utah Jazz Monday night. "He's a If there's going to be a singular line of code into the console Prosecutor Caitelyn Draper says guy we're going to need.'' battlefield for the war between command in the koth_viaduct, Lau started a sexual relationship mankind and a super-advanced koth_sawmill, and koth_nucleus with the girl when she was 13 artificial intelligence hivemind, maps. Check out Valve's blog and the it lasted more than a year. we think it's going to be Team post to learn more about the AI- The victim says Heinz sexually Fortress 2. See, the programmers spawning commands available to assaulted her twice during that and developers over at Valve you. Whatever you do, make sure time. have repeatedly proven their y o u don't enter " Messages left for defense technological prowess -- and now haley_joel_osment" into the attorneys weren't immediately that comments made by Ed that they're working on AI command line. His love is real, returned. Miliband, the UK minister for opponents for TF2, accidental but he is not. Five Filters featured article: climate change and the self-awareness can't be too far Valve beta testing AI opponents Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: environment, were designed to away. "Spy's sappin' my sentry! in Team Fortress 2 originally PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, provoke disagreement between But why is it my sentry? Can a appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 22 Term Extraction. developing countries. virtual sentry be owned? Who am Dec 2009 13:30:00 EST. Please Five Filters featured article: I?" see our terms for use of feeds. Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: You can check out the early Read| Permalink| Email this| PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, stages of the future destruction of Comments Term Extraction. the world by participating in the

Beijing rejects UK Copenhagen criticism (Financial Times - US homepage) Submitted at 12/22/2009 12:07:49 AM

China has hit back at accusations from the British government that Beijing blocked the approval of a stronger agreement at the Copenhagen climate change talks. Jiang Yu, a spokeswoman for the Chinese foreign ministry, said

Valve beta testing AI opponents in Team Fortress 2

Game/

E-reader News Edition

Dead Space 2 producer confirms Sprawl, doesn't sweat Schofield departure By David Hinkle (Joystiq)

Papoutsis did more than validate suspicions in his interview, as he also pointed out a greater focus Dead Space 2 is shaping up to be on action and telekinesis in the quite the sequel, as executive sequel. See, Isaac won't just be producer Steve Papoutsis told able to move objects around, but CVG a lot of what we've heard he'll be able to destroy those about the Game Informer cover objects and employ their debris story is in fact true: engineer as offensive weaponry. In fact, Isaac Clarke is a lot more vocal Isaac can even use dismembered in the sequel and won't be e n e m y l i m b s t o k i l l m o r e confined to the claustrophobic enemies. It's kinda like when that toward you at blue hedgehog-like c o r r i d o r s o f t h e I s h i m u r a . bully at recess used to make you speed. Instead, he's now an inhabitant of punch yourself, except he's sliced Of course, an interview about the space metropolis Sprawl. your arm off first and is firing it Dead Space 2 can't go by without Submitted at 12/22/2009 2:00:00 PM

discussing the sudden departure of Glenn Schofield and Michael Condry, the two gentlemen now running Sledgehammer Games

for Activision. Papoutsis said that most of the team from the first game is on board for the sequel, and that it " takes a lot more than 2 people to make a great game." We hope so, because we have high aspirations for this sequel. Dead Space 2 producer confirms Sprawl, doesn't sweat Schofield departure originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 22 Dec 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

Capcom pulls Super Street Fighter IV, Lost Planet 2, Monster Hunter 3 from Q1 2010 By Richard Mitchell (Joystiq)

releases of these games and others, including Dead Rising 2, Submitted at 12/22/2009 1:35:00 PM are planned to be "spread across According to an investor all four quarters" of Capcom's d o c u m e n t ( P D F ) p o s t e d b y fiscal 2011, which begins April Capcom Japan today, several 1, 2010 and ends March 31, major titles have been moved 2011. The decision to delay the from the company's fiscal fourth games was made in order to quarter, which ends March 31, "avoid competing with the major 2010. The delays, which appear titles that other companies plan to to be worldwide, include Super introduce." only 600,000 (the split between Street Fighter IV and Lost Planet Curiously, Dark Void has not Xbox 360 and PS3 copies was 2, in addition to the North been delayed, though Capcom not specified). American and European release has drastically reduced its sales Given the reasons for Capcom's of Monster Hunter 3. The forecast from 1.3 million units to

schedule shuffling, we can't help but wonder if other companies will follow suit. When all is said and done, the Great 2009

Holiday Release Migration just might be set to repeat itself. If so, does Yves Guillemot win a prize? Capcom pulls Super Street Fighter IV, Lost Planet 2, Monster Hunter 3 from Q1 2010 originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 22 Dec 2009 13:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments

Game/ Economy/

E-reader News Edition

US healthcare reform battle not over (Financial Times - US homepage) Submitted at 12/22/2009 10:07:46 AM

Live in the Past, It's Assassin's Creed II DLC Cheaper (2009 Edition) was cut from main game due to time constraints By Ludwig Kietzmann (Joystiq)

in Joystiq's top ten favorites. Read on to find the industry's former best, now with a year's Submitted at 12/22/2009 3:00:00 PM worth of price erosion. Money can buy you a lot of Mirror's Edge| Dead Space| Far things, but it can't buy you Cry 2| LittleBigPlanet| Gears of patience. You can't really put a War 2 price on the ability to abandon Braid| Fallout 3| Left 4 Dead| that must-have, do-want and day- Metal Gear Solid 4| Fable II one impulse -- and if you could, Continue reading Live in the it would probably cost quite a bit Past, It's Cheaper (2009 Edition) more than what you hope to save Live in the Past, It's Cheaper by simply taking a deep breath ( 2 0 0 9 E d i t i o n ) o r i g i n a l l y and waiting for the hottest game appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 22 to cool down. Dec 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please If this holiday season has see our terms for use of feeds. granted you a brand new console Permalink| Email this| with an old and bloated backlog, C o m m e n t s you might find a good selection in 2008's best games, particularly

By Justin McElroy (Joystiq)

say that we owe them, that we didn't give them a lot for their 60 bucks." So, don't think of the Yes, forthcoming DLC packs, missing chapters as something " T h e B a t t l e o f F o r l i " a n d torn from your disc of Assassin's "Bonfire of the Vanities," were Creed II that you paid good originally intended to be included money for. Think of it as dead in the main Assassin's Creed II content that's getting a rebirth story. But, as the game's creative thanks to the wonders of DLC. director Patrice Désilets told Assassin's Creed II DLC was cut Kotaku, "I felt that, 'Okay, there from main game due to time were too many things to do and constraints originally appeared to finish.' So we said, 'Ok, let's on Joystiq on Tue, 22 Dec 2009 take a portion of the game that 12:30:00 EST. Please see our was planned and we'll give it in terms for use of feeds. DLC.'" Read| Permalink| Email this| The candid Désilets went on to Comments point out, "I think we gave them so much content that they cannot Submitted at 12/22/2009 12:30:00 PM

Senate Democrats may be on the brink of passing a sweeping healthcare reform bill, but attention is already starting to turn to the next battle: the negotiations between House and Senate leaders over the final shape of the legislation. The Senate bill, on track to be passed on Thursday, will have to be merged with the House version in conference committee – sometimes called Congress’s third chamber – and passed again before it can be sent to the president’s desk. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Fashion/ Popular News/

E-reader News Edition

Winter Storm Warning: Weather-Appropriate Boots Needed By ELLE.com (ELLE News Blog)

Sadie sprinted through knee-deep snow and slivers of ice seeped into my cozy shearling-lined Submitted at 12/22/2009 10:30:00 AM boots (warm and weather-proof W h e n N e w Y o r k ’ s f i r s t do not go hand-in-hand). Now, snowstorm of the season hit this the search for the perfect rubberpast weekend, I was ill-prepared. leather-shearling boot begins. On Saturday I decided to take my Here, a few favorites suitable for dog for a midnight walk in a range of winter weather—from Central Park (the beauty of New a light dusting to extreme rubber boot, Adidas by Stella York covered in snow has a short conditions. McCartney snow boot shelf-life). But winter began to —Violet Moon Gayn or feel like less of a wonderland as Top row (L to R): Ralph Lauren Middle row (L to R): Ralph

Lauren rubber and fabric boot, No. 6 shearling-lined boot Bottom row (L to R): Stella McCartney faux sheepskin-lined rubber boot, UGG Australia shearling-lined waterproof boot, Sperry Top-Sider shearling-lined waterproof boot Rihanna photo: Getty Images Follow ELLE on Twitter. Become our Facebook fan!

Judge rejects `necessity defense' in abortion case (AP) (Yahoo! News: U.S. News) Submitted at 12/22/2009 11:12:53 AM

WICHITA, Kan. – A judge ruled Tuesday that Kansas law doesn't allow a so-called "necessity defense" in the trial of a man charged with killing one of the nation's few late-term abortion providers. The decision was another blow to lawyers for 51-year-old Scott Roeder, who has confessed to shooting Dr. George Tiller on May 31 and says it was necessary to save unborn children. In his ruling, Judge Warren Wilbert cited a 1993 criminal trespassing case involving an abortion clinic in which the Kansas Supreme Court said that

to allow the personal beliefs of a person to justify criminal activity to stop a law-abiding citizen from exercising his rights would "not only lead to chaos but would be tantamount to sanctioning anarchy." But he noted that that case dealt only with a property rights issue, whereas the case involving Roeder has elevated the argument to whether it is justified to take one life for another. "That is certainly not a position I want to be in — because I am not God," Wilbert said. However, the judge told attorneys he would "leave the door open" to consider later whether to allow specific evidence on the use of force for

the defense of another person before letting the jury hear it. "That doesn't mean it is wide open ... we can discuss it," Wilbert said. The decision came during a hearing that mostly dealt setbacks to Roeder's defense. The judge rejected a change of venue request and a motion that would have kept prosecutors from making peremptory jury strikes based on potential jurors' beliefs about abortion. While Wilbert denied the motion to prohibit the strikes, he said he would deal with such issues on a person-by-person basis during the trial, which is scheduled to begin Jan. 11. He refused to move the case out of Wichita,

where pre-trial publicity has been intense. Roeder, 51, of Kansas City, Mo., is charged with one count of premeditated, first-degree murder in Tiller's death and two counts of aggravated assault for allegedly threatening two ushers during the May 31 melee in the foyer of the doctor's Wichita church. Roeder, who has pleaded not guilty, confessed to the shooting on Nov. 9, telling The Associated Press he had no regrets about killing Tiller and suggesting the necessity defense should be the only contested issue at his trial. He declined to say when asked if he would kill another abortion provider if he were acquitted.

The "necessity defense" has rarely been used successfully in abortion cases. Roeder's attorneys — while arguing that their client has a right to present his theory of defense — have so far kept their own strategy secret. Prosecutors have overwhelming evidence against Roeder, chiefly the witnesses who identified him during a July preliminary hearing as the shooter. Legal experts have said prosecutors likely will want to keep the trial limited to a straightforward murder case and avoid a discussion of abortion. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Popular News/

E-reader News Edition

AP Enterprise: Feds mull regulating drugs in water (AP) (Yahoo! News: U.S. News)

contains minute concentrations of a multitude of drugs. Water utilities, replying to an AP F e d e r a l r e g u l a t o r s u n d e r questionnaire, acknowledged the President Barack Obama have presence of antibiotics, sedatives, sharply shifted course on long- sex hormones and dozens of s t a n d i n g p o l i c y t o w a r d other drugs in their supplies. pharmaceutical residues in the The news reports stirred nation's drinking water, taking a congressional hearings and c r i t i c a l f i r s t s t e p t o w a r d legislation, more water testing r e g u l a t i n g s o m e o f t h e and more disclosure of test contaminants w h i l e results. For example, an Illinois a c k n o w l e d g i n g t h e y c o u l d law goes into effect Jan. 1 threaten human health. banning health care institutions A b u r s t o f s i g n i f i c a n t from flushing unused medicine announcements in recent weeks into wastewater systems. reflects an expanded government The EPA's new study will look e f f o r t t o d e a l w i t h for 200 chemical and microbial pharmaceuticals a s contaminants at 50 plants that e n v i r o n m e n t a l p o l l u t a n t s : treat drinking water. The list • F o r t h e f i r s t t i m e , t h e includes 125 pharmaceuticals or E n v i r o n m e n t a l P r o t e c t i o n related chemicals. This research A g e n c y h a s l i s t e d s o m e will help federal water officials pharmaceuticals as candidates for decide if regulations are needed. regulation in drinking water. The In the first move toward possible agency also has launched a drinking-water standards, the survey to check for scores of EPA has put 13 pharmaceuticals drugs at water treatment plants on what it calls the Contaminant across the nation. Candidate List. They are mostly • T h e F o o d a n d D r u g sex hormones, but include the Administration has updated its antibiotic erythromycin and three list of waste drugs that should be chemicals used as drugs but flushed down the toilet, but the better known for other uses. agency has also declared a goal They join a list of 104 chemical of working toward the return of and 12 microbial contaminants all unused medicines. that the EPA is considering as • The National Toxicology candidates for regulation under Program is conducting research the Safe Drinking Water Act. No to clarify how human health may pharmaceutical has ever reached be harmed by drugs at low the list in its 12-year history, but environmental levels. medicines now make up 13 The Associated Press reported percent of the target chemicals on last year that the drinking water the latest list "based on their of at least 51 million Americans potential adverse health effects Submitted at 12/22/2009 10:55:00 AM

and potential for occurrence in public water systems," the EPA said. They take a place beside such better-known contaminants as the metal cobalt, formaldehyde, the rocket fuel ingredient perchlorate, and the disease germ E. coli. "I think this does signal a change in the regulatory and research approaches," said Conrad Volz, a University of Pittsburgh scientist whose research raises questions about the risk of eating fish from waters contaminated with sex hormones. "What's happening is pretty amazing." Several scientists within and outside government tied the stronger focus on human health to the Obama administration and the president's appointment of Lisa Jackson, a highly regarded former head of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, to run the EPA. "I think we are trying to be as aggressive as we can. We understand it's a major national issue. We understand it's a major public concern," said Peter Silva, the new water administrator at the EPA. However, making the candidate list provides no assurance that a chemical will reach full-blown regulation. In fact, no chemical on the list has ever been made subject to a national water quality standard, EPA officials acknowledge. They intend to make preliminary decisions on some of the latest contaminants

by mid-2012. "They've made a lot of good first steps, so now were waiting to see those carried through," said Nneka Leiba, a researcher at the Environmental Working Group in Washington. Water utilities and drug makers are wary of the federal moves. Difficult scientific questions remain over the possible threat posed to humans by minuscule concentrations in drinking water, where drugs are typically found in parts per billion or trillion. That's way below medical doses. However, some researchers fear that very small daily amounts of unwanted drugs in water could do cumulative harm to people over decades, possibly in combination with other drugs or in sensitive populations like children or pregnant women. Alan Goldhammer, a vice president of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, said such trace amounts "really do not pose a human health issue." "We do get concerned if we think that somebody is going to require that the consumers spend money and not get any health benefit," added Tom Curtis, a lobbyist for the Denver-based American Water Works Association. The U.S. Geological Survey first began taking notice of pharmaceutical contamination several years ago. But until now the federal government has focused on the presence of pharmaceuticals in rivers and

streams. A recently released EPA study found more than 40 pharmaceuticals — everything from antibiotics to heart medicine to antidepressants — at nine publicly owned wastewater treatment plants. The drugs appeared in concentrations measured in parts per billion and trillion. Many passed right through the plants. Linda Birnbaum, who is director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and also oversees the National Toxicology Program, said some program research is focusing on how much environmental pharmaceuticals can reach animal blood and tissues and how that might compare with humans. Waste pharmaceuticals reach the environment when people take medicine and excrete the unmetabolized portion. Millions of pounds of waste drugs also escape into waterways from hospitals, drug plants and other factories, farms and the drains of American homes, the AP has reported. On its new list, the FDA, which regulates medicines, says only 10 active ingredients in controlledsubstance drugs need to be flushed to keep them away from children, abusers and pets. At the same time, the agency announced it is working with partners to develop programs to return unused drugs instead of ENTERPRISE: page 76

Popular News/

E-reader News Edition

AP ENTERPRISE: Vets wait for GI Bill payments (AP) (Yahoo! News: U.S. News)

Afghanistan, attends Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. He said he and his wife WASHINGTON â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Universities have racked up about $4,000 in and colleges are still waiting for credit card debt because his tuition payments for thousands of university won't release student Iraq and Afghanistan veterans l o a n s h e n e e d s f o r l i v i n g who attended school last fall expenses until tuition is fully under the new GI Bill, leaving paid. Hunt, 27, said under the GI the veterans panicked that they'll Bill the school is still owed about be unable to return to class in $6,000 and he personally is owed January. about $1,700 for housing and Veterans Affairs Department books. officials promise to get them "I am disappointed about it," back into the classroom. The VA Hunt said. "I'm very disappointed says the number of veterans with a b o u t t h e w a y i t w a s claims unprocessed is now fewer implemented. I feel like the VA than 5,000 â&#x20AC;&#x201D; down from tens of had ample time to figure out how thousands â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and the goal is to they were going to disperse these have them all processed by the payments and make sure this end of the year. transition to the new GI Bill went "We continue to work on a daily smoothly, and they definitely basis with schools to make sure failed to do that." that no student is denied Tom Tarantino, legislative attending class as a result of associate for New York-based delayed tuition payments," Katie IAVA, which lobbied for the Roberts, a VA spokeswoman, education benefit and is pushing said Tuesday. "It's a top priority Congress to simplify the formula for VA to make sure that students for determining what amount can focus on their studies rather veterans receive, said he talked to than their bank accounts." one veteran who graduated but But after being besieged by hasn't been allowed to get his delays and financial hardship last diploma because the tuition semester that left them struggling hasn't been paid. Others weren't to make rent payments and pay allowed to enroll for the spring for textbooks, many veterans are semester, he said. frantically contacting veterans "The next semester is going to be service organizations such as the a mess. Straight up," Tarantino Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of said. "I don't know if it's going to America for guidance. be as bad as this semester was, Clay Hunt, a former Marine but it is going to be ugly." corporal who served in Iraq and Beyond the tuition, many of the Submitted at 12/22/2009 11:46:26 AM

veterans have had to wait for funds paid directly to them for housing and books. To help cushion the blow, the VA issued $3,000 emergency checks to more than 68,000 veterans, but for some the money's run out. President Barack Obama rolled out the post-9/11 GI Bill on Aug. 3, and praised it as an opportunity to transform the lives of a new generation of veterans. It's designed to be the most comprehensive education benefit for veterans since World War II. The maximum benefit allows eligible veterans to attend a public college or university for free for four years, provides a monthly housing stipend, and up to $1,000 a year for books. Active duty service members can transfer the benefit to their spouse or kids. It's estimated that $78 billion will be paid and so far the VA has paid about $1 billion to almost 150,000 veterans. But the complexity of the formula used to establish what the veteran receives, and a clunky information technology system used by the VA to process claims, means that each claim takes about an hour and a half to process and it has to be manually processed in four different IT systems. Keith M. Wilson, director of the VA's Office of Education Service, told a congressional panel on Dec. 3 that the agency is

using "brute force" to get claims processed. The number of staff has increased from 800 to 1,200 and the VA implemented a mandatory overtime policy. The VA expects to have all claims received by Jan. 15 paid by Feb. 1. Wilson said the VA is open to the possibility of doing another round of emergency payments. It is set to have an automated system fully running in December of next year. The financial uncertainty of when money will arrive is too much for some veterans. Margaret Baechtold, director of veterans support services at Indiana University, testified at the same hearing that one veteran who attended classes last fall at the university's Indianapolis campus is instead going to be a roofer in January. "Some have indicated they can't bear the stress of the financial situation that they are in because they don't know what's going to happen," Baechtold said. On the last day of classes in December at IU, she said 16 veterans certified as eligible for the new GI Bill before November hadn't received promised funds, Baechtold said later in a telephone interview. She said the school issued more than $27,000 in emergency loans to help out the veterans in need. "It is a nightmare and I feel sorry for the folks who are trying to

process this," Baechtold said. Last month, Reps. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, D-S.D., chairwoman of the House Veterans subcommittee on economic opportunity, and John Boozman, R-Ark., the subcommittee's ranking member, wrote Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki suggesting ways the agency could better communicate with veterans so there's less confusion. Some say the schools also need to do a better job of getting paperwork to the VA. Veterans service organizations have sought to have the benefit expanded in areas such as vocational training and for those participating in distance learning programs. Rep. Steve Buyer, R-Ind., the ranking member of the House Veterans' Committee, said the priority should be getting claims processed in a timely manner. "What good are benefits if we can't deliver them in a timely manner?" Buyer said at the hearing. _____ O n t h e N e t : http://www.gibill.va.gov/ Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America: http://iava.org/ Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

Popular News/

E-reader News Edition

Report: Husband Drove Many Miles FBI releases Michael After Wife Disappeared Jackson file (FOXNews.com)

disappearance. Susan Powell, 28, was last seen on Dec. 7, when her husband The husband of a missing Utah says he left their suburban home woman rented a car two days in West Valley City at about after his wife was reported to 12:30 a.m. to take their two boys, h a v e d i s a p p e a r e d , l o g g i n g ages 2 and 4, camping in freezing hundreds of miles on the vehicle conditions. as police try to determine where She was reported missing on the he traveled, the Deseret News same day when she failed to reported. show up for her stockbroker job Police in West Valley City, and her children were not Utah, a suburb of Salt Lake City, dropped off at day care. say that Joshua Powell — a Joshua Powell's father says his person of interest in his wife's son is being vilified, telling The disappearance — rented the car Salt Lake Tribune on Sunday for 24 hours while police had his from his home in Puyallup, minivan in custody to process it Wash., that the investigation has for evidence. turned his son into a scapegoat. Police are now looking into "The whole thing has just turned where Powell drove during that into a vilification of Josh and it 24-hour period because the car will turn into a vilification of me, lacked a GPS tracking device but my ex-wife and my other kids," had "several hundred" extra miles Steven Powell said through the on it when he returned it to the partially open front door of his rental car company, the Deseret home. "I'm not making any News reported. statement because it doesn't Police did not hear from the 34- matter how benign it is or how year-old Powell during that supportive it is. Somebody will p e r i o d o f t i m e , t h e p a p e r twist it around." reported. His minivan has since On Monday, West Valley City been returned to him by police Police Capt. Tom McLachlan and he has not been named a said an anonymous donor is suspect in his wife Susan's offering up to $10,000 for Submitted at 12/21/2009 10:48:35 PM

original information that may lead them to Susan Powell. Investigators have grown increasingly suspicious of Josh Powell. On Sunday, he attended a candlelight vigil in Washington, although he did not speak to reporters or Susan Powell's family. Susan Powell's father, Charles Cox, wrote on a Facebook page for friends and family that he didn't understand why Josh was at the vigil. "I heard that Joshua (the husband) had arrived," he wrote in the posting. "I saw this (sic) brother doing an interview, I couldn't really understand why Josh was there." Cox and Josh Powell have barely spoken since Susan Powell was reported missing, although Cox has defended Josh Powell as a good father. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

(BBC News | Americas | World Edition)

through a Freedom of Information Act request from The Associated Press news Submitted at 12/22/2009 10:13:51 AM agency and other media. The FBI has released more than They show that the FBI assisted 300 pages of formerly classified local authorities on several documents relating to pop icon occasions from 1993 to 2005. Michael Jackson. The FBI's legal office in London They include information assisted local authorities with the regarding the singer's 1993 and child molestation probe in 1993 2004 child molestation cases, as and in 1995 US customs officials well as an extortion case where asked the FBI to analyse a VHS he was a victim. videotape as part of a child Despite an application under the pornography investigation. US Freedom of Information Act, The tape - "a multi-generation just over half of the file will stay copy of poor quality" - was secret. marked in part "Michael The pages do not provide any Jackson's Neverland Favourites, new information on Jackson's An All Boy Anthology", the FBI sudden death in June, aged 50. documents say. One document reveals that in In 1993 police in Los Angeles 2004, local police in Santa Maria began investigating allegations of requested FBI involvement child abuse against Michael believing the court proceedings Jackson made by the father of 13 against the pop star were a "soft -year old Jordie Chandler. target for terrorism" due to the Jackson vehemently denied the global media coverage. claims and he was never charged. "No intelligence indicating a A civil case was settled out of terrorist threat" existed, the FBI court in early 1994 when he paid said, although the bureau did Jordie Chandler a reported $20m provide other technical and (£14m). investigative assistance into the Print Sponsor case. Five Filters featured article: In June 2005, Jackson was found Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: not guilty of all charges at the PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, end of the four-month trial. Term Extraction. Video analysed The documents were released

Popular News/

E-reader News Edition

Accused EMTs' lawyer decries 'rush Man Who Inspired to judgment' (AP) Movie 'Rain Man' Dies (Yahoo! News: U.S. News)

UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below. NEW YORK – The lawyer for NEW YORK (AP) — Two two New York City emergency emergency medical technicians medical technicians accused of accused of refusing to help a refusing to help a dying pregnant dying pregnant woman are woman says his clients are being "inhuman" and shouldn't have vilified by a rush to judgment. taken those jobs if they weren't Douglas Rosenthal tells The willing to get involved, the A s s o c i a t e d P r e s s t h a t h e ' s woman's mother said Tuesday. confident the facts will show that "These are people who are Jason Green and Melissa Jackson supposed to take a minute to be acted "appropriately" at the concerned," Cynthia Rennix told Brooklyn cafe on Dec. 9. The Associated Press. The two were at the eatery when Rennix's daughter, 25-year-old employee Eutisha Revee Rennix Eutisha Revee Rennix, died at a collapsed. Witnesses have said hospital Dec. 9, shortly after the EMTs told workers to call collapsing in the Au Bon Pain 911, then left when they were shop in Brooklyn where she asked to help the 25-year-old worked. Her baby was too woman. premature to survive. Rennix died at a hospital shortly Witnesses said the EMTs were afterward. Her baby was too o n t h e i r b r e a k a n d t o l d premature to survive. employees to call 911, then left Green and Jackson have been when they were asked to help the suspended without pay. The Fire woman. Department is investigating. A The Fire Department on Monday criminal probe is also under way. suspended Jason Green, a sixTHIS IS A BREAKING NEWS year member, and Melissa Submitted at 12/22/2009 11:59:55 AM

Jackson, a four-year member, without pay. The department is investigating, as is the state Department of Health, which oversees the emergency medical services system. A criminal probe is also underway. Cynthia Rennix said she never could have imagined that an emergency services worker would refuse to help someone. "You are very inhuman; you don't need to have a job like you do," she said of the two workers. Fire Department spokesman Steve Ritea said that all FDNY members "take an oath to assist others whenever they're in need of emergency medical care. It's their sworn duty." Rennix said she has yet to decide whether she is going to take any legal action in connection with her daughter's death. She is taking care of her daughter's 3year-old son. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction.

(FOXNews.com)

amazing as Hoffman's portrayal of him. And Kim's true character showed when he toured the SALT LAKE CITY The man w o r l d , h e l p i n g d i s p e l who inspired the title character in misconceptions about mental the Oscar-winning movie "Rain disabilities. Man" has died. "It was just unbelievable, all the Kim Peek was 58. His father, things that he knew," Fran Peek Fran, says Peek had a major heart said Monday. "He traveled 5,500 attack Saturday morning and was miles short of 3 million air miles pronounced dead at a hospital in and talked to nearly 60 million the Salt Lake City suburb of p e o p l e — h a l f h a v e b e e n Murray. students." Peek was a savant with a In his later years, Peek was remarkable memory and inspired classified as a "mega-savant" writer Barry Morrow when he who was a genius in about 15 wrote "Rain Man," the 1988 different subjects, from history movie that won four Academy and literature and geography to Awards. numbers, sports, music and dates. Fran Peek said his son met But his motor skills were limited; Morrow at a convention in the he couldn't perform some simple early 1980s and the writer was tasks like dressing himself. taken with Peek's knack for NASA scientists had been retaining everything he heard. studying Peek, hoping that Morrow wrote the script, and the technology used to study the movie went on to win Oscars for effects of space travel on the best film and best actor for brain would help explain his D u s t i n H o f f m a n , w h o s e mental capabilities. repetitive rants about being an Fran Peek says the funeral will excellent driver and the "People's be next Tuesday in Taylorsville. Court" about to start were a hit Details were pending. with moviegoers. Five Filters featured article: Although the character was Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: technically fictional, Fran Peek PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, said his son was every bit as Term Extraction. Submitted at 12/22/2009 5:44:08 AM